A traveler in the desert is accosted by a Sauvain thief who brandishes a sword and demands the traveler’s purse. Upon seeing the thief’s face the traveler drops to his knees and cries: “O, what fortune! I have wandered long years in search of my brother, and you are he!” The two embrace as brothers and the thief leads him back to his camp for a hearty repast. They feast and feast, sharing stories of their family and their lives apart while proclaiming their happiness at the reunion. “Truly we are favored to find each other after these long years,” said the thief, drawing his sword once more. “Now, brother of mine, your money or your life.”

Sjocelym parable.

Some part of Mark’s subconscious had been steeling him for a hangover after his night of excess, so when he woke to find himself alert and rested he nevertheless felt a bit off-balance. The others were already up and sharing pieces of leftover bread around a low table in the corner. Jackie handed him a torn-off piece as he ambled over.

“Thanks,” he grunted, taking a seat near the others. Sunlight streamed in through a narrow window to play across the table, highlighting the scattered crumbs from their breakfast. He chewed his bread slowly, looking around the room.

“Hey,” he muttered. “Where are our clothes?”

“Don’t worry,” Jackie said. “I was up early and ran into Saneji, she said she would have them cleaned and returned today. Jesse already took the vests and helmets back to the truck.”

Mark chewed another mouthful of bread. “They’re being,” he said slowly, “very nice to us.”

Arjun took note of his tone and nodded. “Gratitude and self-interest both, I would imagine, although self-interest doesn’t necessarily imply malice. Tesvaji is shrewd. I suspect Saneji is more so. She in particular has been open-handed with us knowing that we’ll be in a position to help them soon.”

“You think it’s that deliberate?”, Jackie frowned.

“You never met my mother-in-law,” Arjun sniffed. “There’s a cold calculus to it. First they extend an invitation to a feast in our honor, removing any urgency from our discussion of trade. Now we’ve stayed the night, but they’ve done us the service of cleaning our clothes. By the time that’s done I expect we’ll have been given an excuse to stay another night, and so on until our friends from the desert show up looking for blood.”

Mark felt a slight chill. “Yeah, sounds about right,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “The problem is, I think we’ve had our choice made for us at this point. We can’t go on without those supplies, and Arjun’s probably got the right read on their suspiciously generous hospitality.” He shook his head and stood up with a sigh. “I like these guys and they throw one hell of a party, but I’ll be damned if I let them rope us into a faction war. We need to talk to Tesvaji, have everyone put their cards on the table.”

“That could be a tense conversation,” Arjun noted. “If Tesvaji thinks you’re challenging him he may feel obligated to respond in kind. At the end of the day we don’t know much about our hosts or what they may consider threatening, and the language barrier doesn’t help with that.”

“For sure,” Mark agreed. “That’s why I’m not going to talk to him.”

Three sets of eyes swiveled to Jesse, who blanched and looked away. “Um,” he demurred. “I think it would be easier if I just translated.”

“Nope, buddy,” Mark said. “Not this time. This one is important, we need our best person talking directly to the other side. I managed to fuck up just saying ‘Hello, we rescued your daughter’ yesterday.”

Jesse made to turn away, but Mark grabbed his shoulder. “I need you on point, man,” he said quietly. “We’ve got your back.”

“I can’t just…”, Jesse muttered angrily, brushing Mark’s arm away with a trembling hand. “It won’t work.”

Jackie walked over and sat next to Jesse, imploring Mark with a look to back off for a moment. Jesse’s hands twitched, but he didn’t look up or say anything at her approach. “It’s all right,” she said. “We can make it work as long as you’re there to translate.”

Jesse slumped forward. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice shaky. “I want to, but I can’t do… I freeze, I can’t talk-”

“It’s okay,” Mark said, giving Jesse an exasperated look. “We’ll figure it out.”

Gusje ground stone against stone, reducing a handful of dried herbs to powder with quick, practiced strokes. She swept the dusty fragments into a small bowl and reached for the next handful, methodically bunching them up on the well-worn mortar. It was another peaceful day at Ademen Tacen, the shade of the cerein creating an island of cool and calm amid the punishing heat.

