Tinder Stricken

  And with that, Esha was alone, but not forgotten as long as the three phoenixes stared at her. Two on perches, one sitting in the corner. She kept as still as a new deer fawn for the first long moment. The phoenixes were trained but Esha wouldn't know how to command them if they took a liking to the hearth fire's embers.

  She had to move eventually. Breathing normally, and shifting her stiffening legs. If they noticed, they didn't react. A few times, she made and broke eye contact with the beasts — dreading that such staring would offend the phoenixes, like it did vicious dogs — until after long moments, the phoenixes all turned away from her. They hopped away with explosively quiet flutters of wings and clicking of claws, to a dish on a sitting table where they ate whatever morsels Birdnose had left them. Esha was left to memorize the bamboo stalks patterning the walls.

  The lock scraped again, and the door revealed the animist — wearing her carved mask, the firelight letting amber hints of her eye colour through. Amber just like Birdnose's eyes were, and set in the same tall-framed body, too. The pointedly ordinary Tselayan clothing was gone, replaced with tiers of rough plant fibre. Her diplomat caste sigil hung from a ladder of bone beads. She was tall and curvaceous and layered with stories: this was the foreigner that Esha had been expecting.

  “I greeted you under the wrong name,” the animist said, her delicate-nailed hand trailing off the door handle. “With greatest respect, I would like to correct it.”

  This was too familiar a voice. Like a puppet, Esha nodded, while she began to understand.

  “If you came seeking tar or weeds, I would be Birdnose. But to you? No. As long as I practice animism on this mountain, call me by my truer name: Atarangi.”

  “Your sister ... Isn't a sister at all? Just your other name?”

  “Another name and another face. I trust you won't speak of my dishonesty to any passing guard.”

  “By gods' eyes, I promise.” No one would believe that a farmwoman hadn't come looking for Birdnose's goods, anyway.

  “And call me only by Atarangi, while I show this face.”

  “I will, good diplomat. Will you hear my request now?”

  “Tell me. I will make tea.”

  Against everything else that had happened, it was strange to see Atarangi the diplomat stoking an ordinary cooking fire, squatting and shoving sticks of bamboo into the coals like anyone else would.

  To begin the story, Esha gave small, stumbling truths. She was farming caste, she said. Grown into a woman on the fields of Janjuman Farms, with yellowmeat yams in her hands. She wasn't always farming caste, and her retirement was now bearing down upon her.

  “Your troubles sound heavy,” Atarangi said.

  “We've all got troubles.”

  Atarangi thought on that. Then she asked, “About your place in the world, you said you weren't always farming caste. Did you marry away?”

  “No,” Esha said, with practiced calm. She longed for a hot cup in her hands but Atarangi was just now placing a kettle on the coals.

  “Mm,” Atarangi said. She snatched a glance at Esha, before fussing with some tea leaves.

  With her mask in the way, it was impossible to read her face. She was impossible enough to read before, as Birdnose; her brows hardly needed a mask over them. Esha felt her own horns and ears bulked under her headwrap; she tasted the old terror-bile of turning away from the mountaintop; she considered giving Gita's story of disavowment, instead, because Esha knew that story as well as her own but it hurt a little less.

  “This isn't what I came here to tell you,” Esha said. “I'm here to have a phoenix captured.”

  “It took something precious to you,” Atarangi repeated.

  “A khukuri. It bears the Kanakisipt name, which is valuable enough. There's a resin jewel in the hilt with a preserved speaking orchid in it, for those who don't trade in names.”

  Atarangi glowed with interest. “I have heard of the Kanakisipt family's history in diplomacy. Haven't been graced with a chance to speak with them yet, or sample their variety of orchid. Maybe someday.”

  “Are you being received well on Tselaya, good Atarangi?”

  Her smile twisted wry. “I have been granted a caste rank and allowed to set foot on the mountain. Such is all the beginning I need.”

  “We have many rules to learn.”

  “Ah, but that is true anywhere. You are Grewian, yes? Butter in your tea?”

  “I'd like that.” Esha was beginning to realize how little she had eaten today, a trouble that buttered tea could balm.

