Tinder Stricken (33 page)

She mostly enjoyed the looks of the walls,
at first. The lines leading her eyes around the carved
pole-holsters. Not a single pole jutted from any wall she could
see; maybe, Esha supposed, the holes were only used on occasion.
For flags, or torches, or something else she couldn't imagine.

Esha was considering etchings — and having
little luck forcing her lungta to the task — when a guard serpent
approached.

“
Query: this one is uninjured?”

This was Sureness, Esha was moderately sure;
the sight of his phoenix scar confirmed it.

“Well, my ribs hurt — they weren't gentle.
But I'll live.”

He shrank, all his fins and fronds folding
at once.
“Apology: this is a failing of Deepling society.
Venturers are excessively enthused, at times.”

“Venturers?” The word had crevices in it,
meanings too subtle for Esha's betel to push into.

“
Statement: venturers are those who go
into the skylight.”

Skylight
was a word Esha could
translate; it felt strangely like
cursed
or
lost
.

“
Statement:“
Sureness went on,
“few serpents have the needed attributes to venture. Size and
muscle-strength are needed, to intimidate those who would strike
serpents down. Earthshifting aptitude is vital. Inclination to
panic must not be present.”

It did sound like guard caste — except with
a missive to explore, not to simply pace circles around known
territory. And without an inclination to bother low-castes. And,
Esha guessed, Sureness probably didn't accept rupee bribes.

“It sounds like you've got an honourable
position,” Esha tried.

She meant it as a beige, neutral statement.
But Sureness flared his fins and clicked gratitude. Honour, Esha
had to remind herself, was something to want.

Sureness stayed at her side while she limped
along the District's round walls. He explained some of the written
meanings. There was a hatchery all serpent eggs hailed from. There
was a time of life where hatchlings wandered the Community,
studying every etched word that serpent society had to share. There
were fountain-like pulses of water within Tselaya, which serpents
directed into tubes and measured time with. It was enough to fill a
library to its roof beams.

As Esha's steps slowed, Sureness offered his
largest right barbel to lean on. It didn't look sturdy but, Esha
found, it bore her weight as well as any sure-fastened
selfrope.

Nimble joined them. He chattered delight at
the things Esha had learned; he suggested reading further.

“
Statement: learning abounds!”
He
then extended a barbel into a pole holster, leaning to stuff the
appendage in as far as it would go, beaming open-mouthed at
Esha.

“Learning? Wait a moment —
what
are
these holes for?”

“
Statement: stories dwell within!
Enrichment!”

Esha stared, with her own mouth open to
match. “Are there ... carvings in there?”

“
Assessment: humans cannot use
story-passages,”
Sureness said, quiet with disappointment.

“Well,
no
— I don't have anything on
me that'll fit.” Esha shuffled to the next story passage over, and
stuck her fingers in until her hand stuck tight. Ridges met her
fingers: she just didn't have the right lungta in her belly to
shape sense out of them. Earthshifting, she reminded herself. It
was an incredible skill, something more suited to demons or gods
than to people.

“
Regret:“
Nimble said, tugging
himself free of the wall,
“this one and her Triad cannot read
story passages.”

“
Regret:“
came a demure clicking
behind him,
“humans would benefit from doing so.”

Bravery circled, staring up at Nimble and
Sureness with eyes like the lungta-shining sky.
“Query: has this
human been informed of the Deflected Words?”

Nimble tightened his looped self.
“Objection:“
he clacked,
“that knowledge would not aid
the Human Triad.”

“
Rebuttal:“
Sureness clicked mild,
“it might.”

Pausing, letting the gravity steep in,
Bravery regarded Esha.
“Proposal: this one aspires to her name.
She has achieved little toward its validity. Ergo: this one will
recount the Deflected Words events that both humans and Deeplings
might avert their attentions from.”
She wound away.
“Request: follow. Hear me.”

Unsure if she wanted to or if she was simply
obeying, Esha followed. Sureness matched her pace, barbels a net of
support; Nimble slunk along by Esha's other side.

