“Her trial and execution made Reyhim’s career.”
Mami didn’t look up. “They were lovers.”
I must’ve gasped, because they both shot looks at me. S’ami scowled, and I bit my lip and fought back any other reaction. The possibilities roiled within me. Is this why we were never allowed to hear how Mami had no family? Because Reyhim was my grandfather? No, that didn’t necessarily follow. There were other explanations for why I had no maternal grandparents. There had to be.
S’ami acted as if Mami hadn’t said anything more interesting than that it was hot out. He began listing medicines he said he’d heard about, asked what they did, whether they were distilled or infused or whatnot. There ought to be a livelier trade in such things, he said, hinting again. Perhaps he would work on Nihil to lift some of the prohibitions.
I wondered if my grandmother had heard similar promises from Reyhim, or if she’d done something much, much worse than anything Mami and I had ever attempted. Her frown told me to keep quiet. I nodded. I didn’t need any hints to avoid this man’s snares, as if I couldn’t see them for what they were. No stinging retorts were going to slip past my lips today. For once, I had control over my straying tongue.
After our party reached the end of the salt marshes and pulled up to the swamps, the soldiers left their boats to proceed on foot. This was the only time I gave myself a few moments to search for Valeo, but it was no use. In the murky half-light, all the crouching soldiers looked the same. Then the moment was gone, and Mami needed me.
Our work—Mami’s and mine—began at that point. The Gek don’t build canals, exactly, but they shape the swamp to their liking, pruning foliage and roots to create narrow streams where a small craft might pass. We knew these by heart, as the Gek leave no other markings to navigate by. Ours would be the only watercraft from that point forward, and the second part of our journey got underway with the sun only a half-turn past dawn. We were making good time so far.
With the soldiers battling the muck, the woods grew denser until the tree canopy let in only scattered patches of light. Between the dense clusters of smoky trunks, we could hear the rustling of the Feroxi units more than a hundred paces away on either side. They had fanned out far, and the Gek would likely read that as a threat. The soldiers acted as if hunting a human enemy that could be taken by surprise. Obviously they’d never seen Gek in their cold lands, or they’d have known better.
The soldiers’ eyes scanned treetops and branches. Then they swept the vista ahead, on the lookout for something that resembled a snake with legs, or so I’d tried to describe Gek. Perhaps the men had an image of walking snakes so firmly rooted in their minds that they nearly missed the first signs of them. A branch cracked somewhere to one side of us. Mami and I knew that as a warning, not a misstep. The Gek aren’t clumsy.
It worked. Several Feroxi heads snapped around, their gaze directed to the spot from where the sound had come.
At first, they would’ve seen nothing unusual, merely more slender branches, swaying foliage, and patches of sky. But this was a familiar spot to me. Further ahead, the narrow, porous trunks of waterwood trees with their spiny roots gave way to ancient, thick-trunked redbeams whose gnarled limbs stretched in supplication to the hidden sky.
We’d reached a forest island, essentially a massive hummock with dry, passable ground. The soldiers fanned out faster, spying up and down trunks, into branches, through layers of rippling leaves for any sign of life. After my own eyes became adjusted to scouting the contours of maroon-tinted trunks, I settled on the nearest one. I knew what to look for: a swollen brown bubble sprouted where the lowest and thickest branches intersected.
I had reached a mud-walled hut built into the tree itself, with vines and branches entwined as a roof. There would be no signs of life. If Mami and I weren’t recognized, there soon would be no signs of life on the ground, either. Mami and I drew up to that first hut, S’ami behind us, and clapped out a greeting code. Two short, two long, two short. The soldiers halted, wary. We repeated our clapping, peering up at the sentinel hut for some sign or signal.
Guards took up positions around the tree and under several others, crouching low beneath their shields, spears at the ready. Mami looked close to panic, shaking her head, clasping and unclasping her fingers. I didn’t feel any better. We should’ve come without the soldiers, and maybe the Gek would’ve told us what became of the falling star, if they even knew.
One of the guards nodded up at the hut and waved two guards beside us. Their eyes followed the outlines of the mud hut, their expressions cold and watchful under their helmets. I caught my breath. One of them was Valeo. He gave no flicker of recognition, fully intent on the sentinel tree. I pretended I hadn’t noticed him, while my insides did somersaults.
