Tinder Stricken

by Heidi C. Vlach

  “Don't worry — she shouldn't mind a little bamboo missing. But we should leave alone any nuts, fruits and dark-leafed herbs we find.”

  “Your supply will last, I hope? Maybe stop feeding me so much of it.”

  “Mm, I'll need to stop buying so much if this effort is going to last.” Stepping around Esha's smoldering prayer approximation, Atarangi offered a hand to help her up. “But I'm enough like an otter: I've got some tricks.”

  Chapter 13

  The thought of leaving forest herbs untouched wasn't so strange for Esha: this was a time to realign to honour, a bowed-head return with the low-caste rules she had mostly ever followed. She spent the day cutting and splitting a stand of bamboo, stacking the pieces staggered enough that they might dry. It was routine-grooved enough to be soothing — although scraping off occasional wads of gwara spit was a new addition.

  Atarangi was more ardent, with the wild mother bird in her thoughts. She dug pouches and boxes and vials from the bottom of her wheeled satchel, considering everything with with a twist of her mouth. Once she opened boxes, Esha saw that some of them were hole-aerated and filled with soil and herb seedlings — including some tree-shaped seedlings that must have been dug up wild in the moments Esha's back was turned.

  “Lucky that guards are too busy staring at your mask to bother prodding into your luggage.”

  Serene as water, Atarangi smiled. “I don't commonly carry this much.”

  “Just for this trip? I'm a bad illustration of morals, I suppose.” Esha started. “Wait — what if some ranger comes walking past and cuts the plants here? Or another poaching fieldwoman? Will the dealmaker bird blame us for it?”

  “I can't say where lightning will fall,” Atarangi said. “But all we can do is tell our kin the truth. Esha, we can't pick anything until our dealmaker gives us such permission – not one leaf of anything.”

  “I won't.”

  Atarangi pulled out two tied fabric parcels, and looked them both over. She swiftly untied one, dumped its mysterious contents into her inner tunic, and spread the empty fabric on the ground. She opened the other parcel and spread its contents — small, pale beans — into a single layer.

  “I've got a technique for encouraging seeds to sprout without taking up any ground. Here, Esha — you might like to see this.”

  When she had dampened and cloth-rolled as many beans and seeds as she could — a clever idea, Esha had to admit — Atarangi suggested they comb the forest for foods Clamshell hadn't considered. Roots, fungi, tree sap drawn with their knives.

  “I don't mind learning the lay of this plateau,” Esha said, hobbling at Atarangi's side while Rooftop arced fluttering above them. “It's just that my legs are gone to seed.” At the mutation's end, she would have a goat's cliff-jumping legs, not that they would do Esha Of The Fields any good.

  Humming concerned, Atarangi eyed the movements of Esha's stride. “Pain herbs can't cure it any more than varnish can fix a crumbled wall. I've been thinking — you might use the pack to sit on. The wheels can take well more than your weight, so it might aid you in crossing ground.”

  “Like a cart? Without a beast pulling it — unless I'm the beast?”

  “You said it,” Atarangi laughed, “not I. Any mushrooms, my kin?”

  Perched on a pine branch bowed deep under his weight, Rooftop creaked negative. “No food-mushrooms, no cones. Acquaintance-kin eats green here, I think. And hides green-food, too.”

  “Yes, there are more marked bundles,” Atarangi mused. “Look over there, another one! We're on the edge of our acquaintance-kin's territory?”

  “You are walking skim-on-top of it.”

  Atarangi thought, as forest shadows flowed over her. “Let's walk father in — I would like to see how many food troves she has. Only for my own curiosity.”

  “As long as I'm not the only one wondering,” Esha said. Her sense of peace was fading, looking up at a pantry fit for a mid-caste.

  The troves did come thicker as they neared the mountain's face: Rooftop provided a sky's view and identified the things well-hidden from a human's view. Trees and bamboo tops contained vine-wound stacks of kudzu, bundled pine cones, flower buds and berry clusters. There were contraband things, too — a pot of withering pink asters, and lychees, and a great, round melon.

  “She's been stealing from the entire mountain,” Esha said low. “Nobles, traders — she's got a feast. Why does she need our sweat added to it?”

