“Ai, and Naišwyrh’uq is so known for their flexible ways.” Again, Chogah’s sarcasm withered any opposition. “They would cast out a dog if ša showed the least hint of possession. Our own Alekšu has an absent lovemate for whom River’s Spirit showed too much love—it mattered not that he was chieftain-son.”
Leave Našobok out of this. Palatan clenched his teeth as, from the shadows, Chogah slid a glance towards him and smiled. Pretty—and petty.
“Our dawnLands cousins have been damaged by Winnowing,” Lumihiyo’s voice was flat. “As have we all. It’s not ours to judge how others must survive, O’yotalichogah Alekšu tuk.”
Also Alekšu tuk—before Chogah—Lumihiyo remained one of the few who could silence her.
“What possesses Tokela is not half-grown,” Lumiyiho continued. “Our chieftain-daughter was brought back to life by him. The Lost One’s son took River from Anahli, gave Wind to her. Now we have a new member to owlClan.”
“Then was she not Shaped surely as the ehšehklan?” the youngest protested. “Are such things not then forbidden?”
“You speak in absolutes,” Lumihiyo chided. “We do not deal in those here.”
“Yet one thing is absolute,” another elder said. “We must protect. The Shapers must be kept out.”
Silence followed this.
“Are we Lapis Council, or pecked hens?” Chogah added, with a sneer for the youngest though her gaze held to Palatan’s. “Are we shamans who guard the sacred places, medicineKeepers who soothe thisLand’s outraged Spirit? Or cowards and whelps?”
“I wasn’t the one who suggested we shun the oških,” said Palatan into the sudden quiet.
“Neither,” Chogah’s eyes glinted upon him, “was I.”
“WE’RE NEAR it. The Shaper’s well.”
“Not that near.” Našobok frowned, checked his bearings. “I’ve made sure to skirt the cursed place, though even this close should confound any Chepiś. You mean you feel it?”
Tokela nodded. “It’s like… the tickling legs of crawlingKin. You know, when they explore a slick surface? They touch then back away, test then feint forwards.”
The black mare picked an equally dainty and surefooted way across a sandy expanse of small dunes. DownLand’s horizon, wafting in a mix of heat and cloud, would every now and then betray faraway smudges. Not the flat tops of tabled hills, either.
“Trees. Close enough we should find water soon.” Našobok nudged the water skin that held a few remaining swallows. “Perhaps even a River-daughter to bless us.”
“Or more Rain.” Tokela gave the gathering clouds a tiny smile, and Našobok found himself wondering if he’d anything to do with that weather.
Already Našobok had second- and third-guessed his decision to head for River, was working on a fourth. He was out of his depth here, in more ways than one.
“They’re waiting out there. Somewhere.” Tokela tangled fingers in Lioness’s mane, and the little mare stretched her neck, happy with the caress.
“You said they can’t hear you unless—”
“They don’t need Stars to glean where we’re going.” It was cold, oddly accepting. But a nigh-imperceptible shiver ran across Tokela’s shoulders.
Našobok leaned forwards, gave his hair an affectionate tug. “Then perhaps we’ll be able to stop long enough for a wash, eh? In that little River-daughter we hope for. You smell of horse.”
“There are worse things to smell of. You aren’t so sweet yourself.”
“Was that an insult?”
“Insult, promise, your choice.” Indigo eyes, thankfully clear and uncomplicated at present, slanted his way.
Ai, this was more like it. Našobok snugged a little closer, ensured it with a murmured, “I’d like nothing better than to have a swim with you. Dunk you in River’s curves, haul you up sleek as a Sea-pup, drops of water shining in that dark hair like Stars.”
Such talk did as he’d intended: Tokela’s shiver held more pleasure than uncertainty. Still…
“I used to play beneath Stars.” Tokela’s voice dipped low. “They were… friends. When I was old enough, I would go with my father, check the herds his brother kept for him in midLands. Sky was wide, there—not like here, but more than within the trees spreading across River’s flanks. I’d curl up with him and we’d lie awake, watching Stars while he would tell me their names.” A soft intake of breath, then another shudder. A grit of teeth.
