Gama and Hest: An Ahsenthe Cycle companion novella (The Ahsenthe Cycle)

by Razevich, Alexes

“How does it make sense, Hest?” she called, running after him. “Explain it to me.”

  He turned. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Since we’ve started talking about keeping male and female apart, nothing has disappeared.”

  She stared after him as he turned again and walked off, the spots on her neck so hot they were like fire on her skin.

  -=o=-

  Gama caught sight of thought-grains floating into the room.

  Please join us in the receiving area, Reln sent.

  A tingle ran up her spine. Lately every conversation with Reln centered on something that had gone wrong. She hurried down the hallway, but wished it was a longer trek.

  Six or seven corenta-kin sat on floor pillows or stood in the receiving room, along with Prill and Reln. Hest wasn’t there, which disappointed her, but neither were Du or Mahn — and she was glad for that.

  “We’re almost out of what food we scavenged earlier,” Reln said, wasting no time getting to the point. “We have to leave Reev today and look for more outside our wall.”

  She heard a few quick intakes of breath and someone cleared his throat nervously, but no one spoke. Gama looked again at the others in the room, more carefully this time. Reln had chosen well, she thought. With the exception of Prill, these soumyo were probably the boldest and quickest thinking among the corenta-kin — exactly who she’d want with her in dangerous times, though she’d have added Hest to the group. His absence felt like a gap that no one else could fill.

  Reln glanced at Prill, and for a moment Gama hoped he’d say Prill wouldn’t be coming with them. It would be a lie to say that even the bold weren’t going to be worried and afraid outside the wall. They were worried and afraid inside the wall. Having the nervous, hesitant Prill with them wouldn’t make anyone feel braver.

  Prill rose and went into the dwelling’s small communiteria. She returned with a long rope.

  Reln tucked it between his elbow and side while he put on his cloak. “I can’t guarantee this will protect us, but if we’re lashed together, we’ll either all be safe or mutually disappeared.”

  There was some laughter at that — the nervous kind. Reln didn’t smile.

  It made sense to her. She and Hest had been holding tight to each other when Frarm disappeared. Maybe the whatever-it-was could only take one soumyo at a time, though it didn’t seem to have any problem taking a whole herd of brez.

  Gama ran back to the sleeping quarters to pull on her foot casings. By the time she returned to the receiving room, the others had left, leaving the door open for her to follow. They were a short distance ahead. She hurried to catch up.

  Few other soumyo were out as they made their way toward Wall and the north gate. Those who did see them watched with solemn eyes as they passed.

  -=o=-

  They stopped just inside the gate and lashed themselves to their neighbors, with plenty of loose rope between so they wouldn’t be hindered at their work. A male who wasn’t going with them handed out gathering bags. His neck was blue-red with anxiety. Gama’s own spots lit in sympathy to his worry. She rubbed her throat hard. Adding someone else’s worry to her own was the last thing she needed.

  Reln must have coordinated with the guides from Kelroosh and Trontin. Small groups, lashed together the same as they were and carrying their own baskets and tools, came out of their gates and joined them — Trontin’s first, and further along, Kelroosh’s.

  There was no singing, no words at all, no thought-grains moving between close kin, as though each one of them was alone. They walked in a silence broken only by the hum of insects, the yips of small flying beasts, and the wind across a plain empty of anything they could eat. At the river they turned upstream and traveled a long way across rocky, uneven ground. Gama’s knees had begun to ache by the time they reached a place where reeds again flourished, swimmers swam, and small beastlets rustled among the grasses.

  Bren raised his hand in the air and the Trontin soumyo waded into the water with their baskets and nets. None of them spoke, but Gama saw the thought-grains moving now and supposed they were think-talking among themselves and to the swimmers, asking the swimmers to give themselves for the soumyo’s substance, promising back whatever benefit they had to offer in return for the sacrifice.

  Their group waded into the stream as well, shivering at the first bite of cold water against their skins, but they were there for nokif. Gama sang The Song of Sharing in her mind, thought-talking it to the reeds — afraid, somehow, that if she sang out loud it might draw the attention of whatever had stolen Frarm.

