Camp, a small gathering of family members who work during the coolest part of the very hot year to hunt for food and supplies to last them the rest of the long hot year. The girl is not yet old enough to participate in hunting even if she were interested in doing so, which she is not.
She is still too small to help with the cutting of sandstone bricks from the little quarry her family has dug out, if she were so inclined, which she is not.
It is possible that she could spend her time trapping smaller animals for skins or water pouches, or attempt to catch the great skimmer birds that fly low near the waters of the small nearby oasis, dipping their big beaks and filling their bellies without ever halting in flight. Other young people spend the lightest parts of the night doing this, for the Eyes of Sanai look down so strongly during most the day that no sane person would risk leaving her tent for fear of succumbing to the hot stare of the Fire Goddess. But, as you may have guessed, she does not.
While her cousins flit about in hollow pursuits, the girl sits in the storage tent which doubles as the shrine tent, squinting in the flickering glow of a fire that hovers over her shoulder without tinder or anchor. Her small finger follows small-carved words on a woodslat scroll and though the words are old, old beyond youthful understanding of time, she understands them. Their meaning does not escape her but they do not hold the information she seeks.
She sets them aside finally as Venpar, the red Lesser Eye, sinks close to the horizon. Everyone will be awake soon and she will have to go about the routine of her day, but before the others of the Camp can wake, she plucks the ball of flame following at her back from the air and places it within a circle of black stones on the sand floor of the tent. The dark irregular shapes do not belong to her but she has been given permission by her Master to use them as she wants. And she wants very much. She has used them more often than is probably advisable but she cannot help herself. Her mind is old, well-developed, but her body is still that of a child, with all the ready spontaneity and poor judgment that youth and hot blood bring.
The flames lick at its smooth dark bonds but cannot escape. These are pieces of the black heart of a mountain of fire, gathered at great danger to life and limb and sold at a high price. She does not know where her Master procured so many, enough for a whole fire pit ring, but she does not waste wonder at this. Her Master is a resourceful Maan, ever full of mystery.
She orders the flames to call out to him and after some weak, petulant resistance, the blaze does as it is bid. Shadows wax and wane, throwing themselves against the inside of the tent, clawing at the hanging protectors that keep them from escaping out into the World, shaking a set of thin woodbinds off one of the storage crates in a fit of pique before finally shaping themselves into the figure of a man.
The girl greets her Master dutifully, head bowed and arms crossed over her chest in respect. He does not return this greeting, which is both his prerogative and his nature. His words are light and casual, his motions jovial and enigmatic. The Master asks after the Camp and the girl reports all well. The hesitation in her voice is not lost on the Master. He waits for her to decide whether she should hold her tongue or not.
The same youth that plagues her with impulsiveness pushes words from her lips that should remain within. The girl tells the wavering shadow of the man on the wall about a vision she has had the previous day.
At the height of noons, when even the striking dustbolt serpent slithers into shelter from the piercing heat of the suns, the girl had left her tent, braving the white hot lances of the Eyes at full force, though brave is not a word that should be readily applied to such foolishness. Stalking along the rows of tents, she swears that she was called to by a familiar voice, one she cannot place to a name or face but which remains in her memory nonetheless. In the heat and stillness of the day, a shadow had passed over her where it was impossible for shadows to fall. Another followed in its wake and she had watched them both pace up and down the alleys of the camp, back and forth as though they belonged there somehow. Moments later, as the yellow Eye of Kalpar passed out of its conjunction with its red sister, the spell was broken and the shadows disappeared in a puff and spit of sand, a tiny vortex of wind swirling away as though it carried the silhouettes away with it.
After only a moment’s hesitation, the girl shares what she has seen. The Master listens attentively, asking one or two questions as she describes the scene, and finally, he nods his phantom head without further comment. He dismisses her to her studies and in an instant, the shadow is drawn back into the blossom of flames trapped in the center of the black stones. It flickers with annoyance until the girl picks it up and places it once more behind her shoulder, where it retakes its place in the air, glowing contentedly.
The girl is unsatisfied with her Master’s silence but she is too wise to think that there would have been anything gained by pressure. The Master is a Maan known to take his own path in his own time. She can only hope the path he has set will lead her where she most wishes to go.
The Sanaiian girl leaves the shrine/storage tent. The cooling air of the desert hits her and she pulls her outer robe closer to keep out the growing chill. Already, she can hear the bustling of the others at Camp, awake and at the day’s toil. She is uninterested in these mundane tasks, but her mind is too unfocused to continue in her studies. She makes her way to the cooking stand in the hopes that the task they will give her will hone her concentration back to its normal sharpened edge.
****
Elsewhere in the desert, not exceedingly far but several days’ ride from the Camp of the Sanaiian girl, a Sanaiian boy struggles up to the summit of a dune.
As the Red Eye begins its ascent, the dune casts shadows over the temporary lodgings that he has just finished setting up with his brothers. Some of his brothers, in any case. The encampment is little more than a few low shades staked to the ground, uncomfortably close to the sand which has been absorbing the surprising cold of the desert night. The climb has warmed the boy enough that he wishes he had left behind his outer robe, but he pushes himself the final distance.
While two of his brothers toil below to set out the morning meal, the boy spies the third. The last brother is older than he, as they all are. The man is older than the boy but by no means old. Standing atop the dune, seemingly staring out into the endless rolling waves of sand and stone that make up the Greater Desert, the man is possessed of a strange attractiveness, an aura of understanding and wisdom that even the boy, young and inexperienced, can recognize. It is why, even though recent marriage has made the man his family, the boy can call this man, his new brother, by no other name than the Tyro.
The boy calls out but the Tyro does not respond at first, mumbling under his breath. When the boy opens his mouth again, he realizes that the man is talking to someone who is not there. With the rising sun before him, the boy at first thought that its red light was casting a ruddy glow on the Tyro, but he suddenly realizes that the man himself is radiating light. He is ablaze, a skin of fire coating his own flesh, moving with him, sparking up and dying in the air. The boy gasps and the Tyro smiles, obviously aware of the boy’s presence, but he finishes his eldritch movements and murmuring. With the snapping of a finger, the fire disappears, as though melting into the man’s red robes and brown skin.
The boy gawks in bewilderment and no small amount of fear. He has seen holy men before, Tyros who came to his mother’s home to bless new rooms and new children. But they have all been older men and women with an air of detached interest and tired resoluteness, as though they were walking through the duties life had handed them. He had never seen one of them aflame in the morning light of a rising sun, surrounded by the vastness of the desert that seemed to stare back at them with a sense of awe. Perhaps Tyros are all seen so by their own families, but the boy very much doubts it.
The Tyro turns to face the boy, a familiarly enigmatic smile pulling at the corners of his lips. As his eyes meet the boy’s, they widen for just a moment and their light brown hue loses some of its luster, turning them nearly yellow. But the change comes and goes so quickly that the boy cannot be sure he has even seen it. As the man strides forward, he reaches out a hand and puts it on the boy’s shoulder, then leans and whispers something in the boy’s ear. For the moment, the boy does not understand what was said, but he knows, somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, that it will become desperately