Three Seeking Stars

by Avi Silver

  “I’ll meet you up there, okay?” Sohmeng pressed her forehead against Hei’s, not caring if she got smeared with charcoal.

  “At the top of the world,” Hei murmured. “Are you ready?”

  Sohmeng laughed a little. “You’d think waiting nearly five years would make me more ready than ever. But I don’t know. I just want it to work.”

  She kneaded at Hei’s arms, taking a deep breath. Realistically they would see each other come nightfall, but Sohmeng’s plans had gone wrong enough times for her to be cautious. Still, it filled her with warmth to know that Hei would be there, playing the role of the adults receiving the batengmun. Their time together had been Sohmeng’s Tengmunji; it only made sense that they would help her with this final step.

  She bonked their foreheads together. “Don’t feed Ahn to Green Bites the second I’m gone, alright?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. We need him to shoot the arrow.” The spark of mischief in Hei’s eyes made Sohmeng glow like wovenstone. Their parting kiss was hungry and lingering; it made Sohmeng even more determined to fix the bridge and get back to them soon.

  After a final nuzzle, Sohmeng went to find Ahn, who was loading the last of the supplies onto Sølshend’s back. He was speaking with the sãoni in quiet Qiao Sidhur, stroking the creature’s back encouragingly. The happy rumbles made Sohmeng release a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

  “Need any help?” she asked.

  Ahn tightened one of the rounds of rope, looking over his work. “I think that’s the last of it, actually. But I appreciate the offer.”

  For a moment they were both quiet, Sohmeng watching Ahn, Ahn watching the sãoni. After all that time trapped together in Nona Fahang, she wasn’t sure how to say goodbye to him. They’d barely figured out how to say hello before all this mess began.

  “Ahn—” Sohmeng sighed heavily, giving up on words. All of this sentimentality was getting exhausting. She stepped up on her toes and yanked Ahn down in the same way she had when they first met, rubbing their cheeks together. “Thanks for everything, okay? Be safe.”

  Ahn returned the gesture with a little smile. She wasn’t sure what was more unexpected, the lack of stammering or the faint scratch of stubble on his face. Hei’s skin was always smooth. “Same to you, Sohmeng.”

  With the future of her home at stake, Sohmeng’s racing thoughts found a hundred good reasons to delay, a thousand different conversations to make them wait just a little longer. They had put so much into this moment, and she feared the possibility of something going catastrophically wrong. She steadied herself, searching for the feminine boldness that kept Par so close to her heart; avoiding the risk of failure only ever came at the expense of the opportunity for success. It was time to be brave.

  So the day began.

  The two teams reviewed the plan one last time over a light breakfast, with Tonão Sol looking over everyone’s practiced knotwork for securing the bridge. With the group’s confidence built up, they turned to the sãoni.

  By the blessings of the moons, Mama was incredibly mellow about Hei and Sohmeng directing the colony. The alpha had come to treat the new humans like a group of adopted hatchlings; it didn’t bother her when they played and explored with the rest of the colony. Hei suggested that starting the excursion in her formerly hard-won territory was playing a part in her calm demeanor, but they could make no promises about when she might cut their games short and start migrating. Once the bridge was reconnected, Hei would come straight back down to try and keep her still for as long as possible.

  Following the alpha’s laid back lead, the sãoni they had trained as mounts were happy to set out on a new adventure. Except, of course, for Green Bites. Splitting the party meant parting him from Singing Violet, which Hei managed in a feat of strength and stubbornness that earned them a bite on the thigh for their trouble. The snarl Mama directed at her children just about scared the humans out of their skin, but it also made the difficult sãoni back down. He even offered Hei a begrudging nudge as they bandaged up the shallow wound.

  Sohmeng couldn’t dream of wrangling the sãoni with such ease, but with Hei split from the group, the humans looked to her as their new leader.

  “Okay,” she said, holding tight to the belt she’d attached to Singing Violet. “Who’s ready for the scariest ride of their life?”

