Beneath Ceaseless Skies #80 Read online

  We make for Ranra Kekeri.

  I touched the words with my finger, and a true vision came to me. My foremother, Ranra, face lined with care and eyes aglitter, at the helm of a ship—she looked middle-aged, stout, straight-backed, her legs braced, arms held out, her index and middle fingers spread, her deepnames aligned in control of the waves. Behind her, in a blaze of dying light, the Sinking Lands. In front of her, unknown and marsh-ridden, the impenetrable Coast. At her back, my people. She had done what she had to, for them to survive. For them to grow. A true Kekeri may live very well on her own, but how can any leader lead alone? I didn’t know what to make of all this.

  We make for Ranra Kekeri.

  I touched the words and flipped the lid, pulled out my tools from the secret compartment. Pliers and tweezers, screwdrivers, thin long knives, hingers, cutters, hooks, a retort, joints and gears. I opened the main compartment and grabbed a few geckos, broke them down for parts. The Shahniyaz wanted a locust? I’d give him a damn locust, and a piece of my mind besides.

  I make for myself.

  * * *

  At the House Penareh I’d had ample time to study the habits of the locust that my geckos were to hunt. A swarming desert locust was nothing more than a slightly oversized blue-bellied grasshopper whose hind legs had been rubbed very rapidly by other grasshoppers. The leg-rubbing caused the locusts to breed faster and to swarm, although I wondered why the Coastal grasshoppers never swarmed. I hadn’t needed to know this to construct my geckos, but now I had to guess. There was something special about the locust. Something to do with sand. Something about vibrations.

  Taem brought teff wraps stuffed with figs and quail for me, and some nasty-looking watered porridge for himself, but I made him share my food. We ate in silence; he knew I couldn’t stomach chatter when my mind was on the making. Regretfully I pushed the wine away, guzzled down some honeyed tea, and went back to work. My locust was to obey commands. My locust had to be the fastest Birddamn locust in the world.

  I fought with the tools. Too crude. My fingers too clumsy. My name, extended, was too strong for this.

  “Would you like some help?”

  I shook my head blearily. Not Taemin—with my reawakening senses I could hear him snoring thinly in the little room next to mine.

  “Mmmm?” I looked up from the work, and there, on the chair by the window, perched a small person. With faltering heart I watched Sureh peel her mind-veils and her cloth-veils, look at me from beneath those lovely long lashes of hers. Above her head, in the window, the gnawed boat of the moon traversed the sky. It must have been three or four in the morning. “How...?”

  She giggled, and her cheeks dimpled again. “I am sneaky.”

  “What are you doing here, Sureh? Your people do not welcome me.”

  Her smile went away with the dimples, and selfishly I wished for them back.

  “Forget I said that—but I thought, your people... I couldn’t convince your grandmother, but Taem would never harm you. He’s very shy anyway, he....” I might as well be honest. “He likes boys.”

  She nodded once, nervously. “You didn’t need to tell her anything. I’d never tattle.”

  How could I be sure? How could I even ask you to deceive your family? “You shouldn’t get into trouble because of my secrets, Sureh. Hadn’t they set you to spy on me? You said so yourself!”

  She got up and dragged her chair to the desk, sat by me. She smelled of muscat and hazel-spiced fish. She took up a pair of pliers, snapped the air gently. “You know how I have two deepnames, Vendelin-khatoun?”

  “Yes?”

  “The one-syllable for protection. Khana women must take the strongest names they can, for when they are on the road. All kinds of things happen.”

  Your mother. I nodded. “I’m sorry....”

  She motioned me to silence. “But I took one other, the long name, three syllables. The making name. Among the Khana, only the men learn to be makers. The holy artificers learn from the Book of Birdseed. I’ve seen... behind the white walls, they make wonders. But when we trade, it is only the meekest, most profane of their designs that go out into the world. I wanted to be an artificer, like them. But women have so many other tasks. Holy tasks.”

  I nodded, listening.

  “Then your mother came among us. She is both trader and maker, but she is foreign, and good to us. My people welcomed her. She comes here every year. She taught me in secret.”

  I digested this in silence.

  “I took two names, Vendelin-khatoun, just like your mother has. I wrote to you. I asked my grandmothers to let me be your guide. I would never have betrayed you.”