  “Esha,” Atarangi said in the tone that meant find some patience, if you would, “we still haven't heard her entire story.”

  They came to a rock outcropping and parted around it. Esha was so busy thought-grumbling about the extra distance to walk that she nearly missed the silver flash in a bamboo's crowning leaves. Silver metal, and polished brown beside it. Esha stopped.

  “Look there — up in that bamboo. Is that ...?”

  Atarangi's footsteps stopped crunching. “Where— Oh.”

  “That's my khukuri.”

  Silence hung but this was no time for Atarangi's thinking and wondering. Esha stood looking at her khukuri, stolen and salted away in plain sight, of all the godsdamned nerve.

  “That's my khukuri,” Esha spat, limping hasty to the bamboo's base. From underneath, the orchid's petals made a plain outline within the sun-lit resin, definitely the Kanakisipt orchid but the thief bird had the cheek to tie a yankvine knot around the handle and call it hers.

  “Esha, please,” Atarangi called, with panic a hot wire through her voice. “Be calm. We're making headway with our dealmaker acquaintance — we'll get your khukuri back by due process!”

  Screw process, Esha thought. She had waited enough, tolerated enough, and her life's savings wasn't going to be the garnish on some gutless bird's banquet meal.

  She unwound her selfrope. She threw it around the bamboo's enormous stalk and pulled taut, and placed one foot against the knob where bamboo segments met.

  “Esha! What are you doing?!”

  Rooftop shrilled the same.

  But Esha was large steps above the ground now, balanced by all the strength she could muster in her legs. Pressing inward seemed to numb the pain in her knees: the lentils from breakfast were an amorphous lungta bracing all her muscles.

  “Esha!” Atarangi shouted below. “Don't do this! By phoenix customs, you'll— I won't be able to ...!”

  Beyond the quivering effort strung through her body, Esha wondered how she would get down. She had never climbed bamboo so high before. Having the khukuri's well-honed blade would help, though: she might drive it into the bamboo stalk and arrest her fall. She could have the Kanakisipt blade again and still have friends' warmth and generosity, she could have her every need—

  A phoenix's scream tore the sky. Nothing like Rooftop's voice and the bird diving at her was the colour of a thief: Esha fisted her selfrope in one hand and shielded her head with the other, slipping by fractions as claws raked her arm.

  Esha knew her colouring and her voice, and with a maelstrom of guilt and anger in her throat Esha spared herb lungta to listen with.

  She couldn't sort out all the shrieking syllables. Betrayed and snake-brown and dishonourable rang in her head.

  “Honour?! You took my most valuable possession! What's left of my life!”

  Her grip was numb and failing, her knees' ache rising above the roar of clenched effort. She couldn't see past the livid feathers slapping her eyelids and the thief bird was screaming it was a deal, it was a blue-promised deal!

  “I said you could have something! The deal wasn't—“

  The thief's beak flashed and pain seared Esha's face, a stripe she grabbed at with the only hand she could spare. Rope slipped scorching through her other hand; bamboo branches gave way and she was falling, her feet digging into the grassy envelope at the bamboo's base and finding no purchase as Esha stumbled and let go of her selfrope and again, the ground struck her breathless. She hurt and she burned with weeks' worth of impotence, and the thief
bird cuffed past her head, probably aiming for Esha's eyes this time but she couldn't see anyway—

  “Wait!” Atarangi called. “Wait, stop!”

  Pant legs curtained Esha's vision. Atarangi stood between them, shooing the thief bird back and speaking in desperate Manyori tongue. Esha had space to snatch a deep breath in; beyond her drumming heart, she heard Atarangi switch, stumbling, back into Grewian.

  “Please,” she said, “you can't solve anything with white-cutting anger, you'll both be hurt. Let me negotiate — let me help. Just— Stay where you are. Stay there.”

  Rattling, from her pockets.The phoenix keened, angry and fearful, but that sound faded. A beak took something floral, something that crunched brittle. With shaking hands, Esha wiped hot wetness from her face and she could make out Atarangi's shape feeding the thief from caring-cupped hands.