A reminder past any diversion: the hunters were still hunting.
Našobok didn’t want to contemplate the strength it must take for one oških to deny them. After all, taleKeepers spun fables of an ancient and united front, an entire tribe of shamanKin standing firm upon the boundaries of Grandmother, locking their Spirits into Her defence.
Only it hadn’t been forever, had it? Perhaps it hadn’t been that many shamans, either.
“Našobok.” It wavered, unsure. “Was he my father?”
“Of course he was, in any way such things matter. I remember him well, Tokela. He and your mother were kind to a young troublemaker. He even tried to make of me a herder.” Našobok grinned. “It didn’t go well.”
Tokela snorted. “That takes no guessing.”
“Ai, well.”
“It seems you’ve always been around. Always”—a smile—“here.”
“Hunh. Some things sing long before we understand their songs.”
“You were there when River took my parents. It was before you were outcast, but you didn’t truly belong a’Naišwyrh, so you told me. You knew you’d have to leave, find another place. Still, you sat with me, told me stories.”
“I did.” Našobok remembered that child sitting lone and lost in the dusky light beside River, tears tracing his cheeks.
“But was he my sire, Wolf?”
“Ai, but since when do such things matter?”
“This time, it matters.”
“Perhaps it does and perhaps it doesn’t, but what sire has any rights to claim any child other than by a dam’s grace? You are your dam’s son, and of our People.”
Tokela was silent, and Našobok realised common sense had its own flaws, here. Tokela’s dam had been the one to insist, after all, that her child was of two sires.
Of course, her Spirit had long since wandered, then.
“Either way, it doesn’t matter, Tokela. Not to me.”
A half turn, and a wry smile. “Perhaps one day it won’t matter to me—!” It lurched upwards into a yip.
The mare stumbled and lurched, went to her knees. Tokela grabbed mane and stayed on, barely. Našobok pitched sideways into the sand.
Only it wasn’t just sand. It slithered, shifted like a living thing. The mare clambered sideways, heaving herself out from under Tokela and onto more solid ground, whilst beside them another cry echoed—it sounded like Tokela’s name—before the sand sucked them both down and into a shuddering of dust and black.
“AS USUAL, they do nothing.”
Palatan thought he was alone. He would have sworn that even Chogah had left the chamber, it seemed that empty.
Yet, here she was.
So he answered, polite, “I can’t blame them. Their hands are tied by ways older than any of us.”
“Even me?”
“You are indeed old, aunt, but not that old.”
“And you’re young enough to give me their arguments, nephew. What of your own?” Chogah leaned, heavy, upon her staff. Her dark gaze refused direct contact with Fire’s light, leery of the co-tenant Spirit that had snatched another, more powerful staff from her. “If not for the first of medicineKeepers flaunting that same law, neither you nor I should be here, debating what is and what will be.”
“There is nothing to debate. The Council has spoken, and they have the right to—”
“To make more cowardly mistakes?”
“I’m just glad they haven’t refused Anahli’s right of place.” Palatan closed his eyes.
“Yet. She is Power-full. Even moreso than you
once she finds her way. Tokela, even moreso. And Galenu would have given him to Chepiś!”
“He knows no better.”
“Just enough to be dangerous. And foolish. The Chepiś want Tokela for his Power.”
“Našobok will keep him safe.”
Chogah snorted. “I asked you once before how such things have come to pass. What if we acted, not Chepiś? What if we considered how that power could benefit us, not the tall ones?”
“You walk forbidden paths, Chogah.”
“As do all, Palatan, who would tread in the steps a’Alekšu’ín.” She angled forwards, hands taut upon her support as if to choke the horse heads carved there. “What did our Mother tell you, down in the deepest places?”
He froze. “You have no right to make talk of that. Not anymore. Nor do you have the right to ask—”
“What did She say?”
He remained silent, remembering.
“She claimed him. Didn’t She?”
Still, he didn’t speak.
Finally, Chogah turned away with a grumbling sigh. “Then what you and I—Alekšu and Alekšu tuk—must ask ourselves is this: Do we let Chepiś have the oških, and perhaps, in the having, take and use the shamanKin heart within him? Perhaps against us? Or do we take him in and…?” She fell silent, eyes meeting his.
