You will die here.
The panicked buzzing of Lirios’s wings was a near-constant counterpoint to the sounds of the forest, stringing our frayed nerves nearly to breaking. Unable to control it and a light sleeper at the best of times, he could but mumble apologies. Kooie’s forearms were swollen and burning from his encounter with the stinging vines and he thrashed and whimpered in his sleep, scratching himself with his claws. Zariya’s breath was labored, wheezing painfully in her chest, and for all her determination, I feared her body might lack the strength to fulfill the promise of her will. When I closed my eyes and sought sleep, I saw behind my eyelids the creature that had snatched Keeik, its gaping jaws, its double rows of teeth.
And yet impossible as it seemed, I did sleep in fits and starts, my body in dire need of healing rest.
I awoke in the grey light of dawn to Lirios shaking my shoulder.
“Khai!” he whispered, pointing. “We are not alone.”
A kingfisher laughed.
FORTY-SEVEN
There were half a dozen figures on the southern verge of the glade: human in form, but strangely stooped, with long arms and protruding muzzles. A dusting of grey fur covered their skin and they wore knee-length skirts of woven fiber.
I reached instinctively for my weapons, then hesitated. The figures appeared to be unarmed.
“Wake up,” I said in a low voice. “We have company, my brothers and sisters.”
My companions stirred, waking from their various nightmares. The silent figures watched us, and out of the green dimness of the forest, three more figures emerged: great cats that stood as high as a man’s waist, with dark, mottled fur.
Perhaps the Papa-ka-hondrans did not need weapons.
I drew mine. “We mean no harm!” I called. “We are here at the bidding of the Oracle of the Nexus.”
The Papa-ka-hondrans advanced, the cats pacing alongside them. “We do not know what that means,” one of the humans said, speaking the traders’ tongue in a slow, careful tone. Like the others of his company, he had round, brown eyes that appeared almost luminous in the dawn light. “But it may be that this meeting was foretold, for you have passed the test of Shambloth. Is there one among you who seeks healing? One who desires to wield the gift of fire?”
Zariya levered herself to her feet with her canes, her braided hair disheveled and twig-snagged, a nasty scrape marring one cheek. “I do.”
The leader beckoned to her. “Come.”
She shook her head. “Not alone.”
The Papa-ka-hondrans conferred with each other in their own tongue. “We are a peaceful folk who seek to be left alone,” the leader said at length, pointing at me. “We will suffer no violence here.”
I sheathed my weapons. “We will offer none.”
They conferred again, nodding in agreement. “Come, then,” the leader said again. “All of you.” His nostrils flared. “Leave your lizard-hides behind. You will have no further need of them.”
We collected the rest of our things and straggled after them, Jahno and the Elehuddin shouldering the poles that bore Zariya’s sling.
The forest in the company of the Papa-ka-hondrans seemed a different place altogether. They knew its ways; and in turn, the forest seemed to give way gracefully before them, allowing them passage. Giant butterflies flitted harmlessly and no caterpillars dropped from the palms. They found routes between the bogs and sinkholes and weeping bile-trees that appeared impassable. I cursed myself for not seeing them, though I wasn’t entirely sure they existed until the Papa-ka-hondrans approached. Even the writhing vines retreated at their advance, the great cats stalking alongside our newfound companions with a profound lack of concern.
“So you say that this meeting was foretold?” Jahno inquired, laboring to catch his breath. “What was this foretelling? We should make proper introductions, yah, and share our knowledge.”
The leader turned on him. “I am called Onditu. The ancestors remember your folk, Koronian. They sought to intrude here.”
Jahno was taken aback. “Only in pursuit of knowledge.”
Onditu glowered. “They were not welcome here.”
“Well, it’s quite clear that no one is welcome here, my darling,” Zariya commented with considerable asperity; it was the first time one of her careless endearments carried the barbs so common among members of the House of the Ageless. “Still, I do think we might benefit from pooling our knowledge. Or do you imagine Miasmus will spare Papa-ka-hondras in its quest to annihilate the world?”
