Ever (18 page)

OLUS

^“
W
HAT DID YOU DO
with Kudiya?” My strong wind jolts me down to face Puru, the well basin behind me.

“That . . . wasn't . . . Kudiya. . . .”

“Who was he? Where's Kudiya?”

“Kudiya . . . is . . . attending . . . the birth.”

I look. There he is at a feast table in the brother village, feeding grapes to a laughing young woman. No broken leg. No bloody head. “Who was in the well?”

“A . . . vision. . . .”

“Did you create it?”

“No. . . . I . . . saw . . . it on its way. You flew into your destiny.”

I saved a life that wasn't living. After the bees and the spiders, I should have guessed.

“But . . . the . . . earth . . . truly did heave.”

A pig dashes by, bleating its distress. The villagers are lucky to be away.

“Where is Kezi?”

“In . . . Wadir. . . .”

Dead! Only my strong wind keeps me erect. I command it to fly me to Enshi Rock, where I will begin my
long sleep. My wind lifts me.

“Becoming . . . a . . . heroine. . . .”

I drop back down. She's alive among the dead. I can't see into Wadir. None of us can.

“And . . . you . . . are . . . a champion.”

Am I? I evaluate myself, searching for what's altered. In all ways I feel the same, except . . . I go to a collapsed hut and crawl into the small opening that remains. The inside reeks of sheep cheese and sweat. I feel no fear. If Kezi were at my side, I could be happy here. I squirm out. I could be happy in a walnut shell—with Kezi. Now I can bring her to Enshi Rock.

I'll go to her. “How did she reach Wadir?”

“The . . . tunnel . . . is . . . gone.”

“How will she leave?”

He tells me about plucking the feather and neither eating nor drinking. The task seems simple enough.

“She . . . seeks . . . Admat . . . there. If she stays long enough to sprout her own feathers, she cannot leave.”

I have to find her.

“If . . . you . . . help . . . her, she won't become a heroine. If you enter the volcano, you will not be god of the winds.”

I know that. Entering the volcano means going under
ground.

“In . . . Wadir . . . you . . . will not be a god at all. You will be as mortal as Kezi. After a while you'll grow feathers and become a warki. Then you'll never leave.”

KEZI

I
PRESS MY LIPS
together and don't drink from the brook. On my second try I leap across without falling. The warki splashes through behind me. We approach the warkis who are dining. When we're close, I see their food is mud. Yet they eat with gusto, dipping bone spoons into bowls of mud soup, gnawing on mud drumsticks, and devouring mud flatbread. A warki offers me a plate of mud chops.

Is it spiced mud? Is there any goodness in it? I'm so hungry! I turn away.

I leave the diners and continue to follow the lava bubbles. Holding its goblet, the warki—my warki, as I've begun to think of it—accompanies me to a cooking area. A warki stirs mud in a cauldron. Another hefts a mud pig shape into a clay oven. As they work, they jabber at each other.

From the strange kitchen my warki and I walk past a washer warki who dumps a sack of feathers into a vat of boiling violet liquid. A jeweler warki rolls mud into beads. A dilapidated rug loom stands idle. Next to the loom is a basket of feathers.

A potter warki coils mud into plates, just as potters do in Hyte. This seems ordinary and reasonable, so I speak. “Is Admat here? Can you direct me to him?”

“Lomiknbju.”

Beyond the potter, pairs of warkis perform a hopping dance, holding hands, leaning into each other and then away. They roll their hips and shake their shoulders.

I can't help stopping to watch, although I shouldn't delay. The dancers are awkward but enthusiastic. How odd that there's no music. Yet they keep perfect time with one another.

My warki never stops smiling in spite of its sad eyes and the gloom that's so thick in the air, I can almost eat it.

I keep checking my arms and legs to be sure I haven't sprouted a feather.

We enter a forest of dead pistachio trees. Dry, brown leaves and bunches of blackened fruit cling to the branches. Light from the lava bubbles barely seeps into the forest. A bubble touches a high branch and bursts. Drops of lava fall on the leaves. One drop lands on my hand, a warm splash.

The trees thin. I glimpse a shining building in the distance. A clearing opens. The building is a copper temple, no taller than I am.

This temple resembles ours in Hyte, which also has four stories, each story smaller and shorter than the one below. An outside staircase zigzags from level to level. The sanctuary is a square on the roof. A copper man as tall as the length of my arm steps out of the sanctuary door. He takes a pose on the threshold, his left leg lifted, his left arm raised.

The pose may be meant to threaten or inspire awe, but I swallow a laugh. He wears a short skirt. A length of cloth is draped across one shoulder. Taking slow steps, he descends the stairs.

Maybe his pace is slow because the hinges at his knees are poorly made. He creaks.

At last he steps down from the final stair. For politeness I sit to face him at eye level—but he begins to grow, and the temple behind him grows too.

I stand and scramble back.

My warki cries, “Zaqwerfybn!”

When it reaches its full size, the temple is as vast as the one in Hyte, and the copper man is at least eight feet tall. His hinges disappear. He looms over me.

The warki is babbling in a singsong rhythm. I turn to see it bob up and down in time with its jabber. The copper man leans down and thrusts his face close to mine.

