What if you were like ’er? What if it was your idea to throw me away?
Was she like her mother? She didn’t know. Had Mother been going blind? It was starting to make sense now. Mother staying home on days she should have gone to the forge. Mother making mistakes, flattening a finger of her left hand. Lashing out in a rage but striking the wall or floor beside Unar instead of Unar herself.
Unar and Frog made rope all day without exchanging another word.
Every now and again, Unar looked up from the wood-and-metal jig that Esse had set up for them—whose bore-knife did he steal to get the metal for these rotating hooks and pins?—to fix Frog’s solemn face again in her mind.
Not lost by accident. Abandoned with deliberation. Unar wanted to recoil from the thought but forced herself to face it instead. When she thought of their mother, Wife-of-Uranun, her starkest memories were of sudden rages. Now that Unar knew they had been provoked, not by Unar herself but by her mother’s terror of an inability to work and subsequent starvation, could she forgive the neglect that had led to Isin falling?
No. Not ever.
Isin could have helped their father, just as Unar had. Fuel finding could have kept them from starving, couldn’t it? Only, the wood god, Esh, had been weak that year and the rain goddess, Ehkis, had been strong. The wood was wet and would not dry. Neither Unar nor Father could cut wet wood with a blunt axe.
Your belly’s speaking, Erid. Eat these, Father had murmured.
Why so few? Mother had answered. Unar had thought she sounded cold, but what if it was the hollowness of despair? She’s fit only for the block.
Unar had run, at last, not knowing that her mother was frightened of the forge because the world had become a blur.
Frog had said, She knew I would not be able to do the work. She thought I looked small. For my age. She wanted sons.
How did Frog know that? What messages had she received from Canopy? What spies had she sent to peer into Uranun’s rented hovel? Unar wondered if Father had been tempted to send Wife-of-Uranun to Audblayin’s emergent to ask for a male child. But what gifts could Uranun have sent to the Garden? He had stolen and eaten his own child’s mushrooms. Sacrifice was hardly in his nature.
He was willing to sell his daughter to put food in his own mouth. Nothing like Wife-of-Epatut, Issi’s mother, who lavished rare metals and costly fabrics on the Servants just for a chance of conceiving again. When Wife-of-Uranun had finally made her way to the Garden, it had been to ask, not for a son, but for a thousand weights of silver.
Unar looked fiercely at Frog’s face again. She wanted to give her little sister everything that should have been hers by right. It was a miracle that she lived, that this chance even existed. When Unar returned to Canopy, Frog must accompany her. Perhaps they would live rough for a while, as out-of-nichers, searching, finding food with magic that Unar must keep hidden outside of a palace or emergent. But only until they found the reborn Audblayin and returned him to the Garden. Then all honour would be theirs, all powers returned, and Unar would keep Frog by her side, in sunlight, all the time.
But she didn’t dare say anything. Not while she feared being rebuffed.
Unreturned love is for fools.
Frog held the triplicate, paired strands of twine apart with her small, loosely splayed hands while Unar worked the handle that twisted them. When the twist in the strings was just short of snapping them, Frog slid her hands away from the weighted end of the rope towards the loose end, and the six lines became a single, fatter one.
Unar pinched the place between made and unmade rope as they moved the completed section beyond the clamping, hanging weight that kept the twine tensioned. When it was fixed, and the three rotating hooks reset with loose continuations of the twine, their lengths coming from six of the bags that Unar had filled, she opened and closed her fingers to uncramp them.
Esse’s head poked under the flap. He peered at them, at the rope, and at the candles he had given them to work by. There were dark smudges under his eyes. Since the demon trap was completed, he’d told Marram he would become diurnal again, beginning by not sleeping that day.
“That will do,” he said. “Cover the jig. Blow out the candle. Come and eat.”
Frog and Unar shared repulsed looks. Whatever the name of the lidless lizard that Bernreb had caught that afternoon, Unar did not enjoy its sour meat or flaky texture. Hasbabsah said it was good for them, especially the eight eyes, which were thin jellied blobs on beds of bright orange fat.