He lowered his head in a gesture of acknowledgment, the whiskers sprouting from his muzzle drooping in apology. “No, we do not. But it is for the Green Mother to say. Let us reach the village, where we may speak in peace.”
Padding alongside us, the great cats with their mottled coats purred in agreement and menace.
At midday we halted to take food and drink, and the Papa-ka-hondrans regarded our strips of dried fish with quiet horror. Onditu informed us that they did not eat the flesh of animals.
“Your imposing friends here have no such qualms,” Zariya observed, having coaxed one of the cats to take a bit from her hand.
“The cats are as Zar made them,” Onditu said stiffly. “It is their nature. It is not ours.”
Kooie clicked and whistled in irritation, baring his sharp teeth in a pointed gesture.
“He says one of your forest creatures ate one of our brothers,” Jahno translated. “So do not be so quick to judge us. And do not tell an Elehuddin not to eat fish, for we are as Zar made us, too.”
“The forest takes its toll on those who intrude upon it,” Onditu said to Kooie. “And that, too, is its nature. But you are in pain and angry. I cannot ease your grief, but I can ease your discomfort.” He spoke to one of the others in their tongue. The fellow trotted into the underbrush, returning presently with a broad, fleshy leaf oozing a clear, viscous liquid, which he smeared on Kooie’s inflamed forearms, affording him a considerable measure of relief.
Thus fortified, we continued onward.
Two more hours into our journey, it was clear that the forest didn’t merely seem a different place; it was a different place. The flesh-seeking vines vanished. The number of creeping, crawling poisonous things dwindled. The bile-trees thinned, increasingly replaced by myriad varieties of palms and fruit-bearing trees. Bogs and sinkholes gave way to the occasional sparkling stream. Dragonflies hovered over the water, iridescent wings shimmering. It grew easier to walk three abreast and we made swifter progress, all of the defenders taking turns as pole-bearers.
“It’s quite beautiful here after all, isn’t it?” Zariya remarked in wonder. “I would never have guessed it.”
Onditu glanced at her. “It is the true heart of Papa-ka-hondras. You are the first not of our folk to see it.”
Swaying in her sling, she steadied her canes and folded her palms, touching her brow to offer him a Zarkhoumi salute. “And we are honored by it.”
He studied her for signs of insincerity; finding none, he nodded in satisfaction. “That is good.”
Although it had seemed at the outset that our journey into the heart of Papa-ka-hondras would be interminable, under the guidance of our escort, we reached the village before nightfall. It was an unexpectedly joyous place. A dozen palm-thatched buildings on low stilts were scattered alongside a small river. Papa-ka-hondran children with dark fur and bright eyes raced to greet the returning sojourners. The children examined our company with intense curiosity, hooting and chattering in their own language, stroking the great cats’ mottled coats with absent-minded fearlessness. The cats stretched and preened at their regard, arching their backs and parting their jaws to yawn with curled tongues.
“Tonight you will sleep in the big lodge,” Onditu said, pointing to the largest structure. “Tomorrow you will meet with the Green Mother.”
“So this foretelling—” Jahno began.
“Tomorrow,” Onditu said firmly. “It is for the Green Mother to say, as it should be
.”
That night we slept in peace, and never in my life had I been so grateful for a thing I had long taken for granted.
I do not know—nor did I ever learn—how the Papa-ka-hondrans determined who amongst their tribe should sleep in the big lodge on any given night. Our time among them was scant; later, I would be unsure whether I was grateful or regretful for this. We ate fruit and nuts gathered by the scampering children, who used their long arms and dexterous feet to climb trees with an effortless speed that I envied. Afterward, we collapsed into sleep on woven mats. Zariya lay curled against me, her breathing still labored.
Even Lirios slept deeply, his wings stilled in exhaustion.
At some point I awoke. Nim the Bright Moon was high overhead, its silvery light piercing the thatch. Zariya’s arm was flung across me and her head was tucked into the curve of my throat, her breath soft against my collarbones; something, child or cat, I could not tell, was nestled warm at my back.
“Please,” I whispered to Nim or whatever gods were listening, not even sure what I was asking. “Oh, please!”
Then I slept, too.
