Usually females and males did a bit of every kind of work the first few years after emerging, then settled into what they liked or did best. Reln had taken Prill as his student almost as soon as she’d emerged. She’d never had a chance at anything else.
“Do you know why Reln chose you?”
She shook her head. “I’ve wanted to know, but I can’t insult him like that. It’s practically the same as saying he made a mistake. It would throw us out of harmony.”
Hest, who’d sat quietly until now, said, “Seems like the two of you aren’t in harmony anyway.”
Prill’s neck broke out in a mass of purple-gray and some blue-black spots. “We will be. I’ll make sure of that.”
Hest smiled kindly. “By finding the bits of the work that you enjoy.”
Prill nodded. “There are parts I like, parts I’m good at. I have to pay attention to them and not to what frightens me.”
Prill clasped her hands together in her lap. Hest caught Gama’s eyes and rolled his own.
Gama half shrugged, leaned forward and touched Prill’s neck. “What else bothers you?”
Prill opened her mouth and sucked in a large breath. When she spoke, the words rushed out. “These things that are happening. The stars that disappeared and then came back. Reln says not to worry about the nervous brez, but brez never get skittish. We even say ‘happy as a brez’ when someone is totally contented.” She stopped suddenly. Her gaze darted between Gama and Hest, then dropped to her hands, still squeezed together in her lap. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “Reln is making a mistake. It isn’t safe here. We should go.”
-=o=-
The already-loaded sled waited for them outside the storage room. Hest took his place inside the rope ring.
“Only four salt blocks today.” Gama stepped in beside him and grabbed the rope with both hands, determined to be fearless. “Come on now, pull.”
The day was warm and pleasant. Soft-bodied insects with whirring, fluttering wings flew past as Gama and Hest dragged the sled across Reev toward the gate. Gama tried to let the beauty of the day keep away her worries, but they slithered back.
“Hest, what do you think happened yesterday at the meadow?”
He hiked up his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. We saw the sky shimmer, but no bang followed, so maybe it was nothing. A natural happening we’d not noticed before.”
“You’d think someone would have long since mentioned a shimmering sky, if they’d seen one.”
Hest leaned forward, straining against the rope, putting his whole weight into pulling the sled. “We see the entire sky turn purple from time to time, but we don’t run around telling everyone and pointing up.”
“But the shimmer came before the boom. The boom wasn’t anything normal.”
“Maybe the boom and the shimmer have nothing to do with each other,” he said.
She gave him a harsh look.
“You’re always sure of everything, Gama. It still doesn’t make it true.”
“I’m not always sure, but when I am, I’m usually right.”
Hest rolled his eyes — as close as he was going to come to admitting the truth of that to her face.
They’d reached Wall, and waited as it opened its main gate to let them pass.
What do you say? Gama sent. Does the sky shimmer from time to time? Do you see it so often you don’t remark on it?
The gate shut slowly behind them. She stopped and looked back.
The sky never shimmered that I recall, Wall sent. And my memory is very long.
“Still doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the boom,” Hest said aloud.
Gama frowned at him. They trudged across the meadow in silence. Trying to make sense of the strange occurrences of the last days was like trying to catch the wind in her hands.
“Maybe I misplaced the bucket that day by the river,” she said finally. “Maybe a beast did knock it into the stream, but what about the field stripped of every living thing? You can’t think that has nothing to do with anything else?”
“Coincidence,” he said, and stopped. He wiped his brow with his soft hand.
Gama tightened her grip on the rope. “Because you want it to be.”
“Coincidence because it is. I hope it is.” He took the rope in his hands again and pushed forward. “We can’t really dwell on it, can we? We need brez hair and there’s only one way to get it. Let’s go.”
The meadow they were assigned was smaller than yesterday’s and lay in the shadow of the foothills. They pushed three salt blocks off the sled onto nearly bare ground that still waited for enough sunlight for whiltsprout to grow. Gama wished they had more blocks. Heavier blocks. Blocks she could strain against and yell with triumph over when she’d pushed them down.
“Do you want to try again to learn how to call the beasts?” Hest said as they shoved the last block onto the meadow.
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re trying to distract my thoughts.”
“Of course,” he said. “And hoping you’ll let me. Come on, give it a try.”
She drew in a breath and held it while she decided he was right — it was foolish to cling to worry. Gama let the air go in a rush. “All right, but I don’t think I’ll get it.”
“I think you will. You’ve been getting close the last couple of tries.”
He’d been trying to teach her to call the brez for a while, but good as she was at some things, she was a failure at this, despite his patient efforts. “You go first.”
Hest smiled, clearly pleased. “It’s simple, really. The trick is to place your tongue at the right spot against the roof of your mouth. You keep putting your tongue too far forward. You want it behind your teeth.”
Even though she’d just told him to go first, Gama tilted her head back, placed her tongue just behind her teeth and trilled.
Hest burst out laughing. “You sound like the wings of whirring insects, if they were as big as your head instead of the size of your smallest finger.”
She felt her neck warm, and knew the blue-black of determination glowed on several of her spots. She leaned back her head and tried again.
