Tinder Stricken (39 page)

“That— That doesn't sound like her,” Esha
said.

The Atarangi she knew would stand among the
shaken, and offer her hands, and her words. Maybe arrive just when
Esha's thoughts summoned her, or when Rooftop voiced his panic.
Something must have drawn Atarangi away; Esha knew what had that
kind of power but she couldn't grasp the concept in this moment,
through all the noise and motion and her guts' throbbing. She only
knew Atarangi was gone.

Sureness ground his teeth dismayed.
“Assurance: this one would welcome Water Light's presence.
Contradiction: we Deeplings cannot wait. Our Abyssal
suffers.”

“
The Abyssal has never shook so badly
before,”
Nimble was chittering.
“Statement: never before!
They must be suffering.”

“Nimble,” Esha mumbled, “get the orchids to—
to someone.”

“Admonishment:“ Sureness replied, his
clicking vibrating through his barbels and his powerful chest,
“this one must rest. Precious One may be honoured with a request
for further strength.”

Whatever that meant, it weighed Esha's mind
further, weighed her past translation. She only laid there,
listening to serpent teeth and the distant hum of shifting
earth.

She walked hunched into the Abyssal's
chamber some hours later, head throbbing but surely not as dire as
the Abyssal's. Sureness and Nimble wound by her sides. All of them
needed to show further honour by assisting with the operation: Esha
was sure she wasn't translation that word correctly, or
specifically enough, but the spokesman serpent had stopped
scrutinizing her with every gaze and she had no will to ask
questions with.

Another dozen of serpents slithering ahead,
like a blue-dappled river with stars winking in it. The chamber was
still large as sky, full of the Abyssal's patterns of finlights.
They moved in steady flux: the Abyssal laid still but its lung
fronds still laboured at the air.

The entering serpents took their places on
evenly spaced moss beds; some slithered confident to a place they
remembered, others moved slowly, choosing, discussing. Sureness
guided Esha with a ropy tug on her arm.

“
Statement: that one did well to provide
medicinal petals for this operation. Directive: assist the
physicians by aiding their chewing, Precious One, and you will
further afix good faith to serpent/human relations.”

“
Assurance,”
Nimble clicked eager,
“Truth will be written long-form about Precious One. Additional
possibility: once you prepare herb for physicians, there may also
be a poem.”

Her presence a block used to found a better
life. Her name spoken in years to come — as a memorable
poem,
no less. That thought was enough to bolster Esha and
wind her hands tight around her pestle.

They were given glass bottles of water, and
instructed to pour it over their barbels. Since humans didn't have
barbels, the venturers decided, Esha's hands would suit the
purpose. She washed, trying to place the pungent scent of the
water: it was laced with something that wasn't vinegar but smelled
like a close cousin.

Everyone in the chamber washed clean and
returned their bottles, which disappeared with a symphony of
clicking and clattering in the dark.

Then a summoning toothtap rang out through
the chamber. The spokesman serpent stood tall on his coils, fins
and barbels spread wide — and it surprised Esha with toothtap she
could understand.

“
Greeting: welcome is bidden to all
present. We extend gratitude for your presence this day, and for
the gift of your strength.”

Rustling rose in the crowd, a wave of
questioning frillsign.

“
Apology: this speech of mine is crude.
Basis: One of our herb-workers is Precious One of Human Triad. With
that one's assistance, we deeplings acquired surface botanicals
containing powerful lungta. Ergo: for Precious One's ease of
understanding, we make this request. Speak toothtap whenever
possible for the duration of this operation.”

Esha couldn't remember the last time she had
been so relieved — or so honoured.

“
Addition:“
Sureness clacked
loud.

Bodies twisted, placing all eyes on him.

“
Two phoenixes aided the acquisition of
those botanicals. Ceiling of Human Triad, and also the landholder
phoenix, Clamshell — a delinquent in the past, now redeemed to us.
Statement: the phoenixes' worthiness must not be forgotten. Caveat:
they only lack the physical strength to prepare physicians'
herb.”

The spokesman tucked his fins humble.
“Statement: let record and memory show this amendment. Now, we
begin.”

