Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 (32 page)

Adria nodded. Gna
indicates a question
. Tiniya
are my people, the Aeman, and
ka
seems to mea
n yes. Suwela
must mean speak
.
He is asking how my people say
yes.

“Yes,” she nodded.

Mateko imitated. “Yesh.”

Again, she realized they did not have the same pronunciation, so she simply smiled and nodded again.

Excited, he patted her wrist and then grew thoughtful again.

“Gna Tiniya be suwela?” And he shook his head as he emphasized
be
.

“Bay?” she smiled. “Tiniya say
no
.”

He shook his head. “Say.”

Adria blinked, confused.
It is not so easy just to learn two simple words.
But then she realized Aesidhe have their verb at the end.

“No,” She repeated, shaking her head again. “No.”

He nodded. “Lilene yesh p’o no say.”

Ah, Lilene says
yes
and
no, Adria thought.
Close
. She tilted her head back and forth. “Ka, p’o Mateko ka p’o be suwe.”
And Mateko says
ka
and
be…

“Ka! Ka!” he laughed, touching her wrist again before inexplicably turning and starting off again.

Mateko soon signaled a stop just beside a particularly thick grove of white pines, where he knelt down and swung his pack around so he could open it, then removed a torch made from rolled birch bark tied with thin vine. He picked through the pine needles on the ground until he had gathered a handful that were both dry and relatively fresh, and then stuffed them down into the hollow of the torch.

Mateko rubbed a hardwood stick quickly along a hollowed-out softer wood. At the end he had placed some of the drier pine needles. When they at last began to smolder, he blew gently upon them, and fire was born, to their welcoming smiles.

He lit the torch, and the bark burned brightly and slowly. Embers fell from it as they went, but died out quickly in the cool air, but as they continued on, the torch began to smoke heavily when the fire reached the needles deep inside.

It chases away biting insects
, Adria knew, now that she had been in camp for awhile. 
Will it chase away bees?

Their destination was not far, an ancient oak with many split branches and open areas, perfect for hiding or climbing — as well as, it seemed, an ideal home for bees. Mateko’s eyes followed a path up along the trunk, nodding.

Adria offered her hand to take the torch from him, but he did not seem to notice. Instead, he leaped up and grabbed with his one free hand, then neatly swung his leg up to wrap around. Somehow, he scrambled about halfway up the tree this way, managing to keep his torch aloft the entire time.

Adria shook her head and smiled, now certain he was trying to impress her, at least in part.

Mateko poked his head partway into an opening where the trunk was half split, just before breaking into the thickest of its higher branches.

Just like a bear
, Adria thought, smiling.

The torch was smoking terribly now, and Mateko closed his eyes and turned away as he furiously fanned smoke into the tree cavity.

Well... perhaps not 
so much like a bear.

A chunk of the bark broke free of the torch and fell among the branches, landing finally at Adria’s feet, where there was rather more tinder than was good for it. She stamped it out quickly, and when she looked up again Mateko gave her an apologetic look.

Then the bees came out, and his attention returned to his task. Strangely, there weren’t many of them, and they wandered about, seeming more aimless than furious.

The smoke doesn’t chase them away
, Adria realized. 
It puts them to sleep.

Mateko moved very slowly, remaining calm, as he reached inside the trunk and, after a few moments, pulled forth a chunk of honeycomb, dripping with honey and covered with bees. At this point, he looked at the beeswax, then at his torch, then down to the ground, and cast Adria a look of mild alarm. She laughed quietly, shrugging, and held out her hands, as if to catch him. He smiled and nodded first to the wax, then to the torch, as if asking her to pick one.

Adria sighed and shrugged and shook her head, and Mateko dropped the torch. He climbed down, very slowly, while Adria tried to keep the smoke rising up around the honeybees until he reached the ground.

As they returned to camp, trying both to move slowly to keep from disturbing the bees, but quickly to shorten the trip, the torch burned out, and the bees slowly began to stir. Mateko had been whispering to them all the while, and she liked to think he was begging them not to sting them. Regardless of the nature of his discourse, instead of frenzying, the bees slowly left to return to their hive, and she and Mateko returned from the wax hunt unscathed.

The blind woman was already prepared for them when they brought back their prize. Her clay pot hung from a tripod over the fire, and the water within already steamed in anticipation.

The woman leaned in over Mateko’s offering, eyes closed, sniffing the honeycomb. She nodded her satisfaction, and spoke a few words as she took up a nearby bowl to hold it beneath the honey. Mateko squeezed the comb, letting it drip into the bowl as well as he could. After a moment she stopped him with a word, took the honeycomb for herself, and handed him the bowl, with another word and motion for him to depart.

Mateko did as asked, smiling at Adria in silence as he turned away. Adria assumed she was intended to stay, so she watched as the blind woman took the honeycomb to the pot, now at the boil, and then looked about, as if searching.

Adria could see that a stool sat nearby, so she quickly retrieved it for the woman, setting it in easy reach of the cooking pot, a bit more loudly than she otherwise might have.

“Thank you, Lilene,” the woman said as she rested herself and leaned in over the pot to stir.

“You are welcome,” Adria said reflexively, before even realizing that the woman had spoken her language. “You… you speak Aeman?”

“I speak Tiniya, yes.” The woman answered. “Though it feels heavy on my tongue. Do not be so surprised with the knowledge of the People, Idonea. We are not so savage as those who’ve raised you may wish to claim.”

Adria grew embarrassed. “Of course, I did not mean offense. Did… did my uncle teach you?”

“Your uncle has taught us many things, but you should be more concerned for your education, don’t you agree, Likshochuhalene?”

Adria nodded stupidly. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“I am no Ma’am, child,” the woman frowned. “I am called Shísha.”

