Toads and Diamonds

by Heather Tomlinson

  She sang for her mother and Diribani, Gulrang the white-coat girl, Kalyan and his family. She danced for the sick gem-cutters, and the people who had given her food, shelter, and selfless care. As she saluted the twelve directions, Tana saw the parade of beloved faces so clearly in her mind's eye that her loneliness was eased. Surely the goddess wouldn't require her to wander forever, speaking snakes?

  One hissed at her, bands of black and white flashing in warning. Venomous krait or harmless wolf snake? Tana's voice faltered. The snake darted away before she could decide. Stillness rippled out from her, shushing the night noises, until the air was as quiet as the tank's still water. The moon hung low, peeking under a rim of cloud

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  as if the heavens waited for her to go on. A toad made a loud, rude noise.

  Tana laughed at the reminder. Not everybody had the privilege of serving as Naghali-ji's emissary. If that was Tana's fate, she would do her best. At present, she had a simple task, the goddess's creatures to keep her company, and her sister's favorite song to sing. She would content herself with that. Tana lifted her voice once more, changing the usual words to fit the night:

  "Come, brave rains, swift-stooping as falcons, come, rains.

  Come"

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  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Diribani

  "Fragrant as the lotus, dancing on the water."

  Strapped to the camel's saddle, Diribani yearned toward the distant singing. The sound parted the poppy juice that veiled her thoughts like a howdah's filmy canopy. With unusual clarity, Diribani imagined a woman unable to sleep in the smothering heat. She'd risen from her bed, perhaps hearing a fretful child and seeking to soothe it. The voice caressed the night with a tenderness that brought tears to Diribani's closed eyes.

  Under the robe, her hands were bound, as usual. The hood drooped over her face, hiding the moisture that wetted her cheeks and stung her cracked lips. Every day, she grew more weak, her awareness more fragmented. The one truth she clung to with both swollen hands was that she must not speak.

  Once the camels had reached the imperial road to Lomkha,

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  Alwar had kept Diribani drugged while he pushed their mounts to exhaustion. He wanted to reach the capital before the rains. Or kill her trying. Or something. She wasn't sure. But whatever happened, she must not speak. She held to the knowledge with a stubbornness worthy of her sister, Tana.

  Tana. The name woke an echo in her body. Tah-na. Tah-na. Heart drum.

  "Come, rains, come." The singing voice trailed away.

  Airy as a spirit drum, the song repeated in Diribani's mind. Fragrant as the lotus. She knew exactly how fragrant a lotus was. Lotuses had rained from her lips, once. Lotuses and peonies and jasmine. And diamonds. The hardest stone. The most precious, the most coveted. Men sweated for diamonds. Men killed for diamonds. Come, rains, come. Tana.

  Her sister's name drove out the drug trance, awakening Diribani's listless pulse at throat and wrists and ankles. Under the hood, she opened her eyes. Knowledge tingled along her veins. Swift-stooping as falcons, come, rains, come.

  Diribani swayed back and forth with the camel's lurching gait. She knew this was her chance. The singing woman or Tana's memory--some elixir had cleared Diribani's brain. She would have to take advantage of this clear interlude and think.

  If Governor Alwar had sent Tana to Lomkha, if he threatened her to ensure Diribani's obedience, how could she refuse to speak? The idea of her captor's getting richer and richer with her every word made her ill. What would a man like that do with unlimited personal wealth? Buy a puppet emperor? Hire an army to burn temple groves and poison sacred wells? Kill snakes throughout the empire, as he'd done in Tenth Province? Punish Zahid and Ruqayya

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  for yielding to Diribani's wishes and spending her diamonds on projects outside his influence?

  Naghali had blessed Diribani. After Diribani's rejection, why should the goddess care for a wayward daughter? Where else could Diribani turn?

  To beauty. Her soul's desire.

  Beauty wasn't in this body, crusted with filth and sores. It wasn't even in the paintings Diribani had created, dry pigments arranged on flat paper. It was in life itself: the boldness of daffodils, the sweetness of violets, the resolution of diamond. Like Tana's resolution, Tana's priceless mix of cleverness, loyalty, and strength. Diribani had lost her way, so she would be guided by her sister's example.

