Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) Read online

  The main room held three different seating areas, each with a good amount of open space between them. One had two long chairs that faced each other, with single chairs flanking either end. The fabric, oddly for such a room, was plain and serviceable, as it was on all the seating. On either side of the single chairs were small tables, big enough to hold a tumbler and perhaps a small bowl or two but nothing more. The other seating areas were smaller: a set of five single chairs in a circle with a round clearstone-topped table in the middle, and a set of three chairs in a triangle, each with a small wooden table between them. The smooth walls were painted the pale-green of contentment, like many of the rooms I’d seen in Chimbalay. I thought a truer choice would have been the bright-green of pride.

  Larta took a seat at the five single-chair setup and gestured with her chin for us to sit.

  “Kelroosh wasn’t due at Chimbalay again until after First Warmth,” she said. “What brings you here early?”

  Azlii shrugged. “As you said, things have changed. And not all for the better.”

  Larta set her elbows on her knees, her chin on the ledge of her two fists.

  Azlii leaned forward, as if to speak, then sat back. The blue-red of anxiety blossomed on her neck. She leaned forward again and tucked her hands between her knees.

  “The truth is, Larta, I need a favor. A large one. Kelroosh is nearly out of food. We managed to secure some at Grunewald, but we’re going to need more soon. I need to barter with you.” She looked up. “I hope you have some to spare.”

  I focused my gaze on Azlii’s throat to see if her neck showed shame at having stolen the food at Grunewald, at lying to Larta about how we got it. There was nothing more on Azlii’s neck than a couple of spots lit with the purple-gray of concern — for her sisters in Kelroosh, I thought.

  Larta laughed. “Corentans! Such misplaced pride. We have our differences of opinion, Azlii, but I count you as a sister. I’ll send word to our doumana in charge of foodstuffs. You’ll have what you need.”

  Azlii blew out a breath. “Our doumana in charge is called Binley. Tell me where to send her and she’ll be there.”

  Larta tapped on the slim textbox she wore at on her left forearm — just above her age dots — then turned back to Azlii. “Tell me what other news you have. Communications with other klers and the communes have been spotty since the incident with the energy center.”

  I looked down at my feet. Everything we do has repercussions, mostly ones we don’t guess at ahead of time.

  Azlii told her about the two communes we’d visited. “Wall says it’s been in contact with the structures of Jeldish corenta, and they tell similar stories of the communes they’ve visited. They’re stuck, the commune doumanas. They need to make decisions but can’t; they’ve forgotten how.”

  Larta straightened her back and nodded. “It’s been different here, too. There’s an odd discontent. I feel it in the streets. You know I’m no empath — if I’m aware, it must be as thick as paste in the air. Some of it we brought on ourselves when we invited a few males to stay in Chimbalay. You wouldn’t think that would make a difference, that they’d be just like doumanas but different looking, but they’re not like us at all. They stay shut up in their own little world, rarely venturing out. When they do, it’s such a rare sight that doumanas stare at them. Then they jump back into their hidey holes again.”

  “If doumanas hardly ever see them, what difference does it make if they’re here or not?” Nez asked.

  Larta sighed. “They’re different. They make music all the time, and their neighbors complain. I’ve heard it and I don’t blame them. It’s loud and raucous, not pleasant at all.”

  “They look so delicate with their bird-like hand and slender chests,” Nez said. “You’d think they’d make music like wind across reeds.”

  Larta shrugged. “But really, it’s not the males. It’s something else. Something indefinable. Doumanas argue at the granaries and distribution centers. We used to be happy with what we had. Now this one wants what that one has, and that one wants something else again. We’ve had theft. Theft! Can you imagine? Not from need, but out of greed. In all the time I can remember, we’ve had maybe three or four shunnings in Chimbalay. Now we have at least one a week.”

  “Why would our sisters want more than their share?” Nez said. “What good is more than you need?”

  I wondered if the problems in the kler had the same origin as the problems in the communes but had a different effect here.

