Tomera (toh-me-rah) noun

The ancient language of Tomesh.

Archaic; from the name Tomer, the sand god who gifted the language.

***

The desert keeps many secrets. One blow of the wind and anything can disappear: a chest full of treasures, a road, a house, a village. A language.

The people of Tomesh had always kept the ancient language alive, breathing and walking like the people who used them. The children were taught of nothing but the language even before they could speak their first word, which was, of course, Tomera. Before they could say pahl-father-they knew the sacred tongue of their people. Before they could call their mother mahl, they knew what language rolled out of their tongues.

But not all had Tomera as their first word. There were some babies who were simply too stubborn. Nascha's first word was sohm-breast-which she may have associated with food. And food was what was on her mind as she stepped out of the threshold of the stone chamber, squinting against the bright sun and the orange slopes of sand beyond the hard, hot earth of the desert. She dreamed of food, like she did many other things. And she began to imagine what her mother may lay on the table tonight. Then she sighed, her shoulders dropping. The sun was still too high. Night was coming slow.

"Swajeh! Swajeh!" Older sister. She turned and found three familiar forms running up to her, fine clouds of sand flying behind them. Their brown legs were white with dust. "Tell us the rest of the story!" Peru, the older of the three, begged, her eyes glinting eagerly.

Nascha looked behind her at the darkness of the chamber. The faint sound of wood against metal, and metal against stone, echoed for her to go back inside.

"Please, Swajeh," the little boy Naid pleaded, holding his twin sister's hand.

"You said you'll finish your story today," said Peru. "You promised."

Nascha turned and secretly smiled when they followed, feeling important, getting a taste of what princesses may feel to have someone crave for her every word. "Very well," she said, absently dusting fine sand off her wrap, a blue-and-gold cloth wrapped around her chest, stopping just midway to her navel. "Where were we?" she asked, coming to a stop against the red stone wall where there was shade.

The children formed a semicircle at her feet, oblivious to the blistering heat of the sun. "The old woman's garden! The scorpions!" Naid said.

"Ah, yes," she said in a knowing voice. "The scorpions appeared that day-"

"Night," Peru interrupted. "You said it was night time."

"Night, yes," she said, crossing her arm over her chest, one finger playing over the gold plate around one arm, and leaned against the giant wall of rock smoothly carved and polished by the builders of the village. "The scorpions appeared that night and ate the old woman's garden. Everything she planted-parl, heller, breet-they all disappeared overnight." The children chuckled, imagining the horror on the old woman's face. "And when she found them the next day, she stormed right next door."

Peru gasped. "She's not going to Nari, is she?"

Nascha nodded. "She is. And she accuses Nari of witchcraft."

"But Nari is no witch!" Naid shouted. And his twin nodded, too angry to speak.

"Yes, but remember that Nari told her to watch out for scorpions, to not sleep because they may come for her garden."

"She did not mean that," said Peru.

"Yes, of course. She only wished the scorpions would come. And they did." She paused for a moment. "Maybe she is a witch and she doesn't know it."

The three children gasped in disbelief.

"What happened next?"

"The old woman went to the village chief and he believed her. They took Nari and made her march down the road miles and miles away from their village. And they left her in the middle of the desert to die."

"No!"

"And the old woman killed all the scorpions and crushed them to feed to the soil. And she grew new plants. But she could not grow more breet. They don't like scorpion flesh." Peru snickered while her two siblings still fumed over Nari's fate. "And Kafif left."

"But he loves Nari!" Peru cried out.

"Nari is a witch. She is dead to them."

"Then he does not love her enough."

"Indeed."

Nascha waited for the children to digest the story. Again, it was Peru who spoke. "What happened to Nari? Is she really dead?"

"She was eaten by the desert," Nascha said, nodding her head toward the vast belt of dunes far ahead. Every child in Tomesh was told never to venture into the dunes alone. They knew the dangers that await them there. Fear flashed across Peru and her siblings. "But not everything the desert hides is dead," she added and their eyes filled with hope as their eager smiles replaced the fear. "Sometimes, it just keeps them for a while until they're strong enough to survive."

"The great spirits of the desert," Peru said with awe.

"Om Miativ," Naid murmured. Praise the spirits.

"Nascha," a voice said from the threshold. Alika, the young priestess, was glaring, most definitely not because of the sun. The children jumped to their feet and ran away, leaving Nascha to deal with trouble. They knew, as well as Nascha, that it was forbidden to loiter around the king's tomb.

***

The tomb was buried underneath the sands. All tombs were, but most especially those of the royals. Dead kings and queens, princes and princesses... They all lived in the belly of the desert. Quiet, sleeping, waiting to come back to life. And to make sure that they can return in all their glory, their tombs had to be perfect that not even the rain that came once every end of the year could seep through.

The giant buttes were just hard, empty crowns over the tombs. The façade and the threshold were carved into the giant mountain rock. The mouth of the tomb, as Nascha liked to call it. She stepped through it, the powerful light from outside blinding her for a moment before her eyes adjusted to the yellow glow from the torches. She looked around the empty antechamber, which was larger than her room-larger and taller than their house. The walls and ceiling were painted gold and red, blue and black. The ancient Tomera letters were carved on the stone walls, one character dancing with the next, creating a magnificent story of the great ruler.

