Blood Indigo

by Talulah J. Sullivan

  Palatan’s eyes were still teasing, but also questioning as he gave a fond tug to Madoc’s ahlóssa braid. “I suppose we should all go and find th…”

  A shrill whistle made him trail away and peer towards the massive cliff frontis. Teasing gave way to disbelief, then elation.

  Aylaniś felt it herself, bubbling up into a smile. “He’s made it!”

  “Who’s made what?” Madoc asked, looking back and forth, plainly puzzled.

  The piercing whistle sounded again, details soaring over the cliff frontis from River: trilling thrice, skidding into a lower register then up again shrill as raptorKin. Aylaniś read them, plain: A long, slow journey, but I’m here! Are you?

  Palatan turned and answered in kind, beginning shrill then dropping low. We’re here! We’re coming!

  Aylaniś laughed and gave Palatan’s shoulder a gentle push. “Go. Greet him.”

  His face lit up, a shaft of sun in cavern depths. Grasping her hand to his cheek, he loosed it to tangle fingers in Kuli’s hair and tug Madoc’s braid. “Kuli. Go find your sister and show her where we’ve made camp. Will you help him, Madoc? We must go.”

  Madoc still seemed confused. “Go where?”

  “Off with you.” Aylaniś gave Palatan another nudge. “I’ll be right after.”

  Still grinning, Palatan loped away. Aylaniś turned her attention to the two children. “Go, ahlóssa. Find Anahli.”

  Kuli tilted his chin in acknowledgement and sped away like his sire, but in the opposite direction. Madoc remained.

  “Will you not help him, Madoc?”

  “He knows where you’re to stay.” As stolid—and as adamant—as ever were his parents, but Madoc’s composure breached easily as any youngling’s. “Don’t make me tag along with him again? Please? Where is Uncle Palatan going? Wasn’t that a wyrhling’s whistle?”

  Aylaniś chose the swiftest route—Palatan was eager, but so was she. “Indeed it was, and I’m sure you remember your Uncle Našobok. He just let us know his ship has anchored midRiver.”

  Madoc’s face closed. “I have no uncle of that name.”

  Aylaniś should have expected it; nevertheless, it hit her like a blow. She answered in kind, sharp with a hint of teeth, “Madoc’enbeh a’Naišwyrh! You forget your manners, and traditions older than all of us. All leaders of the People are welcomed to First Running, whatever Clan they possess… or do not.”

  His face flamed; but to do him credit, he didn’t lower his eyes.

  “And he is of my Clan, oathbrother to my spouse and to me, regardless of his status here. He is my tribe’s guest, if not yours.”

  Those eyebrows, dark over wide bronze, squinched together. “I’m sorry, Aunt.”

  Aylaniś smiled, tugging at his ahlóssa braid. “Well enough, then.”

  Madoc laid his temple against her arm for a half-breath, then raced away. Aylaniś watched him go, then turned away, her smile broadening, and her steps skipping into a run.

  Našobok was here!

  THE GALLEY was one of the biggest to ride River, laying-to all broad and low with cargo, mast snagging the bits of fog still drifting from the bottoms. Just close enough to be sheltered by Mound-upon-River’s crescent-shaped cove, but not so close as to risk running aground. The rigs were nigh bare, save for a tiny jib set forwards—perhaps some security, set against the small Wind teasing at Anahli’s cheeks. Several crew were still up and aft, tying off the furled sails. She envied them, for reasons inarticulate even to herself. After all, much better to ride horseKin than River. River had stolen…

  Rough, cheerful asides carried across the water upon the breeze. Damp and brisk, it made Anahli glad for the blanket over her shoulders. The elder had insisted she keep it; he’d several more and the gift would do him honour. That memory, and the crew clambering like birds upon the spars whilst swapping cheerful insults, returned the smile that had fled.

  Ilhukaia was the ship’s name. Commingling-talk for “Surrender”. Her smile faded again. What had the ship’s master ever given up, after all? Ilhukaia was nothing akin to any surrender. More like escape. Insurgence. Defiance, winged and afloat.

  Her fingers clenched upon the gifted blanket.

  “What are you doing up here?”

  Madoc’s sudden appearance echoed Anahli’s own inner question.

  You heard the whistle, a snide, inward Anahli informed her. You want to see him, too.

