“Do you not have Clan-greeting for our guest, sister-son?” Nechtoun chided. “This is Galenu a’Hassun.”
Ai, now Tokela remembered. Finding his voice, he made the requisite polite gesture. “Galenu stone-chieftain, my father’s uncle.”
“Tohwakeli a’Naišwyrh, my nephew’s son.”
“He is Tokela, here.” Nechtoun admonished, then furthered, “Galenu doesn’t visit often, yet he is my oldest, dearest, and most contrary friend.”
“Oldest, a’io, but which of us is more contrary?” Galenu’s eyes were coloured a mix of Earth and Sky, they smiled when his mouth did. He spoke to Tokela, a clipped talk that also seemed familiar, then mirrored Tokela’s frown. “Do you not have your father’s talk, nephew?”
Spoken slower, the syllables began to untangle and make some sense.
“I… I do,” Tokela replied, deliberate. “I mean no offence, my uncle. It has only been long since I’ve made it.”
“Hunh.” Still irritated, though Galenu’s eyes softened. “Long indeed! At least five summerings since last we saw each other. I barely recognised you.”
Tokela’s smile flashed, genuine and pleased.
“Galenu is like to you, Tokela.” Nechtoun reached out, gave a fond bump to Tokela’s jaw with one knuckle. “He spins tales fine as any learned storyKeeper. Sketches curst likenesses, though thankfully you’ve learned better.”
Tokela’s fingers twitched, remembering the dusty smears upon the wykupeh flooring.
“The only curse upon a likeness”—Galenu’s tone was mild, remarkably unthreatened”—is in your relentless denial of their wonder, you old stoat.”
The insult curled fond, obviously one of long standing; Tokela discarded it as the rest of Nechtoun’s statement penetrated. He blinked, peered at Galenu with new interest.
“Tokela?” Madoc’s voice echoed, close. “Tokela, you let me pull ahead ag—!” Bursting through the foliage, he stuttered to a halt, voice and body. “Uncle Nechtoun!”
Some Sun, Tokela sighed, Madoc might learn how not to give a game away.
Sure enough, Nechtoun smelled trouble. “And what are you up to now, Madoc chieftain-son? Thinking to sneak into the cooking dens while we’re at Council?”
Madoc’s eyes flashed to Tokela, who gave a tiny nod.
“A’io, Uncle!” Madoc agreed, all too eagerly.
Tokela rolled his eyes.
Nechtoun leaned in, even more suspicious. “Is that so?”
“You tell stories, eh? Perhaps you’ve a few to share with me.”
The voice was soft, making Tokela start; he’d forgotten Galenu. The midLander’s eyes were lit with humour.
“I’m one of several storyKeepers amongst my own People, nephew.” No chariness in the talk. Tokela knew the sound of that all too well.
“Take care, sister-son.” Nechtoun growled at Tokela even as he tugged Madoc closer by—of course—his braidlock. “Galenu is a midLands layabout of some questionable influence. Makes trade with outLanders. Even keeps company with that feckless wyrhling I sired.”
Madoc, squirming under Nechtoun’s hold, shrugged as Tokela shot him a questioning glance.
“Come now, old stoat, ‘that wyrhling’ has a name.” Galenu was grinning. “Your Clan makes trade with wyrhling and yakhling, who in turn trade with outLanders. What’s the difference? It’s good business to keep all options open.”
“You think overmuch on business. And I dislike what name the old one bespoke upon the wyrhling.” Nechtoun grimaced, then mumbled further, “How like him, to flaunt it.”
“Didn’t Tohwakeli used to follow Našobok about?” Galenu spoke both names deliberately. “Rather like Madoc in his turn. May sweet water and shade follow your path, Madoc chieftain-son, as well as you follow your older cousin.”
Madoc reciprocated the greeting as much as he could with Nechtoun’s fingers still holding his braidlock.
“Shall we take these ahlóssa to find food before we—”
“I’m not ahlóssa!” Surely Tokela hadn’t intended to growl so; neither could he bite it off. Nor could he lower his gaze; it met Nechtoun’s, held.
Nechtoun blinked at Tokela for several heartbeats. A frown quivered between his greyed brows. More, his mouth tugged, small and sideways, and kept on tugging until it became a smirk.
A fond cuff from Nechtoun was normal. Nechtoun growling at him was normal. Nechtoun smirking at him was not even somewhat bearable.
Tokela’s cheeks heated. He was aware of Galenu watching, which just made it worse.
“A’io, then,” Nechtoun released Madoc, but directed his talk to Tokela. “Stay or go, your choice.”
It was only after Nechtoun turned away and ambled into the tree cover that Tokela realised the smirk had not been ridicule, but grudging respect.
“What was that about?” Madoc wondered, rubbing at his pate.
“I’ll be here for a few Sunrises yet,” Galenu offered, soft, to Tokela, before he followed Nechtoun into the trees.
IF THE old one is a little Fish, that one is a little Shadow, here then—sst!—gone!
Sivan had thought of little else on the journey home, spent a sleepless night beside Maloh and rose early to spend the morning pondering. Now, feet and arms bare, settled in a shaft of sunlight upon the wide entry stair, she waited, hardly noticing the beauty around her, thinking of shadows.
Indeed, that beauty was deliberate as everything else in their surround. The stair beneath her curled from clay-tamped path, to cobbles, to the high, living walls, sculptured from wood that nevertheless glittered, a silvery craquelure wherever sunlight struck. Yet even the Temple disappeared, here and there, into poisonously green tangles and creepers. The jungle always encroached, creeping across the bounds despite any engineering to the contrary.
Sivan could no longer remember when her father’s fiefdom had been named the Temple, after the buildings where the ephemerals prayed to whatever gods were fashionable at the time. Well, the ephemerals of the first-landing continent, at any rate.
Little Shadow, here then—sst!—gone!
And like shadows, so many of the ephemerals’ temples were crumbling, their builders’ short attention spans frittering to some other deity or purpose. Her father’s palace stood, tenacious and triumphant not through misguided worship of nonexistent hopes, but the realities of a biotechnology that had remained substantial.
Even despite a world’s uncanny insurgence.
Sivan heard her kin riding down
