“I can be tamed, Core Kirrik,” Unar said, horrified to hear a whine in her voice she hadn’t put there intentionally. “I can.”
“We will see,” Kirrik said, gliding away back down the spiral stairs.
Unar looked down at Marram.
“I can,” she said again.
I don’t care about Floorians, Understorians, or Canopians. But I won’t leave him.
“What was that, Nameless? Did you say something?”
Kirrik had halted with her hand on the banister.
“No, Core Kirrik. Only … what about the Master? Where is he?”
“Where, indeed.” Kirrik’s mouth opened wide with glee. She howled with a flaying laughter, the sound of which penetrated Unar’s magical senses, dissolving her body and tossing the soul that remained up and down on the waves of it. Realisation struck Unar: Kirrik was a woman somehow fused with a demon. The soul of the chimera, accustomed to floating nearby while the desouled fleshy shell transformed, was bound to Kirrik’s soul, keeping it in this bodily plane even when she was fatally wounded. Teacher Eann’s lesson, previously disbelieved, popped into Unar’s head. A female chimera lays two eggs into her own mouth, then transforms into a male. During the transformation, the creature’s soul hovers; it does not go into the ether. It waits until its new body is ready to receive it again.
Kirrik’s laughter cut off. Unar returned to herself.
“You are the Master,” she whispered. “Your skill is that you cannot be killed.”
Attacking you will do no good. Your soul will wait until your body is healed, ready to receive it again.
“Return to your chores, Nameless. There will be no more standing watch. The enemy I saw approaching has been turned to a harmless thread in the carpet beneath my feet. Work hard and learn fast. The time will come when you will be a thread or a tool, and while tools are oiled to keep them sharp, carpets are beaten.”
“Yes, Core Kirrik.”
There can be no half measures. I must destroy your body so completely that your half-demon soul can never return to it.
FORTY-SEVEN
UNAR WAS allowed to use her magic in small ways.
With the blindfold off, she healed the messenger birds when they were injured. She coaxed eggs out of even the smallest of them, bringing tears of laughter to Kirrik’s cold eyes. She made bread from replicated grain and grated fresh-grown aerial-tubers to make porridge. The nonmagical tasks of washing and darning clothes returned some of her old calluses to her hands.
With the blindfold on, she brought great rivers of power into Kirrik’s grasp. She poured her breath into not only the ear bone, but also a cracked tooth and a tailbone as long as her arm. All of them for outcomes that pleased Kirrik; Unar was not permitted to see.
“The bones work best for different purposes,” Frog whispered as Unar used a fragment of broken jaw to sprout seeds for the birds.
Unar nodded grudgingly. The hints Frog slipped to her when Kirrik was out of the room usually made sense. “I felt that. The ear bone is best as a simple amplifier. The tooth works best for splitting and breaking. The tailbone for balance and for healing.”
Frog would not, or could not, answer her questions about breaking through the barrier, but she had healed all of Unar’s sores with Kirrik’s permission. They hadn’t given back the clothes she’d arrived in, but put her instead in loose skirts and shirts with long sleeves that covered her hands and fell to the floor. Unar recognised their function. They were garments unsuited to climbing.
“So,” Frog said softly, with a rare smile, “not so dank and dunderheaded as I thought.”
“The men that went from here, fourteen days ago, with Core Sikakis. Are they bringing back a bone? Or a god?”
Frog’s smile faded.
“You should not—”
“I know. I shouldn’t ask questions. Only remember what I am told.”
Frog swallowed. She looked over her shoulder. Core Kirrik had gone up onto the flat roof to release two birds that were too big for the tiny windows.
“They went to find a claw of the Old God whose essence was stolen by Airak. They say it will work as the lamps do, only the lightnin’ can be directed, and it will not harm the one who holds it. They call it Tyran’s Talon.”
“Who was—”
“You must never say the name of one of the Old Gods,” Frog interrupted, her eyes bulging slightly as if startled by how much she had said. “Core Kirrik would feed me to piranhas if she even guessed that you knew it. Promise me you will not say it, not ever!”
