Once again, Vox muttered something to Sivan. Tokela didn’t need translation to hear the dismissal: superstitious primitive. Looking Vox in the eye, Tokela made a silent vow: that one would not again see him succumb to so much as a twitch.
“I imagine your people have also found poisons growing beside cures,” Sivan said. “The shigala’s blood seems to follow that rule. I’m sure a bio-shaper could explain, but for now we’ll just go with what works.”
Bye-oh…Shaper?. Tokela refused—refused—to react, instead offering, “When someone is bitten by a poison serpent in the DryLands, they will use organs to draw the venom.”
Kneeling, Vox raised his eyebrows at Sivan, then offered, “This will sting.”
“Worse than the bite?” Tokela retorted, and had to tuck a smirk behind his teeth when Vox blinked. Even with the small eyes and too-pale lids, the expression was familiar—as was the frown that replaced it. Without another word, the Chepiś began slicing and layering bits of what looked like a heart onto Tokela’s leg.
And if that was what a Chepiś considered a sting?
“It will leave a nasty scar. I imagine such holds no distress for you, considering that.” Vox nodded towards the carmine wyrh tree tattooed across Tokela’s ribs, received by all a’Naišwyrh when their voice first broke or their breasts began to bud.
I imagine you haven’t much, Tokela retorted—silent, of course. Imagination, that is. Instead he revisited the smirk. The new scars would indeed be worth showing off when he removed to the oških den.
If he made it back.
“Do you—?”And it was nigh the same time as Sivan asked her own question:
“What are you called?”
Vox grumbled something that for a half heartbeat seemed intelligible. “—brother kept pets, and now you would do likewise. Your father would—”
Tokela frowned as Vox’s talk gibbered off into nonsense once again. Sivan’s response was terse. It drove Vox to his feet. He looked angry.
“Go wash,” Sivan told him.
Vox tilted his head. It might have been courtesy, or it mightn’t, but he went. He passed Rann and Maloh as they returned, shaking his head when Rann would have stopped, spoken.
“Forgive him,” Sivan said. “Sometimes we are quite”—she thought upon it, shook her head then continued—“temporal?” When Tokela frowned, she tried again, “In this place? With our reactions. And how would it be otherwise, when we have become so like your kind?”
Tokela blinked at her. Some of her talk he didn’t comprehend, some sounded insulting, and the rest simply confused. The meat upon his thighs oozed, prickling his skin. The whiff of decay made him all the more woozy.
“If it’s beginning to rot,” Tokela asked, “does that mean it doesn’t work?”
Sivan frowned, peering down at him. “It hasn’t begun to rot.”
“Can”—surely his tongue hadn’t been this thick even four heartbeats previous—“smell it.”
“Sivan!” The name, then a string of their talk as Rann hurried over.
Sivan’s answer scaled upward as she knelt, her hand gripping Tokela’s chin, hard. There wasn’t a thing he could do about it, either; no protest, not even an evasion as his head fell back, his neck limp as a newborn’s.
And somehow Grandmother opened up beneath him, took him into Her silent womb-darkness. Not yet, She hummed, cradling him close. You will be mine, but not yet…
Voices, sharp and tense and somehow fearful. He is pulled from Earth’s embrace, limp and small. He doesn’t want to leave, fights…
Instead something stinging-feathery-cool spreads across his breastbone and sinks down—sinks in—as if he has been cut open for fingers to grab hold of his heart. Ice filling his veins. Pain, yet also abrupt pleasure, melting into a rush of warmth as his heart starts to quiver within caging fingers. As if he is a vessel left dry for too long, cracking along the rim from the sudden flood of this whatever-it-is, this… neverending.
A jolt strains his muscles, brings the taste of blood to his tongue as those icy fingers upon his ribs—within his ribs—force his heart back to beating. His protest is hoarse and emptied of breath. His eyes are open, yet all he sees are Stars. Wind swirls about his open mouth then floods his chest, as the ice-chill fingers give another insistent… twist, and as voices flood behind his eyes to set Stars to Dance, and as Sky opens up to…
Swallow him…
By the Bonds of Atvan…
A whisper, but not, floating astonished in the Deeps, then another, echoing beneath:
Who are you, Tohwakelifitčiluka? Who are you, Eyes of Stars?
