Tinder Stricken (22 page)

She came to Esha next. Produced a
pocket-cloth and dabbed more blood from her face, and frowned deep
as she pressured that cloth against the still-searing cut.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

With those plain words, Esha
was
ashamed. She laid there hurting as Atarangi guided her hand to hold
the red-blotched cloth in place. And when a flower blossom was
pushed into her stiff-yielding mouth, Esha chewed, though she could
only taste copper.

Atarangi walked away and now, there was
nothing between Esha and the thief bird who stood braced, feet
splayed and feathers ruffled. She glared still. She was a
dishonourable beast who ruined Esha's future and had the nerve to
call Esha the sullied one, but this was all so futile.

Esha tried to speak and couldn't grasp
words. Without Atarangi, she was no force of reason, just fur and
dust and bones.

The balm murmuring of Atarangi's voice was
behind Esha now. She gradually noticed another keening sound behind
her, a thready and gasping one. Rooftop cried, as frightened as a
child but he calmed and went quiet.

Steady-crunching footsteps, and Atarangi
returned.

“Now.” She sat on folded legs. “Try again.
Acquaintance-kin, what words do you have?”

The thief bird's crests shifted, her glare
blazing while she creaked a low and thorny song.
“You asked for
help-green-given. I gave help. You said I could take any-one-thing,
and now you rob my leaf-growing-belongings. Should have left you to
dangle blood-struggling.”

“I— That wasn't what I meant when I said you
could have
anything
,” Esha sighed. She shrouded her eyes
with a hand and regretted ever leaving her dull-flagged home. “You
should have waited for me to say yes, you may have the shining
metal thing. I was in danger! My head hurt! Why didn't you give me
a moment to think?!”

Esha heard only her own heaving breathing
and the wind around her in the quaking leaves.

Then the thief phoenix lilted, a cry that
carried.
“Your orange-rose advice to light the way,
phoenix-kin. You vouch for the kin of Hard-Faced Human
?”

“
I do,”
Rooftop said.

“
Big-Headed Human ... She was confused
and spoke a bad deal. She makes many mistakes. This is
true?”

“
White-reckless actions are common in
humankind. Red calls; falling-grey answers. Forgiveness is a useful
thing to give humans.”

More wind and silence. Esha laid useless as
a cold stone.

“You need the iron tool with the purple-song
flower inside?” Atarangi asked. “You can remove our ignorance. We
can give you food, protection, kinship — what is it you need?”

The thief bird creaked, a wavering song that
passed through the lungta translation as frustration too pure for
words.
“I need many-piled things.”

“Wrong has been done from our kind to yours.
We must fix it. What
is
it you need?”

“
Green-( )-food for my chick,”
the
bird snapped.
“Time enough to grow seeds. Endless-many things to
trade — I don't have enough gather-piled treasures to keep my
territory
mine
!”

“Keep your territory ...? Someone is trying
to take it from you?”

Esha's eyes snapped open: a phoenix could
lose its home, too. Animals roaming the wilds, when and where they
wanted, could still lose any valuable scrap they called theirs.

Through Atarangi's legs, the thief bird
turned a needle of a glance to Esha. She stood proud and ruffled,
and she met Atarangi's gaze to tell her,
“This
mountain-flat-place was aqua-( )-green, before. The ( )-( ) are
seeking-doing to take my territory!”

Esha pushed her lungta toward the
double-gap, toward the phoenix's nuanced voice in her mind's ear.
Stalking
was all she managed to tease loose. The word meant
some hunting beast — but what wild animal would accept a
fine-wrought khukuri for trade?

“And they will take lungta instead?”
Atarangi asked. She wanted more to work with; Esha could hear the
restraint tethering her voice.

“
I need the purple-song. That means I
will not rescind the iron-tool trade, I will slate-hard tear every
puking human face on this mountain-land before I give it.”

A hesitation then, a moment where the air
hung empty between them.

“... I feel maroon-pain for you, my
maybe-kin.”

“
I have rock-grey-sat long enough,”
the thief bird snapped. “The sun sets and my chick's belly
thin-empties.”

Instantly, Atarangi's hands went to her
hidden pocket full of lungta snacks. “My food is your food.”

