Sil frowned. God Almighty, leave it to a rustic to look a gift-horse in the mouth and then start flossing it for corn. “Listen, you ungrateful shitkicking son of –”
“GENTLEMEN,” Día said, rolling her eyes pointedly towards the assembled a’Krah – who were politely awaiting a resolution, or perhaps a knockout.
Elim let go. Sil jerked his shirt down. The tribunal proceeded.
“We... appreciate your efforts to speak to us in the language of our loss,” Penten said delicately. “And we have learned from Weisei how exceptionally your god has blessed you.”
Sil looked to him for some signal of how this was about to go, but Weisei was staring at the floor, his posture maddeningly ambiguous.
“Therefore, we will invite you to demonstrate the power of the Starving God, who strives always to compound our sadness. If you successfully invoke him to prevent Winshin’s knife from entering Appaloosa Elim’s heart –”
Winshin drew a bright blade from her boot, the flash of silver panicking Sil back into action.
“Wait,” he stammered again. “I want – I meant – it doesn’t work that way. I’m offering you my life in trade for his, not –”
“His life is not yours to barter with!” Penten snapped. “The First Man of Island Town sent him to us –”
“–and would be pleased,” Día interrupted with a nervous curtsey, “very gratefully pleased, if in your great wisdom you were to choose to reciprocate the gesture by returning Elim to Island Town – a gratitude that the First Man will gladly express with –”
“–with what?” To’taka barked, rising to his feet in rage. “With disrespect? With fool-regard? Does he give and expect we refuse? Does he insult by giving gift that make him angry when we accept? Then go and make him happy, woman, and tell that we return his man as same he return ours – in stinking wooden box! Winshin, vaika u!”
Marhuk’s daughter needed no second-prompting: before Sil could draw a breath to protest, before Elim could even guess at what had been said, Winshin curled her fist tight around the dagger’s hilt and rushed forward to slam the blade between his ribs.
BUT THE DOG Lady could not hold such a horrible thought for more than a moment: it had scarcely even escaped her mind before her face crumpled and her defiant stand turned into a stricken, aimless stagger. No, wait, she pleaded, hand to her mouth as if to smother a sob. Please don’t kill him. I’ll do anything, but don’t kill him!
The walls erupted into raucous, shrieking caws. And what will you do? How will you answer for what you’ve already done?
I don’t know! U’ru cried, burying her face in her hands. Everyone is angry with me. Everything is different now, and I can’t understand – I can’t decide anything.
It was a pitiful sight – one that needled Shea’s conscience as she remembered the scorching accusations she’d leveled at her after they found Día. Now, here, watching her plead with someone else, it was easy to see U’ru for what she was: a dog begging for an end to the withdrawal of affection, one whose sins had already escaped her short memory, and for whom there could be no worse punishment than uncomprehended hostility and indefinite loneliness.
The crows fell silent as she cried.
Then I will decide, they said at last, and you will obey.
The great lady looked up, her wet face wild with hope. Yes, Grandfather. Just tell me what to do. Tell me how to make you like me again.
Accept that you were wrong, U’ru, came the admonishing reply. You are a spirit of love, but you let it become selfish, childish, and shortsighted. You were a greedy mother and a bad leader, and the new world has no room for such weakness. If you want to survive here, you will have to grow up, and you will have to do it quickly. Do you understand?
Shea eyed the black mass, privately longing for a slingshot. U’ru hadn’t been as bad as all that. And what did this old corpse-eater know about love anyway? His own birds were dropping around them, probably from the unbearable heat of their convergence. Even as Shea watched, another crow toppled off its perch and into the shit-heap on the floor, its fall unremarked by any of its neighbors.
But maybe Marhuk had more power than Shea gave him credit for. And maybe his point was well-taken. Regardless, there was no more crying, no angry rejoinder – just a rich, ripe silence.
... yes, came the tiny thought from behind U’ru’s crumpled sleeves. I was wrong. I am sorry.
