Tinder Stricken (34 page)

“Good gods,” Esha breathed. She came farther
into the garden, through the latticed beams of light — drawn down
by bamboo. Hollowheart bamboo, maybe, since she could see a
blanched-blue circle of sky. The light hurt her eyes; she bent to
consider of one shaggy plant. It bent for her fingertips, a thing
like the hybrid child of a cliffside lichen and a fruit tree. “It's
beautiful. Did you do all this yourself, Nimble?”

“
Assertion: all of this belongs to Azure
Triad.”
In the corner of Esha's vision, he swelled with pride.
“Request: share insights! Has this one cultivated well?”

“I'd need to know what these
are
,
first.”

“Statement: they are lungta plants! Reserves
fit to bolster the Community! That one you scrutinize is
notch-fronded ( ), best for intricate speech. The plant beside it
is spiritgrasp, best for ( ).”

There were even lungta avenues that Esha had
never heard of, never applied a word to in her thoughts. The world
was a bountiful place, she thought while running leaves through her
fingertips.

“
Conclusion: that plant under the
harshest light — it is this one's greatest achievement.”

Esha's breath caught in her throat. Before
her, haloed with sunlight and hung with shadow, was a sesame plant
more robust-looking than anything Esha had ever grown.

“
Explanation: this plant's seeds were
given to Azure Triad in a day's ration. This one planted a few
exempted seeds instead, and read walls until growing parameters
were found. And this one added more light tubes. We feared it would
die without its hostile typical environment, but I was able to
redirect enough harshlight!”

“Th-This ...” Esha took a furred leaf
between careful fingers. “Low-ranking humans grow these. Men and
women as simple as I am, in our gardens beside our houses. You want
plants like this?”

Touch laid on Esha's shoulders — Nimble's
barbels, as relaxed as rope. He shifted to Esha's side and here
were his fish eyes, round and honest as ever.
“Plea: these are
valuable, Precious One! The seeds of this plant have apt lungta for
limb dexterity and also for increasing a healthshifter's
precision.”

Healthshifting. If that was remotely like
earthshifting, then the serpents were gods secreted away in the
dark.

“
It was an honour,”
Nimble went on,
“to savour five seeds between my teeth and keep as many for this
own garden.”

“An honour?”

“
Affirmative!”

Esha pressed her mouth. Powers like gods,
but yet one heaped handful of sesame seeds would be a revelation to
the serpents. Esha could buy that much for pocket money.

“Humans grow many fine plants,” she said.
“Some of them are so valuable, they're locked away where a low-rank
like me could never hope to lay eyesight on them. You could do a
lot if you swallowed plants like that — clever folk like you.”

Nimble's touch vanished. He slithered away,
and bent toward a tiered colony of lichens.

“
Aspiration: this one wants to see such
plants. Any and all! Query: if that one obtains rare seeds or
cuttings, please show this one. Such opportunity would mean the
deeps to me.”

Nimble wheeled her back to the spiral ramp's
base. This time, Atarangi and Rooftop stood prominent, within a
semi-circle of serpents who watched her mouth and hand movements,
rapt.

“Atarangi,” Esha told her when she finally
approached, “sister, let's go back to our surface. I want a hot
meal.”

Her face had never been more honest. “That
sounds like heaven.”

ever again would Esha take steaming-fresh
grain for granted. She and Atarangi hurried rice and boiled yam
into their mouths, blowing through stiff-arched lips like they blew
clouds through the skies.

“
You kin don't like the serpents'
food?”
Rooftop asked. He waited on restless-shuffling feet for
his own yams to cool.

“It tastes fine,” Esha mumbled around her
scorching mouthful. “S'just always cold.”

“Mm, I agree.” Atarangi gulped and spoke
more graceful. “They make leaf-dressings like nothing I've ever
tasted — but fire and cooked food don't seem to be a fixture for
serpents, as it is for humans.”

A fixture: that was an apt way to put it.
Esha shook her head. “If I had known getting my khukuri back would
be such a legendary effort, I never would have darkened your door,
sister.”

“Aren't you glad you did, though?”

“I suppose so, yes.” That fell honest from
Esha's lips. “Forgive my lie, if you would. The climbing, the
hauling ... I'd do it again.”

