by Mara Duryea
“Thank you.”
He put his hand on the back of her neck, and they swam slowly towards her burrow. Srisair resting his hand on her neck meant he was affectionate towards Gilanra. Even though Gilanra wished he would just hold her, it comforted her a little.
“You left out many details, Gilanra. Did you love him?”
Gilanra jumped. “What?”
“It is a natural thing for those with soft hearts, Gilanra. That isn’t an evil. Why did you not go with him? We would have erected a memorial for you, and you would have lived on the surface.”
“He…he was evil. He opened a Midnight Gate. The Perilith was his own child. He was cruel to his first wife, and she ran away while he was gone. I didn’t know he had a son, or a wife, or anything.”
Srisair was silent a moment, and then he said, “Many Syladins have gone to the surface despite what their sunwalkers have done. I am proud of you for returning.” They stopped in front of her burrow. “I hope you will continue to bring honor to your name.” He flicked the tip of her tail with his and swam away.
Gilanra smiled. Seldom did Srisair’s students make him proud. Rumor had it he possessed no emotion, but maybe it was because everything was mundane to him. A person couldn’t show feeling if they were bored to death. She entered the burrow. Her mother sat in the sand eating a fish. Itika didn’t even look up.
“Did you love him?” said Itika.
Gilanra flinched. What kind of a greeting was this?
Itika’s eyes flashed. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“And you did not go with him? I thought you would. At least you had the sense not to tear something special apart.” Itika continued eating.
Gilanra knelt in the sand as laughter echoed down the tunnel. “Are…are we going to celebrate?”
“Celebrate what?”
Gilanra frowned. “I’m a competent warrior now.”
“Competent?” The woman snorted. “You did not keep a captive alive. You fell in love with him. A competent warrior does nothing of the sort.”
Gilanra’s fangs slid out. “Aren’t you happy I didn’t go with him?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“He was a monster!”
Itika’s jaw tightened. “Why didn’t you kill him? Don’t tell me it was because you wanted to graduate.”
Gilanra threw her gauntlets off. “I ran from him. He had opened a Midnight Gate, and...”
Itika sneered. “So this competent warrior ran away?”
Heat darted through Gilanra’s breast. “Why don’t you like me? You always pull me apart! You always try to find something wrong with me. What’s wrong with you? Did you even love Dad? You cold-hearted woman, you didn’t even go through a mourning period when he died!”
Itika flung the fish to the side as she leaped from the sand. “Because he didn’t!”
Gilanra felt like Itika had slapped her. “What?”
Itika pinched her lips as she calmed herself down. “He’s not dead.” She knelt demurely in the sand. “He left. He went back to his sunwalker wife.”
Gilanra couldn’t even speak.
“I was married to a sunwalker. Like you, I caught him for my graduation year. I became pregnant. I didn’t even finish my year. I went with him to the surface and laid the egg there. We married before it hatched. He was from Aralia, and so we named her Gilanra.”
Gilanra grimaced. “What?”
“And then, when the girl was about two, I met your father.” Itika’s mouth tightened. “He was an Iskerkin, and I a Sylex. Let me tell you about what a Sylex is.”
“She’s a healer.”
“Yes, she is, but she’s also a weakling. The Iskerkin carry the memory, but that memory isn’t activated until he learns to love his lost ones again. That memory is then spread if his claim is willingly accepted. He finds his lost ones familiar, but the Sylex, her heart never forgets. Though her mind has forgotten, the love she held for her lost ones lives on. As soon as she sees one that belonged to her, she loves them immediately.”
Gilanra’s mind flashed to Sizhirin. Why hadn’t this been true for her?
“When I met your father,” continued Itika, “I loved him. We were both Syladins, missing our people. I was familiar to him, and so he accepted my advances without thought. Despite being married to other people, we did what we thought was right. We ran away to the sea and married.”
Itika’s mouth screwed up, but she regained control. “I took Gilanra with me, but she couldn’t survive underwater. She cried for her father every night.” Her face hardened more and more, like stone. “She was afraid of the dark. One night, she broke out of her bubble, and the pressure crushed her.”
