Khe (22 page)

I tap the tall corentan on the shoulder. “Where are we headed?”

It’s an effort to talk. I’m breathing hard, and barely able to keep up with the pace she’s set.

She glances over her shoulder but doesn’t break stride. “My home. My dwelling,” she adds, using the word that I know. I file the new word,
home
, into my memory.

We skirt the trading area filled with doumanas in kler- and corentan-style cloaks, each wearing a trader’s collar. Long, buff-brick buildings with arched openings line its three sides. The trading area is far enough away that I shouldn’t be able to make out details so clearly, but I can.

The path bends away, toward where, in the back of the corenta and across the plain, the wilderness lies. Marnka is there. She’s probably safe, at least. Azlii and Tanez are not. I feel my neck warm, but again don’t feel my spots light. That bothers me, but not as much as I worry for Azlii and Tanez and fear that these corentans won’t come up with a workable plan to save them.

My legs are about to give out when the tall corentan slows at a small one-level dwelling, steps up to a wooden blue door and pushes it open. The door hangs on hinges, like doors in a commune. The tall doumana motions with her chin to two of the others, dismissing them. The two look disappointed. I’m sure they are curious about us. They nod, then turn and walk away without a look back.

Before the corentan goes inside she stops and presses her hand against the wall, just outside the doorjamb. I remember that Azlii said she and her dwelling—her home—worked together on its construction. I think maybe the tall corentan is greeting her home.

She steps aside and motions with her hand for us to enter first. I see the two even rows of seven blue dots that mark her wrist and envy her.

Walking into the dwelling feels less like crossing into a building, more like entering a living organism. I stop on the threshold. Pradat stops behind me. I feel the structure’s awareness of us, its impatience at my hesitation. I step inside, half afraid that the home will swallow me up.

The door slams behind me, plunging me into darkness. I look around wildly, but I am alone in the room. Someone outside bangs on the door once. Lights come on in the room and the door opens again. The tall corentan comes inside, scowling. Pradat and the three corentans follow her in. Pradat’s large eyes are bigger with fright.

Why did you do that
? the tall corentan think-talks.

She needed a good scare
, the home answers.
She was afraid of me. Now she’ll be angry at my little jest and put fear behind her
.

She doesn’t know you’re aware
, the corentan sends.

She knows
, the home replies.

The corentan looks at me and I give her a little shrug.

“Pftt,” she says to no one in particular.

How did you know
? she sends to the home.

The home chuckles.
Because she was afraid to come inside
.

The corentan wipes her hands on her cloak and sits down on a large pillow. The room is filled with them, each covered in fabric finer than anything I have ever seen. Some are solid colors and others have intricate designs in the weave.

“Well, then, to business,” she says. She unhooks the collar from her neck and sets it beside the pillow on the carpeted floor. A wooden chest painted purple-red and a small vision stage are the only other things in the room. A firecave is cut into one wall. The room feels cold and I wish she’d light a fire.

The other two corentans take pillows and sit as well, forming a loose circle around Pradat and me. They remove their collars, but leave on their cloaks in the chilly room. Pradat and I aren’t invited to sit. We stand. The tall corentan leans back on her pillow and stretches her long legs out in front of her like spokes in a wheel.

“My name is Nool,” she says. She doesn’t name her companions.

“I’m Khe,” I say, though Pradat has already told them my name at the gate. I slip the collar from my neck. “You seem to know Pradat.”

“You’ve come recently to Chimbalay,” Nool says to Pradat. “I remember you from Morvat Kler and the research center there.”

I wonder what Nool was doing in Morvat Research Center.

Pradat bends her head slightly to the side, acknowledging that Nool is right. “I was brought to Chimbalay to work with the babblers.”

My eyes fly to Pradat. I want to know about that, but this is not the moment to ask.

“But Khe is not a babbler, is she?” Nool asks. She turns her eyes toward me, but I don’t feel that she expects an answer.

Nool knows something about me already, I’m sure—at least that I was with Azlii when she was captured. I put out a question of my own.

“Why were you waiting for us to pass at the gate?”

