A Bloom in the North

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "What is the north like?" Kaduin asked several weeks later. "Did you land there?"

  Denret was standing with Marilin at his side, looking toward the horizon. "No... we just came close enough to be sure it was there and that it was large and then we turned for home." He glanced at Kaduin. "And as for what it's like..." He inhaled and smiled, eyes reflecting the glitter off the sea. "It's green."

  But our first sight of the northern coast was not the green of new leaves and peridots and summers in Neked Pamari. It was instead an entire palette, awesome in its breadth. Green grass shading brown and dappled yellow. Black conifers rising above trees with stunning crowns of ruby leaves and yellow, oranges bright as rust. The coast itself was a long strand of rocks in every shade of gray. And there were distant mountains... brown shading to lavender and darker purple. I was riveted to the rail as the ship dipped in the choppy waves, skating closer. Seper, joining me, breathed in and said, "It is like a jewel box."

  Kaduin, wrapped in a cloak and shivering, was last to approach. "By the Maker," he said, hushed.

  "It must snow there," Seper murmured. "A lot more water, and a lot more cold than we get."

  "Can you imagine having so much water that you can't see the land for the trees on it?" Kaduin asked, enrapt.

  Seper's silence was one I'd long since learned to heed. I glanced at it.

  "So many trees," it said. "Have you tried to navigate when you couldn't see the horizon? And the hiking will be hard."

  I looked at the coast. "I have found my way through Neked Pamari but I knew the forest. This one I don't know. And it looks larger."

  Seper's tail twitched once in agitation.

  "It's beautiful," Kaduin said softly.

  We let him admire it. It was for the eperu to see to the safety of breeders, and if I no longer belonged to the former group I was still eperu enough to see to my own welfare.

  "I'll go pack," Seper said to me. "Tell me when we'll make landfall, when you know."

  It took five days for the Endurance to find a safe place to anchor, a decision complicated by the need not to run afoul of any underwater hazards. Each morning some number of the eperu crew would pole the ship's raft down one of the possible approaches, testing it for rocks or precipitous rises in the sea floor. Denret finally chose one and informed us that it was safe to cross.

  "What will you do?" I asked him as Seper went for our bags.

  "We'll stay here," he said. "The crew will alternate on and off the ship. We'll search for fresh water and game and wait for you to return."

  "Is it just us, then?" I said, glancing behind us.

  "Just you," Denret said. "And—"

  "Me," Roika said, shutting his door behind him. We had not seen him for weeks and the sight of him on his feet felt strange to me, knowing what I did now about his health. He had once called me a dead thing upright, but he suited the moniker better than I had. I had never heard of someone with the black-spit disease surviving to adulthood, but even so I knew he could not survive that cough long.

  "You trust yourself with three Jokka who are dedicated to Dlane's cause?" I said. "Without even a guard?"

  "Will you kill me?" Roika asked as the ship's master watched, unsettled.

  My ears flattened. "No."

  "Well, then, I have nothing to worry about, do I." He wrapped his cloak more tightly around himself and cleared his throat.

  Denret touched a hand to his brow and said to Roika, "The raft is ready, ke emodo."

  "Thank you," Roika said. "You did well, Denret. Tell your crew they are to be commended for their work."

  "I will pass it on, sir."

  Roika dipped his head and stepped over the side of the ship, onto the ladder leading down to the raft. Two of the ship's eperu followed; they would row the craft and bring it back to the ship when we were safely ashore.

  Seper brought me my bag, Kaduin following it to my side. He said, "Do we have to use the same raft?"

  "Be patient," Seper said. "We won't be in his company long."

  The two of them climbed over the side. I waited for Seper to step onto the raft before starting down the ladder, nursing my misgivings. If Roika went off into the forest alone he might very well die there. I thought Denret and Marilin would bring us home without him, but would they blame us for letting him die? When they'd been charged with his safety and Marilin knew I'd been informed of that charge? And worse, how would I feel if a male I'd been fighting for years met his end unremarked in some nameless forest on an alien coast? We had been building toward a clash of empires since Dlane had died in my arms. If it ended like this, would it ever feel finished at all? Or would it make a new emptiness in me to add to the one Dlane's death had created?

