The Root

by Na'amen Tilahun

They were not as pale as she had thought; their skin was not white but a soft-looking pebbled gray that shaded between light, dark, and iridescent. The blue and purple ropes were gone from their heads, revealing a thin stripe of wheat-colored hair that ran down the center of their skulls and the backs of their necks. A small crease centered above the normal two eyes marked where a third eye sat; other creases on the sides of their necks and running in a line down each side of their bare torsos hid other extras. Eyes or ears, wings or clawed arms? She had no idea.

  They could be anything, but their bloodline often had cleansing tentacles, according to texts.

  Arel was slightly taller than his fellow. In the light there were subtle differences in their shadings and markings. The patterns that led down their torsos were variations on the same basic shape.

  She held out her hand palm up. “If you are to take care of my family I would have blood and a promise from both of you. Would you agree?”

  Both hesitated, and she could not fault them. She asked for much and insulted the hospitality and protection of their Court. They both tilted their heads at her but she stood firm.

  “They are the last of my bloodline.”

  Whatever emotions had creased their faces smoothed away and with no more hesitation they reached for the belt knives on their left sides. They both made shallow slices in their palms and then looked at her in question.

  “Three drops each.”

  They nodded and carefully let the pale white drops fall into her palm.

  She made a big show of closing her hand around the six drops. Inside she was trembling, still weak from her use of Babel last night.

  There was also the fact that the penalty for use of Babel on an Ante, any Ante, was death. Technically, since the blood was no longer in their bodies, she was not doing this to them. She closed her eyes and hummed in preparation.

  Shrugging off her worries, she formed the two words she wanted in her mind and pushed them forward. They struggled, clawing at her throat, but she shook them loose. She felt her throat growing more sore but at least she did not taste copper in the back of it. The words slipped from her tongue, twining about each other in the air.

  blood. knowing.

  And she was suddenly inside their minds, or a recreation of their minds when they had given the blood. She had not expected it to work so well, to recreate them so well that they would push on her own mind like storms, trying to batter her thoughts away.

  She was met with a mix of mistrust and affection. Confused, she tried to pick up more details but could get nothing further. Satisfied that there were no immediate plans for betrayal, she took a deep breath.

  Her many years at Kandake had not only been learning Babel. There were other magics, and once Babel had opened the path into their blood it was easy. The blood in her palm began to writhe as she used Sanguar, a magic from some of the frozen northern isles, to dive even deeper into it, writing oaths and promises of protection and the pain of failure into their very beings. When Lil finally opened her eyes again the blood was alight with the oath, casting shadows through the room.

  She looked at Arel and Jagi and waited for them to hold out their hands once again. They could protest. While what she had done was technically legal, how often did the Ruling Courts care for technicalities or fairness when an Ante brought a case against a ’dant? Finally they both reached forward, the small cuts they’d made still white and gaping open. She turned her hand and carefully let three drops flow into Arel’s wound.

  She turned to Jagi and did the same.

  The connection sprang to vibrant life and Lil was pulled under. If the false minds had been storms, their true minds were like the cracking of the world.

  It was not their age or power. On those levels, she was surprised to find herself almost their equals. Their perspectives were what threatened to overwhelm her. No matter how powerful she became, what wondrous things she did if she took over for Mayer, she would live to see two hundred maybe, at the outside two hundred and fifty years. For Arel and Jagi those years, the length of her life, would pass quickly. They would be here long after everything she knew of Zebub changed and shifted. Even as slowly as the Ruling Courts changed their traditions, they would see things she could not imagine. It took everything in her to turn away from the idea of forever. Immortality called to her, said take me, use me, and she struggled against the urge to say yes.

  As she finally managed to pull back into herself and minimize the connections so they did not overwhelm her, a word lit up in her mind, bright and glowing. It was Babel. She knew this somehow, and the meaning behind it was clear to her as if it was her native tongue. TRANSFORMATION—not simply the act but the flow of change, the way of water into ice and steam, the way of wood into ash with the addition of fire, transmutation and the rise and roll of the universe. She did her best to memorize the shape of it as it flowed away.