  “You should have told me this,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m as bad as you, Vendelin-khatoun. I am used to secrets....”

  “Yes?” I watched her lips, how they moved when she spoke.

  “Last year, I climbed the white walls in my veils to learn the Birdseed writ. Nobody saw me. And now I have told you all my secrets, Vendeh....”

  I bent over. Her lips were soft and sweet as loukum, her hair like summer to my fingers. Her eyes tasted of tears. Her throat was muscat and honey. She was so small it was no effort to lift her, and carry her to bed.

  * * *

  Sureh left before dawn but returned again when I was waking up, the sun already halfway through the sky. She told some lies to her Khana; I don’t know. Taem brought us food to bed, thin buckwheat crepes wrapped around leafy greens and peppered goat-cheese, sliced thinly into flowerlike finger-bites. A Coastal dish, and beautifully served. I think he was happy for me, although he didn’t speak.

  Sureh and I went to work at last, around dusk-time. I explained my design. She was unhappy with the idea of our mechanical locust at the service of the Shahniyaz. She said he’d send it against his sworn enemy, the king of Burri—but it wouldn’t be the Burri court who’d starve, but rather peasants, simple people. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I know what I’m doing, and we’ll get to it later, yes?”

  She extended her names. Trusting me. I stretched out mine. One, two, three syllables. I’d never worked with anyone before, but it was so easy with her, as if we were welded in our minds. Her long name was tiny enough for the locust’s vibrating legs. We had it by the tipping-moon time—a locust golden, glittering with names, its tiny eyes faceted Taryca emeralds.

  I put it into a little paper box, wrapped it in patterned cotton. Hesitated. “Listen, Sureh....” She sat on the bed, kissable lips slightly open, waiting for me. I hated to break the mood, but I needed to ask. “I don’t know, but if your mother... is still alive, only broken, Taem can maybe fix that. Can we try?”

  She came behind me, wrapped her arms around my waist. Pressed her cheek to my back. I strained to hear what she said. “You’re kind, Vendeh, but you don’t understand. Trader Penareh already offered. When this happened, your mom said, she said she would bring the greatest mind-healer in the world to Niyaz, to help us.”

  Taem’s father. “And?”

  “My mom wouldn’t let another man into her mind. The elders supported her. Name loss is a horrible thing, Vendeh.”

  I turned around and pressed her close. Eventually we went back to work, the rest of the geckos broken into parts on the table, waiting to be refashioned after my will.

  * * *

  Our plans made, Sureh left on the evening of the second day. She asked for my traveling chest. To make something, she said. I didn’t question her, but it was hard for me to spend the day without her, and idle. I complained to Taemin, but he was sulky again, no doubt immersed in memories of my brother; his face went by turns sweet and bitter, and his names extended and recoiled at odd times. I slept fitfully and was grateful for the dawn, and my black dress, and the relief of the carriage to speed me to the Diwan.

  This time I was expected. Two white-robed servants led me through the red circle, and the orange circle, and the brilliant yellow circle with its bronze filigree and gold mechanical suns
that spun suspended between golden-scaled trees. We stopped finally in the green circle. The simplest of all I had seen so far, the green circle was straightforwardly a garden, a garden without blossom, stoneless and seeded with plush grass. The birdcage throne was set here, its intricately carved double doors open; within the cage, the Shahniyaz waited for me on emerald cushions. His white robe was open at the waist, revealing his naked chest; once shapely, I guessed, now running to fat and covered with short graying hair. Why would a ruler display himself so to an equal? To conceal my bewilderment I bowed, and Taemin knelt, five steps behind me, on the grass. Wordlessly, the Shahniyaz stretched his hand, and I placed my locust into it.

  He spoke. “Oh, you wrapped it for me, pretty Vendelin. How nice.” The Shahniyaz tugged at the wrapping, and shook the locust onto his palm. “How does it work?”

  “Your will. But you must imprint it first. I modeled the lock after your names.” I explained the mechanism, and all the while he watched me with his large, slightly wet eyes, and his large index finger caressed the grasshopper’s long hind legs. He motioned me to him. He’d put perfume on—musk, and some cloyingly sweet flower that made my eyes water. His protective stronghold was engaged. A three-named stronghold was impossible to collapse. He had nothing to fear from me, but was the reverse quite true? No, no. He’d never dare attack me. I was a peer, from a prominent family. But then again, he didn’t know my father’s name, and I was still determined not to speak it.