“I promise,” Unar said, but she suspected the name held power; more power than singing the names of the gods and goddesses of Canopy. Could it be her path through the barrier? Or the secret of stealing the power of another? Tyran. The god whose essence was stolen by Airak.
She wished that she knew how to read, for Kirrik might have all of the Old Gods’ names listed somewhere, and if they were forbidden, then they must be a danger to Frog’s mistress somehow. Unar wished she had asked Hasbabsah. The old slave seemed to have known all sorts of things, but it was too late now.
“This tooth, that’s best for splitting and breaking,” Unar murmured. “Couldn’t it be used for war? Couldn’t it be used for breaking a person’s bones into tiny pieces?”
“One person,” Frog admitted. “You could focus its power on a single enemy. It would be time-consumin’. You would be defenceless while you did it. Other soldiers might slay you.” She glanced sharply at Unar. “You must not attack Core Kirrik, Un—I mean, Nameless.”
Unar threw up her hands. The motion, she hoped, concealed the fact that she had slipped the Old God’s tooth into a pocket of her black skirt, wrapped in her blindfold to keep Kirrik from sensing it.
“Why do you keep accusing me?”
“I am not accusin’. I know. You want to kill ’er, but you would not like what would happen if you tried.”
“She told me she can’t be killed. I believe her.” She can’t be killed by an ordinary person, but I’m not ordinary. “I don’t need to kill her.” Only to make Audblayin safe from her.
“Good.”
Kirrik threw open the door to the corridor.
“Enough of that. Men are coming. Four of them. They will need feeding. Go to the kitchen, Nameless.”
Unar was trusted enough to boil oil and cook long slices of aerial-tuber for Kirrik and her frequent visitors without supervision. Men and women came to relay reports or receive instructions, all of them wet, muddy, and injured, and went away again with repaired weapons and full bags of food supplies. Their wounds couldn’t be healed, since Unar didn’t love them.
One day, Kirrik had said, laughing, you will love me enough to heal me, Nameless the Outer.
Once, a boy had been brought to have his snake spines put in. Unar hadn’t been allowed to watch, but she’d spotted the leather bag in which the live snakes were stored, hanging by a rope from a roof beam, and some of the women brought identical leather bags with them when they came.
Unar exited the kitchen, balancing four plates of fried tuber, to find that Core Sikakis and his three pale henchmen had returned. They glanced at her as she passed the room where they slung personal belongings, stoppered gourds of drink, feathered talismans, and fire starters onto their bunks. Then they followed her back to the writing room and sat down at the table.
“Will you take bia?” Unar asked as she put plates in front of them.
“No,” Sikakis said, inclining his head in apparent thanks at the offer. Two weeks of new growth around the edges of the previously neat beard had shaped a sharp doorway around the bemused set of his lips. His eyes were bloodshot.
“You do not have it,” Kirrik surmised.
“One who walks in the grace of Airak does not have it,” Sikakis agreed between bites of fried tuber. “As you guessed, the Talon is kept in the Earth-House of Hundar. It’s unguarded during the monsoon, but only because the entire structure is flooded. We are all swimmers, but even
Garrag could barely set his fingers to the lintel of the gate before being driven back to the surface to take a breath.”
The man he had indicated, robed in linen with long arms and hands like plates, lifted his eyes from his fried tuber long enough to mutter, “Magic is needed, Core Kirrik.”
“But not the magic of Audblayin,” Sikakis added, glancing at Unar.
Unar froze in place, petrified by the treacherous thoughts whirling in her head.
Kirrik needs Edax.
“You need the magic of Ehkis,” she heard herself say distantly. “You need a Servant of the Bringer of Rain.”
“The Servants of Ehkis can’t be pushed from the roads of Canopy.” Sikakis argued. “They stick to branches like snakes. Our people in Canopy would have no chance to get near them, much less shake them down here for us to gather like fruit. Ehkis’s adepts do not stay in her emergent, either. How would we find one to snare?”
Kirrik massaged her forehead. Her eyes, when they fell on Unar, glittered. “Nameless, you show improvement, but you are not yet one of us.”
“With respect, what do you mean, Core Kirrik?” Sikakis asked her.