Itika swallowed as a frown tugged her mouth down. “We had you, Gilanra. By then I didn’t want you, but your father did, so I didn’t crush your egg. In Cedris, we had loved, but here, things were different.
“Some Cedrites love one another through time, but it was not so with us. We pined after our sunwalkers, but there was no way we could return to them now. You were there. You were there to remind us of a pain we couldn’t alleviate.
“What is our price of being from Cedris? We made sure we never reunited your brothers and sisters. Let them be free.”
Gilanra stared at her hair flowing in the water. None of this was real. How could it be real?
“In the skirmish with the Hassik Tribe, your father vanished in the bloodbath. He instigated the skirmish so that he could escape me, you, this awful life. He returned to his family. I attempted to do the same, but when I returned to the surface, the man I loved had wed another. He was furious with me for what I’d done to our daughter, and for leaving him.”
Gilanra’s throat choked up. “So what were you going to do with me?”
“Syladins take care of their own, but I had to come back. I had to look at you. I had to remember I had given up all that made me happy whenever I saw your face. I’m sure your father cared some about you, but he couldn’t take you with him to the surface, although I wish he had. Find something to do and move out as fast as you can, Gilanra.”
“You have the heart of a Krenri, Itika.” Gilanra glided to her room and lay in the sand. The sea swallowed her tears.
***
Gilanra approached the black spiral marking her dad’s memorial. Removing her heat stick, she wrapped scraps of slok hide around it to proect her hands, and gouged deep ruts into the smooth surface until she could no longer see his name. She broke the red stone off the top and mutilated the blue ones. The heat began penetrating the hide.
“A coward has no soul. He has no family. He is not an Iskerkin.”
“Gilanra, what are you doing?” said Srisair behind her.
Gilanra turned around. “My dad isn’t dead. He abandoned me, and ran back to his sunwalker family.” She then rehearsed what her mother had told her last night. Her voice remained monotone and cold throughout.
Srisair listened quietly, and then he said, “I understand why you defile his grave. I believe it should stay up, though. He is dead to us, is he not?”
Gilanra dropped the heat stick before it scorched her hand. “He is.”
Srisair gazed calmly at the spiral. “He belongs in the past, Gilanra.” The edge of Srisair’s mouth tilted up, as if it would smile, but then it was gone. “All these things do, including your mother. Being that she is still here, we cannot make a spiral for her. Your mother never passed her year test, Gilanra. She can never become what she wanted to be. She will blame you, but her sorrows are her own folly.” He turned to Gilanra. “I shall give you some good advice. You are a Cedrite. Embrace it, but don’t let it embrace you.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Your parents let it embrace them, and it ended up being a cage. When they ran from it, they lost a piece of themselves.”
“What should I do, then?”
“Hone your Sylex skills. Become a healer. Kipstin Island is a good place to set this up. No sunwalker lives there. It is in our waters. It o
ffers an easy escape for you from sunwalkers, should any land there.”
Gilanra’s brows knit. “You want me to go to the surface?”
“Would you like to stay here?”
“No.” Gilanra knew she couldn’t go to another village. That meant joining another tribe. Other tribes had many villages, but the Sinitars only had one. They were small, but they were fierce.
“Go there today, Gilanra. When you return, there will be a special place here for you.”
Gilanra touched the bag that held the precious book. “How long?”
“Until you master the book. Memorize its every word. One day you may lose it, but it can’t be lost if it’s safe in your head. You can then duplicate it, if need be.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
Srisair inclined his head and glided away.
Gilanra knew where the island was. It was required to know their territory. She had her spear, gauntlets, heat stick, and book. She only needed to wait for the heat stick to cool. Once it was safe to touch, she returned it to her belt and swam for the island.
5
The Baking
One year later…
Sitting in the shade of a leafy kipstin tree, Gilanra poured over her rubber Sylex book. The kipstin tree had papery yellow bark, and never grew straight and tall. It always leaned towards a water source. Its branches were splayed out like the top of the trunk had exploded. The enormous leaves were light green.
