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

  Pradat had slowed her movements, was taking a very long time to consult her instruments and record the results. The brown-purple of exasperation showed briefly on Jonton’s neck, a flash so minute that had I not been looking at the exact moment I wouldn’t have seen it. I wanted Pradat to hurry, too. Jonton would take me to Nez, Azlii, and Larta — I felt sure of that. I wanted to be with my sisters. I needed to know they were safe.

  Pradat seemed to have run out of stalling tactics. She slowly flipped the switch on first one and then another of the light-focusing machines, turning them off. She consulted her palm instrument again, before she began removing the tubes from my arms.

  “I’ll need to see her tomorrow,” Pradat told Jonton. “At this point in the treatment, a follow-up is critical.”

  “Of course.” Jonton nodded to the helphands at the door, then turned her attention to me. “I trust you appreciate all that Pradat has done and is doing for you.” She let that sink in a moment, her eyes boring into mine, then put her hand lightly on my elbow. “You must be anxious to talk to your companions. We’ll take you to them.”

  The two helphands fell in beside me as soon as the door shut behind us. Jonton and Pradat walked ahead. I saw Pradat’s unhappiness — the colors swirling through her — though I wasn’t sure what caused this emotion. Nothing showed on Pradat’s neck, any more than the excitement I saw in Jonton showed on hers. The helphands, though, were about as private in their feelings as hatchlings. The bright-blue of excitement glowed on their skins.

  What would my neck show if my spots still lit? I wondered. Nerves. Anticipation. Curiosity. Anger. My neck would display more colors than the sky during Resonance, when the air shimmered with the hues we followed to our mating grounds.

  We traveled a long, white hallway — white floor, white walls, white ceiling — the color of satisfaction, another emotion I saw swirling in Jonton. Her ease made me all the more anxious.

  At the end of the hallway a door, blending so well with the wall that I didn’t spot it, irised open with an almost silent whoosh. A set of stairs lay behind it.

  Azlii, I sent. They’re bringing me below ground. Where are you now?

  An empty room, she sent back. Not so empty, actually. There’s the three of us and six helphands, each with her neck glowing orange-red.

  Orange-red. Anticipation. Jonton had a surprise planned. A surprise everyone knew about except Azlii, Larta, Nez, and me. I couldn’t tell if Pradat was unhappy because she knew what was coming, or because she didn’t. I didn’t know if the faint thumping I heard coming from beneath our feet had anything to do with the helphands’ excitement.

  At the bottom of the stairs another well-hidden door irised open to reveal another hallway. Greenish-blue, the walls and floor of this one — the color of amazement — and freshly painted. This building may have been built to lumani specifications, but the paint was doumana-chosen. The lumani hadn’t seen colors the way we did, and they didn’t understand the colors emotions sparked. Why would doumanas want this underground place to evoke amazement?

  Another door opened and my sisters were ushered into the hallway with us. I wanted to run to them and stroke their necks. I could see the same urge in them, but the helphands nudged themselves between each of us, keeping us apart while we followed Jonton forward. The faint thumping sound grew louder.

  And then I knew why greenish-blue had been chosen. Behind the last door, in an all-white room, was an incredible machine — twice my height and so wide that if I held hands with my three sisters and we stretched out our arms we would not cover its face. Dials and levers on a panel nearly as big as I was glowed in the darkened room. I heard Pradat gasp, and saw that this room was as much of a surprise to her as it was to me.

  “We found this after the lumani were destroyed.” Jonton’s outline gleamed with the bright-green of pride. “At first, no doumana would admit to knowing what the machine did, or how to work it, but of course there had to be those who knew. The lumani were clever, but without hands they couldn’t control any machines themselves. They had to have help. First to build it, and then to make it work. Eventually we found them here, a sisterhood so secret that once they’d entered this structure, they never left it again and were shown on the rolls as Returned.”

  “What is it?” Nez asked.

  Jonton grinned. “Something amazing. Did you never wonder why our planet was blessed with seasons that came at exactly the same time each year, with perfect weather for the crops that grew in each region? Every year, the perfect amount of rain, at the right time, the perfect amount of sun.” She swept her arm toward the machine. “This is why.”

