Numenera--The Poison Eater

by Shanna Germain

  “Do you think you’re a lie?” he asked.

  Skist. That wasn’t the part of the weave she was hoping he’d pluck out. But of course he would.

  “No,” she said quickly. Weirdly, it felt true. Perfect. The orness had her so spun around that she couldn’t tell her own lies from truths anymore.

  “But the aria…” She tried to bring him back. “Does that seem true? Real?”

  “That seems like a question for Ganeth,” he said. “He knows far more about devices than I do.”

  Yes. But she kept thinking about what the orness had said. We love our Aeon Priest. She trusted Ganeth with many things that mattered to her, but with this, she couldn’t know. It wasn’t that she questioned his loyalty, but rather the strength of his ability to say no to the orness’ requests.

  “I’d ask you where all this is coming from,” Omuf-Rhi said. “But I like to think that I know you well enough by now to know that you won’t tell me.”

  “Ask me again tomorrow,” she said, as she headed toward the stack of books where she’d last left off. “And I just might.”

  * * *

  On the day Isera was supposed to leave incubation – a word that Talia would never get used to – she met Ganeth leaving Isera’s just as she was arriving. She knew it was weird that she trusted Ganeth with Isera, her health, her eye, her everything, but not with her own concerns. She tried not to let her confusion show when she talked to him.

  “How’s the hand?” he asked, as he caught a glimpse of it.

  Ganeth had fixed her hexed arm. When he returned it, it bore a new blue in its hexes, and a new section. A piece of tubing connected to the elbow of it. “For punching,” he said. “You’ll want to test it out before you get into more fights, though.”

  She lifted it, and flexed it into a fist for him. “Fightworthy,” she said. It was true. When she couldn’t sit and stare at books anymore, she often took a turn in the fighting ring. Mostly with her blade, but she’d found that the new fist was useful and damaging against the practice dummies. And weirdly satisfying.

  “How’s Isera?” she asked.

  Silence. Everyone was so silent these days. She had never been one to want people to talk to her, but now she wished just one person would open themselves like a book and give her all of the answers she needed.

  “It’s not healing as well as I might have expected,” he said. As he talked, he fiddled with a green-hued device that looked almost like an insect. It folded and unfolded its legs. It was similar to something she’d seen Seild playing with not that long ago. “It’s possible I didn’t allow the eye to germinate enough before I implanted it. She wanted me to hurry.”

  He didn’t say Isera’s name, mostly talked about things Talia didn’t understand. She let him. She knew he was talking about her, even when he wasn’t.

  “There’s an infection. Staying in the symbiotic sheath for longer means a greater chance of survival. But stay too long and the sheath can become parasitic instead of symbiotic. Rakdel and I will have to watch it closely.”

  She was hearing words that she could only hope had other meanings than the ones she knew. Was this the orness’ doing? Had she put Ganeth up to this, giving him orders to do something to Isera?

  But his actions told her otherwise. He was stroking the device in his hand with his thumb, shaking his head a bit. He was worried for Isera, just as she was. Whatever he did for the orness, this was different.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, finally. “In me terms.”

  “I promise to do my best.” He was speaking slowly, fiddling with his device, and she could tell he was thinking through the words before he said them. “But she is in bad shape.”

  She reached out blindly, searching for something, anything to grasp and finally found the edge of the doorway. She would have fallen but for Khee, pressing his whole weight at the back of her knees.

  “I haven’t told Seild,” he said. He looked away from the device at her, and she saw a rare flicker of emotion in his gaze. “I think she’s… Maybe you could talk to her. I’m not very good at it, I don’t think.”

  “I will,” she said. Promising something she had no idea how to do.

  There was no change in Isera or the sheath that she could see, standing beside the bed, looking down at her. She could hear the sound of Isera’s teeth grinding in short, sharp clicks, the exhale of her breath through the material, her own shallow inhales.

