Tinder Stricken (35 page)

“
Greeting:“
she read, voice cracking
only once.
“We know great joys this pulse, sensing the approach
of visitors.”

Atarangi pressed her mouth amused; Rooftop,
craned over her shoulder, lifted delighted crests. That seemed to
be the entirety of the message.

“Ah,” Atarangi said careful, “Greeting:
these ones are honoured to be standing before you—
You-the-many.”

Another metal leaf passed through barbels to
Atarangi.

“
Recitation: these ones calling
themselves Human Triad, you negotiated with a land-claiming phoenix
and, through that one, traded goods with my Deeplings. Query:
correct?”

“Affirmative: we did.”

The Abyssal held the next metal sheet —
simply held it. Staring at it with tandem-flicking pairs of its
many eyes. Barbels twitching on its flank, rolling like wind
battered them.

The aides saw the movement and darted to
action — picking up blank-flasks and larger pots, laying their
barbels in probing patterns on the Abyssal's wall-broad chest. They
spoke their veiled fin-frill-braid patterns but tooth clicks
interjected, too:

“
Assertion: they cannot—“

They,
Esha heard in her mind's ear.
This Abyssal was called by
we
and
they
, simple words
that dug toward more.

The Abyssal still stared through glazed
eyes; three round pupils rolled toward the attendants and the
behemoth spoke on clenched, ground teeth:

“
Oncoming.”

They scattered. Venturers came at Esha and
her friends with spread fins, snapping
back, get back;
Sureness was wrapping ropy grip around Esha's arms because her feet
weren't moving fast enough. The Abyssal's finlights jerked and
noise boomed through the cave from its tail slapping the water
flat.

And the noise didn't stop; an earthquake
took hold as Esha and Atarangi and Rooftop and slither-flowing
multitudes of serpents poured from the chamber. There was nowhere
to shelter from the entire crushing earth but the flow of serpents
split three ways and Sureness dragged them rightward, into an
alcove packed against clammy-cool bodies. Rooftop wheezed; Atarangi
murmured; teeth clicked and someone's barbels held Esha tight.

The shaking subsided a few held breaths
later. Serpents unwound from the safe confusion and slid back to
their working positions; one of them instead approached
Atarangi.

“
Query: this one's triad is
unharmed?”

After a hand laid on Rooftop's back, and a
prayer of a glance to Esha, Atarangi said, “Affirmation.”

Esha didn't recall seeing this particular
serpent before — despite their dapples and streaks and watery
colouring sticking fairly well in her mind. This serpent wore his
duty like a satchel weighing on his back, and he wore a silver wire
around his neck — the first jewellery Esha had seen on these
folk.

“
Statement: this pulse is no less
auspicious for being interrupted. These ones are the first humans
to lay sight on the Abyssal's speech tiles. Addition: this one,
Ceiling, is the first phoenix to do thusly in over eight hundred
thousand pulses. The Abyssal receives few surface beings; most are
unworthy to be visitors.”

That explained the confusion, and the
excitement, and the scrutinizing of fingernails.

The serpent tucked his fins tighter. “
No
further tangent shall this one utter.
Statement: the Abyssal
requested that this aide speak on their behalf, if such unfortunate
interruption should occur. Our Great Depth grows infirm. Fact:
these ones have witnessed the consequences of such a righteous
being's infirmity.”

“That earthquake— That was from the
Abyssal?!” Esha blurted.

The serpent gave her a stare like a tin
roof: not sharp enough to cut, just dripping.

“Apologies,” Atarangi said. “Your Great
Abyssal is ill?”

With a little further staring at Esha, the
serpent clicked,
“Statement: in recent pulses, our Great Depth
incorporated additional serpents. Assertion: one serpent disobeyed
protocol; the Abyssal has contracted a mire fluke.”

Grazing in wet places, Esha thought with a
chill.

“
These parasites are removed with a
simple process of healthshifting the affected — condition: under
common circumstances. The Abyssal is nothing resembling
common.”

Bowl-eyed, reaching for herb and pressing
crisp edges of it into Esha's hand while she was at it, Atarangi
nodded. “No, no — statement: the Abyssal is breathtaking.”

