Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology

by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler

  No, best to avoid pondering it. Dusk already had a mind full of spurious conjectures. He would find what he would find. He had to focus on the jungle and its dangers. He started away from the stream, and as he did so, he saw his corpse appear suddenly before him.

  He hopped forward, then spun backward, hearing a faint hiss. The distinctive sound was made by air escaping from a small break in the ground, followed by a flood of tiny yellow insects, each as small as a pinhead. A new deathant pod? If he’d stood there a little longer, disturbing their hidden nest, they would have flooded up around his boot. One bite, and he’d be dead.

  He stared at that pool of scrambling insects longer than he should have. They pulled back into their nest, finding no prey. Sometimes a small bulge announced their location, but today he had seen nothing. Only Sak’s vision had saved him.

  Such was life on Patji. Even the most careful trapper could make a mistake—and even if they didn’t, death could still find them. Patji was a domineering, vengeful parent who sought the blood of all who landed on his shores.

  Sak chirped on his shoulder. Dusk rubbed her neck in thanks, though her chirp sounded apologetic. The warning had come almost too late. Without her, Patji would have claimed him this day. Dusk shoved down those itching questions he should not be thinking, and continued on his way.

  He finally approached his safecamp as evening settled upon the island. Two of his tripwires had been cut, disarming them. That was not surprising; those were meant to be obvious. Dusk crept past another deathant nest in the ground—this larger one had a permanent crack as an opening they could flood out of, but the rift had been stoppered with a smoldering twig. Beyond it, the nightwind fungi that Dusk had spent years cultivating here had been smothered in water to keep the spores from escaping. The next two tripwires—the ones not intended to be obvious—had also been cut.

  Nice work, kid, Dusk thought. He hadn’t just avoided the traps, but disarmed them, in case he needed to flee quickly back this direction. However, someone really needed to teach the boy how to move without being trackable. Of course, those tracks could be a trap unto themselves—an attempt to make Dusk himself careless. And so, he was extra careful as he edged forward. Yes, here the youth had left more footprints, broken stems, and other signs. . . .

  Something moved up above in the canopy. Dusk hesitated, squinting. A woman hung from the tree branches above, trapped in a net made of jellywire vines—they left someone numb, unable to move. So, one of his traps had finally worked.

  “Um, hello?” she said.

  A woman, Dusk thought, suddenly feeling stupid. The smaller footprint, lighter step . . .

  “I want to make it perfectly clear,” the woman said. “I have no intention of stealing your birds or infringing upon your territory.”

  Dusk stepped closer in the dimming light. He recognized this woman. She was one of the clerks who had been at his meetings with the company. “You cut my tripwires,” Dusk said. Words felt odd in his mouth, and they came out ragged, as if he’d swallowed handfuls of dust. The result of weeks without speaking.

  “Er, yes, I did. I assumed you could replace them.” She hesitated. “Sorry?”

  Dusk settled back. The woman rotated slowly in her net, and he noticed an Aviar clinging to the outside—like his own birds, it was about as tall as three fists atop one another, though this one had subdued white and green plumage. A streamer, which was a breed that did not live on Patji. He did not know much about them, other than that like Kokerlii, they protected the mind from predators.

  The setting sun cast shadows, the sky darkening. Soon, he would need to hunker down for the night, for darkness brought out the island’s most dangerous of predators.

  “I promise,” the woman said from within her bindings. What was her name? He believed it had been told to him, but he did not recall. Something untraditional. “I really don’t want to steal from you. You remember me, don’t you? We met back in the company halls?”

  He gave no reply.

  “Please,” she said. “I’d really rather not be hung by my ankles from a tree, slathered with blood to attract predators. If it’s all the same to you.”

  “You are not a trapper.”

  “Well, no,” she said. “You may have noticed my gender.”

  “There have been female trappers.”

  “One. One female trapper, Yaalani the Brave. I’ve heard her story a hundred times. You may find it curious to know that almost every society has its myth of the female role reversal. She goes to war dressed as a man, or leads her father’s armies into battle, or traps on an island. I’m convinced that such stories exist so that parents can tell their daughters, ‘You are not Yaalani.’”