They know his blessing-name, somehow, and dare to speak it aloud, twisted free and Power-Full. It skims the surface of panic, and the sound of it—his, Spirit breath and body—returns to him one instinct never long absent:
Fight.
And with every sense he has Tokela twists, kicks out—not only body but heart and Spirit-will. There is a cry—dismay? horror? surprise!—as his defiance takes form in the void-called-neverending, a shield of obsidian to repel, a flood of copper waters carrying him away on a swift current, safe…
Tokela kicked free from the Matwau’s firm hold, fell, and hit rolling. Coming to a crouch, he hunched there, fingers reaching for a knife but instead clawing at skin: his weapon still wasn’t there.
Rann had fallen back, her small eyes wheeling-white. Sivan too was staring at him. Maloh was cursing—in the flat talk, yet of its foulness there was little doubt—and holding her side.
The situation was so absurd, so implausible—three of them stood down before a weaponless not-yet-oških—that Tokela choked back a sudden urge to laugh.
“I think,” Maloh said, her eyes flickering from her companions to Tokela and then back again, “he is no longer poisoned.”
6 – Hearth
By the time Vox returned, the Moons had begun to peek through the branches of the canopy. Maloh had started a Fire and hung meat over it for warming. Not the shigala’s, Tokela was glad to see; it smelt like normal meat. Indeed, Maloh showed a good grasp of common manners by inviting Tokela to be the first to be seated at Fire’s circle.
She also returned his knife to him.
He took it, watching her all the while. Maloh merely sat next to him, motioned for him to be seated. “We do not offer harm to a guest at our hearth,” she told him. “Be easy. You have startled my oathsister, that is all.”
Tokela peered over to where Sivan and Rann had been in soft conversation for some time, now joined by Vox. “You… have… oathsisters?”
“I do. We do.” The Matwau smiled and peered at Sivan across the small, cheering blaze. “She is as near to as I will ever claim.”
It was, again, such a normal sentiment that Tokela accepted not only the seat, but the first helping of their meal.
They ate in silence—Tokela would have termed it companionable had he not been sitting, a questionably welcome guest of Chepiś, in the middle of Šilombiš’okpulo, at what Fire a Matwau had brought forth.
Inwardly, he felt no such silence. Instead he felt… exposed. Sore, as if he’d been dragged over rocks. The silence… roared, almost; as if with Wind’s hoarse breath. StandingKin pressed about him, lurking like shadowlings. He could hear River-children burbling, and Fire’s heat tongued his cheeks, popping and hissing as if Ša would speak a tongue Tokela might fathom, did he listen.
Instead Tokela focused on the roast meat and the Chepiś’s hushed voices, wondering what had happened.
For something had happened.
“Do they have young?” It was the only question he could form upon his tongue.
Maloh didn’t take offence. “They do. Like my people”—her eyes slid to meet his—“and yours. You have the markings of a young one, yourself.”
He met her gaze.
“And now you’re wondering how I know so much of your people. I have known some of them in my time, you see.” Maloh took a bite of the meat with oddly blunt, strong teeth.
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I have known some of them.
Again, questions crowded his brain, thankfully drowning out the strength of the woodland’s presence. Yet Tokela feared speaking even one.
“There is an old sgral—” the dark eyes flickered to him as Maloh replaced the word with barely a beat “—one of firstPeople who claims to be chieftain over one of your tribes. But he is a charmer, that one, and tells stories for the fun of it.” She seemed to be speaking more of lies than any deeper storied truth; nevertheless she took note of what must be scrawling itself over Tokela’s face. “I wrong him. He is a good soul, if more—uh, how would you say it?—trickster than any his age should allow. We call him Little Fish, for he always seems to wriggle off any hook and back into water when landed.”
A smile quirked Tokela’s mouth. It melted into a troubled frown at what this Matwau was saying. Chepiś wandered into their Land even now, despite the ancient truce? Wandered in, and had… acquaintances? Of his People?
His attention swiveled, sharp—too sharp?—as the others approached, slow, the impromptu hearth.
