* IV. THE PEDDLER

The sun continued its beating as they trekked east. The Peddler was slumped over in Ajaxi’s saddle, muttering in his sleep. Nia had spent the first hour of the afternoon listening intensely to his half-dreams: his wife, pregnant; his city, under attach; before growing sullen and bored. Nia cautioned Peddler an assessing once over. His cap had slid to reveal a sunburnt and blistering scalp. Careful not to wake him, Nia lifted the brim of his cap and peered at his face. His eyes were pinched closed, his cheeks were gaunt, his lips cracked and bleeding. Her stomach pitched as she let go. Threats aside, Nia needed to get the Peddler back to De-Asha so he could fulfill his end of their bargain. Maybe then she could finally stick it to the Legate, navigate the Dunelands, and be free once and for all.

Nia spotted the outcropping a little after dusk. The sandstone boulders were enclosed on one side by a half crumbled defensive wall. Raiders or merchants had once used the natural cave for shelter, but it had long been abandoned by the time Nia had stumbled upon it. It wasn’t much, but between the large swath of desert between them and the nearest abandoned village, it would have to do.

THUD.

Nia nearly jumped out of her skin. She whipped her head around. The Peddler had rolled unceremoniously off of Ajaxi. She breathed a sigh of relief as the Peddler crawled onto his hands and knees into the cave. “There should be a spring against the back wall.” The echoing gulps confirmed her suspicions.

Relieved, she set Peddler to refilling the waterskins and dug around in her pack for something to eat. She found a half-eaten pear and some cheese. His flesh was ice cold as he accepted the offering. “Thank you.” He slurred.

Nia left him and moved to the mouth of the cave. She fed Ajaxi and stared out into the Dunelands as she brushed his coat. She considered their possession. They still had days ahead of them. How long—

Nia grimaced as the aker slammed against her ribs. “Stop it!” She hissed. Her eyes slid to Peddler. He was already slumped over. Thank the Goddess for that small mercy. The aker’s next hit robbed her of breath. Her palm flung against her shivering chest as she fell to her knees. She had been well and truly stupid to try to starve off the monster for as many nights as she had. She flattened her hands against her sternum as if she could shove the beast back inside. “Goddess please,” she half-sobbed as the aker rammed again. Each hit brought the cave’s floor in and out of focus with royal red sand. The sky grew black overhead. Nia panicked at being pulled back into the Tuat so quickly.

If she was here, that meant the aker was…

A hot wave of vertigo sent vomit up her throat past razor sharp teeth breaking through bleeding gums.

She had to hurry.

Nia threw her shirt overhead and tore off her pants. She half ran, half tripped into the desert. Her feet had just crested the dune when the aker broke free.

Nia-Uro woke to the smell of burning flesh. Fogginess hung over her thoughts as she rolled over. Her first thought was that everything hurt. Her second, much worse, realization was that her pants and shirt were folded neatly next to her naked body. Nia’s cheeks flamed as she dressed quickly. She followed her nose to the mouth of the cave.

The Peddler sat back on his haunches nursing a bushfire. “Morning raider!”

“Morning.” Nia echoed. She eased herself down across from him.

The Peddler pointed to her arm. Nia followed his gaze to the three scabbing gashes that ran along her left forearm and up her elbow. Nia raised an eyebrow at the mound, no memory surfacing as to how she acquired it. Peddler turned his makeshift spigot. “I’m guessing the hyena didn’t go down without a fight?”

So that was the smell. Nia’s fingers ran along the ridges of the tender cuts. “What are you doing?”

“Curing the meat you unceremoniously dumped on our doorstep.” The Peddler flipped another flank over the coals. “You may be a thief, but would it have killed you to have done a cleaner kill?”

“Uh huh.” Nia moved to her bags to find something to dress the wound.

“I woke up to the poor animal with blood pooling from its neck.”

Nia fished around for some linen. “Lazy on my part.”

She missed Peddler crossing his arms. “It’s almost like you took it out with your teeth.”

Nia made a choking sound. She turned, the Peddler assessed her with his strange kaleidoscopic eyes. “You’re kerai, aren’t you? What’s your aker?”Nia’s silence was admission enough. She drove her focus into bandaging her forearm. Which was difficult to do one handed, and she refused to ask the Peddler for his help. He watched her struggle for a moment, his eyes glinting. “Come now, it has to be something with teeth.”

Nia’s jaw hurt just looking at the mutilated carcass. “Stop. It’s personal.”

The Peddler waved a dismissive hand. “Please. We are stuck together in the middle of the Dunelands.” The Peddler prostrated around the wild abyss for emphasis. “This is exactly the type of secret travel companions share.”

Nia grit her teeth. “Are you kerai?”

