I can’t break them. I can’t force my way through.
“Who is this child, Unar?” Aoun asked.
I have stolen human life. Unar didn’t answer him.
“Is she another orphan?”
I am no orphan. The Garden is my mother. The Garden is my father. I must go home.
“The Garden cannot use a slave so young.” Aoun’s face was earnest. He thought he was speaking reason. He hadn’t shared her journey. For him, nothing had changed. “We can’t care for her, not yet. Not until she’s old enough to serve.”
I must go home.
Unar gazed into Aoun’s dark, deep-set eyes. No tears. He could see that she was searching for something and not finding it; the frown lines between his heavy, knitted brows deepened. Why wasn’t he more distraught about their impending separation? Why not euphoric at discovering she was still alive? What was wrong with him? Couldn’t he feel anything? Didn’t he know anything?
So dunderheaded, Aoun.
Unar was made speechless by the depths of her failure, the heights of her absurd expectations.
She could have told him that the child was Audblayin. She could have told him where to find Sawas. Slave mother and slave child would be reunited and readmitted to the Temple. But Unar had fallen in the first place to free a slave. And now she realised what her true destiny had been, all along.
After you have lived with us for long enough, you will wonder why you ever wished to crawl and kiss Audblayin’s hand.
It was not to bring Audblayin to the Garden, that she might grow surrounded by the same ignorance and isolation of Gardeners and Servants that had always surrounded her. It was to answer the questions that Kirrik had posed Unar, back at the dovecote during their first night on watch: And if you desired to feel the sun, what then? If you needed fresh fruits to cure a child’s illness? What if you had fallen and your family remained above, and they were forced to watch while demons ate the flesh off your bones?
Maybe the gods and goddesses didn’t care for the people of Understorey because they didn’t know them. Had never lived among them.
Why them and not us? Why can they not protect everyone? Are they so weak?
She would return Audblayin to the Garden. Yes, she would. But not now. Not yet. The Garden was no place for children, and there was no place that was a good place for slaves. Let baby Ylly stay with her mother, and below the barrier too. Then, perhaps Audblayin in her next life would have a proper answer to give, when asked why everyone couldn’t pass through the barrier, why everyone could not live in the sun.
It was a good decision, Unar thought, but it also robbed her of the triumphant moment she’d dreamed of for so long. She wiped her nose on her torn sleeve. The motion drew Aoun’s attention to the seams where her spines were hidden. His handsome face showed revulsion.
“Unar, those cannot be … you cannot … the rules have been bent, this day. I don’t believe there would be objections if I … Unar, do you want me to … I could remove those. I could heal them.”
“No, Aoun.” Unar gathered Ylly to her again. She reached out to unfasten the sash that held his robes closed. He allowed it, but she took no pleasure in the sight of his muscular chest. The sash was for binding the child safely, and his bore-knife she took because the Garden made good tools. She might not again have the opportunity to take one. “I’ll need them.”
She slashed at the branch beneath her feet with her forearm. Her spines bit deep. She lowered herself over the edge, meeting Aoun’s gaze for what felt like the last time. He could have called the king’s men to imprison her, a traitor whose only place was as a slave. Instead, he shifted his position slightly so that his body shielded her from their line of sight.
Neither of them said good-bye.
FIFTY-EIGHT
AS UNAR dropped through the barrier, her magic faded.
Not all of it, just most. Ylly cried continuously, calling for her mother. Unar would go back for Sawas, but she had to see Oos first. She moved gradually around the great girth of the tree, until the river lay to her left. Down and down, into the rainless gloom, her final task incomplete.
Not yet. I cannot join you yet, Isin. First, I must have an answer to your Master’s question.
At one point, she became aware of three men with hatchets, trying to chop their way into the tree. Tallowwood was extremely hard, and they hadn’t made much progress. They couldn’t enter the huntsmen’s home through the flooded front entrance beneath the river, so they were attempting to enlarge one of the ventilation holes that supplied the storeroom. They’d torn off the mesh that kept insects out, and splinters flew.