Maloh paid no heed. “What is your name, young one?”
“He is called—” Sivan began, but Tokela finished it, swift:
“Tokela. I am called Tokela a’Naišwyrh.” He looked up at Sivan, thought, I’ve not given you leave to the sounds of my blessing-name.
Sivan’s pale eyebrows rose, then she nodded.
Tokela dropped the piece of meat he was holding. Lowering his gaze, he busied himself with recovering it. So the rumours were true: Chepiś could sift one’s inner voice, hear and speak it.
Vox came slowly over and sat down, stony eyes dismissing Tokela; behind him, Rann no longer seemed unsteady. Her eyes—unlike Vox’s—held little mistrust. It seemed perhaps… compassion?
“Was it your mother who gave your name to you?”
Maloh’s question came unexpected; had she somehow heard, too? Whilst the three Chepiś seemed… puzzled? Disapproving?
“Your father, mayhap?” Maloh offered. She was trying to be friendly, but her eyes kept flickering from Tokela to Sivan.
Father. Sharp, stinging, this time with the poison of doubt. If they know. Perhaps they do know.
Tokela’s hands tremored against the bowl. Perhaps Chepiś could bring this into some shape as well, like Rann had neutralised the shigala’s poison. Yet…
What if they did know?
What would it mean?
Tokela had never thought, faced with the possibility of any truth, to find such abject terror in it.
Instead he focused on the question without its treacherous undercurrents. “Tokela is what I’m called by my family. Any other namings we might have are given by elders who walk closer to Grandmother’s path.”
A snort from Vox, followed by a quick, albeit heated, exchange of flatTalk. Not Sivan, this time, but Rann.
“What was your dam’s name, Tokela?” Voiced very distant and formal, as if Sivan somehow knew it was a chancy thing, to voice the names of the dead. Nevertheless the pale gaze was a demand.
“Lakisa… ’ailiq.” It was a relief to speak, even with the whispered honorific attached: I mean no disturbance to you, motherSpirit, only remembrance and honour.
Maloh was peering at Sivan, her dark brows twisted in a frown. Sivan didn’t respond, by glance or return frown; in fact, her face seemed more stone than flesh as she asked, very soft, “Is she still alive?”
“N’da.” Tokela swallowed hard, then said, low, “Did you know her?”
Maloh kept peering at Sivan, frowning. Vox uttered a fierce and unintelligible commentary; he was displeased, no question.
Sivan held up a silencing hand, her eyes meeting Tokela’s. “And if we did? Why would it matter to you? Your people are afraid of mine, and mine, I believe, fear yours for reasons even they do not understand.”
“Sivan, you must—” Rann started towards Sivan, desisting as Vox’s hand gripped her arm and Sivan flicked what was surely a warning glance.
Silence. It lingered too long, crawling up Tokela’s nape; for a scant half heartbeat he wanted to clap his hands over his ears as though they were shouting. Instead he kept his eyes upon Sivan, narrowed into the fading light.
Did you know my dam? He couldn’t speak it aloud, but no doubt they all heard. Somehow.
“We mean you no harm, Tokela,” Sivan finally said, though she did not meet his eyes. “Eat. We will uphold the truce, even as you must. We will take you back to the guardian threshold and return you to your place.”
Quite final, it throttled any remaining speech Tokela might possess.
HE WAS so… small, Sivan considered.
Yet fierce. Savage! Vox had growled, and while that might be likely, there was also a… well, a dignity that seemed strange in one so young, and an undeniable strength of will.
The last had proven itself when Tokela had made them wait while he’d removed the claws from the shigala—and that done quicker and neater than any of their own hunters, Sivan had reflected as the boy sniffed the razored claws, grimaced then secreted them in his clothing.
Trophies! Vox had scoffed.
Maloh had merely pointed out that any being Tokela’s size who could take down a shigala deserved any reminder he wanted.
Sivan said nothing; her thoughts were complex enough.
They saw Tokela to the threshold. Maloh offered to take him through. The charged shield made an accounting of every passage, tallied it and sent it to the Arrogate; if Maloh accompanied the little one, it would be noted as no more than a lesser transgression with planetary natives, likely overlooked.
