Toads and Diamonds

by Heather Tomlinson

  A deep green color, they reflected Diribani's gaze into eternity, two pools as liquid and profound as the well where they stood. Awe

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  closed Diribani's throat. This was no ordinary old woman; her question demanded the absolute truth. Beauty was the answer that rose to Diribani's lips, but she had no breath to shape the word.

  "Ah," the stranger said, as if she could read stunned silence as easily as speech. Her voice started on a low note and swelled into unbearable richness, a temple bell echoing in the well. "Your sweet nature, kind heart, and hopeful spirit are worthy of reward."

  Like nectar, the rich voice filled Diribani with an emotion too intense to contain. The clay jar slipped from her arms and smashed into pieces on the ground. A shard sliced her ankle, but that slight pain wasn't what caused Diribani to clap her hands over her face and sob as if her heart, too, had been shattered.

  Joy brought the tears: a rush of gladness greater than any she had ever experienced. Washing over her in an irresistible wave, the goddess's regard bathed Diribani in a beauty like sunrise. Or music.

  Or the strong, sure line of a green snake, writing a girl's fate in the sand.

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  ***

  CHAPTER FOUR Tana

  THE courtyard gate slammed. Tana stamped her heel on the loose stone to level the floor over the box's hiding place. She was putting the jeweler's scale on its shelf when Diribani pushed aside the door cloth and stumbled into the house.

  "What's wrong?" Tana caught Diribani's arm, guiding her to sit on the floor. The free end of Diribani's pink dress wrap hid her face, but the mud splattering her skirts and the long hair tangled around her heaving shoulders conveyed distress as clearly as words. Tana had rarely seen her gazelle-graceful sister in such a state. And... "You're bleeding!"

  Ma Hiral scuttled in from the kitchen. "Bandits?" she quavered. "She'll be fine," Tana reassured her mother. She knelt and wiped Diribani's ankle clean with the black cloth she still held. "Just a shallow cut, more mud than blood, see?"

  "Where's the water jar?" Ma Hiral asked.

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  The bloodstained fabric crumpled in Tana's hand. "Did they bother you again, those flesh-eater girls?"

  "Language, Tana!" her mother snapped.

  "Sorry, Ma. White-coats, I meant." Tana dabbed the cloth at Diribani's other leg and found only mud, not blood. If someone had pushed Diribani or taken her jar, it was partly Tana's fault for not accompanying her to the well. At midday this early in the season, the road must have been deserted. Nobody would accost a Gurath girl when others were watching, but if someone caught her alone... And the servants from the overseers' quarter were so touchy, quick to take offense when none was offered. Tana tried again. "Was there an accident?"

  "You broke the jar!" Ma Hiral wailed.

  "No, Ma. You don't understand." From behind the veiling fold of Diribani's dress wrap, two tiny pebbles and a red peony fell to the floor.

  "Bountiful goddess!" Ma Hiral sank to her knees. She plucked the stones from the floor and brought them to her eyes, then creaked to her feet and took them to the window. She opened the shutter a crack, staring intently into her palm.

  Tana looked from the peony to her sister's shaking shoulders. She slid the dress wrap's free end away from Diribani's face. Tears glittered in the doe-brown eyes. But instead of the terror or embarrassment--or bruises--Tana had feared, her sister's face shone with joy, lovely as a rainbow under a waterfall. Tana's heart opened in answering delight before clenching, hard. "You met a man."

  Diribani gulped a sob and nodded. Then, at Tana's expression, she shook her head. She touched her fingers to her lips.

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  "Daughter." Ma Hiral gestured with a closed fist. Tana got up to see what her mother wanted. "Look here." Ma Hiral grabbed Tana's elbow and thrust the stones into her hand.

  Bigger than mustard seeds, smaller than dried peas, the light-colored stones clicked against each other. One caught a shaft of light between the shutter canes and lit with an unmistakable fire.

  Diamonds.

  Tana knew them by touch; a close examination confirmed it. Modest-sized but without flaw, they would need minimal faceting and polishing to sparkle with brilliance. Tana turned to her stepsister. She did her best to keep the question from sounding like an accusation. "Who is he?"

