The leader whined, thin and hoarse. The others resumed their aimless self-circles. Dark clouds kept skimming Tokela’s gaze, sloe flecked with shards of blue-white.
Like the skin of the t’rešalt.
Tokela listed sideways, stayed in the tree only by virtue of his self-made fetters. Tried once more to blink away the lingering sparks.
But n’da, even the creatures below were plagued with the things. The leader’s brindled fur seemed alive with pale flicker-flies. Tokela found himself staring, hanging limp with bark scraping his face and neck. Beneath his refuge the predators squirmed, swerved, bit at their haunches.
The strange drone came closer, filling his chest; contrarily, it hoisted Tokela back into his own senses. Clearly a voice this time, a deep drone hinged in an unmusical fashion that nevertheless suggested talk being made, But even Matwau, the tall ones who traversed Sea to trade with People, didn’t speak so harsh.
Harsh or no, it held a Power akin to taleKeepers singing over solstice Fires. It buzzed at the base of Tokela’s neck and spine, an itch impossible to scratch.
The predators fled. One heartbeat they were there, and the next, vanished.
Save, of course, the dead one.
Silence hung in the canopy. The undergrowth gave a rustle. A voice boomed through the silence.
Tokela tried to move, draw his knife… something! Yet he could only loll against the branch, a hide and grass doll blinking scum from his eyes as this new unseen danger stalked him.
Oddly enough, he found himself clinging to the strange new voice. Even if he didn’t understand a thing it said.
The thicket shivered, parted. Tokela blinked rapidly, finally beheld a scrawny, colourful figure progressing on absurdly long legs. It seemed unfinished—or perhaps unfed. Tokela couldn’t see the two-legged’s face, but a pale mane squatted in tight curls atop its head, unbound and unadorned. And…
And it must be the poison, cloaking his thoughts so they refused to stay with his body; wandering, justifying, nattering like little Kuli about inconsequentials whilst the poisonous ebon haze heeled him.
The figure came to a halt below Tokela’s refuge and looked up, and the breath knocked within Tokela’s chest.
The face he’d drawn… or enough like it as not to matter. His own fears, mirrored in an alien gaze. Shapers. Ghost-eyes.
Chepiś.
Its skin had the same Sky-sand hue as Brother Moon’s face. Its eyes were only a shade darker, with no normal spark of darksight even in dim shadows.
How did they see?
“Be eased, little one.”
Either he was starting to imagine things, or the Chepiś was making a mangled attempt at Commingling-talk.
“I shan’t eat you, though you were wise to not give these predators such trust.” The Chepiś gave a nudge with its foot to the slain creature, nodded upward. When Tokela merely hung there, blinking, the Chepiś made an expression with its face. It seemed a smile, though it could have been a snarl.
Tokela wasn’t sure how to respond. Or if he could.
The Chepiś laid a hand on the bow tree, gestured again. Again, it seemed friendly, almost earnest. “Come, little ghoteh. You’re safe enough now. Yes?”
Go-tay? Yas? Nothing in Tokela tempted him to obey what talk he did understand. That it kept calling him “little” wasn’t encouraging.
And he was going to be sick.
He tried to rise, could not. Tried to slide back, could not. His free arm fell from the branch—and surely it did so slowly enough for him to halt it, but all Tokela could do was watch it fall, recoil, then hang, swinging limp and nerveless as a dead thing. He blinked down. The visage of the Chepiś seemed to float and waft below him, like the palest of Brother’s Moon’s siblings…
Then it slipped and folded itself into the ebon cloak, taking the light and Tokela with it.
4 – Madoc
“I almost didn’t recognise you, sister-son! Eh, you’ve decided you won’t be waiting for your changing to grow tall?” Palatan’s greeting teased, yet all the while his eyes scanned the gathering; from Madoc’s eager face and over the Mound-People, then lingering with a frown upon Chogah, then to Aylaniś herself, questioning. Where is Anahli?
Of late Aylaniś had no good answer. She tilted her head, making a quick scan of the Bowl within the Great Mound. No horizon here—and treeKin could disguise many things.
Madoc was laughing, a delighted response peppered with breathless questions fit to outdo Kuli, who kept trying to interrupt. But Madoc kept his composure in one fashion—his manners—and pitched his queries in polite talk a’Šaákfo.
Madoc’s father had a quizzical frown upon his face; a middle-aged male a’Naišwyrh had sidled up to murmur in his ear. A message of some import, from Sarinak’s reaction.
“N’da, horse-chieftain, I’ve not yet seen Anahli.” Inhya’s decorum showed where Madoc’s had been patterned. Yet Aylaniś had never seen Madoc’s exuberance reflected in Inhya; even as ahlóssa had her Spirit tended grave. Dark eyes narrowing, Inhya furthered, “My other son, Tokela, is absent as well.”
“Trouble travels in pairs, like Brother Moon’s siblings,” Aylaniś offered. “Perhaps our two have found each other and are comparing possibilities.”
Hopefully that was all they were comparing, what with Anahli’s unseemly interest in the few things disallowed oških. Across Grandmother’s belly, with the rich variance of tribes and customs, some things were often agreed upon: for one, the right to court opposites had to be earned.
Another burst of laughter from Madoc. The set of Inhya’s mouth turned from forbidding to fond.
Aylaniś spoke to that; much easier. “Palatan is right: how Madoc has grown! He will have his indigo soon.”
“Too soon, a’io?” Inhya’s dark eyes met Aylaniś’, who took the offered opening and touched her spouse-sister’s arm. They’d little enough in common, but a dam’s heart-longings made for easier agreement.
“He will be the only get of your body.” Chogah slipped into their conversation like grease upon water.
Aylaniś didn’t dignify it with so much as a glance. Inhya stiffened, towering over Chogah’s hunched form. Flawlessly polite, Inhya gave an upward tip of chin to acknowledge a guest, if