  Each kin stretched out as far from their neighbor as the rope would allow and took out their knives. Gama thanked the reeds for the gift of their bulbs, bent over — her arms in the water almost to her shoulders — and began digging in the sticky mud. She listened hard for a hum while she worked and couldn’t help glancing up from time to time, watching for a shimmer in the air. From the corner of her eye she saw others do the same.

  But the reeds wouldn’t give up their bulbs. No matter how Gama dug around in the mud, on top, underneath, on the sides, the reed held fast to the bulb, and the bulb sucked in hard to the mud.

  Frustrated, she stood straight, water dripping off her arms and chest. Her corenta-kin didn’t seem to be having any better luck than she had. She looked over at the soumyo from Trontin. Their baskets were practically empty.

  She sent a thought-question to the reeds. Plants didn’t think in words — they thought in pictures. Sometimes she found it hard to figure out what they were trying to say, but this was easy. The reeds knew what had happened to their vanished brethren further up the stream and for the most part had no intention of giving themselves up to the soumyo — they had their own survival to secure. Gama wiped a wet hand over her face and tried to think of an argument to give the reeds, good reasons why they should sacrifice their bulbs, but couldn’t find one. She understood how they felt too well and saw it for what it was — the plants’ survival against their empty bellies.

  Gama plunged her arms back into the water, grabbed hold of a stalk, and — teeth gritted — yanked it up. Its bulb was large and plump. It would make a good meal.

  By the time darkness set in, they had swimmers and bulbs — enough to last a day or two, no more. They’d fought hard for what they had, forced the bulbs from the mud and caught swimmers against their will. It wasn’t right, but they were desperate.

  The soumyo of Trontin were as wet to the bone as the Reev-kin were, and everyone exhausted from the effort. Gama struggled to keep her eyes open. Lifting a foot took nearly all the energy she had left. They trudged back toward the corentas slowly, the heaviness of the air a trick of fatigue.

  Slowly she became aware of a hum. She raised her head and looked at the sky. Her heart pounded.

  The shimmer was bright, as though the sky had turned to mirror and sunlight glinted off it. She nudged Reln who walked close enough to her that she didn’t have to move her elbow far, and looked again to the sky. His gaze followed hers.

  Someone behind her screamed. Roped to her kin, Gama could only turn and crane her neck a little ways to look over her shoulder to see what had happened. The soumyo of Trontin, who’d a moment ago walked with them, had vanished. The rope that had connected them lay slack on the ground, their baskets scattered in the dirt.

  Males and females together, Gama thought suddenly, remembering what Hest had said. Males and females together, and a disappearance.

  Reln, she thought-talked to everyone, not trusting her voice to work. We can’t leave the food here. It felt wrong to mention the food, petty in comparison to loosing these soumyo, but they couldn’t leave it. She reached down and picked up a basket.

  Slowly each male and female of Reev and Kelroosh picked up a Trontin basket and added it to their load.

  Eight

  Thought grains floated ahead of Reln — traveling to Trontin, Gama assumed — Reln telling the corenta what had happened. His steps faltered, waiting for a response that was slow
in coming. She heard the Kelroosh-kin muttering among themselves, and saw thought-grains moving back and forth between them and among the Reev-kin.

  The soumyo are nervous, she sent to Reln. It might be better to pick up the pace.

  He barely glanced at her. Get it over with, you mean.

  She shrugged and didn’t know if he’d seen her gesture, but he sped his steps and that was good.

  -=o=-

  They stood shivering in the late-day sun outside the high wall of Trontin corenta — Reln, Prill, the others, and Gama, still lashed together, the rope pulling them closer as it dried. The Kelroosh-kin angled off toward their own corenta, leaving the Reev-kin to make the rest of the short journey to Trontin alone.

  I am Reln of Reev, Reln sent to Trontin’s soumyo and structures when they reached the wall. I ask admittance and to speak.