Her fins standing sure now, Bravery stopped
at a story passage and gazed into its word-heavy depths.

“
Assurance: ask any hatchling beginning
to study the storied walls, and they will tell you of the Deflected
Words. Statement: that event occurred over five million pulses ago,
when this deep-born breed commenced extending the Community to (
)-( ) elevation. One triad went into skylight to gather
surface-pond plants. Then humans came.”

Bravery turned cat-bright eyes to Esha.

“
Statement: the triad stood in the
shallows, offering words. Emphasis: words. But contradiction: the
humans would not listen. They bared weapons.”

“Really?” Esha said. “The serpents didn't
menace the humans at all?” The story ran counter to everything Esha
had ever heard, every story called plausible by a town arbiter.

“
Statement: one serpent escaped. That one
was mentally shattered from the experience. But he testified that
his triad made no aggressive overtures.”

Esha had nothing to say. Her Kanakisipt
grandparents hadn't even been born at that time — she guessed,
since five million pulses sounded like a lot. “That's all you know
about it?”

“
Statement: it is. The incident has been
discussed in all the pulses since, by every student of our
philosophy. Quandary: how can an individual know what is
objectively true?”

Esha certainly couldn't. She looked away
into the glass-lit dampness. For all the times other humans spoke
fears of serpents, she would have imagined actual attacks were
made. Maybe not fuelled by malice — maybe just from the two breeds
startling one another in the forest, or from one hungry serpent not
fussy about its meal
.

Her legs hurt. So did her head.

“
Supposition: the Deflected Word was an
event we must continue to discuss. If we cannot understand the
past, it will inevitably return to plague us.”

Sureness clacked irritable.
“Statement:
the story is told. Query: what do you wish Precious One to
glean?”

Gathering her thoughts, Bravery relaxed her
poise; she was a tall candle melting from its own flame.
“Statement: this one wished to tell a human of the Deflected
Words. Hypothesis: since serpents secret ourselves from humans,
they may not know. They may not have preserved the
information.”

“I didn't know,” Esha admitted. “There's a
lot I don't know. But it seems that friends' patience and a
slathering of lungta can fix it.”

Bravery looked again into the story passage.
“Assurance: that is a wise answer.”

“
Bravery,”
Sureness intoned.

“
Suggestion: those ones should tell the
Human Triad of our Abyssal.”

“
No.”

Glowering with spread fins — at the rude
phrasing, Esha was tentatively sure — Bravery clicked,
“Statement: it must be done. When asking for trade accords,
one's goals must be transparent.”

“
Rebuttal: they do not need to be
burdened with the knowledge.”

“
Suggestion:“
Nimble tapped small,
“maybe they should be burdened with it. Then those ones may more
effectively assist us with our burden.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Esha said. In
purest honesty, she was losing the will to care; the thought of
pain herb and steaming hot millet was calling to her.

“
Assertion: my goal has been
accomplished.”
Bravery settled all over, like relief escaping
from under her fins.
“Request: Azure Triad, tell the Human Triad
why we are striving to establish relations. Precious One, consider
well what you are told.”

Sureness and Nimble escorted her back to the
spiral ramp landing. This was no time to lie to herself: Esha
appreciated the company. She wanted even more of it, wanted to find
Atarangi and Rooftop and Clamshell's chick and maybe even
Clamshell, to ring herself with like a house full of tied-leaf
dolls.

“Query:“ Esha asked, “you're going to do
what Bravery said, aren't you? Tell us the whole foundation of this
trade effort? Or, rather, tell Atarangi and Rooftop — they're the
diplomats.”

“
Observation: this one acknowledges the
phoenix as a thought-sure being.”

“Well, yes. He's been fine company.” Esha
shrugged. “So have you. Gods, if any of my field sisters heard me
speaking this way, they'd think my goat traits have taken me
over.”

Esha reined in her tongue — feeling foolish
as a puppet, wondering whether to explain. But Sureness simply
unwound his barbels from her arms, and balanced her back on her
feet, and bade her to rest well.