  Sodão Dangde hadn’t gotten any less vertical since Sohmeng’s last sãoni ride up the mountain face, and the terrified sounds of her companions was a walk down memory lane. Frantic praying, nauseous moaning, the occasional shriek—all perfectly reasonable, though Sohmeng hoped they at least took a second to enjoy the view.

  Between encouraging shouts for them to hold on tight and wait until you’re off the sãoni to pee your pants, Sohmeng guided Singing Violet with Sãonipa directions. The rest of the sãoni followed her lead, cheerfully scrabbling up the rocks while their riders held onto their rope belts and each other for dear life. Her father clung to her so tightly Sohmeng thought she might burst, but his shaky laughter gave away the sense of wonder that he had passed down to her.

  Everyone was grateful to reach the plateau. As a merciful and compassionate leader, Sohmeng allowed them a moment to kiss the ground and throw up as necessary. While they prepared for the next stage of the climb, Sohmeng gave each of the sãoni their treats as reward for a job well done.

  “Couldn’t have done it without you,” she murmured to Singing Violet, kissing her on the nose.

  Once everyone unloaded the supplies from the sãoni, Sohmeng sent the creatures on their way. There was no need for them to wait when the party would be crossing to Fochão Dangde instead of coming back down. Sohmeng stood at the edge of the cave, facing the same stretch of sky where she had first told Hei she was Minhal half a cycle ago. This time, the journey to the caves’ entrance would not feel so lonely.

  That didn’t mean it came without challenges. Even with the sãoni’s boost up the most treacherous leg of the mountain, there was still a lot of walking to be done. Six people needed a lot more check-ins than two, especially when four had never been up so high and one was trying to climb on a wooden leg. Sturdy as Tonão’s prosthetic was, it had not been designed with long hikes in mind. But years as one of Ateng’s traders made him familiar with the route, and he had come prepared with a cane to balance his weight and some medicine to manage the pain.

  “I’ve had worse,” he assured Sohmeng as he worked his way over a rocky patch. “It’s worth it, for where we’re going. And I have Polha to help me cross when we get there.”

  Spirits were high as everyone made their way to the trader’s entrance. Sohmeng thumbed the flowering vines affectionately. The slot in the mountain had felt like such a secret when Hei first brought her here, but now it was simply another door, being used as though they were just another group of traders come home from a long journey. Sohmeng supposed that was true of her father, at least.

  The man grunted with effort as he worked his way through the tight rocks, supported by the other scouts. Despite the fact that half of the party were essentially strangers to her, Sohmeng was grateful they had come. Tonão’s longing to return home was obvious, but she could also see the life he had made for himself in Nona Fahang. She understood the need to have one home meet another.

  It happened all at once, bold sunlight yielding to Ateng’s persistent darkness. Wovenstone glowed in welcome, and Sohmeng felt herself glow right back with pride to hear the others murmur in awe. Maybe it wasn’t a banyan fortress, but these mountains, these caves, they were her home.

  “Give your eyes a moment to adjust,” Tonão said, but Sohmeng was already heading toward the winding system she had walked through once before. “Sohmeng, where are you going?”

  “Just getting a head start,” she called back, peeking around one of the walls.

  “Not sure where to,” he replied. “That’s not the right way.”

  Sohmeng frowned, resting her hand on the cool wall. That couldn’t be true.
She remembered Hei standing right here, remembered the thick vein of wovenstone behind the shadowed silhouette of their body. She didn’t think she could ever forget the image of them slipping into the blackness. But then she remembered Hei’s words as well: too narrow, too unstable. Easy to get lost in.

  “My bad,” Sohmeng said, splaying her fingers against the boulder that protected the privacy of Hei’s childhood. Some secrets did not have to be shared. “Glad you’re here with us, Dad. I’d have brought us right into a dead end.”

  The trader’s route Tonão took them up was easier by far. The stairs had been carved with care through wide-walled passages, and there was no need to do the same sort of intensive climbing as last time. Still, the unforgiving stone began to take its toll on Tonão, who was sweating as he chewed on one of the painkilling leaves. Sohmeng stayed by his side, looking for ways to distract him.

