Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) (3 page)

I’d felt stronger since Pradat’s treatment, my legs and arms not the limp grasses they’d been since the lumani had changed me. When I felt bright, I believed that the treatment was working. When I felt dark, I believed I only imagined my new strength. Time to put it to the test.

“Walking.”

Nez sent me a look that was as hopeful as it was worried.

“Good,” Azlii said. “That chair is annoying.”

It was even colder outside than I’d expected. I pulled my cloak close around me. The doumanas we passed on the trek through Kelroosh all wore cloaks, and several had pulled the hoods up over their heads.

Good
trading
, Wall sent as it swung open the main gate.

Do
something
about
this
weather
while
we’re
gone
,
will
you
? Azlii sent back, joking.

Nez drew in a breath and I could guess at what she was thinking: that maybe it had been a mistake for her to stay in Kelroosh, that she should have gone back to Chimbalay — that the kler, not the corenta, was where she belonged.

Where did I belong? Not to commune, or kler, or corenta. What was I now? Not doumana or lumani, but some abomination in between.

Kelroosh had set down on the outskirts of a fallow field. Two-ling wasn’t a farming commune on the scale of Lunge, and the residence structures were only a short walk away. The doumanas of Two-ling chattered among themselves as they passed us — we heading to their commune, they heading into Kelroosh to trade. The orchard trees that lay between us and the dwellings were mostly bare-limbed, but here and there the red and purple promises of new leaves and buds showed on gray wood. The air smelled of loam.

I stared through the trees and fixed my gaze on the dwellings. I’d made it to the gate under my own power; I could make it across the field.

“The guide here is Rill,” Azlii said when we reached the dwellings. “She was hurt in an accident years back. Her face is scarred and she has a damaged arm. Don’t stare.”

As if someone had heard Azlii’s words, the door swung open on one of the buildings, a smallish cube the same grayish-yellow as the soil in the fields. The door was dun-colored as well. Three doumanas walked out — cloakless, despite the cold. The doumana at the lead had one arm cut off about a hand’s breath below her shoulder. Her face was scarred on the same side as the missing arm. Nez sucked in a breath. Kler doumanas didn’t see this sort of thing, and certainly it wasn’t something you’d see on the visionstage, but commune life was hard and I’d seen this kind of damage before.

Azlii stepped out in front and touched Rill’s neck in greeting, and I caught sight of the sixteen age dots that lay on her left wrist. I clenched my teeth and tried not to, but I couldn’t stop myself. I stole a glance at my own wrist. Thirty-five dots. Foolish of me to hope Pradat’s treatments would make them disappear overnight.

Rill stroked Azlii’s neck in return. It seemed they knew and liked each other, but it was hard to know for certain with their emotion spots covered by the thick, white collars.

“Come join us for refreshments.”

Rill turned without waiting for an answer. We followed the commune doumanas into the dun-colored building.

Inside was more comfortable and colorful than I would have guessed, looking at the plainness of the outside. The receiving room had several well-stuffed chairs with high backs and low armrests. There was a long, high-backed chair that could seat four or five doumanas. The furniture was upholstered in soft, rich fabrics, each in its own color, but the colors were harmonious. A large visionstage was set in one wall. Aromatics burning in a small brazier filled the room with a subtle, spicy aroma. Nez and I had seen country doumanas when they came into Kelroosh to trade, but this was Nez’s first visit to a commune. In Chimbalay, kler doumanas sometimes made fun of commune doumanas as naive and rustic. Lunge was. But if they saw Two-ling, they’d stop their silly talk.

Rill eyed one of her commune-sisters and tilted her head. The doumana scuttled off to another room and returned pushing a rolling cart with enough goblets for all of us and a pitcher of what looked like zwas, though I doubted it was, since neither side would want to be intoxicated now.

Rill poured drinks and handed them around. I took a tentative sip. The drink was delicious, light and fruity but with a surprise tart bite that came after the first taste of sweetness.

“I’ve said this before,” Azlii said, “but it is a pity this milt squeezing won’t travel.”

Rill smiled. “But then it wouldn’t be so special, would it? And you might not look forward with such gusto to visiting us.”

“True,” Azlii said. “Then I would only come for business and out of friendship, instead of business, friendship, and milt.”

