Crowchanger (Changers of Chandris) (3 page)

BOOK: Crowchanger (Changers of Chandris)
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“And this one?” Casian pointed to the sketch below.

“Esteia. Another desert plant. That flower forms seed pods about so big.” He showed Casian the length of the first joint of his index finger. “The seeds look like nuts—tempting if you’re out in the desert and short of food—but they’re deadly poison. Eat one of them, or just lick your fingers after picking one, and at first it looks like you’ve got a fever. Then you get bruises all over your skin. Eight or nine hours later, you’re dead. It dissolves important parts of you from the inside.”

“Nasty. Any antidote for it?”

“Yes. There’s another plant often grows nearby. Boil the leaves up and use it as a tisane. Works, if you catch it in time.”

“You lived in the desert where next to nothing grows. So how come you know so much about plants all of a sudden?”

Sylas chuckled. “I’d only seen five or six types of plant before I came here, so I found out more about them. And see what section of the library Master Gwysias always seats me in?”

Casian turned to check. Sure enough, they were in the section with all the botanicals and herbals—row upon row of leather-bound books about plants and their uses. Realisation crossed Casian’s face, followed by accusation. “You’re meant to be working.”

“I was. But look at my writing. Everyone else seems to use their right hand, and I don’t. When I learn to make the letter shapes with charcoal, he gives me this stupid thing,” Sylas glared at the brush in his hand as if it offended him. “Why do changers write with brushes? Just because quills are made of bird feathers doesn’t make them wrong, ashini?”

“I love it when you do that.” Casian grinned at him.

“Do what?” Sylas didn’t know whether to grin back or be affronted that Casian wasn’t more sympathetic. Easy for him. From the time he could hold a stick, he’d been tutored to make shapes in a sand tray.

“Use Chesammos words when you get upset or excited.
Ashini.
That’s ‘you understand’ or something, isn’t it?”

“More or less.”

“So how come you can draw with the brush, but not write?”

Sylas tossed the brush to the desk in disgust. “If I knew that I could write better. Different part of my mind doing it? I don’t know. I concentrate so hard to write and it looks a mess, but I switch my mind off and a drawing comes out.”

Casian nodded towards the parchment. “Master Gwysias must think you are coming on, though. He wouldn’t have given you parchment to work on if he didn’t think you were making progress.”

Sylas turned it over to display a piece of work marred with an ugly ink blot.

“The library copyist ruined this piece, so Master Gwysias said I may as well have a try with parchment and ink. But the ink soaks into the page and makes splotches.” He sighed. If a person knew the marks he had made on the paper were letters they could decipher his writing, he supposed. With prior knowledge of the text. And a copy of the original before them.

“And does Master Gwysias know that you’ve been drawing flowers all over your transcription work?”

Sylas’s eyes widened. “Omena’s wings!” His exclamation shattered the quiet.

Casian laughed. “Another Chesammos saying? What’s that one about?”

“Now is not the time or place to tell you the story of Omena Stormweaver. Remind me when I’m less likely to be murdered by a librarian.” Sylas licked a finger and tried to rub out a part of the leaf, knowing as he did that it was hopeless. The edge of the leaf smudged and ran into the damp parchment, and the evidence of his crime stayed firmly on the page.

“That’s never going to work.”

“Omena’s wings,” Sylas muttered it this time, staring at the parchment and clasping both hands to his forehead in despair. “I’m doomed.”

Bad enough that his writing looked like it was trying to crawl off the page, but to draw on his work as well…

“What were you copying?” Casian leaned closer. “An obscure and learned treatise on the nature of kye, by the looks of it. Your version looks like chicken scratches. I’m sure Master Gwysias can only consider it improved by the addition of a weed that can cure headaches.”

Sylas grasped handfuls of his dark hair. “I promised Master Jesely that I would work hard and now this. How could I be so stupid?” He stopped, staring at Casian. “What’s the matter with you? It’s me that’s going to take a switching.”

“Jesely?”

“Yes, I told you I was going to see him.”

“So you did. I forgot. What did he say?”

“He asked about my lessons with Master Olendis and I told him about hearing lots of kye. He said he’d heard of something like that a few years ago and he’d look into it for me—see if he could find out what happened to the other changer. If he never learned to control it, at least I’d be forewarned.”

Casian’s temper showed signs of fraying.

“So he’s still spending time on you. Time he could be using helping me find my higher-level kye. Time that I’m wasting trying to rise to the rank of master while Elyta presses on ahead of me. She will get the next council space and I’ll still be a bloody journeyman!”

“But you can’t be a councillor until you are a master.”

“I know that. But Jesely is far more interested in you. I’m the only Irenthi changer they have—the only one! Don’t you think it would benefit them to have me on the council? And he wastes his time with you. You can’t write neatly but you can draw perfect bloody daisies!”