Some kind of poisonous smoke made them cough. Esse. He must have been burning something beneath the hole, up on the ledge where the tallow candles normally sat, but it wasn’t poisonous enough to kill the would-be intruders, who still searched for Oos, not knowing that their mistress, Core Kirrik, was dead.
Three white faces looked up and saw Unar. Before they could reach for weapons, she murmured the godsong to herself. Her chest vibrated, relaxing the baby who squirmed there, but there was no sound.
Instead, the three men simply dropped off the tree, their snake-tooth spines dissolved into nothing, eaten by the healing of their own human bones. Aoun had given her the idea.
Unar had loved the three men for their urge to find freedom, their hunger for justice, even as she killed them. What did killing matter anymore? She couldn’t enter the Garden. There was no difference between two deaths and five. She climbed down further, until her face was level with the ventilation hole.
“Esse,” she called down the hole, coughing. “Stop burning whatever it is you’re burning. I have Ylly’s granddaughter. I’m coming inside.”
The living wood flexed and shivered. It opened for her, transforming into a stairway, the arched opening a smaller replica of the Great Gate. She swung herself down into it, withdrawing her spines from the tallowwood, and walked down two dozen steps to stand in the small room where she’d slept with Issi, Ylly, Oos, and Hasbabsah.
They all stood there, now, Issi in Ylly’s arms, gaping at Unar. Esse stamped distractedly on some ashes, but Bernreb and Marram held long knives, showing no signs of recognition.
“Are they controlling you, Unar?” Marram asked softly.
“No,” Unar said. “Your amulet protected me. Thank you. You should take it back now.” She lifted the cord over her head, handing the bone amulet back to Marram, and also held out the younger Ylly for Bernreb to take.
Bernreb looked to Esse, who nodded briskly, before putting away the blade and lifting Ylly’s small body away. Unar sagged immediately, sitting down, hard, on the steps she had made.
“What happened?” Marram asked, slipping the amulet over his head. “Is that really Ylly’s granddaughter? Did you catch her? Did she fall?”
“She didn’t fall,” Unar said. “She can’t fall. Odel protects her, even though he’s dead now. Ehkis, the rain goddess, is dead, too. I don’t know what happened to Ilan, goddess of justice, Protector of Kings, whom Kirrik had captive. I didn’t see her, or the man, Sikakis, who carried her.”
“Two gods.” Hasbabsah deliberated. “Maybe three. It is the most they have managed in some time.”
“But still futile,” Esse said, stamping.
“We know, Esse. It is why we left them,” Marram said.
“They wanted Oos,” Ylly said, sharing a glance with the younger, darker woman.
“To keep her captive,” Marram said. “To use her, as they used Unar.”
“Is that true, Unar?” Oos asked. Her long hair, gleaming and springy, hung in two cord-gathered bunches over her breasts. Her neckline was embroidered with seedlings that Unar thought were symbols of the Garden, but as the smoke cleared, she recognised as night- and humidity-loving Understorian epiphytes. Her huge eyes were fearful, and her voice quavered. “Did they use you? Or are you with them? How did you get through the barrier? Where is that little girl, Frog, who went with you?
”
Unar stared at her. She didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. She was my sister, and I killed her.
“Oos,” she said, “I’m going back to get Sawas. She’s at the House of Epatut.”
Thank you for sending Marram after me.
“Mama,” baby Ylly said.
“Yes,” Unar said. “I’m going to get Mama and bring her here.”
“This is my house,” Esse said loudly.
“We have room,” Bernreb grumbled, peeling a black grape for the younger Ylly, clearly already taken by his newest guest.
“We have room,” Marram said, his grey eyes sparkling, “if Unar will consent to form some added rooms, just as she has formed this magnificent staircase.”
“I can make more rooms,” Esse scowled. “That’s not the point.”
“Oos,” Unar said, ignoring him, “I can take you back up through the barrier. I know the way through, but you must come now if you’re coming. Servant Eilif is dead. Once they choose another to take her place, there could be no room left for you.”
Oos exchanged glances with the older Ylly again.
