Blood Indigo
Table of Contents
Praise for Blood Indigo
Title Page
Dedication
Blood Indigo
The storyKeeper Speaks…
1 – Alekšu
2 – Tokela
3 – Anahli
4 – Madoc
5 – Into outLands
6 – Hearth
7 – Outlier
8 - Birth
9 – Council
10 - Indigo
11 - Dancer
12 - Trickster
13 - Breaking
14 – Daughter of Wind
15 – Accords
16 – Trial & Trust
17 - Shelter
18 – Son of the Lost
19 - Wyrhling
20 – Falling Weir
21 - Shaper
22 – Fates & Dreamings
23 - Exile
24 - Hunted
25 - ShamanKin
26 - Vortex
27 – Eyes of Stars
Want to find out what happens next?
Author's Note
Cast of Characters
About the Author
Independent Publishers ROCK!
Copyright Information
The Hoop of the Alekšu’in
is off to an amazing start
with
BLOOD INDIGO
“Sullivan’s commitment to creating a world unlike any we’ve ever experienced is astonishing… It is hard to write about this book; one must really read it to understand its power and gorgeous complexity.”
Ulysses Dietz
“Sullivan drops you right into the action...”
Library Journal
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dedication
For my grandmother, who taught me about our People long before I even realised I was being taught.
~~~~~~
Yakoke, svpokni,
Chim anoli shuk anumpa sv bvnna.
~~~
Buíochas, seanmháthair,
Lig dom scéal a insint duit.
The storyKeeper speaks…
“When Grandmother grows weary of us, grows tired of the ever-creeping, cloying moss upon Her many-tiled belly, She has but to draw into Her shell and gather unto Herself. And wait, through beginnings into endings...”
Listen, my cousins, for this is all true! These, the words of our Ancestors, had their beginnings from the words of Šaákfo, spoken as the tailed Star danced over Grandmother’s belly. The stories passed down over wintering counts, told and repeated even as I tell and sing these stories now.
Once, so long yet not so long ago, after Winnowing tilted our lands into a dark and insular time, but before Reckoning showed us the error of our fears, there was a beginning. There are always beginnings, you might say, and a’io, everything begins, everything ends, riding the Hoop as we ride our grazingKin beneath Sun’s grace. But this beginning? Ša came stalking-quiet, and we had our backs turned, foolish. Frightened. Like chukfi in ša’s burrow, we lingered content, safe and ignorant, digging new warrens, making pellets and babies…
Ah! You ask! But answers are always layered like Earth beneath our feet. Changing kindles beginnings. Little changes, they seem, at the first. Singular motions, ripples in cavern pools, new footprints upon a well-worn path. Singular motions, each revealing a new path. Recognise them, my cousins. Remember them.
See them:
Here is one of the Beloved shrugging off complacency and fear, grasping the mane of a spoiled horse to sing ša calm. Here is a daughter feeling betrayal and rebellion beneath ways long twisted and hidden—forbidden! Here is one made outlier and outcast, who Saw in Stars what others feared to. Here is a chieftain’s son, changing into something he was taught to fear and hate. Here is a child captured in the raiding, loosed to find her true Clan and set her People free. Here is a too-proud elder who believes he alone knows the secrets, yet merely clasps sand in open fingers. Here is a changing-spirit youth, callow yet powerful enough to shield ša’s People. Here is a son of two worlds, craving the belonging but having to turn away, accept instead of deny, believed Shaper when he was, instead, Catalyst.
All these our People, all of them our cousins—and with so many paths it would seem they’d never converge, a’io?
Yet all these paths, all these singular motions, one then the other, falling like drops of Rain to gather and runnel, feeding River. We might act alone, we might take a solitary path, yet every act cannot help but come together and inform the whole. Enrichment, or betrayal, all affects all. We know this. We are one with our Kin, be they two- or four-footed, winged or finned or footless, rooted or carried upon Wind. Our People wander the plains, settle into Forest boughs, glide across deep-packed snow, ride River and brave Sea… but all of us remain together on Grandmother’s belly. Our separate motions are as one. We are made one even as we travel the Hoop like those of our own tribe ride our Kin into Wind’s blessings.
