by C. C. York
The man's small eye within the C flicked to her, widening in alarm. Elaine bolted back out the alley, past two women dressed in paper-thin short gowns and sad eyes, and into the bustling throng of the Trades before his shout could reach her heels.
She didn't stop running until she saw Kara's stall. She failed miserably to calm her ragged breath and the shake in her hands. Even the hot sunlight and bright turquoise fabric walls couldn't stop a chill from creeping over her. Kabushi saw Elaine first and beckoned her to him.
He crouched down to be on eye level with her. Today, his eye patch was a jaunty teal fabric trimmed with yellow stitches and an emerald green outline of an eye. His patch frightened Elaine when she'd first met him, but her heart rate slowed now at the cheery bright eye.
"What happened, Little One?" He asked.
"Nothing. I just got a little shook up." Elaine didn't want to give anyone reason to stop her solo expeditions in the Trades.
"Nothing is a lot of somethings when you look like you've just seen a Garfu," he said.
Elaine had heard Efendians speak of the bear-sized Garfus with circular rows of teeth that roamed the valley. They were terrifying creatures that preyed on those unfortunate enough to be on the roads outside the Perimeter Wall at night.
She desperately wanted to see one.
"You can tell me," Kabushi pressed as he handed her a sweetened nut.
She told him about the girl and the bearded man but left out the telltale tattoo. Kabushi's white bushy eyebrows raised at the mention of the lanterns covering the whole alley. He looked over her shoulder at Reiki and Kara chatting with the night stall vendor getting ready to take their place. They both cocked their head in tandem in a way only twins seem to do.
Kabushi simply said to them, "I think our Little Wanderer found the Lantern Pit today."
Kara's mouth parted slightly, and Reiki clenched his teeth, sharpening his jawline.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be there. I just thought it was pretty and all, and—" Elaine was interrupted by Kara, who hunkered down to be on eye level with Elaine.
"You did nothing wrong, Elai. I didn't realize you could have gone that far; otherwise, I would have warned you away." Kara continued gently, "Come. We're done packing up. You can help lead the way this time." Kara used the meager Dua she was born with to pull the scattered grains into a bag with a wave of her hand.
Firewerkers tossed bobbing orbs of firelight along the staircase now that the sun was slipping to the horizon. An orange-robed woman close to Elaine cradled a softball-sized flame a few inches above her palm.
No matter how many times I see that, it's still cool.
The Firewerker tossed the flame high above their heads, where it will hover until sunrise to light the way. Elaine loved the drop in temperature during this time of day because it brought a respite from the blistering Efendian sun as well as the magical firelights that dotted the kingdom instead of streetlights. When Elaine still went to school, she had an art teacher claim that Venice was the most beautiful city in the world. She couldn't imagine a more beautiful place than Efendi.
The Trades' bright colors had faded into the muted orange browns of Low Town when she finally asked the pair, "What's the Lantern Pit?"
Reiki looked at her over the leather ladder slung between him and Kara. "I know Efendi seems wonderful to you, Elaine, and it is, but this kingdom can be as cruel as it is beautiful sometimes."
Kara, as she was prone to do, cut a more direct path, "Not all boys and girls of Low Town have good parents like we do. Some are orphans; others are sold off by people who should take care of them. Most wind up as semi-slaves in households. Others work in the fields from dawn to moons. The uglier they are, the safer. The prettiest are taken to pleasure houses like the one you saw today to work as no kids should."
Elaine's stomach dropped at the implication. Her parents were a far cry from gems, but she never was in harm like that, even at their worst.
"But there are powerful women here! With magic. Why don't they stop them?" Elaine asked.
The twins passed a look at the word magic, and she chided herself silently. It's called Dua. They don't call it magic here.
Reiki replied, "There are many kinds of atrocities that you don't see, Elai. The Towner kids always have the worst of it, and if they survive, they often don't have any way of living without going down dark turns of their own when they become adults. The Efendians of the Upper Tiers and the Iktidars never see us beyond the coin we make them, and if we want help, we have to help ourselves."
Kara muttered something like, "Bokki tumbles down Tiers," as another Towner from their cluster caught up to them.