Serpents came along the rows with silver
platters of herbs. Esha was given something scaly and richly
purple, no doubt more valuable than all the yams she had planted in
her lifetime.

“
Query:“
Sureness asked her,
“that
one's lower-legs are troublesome, but your upper-legs are
strong?”

“I think so. I've dug fields with these
hands for more than thirty years.”

Sureness paused.
“Statement: that one
looks ideal for this task. Long limbs, adequate muscle mass ...
This one holds confidence.”

“Affirmative!” Nimble clicked.
“Statement: Precious One cuts bamboo into ( ) units using
primitive tools. That one is considerably robust!”

Tired though she already was, Esha
smiled.

It was a slow beginning. Someone dropped a
vividly purple lichen in Esha's mortar; Sureness advised her to
wait. Physician serpents stood gathered near the Abyssal, braiding
and unbraiding barbels in a movement too steady to be called
fidgeting.

She watched aides milling around the
Abyssal's enormity. They applied salves, and spoke nurses' words,
and tucked things into the Abyssal's compliant mouth. One serpent
looked especially intent, holding barbels to the Abyssal's face
right below a glassy eye, bent with concentration.

Esha rubbed at her neck. The headache was
crawling downward.

Suddenly, the intent serpent looked up.
“Command: ( )-sleep has begun. Commence operating.”

And the physicians all burst to action,
taking pulped herb from a stone table, swallowing and darting quick
as falling rain to the Abyssal's head. Some held glinting tools in
their barbels; some didn't; all of them were suffused with light
like their finlights were spreading, and that light leaked into the
Abyssal with every flesh-parting touch.A muted lungta sound filled
the chamber, like the lull in a forest's wind.

There was no blood that Esha could see. Her
stomach flipped anyway and she focused on grinding.

Attendants circled the rows, bringing herb,
taking herb, offering water. Flower-speckled pond weed was dropped
into Esha's mortar, then tsupira, then something she didn't
recognize at all but it was spongy and resilient under her pestle.
Esha threw her back into the crushing. Sureness and Nimble worked
circular beside her; serpents shook with effort all around.

She couldn't work fast enough to calm her
racing heart. Serpents' bellies hushed against stone and tools
scraped against lungta plants while and the surgeons shone with the
rattling power of their magic.

While waiting for her lichen mash to be
collected, Esha chanced another look at the procedure. The
Abyssal's head spread open like a cut cabbage but still nothing
bled, nothing oozed: the physicians scooped around an outline that
must have been a serpent. The many-personed Abyssal was having
persons removed.

The material Esha had to grind became more
resistant, more fibrous. Her heartbeat was thudding in her ears and
drinking water only made her stomach roil. Keep going, she told
herself. This was important; this was beyond herself.

The Abyssal thrashed — one snap of their
body length, familiar in a gut-deep way that scared Esha. Surgeons
clicked hurriedly and slithered over one another, placing their
lungta-lit barbels. The Abyssal shivered, and stilled.

Time kept moving like sludge. Attendants
took mashed plants from Esha and gave her never-ending
replentishments.

Something rolled in her wobbling vision.
Esha looked up sharp — fearing someone falling, tripping — but it
was a dark body supported by several straining surgeons. They had
removed a serpent entirely. Whoever they were, they were limp as
death: aides wrapped the body with pond weed leaves in the
plant-grinding silence.

Esha looked back to her mortar bowl. Stringy
mushrooms laid there, needing her muscle effort. The headache
roared louder; her neck echoed it.

She tried to watch the operation but her
vision wouldn't move where she aimed it. She wanted to push on her
tools, wanted to grind one more batch of physician's herb but the
pestle wasn't sturdy enough to lean on.

The next thing Esha knew, she was slumped on
the pestle with her heartbeat rattling; her nose shrieked where she
had hit it. Esha tried to place her arms underneath her, tried to
rise but barbels gripped her under the arms and picked her up,
gathered her up like a child.

“
Query: you are ill?”

It must have been Sureness. Esha couldn't
tell past the swimming of her senses, but the serpent was strong
and his toothtap came rapid and worried.