His eyebrows are low. His eyes, which seem to stare at my chin, are rubies set in white marble. His mustache gives his mouth a downward curve. His curled beard hangs down his chest.

I look for a shred of kindness in his face and find none.

His voice rings out, like cymbals. “Greetings! Welcome to Wadir.”

He's uttered words! Not gibberish.

“Th-thank you, Master.”

“I am delighted to see you.” He speaks without showing his teeth. “I am glad my high priestess brought you.”

Oh. My warki is female. And the high priestess. Is he the high priest or more than a priest?

“M-may I ask two questions?”

He smiles a close-lipped smile. I wonder if he has teeth or a tongue or anything else. He may be copper skin over air.

“You may ask.”

“What day is today?”

“It is the ninetieth day of the twenty-fifth month, a Lurday.”

I've never heard of Lurday. And months have only thirty days, and there are only twelve of them.

How long until my sacrifice?

“Master, have you heard of a god named Admat?”

“I am called by many names. Admat may be one of them.”

I throw myself on the ground but keep my head above the feathers. He is nothing like the Admat I've imagined. “As you wish, so it will be.”

“As I wish.”

The holy text says:

But I must find out if this is Admat. I'm so afraid, only breath comes out at first. Feathers flutter upward, and I have the additional fear that I'll sneeze. I force the words out, “F-forgive me. Are you invisible in the upper world?”

“Certainly.”

He doesn't seem to mind my test. “Thank you. Are you visible only here? Only to warkis and to living visitors like me?”

He roars, “My warkis live!”

The warki prostrates herself at my side. “Rgnjioplder.”

“My high priestess is not dead! I am not the god of the dead.”

Silence. I wait, then venture to raise my head. “Your worshipers”—I spit out feathers—“are blessed. Does your rule extend to Hyte?”

He shouts, “My rule has the height of the rock sky. I command all things beneath it.”

He's not Admat. “You are mighty.”

If these warkis aren't the dead, then where do the dead go? To the west, as I was taught?

Admat may still be here, somewhere else. And I may
be years searching for him. I should pluck a feather and leave.

“Arise.”

The warki jumps up. I stand too. I wonder if the copper god might have water that's safe to drink and food that isn't mud.

His voice is pleasant again. “My worshipers come seeking the dead.”

Is that why their eyes are sad?

He goes on. “I persuade them to stay. Then they keep one another here, for company.”

Puru said the warkis would try to hold me.

“And why not remain? My worshipers live eternally, an easy life, joyous and without care.”

Ouch!
Something has pricked my arm. I look down. Aaah! A feather has sprouted! My stomach turns. I yank out the feather. Another pushes through the same pore. A gray warki feather. I would throw up if any food were in me.

Maybe Puru was wrong. He may not know. He said he's never been here. Maybe one feather isn't enough. Quickly I pluck a feather from my warki's arm.

“Wsdrghuk!”

I hold out the feather and nothing happens. Perhaps I
have to use it somehow.

The copper god thunders, “What is your name?”

I can experiment later. I thread the feather through the weave of my tunic an inch below the neckline.

“What is your name?”

“Kezi.”

“Look at me!”

Startled, I do.

“Your name is not Kezi.” The ruby eyes bore into me.

His eyes are flames. Oh! My head hurts. The flames! I can't close my eyes. I see Olus, ablaze. My parents, ablaze. Aunt Fedo, ablaze. Hyte, ablaze. Consumed.

I see black smoke that pales to white.

The smoke clears. A huge golden man, a god, stands before me. “Your name is Eshar.” His voice is kind. “Welcome, Eshar, my new warki.”

I am Eshar.

“Riffguhjip.”

I turn.

A feathered creature offers me a goblet.

I'm so thirsty. I take the goblet, sniff, look inside. The liquid is violet, odorless. “Thank you.” I fill my mouth.

For an instant the drink is unbearably sour. As I start to spit it out, it turns sweet and fruity. I down the entire
draft.

The world spins. I stagger and almost fall.

The ground is no longer thick with feathers. It's now a grassy meadow dotted by tulips. Everything is bright. The lava bubbles are as brilliant as tiny suns.

The woman with me has friendly brown eyes. I don't know why I thought she was feathered when in fact she's wearing a wool cloak. An extraordinary cloak, like a rug with the yarn left long. I reach out to study the workmanship.

She lets me finger it. Soft. Warm.

“Are you hungry, Eshar?”

“Yes.”

“Come then.”

I can't simply leave the god who named me. “All praise . . .”

His back is to me as he mounts the steps that lead to his golden sanctuary. But wasn't the temple copper a moment ago? Wasn't the god copper?

I shrug. The god and the temple are gold now.

“Come!”

I follow the woman through a forest of pistachio trees. The unripe nuts are a cool green.

The woman says, “I am Taram, high priestess of Wa
dir. Eshar is such a pretty name!”

I rub my arms for warmth and wish I had a cloak like Taram's. My tunic is much too flimsy for the chilly air. A band of wool circles my right arm above the elbow. It's the one part of me that feels warm and looks proper.