“Do you know, I liked eating that long-armed-thing,” Unar lied. Bernreb’s earlier catch had been tainted with its male musk and practically inedible, but it was tastier than the lizard.
“Do you not listen to the old woman’s raving?” Esse said. “Eating that meat more than twice in a moon will grow hair on a girl’s chest.”
“If only I had known,” Frog said flatly. Unar guessed she was thinking of Wife-of-Uranun, or perhaps her Understorian mother, whom she’d showed no signs of missing.
“Frog,” Unar said, catching her as Esse’s head disappeared and Frog made to blow out the candles.
“What is it?”
“You send birds to Canopy. You have friends there. You must know if Wife-of-Uranun was with child a third time. Did she have a son, in the end?”
Frog blew out the candles. Unar couldn’t see her face.
“Our mother fell, Unar,” she said. “She was not with child, nor will ever be again.”
Another shock. Their mother had fallen? Or had she flung herself down in desolation?
“Was it because she was blind?”
“No.”
Unar waited for more information, but it wasn’t forthcoming.
“You said you had an adopted family here in Understorey. Were they kind to you? The woman you called your new mother. What kind of woman is she?”
“Later, Unar. We will talk later, when they are all sleepin’.”
* * *
UNAR LAY on her pallet, feigning sleep.
All but Ylly and Issi had retired to bed, pallet, or chair to sleep. Unar wished angrily that Hasbabsah hadn’t forced the flaky lizard down the baby’s throat; surely that was what kept the normally contented child screaming this late at night.
Ylly sang a soft, wordless song as she jiggled Issi over one shoulder, but Unar noticed the song had gotten hoarser and even tinged with anger and frustration. Oos’s restless shifting on the pallet besides Unar’s indicated that she, too, was still wide awake.
At last, Oos sat up.
“Let me help you,” she begged Ylly. “Let me take her.”
“No,” Ylly snapped
“I have nieces and nephews.” Oos got to her feet. “I know what to do with babies.”
“You know what to do with babies, all right. Sell them, if you need a new ribbon for your hair.”
Unar tensed beneath her blanket, her back turned to them. Maybe this would be the moment. Oos wasn’t her friend anymore. Not faithful to her anymore. She’d finally confess to Ylly that she’d sold Sawas away because Sawas had tried to tell Servant Eilif about Unar learning to swim. And Ylly would, rightfully, blame Unar for involving Sawas in her determination to break the rules of the Garden.
“Ylly, I’m sorry.” Oos’s voice was thick with emotion. “I’m so sorry. One who walks in the grace of Audblayin was raised never to look down, but that’s no excuse. I should have looked, anyway. I should have seen.”
“Yes. You should have. It has been a long time. Since I had Sawas. And she was taken so soon. Weaned so early.” Ylly sounded even hoarser. As if she had started crying. Oos moved closer to her, away from Unar.
“When my niece had bubbles in her stomach, my sister would hold her like this. Facing down, along her forearm, with her cheek in her hand. And then swing her. Right. Like that.”
For a wonder, Issi’s squalling subsided into discontented grunts.
“She is heavy like this,” Ylly said with a flutter of a forced laugh.
“Should I fetch Bernreb?”
“No. Let him sleep. Will you … will you take a turn?”
“Of course.”
Long moments went by while the baby settled. Hurry, Unar thought. The sooner you all go to sleep, the sooner I can join Frog in the hearth room and learn more. She was so hungry to learn.
At last, her ears detected the sounds of tucking a child into her cradle.
Abruptly, before Unar could turn over and risk a peep through her lashes, there were other sounds. Unar couldn’t reconcile them, at first, with what she knew: Ylly hated Oos, and was old enough to be her mother, besides. Kissing sounds were kissing sounds, though. They hadn’t been a feature of the Garden, but Unar remembered them from the streets.
She didn’t need to roll over to see what was happening. There was nobody else in the storeroom but Unar and the baby, and the women were not kissing the baby. Not like that.