  “How did you know you wanted to be a trader?” she asked him in Atengpa. The language was like cool water on her tongue, the relief of speaking it amplified by its familiar echo off the walls.

  “It wasn’t an obvious decision,” the man admitted, wiping his forehead. “I was a timid kid, scared of absolutely everything. During my Tengmunji I made up my mind to spend time with people who were braver than me, so I might have a chance at being a brave adult. Naturally, I gravitated right to Lahni—who was delighted to have a shy boy to do her bidding! Especially with no elders around to make her give me a break.” His laughter made Sohmeng smile, biting her lip. That sounded like her mother. “Falling in love with her was easy, but I always assumed she was far out of my league. Imagine my surprise when we returned to the hmun and the Grand Ones suggested us as a match. Imagine my surprise when they said it had been her idea—supported by her assertion that there was no one in the hmun who made her feel more secure than quiet, scared Tonão Sol.”

  “Not so quiet and scared anymore?” Sohmeng asked.

  “That’s what they told me,” he said. “When Lahni was put on the trader’s path, I requested to join her—mostly because I wasn’t sure what else I wanted to do. But the moment my feet touched the ground, I fell in love with Eiji. Perhaps even more than she did. So we never stopped. Even after you and your brother were born, we relied on the good graces of our parents and neighbours to look after you while we were on rotation visiting the nearby hmun.”

  As he told the story, Sohmeng’s smile faltered at the reminder that her parents had always known about Nona Fahang. About another life that could have existed for her. Sohmeng bit her cheek; she’d started this conversation to take her father’s attention off of the pain, not make things hurt more.

  “What’s wrong, little trouble?” The question made Sohmeng cringe. She had never been good at hiding her feelings.

  “It’s just... why didn’t we all go to Nona Fahang when I was born?” she asked, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Why did you have me hide instead?”

  For a moment, all she heard was the sound of her father’s laboured breathing, the knock of his cane on the stone stairway. “Your mother and I were scared,” he finally said. “We had planned you for Hiwei, but you came so early, and—and we didn’t know what to do. The thought of exile was impossible—what about Viunwei, or Grandmother Mi? Lahni’s mother died before you were born, but you remember your Grandfather Tos. Would we leave him behind too, without his family? The situation was much bigger than any one of us.” He paused to rub at his sore thigh, the pain on his face illuminated by wovenstone. “You’re right—if anyone could have survived exile, it was me and your mother. We probably could have gotten you to Nona Fahang. But we were scared, and when Grandmother Mi offered us an easy solution, we jumped for it. Fear made a child of me, and I listened to my mother. I know...I know we should have considered the effect it would have on you. It’s why I was so against it when Lahni told you the truth.”

  “But I’m glad I know!” Sohmeng insisted, surprised by her own vehemence. “Everyone has the right to know who they are. Without that, how are they supposed to figure out who they want to be? There’s no way to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you started.”

  “Wise words.” Tonão smiled, ruffling her hair before continuing the long ascent. “Where, ah... where do you suppose you’d like to go?”

  Sohmeng hesitated. There were so many answers to that question.

  “Par?” he asked. “Minhal?”

  Sohmeng sighed, tugging at her bangs. People always made that sound like it was such a simple question. Especially when they were comfortable with their own birth phase. “I feel like both, I guess? Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but I feel like both of them at once.”

  Tonão caught her eye, nodding with unexpected understanding. Maybe even approval. “You know, in a hmun to the west, farther west than I’ve ever travelled, they treat the two phases as one. They call it Parminhal.”

  Parminhal. Sohmeng felt her stomach flip. There was no way to describe the sensation of home that came with imagining those two distinct phases merged into something new. Perhaps something of her own.

  With every step, Sohmeng felt herself changing, and the space around her seemed to reflect it. The staircase levelled out, the walls slowly widened, and the wovenstone grew brighter, guiding the party with celebratory light. Every corner was overflowing with different kinds of mushrooms, bouquets of bounty that had grown in the years left undisturbed.