And here she sat, the poison seed that was to destroy it all. Because of her, the idyllic fields of her father’s holdings would drip with blood from kith and kin. She slammed the stone into the mortar, scattering half-pulverized petals across the table. She wasn’t strong, like her father. She wasn’t clever, like her mother. Gusje was only fast and tireless, and yesterday even that had failed her. She could run like the shadow-wind on a cool morning, but even the wind didn’t know to where it blew. Here at the end of her path, she could run no further.

The door swung wide, jolting her out of her grim introspection, and she looked up in surprise to see the four travelers standing in the door. They were still dressed in their borrowed clothes from the feast, the three gigantic men looking equal parts impressive and ridiculous in their abbreviated pants while Jackie sported a surprisingly presentable wrap forged from two of her mother’s old festival shawls. She noticed that Mark and Jesse were both wearing an identical necklace of some sort, with two small metal plates dangling from a thin chain.

“Gusje, hello,” Mark said. “Tesvaji here?” His face looked grim, and the other travelers looked nervous - particularly Jesse, who was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

“Yes, in the back,” she said slowly. “Please sit while I find him.” She excused herself and half-ran to the back, hearing the tortured creak of the benches around the long table as the travelers sat. Something was very odd, although she didn’t know how she was going to describe it to her father.

Tesvaji was in his chambers wrapping fresh leather around the grip of his war club. Little more than a hefty weight of iron at the end of a wooden shaft, it was nevertheless lovingly polished and oiled as befitted a Madi’s weapon. “Daughter of mine,” he said, seeing her disquiet. “Is something wrong? Is it the Aedrem already?”

“What? No,” Gusje replied, flustered. “It’s the travelers, they say they want to talk. There’s something strange about them today.”

“Hmm,” Tesvaji mused, carefully setting the war club aside. “It may be that they expect a hard conversation.” He stood and tousled her hair, moving toward the door. “Go find your mother and tell her to join us, I may need her. I will greet them while we wait.”

Gusje nodded and ran out the door after him, racing out to the granary where her mother held the daily counts. Saneji’s hands were stained with ashen ink, making quick tallies with a tari-quill pen while her assistant stacked baskets of dry grain and precious salted meat.

“Mother,” she called, “the travelers have asked to talk with the Madi. Father asked you to come.”

Saneji frowned and brushed grain dust from her shawl, motioning for Gusje to lead on. The two women heard the low rumble of Tesvaji’s voice as they approached. “...chance to rest and recover your strength,” he was saying, keeping his speech slow and clear. “The desert does not leave you after only one day under the cerein. It keeps its sand in your clothes and its heat in your mind until you’ve slept, woken and slept once more.”

He turned to look as Saneji entered the room, his face splitting into a smile. “Ah, good!”, he said cheerily. “I cannot talk sense unless my beautiful wife lends me hers. Now, what did you wish to discuss?”

Mark’s eyes flicked briefly to Gusje. “Men from yesterday,” he said slowly, enunciating his words with care. “Aedrem. They come… will come here?”

“Yes,” Tesvaji sighed, his cheerful face fading. “They will come here.”

Mark nodded, then paused for a moment as Jesse whispered in his ear. Gusje frowned. Her mother had spoken with Jesse, she knew, but when Gusje asked further she had only smiled and said that the tall man was a draa je qaraivat, a warding stone of the fields. The old pillars jutted from the soil across the desert, as tall as a man and wrapped in ancient script. They were immovable, standing unweathered against time and storms, and if you dug by the pillar you would never find the bottom of it - only more stone and ancient writings, down and down to the bones of the world. Her father said they held the thoughts of the land, and always gave them a respectful nod as he passed. She was unsure of precisely what her mother meant by the comparison, but she observed the quiet giant with renewed curiosity as he muttered into his friend’s ear.

“We are from far,” Mark said when Jesse had finished. “From far away. We do not know Aedrem. Who are they? Why are they…” Jesse tapped his arm, and he grunted frustratedly. “Why do they fight you?”

Tesvaji sighed again, and Gusje thought her father’s face looked very old for a few heartbeats. “They are our brothers,” he said sadly. He waited as Jesse spoke softly to the others, and she saw surprise flicker over the others’ faces when his words had been conveyed.