  “So you have lost a Kanakisipt heirloom ... You are Of The Fields, though.”

  The silent question was a needle through Esha's heart. Strange, after all this time, that she hadn't built a thick enough callus.

  “I've met them,” she said, “when I was a child. They're talented, but they keep their warmth to themselves.”

  Picking up the teapot, refilling Esha's cup with golden liquid, Atarangi offered, “I've always wondered about that — the lineages of higher climes being so reluctant to share their warmth with a neighbour. Doesn't seem like it would make a community strong.”

  “That's what the lungta diplomacy is for.”

  “You've negotiated with a Kankasipt?”

  “I don't have that kind of skill.” Esha had no more to say than that.

  “Done them a service, then?” Atarangi asked. Her gaze was level behind the mask, harvesting her thoughts far from where Esha could see them.

  “It's a family khukuri,” Esha said again. “How I got it truly isn't the point, Atarangi. Please.”

  “Apologies.”

  Esha swallowed, and went on. “It's a fine tool on its own, worth thousands even to a cheapskate. But if a person wished to smash the resin jewel and extract the flower, the lungta could do far more valuable work than that. You're a diplomat — you must know more about it than I would.”

  “I do. And phoenixes have a taste for lungta, too. Tell me more about how you lost this khukuri, Gita — I think I should meet this phoenix.”

  Perfect, Esha thought. And in a steady voice, Esha told Atarangi of the night she went trapping and caught only herself.

  During the story, one phoenix left on a rattling of feathers, up through the ceiling vent; the others stayed and watched Esha with their head tipped curious. Esha tried to ignore their presence and focus only on Atarangi's masked face.

  “You spoke with a phoenix on your first attempt?” she wondered. “You're no animist, are you?”

  “No,” Esha spat. “I just— I was scared, I did it to save my life.” It wasn't her first attempt speaking with a beast, but her second. She held that in confidence and hoped it wouldn't matter.

  Atarangi sipped her tea. “The phoenix clearly wanted the knife?”

  “It did.”

  “And the knife was more valuable than anything you were hoping to catch.”

  “I shouldn't have brought it — I was foolish. But I was only thinking of human thieves.”

  Atarangi waited — perhaps for Esha to go on, perhaps just to consider what Esha was saying. Her gaze had sharpened again, prying for answers. Esha drank deep of her tea, and watched a phoenix nearby eating some morsel from a tin plate. There were several plates of plant trimmings in the room, now that Esha noticed them — betel shavings, bamboo sprouts and juniper berries laid out pleasingly with gumgrass garnish, but apparently meant for the birds to eat. It must have kept them mild-mannered, having food whenever they wished.

  “Regardless of where it came from,” Atarangi said like she hid a valuable coin in her mouth, “the orchid-tipped khukuri was something the phoenix decided she wanted.”

  Esha pushed old heartsores out of her thoughts; this was business. “I couldn't understand everything the bird said. I'm no animist.”

  One of the phoenixes chirped, a sudden and shrill sound in the small, warm space. It chirped a repeating note and then trilled, long and warbling; Atarangi glanced sharp to it but didn't reprimand the bird. She in
clined her head and considered Esha again.

  “Tell me again what the phoenix said. Everything you can remember, as much as you understood.”

  Esha was pierced already by all the questions, full of holes and sick of answering. But she waved a frustrated hand and repeated it again. “I wish I could recall what it was babbling about colours. Crawling-something-yellow. And something-purple-song ... I don't know.”

  Atarangi lit behind her mask. “Purple-song? You're sure you don't remember the meaning that came before that?”

  Esha sighed. “I'm surprised I remember that much.”

  Setting down her tea cup, folding her knuckles together and examining the shadows between, Atarangi said, “That's an interesting development, Gita Of The Fields. When phoenixes speak of purple-song, they're usually referring to flowers from much higher up Tselaya, the sort rich in speaking lungta. If a phoenix is finding purple-song blooms this far down, I'd be remiss to guess where.”