The serpent bowed his head.
“Statement:
the ascendence of combining brings gifts. Addition: it brings
burdens.”

“
Colleague?”
A small, reedy aide
approached.
“Great Depth has been stabilized. They wish to
attempt discussion again.”

Clenching his teeth like a bitten oath, the
serpent relented. For the second time, Esha, Atarangi and Rooftop
were led to see the great, unfortunate soul.

The Abyssal laid there, their dozens of eyes
glassy, their neck full of lung fronds labouring. Where they
stretched, Esha could see blue-dark lines like looping veins,
shapes that commanded her attention until she recognised them:
serpents. Entire serpents, laid together like bricks in a
magic-bound behemoth of a god-beast.

Esha gaped. She watched nightmares moving,
she stood beside a thrashing thing of incomprehensible lungta arts
— but her legs were water and somewhere amid everything, a cord of
sympathy tethered her from running. The Abyssal wasn't one
unfortunate soul, but many.

“
Apology:“
came their chorus voice on
hundreds of glinting teeth
, “Did— Not wish—“

They heaved breath. Serpent aides continued
pouring pails of water over their back and rubbing salves on their
wet-wicking skin.

“
Human, Precious One.”

That was Esha. The enormity knew her name;
the rules all leeched out of Esha's mind like water into sand.

“Yes?” came her voice.

“
The surface flower within that one's
cutting tool: had potent corrective lungta. Must request more.
Without— W-With—“

Aides waved their barbels; the Abyssal spoke
no more, only breathed, and the spokesman serpent beckoned them
out.

“
Statement:“
he clicked low,
“without treatment, some of the Abyssal will be lost. In a worst
outcome, our entire Abyssal will be lost. Warning: millions of ( )
live within them.”

That gap of a word overflowed with
inadequate Grewian meanings:
songs, stories, poems, loves,
aches, histories
and all the stitches that held a society in
place.

“
Assessment: The Community would be
blinded in our truth's eye.”

Atarangi answered immediate, as Esha knew
she would:

“Pledge: we will do what we can.”

They gathered around another fire and
another boiled meal, and began scratching ideas into the dirt.
Clamshell brought her chick this time; she sat just beyond the
firelight's touch and put millet globs in the chick's seeking
mouth.

“Our pockets definitely won't support this
effort,” Esha said. “Not even yours, Atarangi.”

She hummed, flat but not disagreeing. “I
don't believe my influence stretches that high up this
mountain.”

“
That lungta flower,”
Rooftop asked,
“we can't find it wild-growing?”

“
Burn red, no fuel,”
Clamshell said.
“All purple-wordsmithing-song flowers of that petal one are in
human troves.”

“They are,” Esha said. She stared into her
bowl. Memories whipped like blizzard snow. The perfumes of orchid
and plum blossom, changing as their soft-pelted petals were chewed.
Oiled treewood put out for others to envy. The glass ceilings of
hothouses, glinting like armour. Nobles on High Plateau lived by
their negotiations but also by their coveting of plants that had
once grown wild beside gumgrass and gwara spit.

Humans decided what and who was worthy, as
though they had any such godforsaken right. As though they held all
of Tselaya in their palms and truly understood its workings, and
all its people. Esha had nearly believed it. For all of her life,
she had guarded her Kanakasipt khukuri and nearly believed it.

“Esha?” Atarangi watched her careful. “What
are you thinking?”

Atarangi's beak tip was luminous in the
middle of her face. She looked fine without the mask. More people
would live whole lives if humans loosened their covetous fists and
learned to look a bird in the face.

“I'm thinking,” Esha said, “that I'm from
the Kanakisipt house. I've seen where they keep the orchids —
they're
guarded
, Atarangi. Guards patrol around the orchids.
Same as rangers snatching up every decent scrap in the forest,
like— like low-castes don't
deserve
more green than a bamboo
shoot's edges.”

“You're saying ...?” Atarangi knew: her
smile was unsure but solid.

“Maybe ...”

This thought chafed Esha's old sense of
honour, the proper one she had endured for no gain.

“Maybe we should take the orchids back. Just
... take them back.”

Atarangi and Rooftop considered. And
Clamshell kept feeding her chick but her crests swelled with
pride.