These ones we See, these ones whose singular, seemingly insignificant motions we will remember? Ah, those were indeed the beginning, my cousins. They were the beginning of the ending…
1 – Alekšu
“Listen! It is time to Dance!”
It was not the first time Palatan had stood upon the Breaking Ground to challenge.
Deliberate, stripped to clout with the copper and malachite banding his arms, while waves of heat whispered his name and glided across the dried grass and red dust, setting the surrounding hillocks a-shimmer. Dry, reflecting parch and gilt against his eyes, scorching shivers across the oiled, deep bronze whipcord of his shoulders, prickling the numerous, narrow plaits gracing his left temple. Waiting, with blood striping the Marks upon his cheekbones and long dried into skim and flakes; spilt from over his heart and onto the hard, sandy ground, it had likewise baked into sludge.
Palatan welcomed the blaze, humming sweet behind his ears and flaring tendrils to swathe his heart.
He knew Fire.
“Come out, Alekšu! The Dance must be made. It is our way.”
His voice rang against the hide several strides away. The door didn’t so much as quiver.
Silence. Sun rose higher, and in Her wake trailed a faint, ghostly triad: Brother Moon with younger siblings clinging to one hip. Still Palatan waited, unmoving. Circuit blooded, ceremony observed, with their tribe gathering, albeit sluggish.
Not many dared test Alekšu. All who had? Had failed.
Yet hope began to speak: first one drum, then another, a gravid heartbeat of necessary support. Physical prowess, after all, merely whet one edge of this blade. The Dance was beginning, whether acknowledged or not…
“Come out, old one!” Palatan called. “Lest I Dance without you.”
Without me? You do not even know the steps. Mockery curled silent behind his eyes, the soul-talk more yawn than acknowledgement. I grow tired of sending you back to your dam’s tipo, little cur.
He answered in kind. You’ve not had the privilege since Everwintering Mountain sent Fire across Sky. Nearly fifteen winters past.
A snort. Has it been so long, son of my brother’s daughter? Ai, but you’ve spent the time like a good horseClans dog, hunting game and siring whelps upon your mate. It seems she must squat every third Hoop to drop her litter, naked in the dust.
A'io! Harsh affirmation. I have something to fight for!
His chieftain Aylaniś, who with her own hands had girded her spouse in sacred oil and smoke. Their three children, standing with her. The clans, gathering, beginning to sway to the drums like Wind-brushed grass.
Palatan stepped forwards; into the Circuit where every member of his tribe—two- and four-legged—was blessed at birth, breaking, and bereavement. “It is time to Dance, Alekšu!” The hono
rific bore respect; its undertone purled demand. “A challenger waits.”
Come out, she-viper. I do not stand alone, this time.
And the door flap heaved open and fell against the taut sides of the tipo.
Grey hair, at the first, close-cropped save for the honour of numerous and tiny braids at one temple, with a flare of beaded quills further proving age and status. Dark eyes faded to milky amber squinted in the brilliance; more and more she found Sun an enemy rather than the ally Palatan accepted. Shoulders sagged soft beneath a capelet of stained horsehide, and her bowed legs, once thick with riding muscle, instead juddered soft. Sloth and corpulence had long held Chogah—daughter of Beloved Ones, Alekšu of duskLands—in their sway.
Longer yet had Chogah held sway over their tribe. Indeed, she sloughed a furious gaze back and forth, satisfied as many gave way with body and eyes. Respect, a’io. But more, apprehension. Fear.
None of the latter moved Palatan. The ones waiting sensed it, expectant.
“Have you waited long?” Chogah asked, almost courteous.
Beneath civility, the real battle was winding up.
You cannot win, cur. You wield the wildest, perhaps, of Grandmother’s sacred limbs, but it matters little. Wind shall choke you, Earth smother you. And should Rain decide to enter our exchange? A chuckle. Rain’s daughter, River, has ever been able to douse your enthusiasm.
