Blood Indigo

by Talulah J. Sullivan

  The force of the outburst stilled Galenu’s tongue. Inhya also hung back; silent, almost wary.

  “Don’t play innocent, Galenu, it ill suits you. You know what responsibility I speak of. You were in it up to your so-charming chin!” The low ceiling rang with the power of Sarinak’s voice. “You’re cursed lucky my sire loves you and never blamed you for any of what happened with his sister. You’re doubly lucky his sister’s spouse refused to call his mother’s brother out, make you answer for even one solitary rumour!”

  “I take your meanings,” Galenu ventured, “and your warnings, insulting and oblique though they be.”

  “Ai, spare me!” Sarinak snarled. “I didn’t think it was even possible to insult you! We’ve made it plain as we can. What happened to the dam is visiting the son. Alekšu hopes to help, but he is away. Tokela can’t stay here with what has been proven. This is no simple matter of purge or gauntlet. You know these… creatures. It is possible they can aid him. We cannot.” His eyes slid to Inyha, dark. “No longer.”

  Galenu narrowed his eyes, watching. Had Inhya known? Her avoidance of Sarinak’s gaze seemed to further the possibility; her next words made it clearer.

  “Ghost Eyes leave grieving in their wake, always, and we have all paid the price.” Inhya took several steps towards Galenu, hands balled into fists, her upper lip curling. “All of us. Save you. And it is long—ai, it is long past time you paid your due.”

  Galenu peered at Inhya as if he were seeing her for the first time. Perhaps he was. If what happened to Lakisa was revisiting her son, fear had completed the cycle more than any Chepiś-invoked madness! Mismanagement, nothing but; traditional hardheadedness on every front. They’d blown circumstance out of proportion. If the oških indeed had some ancient Elemental gift, better he should be away from here, where they wouldn’t even let him sketch pictures for fear he was conjuring up ghosts—or “Ghost Eyes”! How could young Tokela turn out balanced, when he’d paid for the slightest oddity with every breath?

  And ai’o, Galenu knew he owed this much to Lakisa’s son. Inhya was right about that if little else: Galenu had brought Lakisa to Chepiś, though he never would have dreamed what she would ask and what it cost her. If—if!—Tokela had some Chepiś-invoked madness, then Galenu was the best one to help. If nothing else, he could take Tokela to them. Somehow.

  “He can’t stay here one Sun longer,” Sarinak rumbled. “You will take him, or I will take his name. I have nothing more to say.”

  And he turned away, ambling over to the hearth, to slowly kneel beside it, Fire turning his broad profile all the more to stone.

  Galenu slid a look towards Inhya. She was solely focused upon Sarinak, dark eyes glimmering. She seemed to have forgotten Galenu was there.

  She hadn’t. “For once in your life, Galenu, try to heed something other than what you want. This is about Tokela, not you. You owe Lakisa ‘a’iliq that much.”

  Galenu took in a breath, let it out, slow. “And what if he doesn’t want to come?”

  “He will.” Inhya didn’t take her eyes from Sarinak.

  “If so,” Galenu said, quiet, “then surely I’ll take him.”

  Inhya rounded on him, eyes still glimmering. No darksight, no anger. Merely defeat. “Just take care of him, Galenu.”

  “I—”

  “There is,” she interrupted, and turned away, “nothing more to be said.”

  THE SMELL is thick, sick-sweet, curling over him. Smoke, something within him recognises, and as a hand curls familiarly at his nape and raises his head to a bowl that smells dull, and dead, a tiny, gibber of panic wants to claim him. Fight, it says, and Fire would rise only Ša is not here, and not yet, not yet, River soothes…

  He drinks. It sets him mercifully dull. The deep ache in his heart lies numb, the shards in his Spirit still cut, but their edge is blunted. Everything is… diminished.

  His eyes open, take in Inhya. Perhaps it should make him feel something, but nothing rises. Or speaks, as he closes his eyes and goes… away.

  Quiet, in this far-flung not-place. No whispers, no senses vibrating undeniably as a beaten drum, no breath against his ear, no rush and soundless hum behind his eyes.

  No remembrance.

  And he wonders—is this death?—even as something in him disagrees, tries to rise and speak. But he submits, closes his heart, refuses any wonder, bespelled beneath the silence.