“
Humans can be kin,”
Rooftop added,
his voice small again.
“They can save a phoenix's spark from
snuffing. This phoenix blood-red-swears it.”

Atarangi laid her damp cloth on the ground,
spread open to show beans and their green-tipped shoots. Then, she
took deliberate paces backward, offering the phoenix free space, as
well.

Keening — like a human might grumble — the
thief bird stalked forward. She flipped the cloth's corners
together with plucking motions of her beak, and picked up the
bundle. With a last burning glance at everyone present, she opened
her wings and flew away. Away to wherever her nest was — and the
gravity pressed hard on Esha now.

She came to Esha's side, crouching to peer
at her throbbing face. “I don't appreciate you inciting brawls, but
it's good that we learned a little more about her.”

Esha put her palms to the dirt and pushed
onto her side, the only direction it didn't hurt to move.

“Having someone to provide for,” Atarangi
wondered, “makes us all desperate.”

“But that one orchid won't fill a pinched
stomach! She's no cleaning servant, grabbing cold rice from the
kitchen! What did she mean, that something is seeking to take her
territory?”

After a press of her lips, Atarangi shook
her head. “I'll need to think about how to put it into human words.
Give me time to steep, Esha. Speaking of that, come on — let's make
some tea.”

Atarangi cleaned the tacky, cold blood from
Esha's face, and put a paste of herbs onto the wound to burn like
splashed cooking grease. Then she wrapped a bandage around all the
other fabric on Esha's head.

“It might scar.”

Esha huffed. “Least shameful mark on
me.”

They sat silent by fire's coals, holding
cups of potent-brewed tea. Esha hoped a revelation would come
quickly but Atarangi stared into the flames like a meditation,
while Rooftop sat on her shoulder and preened with a nervous
intensity. Through the trees, a pig farmer led his snuffling,
grumbling animals past and onward, to forage in the leaves: it was
a glimpse of the ordinary that made Esha feel like a stone statue,
watching life and yet untouched by it.

“It doesn't make any sense,” Atarangi
finally sighed.

Esha regarded her. “You've translated
it?”

“The ones trying to take our wild friend's
territory — she called them ... Our nearest word would be
challenger
. Something that competes with her on equal
terms.”

Esha hummed. “Small wonder that I didn't
understand. More tea?”

“I'd be grateful.” She held out her empty
cup for Esha to take, and ran a freed hand under her mask, over the
hidden contours of her face. “Something equal has its sights set on
her territory, which is why she took your khukuri as a trade item.
It's a bribe, or a payment. Something to give away instead of her
land.”

Brows raising, Esha paused from filling her
own teacup. “So humans are trying to force her out?”

Atarangi bit her lip and released it. “I
don't think so.”

They stood on an edge, looking down into
revelation: even Esha could tell that much. She put the teapot down
so she wouldn't drop it. “What is forcing her, then?”

Lifting empty hands toward the sky, Atarangi
grimaced. “We've got to consider the possibility that she's not
dealing with humans or phoenixes. Maybe another clade of creatures
entirely.”

“
Wild-acquaintance needs kin wind-rising
under her wings.”
Rooftop said. He roosted, neck compressed
into his pillowing feathers but he still watched with alert eyes.
“If she is too hot-red-proud to tell you, I will.
Wild-acquaintance gathers troves of food to pay thinking-creatures.
Not phoenix-kind, not human-kind.”

“Something else? Like what?” Oh gods, Esha's
thoughts ran in her head like molasses, they would have to talk to
pigs, or monkeys, or windsickles, or heavens only
knew
what.

“I'm as surprised as you are, Esha.”

Judging by Atarangi's smile, that was a
filthy lie.

“I were home at the sea's edge – well, we've
got plenty of thinking creatures there. Greatsquid, and whales and
dolphins, and otters. But this far up Tselaya's heights? Magpies
aren't self-destructive enough to challenge phoenixes. Bush
monkeys, the ones living in tribes? Maybe — but they would rather
make off with something they can already see. Wild pigs have no
interest in skybirds. What else is there? The only likely creature
I can think of is ... is water serpents.”