  “Finwa, Greyes Isera,” she said. She didn’t touch her. She was afraid that touching her skin and feeling, instead, the weird texture of the synth was more than she could bear. But she talked to her sometimes. About what she was reading. Or things that Seild had said or done. Nothing about the orness. Nothing about the poison eater.

  “Ganeth says she can’t hear you,” Seild had said once, plucking at the blanket between each word. Probably true. But maybe that was why she did it.

  As she stood there, she heard a yell coming from outside. It was Seild, she was sure of it. Coming from out back. She ran through the house, fumbling with the back door, unable to get it to open at first, making it worse with her panic.

  There, Seild was down on her knees in the red sand. She appeared to be headbutting Khee with a loud fighting cry. A second later, Khee rolled over and pinned her under his side, which elicited another shout from the girl. It was like watching a bout of saglo wrestling between two wild things that didn’t know the rules.

  “What, moon meld me, are you doing?” Talia asked.

  Both creatures scrambled up, panting. Seild’s grin showed a layer of red – it took Talia a moment to realize that it wasn’t blood that filled her mouth and coated her teeth, but sand. Her hair – two long braids that she’d clearly attempted to do herself – was also filled with sand. A long red ribbon was woven raggedly between the hairs and trailed down her back.

  For some reason, the brown stripes in Khee’s fur had attracted more sand than the rest of him, giving the impression, for just a moment, that he was streaked with blood. Then he shook himself, sending a cloud of sand into the air that quickly fell and covered them both in a dusting of red.

  “Hello, Tal!” Seild said. She ran forward and wrapped her arms around Talia’s waist. Since their talk at Ganeth’s so long ago, the girl had taken her words to heart. Calling her Tal, forgoing the rituals. Perhaps a little too much, Talia thought, for her own good. But now was not the time for that.

  “Hello, Seild. Please tell me you’re not planning to headbutt me in the stomach like you did Khee. I’d hate to have to sit on you.”

  The girl giggled, letting go, leaving faint clouds of red all along the front of Talia’s pants and shirt. “No. His Softness is teaching me how to fight!” Talia waited for the pang of mirth from Khee that often followed Seild calling him that, and felt the absence of it like a hunger when it didn’t come.

  “Is he?” She glanced at Khee, who looked at her with his usual unreadable gaze. “And why is that?”

  Seild cocked her head for a moment, as if listening to something. “He says I’m not safe.”

  Well, that answered that question. If she’d had any remaining doubts that Khee and Seild were able to talk, they were gone now.

  “Because of your mom?” Talia said. “She’s going to get better.”

  She bit down on her tongue, but too late. The words were out there, settling into the dust around her feet. Oh, Talia. Will you never stop taking the road of lies?

  But Seild didn’t seem to be listening to her. She had her chin on her chest, her brows pulled down. “No, because of the…” She twisted her lips, and squinted one eye closed before shaking her head. “I don’t know. I can’t really understand what he’s saying.”

  Talia looked at Khee for an explanation, but of course, she got nothing.

  “May I show you my moves?” Seild asked a moment later. “I’m getting very good. I can’t wait to show my mom.”

  She lowered her voice, leaned in, as if to tell a secret. “Did y
ou know my mom’s coming back today? With her new eye egg?” She tapped the side of her own grey eye. Not for the first time, Talia wondered when she’d gotten it. Was she just a baby the first time they’d put her in that encasement? Did she remember it? Was it the orness’ doing? Or something else?

  “I bet you are getting very good,” Talia said. “Perhaps later, though. I’d like to talk to Khee alone for a moment.”

  As the girl’s face fell, she quickly added, “Official poison eater business. Otherwise, you know I’d let you stay. Maybe you could make us the taf today? I don’t know how, and it’s nearly time.”

  “I’m not old enough,” Seild said. She kicked the sand. Puffs of dust swirled up around her already coated boots.

  “I know,” Talia said. “But you already know how to do it, don’t you?”

  At the girl’s nod, Talia said, “Then just this one time, all right? It will be our secret.”