  When she came back from having watched the blood twist promises of protection into their bodies, her clothes were soaked through with sweat from the effort.

  Arel and Jagi stood watching her impassively but she could tell by the quickness of their breath they were as affected as well. She tried desperately to think of something to say, something to break the awkwardness between them, but nothing came to her mind.

  She wanted to ask about the word in her mind, bright as moonlight from the three sisters or sunlight from the cousin, but fear held her back. She did not actually know these two, ignoring the tiny voice that argued that she knew them all too well now, perhaps better than anyone else except each other. Luckily the opening of a door and the scrape of tiny feet trying to be quiet provided a distraction. Lil turned to find Minnie and Davi peeking around the doorjamb. They ducked back when she met their eyes but she snorted a laugh out.

  “Come on in here, you two little spies!”

  “We’re not spies!” They were the first words Davi had spoken since last night. Lil laughed out loud and grabbed him as he came around the corner, hands on his hips indignantly. She pulled him close and kissed his cheek.

  “You’re all sweaty and smelly.”

  “Am I? Well then I guess I shouldn’t give you a big smelly hug!”

  “No, stop it!” Davi squealed and laughed, flailing in the cradle of her arms. Minnie laughed and slapped at Lil’s hands in an attempt to help her little brother. Other hands, soft and a mottled gray, came into her vision, tickling Minnie. Minnie stopped for a second and then reacted to the hands the same way she reacted to Lil by scream-laughing and struggling to get away and burrow deeper at the same time.

  Another pair of hands came over her shoulders and gently disengaged Davi. When she met their eyes, one pair of softly glowing brown and one of bright hazel, they both looked apologetic but glanced at the closed door where Mayer still waited.

  They could not harm her siblings either by action or inaction. They were bound. To break the binding would take mutual agreement as the original deal had.

  “Okay, you two be good for Arel and Jagi. I’ll see you tonight.” Both of them ran forward for one last hug and a kiss on her cheek. She walked out to join Mayer, ready for the tongue-lashing she was sure to receive.

  He waited patiently outside, but as soon as she appeared he turned and began to walk without a word.

  She was confused. The lie was ready on the tip of her tongue—a simple truth-sensing cast on herself and a questioning of the two Antes. A little insulting but not worth true punishment. The first lie she planned to tell her Holder and it was unnecessary. He should have felt her use of Babel even if he didn’t discern its exact purpose, but he said nothing. Had he not felt it? Or did he still trust her?

  Lil longed to discuss the word that she could still remember the shape of with her Holder, but she understood something as she studied the stiffness of his back, remembered the lack of interest in her sib’s well-being.

  For the first time that she could recall they had different priorities, and she could not trust Mayer completely.
They both wanted to solve the mystery of the dark, but he must think of the Athenaeum first and she had to think of her family.

  The fact that she now trusted two Antes more than her mentor of twelve cycles did not bear thinking about.

  AREL & JAGI

  Arel grasped the squirming Davi while Jagi crouched down to Minnie’s height and asked her what they wanted for morning meal.

  “Cake!” Arel pushed Davi out to arm’s length too late and his left ear rang from the boy’s yell.

  Jagi shared a worried look with Arel. Perhaps introducing the little pups to baked goods had not been the best move. In their defense they had no experience with children and their own memory of childhood was brief and blurred. Most Antes were born already capable of caring for themselves; even the slower-growing bloodlines were fully mature in a few cycles. The sweets had been the only things they could think of that might calm the sobbing children as they waited for their Holder-Apprentice sib.

  “No cake for breakfast, Davi.” Jagi tried to keep his voice firm but the little boy turned wide eyes on him and his bottom lip trembled. Jagi and Arel shared a distraught look.

  Jagi quickly amended, “If you’re a good child, you can have some after lunch.”