He balanced copper pots on a long stick across his thick shoulders. His eyes lingered on Kara, "Did you hear? Another girl was taken early this morning. This time, from the Upper Tiers. Her friend swore she was next to her and then, whoosh, nothing but air."
"Why hasn't anyone arrested the Canavar Company? Y'all say they're behind everything shady in Efendi." Elaine said, thinking back to the ginger man in the Lantern Pit.
Kara, perpetually looking for the Canavar Company over her shoulder, shushed Elaine, but the neighbor shook his head. "Couldn't be them. Even they can't make kids vanish out of thin air." He glanced around, nearly knocking Reiki with his pots, and whispered, "I bet it's Rifters."
"Oh please," Reiki groaned. "You don't honestly believe that do you?"
Kara stiffened, prompting Elaine to ask, "What's a Rifter?"
The neighbor's eyes grew wide, "Evil women that snatch children for their skins and--"
"Enough. Save the tall tales for a better storyteller," Kara kicked a stone from her sandal, "Filbish pebbles."
They were almost home.
***
Kara and Reiki's mom, Farisha, hulled grain at the reed and wood table in the Hadishi kitchen when they arrived. The twins' home was a smidge larger than a lofted tent, complete with a grimy white cloth draped at the entrance in lieu of a door. The twins and Elaine slept in the loft, and the only time they all gathered inside for any significant length of time was to sleep.
Elaine pushed the dark, swirling thoughts of the Lantern Pit aside. She breathed easier once she walked over the Yapi-stamped dirt floor, the grandmotherly goddess beaming at being the center of the home. Farisha softly hummed as she split grains, the husk peeling off multiple grains at a time as she skimmed her tanned leather hand a few inches over them. Farisha explained once that she felt most at peace when she worked in her element, and since grain came from the ground, her meager Groundwerk was like meditation. The basket vibrated on the floor next to a mismatched chair leg as the grains churned slightly to loosen their husk in tune with her hum.
Kara sat beside her mother wordlessly to assist, though her frantic energy pulled the husks at a quicker, less precise pace. Farisha pursed her lips but said nothing, and Reiki set to work on soup for dinner. The twins chatted idly to soften the quiet, and soon Farisha was laughing with them at their stories of failed pranks and then admonishing them for plotting new schemes.
Elaine used to sit at the yellow-tinged linoleum table in her trailer back in South Carolina and pretend her mother was talking to her while she paced the kitchen. Ma would chat so much on her phone that Elaine once thought it'd be easier if she just duct taped it to her right ear. Ma seemed at ease gossiping and laughing away at jokes Elaine couldn't hear. Her smiles always died off, though, at the gravel crunch of her Da's pickup filtering through the screen door or when she'd catch Elaine's eyes at the kitchen table.
Elaine realized the trio of Hadishi's were looking at her expectantly. "Sorry... What'd you say?"
Farisha wrapped her threadbare beige shawl over her shoulders as she added dried herbs to the bubbling soup at the fire. "I understand you explored a bit today. Do you want to talk about what you saw?"
"No, ma'am. It just took me off guard, is all. I won't go back down that way again,
" Elaine replied. She tapped her foot under the table and hoped Farisha would leave it at that. Fortunately, the canvas door flapped open to reveal the twins' father, Otum, grin ready.
A chorus of "Bapa's!" and "Ho's!" went up, and he bussed the cheeks of the dark-headed twins before scooping his wife up in his arms. Kara tossed the empty grain husks at the pair, and Reiki feigned disgust while they spun for a kiss. Otum smiled wide for Elaine and tucked a thin iridescent flower behind her ear from his pocket, his limp more pronounced after the kitchen twirl.
"And what did you discover today, Little Wanderer?" he asked, light green eyes twinkling.
Reiki fortunately intervened. "It's almost time. Help me bring the bowls outside."
