Tinder Stricken (36 page)

The spokesman serpent saw them again; he
gave Esha another tin-roof stare but considering this time, black
eyes roving over her supplies piled onto a serpent-made wheeled
chair.

“Statement: this one suggests ambitious
effort.”

Esha chose to take it as a flat-spoken
compliment.

“
In addition, however ... Keynote: this
is deception against your own race. The taking of lungta plants is
also cause for retaliation. Query: will there be repercussions for
you, Precious One?”

“If they catch me,” Esha said, flat as
tamped snow, “yes.”

Atarangi's hand laid on Esha's shoulder.
“Sister, what a change in you ... But if you're caught with
nameplates or property tokens— Well, please let me hold those for
you.”

Untying token-heavy pendant cord from under
her clothing, Esha shot a sidelong glance to her. “Don't trade them
all for one plate of dumplings.”

“I'll make no promises,” Atarangi laughed.
And she drew Esha into a hug and, briefly, Esha was happy and
entirely warm.

Then Atarangi left, her cloak and topknot an
outline burned into Esha's recognition, her face more memorable
than her mask had ever been. Atarangi had promised to guard
Clamshell's chick like her own child: that was a promise she spoke
like her own personal hymn.

Rooftop landed on Esha's shoulder, the wind
making her flinch but his weight oddly similar to Atarangi's touch.
“We will meet you at the top, kin. Blue-grey underground places
are not meant for phoenix kind.”

The spiral ramp was already narrow for
Rooftop's tastes, barely allowing his wings at full spread; it
followed that he didn't want to chance anywhere smaller and neither
would Clamshell.

“Alright,” Esha sighed. “Don't get shot by a
guard before I get there.”

“
No, no! I need to help, to keep you
safe. Yam-growing is hard: you need to help.”

Esha wouldn't be doing much of that in the
summer to come, with the rate black hooves were creeping over her
cuticles. But she left Rooftop the comforting illusion.

With Sureness and Nimble for company, and
her wheeled chair full of supplies, Esha began. She went where the
aide serpents led — past the Abyssal, who watched her pass with
dozens of smiling eyes; past the rock tables crowded with flasks
and tools and lichen stems; into a tunnel entrance unlit and nearly
invisible.

“
Statement:“
the spokesman said,
“this holy path has few lights, that a serpent may feel
connection to the earth. Direction: speak few sounds. This human is
admitted for a practical purpose, but show no lack of
respect.”

“
Statement: this one, Sureness of Azure
Triad, will ensure it.”

“
Statement:“
Nimble said, honest but
stumbling,
“Nimble will assist.”

That was all: the spokesman fanned wide in
agreement. They began the climb, with Nimble leading and Sureness
behind, balancing the wheeled chair on his back. As darkness took
hold, Esha had only their finlights for company — and her own
thoughts, and the anticipation knotting her gut.

Journeying up to High Plateau would take a
week for a noble, lounging in a yak-drawn cart and eating herbed
candies. A cannier — or poorer — person would scale the spires. If
heaven favoured them, a skilled messenger might traverse the spires
from Millworks to High Plateau in fewer days than they had fingers
on one hand.

By serpent roads, Esha made the climb in a
single day.

It was dark as a moonless night, broken only
by blue-glowing algae dotting the ceiling. Water trickled, its
echoing consuming the space, its dampness slick underfoot. Esha
slipped a few times, skidded on the unforgiving surfaces, until she
yanked off her socks and let the goat's hooves make themselves
useful. Traction wasn't an issue for a serpent: their bellies
gripped with a sound like a village's worth of hands trailed over
the stone.

She took a cold meal, a ball of rice cloyed
with herbs; the serpents crunched some sort of dried pondweed cake.
They kept on. The algaes spread to cover the ceiling in luminous
mats, nearly bright enough to drown out Nimble's finlights.

“
Statement: we approach the
Stillwaters.”
Sureness clicked hardly louder than the echoing
water.
“Advisory: Precious One, you will look upon the
transcended forms of many serpents from time past. Touch nothing
without permit.”

“Alright,” Esha said. “Are they anything
like the Abyssal?”