  "It doesn't matter who he is!" Ma Hiral crowed before Diribani could answer. "He gave her two diamonds, Tana! They'll feed us until the wedding, allow us to make the proper offerings to the twelve, and host the ceremony. Gods be praised, our dear girl has found herself a prince among men."

  "Men?" Diribani's laugh turned into a hiccup. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "No, this isn't about a man. Sister Naghali sent a messenger, and then she herself blessed me." With the words, two speckled lilies and a giant topaz dropped from Diribani's lips.

  Tana saw it happen. She watched the flowers and jewel spring from her stepsister's mouth and fall to the floor, and still she couldn't believe it.

  Diribani, too, gasped. Her eyes widened, and she clapped one hand over her mouth. The other reached for the lilies. She picked them up and sniffed. In silent amazement, she handed a lily to Tana. Tana returned the two rough diamonds to her equally dumbstruck mother and took the blossom between her fingers.

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  It felt like a lily. It smelled like a lily. A smear of orange pollen coated her fingertips when she touched its heart. Tana dropped the flower in Diribani's lap. Her knees buckled, and she sat next to her sister. The two of them leaned against each other, though Tana wasn't sure who was comforting whom. Ma Hiral crouched beside them. She touched a peony's fringed petals with a tentative brush of her fingers.

  "Tell us," Tana whispered.

  "I hardly-- It's not possible!" Marigolds shone gold in the dim light, their peppery smell teasing Tana's nose. Diribani's hands opened and closed as the words rushed out. "Gulrang was rude, but Kalyan came and she left. He asked about his father's commission. Then the viper didn't bite me, and I almost stepped on an old beggar woman at the well. Ah!" Diribani reared back like a shying horse as several pink roses fluttered to the ground, followed by a showy bloodstone.

  "From the beginning," Ma Hiral commanded.

  Tana felt stupid, as if Brother Utsav, the crow god, had turned the world upside down when she wasn't looking. Diribani spoke flowers and jewels. If Tana went outside, would she step on the sky and see the earth above her? Would water feel dry, or sand wet against her fingers? "Yes, unless--does it hurt you to talk?"

  "No," Diribani said. "It's just so strange. This"--she swallowed before continuing--"this is how it happened."

  The story cascaded from her lips along with an occasional sob and a scattering of flowers and jewels. By the time she finished, red-gold ashoka blossoms, lotuses, more lilies, and branches of jasmine massed in a scented heap on her lap. Rough diamonds, amethysts, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds lay sprinkled over the stone floor,

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  plentiful as colored gravel. Diribani twisted her hands together. "Why did she pick me? What must I do? What does it all mean?"

  "We are saved, praise Naghali-ji." Ma Hiral stood slowly and crossed the floor to the household altar. She placed the first two diamonds in a dish that held a few dried petals instead of the flowers, fruit, or incense they had offered the gods in more prosperous times. The older woman knelt and touched her forehead to the floor, praying under her breath. Diribani followed her stepmother's example, heaping the dish with flowers and jewels.

  Tana couldn't move. Her limbs were too heavy; her mind was untethered, a butterfly flitting between blossoms. Oddly, Tana could hardly decide what she felt. She didn't think the cold, heavy weight inside her was envy.

  Naghali-ji had sent her snake messenger to judge Diribani's soul, and found it worthy. Tana doubted she could have been as brave. With her life in the balance, Tana would probably have begged for mercy she didn't deserve. But Diribani was beautiful inside and out.r />
  Hadn't she welcomed Tana and her mother, five years earlier, instead of being angry at losing a share of her busy father's attention when he married the widowed Hiral? Diribani had never shown, by word or deed, that she resented her stepsister's growing skill with gems, or Ba Javerikh's praise. When his death had changed their circumstances so dreadfully, Diribani hadn't even claimed a greater share of grief. Without a murmur of complaint, she had sold her costly dresses and paints, and accepted the lowly task of fetching water. Tana had heard about Gulrang and others teasing Diribani at the sacred well. The jealous girls mocked her for clumsiness when they could find no other fault, but Diribani refused to answer taunt with taunt.