The sound was perfect — an exact duplicate of the one Hest made. Gama cupped her palms against her thighs in celebration. Her emotion spots flared white with satisfaction. Hest stroked her neck.
“Did it work? What do you think?”
A low hum vibrated in the background — not like the hum she’d heard before the boom. This was different, higher pitched, nothing to worry about. Gama glanced around looking for whatever insects might be causing it, but couldn’t see any.
Hest stared past her and said, “You did pretty good.”
Gama followed his line of sight and saw a small herd of brez — maybe seven or eight strong — trotting down from the foothills toward them. Their hair, even at this distance, looked long, thick, and full. They’d have their bag filled in no time.
And then, as they watched, the brez vanished.
Four
The dais in Community Hall felt cold under Gama’s foot casings, though she knew it wasn’t really chilled — it was her own shaky nerves that made it feel that way. She looked out over the heads of their corenta-kin, glad that once again Hest was telling this news, not her. Their sisters and brothers held his face in their gaze so tightly she wondered if he felt it like a physical touch.
“One moment we were watching the brez come across the meadow to get the salt. The next moment,” he clapped his cupped palm against his thigh “they were gone. We’d seen them on the hillside coming toward us. A small herd, maybe eight or nine. Gama called them.” He glanced at her and touched the back of her arm with his soft hand. “They were coming, and then they weren’t there at all.”
The corenta-kin murmured among themselves, some turning to their neighbors now, eyes wide, and some shifting their gaze away — but some staring at Hest as if afraid to let go. The colors on their necks ran from the blue-red of anxiety to the greenish-ora
nge of amazement. Here and there she caught sight of the gray-green of revulsion.
Reln rubbed his hand hard across his chin. “How could they be gone?”
“I don’t know.” Gama stood between Hest and Reln on the dais and wished she were somewhere else — anywhere else. She wished she hadn’t seen what she had, and didn’t have to tell it to her sisters and brothers. Most of all, she wished these strange things weren’t happening at all. “It was as if they were swallowed by the air.”
“It wasn’t a trick of the light?” Reln asked. “Perhaps the brez were spooked and turned back, and you misinterpreted what you thought you saw. You did say the beasts were a distance away.”
Gama shook her head.
Hest blew out a quick breath. “They vanished. They were there, and they disappeared.”
“Maybe gone with the grain in the bare field,” she muttered, then covered her mouth with her hand, wishing she could stuff the words back in. Still, Gama felt sure there was a connection. It was as tangible as a sip of cool water in a parched mouth — as slippery as the last wisps of a fading memory.
Reln was quiet a long moment. If he’d heard her, he was willing to let the words go by without comment. She found Prill’s face among the kin and focused on it instead. Prill’s throat glowed with the colors of worry and insecurity; her hands were clasped tight together in her lap. Du sat next to Prill and leaned close, their shoulders touching. They were in tight harmony, the same colors alight on their throats in the same patterns.
“Did the sky shimmer before this happened?” Reln asked, looking directly at her.
“Not that we saw. Though — ”
Gama tried to see the moment again in her memory, tell it exactly as it happened. “I can’t be sure, but maybe the air shimmered a little when the brez disappeared. I know the air felt funny — thick and heavy. I heard a humming sound before it happened.”
Reln turned to Hest. “Did you see that, too? Feel that? Hear that?”
Hest shook his head. “No, but it was just as I said — one moment the beast were coming toward us; the next, it was as though they’d never been there at all.”
Reln leaned forward and splayed his fingers on his thighs. “Vonti, would you stand please?”
Vonti pulled himself to his feet from where he’d been sitting. He was tall, probably the tallest among them, and seemed even taller standing while others sat. Gama’s neck warmed, fearing that he’d seen something vanish as well, but the only color on his neck was the soft-green-yellow of relief. She envied his emotion, and shifted back and forth on her feet, anxious for him to speak.
“You want to know how the gathering went in the orchards,” Vonti said.
Reln nodded.
“The trees were heavy with fruit,” the tall male said. “They’re much lighter now. If you’re thinking we should abandon this place, I’d say we have enough, we don’t need to stay.”
Reln pressed his lips together before speaking. “Thank you, Vonti. You never make me spill more breath than necessary.”
Vonti sat again, his head still visible above their brothers’ and sisters’. Every throat but Reln’s and Vonti’s now glowed orange-red with anticipation. Reln was quiet long enough that her sisters and brothers began squirming. The silence went on until Community Hall sent, Get on with it. Do we stay or go?
Nervous laughter spread through the room. Reln’s face stayed grim.
“We go,” he said. “We go now. We’ll return later. There’s more we need from this place.”
The corenta-kin rushed from Community Hall as though fire had erupted inside, making their ways as quickly as possible across the winding paths back to their dwellings to prepare. Gama and Hest hesitated, thinking maybe Reln had more to ask them, but he jutted his chin toward the door in sign that they should go make ready, too.
They hurried out behind the others, running to Home and quickly securing anything lying loose inside — floor pillows, foot casings, bowls and tumblers. Gama had barely finished securing the last window when Reev began quiver and shake, breaking free of the land and rising into the air.