  “I like secrets,” Seild said.

  “Me too.” Not really. Not anymore. They were heavy stones.

  When Seild was gone into the house, Talia stepped over to Khee. She went down on her knees in front of him. It was a gesture reminiscent of when they’d found each other, and she made it purposefully, as an offering.

  She thought about also touching her thumbs to her eyes, but that was a now ritual, not a then ritual, and it didn’t seem right. Instead, she bowed her head slightly, her arms resting on her thighs.

  “Khee? What’s happened? Why won’t you talk to me anymore?”

  She felt the silence, heavy and gutted in her chest, a hollow that had been empty for so long she barely remembered what it felt like to be full.

  Unexpectedly, Khee lowered himself to his knees too, then all the way down. He laid his head in Talia’s lap. The heat and weight of him, the unexpected kindness, made her eyes sting with tears. She wiped them away quickly, roughly, with the back of her hand so they wouldn’t fall onto his fur.

  She’d been thinking he’d rejected her. That she’d done something wrong. But as he looked up at her, his blue gaze inscrutable, but not unkind, she realized she’d been wrong.

  He’d been talking to her the whole time, she just hadn’t been able to hear him. What had happened?

  “Oh, Khee,” she said. “I miss you.”

  She put her hand in his fur, ran her fingers along the brown stripes. At her touch, they flared yellow, and she remembered the promises they’d made each other in the snow.

  “I don’t understand what’s happened,” she said. “But I will find a way to fix it. I have a feeling we’re going to need each other.”

  As if he agreed, he closed his eyes and sighed, a low, slow exhale that even she could understand.

  * * *

  By the time Talia got into the house, Seild was nearly done making the taf. The entire front room smelled of sweet fruit, a scent that reminded her of sitting in the orness’ garden room.

  Talia wiped her face with the back of her hand, then brushed the sand from both her and Khee. It was obvious from the little trail of red across the floor that Seild had not done the same.

  “Seild,” she said, as the girl stirred the drink.

  Oh, all the things that came out of her mouth and she could not find this one.

  “Your mom needs more time with her… eye egg. To…” She didn’t have the words that Ganeth would have had about how it worked, what was happening inside there. Not that those words would have helped much. “To come back to us,” she finished.

  Seild didn’t cry or react as Talia had expected. She stretched up on her toes to open a cupboard, bringing out two cups. One of them was Seild’s small red cup, with two handles and a small opening, clearly designed for someone who was as reckless with things as a small child could be. The other was a beautiful green one, etched with flowers and birds, that Isera had given Talia when they’d taken taf together. Talia had thanked her and started to put it in her pack after, but Isera had put her hand on her arm, saying, “You can leave it here if you like. Something tells me that you don’t take taf very often in your tiny room beneath the clave.”

  She hadn’t, of course, the kitchen or the supplies for such a thing in her room. Not to mention someone to share the ritual with – unless Khee counted, and she couldn’t imagine that meat eater trying something that, while it had the color of blood, did not have any of its essence. She’d said yes, and left the cup here. It was the first small movement toward what they might become, and the memory of it made her eyes sting at the corners.

  Enough crying for now. Later, when you’re not in front of the child.

  “I can’t reach my mom’s,” Seild said. Her voice broke a little on each word until the last one was little more than a sob. “But I suppose…” She didn’t finish. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.

  All right, maybe a little crying.

  Instead, she forced a soft smile. “We’ll take the taf into your mom’s room,” Talia said. “I bet the smell will make her feel better.”

  She waited for Seild’s small nod, and then reached into the cupboard to take the cup that Isera favored – a pale bowl with no handles, the mottled gray-white of storm clouds.

  Talia helped Seild pour the taf. That small opening may have been perfect for Seild to drink from, but it was not perfect for pouring into. Talia splashed it hot across her hands, muttering a low curse that caused Seild to put her hands over her mouth and start giggling. It was a sound Talia recognized. Not pure laughter, but laughter born of worry.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” she teased.