Sureness paused, chewing over the question.
Esha's things clicked as he rounded an especially steep step.

“
Statement:“
Nimble replied,
“transcended serpents are somewhat like the Abyssal! They are
finlight-luminous. Additionally: they are wise.”

“
Statement:“
Sureness decided,
“transcended ones are not so large. Enough discussion. Request:
silence.”

The climbing went on, more setting of hooves
and heaving up onto them, trying not to stumble and land on
Nimble's tail fin. The algaes spilled down the walls now, bright as
a blue dawn, and after a final great step upward they were on a
plateau. A plateau that was the mouth of a cave, filled with
halcyon water and shining with the light of a mushroom forest.

“These are—“ Esha breathed. “
These
are serpents?”

“
Correction:“
came Sureness's soft
clicking,
“these ones were serpents.”

She walked toward a mushroom, mouth agape
and her hands clutching one another to keep out of trouble. Its
curving stem and wide-fluted cap — which jutted toward Esha,
chest-high on her, looked more like glazed statuary than any fungus
she had ever seen.

At the water's edge, Nimble clacked a
greeting — to the serpent swimming toward them. She straightened
tall as she left the water and Esha couldn't catch her gasp before
it left her mouth: this serpent glowed bright because her head fins
weren't tendrils at all, but bulbous strings of luminous mushrooms.
Her eyes glowed, too, as pale as sky.

Sureness spoke to her immediately. He
gestured with fins and braided barbels came rapid; the old serpent
listened, squinting mild.

“
Request:“
Sureness clicked,
“given the situation, this human, Precious One, must be given
all possible accommodations. Elaboration: Precious One can only
comprehend toothtap. Request: speak in basic forms, and forgive her
returning in kind.”

“
Affirmative,”
the old serpent said.
Then, turning her unearthly gaze to Esha, she circled her barbels.
The sight settled wrong in Esha's gut and, hoping to dislodge it,
she gestured namaste. The two movements were nearly the same, said
the lungta's hazy grasping: the old serpent clicked delighted.

“
Salutation:“
she said,
“I know
your vibration! Be at peace here, guest. I am named Fathoming.
Query: what accommodation does this one require?”

Under that glowing gaze, the plan stuck in
Esha's throat.

“
Request:“
Sureness clicked,
“this
triad-of-circumstance must travel to the highest altitude possible.
But being human, Precious One cannot breathe water, not even one
breath. Query: can you spare some lungta toward the task,
mentor?”

“
Revelation: what a pulse this is!
Assurance: this one will assist.”

Turning back to the water, Fathoming hunched
and touched barbels to the stone. With an earthshifting tremor, she
summoned stone in a current like pouring molasses, a path that
stretched over the water. She slithered onto it, pushing the path
farther and farther onto the blue-limned water.

Earthshifting was still a miraculous art, no
matter how many times it was performed before Esha's eyes. Nimble
and Sureness followed Fathoming. On hesitating feet, Esha took one
step and found the path solid as any other masonwork. So, she
followed.

“
Delight,”
Fathoming clicked up
ahead.
“A not-serpent with a reverent heart, fit to see the
Stillwaters! This one hoped to see it while I still have eyes.
Statement: eyes are only one sense, however. Suggestion:
compassionate barbels will hear these transcended ones humming the
secrets of life.”

Looking around at the crowds of mushroom
caps and lichen boughs, Esha could nearly believe it. “I don't have
barbels, though ...”

Sureness jerked to a halt, so Esha stumbled
to avoid his backside barbels: at the front of their procession,
Fathoming stood tall on her coiled self, craning back at Esha.

“
Query: the filaments behind that one's
head-nodes and horns — are those not barbels?”

“No,” Esha stammered. “No, they're hair.
They're ... yaah.” She had never even considered how to explain
hair to a fish. “They're ... limp things. They sense a little but
only when something directly touches them.”

“
Truly?!”
Nimble stood and craned,
too.
“So many filaments! They have such limited use?”

“Yes, they do. Ask the gods why, because I
don't know.”