He was here. Right beside me.
That was good, yes? We’d be going through this together. My heartbeat trilled.
Then again, he was someone else to worry about. And right at that moment, I had plenty of things worrying me.
Mami lowered her head and spoke in a hoarse whisper to S’ami. “We should go, Azwan. I don’t like this.”
“Aren’t they always silent?”
“Yes, but not like this. It’s too quiet.”
“We’ll press ahead. They’ll make noise soon enough.” He motioned the guards ahead, further into the forest. I noticed then the gold totem dangling from a chain on his wrist. He’d been conjuring.
“Mami, look. The Azwan’s totem.”
Mami gasped. “You mustn’t, Worthiness. They can sense it.”
“And I, them. They have what I need. There’s no longer any question.” S’ami turned to the men, and, with another nod, they were off. I’d never been further than the sentinel tree, but S’ami motioned for us to follow, and there could be no going back. We plunged into the forest, noticing other huts, in tree after tree, sometimes several at a time.
A whole city grew above our heads.
Behind us, more soldiers fanned out at a distance. They were loud, too loud, their wet boots squishing on the solid ground, the scraggly underbrush cracking and snapping underfoot. A commander held up a hand to halt everyone and then cocked his head to listen.
Far above us, things rattled. It wasn’t the rattling of sticks or leaves or stones, but a tongue clicking rapidly against the roof of the mouth, only louder. We’d heard the sound several times before, and it always boded a quick departure.
Mami grabbed S’ami’s sleeve. “It’s their last warning to us.”
“So noted.” He turned to one of the guards. “Get me up there. The women, too.”
He’d picked one of the more populated trees, a majestic hardwood probably older than Nihil himself, untouched by time except for a half-dozen clay bubbles bulging from limbs as wide as our boardwalks.
A guard knelt, and Mami stepped on his knee and onto the trunk. We’d worn flared, split skirts so our going would be easier. I clambered up after Mami, the Azwan behind me. My cloth boots found easy purchase in slippery areas. I reached the first branch as S’ami pulled himself up behind me. We landed on a limb as wide as the spread of a Feroxi’s shoulders where we could stand without too much difficulty. Bile rose in my throat and then slid down, burning as it went, as I forced myself to calm. Breathe in, breathe out, steady. Steady.
There, better.
Valeo scrambled up after me, surprisingly light on his feet, as if all that leather armor were no heavier than crane feathers.
The first mud hut came only to my forehead. I bent my knees and craned my neck to peer in. Dried leaves covered the floor, which looked solid enough, and the walls felt thick and sturdy. The vines and branches along the roof let in little light and probably less rain. The hut was empty, except for the gnarled branches they’d trained into the shapes of rough benches and sleeping lofts. It looked much like human furniture, only lumpier and leafier. I backed out and made my way up another branch to the next hut, from where we’d heard the rattling noise.
> Valeo pressed himself against the outside wall and peered through the hut’s opening with a turn of his head. I hadn’t noticed anyone else’s arrival, but there were a handful of guards in the trees with us. At first I saw nothing in the hut amid the scattered leaves, which looked like they had fallen from the roof and were simply left in place as a floor covering. Then a breeze shifted the branches overhead, and a darting shaft of light reflected off something on the floor.
I let Valeo go first, and he crept into the doorway, searched this way and that, and knelt to reach for the shimmering object. He snatched it.
A skin. He’d grabbed a Gek’s cast-off skin. It hung limply in his hand, gray but translucent, patches of light catching on iridescent scales like the scattering of glass shards. The hide was split down the back, with tattered shreds of what had been arm- and leg-skin. To anyone who’d never seen Gek, it might look like a woman’s shredded, silk underthings. It slipped between the guard’s fingers, oily and new. Valeo turned to S’ami: “If the Gek are like snakes, this creature has only just molted. Maybe it’ll be nearby.”
He handed the skin to S’ami, who rolled it into a tight ball and tucked it into a pouch at his side. Such pelts were hard to come by, even if it looked fragile. I tried not to obsess over what it might fetch among traders.