“We are Sauvain, men of the desert, as are they,” her father continued. “But we are also Cereinem, men of the cerein. We choose to live here in the shade of the tree, where the desert cannot reach.”

Jesse’s face lit up with comprehension, and he began talking quickly to the others once more. Arjun began peppering him with questions until Mark shushed them both. “The Aedrem,” he said, “Of the… sand? Sadre?”

Tesvaji laughed and smiled back at them. “Close!”, he said cheerily. “Not of the sand, but out from it! They live with the desert in their heart, and when even our cerein was young it was known that a man was not whole if he lived in shade his entire life. Our people were Cereinem for family and home, Aedrem for strength and wisdom. It is balance, and our children still walk the desert to take it into their heart.” He nodded at Gusje, who saw each of them look her way when Jesse had relayed her father’s words.

“But balance was lost,” Tesvaji said sadly. “Not only our own, but that of the world itself. The desert grows hungry and forbids even a single new cerein to sprout. Older cereimyn died away, and many who once had balance were left with only the desert.” He shook his head. “Strength and cunning are all the desert knows. The Aedrem mock us as children for living in the shade and scorn us for our weakness. They call us Satine, of the trees, and they mean it as an insult because they have forgotten that the cerein was more to them than a simple tree. They do not give to the land, they only take what they can from the desert and from us - just as they tried to take my daughter.”

“And now they will take everything, if they can,” Saneji said. “The Aedrem fight among themselves and betray each other, so they have not troubled us in the past - but now that one of their own has been struck down for a mere Satine, they will unite to avenge the insult regardless of the cost.” She gave the travelers a significant look as she paused for Jesse to translate, her eyes lingering on each of theirs. “It will end in death, either way. They will not permit an alternative. The only question left to answer is who.”

An odd expression passed over Mark’s face. “Do you want all of the Aedrem to be killed?”, he asked, his tone neutral.

Her parents exchanged a look, and she saw that her father looked troubled. “No,” he said quizzically. “No, my hope is that we can overpower Mosidhu quickly. The others will lose courage if he falls and should flee quickly afterward. They are still our brothers, even if they are misguided.” He sighed and splayed his hands palm-upward. “I would be grateful if you would stand beside us, since my daughter tells me you are able warriors. The faster and harder we can strike, the fewer people have to die. I understand if you choose to stand aside - this is not your fight, and you have done us a service already.”

Mark gave Tesvaji an evaluating look, then Saneji. Gusje saw her mother’s hands tighten on her shawl under the table, her knuckles whitening - but her mother said nothing. He turned to the others and they had a brief but intense conversation, culminating in nods from each traveler and a long series of hissing whispers from Jesse. Their conference concluded, Mark turned back to face them.

“We understand,” he said flatly. “We want to see… less death. Only necessary. Mosidhu and any that attack after he dies.” He gave Tesvaji a piercing look, and Gusje saw her mother’s grip on her shawl tighten further still. “We are from far away,” he repeated. “We do not know Aedrem, we do not know… Cereinem. You are good to us, and we are… we can help each other.” He stood from the table, as did the other travelers. “Tell us when you see Aedrem,” he said. “We will come.”

Tesvaji stood as well, confusion on his face. “I thank you for standing with us, friends,” he said, “but I should warn you that Mosidhu is the Madi for many Aedrem, and they have raised him to their head because he is a fearsome warrior. He has several saon draim of great power and has killed all who dare to challenge him in the past. I do not want to mislead you - this will not be an easy fight.”

Mark smiled at that, Gusje was surprised to see, although his face looked suddenly sad and tired. He talked briefly with Jesse, and when they were done conversing he walked over to Tesvaji with his hand outstretched. “This will not be… a fight,” he said quietly. “Tell us, and we will come.”

Her father clasped his hand wordlessly, and the three of them watched as the travelers left. “They are strange,” Tesvaji observed, “but I am relieved to know they will stand with us. I was expecting them to leave well in advance of the Aedrem’s arrival.” He bent down to kiss Saneji and Gusje on the top of their heads. “I will return to my preparations. Help Mevi with the watch, and let me know if they are spotted.”

