Blood Indigo Page 17

  Tsin’oe, who’d climbed Everwintering Mountain to reach those Stars, but instead had fallen to his ruin, entombed in rock. An outlier story; Tokela remembered Našobok sharing it.

  “Why, who knows? They cannot eat those things, cannot drink them or take them as mates. But Chepiś numbers thin, while Matwau have learnt their masters’ ways too well. They flourish in the abandoned places, circling the carcasses of Chepiś settlements like scavengerKin. The tall ones are, all of them, partners in desecration.”

  Again, silence, as if submerged in the wake of Grass Weaver’s speech.

  Then Našobok stood, walked forwards with a powerful, quiet tread to stand beside the old chieftain, and Tokela felt it as a blow, wiping every other coherent thought from his heart.

  “Yakhling and wyrhling speak with one tongue in this Council. You could do worse than listen to ones who haven’t your pride of place. Some truths only outcasts dare to see. I too have seen, with my own eyes and those of my people: the Chepiś are on the move.”

  “Moving, but not inward,” Palatan murmured. “Not breaking truce.”

  “Yet.” Aylaniś said. “Where do they go, wyrh-chieftain?”

  “The tribes hold such places forbidden. But outliers don’t fear the same things.” He crossed his arms over his chest, gave a slow, lazy smile towards Sarinak—who still refused to acknowledge it. “This is why we’re sometimes useful to each other, a’io?”

  Sharp white canines flashing in that crooked smile, tall as a grandfather oak, broad-shouldered, cords of vein and muscle flexing beneath Sun-dark skin. Those callused hands, so quick to catch the old yakhling’s staff, were surely skilled with other weaponry, privy to other secrets.

  Tokela groaned, nigh silent, and rocked back to bury his face against his doubled-up knees, trying to escape his own skin, trying to still the blood-rhythm into something around which he could, indeed, hear.. Not that it helped. This was worse than Smoke. It quivered in him like the sweet tongue-melt of honey raided from the hot stings of bees. Breath-stirring. Lovely. Dangerous.

  This was an awakening for which he’d not been prepared. This was an ache he could not still with his own touch.

  He wanted more.

  Tokela stayed there, huddled into his knees, as silence once again broke beneath his hiding place. A rush of excited voices, all vying to prominence. It took Council almost as long to come to order as it took Tokela to bring his own senses into some veneer of stability.

  When he could, he purposefully turned from Council—and Našobok—to face Madoc.

  Only Madoc was gone.

  10 - Indigo

  A strange place to seek answers, this lair of chill shadows and heavy stillness. Beneath the upper shapings and wooden façades the caverns lay, burrowed by silted water or the molten electrum of past eruptions, winding wormholes leading from a geologic event horizon.

  This cavern was small, almost unremarkable, save for what inhabited it.

  The dark walls of the volcanic cistern merely emphasised the leached pallor of what once had been vital flesh. Clad in robes of polished ash, one with her stone couch, the statuesque, seated figure remained motionless… save for a minute spark in staring, filmed-over eyes. One tiny light, roiling with the minutiae of seismic shifts. One Sounding held deep to quell even the least of burgeoning catastrophes. Focus, utter and eternal, to bid a jungle kingdom quiescent.

  “Ranlaia.” Sivan made slow approach, knelt and laid her head to chill, chalk-pale knees. “Mother. I…”

  Wish you were here. With me. Even though I shouldn’t.

  Her voice echoed, drifting against rock and equally stony consciousness.

  “Why come here, Siv?”

  Sivan started. But no such voice would ever come from the stone couch and its occupant. Nay, this was alive, beloved. Sivan turned from cold, androgynous Purpose to its antithesis. Mortal, unquestionably fem, Maloh glided amidst the shadows; one with them, born to them. Well-camouflaged, whilst Sivan stood apart as surely as the stone figure that had once been her mother, both of them pale as the blue-metal gleam of the marooned ships, cast into orbit kloms above these very caverns.

  Ill-camouflaged. Easy target.

  Alien.

  Sivan and her brother Jorda had been born here nearly a century after the Stranding. Yet they didn’t quite belong here, perhaps never had.

  And Sivan had never managed to not want the belonging.

  “Is your mother even there, anymore?” Maloh continued softly. “Ah, Siv, why do you keep coming?”

