Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) (4 page)

Azlii leaned back in the chair. “That sort of information is expensive.”

“No doubt,” Fundid said. “How expensive?”

“Very, I would think,” Azlii said. “Seven new cloaks, woven here and dyed Bethon Blue.”

Fundid huffed. “Since when is gossip worth that sort of price?”

“When it isn’t gossip, but firsthand accounts.”

The Bethon doumanas drew in their breaths as if they were one being.

“You were there?” Fundid asked.

“I was,” Azlii said. Her voice was neutral, factual — as though she were about to say nothing more important than if the sun shone outside or the sky was covered in clouds.

Fundid rested her chin on her fist and considered. I didn’t need to see her neck to know that she desperately wanted to hear this tale.

“All right,” she said. “Trade.”

I wished I could see Azlii’s neck behind the collar, to know what emotions ran through her.

Azlii steepled her fingers. “The Powers were not special doumanas, as you thought; they were creatures from another world. They ruled us for generations, so long that only we corentans know the stories of the time before they came. The creatures are gone now. Every one of them. We own our world again.”

“Creatures from another world,” Fundid said and laughed. Her sisters laughed with her until they realized Azlii, Nez, and I weren’t sharing their emotion.

Fundid leaned forward then, her eyes narrowed, her shoulders high. “What game is this you’re playing? Your lies are an insult to our history of friendship and trust.”

Azlii bolted to her feet as if slapped. She glared at Fundid, then reached up and undid her collar, showing her neck. There were emotion colors there — the ocher of impatience, the brown-purple of exasperation, but not a trace of the brown-green of shame. Not even a corentan could lie and not show shame colors on her neck.

Fundid stared a long time. Her shoulders dropped back to their normal position.

“For seven cloaks, I need the whole story.”

“Pftt,” Azlii said, and sat again. “Eight cloaks. One in apology.”

Fundid’s lips pulled tight, but she nodded.

Azlii cleared her throat. “The Powers, or the lumani, as they called themselves, discovered they couldn’t reproduce on our world. They were growing old, and wanted to find a way to keep their hold on us. They devised a method of mating with doumanas.”

Two of the Bethon doumanas shuddered.

“Unfortunately for the lumani,” Azlii said, “they picked the wrong doumana for their experiments. She destroyed them. In the process, the energy center in Chimbalay was also destroyed. It’s been rebuilt now.”

I laced my fingers together in my lap, and made myself listen as though this story had nothing to do with me.

Fundid still looked skeptical, but she couldn’t deny the truth of Azlii’s neck, which had shown only the colors of a disturbing memory as she told the story.

“How did this doumana destroy the lu… lu…”

“Lumani,” Azlii said. “But that is another story. And will cost you additional.”

I could tell Fundid wanted the tale, as did her unitmates, but her mind was clicking in other directions at the same time. She stared ahead at some sight that wasn’t there.

Azlii leaned forward and touched Fundid’s hand. “You have a question.”

The touch drew Fundid back from her thoughts.

“Every year, the Powers sent us directions on what color dyes to use, how much raw cloth to weave, how many cloaks to sew. Who will tell us that now?”

Azlii clenched her hands tight in her lap. The Bethon doumanas didn’t seem to notice, each with her eyebrow ridges raised now in worry. One pleated the ends of her beautiful hipwrap with her fingers.

“You could decide for yourself,” Azlii said evenly.

Fundid blinked. She sat quietly for a long moment — so long that her unitmates fidgeted in their seats, settling and resettling. Nez and I followed Azlii’s lead, sitting as still as trees.

Slowly Fundid stood and undid her collar. The orange-yellow of confusion showed on nearly all of her spots. She looked at one of her unitmates.

“My Second will bring the cloaks. We are done here.”

“There’s more to the story,” Azlii said, clearly surprised at this turn of the conversation. “Sit, and I will tell you.”

Fundid shook her head. “I’d hoped you would tell me the rumors were false.”

She turned and walked out the door of her own dwelling as if she had found herself in a strange land and was lost.

The shunned doumanas still stood at their lonely corners outside Fundid’s dwelling. I could see Nez was trying not to stare, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“What do you think they did?” she asked, her voice low.

I shrugged. My mind was crowded with angry thoughts. I pushed the strap of the carrying bag filled with two of the lovely cloaks higher onto my shoulder. Azlii and Nez carried three cloaks each, in similar bags.

We took a more direct route back across Bethon, crossing a fallow field of rich, dark loam. I angled Azlii off until we were away from Nez.

“I’m glad Fundid didn’t want to hear more of the story,” I said. “In the future, if you want to tell your part in what happened in Chimbalay, do it, but not in front of me. I don’t need reminding of what happened.”

Azlii startled out of her own thoughts. “Did you see Fundid’s neck after I suggested she decide what her commune would do? We’re in for trouble, Khe, and I don’t have the first idea how to stop it.”

She sped her step, leaving Nez and me behind. A slight rain began to fall.

