The Root

by Na'amen Tilahun

  She actually became excited by some of the things and ended up choosing a beautiful pair of gray leather pants. She could not tell the animal, but they were soft and had a slight reflective shine to them. The stitches had been kept small to make it seem like it had been cut in one piece. The shirt was a simple white but with a texture that made it seem rumpled stylishly and the places it was folded shone with blue where the light hit it.

  “The bathing room is down the hall, the third door on your right.”

  Lil nodded, remembering steam coming from the threshold on her way through the building earlier. Arel handed her the softest robe she had ever felt, the loose fabric wiggling in her grasp like jellied water. She slowly stripped, leaving her torc of office on, and draped the cloth over her shoulders. It spread down her body like rain, clothing her form in something that resembled peach glass. She headed to the bathing room.

  Opening the door, she was greeted by a wave of steam and heat. Her skin flushed and the material of the robe thinned in response so that her skin was cooled by the slight breeze moving through the room. Her feet moved over warm, rounded stones that massaged her soles as she walked. The bath itself consisted of two round inset pools next to one another. One bubbled and released the steam and delicious chemical scent of a hot spring and the other was chilled. She could see the fog that rose from it’s surface and was dissolved by the steam.

  She pulled at the neck of the robe and it peeled from her body slowly, reluctant to let her go. Lil resisted shivering in pleasure as it left her body with a schlurp sound and a delightful pulling sensation. Slipping into the hot water, her whole body unknotted. Muscles she had not known were tense turned languid. She wanted to soak for hours but was already late for dinner, so she grabbed a handful of the rough, granular soap in the dish by the edge of the pool and began to scrub her skin and hair.

  She thought about Arel and Jagi and the help they were providing. She would be more suspicious had she not seen the inside of them so clearly during the binding. Even still, she wondered at their angle. Just because they bore her no ill will did not explain actually helping her, but she was in no position to throw away potential allies no matter their motivation. The Holders and Holder-Apprentices were the only ’dants within the Ruling Courts’ Hives other than Min and Davi.

  She would have assumed their isolation would make them more reliant on one another. Then she had seen the Holders together. Never had she seen her mentor act so petty and angry. Even while in the Ossuary, they had been taking shots at each other’s positions and reputations. She believed they needed to be working together. If there was a clue on how to defeat the creeping dark in the Ossuary, better to work together to find it. Lil still believed that it was an attack from a pocket universe, that it was a group that had disappeared long ago and was now returning to make a bid for power.

  Perhaps even the Traitor Hive themselves. The Ruling Courts said they were all dead, but if any had survived would they allow even rumor of that to escape? She would love to talk this over with Mayer. And yet.

  In the space of two days she had gone from trusting Holder Mayer with her life to being wary of his anger and moods. Their relationship, always sheltered by the Athenaeum walls, was different in the Ruling Courts. Mayer was different. Was this why he had never brought her along when he came to the help with the Hives? Was this angrier and more secretive version of her mentor a mask he put on when he entered the dangerous political waters of the Ruling Courts, or was it his true face?

  Mayer said one of their main jobs was to maintain the precarious peace between ’dant and Ante, but how was she to help if he kept things from her?

  She rose and scrubbed her skin to a glowing dark topaz and then leapt into the ice pool. Her breath froze and her whole body tightened. She felt too large for her skin, as if she might split open right here and emerge into the icy water a new being entirely. Her head felt clearer and though no answers to any of her questions miraculously appeared, she at least felt confident in remembering Arel and Jagi could not harm or allow harm to come to Davi or Min.

  She could simply take the help they offered, and as for everything else she would be wary and watchful. Even of Mayer.

  Lil bobbed to the surface of the cold pool, spraying water everywhere, and pulled herself onto the warm stones of the floor. Rising to her feet, she delighted in the feel of her heavy brown curls resting on her shoulders, water dripping down her back. She reached for the pool of peach shimmer that was the robe. As she once again draped it over her shoulders, it spread down again, this time also forming a hood that came up over her hair. It sucked up all the moisture into itself, leaving her skin and hair only slightly damp.

  Back in her room she was greeted by Arel and Jagi sorting through a small wooden basket of jewelry. She looked at it warily, thinking of the necklace that had given Razel such a shock in the Ossuary. The rack of clothing was gone, the clothes she had chosen laid out on the couch.

  “I already have my torc.” She rose a hand to touch the piece, warm and vibrating against her neck.

  “True, but we need other pieces to go with that. Since the clothes you chose were neutral we’re going to add color through red accessories.” Jagi did not look up as he said this, focusing on the wood trunk that contained the pieces.

  Arel and Jagi helped her dress. They stripped her of the robe and pulled out a tub of what looked like black sand, took handfuls, and starting at her shoulders began to rub it into her skin. There was no sexuality to their touch as they covered her body. She looked down and saw the rough substance diminish and sink into her skin as it was rubbed. Her skin was left smooth and almost glowing in the muted light from the vines wrapped around the roof rafters. The small buds she had noted earlier had now opened and revealed multilayered flowers of pink, whose stamens hung further down and gave off a light of such pale rose it looked white.

