They all fled in different directions, bumping into, trampling, and excusing one another. It might have been amusingly looney if not for the apparent horror in which they went about it. Some scrambled into windows carved into the trees; others slammed doors; a few disappeared into burrows. But once they were tucked away, each cautiously peeked out. All that remained was a lone hawk in a checkered overcoat.
It sat there, wings crossed, claws outstretched and looking disgruntled.
“What’s all this about?” asked Ashtadukht.
“The hell you want?” snapped the hawk.
“I . . . uh, want to know what’s got everyone in a panic.”
“Look here,” said the hawk. “I’m not going to shiver and squawk like those chicken-livered namby-pambies. To hell with The One Most Slithered and to hell with you.”
Ashtadukht frowned but drew closer. “Maybe I can help,” she offered.
“Listen, Miss I’m-Not-As-Clever-Or-Important-As-I-Think, I’ll make it especially simple. You—” He thrust a wing at her. “Take—” He thrust the other at Tirdad. “Baron Pinecone-Up-His-Arse here and piss off. Or I’ll peck you something fierce, I will.”
Ashtadukht lifted her hands and slowly backed away, which encouraged the hawk to stick out its chest.
“That’s right, you go.” It glanced to the side. “You—oh, piss and plumage.”
Ashtadukht was nodding and backpedalling when something yanked her by the tunic and behind the nearest tree. A big black wing covered her mouth.
“Not a peeping,” whispered its owner.
There came a “shhh” from her side, where a white-winged snowfinch in rhinestone-embellished overalls was handling Tirdad surprisingly well for its size.
“She ran,” blurted the hawk from the clearing, then audibly gasped. “I-I didn’t say that! The words just leapt free, they did! It’s those stickybeaks! They’re what caused it!”
The sound of shuffling ensued. “Haha. Seer Anne,” the hawk joked in vivid desperation. “Seer Anne. Got it tangled. Seer Anne. Have you met Seer Anne? You should see ‘er. Get it?”
Thump.
“Have mercy, One Most Slithered. Have mercy.” The hawk spoke softly now, its tone thick with resignation. A heavy, tense silence crept in.
Ashtadukht went to chance a glimpse, but the bird held her fast.
“You mustn’t be looking,” it whispered. “Not a peeking. That is one dead duck.”
The shrill unmistakable scream of a hawk cut through the silence, and a severed wing flew by.
“She ran!” cried the hawk, closely followed by gagging and gargled protests. Then nothing.
That nothing persisted for several cautious breaths until Ashtadukht and Tirdad were released. They exchanged an uneasy glance after they got to their feet.
The white-tailed finch made a sad effort at comforting the now-sobbing crow, which its pinions could hardly envelop. “Here, here,” said the finch. “Here, here.”
Ashtadukht poked her head around the trunk and spotted the disfigured remains of the hawk. A storm of feathers surrounded the body, its other wing was missing, and its tongue had been ripped out and left to hang from its beak. She winced and turned away.
“One of you is going to tell me what’s going on,” she said to the pair with a tip of her hat. “I’m grateful for your help, but you’ll tell me right now.”
“The One Most Slithered gives and The One Most Slithered takes,” explained the finch as if reciting scripture. It gave the crow a pat. “Only takes of late.”
“Has only ever been taking,” remarked the crow.
The finch shook its head. “No, not always. I remember the giving, but it was before your time. Please don’t blaspheme, sweetbeak.”
“I do not follow,” said Tirdad.
“Our eggs sated Her once,” the finch went on. “But now . . .” It chirped a sigh. “We must have wronged The One Most Slithered. The Book of the Nest warns us to make merry on the Ides of the Scaled so that we may avoid her ire. We must not have celebrated in earnest.”
“And now we are being doomed thanks to your wretched discorvery,” remarked the crow.
The finch chirped a snort. “This really isn’t the time, sweetbeak.”
“But if father were approving we’d have somewhere to hide.”
“You say that as if I have some control over it. Discorvery isn’t a choice.”
“I still do not follow,” said Tirdad.