  Esha nodded. Any valuable flowers that showed themselves on the lower plateaus were whisked into hidden, stone-walled hothouses. Only the higher, prestigious plateaus kept their blooms under glass for all to see.

  “If this phoenix you met is able to recognize a high-mountain orchid, and name it a purple-song flower ... Well, it must be flying between plateaus. Not unusual on its own — they'll travel if they're looking for food for their chicks, or new seeds to plant in their home territory. But a phoenix that confident in identifying an orchid as song-food, coming down to Yam Plateau, speaking with a strange human and snatching her metal tool ... That's definitely unusual.”

  “It's a valuable phoenix, then?”

  “It spoke with you. Outside its comfortable territory, it met a strange human and in a matter of moments, agreed to do what you asked.”

  “What of it?”

  “That's not what phoenixes do, my good yam digger. They have their own rules and for some reason, this phoenix broke the rules for you. I can't say why this one did it. But you might be the only human he or she is willing to speak to, regarding this traded object. I might need you to come journeying with me.”

  Mouth filling with bitterness, Esha looked away. “I'm not young enough to travel. My legs are ...”

  “Beginning to change?”

  Esha took another deep gulp of her tea. The animist's gaze pried at her, no doubt thinking that Esha didn't look old enough to be shifting so dramatically. She had the wind-worn face of a field worker but she was certainly no greying elder.

  “Your joints? Really?” Atarangi's eyes were curious as bright stars.

  “The real issue here,” Esha said firm, “is that I'm in no condition to travel. But I need the travelling done. That's why I need the khukuri back, that's why I'm offering you good property.”

  With a considering hum, Atarangi shelved her curiosity and returned to dignified grace, raising teacup to her mouth. “A phoenix from higher up the mountain ... I'll need to know where he or she came from, any information you can grant me. Which direction did this phoenix fly?”

  “I …“ Esha shook her head; cardinal directions had been the last thing on her mind while she dangled helpless in that trap. “Maybe if I went back there and looked at the trees, I could say? Does it matter?”

  “If it tells me which plateau the phoenix lives on, then yes, it matters. Unless you're paying me to comb every plateau between here and the skypeak.”

  Esha definitely couldn't trade for that. She sighed harsh. “Could I just bring you to the scene? I have traps left to check, anyway—“

  “What?” Atarangi’s eyes were suddenly cold knives. “You didn’t check all of the traps?!”

  “Well, no! I—”

  “If you didn’t like hanging there helpless for hours, surely no other creature would!”

  “They’re just—“ Esha held her tongue before saying just animals. The tagged phoenix stared at her, just as unsettling as the whites of Atarangi's eyes. “I— I didn't have time! If I didn't report to work ...!”

  Atarangi stood, and snatched the near-empty cup from Esha's hands. In one fury-smooth motion, she tossed both cups of negotiation tea into the fire's ashes to hiss and gurgle.

  “Go check the last of your traps,” she said. “We can talk when you’re not tormenting living creatures.”

  She said no more, nothing to oil the silence. The door slammed behind Esha and she was alone in the alleyway dark again.

  She straightened her headwraps in the moment she took a considering breath. She was going back to the Farback, then. Tomorrow. Or, her sore heart suggested, maybe tonight. Before negotiations broke down, Esha had been starting to like the calm, two-faced animist — and besides that, she was in no habit of giving up.

  Chapter 5

  If Esha was going to spend another short-rationed night of sleep tromping along her damned trap line, she was going to have a hot meal first. She kindled a quick cooking fire and made chapatti bread, and slathered it with butter and sesame seeds, and devoured it with all the grace of a lardback pig.

  That would be the one blessing of the goat taking her: she could eat whenever she liked. Eat any plants she found, right out in the open, because goats cared for no laws or licences. They didn't care about looks, or bloodlines, or about other goats' mates and whether those pairs were blessed with kids. And as a goat, Esha would be able to sleep, too — oh, what she would have paid for a day entirely made of rest.

  Maybe, the thoughts said, tumbling too fast to stop, it would better if Esha walked out into the forest and never came back. Like penniless folk did. If she needed to lie and sneak and fight for every rupee, maybe it would be best to bear her transformation cold and alone.