“Well.” The Peddler dropped the finger he was about to make his next point with. “Not exactly.” He pulled a flank off the fire to cool. “Fine then. How old are you? What? It seemed like an innocent enough question!”

Nia inhaled, exhaled. “Twenty-one.”

The Peddler nodded. “You’re not horribly hideous. For a tomb raider, that is. Shame, the Goddess will probably curse you with blindness. I hope your suitors aren’t horribly disappointed.”

Nia snorted. “No one would dare marry into House Uro.”

Peddler beamed. “Then I have no competition for your hand.”

“The only hand you’ll receive is across your face.” Nia half-threatened. “Besides, don’t you have a wife?”

“How’d you hear about that?”

“You talk in your sleep.”

A shadow crossed Peddler’s face. “Had.” He said distantly. “Beautiful woman.”

“The Dunelands claim us all.” It was the only consolation she could offer. Nia turned her attention from the travelers glassy eyes and out into the desert. “We need to get moving.”

Three days later, over the last of the hyena, Peddler blurted. “Why is going to Aker-San so important to you?”

Nia raised an eyebrow from across their fire. She had gotten accustomed to Peddler’s incessantly insensitive questions by now: did she always sleep with her mouth open? Did she know her horse couldn’t talk back to her? What parents would allow a daughter to raid? Nia had given half answers once she realized that her companion would not quit. Now though, Peddler had hit on the one question to which the answer Nia kept fiercely hidden.

Nia gazed around their camp. They were at the bottom of a wide dune and had built their fire within the remnants of a caravaneer's tent. Nia followed the crackling orange flames as they died against the midnight sky. She scoured the milky constellations as if they held the answers. Which they didn’t. The stars belonged to the Ashenians just like everything below.

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“Why Peddler, I am but a feather in the breeze of life.” She deflected.

“A feather made of lead.” He shook his head. “You are working for someone. Or forced too. I know it.”

“Why?”

“Because you keep turning West. Someone has power over you. Who is it?”

Nia frowned. “The Legate sends his men into the Dunelands to raid the tombs and temples.”

“And you are one of them?” Peddler asked.

“It’s not so simple. I’m—” Nia grimaced. “At his mercy.”

“So you seek freedom. From him.”

“From them. The Ashenians. If I find the Pathia, I can make it to Aker-San.”

“And what of the rest of your House?”

Nia tore at the hyena. The meat was so touch it was nearly inedible. “What of them?”

“Does the rest of your House not deserve to be free? The rest of Ker?” At her ensuing silence, the Peddler tilted his head to the moon and let out a pained laugh. “My, how the mighty have fallen.”

Irritation sparked her tongue. “You’re all talk. Uprise, against the Ashenians? There is no fighting the legion, there is no freedom from the Ashenians. They rule us! And they’ll slaughter us as quickly as they did during the Conquering. The only reasonable solution is—”

“--to run.” The Peddler finished.

“I.” Nia scowled. “You can call me a coward all you’d like. But the pathia, Aker-San, is the key to my freedom.”

“Listen kid, you can’t find people who don’t want to be found.”

Nia brandished her hyena jerky. “You’ve found them, so clearly they just let anyone in.”

The Peddler’s smile was grim. “That was a long time ago.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand. I’ve been searching the Dunelands for four years for remnants of the pathia, and not a settlement past Xur survived the Conquering. Yet you’ve been wandering in this desert. That implies there is people to barter with, places to sleep, water to drink.”

Peddler pushed up the sleeves of his long faded robes. “What of it?”

“You know the way through.”

The Peddler’s lips twisted into a scythe’s razor edge. “Only feathers in the breeze find Aker-San.”

“You will tell me how.” And Nia was surprised by the bark of conviction in her voice. “When we get back to Aker-San, our bargain will be complete. You will help me.”

He let out an infuriating “perhaps” and the aker’s rage was so swift that Nia catapulted to her feet. Peddler barked out a laugh at her clenched jaw. “You look about ready to kill me. Have the aker bring me something to eat. I tire of hyena.”

Nia stormed from the campsite before the aker could get her claws on her one chance for freedom.

Nia motioned for the Peddler to dismount. She led him along a small goat trail atop a rocky ridge that overlooked De-Asha’s looming western gate. As the furthest city of the Ashenian Empire, the towering limestone walls guarded De-Asha served as the last barrier between civilization and the desert. Once, these walls would have bore refuge to the navigators and caravaners as they arrived from Xur and Aker-San. The welcomed sight of a long journey finally complete. Now, the limestone walls were lined with purple banners bearing the Ashenian falcon.

“We will have to get you through the guard station.” Nia explained, motioning to the line of laborers shuffling their way through the checkpoint. Thank the Goddess they still had the crates from the tomb stacked tall on Ajaxi’s back. “If anyone asks, you are a digger from the northern necropolis. We’ll have to lose the cap and,” Nia side-eyed the colorful robes. “You’ll need to turn those inside out.” She held up a finger. “Do not say anything to anyone.” And then, our bargain will be complete. Nia thought with relief.