He passed out small clay bowls, and the hot liquid warmed Elaine's grimy hands. The sight of the two moons, one crescent, and the other fat, still thrilled her even after all these months. Stars glittered between the red and blue moons, and some of the neighbors lit small fires throughout the compact, round courtyard tucked between the lean-to homes. Elaine helped Kara unfold their blanket while the rest of the Hadishi clan chatted idly with the other families sitting on blankets, stools, and steps nearby. An elderly matriarch walked to the lone stool in front of the courtyard fountain, and the small crowd settled. Elaine pulled her knees in tight to her chest, tugging the hand-me-down linen dress the color of day-old oatmeal to her shins.
The ancient matriarch at the front asked above the muted chatter, "What should we tell tonight?"
"Tell us about the fight between Sulu and Ates!" Someone shouted.
"No! The one about Ruzgar and the First Pillar!"
"Yanash, you old goat, she told us that one last night," someone else in the courtyard said. "It's almost harvest. Let's hear something dark. Tell the one about the Edicisi and the lost sun!"
Arguments ensued as they did every night in this cluster of Low Town, but Kanne Da'neen smiled conspiratorially at the young kids gathered closest to her. She raised her bony arms high above her head and mimed an arc with her knobby pointer fingers.
"My children, do you know why our two moons run from each other? A hundred years before our hundredth Queen, we were in a terrible famine. That Queen did not believe in Ruzgar's wrath or warm her feet by Ates' flame. The Goddesses were ignored, and so the husks of the grain were empty, the greens did not blossom, and the waves tossed our nets and boats back to us. Yapi was so betrayed by our indifference that she called forth the Edicisi from the depths of the Batiwood.
"The legendary monster crawled out of the roots of the oldest gnarled tree and formed legs from its branches. It took finger bones from Garfu nests to form its arms and hands and beckoned its Handmaidens with the cry of a Yurutec."
The audience hissed and wiggled their fingers at the wide-eyed children before Kanne Da'neen continued. "The Handmaiden Rifters brought skins from their human prey and sewed a terrible cloak for their master so it could walk in the sunlight like a man."
Rifter, Elaine thought, that's what the neighbor claimed took the girls. Chills ran down Elaine's spine at the word, and she imagined hunchback witches waiting in the flickering shadows for her. She nestled her skinny frame securely into Kara's warm side. On the other side of Elaine, Reiki leaned forward to make the pretty Efendian in front of him giggle.
The woman continued, "The Edicisi came for us then. It swept the fields into its gaping mouth and smothered the fire from the top of the Perimeter Wall with the dirt it had gathered. It ate its way up the Tiers, first with Low Town's children and then with the Pillars of the Elite. Up and up, it rose until it reached the Palace gate. At the steps stood a young woman from Low Town. She was a servant sent to deliver gowns to the Palace courtiers. She watched the Edicisi climb to the Fountain Tier and knew she had to act.
"The woman was Sulu's favorite. She was wily and quick-witted, and though she had no real Dua of her own but a meager trickle, she could flow between ranks as nimble as the sea. She quickly put on the most delicate gossamer gown in her package and stood as proud as the finest matriarch in front of the gates.
"The Edicisi came to her then, prepared to sweep her into its mouth when she smiled widely and bowed low. 'My good sir, it's good to see you in such strong health! I was afraid you might not make it on time for my first tale.'
"The Edicisi abruptly stopped and shrunk down to the size of a man. He garbled his question to her, breath rank with the blood of Efendians, 'Who are you?'
'Why, I am the storyteller of my town, the keeper of our tales, and I was sent here for your entertainment, of course.' She sat at the steps and gestured for him to sit with her.
"Intrigued, the Edicisi sat down at her feet. She told him tales of her Towners, of the Goddesses and their fury, the stories brought to her from her pirate lovers. For three full turns, she spun tales for him without food, water, or sleep, and for three full turns, he fell harder and harder in love with her. On the fourth moonrise, he asked for her hand in marriage.
"'Alas, I would love nothing more, but my mother said I may only marry the man that can catch one of our two suns.' She feigned great grief, 'But no one is powerful enough to do that, so I must stay a virgin forever!'
"The Edicisi was, after all, part man." At this, the men in the audience rolled their eyes and groaned in unison. Kanne Da'neen smiled wide at the barb, "so he puffed up his skin-cloaked chest and declared, 'I can catch a sun for you. No one is more powerful than I!'