  Let’s not give up. We’ve done enough giving up.

  That clear shard of Gita's voice brought back more memory — the impossibly clear-edged sight of her falling; her wide eyes; the phoenix's struggling. Gita had been a steady current of heaven's wind in Esha's declining life. Gita had been ambitious and clever, and she thought Esha deserved to retire: she died for that belief so it had to be true.

  With the last embers of the cooking fire, Esha lit a juniper branch and put it on her prayer stand, humming a hymn while the perfumed smoke twirled. Gods watch over this next wretched plan of hers, she prayed. Let her have a little luck, just a little, despite the wrongs she had committed. Her ankle bones felt odd within her limping leg; she wouldn't be sinning much longer.

  How different it felt this time, walking the Farback's game trails in patterns of shadow and moonbright, this time with no defiance in her heart but instead a proper amount of shame. She sprang her traps and dismantled them, into vine and leather scraps she might find a new use for. The cut scraps of her large trap had a ranger's reprimand note in them; Esha scoffed and left those where they laid.

  This snare was a small one near a muck-smelling lake. Esha remembered the location of this trap well. Brickmasons came for the brown-coloured clay, and a few people were patient enough to dig for salt deposits; Esha wasn't one of them. Trees grew sparse and sparingly in such briny soil: she had only found one pine sapling strong enough to bear a decent-sized trap.

  As Esha drew near the trap, rounding rock outcroppings, she saw something hanging snared — something that still lived, because it flapped explosively as Esha approached. It was a crane, a gold-crowned one with huge white wings and a terrified lightning in its eyes.

  Esha stood outside the range of its beating wings, and she looked on it. Maybe the feathers would be worth some rupees, but the time spent plucking them was worth more. She didn't relish telling Atarangi that she plucked a bird, either. At the base of it, Esha found that didn’t want to kill anything else, not like this. Maybe her honour was trying to grow back.

  She took a step closer, held up her forearms to catch the battering wings, and she regarded the slip knot.

  “How in the Creator's name–“

  Pain bit her hand as the crane pecked her.

  “Aah! Stop that!” She reached
for the knot around the bird’s leg and withdrew her hand in time to avoid another peck. “I’m trying to help you, stupid thing!”

  A stupid thing that couldn’t understand her. Esha recalled the way she could make the bird understand humans' tongue. She was quick to talk with baser creatures if it meant convenience, it seemed.

  She dug the weightlessly dry slice of betel from her satchel, and chewed until lungta trickled into her head. Listening, guiding lungta toward the sound, Esha could hear rudimentary ideas in the crane’s squawking.

  “Bird?”

  “Danger!” it shouted. “Danger! Predator!”

  “Quiet, I'm not going to hurt you.”

  The crane turned one glassy eye to her, stilling for a stunned instant. Then it flapped again, struggling like just noticing the strap still around its feet. “Danger! Go away!”

  “Listen,” Esha said. “I’m trying to get you out of—“ Esha held that thought back: cranes were beautiful birds with dancers' feet, but far duller of mind than any phoenix ever encountered. She tried again: “I don’t eat cranes. I'm not your enemy.”

  “Predator!” The crane beat its wings with new force, swinging erratic on its trap line and shrieking as Esh grabbed its scaly, twiggy legs in one hand. “Big predator!”

  What a waste of lungta, Esha thought as she guided her bent, handle-less khukuri blade between the crane’s bound ankles. She yanked the stub of a blade toward her, managing to miss the crane's damned legs each time, until finally the leather was cut through. As soon as Esha opened her hand, the crane burst away in a flurry of feathers and kicking claws.

  “You're endlessly welcome,” Esha muttered.

  “Free!” the crane shouted. It landed a few meters off, wobbling onto its own feet and then turning its stormy eyes back to Esha. “Danger! Predator!” It paused accusingly, before stalking to the water's edge and tipping water down its throat.

  Demons take the ungrateful thing, then. Esha cut down the trap's moorings and wound the remaining leather scrap into a roll.