In the morning, we met the Green Mother.
Her fur silvery-white with age, she hobbled into the big lodge, her body so bent-backed and stooped that her knuckles brushed the ground, but for all the infirmity of her body, her voice was strong and deep.
“So!” she called out. “I am Yaruna. Which of you is the damaged child of the sun’s fire?”
“That would be me, my lady,” Zariya admitted. “I am here at the bidding of the Oracle of the Nexus.”
Yaruna made a dismissive gesture. “Why and how does not matter. You are here because of the foretelling. But if I am to play the role that is ordained, I must examine you first.”
“May we please hear of this foretelling?” Jahno asked with a stymied scholar’s anguish. “It may matter a great deal.”
The Green Mother fixed him with a stern, rheumy gaze. “You would place words before deeds?”
Jahno set his jaw. “Words may matter as much as deeds. I am the Seeker. I would know.”
Unexpectedly, Yaruna relented. “Perhaps you are right.” She beckoned. “Gather and hear.”
The Papa-ka-hondrans, young and old, arrayed themselves in a circle around the perimeter of the big lodge, sitting with long arms looped over bent, bowed legs, round eyes bright and attentive.
We did our best to emulate them, and Yaruna the Green Mother lowered herself to the floor in the center of the lodge. “Once upon a time, the children of heaven rebelled against their parents and were cast down from on high,” she said, and there was a series of soft echoes as various elders translated her words for those who did not speak the traders’ tongue. “But there was one who was cast down undeserving: Miasmus, whose mother, Eshen the Wandering Moon, cloaked her child in darkness and hid it from his father, Zar the Sun.”
Heads nodded; this tale was familiar to them.
“The god-child Miasmus took no part in the rebellion, but it was punished for it nonetheless,” Yaruna continued. “For a thousand years, Miasmus has slept, knowing nothing but darkness, betrayal, and solitude. Because it was kept hidden, it had no knowledge of folk. It had no folk to nourish its heart.” She made a slashing gesture with the side of one leathery palm. “Only nothingness.”
There were sharp indrawn breaths, and the Elehuddin exchanged glances of understanding.
“Long ago, Shambloth the Great Protector, whom you know as the Inchoate Terror, told our ancestors that one day, Miasmus would awaken in righteous anger,” Yaruna said. “And when it did, it would seek to destroy the world to which it had been banished.” She lifted one gnarled finger. “But there would be those who were destined to stand against it. And if they are wise and kind and cunning and courageous, they may find a way to restore Miasmus to the very heavens from which it was unjustly expelled.”
Jahno frowned in concentration, his brows furrowed, and I knew he was wishing he had his journal at hand to jot down notes. “So we are not meant to destroy it?”
Yaruna shrugged. “What is destruction, scholar? The children of heaven are meant to occupy the skies and Miasmus to shine among them.”
“And we are to restore them?” he asked.
“I do not know,” she admitted. “Only that there is a way, and that way requires kindness and love. That is the knowledge we have been given to impart to you.”
“And the matter of healing?” Zariya inquired.
“Yes.” The Green Mother’s filmy eyes were grave. “I am descended from a long line of healers. I will examine you and see what might be done, sun’s child. It will not be easy. I see you bear the mark of a god on your hand. Do you also come bearing seeds of fire?”
“I do.” Reaching into the purse tied to her sash, Zariya held forth a handful of rhamanthus seeds. “Do you require them?”
“No.” Yaruna shook her head. “I do but seek assurance that this effort will not be in vain.” She heaved herself to her feet and beckoned. “Come.”
I helped Zariya rise. “Where she goes, I go.”
The Green Mother nodded. “As you will.”
We followed her to a thatched hut on the outskirts of the village. There was a Papa-ka-hondran woman I guessed to be of middle years there, bustling about and tending to various salves and oddments contained in clay jars and dried gourds and stored on shelves around the hut.
“My apprentice, Shulah,” Yaruna said by way of introduction. She gestured at a raised platform in the center of the hut. “Remove your clothes and lie upon your belly, sun’s child.”
