Echoes of Understorey

by Thoraiya Dyer

  Imeris halted before the entrance with Unar at her side. She hadn’t been to the farm before, only heard stories of the flowerfowl and their adventures from Leaper. The gate spanned the whole width of the road. Everything that lay beyond it belonged to the Godfinder.

  It appeared to be only a simple arch with dead vines hanging from it.

  “Lend me your injured arm,” Unar said. Imeris held it out to her, grimacing.

  One of the dead-looking vines blushed bright green, sent out a new climbing tendril and wound lovingly around Imeris’s wrist. Magic at play, again. Imeris did not draw her arm away from Unar, even when she felt the growing shoot curl between her still-tender spines.

  “What is it doing?” she asked, as if the vine had a mind of its own.

  “Tasting your blood,” Unar said. “So it knows, in future, that you’re to be allowed through. It’s my thief-catching vine. Mostly for young boys after eggs, too lazy to climb for their own.”

  Imeris forcibly relaxed her forearm tendons as the playful green shoot withdrew. It spiralled back around the arch, turned grey and became still. The two women walked under the arch. Beyond it, the flat branch road widened into a burl sixty paces in diameter.

  If the burl was perfectly spherical when it first formed, it was now flattened on top like the road, and that was where the fences and pens waited for the flowerfowl. Pitcher plants full of drinking water grew in a ring around the circumference and steps led down from the near edge to the dwelling inside the burl.

  “Be my guest,” the Godfinder said, waving Imeris ahead of her. “Choose any place to rest.”

  The inside of the burl was not very much like Imeris’s trunk-hollowed home. The brownish-pink satinwood smelled like caramel, the scent intoxicating as Imeris moved further down the stairs and away from the daylight. This is what I could do. This is how I could live. The walls felt dry and rough to her tracing fingertips; they weren’t self-polishing like tallowwood. Woven hammocks hung from the ceilings of three little half rooms that came off a main room.

  In the main room, a small charcoal-burning oven with a thin, diagonal, metal chimney pipe opposed a table covered in clay pots of tiny trees and moss. A suspended blue lantern replaced the blazing Understorian hearth for giving light. Cushions stuffed with feathers lay on woven blue carpets against the curved walls. Blue-painted wooden chests sat beside them. Three steep stairs at the far end descended to another sunken little half room with pipes that came through the roof to refill three tapped water-barrels. A basket of leaves for wiping sat tidily by a toilet hole and a curtain.

  Imeris looked up to find Unar’s expression expectant.

  “The blue light,” Imeris said, smiling, “and no fire. It seems cooler.”

  Unar nodded.

  “I’ll send a bird to your brother to let him know you’re here.”

  “I saw no cages,” Imeris said. “No writing implements.”

  Unar stripped off her sandals and put them under the table with the tiny potted trees. She went down the stairs to fill a modest copper kettle with water and set it on the stove. Then, instead of lighting the laid fire with bedded coals or by striking sparks, she took the blue lantern down from the ceiling and opened one of its glass panes by sliding it up out of the frame.

  A miniature bolt of lightning struck from the blue glowing heart of the lantern into the stove. Shortly after, flames licked up around the charcoal. Unar slid the glass pane down and rehung the lantern. Imeris was amazed.

  Tiny trees. A tiny, trapped storm. She half expected a tiny man to pop out from behind the cushions and prepare the ti.

  “When I was teaching my flowerfowl to return safely to me,” Unar said, taking two cups out of one of the blue chests, “I used a trickle of your sister’s power to make them trust me. Other birds came to that call. Songbirds, but also those who can mimic human voices. They carry my messages to Leaper and bring his messages back to me.”

  “You live in a wondrous world, Godfinder.”

  “One you were born to. It wouldn’t seem strange to you if you’d stayed in it instead of falling. Anyway, with birds to carry my messages and a market at my door, you can understand how I’ve lost some of my stamina. Will you drink? Sleep? I’ll have an afternoon nap, myself.”

  Imeris shook her head ruefully.

  “I will take ti with you, Godfinder. Before I can sleep, though, I must practice the seven disciplines and the six flowing forms. This is a good wide space for them.”

  Unar smiled.