He couldn’t deny it, finished the thought with a hiss into the cavern, “And in doing so, have what Chepiś weaponry he carries.”
26 - Vortex
A deep-soft drone: teasing, tickling, making promises with a tongue he can’t understand, but well could know.
It remembers…
And returns to the one instinct that never leaves him long: fight.
With a cry, Tokela rolled and snatched for the knife at his calf, found nothing. Instead his knife hand was grabbed, and an equally large, well-muscled arm chuffed the breath from his lungs. He was hoisted upwards and held in a vice grip, feet dangling. There was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
So he started wriggling and kicking.
A curse—surely it was a curse, then a familiar voice said, in the talk of his People, “You little… Stop… aah! Stop kicking me, Tokela!”
He stilled, and all his senses began working. Maloh’s scent and voice were unmistakable.
“That’s better.”
This voice, however, wasn’t. Maloh’s companion moved into view, wrapped in layer upon layer, as if afraid of Sun. The hood was pulled back, revealing a sharp, milk-pale face… only its eyes were wrapped, small and blinking behind some sort of amber-hued glašg held by a harness. Its hands were covered, too, with some stuff that looked like hide, yet didn’t smell right. “Listen to her, little one, or we’ll be forced to knock you as senseless as your companion.”
We. Your companion. Quicksand…
Našobok!
Sky curved overhead, clear brilliance, yet Sun had retreated, shadows fingering sideways from an upthrust, striated tower of a cliff. Tokela felt—smelt—Našobok’s presence before his eyes adjusted, and relief juddered him as he sensed the breath rising, the heart pounding strong in the pulse of Našobok’s throat. Sand-encrusted from scalp to worn boot soles, Našobok had been dragged into the cliff’s shadows and flung there.
The sand pit that had taken them both was some distance beyond. Surely heat gave the illusion of movement—such things couldn’t travel, they were Earth-bound. Fire had been kindled close… or was He, truly, Fire, with such a strange and pallid presence? Unspeaking, Ša didn’t Dance. A strangely jointed bowl had been nestled within Ša’s coals. Surely such a thing couldn’t hold water?—but a wisp of mist shivered Tokela’s nostrils with moisture.
Našobok groaned, twitched, and Tokela lurched forwards.
Maloh didn’t let him. “Be easy. I pulled you both out, your companion is well enough. When he wakes, we’ve water and bark tea for you both, but I fear your pony ran, and who can blame it?”
She loosened her grip, allowing another to move into view. This one also yanked a thick hood back, revealing pale hair slicked back, doubled, and nape-knotted like to the folk of midLands. More cloth concealed its neck and chin almost to those amber eyepieces, which the creature shoved up onto its high forehead. Another shiver raced up Tokela’s spine—there was silver glimmering in the round eyes, a slurry of Starlight, and recognition…
“You,” he said.
“It is a ways from the forests,” Sivan said in dawnLands talk. “We’re both far from home.”
“Wh-why are you hunting us?” Tokela stammered.
“I was under the impression we’d saved you. From the vortex.”
“Be easy,” the other Chepiś said, just as faltering and broken. “Done is done. As Sivan says, the vortex tried to take you, but you’re safe.”
Voohr-tekhs? What was that?
No matter. They lied. He wasn’t safe. Našobok lay senseless, and they were surrounded. Perhaps Sivan had even set this… this voohr-tecks upon them.
Perhaps they meant the sand trap.
Which had moved. Somehow. Either that, or Tokela had misplaced his memory…
N’da, he hadn’t. Even as he watched, the sand trap seemed to… to writhe, and spasm, and shift sideways.
Closer.
It rose his gorge to keep looking at the thing, but he gritted his teeth, made sure it didn’t go anywhere near Našobok. Thankfully, it didn’t.
But his cousin’s breathing had steadied. Našobok was awake.
None of their captors seemed to notice any of this. In fact, Sivan and the other Chepiś seemed to be… smiling?
Sivan knelt, peering upwards at Maloh, who lowered Tokela so that his feet once more touched the sand.
“He has freckles,” the other Chepiś said, slow and faltering. “Like his dam.”