  “There’s no hand at the fire any more,” I said. “Now doumanas see possibilities, too many possibilities, and they want as many as they can grab. It’s a kind of madness.”

  Larta tilted her head. “What we need,” she said, “is the return of the powers.”

  Eleven

  “Not the lumani,” Larta said, smiling at the massed gray-red spots of shock that sparked on Azlii’s and Nez’s necks. “No one wants them back. But there seems to be a need for some sort of centralized planners, some centralized control.”

  “To decide what colors fabric should be dyed?” Azlii scoffed. “Not a job I’d relish.”

  A story Azlii had told me bubbled in my memory. “It’s like in the Before. When the lumani came, they made chaos. To end the chaos, doumanas and males were willing to give up their old lives and be ruled by the Powers — accepting anything to have stability again.”

  “Except corentans,” Azlii said.

  I nodded. “Those who wouldn’t bend to the new order gave life to those who are corentans now. Those who did bend became kler and commune dwellers. But that’s not the point. My commune-sister, Thedra, once said we’re like flocking birds. We want a leader to follow. Even corentans want that. Larta is right. We need a return of the powers.”

  Silence stretched out in the room, so complete that one without eyes would believe the space empty. I let it linger, giving my sisters the time they needed to reason it through. I thought about Simanca, who had no problem making the decision to lock me in the root cache like an errant preslet, even though I’d agreed to stay at Lunge. She wanted to make sure, I suppose. And, since Azlii planned to steal me back, Simanca had been right, in a way.

  Was Simanca’s firm and cruel decision the other side of the rock from commune leaders who couldn’t make a choice about anything? Did Simanca, with her love of The Rules, believe that with the lumani gone there were no rules at all? Or maybe the rules now were whatever she wanted them to be. If she felt that way, there were bound to be others who did too.

  “Maybe,” Nez said finally, “something more like a school, to teach doumanas how to make these decisions for themselves.”

  “Run by corentans,” Azlii said, “since we seem to be the only ones who know how to make up our own minds about things.”

  “Trah,” Larta said. “I doubt you’d find many kler or commune doumanas willing to take lessons from corentans. You aren’t all that highly thought of among certain segments of the populations — and by that I mean nearly everyone who isn’t corentan.”

  Azlii’s lips crinkled. “Set-placers are bound to be jealous of those who live free.”

  Larta rolled her eyes. But I wondered if there was more than a little truth in that. From the brief time I’d spent in Chimbalay I knew that kler doumanas looked down on commune dwellers as ‘laborers’ and that corentans did think less of ‘set-placers.’ Commune doumanas had their own prejudices against both kler and corenta dwellers — thinking the first one spoiled from a too-easy life and the second only slightly more sane than a babbler, and with thievery in her heart.

  “What you need,” I said slowly “is a council formed from the three ways of living — kler, commune, and corenta. Maybe two or three from each. A council of equals that can sort out problems and help set us all in a new direction for our new lives. The council can meet here, in Chimbalay, at least at first. Maybe later meetings could rotate among sites, so no one feels slighted.”

  “Pftt.” Azlii flicked her wrist. “Y
ou think kler and commune doumanas even think that way? Seems to me they only want someone to tell them what to do.”

  Nez’s throat colored brown-purple. “Who is sitting here with you now? Two kler doumanas and a commune doumana who risked everything not to be told what to think or how to live.” She leaned forward, more spots lighting as her anger and indignation rose. “I’ll tell you something — we are not that unusual. You think everyone who isn’t corentan happily moves through her life without thought, mindlessly obeying her leaders and The Rules? What arrogance. There would be no shunning if no one ever went out of step. There would be no inventions, no change — but there are. There would be no leaders or Firsts, but every commune and kler has them. That we find joy in serving our community and our sisters doesn’t make us mindless; it makes us purposeful.”

  Azlii rubbed her chin. Two spots lit greenish-orange in amazement, surprised by Nez’s outburst, no doubt. “I go by what I see. If every doumana is so singular in her thinking, explain what we saw at Two-ling and the weavers’ commune — why those doumanas could not make the most simple decision on their own?”

