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“It was a vision, and a true one,” Scratha said. “There's at least one ha'rethe that still calls this area its home, and it's inviting you over for a visit.”
“I don't want to go,” Idisio said, his mouth dry with terror.

“You have to,” Scratha said without visible pity. “Ha'reye don't take refusal very well. The last time humans told them 'no,' the entire southlands turned into desert.”
Idisio bent forward, tucking his head between his knees, and breathed deeply, trying to keep control of his stomach.
“What's going to happen to me?” he managed at last.
“I don't know,” Scratha admitted. “I wish I did.”

The slab of wind-scoured rock loomed before Idisio, just as in the dream: but this time there was the rising heat of the desert sun on his shoulders, the sour taste of fear in his mouth, and a distinct tremor in his hands. The sweat trickling down his face came from more than heat—and a contrasting cold lurked in his stomach, as if someone had replaced his guts with chunks of ice.

He walked forward, a step, two, then three. Scratha stayed close behind him, near enough for a grab if Idisio should bolt. That hadn't been said—it didn't need to be.

But where would he run? There was nowhere to go. Idisio blinked hard and made himself take another step, and another. A hissing noise stopped him. He looked down at his feet, searching for a sand-asp or desert viper, but saw nothing moving in the sand.

“Stay still,” Scratha said very quietly, then said something else in the language of the desert, too rapidly for Idisio to follow.
Another, louder hissing came, warbling now.
“Damn,” Scratha said under his breath, then, a little louder, “I was hoping it would let me come with you, but it wants to talk to you alone. Idisio. . . .” He hesitated. “We'll wait as long as we can.”
Idisio stared at the lines and random markings on the rock and found he had no spit to swallow with. He wanted to say
What? Wait as long as you can? How long is this going to take? Am I going to come back?
But he couldn't voice any of that without beginning to shriek halfway through, so he just nodded dumbly.
Another faint hissing arose from somewhere in front of him.
“Walk forward,” Scratha said, voice emotionless.
One step. Two steps. Three steps. The sand beneath his feet seemed to dissolve into emptiness, and he fell into absolute blackness. He managed, either by intent or sheer shock, not to scream. After a time, the feeling of falling gradually ended. He stood in complete darkness, with no sensation beyond a faint chill. The air carried no scent, no moisture, and no sound.
Idisio panted a bit, catching the breath that had locked in his throat with the unexpected fall, and finally steadied himself. He didn't know if he stood on, in, under, or near anything. The disorientation nearly terrified him into the scream he'd been holding back.
Could he move? Should his eyes be open? Scratha hadn't told him anything on what to expect, what was courteous. Maybe he didn't even know.
Idisio heard a faint hissing that gurgled, almost like reptilian laughter.
His nausea faded, replaced by dizziness; he couldn't tell if he swayed in place, but his joints felt none too steady.
“All right,” he said, and listened to his own voice in astonishment. “I'm here. What do you want? I'm busy, y'know.”
Talk he'd have given a tough in Bright Bay while trying to face down a potential fight. His mouth, as always, worked faster than his brain. He shut his eyes in hopeless dismay at his idiocy.
The gurgle came louder this time, and clearer. It sounded almost human.
“Are you,” a thin, high voice said, oddly accented but perfectly clear. “Are you indeed.”
There came a long silence. Idisio felt an odd, tickling sensation inside his skull, as though something ruffled feathery fingers through his mind. Unnerved, petrified, he stood absolutely still, eyes wide in the darkness, and tried not to move.
“You're very unusual, you know,” the voice said quietly. It sounded rather more sympathetic now. “Very unusual. And interesting.”
The chill deepened. Idisio shivered and rubbed at his arms.
“I'm sorry, young one,” the voice said. “I'm inconsiderate. You're cold.”
The air warmed, and the darkness faded; a few feet away, a small table and a wide chair such as Bright Bay nobles liked to lounge on appeared. Thick dark carpet crushed softly under Idisio's bare feet.