  This woman spoke. A lot. People did that back on the Eelakin Islands. Her skin was dark, like his, and she had the sound of his people. The slight accent to her voice . . . he had heard it more and more when visiting the homeisles. It was the accent of one who was educated.

  “Can I get down?” she asked, voice bearing a faint tremor. “I cannot feel my hands. It is . . . unsettling.”

  “What is your name?” Dusk asked. “I have forgotten it.” This was too much speaking. It hurt his ears. This place was supposed to be soft.

  “Vathi.”

  That’s right. It was an improper name. Not a reference to her birth order and day of birth, but a name like the mainlanders used. That was not uncommon among his people now.

  He walked over and took the rope from the nearby tree, then lowered the net. The woman’s Aviar flapped down, screeching in annoyance, favoring one wing, obviously wounded. Vathi hit the ground, a bundle of dark curls and green linen skirts. She stumbled to her feet, but fell back down again. Her skin would be numb for some fifteen minutes from the touch of the vines.

  She sat there and wagged her hands, as if to shake out the numbness. “So . . . uh, no ankles and blood?” she asked, hopeful.

  “That is a story parents tell to children,” Dusk said. “It is not something we actually do.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you had been another trapper, I would have killed you directly, rather than leaving you to avenge yourself upon me.” He walked over to her Aviar, which opened its beak in a hissing posture, raising both wings as if to be bigger than it was. Sak chirped from his shoulder, but the bird didn’t seem to care.

  Yes, one wing was bloody. Vathi knew enough to care for the bird, however, which was pleasing. Some homeislers were completely ignorant to their Aviar’s needs, treating them like accessories rather than intelligent creatures.

  Vathi had pulled out the feathers near the wound, including a blood feather. She’d wrapped the wound with gauze. That wing didn’t look good, however. Might be a fracture involved. He’d want to wrap both wings, prevent the creature from flying.

  “Oh, Mirris,” Vathi said, finally finding her feet. “I tried to help her. We fell, you see, when the monster—”

  “Pick her up,” Dusk said, checking the sky. “Follow. Step where I step.”

  Vathi nodded, not complaining, though her numbness would not have passed yet. She collected a small pack from the vines and straightened her skirts. She wore a tight vest above them, and the pack had some kind of metal tube sticking out of it. A map case? She fetched her Aviar, who huddled happily on her shoulder.

  As Dusk led the way, she followed, and she did not attempt to attack him when his back was turned. Good. Darkness was coming upon them, but his safecamp was just ahead, and he knew by heart the steps to approach along this path. As they walked, Kokerlii fluttered down and landed on the woman’s other shoulder, then began chirping in an amiable way.

  Dusk stopped, turning. The woman’s own Aviar moved down her dress away from Kokerlii to cling near her bodice. The bird hissed softly, but Kokerlii—oblivious, as usual—continued to chirp happily. It was fortunate his breed was so mind-invisible, even deathants would consider him no more edible than a piece of bark.

  “Is this . . .” Vathi said, looking to
Dusk. “Yours? But of course. The one on your shoulder is not Aviar.”

  Sak settled back, puffing up her feathers. No, her species was not Aviar. Dusk continued to lead the way.

  “I have never seen a trapper carry a bird who was not from the islands,” Vathi said from behind.

  It was not a question. Dusk, therefore, felt no need to reply.

  This safecamp—he had three total on the island—lay atop a short hill following a twisting trail. Here, a stout gurratree held aloft a single-room structure. Trees were one of the safer places to sleep on Patji. The treetops were the domain of the Aviar, and most of the large predators walked.

  Dusk lit his lantern, then held it aloft, letting the orange light bathe his home. “Up,” he said to the woman.

  She glanced over her shoulder into the darkening jungle. By the lanternlight, he saw that the whites of her eyes were red from lack of sleep, despite the unconcerned smile she gave him before climbing up the stakes he’d planted in the tree. Her numbness should have worn off by now.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  Vathi hesitated, near to the trapdoor leading into his home. “Know what?”