  More light came in through the open window where Lil could spot Shelgig, Rona, and Rythi high and bright in the air.

  Once every bit of her had been oiled, including the tight kinky curls of her dark brown hair, the two Antes removed the clothes from the hangers and the pins from the fabric and helped her step into them. Then the cosmetics came out and she flat out refused.

  “No. I will not paint myself for their pleasure.” Most ’dants did not wear such powders and liquids; most could not afford it. Only those who worked freely with the Antes sported such things.

  Jagi crouched on his haunches before her, holding a thin cone of metal in one hand and a lump of some mineral in the other.

  “It will not be too much, but cosmetics are ingrained in the Ruling Courts, for those who can wear such are usually those who look like ’dants . . . or are ’dants. To wear nothing would be like declaring yourself nothing. Luckily the current trend is for subtle powders. If this were two seasons ago, we would all be caked from brow to upper lip in symmetrical images of dragons.”

  Lil bit her lip but finally nodded. She winced at a particularly tight curl of Arel’s fingers as he pulled back her hair and, using the oil, began to twist it into a complicated, high bun.

  “You must keep still and close your eyes for the first portion.”

  Lil did as he asked and a soft grating sound started. She felt light pressure falling onto her eyelids. It reminded her of the time Mayer and she had made a day trip across the Drylands to the southern city of Dis and been caught in a sudden sandstorm with no protection except for the thinnest shell of power. She felt powder cover her eyes, cheeks, and the bridge of her nose. Then the metal was pulled away and she felt the cool wind of Jagi’s breath—it smelled of copper and roses. Then something damp covering the powders.

  “Now you may open your eyes, but keep perfectly still.”

  Jagi held a long thin metal spike in his hands poised near her right eyeball.

  “What are you doing?” She tried to jerk away but Arel’s hands held her firm.

  “Would I tell you to open your eyes if I were going to
harm you?”

  She stopped struggling but still watched the pointed end of metal warily as it approached her face. He lowered it, scraping against the powder he had put on her. Occasionally he would rub the tip against a small white piece of fabric, cleaning of clumps of black, red, and yellow paint.

  When he was finally done she stood and turned to the mirror in the sitting room.

  Lil looked at herself. The pants clung to the muscles of her thighs, showing the power in them usually hidden by the drape of her tunic. The shirt was loose and light and the way it swung about her as she shifted from foot to foot caught both air and light made it look like wings from one angle and a veil of fog from another. She vetoed the earrings, not used to the weight of them, but allowed them to include a blood-red jeweled bracelet in addition to her choker. She was initially resistant to the three rings they picked out, a matching set of three red jewels carved into circles, each one darker than the last, but allowed herself to be convinced.

  The makeup took her breath away. Her eyelids and the surrounding skin were the darkest black with subtle speckles of red as if filled with embered coals, those that tricked you into thinking they were safe to handle. The bridge of her nose was a yellow that turned to orange, then red as it spread out across her cheeks. Into the red and yellow Jagi had carved pathways so that her own topaz skin was revealed in the shape of flames. Not some vulgar, literal interpretation, but abstract angles and peaks.

  The idea of fire.

  She stood in front of a narrow mirror catching small glimpses of the two Antes that flanked her. The skin of her face, neck, and hands—all that was revealed by the outfit glowed. The shirt only accentuated her brown skin. The gray pants stood out against the white of the shirt like stone. For shoes Arel and Jagi had managed to scrounge up calf boots in the same gray as the pants. They had a slight heel, more than she was used to but not enough to hinder her movement. As soon as she had put them on they seemed to merge with the pants legs and mold to her calf.

  Lil still recognized herself in the mirror, but she was more somehow. She was not the shy, smart girl everyone thought of her as. Or she still was that girl and would always be that girl, but was just more than that now. Power and confidence radiated from her and the makeup highlighted the strength in her face, the strong bones and deep eyes.

  “Lovely.” It was said so softly that Lil could not tell if it came from Arel or Jagi. She smiled either way.

  “Now you must be off.”

  Arel guided her to the door with a gentle hand at the small of her back. As he opened it, two Antes were revealed. One was a long, flat rope of a body, its skin sparkled with green, blue, and red jewels. It was coiled about itself in an impossible-to-follow tangle, taking on the vague shape of a cylinder with an explosion of legs below and above. The other one was a glittering cloud of mist, the edges of its body clearly marked by a more solid edge of white. Within the amorphous shape little sparkles of gray and white flickered and died, merged and separated, formed things that looked like eyes to stare down at her and things that looked like mouths to laugh at her.

  They stood silent and Lil wondered if these were some of the Antes who could not or would not speak to ’dants at all. Were they angry they had been sent to escort her? She stepped forward and then they were facing the other way. They did not turn; instead, it was as if they melted and reformed facing in the opposite direction. Both began to move forward and Lil followed. Though she did not look back, she could feel Arel and Jagi’s eyes on her back all the way down the hall.

  AREL & JAGI

  “Will she be all right?”

  Arel met Jagi’s gaze and the ridges of bone that were his eyebrows conveyed uncertainty. Jagi mirrored the gesture and Arel let out a sigh.

  “Not if they suspect what we do.”

