The Root

by Na'amen Tilahun

  “Holders Krezida and Riana, please take your Holder-Apprentices and leave us. I must speak with Mayer and Liliana about this plan and too many arguing voices will not do us any good.” They all stiffened, but none did anything but slowly move to the roof hatch and lower themselves back to the landing.

  Once they were gone Chayyliel turned to the two guards. “Patrol. Secure the area.”

  The two mini-thunderheads whirled off in different directions and circled the rooftop, looking for any enemies. Meanwhile, Chayyliel spoke a word, not in ’dant but in what Lil assumed was its own dialect. The light around them flared and grew so bright Lil had to close her eyes and cover them with her palm.

  When she could open her eyes again, three chairs were on the roof placed in a triangle facing each other. They were made of solid light and glowed rhythmically.

  “Please sit.”

  Only after Chayyliel sat did Mayer and Lil do the same, still nervous and wary.

  “Now, there are two ways you could approach June. The first is seduction.”

  Lil felt her dark skin blaze with heat. She had no doubt that her cheeks were darker than usual. She had no fear of sex. She was no virgin, but the casual mention of her sleeping with someone for information made an odd mix of want, rage, and humiliation flare in her chest.

  “Which I doubt would be the best choice, even if Liliana could pull it off flawlessly—” Chayyliel’s voice was laced with doubt and it made the heat inside her climb higher. “—the reveal of seduction always makes a very deadly and permanent enemy. Most important, to have such an assignation in my Hive would cause me to lose large amounts of face and influence. The second choice I think is best. Negotiation. June would not have approached Liliana so openly unless they believed she had access to something they wanted. We can trade on that.”

  They spent the next hour laying out a plan. Although it would be more accurate to say that Chayyliel laid out a plan and Lil changed it to suit herself, and Mayer stayed silent and sour.

  MAYER

  He listened to his Apprentice and Chayyliel lay out a plan to help them all and stayed silent. He was gazing at Liliana, looking deep inside her.

  There were a number of things that Mayer looked for in his Apprentices. Power was a nonnegotiable, but he also needed them to be generic. Power would eventually take on the impressions of the one who touched it most often. The less personalized the power, the easier for others to use it as well.

  Liliana had a deep reservoir of power within her. He had always seen it as a large ball of clean blue slowly turning, its surface rippling. She touched it but her impressions were quickly wiped away, leaving her power core blank and clean once again. He’d never seen anything like it.

  Now, though, when he gazed inside of her there was a deep purple invading the blue of the sphere. Like a bruise, it spread across the surface of her power. In its wake it left valleys and mountainous regions. It solidified the power. Already half of the globe was crystallized solid.

  He wondered how to stop it, and what had caused it.

  When Chayyliel dismissed them, Yanwan was already more than halfway done with its journey. The Queen had outlined all the possible deals that June might want, what Liliana was allowed to promise and what she wasn’t, and where she had to use her own judgment. Mayer interjected here and there but mostly left it to the Queen.

  They made their way back down to the base of the Hive in silence. He struggled to decide how much to tell her. It was the perfect time to talk since they had been given the rest of the day to rest.

  He could ask her about the changes to her power, or suggest the moving of her sibs as he had been considering, or question her more closely about the evening of her parents’ death. There were things he needed to say and things she needed to change. Perhaps it was time to take her on his next crafting mission. She would see what Holders truly had to do to survive, which would no doubt make her more subservient.

  For too long he had been silent and allowed this change in their relationship to go unchallenged. At night he had wondered why. With any past Apprentice he had been very quick to correct them if they strayed from the path he had chosen. Perhaps he had a genuine affection for the girl? He had never taken an Apprentice when they were so young and so she had grown up around him.

  Still, she needed to be reminded that while he wasn’t her family, he had been the one to teach her and he was the one she owed loyalty to. It was time she remembered that.

  Before he could speak up, they had reached the bottom landing and Liliana turned to face him.

  “Since we have a day free of research I will spend the day with Min and Davi. Unless you have something you would like me to do?”

  Bitterness welled up in him but he did not allow it to touch his voice “No. It’s fine. Go and spend some time with your sibs.”

  He told himself he would do the research about her power himself. He told himself that he would speak with her soon. He told himself that there was no need to worry her until he knew something. He told himself it was for her own good.

  No matter the lies he told himself, he could not make himself believe them.

  DAVI

  Davi screamed a war cry as he leapt from the top of the bed onto Arel’s back. The Ante reached back to grab him but the boy avoided the hands, which weren’t quite long enough. He hung onto Arel’s neck while Min and Jagi rolled around on the ground to their side. Davi reached up with his small hands and grasped at Arel’s face.

  “What is going on in here?”

  Davi let go in surprise and fell back onto the bed. Lil stood in the doorway. Her arms were crossed, but she was smiling. He slid down to the floor and ran to his sister.

  “Uncle Arel and Uncle Jagi are showing us how to fight.”

  “Uncle?” She reached down to pick him up and set him on her hip.