Nool’s mouth crinkles as if she is amused. A soft chuckling vibrates through the room. The home is entertained by my question as well.

Nool rubs her chin thoughtfully. “Larta warned us that you were impatient. She came to the corenta soon after you left for Presentation House. She told us about the doumana who had been changed but had not gone insane, the one whose story she thought might begin to shake loose the lumani’s hold on our world. Larta said that you’d gone to set the uprising in motion. We were at the gate waiting for word of your success or failure.”

“How did you know I was the one who’d been with Azlii?”

“This corenta has traded with Chimbalay for a long time,” Nool says. “A stranger was easy to spot.”

“Forty thousand doumanas live in Chimbalay. You recognize all of them on sight?”

Shrugging, Nool says, “They don’t all come to Kelroosh. Probably no more than a thousand have permission to trade. We know those doumanas by sight, yes.”

Kelroosh
is a word I haven’t heard before, but reason that it’s the name of this corenta. One thousand doumanas still seems a large number to recognize, but there’s no point in questioning her further on it.

“Would you like something to eat?” Nool asks, looking from me to Pradat and back again.

“I’d be grateful,” Pradat says.

It’s been two days since I’ve eaten. I don’t feel hungry or thirsty. Still, I nod.

Nool jerks her head toward what I guess is the food prep area. A pinch-mouthed doumana gets up and heads in that direction.

I’d assumed these doumanas were a unit, but realize they can’t be, not the way units were on the commune or in the kler, made up of hatchlings who’d emerged in the same year. I’ve seen the dots on the wrists of Nool and the doumana still sitting with us. They’re different ages. What binds them together, then?

“A fire would be nice,” the third doumana says. I think of her as
pinkling
, for the light color of her skin.

“The starter’s on the mantle,” Nool says.

Pinkling finds the starter and kneels before the firecave. I watch her cup the firestarter in her hands and concentrate. The starter sparks, then catches. She lights the kindling, blowing on it gently to encourage the flame. There’s a fragrance in the wood I can’t name. It’s sweet, like young leaves, but spicy, too. I breathe it in and feel clear-headed for the first time in days, though I’m still exhausted. I wish these doumanas would invite Pradat and I to sit.

The pinch-faced doumana returns with bowls of mélange and cups of zwas on a rolling cart. Pradat seems ravenous, attacking the food. I have no appetite.

I take a sip of zwas. It burns my throat. The goblet feels heavy and nearly slips from my hand. My mind whirls. I set the goblet down on the floor.

The pinch-faced doumana rubs a hand across her thin, sharp nose and asks, “Shall we throw the room open?”

Things are strange enough in the corenta that I wouldn’t be surprised if the walls suddenly fell away.

Pinkling says, “Pradat’s scheme had some good points. Perhaps we should start there.”

Nool sets down her goblet. “The orindle is right that we need a diversion. Maybe a disturbance in the street outside the research center would draw out enough of the doumanas inside to let us get through.”

“What kind of diversion?” Pinkling asks, turning her goblet slowly in her thick-fingered hands.

Pradat clears her throat. “Perhaps if two vehicles collided at the research center’s door, maybe even pushing through the door.”

“We don’t have vehicles in the corenta,” Nool says. “Who needs vehicles when your entire community, structures and all, travel as one? None of us know how to pilot a vehicle.”

Pinkling shifts her body, folding one leg beneath her. “Remember the Chimbalay helphand who claimed that the lens she purchased here was scratched and demanded it be replaced at no charge, even though she kept the other one. We could storm the research center, demanding that the helphand pay what she rightfully owes. That would get us inside. While two of us stay to argue, making a lot of noise, the other could sneak through to find Azlii and the kler doumana with her.”

Her name is Tanez
, I want to shout.

The pinch-mouthed doumana draws her mouth into a line so tight that her lips all but disappear. “If we could find the captives. It’s not as if the orindles and helphands are going to let us wander around freely. None of us have been inside Chimbalay. How will we find the research center? Even if we found Azlii and the other one, how would we get them out?”

My patience grows thin. Each moment wasted talking could be the last for Tanez and Azlii.