  He stood a long, silent moment. Reln’s thought-grains had gone to Trontin, but none returned that Gama saw.

  I am Reln, the guide for Reev, he began again.

  We know who you are, Trontin’s wall sent for all to hear. You are he who conceived the idea of going outside my protection. The one responsible for the loss of our guide and our kin. Go, Reln of Reev corenta. There is nothing here for you or yours.

  Reln stared at the closed gate. His neck flared gray-red with shock, stunned at the wall’s response, Gama thought. A few of his spots lit brown-green in shame. She reached up and touched those spots.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said softly.

  It was a fool’s argument that Trontin’s wall had given. Frarm had vanished from inside Reev. The Trontin kin could have disappeared as easily from inside their corenta as from outside. But the Trontin soumyo and structures were in no mood for logic. They wanted answers, and lacking that, they wanted to place blame. Reln was an easy target.

  He stared at her, his lips pressed tightly together, as though caging the words he wanted to say. She felt a few of her spots light purple-gray with concern for him, worry about how the day’s happenings had affected him.

  “Trontin’s wall is right,” Reln said, breaking the silence. “It was my idea. Bren didn’t like it. I convinced him.”

  “There was nothing you could have done to save them,” Gama said. “You didn’t make him or his kin vanish. That’s not your doing.”

  “It’ll take a long while for the soumyo of Trontin to realize that.”

  He set down the Trontin basket he carried, leaving it for them, and gestured for the others to do the same.

  “Can we go to Reev now?” Prill asked, her voice small and fear-filled.

  They were all frightened. They all wanted the safety of Reev’s wall and closed gates around them, even knowing it offered no real protection at all. Reln nodded, and they practically ran — would have run, if they hadn’t still been tied together and everyone afraid of falling, as if a fall would make them vanish too.

  -=o=-

  Reln paced in the receiving room. If he kept going, Gama thought, he’d wear a hole in the wood floor. Prill had dragged a pillow into a corner and sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, staring at her bare feet.

  Gama listened to Wall publically think-talking with the structures at Trontin and Kelroosh. The soumyo and structures of Trontin were in a state. Some wanted to get away from Reev as far and as quickly as possible, but others wanted to stay for what little semblance of security the three corentas standing near each other offered. Final decisions were always left to a corenta’s guide, and Trontin had lost theirs. The soumyo in Kelroosh didn’t seem to be any more in agreement than those in Trontin.

  Oh! Wall sent, though Gama suspected this was its feeling coming in thought — not meant for the soumyo at all.

  The sound outside was loud and unexpected, like thousands of casing-clad feet scraping across dirt — scraping without a let up, a constant din. Gama and Reln looked at each other. Prill shrunk against the wall she leaned on.

  They’re leaving, Wall sent.

  Neither Gama nor Reln asked who — they knew the answer. The scudding changed, become a sound like a storm rising. The dwelling threw open its door and Gama and Reln rushed outside in time to see Trontin corenta lift into the air, heading east. They stood, silent as deadwood, and watched until it was lost in the distance.

  When they came back inside, Prill still sat in the corner with her knees pulled up.

  Nine

  “Reln.” Prill stood in the archway between the receiving room and the passageway to the sleeping quarters, her hands clenched together over her stomach. “Reln,” she said again, louder this time.

  He looked up from the low table where he sat mixing powders. Small clay pots covered the wooden surface, each marked with what was inside. Gama saw his hand stop mid-reach, his eyes focus on Prill.

  “I’m leaving, Reln,” Prill said.

  Reln pulled his hand back to his lap. “Where are you going?”

  Prill licked her lips. “With Mahn and Du. To stay in their dwelling.”

  One spot on Reln’s throat flared confusion colors. Prill saw it, and shifted her gaze to Gama and then back to him.

  “You’re my apprentice,” Reln said peaceably. “It will be difficult for us to work together if you stay even a few nights in another dwelling.” He gestured to an empty pillow beside him at the table. “Sit now. I’ll teach you to mix a poultice to draw out the poison of lenwa bites.”