  When the camel stopped, Diribani gave no sign that she had noticed. Eyes closed, she let herself be hoisted off the saddle and dumped on the ground. Heart drum and spirit drum beat steadily within her. She saluted the twelve directions silently and stretched her limited senses, waiting for her chance to act.

  Not here, leaves murmured in warning. She opened her eyes to a grayish light. Dust puffed under her cheek. Not yet. Diribani listened to Alwar muttering about cursed idols as he secured the sullen camels' reins. A roadside shrine, maybe? And then she heard the most astonishing sound: Peep. Rrrrr-eep!

  Frogs. A multitude of them, to judge by the joyful noise they made.

  Alwar pulled Diribani to her feet. He slapped a pair of empty water skins over her shoulder and dragged her by the arms. She shambled after him. Inside, she tensed her legs to run. Leafy trees. Water skins. Frogs. A well. People? Help?

  "Down," her captor grunted.

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  She tottered from step to step, testing the limits of Alwar's grip. He shook her in exasperation. The long scabbard at his belt smacked her in the leg. At her strangled sound, he flipped back her hood to expose her face.

  Diribani blinked in the ruddy glow. Around them, dawn lit the stepped walls of a large tank.

  "Now you decide to talk?" Alwar jerked the grimy cloth from her mouth as if he couldn't wait to take possession of whatever she said.

  "Thirthty," she mumbled. The miracle happened. Over the reek of her unwashed body, Diribani smelled jasmine. Two good-sized gems also fell. A sapphire landed by Alwar's foot. He snatched it up. The other stone, bigger and brighter and pale yellow in color, rolled off the edge of the step, tink tink tink. It landed a flight down and winked. Insolently.

  Through lowered eyelids, Diribani saw emotion twist Alwar's face. The orange light wasn't kind, illuminating the anger that tightened the corners of his eyes, the greed that moistened his lips. He would have liked to strike her. His hand twitched, then clenched with calculation against his filthy robe. He thought her defeated, she saw. And in any case, his desire for the stone--topaz? diamond? five ratis, maybe more--outweighed his caution. The well was empty, her hands were tied; what could she do? He pushed Diribani's shoulder.

  She collapsed obediently, legs sprawled on the steps. While he descended the stairs, she gathered courage like a bouquet of flowers: stem by stem, muscle by muscle. When he turned his back to pick up the rough gem, Diribani acted.

  In a single desperate motion, she pulled her ankles together

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  and stood. Her bound hands couldn't help balance her, but her dirty-bare toes gripped the stone. Hop, hop, a toad girl, she maneuvered herself to the edge of the step.

  The water was very, very far down. If she missed, her head would smash like a melon against the stone stairs.

  "Stop!" The shout echoed across the well. Alwar had seen her.

  Diribani thought of her dear ones: Zahid, who always found a way to turn shame into honor. Ruqayya, throwing her knife in a deadly arc. Tana, speaking snakes and toads, gliders and leapers. Precious as jewels, she held them all in her heart, and jumped.

  Headfirst, Diribani plunged into the water, down and down. Wet, the heavy, tentlike robe wanted to strangle her. But though Diribani's arms were tied, her legs were free. She held her breath, kicking and wriggling, a frog girl determined to reach the surface. Her long hair swirled around her face. She pushed up, toward the glorious sky, and broke through, gasping with relief.

  As she gulped air, the sun cleared the edge of the tank.
A deep, ominous red, it trailed gray storm clouds. In the flood of ruby light, Diribani realized that she and Alwar weren't alone here, as she had thought.

  Her abductor was climbing down the stairs as fast as he could go without tripping over his long sword. He had abandoned the water skins, which lay as flat as empty promises on the steps above. He cursed with rage, his face a grimace of hate.

  Strolling toward him at the water's edge was a curious figure carrying a bucket and rake. A young woman, by her pale dress wrap. Short dark locks stuck out from her head like a lion's mane. She was speaking in a low, reassuring tone. When Diribani heard her voice, disbelief shook her.

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  And then she saw the sinuous shapes that followed the girl's speech and knew for sure. Tana!

