But then Andar shifted his focus to Jabari. "Your boot is unlaced, son," he said. Somehow he didn't seem as frightening anymore.
Jabari glanced at his boot and frowned, quickly bending and tying it.
"As though I don't know how to take care of my boots, long months in the wilderness," he grumbled to Gavi, who stood smirking beside him.
"Our friends look better than when we found them, eh, Yab?" Gavi said as Jabari straightened, and Jabari grinned.
"Look at that," he said. He reached out and clapped Ben on the shoulder and nodded at Isika. "Completely respectable travelers now, no longer running around in their underclothes."
Ben laughed and even Isika smiled. Overhead, the trees shook in a light breeze, and the cool of the morning softened the sun that shone on them.
"Respectable or not, I don't know what rangers are," Ben said.
"They're the grownup seekers," Jabari said. "They do similar work, but on the more dangerous borders, and they have to fight to protect us sometimes." Isika made a sound like she would protest, but then Laylit spoke.
"Where is Ibba?" she asked, raising her voice to reach them from the steps.
Isika exchanged a glance with Ben.
"She didn't come," she said. "She wanted to stay with Auntie Teru."
Laylit stared at Isika, her gaze cold and her face upset.
"I requested that she stay with me," she began, but Andar put a hand on her arm.
"Yes, love," he said softly, "but she is a child and she needs rest."
"She became close to Auntie Teru," Ben said, surprising himself. He didn't feel anything wrong coming from Jabari's mother, beside a bit of pride, perhaps. As he reached to hear the music that came from Laylit, he heard sorrow, most of all. It made him want to be gentle with her, no matter how fierce her look was.
Laylit drew herself up. She gave them another look, and it held a strong challenge. There was a lot of tension in the group, he heard echoes of it everywhere. Much of it must have come from the night before, when Isika had recognized their queen so strongly, and Ivram had made the guess he did.
"Why is she behaving this way?" Isika whispered to him.
"Maybe she thinks you want to rule her country," he said, "now she knows your ancestor might be the queen." He was only half joking.
Isika snorted, crossing her arms. "She can have her country. I don't want to run any country. I just want to find my brother and get back to Auntie's for more of her jam."
Ben laughed, and a bit of his own tension eased. To get away from the eyes of the elders, he bent and retied his own laces, though they didn't need it. There was a little burst of activity at the edge of the group, and when he stood up, his other sister was there. Aria stood straight and tall, her silverwood bow in her hand and a pack on her back. Her boots had buckles on them and Ben stared at them, thinking of how expensive they must be. She had a scarf tied around her hair, and she was so surprising, standing there, real and taking up space in the world, in a way he had thought would never happen again. She was very much alive.
"You came," Isika said, hurrying to give her sister a hug.
"Of course," she said, stiffly hugging Isika back. "I told you I would."
Ben hugged Aria lightly too, and Jabari and Gavi greeted her with their hands on their hearts, the customary Maweel way. All together, with Ivram and four rangers, there were ten travelers. Andar held his hands out over them and spoke the travel blessing.
"Go well, with speed,
The road be smooth
The trees give their bounty
Your hearts thankful and brave
Come back to us quickly."
PART 3
CHAPTER 25
They walked along the road that led out of the city, between people who waved from their houses and occasionally offered gifts. Ben found himself somewhere near the end of the line of travelers, Isika and Gavi behind him. And then Ivram was there, smiling at him, lines spreading from his eyes in fans that reached down his dark cheeks, his grizzled hair glowing in the morning light. Ben stared at the beautiful silverwood staff in his hand. It glowed slightly, though it was harder to see in the bright morning sun.
"I thought we could walk together for a time," Ivram said. "To talk."
Ben nodded, intimidated despite himself. The elder was so tall, his body bent slightly at the shoulders as he leaned his head to talk to Ben. His silver head matched the gorgeous staff, and the deep lines around his eyes told Ben that he was older than Ben had first thought.
"Of course, sir," Ben said.
"We call our elders Uncle and Aunt here," Ivram said.