Gusje made to leave as well, stopping short when she noticed that her mother hadn’t moved. “Vazheva?” she asked tentatively, touching Saneji on the shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

“I bought a sack from the merchant’s cart and thought myself clever for the bargain,” her mother whispered. “But the sack is too large by half and shifts strangely in the dark. I fear - oh, daughter of mine, I fear to open it up and see what I have purchased.”

She grabbed her mother’s hand and sat beside her, shocked to feel it trembling. “I don’t understand,” she admitted, uncertain what to say. “Should I get Father?”

Saneji laughed quietly, although her hand did not stop shaking. “No, leave him. He saved me from myself just now, he’s done enough. Tell me, daughter of mine - you have seen these strangers fight?”

“A little,” Gusje said, remembering. “Jesse slew one Aedre with a knife, and Mark…” She trailed off, remembering. “I don’t know what Mark did. His weapon was strange, and when he used it the world seemed to tremble. I hid and couldn’t look. The other three Aedrem died with blood upon them, but I don’t know how.”

“I see,” Saneji said. “The next time someone calls your mother clever, tell them she could be cleverer if she talked to her children more.” She stood abruptly and smoothed her shawl, then smiled shakily at Gusje. “Do as your father said. I have counts to keep, and I must get back to them.”

“Wait!”, Gusje objected. “At least tell me what’s wrong.”

Her mother pursed her lips. “Your friend Mark asked us many questions about the Aedrem, but he never asked us how many would come. Does he strike you as the sort to leave an important detail unspoken?”

She shook her head, still not understanding.

Saneji stepped closer to her, one hand coming up to stroke Gusje’s hair. “Exactly,” she murmured, her lips trembling as she spoke. “It wasn’t important. One Aedre or all of them, it made no difference. When he asked us if we wanted them all dead I saw fear in his eyes, and not fear of the Aedrem. Oh, little flower,” she whispered, her fingers curling into Gusje’s hair as she hugged her tightly. “He feared we would say yes. Your friend knows he could kill every Aedre living, and he was terrified we would ask him to do it.”

Gusje watched the sun drop down below the far ridge, settling behind the spires that marked its top. There was one, twisted and twice as tall as its neighbors, that seemed to reach up and spear the reddening orb as it descended. She had watched that same spire touch the sun many a night since she was a little girl, and now she wondered if she would live to watch it again.

“You look troubled, sister of mine,” a voice said from behind her. “Do you doubt our father’s strength, or that of your new friends?”

She turned, startled, to look at the man addressing her. A hair shorter than Tesvaji, he had the same rugged face and piercing eyes even if he had yet to match her father’s immense bulk. “Mevi,” she replied. “I doubt neither. I don’t fear the Aedrem.”

“Yet you do fear,” he replied. “Seeing you standing in one place for longer than a heartbeat usually means something is wrong.”

She sighed. “I fear…”, she said, trailing off quietly. “Brother of mine, do you know the feeling of placing your foot and finding only air? Falling, and the moment of clear thought before you hit the ground.” She looked out at the bloody sunset, dimming and fading behind the toothed ridge. “This is the clear moment before tomorrow rushes to meet us,” she said. “I don’t know what will happen when it strikes.”

Mevi gave her a long, contemplative look before shaking his head. “You’ve been talking too long with Mother,” he sighed. “Just say you’re afraid of the battle and have done with it. I admit to being scared, as I should be - Mosidhu is a wily old bandit, and a good fighter.”

“You don’t understand,” Gusje said, turning away. “I’m afraid because there’s no reason to fear tomorrow. There would be, and there should be, but tomorrow holds no danger for us.”

He frowned. “You’re right, sister of mine. I don’t understand at all. If there’s no danger, what is there to fear?”

“I hope the travelers will tell us,” she replied. “They’re running from something, something they fear. When you see them face the Aedrem, I think you will understand why that troubles me.”