Valeo motioned toward the hut, and the other men drew their swords while he ducked under the low doorway. I tiptoed in after him. Valeo crouched, unable to stand in the low room. We both scanned the walls and leafy ceiling. In the corner by the doorway, half-hidden in shadows, huddled a shivering creature, its skin pink as if rubbed raw, still wet and oily, not yet iridescent like the hide it had just shed.
The Gek cracked a crescent slit of a mouth and emitted a high-pitched whimper. It stood on two legs, like us, despite its reptilian hide, and a short, stubby, vestigial tail it used for balance in the trees. It was cold-blooded, but this was mid-morning, and the Gek would have plenty of sunlight to keep themselves warm and active. Even coming up to my navel, it could cause plenty of trouble. But it trembled and cowered in the shadows.
“It’s a juvenile,” I said. “And it’s terrified. It can’t camouflage itself until its skin dries.”
“Will its mother be nearby?”
I nodded.
“Then it’s our hostage,” Valeo said.
“No! How could you!” My shout startled the creature. It tried to dart between Valeo’s legs, but he snapped his knees together. It slid to one side and dashed past him. He wheeled about as it ran into the opposite corner and began climbing the wall. Valeo grabbed it around its waist with his left arm. It writhed and thrashed, and I could see him squeezing in a vice-like grip.
“You’re crushing it,” I said. “It’s just a child.”
Whether Valeo dropped the Gek or it wriggled free, I didn’t see. Valeo had already lunged toward the wall with his sword, piercing a clump of wall.
It bled. And screamed.
The piece of wall opened a pink mouth and let out a shrill, fearful yalp. It moved, becoming a torso and arms and legs and opening eyes the color of the surrounding leaves. The creature was another Gek, its hide camouflaged a dark brown. Valeo aimed another thrust at the center of its chest, pinning it to the wall. The creature’s color went from brown to gray, the green eyes losing their radiance as its life drained away. A javelin dropped to the hut floor. Valeo pulled his sword away, and the Gek slid to his feet.
The child-Gek screamed, a shrill, agonizing cry that tore me to hear it, and flung itself on its dead parent. I ran to the body, feeling vainly for signs of life. I’m no healer and could offer no comfort. I made frantic hand motions to the child. That’s how humans spoke to Gek, with gestures that right at that moment weren’t springing readily to mind. My fingers were stuck, frozen, like I was stammering with my hands. I managed to say, “I’m sorry,” as if that would help. Valeo tried wrapping another arm around the Gek, and Nihil spare that poor thing, it sank its teeth into his forearm and thrashed its head. It must have hurt like nothing Valeo had ever felt.
“Get it off me!” he shouted.
“Let go of it.”
“It’s our hostage.”
I frowned. “Then I can’t help you.” Which was true; I can’t help someone who gets in his own way.
“Nihil’s balls, get out of here, then.”
I bolted. A few short steps to the door. Two more Gek dropped from the ceiling to block us, shaded a dark green like the foliage. My long-ago first impression of Gek had been of spindly limbs and smooth bellies; now I noticed ropes of muscles beneath their pebbly skin. They aimed javelins at us, the wooden tips whittled and polished to razor sharpness. These Gek came to my chin. Valeo held the pink Gek in front of him as it kicked and thrashed, a sword edge at its throat.
“Tell them what we want.”
I made motions. My hands moved more nimbly as if they’d gathered courage independent of the rest of me, though they visibly shook. I’d practiced some gestures the night before, and muscle memory took over. The signal for “star.” For “sky.” How about “I’m so horribly sorry”? I knew the gestures better than Mami; I was younger when I started to learn them. I’d even kept charts for a time, until a tearful Amaniel had begged Babba to burn such a heathen thing. My hands flew by instinct; I gave no thought to their rudimentary syntax or whatever courtesies usually passed among them. My pulse pounded in my ears; my breathing came hard and fast. They could sense I was terrified. Would such a show of weakness mean death?
They blocked the doorway.
“I need help in here,” Valeo said, his breathing ragged, blood streaming from the gashes on his arm where the young Gek was gnawing his flesh. He pressed it closer to his chest. I recalled how powerful that grip was.