  She came to Esha next. Produced a pocket-cloth and dabbed more blood from her face, and frowned deep as she pressured that cloth against the still-searing cut.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  With those plain words, Esha was ashamed. She laid there hurting as Atarangi guided her hand to hold the red-blotched cloth in place. And when a flower blossom was pushed into her stiff-yielding mouth, Esha chewed, though she could only taste copper.

  Atarangi walked away and now, there was nothing between Esha and the thief bird who stood braced, feet splayed and feathers ruffled. She glared still. She was a dishonourable beast who ruined Esha's future and had the nerve to call Esha the sullied one, but this was all so futile.

  Esha tried to speak and couldn't grasp words. Without Atarangi, she was no force of reason, just fur and dust and bones.

  The balm murmuring of Atarangi's voice was behind Esha now. She gradually noticed another keening sound behind her, a thready and gasping one. Rooftop cried, as frightened as a child but he calmed and went quiet.

  Steady-crunching footsteps, and Atarangi returned.

  “Now.” She sat on folded legs. “Try again. Acquaintance-kin, what words do you have?”

  The thief bird's crests shifted, her glare blazing while she creaked a low and thorny song. “You asked for help-green-given. I gave help. You said I could take any-one-thing, and now you rob my leaf-growing-belongings. Should have left you to dangle blood-struggling.”

  “I— That wasn't what I meant when I said you could have anything,” Esha sighed. She shrouded her eyes with a hand and regretted ever leaving her dull-flagged home. “You should have waited for me to say yes, you may have the shining metal thing. I was in danger! My head hurt! Why didn't you give me a moment to think?!”

  Esha heard only her own heaving breathing and the wind around her in the quaking leaves.

  Then the thief phoenix lilted, a cry that carried. “Your orange-rose advice to light the way, phoenix-kin. You vouch for the kin of Hard-Faced Human ?”

  “I do,” Rooftop said.

  “Big-Headed Human ... She was confused and spoke a bad deal. She makes many mistakes. This is true?”

  “White-reckless actions are common in humankind. Red calls; falling-grey answers. Forgiveness is a useful thing to give humans.”

  More wind and silence. Esha laid useless as a cold stone.

  “You need the iron tool with the purple-song flower inside?” Atarangi asked. “You can remove our ignorance. We can give you food, protection, kinship — what is it you need?”

  The thief bird creaked, a wavering song that passed through the lungta translation as frustration too pure for words. “I need many-piled things.”

  “Wrong has been done from our kind to yours. We must fix it. What is it you need?”

  “Green-( )-food for my chick,” the bird snapped. “Time enough to grow seeds. Endless-many things to trade — I don't have enough gather-piled treasures to keep my territory mine!”

  “Keep your territory ...? Someone is trying to take it from you?”

  Esha's eyes snapped open: a phoenix could lose its home, too. Animals roaming the wilds, when and where they wanted, could still lose any valuable scrap they called theirs.

  Through Atarangi's legs, the thief bird turned a needle of a glance to Esha. She stood proud and ruffled, and she met Atarangi's gaze to tell her, “This mountain-flat-place was aqua-( )-green, before. The ( )-( ) are seeking-doing to take my territory!”

  Esha pushed her lungta toward the double-gap, toward the phoenix's nuanced voice in her mind's ear. Stalking was all she managed to tease loose. The word meant some hunting beast — but what wild animal would accept a fine-wrought khukuri for trade?

  “And they will take lungta instead?” Atarangi asked. She wanted more to work with; Esha could hear the restraint tethering her voice.

  “I need the purple-song. That means I will not rescind the iron-tool trade, I will slate-hard tear every puking human face on this mountain-land before I give it.”

  A hesitation then, a moment where the air hung empty between them.

  “... I feel maroon-pain for you, my maybe-kin.”

  “I have rock-grey-sat long enough,” the thief bird snapped. “The sun sets and my chick's belly thin-empties.”

  Instantly, Atarangi's hands went to her hidden pocket full of lungta snacks. “My food is your food.”

  “Humans can be kin,” Rooftop added, his voice small again. “They can save a phoenix's spark from snuffing. This phoenix blood-red-swears it.”

  Atarangi laid her damp cloth on the ground, spread open to show beans and their green-tipped shoots. Then, she took deliberate paces backward, offering the phoenix free space, as well.