  Davi tilted his head, contemplating the compromise. He looked down at Minnie, who nodded. Davi immediately nodded as well.

  After a breakfast of fried luta root and one huge ermi egg split between the four of them, they spent the first half of the day running around the Hive with the kids, taking them to the unexplored levels, ones still devoid of Antes. These levels would fill as the Court rose in status and they gathered more members.

  Always one of them kept an eye out for any other Antes. Just in case. When they noticed Minnie and Davi yawning a couple of hours after a lunch of calla salad and cake, they took them back to the room to nap.

  Leaving the door to the bedroom where the children slept open, they settled on the couch side by side. They let out a slow breath of release and the feeling of tightness in their bodies flowed out as the apertures on their necks and torsos opened. Quickly dancing, delicate gray tentacles emerged, wasting no time in connecting, braiding and wrapping themselves about one another.

  When fully entangled they finally began to speak.

  “Did you feel—” her/it/everything/the power that rushed through her and into us.

  “Yes, what does it—” portend/foresee/what will the results be.

  “I do not know but—” the power/the fire/the scouring is something they will want.

  “Will Chayyliel—” know/suspect/wonder that we are no longer bound to him.

  “Perhaps but it cannot—” say/mention/let it be known that the power it used has been overwhelmed.

  Communicating this way was slower but allowed for more nuance and shielded most of what they said from the ears of enemies or curious allies. It also brought comfort, separated as they were from most of their bloodline by their “choice” of House.

  “What are you doing?”

  Their eyes snapped open, even the third ones they usually kept sealed. So it was six, wide surprised eyes that looked at Minnie crouched in the doorway. Neither understood how she had woken up, left the bed, and made it to the door without either of them noticing the sounds of her movement.

  Arel replied as they hurried to disentangle and struggled to calm themselves enough to withdraw their tentacles and close their apertures and third eyes.

  “We were talking.”

  “Then why’d you have all those thingies coming out?” Davi was hidden behind his sister and the finger in the corner of his mouth muffled his question just a little.

  Arel had managed to withdraw his extra appendages and seal them off, so he knelt down and gathered Davi in his arms while Jagi kept trying to bring himself under control.

  “It’s a way for us to communicate differently.”

  Davi’s small forehead and nose scrunched up while he thought about it. Then he simply shook his head, shrugging off the question. “Can I play with them?”

  Arel started in surprise. “Maybe another time, little pup.”

  Minnie had crept onto the couch near Jagi and was moving her hand slowly, steadily toward the last tentacle Jagi was still trying to pull back inside.

  “Minnie, leave Jagi alone.”

  She frowned at Arel, but looked at Jagi’s face still creased in strain and slowly lowered her hand back to her side. Her lip trembled a bit and she looked as if she might cry.

  “Minnie?”

  “Stop calling me Minnie!”

  Arel jerked in surprise. It was all he had heard Lil call her as well as Davi. “Okay, what do you want to be called?”

  “Min.” She stated this as if it should be obvious.

  “Okay, we will try to remember,” Jagi said.

  The tremble disappeared and Arel and Jagi looked at each other. The change of mood was sudden and sharp and neither knew how to deal with it. A more honest pout made an appearance on her face. Arel crouched so he was face to face with her, balancing an equally pouting Davi on his hip.

  “How about we go flying?”

  The distraction worked and both of their faces lit up and they began to nod so hard Arel thought their heads might fly off the stalks of their necks. Minnie leapt up from the couch and took the hand that was not busy supporting Davi.

  Jagi finally succeeded in calming himself and followed them out of the room.

  LIL

  She followed Holder Mayer out of the Hive and into the center courtyard and nearly froze at the sight before her. The courtyard now buzzed with activity. They had been allowed to sleep in, and Yanwan’s journey across the sky was already half over. One of the Hives in the process of being built was obscured by the constant movement of the ’dants and constructs building it. The other Hives had Antes constantly streaming in and out, the larger ones using doorways specially built for them. Crikes and dragons carried passengers all over the place.