"Even for someone like you?" Ben asked.
"Yes, for we are all sisters and brothers. To lord over someone is to break the bond between the Shaper and the shaped. Our regent should be the lowest among us."
It didn't seem that things were working out that way. Ben thought of Jabari and his quick anger at Isika, of Laylit and her frustration over being defied by a child.
"Of course we are still human," Ivram said, as though he was reading Ben's mind. "We often need reminders. It's why we have each other. But do you have questions for me? This must be strange for you."
It came to Ben in a rush, what Ivram was offering. He didn't like to ask Jabari too many questions, afraid to show his ignorance. Ivram was offering to be an information source, and Ben's shyness fled.
Isika pushed forward and stepped onto Ben's other side.
"I have so many questions!" she said. "Can I walk with you and talk as well?"
"Of course," Ivram said. "We have room for another. Although you may find yourself walking in the trees at the narrower points in the path. Ask away."
They were silent for a moment, and Ben wondered if he would get the courage to ask about his strange inner music, the drums and the way he could read the intentions of people. Isika spoke first.
"Jabari told us about the different gifts. So far we know about healing and protecting."
"Justice, too," Ben interjected.
"What are the other gifts?" she asked.
"Good question. I don't know that even we know all the possibilities of gifts and magic. We could be surprised." He looked up at the sky, squinting at one of the Othra, who wheeled high overhead.
He went on in his rich, deep voice. "There are some gifts we train and honor. Justice, or discerning, as you mentioned. That's a rare and very welcome one. It's great if there is a dispute over property lines and a person can just sense where the line is supposed to be." He smiled. "Then protection—that's pulling down the walls and fighting all the other ways the poison reaches us. You saw that at work. Was it a little shocking to you?"
"That's an understatement," Isika said, popping her eyes at Ben.
Ivram chuckled under his breath. "I have wondered how it would look to a person from a Worker village. Let's see… healing—that's healing from poison but from heartbreak and sickness as well. Jabari said Ibba might have a gift for healing, and you too, Isika. Then there's gathering—growing the food we eat and bringing it in for the people and let's see… building. The building gift can be for anything, from homes, to the cups we drink from. It is the gift to speak to the things we make so they perform what we need them to. Then the rarest; the life gift."
He breathed a deep sigh, smiling. "People with the life gift can speak to animals and the land, and sometimes even learn how to break the normal rules of the earth and make nature follow their will, bringing the land itself back to health when it has been poisoned."
They stared at him.
"Jabari has the life gift as well as the protector gift," Ivram went on. "He is a very gifted young man, perhaps the most gifted that we have had among us in many years." Ben remembered Jabari with the Othra, the way they would speak to him without using words.
Up ahead Jabari turned and looked smugly at them, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Even the dullest of ears can hear a compliment to itself," Ivram called. "Tell me, Jabari, w
hat gifting traits did you see in Isika in your travels?"
Jabari frowned, then turned forward and kept walking. "She did magic," he called back to them, "but I didn't see strong traits of any one gift in her," he said.
Isika bristled. Ivram smiled at her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"It's possible she has the traits of all the gifts," he said. "And that's the rarest of all."
"The goddesses forbid the use of magic," Ben said, almost to himself.
"That's because using gift magic draws on love and connection to the rest of the Creation. Mugunta wants to keep us dependent on slow and useless sacrifices, on our own work. So the goddesses come flying out of the Great Waste to forbid the gifting, to say it is unholy. Fighting the work and lies of the demon magic is one of the biggest charges of Nenyi, the great Shaper."
"Who is he?"
"Nenyi is first and last. She always was and always will be. She is neither male nor female, person nor animal, star nor sea. She is father and mother. Her love goes on forever, like a great ocean, but larger."
Ivram paused and smiled at them, the lines around his eyes very deep. "She is."
Ben stared at the ground ahead of him as the words lit a fire within him, but Isika sighed.
"You've just called Nenyi 'she!' How can I understand if I don't know what he or she is?"