“Dammit, Sergeant, people do not just ‘disappear’ like that,” Lieutenant Gamble fumed. Over his shoulder, Captain Grande loomed like the avatar of an angry god. “You’re telling me that in a handful of seconds you lost a civilian to the desert, the only notable feature of which is a lack of places in which to disappear. Is that it?”

“Yes sir,” Roth replied evenly, his eyes darting to the side where Jesse also stood at attention. “Specialist Gibson and I immediately began a search of the area but could find no footprints, no dropped items and no other trace that would indicate Dr. Yin’s whereabouts. Because we had another civilian in our group and were close to base I made the decision to report the incident before widening the search area.”

“And you didn’t double back on your trail?”, the lieutenant asked irritably. “If there were no other footprints he had to have returned the way you came. He might have dropped something further back and gone looking for it.”

“No sir, we did not,” Roth said. “We could see our tracks for at least half a mile, so we judged it unlikely that Dr. Yin could have gone that way without us spotting him.”

“Goddammit,” Grande said. “At ease, all of you, I’m not trying to find a way to pin this on someone. I just don’t see how a man vanishes like that. Do you realize what’s going to happen when we report this?”

“Yes sir,” Roth replied, relaxing visibly. “All hell is going to break loose.” He hesitated for a moment. “Sir, maybe it should. Something about this is damn spooky. I didn’t see anything, but I felt like someone had eyes on me the whole way back.”

Grande gave him an evaluating look. “Gibson, did you notice anything?”, he asked.

“Sir, I did not,” Jesse replied. “But yesterday Private Walsh asked me to translate something the merchants had said - ‘the silent ones are coming.’ Private Correia said they seemed frightened.” He hesitated, his eyes flicking to the side. “I believe they have knowledge of enemy forces in the area.”

“And none of you reported this because…?”, Gamble said, his face darkening.

“Sir, I assumed it was in the linguistics reports,” Jesse replied. “They said one of them had been muttering it repeatedly.”

Grande grabbed at a stack of papers on his desk, rifling through them with an irritated expression. He paused and looked at one, reading the text. “Vesh eymmin…?”, he muttered, looking at Jesse for confirmation. “They’ve translated it here as ‘they’re coming softly’. They weren’t sure what to make of it.”

Jesse shook his head. “No sir, the word for soft is ‘vedh’ and ‘vejh’ isn’t an adverb,” he said. “It modifies ‘eimyn’, which is the nominative case of-”

“All right, Jesus,” Grande said, waving him off. “Damn useless bastards. Gamble, what the hell is this man doing on escort detail? I have half a mind to put him in charge of these idiots in linguistics.”

“Um,” Jesse said, his eyes widening before he looked suddenly downward. “Please don’t do that, sir.”

Gamble winced. “Sorry, sir. A conversation for later?”, he suggested delicately.

Grande looked at Jesse, then at Gamble, who gave him an imploring look. “I suppose I’ll spare you this time,” he chuckled. “But you’re going to help me make sense of this. We’re going to have a chat with our merchant friends to see if they can shed any light on the issue.” He grabbed his radio from the table. “Hearts Seven, Hearts Actual. Bring our guests to my office.”

The radio crackled with Sergeant Diaz’s voice, acknowledging the order, and Grande sat wearily behind his desk. “No dancing around the issues this time,” he said grimly. “We didn’t push them for intel, and Dr. Yin’s disappearance is the direct result. When they get here, ask them directly who these ‘silent ones’ are and we’ll see what they have to say. If there are-”

“Hearts Actual, Hearts Seven, the guests are gone,” the radio squawked. Diaz was speaking rapidly, sounding agitated. “Nobody saw them leave, but they’re not in the med tent.”

“Motherfucker,” Grande growled. “Hearts Five, Hearts Actual,” he boomed into the radio. “Put the base on alert, hostiles nearby. Pull all patrols back to the perimeter, nobody leaves.” He fixed Gamble with a look, jerking his thumb towards the door. “Get to your platoon, Lieutenant,” he rumbled. “Everyone stays with their fireteams at all times.”

Gamble’s brow furrowed. “Yes sir,” he replied. “Do you think an attack is likely?”

“Likely?” Grande asked, grabbing his pistol. “It’s already started.”