Secrets of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 3) (12 page)

"Bailey, are you all
right?" he called up to her, several feet below and grunting as
he climbed.

"Don't you worry about me.
Race you to that big branch up there!"

She sniffed and blinked the
tears away. She kept climbing, clinging to that memory of home.

She slung her arm across a
branch as wide as a normal tree's trunk, pulled herself up, and stood
upon the beam. She wiped her brow and paused for a moment, catching
her breath. This branch was as high up as the Watchtower's
battlements back home, and she had climbed only a small part of the
tree. The wind rustled the branches and leaves around her, and she
dug her fingers into a crevice on the trunk. She looked around her,
gasping at the view.

"Oh, Winky, it's
beautiful."

He was struggling a few feet
below, trying to reach the branch, but his fingers only skimmed the
purchase. "A little help?"

"Not now! I'm admiring the
view." A smile spread across her face, and her braids fluttered
in the wind. She had flown upon a dragon, but that had been in the
night, and she had seen only stars and shadows. She had never been so
high up in daylight. She could see for a dozen miles in every
direction from up here. A hundred other titans grew around her, and
between them spread the canopy of the lesser trees. The rainforest
covered the land, rolling over hills and valleys, undulating like a
green sea in the wind. The escarpment rose to her left, a great green
shelf. Upon its distant western facade, she thought she could see a
waterfall. Birds flew below her, mist floated, and—

"Bailey!" Torin
grunted below her, pawing at the branch. "Can you just . . . a
hand?"

She groaned and rolled her eyes.
"Oh, you baby! Fine." She leaned down, grabbed his wrist,
and hoisted him up onto the branch beside her. He wobbled for a bit
and clung to a higher, thinner branch for support. They stood
together upon the limb, most of the titan tree still above them, the
rest of the forest rustling below.

"Now this is how you admire
a forest," Bailey said and nudged Torin with her elbow, winking
as he wobbled and clutched the branch. She pointed westward. "See
those bulges rising from the trees on the horizon? I reckon that's
the temple we're seeking."

She had to squint to see them;
they still lay a dozen miles away, rising upon the edge of the
escarpment, overlooking the valleys below. From here, she could see
only gray shards like boulders protruding from the greenery. With
many roots, vines, and fallen logs to impede their progress, she
thought it would take another two or three turns to reach the place.

"They might just be rocks,"
Torin said, squinting at the distance.

"Rocks that size? No.
Whatever is rising there is massive, the size of palaces. That there
is our temple. That's where we'll find the clock's missing number."
She turned to face him, grinning, and mussed his head. "We're
almost there."

He nodded. "Good. Now that
you've had your little look-around, can we climb down?" The wind
gusted, and he winced and clung for purchase, his feet wobbling upon
the branch. "I'm dizzy."

Her grin only widened further,
and she tickled him. "You know that's only encouraging me. Come
on—higher! We've only climbed about a third of this tree, and I want
to reach the damn top. I want to stand on top of the world, Winky.
Follow me! I dare you."

She hopped, for an instant
touching nothing but air, and grabbed a branch above. She slung
herself up and kept climbing.

She had climbed several more
feet, scurrying over branches like one of the marmosets, when she saw
the rope ladder.

She paused, tilted her head, and
narrowed her eyes. She had seen no civilization since entering the
rainforest; most of the Nayan folk lived miles north from here along
the Sern River, their fabled cities of stone thriving on fishing and
trade. Gingerly, wondering if this was only a mirage, she reached up
and touched the rope ladder with her fingertips. It swung and felt
real enough.

"There's a ladder!"
she called down to Torin. "I'm climbing up."

"Wait. A ladder? Bailey,
this could be somebody's home. Should you just barge in?"

But she was already climbing,
the wooden rungs smooth against her palms. The ladder took her
through tiers of leafs and mist. Branches crisscrossed above, forming
a lattice, seeming almost unnatural to Bailey, as if folk had guided
and shaped the branches over centuries. The rope ladder took her
between a wreath of branches and past a carpet of foliage.

She brushed aside leaves and
gasped.

"Oh merciful Idar . . .
it's a village."