“Please sit,” the voice said. Idisio found himself in the chair, a thick blanket drawn up around him, warm and comfortable.
“Where are you?” Idisio asked, looking around. Other than a small circle of table and chair, the darkness still surrounded the lit area like a featureless, endless sea.
“I am here,” the voice said in his ear, and he jumped.
A woman sat on the wide arm of his chair, smiling down at him. Idisio forgot everything and just stared at her.
She looked barely older than Idisio, with long, dark hair that rolled over smooth, bare shoulders and generous curves barely covered by thin blue fabric. Equally dark eyes in a northern-pale and rounded face studied him intently. He saw an age and a calculation in that stare that abruptly recalled him to the fact that this had to be a veneer, not the real creature.
Without moving, he tried to harden his own gaze, to hide his initial startled interest in the form it had chosen.
She laughed and stood, walking a few paces away to another chair that must have appeared when she did.
“So you're not easily impressed,” she said, sinking into the chair in a way that made him glad he was sitting down. “That's the ha'rethe blood in you, young one. Any full human would have given in without another thought.”
He said nothing—he'd been impressed all right. He tried to breathe normally, not wanting her to see his struggle. Riss's face came to mind, and her laughter. He found himself breathing more easily and even smiling at the woman.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“To say hello,” she said. Her full lips curved into a smile. “To find out how my northern brethren are doing.”
“Hello,” Idisio said. “I haven't the faintest idea. Sorry. Never met them.”
“I see that now,” the woman said, the smile fading. “And I'm disappointed in them. No ha'rethe should ever allow one of our children to wander alone in the world.”
“I'm not one of
your
children.” He wasn't sure why, but he didn't want to claim any kinship to this creature, or let her lay any obligation on him.
The woman studied him thoughtfully. She seemed almost to be frowning now, but her features weren't as distinct as they had been a moment ago. “You have a great deal to learn. I should take you in myself for teaching.”
“I stay with my lord,” Idisio said. “I
won't
stay with you!” He put all the determination he possessed into his voice: to his surprise, she flinched.
Her form seemed to blur for a moment, then steadied. “I can't force you. And I see you're still too young to listen to wisdom. But you have obligations, young one, that should be explained to you. Whether you want to accept it or not, you carry the essence of two races in your body. You are ha'ra'ha, and that means you serve no man. Not even this desert lord of yours. He's merely useful as a teacher until you grow to your full strength. He knows this. He should have seen what you are sooner—but he's human. I've never had much respect for their intelligence.”
Idisio opened his mouth but found no words to use in protest against that faintly disdainful tone.
“Obligations,” the woman said, and stood. “Tell your desert lord to start with those. It's important.” She stood before Idisio's chair, looking down at him, her features sharp and clear again. Idisio shut his eyes, swallowed hard, and tried to think about Riss.
The woman snorted softly, and a moment later the cold returned. Idisio shivered and reached for the blanket. It had vanished. Opening his eyes, he found himself in deep darkness again.
“Send me the desert lord,” the woman's voice whispered. “Now.”
Cold crashed around him, then dissolved into a searing heat across his back and shoulders. He fell forward onto his hands and knees. Sunlight dazzled his eyes. He covered his face with one hand and whimpered. Startled movement fluttered nearby; then Scratha scooped him up as if he were a sick child.
He clutched, nauseous and dizzy, at his lord's support. After a moment, when his head cleared, he managed to gasp, “She . . . it . . . wants you now.”
“Not surprising,” Scratha muttered, his face grim.
Idisio drew a deep breath, tried to speak, and passed out.

It had turned to full dark when he woke, and the air held a sharp chill. Someone had draped a real blanket over him. He hunched himself under its scratchy warmth more securely and blinked, rubbing his eyes. An oil lantern sat on the ground nearby, lonely warden against darkness.