Adria was certain she had heard the name now. “Be, Lichushegi.”

There was the slightest of smiles on the blind woman’s face, and then it was gone. She said nothing more, but after carefully tasting the steam from the pot, she dropped the honeycomb in carefully.

“Shall I stay and help you, Lichushegi?” Adria asked.

“The rest that I need is in my tent,” Shísha answered as she placed the honeycomb into the hot water. “Bring me a bunch of old man’s beard, the container of pine rosin, and the oils which smell of lavender and marigold. Can you find these?”

Adria did not answer, but simply did as asked, marveling as she stepped into the woman’s hide tent. Shísha certainly kept an impressive store of herbs, unguents, oils, and agents.

Adria wondered just how Shísha was not overwhelmed by the aroma of all the flowers, roots, and leaves which hung from the lines stretched from pole to pole of her hide lodge.

I wonder if they change her dreams?
 Adria thought, before an even simpler curiosity occurred to her. She saw the old man’s beard at once, hanging from a branching of one pole just as it did from the trees — a green moss which, when pulled apart, proved bound together with a white filament. She found pine rosin in a wooden container among many in a simple chest Shísha also used as a table.

The rows of small clay vials were another matter. There were two dozen of them or more, and Adria had to open a number of their wax-coated stoppers to discover those with the right smell. She closed her eyes each time to concentrate, and imagined each vial with a flower or plant blooming from inside.

Rosemary…
 
juniper
…
 
wormwood
…
Some she did not recognize, but the violet flowers of lavender seemed to sprout right up out of their vial and into her nose. The marigold of her imagination, when she found it, sat beautifully near the lavender, a little lower, just beside.

By the time she returned with these, Shísha was carefully scooping wax from the top of the water. The comb seemed to be melting, sending billows of light yellow blobs to the surface. Shísha leaned in closely over the pot, so that Adria could not tell whether she smelled the wax, heard it meet the surface, or even felt the wooden spoon tap against it somehow. Without distracting, she lifted a smaller clay pot beside her and raised it before Adria. “Fill this with water.”

After the wax was separated, Shísha cooked down the old man’s beard, and then rearranged the pots so that the larger held water, and the second was placed inside. While Adria stoked up the fire and added more wood, Shísha added the ingredients into the smaller pot and cooked them together while the water boiled, eventually forming it all into a thick paste.

“What is it called?” Adria asked finally, as Shísha poured some into a bed of leaves, then bound it together with twine.

“I don’t know.” Shísha shook her head, then gave the bundle to Adria. “This is for you to carry.”

“Then… what is it for?”

Shísha waved dismissively as she began cleaning her pots. “Burns. Rashes. Cuts… it is good for any wound. All the Runners carry some, and many a Hunter. Your skin has taken fire this summer. This will cool the worst of it.”

All the Runners
… Adria smiled and again foolishly nodded her thanks as she took it and put it in her pack. “I hope my skin will not burn so readily this next summer.”

There was more Adria wished to ask, but Shísha waved her away. “Go and see that Mateko helps with the meal, or if that boy ate all of our honey.”

“Ka, Lichushegi…” Adria smiled. “Perhaps he is already sleeping like a bear.”

“Tell me of Shísha, Uncle,” Adria began the next evening when she had a moment of quiet with Preinon.

Preinon nodded. “What do you wish to know?”

“How did she…” Adria thought. “How does she know me? I mean… she asked me to perform a task, but how did she know I was nearby? Or Mateko, for that matter… And how does she speak Aeman?”

“You have a lot of questions tonight, Lilene, but I think that those are questions for her.”

Adria nodded. “I see.”

Preinon nodded as well. “You know Mateko?”

“Yes,” Adria said simply.

“He is a Runner,” Preinon continued. “Newly named. Very young for it, but he shows great promise, even wisdom. It is no wonder you should meet.”

Adria wasn’t certain she wished to talk about this, so she only nodded again and looked into the fire.

Preinon leaned back onto his elbows to look through the canopy of evergreen and up to the stars. The fire nearby was over-warm — Adria, still unaccustomed to sleeping out of doors, was allowed a place near the flames, so she did not awaken shivering, as she had the first night.

Adria also leaned back, and named a pair of constellations that could be seen. “Amos, the mountain bear...” she pointed. “Mana, the basket of the gods, which bears their perfect fruit.”

Preinon chuckled, and took her hand, and traced different shapes with her finger out of similar stars. “Yakseanitáo, Valley-Keeper,” and over… “Watemichaechi Súsha, Whispers-of-Smoke.” He let her hand go, then patted the top of it as it settled on her stomach. “They are ancient Ancestors of the Aesidhe. Yakseanitáo watches over the People of the lowlands, protecting them from floods and famine and keeping the trees from falling to flame. Watemichaechi Súsha collects all our prayers from the Spirit Helpers, and delivers them to the Ancestors to answer.”

Adria had always wondered that the Aeman still named constellations, even as the old gods were mostly forgotten in favor of the Sisterhood’s. These Aesidhe myths felt much the same as those. No one bowed down and worshiped these stars, Aeman or Aesidhe, nor paid tolls in their names.

Still, the Aesidhe were quite reverent, even ritualistic, though somehow none of it seemed to make Adria feel angry. She did not feel controlled by it, as she did by Taber and the Tenets of the Sisterhood.

When she had first been asked to give a prayer among them, she had done so in Aeman, nervously and without real focus. And still, those in the circle had welcomed it, though very few had understood, and it was in the tongue of their enemy.

For now, it is enough to give voice
, Preinon had explained afterward. 
The proper words and the proper gods are unimportant. It is enough that you speak, and that you share your heart with those around you. The prayer will find where it needs to go.