Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) (20 page)

Jonton leaned toward me. “There is a place here, Khe, that sits at the heart of the junction.”

Larta tsked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “There’ll be no trade here. No special room for Khe in exchange for letting you go, much less for letting you have whatever leadership role it is you crave.”

Two spots lit gray-green on Jonton’s throat. “You’re taking the wrong trail, guardian. It’s not a trade I’m after. I’m an orindle, not some corentan or commune leader haggling over the price of preslets or how many seeds I’ll trade for the latest gossip. It’s not a trade I’m after. What I want is for Khe to have her time back. To live long enough to become what she will be. To be with her when it happens and after.”

I stared at the orindle. What was Jonton really after?

“Seems to me that’d be up to her,” Larta said. “Though I’m sure she’d like to see this place, this
heart
.”

My throat closed up and I couldn’t speak, only nod. I wanted to see the room if it would truly give me back my life. But if this room did what Jonton said, why had she been so insistent that I continue Pradat’s treatments? Why not bring me there to begin with?

I asked the questions.

Jonton sighed. “Pradat’s treatments aren’t working.”

Heat streamed up my breastbone. Then I saw the truth of things.

“You counted on the treatments not working.” I said.

“I know many, many secrets of the lumani,” Jonton said, “but I don’t know where the heart is. But you, Khe, you who are becoming lumani, perhaps you can find it.”

My neck burned. Was I
becoming
lumani? Not just something in between, not something neither doumana nor lumani, but turning into the thing I hated? I dragged the back of my hand across my mouth, as though that could wipe away the fear growing in me.

“How?” I said. “What Weast did to me, it didn’t give me the lumani’s memories, or their knowledge. All it did…” Was what? Maybe gave me some insight. Or maybe that came with the Resonance surgery that unlocked my ability to push the crops. Maybe that unlocking had brought me other things as well.

The ability to see into Jonton’s heart.

“You want it for yourself,” I said. “You hope it will turn back time. How could anything do that, Jonton? How could it give you years that aren’t yours to have? You’re not like me. I want back only what was stolen. You want something that was never meant to be yours.”

She leaned toward me. “Why should we return during our thirty-fifth year? I’ve watched my sisters in their last year try not to resent what they couldn’t avoid. Watched my sisters, as vibrant and as valuable as ever, Return only because of age. What is lost to us, Khe, when our sisters are gone? What might they have discovered? What good and wonderful things might they have done? It’s wrong that we must Return simply because the world has spun a certain number of times. You, Khe, if you find the heart, you could give all your sisters — and brothers — more time to do great things.”

I remembered Hwanta, at Lunge commune — so many years past and still her screams were fresh in my ears — crying out the creator was cruel and cheated us, to take our lives while we were still healthy and wanting to give. How could I blame Jonton for her desire? When Weast had offered me nearly twice my normal life span, I’d grabbed at it with greedy hands.

Larta blew out a breath. “More time for the council to lead this world forward.”

“More time for we orindles to lead.”

The gray-green of revulsion showed on Larta’s neck, but her voice was calm. “But you will share this new wonder with all the soumyo?”

Jonton turned to me. “It’s a room. The lumani spoke of it. I’m sure it’s here, in the caverns, but for all the time I’ve spent looking, I could never find it. But you can. For you, the room is your best hope.”

Best hope. Jonton had no idea what would happen in that room.

My mouth felt dry and my hands shook. I knew
less
than Jonton where this heart might be. She, at least, knew where it wasn’t.

A soft rumble caught my ears. I saw that Jonton and Larta heard it, too. We’d learned what that sound meant and braced ourselves but the mad shaking we’d expected didn’t come. The ground rolled once beneath our feet, slow and gentle, like a dream, and stopped.

Larta said something, but her words were hidden by a sound I’d never heard before — like a single raindrop quickly hitting a small hollow log over and over again, so fast that no beast could run as quickly as those drops fell. Larta’s mouth was moving, and Jonton’s to answer her. I could tell they didn’t hear what I heard. A whoosh, like a huge wind, streamed through the cavern, but there was no wind. The sound of rain on wood returned.

An old sound joined — every kind of bird chirping, squawking, calling at the same time in thousands of voices. There were words in the chittering and squawking. Words I understood, but couldn’t say how I did — my name being called. Warmth spread through me, from the soles of my feet, climbing upward. Warmth and contentment. And knowledge. The words leading me, saying,
Come
,
Khe
.
This
way
.
Come
to
me
.