  Had they returned to Gurath? Diribani kicked hard to keep her head above water, and twisted her neck to look around. Unless masons had rebuilt the well entirely, this one was different. Deserted, for one thing, which Gurath's well would never be at dawn during the hottest part of the year. And the sun was in the wrong place, relative to the main pavilion. And...

  "Please, sir, you mustn't threaten people here," Tana was saying. "Violence at the sacred wells is forbidden in the goddess's name."

  "I spit on your goddess." Alwar tore off the enveloping nomad's robe. The white coat underneath looked as bad as Diribani's silk dress wrap felt. Had felt. Now it stuck to her like strands of water weed.

  "That's between you and Naghali-ji, sir," Tana answered cheerfully. In the eerie light, a snake's tan scales shone like burnished copper.

  "No, Tana," Diribani called. "Don't go near him."

  "Diribani?" Tana's voice cracked. Plop-plop. Two frogs leaped in different directions. "Is that you?"

  "Stay back, Tana. It's Alwar; he kidnapped me from Fanjandibad." Like colored pebbles, jewels dropped into the water.

  Alwar's groan at seeing the gemstones sink beyond his reach was instantly transmuted to fury as he recognized Diribani's stepsister. "Witch!" he shouted. Drawing his sword, he slashed at Tana.

  She darted out of the way and ran up the stairs. A flight above him, she set down the cleaning implements. "Shall we play snake and mouse?" she asked. A bright-green tree snake arced from her lips.

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  With another shout, Alwar leaped up the stairs and lunged at her. He missed.

  Diribani kicked her feet and swam awkwardly to the steps. It had seemed a grand and tragic gesture, jumping into the well to escape the fate Alwar had planned for her. Then Utsav the crow god had intervened, twisting events into a ridiculous tangle. Diribani didn't know what to do, but she couldn't let an armed man chase her sister around the well while she floated in the middle and waited for her turn to be skewered.

  Her toe stubbed against stone. She struggled up the slippery stairs, managing to shed the hooded robe along the way. The wet rope had tightened around her wrists, but she could raise both hands to push the hair out of her eyes.

  "Oh, no," Tana said urgently. "Hold very still, please."

  Alwar's rough breathing filled the sudden hush. Diribani looked up. Several flights above her head, Tana and the white-coat stood as motionless as painted figures. Tana held her arms flat against her sides. Alwar's sword was poised above her shaggy head.

  Between them coiled a black-and-white-banded snake. "Did you know," Tana said faintly, "that a krait's venom is many, many times more powerful than a cobra's?" A frog jumped over the snake's head. The naga hissed.

  Slowly, Tana backed away and upward. Alwar did likewise, matching her step for step. When they had climbed several flights, mirroring each other, the snake moved in the opposite direction. It slithered down the steps, toward Diribani.

  She sank to her knees and waited for the goddess's messenger. Good fortune had done her no good, wisdom came too late. Only death remained. "Wait," she said.

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  Her sister and her pursuer both turned. Again, they froze where they stood. Alwar's breath rasped in the silence.

  With her bound hands, Diribani scooped up the banded snake. She clamped her fingers around its jaw so the venomous fangs couldn't emerge. "Let my sister go, or I release the krait," Diribani said. "Who do you think it will bite first?"

  "Oh, Diribani." Tana's voice shook. "You don't have to sacrifice yourself for me, truly." At her words, three more snakes writhed upon the steps.

  "Don't do it! The witch can leave, and may devils take her!" Alwar retreated, but kept his sword pointed at the snakes by Tana's bare feet.

  Tana didn't move. "Sir," she said.

  "Get out!" Alwar shouted. "Demon spawn."

  "But, sir..." Tana pointed behind him.

  Whirling, Alwar brought the sword down in a mighty chopping blow that would have beheaded a cobra. Steel hit wood, then stone; sparks flashed.

  "Mind the bucket," Tana added helpfully as the man's ferocious swing carried him farther than he meant to go. He caught his heel on the edge of a step and flailed his arms, fighting for his balance. He might have recovered it, but the long scabbard swung around his waist and tapped him on the leg. He jerked away, as if from a serpent striking, and fell.

