Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) Page 16

  Kith stood a moment longer, colors blooming and fading out on her throat as she thought through her options. Finally the pale-yellow-blue of acceptance replaced the other colors and she sighed, pleased, I thought, not to have to make a stand. It was the way we were — trained to The Rules and content to follow them. I thought again of what Thedra had said — that we were like flocking birds. Give us a leader — any leader, even a guardian — and we would happily follow.

  Larta cocked her head slightly to the left, waiting. Kith stepped out of the doorway.

  I quickly counted seven orindles in their green hipwraps, and four helphands in yellow. None of them looked inclined to quarrel. Several bore the soft-green-yellow of relief on their throats.

  Larta glanced toward a knot of guardians. “Take them to Justice House, where they’ll be safe.”

  The orindles and helphands started moving through the door. The room had emptied, leaving only Larta, five remaining guardians, Kith, and me. Kith moved slowly toward the door, perhaps regretting now her acceptance of Larta’s orders.

  Larta grabbed her elbow. “Where is Jonton?”

  Kith gave her a sour look and kept silent.

  “Larta,” I said, “it’s raining.”

  The guardian glanced at me, her look now as sour as Kith’s.

  “It’s raining hard,” I said. “There’s only one place Jonton could be — with the machine.”

  Larta forced open the door to the machine room with a shot from her stunner, holding her free arm back, her palm facing down, to tell us to halt. The only other time I’d seen Larta at her work was when she’d found me scavenging something to eat from one of Chimbalay’s refuse area. She’d been kind then, and still she’d scared me. Now she was tight, her muscles taut. She took a quick look around, straightened, and walked into the room. Her hand moved to her pocket.

  “Jonton,” she said as the rest of us followed her in.

  The orindle turned away from the machine and bared her teeth at us. Her neck was awash with the brown-black of anger, but also the red-purple of amusement. How could she be amused? She was a babbler, her rational mind gone. I’d seen what power could do — saw it turn Simanca cold-necked and unfaithful to her sisters. Power had driven Jonton insane.

  Had I unleashed this, too, on my community? Jonton’s ambition. I didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t believe it. The destruction of the lumani had given us freedom. What we did with that freedom was up to each of us.

  Jonton’s back was to a wall. Several gray cylinders the width of my two hands around jutted from the barrier. The cylinders hadn’t been there before, or had been, but were hidden. I couldn’t guess what they were for. The guardians stood in a semicircle around her, their hands in their pockets, ready to reach for their weapons.

  Larta stepped forward. “Jonton, we’ve come to protect you.”

  The orindle turned and reached inside the cylinder closest to her. Every guardian tensed. Their fingers twitched in their pockets.

  Jonton pulled a slim black hose from within the cylinder and pointed it to the left side of Larta. She pressed on the hose, a certain spot, a button perhaps. A shimmering jet of sharp blue light shot across the room. The guardian to Larta’s left cried out, threw her arms across her chest, and fell to the floor.

  Larta dropped to her knees by her sister, her fingers on the doumana’s throat, touching each emotion spot one by one. The room was unnaturally quiet, as though the air and all the life had been sucked from it. Larta looked up, her eyes stricken. But I’d already known the fallen doumana no longer lived. We all knew.

  No one moved — every doumana as still as stone. Every neck burning with the gray-red of shock. We had no word for what Jonton had done, the deliberate Returning of a doumana — no word for a thing that went against every Rule and rightness of our lives. Even Jonton seemed stunned, her throat the same mass of gray-red as the guardians’ necks. Maybe she hadn’t known what the hose would do. Maybe she’d thought it would merely knock someone back, or daze them at the worst.

  Then movement — to my right. A guardian yanked her weapon from her cloak and leveled it at Jonton. The guardian’s face was hard, her eyes wide, the spots on her neck the red-pink of certainty.

  Jonton must have caught the movement too, caught the colors on the doumana’s neck as well. She fired the hose again. The doumana screamed and fell, her stunner clattering on the floor.

  The machine suddenly hummed loudly and banged. Two guardians jumped toward Jonton. Jonton squeezed the hose and both doumanas fell.

  Everything had happened so quickly I could hardly take it in.

  “Enough,” Jonton yelled, and I didn’t know if she meant that anyone who attacked her would also fall, or that she didn’t want to hurt anyone else. I wanted it to be the second, wanted Jonton not to have gone completely insane, not to be a babbler who would destroy her sisters without thought or remorse.

  “What now?” Larta stepped forward, but kept her hand in her pocket. Her voice was calm, but her neck showed anger, and nerves, and the bright-greenish-blue of a wanting hope.

  Hope, I thought, because Larta, too, wanted there to be no more doumanas Returned or damaged. Wanted to stop Jonton without hurting her. To end the rain.

  Jonton glared. Her breath came fast, and she pointed the hose toward Larta. Larta froze where she stood.