Wall left the gate open behind Azlii, waiting for Nez and me to follow through. The misting had turned into true rain, with drops as soft as hatchling down dusting our skins. I leaned on Nez’s arm. She walked slowly, but made it seem like it was the pace she wanted, rather than the only speed I could manage.

“You’re angry at Azlii,” she said as Wall shut the gate behind us. “I can feel it through your skin.”

“Turn of phrase?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I can feel your emotions. Sometimes, back in Chimbalay, I could feel Mees and some of the hatchlings, but not all of them. I never told anyone.”

“But you’re telling me.”

She shrugged. “There’s no one on this planet more strange than you, Khe. I trust you to keep my secret.”

Strange
was an interesting choice of words. Interesting, too, that she thought she could tell me because as different as she might be, I was more so — and therefore safe.

We trundled slowly toward the central commons, our hoods drawn up to protect our scalps from the falling rain. In the distance I could see a small group of corentans gathered in commons, their cloaks thrown off, their faces turned to the sky. I
was
different — and had sharper eyesight than any doumana should. Another gift from the lumani.

“What’s it like,” I asked Nez, “to feel a doumana’s emotions?”

She shrugged again. “I can’t describe it. It’s knowing someone’s true passion, in their depths. We see our sisters’ spots light, and we think we know what they’re feeling, but we don’t. We only imagine that they feel what we do when that emotion arises, that we’re the same. But we’re not. I never would have known the difference without
feeling
.”

“Maybe you are an empath after all,” I said. “It would make Inra proud if you were.”

Nez sniffed, and I didn’t have to be an empath or see her spots to know that thinking of her kler-sister, destroyed by the lumani, made her sad.

“Perhaps I’m her legacy,” she said.

My heart closed like a fist, resenting the idea. I couldn’t say why but, in my depths, if Nez were to be anyone’s legacy, I wanted her to be mine.

We were close enough to the commons now that Nez, too, could see the rain-loving doumanas. More had joined them while we walked. Azlii, who’d already reached them, waved to us and rushed back, the crimson of joy lit on her spots, all thought of Fundid and any coming troubles evidently banished from her mind.

“Early rain is lucky,” she said, holding out her arms as if to embrace us. “It’ll bring lush crops, and everyone will have enough to eat. We’re celebrating. Come join in.”

“Does rain turn them into babblers?” Nez asked, but smiled.

The corentans could have been mistaken for babblers easily enough. Some still had their faces upturned to the sky, thin rivulets of water sluicing down their cheeks. Others were hopping up and down, and still others swaying with their arms in the air, like trees in a wind. Azlii had set her carry-sack down on a flat rock on the Commons edge.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll teach you both to dance.”

Nez pulled up her shoulders. “Khe is tired.”

“Pftt,” Azlii said. “You set-place doumanas have no idea how to enjoy yourselves.” She turned and headed back toward her sisters, swinging her hips in rhythm to a song only she heard.

Nez took my elbow and started toward Home, but her eyes lingered on the others and a faint blue-yellow blush of wanting was on her neck.

“Let’s stay,” I said. “I’ll sit and watch. You dance.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. Nez grinned and trotted off after Azlii.

I folded my legs under me and sat on the damp ground, my carry-sack and Nez’s balanced on my lap. The cold seemed to crawl into my bones. I rearranged my cloak so it was under me, which was better. I’d never seen anyone dance outside of Resonance, and then only the males, trying to attract our attention so we’d choose them for mating — the one free choice we could make in our lives. I slipped my fingers into one of the sacks and stroked the feather-soft fabric of a Bethon cloak, for the comfort it brought.

Kroot
.
Kroot
kroot
, Home sent, and sounded very excited. Azlii, Nez, and I were in the receiving room. Azlii and I looked up expectantly.

Wall
has
spotted
something
, Home sent.

Kelroosh was in flight, traveling toward Lunge commune. I wondered what Wall could have seen — something in the air, or something below us? I was halfway to my feet to climb the stairs to the upper story and try to see when Home sent,
Hatchlings
!
Wall
says
there
are
hatchlings
on
the
plain
.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Azlii said aloud.

Nez looked up from the cloth she was decorating with colored threads sewn into patterns. “What?”

“Home says that Wall has spotted hatchlings on the plain below us,” I said.

“It’s past gathering time,” Nez said, her hand held paused in mid-stitch. “Why would they be on the plain?”

Azlii pressed her lips together and thought-talked to Kelroosh,
Something’s
wrong
.
Please
set
down
as
close
to
them
as
possible
.

Of
course
something’s
wrong
, Home sent.
We’re
already
slowing
and
looking
for
a
spot
to
land
.

My stomach lurched as Kelroosh came to a sudden stop. Nez swayed forward on her pillow and yelped, her cloth, needle, and thread flying from her grasp. She braced her hands against the floor. Azlii must have been used to this kind of thing because although she swayed on her pillow, she rode out the stuttering stop as if it were merely an inconvenience. We landed with a bang that shuddered through my body, from my feet, up my spine, to my skull.