Ivram nodded. "We always want to make the Shaper smaller, to make him look like us, to imagine he makes the mistakes we do. Nenyi is neither and both. She is higher, greater, encompasses all and is none. She is not something we have made. We have to learn to be comfortable with the mystery of the Uncreated One. We cannot contain the Life-giver." He went on.
"I was advisor to the queen, before she was taken from us. Things were very different then. Imagine knowing that everything is in connection with everything else, that all goes back in a long line to the Uncreated One himself, that all will continue as it should. This is how it was before our queen was kidnapped. She was our strongest link to the Shaper, she was the conduit."
"How could she be kidnapped, if she was so strong?" Isika asked.
Ivram was silent and Ben looked at him in time to see a shadow cross his face.
"We don't know," he said. "But I believe she was betrayed. The deepest poison is betrayal, and our queen was human, so betrayal would make her very weak. None of us can be as strong as we should be if others are using poison against us."
They walked in silence for a while, and Ben thought about the queen, wondering the ultimate question. Who was she to them? Was she their grandmother? The singing mother their own mother had told them about?
Ivram spoke again. "We are the saddest of people," he said, "and that is why we sing the sad songs and mourn. The poison breaks the world away from it should be. But we are also the most joyful, because we know how it can be. How it was, once."
"Restoration," Ben murmured.
"Yes," he said. "Exactly. But if I'm not mistaken, you have a question for me, young one." He looked at Ben.
Ben smiled. "Does your gift include mind reading?" he asked.
"Only when the thoughts of the person are practically leaping out of their eyes."
Ben smiled again, then his smile faded. How could he ask, especially with Isika walking beside him? He had never before put the things he wanted to say into words. But it was past time to know, to understand.
"All my life," he began, darting a look at Isika, who watched him, puzzled, "I have heard music, felt music, felt drums, seen colors somewhere inside myself. Drums of doom, I call them to myself. Strange, horrible music sometimes. And then sometimes, beautiful sounds and light and colors." His shoulders slumped. It sounded crazy, crazier than he had thought when he said it out loud. But he trudged on, committed now, they could think what they wanted.
"Lately I have noticed with the music, I can see into the thoughts of people. At home in the village the songs were almost always songs of doom. But since we have been journeying, the music lets me know when something will be okay. Or what I should think or do. When Isika broke down the walls, I didn't sense anything wrong, there was no music telling me it was wrong. I heard beautiful sounds, so I knew I needed to stand with her. Or when," he spoke in a rush, determined to get it all out before anyone interrupted him, "the men came in the night to take us, I woke because of the drums that warned me."
He dared a look up. Isika was staring at him, and he quickly looked away and at the ground, going on. "I'm beginning to understand a little. But all my life it has made me feel insane, like I might die. I had to hide, all the time, to keep from going crazy."
He waited for Ivram to speak. Isika spoke first. "You really have all of that going on inside you, all the time?"
He nodded, miserably, his shoulders hunched.
"It does sound like a lot, Benayeem," Ivram said. His deep voice had a warm, comforting tone to it, and Ben looked at his face. He didn't look horrified, only puzzled.
"Young one, I have heard of this only once before, and I need to confer with the Othra before I can give you an answer. But on the outside of it, you seem to have a gift for Justice, which lets you discern the truth from falseness or right from wrong in a way that others have to guess at. I have this gift, and this is why I am an advisor. But the last time I have heard of it displaying itself this way, with your own body as the instrument for your discerning, is hundreds of years ago, in a time which is long past."
"Can you just tell me if I'm crazy?" Ben asked, feeling desperate.
Ivram smiled, and the creases around his eyes were very deep, his eyes very kind.
"You are certainly not crazy. Chosen, maybe, but not crazy. I can help you control this, young one."
It was comforting. Ben's shoulders relaxed. As he walked he felt the light heart from a secret spoken aloud. He didn't need to hide it anymore.
CHAPTER 26
Isika was thinking about Ben, stunned by his revelations of years of an inner life that was unknown to her, and she barely noticed they were getting close to the river until they rounded a curve in the path and suddenly there it was. Three canoes were pushed up on its bank.
