Tinder Stricken

by Heidi C. Vlach

  Shrugging, Atarangi swallowed a gulp of breakfast. “I'm not much of a priest. You can show him namaste if you'd like to: I've told him what it means.”

  Esha considered it, looking over the phoenix and feathers. She hit a clay wall of reluctance, a gut-filling sense that phoenixes weren't people, weren't heaven-touched, weren't anything except fire-starting troublemakers. Except for this one. Esha's time was short and only now did the world decide to

  He sat there patient, regarding Esha,

  “Later, Rooftop,” Atarangi called. “She needs time to think.”

  Rooftop shifted his crests, deflating and paced away — immediate as a human would respond.

  “He— How much Grewian does he understand?” Esha asked. “He's been ...?”

  “He understands most of what we say to each other,” Atarangi agreed.

  “He understands with lungta? Is that why— All the food you give him—?”

  “Partly. He needs to eat the earth's fruit just as much as we do, to stay well.”

  “I'm sure this is a lot for you. There's still time to let your thoughts soak.” With one more bite and swallow, Atarangi finished her meal, and as she rose she gave a last leaf to Rooftop so he could snap and crunch at it. “When you're done, let's go to market like we planned.”

  Esha nodded; she was suddenly grateful for that rope to cling to, the fact of humans and their coins.

  Maize Plateau's low-caste neighbourhood was made of bamboo and tin, much like Yam's. House flags proclaimed labourer bloodlines, and asked for chile peppers, and offered marriage. Past that realm, the mid-caste homes were a greyer shade of brick than Yam's; a few still had roofs bowing inward after the earthquake and the carpenters milled like ants.

  And while Esha watched mortar-streaked men gesturing at a plan sheet, a humming began under her feet. Another earthquake — another one.

  “Get down,” she snapped to Atarangi, “kneel down!” They were in the open street, safer than under a fallible roof, but Esha's knees weren't bending fast enough and as the tremors took hold, she pitched over onto her spread hands. Dust billowed all around, and among everyone fear-faced in the street, there was Atarangi, kneeling along with them.

  This earthquake rose and fell within one held breath. Stillness came before anyone could grasp it and in the settling dust, people knelt and watched, and listened.

  But it seemed over, and there was nothing to do but stand and keep on. Esha was pushing her own knee to rise when Atarangi shadowed her, offering a hand that pulled Esha mercifully to her feet.

  “Your bird was right,” Esha grunted.

  “It seems such.”

  Around them, voices called: mostly relief and nerve-stiff jokes, and one plaintive cry that was immediately swarmed by neighbours. Esha stood outside it all — with Atarangi, who studied her face like deciding whether Esha needed to be bound up with gauze just in case.

  But all Atarangi did was raise her arm to the sky and beckon — to the phoenix circling in the lungta-speckled clouds. He spiralled back down, swooping to a landing on Atarangi's shoulder.

  “Are earthquakes usually this frequent?” she asked.

  “No... No, not at all.”

  Guards were filtering through the streets, searching for damage. There was nothing more to be said; acts of the gods made patchwork sense to mortals. Esha and Atarangi each took a strap of the wheeled pack, and they walked together.

  The market street was settling from pandemonium, with people righting awnings and wiping dust off their wares. A phalanx of guards gathered at the identification check stall, muttering business to one another — and they snapped to attention when they laid eyes on Atarangi.

  Esha hadn't considered before how much attention a foreign diplomat with a live phoenix would draw. Atarangi answered a travel itinerary's worth of questions. The phoenix Rooftop allowed a guard to grip his neck while inspecting his tail tag; his stillness was a surreal sight against Esha's memories of vermin birds more vital than the fires they started.

  Esha was an unremarkable fieldwoman but as Atarangi's hired guide, she fell under sudden suspicion, too. Her bundle of bamboo was inspected and Gita's nameplate studied by two different scribes, before they crossed off one of Gita's allotted market visits from the records.

  “All seems in order. Thank you for your patience, diplomat,” the lead guard relented.

  “I appear to have arrived at a difficult time,” Atarangi replied. “If I can be of any service, do call on me. I speak five languages and I have enough herbs in reserve to extend my reach well beyond that.”

