Medicine for the Dead

by Arianne Thompson

  Shea could have kissed it. That’s him. That’s the wizard.

  The water churned with excitement, a chaotic mass of signing, color-shifting bodies.

  Did you see him use his powers?

  Is he burned?

  I want one of the nets!

  A deep warning croak from Jeté rumbled through the water. The cohort went still. What weapons do they have?

  The scouts glanced at each other. Shea would believe that they hadn’t paid attention to that.

  A spear, Bombé signed at last. And a shield.

  And a long gun, Entrechat added.

  And a big sack, all covered in black feathers, Pirouet finished.

  Entrechat gave it a derisive shove. It’s not a sack – it’s a blanket! Those ones belong to the House of the Crow, so their blankets have feathers.

  I think it was another earth-person. Bombé went totally ignored in the burgeoning debate about blankets.

  It tells us about the gun, Jeté signed, this time to Shea.

  The gun belongs to the wizard, Shea replied with near-perfect certainty. This one carried it while helping him escape from Island Town. It’s very dangerous – a generation removed from the antique pistol that had planted that musket-ball in her side – but the bullets can only come out one at a time. Then he has to stop and put a new bullet in before he can use it again. The temptation to keep signing was immense – Shea’s hands itched to volunteer herself to be the first above water – but she forced herself to stop. Any suggestion she made would smell of treachery. Silence was the safer bet.

  Jeté answered with a slow, cold-blooded blink. And their magic?

  The crow-people can see in the dark, Shea answered, and their Few have visions that let them find faraway things, and they can sing the dead to life. The dog-prince can command tame animals, and is a great healer. He is especially gifted with horses.

  In another life, that would have been true. Yashu-Diiwa would have been raised with his own people, and learned all the ways of the Ara-Naure. Instead, Shea had taken him to Eaden, and he had grown up a slave – ignorant, powerless, and unmarked. They would work on that, once U’ru got him back. For now, Shea’s only purpose was to convince the House of Losange that he was enough of a prize to be desirable, but not so powerful as to be dangerous.

  Prince Jeté turned his huge head back to the scouts. Did you see any tame animals or dead earthlings?

  No, prince. This time, the answer was prompt and confident. Only the three living ones, walking alone.

  Jeté brightened, well pleased. Then we have the advantage.

  Shea could not disagree. Twelve of the Many, not counting herself, plus the prince... they would swarm and overtake three humans in a heartbeat.

  And we will behave respectably, he went on, eyeing each of his siblings in turn. Champagne will meet them first. It will explain our claim to the wizard, and that we are taking him on behalf of Mother Opéra. It will give our thanks to the House of the Crow for their understanding, and allow them to go peacefully on their way. It will represent the House of Losange honorably in its speech. It shows its understanding.

  Shea dutifully copied Jeté’s colors, though she was hard-pressed not to betray her excitement. Jeté meant to put her first in the line of fire – to be sure that that first bullet or first spear-throw would strike her, if weapons were to be used at all – but he couldn’t know how he’d played exactly into her hands. She would be the first to see them as they came to the river, the first to get within arm’s length of Yashu-Diiwa – to offer to help him escape his a’Krah captors, as she had helped him in Island Town – and the first to draw the blood that would call U’ru to him.

  – you two will wait behind with the nets. Everyone else will spread out in the shallows, and be careful to keep out of sight.

  The discussion had since moved on to what they would do if the a’Krah refused to let him go, and Shea was privately glad that Jeté had the sense to keep his more excitable siblings close to hand.

  I can help too! Ondine added, pushing Entrechat aside to insert herself into the conversation.

  Yes, princess, Fuseau answered, softening its colors. But in a different way. We need you to stay down here, and help Prince Jeté give the signal. It’s the most important job.

  It is, Jeté agreed. Which is why everyone is going to stay still and camouflaged, keeping their heads down and their bodies submerged, and nobody is going to do anything until I – until we give the signal. Anyone caught in disobedience forfeits their eating-place for three days. Show me your understanding.