The Peddler’s kaleidoscopic eyes bore into hers. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways, Nia-Uro.”

Her face betrayed her confusion before anger quickly replaced it. “I did not just risk my life for mine days so that you could abandon me!”

“You would have returned regardless.” Peddler dismissed.

“Is this your philosophical bullshit again?” Uneasiness trailed down her spine. They could not separate here! Peddler was her only lead to finding Aker-San.

“Unfortunately so.” Peddler extended his long arm. “Now, before I go, hand over the dagger.”

The dagger? Her fingers flew to her hip. “It is not yours to take!”

“Bold words for a tomb raider.” Nia backpedaled as his melodic tone turned sharp. He took a threatening step towards her. “She who stole from the Goddess a shard of her mane.”

“What the damned Skytops are you raving about?” Nia’s heel collided with stone. She fell back, landing on her elbows.

“Blasphemous thief!” The Peddler knelt down and pressed his cold nose to hers. This close, his irises were pale, nearly reflective.

“Return what is owed to the Goddess as I, her akerai, guard deep beneath the dunes.”

Nia had seen the aiea before, the shift between a kerai’s physical body and their spiritual manifestation. The shift between ai and aker was supposed to be as effortless as breathing. Nia had seen her father’s arms meld seamlessly into vulture’s wings; Baset snarl and sprout the ears of a jackal. But the Peddler did not revert in on himself as the aker was freed.

His muscular torso elongated and stretched. His robes ripped as his arms and back pressed against the seams. His skin’s complexion turned pale and scalene as his legs melted into the body of a great serpent. His nostrils flared as his nose flattened. He loomed over her, half-man, half-serpent.

Nia’s scream died. The aker petrified within her chest. For the second time in her life, Nia-Uro was certain she was about to die.

“You realize it now, don’t you?” Peddler hissed.

Nia could not speak the truth into the air, make what she had done real. There was no mercy in the Peddler’s slanted eyes. The Peddler leaned down, his massive hands grabbing her left wrist. How had she not noticed how cold his hands were before?

Nia squirmed as Peddler’s tail smoothly unsheathed the dagger from her hip and passed it off to his free hand. He wedged her clenched hand open. He held the black blade aloft. Nia thrashed helplessly. He’s going to make me pay for my theft against his tomb! He’s going to cut off my hand!

Scorching white pain erupted behind her eyelids. Her palm burned. Nia nearly vomited at the sight of her blood blossoming from the deep gash from where the blade had sheared the red muscle of her palm. Her blood pooled around the blade. Without warning, Peddler dislodged the dagger.

Nia fell back and howled, cradling her wound. Peddler held the dagger up to his nostrils. “Stop sniveling!” He ordered. He whispered to himself in hurried Kiyr. His head tilted to the wind. “No! No. She is a tomb raider. A thief! A shame on her House!” He hissed. The Peddler affixed his glassy eyes on her, face full of contempt. “You cannot even master your own aker and yet you think, you think you can navigate to the Goddess’ House? A coward like you would be better dead!” Each word hit with the full impact of his ire. The Peddler held the dagger close to his mouth and flicked out his tongue. “And yet? Yet! The Skytops play a cruel trick on me.” The Peddler’s nostrils flared. “Yes. Yes, the thief will be spared.”

The Peddler dropped the dagger at her side. Nia cupped her bleeding palm to her chest as she glanced at the handle. Vertigo shot through her in recognition of the beast running across its surface. “What is this?”

“What do you think, tomb raider?” The Peddler hissed. But his anger seemed to have evaporated. He glanced down at her, seeming perplexed. The enormous snake leaned down and grabbed his now comically small cap. He tilted it over her head.

“Hey!”

Peddler slapped his cap a couple times over her hair before holding it against his side. “Goodbye, tomb raider.”

“Wait!” But the Peddler evaporated into sand, punching her squarely in the teeth. Nia instinctively flung her hands up to protect her face. She cried out as granules sunk into her open flesh. When it was over, the Peddler had vanished. Nia tilted her head side to side, scanning up and down the ridge as if he had fallen off. The Peddler was gone.

An akerai. She thought in wonder. That’s what the Peddler said he was. A tomb guardian of some sort? Nia had never heard of an akerai before. And if she was lucky, she would never encounter one again.

Nia exhaled through her front teeth as she tried to extend her fingers. Pain shot up her left arm and up into her shoulder. Breathing heavily Nia worked to her feet and took two steps forward in frustration. She swung around, fumbling for her bruised toes and uncovered the Peddler’s half buried lamp. “That bastard!” Nia cursed. She gripped the lamp’s thin handle and went to find her horse.