Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) (7 page)

“There’s no need for you to go.” Azlii leaned forward, setting her forearms on the table, bumping the bowl that had held her evening-meal.

“And you shouldn’t,” Nez said, reaching out to push Azlii’s bowl safely away from her angry arms.

“But I promised Simanca an answer,” I said. “If we leave without my giving one, she won’t traffic with Kelroosh again — that’s the way she is. Lunge is too large a commune for us to lose their trade.”

“Pftt,” Azlii said. “Once you tell her you won’t be staying in Lunge, she’ll blame ‘those corentans in Kelroosh’ and won’t traffic with us anyway.” She leaned further forward. “You are going to tell her ‘no’ aren’t you?”

I’d thought over that question since the moment Jit, Stoss, and Thedra had returned to Lunge, and I thought it over again now.

If I didn’t go back, Kelroosh would get no provisions.

Simanca didn’t want me back in our community out of love. She wanted me in the fields, once more pushing the crops so that Lunge — and she, definitely she — would benefit. Simanca knew any day could be my last. She likely thought she might as well get what she could while she had the chance. Simanca was a cold-necked doumana and I owed her nothing. I’d left Lunge to live the last year of my life under my own control. If I went back now, it would be as if everything that had happened had been for nothing.

Not nothing. With Larta’s help, Azlii, Nez, Pradat, and I had stopped the lumani and driven them from our world. The only changes we seemed to have made were now some communes were afraid to decide which crops to grow or what colors to dye their fabrics, and hatchlings were left to die at the mating grounds. It didn’t look like an improvement to me.

And there was something else. Lunge was my first community. The place where I’d emerged. Where I’d stayed alone while my sisters went to Resonance, but where I’d also found joy with a hatchling named Han, and discovered myself. I missed the fields and orchards. The structures. Even the nasty-tempered preslets that gave all birds a bad name. Part of my heart would always be at Lunge. I ached to see it one last time and feel its soil beneath my feet. How could I not go?

Azlii scratched her knee idly, her movement pulling me back from my thoughts.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “Khe should go — and offer to stay.”

“No!” Nez glared at Azlii. “You would sell Khe, who you claim as sister, for a few handfuls of grain and a gallon of awa juice?”

“Khe should return to Lunge,” Azlii said. “We’ll get our provisions, and we’ll steal her back. Simple.”

I stared at Azlii, too. Corentans had their own ways of thinking, but this was impossible. I could never tell that sort of lie.

Nez drew her eyebrow ridges together. “How would we get her out?”

“Have you both turned to babblers?” I said. “I can’t break my word if I give it. Nez, you know that’s wrong.”

Azlii kept her eyes on Nez as she spoke, as though I wasn’t there, or was merely furniture, or a crop whose distribution needed to be decided.

“Simanca will send her back to her unit,” Azlii said, her voice as confident as if she had already seen the future. “Khe will draw us a picture of Lunge’s structures, where everything is. I saw her unitmates when they came yesterday. They feel guilty about how Khe suffered. They feel partially responsible. They won’t try to stop us.”

“What if they don’t keep her with her old unit?” Nez asked.

Azlii thought for a moment. She turned to me. “Can you whistle like a redtail?”

“Finally, the chair is asked in which corner it would like to be placed,” I said. “I thought perhaps you and Nez would decide my fate just between the two of you.”

One spot on Azlii’s neck fired purple-gray in concern, then winked out. “It’s a good plan, Khe, but of course you don’t have to do it. You can stay with us. I’d rather you did. We can find food somewhere else.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. The truth was, at this time of year, Lunge was likely one of a very few places with enough extra to trade it away.

Azlii leaned toward me. “Once the provisions have been delivered, Nez and I will come for you when everyone is sleeping. If you’re not with your unit, I’ll start whistling like a redtail. You answer the same way. We’ll know where you are.”

Redtails were common beastlets around Lunge. This time of year they could keep you up half the night with their distinctive call.

“That’s flimsy,” Nez said.

“It’ll work,” Azlii said, “because as selfish as Simanca is, she’s not sneaky. She gets what she wants through threats and intimidation, not stealth. No one in Lunge would ever consider that Khe might escape a second time.”

Nez was nodding, listening to the plan, and her spots glowed with the white of satisfaction. She reached up and touched her throat. “Good thing Khe’s spots no longer light. They won’t give her away.”