  Uniform, blue-white comprehension rippled through the assembled cohort – a solemn pledge of allegiance and unfailing diligence.

  Then we are ready to begin.

  The water churned again, roiling with activity and the micro-currents of two dozen hands all talking to each other at once. In all that commotion, it was the easiest thing in the world for Shea to follow Porté and Entrechat to the great netted pile of supplies farther along the river-bottom.

  – a smaller road, but I can show you where to hide, Entrechat was saying.

  Shea tapped at Porté’s arm, respectfully copying its colors. Pardon me, cousin, she signed. My thumb-nail is broken. May I borrow a knife?

  Yes, of course, Porté replied, and absently handed up a fillet knife. Then it was right back to its own concerns. Do you think we ought to take the mussel dredge too? Its mouth is smaller, but...

  Shea tucked it under one arm and slipped away, the constant ache in her chest soothed by the cool, flat edge of the blade. Soon, all this scheming and lying and exhausting patient heartache would be over. Soon, everything would be right again.

  THEY DIDN’T HAVE far to go, which was good, because their progress was abysmally slow. Vuchak wouldn’t allow himself to snap at the other two, but he sucked his teeth every time Hakai began to lag behind again, or the half put his foot wrong and nearly sent Dulei smashing to the ground. And even if it was warranted, Vuchak had no energy left to henpeck them. He’d breathed in so much smoke yesterday, and more of its leftovers today, and all of it was no sooner inside him than clamoring to get out again. It pounded in his skull, and seeped from his eyes and nose, and provoked his lungs with a constant, throat-angering cough that kept inciting a similar mutiny in his bladder. Vuchak refused to stop and appease it, already knowing it wouldn’t yield anything but a pungent, burning dribble.

  So he wiped his face on his shoulder and focused on putting one foot in front of the other, not looking ahead or squinting to try to see the river or pausing to assure himself that his marka was still breathing. Weisei would hold his own. The river would be there. Vuchak’s only task was to bring the one to the other.

  He would do that. The sky was darkening as the Mother of Mountains welcomed the sun to its nightly rest, but that was all right. Soon, they would be there, and his biggest problem would be making the yucca-soap to wash his hair. Soon –

  Hakai stopped again, for the third time in the last handful of minutes. Afflicted as he was, Vuchak still had the sense to notice that this was not the same as slowing from sheer exhaustion... and after last night, he knew for a fact that Hakai had gifts of his own. He had no visible marks, but he could have belonged to the Set-Seti, as readily as he’d sensed those marrouak, or perhaps he had the exceptional hearing of the Wibei. “What?”

  Hakai walked on, but cleaved closer to Vuchak’s side. “I know how well you uphold the a’Krah reputation for cleverness and discretion,” he said, his voice as dry as the dust under their feet, “and I trust that you will keep walking, and give no outward sign, when I tell you that we’re being surrounded.”

  By the time Hakai closed his mouth, Vuchak had very nearly proven him wrong. He forced himself to keep moving forward. “Who? How many?”

  Hakai made no reply, which must have meant that he didn’t yet know how to answer. And in a few moments, it almost didn’t matter: through the thick twilight haze, Vuchak could just make out the trail’s last
gentle, downward slope – and the beautiful, blue-gray ribbon at its end.

  His throat tightened; his feet quickened. He’d done it. They’d done it. The All-Year River was there.

  “Thang-GOD,” Ylem swore, and likewise picked up his pace.

  But the small, hunched figure at the shore stayed perfectly still.

  No. Vuchak halted, his reason fraying like dry-rotted rope. Not another thing. He would not be tested again. He would not be delayed even one second more.

  Hakai might well have read his mind. “Sir, if I may venture a suggestion...”

  DÍA SOON REGRETTED her outburst, of course. It didn’t take long for her reason to reassert itself, and to cast an unflattering light on her assumptions.