  Azlii stepped forward and stretched one hand toward the machine, her fingers stopping just shy of it. She waved her hand back and forth, as though the machine could be read through the still air between it and her fingertips.

  “A weather machine,” she said.

  “Very good.” Jonton clapped one hand against her thigh. “Developed after a disaster with the weather-prophets.”

  Disaster was the right word — a failed try at breeding weather-prophets that only succeeded in making babblers, like Marnka.

  “It must have been quickly and recently done,” I said. “The disaster only happened ten or twelve years ago. Every year since then our weather has remained the same.”

  Jonton sent me a sharp look. This was information I shouldn’t have, and I was foolish to have let it fly from my mouth. Thinking of Marnka had made me angry over what had been done to her. Had made me remember what she’d told me about the true history of the weather-prophets.

  Jonton’s gaze dropped to my neck. My spots should have been lit, and she seemed pleased that they weren’t. Her own neck was again lit with three dark-red-blue spots of curiosity — colors she must have allowed to show. I was going to have to watch my words more carefully.

  Jonton’s eyebrow ridges rose, then relaxed. “It was quickly but well done. The doumanas who tended the machine for the lumani had little to do other than make sure things kept running as they were meant to.”

  “Pftt,” Azlii said. “They must not have done a good job, given all the unseasonal rain we’re receiving.”

  “They did a fine job.” Jonton reached up and stroked a dial as though it were a sister. “The lumani were clever, but we orindles are cleverer. After the lumani were gone it was we who reasoned out how the machine worked. We who brought the rain.” Her gaze cut across each of us, one by one. “This is why the orindles of Chimbalay must be in charge of rebuilding our world. None other have the intelligence and the resources.”

  “You’d better stop the rain now in that case, before the ground is too wet for planting.” Azlii leaned slightly toward Jonton. “You do understand that wet soil will rot the seeds.”

  “I would have expected that comment from a commune doumana like Khe,” Jonton said. “I’m quite surprised a corentan knows so much about crop growing.”

  “Corentans know quite a bit about many things,” Azlii said.

  “How does it work?” My voice was small, but the spike of curiosity was huge in me. I was desperate to understand. It was a lumani desperation, a need for knowledge, like a need for air.

  Jonton lifted her hand again to the dial. “Let me show you.” She pressed a dial, and turned her back. All we could see were her elbows and upper arms moving as she did whatever she was doing. She turned to face us and swept her arm toward a long clear reservoir built beside the wall closest to where Nez stood. The machine whirred softly. I caught a whiff of a scent in the air that I couldn’t place, something unpleasantly sharp.

  The reservoir began to lightly cloud as a few drops of moisture fell into it.

  “It’s raining outside now,” Jonton said.

  Larta laughed low. “It was raining yesterday, raining this morning, raining when we arrived. Why should now be different?”

  Jonton nodded. “But not like this.” She turned her back to us again, moving more levers and dials, I supposed.
I leaned to the side and lifted to my toes, trying to see over Jonton’s shoulders to what she was doing, but she hid her movements too well. I sidestepped to get a better view. One of the helphands grabbed my upper arm and pulled me back.

  Water began flowing into the tall reservoir, at first just a couple of finger-widths at the bottom, but then like into a bucket when the tap is turned wide. A hand’s-breadth of water. Half an arm’s worth. Fingers to shoulders. Foot to waist. Water that had pinged in at first now tumbled into the reservoir.

  The room seemed tinged dark-gray, but the lights were bright above and around us. It was my sisters’ worry I was seeing on their necks, in the air. Jonton turned, and her throat was washed bright-green with pride and white with satisfaction. Her happiness angered me. Hers wasn’t the sort of happiness that would have turned her neck crimson, but a different sort of joy, something without a name or a color. Something too ugly to deserve a name or color. Something smug and ambitious that didn’t belong in any doumana.