-=o=-
Reev traveled all day, into after-sunend, and settled a short distance from the silver river. At night, with the windows open, Gama heard the water rushing by — coming from an unknown place, going to an unknown place — bringing a sense of calm to the here and now, a sense of things being what they always had been and always would be. She lay awake on her cot, listening to the soft rush of the river, the even pull and push of Hest’s breathing, and the nightbirds calling, and tried not to think about all the things that had vanished.
-=o=-
Four bags of brez hair lay poured out onto the floor — the bag Gama and Hest had brought back, and three from other gathering groups. The wood floor had been carefully swept before the bags were emptied, to keep the hair clean. The windows were closed to keep out any breeze, and the air smelled musty and old. Their kin, Palu, Frarm, Kis, and Fel, sat in a circle with them, each with their legs crossed, a big pile of hair coned in the center of the group.
The first step in preparing brez hair to be spun into thread was combing to align the fibers. Gama lifted as big a hank as she could hold and finger-combed it to get the hairs started into the same direction. Several carved-bone combs lay next to her, each with a finer, tighter set of teeth than the next. She picked up the comb with the widest teeth and started combing the hair. In the quiet room, she heard how the comb shushed through the hair.
Usually there’d be chatter among them. Often someone would break into song and they’d all join in. Today everyone was silent, their eyes darting to and from their sisters and brothers or focused hard on their task. A restless energy ran through Gama, and likely through her kin. Combing was tedious, but not hard. It didn’t take the kind of concentration the others were giving it.
“Palu,” Hest said suddenly, making Palu flinch at his own name. “What song shall we sing? You pick and lead.”
Palu stared at Hest a moment, the color on his throat fading to nothing, and said, “I don’t feel a song today. Choose someone else, or start it yourself.”
Hest shrugged, took in a deep breath, and sang:
“Green rises up living from dirt
Into the green come the beast, the bug, and bird
Into green come her sisters, her brothers, and her,
To honor the dirt for its gifts.”
Gama nodded her approval at Hest’s choice. It was a companion song. He sang the first verse, they’d all sing the refrain together, and then one of them would sing the next verse, before they all sang the refrain again. Gama liked companion songs — the separateness and togetherness, the celebration of individual and group. It was smart of Hest to choose something in which everyone had a part.
“Green is green, rise up new life,”
Hest began the refrain, but only she joined in.
“And sing the sun, the coming light.”
Gama and Hest glanced from face to face. Palu didn’t even look up. Fel glanced their way, then back down. Frarm and Kis opened their mouths, but didn’t sing. Gama and Hest let their voices trail to nothing.
She set down the hank she was combing and turned her hands palms up. “I’ve never known you to pass up a chance to sing, Palu.”
Palu shrugged, his head still down, concentrating — or pretending to concentrate — on untangling the long strands stuck in his comb. “Seems foolish to sing when strange things are going on around us.”
“Seems foolish not to sing.” The wood floor suddenly felt hard and unfriendly. Gama shifted position, trying to get comfortable. “What bothers you more, the disappearing brez or the fact that we broke our routine and landed by the river early?”
Palu let out a noisy breath. “I don’t believe the brez disappeared at all. More likely you and Hest scared them away.”
Gama opened her mouth to protest, but Palu cut her off. “I’m not saying you told an untruth,” he said. “I think the beast
s turned and went back into the hills and maybe you two were playing around, the way you do sometimes, and you didn’t see them go.” He flicked his hand in the air. “Everyone is frightened and worked up over nothing.”
Two spots on Fel’s neck lit muddy-yellow in indignation. Fel and Hest were close — not as close as Hest and Gama, but close enough that Fel took offense on Hest’s behalf.
Gama took offense on her own behalf. “It happened, Palu. We weren’t playing around. We were there to work. We took it seriously, as we always do.” She locked her eyes on his. “The brez vanished.”
Kis touched her throat lightly with one finger. I believe you, he sent to her and Hest, but not the others.
Frarm threw down the comb he’d been using and jumped to his feet. Brez hair flew up in his wake. He pulled the door open but stood inside the jambs, not moving — the brownish-pink of uncertainty glowing on his neck. His hands formed and unformed fists. Gama felt his anxiety like ice on her skin.
“Shut the door, Frarm,” Kis said. “A wind comes up, it’ll blow the hair all over.”
Frarm turned and glared at his corenta-brother. His throat glowed blue-red. “I saw it happen, too.” He stepped back and shut the door roughly.
“What?” Hest said, and thought-talked to Gama, Did he follow us?
I don’t think so, she sent back. He wasn’t at the meadow that I saw.
The colors on Frarm’s throat darkened. He turned to face them and wrapped his arms over his chest, as if suddenly cold.
“I was walking alongside a thin stream that feeds the silver river,” he said, his voice quiet, “enjoying the last of the day before sunsetting. A flock of birds flew overhead. Their calls caught my attention. For a moment I watched them flap their wings, heading north. The next moment the sky was empty of anything but a few clouds. I thought it must be a trick of the light. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, the way you do when you’re not sure what you saw was real. When I heard about the disappearing brez…” His voice trailed off.
Gama and Hest: An Ahsenthe Cycle companion novella (The Ahsenthe Cycle) Page 3