I stared at them both as if I’d never seen them before. I had never seen them before — not like this, doumanas who wanted me to lie, who schemed to get what they wanted from Simanca without giving up what they wanted to keep. How were they any different from Simanca, who would bend
The
Rules
of
a
Good
Life
until they broke to get her way? Azlii was corentan, and didn’t think as a set-place doumana would. Azlii already thought nothing of getting the best end of a deal, never considering fairness. But Nez was set-place. It wasn’t just me the lumani had changed for the worse.

“Do it for the hatchlings,” Azlii said, “because in truth, we can’t feed them if we don’t get provisions now. We’ll have to leave them behind.”

“Simanca will be glad to have them,” I said, though a small twinge shot through me at the thought of leaving them with her.

“She won’t,” Azlii said. “We both thought she would, but Wall listened to her talking with her unitmates as they were leaving Kelroosh. Simanca said they have too many hatchlings now, with you gone. Unless you come back and push the crops, they won’t be able to acquire the new fields they need to give those hatchlings work to do once they emerge. And if there’s one thing that’s true about our kind, it’s that we need something useful to do.”

“Simanca thought she’d have me through this year. She made her plans based on that.”

Azlii shrugged. “Seems that way. She certainly won’t be happy if we try to drop an extra eight hatchlings with her — even if she thinks she has you again.”

My lips bent in the weakest of smiles. “Whistle like a redtail. I can do that.”

Home sent,
Be
very
careful
,
Khe
.

My scalp was sweating as we left Kelroosh for Lunge. I was a commune doumana at my core, and Simanca had been my source of guidance most of my life. I’d come to see that some of
The
Rules
of
a
Good
Life
were there for the convenience of our leaders, and that some were profoundly true. The Rule that came to me now was ‘Betray not those who love you, for the wound to their soul is forever.’ I loved so many. Who did I love most?

A fine drizzle fell from a low gray sky. The doumanas of Lunge were gathered at the edge of the commune, spread out in a quiet line, their plain gray cloaks pulled tight against the chill air. I spotted Jit, Stoss, and Thedra. Their eyes locked onto me and didn’t let go, but their necks were hidden behind collars since Azlii was with me, and I couldn’t see their true feelings. A fallow field lay behind the doumanas — rich, brown soil stretching back to the hub of structures that had been my home. Only the Lunge hatchlings couldn’t keep still, bouncing on their feet or weaving side to side from the excitement of it all.

Nez and Azlii walked beside me. Azlii wore her trader’s collar and one of the Bethon Blue cloaks she planned to offer Simanca in exchange for extra food. She’d said there was nothing like showing a doumana a luxury to make her begin craving it. I slowed a step. Nez put one hand on my elbow, as if she feared I would fall and wanted to be ready to catch me. I blew out a deep breath and picked up my pace.

I’d expected Simanca to walk out to greet us, but she stood her ground, waiting until we crossed onto Lunge before she drew a smile on her mouth and raised a hand in welcome.

“You have returned to us,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You’ve made your sisters very happy today, Khe.” She glanced at Azlii. Her eyes focused on and then roamed over the rich cloak that covered the corentan’s shoulders. “Come. We have a small feast prepared. We’ll eat and then discuss your needs.”

I didn’t need to see Azlii’s neck beneath the collar to know that she, too, had caught Simanca’s meaning. Lunge had enough food for a feast. Azlii was the beggar at the table. I was not all the payment Simanca now wanted.

The tables in the communiteria had been pushed together to make one long plank. Simanca led Nez, Azlii and me toward the end furthest from the door. She took the seat at the head and motioned for us to sit to her right. Her unitmates, Tav, Min, and Gintok, took the seats to her left. I looked for Jit, Thedra, and Stoss, craning my neck to see over the doumanas pouring in the doors until I saw them. I wanted my commune unitmates to sit next to me, but those seats were already taken.

I stared down at the table and felt the eyes of all my sisters, those who had been my sisters at Lunge, boring into me. Because Azlii — a corentan — was there, every doumana in the room wore a collar. All except me. There was no reason for me to, and Nez had pointed out that Simanca and the doumanas of Lunge would feel more comfortable and trusting if they thought I had nothing to hide.