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  If anything, Tana was pleased that Sister Naghali had shown her favor to such a truly good person. Rather than envy, Tana thought, despair was the emotion that crushed her chest like an iron weight. Had Tana been so tested, the goddess would have seen her sins, her secret fears, her failings. It would no doubt take Tana many lifetimes to learn the generosity of spirit Diribani naturally possessed.

  Like the majority of the empire's common folk--outside of the Believers at the royal palaces, governor's fort, and overseers' quarter--Tana prayed to the twelve at the temple grove on feast days. She left offerings at their household shrine and tried to conduct herself with honor.

  But with proof, clear proof, of Naghali-ji's existence piled on the floor around her, Tana realized that she had gone through the motions of religious practice without any real devotion. She hadn't imagined that a miracle would happen to her family. When she thought of gods and goddesses, she had considered them rather like the emperor and his courtiers at Lomkha: distant, glorious beings she would never encounter.

  The understanding that a person might actually glimpse one of the twelve in her ordinary life, while engaged in her chores, took Tana's breath away. Longing filled her, pushing against the despair. How could she earn the privilege of experiencing the awe that Diribani's face reflected? At the very least, Tana resolved, she would be more patient with her mother's peevishness, more accepting of adversity, more steadfast in faith. A goddess had shown herself to Diribani. Tana vowed never to forget that such a miracle could happen.

  A stinging slap tested her determination to be good. "Ma!" she cried, rubbing her arm. "That hurt."

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  "Get up, get up, lazy girl. What are you waiting for?" Her mother thrust the silver pitcher into Tana's hand and pulled her upright. "You must go to the well at once."

  "Why?" Tana said, shocked into bluntness. "Naghali-ji won't show herself to me."

  "Maybe not, but we still need water," her mother pointed out. "If the beggar woman asks for a drink, you can serve her properly. A silver pitcher that has been passed down from mother to daughter across six generations shows more respect than a clay pot, don't you think? And, practically speaking, silver won't break like clay if you happen to drop it."

  Tana turned to Diribani. Her stepsister shrugged and smiled before jumping up to tuck a pink rose behind Tana's ear. "I hope you see her, too," she whispered.

  More petals brushed Tana's bare arm. She smelled honeysuckle.

  Ma Hiral shooed Tana through the door and across the courtyard. "Hurry, child. The holy ones don't wait about for us to show an interest." With this parting piece of advice, Tana's mother shoved her through the gate and closed it behind her.

  Tana's bare feet squelched in the muddy road. With a reflexive gesture, she tucked the silver pitcher under her arm and draped the free end of her red dress wrap over her blouse like a shawl to hide the glint of metal. Her mother had gone mad. Did Ma Hiral want the tax collectors to think that her family were so rich they fetched their drinking water in heirloom silver vessels?

  As the rose's scent reached her nose, Tana bit back a snorting laugh. If Diribani's gift lasted until sunset, they could probably afford to do just that.

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  ***

  CHAPTER FIVE Diribani

  "At last the rains have come, swift-stooping as falcons, fragrant as the lotus, dancing on the water."

  Diribani sang and twirled. Ma Hiral had told her to sit inside, but she couldn't obey. Exhilaration bubbled through her body. Her feet wanted to dance, her arms to fly upward in praise. Joy flooded her; if she didn't express it, she'd burst.

  Her bare feet thumped the courtyard's sun-baked ground as she shook dust from their bedding and saluted the twelve sacred directions: Grandfather Chelok, Grandmother Khochari, Brother Akshath, Sister Naghali, and the rest. How bored the Believers' one god must be, alone in his heaven. No wonder it made him jealous of his followers' worship.

  The twelve were far more approachable, like family. Even

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  so, Naghali-ji's appearance was as marvelous as a tale from the Golden Age, when gods and goddesses often walked among men. And her gift! Diribani didn't know how the vapor of her breath was transmuted into flowers and gems. Perhaps her duty was not to understand how it worked, but to honor the giver. So, without benefit of a temple grove's drummers, she sang and danced her gratitude.