  Keening — like a human might grumble — the thief bird stalked forward. She flipped the cloth's corners together with plucking motions of her beak, and picked up the bundle. With a last burning glance at everyone present, she opened her wings and flew away. Away to wherever her nest was — and the gravity pressed hard on Esha now.

  She came to Esha's side, crouching to peer at her throbbing face. “I don't appreciate you inciting brawls, but it's good that we learned a little more about her.”

  Esha put her palms to the dirt and pushed onto her side, the only direction it didn't hurt to move.

  “Having someone to provide for,” Atarangi wondered, “makes us all desperate.”

  “But that one orchid won't fill a pinched stomach! She's no cleaning servant, grabbing cold rice from the kitchen! What did she mean, that something is seeking to take her territory?”

  After a press of her lips, Atarangi shook her head. “I'll need to think about how to put it into human words. Give me time to steep, Esha. Speaking of that, come on — let's make some tea.”

  Atarangi cleaned the tacky, cold blood from Esha's face, and put a paste of herbs onto the wound to burn like splashed cooking grease. Then she wrapped a bandage around all the other fabric on Esha's head.

  “It might scar.”

  Esha huffed. “Least shameful mark on me.”

  They sat silent by fire's coals, holding cups of potent-brewed tea. Esha hoped a revelation would come quickly but Atarangi stared into the flames like a meditation, while Rooftop sat on her shoulder and preened with a nervous intensity. Through the trees, a pig farmer led his snuffling, grumbling animals past and onward, to forage in the leaves: it was a glimpse of the ordinary that made Esha feel like a stone statue, watching life and yet untouched by it.

  “It doesn't make any sense,” Atarangi finally sighed.

  Esha regarded her. “You've translated it?”

  “The ones trying to take our wild friend's territory — she called them ... Our nearest word would be challenger. Something that competes with her on equal terms.”

  Esha hummed. “Small wonder that I didn't understand. More tea?”

  “I'd be grateful.” She held out her empty cup for Esha to take, and ran a freed hand under her mask, over the hidden contours of her face. “Something equal has its sights set on her territory, which is why she took your khukuri as a trade item. It's a bribe, or a payment
. Something to give away instead of her land.”

  Brows raising, Esha paused from filling her own teacup. “So humans are trying to force her out?”

  Atarangi bit her lip and released it. “I don't think so.”

  They stood on an edge, looking down into revelation: even Esha could tell that much. She put the teapot down so she wouldn't drop it. “What is forcing her, then?”

  Lifting empty hands toward the sky, Atarangi grimaced. “We've got to consider the possibility that she's not dealing with humans or phoenixes. Maybe another clade of creatures entirely.”

  “Wild-acquaintance needs kin wind-rising under her wings.” Rooftop said. He roosted, neck compressed into his pillowing feathers but he still watched with alert eyes. “If she is too hot-red-proud to tell you, I will. Wild-acquaintance gathers troves of food to pay thinking-creatures. Not phoenix-kind, not human-kind.”

  “Something else? Like what?” Oh gods, Esha's thoughts ran in her head like molasses, they would have to talk to pigs, or monkeys, or windsickles, or heavens only knew what.

  “I'm as surprised as you are, Esha.”

  Judging by Atarangi's smile, that was a filthy lie.

  “I were home at the sea's edge – well, we've got plenty of thinking creatures there. Greatsquid, and whales and dolphins, and otters. But this far up Tselaya's heights? Magpies aren't self-destructive enough to challenge phoenixes. Bush monkeys, the ones living in tribes? Maybe — but they would rather make off with something they can already see. Wild pigs have no interest in skybirds. What else is there? The only likely creature I can think of is ... is water serpents.”

  Esha gaped. “Serpents? Are we speaking of the same thing? The deep-water beasts who make people warn each other about hollowhearts, those serpents?”

  “Something like that.”

  “They're demons! Aren't they?”

  Atarangi waved a boneless hand. “Plenty of creatures are called demons. Some of them actually are impure beings. Some are flesh-and-blood just trying to get by. I can't say, Esha — I've never spoken with a Tselayan serpent myself. I've just heard of them living in the water below ground, and knowing what Rice Plateau fills its tiers with ...”