Esha gaped. “Serpents? Are we speaking of
the same thing? The deep-water beasts who make people warn each
other about hollowhearts,
those
serpents?”

“Something like that.”

“They're demons! Aren't they?”

Atarangi waved a boneless hand. “Plenty of
creatures are called demons. Some of them actually are impure
beings. Some are flesh-and-blood just trying to get by. I can't
say, Esha — I've never spoken with a Tselayan serpent myself. I've
just heard of them living in the water below ground, and knowing
what Rice Plateau fills its tiers with ...”

Still, Esha shook her head.

“It's only an idea. Something to turn over
and look at.” She turned to Rooftop. “I know you're bound by
flame's honour, my dear friend. But can you tell us what kind of
creature is demanding pay?”

Feathers rising, he jerked his head — like a
tight-snapped imitation of a human's head shake.
“No, no.
Acquaintance-kin said no speaking about her life-knotting.”

“Mm, it's fine,” Atarangi decided, with a
heaviness like clay in her voice. All we've got to walk on is what
the dealmaker phoenix is telling us. We'll need to talk more with
her.”

“To unravel her troubles? Why get tied into
another negotiation? Just get my khukuri back.”

“I hope it'll be that simple. How do you
manage it, Esha Of The Fields? Selling yams to someone not
interested in buying them.”

Esha waved the question away. “Selling them
isn't my duty, you know that. But— Wait, is that what you're saying
Atarangi? That this is a trouble beyond my expertise, and I should
just shut my mouth and have faith?”

“Actually, I was hoping you knew how to make
a difficult sale. It seemed more likely than you having advanced
negotiation training.”

Esha fell into her memory again, into the
white drifts of time.

“I apologize,” Atarangi said low. “That was
an unkind thing to say.”

With a time-weighted shrug, Esha said, “It's
true, though. I don't have any advanced training. Just two years of
tutoring. Began in my fifth summer. Basic ideas, simple phrasing
patterns to use when asking for things we wanted. What it means to
have respect, and show that respect in polite speech. And we began
learning to see another's viewpoint in my eighth summer. The
scholar said it was like looking at another mountaintop away in the
mist and thinking about if we were standing on that mountaintop,
how cold the wind might feel. Or perhaps that mountain would be
warm instead. I thought about that a lot, for a while.”

“That day the scholar spoke to you: was just
before you changed castes?”

Esha gave a shard of a gone smile. “The day
before. That was the last aphorism I was given, the last coin in my
hand. Think about how warm the wind might be if I were somewhere
else.”

“Think on this,” Atarangi told her. “The
dealmaker phoenix has cold winds of her own to endure. You're
right: we should try not to be dragged into someone else's debate.
But I don't snatch and run, Esha. That's a fine way to make
enemies.”

Sighing, Esha nodded. “I'll cut fuel for
you. I can do that without needing to walk overmuch, and without
opening my mouth. Just have to watch out for hollowheart bamboo ...
“

Atarangi hummed her agreement. With a last
glance run over Esha, a glimpsing of the things buried in a
sun-worn woman, Atarangi slipped into her bedroll and faced the
dark wall of her tent.

Rooftop shifted on his bony feet, looking
more alone than he had all day. He tipped his head at Esha. In the
firelight, his gleaming eyes nearly seemed to understand.

“Rooftop,” Esha said, soft as shadow. “Come
here.”

He obliged, stringfeathers a dragging murmur
on the grass, warmly relief in his fanning crests.

“When I pulled that tick off my leg and gave
it to you ... Is that what made you decide that we were
friends?”

He chirped, crests low to his head.
“Food
tastes good when human hands are feeding me. But it is more
flushed-yellow than that: kin share.”

“What if ... What if I share a meal with
her? We gave her a phoenix meal but ... we've got a Grewier meal
ready to be made.”

Rooftop reached out ginger, to take Esha's
sleeve and tug it with a gentle beak.
“That would be a
warm-light beginning.”

Chapter 14

When they next boiled a pot of breakfast
millet, they boiled extra and laid it out to cool, and topped it
with curried cabbage left out of the reheating pan. Wild phoenixes
hated to burn their mouths, Atarangi said: even Rooftop liked his
food better lukewarm.