  “Why does Jorda ask you to follow me?” Sivan riposted.

  “He’s your twin.”

  “Who keeps sending my lover to find me instead of coming for himself.” Sivan shivered. It seemed the chill of what remained of she who’d borne them had crept into her soul.

  “Perhaps he knows there are no answers here for either of you.” Maloh stepped slowly closer, laid a hand to Sivan’s cheek. Her fingers were so warm. “Perhaps,” Maloh continued, gentle, “Jorda is more accepting of this one’s soul-flight than you.”

  “And you?”

  “Mm.” Maloh looked up into Ranlaia’s blank visage. “I’d rather be dead than rendered into nothing more than a fault line detector.”

  “She is Synced into the Matrices. She’s at peace.”

  “Is she? Or is she just… not?”

  “There is peace in that,” Sivan retorted. “Her work is sanctified.”

  Maloh shrugged—no doubt she heard the desperation of it. “Keep telling yourself so. But come back upward, Siv, stay in the sunlight. There are no answers for you here.”

  “She would have known what to do.”

  Maloh nuzzled closer and kissed Sivan’s brow; more warmth, more fingerlings of heated reality. “Maybe. Maybe not. Ranlaia has abdicated any say over the mortal world, but you cannot. I know you; you will not.”

  “I may have no choice.”

  A frown.

  “My father departed this morning.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s headed for HQ.”

  “The Grotto?” The dismay in Maloh’s black eyes leapt forward, unfeigned.

  Sivan felt it herself, to be sure. The Domina was… unpredictable.

  “Why would he involve Her? Over a Sgr… a native boy?”

  “A native boy whose genetic code has been altered by one of us.”

  “But isn’t that a minor thing, easily dealt with? Why would Cavodu make a journey of seven sols through dangerous territory, just to bring this to Her attention?” Maloh never mentioned the Domina by name. Ever.

  “He’s taking the fastest stream-slip and gliding up the coast.”

  “With pirates lying in wait in every cove.”

  “They won’t catch a stream-slip as long as the crew avoids the vortices.”

  Maloh grumbled beneath her breath. “Why doesn’t he just… think it at her?”

  Sivan laughed, bitter-tinged. “If he uses any of the matrices to communicate, it won’t stay secret for long.”

  “If it’s so secret, then wouldn’t it be better to take care of it ourselves? I mean, after all, Jorda made him. Surely that counts for something.”

  “I’d rather that. But it’s out of our hands.”

  Maloh’s teeth gleamed in the murk, more snarl than any smile. Abruptly, she grasped Sivan’s hand. “Come away, then. Let’s go for a ride. Something.”

  As they departed, Sivan glanced once more over her shoulder, seeking the figure upon its couch. It seemed that the stone-slick eyes glimmered, followed her for several split timeparts. Breath in her throat, Sivan hesitated.

  The eyes flattened, filmed over. Sivan sighed, turned and followed Maloh back up into the light.

  “YEKA!”

  Palatan gave a grunt as several stone of excited ahlóssa smacked into his thighs, grabbed his woven belt and started to climb him not unlike a tree.

  “You stayed in Council ever so long”—Kuli kept climbing—“and so did Aška, and… Uncle
!!”

  Palatan let out another grunt as Kuli launched from his hip to fly at Našobok, who snagged Kuli midair then promptly tucked him beneath one arm, baggage for the road.

  Kuli’s yip of protest quickly collapsed into giggles. Somewhat truncated, true, since he was nearly folded in half over Našobok’s forearm.

  Palatan smirked. “You have a way.”

  “Crude but efficient, that’s me,” Našobok quipped back, and hefted the wriggling Kuli slightly higher. “I hope there’s food nearby; all that yap-yap-yap works up an appetite. And I mean real food: stew and good flatbread, washed down with your tulapaiś.”

  “Ooh… Ai…!” Kuli kept protesting—and giggling. “Let… me… up!”

  “He did say up?” Našobok asked, and Palatan smirked again, shrugged.

  “Several times, by my counting.”

  Kuli shrieked as Našobok swung him around once and tossed him into the air, caught him and set him up on one shoulder. More passersby than not were adding their own laughter to Kuli’s—and those who tried to quell their response to an outlier’s antics seemed hard-pressed to decide how they should respond, considering whom that outlier walked beside.

