The light faded, and for a time he could hardly make out her shape. With every step, he grew a little bolder. He could actually study the cat now without anxiety overpowering all his sense.
“Where are you leading me?” He felt ridiculous talking to a cat and even more so when she didn’t reply.
The pathway finally opened up, and Tahki found himself in a room where natural lightning roots glowed in the dirt walls. Something glinted in the light. He saw a handle, dark wood, and iron bolts.
A door.
He rushed to it and tugged, but it didn’t budge. With a sigh, he backed away. The door looked massive, the rings the size of his chest. Tahki swallowed. He didn’t recognize the room. A stone pool with black water sat in the middle of a wide, circular floor. The ceiling looked twenty feet tall.
He was standing inside the black gates.
A low moan escaped the cat, and Tahki turned just in time to see her body collapse onto the ground. Light faded from her eyes, and she went still. Tahki watched her a moment, and when she didn’t revive, he turned to the black gates and tried tugging again, frantic to escape before she woke. He pulled and twisted and pounded on the wood with his fist.
“Rye? Dyraien? Anyone? Let me out! I’m down here!”
A low groan came from behind, and he turned toward the black pool. The water inside boiled, and he watched in horror as eels twisted their bodies into an oily knot. A shiny black hand emerged from the bubbling heap, then a head, then a body, and legs.
Tahki dropped Rye’s boots and shirt and slid his back against the gate, caught between fear and fascination. He wanted to run down the tunnel, but he couldn’t move. The figure twisted, its body convulsing as it emerged. Its arms extended, stretched upward, and then it became deathly still.
“You…,” a soft, breathless voice called. “You are….”
Tahki swallowed. His entire body trembled. A scream inched its way up his throat, but he couldn’t get it out.
The figure bent forward. “You are… a moron!”
Tahki stared, not sure he heard right.
The black water drained away to reveal a young woman no older than him. Her skin was bronze, almost golden, her hair white as cloud marble. Her naked body radiated beauty. It took his brain a moment to realize she had spoken Dhaulenian.
“Well?” the woman said. “Are you just going to sit there all day shivering like a naked dog-rat?”
Tahki didn’t move.
The woman rolled her eyes. “I thought Nhymiicha would have raised you better.”
Hearing his mother’s name broke his fixation. He slid his back up the gate but didn’t step forward. “Who…. What are you?”
The woman made a sour face. “Your brother wouldn’t waste time with stupid questions. He’d ask something smart, like, how did you possess that cat’s body? Why are you stuck in that filthy black water? How do you keep your hair so nice and shiny when you’re dead?”
Tahki stared. “Dead?” His religion taught him spirits were real, but he’d never believed it. He’d never really believed in the gods, either, yet just moments ago he’d prayed to them. “You’ve been the one haunting me? Attacking me?”
The woman pursed her lips and blew air at him. “Piscgiia!” She used the word to describe a small, hairless rodent that infested the slums of Dhaulen’aii, an insult commonly shouted at disrespectful children. “You were the one who attacked me.”
Tahki’s hand moved to his chest where the cat marks throbbed lightly.
“Oh please,” the woman said. She spoke with large sweeping motions of her hands. “You always have to make it about yourself, don’t you? Here I am, a dead woman, kidnapped from her home, tortured and sacrificed, and you still make it about you.”
Tahki’s back stiffened. He had no idea if he should feel afraid or insulted or tricked. “How do you know my mother’s name?”
The woman put her hands on her hips. The eels in the water thrashed around her legs. “Tahki.” She said his name the way an upset parent might. “I am your great-grandmother.”
Her words didn’t shock him. His brain had already been shocked enough, like when you keep hitting the same tender spot on your elbow and it eventually goes numb. But he averted his eyes, because if she really was his great-grandmother, he didn’t want to see her naked.
“Piscgiia, you’re such a prude. That’s your father’s side of the family,” she said. “Your mother’s side always welcomed free skin.”
“Stop calling me piscgiia,” Tahki said. He glanced back at her. “What do you want from me?”
Her face softened a little. “I want you to listen to me. I need your help, Tahki.” Her desperate tone made her less frightening.
He remembered his mother painting their family tree on a giant wooden canvas. The finished product had been hung in his parents’ bedroom. Tahki used to lie on their bed and study the names. He pictured the tree now and mentally followed the black branches on his mother’s side: His mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. He saw her name in his mind.
Niivrena. Her name was Niivrena. He remembered his mother calling her Nii, but all she’d ever told him about her was that she’d vanished without a word when she was young. His father told him Nhymiicha’s family had always been flighty and unpredictable. They were people who spoke to the sands