  “Where my safecamp was. Who told you?”

  “I followed the sound of water,” she said, nodding toward the small spring that bubbled out of the mountainside here. “When I found traps, I knew I was coming the right way.”

  Dusk frowned. One could not hear this water, as the stream vanished only a few hundred yards away, resurfacing in an unexpected location. Following it here . . . that would be virtually impossible.

  So was she lying, or was she just lucky?

  “You wanted to find me,” he said.

  “I wanted to find someone,” she said, pushing open the trapdoor, voice growing muffled as she climbed up into the building. “I figured that a trapper would be my only chance for survival.” Above, she stepped up to one of the netted windows, Kokerlii still on her shoulder. “This is nice. Very roomy for a shack on a mountainside in the middle of a deadly jungle on an isolated island surrounded by monsters.”

  Dusk climbed up, holding the lantern in his teeth. The room at the top was perhaps four paces square, tall enough to stand in, but only barely. “Shake out those blankets,” he said, nodding toward the stack and setting down the lantern. “Then lift every cup and bowl on the shelf and check inside of them.”

  Her eyes widened. “What am I looking for?”

  “Deathants, scorpions, spiders, bloodscratches . . .” He shrugged, putting Sak on her perch by the window. “The room is built to be tight, but this is Patji. The Father likes surprises.”

  As she hesitantly set aside her pack and got to work, Dusk continued up another ladder to check the roof. There, a group of bird-size boxes, with nests inside and holes to allow the birds to come and go freely, lay arranged in a double row. The animals would not stray far, except on special occasions, now that they had been raised with him handling them.

  Kokerlii landed on top of one of the homes, trilling—but softly, now that night had fallen. More coos and chirps came from the other boxes. Dusk climbed out to check each bird for hurt wings or feet. These Aviar pairs were his life’s work; the chicks each one hatched became his primary stock in trade. Yes, he would trap on the island, trying to find nests and wild chicks—but that was never as efficient as raising nests.

  “Your name was Sixth, wasn’t it?” Vathi said from below, voice accompanied by the sound of a blanket being shaken.

  “It is.”

  “Large family,” Vathi noted.

  An ordinary family. Or, so it had once been. His father had been a twelfth and his mother an eleventh.

  “Sixth of what?” Vathi prompted below.

  “Of the Dusk.”

  “So you were born in the evening,” Vathi said. “I’ve always found the traditional names so . . . uh . . . descriptive.”

  What a meaningless comment, Dusk thought. Why do homeislers feel the need to speak when there is nothing to say?

  He moved on to the next nest, checking the two drowsy birds inside, then inspecting their droppings. They responded to his presence with happiness. An Aviar raised around humans—particularly one that had lent its talent to a person at an early age—would always see people as part of their flock. These birds were not his companions, like Sak and Kokerlii, but they were still special to him.

  “No insects in the blankets,” Vathi said, sticking her head up out of the trapdoor behind him, her own Aviar on her shoulder.

  “The cups?”

  “I’ll get to those in a moment. So these are your breeding pairs, are they?”

  Obviously they were, so he didn’t need to reply.

  She watched him check them. He felt her eyes on him. Finally, he spoke. “Why did your company ignore the advice we gave you? Coming here was a disaster.”

  “Yes.”

  He turned to her.

  “Yes,” she continued, “this whole expedition will likely be a disaster—a disaster that takes us a step closer to our goal.”

  He checked Sisisru next, working by the light of the now-rising moon. “Foolish.”

  Vathi folded her arms before her on the roof of the building, torso still disappearing into the lit square of the trapdoor below. “Do you think that our ancestors learned to wayfind on the oceans without experiencing a few disasters along the way? Or what of the first trappers? You have knowledge passed down for generations, knowledge earned through trial and error. If the first trappers had considered it too ‘foolish’ to explore, where would you be?”