Very good. Now think outside yourself for a change. Look there at the great gift you have brought us, and think: how shall we restore Ten-Maia?
U’ru obediently looked down to the frail, sweat-drenched man before her, his tremors finally swallowed by a deep, drugged sleep.
So that was the game. That was why Marhuk had sent his messenger down to fetch them yesterday, after all the years of bad blood and silence: he must have discovered that Ten-Maia was tangled up with Hakai somehow, and that he was going to need help in separating them. Apparently he was counting on one problem to solve another – for one lost spirit to restore another.
A cunning plan – provided U’ru had any idea how to do that. Shea looked up at her patron-mother, her hopes dim.
Ten-Maia was the Corn Woman, the youngest of the Three Sisters. People in Island Town said that the drought had begun with her death. Shea knew better than to put money on that: the truth was a lump of sugar stirred into a whole pot of gossip and piping-hot superstition, where the earthly gods were concerned. But she also knew just how little rain they’d had since the Maia collapsed… and how little faith she had in the Dog Lady’s ability to change that.
U’ru put her arms down. She took another long look at Hakai, her brows furrowing as she gazed through him. She is not awake, she said at last. But she is still too big for a human body. All the years he’s been holding her inside – see how she’s aged him!
Shea had always taken Hakai for a man on the far side of forty. But as the last of those sinister leafy green veins receded from his neck and jaw, they left just his own soft, golden-maple features behind – and left Shea wondering how many of those white hairs and crow’s feet he’d earned by his own merit.
U’ru smoothed his hair back, her expression pensive. Now she kicks and struggles and will destroy them both if we let her wake up. She is like a baby that wants to be born. And she looked up into the fetid air, seized by the thought. Maybe if we could help her be born... maybe if he would sire a child...
A cawing chorus rippled through the chamber then, like creaky guttural laughter. It always comes back to babies with you, doesn’t it? Well, let it be: we’ll search our holdings for a young woman of the Maia, if there are any still left. And what about him? Can we trust you to care for him, and keep him alive in the meantime?
Alive, yes. Shea suspected that the tarré had done the hardest part of their work for them. But how much of Hakai’s mind had survived would be hard even for U’ru to know.
Yes, she said. I will keep him safe. I’ll do my best to make him well. But please, will you keep your promise? If I take care of this one for you, will you let me have my son?
The answer was long in coming.
You know he does not love you, U’ru. He does not even understand what you are.
Oh, but he will! she assured him. My Loves-Me will love me again – I only need a little time!
The birds had gone quiet. From the long, dark tunnel behind her, Shea could just make out the sound of human shouting.
Well, the voice of the crows said at last. He has cost us one son already, and perhaps we are soon to lose another... but that is the way of things. Go and have yours, then, and do with him what you will.
I will, U’ru pledged. I’ll explain everything to him. I’ll make him love me again, and then I’ll make him new brothers and sisters, and together we’ll –
No.
She looked up. What?
Not a twitch, not a peep – not one sound from all the thousands of crows around them. The thick, stinking air had gone deathly still. The scales
are not balanced, U’ru. Your debt is not paid. You were not a fit leader of your people – and now you have no people. You were not a good mother to your children – and so you will have no children.
U’ru’s face crumpled in horror. No – Grandfather, you can’t –
But the voice that answered her was the voice of certainty, of authority, of pitiless worlds-old finality. You left it for me to decide. It is decided. Do as you will, but know this: from this time forward, nothing you plant in your own soil will live. Nothing you do for yourself will last.
It was as good as a death sentence. The earthly gods lived only so long as they had a people – a culture – a human bloodline of their own. The Ara-Naure had been killed or dispersed, and if U’ru could not have any more children...
Shea’s gill-plumes prickled as U’ru’s gaze came to rest on her. For a weightless moment, she felt herself the sole object of the great lady’s attention – saw herself through a wise, warm-blooded lens. And then the Dog Lady shared a thought with her – a vital realization born from their fight over Día’s unmoving body – a frail, hairless epiphany she had apparently been nursing all night long.