  At her words, flowers and jewels winked into being to adorn the bare courtyard. Every so often, Diribani tasted the edge of a petal or felt a gemstone slide cool over her chin. Otherwise, the goddess's bounty might as well have fallen from the cloudless sky as from her unworthy lips. Why had she been singled out? She had no idea; she would have to allow the goddess's hidden meaning to uncoil like a naga awakening from its slumber.

  Oh, and Tana! Would she, too, meet Naghali-ji? Diribani hoped so. The experience was too large for one soul to encompass. If it was shared, perhaps they could make sense of it. She brandished the coverlet like a banner, and sang.

  "Tonight, beloved,

  I light the lamp to guide my moonbird home"

  "Stop!" Ma Hiral ran into the courtyard. "Be quiet!" She seized Diribani's arm and dragged her stepdaughter inside, heedless of the cloth trailing on the ground behind her.

  "But, Ma"--Diribani gathered the coverlet--"I just shook this out."

  "Stay here," Ma Hiral snapped, her face stern.

  "Yes, Ma." Diribani was worried by the deep lines that bracketed Ma Hiral's mouth. Shoulders tense, the older woman darted into

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  the courtyard and swept the flowers and jewels onto another blanket. All the while, she flicked glances over her shoulder at the neighbors' windows and rooftops. After bundling the corners over one another, she pitched the blanket into the house. Then Diribani's stepmother quartered the courtyard, crouching to pat the packed dirt so she didn't miss any of the precious stones.

  When Diribani would have helped, Ma Hiral shook an admonitory finger. Even standing on the threshold to shake the blanket earned Diribani a scolding look. She stepped back into the shadowed room. Unsettled by her stepmother's mood, Diribani sat on the floor and sorted the rough gems into piles: diamond, ruby, topaz, carnelian, sapphire, emerald, amethyst, jade, bloodstone, turquoise.

  No pearls or coral, she noticed. Perhaps sea jewels weren't Naghali-ji's to bestow? The thought that even a goddess must respect her sister's domain both amused Diribani and made her think of her own sister. Tana would weigh and grade these stones properly when she returned. Though Diribani's father had taught her the basic principles, Tana's skill far surpassed her own. Most of these jewels were small, less than a rati, but some of the diamonds were so large and fine, Diribani could hardly imagine how much they might fetch.

  She swept a considering glance around the room, empty except for two small tables, the lamp stand, and a couple of faded cushions. Unlike the opulent new mansions in the overseers' quarter, where each white-coat strove to outdo the others in their one god's name, the homes of Gurath's traditional elite, the merchants and bankers, tended to simplicity. Piety and prudence both suggested it was better not to excite the twelve gods' displeasure, the neighbors' envy, or the tax collector's interest with a rich outward show. Still,

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  Diribani th
ought, it wouldn't cost very much to refresh plaster and paint, or replace the carpets they had sold. Stone floors could chill bare feet, come the cool season.

  With a small portion of the fortune heaped around her, they could hire servants to wait on Ma Hiral. They would have money for new paints and paper, scented hair oils, books, fresh fruit, and good tea, not the cheap grade Diribani had been embarrassed to pour for guests. Until that also became too expensive, and her friends had stopped visiting, to spare her the shame of having nothing to offer.

  Her friends!

  Alight with purpose, Diribani picked through the rough gems again. When Ma Hiral came inside, Diribani had set aside several of the larger stones. "This emerald will suit Geetika, don't you think? And sapphires for Parul." She pointed out the gems for her stepmother to admire.

  Ma Hiral settled on the floor beside Diribani. "Generosity is an admirable quality, but you must take care," she warned.

  "Take care?" Diribani laughed. "Why, yes, we will take care of everyone!" She spread her hands wide to catch an amethyst, a green beryl, an orchid, a diamond. Dropping the gems in Ma Hiral's lap, Diribani leaned over to kiss the lined cheek. "We'll feed the poor and tend the sick." She danced across the room to lay the orchid in the offering dish. "We'll offer double Alwar's horrible bounty on snakes. Alive, not dead, so we can set them free in the forest. And we can enlarge the animal hospital at the temple grove. Then the priests can accept elephants too old to work, cows that don't give milk, even the white-coats' broken hunting dogs and cheetahs and falcons. Why should the poor creatures be blamed for the barbaric use they're put to?"