  The raft was cold and leaky and barely large enough for all of us and our packs. Kaduin sat at the far corner, keeping as far from Roika as possible, his toes curled up tightly to avoid the water that slopped over the raft's floor. Seper and I sat in front of him, facing the eperu at the oars. By the time the pebbles scraped at the bottom of our little craft, we were all wet; the water was cold enough to numb my toes.

  And then we were on the shore of an entirely different place, a shore three months away by way of a ship that was, for now, unique. I sat in the raft and stared up at the towering trees and the quiver that ran the length of my spine was not the chill but incredulity.

  Roika stepped out of the raft first, pulling his pack after him. "Thank you." And then he turned his back on us and made his way to the trees.

  I said, "Quickly, or we’ll lose him."

  "Lose him!" Kaduin hissed. "Why are we following him at all?"

  "Because he'll probably die in that forest without aid," I said.

  "Then let him die!" Kaduin said. "It's what he would do in our place!"

  Seper glanced at him, ears flattening.

  I grabbed my bag and hopped out of the raft, wet tail slopping on the pebbled beach. I touched my hand to my chest in salute to the eperu who'd brought us and said, "Thank you," and then said to Seper and Kaduin, "Come on." And then I jogged after Roika.

  At my approach, he growled, "Is there something you need?"

  "We need to stay together," I said.

  "I can do this myself," he said. "And I can't imagine why you'd want to do it with me anyway."

  "Like it or not," I said, "you are the one responsible for making this possible. We already have done it with you, Roika."

  He paused and turned, eyes narrowed. "This is about your pity for me."

  "And if it is?" I said.

  "Then I don't want it," he began, baring his teeth.

  Behind us, Kaduin cried, "Stop! Look!"

  Standing with a hand on one of the trees, almost invisible in their reddish shadows, was an anadi.

  I remember the first time I saw Dlane on a dais at a Transactions fair being auctioned to the highest bidding House. Her beauty had stunned me: the slim shoulders, the rounded hips and belly, the shimmering gray skin and golden hair. She had seemed to me like the Brightness made manifest, a light too powerful to be contained within a single body. I had never seen anything like her.

  ...but this anadi made Dlane's beauty seem febrile. She was radiant, vital in a way I'd never seen in my life. Her skin was glossy, a rose-amber that was all the colors of pink and peach and pale cream and yellow that I could perceive. Her hair had been braided into a complex pattern but even pulled back from her face one could see its health and thickness. Her posture was effortlessly erect, and she was sleek where her clothing revealed her. She might have the heavy breasts and broad hips of an anadi, but there was little soft about her.

  The sight of us had stopped her fast. Her pupils had swollen in eyes a clear aquamarine blue, and she raked each of us with a glance that seemed to be seeking something, something we were lacking. And then she spoke in an urgent mezzosoprano, the words an unmistakable interrogation... one none of us could answer, for none of us understood her.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "Could you repea
t that?"

  The anadi took a step forward, ears flattened, and the unintelligible words came again, a swift staccato.

  Kaduin said, "Maybe... maybe she speaks the language of the ancients?"

  "And we don't?" I said.

  "We don't understand their writing," Kaduin said. "Why would we understand their speech?"

  The anadi had been listening to our exchange, ears straining and brow furrowed. At last she made an exasperated noise and flipped her tail against the grass. Waving a hand to draw our attention back to her, she made an unmistakable 'come' sign and walked deeper into the forest.

  The eperu from the raft had joined us further up the beach at the sight of the stranger. Roika said to them, "Take word to ke Denret. We'll be back when we have news." As they jogged back to the raft, he flicked his tail and said, "I suppose we'll be walking together for a while after all," and followed the anadi.