"He grew and grew until he was taller than the Palace dome. He stepped over his future bride, over the fountains and domed roof of the Palace, and into the Turkaz sea where the smaller sun began to sink. He opened his arms as wide as the sea to scoop the sun, but the skin cloak the Handmaiden Rifters wove was too tight. He shed his cloak, thinking only of his future bride in his bed, when the sun's light hit his skin. He burst into flames, and the sea around his ankles turned to steam.
"Ates was so angered that a devotee to Sulu would use her sun without permission to harm their sister's creation that she scattered the smaller sun into thousands of stars." Kanne Da'Neen tipped her head back. Elaine followed suit to appreciate the multitude of pinpricks sparkling behind trails of smoke from the fires. "The moons split into opposite directions in search of the missing sun so that once a year, they dip below the horizon simultaneously and cloak us in darkness for a full turn. We paint our capstones bright orange to remind the Edicisi of the sun's flames until Hasateen has passed."
The old woman continued, "The Queen awarded the Towner with a fine home in the uppermost Tier and gave her the charge to hunt any Rifters found in the kingdom. It was the Towner that founded our army of Duawielders, but she also showed us that power is more than the Dua we are blessed with."
The audience clapped and thanked Kanne Da'neen before meandering back to their homes. Elaine had every intention of forcing the twins to take her with them to the street party gathering in the alleys beyond their cluster, but the loft was warm and cozy, and her journal was waiting with her hand-drawn map of Efendi. She marked two X's where she heard the voices again and silently willed the voices to return. She drifted off to sleep at some point while sketching the Edicisi creature from Kanne Da'Neen's story. Elaine slept fitfully without the twin's warm body heat as she alternated between dreams of lost suns and floating lanterns.
She ran through the Lantern Pit towards a crying voice when she woke up to screams below.
Reed
Reed finally stopped running and learned through aching breaths that her name was Monti. Monti's Texan Pride blowout, which somehow had survived the hellstorm and tornado of getting to this godforsaken land, was finally defeated. Honey blond strands clung to her sweaty throat. Reed assumed Monti would be too tired to talk after being chased by monsters and then armed men riding rhinoceros-like creatures, but he underestimated her. The pair ran on and off for a full day, pushing farther and farther from the gnarled fire-orange tree line behind them, while Monti questioned or berated Reed the entir
e while.
Her litany of complaints faded while he listened to the wild calls of birds and small critters in the grass valley surrounding them. The sun hovered over the horizon, a steady slinking reminder that he had to make a decision since the mountains were still too far away to reach before nightfall.
Monti's arms and legs splayed out like the body of a crime scene within the tall grass, but it did nothing to drown out her whining.
"I can't breathe," she moaned. "We have to stop. Figure out where we're going."
He rested his back against the warm boulder and vaguely gestured towards the jagged stone monstrosities off in the distance. His chest still heaved from their brutal run to this point. "We gotta head towards that mountain range."
Monti paused her rant and stood over him. "How in the ever-present hell do you know where we should go? You were just locked up in a supermax in the middle of nowhere Texas." She circled her arms dramatically at the grassy hills and spiked peaks in the distance. "This seem like Texas to you?"
The mountains looked like teeth jutting into the sky, its eye-tooth curving upward to pierce fat pink clouds that tinged purple at the edges.
"Woman, are you going to buck at everything I say?" Reed muttered, eyes on the mountains.
"I'm sorry? You were just locked up in prison for murdering your wife. Excuse me if I don't do a trust fall every time you suggest something stupid." She waved her finger in the air between them and spoke before he could, a rapid-fire of words leaving no room for interruption.
She pointed back to the white and gold kingdom, a city of walls at the edge of the ocean that he veered away from over an hour ago. "No. Let's recap because that's always fun. Number one, my Daddy is back that way. Back that way is civilization, and I don't know much about wherever here is, but I know that the people that took him were just that. People.
"Number two. Some monsters just tried to eat you, and they came from those creepy woods way back there. Have you ever been to West Virginia? Cousins rarely ever improve in the mountains. Let's not go in the opposite direction of where people live to find something worse than what we saw come out of those woods.