“My place is here, Unar. My place is with Ylly. My feelings are for her. I couldn’t give her up, any more than I could give up music a second time.”
Unar shrugged. She abruptly felt too tired to do more than mumble. Oos, who had once accused her of having feelings for Aoun, would be the one to find love and happiness. Oos, who came to the Garden because she liked butterflies and flowers, not in search of the greater things Unar had craved.
“If that’s what you want.”
“Somebody help Unar to the hearth room,” Hasbabsah said sharply. “She needs food and rest.”
“No,” Unar said, struggling to her feet. “I have to go back through the barrier before the residues of Canopy fade. Just get me some new clothes. Please.” She could pass through the barrier, alone, if she didn’t wait. Otherwise, she would have to carry Audblayin back through it, tearing another hole. Who knew how many demons might pass through this one? Could the Garden’s wards keep a chimera out?
“You’re going to fetch my daughter?” Ylly asked. “You’re going to bring Sawas here? What about her slave’s mark? How do you know it will vanish, as mine did? What about the sickness that almost killed Hasbabsah?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Unar said. “I don’t have Audblayin’s soul, but the goddess and I are very close now.” She had hardly noticed when her healing of the child outside the Gate removed the mark pressed into Ylly’s tiny tongue.
“I thought you said Audblayin was a god,” Oos said gently. “You were convinced he would be a man this time, Unar.”
“I was wrong,” Unar said. “Take care of little Ylly until her mother gets here. Mothers and daughters shouldn’t be apart for long. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can forgive us all.”
FIFTY-NINE
DAYLIGHT SEEMED to pierce her.
Unar couldn’t remember it being so bright. Colours of dyed cloth. Scarlet fruit in baskets. Yellow birds so illuminated by sun that they might have been small suns themselves. The House of Epatut was raucous with the chattering of macaques. Disregarding the movements of humans on the roads below, they feasted on nuts and threw the empty casings at passers-by.
Two hired guards who hadn’t been there before dawn flanked the ramp to the front door. One of them yawned behind his hand. The other asked, “What is your business with the House?”
“I’m a healer, come to see Wife-of-Epatut,” Unar said.
The yawning one went inside. When he returned, Wife-of-Epatut was with him, big-bosomed and frog-eyed, but so was Sawas. She threw herself at Unar at first sight, her fist smacking Unar in the eye.
“Where is she? Give her back!”
“Sawas,” Wife-of-Epatut said in a low, acerbic voice, and Sawas retreated behind the woman who owned her, cringing yet trembling with rage at the same time.
“Good day, Wife-of-Epatut,” Unar said. “I knew your slave, Sawas, when I was a Gardener in the Temple of Audblayin. I come to offer you healing and new life, if you will accept it, in exchange for Sawas.”
“That will not be possible,” Wife-of-Epatut said, folding her arms. “Even if you are the adept who turned my house inside out as I slept this morning. Sawas makes milk for my nephew, who has come to live with us. His mother suffered an accident. If you take her, he’ll go hungry.”
“Let him eat nut paste. Fruit mush. Insects trapped in sap and boiled in monkey oil. Or bring his distraught mother to live with you.” It was a guess, but the widening of Wife-of-Epatut’s protuberant eyes told Unar she had hit on the truth. “The healing I offer is a healing of your husband’s mad desire to have a son. Without one, he is afraid that you believe he is less. You are a better weaver than he is. A better trader and a better human being. I can heal his envy. I think I know how.”
Wife-of-Epatut struggled visibly to hide her shock.
“My husband isn’t an envious man,” she said, “but even if he were, what healing could I accept from you? You’re cast out, worse than a slave, and you’re a thief. You wrecked my house.”
“Do you refuse my help, then?”
Her lip quivered.
“I must refuse it,” she said.
“If that’s what you wish,” Unar said, exactly the same way she had said it to Oos. She had no need to sing the godsong here. Seizing power from Canopy itself, she ignored Wife-of-Epatut’s astonishment when the merchant’s already-large breasts became heavy with milk. “I’ll give you this gift instead. Feed your own nephew from now on. Come with me, Sawas. I’ll take you to your daughter.”