“Nameless has associated in the past with one called Edax, the rain goddess’s Bodyguard. She has boasted about his ability to stay underwater for extended periods, without the use of magic.”
“I haven’t boasted—” Unar said.
“Now she seeks to trade.”
“Dank,” Frog mouthed from her place behind Kirrik, holding a pitcher of water. “Dunderhead!”
“What kind of trade?” When Kirrik didn’t answer, Sikakis turned to Unar. “Well, Nameless? What are your demands?”
Unar first looked at Kirrik and then back at Sikakis.
This was a trap. She couldn’t reveal her ambitions.
Or an opportunity. Maybe the only one she would have.
“I want the spines of a warrior,” she said. “I want every question about magic answered that I care to ask. I want my sister’s custody, to go where I please, when I please. Core Kirrik will show me how to overcome attempts to steal my magic. There must be a way. When she wishes a magical task to be completed, she’ll ask me, and I’ll decide whether to comply. Everyone here will call me by my name, Unar, which my mother gave to me.” Unar addressed her final lines to Frog as much as to Kirrik. “She was not much of a mother, but she gave me life, and she gave life to my sister, who is mine to protect now. Not yours.”
Kirrik stared at her with disdain.
“Core Sikakis has listened to you. Now you will listen to me. Do you really think I will let a Canopian child wreck my home with magic she can barely control on the chance that she can deliver a live Bodyguard of renowned alertness and agility? How do you propose to call him? Do you claim to be loved by the formidable Edax, Bodyguard of Ehkis?”
“You pretend to scorn the idea of love,” Unar said, “but even blindfolded, I see what’s between you and Core Sikakis. I served the Waker of Senses, the Giver of Life. The prince has been your lover, and these three men are your sons, though not by him.” Frog’s chin jerked slightly, but Sikakis and the three men showed no change in expression. “You’ve had quite a few children for a woman who claims there is safety in hate. If you hate them and they hate you, why are they here? They have no connection to the gods for you to manipulate.”
Kirrik showed no sign that Unar’s discovery of her relationship to the men around the table disturbed her. Perhaps she truly didn’t care for her own kin. Perhaps she was like Wife-of-Uranun, and weighed other humans purely by their potential uses. Yet she’d adopted Frog and cared for her, teaching her to deploy stolen magic, when Frog had admitted she was no adept, with no inborn gift of her own.
“Frog the Outer,” Kirrik said, “whom you will never remove from my side, by the by, has told me of a Servant of the Garden, higher in rank than a mere Gardener, who also survived your fall. You are not the only source of Audblayin’s gifts that I can use.”
Oos. Leave Oos out of this.
“She may be higher in rank, but she is weaker. And it’s Ehkis’s gifts you need right now.”
“Core Kirrik,” Sikakis said, “with respect, Nameless’s demands are reasonable. Besides the one about dividing you from your body servant. You were going to teach her the ways of a sorceress, anyway. You were going to give her spines. If we’re able to fetch the object before the monsoon ends, much may be accomplished.”
Nobody spoke for a long while. One of Kirrik’s sons cleaned the last crumbs off his plate. Kirrik stared at Unar without blinking.
“Bring me the leather bag,” she said at last over her shoulder to Frog. “The one with the snakes inside.”
Unar hid her triumph. The bag with the snakes. They were giving her spines. She had won.
As soon as Unar had a means of climbing and control over her own power, she’d lead the escape with Marram and Frog, too, no matter what her fool sister wanted. She’d warn Oos. Perhaps even fetch her along the way. Return her to Canopy, to safety. May Ehkis drown Core Kirrik and One Forest like she’d drowned Aoun’s brother.
Frog looked at Unar. She looked at Kirrik. “Core Kirrik.”
“What is it? We have already determined that you will stay with me, Frog the Outer. You are not part of the bargain.”
“It is not that, Core Kirrik. I have been watchin’ my sister very closely. Forgive me, Unar. You have no intention of betrayin’ that Bodyguard, Edax. You wish only to observe how to break through the barrier. Once that happens, you will return to the Garden. Findin’ the reincarnation of Audblayin is your only care.”
Unar would rather her sister had stabbed her.