  Davi rolled his eyes. His sister always focused on dumb things.

  “Did you see me winning? I was going for his eyes like they said.”

  Lil laughed and turned to the floor, where Min and Jagi were still rolling around.

  “Min, stop,” Jagi ordered.

  “Only if you say that I won!”

  She held on to one of Jagi’s arms and kicked out at the other one.

  “Why are you here? Are you staying here today?” Davi’s voice rose in excitement—he never got to see his sister during the day anymore.

  Lil nodded and a huge smile exploded onto his face as he squealed and hugged her.

  “So what do you want to do today?”

  “Exploring!” Davi yelled in her ear. She winced, then turned it into a smile.

  “What’s exploring?”

  Min ran over, having gotten Jagi to admit to his defeat.

  “It’s when we go all over the Hive looking for secret rooms and passages.”

  Davi saw Lil look at Arel and Jagi. They looked at her but Davi could see the holes on their sides were closing and opening. Davi knew that wasn’t normal; usually they kept them closed no matter how much he asked. He squirmed to be let down so he could get closer, but Lil held him tight.

  “It is good for them to know their way around this place. Just in case,” Arel said in response to nothing.

  Davi looked from Lil to Arel. It was like this sometimes when they talked about things that didn’t make sense to him. It was a grown-up thing and he was bored.

  “Can we go do it now? Can we?”

  Lil pulled her gaze away from Arel and Jagi and looked down at him with a smile. It reminded him of Mom’s smile. He pulled himself closer to her at the thought of Mom and Pop-Pop. She hugged him back.

  “Let me just change out of this and we’ll go.” She set Davi on the bed and he began to jump up and down, shouting wordlessly in excitement. He watched Lil go to the wardrobe in the corner and get dressed.

  She turned back to them.

  “Let’s go.”

  Davi grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door of their room. He stopped in the
doorway and turned to her. He held a small finger up to his lips.

  “The first rule is to stay quiet and don’t let anyone see you.”

  Lil nodded.

  “The second rule is if they do see you, act like you belong there.”

  Lil smiled at him and Davi got the feeling that she wanted to laugh, but this was serious business and she had to focus.

  “All right.”

  “Promise,” he said sternly.

  “I promise.”

  Davi nodded, took her hand again, and led them out into the labyrinthine halls of the Hive. It wasn’t interesting like some of the other Hives he saw from the windows or when Uncles Arel and Jagi took him flying. The Hive they were in was just plain black stone. It wasn’t fancy and magic like the others. Still, there were a bunch of weird magic things he and his sister had found on these trips. He still didn’t know what any of them did and Arel and Jagi never let them keep what they found, but it was still fun. He looked left, then right, and turned right, carefully setting his feet so they made little noise. Min was doing the same. When they reached a set of wooden stairs both were careful to only step on the edge closest to the wall.

  “Why are you walking this way?” Lil asked.

  “It makes less noise.”

  “The stair is stronger at the place of joining with the wall, less likely to creak or make any noise,” Arel shared from behind them.

  Lil nodded and they continued on their way.

  LIL

  Lil was shocked as she trailed behind her younger brother up and down through the floors of the Hive. So much of her time in the Hive had been spent sleeping in her room, she had not seen many of the wonders within it. They walked through a hall, the floor and walls of which were gold. No furniture littered the room except for a number of tall candelabras that threw their candlelight over the room, turning the gold alive and warm. When she looked up she could not see the ceiling, and she assumed this was one of the rooms set aside for the Antes who rarely if ever touched the ground.

  From there they crossed into a small room that looked ordinary and plain. It had the same black stone as most of the other rooms, except that the floor was completely transparent. Beneath the surface lay a sea that defied explanation. Dark things swam beneath their feet. Fish that looked like a hundred jaws strung together slammed against their feet, trying to get through to them. Davi laughed and began to taunt the things by dancing around. Lil let them stay until she looked down and saw a pained ’dant face staring back at her, begging for help. It was distorted, skin stretched back to where it was stitched to the side of a fish that darted away.

  They spent a couple of marks of the candle moving through the Hive and then decided to head back to their room for a snack. As they neared the room, Lil could hear Razel and Haydn’s voices. As they turned the final corner Lil saw them, heads bent together as if sharing a secret, and she was immediately on guard.

  “Take Min and Davi inside. I will see what they want.”

  Arel stared at her, then nodded. He and Jagi ushered the protesting kids past her two fellow Holder-Apprentices and into their room.

  Haydn kept his eyes on Lil, but Razel watched her sibs with the spark of intelligence in her eyes. The Babel words came to her fast, a light sentence, a quick mutter. She was no longer surprised at the ease with which it rose up, only grateful. It flowed easily off her tongue as she spoke-sang it under her breath—there was no coughing, no raw feeling. She still did not know what it meant. Even Mayer, after his years of speaking it, still suffered through every use. Why had this become easy for her?

  After a few words both their eyes were on her, no longer able to focus on her sibs.

  “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about.”

  “We?” Lil looked hard at Razel but the other girl simply met her eyes with no expression.