And Maloh well knew how to cope with the shield should the boy have difficulty.
He didn’t. It jangled alarms in Sivan’s brain, fitted another piece to a too-complex puzzle, another suspicion barely fathomed.
It was impossible, what she was thinking.
Wasn’t it?
The threshold sparked and snapped as the two breached the exit. Through the haze of energy, Sivan could see Maloh shudder off the lingering pressure of the guardian, then kneel to converse with the boy, quite serious. She rose again, making a gesture; it seemed familiar to the boy, for he returned it. With a last glance towards the portal, he retreated across the meadow.
“Sivan.” It was Rann, insistent.
Sivan did not break her silence, watching as the boy ran across the grassland then slid, smooth as water, into the trees.
They were all like that, Sivan’s own people would claim; more animal than anything. A fine way to justify taking a planet, Maloh often scoffed, pretending the inhabitants are less, somehow. Creatures to be tamed—or held in their own little habitat whilst the conquerors scrutinise them.
Maloh’s own people had made their choice long ago: assimilation.
Sivan’s brother preferred classifying the little natives as “belonging to their world”. Whatever it meant, it was a quality Sivan’s own kind had alternately shunned and, though not openly admitted, envied.
This world, after all, had set itself against them from the beginning.
“Sivan.”
Turning, Sivan peered at her companion. Rann’s breath hung, misting damp, and her eyes were filled with starlit shadows, turned toward the little one’s departure.
“Sivan,” she insisted, “we cannot just… let him go. Not with what happened. We must do something.”
“You know our hands are tied in this, Rann,” Vox answered instead. “Sivan has done what she could. More than she should.”
Yet Sivan felt she had not done enough. Moreover, she could still sense the boy’s… presence, dwindling into the mortal rot of the ancient forest’s supremacy.
A presence that had changed before their eyes. From the moment Rann had reached inward and between, taken the weight of the world away from him, to siphon the poison from his system.
“It wasn’t just that,” Rann murmured, following Sivan’s thoughts. “I didn’t change anything except the poison. The change was
already there. He… helped, Sivan. He reached back, Between.” Laying her head against Sivan’s shoulder, she furthered, “I thought their psionics lost. Bred out, long ago. Is he some sort of throwback?”
“I don’t know.”
Rann parsed the lie with a frown. “What do you know, then?”
“Blood and star-iron,” Vox growled, “what is it about these little natives? First your brother, then—”
“Enough, Vox!” Sivan snapped.
Rann’s eyes were large as the Lost Station, considering it all as Maloh returned, breaching the threshold’s shimmer with a shake and stagger. A further reminder: she was more hampered by the portal’s disorienting effects than the native boy.
The native boy. The lost one’s son.
Maloh padded over, frowning. “Now. Are you going to tell me what you were on about?”
Sivan shivered as Maloh put a hand to her cheek and trailed it down to rest on her shoulder, peat against glacier snow. “Your hands are cold, Maloh.”
“Mm. I can’t abide that thing.”
“I wonder,” Sivan whispered. “Were his hands cold? When you touched him just now?”
Maloh frowned, harder. “Our little Shadow, you mean?”
“Shadow?” This from Vox, frowning.
Maloh slanted her gaze after the native boy’s path. Her smile, sudden, also quirked fond. “If the old sgral—the old kowehokla—is Little Fish, then that young one is Little Shadow. First he’s here, then… ssst!” She flicked her fingers. “Gone! But to answer you, Siv, his hands were warm as a good hearth.”
“Warm.” Rann’s words were hesitant, heavy. Pondering. “He’s not of our people, yet the portal has no effect upon him. What does it mean, Sivan?”
Sivan was afraid she knew. Maloh, too, for her grip turned into a caress.
“Sivan,” Rann persisted, “whoever this boy is… whatever he is—”
“It’s something we should never have interfered with, is all it is!” Vox intercepted.
“But we have, haven’t we?” Rann shot back. “We have, and it’s formed… I formed it…” She trailed off as Vox shook his head; where such a rebuttal usually swayed her, instead she stiffened, turned to Sivan and said, flat, “It was already there. But it has awakened. We cannot just let it lie unravelled. It’s wrong.”
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