  I’d started the morning in excellent mood, but it was gone now, replaced by some kind of a dark feeling, unrecognizable, coiled in my stomach like a snake. I willed my face to stillness. This would be over soon.

  “You are so obedient,” he said at last. “Your father did what he wanted here, and none could thwart him. How can you be his daughter?” He took my hand in his again, turned it palm up. His index finger touched the vein upon my wrist. “You have his coloring, if not his character. It would be sweet, at long last....” He inhaled noisily, through clenched teeth. “You know, he was a friend of the King of Burri?”

  I did not understand the Shahniyaz. He admired my father, or hated him—both, I decided. And heknew my mother. She had traded here for decades. But not with him directly, she had said.

  The Shah spoke again, an answer to my thoughts. “I asked Myna if she had seen him, on your Coast. She didn’t say. But then she ran off to bed him.” For a moment, anger flashed in his eyes, and then was clogged. “Ah, Myna. Coastal women have no shame.”

  His mouth curved into a smile over the rising miasma of suppressed pain. “Did she not tell you how she pleaded with me? And for what? These useless names of hers. What use are names for women? Do I not have enough wealth? Are there not enough wonders in my court? Even the infidel Khana leave the making to men.”

  He breathed in, shiny-eyed. “I would have been gentle with her. Name loss is painless if the woman submits. What price to pay to join my household in marriage?” He made a circling motion with his arm, and the locust hopped down from his sleeve. Lightning-fast, he caught it in his fist. Smiled. “I wonder if the Raker knows of your mother’s little exploits. She comes to visit me. She loves me still, you know.”

  I recoiled, and the dark snake-bile rose up in my throat. My father wouldn’t mind. But no, she didn’t tell anyone. Why? What was so wrong in this, in having a lover? Everybody had lovers. My father certainly had his share, old flames that guested with him at odd times, not to mention the permanent presence of Taem’s father—and I always had.... Never mind. This was expected, encouraged. Monogamy wasn’t our custom, and why should it be, when both men and women controlled their fertility with deepnames? As long as we children continued his blood, why would my father care if she loved the Shahniyaz?

  His hand reclaimed mine. I breathed in deeply, struggling for calm; inhaled his musky, cloying scent that made my head spin. Rising anger fought in me with some impossible attraction. I wasn’t thinking straight. She never told me, but she must have told my father.

  He wouldn’t mind.

  But she did. She cared. Because she didn’t love them equally, perhaps? What had happened here?

  The Shah’s fingers traveled up and down my arm, but I hardly noticed, blinded by the whirlwind of feelings.

  “You like it, huh?”

  I did not know what I felt. He must have been attractive once, for my mother.... What did she see in him? Or perhaps he lied. He must have hurt her. He said she still visited him, so why did she trade with him now only through the Khana? He lies, he lies....

  I often wondered why my parents split. Each too strong-willed, I’d always thought. But now I didn’t know what to think. “She came to me broken,” my father had said, on the pier. He couldn’t fix something.

  Couldn’t fix this.

  My mother was the one to break the marriage.

  I heard the Shah’s voice rising through a wave of nausea. “She is too old for me now, of course, but you, my sweet....”

  I had to act, but my whole body felt frozen, my tongue a log in my mouth. “Rage will feed you,” my father had said—but all I felt was the miasma of bewilderment, indecision. I had to defy the Shahniyaz somehow, without breaking this alliance.... I had to trade with him still for my heirship.... My mother thought he was too dangerous for me—

  He’s only joking. He cannot mean it! Nobody would dare—

  He must have seen some of my feeling in my face. “Ah, little girl. The dreaded Raker’s daughter. So naïve. So weak. Truly, I am fortunate.”

  Abruptly his stronghold folded. His names struck. He tore my mind-veil off. Before I could react, the names retreated, reformed his stronghold. All too powerful for me. He laughed. “The Raker’s daughter has taken a single two-syllable. Women, huh. Weaker even than your mother. So be more sensible than her, sweet Vendelin....”