  Then, finally, the guard nodded deep and offered her namaste.

  “I've never had such trouble getting in,” Esha commented, leaving the station behind. Her other comment was unspoken: do they always inflict that on you?

  Shrugging, a mild motion against her annoyed eye roll, Atarangi said, “It happens when I'm new to a plateau. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that I'm a remarkable sight, this far from the ocean. That, and my dangerous friend, here.” She scratched her bird's feathers.

  “It's still more insult than a law-abiding woman should have to take.”

  Gradually, Atarangi's smile was returning. “It'll be worth the trouble, I'm sure.”

  The two of them agreed to meet at the water pump, after buying what supplies they could carry. The phoenix Rooftop sat on Atarangi's wheeled pack and apparently had nothing to say on the matter; Esha only noticed her lungta tugging in her thoughts every time the bird peered at her with crests moving.

  They parted ways and Esha felt the absence already, as Atarangi's stately form parted the crowd and the phoenix watched behind.

  The civilian trading corner had ramshackle tin tables, just like back home. Gwara demons rolled along the tables' bases, seeking spilled coins. Esha shooed the gwaras from a table and sat until her bamboo sticks were all sold. With her pocket full of rupees, she went to the merchant caste section of the market and burdened herself with maize, millet and lentils.

  And after agonizing thought, Esha spent one rupee on a street vendor's fried potato patty. Much as it pained her to let the coin out of her hand, the patty was crisp and oily enough to taste like bliss. There were many reasons to stay among humans as long as possible, and fried food was one of them.

  When Esha returned to the water plaza, under noonday sun, she combed the crowd with her eyes and could only see Grewier, Sherbu and Thakari people, not Atarangi nor her bird. Esha got a cup of well water and relished it despite the taste of mud. Then, she waited.

  A goat breeder led his flock past — thoroughbred tahr goats with imperial inspection seals shaved into their magnificent fur. They were certified for their lack of turned human ancestry — only goats born as goats — for all the expensive difference that didn't make. After Esha's humanity was gone, she would likely be meat killed and called dinner: she couldn't manage to care what or who would do it.

  But as the goats' every movement dragged Esha's attention across the crowded square, Atarangi caught her eye — not standing out bizarre from a crowd, but tucked under an awning's shade. She sat on an overturned bucket before a Sherbu man, who held a kneeling yak by its rope collar.

  As Esha came closer through the drifting crowds, she saw more of the truth. Atarangi spoke with gentle-frowning lips and paused to listen, as the yak grumbled and bleated. The phoenix Rooftop sat on her shoulder, also intent.

  Animism, the sullied art. Animism, the waste of herbs. It looked as heartfelt as any other lungta-aided conversation.

  Esha waited by the water pump, safely distant.

  Once Atarangi accepted a furtive handful of payment, she rejoined Esha and took the heavy food onto her wheeled pack. With the phoenix Rooftop watching the trail behind, they set out toward the mountainside, toward the spire pass that would bring them to Rice Plateau.

  “Whose yak was that?” Esha asked, in the clamorous.

  “No friend I know. He saw me with Rooftop and asked about my diplomacy service
s.”

  “People just ask you that, in the street?”

  “I don't mind.” Atarangi paused. “As long as they don't seem to want Birdnose.”

  “Oh, I look like a drug addict, do I?”

  “No, no, you're right,” Atarangi said, smiling at her own expense. “I shouldn't think such things about fieldwomen. So far, you're only a name thief.”

  It was good to say such blunt-clawed things to a friend again; Esha hadn't realized how much she missed it.

  “I can't cane you for telling the truth. Tell me, though — what was wrong with the yak?”

  “Aah, the poor creature is sick. Liver fluke, I think, or else something more serious than even that.”

  “You can tell?”

  “She told me where she hurt.” Atarangi's mouth betrayed her shifting feelings. “I wish I could help more than I did, but at least now her owner knows to seek some medicine.”

  Esha's memories were rising again. “It shouldn't have been allowed to graze in wet places,” she said. “They get flukes when they eat from marshy ground — I'm no yakherd and even I know that.”