  N’da, I really don’t, she retorted.

  “Anahli. They’re looking for you, you know.” Madoc might have grown taller, but his voice was still ahlóssa—particularly when it tilted upward into whinging. “Even the Spawn.”

  Anahli had four younger siblings. She knew exactly what tone to take with a whinge. Propping one buttock against Overlook’s driftwood railing, she crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow. “Do you even know what Spawn really means?”

  Madoc rolled his eyes.

  “It’s not a nice term, where I come from. It suggests that someone is a thing, an ‘it’. Not wholly of People. That one was Shaped, made Other.”

  Madoc looked uncomfortable.

  “Like things in the forbidden places—”

  “All right, all right!” Madoc’s cheeks had paled beneath his faded Marks. “I won’t. But he’s so—”

  “Annoying? Like you’re annoying me, now, ahlóssa?”

  A flush, this time. He was going to be quite a looker, when he grew up and stopped with this pretend-stone-face nonsense. Though, considering his parents…

  “I’m here same as you. As these others”—Anahli gestured along Overlook where, indeed, people were gathering—“looking at the new arrivals.”

  “I’ve no interest in outcasts.” Madoc’s sniff returned him straightaway into self-righteousness. “I’m looking for Tokela.”

  They refuse to say the name we gave him. Another memory/reminder surfaced in Chogah’s voice. His dam came to us—it was her right, to come to her own grandmother’s People and ask for the Naming—but still those hidebound dawnLanders consider that forbidden, too!

  Anahli let out a soft growl. She was going to smother, here.

  And likely it was just what her dam had in mind.

  Madoc peered at her—not tall enough to meet her gaze, though he was trying—then glanced down the walkway as if Tokela might be stowed away somewhere and she’d a hand in it.

  “That’s him!” The hissed accusation intruded into Anahli’s reverie. Sliding her gaze sideways, she saw others crowding the best of the lookout perches. “There, in the canoe! He was own brother to Mound-chieftain, that one!”

  “Was?”

  “He’s Riverwalker. Wyrhling.”

  Several mutters, one sounding above the rest, “Brother no more, then.”

  The small group, from their Marks and garb, came of neighbouring Forestlodge.

  “Old Nechtoun himself had to publicly disown his own second-born: outlier, clanless and”—down to a whisper—“River-claimed!”

  Despite scorn, Madoc’s gaze went wide and fixed over the railing, towards Ilhukaia.

  A long, husky scrape of wood against gravel and sand accompanied the whisper, drawing Anahli’s own gaze. River reflected Sky in a mix of bright and overcast, hazing not only the larger vessels at anchor, but a bark-lined canoe rocking in the shallows, bearing two figures. It lurched further as the frontmost one laid his oar into the canoe’s keel and uncurled from the prow. A Riverwalker’s oiled-hide longcoat fluttered in Wind’s breath, with quilled and beaded crimson glinting across broad shoulders. A thick mane of sleek bistre had been tailed back to hang from collar to midcalf hem. Barelegged and barefoot, pale leggings and boots tucked into the crook of one powerful arm, the wyrhling disembarked. River-claimed, indeed, for She seemed loath to let go, pulling heavy against long-legged strides as Her own sloshed for shore.

  Našobok shouted a wonderful and giddy melange of tongues: Wyrh-talk, some a’Naišwyrh, mostly a’Šaákfo. He was laughing.

  The canoe set off again.
Back to the boat, errand accomplished.

  As Našobok reached shore, a black-haired figure ran up and literally smacked into him. Boots and leggings were dropped onto the strand as, still laughing, Našobok lifted Palatan up into a fierce embrace. Anahli’s eyebrows lifted; she had supposed any memories of Našobok’s forelock scraping Sky were ahlóssa fancies.

  Obviously not. Though it had been that long since he’d graced them with his presence.

  Nevertheless, Anahli’s mouth tucked into a small grin as Našobok swung Palatan around easily as if he were ahlóssa. The grin broadened as Palatan smacked Našobok in the back of the head, only to slightly falter as the hand lingered, softening into a caress as Našobok relented and let him down.

  The busy-talkers a length away, however, were not amused. “That is—”

  “Unseemly, it is, consorting so with outliers.”