“No!” Sawas howled, touching her tongue, which no longer bore her slave’s mark. “Little Epi is like my own child, too. I’ve been closer to him than anyone! You must bring my daughter back here, or, I warn you, my mistress will go to the king!”
Unar sighed. For a moment, she was tempted to leave Sawas where she was. Did Audblayin really need this fool to raise her? Surely she would be better off raised by those who were older and wiser, like Hasbabsah and Ylly the elder.
“You promised to teach me to swim, Sawas,” Unar said. “Somebody else needs your lessons now. Whatever those lessons are.”
However unworthy I may think them.
“You’re a liar,” Sawas cried, clinging to Wife-of-Epatut. “You’re not taking me to Ylly. You’re taking me to drink my blood and steal my soul.”
“What have you done?” Wife-of-Epatut babbled. She patted ineffectually at her erupting bosom. “What have you done to me? Undo it at once!”
Unar didn’t use her magic to seize Sawas with vines. Instead, she marched up to her, plucked her by the collar, and began dragging her down the ramp. The hired guards looked uneasily to the otherwise occupied Wife-of-Epatut, but didn’t try to stop them.
“You were named so you could travel up and down, Sawas,” Unar said. “Down you’ll go. Whether you come back up again is up to you.”
Once they were out of sight of the House of Epatut, Sawas seemed to give in. She allowed Unar to push and prod her along the now-crowded streets of Audblayinland. Everyone who had emerged from their homes—everyone but the occupants of the House of Epatut, it seemed—spoke of the battle that had raged at the Garden Gate that morning. About how the king had defended them, even in the absence of the goddess Audblayin, and that perhaps some of the tribute that had been reserved for the deity might find its way to the palace, instead. Maybe some of their second sons could be spared to serve the royal family.
Meanwhile, marketplaces that should have stayed closed for another two months had become bustling and noisy, the signs still wet with paint and the ropes that kept people from falling from platforms pale green and freshly knotted.
At the Great Gate of the Garden itself, lines of grateful citizens, from stricken to internoders, waited to press material goods upon the Gatekeeper. Aoun ushered them in towards the egg and moat that Unar would never see again.
&
nbsp; Tears blurred her vision in her uninjured eye as she stepped out onto the branch where she had planned to descend. Before she could crouch down and order Sawas to climb on her back, Aurilon stepped out of a shadow, tall and scarred and graceful and deadly.
Sawas whimpered and clung to Unar’s clothes the way she had clung to Wife-of-Epatut’s.
“Odel is dead,” Aurilon said without preamble.
“I know,” Unar replied hesitantly. “At least, I didn’t see how he could have survived. I’m sorry.”
“I do not want you to be sorry. I want you to find him again.”
“Find him again? But he must be just born, and besides, I’ve had enough of taking babes from their mothers. I won’t do it.”
“I will not take him. I swear to you on his soul. Only watch over him. Wait for him. You found Audblayin. Do not pretend that you did not. You can find Odel.”
Unar was so tired. So close to being allowed to rest.
“I can find him,” she said. “What happened to Aforis? Do you know?”
“Ehkis returned him to the second-tallest tree in Airakland. Airak did not die when his Temple fell. His Servants have approached the wood god to help build them another Temple. When Aforis tells his story to the other Servants, I cannot say whether he will be punished or rewarded.” Aurilon’s expression showed little concern.
“Let’s hope for a reward. He’s been punished enough. What of Ilan?”
“She was a casualty of the fighting in Ehkisland.”
“So. Three gods did die at once. I’ll come with you in just a moment.”
Unar gathered her magic. Seeds sprang to life, soaking up water and sunlight, infiltrating the bark with their roots. Vines writhed along the tallowwood’s branches and then fell away, forming a rope ladder that led down; a long way down.
Unar stood at the edge, looking down at the ladder, not moving. She had planned to escort Sawas down, but after agreeing to help Aurilon, it seemed she had a Canopy-wide search to accomplish first.
Crossroads of Canopy Page 32