“Azwan! Commander!”
A commotion outside told us we would get no answer.
Your sharpest weapons are your wits.
—Feroxi proverb
It all registered at once: crashing and shouting, men’s voices and Gek squawking, javelins clattering and arrows whizzing all around, the whine of steel slicing the air as men fought. I watched, helpless, as Valeo braced himself to fight one-handed from his low crouch. He rushed the doorway, working his sword to one side then the other. I huddled behind him as Gek parted and dropped, bleeding, the javelins splintered and useless. Valeo whirled and kept me at his back as we lurched out onto the branches. I stayed close and then closer, until there was barely air between us.
We kept our backs to the outer wall of the hut, me by his left side, one hand on the little Gek’s head, hoping if I stroked it, it would calm down and maybe release Valeo’s arm from its stubborn bite. A ways off, two dozen Gek surrounded Mami and S’ami and several guards who’d ventured into the tree. They bunched together where wide branches met in a wooden tangle. S’ami waved his gold totem high overhead, and from it emanated a wide, bluish sphere. Javelins and arrows burst into flame on impact. He had conjured some sort of glowing shield to encircle the stranded party. The Gek flung themselves at the nearly invisible barrier and fell screaming, the smell of burning flesh clawing at my gut. I couldn’t bring myself to watch. They were no match for the Azwan’s magic, and they were being slaughtered.
A hush fell over the Gek. I peered through my fingers to see them gathering in a half-circle around Valeo and myself. They scuttled from the enchanted sphere, seething and hissing, a few of them gesturing to me and pointing to the Gek child. I tried to read the gestures as best I could, but some of the signals were new. What I could understand, I didn’t like. I quaked all over, and the Gek became a blur. I confused the hand signals, unsure who’d said what, until I tried to zero in on just one or two of the closest ones. Mami shouted over to me. “What are they saying?”
“That we captured the shaman’s daughter. I think they’re cursing us.”
“The star, Hadara. I asked them—they have it.”
I nodded and flexed and unflexed my trembling fingers, rotated my hands this way an
d that, and flapped and waved and gesticulated wildly. We want the star. We’ll let shaman-spawn go. For the star.
Several shook their heads. I suppose that gesture is universal. I tried again. I took a deep breath and tucked my elbows by my side. That helped keep my hands steadier as I gestured. We do not want your swamp. Only the star.
One of the Gek stepped forward, a big fellow with a spiny crest atop his head, clearly some kind of leader. The men had crests, the only way to tell them from females. This one’s skin turned a mottled green streaked with angry crimson as he gestured:
You come with the big drabskins from long-ago memory. From before the lizards crossed the deep waters. The big drabskins trade only one way. Lizards remember.
Drabskins. That was their name for us. A one-way trade was basically a theft, or maybe meant looting. I shouted my translation to Mami and S’ami anyway. He nodded. “That sounds about right. They know the Feroxi well,” he said. “Guardsman. Release the girl.”
“Azwan, they’ll kill us all.” Valeo raised his sword, and the Gek fell back, hissing.
S’ami’s tone hardened. The blue sphere deepened in intensity, grew more like controlled lightning, flashing silently around him and Mami. “Guardsman.”
Valeo matched his controlled anger. “Cover me, then.”
“Absolutely not.”
I grabbed Valeo’s shoulder. “I think it’ll be alright.” I didn’t, but the Gek would definitely kill us if we hung on to the girl. The shamans kept all the tribe’s Gek-lore in their heads. Even Mami didn’t know how much that meant—all their herb knowledge, potion recipes, even the tree-worshipping that passed for a religion among them. A shaman’s daughter wasn’t someone they’d easily give up. As if to prove my point, javelin tips brushed our skin or hovered a finger’s width from our eyes.
A quick release of the soldier’s arm, and she revived, darting away and into the crowd. She was already regaining her ability to change color, and I had some difficulty picking her out. But now Valeo and I were alone, our backs to the small hut, our footing uneven on the tree limb. Valeo’s left arm curled by his side, blood streaming from where she’d nearly gnawed to the bone.
The Temple of Doubt Page 10