“I’m lost, too,” added Ashtadukht. “The One Most Slithered? Discorvery? This is all gibberish to me.”
“My husband is suffering from discorvery,” explained the crow.
The finch scoffed. “I only suffer from your father.”
“Father is being . . . choosy,” continued the crow.
“Prejudiced.”
“Being that as it may, you are a finch. A finch is not a crow or a magpie or some other bird that is having higher breeding. So there you have it: discorvery, the sad state of not being a corvid. I am loving this one all the same, but father has denied us a nest because of it.”
“So we have no choice but to face the wrath of The One Most Slithered,” said the finch.
Ashtadukht tapped the cuff of her sleeve. “Does this mean having a nest will protect you?”
“Err,” said the finch with a tilt of its head. “Not quite. We’ll all die, but you tend to live longer with somewhere to hide. Less prone to blurting, too.”
“Blurting?” asked Ashtadukht.
“There are things any She-fearing bird should not say, and we all feel inclined to do so—especially in her presence. It is a compulsion the same as damning Her.”
Ashtadukht gnarled her brow and pulled on her sleeve. “You’re just trying to live as long as possible then? Your god is coming for you regardless?”
“Isn’t it being the same with all creatures?” argued the crow. “We are all dying.”
“Not so violently,” said Ashtadukht.
The crow grew crestfallen, which drew a pat from the finch, who filled the silence. “If we fight our compulsions . . .” It trailed off. “It’s been very difficult of late. Something stirs our drive to sin.”
Ashtadukht rubbed her eyes. This was getting nowhere. She had only a vague idea of what was going on: that they worshiped a vengeful god, and that these two had drawn an unfavourable lot.
“Why not fly the coop?” Tirdad suggested.
“Do we look like chickens?” asked the finch.
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
Tirdad sighed. This place made him feel strange, and disposed to bird-inspired idioms. He pulled Ashtadukht to the side and whispered, “I do not know what beast they have displeased, but I do not think we should risk doing the same.”
“I don’t feel any compulsion to sin,” said Ashtadukht, silently reminding herself that she was not at all aware of what this cult considered sinful to begin with. “I do agree that we should avoid confrontation, but this needs investigating.”
“That is you telling me you are curious.”
“The two needn’t be exclusive,” argued Ashtadukht. She gestured at their surroundings. “Look around, cousin. Whatever we’re mired in, it has a strong hold. Only the ground is any indication of weakness or lack of solidarity. I’m sure you’re familiar with the tales.”
“They usually involve the hero going through trials. I am neither a hero nor fond of trials.”
Ashtadukht primly adjusted his tunic, which was already meticulously looked after. “We’ll make a hero out of you yet.” Tirdad took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This inspired a small smile in Ashtadukht; something about winning him over always felt so satisfying.
“Okay,” he said at length, and after coming to terms with his defeat. “How do we escape?”
Ashtadukht was beginning to wish she’d specialized in illusions instead of something she was unequivocally awful at. Maybe she’d have been awful at illusions, too. She struggled to recall the rudimentary
lessons from her earlier years at Weh-Andiok-Shabuhr.
“Something about . . . conduits, guides, vulnerabilities, and flaws.” She rubbed her face and grumbled; the Core Significances, as they were called, were all rote memorization had left her with. “Damned early morning lectures. It’s all too hazy.”
The finch cleared its throat. “Ahem. Are all foreigners this rude?”
“Apologies,” said Ashtadukht. “We’re trying to get our bearings.”
“Were you to be carrying something?” inquired the crow. “The burdens we are bearing benefit The One Most Slithered.”
“How so?” asked Ashtadukht.
“In the bearing of them, of course.”
Ashtadukht considered the pair carefully before posing her next question. Were they meant to be guides? “Bearing them to where?”
As one, the finch and the crow stood. They pointed their claws across the way at an empty space between trees.
“There,” said the finch.
“Abouts,” said the crow.
“Come,” instructed the finch with a wave of its wing. It plodded over to the spot, tilting its head this way and that as it did. “Come,” it chirped.