  More were gathering, also looking as if they’d tasted sour fruit. Anahli wondered if their tongues would wag so free if she didn’t have the blanket covering her head and arms. No question, with River in one’s nose it was difficult to tell by smell even if, here and there, a waft of charred fern and copperwood lingered. Different from her own Clan’s scent; dryer, touched with sage and needlecreeper oil.

  “You don’t like the wyrhling, do you?” Madoc had left off gawking to peer at Anahli instead. His voice was soft, wondering.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Šaákfo!” A snort from the other end of Overlook. “Who can make sensible talk with those?”

  “Not only a’Šaákfo, but Alekšu.” Spoken with a hint of scandal. “And who can make sensible talk with those?”

  “That is Alekšu? He looks to be no sizeable warrior—see how the wyrhling towers over him,” a younger fem scoffed. “What’s so fearful about this Alekšu?”

  She was shushed with hisses, and glances around.

  Madoc was—blessings to him!—puffing up like poked serpentKin. Anahli put a staying hand upon his shoulder. She wanted to hear.

  “The MedicineKeepers a’Šaákfo have Power!” one of them retorted. “They dare to walk with those possessed.”

  A good thing, Anahli groused, silent, since you dawnLanders fear to so much as look upon the ones you cast aside.

  Sure enough, more hisses, complete with warding gestures.

  “I’ve little doubt of it. The one who was Alekšu before? A witch, no question.”

  “Yet Mound-chieftain allows her here, to Council!”

  “Her fangs have finally been pulled,” another murmured.

  “So you say. Yet for many turnings of Hoop none could defeat her in that odd ritual they have, challenge and combat. A fem her age against hardened hunters! That is Power, nothing but.”

  “A’io, and if Palatan a’Šaákfo has defeated her, then he has taken her Power. I’d not try to tell him anything.”

  Silence fell beneath the chancy subject. But not for long.

  “Eh, but none should trust a wyrhling at their back.” A growling return to the original subject—obviously wyrhling were safer to denigrate than MedicineKeepers.

  Amusement floated up from the strand with laughter, then an arc through the air with boot fringe flying. Aylaniś was being greeted in much the same way as her spouse, her full, delightful giggle, weaving in and out of Palatan’s deep, husky chuckle and Našobok’s bark of laughter. Anahli remembered the latter; it encouraged others to join in.

  “There’s few’ll cross that wyrhling.” The busy-talkers had wound up again. “Fewer still challenge him without blood spilt. He killed the chieftain before him, painted the deck in blood and hung his head on the masts as warning.”

  Madoc clearly hadn’t heard this one; he shot another glance towards Ilhukaia. Disbelief slid into respect as he espied the skull hanging from the mainmast, a bony clatter when Wind touched it.

  An oversized skull, not of firstPeople. Anahli knew that, like she knew a different truth from stories told long into wintering darks as a child: Ilhukaia had never known any master but the one she now carried, and it had been a Matwau slave trader whose head Našobok had taken.

  “I think it shameful a chieftain’s son would choose such a path.”

  “He’s never taken a proper path in his life, that one. Wild and treacherous as floodwater he’s been, from the Sun his dam birthed him. Hearken his name: River-mad Wolf.”

  Just as Kulahiši meant Little Fox Fur, just as Hihlyanahli meant Graceful Dancer. But only with an outlier’s name would those busy-talkers scorn Commingling-talk with such familiarity—and disregard.

  And it wasn’t River-mad, merely River Wolf.

  “I’ve heard he’s a blood pact with River, in exchange for safe passages. That’s too close to Shaping for any comfort.”

  “Your talk is nonsense. Outcasts are dangerous, but Shaping? Hunh! Stories to frighten ahlóssa. There are no more Shapers, except for the evil tall ones. Our people cast such things out long ago. Now there are only those who allow possession, who are too weak of Spirit to want healing.”

  Well, and Anahli’d just about had enough of this.

  “—refuses to espouse anyone. I’ve heard possessed ones don’t espouse—”

  “Then how would they get their curse on, foolish mouth?”

  “Nothing to do with witchery there, he’s outlier! What dam would let her own consider an outcast? What sire would not punish an outcast if he so much as raised eyes to a cherished daughter?”