U’ru had been counting on her progeny – on her son, on the siblings she would give him, and on the grandchildren they would give her in turn. But they would not be enough. They would never have been enough. Yashu-Diiwa had the bloodline, but he had never learned the ways of the Ara-Naure – and U’ru could not teach them all. She had no tongue to impart their language. Diminished as she was, she barely remembered the old ways.
But Shea had been awake all these years. Shea still remembered. And if she – who was not the Dog Lady’s child, who was not even a human being – had been made Ara-Naure, had belonged to the people, had accepted the name they gave her... what was to prevent her from taking her place as a teacher of new people? What was to prevent her from fostering others like herself?
Age, Shea thought at once. Patience. Too much age, not enough patience. She had been a terrible teacher in her own right, a failure of a foster-mother – and that was when she still had health and vigor on her side.
That was when she was alone, the gentle second-voice corrected her. Shea and U’ru had both done terrible things, when they were alone. Together, though... together, softening and tempering each other’s excesses... together, as they had been before...
Shea had ruined her vision long ago – one more sacrifice in the quest to find that misbegotten boy. But she was seeing herself now through U’ru’s eyes: not as the withered, mutilated, cynical old wretch who looked back at her from every pond and glass, but as the one who was still here. The one who had singlehandedly kept her mistress’s legacy alive for twenty years and more. The one who had swallowed every cruelty and survived. The one who had come with her here, to the end of the world, to stand with her as she answered for her past crimes – as she stared into the abyss of her own future.
The Dog Lady had one child left. She would not survive without him.
The Dog Lady had one friend left. She would not survive without her, either.
So U’ru knelt down before her old companion, and kissed her hand. Not on the back, as a suitor would, but three times, at the crevices between her fingers – one for each of the faint scars where the webbing had been cut away and burnt. And at this close remove, even Shea could not miss the trembling at the corners of U’ru’s mouth, the wet shine in her eyes, as she forced herself to let go. Will you stay with me, Water Dog? Will you help me do the right things?
It was a small, humble question, not meant for Marhuk’s hearing.
And it could have only one answer. Of course, Mother. We’ll do them together.
That was the answer. That was the way forward. If U’ru could not have any more children, then she would have grandchildren. And Shea would teach them.
Perhaps that was what the old crow had intended all along.
Then I will do for others, U’ru said to him at last, and my son will do for me. Come, Water Dog! We are going now – we are going to fix everything.
Freshly resolved, the Dog Lady rose and began to collect Hakai for the long walk out. Freshly inspired, Shea hauled herself up to follow her.
She knew better than to set her hopes too high: Yashu-Diiwa was still a big ugly question mark, and so was Hakai, and... well, and so was she. After all, she wouldn’t be around forever. There would come a day when U’ru would have to get along without Shea.
But that day was not today. Today, U’ru had one child, one friend, and two great tasks ahead of her. Today, Shea was welcome and wanted – and tomorrow, together, they could finally start setting things right.
But in spite of the radiant heat of Marhuk’s manse, its occupants saw them off with precious little warmth.
We shall see.
“HE LIVES.”
The voice, if it could be called that, was little more than an articulated death-rattle. Vuchak looked up in astonishment. He had never heard the old woman speak, and tended to dismiss those who claimed they had.
But the Last Word was exactly that, and her croaking edict halted Winshin’s momentum, if not her mouth.
“WHY?” she demanded. “Why must he live, when Dulei is gone? By what right –”
“Be quiet,” To’taka commanded. “Those are not your questions to ask.”
Vuchak folded his arms and watched as the foreigners gawked and wondered at this last-second reprieve. Nobody bothered to translate for them.