Ashtadukht glanced warily at Tirdad, who nodded and drew his sword from its two-point scabbard. They advanced alongside the crow, Ashtadukht pointedly ignoring the mutilated hawk they passed on the way. “Here?” she asked when they reached the finch.
It inclined its head and muttered, “The One Most Slithered loves us justly, reviles us justly, and ends us justly all the same. Would that all Her scamps vouchsafe the sins we bear in Her name, we would flourish and rejoice and She would be in Her heaven.”
The finch finished its prayer by stomping the ground. This had the immediate and impressive effect of summoning a monolithic sculpture to burst forth from the depths and knock all four off their feet. It emerged at an angle, and only to the knees, but it easily loomed over the forest.
Tirdad cleared his throat.
“That settles that then,” said Ashtadukht. She craned to take in the whole of the sculpture, which depicted Waray in remarkable detail—from scars to scales to sinews—and striking a pose that was meant to be heroic, yet ended up looking tyrannical. It’s the eyes that betray her, Ashtadukht thought: an enduring malice that even a sculpture could not quell. What’s more, the way she held her axe overhead insinuated not that she’d been triumphant, but that some unfortunate soul was on the chopping block.
“Not very subtle, is she,” remarked Tirdad.
“She,” insisted the crow.
“That is what I said.”
“You are saying ‘she’. If you are to be properly respecting Her, you will say ‘She’.”
Ashtadukht got to her feet without trouble, thinking that one positive side effect of an illusion was a lack of fatigue. Even on the best of days she could expect slightly aching bones. But nothing here. Nothing at all. She glanced at Tirdad, who seemed to be having trouble deciding whether to further examine or look away from a naked depiction of the half-div, and shook her head.
“So you vouchsafe Her sins?” she asked.
“As the Book of the Nest bids us,” replied the finch.
“Would that not make . . . Her the sinner?” asked Tirdad.
The finch chirped its surprise. “Oh, no. Not at all. Never that.”
“We are to be safeguarding Her sins so that She is not sinning,” said the crow, which didn’t seem all that convinced.
Tirdad gestured at the statue. “And this?”
“The devoted come here daily to refuse to confess Her sins,” explained the finch.
“Does it always shoot up like that?”
“Always.”
“Dramatic,” said Tirdad, nodding his approval. “But not all that tasteless as far as theatrics go.”
Ashtadukht stroked her cuff and pondered the sculpture. “You said this always springs from below. Where does it come from, and how does it get back down?”
The finch shrugged. “Looks like it comes from below to me. And it sort of slides back down after a time.”
“After a time?”
“Soon.”
“We’ll ride it then,” Ashtadukht declared.
The crow’s beak hung open, and the finch knotted its brow. “You plan to ride The One Most Slithered?” the finch eventually asked, as the crow was still struck speechless.
“That’s the plan.” Ashtadukht gave Tirdad a look that invited him to argue, but he just shrugged casually. It seemed to her that he’d just come to terms with the fact that this place was absurd and he had no choice but to indulge it. He often had the same look when dealing with Waray. “There isn’t anything in your dogma against riding statues, is there?”
The finch considered it before replying, though he was clearly uncertain. “There’s, uh, nothing that explicitly forbids taking Her likeness for a ride.”
Ashtadukht started for the statue, giving the couple an ultimatum as she did. “Then the way I see it, you’re either going to stand there looking as silly as a goose until She comes back to do to you what she did to that hawk, or you’ll come with us in hopes of finding refuge, because you currently have none.”
Tirdad drove his blade into its sheath and, ignoring their looks of confused dismay, turned to follow his cousin.
“This is Waray’s doing then?” he asked as they began to scale the inside of the sculpture’s right leg, using the many scars as handholds.
“That,” replied Ashtadukht as she grunted and took purchase on a scar, “or someone’s using her. Although that’s far less likely, and would probably mean we’re out of clu—luck.”
“Strange how this place makes you want to do that, is it not?”
“Strange isn’t the word I had in mind, but yes.”
“Wait, wait!” called the finch as it rushed over, crow in tow. “We’re coming with you!”