  A snort. “That’s not why the wyrhling’s not espoused. He’s more danger to a dam’s sons. Never showed any interest in females, even after outgrowing oških fancies. Not that such a one could earn any spouse!”

  “If none will tell Alekšu, well, his chieftain should. She should know better.”

  “Or at least not be so obvious.”

  “Obvious about what?” Anahli shrugged the blanket from her shoulders and tucked her chin, eyeing them. “That they care for each other?”

  The busy-talkers turned like sand in one’s hands, shifting and slipping away into stammered, forced mannerisms of apology. With their notice of the horseClans daughter came another: their own chieftains’ son, glaring across his broad nose at them.

  Meanwhile, down on the strand and still wrapped about each other, Palatan, Aylaniś, and Našobok climbed the steep stair and disappeared into the gated tunnel into the Mound.

  More from being deprived of a target than, Anahli was sure, any shame for their sharp tongues, the watchers also dispersed.

  “I’m sorry. They were rude. Some were a’Naišwyrh, so I apologise to you on their behalf.”

  It was very prettily done. Anahli tilted her chin in acceptance.

  “You haven’t seen Tokela, then.”

  “You,” Anahli retorted, a grin once more trying its way with her lip, “are a single-minded ahlóssa.”

  Madoc’s grin slid impenitent as he recovered the shrugged-aside blanket, handing it over. “And if they ask me if I found you?”

  “Are you offering to hide me under your blanket?”

  “Mm. Looks as if you’ve one already.”

  She snorted, taking the blanket.

  Madoc’s grin widened. “Will you let me ride your horse?”

  “Can you ride, dawnLander?” Anahli started down the stone-carved steps.

  He followed. “Of course I can! So can Tokela. My dam still rides—she was of horseClans, you know.”

  “I know. She’s my sire’s sister, remember?”

  Madoc was peering at her braids, fascinated and a little bit disapproving. “We’ll have to find you a proper headwrap.” Then, before she could protest, furthered, “Ebon-streaked copper with a hint of gold. To match your eyes.”

  Anahli halted, her foot midair above the second terrace’s downward slope. “How many Summerings have you, again?”

  “Ten.” Another grin. A’io, he was going to be more than handsome when he was grown.

  “Spawn,” she murmured, and kept going.

  “I thought
that wasn’t very nice.”

  “Really? I’d no idea.”

  Madoc blinked. Then grinned again. “I think you’re going to be ever so much more interesting than Kuli.”

  Anahli snorted again, and kept on descending.

  “ONCE, LONG ago—not so long ago that divingKin hadn’t found Grandmother beneath Sea’s expanse, but after that and long enough, ai, long enough—there was but one Moon. One Moon, and He was lonely.”

  Other than the lone, sure voice and an accompanying finger-flick of rhythm against drums palmed whisper silent, the valley compound was silent. Not even Wind spoke. Yet within the centre of First Running’s opening circle, Fire made a cheerful Dance, lighting the storyKeeper’s mood and her listeners’ faces.

  “Sister Sun was not enough for Him. Rarely did they meet; rarely did they Dance. So Brother Moon asked the People; a’io, He asked the newest siblings born of Grandmother’s clutch, asked if they could find company for Him.”

  Indeed, as if conjured, a mist-shrouded Moon and siblings chased Sun into the horizon. The ahlóssa gasped. One infant trilled, delighted, and his dam hugged him close with a laugh.

  No conjurings here, n’da—Anahli recognised the gleaming-stones as the taleKeeper struck and hung them in their metal weirs, setting shadows to dance against the surrounding cliffs and make talk with River’s bottom mists.

  “Hunh. Only in dawnLands.” Barely audible, misting Anahli’s ear. “Only here would storyKeepers cull all reference of which People Brother Moon truly asked.”

  Anahli didn’t turn, instead shivered into the elder’s gifted blanket still over her shoulders. She was grateful for the body heat of the gathering, too, all of them leaning close to listen.

  Chogah wasn’t deterred. “Yet your dam would leave you. Here.”

  “It’s my right, to be hearthed with kin,” Anahli murmured back.

  “Hsst!” a nearby elder censured.

  “And when the Beloved One, first amongst equals, led the call—”

  “The Beloved One, first of the Alekšuáhoklawyhahín.” Chogah growled the correction into her robes, tugging them closer.