House of Reeds

Can't go left here, she thought, considering the glimpse of the city skyline. But if I did, I could squirt Magdalena all the mapping data in this comp…and check in. My dear sister is probably chewing her tail in worry.

The clomping sound of heavy, leathery feet made up her mind. The Jehanan outside was climbing the stairs. Gretchen flattened against the carved wall and tried to make herself perfectly still. A shadow blotted out the dim light from the doorway and then a blunt-horned Jehanan shuffled past, weighed down by a leather bag bulging with square-edged objects. Through slitted eyes, Anderssen watched the creature disappear down the hallway, and then breathed again when the long, angular shadow vanished.

Vastly relieved, she slipped down the stairs herself and out onto the terrace. The smoke-and fume-tainted Takshilan air felt brisk and clean after the motionless funk inside the hill. She glanced around the terrace and was puzzled to see quite a bit of earth had been turned near the low retaining wall facing the sprawl of the city. Odd gardener who isn't planting something… Maybe he was just weeding. Or harvesting. Or burying something to ferment. Or…

Ducking behind one of the thick blue-green bushes, she clicked her comm awake.

'Maggie? Can you hear me?' Gretchen whispered, though she was sure no one was within hundreds of meters. 'I've managed to get outside.'

We have you on camera, the Hesht replied, sounding relieved. Your locator just popped out of its hole. We're glad the mandire have not boiled the skin from your skull for a drinking cup.

'Good.' Anderssen's goggles had darkened to shade her eyes from the sun, but she could see the apartment tower clearly. The whole western face was blazing with reflected sunlight, capturing the swollen red disc of Bharat in a long puddle of molten gold. 'I'm bursting you all of the mapping data I've collected so…urk! '

A spade, smelling of earthworms and freshly turned soil, lifted her chin.

Gretchen looked up, swallowing, into the grim face of an enormous Jehanan. The creature's dark eyes seemed to spark with rage, and then the pebbled skin around the eyes tightened and the shovel shifted away from her neck.

'Hooo… You are a curious digger, aren't you? How did you get up here?'

At the same moment, Gretchen heard Magdalena say: Parker has the creature targeted with a spare rangefinder. Raise your hands if you want it blinded so you can run. The Hesht's voice sounded eager, and Anderssen could imagine the big black feline crouching in dimness under brambleberry bushes, claws flexed, waiting to pounce on an unwary truelk. She turned her head slowly, hands pressed carefully into the loamy soil.

A brilliant red dot was dancing in a handspan-wide circle on the side of the creature's head.

'Your pardon,' she said slowly, amazed Parker's hands were steady enough to keep a bead on such a tiny target at such a distance. 'We need not quarrel. I have trespassed, but I will leave immediately, without making any trouble.'

'Oh ho, will you?' The Jehanan stepped back, squinting at her, and Anderssen realized with a cold feeling of shock that she knew the creature. 'And if I think you should meet the Master of the Gardens, then what will you do?'

'This will seem odd,' she said, shrinking back into the cliff, trying to leave Parker as clear a shot as possible, 'but each time I get lost in this city, I find you. Aren't you Malakar the gardener? You were meditating by the blue shell, down in one of the neighborhoods below.'

The creature's nostrils flapped open and there was a buzzing hum of sound. 'Weak eyes do not deceive,' the Jehanan said, cocking her head to one side. 'You are the Disturber-of-Forgotten-Things – the one with such hungry thoughts. Now – hoooo – what would you be hungry for in this dilapidated old house?'

'Isn't this the oldest building on Jagan?' Gretchen kept her hands down. She could hear Magdalena breathing over the comm link, and the red dot continued its frantic little dance on the creature's scaled hide. 'I wanted to see for myself.'

Malakar's eyes, still nearly entirely in shadow, glinted. A long, clawed finger extended, pointing at her vest and belt. 'Your little machines, they sing of this old shell? Tell its age? Even if no one living could swear such a truth?'

Gretchen nodded slowly. 'Sometimes. If the object is made of the proper kind of material. Wood or metal are best. Do you have something you would like me to test?'

Malakar regarded her for a moment, seemingly puzzled. 'Hoooo – when last we met, you could not properly speak without moving your foreclaws. Now you keep them to the ground. Odd and odder yet. Have you been injured?'

'No. I'm -'

Don't tell it anything! Magdalena whispered on the comm. Just let Parker flash it, and then you can get out!

Gretchen sighed, looking down at the ground and taking a breath. For all her bluster and menacing shovel, the Jehanan did not feel dangerous. Not like it couldn't just wrench my arms out of their sockets or bite my head off.

'Don't shoot unless I'm actually attacked,' she whispered into her jacket collar.

'What do you say?' Malakar leaned close, eye-shields half-lidded against the glare of the sun. 'There are only bizen-grass shoots there, no one can…' The native grew still. Gretchen looked up, meeting wide green irises. 'Hoooo…This old one is not imagining being watched by distant eyes? My old hide is itchy, as if a xixixit hung in the trees above a quiet lawn where I lay sunning… Am I too old, my mind troubled by phantoms? Tell me, hungry soft one, tell me if I suffer night-fears while my eyes are open?'

Gretchen shook her head before realizing the creature might not grasp the cue. 'My friends are watching us from the fin-towers. One of them has a weapon aimed at you. If you try to harm me, he will kill you before you can reach the tunnel.'

'Hooo…' Malakar settled back on her haunches. 'Quick of eye and sure of hand, this friend. A long reach across eight pan to scratch my hide.'

'A machine – a weapon – firing an explosive, hide-piercing shell,' Anderssen said, squatting comfortably. 'Though in truth, you might lunge and strike me down as quickly as he can act.'

'Then we both end, hungry-thoughts, leaving only an unexpected feeding for the yi birds who roost on the crumbling shell of this house.'

'I do not wish to feed the yi birds,' Gretchen said in a serious tone. 'Not today.'

'No one ever does,' Malakar allowed, a deep trill echoing at the back of her throat. 'They are often hungry and must eat of the bitter naragga. Then here we sit, trapped as HГєnd and Gukhis were above the fiery pit, each unwilling to loose claw from claw and so save themselves.'

'Are you compelled to keep me here? Why not let me go?'

'Hooo… Could such an old, wrinkled hide as mine take the punishment the Master of the Garden would mete out for letting an asuchau human tread these sacred halls? Oh, my eye-shields would bleed for such an affront!'

Anderssen peered at the Jehanan, wondering if her translator were working properly. Something very much like cynical bitterness echoed in the words. I don't think this old creature cares overmuch for the 'Master of the Garden'… 'Then let us make an equitable exchange – I will do something for you, and you will help me, poor lost human that I am, find my way home. As you did before, which was very gracious of you.'

'As I did?' The gardener blew a mournful note with its nostrils. 'Gracious? You are oiling my scales like a short-horn wishing mating privilege! Hooo… I was not cracked from the shell to be impolite. A lost hatchling is everyone's business to see home safely. But you…you and your little machines…can you truly tell the age of a thing?'

Gretchen nodded, trying to hide a relieved smile.

Don't trust it… Magdalena muttered in her ear. The khaysan drifts in the river, pretending to be an old scratching log, waiting for an unwary kit to come all thirsty to the water…