  “The lumani planned for this,” Jonton said. “They knew a day might come when the comforts and order they provided would be thrown away by foolish doumanas. They had protections built. I learned to use them, just as I learned to work the weather machine.” She glanced down at the hose, then back at Larta. “You will leave now. All of you except Khe.”

  Larta hissed a stream of air between her teeth, but she turned and nodded, and watched her one remaining guardian walk up the steps and out, until only she was left. Larta threw a last glance at Jonton and started walking slowly toward the door, nearly bumping into me. Her hand grazed mine, slipping the stunner into my palm. Heart pounding, I closed my fingers tight around the instrument.

  The low hum from the weather machine suddenly rose in pitch and loudness. Jonton glanced toward it, and I swung my arm up, leveling the stunner at her chest. Her eyes flicked back to me and grew wide. In that small beat of time Larta turned, ran back, and flung herself at the orindle, knocking her to the ground. They landed with a hard thud, Larta on top.

  “Stay down, Jonton,” I said, pointing the stunner at her. I had no idea how to work it, but she didn’t know that. I hoped she didn’t know that.

  Larta rolled away and pulled herself up into a sit. Her teeth were clenched so tightly I thought they might break from the pressure. She held her hand out to me. I gave her the stunner, glad to be rid of it, but afraid of what she might do. She glared at Jonton.

  “There’s still this,” I said, to distract them both, and slid my gaze toward the weather machine, and then to the water-level gauge, which was nearly filled to the top. It must have been storming hard the whole time we were in this room.

  “I don’t trust her to touch it,” Larta said as she got to her feet. She kept the stunner pointed at Jonton.

  The orindle turned her head to look up at Larta, and smiled.

  “I can do it, I think,” I said quickly, before Larta’s anger could rise up again. “She showed me enough. I can at least stop the rain for now.”

  “I won’t hurt her,” Larta said. “Not unless she gives me cause.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s see what you can do, Khe. Let’s stop the rain.”

  The machine stood stark in the tired air. The silver dials, Jonton had said, were only there for show. The secret of the machine was in changing whispers of air. Very exact whispers, more like the sound of breath than words, and precise hand movements. Something the lumani wouldn’t have been able to do, without the help of a doumana. I didn’t understand how it worked, but the how didn’t matter, only precision.

  I swallowed and hoped I remembered the exact sequence Jonton had showed
me, the exact pronunciation of the sounds. I stepped up to the machine and spoke, softly, the way I might to a frightened hatchling, being careful to remember the sounds in order, to remember the hand motions in order. I couldn’t guess at what the wrong word or motion might make the machine do. Maybe nothing. Maybe something that could never be put right again.

  I saw Larta from the corner of my eye, her posture straight and tense. Jonton sat on the floor, as loose as a dangling thread, her arms around her drawn up knees, watching me. There seemed to be a look of expectation in her eyes. I leaned close to the machine and said the words, while my hands moved in the dance Jonton had showed me. When I was done, I stepped back.

  I expected the machine to lurch, make a sound, click off, something. The only sound was the rush of water into the gauge, a gauge that would soon overflow, flooding the room.

  “I was right,” Jonton said. “Everything about you is changing. It took me almost from moon to moon to learn the words and the sequence that you saw once and repeated perfectly.”

  I turned and glared at her. If I’d done it so well, why was the rain still falling just as hard? Had she tricked me? Seen ahead to this moment and taught me the wrong thing?

  Except that the sound in the water gauge was changing. It was slight. So slight I was sure Larta and Jonton couldn’t have caught it. But I did. The drops hitting with less force. The water slowing its swirl.

  “You’d better hope she was perfect.” Larta’s voice was cold, each word precise. “We’ll be standing here waiting until the rain completely stops. And then it’s off to Justice House, where your sisters are waiting. And justice there will be, for my fallen sisters.”

  Jonton pursed her lips, but nodded. The fight seemed to have gone out of her. Gone, or maybe curled away, waiting for the best moment to strike.

  Marnka had been this way in the wilderness — a mad babbler one moment, calm the next.

  “We can go now,” I said, my head tilted, my ear hole cocked toward the gauge. “The rain is slowing. It will stop.”

  “You’re sure?” Larta asked, her eyes never leaving Jonton.

  I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “I’m sure.” And was sure, though I couldn’t have said why.

  Larta accepted that, and motioned to Jonton. “Get up. We’re going now.”

  Jonton didn’t ease herself up, she leapt. And jumped sideways, then crouched, her hands on the ground on either side of her feet, as if she might pounce.

  Larta fired her stunner. The burst missed Jonton and hit the machine. Sparks flew. Smoke tumbled from the machine, filling the room. I bent over, coughing. I could hear Larta and Jonton coughing as well, and then the sound of only two coughing — Larta and me. The smoke began to clear. Larta stood alone, her face redder than usual, panting. She swung her gaze, scanning the room.

  “Where’d she go?”