“From what I can gather,” Atarangi said,
glowingly pleased, “the serpents recently hatched a large clutch of
eggs. It's a community event, everyone hatching their eggs
together.”

Rooftop trilled.
“I like it. Sounds like
kin-family. Can we ask to see the hatchery?”

Atarangi scratched his ruff in answer.
“They've been feeding the new hatchlings, and also shifting new
living spaces, new aquaducts to farm algae and deepwater pond weed
— all typical burdens on the serpents' lungta crops. Then, around
three months ago, a medical procedure came into being.”

Esha frowned.

“I agree,” Atarangi said, “that's no answer.
There's treasure at the bottom of that sea. Whatever this procedure
demanded unusual amounts of lungta, and it's related to all the
earthquakes lately ... That's all I've been able to discern.”

“The ... Abyssal? One of the scribes told me
a morsel of gossip she shouldn't have. Sureness is trying to get us
clearance to be told what the entire trouble is. Yaah, even the
emperor's nearest aide isn't so tight-lipped.”

Pausing, thinking, Atarangi relished her
rice. “Whatever the serpents' trouble is, we should draw our own
lines of permission. Are we willing to continue trading maize,
vegetables, herbs ...?”

Esha nodded; Rooftop bobbed.

“I'd expect no less. However, if they need
enormous quantities of lungta ...”

“We can't pull that from our own
satchels.”

“No.” Eyes narrowing with a smile, Atarangi
said, “How loyal are we to our fellow humans, Esha? A few trades
among blackflags are no trouble, a few slights to this Empire we
live under. But the serpents eagerly took your khukuri. Its orchid
must be valuable to them.”

“Did you manage to ask about it?” Then, like
a bolt from heaven, Esha said, “No, actually. Don't tell me. And if
you haven't asked about it, don't bother.”

“You feel that it's gone?”

“It's ...”

She sighed. Rooftop tossed a yam chunk down
his throat and then flexed smiling crests at her.

“I don't want the khukuri back anymore. Let
the serpents have it, if it'll actually make one godsdamned bit of
difference to their.”

Nodding, Atarangi scraped a last bite of
rice onto her fingertips. “And what do you think, Clamshell?”

Esha didn't need to turn around to know the
intent-glowing eyes in the tree behind her.

“
The watersnakes have not black-watched
my territory since you dove into the earth-hole. I give no flame to
the serpents, none flickering-plucked from my tail ... But you kin
talk yellow-wound-sense.”

Atarangi vanished that evening. She was
there when Esha dropped her head to her bedroll, and she was gone
from cold blankets when Esha rose. The wheeled pack was gone with
Atarangi — but, always one to provide, she didn't leave Esha
hungry. Rooftop fluttered onto her wheeled-chair to show her:
Atarangi left a breakfast's worth of millet on the seat.

She returned while Esha was pouring pond
water onto the snarling cooking embers. Atarangi's cloak looked
odd, even larger than usual around her frame — but she smiled with
weary delight and lifted both sides, for Esha to see all the
bulging pockets.

“That's all the rupees I have,” she said.
“Until my next Empire stipend, or until I scratch up a translation
deal.”

“Or until we sell our shoes.”

“I would
truly
rather not. We need to
make this last. But still — use it if you need to. Share it, give
it to Nimble to tinker with, I don't know.”

She reached under her cloak, behind her own
shoulder blades, and after some squirming produced a thick packet
of pig leather. Inside was a pile of herbs, every pain herb Esha
knew and some new ones, besides.

“That,” Atarangi said, “definitely needs to
last.”

They pulled away the yankvine mat covering
the spiral ramp, and began the descent. Esha was just wedging a
rock under her chair's wheels — and mustering her strength to help
Atarangi pull the cover smooth above their heads — when tremors
gathered.

Earthshifting, Esha hoped in a frozen
moment. Maybe it was a serpent earthshifting, but the earthquake
took hold too strong for that. She and Atarangi stumbled to the
passage walls, and crouched. With the yankvines blotting out the
sky, Rooftop couldn't fly; he only huffed rapid until it was
over.