I stumbled out of the record room, following the voice like chasing a trail of smoke. The rain and wind sounds died away. I heard Larta behind me tsk and Jonton gasp, and two sets of footsteps rushing to catch up.

The tiny creatures that lit the passageway glowed brighter now than before, lighting the red rocks with a white fire flowing through the walls. Larta took my arm. I shook her off, as if her touch would dampen the words I strained now to hear.

This
passage
,
Khe
.
Turn
east
here
.

I turned without looking and knocked over a little tower of rocks, the stones scattering. Larta cried out. Some stones must have landed on her foot. I couldn’t stop now, not even for Larta.

The voice pulled me onward.

Downward. Deeper and deeper into the world. The air grew cold — which was odd, since I’d seen on the visionstage how doumanas at the mining communes sweated deep underground. I followed the voice’s directions into a long passage so thin the rough walls rubbed against both my shoulders.

There were hardly any of the glowing creatures in the dirt here. I could barely see an arm’s length in front of my eyes. Larta and Jonton were still behind me, but I heard their footsteps falter, unsure in the darkness. I hoped they’d stop following. Wherever I was being led, it seemed right that I should come alone.

Almost
there
, the voice that was like thousands of chittering birds said,
the
mouth
is
soon
.

The passage walls were so tight I had to squeeze my shoulders together and twist to walk sideways. The walls crumbled away where I pushed through, dirt falling down my back and chest. Small rocks tore at my skin. The way was almost perfectly dark. My heart pounded. Commune-raised, my world was always wide open. Sweat beaded above my lips. My neck burned. I pushed on.

The scent of sweet air told me something was changing. A few more steps, and there was nothing on my right shoulder, where the passage wall had been so tight before. I took a few more steps before turning toward the black void — the opening to another passage.
The
mouth
, the voice had said. I blinked, nervous, and walked into the emptiness.

As I walked the walls began to glow again from the luminescent creatures, the light growing stronger the further I went. The cavern was large enough that all my commune-sisters could have stood in it comfortably. At the back was a rectangular metal door — the only door I’d seen since we’d left the machine room.

I stood staring at it, hearing hard breathing behind me as Larta and Jonton squeezed their way through the last tight steps, and gasps when the wall fell away on their right. I reached out, but there was no way to open the door that I could see. Larta and Jonton came up beside me.

“You’ve found it,” Jonton said. Her emotion spots glowed crimson in happiness.

Larta’s neck showed blue-red with worry.

“I can’t figure the door,” I said. “All this way, to be stopped by a door…”

Jonton’s lips turned in a bare smile and she stepped forward. “The door is to keep the power contained.” She waved her hand over a small indentation in the dirt walls. The door clicked and then slid away, sinking sideways into the dirt wall.

It was just a room, dirt walls like all the others, though the soil was dark, dark-red with wide swatches of black running through it. The same kind of tiny, luminous creatures that had lit our way in the rest of the cavern glowed here too. My shoulders drew up and a tremble ran across them. My skin itched, a feeling like I’d drenched myself in mud and it had tightened as it dried. My earholes buzzed and I swiped at them with my hands.

Jonton watched me with a bland curiosity. I knew I was an experiment to her, as I’d been to the lumani. Her only desire was to see what would happen — her small hope that it would be something she could use for herself.

I didn’t want to step into that room, not now, not ever.

I wanted to run in, shut the door behind me, throw my head back and my arms out and soak up whatever was in there like bread in water.

I thought of Nez. A strange concept — to
know
my offspring and discover a new kind of love, different and beyond what I felt for my sisters: a bond so deep it had its own color, a bond that made me desperate to see how her life turned out.

I thought of Larta, and Azlii, and Pradat, of how much I wanted to see them and share in their lives, my good sisters, for more than just the time left before Commemoration Day; my best chance, to have what I’d given so much for, lay in the room beyond.

I stepped across the threshold.

The door whizzed closed behind me. The room was bare, since the lumani had no need for chairs or pillows. The air smelt different here, musty and stagnant like everywhere else in this cavern, but salty too — so salty I could taste it. The acrid scent of Weast and the other lumani, faint as a whisper, echoed from the air and soil. Of course it would smell like them here. The lumani came here, who knew how often? Often enough to have lived through generation after generation of soumyo.