  Then, as if his name has been spoken—a chord of silver song into the silence—he wakes.

  Quiet, still. Tokela smells spicebark tea, and Rain, and River.

  Galenu a’Hassun is sitting next to the hearth, sipping at a cup and watching him.

  MADOC WOKE, startled, wondered if Tokela had shouted in sleep. He peered across, toward the sleeping den, merely to find the hide was flung back. And the den beyond looked…

  Empty.

  He lurched up, kicking aside what furs didn’t fall away, and made the mistake of kicking with his injured leg. A shrill yip escaped, and an oath for which his aška would’ve dunked his head in the washing basket.

  Only she didn’t. She merely watched him from the carven-smooth entry to her bedding den. “Tokela’s gone, Madoc.”

  He stared at her. For a half heartbeat he thought she meant Tokela was dead—but for the fact she’d named him. Panic skittered away, to be replaced with dread. “Gone? Gone where?”

  “Galenu stone-chieftain has taken him to his hearth.” Inhya’s talk came slow; she seemed more intent upon his reaction.

  Only Madoc wasn’t sure how to react. Only… “He… he wouldn’t have left! He wouldn’t! Not without…” His eyes were stinging-hot, his voice tight, stammering though he tried to halt it. “W-without saying goodbye.”

  Inhya came over to the bedshelf, placed her hand on his chest. Something rolled beneath her palm, and she murmured, “He left this for you.” As she pulled her hand away, a small parchment roll wobbled on Madoc’s breastbone. Leaning over, Inhya laid her forehead against his and furthered, even softer, “See it for what it is, son. I shouldn’t need to tell you to take care with it.”

  Then she was gliding from the alcove into the main den, her voice normal. Sarinak’s answer sounded satisfied.

  Madoc sat up, concealing the parchment between the fold of his knees—just in case—and unrolled it.

  See it for what it is.

  A sketch, obviously recent, of Madoc; a hasty sepia profile that nevertheless mirrored what Madoc saw in a still pool.

  Eyes stinging, Madoc rolled the parchment closed, and tucked it in his tunic sleeve.

  SHARP, THE smells, but familiar: the contained burn of dried greensap and leaf in a pipe bowl, exhaled across her cheeks like the brush of feathers; charcoal, vermilion, and indigo for the Marking; a thin, sharp-acrid taste of blood and sweat; the blessing Smoke of sweetsage and braided grasses; ground šinc’teh and pollen mealy-sweet at throat and hips and feet; woven blankets lain with dried petals and seedpods.

  Underneath that, the sounds: a tenor thrum of a small drum singing to the ash and blood between her eyes, upon her palms, her insteps. The rhythm—four-and-one, four-and-one—to bring the body waking from the Elemental thrall…

  Anahli woke.

  She was home. She lay in the Breaking Ground, hair unbound and a white blanket across her torso. The Ground was deserted, save for Sun’s light, and the drum Chogah caressed, and…

  Here, beside Anahli, with her, bending over her, fanning her with a beaded owl-feather fan, and garbed in white regalia edged with the lapis of a falling-leaves Sky. Her sire was here, but not only that. He was Alekšu, here, the Smoke and smudge wafting about them like mist as he painted the white blanket with indigo and Sun-hued streaks. Singing her, with a soft tenor so like to the drum.

  “One of us, now, you are one of us, now, Lapis Walker, Owl Sister, you are one of us. Sing the Wind, protect our Land…”

  Palatan finished the song, leaned over Anahli, and put a thumb to her forehead. “Once,” he whispered,
so soft, “I was told that no child I sired upon my chieftain would follow me to this place.” He cupped her face, smoothed fingers over her cheeks. “They were wrong.”

  THE CART was small and sturdy; the pony equally so. Galenu had spent much of the journey making cheery talk; Tokela found that he needn’t reply much, or often. The talk was all over, from assurances that Mordeleg would be sent to relative upLands, to stories about the flatstone hills, where Galenu’s tribe lived and farmed. Their šinc’teh grew short but powerful, and their weavings some of the best, traded all over…

  Tokela was watching Land’s scape change, from thick trees to less, then less still, smaller and sunk into sandy hills. Sun came from behind her cloud veil, and River faded, too, until She was a mere, thin whisper behind his eyes. He wasn’t sure he cared about that, either.