They were fortunate that the passage didn't
cave in. They were fortunate that, lower down, the collapsed rocks
were few and scattered enough to climb over, and drag Esha's chair
past. And once they reached the entrance to Deepling Community,
they only needed to wait a few moments. All around, rigid-finned
serpents slithered fast as garter snakes, and passed writing
leaves, and put their barbels to cracks in the history-laden walls.
But still, Sureness arrived, veering wide around shards of a broken
light bubble.

“
Statement:“
he clacked hard,
“Human Triad's clearance to meet the Abyssal has been
granted.”

Chapter 22

Esha didn't know what to expect. Serpent
society didn't seem to know, either. The food serpents paused in
their hurried circuits, frill-flicking what looked like greetings —
before a swarm of other venturers shooed them away and demanded to
inspect Esha and Atarangi's hands.

Esha considered explaining, as the venturers
eyed her hoof-thick fingernails:
possible weapon
rang in
their words. Some god must have been keeping guard over her: the
goat's hoof points weren't grown in yet.

“Statement: human fingernails aren't sharp,”
Atarangi volunteered. “Even when we allow them to grow long, they
never become pointed claws.”

The venturers seemed to agree, braiding and
clicking, pressing their barbels against Atarangi's fine nails and
showing no discomfort.

“
Query:“
Sureness offered, mildly
present behind them,
“how resistant are human nails?”

“How— Query: how hard? Not very. Statement:
Human nails split and bend, often for no immediately discernible
reason.”

“We sound like strange beasts sometimes,”
Esha muttered.

Atarangi hummed agreement. And then she
opened her mouth obliging, to show the same lack of efficiency
humans had in their teeth.

After more discussion and explanation and
wary prodding with barbels, the venturers declared human bodies a
minimal threat.

“
Directives:“
one told them, clacked
dire.
“These ones must speak when the Abyssal queries. These
ones must utter no lies, and no insults of any similar kind.
Lastly: the Abyssal is the greatness of depths. The Abyssal is many
and venerable. Make no base presumptions.”

“Request: elaborate. Which base
assumptions?”

The venturer shifted fins; it bought time in
which to think.
“Observation: humans have ... rigid concepts of
personal being. Make no base assumptions.”

“Statement:“ Atarangi replied, unflinching,
“we will strive to comply.”

As soon as the venturer moved a stone's
throw away, Esha leaned to Atarangi.

“I still don't understand.”

“They mean, ah. Don't choose words
carelessly when you address the Abyssal.”

Still clear as brick to Esha. “I just won't
say anything,” she said.

“
Except if the Abyssal-person addresses
you,”
Rooftop added, joining the close discussion. His beak
felt like a varnished stick against Esha's cheek.
“It's a
sand-itchy problem ...”

“In a raging storm,” Atarangi said, “the sea
floor still exists. If you offend their Abyssal, I'll still be here
to negotiate.” She found Esha's hand and squeezed it. “I'm joking.
This'll be fine. Just speak as though to a noble, and don't spit
out the first thing through your head.”

That, Esha was fairly sure she could do.

More venturers came, and went, and
discussed. Smaller serpents wove between them; leaves were passed
like autumn flurries. Esha and Atarangi were led to one room, then
another — and it was an utter surprise when they reached the great
chamber.

It was a cavern larger than imagining, like
the night sky was a construction diagram for a god's throne room.
One half of the room was a rippling flat plane, a still pool of
water. Lanterns hung from walls and ceiling, to shed gentle light
like a sky full of stars and life.

Then, the lanterns moved. Esha understood
slowly, in snowslide terror, that most of the lights were finlights
bristling from the creature called Abyssal.

With a long shuffling — like leather dragged
over stone to consume the space — the Abyssal turned toward them
and lowered its massive head nearer. Its chin hung metres above the
floor, its barbels falling, winding, into piles. There was so
much
of it that Esha's mind couldn't find sense until she
looked into every glinting eye and picked the two most central ones
to hold contact with.

Aides brought metal lumps to the Abyssal.
Its tree-trunk barbels lowered, to grasp with clusters of smaller
barbels like boneless, gelatinous hands. Leaves roared at a whisper
volume as it earthshifted. Then the Abyssal passed the flattened
writing metal back to scurrying, scraping aides, to be brought
reverently to Atarangi. She swallowed. She looked to the Abyssal
like into the faces of her childhood sea-beasts, and then she
lifted the Abyssal's message.