  When the echoes of their footfalls changed, Tonão halted the party.

  “We’re just about at the main hall,” he said. “Sohmeng, Eakang, both of you wait here.”

  “What?” To Sohmeng’s horror, they had both shouted in unison.

  Before they could protest, Tonão halted them with an uncharacteristically firm look. “Sohmeng, you have already told us about the batengmun. Their bodies need to be moved, arranged with dignity before the rest of the hmun arrives. This is not something you or Eakang should have to do.”

  “I’ve already seen them—” she began.

  “And for that I am sorry.” Tonão took her cheek, looking at her with a pained sort of affection that reminded her of Viunwei. “Please let me be your father about this.”

  Sohmeng swallowed, thinking of the first time she had seen her friends’ bodies curled up around the cold fire pit. In truth, she didn’t want to do that again—maybe demanding to be treated like an adult was an old habit she needed to break. Maybe it would be nice to be a kid for a minute. “Okay. Sorry.”

  Once the adults left, Sohmeng and Eakang were stuck alone together. Sohmeng had been speaking with her father in their shared hmunpa for a lot of the journey so far, savouring their time together back in Ateng. Now she sat in awkward silence, tracing patterns on the floor while Eakang gawked at the glowing walls.

  “It’s, uh—it’s called wovenstone,” Sohmeng said, trying to fill the space between them. “It grows everywhere in this mountain range. Gives us light and stuff.”

  Eakang perked up. “Do you make anything out of it? Or does it just stay on the walls?”

  “We don’t just hack it off for any reason, but we do use it. The Grand Ones grind it up into a powder they put in mountain marrow, which is this drink that only they can have. It’s supposed to help them get closer to the gods, but I think it smells kind of foul. Oh, I also have wovenstone dice—” She took them out of her pocket, jostling them in her palm. “They were a gift from my Grandmother Mi, when she took her Grand One’s vows. They’re the nicest thing I own.”

  “Your craftspeople probably can’t make too much new stuff, huh?” Eakang asked, peering at the dice. Taking pity on their twitching fingers, she passed the little stones over, trying to manage the anxiety of sharing something so important to her. “Resources are scarce when there are only two mountains.”

  “Yeah.” Sohmeng watched them turn the dice in their hands, careful and curious. She hadn’t expected Eakang to understand value this way, having come from such a land of plenty. Maybe her father had taught them. Or
maybe they were less oblivious than she thought.

  “...thanks for letting me come with you, Sohmeng.”

  “Uh, yeah. I mean, you were pretty good with the sãoni, so...” Sohmeng rubbed at her arm, not sure what to do with the sincerity of their gratitude. “And like, I guess it makes sense because my dad’s pretty much your damdão. So that means you should probably meet my brother and grandmother and stuff, because I met your moms and Kuei.” Burning godseye, this was all coming out so clumsily. Why was it so hard to be nice to this kid?

  “I’m really excited!” they said, handing back the dice.

  “See how excited you are when you actually meet Viunwei.” Sohmeng couldn’t help smiling as she said it. It had been so long since she’d seen her brother that she found herself missing him more often than she cared to admit.

  Eakang laughed a little, but their expression betrayed a nervousness Sohmeng hadn’t seen before. “Um, Sohmeng?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Should I not tell anyone that I’m Minhal?”

  The question took Sohmeng aback. For a second all she could do was stare at them, trying to shape a response on her tongue. The guilt on Eakang’s face made her wonder just how hard they’d been straining to try and find words they understood in her and her father’s Atengpa. Apparently they’d caught at least one.

  “Maybe—maybe you’re the wrong person to ask this,” they quickly backtracked, looking at the floor. “I don’t want to be rude, I know it’s a hard subject, but I just...I’m not sure what to do.”

  How strange it was, seeing this dilemma on another person. Young, uncertain, eager to be wanted and cared for by a new community. “Do you want to tell them you’re Minhal?”

  “I don’t know what else I’d do,” Eakang admitted. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”