  “You're familiar with them?” Atarangi asked. “Yes, you plough with yaks — isn't that true?”

  “It is. And I had a yak, in a way, when I used to be married.”

  “You did?”

  Esha hummed.

  The yak was one of her husband's fine possession at first. Then a coarse-furred comfort to pet. Then one drunken night he was a listening ear for her rambling troubles — and eventually, he was part of the divorce chattel, just another shard in Esha's broken potential.

  “He was a good beast to talk to,” she told Atarangi.

  “Talking can mend plenty. I'm sure you know that.”

  Heaving a breath for strength, Esha nodded. And she accepted the handful of plant morsels that Atarangi gave her.

  Chapter 9

  The road led north-west toward the mountainside, through archways of whipgrass, boxthorn and sparse-needled pines. Lungta swooped across the path, each mote glinting brilliant before it buried itself in the earth. Starlings flew overhead in a chittering wave.

  Esha and Atarangi walked, shoes crunching in tandem, with the wheeled pack creaking under the weight of their supplies. It took Esha long moments to chew the dried plant morsels enough to swallow them: they were root pieces and that was all Esha could discern. Whatever they were, the faintly leafy flavour pleased Esha in a way she didn't care to think about.

  “What is this?” she asked. “This root ...?”

  “Pachak thistle,” Atarangi said. “You'll find it full of speaking lungta, but it's not the same as betel — it's much more inclined to listening than speaking.”

  Judging by the tingling in Esha's ear canals, Atarangi was right.

  “I hope that's enough to— Hold on.”

  The wheels and hooves sounding in the distance had become a yak-drawn cart, piled with coal and wreathed with dust: Esha and Atarangi waited until it passed them by in a gritty cloud. Esha spat, and she had hardly eased her eyelashes back open when Atarangi laughed a sonorous note.

  “What's funny about that?” Esha asked. She looked around in the dust-hung air and saw only Atarangi beaming, and the phoenix settling his wings.

  “Aah, you didn't see it,” Atarangi said. “Show Esha?”

  The phoenix Rooftop unfolded his wings and curled them together, then ducked his long neck underneath — under an umbrella made of his own plumage.

  “Cleverer than most human beings,” Atarangi said, “yes?”

  “I wouldn't have thought of it,” Esha admitted.

  “You've eaten, haven't you?”

  You should converse with the animal again, she meant; Esha didn't need to extend lungta to figure that out. Rooftop sat on the staff, straightened up attentive as any student.

  “I ate it all,” Esha said. “Thistle, you said? It's not expensive, is it?”

  “Not enough to worry about.”

  Which didn't soothe Esha, coming from a high-caste's mouth, but she still found herself trusting Atarangi.

  “Rooftop?” Atarangi tapping her shoulder, “Try again, if you wish.”

  He landed on his master's shoulder before her mouth had closed, buffeting her gentle with wing-wind and shuffling his feet into place. And now the phoenix Rooftop blocked Atarangi from sight, this clever creature still staring at Esha in a way too intense to stand.

  He trilled. Hail, Esha understood. Or perhaps he said pardon me, or something else; the sound had a solid core of requesting attention.

  “I'm,” Esha said, “I'm listening.”

  She made herself look at the phoenix. His beaked face showed no emotion, his eyes as glimmering as they always were — but his neck was a tight, tall curl, his middle feather crest flared higher than the two side crests. Lungta overlaid it all with understanding: he was pleased. And surprised, and hopeful.

  He creaked a melody. “Dawn yellow!”

  “Yaah ... Hello,” Esha murmured. “Atarangi, have I eaten enough? He's talking about dawn ...?”

  “Phoenixes arrange their ideas differently than any human tongue I've ever known.” Her smile sounded in her voice. “Dawn means a beginning, or a greeting. Like the sun beginning the day, you see?”

  “Dear gods. I don't know if I'll understand.”

  “I'm sure you'll manage.”

  Rooftop still stared.

  “You're ... giving me a greeting?” Esha tried.

  “Yes, yes,” he croaked. “Human tongues might say ... Roof-top is happy to be meeting you.”