Casian pulled the parchment from Sylas’s hands and ripped it from top to bottom.

Sylas stared numbly at his ruined work. The harsh words—they meant nothing and would soon be forgotten on both sides. Casian had a short temper sometimes, and maybe what he said was right. Maybe Jesely
should
be concentrating his time and efforts on Casian. But Sylas did so want to be a changer.

“Why are you disturbing my student, Casian Owlchanger?” They both whirled round at the voice behind them. Neither had noticed Master Gwysias’s approach. Sylas licked his lips, reaching for the parchment, intending to hide it beneath the book from which he copied. Casian knocked his hand away and grasped both pieces.

“I was reprimanding him.” Casian held out the parchment. “He has been drawing on his work.”

“I see,” Master Gwysias came closer. A short man, with straggly hair turning to grey, he held the two pieces together and peered down his nose at the writing. “Shocking. Quite shocking.” And then he glanced at the drawings.

“Do you think parchment is in such plentiful supply that you can draw pictures on it, heh?”

“No, Master,” said Sylas, hanging his head and knowing what was coming.

“I don’t see what else I can do for you. I have been teaching you for nearly a year and I can see little improvement. Most novices come to me already able to write better than this. Hold out your hand, boy.”

Sylas turned his hand palm up and waited, anticipating the blow. The length of plaited blade grass, all too similar (albeit narrower, with a sharper bite) to his father’s belt woven from the same, whistled through the air and cut into his skin, leaving a reddened welt across the soft gold of his palm. Sylas could feel his colour rise. It was bad enough to be switched like a child without Casian witnessing it.

“Shows we shouldn’t waste time trying to educate Chesammos, eh, Master Gwysias?” Casian said. “Master Jesely and Master Cowin excepted, of course. For the rest of them, the right place is in the desert, doing what they know.”

Casian left in Gwysias’s company with never a backward glance for Sylas, continuing his pretence of the lofty nobleman. Except it wasn’t a pretence. He
was
a nobleman. Even after all this time, Sylas could never be entirely sure that Casian didn’t believe what he said.

Sylas clenched his stinging palm, aware from bitter experience that the hand would be stiff in the morning. The welt was matched by the blow to his pride, and the sudden pain in his chest was the price he paid for loving above his station. This was the cost of loving an Irenthi.

Chapter 3

Y
estro clawed his way out of the vent and dragged the mask off his face. On the surface, in what passed for fresh air in the ash desert, he could at last stand upright. That had been one of the tightest vents yet. His back muscles shrieked in agony.

He counted his men out of the pit. Each in turn did as he had, discarding the masks that kept the worst of the rock dust and fumes from their lungs. They reknotted their caigani smallclothes, then brushed away the dust that clung to sweat-streaked golden skin and matted dark hair. Another day over—the last of this dig. The last day and all his team alive, thank the Lady.

The pits deserved their brutal reputation. Even wearing masks the diggers took in lungfuls of dust, and when the Lady breathed her poison into the air, their eyes and throats and noses burned. Outsiders said they could tell linandra diggers by the raw, weeping sores where their skin had cracked and peeled away, and by the hoarseness of their voices. Truth was, by the time they got to that stage, they were already marked for death.

But now he and his men had some time. Time to go back to their wives and families. Time to forget the backbreaking work and the pain. Time to live for a while, instead of simply not dying.

They had all lost in life’s lottery, having been selected for the dig teams when they were no older than Pietrig there—the bead fresh in his ear and no more hair on his chin than on his mother’s backside. The Chesammos dug linandra or starved, and Yestro had been chosen. He never complained. What would be the point? But he hoped the Lady understood when his prayers were often filled with resentment.

He licked parched lips, tasting ash. A pile of empty water skins lay some distance from the opening. His last skin now held only a few mouthfuls. They would have no more water till they reached home. A swanflower plant’s watery pulp would keep a man alive for a time, but it was bitter—worse even than the acrid tang of the water in their skins—and often caused pain in the guts. Better to conserve what water they could than resort to swanflowers.

“You thought any more about what I said?”

The speaker was Ilend, Yestro’s second, one of the younger men on the dig party. Yestro took his time retying his caigani and pulled on a loose tunic. He had known this conversation was coming. He scratched at his chin, at the beard caked with ash and sweat. The young men now went clean-shaven on a dig, against tradition. Maybe he should do the same himself.

Yestro picked his words with care. Ilend was fiery and Yestro preferred to avoid confrontation. “I don’t know. We could bring trouble on the whole village. Namopaia isn’t equipped for rebellion.”