Nimble still stood by her, coiled uneasy,
flicking his gaze between Sureness's departing water ripples and
Esha's moving face.

“
Prediction: Sureness is going to apply
for further exemptions.”

Esha put fingertips to her temples, to make
dents in either side of her headache. It didn't help much but she
satisfied herself with the slipping of long hair and rough fur
through her fingers, and the damp air touching them both. Her
damned goat ears flicked at the movement; she didn't touch
those.

“I'm sure there'll be more exemptions and
bargains and gods know what,” she said.

“
Declaration: now that Human Triad is
permitted in the Community, this one may show you additional
growing projects!”

Esha frowned. “Can you show me tomorrow? I'm
tired.”

“
Request: this one has been anticipating
...”

Casting a look around, Esha didn't see
Rooftop's beacon colouring, or any distinctive inch of Atarangi.
Which meant they had brought the wheeled pack with them for safe
keeping, and Esha had no way of walking her feeble self up
kilometres of spiral ramp. For all the friends Esha had found, she
was still far distant from some of the simplest things she
wanted.

“I'll look at whatever you'd like,” she told
Nimble. “If you can think of a way to get me there.”

Judging by the way Nimble chittered, Esha
had just given him a wealth of gifts.

With eighteen lumps of silvery metal meant
for writing leaves, and a show of lungta like watching marble carve
itself, Nimble made Esha a wheeled pack of her own. He shaped the
metal into curving bars and spoked wheels. Concentrated on the
axels with an intensity that crinkled his brow. And then Esha had a
seat to lower her creaking self onto. Nimble held out his
blue-black tail fin, offered — and Esha loathed to grab it,
fragile-looking membrane that it was. But the fin held like
well-tanned leather, and Nimble began undulating his body,
slithering along with cart-wheeled Esha jerking behind.

It was so absurd, harnessing him like a
plough yak, that Esha bubbled up with laughter every time the
wheels jammed against rock corners.

“You shouldn't be using lungta on things
like that,” she said. “Isn't it needed right now?”

“
Statement: this effort comes from
Nimble's personal allotment. Also: Precious One, maybe this sight
will give you strength? That one changes, transcends?
Query?”

This was what friendship was. Esha had
starved without it for a while and maybe she forgot, but she
couldn't deny it now — that friends humoured one another and shared
their tiniest precious sights. Even if the friend was a tar dealer,
or a fire-starting bird, or a snake-fish lurking below. Esha had
hooves and none of it mattered.

“If you think I should see it, Nimble, I'm
sure it'll do me some speck of good.”

Nimble drew Esha's carriage down a winding
path. It was lit blue by seed-yam-sized glass bubbles glowing
against the ceiling, but dim enough to be soothing, dim enough that
Nimble's finlights were a discernable garland. At a seemingly
ordinary place in the path, Nimble earthshifted a cloth-thin rock
wall away, and led further on. Light soaked into the walls from up
ahead, light nearly the same white-warm colour as Nimble's
finlights.

Soon, they came to the source of that light:
threads rooted into the rocks that glowed like heated iron, except
not red or white. They were the cool colour of a summer sky, and
just as cool when Esha reached out to touch one.

“What are these?”

Nimble turned, slithering over himself in
the narrow space, his fins flicking a mixture of emotions.
“Statement: These are ( )grasp mushrooms. Pleasing decoration,
and a keenly specialized breath-of-life for moving the body.
Practical. Precious One, this is only part of my garden. Request:
follow me.”

Esha couldn't say what she had been
expecting. A garden like her own empire-enforced patch of earth,
maybe — a few humble, leafy stalks that Nimble held more dear than
an old-growth tree. The cave Nimble led her to was a completely
different vision, and one that stole her breath away.

Nobles had gardens like this. The richest
florists on Tselaya's highest peaks had such tall-swept ceilings,
filled underneath with a colourful array of blossoms and leaves and
glass-delicate vines. Nimble kept mainly bizarre serpent crops — in
watery shades of blue and green and purple, some of them giving off
a dusty glow — but Esha didn't need to know what these were to know
that they were many, and precious.