She laughed softly, climbed
higher, and stepped onto a flattened branch. She gaped, the smile not
leaving her face. A staircase coiled around the titan's bole, and
many shelves sprung out around it like mushrooms, holding tents and
huts. Branches spread out from that central pillar like spokes,
flattened to form roads. Rope bridges and ladders swung between them,
forming a web more complex than the most masterful spider could
weave. Between these branches swung hammocks, and even little
huts—made of twigs and leaves—rose like great, woody acorns. Water
flowed through wooden pipes, pots of herbs hung upon ropes, and
vegetable gardens flourished upon ledges. The village spread up and
down in a hodgepodge.

"A village in the sky . .
." she whispered.

The villagers bustled across the
tree, climbing ladders and stairs, crossing bridges, tending to
gardens, and lounging in their hammocks. Bailey had seen the soldiers
of Naya's northern tribes before, burly men and women clad in tiger
pelts; they knew the craft of metalwork, and they wore armor of iron
and bore cruel spears. This southern, treetop tribe seemed a simpler,
gentler folk. They wore clothes of leaves, and beads hung around
their necks and arms. Their skin was pale, their hair red and wild,
braided and chinking with bone clips and beads. Their eyes were
bright green. Bailey saw no metal here, no weapons, no fire; it was a
tribe lost to time, a tribe living like the most ancient men when the
world had still turned.

Two villagers—young boys clad
in leaves—saw her and pointed and chattered to their elders. More
eyes turned toward Bailey, and soon a hundred villagers came swinging
down ladders, leaping between branches, and racing down wooden stairs
toward her.

"Bailey, what . . . "
Torin began, climbing to stand beside her. His voice trailed off when
he saw the village.

The children reached them first,
their green eyes so large they looked almost Elorian. With twig-like
fingers, they tugged at Bailey and Torin's silken, embroidered
cloaks, garments woven in the night. They tapped their bits of
metal—belt buckles, Bailey's simple bronze bracelet, and Torin's
dagger—then gasped and whispered amongst themselves. An elder
stepped forth, brushing the children aside. His white hair and beard
flowed down to his knobbly knees, and he wore only a loincloth. He
touched Bailey's cheeks with fingers like gnarly roots, then turned
to Torin and spoke rapidly in his tongue, a tinkly language like rain
on leaves and water on pebbles.

"We're friends!"
Bailey said. "We're from Arden. Friends." She pulled off
her bracelet, a humble circle, and held it out. "Here—a gift
for you."

The elder squinted at the
bracelet, lifted it, and tapped the metal. A grin split his face,
showing only three teeth, and he nodded.

Bailey looked at Torin and
whispered, "Give them a gift too."

"I don't have any jewelry."

"Just give them something!"

He reached into his pocket,
produced a few Elorian coins, and held them out. The elder took these
too, sniffed, tapped the copper, and grinned again.

"Great, we've just
introduced them to both metalworking and currency," Torin
whispered. "We've probably just corrupted an ancient, pure
culture untouched by civilization. You see what your climbing can do,
Bailey?"

"Oh, hush. A bracelet and a
few coins won't corrupt anything."

The villagers grabbed their
hands and clothes and tugged them. Bailey and Torin followed, walking
along the branch, across a bridge, and up another ladder to a plateau
formed of wood, vines, and rope. There the villagers sat them down
upon rugs of lichen, softer and springier than any fabric, and
brought forth a feast. In wooden bowls they served mushrooms and
berries, water scented with flower petals, and—Bailey gasped to see
it—all manner of insects from skewered grasshoppers to wriggling
grubs. The villagers pushed the bowls forth, mimicking eating.

Torin paled as a villager held
out a bowl of grubs. "I'm not hungry," he said, holding out
his palms.

"You're being rude."
Bailey reached into the bowl, picked up a wriggling grub, and waved
it at Torin. "Eat up. We're guests."

He winced. "I'll just have
some berries."

She rolled her eyes and snorted.
"You're worse than Linee." She tossed the grub into her
mouth, forced herself to swallow, then grinned. "See? Delicious.
Tastes like chicken."

Torin looked queasy.

Around them, the villagers
laughed and joined the meal. Bailey stuffed ten grubs into her mouth,
chewed vigorously, then leaned toward Torin and opened her mouth
wide, sticking out her grubby tongue. He turned green, and she mussed
his hair and kissed his cheek, smearing a bit of grub onto him.