“I can lead you there,” Pradat says.

“You can’t go back,” I say. “By now everyone in the research center knows that you helped me escape.”

Pradat nods. “I can’t go inside, but I can lead them through Chimbalay to the center’s door.”

“Unless they’ve alerted the guardians,” I say. “If the guardians are looking for us, you won’t be safe with one foot in the kler.”

“We appreciate your offer,” Nool says to Pradat, “but Khe is right. We can’t chance being in the kler with you.”

“There is a way that might work,” I say. “The chances are that someone is looking for me—the guardians, or the orindles, or the lumani. If you took me to the research center, saying that I’d come to the corenta telling a confused tale, the orindles would let you in.”

No one says anything. The home sends,
Yes, that might work
.

I flinch at the words. I’ve forgotten that the home is listening. I realize that what happens now is of as much concern to it as to any of the doumanas living in the corenta. The doumanas, beasts, plants, and structures are tied together in a way that’s hard for me to understand, but I’d be foolish to forget it is so.

“That might get us in,” Nool says. “But what if they take you at the door, thank us and send us on our way. It’ll take more than you to rescue Azlii and the other.”

“I’ll be your diversion,” I say. “I’ve already attacked a helphand once. I’ll put up a fight and make enough noise that it’ll draw everyone’s attention. That will let you sneak up to the seventh level where the lumani have put Azlii and Tanez. With luck, you’ll get them out.”

Who will get you out?
the home asks. No one else seems to hear the question, and I don’t answer.

“Can you think-talk to Azlii once we get inside the research center?” I ask, beginning to see this escape in my mind. Beginning to think it might work. “Can you ask her where they are and follow her thoughts there?”

Nool nods. “If she’s conscious.”

“I think she will be. I think the lumani will want to question her and Tanez.” I draw a breath. “You’ll have to go fast. Get in and get out while the orindles and helphands are distracted with me. There’s only one entrance to the building that I know of, but I think, with all of us, we can overwhelm the doumanas there and get out. Once we’re on the street, things should get easier.”

Nool strokes the knuckle of her thumb across her mouth. “It’s a decent plan. We’ll go to Chimbalay, with Khe as our excuse.”

I glance from face to face. Pradat is clearly unhappy, the blue-red of anxiety glowing on her neck. The others show colors of emotions ranging from doubt to clear agreement. My neck isn’t even warm.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I am your instrument. Play upon me your tune
.

--Ninth Standard Prayer

Nool gets to her feet, walks over to a wall and leans against it.

We’re leaving now
, she sends to the home.
Take good care of Pradat. Don’t play any jokes on her. I’ll be back before you have time to miss me
.

The home sighs and the door opens. I feel its worry. If the home had arms, I think it would grab Nool and keep her from going.

The sun has set but it is not dark yet as we set out across the corenta. A dusting of stars is scattered through a cloudless sky. Doumanas, singly and in small groups, stroll in the night air. All wear corenta-style clothing and no collars. The kler doumanas must have gone back to Chimbalay.

Fear slithers through me.
Chimbalay
.

“Nool,” I say, “I’d like a favor.”

“What?”

“I need to make a prayer and an offering for our safety. I know corentans don’t believe, but I do. I need to do this.”

Nool huffs under her breath. “All right. We’ll come up to Community Hall quick enough. But be fast about it.”

Community Hall in Kelroosh is a massive building, many times larger than the hall at Lunge. The high, plain wooded door is at the top of a set of twenty-five or thirty buff-colored stone steps. Walking through the corenta, I’ve heard the structures whispering among themselves. When we first came, the buildings wondered who Pradat and I were. Now they all seem to know and they whisper my name as we pass. But I’m not prepared for the surge of curiosity flowing from Community Hall, tumbling over me like water falling from a great height.

This doumana has come to make an offering to her protective deity
, Nool sends to the hall.
Let her do it in peace
, she adds sternly.
No lecture from you for her, or for me
.

The hall gives no response for a moment, and then sends:
I hear that the stranger is versatile
.

She can hear and speak with you
, Nool replies.