But I thought Nez was wrong. It could make my commune-sisters nervous and wary, seeing no emotion spots light on my neck. Just as my unitmates had, my commune-sisters would ask themselves if Khe felt nothing at returning to them. How could she feel nothing? Was something wrong with her? The answer to that question was one I didn’t want to give.

I could only hope that Jit, Stoss, and Thedra had already told my story. Simanca would have demanded to know everything that had been said between us, so at least Simanca and her unitmates knew. Had she told everyone, or kept the knowledge to herself?

Simanca looked down the table, caught Thedra’s eye, and nodded slightly. Thedra rose. The room went quiet and she pulled herself up tall and began to sing.

Her clear, high voice sailed through the room. She sang a song I hadn’t heard before, a song of the land of Lunge stretched out warm and brown in the sun, of the brave new shoots that pushed from it and grew. It seemed that every note came straight to me, wrapping around me like a blanket, enticing me to stay.

Nez nudged my side and shot me a harsh look. I saw her suddenly with lumani eyes — the purple-gray of concern, the muddy-green of jealousy, and the orange-yellow of confusion filling her outline. The gold cord that I saw only between the two of us streamed toward me.

I shifted my glance to Azlii, but she was only herself. When I looked back at Nez, she was herself again, her head slightly cocked, a question in her eyes.

Thedra finished her song and sat down. The doors between the food prep area and the eating room of the communiteria burst open and doumanas pushing food carts came into the room. The sweet scents of kiiku and mern and the sharp spice of truleer filled the room — so strong it was like a fog, something you could almost see. The same unit who’d done this work when I’d lived here did it now. Why would it be any different? I had left Lunge, but life here had gone on as always. I tried not to feel sad.

The sisters rolled the carts up to the long table and doumanas began selecting the dishes they wanted. Conversations started. Azlii kept her head down, eating, looking up only to comment on how delicious everything was. Simanca had been clever. She’d always gone to Kelroosh to trade, traveled into Azlii’s territory. Now Azlii had come to her, which gave Simanca the advantage.

Not everyone had finished eating at the long table, but Simanca had. I’d picked at the food on the plate, pretended to eat it. If anyone noticed that my plate was still as full as when the meal had started, no one mentioned it, or eyed my plate and then me.

Simanca pushed back her chair, metal legs scraping across the wood floor, and stood. “Please join my unit at our dwelling,” she said to Azlii and Nez — and me by extension. “We can discuss our business there.”

Azlii, Nez, and I rose and followed Simanca and her three unitmates out of the communiteria, and across the small commons. I saw Stoss’s eyes following us as we left.

My chest felt squeezed as Simanca opened the door to her dwelling. It looked the same as the last time I’d been there — the walls in the receiving room painted light-green, the furniture and rugs richer than those the rest of Lunge’s doumanas had, the visionstage new and large.

The first time I’d been here was when Pradat had come to test me and confirmed my talent to make things grow. I’d come again when the first extra age dot had appeared on my skin. Thirty-five of the dark blue dots lay on my wrist now, but I was not thirty-five. I was thirteen. I wanted to scream the number in Simanca’s face.

“Nothing’s changed.” Simanca spread her hands, silently inviting everyone to sit. “Lunge has the provisions you want,” she said to Azlii. “Tell me what you need and what you offer in trade.”

I realized that Simanca’s “nothing’s changed” wasn’t directed my way, but at Azlii. Azlii wanted food. Simanca wanted me.

Azlii smiled, and I knew she’d understood exactly what Simanca meant. She shifted in her seat and made a small show of removing the Bethon Blue cloak and laying it across her knees. I watched Simanca’s eyes follow Azlii’s movements.

“You have three unitmates,” Azlii said. “As it happens, I have four cloaks on offer.”

Min’s, Gintok’s, and even Tav’s gaze flew to the cloak spread on Azlii’s lap. They had likely already reasoned that Azlii would offer it to Simanca. But for each of them to have their own — it was too great a luxury to be given up now that it seemed within their grasp.

I sat with my hands folded in my lap, felt how my neck warmed, and listened to Azlii and Simanca dicker out the trade details. In the end, Azlii had secured enough food to keep Kelroosh, including the eight extra hatchlings, going until Harvest Season. Simanca had promise of five of the seven cloaks — I wondered what she’d do with the extra one — a quantity of meat from the best beastkeeper commune, and a new, small harvester, to be delivered before Harvest Season began. I didn’t need to see beneath Azlii’s collar to know she felt cheated and used because of the desperate state Kelroosh had fallen into.