Like his… dam? “How do you—?” Tokela choked it back as the Chepiś reached out and down, stroking two cautious fingers across Tokela’s cheekbones. The urge to flee throbbed strong, but Tokela held his ground, unwilling to admit the weakness.
The Chepiś’s touch was cold, the gloves flat but pliable, and rank-smelling. “And these pictographs on his cheeks, like to hers, but less permanent.” The Chepiś leaned closer, still with that odd not-quite-smile. “Was it your dam who called you Star—”
“Tokela,” he interrupted, then peered at Sivan. “Please. Let us go.”
The Chepiś mouthed the name curiously.
The bigger they are, a soft voice teased at his consciousness, the longer and more fatal the drop.
It seemed to come from Fire. Which made no sense. This hearth was Shaped; it wasn’t, truly, of Fire.
“Jorda, we don’t have time for this now,” Sivan said, albeit gently, and pointed.
The Chepiś—Jooohr-da—followed the gesture, as did Tokela. The sand trap had moved again. And again, thankfully, it wasn’t towards Našobok, who was aware, perhaps listening, with fingers a-twitch and eyelids quivering.
Don’t move, Tokela implored.
Sivan shot a spate of syllables at Maloh who, still watching the sand trap, pulled Tokela slightly to one side.
“We cannot let you go, little one.” Sivan’s answer was quiet. Behind her the other two began to murmur in their own talk, back and forth. “I’m sorry. But if you cooperate, we will release your companion.” Her gaze flickered that way—n’da, towards the oddling sand trap. The shadows were lengthening further, and the trap had also moved: closer to them, not Našobok.
Jorda eyed it with no little concern, said something in Chepiś talk. Maloh’s grip had loosened upon Tokela; she, too, was speaking to Sivan, her tone anxious.
One of Našobok’s eyes gleamed, a knife-edge opening merely enough to focus. Beside him, Fire appeared less contrivance and more natural in aspect.
Help me emerge, Fire said, and I can help you. Their efforts will lie thin, here on the edges of the Shaping well.
There was an echo of… Palatan? And upon the breeze that rose, slight, to tug at Našobok’s long hair
…
Anahli.
Tokela was afraid to answer. The Chepiś would hear.
They won’t hear.
They are—he didn’t want to say it but had to—part of me! In my Spirit!
If you are one with us, they can’t hear you. They can’t hear any Elemental, only try to chain Us—Shape Us—to their will. And you—Fire tried to Dance, warm-bright ochre within muted silver—are altogether skilled at keeping them out. Do you not realise? It’s what you’ve done for most of your life.
“We have to leave. Soon.” Jorda had paced closer, after a smattering of unfamiliar talk choosing to speak to Tokela directly. He seemed more nervous about the sand’s strange behaviour than any other possibilities. “We can’t be here after dark, this close to the vortex. Do you understand me?”
Tokela believed he finally did. Old tales ran true; the thing these Chepiś called voohr-tekhs was a Shaping well. Like Šilombiš’okpulo, only wilder. Angrier.
Not only that. In this place where their own sorcery had run amok, the Chepiś seemed warier than even firstPeople.
“We’ll answer any questions you have on our way,” Sivan continued. “We’ll see your companion safe, but you must come with us.”
You must not go. They would make of you a weapon.
How can a person be a weapon? Like a spear, or a knife?
Believe me, little brother, you have seen no weapons akin to what these outLanders could summon through you and your kind.
My… kind? I have none.
You do.
That last was definitely Anahli. Tokela almost smiled.
But Sivan still knelt before him, watching him. Her thin, pale brows twisted, almost a question.
So Tokela asked, “What do you want with me?”
Našobok watched, too. One sand-dusted hand moved, ever so slight. Hunting-talk. Keep on. Occupy them.
“Make talk” with prowlingKin. “Occupy” Chepiś. Našobok’s confidence was daunting, sometimes.
“If it were my choice,” Sivan answered, “I would leave you to your own place.”
“It isn’t your choice?” Tokela stepped to one side. It was slight, but three sets of small, round eyes gave it notice, tracked it.
Blood Indigo Page 47