  “But they have no reason to suspect. Would most even understand?”

  Arel sucked on his teeth and his torso orifices opened and closed in agitation. He barely managed to keep his tentacles from emerging.

  “No, most don’t know the stories, but if they see something threatening they will still not hesitate to strike her down. They will all be watching tonight.”

  Jagi’s more emotional agitation was obvious from the noise his tentacles made as they emerged and then retreated.

  “What will we do?”

  “We will keep our eyes and ears open, we will try to give her warning, and above all we will do what we promised and protect her sibs from any harm.”

  Jagi nodded and they both turned to watch Min and Davi curled into one another on the bed. There was nothing more that could be said about it. They could only circle around the knowledge they already had. They had written to Hina, the only member of their bloodline they still spoke with, to see if she could research further. She had replied quickly, telling them she would send any information as she found it.

  Even though they still spoke with Hina, neither trusted her fully. She belonged to the House of the Unseen and they viewed everyone not of their House as a pawn for their own advancement. They at least knew where they stood with her, and in this she would wait to be completely sure before she told anyone.

  To be the one who prophesied the end of their world was not a role anyone wanted.

  RAZEL

  Razel wished she had some excuse to miss even part of this dreadful affair. Dinner was in the central courtyard tonight, so no Court could claim prominence. The wind and insects were being kept out of their area by a barrier of power, marked by a small ripple in the air that surrounded all the tables. The Ante that were always airborne stayed so far above that she could only catch glimpses of them when she strained her vision upwards, so she assumed the protection went all the way up. Not a dome but a cylinder.

  It would take a lot of power to heat and protect an open cylinder. She amused herself trying to figure out how much energy exactly, though she was missing quite a few necessary components for the correct equation. This at least kept her attention for a few minutes before she gave up. Anything was better than this. She would rather be in that horrid basement in the Hive of Sorrow and Riches, improving on her creations, than doing this. As much as she hated that place and herself when she was there, at least that was progress being made.

  The conversations going on around them had not involved her or Riana much at all. Krezida and Haydn were also ignored. Mayer, seated at another section of the table, was much in demand, speaking to this Ante and that one. The other two Holders obviously had no intention of speaking to one another unless they had to, and the Holder-Apprentices did not wish to disrupt the atmosphere their masters created. They were surrounded by chatter but their section of the table was silent.

  The tables were spread across the length of clear space, all made of the same dark green black-flecked material.

  It did not escape her notice that she and her mentor, as well as Haydn and his, had been seated with mostly ’dant-resembling Antes. It was easy to take this as an attempt to offer them dinner companions they could actually converse with, but she knew it was actually an insult. Any Ante could rise high in the Ruling Courts, could form a Court of their own, build a Hive, and speak on various councils. Technically.

  But it was harder for those who looked too much like ’dants.

  Much in the way that ’dants became even more nervous around Antes that were closer to their inhuman predecessors, Antes did not enjoy being reminded that they could look like ’dants at all.

  There was movement to her right. She turned to see Lil step through the barrier. Razel was caught and reminded how rough the rest of them still looked. All of their clothing was stained; luckily her shorter hair was fine, but the longer, more elaborate hairstyles of Holders Riana and Krezida were both in noticeable disarray.

  Lil was not an extraordinary beauty by any means, though she was nice to look at. The allure tonight came from the fact that that she was so ’dant. So mortal. And unashamed of that fact. Her brown skin shone lightly through the shir
t, the makeup on her face reminded all seated of the spark of ’dant life, quickly gone but burning bright, instead of attempting to hide the minuscule wrinkles and signs of age she had even in her youth. The powder settled into those cracks and highlighted them. Her face looked older, yes, but it also reminded all of those assembled that she would age and die, that everything she did was ephemeral and important.

  Meanwhile her pants hugged the muscles of her legs and her stance was one of uncaring. At first Lil froze and shrank in on herself at the attention. Razel saw her take a deep breath and then stiffen her back and neck; her head came back up and she met the gazes head on. Her brown hair, which Razel had only seen pulled back in a puff or wild about her face, was oiled and shining, arranged in tight braids halfway down her skull before exploding into a curling high crown-like bun. She straightened her body and jutted one hip to the side, craning her head from one side to the other to take in all of the room.

  Many of those seated had fallen silent and still and watched her walk into the room. That limit of life, of their life, was what drew Antes to ’dants. Whoever had made her up knew that this reminder of their fascination with ’dants would both attract and repel them.

  Mayer did not even glance her way, though it would have been impossible for him to miss her entrance at the angle he was seated. Riana leaned over.

  “What is that old man playing at now?”

  Razel lowered her voice to a shade of sound, noticing that Krezida and Haydn were in conference as well.

  “You think that Mayer is behind this?”

  “Yes. Look at her. So confident in the Ruling Courts. Why? It is like a mizzene dancing among the bone-wolves of the wastes.”

  The shy and elusive mizzene danced under moonlight among themselves, furry feet and tails raised high, beautiful, but a pack of mizzene had also been rumored to take down an Ante when they put their mind to it. Razel found it an apt metaphor. “True. But Mayer will not look at her.”