Get on with it! she raged inwardly.
No sooner had she had the thought than two bodies thudded onto Oos’s pallet beside her. Hands scrabbled to pull the too-small blanket over both of them. Elbows and knees invaded Unar’s space. They had to be wriggling out of their clothes.
For her own amusement, Unar would have liked Bernreb to appear just then. He still sometimes checked on the baby. He didn’t appear this time, though. And Ylly and Oos didn’t go to sleep. After what seemed like hours, the soft, sucking sounds of fingers in fluid-filled places were accompanied by Oos’s strangled gasp, and Unar dared to hope that they would fall asleep where they were, collapsed on one another, and she could make her escape.
“The last power of the Garden has finally left us,” Ylly whispered with joy.
Oos’s new lover obviously didn’t know her as well as Unar did. There was nothing Ylly could have said more calculated to make Oos cry. Unar was sorely tempted to leap up and advise Ylly to put Oos facedown along her forearm and rock her until she settled.
Instead, she held herself completely still. Ylly held Oos. The night surely held only a few more hours.
Unar counted silently to a hundred after she thought the other two women were asleep. They didn’t stir when she rolled away from them. She crawled through the workshop and, kneeling, peeled back the corner of the embroidered hanging.
No movement in the hearth room. Hasbabsah snored in her chair. Frog was curled in her corner. Unar crawled over to her, hating Oos and Ylly for discovering they didn’t actually despise one another. They’d spent so long cuddling that Frog had fallen asleep, but she would surely want Unar to wake her.
Frog’s eyes opened before Unar could touch her. Were they Wife-of-Uranun’s eyes? Unar didn’t know. She couldn’t remember. Maybe she didn’t want to remember. The Garden was the only place worth remembering.
“The fishing room,” Frog mouthed. Unar nodded. Once they stood by the roaring wall of water that would disguise any sounds they made, Frog rubbed her eyes and asked, “What did Esse show you, then?”
“A trap he made to catch that demon.”
“Only magic-wielders can catch a dayhunter. ’E wasted his time.”
“If you say so. Little sister, will you teach me how to use my own magic now, or must I continue to simply provide my power for your use?”
Frog put her fists on her hips.
“It would serve you right if I never teach you. You still think you walk on high paths above me. Above everyone, with how black you are. But soon you will lose the sun’s kiss.”
“I never said—”
“Of course not. You do not wanna stay here in Understorey, though, do you? The first thing you wanted to know was how to get through the barrier. You begged me to take you home. But this is my home, do you see? This is anyone’s home who would fight for justice.”
Unar only gazed at Frog. Justice? Why should she care about that?
“I’m not sworn to the goddess Ilan, Protector of Kings,” she said carefully, “but to Audblayin, Waker of Senses.”
“Yes,” Frog answered impatiently, “obviously. If you were sworn to Ilan, I could use you to debilitate my enemies with remorse. Fill them with self-loathin’ until they slit their own throats. We would not hafta fight anyone, then.”
“Fighting? What are you—”
“If you served Airak, I could use you to strike my enemies down with lightnin’. If you served Atwith, I could make them fall dead by the score, like autumn leaves. Instead, you serve Audblayin. Am I to bring down the kings of Canopy by impregnatin’ their wives? Your so-called gift is all but useless to us.”
“Us?” Unar waved her hands around in the air. “Who is us? Your adopted family, Frog?”
“I might as well show you. You can always heal the injured. Useful, I suppose, since I have been wounded in battle. Sit down on this crate.” Frog nudged one of two crates with her knee. “And don’t interrupt me. You look at me and see a child, but you are the child.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
UNAR SAT on the crate.
Frog sat on the other crate, opposite her, knee to knee. Unar stared at Frog, childlike and yet not-child, lost and found and yet still lost. Unar could make no sense of her words: This is anyone’s home who would fight for justice.
The river hissed as it sheeted past. Only Esse’s rope, stretching from a fixed shelf into the flow, wicking water along its length to plip-plop-plip on the floor, broke the glassy sheen of it in the light of the luminescent fungi. All evidence of Bernreb’s butchery was gone.