With my assistance, Zariya obeyed. I had grown accustomed to nudity in the baths in the women’s quarter, but here her exposed body looked particularly fragile and vulnerable to my eyes.
Consulting in their own tongue, the two Papa-ka-hondran women laid a series of cloudy crystal fragments down the length of Zariya’s spine. As they drew warmth from her skin, most of the crystals began to pulse with an inner light; most, but not all. The Green Mother and her apprentice conferred at length. I sat cross-legged on the floor at the front of the platform, my gaze on Zariya’s.
“Here and here, there are blockages.” Yaruna touched two of the dull, unlit crystals with her forefinger, one in the center of Zariya’s back, one at the base of her spine. “Old damage from the fever. It is the reason your energy does not flow through the proper course of its channels.”
“Can you fix it?” Zariya asked, her chin propped on her fists.
“It is possible.” The Green Mother hesitated. “There is a way to clear the blockage. But I must tell you that it will be painful. Very painful.”
“Oh, pain! Well, I have known pain all my life,” Zariya murmured. “We are very well acquainted, pain and I. I can bear it. But tell me this; shall I be able to walk when it is done?”
“No.” There was a world of sympathy and understanding in one single syllable, a word as heavy as a stone. Yaruna’s leathery palm flattened on the base of Zariya’s spine. “That damage I cannot undo, and I am sorry for it. But you will be stronger. You will be able to breathe more freely. And you should be able to wield the seeds of fire.”
Focused on survival, we had not spoken of hope; but it had been there all along, frail and persistent creature that it was.
Zariya looked away, no tears falling. She had made a pledge. “It is enough and more. Do what you must.”
Yaruna inclined her head. “It is best if you remain unclothed for the process.”
First came a strong purgative.
The less said about that, the better, I suppose. I do not know what vile liquid Zariya gulped with a grimace, but it had the intended effect. Over the course of the next hour, I helped her hobble to and from the hut’s privy hole and drink fresh clear water from the stream until her body was flushed clean.
Second …
I will own, I caught my breath at the sight of the creature Yaruna fetched forth from a clay jar with a pair of wooden tongs. It was a c
entipede of sorts, its segmented crimson body writhing and sparking, its myriad legs flailing in the air.
“They dwell in the trunks of trees struck by lightning,” Yaruna said, regarding the creature with reverence. “If you allow it to pass through your body, it will undo the blockages.”
Seated on the platform, Zariya paled. “I must … swallow it? I thought you did not consume the flesh of living creatures.”
The Green Mother’s face was oddly impassive. “You will find it agonizing, but the creature will pass unharmed.”
Zariya eyed the twitching, sparking thing. This was no softly luminescent insect like the ooalu moths; this was a creature of fire and lightning. “I fear I may require your assistance to accomplish this.”
Yaruna nodded to her apprentice, who stood behind Zariya, strong hands tilting her head back and holding her mouth open. Ah, by all the fallen stars! If I could have taken this upon myself, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Instead, all I could do was watch helplessly. Yaruna dropped the crawling thing into Zariya’s open mouth and Shulah closed her jaw on it, her other hand moving swiftly to pinch Zariya’s nostrils shut. Zariya’s body seized and Yaruna leaned over to press hard on her shoulders, holding her firmly in place.
I surged to my feet. Above the hands clamped over her face, Zariya’s eyes were stretched wide with pain and horror; and yet she signed adamantly with her right hand for me to stand down.
At last her throat convulsed in a swallow and a faint glow was visible at the hollow of its base, a vile mockery of the gentle pulse of khementaran. It moved lower and vanished. Exchanging nods, Yaruna and Shulah released her.
Zariya let out a scream of raw agony, her entire body contorting with horrifying violence. Her back arched like a drawn bow, so hard I feared her spine might snap, and her head was flung back, the cords of her throat standing out.
My weapons were in my hands. “If she does not survive this, I swear, I will carve you from limb to limb!”
Both of the Papa-ka-hondran women gave me that strange, impassive look. “You would offer us violence and death in exchange for healing,” Yaruna said beneath the sound of Zariya’s screams. “Do not wonder that Shambloth shows one aspect to her people and another to the rest of the world.”
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