  Diribani had kicked off the steps with all the strength in her legs. Alwar toppled like a downed tree. With a resounding crack, bone met stone. The harsh sound of his breathing ceased.

  Was he dead?

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  Diribani couldn't look away from the snake that thrashed in her hands. "Help," she said, as Tana ran down the steps. "What do I do?"

  "Let it go," Tana said.

  "Get back." Diribani risked a glance upward. "I didn't grab hold of a krait so it would bite both of us."

  Her sister grinned at her. "If it did, we'd be sore for a couple of days," she said. "That's a wolf snake. Not poisonous."

  "But..." Diribani stared at the irritated serpent, whose tail flicked mimosa blossoms from side to side. "Black and white bands. You said krait."

  "They're often confused," Tana said. "Here. I'll take it." Deftly, she slid her hands behind the snake's head and lifted the wiggling length out of Diribani's grasp. She carried the naga some distance away and set it on a step. "Peace, friend." A ratter dropped at her feet. The wolf snake retreated.

  Diribani sagged against the stone as her sister ran back to her. Tana launched herself at Diribani and hugged her so fiercely that the soaked dress wrap left big wet splotches on her own. Diribani buried her face in Tana's shoulder. Shudders racked her body as fear drained away, leaving her limp.

  Naghali-ji hadn't abandoned her. Who else could have brought Diribani's sister to her side at the moment when she expected to die? The goddess's hand had surely guided Tana's snakes; the fear and hate that ruled Alwar had completed the man's destruction. As far as Diribani could tell, he hadn't moved or breathed since his fall.

  Relief tasted like nectar on her tongue.

  Tana pulled back, though she kept hold of Diribani's elbows. "The goddess must have sent you," she exclaimed, echoing Diribani's

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  thought. A boa slithered past her knees. "I've missed you so much. Tell me everything!"

  Diribani lifted her bound hands. "Cut me loose?" she suggested. Ashoka flowers and rubies glowed in the dawn light.

  As she struggled to untie the wet rope, Tana exclaimed at her sister's bruised and swollen fingers.

  "Do you have a knife?" Diribani asked.

  "Alwar's sword." Tana fetched the weapon and carefully sawed at the cord. Strand by strand, it parted. Diribani shook her numb hands. With a grimace of distaste, Tana put the sword aside.

  Diribani stood and looked down at the governor's still form. "May his next life teach him what he failed to learn from this one," she said soberly. White starflowers drifted into the still air.

  Tana squinted up at the sky. "Not to be unfeeling, but we'd better get his body out of the open before the day gets any hotter and the carrion birds come."

  Together, the two of them wrapped Alwar's body, sword and all, in the
woolen robe and carried it up the stairs to one of the outer pavilions. Diribani's unexpected swim had refreshed her, but she knew that all the poppy juice she'd been forced to drink would make her weak and sick for some time. "Baby steps," she told Tana, and her sister agreed.

  Even if she'd been stronger, the heat was punishing. It pressed on them, making every step an effort. Tana helped Diribani wash properly, avoiding the chafed places around her chin and wrists from the gag and the ropes. The sun glared off the tank's surface and all the exposed stone, heating it like a bread oven.

  After Tana had watered the camels and foraged for food in the saddlebags, they retreated to the shade of a pavilion. All the while,

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  they shared their stories. Tana collected the gemstones and Diribani the flowers, weaving garlands for their hair. They let the snakes and frogs go their own ways. As the sun approached its highest point, they rested, assaulted by the light that blasted into every shadowed nook.

  Tana pointed. "You can see the water drying down there."

  "Uh." Diribani fanned her cheeks with the end of her once-grand dress wrap. The yellow silk was ruined. She just wished it would cool more of her face. Then she smiled at herself. She and Tana were together; they were free. What else could she desire? As if in answer, the hot air stirred by her face. "Tana?"

  "What?"

  Diribani stood up, briefly distracted by the antics of several spotted frogs. "Did you feel that?" She heard it, too. Around the tank, trees were stirring. Leaves danced, shaking off the dust. The wind strengthened, pushing big black thunderclouds across the sky.