Instead, Penten’s brow creased in sympathy; she gestured to beckon Winshin closer. “Come, love, and be consoled: you may still have some satisfaction. Have the white one instead. He is a rich and fitting prize.”
A pebble skittered over Vuchak’s foot. He glanced over, where Ismat stood guard opposite him, on the right side of the doorway – and Echep crouched down just outside it.
He looked awful, as if he’d been mobbed by a flock of rutting turkeys – but the intention in his eyes and the jerk of his head might as well have spoken aloud.
Come on – let’s get out of here.
Vuchak couldn’t believe it. Echep should be in here, dealing with this. Vuchak should be out there, hurrying to find out whether he still had a sister. Dulei’s faithless atodak had managed to be forgotten about in the chaos, and now he was hiding in the bushes like some delinquent wastrel, urging Vuchak to cut and run too. By every god, what had happened to shame?
“Isn’t that so, To’taka?” Penten was saying. “Shouldn’t we consider this second offering equal to the first? He’s obviously a valuable person, even if he doesn’t have any manners.”
To’taka was fed up with it, of course. Half of Atali’Krah was in ruins, scores of people dead, and he was stuck here, spoon-feeding Winshin her promised vengeance. The law was clear: justice for a child of Marhuk took precedence over everything but the lives of others – and she had taken full advantage of it.
So To’taka did the expedient thing, sat back down, and nodded. “Yes. Take that one. Do it now, before he talks again.”
Vuchak glanced ahead at Halfwick, and made no effort to hide his scowl. The Eaten boy should not be here, at the seat of Marhuk’s power – not dead, not alive, not anything in between. He had been a fine enough young man before, but now his purpose was clear: he was a tool of the Starving God – and his presence, his entire being, was a dangerous outrage against nature.
“No, you can’t!” Weisei cried, shriveling Vuchak’s nerves with the first sound of his voice. “Afvik didn’t do anything to Dulei, and everyone knows it!”
“Weisei, hush,” Penten said. “Winshin, go ahead and –”
“No!” Weisei said. “This is not right. It is not just. And I won’t – and I won’t allow it to happen!”
Shit.
Vuchak bit his tongue, shamefully aware of the stares of the other two atodaxa: Winshin’s in haughty smugness, Penten’s in grandfatherly disapproval, and both in perfect agreement – that was no way for a son of Marhuk to speak to his eld
ers.
“Weisei, be quiet,” To’taka growled, speaking Vuchak’s part for him.
Another pebble. Another head-jerk from Echep. Another reminder of the case he had made last night. Weisei will never grow up, his pointed gaze said. He’ll spend his life chasing his appetites and embarrassing his company – just as he’s doing now.
And he might even be right.
“No,” Weisei said, his petulance fermenting into full-fledged revolt. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of all of it. We hold ourselves in such high regard – we look down on all the rest of creation – but look what we do. Look how we treat people!” He was ranting, flinging his hand out in a borderline-obscene gesture at the three bewildered foreigners, working himself up to a fury – and it was all Vuchak could do not to throw law and caution to the wind and march up there to clamp a hand over his mouth.
“Well?” Weisei demanded. “Is this justice, or is it a meat market? Are we here to swap and barter like old women haggling over a pile of intestines? ‘Oh, that one’s no good, I want my money back’ – ‘Well, take this one instead, and I’ll throw in a –’”
Fear finally bested prudence. “Weisei, by every god SHUT UP!” Vuchak shouted, giddy with dread.
“I WILL NOT!” Weisei roared back, livid with righteousness, proving Echep wrong in one heedless instant. He was a man – a man about to do something really, irreversibly stupid.
To’taka rose to his feet again, his face darkening, his lips a tight, dangerous line. “Weisei Marhuk, your next word will find you guilty of treason.”
This was bad. This couldn’t happen. Vuchak glanced over at Echep one more time – not beckoning or gesturing anymore, but crouched there staring out at nothing, his face an astonished eavesdropping reflection of the fear curling around Vuchak’s gut.
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