I felt something else from Azlii though, a deeper satisfaction. My lumani vision came and I saw Azlii bathed in the ice blue of pleasure in another’s woes. She was looking forward to stealing me back from Simanca. That would be her revenge.

Little beads of sweat erupted on my wrists. I didn’t like that I half looked forward to it as well. That wasn’t the sort of doumana I’d thought myself to be. Except perhaps I was.

The negotiations completed, Azlii, Nez, and I rose to leave. I wanted to visit my old unitmates in the dwelling we’d once shared. It would be my last chance; after Azlii came to get me I’d never set foot on Lunge again.

“Min,” Simanca said, “start making arrangements for the goods to be transferred to the corenta.” She smiled thinly at Azlii. “We should be able to complete delivery by tomorrow night.”

“Our gates will always be open to you,” Azlii said.

“Should I go with them to help?” How easily I slipped back into my role as a Lunge doumana, waiting always to serve Simanca’s needs.

“Stay, Khe,” Simanca said, her voice the most kindly I’d heard it in a long time.

I shrugged goodbye to Azlii and Nez, watched them leave with Min, and waited to hear what Simanca wanted. Tav heaved a loud sigh, rose, and left the room, pulling her collar off as she left. Simanca nodded almost imperceptibly to Gintok, who was standing behind me.

Arms shot around from behind my back, pinning my own arms to my sides. I tried to turn and break free, but Gintok had braced herself somehow and I couldn’t move. Her hold tightened. Simanca burst across the room and threw her newly acquired cloak over my head. Bethon Blue filled my eyes. A hand grabbed the cloak at the back of my neck, drawing the fabric close over my face. The fabric was thick. It was hard to breathe.

I twisted and turned and tried to stomp on Gintok’s foot, but she was stronger than I would have reckoned, and I had been weakened by what the lumani had done to me. I felt Simanca wrap something around me, rope maybe, pinning my arms to my side more firmly than even Gintok had, and constricting my chest. I gasped, trying to get air. She tied something over my mouth, forcing a fold of the cloak between my lips. Blood pounded in my head. I yelled, but only a strangled sound came out.

My feet left the ground, lifted between them, one taking my shoulders, Gintok — I thought — and the other my feet. They grunted under my weight. I thrashed and made as much noise as I could. One of them yanked hard under my arms and Gintok said, “No use yelling. No use struggling. There’s no one to hear. No one to help.”

Simanca had planned this. She’d likely sent all the commune doumanas to their dwellings and ordered them to stay inside. She’d have an explanation for my unitmates as to why I hadn’t come to see them.

Or were they were in with Simanca on this scheme? A tremble ran across my shoulders.

I heard the door slam shut as I was carried outside. Cool air chilled me where the cloak didn’t cover my legs. Thrashing my body was wearing me out. I stopped fighting and let them carry me, saving my strength for the moment when they would have to put me down.

“Upstart little doumana.” Gintok’s voice, as cold as snow water. “Who do you think you are?”

The sound of running feet. Slap. Slap. Slap. Ragged breath. Azlii? Nez?

“Open the door, Min,” Simanca said as we came to a halt.

Grunts. A groan. “It’s heavy,” Min grumbled.

Hinges, unused to being moved, squealed. Thud of something big and hard hitting dirt.

They set me on my feet and someone loosed whatever bound me. I flung my arms wide, hoping to hit one of them and then run. Min, I guessed from the feel of her hands, grabbed my wrists and pulled them together, pinning them together over my chest. Someone else held my upper arms tight to my body. The cloak still covered my head. I couldn’t see where I was.

“Ready?” Simanca said. “Now.”

A hard shove in my chest, and I fell through chill air, arms and legs failing. I landed in a heap on a hard surface. I tore at the gag that stopped me from yelling and tied the cloak over my face. Before I could tear it off, I heard a door above me slam shut.

I knew where I was the moment I got free of the cloak. Even in the oily darkness, the smell came to me. Roots — chiva, by the musky scent, harvested before Barren Season and stored for preslet feed during the cold time. There were several root caches on Lunge, but we hadn’t come far from Simanca’s dwelling. I knew which cache I was in, and how deep it was, how solid and heavy the door that sealed it.