  After all, who was to say that she’d been abandoned? What if the dog had been called away to help someone else – one of those other people that Día had been so concerned for? Regardless, it had probably been a bad idea to get too attached to the idea of her as an avatar of the Almighty. She was a daughter of the Dog Lady, a living, free-willed creature with her own mind and her own wants, and to lose sight of that – to reduce her to the mere guiding star of a narrative which had Día at its center – revealed an embarrassing surfeit of ego.

  So Día privately asked forgiveness, and kept her focus on exercising her own best judgment. She had very little idea of where she was, but retraced her steps towards the source of those strange noises from last night. If she had saved someone, she would be glad to know it. If they had died in the fire... well, she wanted to know that too. And the sliver of her mind not occupied with weighing that particular what-if reminded her that finding people, or a place where they’d been, would put her that much closer to finding a trail, a landmark, some indication of where she was and where she might get water.

  It was difficult not to feel anxious about that as the sky darkened. She was not at all tired yet, but it would be impossible to see anything in the dark... and she did not relish the thought of lying awake on this blasted plain.

  So Día thumbed the tightly-twisted lays of her rope belt – a poor substitute for prayer beads – and comforted herself as best she could. Thank you for the day, Master. Thank you for your blessings. Thank you for my life, my help, my reason, and your puppies.

  What? Día stopped walking and opened her thoughts, asking to hear more.

  Puppies. Bad puppies. The answer was vague but unmistakable, coming from the northwest.

  Día quickened her steps. Why bad? she thought, anxious not to lose that faint, anxious presence in her mind.

  It might or might not have heard her. Bad puppies. Strange puppies. Winter wolf puppies, high hackles, bare teeth. Barking.

  And there were smells. Smoke-smells. Burnt-smells. And underneath those, blood-smells.

  Día could not have said who the fear flowering in her chest belonged to, but she was helpless not to be affected by it. Fear for her babies – fear of the wolves – fear of what she’d forgotten – fear of what she’d done. She ran faster.

  But she also reasoned as she went, endeavoring to soothe them both. There were no winter wolves out here. They belonged to the high plains – what Eadans called the Bravery – and none of them had been seen this far to the southwest since...

  Puppies killing puppies. Puppies snarling. Puppies yelping.

  ... since the Lovoka had come storming down from the plains, mounted on horseback, on their huge royal wolves, determined to destroy not only the Eadan invaders, but the so-called half-men who were spreading their diseases... and any native people who harbored them.

  Puppies running when the dens burned. Puppies lying still when the long knives barked.

  The sky was growing darker, but Día had to be getting closer. She had visions of herself sniffing the ground, following a blood trail all but obliterated by fire, confused and upset and straining to reclaim her mind. I’m coming, Mother Dog. Wait for me. I’ll help.

  New puppy. Special puppy. Guarding the new puppy.

  The Ara-Naure hadn’t been the only people to accept refugees from the east – Día was sure of that much – but they had paid for it more dearly than most. She remembered that they had suffered enormously, even after the Lovoka had swept through their lands. She could not remember why.

  The dry air burned in her lungs as she ran. The ashy smell penetrated her mind as her other-self circled and sniffed and tracked something neither of them could name. But they would find it. They would fix it. They would save it.

  Día topped a small hill, and for a dizzying moment, she was in two places at once: loping across the road, the hard ground flat under her paws, but also cresting the rise on human feet, watching herself bound across that same road, her furry brown body just visible in the dusk.

  She stopped, but also didn’t, and kept going, but also fell down. One of her was tumbling down the little slope in a cloud of ash, and the other was circling a ditch full of fresh unburnt people-smells. One of her was feeling – coughing, nauseous, soot in her eyes and lungs, struggling up to a sit – and the other was smelling, finding – feathers, hair, urine, fruit pulp –

  – blood.

  Día reeled as if she’d been shot. A puddle of blood, soaked into the ground, dry now, old now, but HER blood – her puppy’s blood.

  The new puppy.

  The special puppy.

  The stolen puppy.