“You're awake!” Riss knelt by his side an instant later, her voice high and shrill. “Gods, Idisio, gods, are you all right? What
happened
to you?”
He wanted to crawl under the covers and hide from the fear that sparkled off her like the light from a thousand splinters of glass in sunlight. He sat up instead.
“It's all right,” he said, trying to be reassuring, and glanced around. “Where's Scratha?”
“He went into that
thing
,” Riss said, throwing a glance at once hostile and terrified towards the great stone. They were camped within a few feet of it, and Idisio resisted an impulse to claw his way out of the blanket and run like all the demons of the s'iopes' hells were after him.
“When?”
“Right after we got you settled,” Riss said. She drew a deep breath and shut her eyes. “I don't know why he hasn't come back yet,” she added, her voice steadier. “I'm getting scared, Idisio.”
Idisio put a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her.
“He'll be back soon,” he said, not sure he believed it himself, and wound up somehow with an armful of trembling Riss. She curled up practically in his lap, her head buried in his shoulder.
“I don't understand what's going on,” she said.
“Neither do I,” Idisio admitted. “But he'll be all right. Don't worry.”
“And what if he doesn't come back?” Riss demanded, sitting up a bit and staring at him, her face so close to his that he thought he could feel her eyelashes flitter against his skin.
“Worry about that when it happens,” Idisio said. He found himself at a loss. He hadn't expected her to fall apart on him and didn't feel strong enough right now to handle it.
“I'm back,” a familiar voice said, and Scratha stepped into the thin circle of light.
Riss scrambled away and sat nearby, her face visibly reddening in the dim light. Scratha settled to the ground in a cross-legged position and rubbed at his face wearily.
“My lord,” Idisio started, then stopped, biting his lower lip hard to hold the words back.
Scratha seemed to have lost several pounds from his already-thin frame; his face was tinged with grey, and his eyes held a terrifying bleakness.
“I'm fine,” Scratha said, offering a thin smile.
“What did it do to you?” Idisio blurted.
With a faint flicker of a glance towards Riss, Scratha shook his head. “Stretch out and get some sleep, Riss. We'll be moving on soon. Sleep while you can.”
The cadence of his speech was hypnotic. To Idisio's surprise the girl made no protest. She simply lay down a few feet away, her breathing deep and even within moments.
“We need to talk,” Scratha said.
“What did it do to you, and how did you do that just now?” Idisio demanded, caught between anger and deep, trembling fear.
“Neither one matters right now,” Scratha said, an edge in his voice that stopped Idisio from pressing the point. He paused, watching Idisio for a moment, then shook his head. “Why did you refuse to let the ha'rethe teach you?”
Idisio blinked. “I want to stay with you.”
“I can't teach you as much as a ha'rethe can. Even a ha'ra'ha can help you more than I.”
“I'm staying with you,” Idisio said, clinging to the words stubbornly, not sure why.
Scratha sighed, annoyance shifting into weary resignation. Idisio had never seen his lord so open and easy to read. That, as much as anything else, frightened him badly.
“I'll give you the best I can, then,” the desert lord said, “but eventually you're going to have to go to either a ha'rethe or a ha'ra'ha.”
The look on his lord's face warned against disagreeing, so Idisio just nodded.
Scratha drew a deep breath and looked at the sleeping girl. “We've been granted passage,” he said in seeming irrelevance.
Idisio listened to the strain in Scratha's voice and looked at the unremitting grey of the man's face. “You don't sound happy about it,” he said slowly.
“Being granted passage through a ha'rethe's private underground ways is an extraordinary honor,” Scratha said. “With a rather high price.” He shut his eyes and winced as if at some internal pain.
“Underground?” Idisio said, his voice suddenly high and squeaky.
“The ha'reye have passages all over the world,” Scratha said without looking at him. He leaned forward a bit and splayed his hands out on the ground in front of him as if for balance. “We'll be able to go right to Scratha Fortress in less time and far more safety than traveling the sands would have given us.” His voice came out slower and more ragged now, as if he were reaching the end of his strength.
“With that thing right beside us at every step?” Idisio demanded. “No, thank you!”
“Idisio,” Scratha said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper now, “I need to rest. Argue with me later, please.” He rolled forward and to one side, letting his weight fall on his left shoulder and from there onto his back. After blinking vaguely at the stars for a moment, his eyelids slid closed.
“But. . . .” Idisio began. Something told him beyond doubt that Scratha really was exhausted beyond measure this time; he gave up and glared at the stone looming over them instead. He didn't quite dare curse it, didn't quite dare get up and bolt for the relatively safe northlands, but he thought long and hard about both options before allowing himself to drift into a dark sleep.
His dreams were broken and uneasy. Glowing eyes and seductive women appeared and disappeared randomly during visions of dank stone walls—and, oddly, that small, clean, sunlit room he'd seen before.
That room still felt full of a powerful, desperate anger and fear, but somehow it didn't affect Idisio so much this time. He felt more like a bystander watching a terrible tantrum being thrown by an exceptionally strong child. With that thought came a further sense of widening perspective, and Idisio caught a flash of red hair, clipped close to a young boy's skull, before the vision dissolved into darkness again.
Finally, free of troubling visions for the moment, Idisio slept.