These trees flourished on the island. They covered the forest floor with their papery leavings and great leaves, like a green and gold quilt. They grew among the rocky ruins of an ancient city left over from the Midnight Death. The buildings had been constructed of clay to combat the oppressive heat of the Baker’s Strip.
Closing the book, Gilanra put it in her bag and went exploring. There wasn’t a part of the island she didn’t know. She especially loved the gallery where ancient pictures and paintings of Sirix and Arilins hung. Old Sirix books survived inside an extensive library. She’d managed to drag a volume out, and opened it. The green book leaned against the bookshelf.
As she read, a leypel limped into the room, whining in pain. It was tan-colored, to camouflage into the stone and trees outside. A deep cut bled from its foreleg.
Gilanra clicked to it as she approached. It lifted its nose to her hand, and then lay down. Kneeling beside it, Gilanra blew into her hands until they glowed with blue-white light. She pressed her bright hands to the wound. When the beast was shining, she kissed the leypel on the head, face vanishing among its seven long ears. The gleaming wound disappeared, and the leypel hopped to its feet. Nuzzling her face, it darted out the door.
Gilanra smiled and returned to reading the book. The light began to fade. It was time to admire the sunset. This was one of her favorite times of the day. She headed out. Jogging through the ruins, she followed an old road to the beach and plopped down in the sand. She’d catch a fish to eat as soon as the sun set. It was so lovely having a lagoon. There were no kralikins in it. That was where she lived. Sleeping on land was the most uncomfortable thing she’d ever done.
The sky washed in gold and pink. Clouds sailing across the sun caught fire and glittered like embers on the ocean waves. Warm wind fluttered through Gilanra’s pink and blue hair. The little leypel she’d healed sidled up to her and sat down. Gilanra hung her arm around its neck. Little dark blue birds with purple and pink plumage trilled in the trees, like tiny warbling flutes. These only ever sang at sunset and sunrise. The other birds took over the rest of the day.
As the burning disc of the sun winked beneath the surface of the ocean, the haunting hymns of the pekalas boomed out of the waves. Birds, animals, and even the stars listened. Yellow and green lights glimmered along the curved horizon. They glided to the south, a little more west than where she’d left Sizhirin.
She’d thought the pekalas had spoken to her like they’d spoken to her dad. Now her dad was nothing but a coward, and Sizhirin was a monster. The magic of the pekalas had become nothing but a requiem to her broken, disappointed heart.
The pekalas followed their course, which led over Syladin tribes who had erected their villages in the pekala paths so they’d have a safe road to pass through enemy waters. That was why pekalas led people home. They overshadowed their villages eventually.
Gilanra headed to her lagoon, and the leypel scampered into the forest.
***
Morning light filtered through the blue-green water and cast light ripples over the white sand. The colorful reef with its rainbow of fish glimmered like moving jewels. Gilanra didn’t feel much like taking her weapons with her, or her book. Studying could wait for tomorrow. She wanted to wander in the ruins. She’d do it after lunch.
As Gilanra started for the exit tunnel, she thought of her spear. It was irresponsible not to at least take that. She snatched it up and returned to the surface.
Pushing through the foliage towards the ruins, she stumbled upon a group of four Syladin women. One was older than them all: the teacher. They stared at one another for several seconds. The strangers were dressed in Kitian garb: enough clothing to cover their private parts and long hooks in their ears. Shells decorated their belts. Their harnesses holding their weapons were jet black. They knew Gilanra was a Sinitar because the island was in Sinitar waters. In a glance, the five knew that they hailed from different tribes.
“Kill her,” said the older woman.
Gilanra’s heart skipped a beat. “You have students.” She backed up, raising her spear. “If they attack, I have every right to kill them.”
The older woman glanced at the designs on Gilanra’s spear handle. “If they kill a warrior, they will earn a higher place in society.” The teacher smiled. “They are not afraid to die.”