  What could we do? We went too.

  Acquaintance did not make the anadi less astonishing. She wore clothing heavier than I was accustomed to seeing: thick leather pants and vest over a thinner shirt with sleeves that ended just above her braided forearm ruffs. She carried a small bag slung from shoulder to hip and at her belt a sheathed knife. The ornaments holding her braids in place were carved wooden sticks with animals chasing each other up their lengths, or evoking twirling vines with flat flowers at their ends. Of course they had wood and to spare, if this forest was any indication; what was extravagance beyond measure at home would be normal here. But all of it only served to underscore her alien nature. Even her height was strange: she was taller than anadi were wont to be, nearly my own height. And she set a brisk pace, traveling paths that her confidence implied were familiar to her. Now and then she stopped to cut a leaf from a vine growing up a trunk or pluck something from a plant near the ground; these she carefully stowed in the pouches or pack she carried.

  "An herbalist, surely," Kaduin said, excited. "Would that ke Abadil had come with us! All those plants he read about in the records, the ones that no longer seem to grow back home, maybe she would recognize them?"

  "Maybe," I said. "If not her, I cannot imagine who would."

  As we traveled the anadi stopped and pointed at things, speaking a single word as a question. When we didn't respond she sighed and continued. Eventually, Kaduin began offering her one of our words in exchange: 'tree,' 'leaf,' 'dirt.' That seemed to satisfy her, though she continued to frown as she walked, and often glanced at us.

  We'd been hiking at least an hour when Roika began hiding a cough behind a hand, falling back so that the noise wouldn't draw attention. But soon enough he was lagging for lack of breath. The anadi frowned over her shoulder at us and stopped until he caught up, then resumed walking. When he fell behind again she waited with flattened ears and a scowl. This time when she turned away, he coughed—and she froze and spun back around. Before he could retreat she was in front of him, leaning into him and staring up at his mouth. She sniffed his neck, took his hand and flipped it, checking it. She trailed a finger over the palm, rubbing it against her thumb. As Roika stared at her, wide-eyed and flat-eared, she rested her fingers on his wrist and closed her eyes. She said something to him, swift and incredulous. When he didn't answer, she looked at the rest of us, exasperated, and said something else.

  "He has been sick a while," I offered. I faked a cough and a wheezing breath for her.

  Roika growled. "I can talk for myself."

  She ignored him and duplicated my wheeze and cough, arching her brows. Then she glanced around the path and grabbed some of the dark, fragrant soil. She pretended to cough into her hand and opened it to show me the black dirt and again asked her question.

  "Yes," I said, ears flicking forward. "Just like that."

  "Yes," she said, her accent... very strange. But she duplicated the noise well. She eyed Roika. "Yes?"

  He glared at her, then snarled. "Yes."

  That loosed a tirade none of us understood, but she resumed walking at a reduced pace.

  "Thank you," Roika said to me, seething. "For sharing my secret for me."

  "Your illness was no secret on the ship," Seper said behind us, surprising us both. "The crew spoke of it when it was needful."

  Before he could recover from his surprise, I said, "And the anadi heard you herself. She's obviously well-versed in sicknesses. She didn't need to be told. And you know she would have found out."

  Roika said nothing, marching with stiff shoulders. I let him pass on and resumed trudging alongside Seper. Glancing at it earned me a flip of its tail. I was not surprised it had discovered the emperor's condition, but Kaduin? When I looked over at him, I found him grim, back straight and brows lowered. He had not known, then. It was not how I would have chosen to tell him.

  It was not a short journey the anadi led us on. Nor an easy one. Few of us were habituated to hiking with the forests so few. That I'd had so many experiences with them was rare among Jokka... or at least, among the Jokka I'd known. Here things must be different, among these behemoths that reached so high above the shorter trees. The air was moist and smelled of astringent sap, so different from Neked Pamari's drier, sweeter smells, but some things remained the same. The muffled sound of our feet on the path. The way sunlight shivered when the branches above us moved. The distant call of animals. The memories were powerful, so much so that I kept looking over my shoulder for the anadi who wasn't following me anymore.