  Maybe it was the drug, still runnelling through his veins, dulling everything.

  Maybe it was better this way.

  Lost in the pressure of Galenu’s chatter and the heavier weight of his heart, Tokela didn’t hear the galloping hoofs until they were nearly upon them.

  The cart creaked to a halt. Galenu stood up with a glad shout: “Back already, River-chieftain? Do you have my cargo?”

  River-chieftain? Tokela spun about as Našobok charged to the side of the cart and round the front. His horse halted, dancing.

  “Rot your cargo!” Našobok snapped back. “Where are you taking him?”

  Galenu blinked at the first, and at the second. Našobok leaned in; he looked furious, ready to leap over the cart and atop Galenu. It made no sense.

  So Tokela answered, “Galenu’s offered me his hearth. There was… well, it was decided—”

  “You’re pie-eyed as a downdocks outlier,” Našobok interrupted. “What have they…? N’da, it doesn’t matter. What matters is I went to Naišwyrh’uq looking for you, and they said Galenu had taken you—” He interrupted himself this time, demanded, “Old one, are you taking him to the stone hills? Or to Chepiś?”

  “Why would he take me to—” Tokela started, but Galenu tilted his chin and puffed his chest.

  “I’m taking him home, of course. But if my Chepiś friends could help him, then of course I’d—”

  “Get off the cart, Tokela.”

  It didn’t quite connect. Tokela stared at Galenu. “Chepiś? You’d take me—”

  “If they can help you, of course I would.”

  “Just like you took his dam to them for help? Get off the cart, Tokela.”

  Tokela didn’t budge. It still wasn’t quite making sense, and this last… He stared at Galenu. “You… you were the one who… You took my mother… to Chepiś?”

  “A story for another time, and I’ll be glad to tell it to you some—Let go of my horse, Našobok! Shade and sweet water, are you mad?”

  And truly, the look in Našobok’s eyes was enough for worry. “Not mad,” he growled. “But angry enough to drag you behind this cart… are you mad? Your friends, you said. Your Chepiś friends, and you’d just hand him over to them?”

  “You make it sound like some sort of… portside deal. No doubt you’d know a lot of those, but come now, you know me well enough—”

  “I don’t think I know you at all, old one. Not if you’d be party to this.”

  Tokela kept opening his mouth, kept closing it, but any good sense was dribbling out his ears at the realisation:

  Našobok had come for him. Had ridden, from the look of him, through lastDark and thisSun to find him.

  “Get off the cart, Tokela. I’m taking you back to River, with me. Where you belong.”

  “How romantic,” Galenu scoffed.

  Našobok ignored it. “Do you want to go with Galenu? Are you willing to have him take you to Chepiś? Willing for them to do more than he’s already seen them do? I told you, you’ve choices—and I aim to see you keep them!”

  “What choice would you offer, wyrhling?” Galenu’s tone quelled, sarcastic. “Outcast upon a leaky craft, no home, no true place… save in your bunk, perhaps?”

  This time Našobok did strike. He leapt across Tokela and grabbed Galenu by his tunic. Would have yanked him off the cart, no doubt, if Tokela hadn’t smacked at his head. Pure instinct, not even hard, but it broke the inexplicable rage. Našobok blinked, looked at Tokela for a long breath, then let Galenu back down. Slowly.

  “Portside deals!” Našobok spat. “There’s plenty of those to be had, to be sure, where I run—but there’s ones even I won’t touch!” He turned to Tokela. “That’s why I’m here. They’re looking for you, my heart. Making deals in those portside villages. Sending their Matwau pets after you, prowling the slave markets up and down River, putting a reasonable likeness of you into the hands of whoever might be able to take you to them!”

  “They wouldn’t!” Galenu put a hand to his hung-open mouth, and leaned back against the cart bench.

  “This isn’t sneaking around to pay you a clandestine visit, or doing trade for glašg eyes. Your friends, Galenu, are making hostile incursion. Openly breaking a truce that’s lasted generations.”

  Tokela dropped his gaze to his hands, didn’t see them. “To get at me.” It was hoarse, and the drum of his heart slowing, thick beneath Sun’s glare. His temples pounded.

  Choices. Was there such a thing?