  Eyes wide, Seild shook her head, tried to still her laughter. It erupted from behind her hands, though, until her body was shaking so hard from trying to hold it in that Talia thought she might crack apart. I would spill and swear a thousand times, child, to see you laugh like that.

  The thought was unexpected and sharp as a thorn. What will you do if Isera dies?

  She wasn’t dying. She wasn’t. This was just a complication.

  Everyone dies.

  She pushed the rest of the thought away by pushing the cup full of taf into Seild’s hand. Taking the other two cups, she followed the girl into Isera’s room.

  Isera was where she’d left her. Perfectly still, except for the slow push of her breath as her chest rose and fell. Of course she was. Only in Talia’s hopes would she have gotten out of bed, or even sat up, thanking them for the drink and asking how their day had been.

  Talia set the cup on the table next to the bed while Seild carefully climbed backward up on to the bed to sit next to her mother.

  “May I say the orison?” Seild was very quiet, nearly as still as her mother, her tiny hands through both handles and wrapped carefully around her cup.

  Talia dipped her head to hide her surprise. Saying the orison was typically done by the highest ranked in the room. “You may.”

  “Moon meld iisrad, shades…” Seild started, faltered. Talia could see her blinking hard, trying to stem the tears that fell anyway. Talia wanted to reach for her, but stayed her hand. She thought this was something Seild needed to do alone. Khee, who was curled in the doorway, lifted his head and looked between the two of them, but didn’t leave his post. Seild swallowed, started again. “Moon meld ebeli, memories cleave the marrow. I would ask you for…”

  Her bottom lip trembled, and she looked up at Talia with an expression full of pain and fear and confusion. “I don’t know… I don’t know what I want to ask for. I thought I did, but… I just want her to be all right.”

  “Then ask for that,” Talia said.

  “It’s not selfish?”

  “It’s not selfish.”

  As if she knew she wouldn’t make it through the whole thing again, she started at the end this time. “I would ask you for a thing that matters most to me. It is no small thing…”

  She sounded like such an adult, already a zaffre, already the head of the house, already leading the orison. The sound of it, so serious and pained, was so unl
ike her usual light chatter that Talia’s throat closed. Someday, she might well be a greyes. Or more – leader of Enthait. Not like the orness, but like herself, in her own way, which might be full of secrets, but would not be full of lies.

  Seild paused, long enough to exhale a small, shaky breath. “Awos, I would ask you that Greyes Isera Alhemor – my mom and friend to Poison Eater Tal…” She looked at Talia, panic in her eyes.

  “That’s fine,” Talia said. She had taken no last name, even though it was customary to do so here. Perhaps it was something to think about in the future.

  “…Poison Eater Talia – that she heal and be well again.” Seild’s voice dropped to barely a whisper, so low that if Talia hadn’t been sitting right beside her, she wouldn’t have heard it. “Bring her back to us, to me and Tal. Finwa, awos. Mihil, awos.”

  “Mihil, awos,” Talia echoed. Together, they drank.

  Talia barely sipped hers. It tasted as the poison always did. Bitter, blackened lies.

  Seild was looking at her mother. She settled her cup carefully on her lap so that she could take one hand off it to touch the shell that coated her mother.

  “It has to work, right? The poisons always promise to protect us.”

  The stab in the heart nearly doubled Talia over. She couldn’t breathe. It was all she could do to stay upright, to keep her cup clenched in her fist. Her stomach flooded with ice, as if she’d drunk the entire cup of taf in a single swallow. Everything in her body told her to tell the truth for once, not to get the girl’s hopes up. This wasn’t a secret, it was a lie, and she didn’t need to keep telling it.

  “I’m sure of it,” she said.

  YOUR EYES

  For the first time, Seild was not her escort during the poisoning.

  It was one of the other greyes, a man named Athmor. She’d heard others call him Ath, but that had seemed the kind of distinction reserved for people who knew him far better than she did. Or who wanted to know him better than she did.