  “Suit yourself. I’ll be sawing wood in that hammock.”

  Imeris assumed her host was joking. The woman had slept for seventeen years in Imeris’s home without making a sound. But after the ti had been drunk and a talking parrot sent to Airak’s emergent, the clothes washed and hung to dry and the cups put back in the wooden chest, Imeris found her immersion in the first discipline, the Discipline of the All-Body Breath, tested by the gargling horror of the Godfinder’s snores.

  THIRTEEN

  AS THE sun went down, scratching, preening, and soft conversation announced the arrival of the flowerfowl and two Skywatchers of the lightning god.

  Imeris dragged her guilty thoughts away from Oldest-Father’s final words—She must be silenced before she kills him. Use your throwing rope, Imeris—and arranged a slightly more carefree expression for her brother. Leaper was sixteen, quick-thinking, and supremely confident, almost as broad-shouldered and muscular as Middle-Father if not as pale-skinned.

  Only, his hair had been shorn close to his scalp. That had the look of a punishment about it. He grinned mightily when he saw her.

  “What are you so pleased about?” Imeris asked, embracing him. “Is it so amusing that I am beaten by Aurilon again?”

  “Of course not,” Leaper answered. “I’ll tell you what I find amusing after you’ve told me what happened and how you’re going to beat her next time.”

  Leaper had a way with words. He’d lost his Understorian accent within a year of coming to Canopy, adopting a highborn’s formal speech when necessary by sheer force of will. Now he strutted like a king’s son in his Skywatcher’s black velvet skirt and bearskin sandals. Heavy brass bracers inscribed with silver bolts covered the spines hidden in his forearms and shins, the intricate clasps and locks secured by the lightning god himself, who kept the key. Those in the Temple who accepted Leaper’s service had not crippled his climbing ability, but nor would they allow him to roam unattended.

  Aforis, his eternal chaperone, kissed Imeris on both cheeks. The older Canopian was a Skywatcher, too, demoted from a Servant’s silver around the time that Imeris was born. It was a story she hadn’t been able to get anyone to tell her, though she suspected the Godfinder had something to do with it. Unar looked momentarily stricken when she saw Aforis, but she composed herself, offered him the best cushion, and served him ti before anyone else.

  “I do not know how to beat her,” Imeris told Leaper, resisting the urge to rub her bandaged arm. “When I return to Loftfol, I will choose a different teacher.”

  “She’s pretty old, isn’t she, old Aurilon? Maybe she’ll die soon of old age.”

  For all his broad shoulders, muscles, and fancy clothes, he was helpless when she turned on him. She seized his little finger with her good hand and twisted his arm behind his back. Learning to fight had never interested him. Working hard at anything, day by day, until all aspects were mastered, had never interested him either, unless it was kissing the backsides of royalty.

  “Ow! Let go, Understorian savage!”

  “I do not want Aurilon to die!” Imeris growled. “I want her to teach me!”

  “She’s never going to teach you, dimwit, that’s the whole point, don’t you understand? How does it go, again? You can’t beat her till she teaches you, and she won’t teach you till you beat her. Any idiot could grasp immediately that’s an unwinnable scenario.”

  I do not have to beat her.

  “Imeris,” Aforis chided, “your ti will get c
old.”

  She let Leaper go. At least the smirk had disappeared from his handsome face. They sat down on cushions, sipped ti, and glared at each other.

  “I’ll tell you what Leapael was laughing at,” Aforis said. “We passed the king’s palace on the way here. Soldiers of Orinland have come to Airakland at the goddess’s request. They’re trying to enlist our king’s soldiers in the search for a criminal.”

  “Must be a dangerous criminal,” Unar said, blowing nonchalantly on her ti to cool it. “Imagine sending soldiers across two niches after some petty lawbreaker. Very provocative.”

  “Not a petty lawbreaker,” Aforis said. “This man, called Anahah, was the Bodyguard of the bird goddess. Now he’s fled Orinland.”

  “The king of Orinland threatened to call a Hunt if the traitor isn’t found,” Leaper said excitedly.