Fathoming slithered closer. She raised a
barbel to touch something Esha couldn't feel and assumed to be a
single wafting hair, and she scraped teeth, astonished.
“Statement: the elders said this one would learn something soon!
I was correct not to question them.”

After winding around corners and through
mushroom-caked passages, the water deepened black and Fathoming's
path reached a wall.

“
Assurance: this one will forge a new
path. Have patience.”

Fathoming slipped into the water with one
consuming splash, and swam mercurial into the depths.

They waited. Nimble slipped into the water,
too, and swam circles to inspect every mushroom. Time dragged on;
Esha's knees were free of pain and she had nearly forgotten what
that felt like, but the tension of it all chewed harder at her.

She sat down. After another eternity,
Sureness set the wheeled chair aside and coiled comfortable. Waves
lapped against the cave walls in time with Nimble's tail. Mushrooms
bobbed as the waves touched them — hundreds of mushrooms at the
waterline alone, Esha guessed. Thousands upon thousands in the
entire cave. After moments spent trying to count, Esha rested on
the thought that untold serpent lives came to rest in this peaceful
catacomb, with Fathomless watching over them. It sounded like a
fortunate end.

It grew harder to think as rumbling stirred
a familiar panic in Esha. She watched the wall past Sureness's
light-tipped fins. Tremors gathered, earthshifting focused — and
the rock melted away in the wrong place, metres to the right of the
path.

Fathomless snaked her head out.
“Happenstance ... Query: is this located near enough?”

“
Assurance: it appears serviceable!”
Nimble swam over, the rush of his tail rattling off the walls.

Esha's breath caught as she looked down into
the water. The bottom wavered indistinct, looking temptingly near
but Esha had witnessed Fathomless winding down and down. “I— I've
never swam in this much water before ...”

“
Assurance:“
Sureness said,
“terrestrial paths are best suited to that one's needs.”
And
without another tapped tooth, he put barbels to the path and pushed
its stone perpendicular along the wall, to meet Fathomless's
opening. With Esha's chair replaced on his back, Sureness continued
on — and tapped Nimble's nose with a barbel as he passed.

Esha wanted to laugh, at the way Nimble
scrunched his face and flailed, splashing. The laugh couldn't leave
her throat, though. She was remembering the goal again, and feeling
the weight of her patched-together plan.

Fathomless had opened a worm's path through
solid rock, a dark, stifling corridor that grew darker as
Sureness's breadth blocked it. They crept through, and ended up in
an open cavern the size of a mid-caste's house. Metal mesh held
soil but not enough to block every mote of light: the cavern was
suffused with daylight faded as if by time. Water trickled down one
wall, feeding a pool full of leafy weeds. Esha wondered if
Fathomless lived here, or if she was as eternal and unsleeping as
the mushrooms.

“Affirmative. We stand now at the edge of
serpent territory.” Fathoming cocked fins. “Hypothesis: this is a
holy place for humans, as well. Query: that is correct, Precious
One?”

“It's ... it's a revered place, you might
say,” she managed.

Taking his considering gaze off the ceiling
mesh, Sureness eyed Esha.
“Query: Nimble, are you prepared?
Precious One, you as well?”

“I ...” She couldn't possibly answer that.
The glare on mountaintop snow, washed pink and blue and silver with
lungta was more than Esha was prepared for.

“
Reminder: the phoenixes must be
signalled! Addition: consuming more lungta would be
prudent!”

“He's right,” Esha said with the weight of
relief.

After the serpents earthshifted a small
shaft to the surface, Esha gave them her broken khukuri blade to
lay on the ground. It would be innocuous not to draw guards, but
reflective enough to catch a bird's eye — and Rooftop would
recognize the blade Esha had used around all of their evening
fires.

Esha's meal was her last gob of rice wrapped
in a chapatti stale as dust, topped with enough crumbled lungta
herbs to nearly hide the taste. Such scraps wouldn't let Esha speak
with the choral lungta of a diplomat, but she might at least sound
like she belonged on High Plateau. The millet meal, rice and herb
might shore up her body long enough to carve some kind of mark onto
the world.

They finished eating, and waited. Then a
croaking rang down the shaft:

“
Precious One? Deep-hiding?”