  Behind me, Taem sucked in a breath.

  The Shah continued. “You don’t need it, sweetie. It isn’t strong enough to protect you, it isn’t long enough for craft, it’s -”

  “Stop bullying her!” Taem cried. I swung round to him. It’s all right—but it wasn’t –

  “She only came to trade with you, she made your locust, please!”

  “And such a pretty servant boy,” the Shah said. Yes, the boy who bore my brother’s taunting in silence, the boy who hardly spoke above a whisper when with strangers—

  But he spoke for me. Spoke when I couldn’t.

  The Shahniyaz settled back upon his cushioned throne. Chuckled. “And what will you do, pretty little servant boy?”

  I felt Taemin extend his names. He touched the Shahniyaz’s stronghold, still engaged, impenetrable at his skin. The Shah was so sure we couldn’t harm him, he didn’t even have his bodyguard around. Taem’s names slid off the shining grid, and he cried out in pain. The man laughed. “Even more feeble than your mistress.”

  I felt Taem’s mind bend with a horrible creaking as he took a new name, a five-syllable, even weaker than the rest, as thin as gossamer, almost invisible. A five-syllable deepname was a joke. Good for absolutely nothing. Not even to light a candlebulb.

  I saw the Shahniyaz’s mouth warp in a smile just as Taem sent his three names one after another in a rapid sequence towards the man’s mind, in a zigzagging hopping motion familiar to me from his mind-healing, but faster, lightning-fast, locust-fast. Tap tap tap went Taemin’s names upon the impenetrable stronghold, finding purchase, finding holes, gossamer-thin, locust-legs, scurrying around, moving in. The stronghold stayed intact, but his names bypassed it, settled on the Shah’s mind, tap-tapping here, vibrating there, running, running, running, little scurrying insect legs. This wasn’t mind-healing, this was—

  —its reverse.

  The Shahniyaz screamed.

  Tap, tap, tap his mind bent, unhinged. His stronghold folded. He rolled out of the birdcage throne, collapsed on the grass—and Taem—my Taem, sweet Taem, my servant, healer, gentle friend—grinned in mad triumph at my tormentor, or his, I hardly knew
.

  Then a white flower-dart blossomed in Taem’s chest. I saw the shadow of the assassin fall in from behind us, arm still extended from the throw.

  Taem fell backwards onto the grass. His lips moved in a whisper. “Not so powerless....”

  “TAEM!”

  My confusion sloughed away. I threw myself on my knees, on the ground by his side. Time seemed to stop as I broke my useless two-syllable in my mind, breathed it out again into a single mighty syllable.

  Not enough.

  I flailed around with my senses. The earth beneath me pulsed with life, bugs, rotten leaves, unfolding seeds, warmth from the sun. I tore at that. The second name settled in my mind, short and strong, stronger than the first. I moved them both behind the wound, over the wound, dissolved the bolt and plugged his chest.

  It wasn’t enough. He was dying. Around me, the grass went still. The shadow of the assassin, unmoving, lay sidewise on the grass, his arm extended in another throw. Behind me, the Shahniyaz froze mid-scream.

  Above us, the beating of wings.

  I looked up. When Bird came for Taemin’s soul, she was a little thing, just as he had imagined. A little round bird with a little round crested head and a little black beak. Her feathers striped in black and white. A zebra titmouse.

  My mouth fell open, my arms two clammy logs useless at my sides, blood a frozen black river in my veins. The goddess fluttered over his chest.

  “No!” I cried. My mouth couldn’t move, but she heard me. She heard. “You cannot take him!”

  I reached up, my body slumping to the earth. She twitched and cocked her head. I plunged my hands into her. Something larger than a titmouse hovered behind the vision. I looked. A fiery Bird as vast as the sun. Not a titmouse, not a partridge, not a buzzard. Unlike any bird ever. My hands caught fire. Her beak a thing of swords. Her eyes –

  “He is under my protection!”

  I grabbed at her. Tore a feather out. Plunged it into my mind. Inside, I was screaming. Too much, too much, too much. A torment of flame.

  I clamped it down.

  Looked down, my attention fully on work. I set my fiery third name through his veins, the other two along. Mind-healing was for long names. This was not. I did what I wanted.