Gilanra fled. Maybe she could take on the students, but not the teacher. Not just any Syladin could acquire the status of teacher. They were the most fearsome warriors in the tribe. Gilanra had only been lauded competent, and hadn’t engaged in combat while on the island. Had there been a man among them, he might have saved her for himself, but Syladin women hated outside women with a vengeance.
As Gilanra entered an old courtyard, the teacher swung her spear into her back. It knocked the breath from Gilanra’s lungs, and she crashed onto the mossy stone. Her knees and palms skinned on impact. She rolled on her back and spat poison without aiming. The fastest of the three students already had her spear lunging for Gilanra’s heart. The poison stung the trainee’s eyes and she jerked back, screaming.
“Watch her spear!” the teacher shouted, wiping the poisoned girl’s eyes with a leaf. The remaining pair of students charged. Gilanra spotted the indecision of the girl in back, for she lagged and her face wasn’t alight with the thrill of battle. Gilanra swung her spear and the girl in front dodged, making a clear path to the timid one. Gilanra lunged at her, knocking her spear aside and plunging the tip into her stomach.
“No!” the teacher screamed.
Gilanra swung the skewered girl around and knocked the remaining student down. Blood swelled around the pair. Guts hung off of Gilanra’s blade.
The teacher stood, shoving her gauntlets off. Gilanra’s heart went into her mouth, but she braced to face the older woman.
The teacher attacked, forcing Gilanra’s back against a cold stone wall. In a flurry of thrusts and parries, she spat poison at Gilanra’s eyes. Each time, Gilanra dodged and the poison slid down the stone wall. She struggled not to think of what would happen if the woman blinded her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the blinded girl crawl to her comrades heaped on the cement. The girl who had dodged Gilanra’s spear attack still lived. Gilanra side-stepped along the wall until open space met her back.
It didn’t seem like Gilanra had inflicted any damage to the older woman, yet blood slid down the woman’s enraged face. Syladins didn’t usually show this much emotion when a student died, although they did care about those they taught.
The
teacher cracked the spear against Gilanra’s temple. White flashed in her vision and she slammed onto the pavement. Gasping and grimacing, the teacher raised her spear over Gilanra’s chest, but stopped.
“Hattenya,” she snarled, “get up. We will bake her.”
Terror cut through Gilanra’s frame. She struggled to rise, but her limbs felt as if they were full of boulders. Kneeling, the woman shoved her fingers into the pits of Gilanra’s throat. She squeezed the poison from their sacks. Gilanra scrabbled at the woman’s hard hands, but the remaining student clutched Gilanra’s wrists and pinned them down. Bile-like poison filled her mouth and stung her throat. Rust mixed with the bitter, and Gilanra’s foggy head swam.
When the woman released her, Gilanra sputtered and coughed as if she’d been drowning. Fastening coarse ropes around her wrists and ankles, they dragged her to the beach. The blinded girl followed sullenly behind her teacher, holding onto her shoulder. They threw Gilanra into the sand.
She struggled to regain control of her limbs, but nothing. The sand felt like a pillow, and then like needles. Sometimes it rocked like the ocean. The two Syladins left the blinded girl to watch her. What were they doing here? The thought was a half-coherent flicker through Gilanra’s head. Teacher and student returned in what seemed two seconds and caught hold of their captive’s arms.
They hauled her onto a raft. The sides were slightly raised. They bound her ankles and wrists to it. The student gouged deep cuts into her feet. Weak cries escaped Gilanra’s bloody lips. Her throat seared with pain, and blood welled around her teeth.
“Shut up,” the teacher snarled, whacking her in the mouth.
They began shoving the raft into the sea.
“No!” a familiar voice cried.
Gilanra looked blearily to the side. Sizhirin stood on the beach, face contorted in horror. What was he doing here? Had he come to save her?
“She killed Kittenya, and blinded one of my students,” said the teacher. “I cannot let that go. Why do you wish to save her? Do you wish her for your wife? I must be compensated for the loss of my daughter if so.”