Hours went by, it seemed, hours
of eating and drinking, listening to the villagers sing, and watching
dancers perform in wooden masks. Sitting on the lichen mats, Bailey
leaned against Torin, placed a hand on his knee, and rested her head
against his shoulder. She tugged his arm, slinging it around her, and
he did not resist.

"I wish we could stay
forever," she whispered, smiling softly as she watched the
dancers. "When this war is over, we should live here."

"I'd starve to death,"
Torin said.

"Good." She nodded.
"More grubs for me."

After the dance ended, villagers
brought forth skirts of wide, flat leaves and necklaces of wooden
beads. At first Torin only grumbled some more, but with a few taunts
and pokes from Bailey's elbow, he relented. Soon the pair stood clad
in nothing but leaves, their limbs bare, beads around their necks.

When Bailey saw Torin—clad in a
leafy skirt, his chest bare, his expression miserable—she burst out
laughing. "Look at you!"

He grumbled. "You don't
look much better."

Bailey glanced down at her body.
Her leafy skirt hung halfway down her thighs, and thick necklaces of
beads hid her chest. She looked back up at Torin and grinned. "I'm
a beautiful princess of the jungle. And you look more awkward than a
fish riding a horse."

He grumbled and walked along the
branch to the hammock the villagers had given them. "I'm going
to sleep. When I wake up, we're dressing back in our clothes,
climbing off this tree, and moving on."

He entered the hammock, turned
his back toward her, and lay still. Bailey hopped into the hammock
too, landing atop him. The supporting branches creaked and Torin
grunted. She climbed over him and lay facing him, grinning.

"Get your own hammock,"
he said.

She wriggled around and slung an
arm around his waist. She gave his nose a playful bite. "I'm
comfortable here."

"I'm not!"

She shrugged. "So?" A
yawn stretched across her from fingertips to toes. "I'm tired
and going to sleep." She nuzzled against him, swung her leg
across him, and closed her eyes.

Torin sighed. "I can't
sleep like this. Your leg weighs about as much as an elephant, and
your elbow is poking my stomach."

She smiled softly, eyes still
closed, and nestled closer. "Torin . . . do you remember our
armchair back at home? The one by the fireplace?"

After a moment's pause, he spoke
in a soft voice. "I do."

Her smile turned sad upon her
lips. "I've often thought about that armchair. When we slept in
the darkness of night, war and blood around us, I'd try to imagine
that I still sat in that big, oversized chair, and that you were
there with me. I remember how, as children, we'd sit there together,
a book open on our laps. We'd sometimes fall asleep like that . . .
and just spend a whole turn cuddled together, holding each other,
safe and warm by the fireplace." She opened her eyes and touched
his cheek. "Do you ever pretend that we're back there?"

All the harshness and anger
flowed away from his face, and she saw the memories in his eyes. "I
do. A lot. I miss that home."

"I do too. That's why I'm
happy here. Because I'm with you now—climbing like we used to,
teasing you like in the old days, and going to sleep together in a
safe place. Because when we're like this, it feels like home, and I
can feel like a girl again, not like a soldier . . . not like Bailey
the warrior who killed, who bled, who saw so much death. Here I can
be just a girl. And that's the best feeling in the world." She
closed her eyes again, wriggling against him. "Hold me and let's
pretend that we're back there, cuddling together in the armchair,
sleeping in safety."

She felt his hand on her waist,
and she laid her head against the warmth of his chest, and he stroked
her hair.

"You're safe, Bailey
Berin," he whispered. "You're home."

She smiled and she slept.

 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
THE STREETS OF KAHTEF

They walked through the market of
Kahtef, the great oasis city, imagining enemies everywhere.

"Remember, Linee," Cam
whispered, "don't speak loudly in Ardish, and don't remove your
hood. We don't know who might be another Sailith spy."

She walked at his side,
shivering, clad in the oversized cloak and hood of the assassin she
had slain. In a southern land of searing sunlight, not much shadow
filled her hood, and her northern features—green eyes and freckled
cheeks framed with golden hair—seemed as foreign here as a camel
wandering the arctic. Cam had often thought his dark eyes plain, but
here he was thankful for them. With those eyes, his shaved head, and
simple canvas breeches, at least he fit into the crowd.