  Našobok merely leaned over and laid his hands over Tokela’s. “And you know why. Don’t you?”

  Tokela raised his head and peered into the storm-hued eyes. Nodded.

  “Then nowhere’s safe!” Galenu blurted.

  Našobok kept looking at Tokela. Waiting, buoying.

  “River,” Tokela said. “River will see me safe.”

  24 - Hunted

  Massively unpleasant, this part of the big island. Even in the earliest phases of morning, it dried one’s nostrils and drifted through one’s lungs, leaving only a taut rasp of dust and heat behind.

  No doubt should Sivan hint at any discomfort, her brother would explain in gravid detail how they were in a rain shadow, and how the western mountain range would, the more they left the southeastern estuaries behind, inspire not merely dry plains, but pockets of desert. Well, and Sivan knew that, and Jorda knew she knew it, but his nerves were strung in a different place than her own. Jorda prattled against Sivan’s quiet.

  Maloh, on the other hand, would just roll dark eyes and smirk. This was her element. Even now she strode out, the sun glinting against her short halo of crimped sienna hair, her muscled arms bare to welcome the coming sun. Of course, Maloh’s people, like most of the planet’s natives, had adequate melanin. Furthermore, they did judicious trade with this continent’s stunted, if canny, denizens. Maloh had little reason for concealment, be it from a stint of solar rays or a breached truce.

  Jorda was already cloaked and veiled. It was a reminder that Sivan should draw her own and pull the goggles over her eyes.

  They shouldn’t be here.

  “You’re sure they’ll come this way?” Maloh was scanning the horizon with dark brows quirked. “There aren’t many who venture near this part of the desert. Only the nomads, and they don’t stay in one place long. Hard enough for even their like to eke a living hereabouts, but the proximity to the vortex should make it all the more off limits.”

  “I’m sure of nothing at present.” Jorda stumbled in a drift of sand; Sivan reached out to steady him. “Not until the satellites rise. I touched him briefly last night, but the connexion was… blurred. Faulty. As if he were drugged.”

  No doubt proximity to the vortex also plagued decent reception. That or this rotting planet itself, shifting beneath their feet, keeping a baleful eye upon everything they would try to do.

  They kept walking. Not even a burden beast had been allowed them. No easy journey, no light visit. Get in, get it done, get out. Capture the native boy and bring him before the Domina, both psi-powers and limbs trussed and gagged akin to the temple offerings of Maloh’s people.

  Former people. Sivan wondered if she herself
would have been brave enough to follow heart instead of identity. Though Maloh had been saved any decision by her people’s edict: working for aliens was one thing, a matter of expediency and survival. But taking one of them as lover?

  Unforgivable. Maloh could not go back.

  But then could anyone, ever?

  “What is the boy like?” Jorda’s voice quavered with a faint thread: wonder, it sounded like.

  Sivan shrugged. “I’ve told you several times.”

  “I know. I wish I’d been with you.”

  “I wish I’d never seen him. I wish you’d never seen his mother. So much trouble, from one foolish—”

  “It wasn’t foolish. He would have died, had I not acted.”

  “He well could die now. Or worse.”

  “Lack of compassion bears no truth,” Maloh threw back over one shoulder.

  “Compassion.” Jorda repeated. “What was I supposed to do? She was a friend, in need. She’d already miscarried four other kits.”

  “The Accord says ‘no interference with the northern island’s natives’, and censure those who do so.”

  “Yet now our superiors send us and pay no heed to—”

  “They pay heed. They must.” Maloh stayed a stride ahead of them, her sandals fording the variables of sand and shale with only an occasional slip. “The little natives know when they don’t, eh?”

  “And how do they know?”

  “You’re the one with all the answers, Jorda.”

  His eyes sought Maloh’s, tinted amber behind the lenses, pale nose and cheeks sunburnt from several sols of open-air travel. “You’re the one who first pointed out how this mission went against Accord.”

  “And see how far that got us.” Maloh’s gesture took in the entire desert: mesas, draws, washes, and beyond, a backdrop of purplish mountains. “We’re here, aren’t we? We have our orders. Your Domina wants the boy and will break truce to have him. Only she doesn’t seem to understand how his People won’t take this lying down. They’re not animals to be caged.”