  The bright hues of Nez’s emotions faded on her neck, but didn’t wink out. “Some of us have a harder time making decisions. That doesn’t mean doumanas can’t be found who could serve well on this council.”

  I liked that Nez was worked up, the colors bright on her neck. She had held in too much for too long. I’d thought Nez was at peace with what had been done to her, but saw now that she was simply better at hiding it. Nez and Azlii were both right about doumanas in general — but Nez was more right, I thought. I remembered Hwanta, at Lunge commune when I was younger, who raged against her Returning, and Pradat, thwarting the lumani in her own quiet way. And Larta with her secret allies — Nez, Mees, Inra, and others — plotting with Azlii to drive out the lumani long before I’d met them. And Tav and Thedra, choosing to stand against Simanca.

  My neck warmed, thinking of Tav. Of watching the bright shine of her life force fade.

  Larta had kept her eyes on me the whole time Nez and Azlii were talking, her look as sharp as ice. “What you need,” she said, her voice harsh, leaning forward and peering at me.

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘What you need,’” she said. “As if Khe, herself, were outside what is happening in our world. But you should be on this council.”

  I shrank down in my chair at the enormity of what I had suggested. This council would be responsible for leading the doumanas toward a new way of living. So much could go wrong. There were so many opportunities for error. I didn’t know if I could live with the responsibility — not after the hardships I’d caused with the destruction of the lumani.

  “Nez and Azlii maybe. And certainly you, Larta. But not me.”

  Not me, because I was not soumyo any more, not a member of our kind at all. I had no right to make decisions when my thoughts were now as much lumani as anything else. I was not to be trusted.

  Azlii rubbed her hand over her skull. “But it should be you, Khe. And Nez. You two are in unique positions, commune-emerged and kler-emerged but living for the last year in a corenta, you have a feel for both. I can’t think of anyone else who can more or less straddle all three.”

  “Besides,” Larta added, “it was your idea. You should be responsible for its execution. Easy enough to be full of ideas if you don’t have to be the one implementing them.”

  A new thought struck me.

  “What about the males?” I asked. “They must be running into the same problems. Shouldn’t they be invited to have their say?”

  Azlii and Larta looked at each other, and both shrugged.

  “I suppose so,” Larta said

  I could see they were uncomfortable with the idea — males being nearly as foreign to us as the lumani had been. But my sisters would try, and that was what mattered.

  Larta stood. “There’re things I have to go and take care of. Please, stay here tonight. We can talk more later, and tomorrow.”

  It felt like a fresh breeze had just blown into the room, pushing away the heavy air that had weighed on our shoulders. No one wanted to go on with this talk just now.

  “I’d like to go to Hatchling House Four,” Nez said, “to see my sisters.”

  Azlii pulled herself to her feet. “I’ll go with you. I’ve missed Mees, and her cooking.”

  “The lumani had Justice House built,” Larta told us at morning meal the next day.

  Nez and Azlii, so long on partial rations, kept spooning in the vero and barely looked up. Larta had my full attention, at least.

  “All of Chimbalay was built to their specifications,” she said, “but Justice House, Energy Center, Research Centers One and Three, and a few other places, they designed and had built specifically for themselves, not for doumanas. I guess that’s why the rooms are so large. And why there’s a little energy center built into the top floors. I don’t know what they did here, but it’s nice for us.” The faint orange of embarrassment showed on her neck. She drained the last of her drink, got to her feet and went to refill her tumbler.

  “Larta doesn’t need to be embarrassed that she’s in this fine building,” Nez said.

  Azlii tilted her head a bit to the side. “What makes you think she’s embarrassed?”

  “Color came up on her spots. Faint, but certainly there.”

  “Not that I saw,” Azlii said. “I don’t think she’s embarrassed at all. I think she thinks the grand surroundings suit her.”

  Corentans were supposed to be more sensitive to the subtle colors that showed hidden or suppressed emotions. That was why kler and commune doumanas wore collars when they went to the corenta to trade, so even the subtlest hues wouldn’t be seen.