The room went quiet as we sipped our drink. When Azlii had drained her goblet, she held it in her lap and said, “Now, to business.”

All the doumanas in the room sat up a little straighter, all but Rill.

“What’s wrong?” Azlii said.

Rill swiped her hand over her scalp. “I know the first thing you’ll ask is how much fertilizer we want this year.”

“First Warmth,” Azlii said. “You always set your order now, based on what spice or flavoring you’ll be planting this year. Is there some question about that?”

Every doumana in the room looked at Rill.

She sighed. “I don’t know how much to order because I don’t know what we’ll be growing.”

Azlii turned her empty goblet in her hands and frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s no one to tell me,” Rill said. “The Powers are gone. Who makes decisions now?”

Azlii, Nez, and I stared at her. Slowly the importance of what she’d said seeped in. For as long as anyone could remember, the Powers — the lumani — had decided what each growers’ commune would plant. They declared what beast would be bred on the beastkeeper communes. They set the total yardage the weaver communes would make, what colors they would use. They determined where the klers would be built, what job each kler doumana would fulfill. On and on, keeping control over our world. Until I’d destroyed them. With Azlii’s help, and Larta’s, and Pradat’s, but it was my name the doumanas of Chimbalay cursed.

Azlii blew out a breath. “Pftt. Decide for yourself. What do you want to grow this year?”

Rill folded her hands in her lap. “We could plant again what we’d planted last year, I suppose.”

“Fine,” Azlii said. “Then you’ll want the same order that you had last year.”

Rill nodded and said, “Yes. Well, maybe not.”

Azlii waited for her to continue.

“We’ve had some calamities,” Rill said. She nodded toward one of her sisters.

“It was my fault,” the commune doumana said. “I would have sworn I’d shut the storage doors tight, but I must not have. Vermin got in and ate a good portion of our seed.”

“So you see,” Rill said, “I can’t say how much we’ll need because I don’t know how many fields I can fill.”

“I can get more seed for you,” Azlii said. “It shouldn’t be too much trouble to find a commune with extra they’d be willing to trade. Or some new crop, if you want to branch out.”

The scars on Rill’s face turned white as the blood drained from her face. “New? I wouldn’t know what new to grow. How could I decide that? What if every growers’ commune picked new crops based on whim? It would be chaos.”

Azlii’s face stayed as smooth as clearstone. It was fortunate she wore a collar, or the colors of annoyance would be there for everyone to see. Corentans can’t understand what it’s like to be a commune dweller.

But I understood Rill’s hesitation. It would never do for each commune to choose for itself. What if everyone decided to grow kiiku because it fetched a high price? What if no one grew awa because of how difficult it is to pollinate? Or didn’t raise preslets because of their nasty dispositions, leaving us without their warm feathers to line our cloaks? There had to be balance, enough of everything.

“I know what you mean,” Nez said softly into the long silence that had grown in the room. “It’s very difficult to make this kind of decision. As your commune’s leader, it’s your responsibility to make sure your sisters thrive. If you’re wrong, your commune could suffer. Your sisters could suffer.”

Relief flooded across Rill’s face. “Yes.”

“But if you do nothing,” Nez said, “your sisters will certainly suffer. You have to make a decision.”

Rill stared at Nez a long moment and then said, “We’ll plant what seeds we have. Nothing new. Nothing untried. Nothing that could be a mistake.”

“How much fertilizer will you need for that?” Azlii asked.

Rill’s eyes opened wide. “I have no idea.”

Azlii’s steps were hard and quick crossing the distance back through Kelroosh. She didn’t speak until we were inside Home with the door firmly shut.

“I swear those doumanas have been eating villisity.” Azlii undid her collar and squeezed the rim in her hand. “How hard is it to make a decision?”

I rubbed my arms, though I wasn’t cold. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be a commune or kler doumana. Nez was right in what she said. Most things have always been decided for us. We could choose our own mate during Resonance, but everything else was decreed. When the lumani were destroyed, our comfort was destroyed too. Rill doesn’t want to make a mistake that might harm her sisters.”

“It’s true,” Nez said. “For Rill, striking out with a choice of her own is likely terrifying.”

Azlii’s neck lit bright with the brown-yellow of annoyance.

“Give her a bit to think about it, Azlii,” I said. “She’ll find her decision.”