The plan had enough pieces to cobble
together. Serpents moved underground; surely they could get Esha
close. Phoenix allies could keep watch for guards and other
witnesses. And Esha held gem-valuable memories. With a bamboo
sliver in the dirt, she sketched the Kanakisipt home and
surrounding streets as best she could remember them.

“This all might have changed,” she conceded.
She threw one hand toward the sky, even as she sketched a
performance hall property with the other. “It's been more than
three decades. But they're a traditional family — I don't think
they'll have rebuild Kanakisipt manor just for the sake of it.”

Atarangi studied them, brow furrowed. “I
can't set foot on High Plateau for this plan, Esha. If I'm caught,
I'll be stripped of caste and thrown to the bottom of the
mountain.”

“No, no, you don't need to.”

“
You'll
be stripped of caste.”

“Why should I care? Goats don't have
caste.”

With a press of her lips, Atarangi tried
again. “High-caste properties sprawl out large. The serpents can
earthshift tunnels for us, but still — can your legs manage
this?”

She yanked off one sock. Rusty-red goat fur
and pitch lumps of hooves were Esha's answer; only a few thumbnail
patches of brown human skin showed through.

“They're hurting less. I think they're
nearly done turning.” That meant a cacophony of truths that Esha
didn't care to consider just yet. “Get me to a wall's edge with a
selfrope in my hand and this goat holding me up, and I'll
manage.”

Nodding, her smile trickling back, Atarangi
said, “This sounds like a blood-racing hunt you've got planned,
Esha. We'll need more counsel to make it work, though. Rooftop?

“
Am your kin.”

“Go visit our serpent friends, if you would.
I've got some questions I'd like their answers for.”

Chapter 23

Esha's sandals barely held between her goat
toes. She stuffed them into her satchel, never to be worn again.
She wore only her socks, with packing jute wrapped around them to
obscure shape.

“I'll just make myself out to be elderly,”
Esha said, weaving bamboo leaves and sticking them with pine pitch.
The effort was different from her dollmaking but the leaves were
melding together into a passable enough mask. “No one with a gram
of tact accosts a stooped old woman trying to walk on her turning
legs.”

Picking the finer fabrics out of her own
supplies, Atarangi looked to Esha. “Even on High Plateau?”

“They've got decency that high up, I should
hope.”

betel for dye. Fashions some of Atarangi's
packing material into a cloak, since it's actually pretty nice
fabric.

“This might draw stares,” Atarangi
ventured.

“It'll draw plenty of stares. Doesn't
matter.”

With thinning lips, Atarangi swallowed more
concerns. “If you're stopped by a guard, you should have some sort
of contingent. A seamless excuse, or at least a distraction.”

“Seamless? I'm not a house to be
caulked.”

By the fire, preening her chick while
plainly listening, sat Clamshell.

“I can think of a fine distraction,
though.”

Clamshell pledged her support — she did owe
Esha the use of her wings. And as Esha's disguise came together,
Rooftop came fluttering back up the spiral ramp Tied into his
stringfeather was a silvery leaf of serpent writing, a strange
partner to his diplomat's tag.

Serpents wouldn't need to earthshift new
passages, he reported: there were already tunnels leading up to
High Plateau's elevation. They were a pilgrimage path leading to a
sacred place; clearance to visit that place was granted without any
further need to ask.

“
Also,”
he said,
“Sureness and
Nimble give their orange-bright kinship. They want to
help.”

“Thank you, dear kin.” Atarangi stroked his
neck, so he leaned into the touch. “Esha will need all the allies
she can gather.”

Wrapping her orange-patterned sleeping
blanket into a cloak, Esha said, “That's always been true.”

Down in the Community, the venturers all
scrutinized Esha's disguise, and made notes, and asked scribes to
amend the notations on the landholder phoenix. Clamshell was going
to benefit, Esha realized, from this human-aided orchid theft. Fate
had a way of working in circles.

With Sureness and Nimble flanking her, Esha
went before the Abyssal's aides. The sacred path began at the
Abyssal's chamber and climbed like a cliff ivy, up into the
mountain heights that serpents spoke of with clipped awe.