  “A Hunt can only be called for a demon,” Unar said, rolling her eyes. When she saw Imeris frowning in puzzlement, she waved her half-empty ti cup and elaborated. “In the early days of Canopy, when the barrier was first built, there was an agreement between all thirteen royal families that if it was breached and a demon came through, each niche would send its best hunter on the Hunt.”

  “No demon has come through the Airakland barrier for a hundred years,” Leaper boasted. “Our god keeps his part of the barrier—”

  “All the goddesses and gods do their best,” Unar said shortly. “People are always killing them.”

  “When a chimera came through in Odelland,” Imeris said, “Aurilon killed it by herself.”

  “Aurilon this,” Leaper muttered. “Aurilon that.”

  “How come your head is shaved?” Imeris asked keenly.

  “I was trying out a hairstyle to see if it suited me. The Shining One didn’t like it.”

  “Who is the Shining One?”

  “The Servant of Airak who makes the death lamps,” Aforis said.

  “What kind of hairstyle were you trying?” Unar asked.

  “Half black,” Leaper replied, “and half white. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Unar snorted her tea. “I, too, expected to become a Servant,” she said darkly.

  “Is that who has half white hair and half black?” Imeris asked. “Servants of the lightning god?”

  “Yes,” Aforis said.

  “I’ve still got a souvenir,” Leaper said. “Even though the Shining One held me down and shaved my head.” He hooked his thumb into the top of both wrap skirt and loincloth beneath, pulled sharply downwards, and showed Imeris the top two finger widths of his pubic hair. It was half black, half white.

  “Stop! Disgusting!” she cried, leaping to her feet, spilling the dregs of her ti.

  “Not about to shave me there, is she?” Leaper’s laugh was warm and loud, echoing in the space.

  “I think I need to vomit.”

  “I think I need the amenities.” Aforis sighed. “Too much ti. Down the stairs, Unar?”

  “Down the stairs,” Unar confirmed.

  When Aforis was gone and the curtain lowered behind him, Leaper leaned forwards towards Imeris.

  “I found out,” he whispered, “what Aforis got demoted for.”

  Imeris wanted to stay standing, indignant, but she couldn’t help herself. She sat back down, cross-legged on her cushion, and leaned conspiratorially towards Leaper.

  “Trying to sleep with the god?” she guessed.

  “No. What? I mean, yes. He broke his vow of chastity,” Leaper said, “but not with the god. With some woman, right?”

  “Now who is the dimwit?” Imeris said with satisfaction.

  Leaper’s eyes bulged. He reached from his knees across to hers and squeezed them, hard. Their faces were only a hand-span apart.

  “He’s never made a single move towards me.”

  “Maybe because you both have made chastity vows and submitted to the magic, idiot, and maybe because he is fifty and you are a child. You really think you are so beautiful that nobody can resist you?”

  “That’s right, I am! Whereas the whole of red-blooded Loftfol can easily resist you, no magic required!”

  Imeris was deciding whether to resist breaking his face when the curtain swished aside and Aforis began washing his hands beneath the tap in one of the barrels.

  “Must I seat you in opposite corners, children?” Unar asked, and Leaper abruptly slid his bottom back on his cushion, away from Imeris. Aforis rejoined them.

  “One who walks in the grace of Airak was sorry to hear about the man you called Oldest-Father, Imeris,” Aforis said. Imeris and Leaper immediately sobered, looking in silence at one another with shining eyes and long faces.

  “I thought Esse would be the last to go,” Unar said, sighing. “He never left that tree.”

  “He left it to fight Kirrik,” Imeris said.

  Unar and Aforis looked at each other again. Unar opened her mouth as if to say something, but Aforis gave a slight shake of the head and Unar lapsed into silence.

  “When will you return to Understorey, Imeris?” Aforis asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Imeris said. “Or the next day.”

  “She broke her arm in the fight with Aurilon,” Unar told him, and Leaper’s head came up interestedly. “One more night, and her spines will be able to take her weight again.”

  “Who is the best hunter in Airakland?” Imeris asked Aforis, changing the subject. “How is it decided, if a Hunt is called?”

  “There’s a relic of the Old Gods,” Aforis said, eyes drifting to Unar. “A tool of Ilanland, a thin bone needle set in a compass. The needle points to the best hunter present at that time in that niche. The compass travels to each Canopian kingdom until thirteen Hunters are found.”