Kirrik frowned at Unar.
“This is disappointing news, if true, Nameless. Despite all you have learned, despite the whole of the city having cast you out forever, why you would still defend your own humiliation and utter subordination?”
Unar didn’t answer. She swallowed the lump in her throat and waited for what was inevitable. Kirrik might decide that she couldn’t be her trained chimera after all. She’d use Unar all up, at once, to wreak destruction on one of the emergents, in the hope that other adepts would fall down like rain.
Remembering Odel’s Bodyguard, Unar managed to smile at Kirrik. Maybe whoever she brought down would make even more trouble for Kirrik than Unar had. Whatever happened, Kirrik would be no closer to her goal. She would not capture thirteen gods. The Old Ones would not return. They’d never return.
Her vision blurred with tears. Frog had betrayed her. Frog loved Unar’s tormentor more than she loved her own flesh and blood. Wife-of-Uranun had been Frog’s flesh and blood, too, but Frog had showed no emotion when admitting that their mother was dead.
Our mother fell, Unar. She was not with child, nor will ever be again.
In that moment, Unar was gripped by the certainty that Frog had been behind their mother’s death.
“I forgive you, Isin,” Unar said. “The debt between us is cancelled. I loved Mother too much to see she was a monster at first. You love this woman, who is as a mother to you, too much to see the monster in—”
But Unar couldn’t finish the sentence without her words being snatched away. Frog stole her voice. Vines grew up and across the floor, binding Unar’s wrists to the back of one of the chairs. Oh, yes. Frog was a fast learner.
“Do you still wish me to fetch the snakes, Core Kirrik?” Frog asked earnestly in her childish voice.
Oh, Isin. You advised me not to love. I thought you loved me, and you must, or you couldn’t have healed me, but not nearly as much as you loved the pleasure, the power you knew I would give her.
“Yes,” Kirrik said.
“Frog the Outer is loyal,” Sikakis said as Frog left the room. “You will give Nameless the spines, knowing her intent?”
Kirrik steepled her fingers.
“Nameless will keep her word, regardless of intent. She will bring us Edax, Bodyguard of Ehkis. But she will do it from below the barrier. She will
lure him down. You will go with her, Sikakis.”
“As you say.” Sikakis inclined his head. “And if she cannot bring him? If she cannot lure him?”
Kirrik’s smile tightened.
“Then we must return to the great tree that is Audblayin’s emergent. We must take captive the Servant of Audblayin that Frog spoke of. With Nameless and her friend, we can bringing down the emergent. It is hundreds of paces across, but they can do it, I think, with the tooth to help tear it apart. If they tear it in the right place, and lengthen it as it falls, the crown of it will reach here and my woken warriors will be waiting. Not just one Servant for me to keep, but all thirteen of them, with some twenty-eight Gardeners as well, and no goddess to help them escape back to Canopy.”
Unar saw it in her mind’s eye: Kirrik destroying the Garden. Forcing Unar to bring down her own Temple and die in the process. The building at the heart of the moat cracking like a real egg. Moat water, bulrushes, and rainbow-coloured fish falling. Loquat trees, leaves down, naked roots skyward. The Gates off their hinges and Aoun’s bronze lantern lighting the destruction.
Aoun. Kirrik would use him. Thirteen Servants, one to bring down each of the other Temples, with twenty-eight Gardeners to hand as well. Kirrik might even succeed, with that number of adepts under her thumb.
Edax, you showed me a thing that Audblayin had hidden from me. You showed me that life comes, not just from Audblayin, but from fire between two willing pieces of kindling. But I lied to myself when I thought I didn’t care for what it was that I left behind. Aoun. The Garden. Audblayin.
“I can bring Edax to you, Core Kirrik, Core Sikakis,” Unar said. I already agreed to it; your threats aren’t necessary. “They stick like snakes, you said. You said nobody can get close. I can, and without leaving Understorey.”
Frog returned to the room with the leather bag that Unar had last seen hanging from the rafters.
“What of your desire to search for Audblayin?” Sikakis asked.
“Core Kirrik said if I stayed here long enough, it would fade.”
Crossroads of Canopy Page 25