Nez blew out a loud breath of air, clearly glad to have lived through the experience. Azlii got to her feet quickly, grabbed her cloak from the wall peg and headed for the front door, which Home had already opened. She threw a glance over her shoulder.

“Come on,” she said. “You two are the hatchling experts, not me.”

Nez and I took our cloaks from the pegs and followed after her.

Dust swirled in the air, spewed up from our sudden landing, and was caught in the mist that fell from the grey-brown sky. Corentans spilled out of their dwellings, chattering with each other, and heading toward the main gate.

The gate was closed when we reached it. Wall sent,
Azlii
is
in
charge
.
I’ll
open
the
gate
when
she
says
so
.

I realized that Wall had only told Home, and Home had only told us about the hatchlings on the plain — which explained why the rest of the corentans had necks aflame with the blue-red of anxiety.

Azlii held up her hand and pitched her voice so everyone could hear.

“Wall has spotted some hatchlings alone on the plain. I don’t know why they’re there. Confusion with the pick-up orders or something. Khe, Nez, and I will go speak with them and see what we can learn.”

The other corentans had gone quiet, listening to Azlii. Now they burst into words, like calling birds at sunrise.

Wall
, Azlii sent,
if
you
would
,
please
.

The gate opened. Nez and I followed Azlii out onto a flat, wild plain. New sprouts of denish and tano poked here and there through the soil. The dirt was rusty brown-red. A copse of trees, their leaves beginning to bud in the same shade as the soil, stood before us. Through the trees we could see a small group of downy, yellow hatchlings huddled together. They stared at us with large, frightened eyes. Thanks to the lumani’s tinkering that made my ears as sharp as my eyes, I heard their soft mewling even at this distance.

Or maybe it wasn’t the lumani’s doing. I could tell Azlii didn’t hear it, but Nez had her head cocked, her left ear hole turned slightly toward the sound. Azlii liked hatchlings — everyone did — but Nez and I treasured them in our hearts. Maybe that made us more attuned.

“They’re crying,” I said, and Nez nodded.

Azlii looked at us. “What are they doing here? They should have been picked up and distributed already.”

“They must be hungry,” Nez said. “They will have licked their eggs dry by now.”

Seeing us, the hatchlings clustered closer to one another — if that was possible — and kept their wary eyes on us. Nez smiled and started towards them, making soft, cooing noises in her throat. The hatchlings watched her come, some shifting foot to foot, but they didn’t run away. Maybe they were too weak to run. They were very thin.

When Nez was about halfway to them, she turned back and waved for us to come. Azlii stayed where she was, but I headed toward the hatchlings, cooing much as Nez had. I walked as fast as I could manage, but didn’t rush, so I wouldn’t scare anyone.

“Who is the bravest among you?” I said when I reached them.

A few looked at the ground, but most turned their heads and looked at one particular hatchling. It stood tall and smiled tentatively at Nez and me. It didn’t have emotion spots yet. Those wouldn’t emerge until it did, leaving its hatchling state behind and becoming a doumana.

Or a male, I thought suddenly. Hatchlings all look similar, not getting their own true faces and bodies until after emergence. This group could be all female, all male, or a mix of both. We had no way of knowing without a closer look. But they were alone and starving; what sex they were was of no matter.

I looked at the bold hatchling. “What’s your name?”

“Darnan.” Its voice was soft and weak.

“What are you doing here? Are there more of you?” The nesting ground was large. There would have been many eggs laid here. There should be more than the twice-four hatchlings standing before us.

“Only us,” Darnan said. “A big thing that moved along the ground came. Doumanas were in it. They grab up everybody until the box was full. They left us behind.”

Nez knelt next to me. Her spots were lit brown-black in anger.

“How could the gatherers leave them?” she whispered.

I didn’t have an answer, only the guess that the gatherers meant to return, but something had happened.

Another hatchling spoke up, drawing me back from my thoughts. “We had eats, but they’re gone.”

Azlii strode up beside Nez and me, and spoke low. “We’ll take them with us. This place isn’t a corentan mating ground, so they can’t stay with us long, but we’ll reason out a solution. We’ll have to find someone who knows how to tell doumana from male hatchling.”

“I can do that,” I said. I’d never seen a male hatchling, but I’d seen plenty of proto-doumanas and thought I could figure out if there was some sort of marking distinction.

“My work in Chimbalay was at a hatchling house,” Nez said. “I know the differences.”

“Maybe we should separate them now, then,” Azlii said.

Nez’s spots flared brown-black again. “You can’t leave any of them here. They won’t survive.”

“Pftt,” Azlii said, but no spots lit on her neck. Whatever she felt wasn’t strong enough to note, or to stop our taking all the hatchlings.

Nez pointed to Kelroosh and said, “That is our living place. It’ll be yours too, for a while. Come on now and we’ll find you something good to eat.”

Even the shyest hatchling grew excited at the thought of food — and likely shelter and company, too. They gathered around us like a soft yellow cloud, and together we returned to Kelroosh.