  Larta returned and settled herself in a chair.

  “How did you wind up here?” I arced my arm to indicate the room and, by extension, Justice House.

  Larta ran her hand over the top of her head. “After the explosions, when the energy center was nothing but ashes, clearstone shards, and twisted metal, the doumanas here were fearful. Could it happen again, in some other part of Chimbalay? How did they know the lumani were really gone? What if they weren’t, and wanted revenge?

  “Doumanas were afraid to leave their dwellings, in fear that something even worse might happen. Nothing was getting done. As First of the guardians I organized patrols to walk the streets all day and all night. I wanted doumanas to be able to look out their windows and have a pretty good chance of seeing a guardian patrol passing by. I sent in ‘kind persuaders’ to bring doumanas who wanted to hide in their dwellings out and to their assigned work. If Chimbalay didn’t function properly, things would get bad in a hurry. I even got in touch with the next corenta due here and convinced them to come early. I wanted a pleasant distraction for the doumanas, to take their minds off what had happened and to show them that life was still as it always had been.”

  Except that it wasn’t, I thought. Life in Chimbalay would never again be as it was.

  “No one trusted the doumanas who’d been associated with the Powers,” Larta said, “especially orindles, technicians, and those who’d spoken on the lumani’s behalf, so doumanas started coming to me with little problems. It began to make sense for me to be at Justice House full time. It was odd. No one wanted anything to do with the doumanas who’d worked with the lumani, but everyone wanted to keep coming to Justice House to solve their problems, just as they’d always done.”

  “No one blamed you for what had happened to the energy center and the lumani?” I asked.

  It hadn’t been our wish to destroy the energy center. The lumani had chosen the site, shutting themselves inside to devour the power they consumed as we did grains and fruits. The energy center made the final choice, helping us destroy the lumani, though it meant destroying itself in the process. But the doumanas of Chimbalay didn’t know that. How could they when they had no sense that structures could make their own decisions?

  Larta pressed
her lips together and then blew out a long breath. “You got the blame, Khe. You and Azlii — the strangers. The ones who weren’t of this place. You two were seen running from the energy center as it exploded. Pradat and I were running, too, but no one thought anything about that. A good number of doumanas were running for the gates that night — nothing odd about Pradat and I being in the crowd. But you two, any bad thing that happened must be your fault.”

  I glanced at Azlii, and laughed. Her neck showed the bright-green of pride. Larta saw it, too, and rolled her eyes.

  “Somehow,” Larta said, picking up the string of her story, “I wound up basically in charge of everything. I don’t like it, but I’m a guardian; it’s my duty. Whenever I find a doumana who seems particularly good at overseeing some aspect of the day-to-day running of Chimbalay, I put her in charge and follow what she’s doing by reports. I can’t wait to find enough doumanas to be rid of all this extra weight.”

  Azlii gently touched Larta’s throat, then sat back.

  “Let’s start with numbers for the council,” she said. “How many?”

  “Six seems right, two from each community type,” Larta said.

  “Twelve,” Nez said. “Don’t forget the males.”

  Larta laughed under her breath. “I did forget them. Twelve, then.”

  “What about Khe?” Nez asked, and they all turned and looked at me.

  I reached over and stroked her neck. Her skin was warm with emotion. “No, Nez. Because…” I turned over my arm so that my forearm faced up, “I could Return tonight, or tomorrow or next week.” I felt a stone form in my chest. “Commemoration Day is only weeks away. I’ll be fortunate to see the Council’s first meeting.”

  Every spot on Nez’s neck burned with the pale-blue of despair. A deep silence settled over the room.

  Azlii cleared her throat. “We’ll have to narrow things down some. We don’t have the luxury of time. I say, two from Kelroosh, two from Lunge commune — don’t frown, Khe. Thanks to you, Lunge is now second in prestige only to Grunewald, and who knows what’s happening to those doumanas since they scattered to the hills? It has to be Lunge. And two from Chimbalay.”