  A wet snarl cut the air. It might have been hers. The rage that crashed through her mind was so overwhelming that for a moment, Día was nothing but herself: an insignificant mortal woman watching that shuddering canine figure swell and grow, too long unrecognized for what it was. That was no daughter of U’ru. That was U’ru, the Dog Lady herself... and whatever she had been before was lost to this resurrected avatar of rage.

  Día had just time to see herself as those golden eyes turned in her direction: a tiny, dirty foster-puppy sitting wide-eyed and helpless with fear. Then she was rushing towards herself, seizing her fragile arm in her enormous fanged mouth, flinging herself backwards to cling like a newborn ape to her own huge furry back. And then, with one puppy saved, she charged west into the night, hell-bent on finding and slaughtering whoever had taken the other.

  PORTÉ CROUCHED AMIDST the rocks and shrubs, motionless, camouflaged, and willing themself not to gag. The wizard smelled horrible.

  Or maybe it was whatever he had in that mysterious box. Regardless, the result was the same: an eye-watering stench that absolutely would not, could not be allowed to ruin the ambush.

  But as the three of them passed by, Porté couldn’t resist making eye contact with Entrechat, who was likewise hidden on the opposite side of the trail. They had done it! The earthlings took no notice of them as they headed down towards the river, and now the snare was closing around them: Porté and Entrechat were positioned behind, hiding the nets under their stomachs like a pair of brooding hens. Tournant and Bombé flanked from the north and south. And Champagne waited at the shoreline.

  A great part of Porté secretly hoped that the earthlings would be foolish – that they would not surrender the wizard, and that the cohort would have a chance to show off their tremendous skill. What a story it would make to tell back home! Who would ever tire of hearing it?

  Then the blindfolded one said something to the feather-blanket one. Had they seen the river yet? Porté themself was beginning to lose sight of it in the haze and the oncoming night, and was glad that the earth-persons had not taken any longer to arrive. Champagne had said something about the House of the Crow and their excellent night-eyes... though even that would not be enough to help them now.

  Then the wizard spotted the river, and announced it with a great big bleating-noise, and Porté’s heart sped up in time with the giant earthling’s quickening steps. This was it! The moment was coming!

  “Ylemme, weit.”

  The two Crow people stopped talking to each other, and the blindfolded one called out to the wizard. Porté could not understand what they said, but began to
worry as the humans clustered together. Did they know what was happening? Had they discovered the plan somehow?

  Or maybe they were just going to make camp. One by one, they all unshouldered their burdens – Porté belatedly realizing that Bombé had been right about the fourth earth-person after all – and began to unpack. They were far enough ahead that Porté could not make out all the details in the failing light, but their activities seemed peaceful and ordinary. More importantly, they were perfectly positioned: about ten yards ahead of Porté and Entrechat, and another thirty from the river. Even if the worst thing happened and they ran, they would not be able to escape the nets. Porté would make sure of that.

  But they seemed to have no such intention: as the wizard and one of the Crow unpacked, the blindfolded one took an empty canteen and walked down to the river. Had he seen Champagne? Could he see anything, with that thing over his face? Porté strained to filter out the emerging sounds of crickets and evening-birds, and listened for the signal.

  ELIM DIDN’T HAVE a damn clue what was going on. But he did at least understand what he was supposed to be doing. So he bent down and pawed through the empty water-skins... and also quietly cracked his rifle to load the first round. Bootjack opened their food bag as if to measure out the evening beans... and also strung his bow. They went on like that, subtle and easy, as the sun sank behind the mountains.

  He made eye contact with Bootjack just once, but that was enough. In the space of a glance, he and the Crow knight shared an understanding: no, there was no telling how this would play out – but they would be ready for it, regardless.

  SHEA’S VISION WAS terrible even before the dark and the haze entered into it. But she could hear them coming – hear one of them walking down the path towards her. And she could hope.

  Come here, she willed him, the knife-blade tucked under her foot in the ankle-deep water. Come back to me.