Around him, men brushed the ash away as best they could before dressing for the return journey. All the faces surrounding him were drawn. A stint in the desert took it out of a man, however hardy, but despite their weariness they were listening. Whose side would they take, Yestro wondered. Were they preparing for rebellion like Ilend, or like Yestro did they hope for peace?

“That’s nonsense. Namopaia will be more isolated if we don’t join. We’re one of the smallest villages, and the Cellondorans don’t take us seriously as it is. I was nearly refused entry to the wrestling at Cellondora last trip home. They said if we would not stand with them, they wouldn’t fight us in the circle.”

One or two men behind Ilend muttered their agreement. Wrestling was serious business to Chesammos, and a village never turned away any competitor who brought his entry price.

“Their diggers have been hiding linandra for months,” said another man. “They have a bag as big as a man’s fist hidden away. Can you imagine what a stash that size is worth? Enough to arm a village. A small fortune, ashini?”

Ashini? Yes, Yestro understood well enough the value of linandra. The island’s whole economy depended on it. That was why they were out here, digging precious stones to line the pockets of the Irenthi rulers. He tried another argument.

“We don’t have a linandra singer, and trying to sell unsung stones is the quickest path to awkward questions.” This talk of rebellion was foolishness. They were Chesammos. Chesammos used no weapons but the slings that put a coney or a dheva or a sand squirrel into the cookpot from time to time and the knives to skin and gut them. What business did they have, talking of weapons and uprisings?

“Craie’s wife was a singer once, they say. That’s where she got that necklace of hers,” said Ilend. “And the boy’s a sensitive. He’ll be out here, maisaiea-yelai, once the Aerie bring his changing under control. I’ve heard he prefers men. Maybe she’d sing them for us if we promise to go easy on him.”

One or two of the men chuckled at that. Damn it! As if Yestro didn’t have enough to worry about without nursemaiding a boy.

“I don’t know,” Yestro said. “It’s my neck, ashini? The Aerie won’t help us if we’re caught stealing linandra, and if the Aerie doesn’t help us our children go hungry. No, Ilend. Cellondora can play at rebellions, but I’ll not get Namopaia into something like that, not without the say-so of better than you.”

He thumbed open the spout of his water skin and raised it to his lips. The tepid water tasted sulphurous, but he needed it. He restricted himself to a few sips.

“Shame,” said Ilend, tossing a few small, greenish stones on his palm. “That’s what we’ve put aside this time out. You’ve not spotted the scales coming up short and neither will the Irenthi. We’ve been careful. We won’t get caught, maisaiea-yelai.”

“I said no, Ilend.” Yestro wiped his mouth with the back of his fist and held out his hand. “Without the stones the village is not fed and clothed. And if we don’t get the quota then we don’t get the stone Craie needs to put his boy on the way to manhood, and then we don’t get him, changer or not. A sensitive left in the village because we reckon him a child would be a waste, whoever keeps his bed warm.”

“That necklace of Zynoa’s holds enough beads to name men for the next year or more. If Craie doesn’t get one from the elder he can use one of his wife’s. We need swords and bows. If it takes a few empty bellies to get them, that’s what we’ll do.”

“You’ll get us all killed, is what you’ll do. We’ll not defeat the king’s army by putting swords in the hands of untrained men.” Yestro turned away. As far as he was concerned the conversation was over. He would go to Skarai when they returned—get the elder to make them hand over the stones. “I will not sanction this. Do you hear me?”

“You have no choice,” said Ilend. He pulled out the short krastos blade with which the diggers prised the linandra from the vent walls, and slashed it across the leader’s neck.

Yestro put his fingers to his throat and they came away bloody. He fell, his blood soaking into the ash.

“So now I lead,” said Ilend. “We’ll hide the stones and Craie’s boy will find us plenty more. He’s a pretty lad too, eh, Pietrig? I hope you’ll not keep him to yourself. Need to get him to share his favours.”

The young man trying to make himself invisible at the back of the group cast anxious glances at the body at Ilend’s feet. He had received the bead nearly two years before, but he still didn’t shave more than once a week. His golden-brown skin had not yet been touched by the desert, but was smooth and unblemished, if a little green at his first sight of a death by violence. “I—I said I’d talk to him, and I will. But I can’t make any promises. I’d not trade, in his place.”

Pietrig’s eyes flickered and he swallowed reflexively when Ilend levelled the bloody blade at his throat.

“I suggest you find a way to be very persuasive,” said Ilend quietly. “I’m sure Skarai is using his influence to have you taken off the team, but I’m also sure he can get me Craie’s boy in exchange. I need a sensitive to find the good deposits. The boy does us no good at the Aerie. We need to make sure he comes home, ashini? And soon.”