  Prill licked her lips again. “I don’t want to be your apprentice. Du and Mahn have invited me to learn their weaving ways. I’d rather do that.” Her gaze fell to the floor. “I’d rather live with sisters.”

  Reln set his powders aside. “Reev has many weavers, but only one apprentice healer. You can best serve your kin by staying here and continuing to learn.”

  “No.” Her voice shook, but the only color on her neck was the red-pink of certainty. “I thank you for all you’ve taught me. That knowledge stays with me and I will use it for my sisters.”

  She turned and strode down the hall — Reln narrow-eyed, watching the empty space where she’d been, his mouth slightly open and his eyebrow ridges pulled together. Gama opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

  Moments later Prill returned, pulling a sled with her personal goods already secured on it. Her eyes focused on the door, not on them. She went straight to it, her steps determined, and stood waiting. The air in the room felt hot, heavy, but the silent thought-grains Prill sent — asking the dwelling to open its door, Gama supposed — moved in their usual way.

  The door didn’t open.

  Prill glared over her shoulder at Reln. They locked gazes, and more silent thought-grains moved through the room, back and forth between Reln and Prill now. Back and forth, and faster and faster. Prill’s emotions spots erupted in the dark hues of annoyance and then anger. The thought grains were so thick in the air, Gama was amazed they didn’t collide.

  Finally Reln threw up his hands. The door flew open and the colors on Prill’s throat changed instantly to the red-pink of confidence. She pulled her spine straight and walked out.

  Reln stared after her. The door closed. He put his elbows on the table and leaned his face into his palms.

  -=o=-

  Hest. Gama stared into the dimly lit sleeping quarters that days ago held three, but tonight held only her. She watched her thought-grains move through the air, heading toward Home, and waited for a reply.

  Hest. Are you awake? Can you hear me?

  Nothing.

  I miss you, Hest.

  -=o=-

  Strange noises woke her in the morning. Voices — that was normal enough, though not usually this many, this thunderous — soumyo calling to each other like they were out on the plains or shouting across a river. And a sound she’d never heard before, a sort of lumbering creak, like something huge being dragged through Reev.

  Gama sat up and listened harder. Reln had said there was a dim sound before Carding House disappeared. This wasn’t muted — it was obvious. She
threw her feet over the side of the cot and rushed from the room. How many disappearing structures would it take to make this much noise?

  “Reln,” she called as she hurried down the hallway toward the receiving room. “Reln!”

  Gone out, the dwelling sent, and opened the door. Go see for yourself.

  The front door swung wide. Gama felt certain that if the dwelling could have pushed her through that opened door, it would have.

  She stepped out into chaos.

  All the soumyo of Reev, it seemed, were outside, some carrying bags stuffed full, some hauling sleds with their personal property piled on top — clothing, cots and bedding, tables, chests, dishes, floor pillows. A few soumyo moved in packs of three or four, each pack made up of only one gender. As Gama watched, more females or males banded together, each group pointedly not looking at another. The scraping sound grew louder — a sound that set her teeth on edge — but she couldn’t see what caused it.

  What’s going on? she sent to Community Hall, who always seemed to know everything.

  A separation and a joining, Hall sent. You soumyo have gone mad.

  Some structures, too, she sent back, annoyed that Hall seemed to put the chaos only on soumyo shoulders. Home refused to let Hest and me in, then decided only Hest could be within its walls. Reln’s dwelling couldn’t get me out its doors fast enough this morning.

  A hot ball grew in her chest as she sent to Hall, remembering how Home had thrown her and Hest out, feeling the rejection again, doubled now that it had taken Hest back, but not her. How Hest had leapt at the offer — leaving her behind. Alone.

  Structures, too, Hall agreed. But more soumyo.

  The scraping and creaking grew louder, its source coming closer. Heads turned in the direction of the noise, most soumyo stopped now, staring, but some looking over their shoulders as they dragged their sleds. The meandering layout of Reev meant they could hear but not see much beyond the structures and commons nearest them.