  Instead, I wound up with an arm slung under Roika's shoulders, for it was not long before he could no longer walk without aid and Kaduin wouldn't touch him. Seper did not offer either, though it awarded me a significant look. I judged that to be a warning against overworking myself on behalf of our enemy.

  It was strange to touch him, strange and familiar. I remembered his arms around me at the Leaf Gathering and the comfort I’d derived from his strength. Beneath these alien trees we were neither of us what we were. We'd come to this: a dying emodo and a failed anadi stumbling through a world that smelled like a welcome we were too late to accept.

  Our guide looked over her shoulder at us once, saw that I was handling the problem, and said something to us I thought was reassurance before continuing.

  “I hope that meant ‘we’re not far,’” Kaduin muttered.

  I said nothing and labored on, listening to Roika wheeze.

  I knew the break in the trees as a sudden brightness on my shoulders and brow, as the shock of moving air after the close stillness of the trees and their heavy silences. Before us was a small valley and in it nestled dozens of small wooden houses. Wooden houses! There were pens with small herdbeasts grazing in them and people, beautiful people, shimmering under the light—

  —and then Roika collapsed and took me with him. After that things became a confusion of hands helping us and talk, so much talk, collapsed from language into music by its impenetrability. And the Jokka... oh, the northern Jokka. They blinded me with their health and beauty and quickness. Had someone not led me after Roika I might have remained there, stunned insensate. But they did lead me away as our anadi chivvied them, toward one of the wooden houses on the outskirts of the settlement. It was nothing like the homes I was accustomed to, places meant for an entire House. This one seemed sized to fit our guide, who stood outside and gave orders to the eperu and emodo helping her. She nudged us all in after, including Kaduin, whose expression I recognized: the only reason he wasn't asking questions was because no one here would be able to understand them.

  The Jokka carrying Roika vanished into an adjacent room at the anadi's request, leaving the three of us in a small area in front of a wall. There were no chairs, only a high table set flush to the wall with incense burners and a lamp. Above it on the wall was a giant piece of painted stone: a circle with three colors swirled together, sienna brown, lapis blue and pearlescent white. Beside each color was a word, and even I as poorly literate as I was understood them. It seemed so normal to see them, in fact, that I don't think any of us realized
until several heartbeats had passed that... the words were written with letters we recognized.

  When the anadi returned with another anadi and an eperu, Kaduin rounded on her, pointing at the wall. "Anadi!" he said. "Eperu! Emodo! Yes?"

  Startled, she looked up at the wall. Then she tapped on one of the words and spoke, and I thought... I thought perhaps I heard the word this time, our word. But pronounced so strangely I had to strain to hear it.

  "Anadi," Kaduin said. He pointed at our guide. "Like you. Anadi. Yes?" He pointed at eperu and then at Seper and the eperu behind our guide. "And eperu? And emodo!"

  The guide pursed her lips and said something to the other two before motioning to Kaduin. When he stepped closer, she pulled him toward them and then pointed to the room across from us, a place with soft cushions and a low table beside a fireplace. Eagerly he went with them.

  I waited until I saw them settle down before saying to the anadi, "Where is he? The emodo?" And pointed to the word.

  She motioned for me to follow, so I did.

  They'd settled Roika onto a couch in a room stocked from floor to ceiling with shelves of small ceramic and glass jars, each labeled in script I recognized, though I didn't know all the words. There was a table with a mortar and pestle, a knife, and other tools that looked typical to an herbalist. The anadi pointed to a stool next to the couch, so I sat and watched her go through her shelves, muttering to herself. Seper positioned itself at the door where it could see both me and Kaduin, and I let its presence serve as an anchor. Even the scent of this place was unknown: the wooden walls smelled of the same fragrant sap as the forest.