“Do you know the godsong?” Frog asked. “They do not allow music, but you should have learned the godsong before they locked you up behind those Gates.”
“Yes,” Unar said. Teacher Eann hadn’t been completely ineffective.
“Listen to my voice carefully as I sing the first verse.”
“I will.”
Frog’s singing voice was soft and high.
Airak the white with his forked swords of light
stole the gleam from the Old One’s eye
while the winged and the furred, the beast and the bird
come when summoned by Orin, or die.
Unar’s lips compressed. Those weren’t the words she’d been taught.
“Now you sing it,” Frog said.
Unar hesitated, unsure of whether Frog intended to steal the sound from her very throat, as Frog had stolen the sound of Marram’s flute, or if Unar would be permitted to hear the words that she sang in her deeper, raspier voice.
Airak the white with his forked swords of light
dances with those who will dare
while Oxor is love and her sunshine above
pierces mortals and mists with her care.
Frog had done nothing to alter her singing, Unar thought, unless it was something that she couldn’t sense.
“Well?” Frog said.
“Well, what?”
“Could you tell the difference? That you were an adept but not me? That you had the gift and a patron deity, and I did not?”
“No.” Unar kept her expression fixed but wanted to slap the incredulity off her sister’s face. Frog already knew she couldn’t tell. Was this just a reminder of her supposed place? Frog shook her head.
“I had heard power is purposely waked in Gardeners as surely as it is waked here in Understorey, but the effect does not carry across the barrier, it seems. I must do the work of wakin’ your bones in the Understorian way myself. Sing again, in the next highest octave.”
“Octave?”
Frog grimaced. Even seated, her small fists went to her narrow hips.
“Startin’ with this note. Like this. Airak.”
“Airak.”
“No, no.” Frog rolled her eyes. “Match it exactly. Airak.”
“Airak.”
“Huh. That is not your natural frequency, either. The bones stay quiet. Try again. Airak.”
“Airak,” Unar squeaked.
“To Floor with Airak,” Frog said, baring her teeth. “It is not workin’. Wait. Maybe you need to g
o one lower than where you started. Find it yourself. I cannot sing that low.”
Unar tried, but her voice croaked, dry and useless, and she couldn’t make it sound like song.
“Neither can I.”
“You must try again!” Frog’s fists firmed. “Or stay here, powerless, forever.”
Unar stood up. She went to the bucket for drinking water, dipped it into the river, wet her throat, and washed her face and hands. She stood with her shoulders back and her chin lifted, eyes closed. She could do it. She would do it! She had never failed at any magical task ever set for her.
Airak the white with his forked swords of light
dances with those who will dare
while Oxor is love, and her sunshine above
pierces mortals and mists with her care.
“Do not stop!” Frog leaped up from her crate. Unar heard the sound of it tipping carelessly onto the floor. Her body felt like it was dissolving in the now-familiar indication of Understorian magic—all weightlessness and no smells. Her eyes flew open. Frog was crossing the floor between them, hands extended, the tiny bones inside them glowing like the bones of a transparent fish. “Sing the whole song!” She laid her hands on Unar’s.
Atwith the king of the unliving thing
rules a restful, lightless land
while the winged and the furred, the beast and the bird
come to Orin if she lifts a hand.
Ukak, he calls the small creatures that crawl
to the lamps that are Airak’s bliss
while Odel sets their adored children in air
as soft as a mother’s kiss.
Esh grows the paths between family hearths
and knits up the limbs of the sleepers.
Irof brings blooms to the humblest of tombs
and wakes up the hearts of the weepers.
Ehkis brings rain to the forest again
and rests in the heart of the waters.
Audblayin guards birth and the things of the earth
and opens the eyes of their daughters.
Ulellin whose leaves and the stir of the breeze
bring delight to the high and the bidden
is no less than Akkad, whose greatfruit can be had
for sweetness or seed-metals hidden.
Crossroads of Canopy Page 19