  “Yes, the language you’ve been speaking.”

  Lil tensed up immediately. She had actually not spoken a full Babel word at all in the last few weeks, but if they suspected she had been using it all along, so did others. Not good. Babel was something only her Athenaeum controlled. Each Athenaeum had their own communications that they taught. Enheduanna, the language of philosophy and diplomacy, alchemy and the arts, how to interpret the creative and bring others to your side. Hypatia, the language of machines and technology, the suppressed arts of the distant past. Their inventions were popular with those that could afford them. And Kandake had the broadest range of knowledge and Babel, the first language before Babel themselves cast everyone—Ante and ’dant—down for their hubris. It was dangerous and wild and most had trouble speaking it. Most burned their tongues to nothing in the attempt.

  “You know what it is. What question could you possibly have?”

  Razel spoke for the first time. “I’ve been paying attention . . .”

  Lil knew that tone from the past two weeks. Razel thought she had something that would corner the person she was speaking to.

  “. . . and you and Mayer aren’t speaking the same language.”

  Lil felt some tension leave her shoulders, though she didn’t fully relax.

  “You haven’t even heard me speak Babel.”

  “That first night as you ran for the Athenaeum and right now. And the whispers you thought that no one noticed.”

  Lil sighed. “Is that all? Of course we don’t speak it the same. Babel is not simple, like learning another language. Everything about you and what you are talking about changes the words in the chain. The simple fact that I have sibs while Mayer doesn’t means I have to use another form entirely.” She might have shared a little too much, but she wanted this rumor shut down fast. She ignored the mention of the fact that Razel had noticed her slip-ups.

  If the Courts started to believe she was using Babel all the time, it could lead to an investigation, which could lead to Arel and Jagi, which would lead to her death.

  “It’s not just that.” Razel’s eyes lit up. “You’re acting different, less like yourself.”

  Lil kept her body from going tense all over. She pushed herself forward into their space. The final words for what she had started seconds ago hung in the air around her, ready to be spoken, ready to complete themselves.

  “Firstly, you don’t know who I was. And second, I think you’re both jealous and scared.” She turned to face Razel alone. “I think you have teamed up with someone you hate because you think I have some advantage now. Did you forget what we are working for?”

  There was no reaction from Razel and Lil sighed and pulled back to look at both of them again.

  “I will not let our whole world go down in flames because you are too invested in power games to put differences aside. I will not let you or anyone stand in my way of destroying the creeping dark. For everything I’ve—we’ve lost.”

  She turned her back to them, mouth ready to form the final word that would put them both into an immediate sleep, but neither attacked. She closed the door behind her and sagged against it. Arel and Jagi were immediately there hovering over her, hands reaching out to touch her and make sure she was okay.

  She waved them off and walked over to where Min and Davi were already enjoying their lunch, hugging both of them to her chest. They froze, then turned and returned her embrace. There was a desperation to their smaller arms that she had not anticipated but should have.

  They had spent all their days with Mother and Father. They did not have the distance and fear between them that she had. She was the only family they had left, and they were the reason she would not falter or fail. Her sibs would be safe, her world would be safe, no matter what she had to do.

  RAZEL

  Razel liked Liliana. She did. But that meant nothing really, in the grand scheme of things. Lil was interesting; she understood power and its plays but retained an odd naiveté about what some would do to obtain and maintain it. She did not want their world to be devoured by this dark any more than Liliana did, but she also had confidence that a solutio
n would be found, if not by them, then by one of the Ruling Courts.

  Money and power found answers and when there weren’t any to be found? It made them.

  She was more concerned with what came after. Those who found the answers would have power in the new regime.

  If the Ruling Courts didn’t kill them.

  Razel figured of all of them, Liliana and Mayer had the greatest chance of discovering something, not only because they possessed a wider base of knowledge than Haydn, herself, or their mentors, but because Liliana was changing. She was becoming something. Most had not noticed anything except for the sudden interest of the Nifs. But Razel saw it.

  She left Haydn, and his disgusting suggestion she come back to his room, in the center courtyard and returned to the Hive of Sorrow and Riches. The sight of the pulsing, pink, alive Hive woke conflicting feelings in Razel. It was comforting in some way since she had seen buildings like this for most of her life. However, she also thought of the nights every moon when she had to attend and help Riana create beautiful horrors. Now that they were staying here, it was even more often.

  She entered the Hive and walked to the center of it. There, hanging from the ceiling to the ground in the central well of the Hive, were dozens of bright red ropes in constant motion. Moving closer, she grabbed one as it moved upward, wrapping her arms and legs around it as it shot up through the floors of the Hive. It slowed at the platforms through the Hive but never stopped.

  The floor they were staying on came up and Razel swung out, allowing herself to drop onto the lip of the platform.

  As soon as she entered their suite of rooms Riana was on her feet.

  “How did it go?”

  “She did not seem worried, had an answer for everything . . . said she would do anything to save this world.”

  “Ha! Mayer has taught her well.”