  Her lips crinkled and she fiddled with the dials and levers again. The water filling the reservoir began to slow. Finally it topped off at a spot above my head. The reservoir was as big around as I was. I tried to gauge how deep that much water falling on flat land would measure. I couldn’t figure it exactly. I didn’t have that sort of mind. But I knew enough to guess that when we walked out of here to return to Justice House the puddles would be deep.

  “Remember what you’ve seen here today,” Jonton said. “Tell your sisters what the orindles can do.”

  “What you can do,” I said.

  Jonton smiled.

  She looked toward the helphand closest to the door, then turned back and began to work the dials and levers again. She could be turning down the rain to let us walk back dry, or turning it up, to make sure her lesson struck home with us. I couldn’t guess which.

  I glanced around the room, wondering where the low moan I heard came from. A low rumble followed the moan. Nez caught my eye and two spots lit with the dark-red-blue of curiosity. I touched my ear hole, wondering if she heard the sounds too, but she raised her eyebrow ridges and shrugged.

  A louder rumble caught everyone’s attention, but it passed quickly.

  The helphand waved her hand over a small indentation on the wall. As the door began to iris open, the floor beneath our feet buckled. The helphand at the door cried out. A piece of the ceiling, as big as a hatchling’s head, crashed near my feet. Larta grabbed my arm and we tumbled to the ground together.

  Fifteen

  Jonton wobbled and stumbled the few steps to me, the ground still shivering lightly beneath us. She closed her hand around my wrist and pulled me to my feet. Larta sat up and rubbed her leg where a chunk of fallen ceiling had hit her. A couple of helphands bustled Nez and Azlii out of the room. I pulled free of Jonton’s grip and crouched next to Larta. She’d tugged off her hipwrap and was using it to mop up the blood leaking from the gash on her leg.

  “Are you badly hurt?”

  Larta’s neck showed the gray-green of disgust. At herself, I guessed, that she, the First of the guardians, charged with protecting the doumanas of Chimbalay, was the only one injured.

  She wadded up the soiled hipwrap. “I’m fine. Now help me up.”

  I stood and held my hand out. Larta gripped it and helped herself up, using me as a counterweight. When she let go I slipped and knocked against the machine. I heard a loud whoosh, like steam escaping, and smelled, oddly, the same, sharp ozone scent of Weast. I jumped away, though the machine didn’t feel hot to the touch.

  Jonton grabbed my arm and tugged me further from the machine.

  “What?” Larta asked.

  “This room’s integrity might be compromised,” Jonton said. “The structure technicians will say when we can come in here again.” She pushed me toward the door, but not hard. “We need to get you out of here, Khe, before more ceiling falls.”

  Why was she so anxious to get me out? Shouldn’t she have said ‘you both out’ or ‘we all need to get out’? But it was my name she used, and me she nudged toward the door.

  Larta caught it too. “Do go. I’ll hobble on behind as best I can on my own.”

  Jonton gave her a hard look but called to one of the helphands to come to Larta’s aid.

  Outside the room, technicians had arrived and were already examining fresh cracks in the greenish-blue walls of the hall. As soon as we were out, three techs in black hipwraps picked up the kits they’d set on the floor and hurried into the room. The door irised closed behind them.

  “We’ll return to the receiving room to talk further,” Jonton said, and sidled past the techs, helphands, Nez, and Azlii who stood between her and the stairwell.

  Back in the receiving room, Jonton didn’t invite us to sit or offer refreshments. She herded Azlii, Larta, Nez, Pradat and me together, and dismissed her helphands.

  “You’ve heard what I have to say.” Her voice was quiet and calm, her eyes focused on me alone. “You have seen what we can do. Some of what we can do. There’s more. Much more. In time, once the orindles have moved to a position of bringing order, we will show you other wonders, things that will amaze and please you. We’ll meet again in the morning, after Khe’s treatment.”

  “Larta needs treatment now,” Pradat said. “I’ll see to her wound before these doumanas leave.”

  “Of course,” Jonton said, and looked at Larta as if only now realizing she was hurt. “You will all stay here at the research center tonight. The streets are wet. The night is cold.”

  Two spots on Nez’s neck showed the blue-red of anxiety. Larta didn’t seem to like the idea much either.