  Not that it mattered. Kuli rocked sideways, barely holding on, convulsed with giggles. Palatan laughed his own content.

  The drums had changed their message from background rhythm to open invitation. Shouts issued from the valley clearing—the first of many stickball games—and Dancing would start, soon, on the wide adjacent field up past the Drum-heights. The smell of roasting meats, thick šinc’teh stew, and assorted breads wafted across the Bowl, enough to edge any hunger. Including Našobok’s; his stomach let out a loud growl.

  This, of course, sent Kuli into further hilarity.

  “We’d better feed you, or at this rate you’ll disrupt the drums.” Palatan stretched up to tug at his son’s coppery braidlock, then let his hand fall to Našobok’s shoulder. “Aylaniś is with Inhya. She told me—and I bring talk straight from her tongue—whilst they have their hen gather I’m to make sure you’re decently fed before we begin our cock gather. Says you’ll need your strength to ogle the dancers.”

  “Cock gather.” Našobok slid dancing, storm-hued eyes towards Palatan. “Our lovemate knows me too well.”

  “I want to be in on the cock gather!” Kuli announced.

  Palatan’s chuckle turned to a snort.

  “Your son,” Našobok pointed out with a wide grin.

  “What’s so funny?” Kuli demanded, settling down upon Našobok’s broad shoulders. “Can I have Madoc come along? I was looking for him. You’re so tall, Uncle, and I can see so well from up here, I’m sure I’ll find him… Madoc!” he suddenly bellowed. “Over here!”

  Našobok winced, put a finger in the ear closest to Kuli and wiggled it. “Upon the Sunrise this one’s voice breaks, I’ll blood myself in gratitude.”

  Palatan wanted nothing more than to hug Našobok senseless—just on the strength of how much Našobok could make him laugh.

  It hadn’t exactly been a summering to encourage good humour. He had wrested Alekšu’s horns from Chogah, but new fetters always fused such triumphs with as much rue as honey. The far-flung wandering of grazing time gave some recompense; there, he could be merely his spouse’s mate, tyah and raid leader. And thisnow, this heartbeat, shared in tandem with one who knew so intimately the sound of that heart, where and why and how…

  “I’ve missed you, oathbrother,” he said, sharp-soft as an arrow tickled to string, and Našobok flushed—flushed!—and slid another look Palatan’s way, half mast and explicit as his own.

  “Madoc!” Kuli shrilled again. This time they both winced.

  Madoc was heading their way, but as Kuli summoned him, he seemed to hesitate. Palatan didn’t give him the chance, striding over and laying one arm about his shoulders. Disarmed, Madoc grinned and let himself be pulled closer.

  “He’ll be taller than I am before long, Ai, Našobok?”

  “He will. You’ll be a great, proud a’Naišwyrh like your sire, Madoc. I can’t believe the size of you—has it been so long?” Našobok reached out, gave a rough tousle to Madoc’s curls. The ahlóssa stiffened, but flashed a smile as Palatan snugged him closer.

  “Are you hungry, nephew? Come, share your meal with us.”

  “I’m so very hungry,” Kuli announced, shifting as if there were crawlers in his clout. “Maybe we’ll find Anahli at the cooking dens. Or Tokela. He eats more than even Madoc does.”

  Našobok winced again—the result, no doubt, of those narrow butt bones digging into his shoulder.

  “Not more than you, greedy gut,” Madoc riposted. “I don’t know where you put it.”

  “I have a hollow leg,” Kuli replied with a wave of one hand. “Aunt Inhya says.”

  With a guffaw, Našobok treated Madoc to a wink and smirk. Madoc nearly returned it; instead the ahlóssa flushed and looked away. Našobok seemed to shrug it off, but Palatan slid Madoc a taut, thoughtful gaze.

  “Speaking of Tokela, could you believe the cheek of Galenu? As if your sister would even consider…” Našobok trailed off as Palatan gave a barely perceptible jerk of chin towards the youngsters.

  There is much to consider, and not only Galenu, Palatan signed, with quick fingers, out of sight. Though the old khatak is clever and quick enough to find advantage in any uproar.

  Clever is not going to stop a rotted thing, Našobok answered.

  Speaking of clever—Madoc was eyeing them a little too close for circumspect talk. Palatan started to speak, but Našobok beat him to it.