  “Quite specific,” Unar murmured. “Not unlike a rib bone that I have heard of, from Akkadland, which allows a person to find their blood relations.”

  Imeris glanced from Unar’s face to Aforis’s. Her knowledge of magic, as always, was woefully inadequate. She thought of the bone that made the cool breeze in the ti-house in Wissin. She touched the bone amulet at her throat that protected her from Kirrik’s body-stealing sorcery. Those were simple functions in comparison to the ones the Canopians spoke of.

  They went up to the flowerfowl pens to lock the birds safely in for the night. The hens had brown bodies, hatchet-shaped tails, and bald red-and-yellow heads. They honked softly as they finished eating and sorted themselves out among the provided perches. Imeris watched them with envy and longing.

  Unar brought out the lantern she’d used for starting the fire in the belly of the stove. She set it above a particularly large pitcher plant full of water and opened up all the panes. Aforis gave the Godfinder a disapproving look but said nothing.

  “Is that dangerous?” Imeris asked.

  “It’s a failed attempt at a death-lantern,” Unar replied, “by a person who is not allowed to make them. He’s lucky he wasn’t sent away.”

  “Our sister is famous in Canopy for her power and grace,” Imeris mused, “while Middle-Father is famous in Understorey for being a murderer who escaped retribution. Will Leaper be renowned for serving Airak or for burning down his house?”

  “I think the Godfinder,” Leaper said, leering, “knows something about bringing down Airak’s house.”

  “It kills the insects,” Aforis explained mildly to Imeris. “They’re drawn to the light, stunned by the lantern, and fall into the water. What the birds don’t eat in the morning is left for the plant to feed on. That’s why this pitcher is so much bigger than the others. It’s time for us to go, Leapael.”

  The higher branches of the scented satinwood obscured the silhouette of Airak’s emergent, but the direction it lay in was plain enough. Imeris allowed her gaze to be drawn to the flicker of lightning striking, cold and with quick, quiet ripping sounds, from a clear sky.

  “I suppose it is,” Leaper said, coming to stand beside Imeris, looking in the same direction. “Want me to come educate you some more tomorrow evening, Iss
i?”

  “No.” Beneath the bandage, Imeris tremored her spines in their sheaths. The pain was fading. “I shall be gone. Want me to carry your love to our mothers and remaining fathers? Or have you been sending them message birds?”

  Of course he hadn’t.

  His smile was rueful as he kissed her good-bye.

  FOURTEEN

  IT WAS midday when Imeris made ready to depart the Godfinder’s farm.

  Unar packed her a full basket of flowerfowl eggs.

  Imeris had few possessions to gather. With the rivers still running, she shouldn’t need to carry water. She still planned to repair the bridge ballistae she’d abused on her way to Wissin before returning to Loftfol, but she’d need supplies for that task.

  Unar pressed some silver coins into her hand.

  “I know you can sleep stuck to the side of a tree,” she said, “but there’s no point doing it if you don’t have to. You could trot along the low paths this afternoon, sleep tonight in the far corner of Airakland and then cross Ilanland and Orinland the next day.”

  “Yes,” Imeris said, flexing her freshly unbound forearm. “The branch roads require less effort. I will not drop below the barrier until I reach Audblayinland. Airakland tonight is my plan. The next night I will spend in Ehkisland. There is a lodge near the southern border where I have stayed before. Where I will not be … bothered.”

  She avoided the Godfinder’s gaze, but Unar blocked her exit.

  “Bothered? And what do you mean by that?”

  Imeris gave in to the Godfinder and dropped down onto a cushion. Then she glared up at her host, made furious by the recollection.

  “They tried to make me a slave. Never mind. It was monsoons ago.”

  “Who tried to make you a slave?”

  “Five louts in Orinland.” Imeris clenched her fists. “Dirty. No clothes. Carrying rusty scythes and cracked hammers. The slaves who passed them on the road stuck out their tongues. I was amazed. What new caste was this? Who were these people that even slaves would scorn them?”

  Unar sat on the cushion beside her. “It wasn’t scorn,” she said.