  Two dragons almost collided in midair, their delicate translucent wings tangling for a terrifying second. They swiped at one another and stabbed with their proboscises, but finally pulled apart with no damage to either the proboscises, or their delicate wings. She saw some crikes begin to nuzzle and mate as soon as they let their passengers off.

  As they crossed, some of the passing Antes, the ones with things she recognized as eyes, gave them looks but she could not truly read the emotion in all the different beings they passed. She was obvious in her traditional, if stained, white tunic and pants, and Mayer wore the gray scholar robes that marked him as a Holder. They were soon joined in their march by Krezida and Haydn.

  Now that she was no longer in shock she took them in. Krezida was medium height. Her blonde hair had been altered, turned bright jade green, perhaps to match the paint on the tips of her fingers. The only reason Lil assumed blonde was her natural color were the roots that were growing out. Her robes were also multicolored, shades of blue and black the most dominant but sprinkled with other colors near the hem. Her skin was a light tan, cheeks hollow and thin. Next to her Haydn was just as thin, his hair limb brown that instead of shining in the light took on a dirty mud sheen that made his sallow skin look even more yellow. His tunic and pants looked older. There were ruffles about the neck that almost hid the torc that covered his entire scrawny neck. There were ruffles where the pants ended at his knees and a pair of lace-up white sandals with straps going all the way up his shins completed the look.

  Riana and Razel joined them a second later; their outfits altered into sleek jumpsuits that hugged their bodies and covered most of them. The white of Razel’s suit made her dark skin stand out even more and the scars adorning it even more obvious. Riana’s jumpsuit was a brighter white than Razel’s, with silver accents. It made her skin shine gold and her long dark hair was pulled into an intricate knot at the back of her head. They both wore boots with heavy soles and wickedly angled toes.

  Lil had assumed the others were also stayi
ng in Hive Chayyliel on different floors, but she had seen each emerged from a different Hive. Riana and Razel emerged from the Hive that resembled the pink living tissue of her parents’ old apartment building and most of the buildings in Zebub. Sorrow and Riches, the oldest of the Courts, had built most of Zebub, then lost it piece by piece. They enjoyed building with flesh, the way it could heal itself, grow as needed. It made sense for them to stay there, since Hypatia was in their district.

  Krezida and Haydn emerged from a Hive that looked like pulsing light. Hive Inyades, the second youngest Court. Which made no sense. That Court’s holdings were all outside the city, none of them anywhere near Enheduanna Athenaeum.

  Lil mulled this over as they moved directly toward one of the gaps in the circle of Hives. It was right next to the second oldest; the one that resembled a spiraling forest and belonged to the Court of Pain and Solitude. Unlike the other spaces in the circle that were kept bare and ready for building, a forest had been allowed to thrive on this patch of ground. Brown and gray scrub grasses turned lush and green the closer they got. Trees with dark foliage grew close to one another, shading the ground with their high and widespread canopy.

  As she stepped into the shade, Lil’s stomach twisted in knots. Bile gathered in the back of her mouth and she struggled not to vomit. Lil knew where they stood. The place where the Hive of Traitors had stood. It made her stomach roil as the remnants of Ante power still lingered from a fight over fifteen thousand years past, now turned into a nauseating miasma. The others made various sounds of distress. Haydn was groaning lightly and clutching his stomach while Razel stood straighter and walked more precisely with every part of her body suppressing what she was feeling. Lil only knew Mayer felt it because of the clenching and unclenching of his left fist, a sure sign of his discomfort.

  She was sure Riana and Krezida were feeling it too, but she didn’t know their tells. They looked as if they felt nothing but the wind. The discomfort grew the closer they got to the center, where one tree stood apart from the rest. With each step her stomach turned over again; each breath felt like it was preparing the path for a stream of vomit. When they reached the tree, everyone was visibly feeling the strain. The Holders all had the sheen of sweat coating their foreheads.