  “A quick stick job will take care of Larta’s injury,” Pradat said.

  “And then we’ll be on our way,” Larta said.

  Jonton nodded. “As you wish.” She looked at me again for a long moment, then clapped Pradat’s shoulder. “I leave them in your care. I know you will do what’s best.”

  “First off, Larta needs to sit and stretch out her leg,” Pradat said, and pointed to the chair she wanted her to take.

  Jonton nodded. “Whatever needs to be done.” She turned and glided away, her feet barely lifting from the floor as she made her way out.

  The feeling in the room changed the instant Jonton left. Azlii exhaled, and her hitched up shoulders came down a finger’s width. No one spoke while Pradat fixed Larta’s leg, pinching the wound shut and sticking the ragged skin back together with a yellow plaster she cured with a small green light.

  The hard storm had passed, leaving a soft drizzle behind, but the streets were slick with water. Our progress was slow, made slower by Larta’s injury. The tall obelisks that provided light gleamed bright-pink in their watery coats. The rain had pooled in low spots. We had to watch where we stepped or find ourselves plunged into water halfway to our knees.

  Even on the street we didn’t feel safe to talk. Doumanas were about, wrapped up tight in warm, unseasonable Barren Season cloaks, grumbling among themselves about the rain. Any one of them could be a spy.

  Azlii pitched her voice to a whisper. “We should go to Kelroosh.”

  It was a long, wet walk to the gate, and then a cold, wet walk across the plain. Azlii’s comment was the last thing said among us until we were safely inside Kelroosh’s walls. Home threw open the door before we’d even reached the far corner of our structure, as glad to see us, I thought, as we were to see it. And thoughtful, having warmed the room.

  Everyone but Nez sat and pulled off our foot casings. Nez paced the room, her wet casings still on her feet.

  “Orindles,” she said, her spots blazing brown-black with anger and gray-green with disgust.

  Larta raised her eyebrow ridges. “Good thing Pradat stayed in Chimbalay.”

  “I’ll make something warm for us to drink,” Azlii said, and headed toward the little communiteria off the receiving room. I looked at her neck to see what she was feeling, but the only color there was the ocher of impatience. For
all that we could see how our sisters felt, we couldn’t guess at what was in their minds or hearts — what caused the emotions.

  “Pradat’s only half an orindle, as far as I’m concerned,” Nez said. “She’s kind. Besides, she’s helping Khe.”

  “And why do we think that is?” Larta asked. “Did you notice how, when the world shook, the only one Jonton worried about was Khe?” She looked at me. “Remember, Pradat and Jonton are sister-orindles.”

  “Pradat came to warn us that the orindles wanted control,” Nez said. “She wouldn’t do that if she were fully in harmony with Jonton.”

  “She’s not,” I said quietly. Pradat had put herself at risk to save me from the lumani. There was nothing false about her.

  Larta hiked up one shoulder in a partial shrug. “Maybe so.”

  Azlii returned, pushing a rolling cart containing a steaming pot and four cups.

  “It’s always about Khe, though,” Larta said. “First Simanca, then the lumani, now Jonton. Everyone wants her for themselves.”

  Nez reached over and stroked my throat. “It’s not Khe’s fault. She never asked for any of this.”

  Except that I had. I’d wanted the original surgery to restore my ability to feel Resonance. I’d enjoyed — reveled in — my ability to push the crops. I’d asked — demanded — the chance to live my own life, under my own control. And what had it led to? The destruction of the lumani, harm to Chimbalay, and maybe harm to our entire world. All because I wanted to mate. Because I wanted to be normal.

  Azlii poured a red liquid from the pot into the first of the four cups. “Warm zwas. I figured we could use a cup or two to shake off the cold, and Jonton.”

  I wasn’t sure something intoxicating was the best thing at this moment, but I took the cup when she handed it to me.

  Nez cradled her cup between her hands. “If the rain doesn’t stop, what will happen?”

  “We’ll starve,” I said. “None of our crops can take that much water and thrive. The lumani tricked us. By engineering a perfect world, they engineered our end when that perfect world went away.”