This time Palatan let the anger come, feed the flames. Rain quenches but cannot quell; She brings steam to banish sickness. Earth and Fire, bunged together too long, too angry, erupt into the hot-blood torrent of melted rock to sear all They touch. Wind but kindles Fire to sweep across our plains in a swath of cleansing.
You know nothing, weakling! Chogah’s not-voice hissed, a darkling dart of poison. You fear. You fear your own Power, the destruction He carries—
Do I? Snarl. Shield. “We have,” Palatan curled his voice all too pleasant, “waited far too long for thisSun’s passage.”
Ai, it was not the first time Palatan a’Šaákfo had stood upon the Breaking Ground to challenge.
But it would be the last.
2 – Tokela
The talking drum fell silent, yet ša’s voice refused to die.
It was, after all, drumtalk that had coaxed him here, prompted the long, tendon-burning climb of the terraces. None stayed him—better, none saw him. Boots scuffing against wood and stone, lungs heaving, thighs quivering, Tokela gained the summit.
Alone.
The drum’s aftermath lingered, a second heartbeat behind his breastbone. Hanging in the dense trees like mist and breath, quivering through the massive cloudstone cliffs duskside of the Mound, pulsing outward and beyond the driftwood railing that seemed to sprout from the red rocks. Floating, across the wide, copper-ink expanse, and echoing against glimmers.
Always, River waited.
Tokela’s nostrils flared: Wind brought scents of silt and wet foliage upward, then tossed his forelock into his eyes, curtaining his sight, thick and dark. A toss of head, then a shove of fingers did no good. Tokela ended up tying it back as he leaned over the railing, leather and wood talismans tangling against his callused fingers.
Not enough. He could smell and hear but not yet see, so he gave the hair-tie one last yank before snaking through the gnarled railing. One hand making firm purchase, he angled outward and over the edge. River’s current was strong thisSun. It should be soon. Tokela tilted outward, sinewy knuckles straining pale, and looked downRiver, vigilant for an event foretold by the Grandfather drum.
Even outlier craft came for the festivals. And Tokela always watched them approach, like fishers perched with nets upon the coppery crags up from Naišwyrh’uq, the Great Mound-beside-River.
Shouts, first. Tokela leaned out even farther, the railing creaking in his hands. DownRiver, the mists roiled and curled—fore-drafts, it must be!—then parting. The craft heeled into view, reedweave sails set wing and wing. A big one—a true pehni chito!
Unfortunately, ša wasn’t the one Tokela sought.
But no matter, for Sun gave an abrupt spill from pewter clouds, setting the craft a-gleam like dryLands silver. The combination of light and wet and wood was startling. Perfect. Tokela’s breath caught and held. His fingertips itched. Twitched, longing for expression. He squirmed back through the railing, flitted a glance side to side, sighed, then smiled.
Still alone.
A quick rummage in the hide pouch slung over one shoulder produced a palmful of small bone barbs, a sheathed adze, a thin tangle of trawling gut and hooks… where was it? It should be…
There. With a satisfied huff, Tokela pulled a small roll of wabadeh hide from his pouch. Another glance—making sure—as he hunkered down by the cliff edge. A quick finger-comb through thick hair found the tiny braid that secured a hidden graphite stump, while his other hand flattened the hide scrap upon the rock between his knees.
A small piece from the inner haunch, this, scraped soft and stretched thin. Better still, it had been bleached pale as the trade grain the elders ground to make breads for Dancing Moons; the graphite needed only to define shadow and edge. Tokela’s long fingers, deft by nature and quick by necessity, sketched the sweeps and curves of the approaching craft.
He also kept watch upon the terrace stair.
Such vigilance, however, soon slipped its tether to drift. River’s tang of haze and brack hummed a wordless song as he worked, wrapping about him, sinking him deeper in. His breath lulled to a soft whistle, in time with the hum and the scritch-scritch-scritch of graphite against hide.