A shudder ran up my spine — remembering Weast, what he’d done to me. The sense of burning from the inside out as the unnatural egg it had grown in me slid down my channel. The relief when the egg fell onto the floor, a mass of nothing.

I ran my hand over my scalp and flicked my wrist to throw the memory away.

I walked through the room slowly, a step and a stop, another step and stop, trying to sense if any spot felt different from any other — if there was one special place I should stand.

The room burst into light. Not the sort of light the wriggling creatures in the dirt provided. Not like the lights that brightened structures. More like Pradat’s healing lights — bright and sharp as the mid-year sun. I couldn’t see its source.

The ugly smell of Weast and its kind smoldered in my nose. The salty air dried my mouth. The dirt seemed suddenly alive, sending shocks along the soles of my feet. My bones ached. The air grew heavy, then heavier, pressing, driving me to my knees. I hunched my shoulders and ducked my chin — as if that could protect me. The heavy air was everywhere, pushing on my head, my back, my face, my stomach, my shins. I fell to the dirt on my side, closed my eyes, and rolled into a tight ball, my arms wrapped across my chest, each hand holding tight to the opposite shoulder.

The shocks that had started in my feet now ran along the length of my body. I twitched and turned, but couldn’t escape it. The air pressed, turned cold, turned freezing. My teeth chattered uncontrollably. I tried to unroll but couldn’t — as though my skin had melted to itself, impossible to pull apart. I pried my eyelids opened and looked down along my body, my pulse hammering in my head, terrified of what I might see.

Not melted flesh. Not melted, but freezing, frozen — even if I couldn’t see it. I wanted to scream but the air pressed in too tight. My mouth wouldn’t open. I slammed my eyes shut again, felt my face crunched into tiny folds and creases, my muscles cramped. The piercing light stabbed through my closed eyelids. It seemed to take days to make my arms unfold from across my chest and force my hands up to cover my eyes.

Had the lumani felt this? All those times, closed up in this chamber, had they been desperately cold and crushed this way? They’d lived through it. But I wasn’t lumani. Not like they were. I was still doumana, with a body never meant for this.

The
Expectation
of
Returning
, the song we sing for doumanas reaching the end of their time, roared into my mind.

Sweet
and
merciful
creator
,
too
long
have
I
been
gone
from
you
.

My
heart
cries
out
in
longing
to
join
again
with
the
soul
.

Jonton was outside the door. Larta. No one could save me.

Sweet
and
merciful
creator
,
too
long
have
I
been
gone
from
you
.

Freezing. Freezing. Shaking. Crushed.

I wanted it to end. Anything to make it stop.

The lights blinked out. I sensed it through my squeezed eyelids. The air pressure pushed a little less against my body. Slowly, slowly, the freezing lightened and became less painful though, even when it no longer hurt, I didn’t open my eyes. I lay curled tight, breathing — grateful for the small joy of air sliding in and out of my nose and lungs.

Finally I forced my eyes open. The room looked no different from when I’d first stepped into it. It should have been wrecked, the walls crumbled, the floor full of cracks. I inched my hands to my scalp and rubbed gently with both hands.

I needed to sit up. I knew it, wanted it, but couldn’t. Not yet. I lay a while longer, the dirt beneath me cool now, as comfortable and pleasant as lying in the fields with my sisters back at Lunge. I wouldn’t look at my left wrist. The dots could be the same, still thirty-five. That could mean nothing good had happened in this room. It could mean that the change took time. It could mean —

Birds that weren’t birds chirped, twittered, and squawked somewhere around me. I levered up on one elbow and looked around, cocking my head different ways, trying to figure out where the sound had come from. The birds yammered again — below me, above me, from the walls.

A soft voice, like the barest breeze, sounded not in my earholes but inside my head — like think-talking, but different. Not like hearing so much as
knowing
the words already the moment they sounded.

Khe
, the voice said,
I
have
given
you
back
your
years
.
Look
now
.
Look
and
see
the
truth
of
this
.

I sat up slowly, half afraid to look, half afraid I was making up voices to say what I wanted to hear. I scratched the side of my neck with my right hand — buying time. Slowly I turned my left arm over and looked at my wrist. The dots were still there, a field of blue stars on red skin.

Not thirty-five.

I held my breath and started to count. When I was done, I counted them again. The number was the same both times: thirteen. Exactly the number there should be.

I sat a long time staring, delight singing in my blood, a grin as big as the wilderness stretched across my face.