Ashtadukht watched the birds struggle to climb the steep incline. “Why not fly to us?” she asked when they finally caught up.
“Our wings have been clipped in service to The One Most Slithered,” explained the finch. “Unfair to the flightless ones.”
The crow, which was leaning heavily on the finch, added, “I am not believing this. To be climbing Her likeness. What madness.”
Seated there on the inner thigh of the colossal statue, Ashtadukht peered into the chromatic tunnel left in its wake. It was perfectly straight, and long enough that it eventually reached a vanishing point. She frowned and anxiously ran her fingers over the scar she’d sat on. It was warm to the touch yet patently carved from stone. When the statue ground into motion, she hoped she’d made the right decision.
What began as a grating crawl accelerated into a thunderous dive in no time. Ashtadukht sunk to the statue, applied a death grip to the scar, and clenched her jaw. She tore her gaze from the harrowing, many-coloured blur that rushed by to glimpse an enthused Tirdad. He was leaning forward, eyes alight with adrenaline-inspired vim. She swallowed the urge to vomit and clenched her lids shut.
It wasn’t long before the quaking gave way to a windy weightlessness that threatened to lift Ashtadukht off the inner thigh of a god. She clung tighter and opened her eyes to a fast-approaching sea of golden-speckled viridian. She took a deep breath.
Crash.
As she tumbled and spun and flailed, the thought that came to her louder than panic was why not a splash. She landed face down in what reeked of freshly-tilled earth yet tasted more like quinces. She scooped some into her mouth, and it wasn’t until she was finished working the chewy substance that she asked herself what she was doing. She spat it out with a sickened groan; the feeling it imparted reminded her of the addiction she’d once suffered. It permeated her body like a hot bath.
Ashtadukht fought the desire to take another bite and stood, which put her head just above the surrounding tallgrass. She found herself smacking her lips while trained on the dirt.
“No!” she protested, and pried her stare awa
y with great effort. The need hadn’t been vanquished, only subdued. It pulled at the edges of her being like a very persistent tug of the sleeve. But she denied it control.
This allowed her the frame of mind required to absorb the situation. It turned out the sea of viridian was actually a vast, slowly rolling field that took the term literally. The ground demonstrably rose and fell, her with it, as a sluggish wave sailed by. Nearby, a golden viper the size of a pine fluttered like a ribbon in a particularly languid breeze. The field was spotted with them, each jutting calmly toward the rainbow-smeared, pockmarked roof of what she decided was a cavern. More prominently, sculptures similar to the one she’d rode in on were embedded knee- and chest-deep as far as the undulating horizon. They all depicted Waray, only in a variety of poses, some more flattering than others.
This galvanized two thoughts: that this deceptively lackadaisical field was subject to massive impacts, and that she hadn’t ridden in alone. There wasn’t much of anything that could be done about the former, so she focused on the latter.
From her trough between waves she spotted Tirdad, stark against the busy roof on the crest of an oncoming wave. His attention was focused on something in the grass below him, and she hoped he hadn’t landed with a mouthful of dirt as she had.
“Tirdad!” she called. He looked up but didn’t seem to spot her. “Tirdad!”
The wave crept beneath Ashtadukht and she lost sight of him. It did, however, bring to her attention a small rectangular opening in the calf of the statue she’d rocketed in on, from which a rich orange glow emanated. A figure appeared in the bottom corner, leaning on one leg while wiping its brow. She squinted, but couldn’t make out more than a silhouette. Then the figure disappeared into the statue.
Ashtadukht endeavored to locate Tirdad, but a dozen waves passed with no sign of him. She decided to investigate the opening, reasoning that it’d give her a better view of the area, and that the person within may be able to provide some insight as to the nature of this place.
She reached the sculpture without incident, admonished herself for somehow arriving with a pocketful of dirt, and scaled its leg. She cautiously peered over the lip leading inside and picked out a figure amidst a bizarre collection of nests.
A Star-Reckoner's Lot (A Star-Reckoner's Legacy Book 1) Page 10