“She’d best be quick about it.” The corentan tossed her collar into a corner of the room — a thing I’d never seen her do before. “We have obligations, and our own, to worry about. The day after tomorrow we leave for Bethon commune, and after that we go to Lunge.”

I sat on the edge of my cot in the hazy half-light of dawn, listening to Nez’s even breathing as she slept. My left hand lay heavily in my lap, palm up, my wrist turned so that even a glance would show what I was afraid to see, but felt compelled to look at. I said a small prayer to the creator that Pradat’s treatment had worked, and looked at my wrist. My heart sank. Thirty-five age dots, each one as dark and bright as they had always been. I’d hoped at least they might fade a little, a sign that I might regain my normal lifespan.

Maybe it was too soon. It was only three days ago that Pradat had come up with a new idea of how to reverse the accelerated aging that pushing the crops had caused. I could be patient. Had to be patient. What good would frustration do?

Nez, Azlii, and I made our way down the meandering streets of Kelroosh towards the communiteria. Commune paths and kler streets were designed to move a doumana from here to there as directly as possible. In Kelroosh, there were no straight paths, the dwellings and structures having been built wherever they and their doumana chose. We greeted each dwelling as we passed, and nodded or said good morning to the few doumanas we met on the way.

Nez drew in a great breath. “What is that glorious scent?”

Overnight, tayhosh had sprouted alongside the paths and put out its delicate blue-green flowers for all to see. Even without looking, I couldn’t miss the powerful, sweet aroma. I supposed tayhosh needed such a strong scent since it bloomed for only three days, which wasn’t long for a plant that needed insects to pollinate it. Lucky us, getting to enjoy its sweetness. Fortunate us, too, who would get to eat tayhosh berries later, if free-roaming insects found the flowers before they faded. The true soil of Kelroosh was shallow and very little would grow in it, which made the sudden appearance of flowers a special joy.

Azlii saw where I was looking and laughed. “Still a farming doumana in your heart, aren’t you?” Her voice stayed light but one emotion spot showed a trace of the blue-red of anxiety, and another the dark-lavender of curiosity. “Are we going to lose you when we get to Lunge commune?”

My stomach clenched and my neck went hot, but colorless. I still missed Lunge and my sisters there, even after what they’d done to me. I felt safest here, in Kelroosh, with Azlii and Nez — as true or truer than any sister at my former commune. Truth was, I didn’t know how I would feel when Kelroosh set down outside Lunge a few days from now. Would the anger at having my life stolen flood back, or would love for those who had been my sisters crush my heart? I was glad that Simanca never let the sisters go to a corenta, calling them places of evil.

I decided I’d stay in Kelroosh. That way I would be spared seeing those I had known and loved. Those who had betrayed me for a few extra pounds of crops.

Five doumanas wearing cloaks of the brightest blues, reds, and yellows I’d ever seen stood waiting at the edge of a large field at Bethon commune. I was caught by the fabrics’ dazzling colors. I wanted to run my fingers over the threads, to know how that vividness felt. The desire hit me hard; I’d never had that want before. Behind them we could see doumanas hand-harvesting zind, one of the few crops that bloomed in Barren Season and set seeds in First Warmth.

“We call them the Eager Weavers,” Azlii said, her voice low so as not to carry. “They do everything by hand at Bethon, no machines except for harvesting a couple of the five crops they grow to make their cloth. Their guide is very proud. She’ll likely give us the full walking tour, especially now that I have two fresh faces with me.”

The five waiting doumanas stepped forward to greet us, spread out like flying birds with the one I picked as the commune’s leader in the front. Her cloak was an exquisite blue — the color of the clearest Growing Season sky. Her skin was a light-pinkish-red, and she was shorter than her sisters, the energetic sort, I thought, who always walked ahead of others. Who probably
thought
ahead of others, too, the way that Simanca did. I hoped she was kinder than Simanca.

When the short doumana reached us, she and Azlii didn’t exchange neck touches the way Azlii and Rill had. Instead Azlii shared our names with the weavers, and the weavers’ leader, Fundid, shared the names of her unitmates. That done, Fundid turned and began walking quickly across the field, never looking back to see if we were keeping up, saying loudly enough for us to clearly hear, “We grow five crops here for their natural dyes. We are, of course, best known for the remarkable shade we produce using binion: Bethon Blue.”