“I just— I lost my strength all of a sudden.
I'm sorry.”

“Statement:“ he clicked, “Precious One needs
assistance. We must forfeit.”

She wondered if she would be cut open like
the Abyssal, if there were broken parts or goat-infested pieces
those skilled serpents could excise from her. It was a thought that
wafted on wind: in Sureness's grasp, feeling her bones throb, Esha
could only let the goat come.

Chapter 25

In the days that followed, Esha laid on
piled moss with Rooftop's feathered body curled under her arm.
Serpent faces drifted over her, their fins pinned back with
worry.

“This is how humans shift— how we
transcend,” Esha told Sureness and Nimble one day. She couldn't
open her eyes: the right one had blurred and trying to see through
it made her stomach roil even worse. She laid there, face up in the
darkness, and stroked Rooftop's neck. “I'm near the tipping point,
I think.”

“
Query: humans transcend into ... other
creatures?”

“That's right. Mostly furred beasts.
Sometimes birds. I'm going to be a goat, a four-footed meat beast.”
She yanked in a breath. “G-Going to eat gumgrass and climb the
cliffsides. On these hooves.”

A barbel laid on her forehead. Maybe
Sureness's, maybe one of the kind-clicking nurses, Esha couldn't
say. She swallowed, and went on.

“Humans become ... less complicated animals.
When we change. I suppose no one transcends into phoenixes, then —
or serpents. I never thought about it before.”

“
Query: you don't have long?”
Nimble
chattered
“Dismay! This one wanted to share more food gardens.
And see the great libraries, and the waterfall chronicles. And the
orchids! Statement: two orchids were left unused by the Abyssal's
procedure. They are wilted from the skylight air, but I believe
they will recover.”

“You got my care and growing directions?”
Bravery had sat by Esha's side for a day, documenting everything
she could remember about temperature and air flow and soil
aeration.

“Affirmative. Engineers have installed light
stems—“

Which Esha knew as hollowheart bamboo.

“—for the sole use of that flower species.
We Deeplings will devote study to it; our physicians will benefit,
surely.”

Ordinarily, keeping the orchids swathed in
moisture was the most difficult part. But in the care of serpents,
growing by pools and passages and water seeping down cave walls,
that would be less trouble than keeping soil dirty. The Kanakisipt
orchids were rooted in a new garden and they didn't just belong to
nobles anymore. All serpents within Tselaya mountain would be
helped by these few plants. It was a warmth that shone in Esha's
chest. She only wished Atarangi could share in it.

“You found my digging spade, Nimble? In my
things?”

“
Query: you wish to hold it?”

“No, no — keep it. It might help you aerate
that sesame plant, or ... I don't know, yams or something. Gods
damn it, I wanted to show you everything, Nimble.”

“I can teach them to grow yams,” Rooftop
creaked soft. “You showed me; I remember.”

“Good. Good.”

They went ahead and learned to plant yams
while Esha was present in herself, and while the yam from her
packed things was still viable. Nimble and Sureness planted slices
of it in a wheeled basin, under Rooftop's attentive eye. Such a
ridiculous sight it was, those enormous serpents bending to pat
yams gently into soil beds with their fins spread with
concentration. It cheered Esha even as her right eye's vision went
muddy, then dark, then muddy again.

The serpents brought her a glass mirror.
Here was the goat eye Esha had been dreading, a stranger's shade of
brown with an oblong pupil. The pupil looked wherever she aimed it.
The goat eye was well and truly hers.

She wasn't scared anymore; she simply didn't
have much time.

“Thank you,” she told Sureness, giving back
the mirror with her hoof-hobbled fingers. And to Nimble, she said,
“There must be more I can show you. Have you ever grown
lentils?”

Rooftop was all too glad to help. He left
and returned with his stringfeathers laden with morsels, dangling
straight down while he flew, and sacks in his claws as well. And
with him came Clamshell and her chick — fledging now, a few
siren-bright feathers poking out of his brown motley.

“
Brought leaf-food to the
watersnakes,”
Clamshell told her.
“Also
red-long-berries.”