  “I would like to see Anahli.” Sudden uncertainty quivered Našobok’s deep voice; Palatan heard it, thin as well-spun thread. Since she had become oških, Anahli had spurned the uncle she had once adored. None of them could get to the meaning of it. Palatan had his own suspicions, ending and beginning with Chogah.

  “No doubts she’s with her own,” Našobok continued, “having a grand First Running. No use for male company, eh? But Tokela—” He grimaced as Kuli shifted again, shrugged, then swung Kuli to hang upside down. Kuli gave a shriek of pretend dismay; Našobok continued with hardly a hitch, “I figured he would surely be with you, Madoc.”

  Within the circle of Palatan’s arm, Madoc peered, stolid, at Našobok. When Našobok merely peered back, Madoc flushed again. It seemed almost… angry.

  It seemed like his sire.

  “He’s always walking along River,” Kuli put in, still giggling despite the strain of his heels being higher than his head. “Sometimes he lets us walk with him. He tells the best stories, Yeka! I’ll bet if we should go out the compound we’d find him… Uncle! Let me back up and I’ll look for him.”

  “Then keep your bony haunches still,” Palatan advised. “Squirmy ahlóssa will end up thrown—and who can blame the horse?”

  Našobok chuckled and swung Kuli back up—on the opposite shoulder, this time. “Your sire is determined I’m part horse.”

  A fine, sturdy, bronze-bay stallion with eyes like a wintering storm, Palatan signed with a grin. I’ve always heard it’s water-horses who have the largest—

  Našobok grabbed Palatan’s hand, made his own talk tickle promise against his palm. Tease.

  “You’re a fine horse, Uncle Našobok!” Kuli enthused. “But I guess you’d be a River horse.”

  “A’io,” Palatan warned, “one of the puquhiś, the legendary ones who coax you to back them, then toss you to drown.”

  “Not true!” Našobok pretended to pout.

  Palatan laughed, soft. Madoc shot him a puzzled look, and Palatan gave a fond ruffle at Madoc’s hair. All ombre and gold beneath Sun, braided here and there with turquoise thread and carved wood beads, it curled unruly as his sire’s. Madoc responded to the affection with another huge grin.

  “But I like riding my horse in water,” Kuli was protesting. “I like River. Tokela does, too. You know, Tokela and I are going to travel River together. When I’m old enough, that is.”
r />   Madoc puffed up like a fantail in mating plumage. “If Tokela went anywhere, which he is not, it wouldn’t be with you.”

  “Well, it won’t be with you,” Kuli countered. “You don’t like going on boats. You get sick.”

  “Once. I was sick once, you Spawn—Yai!”

  This as Palatan flipped a sharp smack to the back of Madoc’s head.

  Kuli gave a satisfied snort; Madoc rubbed at his skull and eyed Palatan, wounded.

  Palatan shrugged. “Then mind your tongue, ahlóssa.”

  “Sounds familiar.” Našobok arched an eyebrow towards Palatan. “Except for the ‘once’, of course. And here I thought only pretty horsetalkers found River uncertain.”

  Palatan rolled his eyes.

  Madoc, left off rubbing his head to attend one of the hem lacings to his leggings, untied and flapping loose.

  “Tokela loves boats,” Kuli informed them. “He doesn’t get sick. He takes me in the dugouts all the time. Maybe Tokela and I’ll travel River with you, Uncle Našobok.”

  “Maybe.” Našobok swung Kuli down. “For now, run with your own feet, Little Fox.”

  Kuli beamed at the intimacy, grabbed Našobok’s hand and half ran, half walked between them. Našobok kept grinning, a tiny curl of satisfaction. Palatan saw the bodytalk of that in a heartbeat.

  “You are not,” he informed Našobok, “stealing my chieftain’s only son away to your oversized canoe.”

  “Ship. You know perfectly well Ilhukaia is a ship,” Našobok parried, then addressed Kuli once more. “But your yeka’s right, Little Fox. You have to grow tall and strong before you can make such choices. Perhaps after nextSun’s rising I can arrange a ride for you and Tokela and Madoc, if…” He looked back, trailed off.

  Madoc had disappeared. Palatan slid puzzled eyes to Našobok.

  Našobok’s satisfaction had flattened; he gave Palatan a small shrug, signed, I should have known.