Fundid chattered on, leading us across fields, most of them fallow now, and past various outbuildings. Through an open, wide doorway we saw a team of lean doumanas with bunched muscles in their backs, legs, and arms, beating bundles of thick, hard binion stalks against sharp metal spikes set in the dirt floor. No sound came from the building but the slap, slap of the stalks against the spikes and ground. At Lunge, we would have had a song to make the work go easier, and to keep a rhythm. It seemed Fundid gave about as much thought for the doumanas in her charge as Simanca had, maybe less.

I didn’t want to think about Simanca; we’d reach Lunge soon enough.

I glanced at Nez. Her eyes were as wide as full moons, watching the weavers beat the stalks into fibers. Kler doumanas had no idea where the staples and luxuries they took for granted came from, what it took to make them. I touched her neck and smiled.

“I wish I could think-talk to you,” Nez whispered. “My mind is spinning.”

“We’ll talk in Kelroosh,” I whispered back.

We came to what I guessed must be Fundid’s dwelling from the way her back suddenly straightened. I blinked, surprised at the brilliant color on the walls, a blue so pure it would have lit my spots with joy — Bethon Blue. I wondered how they’d dyed the stones to get that color.

Just before we went inside, I caught sight of a doumana who stood alone near one corner. Fundid passed by her without acknowledgement. Around that corner stood another lone doumana. Fundid paid her no mind either.

Shunned
. The cruelest punishment any set-place doumana could receive. I wondered what they had done to deserve such mean treatment.

The door of the Bethon Blue dwelling was as crimson as the day-ending sky. Inside, the walls were painted the pale-green of contentment, and yet the air seemed to shimmer with the gray of worry. I didn’t know if I actually saw or felt it, or just imagined a color to go with the sudden tension that seized Fundid’s muscles and changed the look on her face.

There was no long chair in this room. Instead the five commune doumanas and the three of us sat in a circle on wooden chairs upholstered in a thick weave as soft and comfortable as anything I’d ever felt. I couldn’t help myself. I ran my fingers over the fabric and wondered if every dwelling in this commune had chairs with whisper-soft fabric dyed in this precious and expensive color, but I doubted it. If this commune was anything like Lunge, the leader and her unit lived finer than the rest of the sisters here.

They’d prepared for our visit. A tall, clear cylinder filled with thick, dark-yellow liquid sat on a table in the middle of the circle. A stack of goblets sat beside it. One of Fundid’s unitmates twisted the bung open and began filling the mugs. No one spoke. Each doumana lifted her mug as she received it and sipped the drink. It was warm and sweet at first, but had a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste.

“Binion leaf,” Fundid said, answering an unasked question. “You saw them thrashing the stalks for Bethon Blue dye. We also make a yellow dye from the leaves, and a purple-red dye from the roots.”

We sipped our drinks for a bit, and then Azlii asked, “The same amount of fertilizer and mulch as last year?”

The weaver’s leader smiled. “Same as last year, and the year before, and the year before that.”

Of course, I thought. They plant the same crops in the same number of fields, likely only rotating fields so the crops didn’t deplete the soil. This visit was more courtesy than necessity. After Rill’s reaction at Two-ling commune, Fundid’s certainty was a relief.

“And we’ll need three new threshing stakes to replace some that were damaged.”

Azlii nodded, adding the orders to those she already carried in her head. “Anything else?”

Fundid leaned forward. Her eyes were flat and serious. The gray I sensed in the air seemed to grow darker.

“News from Chimbalay,” she said. “Is it true the energy center blew up and several of the Powers Returned to the creator?”

“Where did you hear that?” Azlii asked calmly.

“Kelroosh isn’t the only corenta plying its trade in this region,” Fundid said, and shrugged. “Doumanas talk. We saw some of it on the visionstage before all the stages went dark.”

My breath froze in my throat. What would Azlii say?
Oh
,
yes
.
It’s
true
.
And
here’s
Khe
.
She
destroyed
the
Powers
and
plunged
the
doumanas
of
Chimbalay
into
a
near
-
freezing
Barren
Season
,
and
now
the
doumanas
of
Two
-
ling
commune
don’t
know
what
to
plant
,
and
who
knows
what
other
consequences
of
her
actions
are
still
to
be
discovered
?