She came to a halt beside Jabari.
"We're taking boats?" she asked.
He nodded. "To save time," he said. "We'll take the river nearly to the sea, then walk to the last place we knew they were, the boat marks that the Hadem told us about."
Two of the canoes carried three people, and the last one held four. Isika rode in the canoe that had four people; Jabari, Aria, Benayeem, and herself. The boat settled low in the water. Isika closed her eyes and dipped her hand in the river, feeling the sharp flame of life within. The river at its headwaters was very pure, cold, and clear, with nothing but fish and stones in it.
"Jabari," she asked as they started off, Ben with one paddle and Jabari with the other, "why didn't we take this river on our way to the city, if it's faster?"
Jabari smiled and shrugged. "We could have," he said. "But I was on seeking duty. And I felt that I needed to have a little more time to get to know you before we reached the city. You can't always rush things, little sister."
Isika felt a flash of anger. "Sometimes you need to rush things," she said. "Such as when a little boy is in danger."
Jabari's face grew serious. "We didn't know then that he was in danger. And it's not nearly as fast to row upstream. It wouldn't have saved much time. Plus, your spindly arms couldn't have done it." He was teasing her again, just like that. She sat back in her seat, feeling a little better.
Aria was silent, gazing out over the water. Reeds lined the banks of the river, the silverwood trees were tall overhead. The sun shone through the trees, falling across the boats with dapples of light and shadow dancing across Jabari and Ben's arms as they paddled. Behind the silverwood trees were taller trees with feathery tops. Birds swooped over the water, chirping about food and sky. Isika turned her face up and tried to rid herself of the deep, hot lump of fear in her belly.
Kital was so smal
l and vulnerable. Ivram had said that betrayal was the most dangerous poison. The Workers had betrayed each of the children they gave over. Maybe that was why Aria seemed to be so angry with them. Was it a poison that could ever be removed? Or did it remain and fester? Would Kital ever be the same? Or Aria?
Isika turned to her sister. "What is your gift?" she asked.
Aria gave her a cool, level look before answering. "Protection," she said. After a moment, she added, "Most of the rescued are gifted in protection. Ivram believes it is because we were betrayed and the longing for our own protection glows into a gift for protecting others." She looked out over the river again.
"Aria," Isika said, her voice low and intense. "You know I didn't send you away, right? I was only ten years old."
"You stood there," Aria answered. "You didn't come after me." Her face was hard and shuttered, a gated house. She chewed her lip, then reached to take the paddle from Benayeem, paddling with Jabari, her arms strong and quick. Her hair scarf was loose and since her hands were busy, Isika retied it for her. Aria's shoulders were rigid. Jabari glanced back and Isika saw a flash of pity in his eyes.
Aria was right, though. Isika hadn't come after her. When she was ten years old, she hadn't even known it was a possibility, and even if she had, she wouldn't have left her mother. And if Isika had come after her sister, what would have happened to the newborn Kital? The futility of the past struck her silent, and she didn't speak again. Overhead the Othra flew, crossing paths with a flock of white birds.
Wait, child, be patient, Efir told her, and she took a breath, not yet used to hearing their voices from afar. She took the paddle from Jabari and rowed against the pain in her heart.
They were on the river for two more days, stopping at night to set up bedrolls and sleep. It was all very organized, with Gavi and one of the new rangers in charge of the food. Between meals, Isika nibbled at the nuts Teru had given her. The bread was gone on the first day, and on the second they relied on fish that the rangers caught, fruit from the trees, and Gavi's ever-present bag of potatoes. He roasted the potatoes in the coals of the fire, and they ate hot fish and potatoes with a little salt in the cool evenings, the wind on their cheeks cooling them after another day in the sun. Resting under the stars, weak from the strain of sitting in the canoe all day, she was sleepy and content. But fear for Kital never left her, and sometimes it washed over her like a tide, threatening to overwhelm her.
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