  He spoke as awkward as a foreigner — because he was a Tselayan creature but he was foreign, in a way. He was a race Esha had never considered speaking with until one individual stood before her, extending his lungta.

  That struck Esha like a thrown stone: this phoenix, who had a name truly his, was extending his ideas to her. And Esha was seeing — truly seeing now — the shifting of his crests and the angles of his postured body. Rooftop's feathers were nearly as plain as a human's expressive face.

  “I am ... pleased to make a new friend,” Esha pushed from her mouth. She was too stunned to feel, too windburned by the truth — but she had never regretted a friend before.

  Rooftop sang, a chittering that meant a buttery shade of yellow and also delight. “You own a selfname? Will you share with me?”

  “You know my—“ Esha suddenly knew that she had never met eyes with Rooftop and introduced herself, because of course she hadn't. “I— My name is Esha.”

  Her own name felt like glass beads, rolling smooth through her lungta-charged ear canals. Esha rarely remembered that names were older forms of Grewian words, relics of spoken words past, but Rooftop's quizzical head tilt reminded her now.

  “That selfname means ...?”

  “Precious one.” She had long since stopped thinking about the irony of her name, given to a child soon disavowed.

  “I don't know how she would express Precious One with an object,” Atarangi added in a teaching voice. “It's an idea that's hard to hold and show.”

  Rooftop's outer crests lowered and spread flat — in disagreement, said the lungta translation. “Many-hundreds of objects are precious. Wood for burning. First treefruit in yellow-green spring. White seeds.” He squawked sudden, and chattered, “Precious One, I gives interest! Do you grow precious-food?”

  She sorted and matched his ideas, mind racing. “Precious food? What does that mean?” She hissed a sigh, letting out some of the tension pent inside her like steam. “I'm sorry, Atarangi, this must be the worst lungta-shared meeting you've ever heard.”

  Atarangi shook her head. “Not at all, you’re handling this well. I’ve met diplomats who speak eight tongues but they look like there’s a snake in their underclothes when Rooftop asks them a question. Precious-food usually means lungta-rich herbs, or fruit with many seeds in it. But in some phrasings, it simply means anything a phoenix can eat.”

  That made sense, Esha tentatively
supposed. Even the humblest of low-caste foods could be precious, if one was hungry.

  “Then,” she told Rooftop, “yes, I grow precious food. Mainly yams. You know what yams are? The— The root of a plant. Big round roots.” She spread her hands and touched their fingertips, approximating the size and shape of a yellowmeat yam.

  “Yes, yams!” The eager creaking beyond the lungta was strikingly familiar, a sound like ee-am-zz pouring out of Rooftop's unflexing beak. “Ground-ball food, is what phoenix-kind would say. Morning Sky cooks yams with grass-powder around them. They hold too much red-sizzle-heat but wait ten flaps and then it is excellent fill-up food. Crunch crunch, then one is full and brown-wholesome-pleased.”

  “Morning Sky?” Esha muttered. “Gods, it's a riddle. Atarangi, you're Morning Sky? That's your selfname ... meaning ...?”

  “It is,” she said proud.

  “And grass powder ... He means, what, flour?”

  “He likes your yams floured and fried.” Atarangi glowed with amusement, looking between the two of them.

  “Floured,” Rooftop corrected himself. His throat croaked vv-ow-rr-g. “And fried.” Vv-rie-d.

  “Oh, heaven help me,” Esha blurted, “he's— Rooftop, are you saying Grewian words?!”

  Glee flared his crests broad, as he tipped his head at Esha. “Yes, yes! I am learning greener words from Morning Sky! You like this calling-tongue better?”

  She could only mumble, and it was an oath.

  “Don't curse in front of him, please,” Atarangi said. But she was grinning, as welcome as any yellow dawn.

  Esha kept speaking with Rooftop as the road wore on. She knew this to be true, although she unknotted fewer and fewer meanings from his colour-drenched chattering; she was a spectator in her own body, less present than the wind.

  Atarangi hushed Rooftop after some time, and fed him a palmful of morsels. She asked if Esha wanted to stop and rest — and yes, Esha said, she did. She needed to get off her rusty legs and stop thinking.