A shout. Tokela juddered, blinked through gluey eyes at the craft framed by driftwood railing. It furled its wings, heeling sideways. The shout had come from one of the Riverwalkers, swinging a bow line to catch a float anchor. Sun already nuzzled the lush treetops on River’s far bank. Tokela flexed his fingers, stiff and smudged, and…
A sudden and familiar waft of herb balm touched his nostrils. A shocked catch of breath followed, with the ripple of tiny copper bells. Tokela palmed the graphite and hunched his shoulders.
He’d been caught sketching. Again.
Sliding his eyes upward, he started to explain to his aunt that he’d only meant to capture the craft in memory. Just the craft, and the light about it. It would burn holes behind his eyes until he did, and he'd not meant anything by it, none had been about to see…
Neither did Inhya seem to see him. Ebon eyes sprung wide, cheeks so ashen her pearl-inked Clan Marks were only just visible, she stared at the hide between his knees. Only those numerous copper bells spoke, a trembly shiver upon the one splash of jewel-bright she wore: hearth-chieftain’s head wrap of turquoise wormweave.
Tokela’s gaze followed hers, lowering to take in the sketch. Further explanations balled in his throat and choked him.
The boat was lovely—one of his best efforts—winged like flyingKin, rigging evocative of spinner webs damp with Sun’s rising. River cradled the craft in long sweeps of shadow to support the cream and white reflections, yet…
Yet.
A face peeked out from between wings and webbing. And he’d no memory of making it.
Ša was… well, ša resembled firstPeople. Sort of. Yet the eyes were too round, too small. A long face with neck even moreso, ears set too low, nose and mouth too small, chin too pointed, skin too pale, barely touched by the graphite.
Tokela had never seen one of the outLanders close enough to guess at whether his rendition was accurate, but he’d heard stories. Ai, he’d heard too many stories.
His hearth-mother’s expression told yet another. She recognised this being. Somehow.
Swift as swimmingKin, Inhya darted forwards, reaching for the sketch.
Nigh as quick, Tokela’s hand grasped her wrist. “Who—?”
“Better to ask what.” Quick, as if Inhya regretted saying that much. “Let go of me.”
Tokela obeyed—and in the next heartbeat wished he hadn’t. Inhya snatched up the sketch and crumpled it, shovin
g it out of sight in the pouch hanging from her belt. Tokela looked away, muting the questions itching upon his tongue. He didn’t need them, anyway. He was fairly certain what the person… thing… was.
The one unspeakable possibility.
Sun had slipped behind a cloud, no longer fingering the boat’s sides. The sails had been lowered to reveal a skeleton of bare rails, no longer winged with shadow and gossamer. He’d drawn their memory, a’io, yet had somehow added an image of something he’d never seen.
Not only outLander, but Chepiś.
Tokela scrambled to his feet.
“It’s of no matter. But making likenesses is forbidden. You know this, Tokela.” The diminutive intended fondness, yet Inhya's eyes narrowed into knives; Tokela sketched them, mute and unwilling, in his heart. “Why are you malingering up here? Have you forgotten?”
Forgotten. He’d forgotten something? Tokela couldn’t help a slight shift, foot to foot. The wooden beads dangling from his woven hip wrap swayed and chattered, betraying the movement. Escape was impossible; Inhya blocked the stair.
It didn’t bode well. But then, of late it seldom did.
CAUGHT UP with helping in the salting dens, Madoc nevertheless heard the talking drum’s message: the first of the Riverwalker traders had been sighted. It took a while to extricate himself from the salting duties. No doubt his elder cousin already perched on the uppermost terrace, watching.
It made one surety amidst Tokela’s curious habits. And of late, curiosity had turned to serious puzzle. Madoc liked puzzles well enough, but not in regards to Tokela. Moreover, Madoc had something to share, something surely more important than staring at Riverwalker vessels with faraway eyes.
Well, at least he knew where to find Tokela thisSun.
Madoc burst into the compound, skipping the daggers of light that filtered down from the cliff heights.
“Ho, chieftain-son, would you leap Sun?” a passerby teased.
Madoc didn’t slow, chirped back: “To leave Him for others, old uncle!”