Ilend pushed Yestro’s body into the vent and with a few scuffs of his foot covered the blood-stained ash with fresh. The wind was rising. By the time the lord holder of Lucranne’s guards came to collect the stones, the hole would be covered. They would not see that the vent had become a grave.

He scanned the men’s faces, seeing resolve, fear, sadness. “The lord holder’s guardsmen accused us of stealing linandra and killed poor Yestro despite his denials. Rather than carry his body back, we made a pyre here and gave his ashes back to the Lady like good Chesammos. Ashini?”

He glared at the faces around him, and poked his finger towards them like a dagger stabbing a throat. “Ashini?”

They understood. It was time to stand against their oppressors, and when they had enough linandra to buy weapons the Irenthi had best watch their backs. The Chesammos were a peaceful people, but when you take away what a man has to live for, you give him a reason to die.

Sylas had yearned to fly home. In his mind he pictured himself swooping towards the beehive-shaped houses of Namopaia. His mother would have been overjoyed; he might even have gained the grudging admiration of his father and sister. Stranger things had happened. Instead he found himself bumping along in one of the supply wagons, sent by the Aerie to supplement the foodstuffs provided by the Irenthi lord holders. As he perched on the bench seat beside the Irmos wagoner, it struck him that he now took it for granted that the people around him would wash regularly. Maybe he was acquiring the fancy airs his father had accused him of on his last visit.

He smiled to himself. Fancy. Yes, that was why he sat next to a man who spat out of the corner of his mouth to punctuate what little conversation he made and who stank like a midden. And why, apart from the scenery passing to either side, and the children running alongside the wagon in villages they passed through, his view was of the leathery backside of the pair of draught cheen. While horses were more common, cheen were better suited to hauling loads in the desert, Their thick hides lost little moisture, and their plate-like hooves were more stable than horses’ on shifting ash.

Sylas edged across the seat to distance himself from the wagoner’s aroma and to avoid the flick of the tail of the cheen in front of him. Scaled like a rat’s, it swished away flies less effectively than a horse’s, but if one struck human skin it stung like a whiplash. He already had a weal the length of one thigh.

The swaying of the wagon and the rhythmic clopping of the cheen’s hooves made him sleepy. As he drowsed, he remembered his first trip home from the Aerie.

In those early days, the towers and halls of the changer city were unimaginably elegant. Even the fine weave of the clothing the servants gave him was luxurious. Casian, elegant Irenthi lordling, sniffed at the changers’ linen and wool and wished for the silks and supple leathers of his castle home, but to Sylas it was all bewilderingly fine—a far cry from the Chesammos homespuns that scratched his skin. And the food! Sylas had never seen such food. He felt transported to a land of plenty.

On his first return to Namopaia, the dome houses had been a welcome return to normality. His friends had clamoured to hear of his experiences and his mother had been delighted to have him home. His father, however, had wasted little time getting him stripped to his caigani and packing the molds for the ash bricks. In the morning Sylas’s muscles had ached and his father had complained that he had already become soft.

“Life is too easy for you now. You wait and see; you’ll get flabby round the middle, and your muscles will get weak, and you’ll suffer for it when you come back.”

His father had not mentioned the full thumb’s width that Sylas had grown in his few weeks at the Aerie, but Sylas had noticed. He would be taller than his father, broader too, especially with good food and clean air. Then Craie had best watch his mouth.

He had wrestled with his little brother, Lynto, though he had compared Lynto’s skin and bone frame against the well-nourished youngsters from the Aerie, and had worried for his health. Even his sister, Aithne, had been made tolerable by her excitement over her betrothal to Kael. He had been glad enough to return to the Aerie, but he had not said goodbye without a pang of regret.

Sylas sighed. That had been the last time he had seen Lynto. The lad fell victim to a fever a few months later. By the time news reached him at the Aerie his brother was dust, burned on a pyre in Chesammos fashion with family and friends watching for the spirit to leave his body. He liked to think that Lynto was among the kye. Maybe his voice had joined the many Sylas heard when he reached to the Outlands. Maybe Lynto would link with a changer and fly like a bird.

He would have liked that.

The farther south they travelled, the patchier and scrubbier the vegetation grew until they passed into the desert proper. He and the wagoner both pulled caiona over their faces to block the fumes. It helped with the stink, but it didn’t stop the spitting. Instead the man drew up a corner of the cloth before hawking spittle into the dust to either side of the track. Maisaiea-yelai, the Lady would stay calm for their crossing, and they would reach Namopaia without streaming, reddened eyes or flaking skin on their faces. Sylas pulled his sleeves tightly around his hands. Any exposed skin was at risk, when the volcano vented through the desert floor. They drew closer. He scanned the horizon for the insect-bite nubs that marked a Chesammos village.

BOOK: Crowchanger (Changers of Chandris)
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