Khe
, the voice said,
your
rightful
years
are
my
gift
to
you
,
a
gift
I
have
been
waiting
and
hoping
to
give
.

My heartbeat sped. I glanced around the dirt room, wondering where the voice came from, if it were real or only something I imagined. Of course it was real — it was the same voice that had guided me through the cavern and brought me here.

Where
are
you
? I thought-talked.
Can
I
see
you
?
Can
you
be
seen
?

I
am
here
, the voice said — and the sound came from everywhere.

I watched as all the little luminous creatures that had lit the walls began moving down toward the bottom of the wall. When they reached the bottom, they crawled under the dirt floor toward me. Was it the creatures that’d brought me here, given me back my life? They wriggled toward me, then began to turn, forming themselves into a glowing circle around me.

Can
you
see
clearly
now
? the voice asked.

Yes
, I sent back. It wasn’t the little creatures at all; it was the dirt, the planet itself, that fed me, that had given me physical energy. And now, its ultimate gift: my rightful years.

How
can
I
thank
you
? I thought.
Can
I
offer
you
help
?
The
shivering
—
I
heard
you
sob
.

The ground rolled gently beneath me.

The
machine
, the planet sent,
brings
me
pain
.
I
would
be
grateful
if
you
destroyed
it
.

The machine that made our world perfect. That brought the right weather for my sisters — and brothers — to thrive. Without the machine, what would happen to us?

What did I owe the planet that had given me back my life?

How could I choose between them?

I
don’t
know
how
to
destroy
the
machine
, I thought, and hoped that would spare me from having to decide.

I
will
help
you
when
the
time
comes
, the voice said.
I
will
give
you
the
strength
.

I slowly pulled myself to my feet. I gazed at the solid door set into the dirt.

Can
you
open
the
door
? I sent.

I’m
sorry
.
No
.
I
cannot
do
that
without
harming
you
.

A finger of fear raced up my chest. I didn’t know how to open it from this side; didn’t know if it
could
be opened from this side. But Jonton could open the door. And Larta had seen how she’d done it.

“Larta.” My voice was little more than a rusty whisper.

No answer came.

“Larta!” I screamed, frightening myself with the force of the sound.

The door clicked and slid open. Larta and Jonton stood staring at me, the question in both their minds clear on their faces.

I walked toward them, holding my left arm up, forearm turned their way, laughter rising in me, until it burst out and rang like chimes against the dirt walls.

Jonton’s eyes grew wide. She shoved me aside and ran into the room. The door shut hard behind her. I stared after her. The room, the confluence of energy, had extended the lumani’s lives, and now mine. I supposed Jonton would get what she sought there as well.

Larta rested an arm over my shoulder, her neck brightly lit crimson. “Now we have to wait for Jonton.”

I nodded. I’d had no sense of time in the room, no way to figure how long we would be waiting.

The voice whispered inside my head.
Go
now
.
I
will
guide
you
.
Jonton
will
not
be
back
.

I felt as though all the air had been sucked from the cavern in a great rushing plume. I couldn’t make myself move. Jonton had done evil things, Returned four doumanas, an act I couldn’t comprehend, but she deserved her life — and shunning — for a very long time. To be Returned herself would almost be a gift, a smaller pain than shunning would bring. But the planet had no use for the way doumanas thought. It had its own ways, its own punishments.

“Jonton won’t be coming with us,” I told Larta. “Likely she won’t be coming back at all.”

Larta gaped at me. Her neck showed the gray-red of shock and the soft-gray of sorrow, but she closed her mouth, nodded once, and we turned away.

And here was one more change made in us — that we would walk away and leave a doumana, any doumana, in jeopardy

In the last step of light before we re-entered the dark, tight passageway, I sneaked another look at the inside of my left arm. It felt wrong to be happy when Jonton faced misery, but I was happy. My rightful years were mine again.

I led the way back, the planet whispering directions in my ear, taking a different, more direct route than the way we’d come. Energy poured through me. Once we were beyond the tight passage I walked so fast Larta huffed from trying to keep up. I didn’t slow until we came to the cavern beneath the machine room.

Larta looked up at the dirt roof above our heads. “Now what?”

I waited for help or instructions, but the voice was silent.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Coming all this way just to find ourselves stuck,” Larta said, running her hands over the walls, looking for a divot like the one Jonton had used to open the door at the heart.