  “They were single men, well-trained, not a ship full of clerks and dockworkers.”

  “The world is changing, Sixth of the Dusk,” she said softly. “The people of the mainland grow hungry for Aviar companions; things once restricted to the very wealthy are within the reach of ordinary people. We’ve learned so much, yet the Aviar are still an enigma. Why don’t chicks raised on the homeisles bestow talents? Why—”

  “Foolish arguments,” Dusk said, putting Sisisru back into her nest. “I do not wish to hear them again.”

  “And the Ones Above?” she asked. “What of their technology, the wonders they produce?”

  He hesitated, then he took out a pair of thick gloves and gestured toward her Aviar. Vathi looked at the white and green Aviar, then made a comforting clicking sound and took her in two hands. The bird suffered it with a few annoyed half bites at Vathi’s fingers.

  Dusk carefully took the bird in his gloved hands—for him, those bites would not be as timid—and undid Vathi’s bandage. Then he cleaned the wound—much to the bird’s protests—and carefully placed a new bandage. From there, he wrapped the bird’s wings around its body with another bandage, not too tight, lest the creature be unable to breathe.

  She didn’t like it, obviously. But flying would hurt that wing more, with the fracture. She’d eventually be able to bite off the bandage, but for now, she’d get a chance to heal. Once done, he placed her with his other Aviar, who made quiet, friendly chirps, calming the flustered bird.

  Vathi seemed content to let her bird remain there for the time, though she watched the entire process with interest.

  “You may sleep in my safecamp tonight,” Dusk said, turning back to her.

  “And then what?” she asked. “You turn me out into the jungle to die?”

  “You did well on your way here,” he said, grudgingly. She was not a trapper. A scholar should not have been able to do what she did. “You will probably survive.”

  “I got lucky. I’d never make it across the entire island.”

  Dusk paused. “Across the island?”

  “To the main company camp.”

  “There are more of you?”

  “I . . . Of course. You didn’t think . . .”

  “What happened?” Now who is the fool? he thought to himself. You should have asked this first. Talking. He had never been good with it.

  She shied away from him, eyes widening. Did he loo
k dangerous? Perhaps he had barked that last question forcefully. No matter. She spoke, so he got what he needed.

  “We set up camp on the far beach,” she said. “We have two ironhulls armed with cannons watching the waters. Those can take on even a deepwalker, if they have to. Two hundred soldiers, half that number in scientists and merchants. We’re determined to find out, once and for all, why the Aviar must be born on one of the Pantheon Islands to be able to bestow talents.

  “One team came down this direction to scout sites to place another fortress. The company is determined to hold Patji against other interests. I thought the smaller expedition a bad idea, but had my own reasons for wanting to circle the island. So I went along. And then, the deepwalker . . .” She looked sick.

  Dusk had almost stopped listening. Two hundred soldiers? Crawling across Patji like ants on a fallen piece of fruit. Unbearable! He thought of the quiet jungle broken by the sounds of their racketous voices. The sound of humans yelling at each other, clanging on metal, stomping about. Like a city.

  A flurry of dark feathers announced Sak coming up from below and landing on the lip of the trapdoor beside Vathi. The black-plumed bird limped across the roof toward Dusk, stretching her wings, showing off the scars on her left. Flying even a dozen feet was a chore for her.

  Dusk reached down to scratch her neck. It was happening. An invasion. He had to find a way to stop it. Somehow . . .

  “I’m sorry, Dusk,” Vathi said. “The trappers are fascinating to me; I’ve read of your ways, and I respect them. But this was going to happen someday; it’s inevitable. The islands will be tamed. The Aviar are too valuable to leave in the hands of a couple hundred eccentric woodsmen.”

  “The chiefs . . .”

  “All twenty chiefs in council agreed to this plan,” Vathi said. “I was there. If the Eelakin do not secure these islands and the Aviar, someone else will.”

  Dusk stared out into the night. “Go and make certain there are no insects in the cups below.”

  “But—”

  “Go,” he said, “and make certain there are no insects in the cups below!”