Up ahead, almost hidden in the shadows, was another doorway with a set of stairs leading below into another chamber. Her footsteps were drowned by the constant thumping of wood against chisel, and chisel against rock.

She emerged in the larger chamber, this one more golden than the one above. Yet, this was not where the king shall be placed once he dies. This was just the eduali, the worship room. And as the Tomera word suggested, the king did not take it lightly. The chamber was covered by his incredible glory, telling whoever stood there that he was blessed by the god of fire from conception to death. It took Nascha's father ten years to complete the room.

She followed the thumping sound of chisel and wood down another staircase, this one narrower than the last, leading right into another chamber-the most important of all. The tomb. Vimati. It was just as beautiful as the last, as golden as the desert and the sun outside. Columns of polished black marbles from Achnus lined all sides of the room, and they, too, were carved with more Tomera words, telling whoever understood them-and even those who could not-just how magnificent the owner of the tomb was.

And he's not even dead yet, Nascha wryly thought. Sometimes at night, before another day like this would begin, as the sound of chisel continued to ring in her ear, she would hope (with so much guilt) that the king would die. He was a fair leader, a good man in many ways, but he was obsessed with his tomb. And this was where Nascha grew up. Day in, day out, she spent most of her hours here, learning and watching her father work.

That's what their family did. They carved on walls, but not just any walls. Their people were the guardians of the royal tombs. They were the builders, the scribes, and the priestesses. And Nascha's family was the best scribes in all of Tomesh.

They were the only people who could read and write Tomera, the most beautiful language she had ever known, yet they could not use it anywhere but the tombs. So here they were, preparing these chambers and wait for their owners to die; then guard the dead and pray they would someday come back to life. Nascha believed, however, that they were more than that. Surely there was something more to just carving words on stones.

"Did Alika find you?" her father's amused voice asked. He stopped what he was doing, but the sound still rang in her ears, which would continue until they went home, as it always did after a long day in the tomb.

"Yes, Pahl," she replied, dragging her feet toward another opening. It was too small that she had to hunch as she climbed down.

"Your tools," her father said. As she reached for her hammer and chisel, her father laughed. "You look like you cannot wait until your twenty-first rain."

When a woman reached their twenty-first year in Tomesh, they were free to leave home and be with a man if they so wished. Or somewhere else, too. But that was not always the case because women in Tomesh would always opt to stay and continue their family's legacy.

She was eighteen now. Only three more rains and she would be free. "Oh, yes," she said, turning her back on her father. "I can't wait to leave this tomb and make babies."

His laughter echoed behind her until she reached the last chamber of the tomb. The arnucc. Treasure room. But contrary to its name, it was the chamber that was given the least importance. That's why she was here. That's why her father assigned her to this room.

She hated and loved it all the same. She hated the words she had to carve, the story she had to tell. But she loved it because it was her secret. This chamber shall hold all of the king's treasures-everything he would need for his journey in the afterlife, the ones that would sustain him until he returned to the land of the living. Perhaps the king would fill this one with boats and chairs, golden robes and delicious foods. Fancy chariots, saddles, and even preserved horses covered in gold. But this room would also house Nascha's deepest passion: stories.

On the walls were the carved stories of the king in his afterlife. All fantasy, of course, as most of his stories were in the other chambers. But on the floor, obscured from sight by the dust of her carvings, were hundreds of tales from her own imagination. Here, she told her own stories. On one slab somewhere, she narrated how the king died in his bed. In her story, he burned in his sleep, but the fire did not eat the bed, nor the room. A beautiful mystery without an answer because she had not thought of a good one yet.

One slab of stone after another held more fantastic stories of war and devastation, of how Tomesh saved everyone from the ultimate villain mankind had ever known. There were hundreds of these stories, ones she carved years and years ago. Stories of a king, the one after him, and many others more glorious than them. Stories of magical people, of dragons and magical ashes.

Her secret.

At first, she hid her writings at home, but her mother would always find them. She would burn them and force Nascha to ask forgiveness from the sand god of Tomesh, the creator of Tomera. "It is a sacred language, Nascha," her mother would always say. But Tomera was too beautiful a language to not be used in creating worlds and stories. Telling stories through mouth to Peru and her siblings was not enough for Nascha. And so she carved them in the only place she knew no one would ever question. Her father only inspected the walls because they were the only important parts of the chamber, not the blocks of stone floor always covered with dust and sand.

She walked to the far corner of the room, the only space left for her to carve on. When her father resumed his work, Nascha did the same. She knelt on the floor and continued her story. Where was she? Ah, the prince died and the dragons emerged from the sea, breathing fire on the lands.

Nascha would not work on the walls today because she could always work on them tomorrow, or the day after. Or the next.

But there would be no tomorrow, because tomorrow she would learn that her secret wish had finally come.

King Amatif finally died in his bed. He burned in his sleep, but the fire did not eat the bed, nor the room. A horrific mystery without an answer.