  I shook my head. “Where could she go? I didn’t hear her moving. Or the door open.”

  The guardian’s eyes flickered around the room, lingered on her fallen sisters. I saw how her breath caught in her chest, how she made herself breathe again.

  “A trick door,” Larta said, slipping the stunner back into its pocket. “I can’t think of any other answer.”

  I was sure now the lumani hadn’t built this room. What use would they — who could be visible or invisible to doumanas as they chose — have of a hidden escape route? If doumanas had made the trick door, then we could find it.

  “Tell me what she did,” I said.

  Larta made little tsking sounds as she thought. “I couldn’t see much in the smoke.” She ran her hand over her scalp. “I remember now. I know what she did — she bent down like this.”

  Larta scooted over a couple of hand’s-breadths and squatted, imitating Jonton’s stance, and tapped her fingers on the floor, moving slowly up and down by her feet.

  “I don’t know exactly where she touched,” Larta said. “There’s nothing on the ground that I can see that looks like an opening.”

  I hunkered down a little ways from her and let my vision go loose, trying to see with lumani eyes. The floor was crisscrossed with scrapes of different colors. I wasn’t sure what the colors meant, but I was glad to see them. They didn’t match up with emotions that I could tell. There were pink trails, the color of nurturing, and that made no sense. Pale-yellow-blue formed a puddle in one spot, but I didn’t think acceptance was an emotion either doumana had felt during their struggle.

  “You’re sure this is the spot she disappeared from?”

  “I’m sure,” Larta said, still tapping her fingers along the floor. “More or less.”

  “Stop,” I said, remembering something I’d heard while the smoke had clogged my eyes. “Not like that. Like this.” I moved next to Larta and tapped my fingers on the floor in the rhythm I’d heard.

  In a blink, Larta was gone.

  There’d been no sound. I hadn’t seen her go.

  I stared at the empty spot on the floor where she’d been. Sweat prickled my body, crown to sole. I couldn’t let her go to wherever she’d gone alone.

  My hand was still on the spot I’d last touched. I pressed my fingers into the floor and carefully sidled around to squat where Larta had been. I tapped the rhythm.

  Nineteen

  The small room where I found myself was formed from compacted reddish dirt, flat on the bottom, with rounded sides and ceiling. It must have been dug out from the space below the machine room, which was below the research center. Probably we’d all landed in the same spot — first Jonton, then Larta, then me — slipping into a musty, underground world. I’d had no sense of motion. Just one place one moment, another place the next. I didn’t know how that was possible.

  The slap, slap of running feet moving away from where I’d landed jolted me back to why I was here. I hauled myself to my feet and hurried after the sound — out of the small room, into a passageway.

  The passage wasn’t wide. I probably could have touched both sides by extending my arms. Standing on my toes, my arms straight above my head, I might have reached the ceiling. The cavern was dry though. However deep below ground we were, water didn’t seep in. A vein of clearstone ran through the red dirt, about my shoulder height, reflecting the glow from the tiny luminescent creatures that wriggled through the soil. The glow lit the passage in a soft-white light. Two sets of faint footprints marred the dirt.

  The passage bent. I couldn’t see who was running — only heard the steps moving away — but guessed it had to be Larta chasing Jonton. The sound of running feet faded. I tried to guage how far ahead Larta would have to be for me not to hear her any more. I could hear a long distance, but things twisted and turned here, the passage seeming to spiral in on itself, then jut out in a new direction. There were plenty of other passages breaking off from the one I was following. Jonton and Larta could have gone down one of them. Or several of them, if more passages broke off from the first one.

  I tried to see their trail with lumani vision. I had begun to think I’d got some control over the vision, could make it work when I wanted. I saw nothing but dirt.

  I stopped a moment and listened hard. Was that something, there, to the left? A shout? I held my breath and opened my mouth slightly, to hear better.

  Nothing.

  I rubbed my hand over my face, thinking. I could wait here. Whoever was running would have to come back this way. Except there could be other exits. In truth, I didn’t know where any exits were — or if there were an exit. The trip underground might be one way.

  The footprints in the dirt had disappeared. The soil was too hard here for the faint impressions to show. Or maybe Larta had chased Jonton down a side route. I turned and crept back the way I’d come, bent over at the waist, looking for another set of prints to join the ones I’d left.

  I found them at an opening jutting off to the right. Two sets — one flat-footed, the other toes only, a runner. I wanted to run too. My energy level was ramping up now, here, below ground. I thought may
be it was the planet’s doing, the way — since the lumani had changed me — that the planet nourished me, so I rarely ate, drank, or slept. That deep into the world as I was now, the planet gave me more than I gained through bare feet on raw soil.

  Another shout echoed against the walls. I was sure this time it was a shout. It came from somewhere ahead. Now I had sounds to follow I ran. Mad sounds — grunting and shrieks, the ugly noise of flesh striking flesh. My neck grew hot from fear and worry. I came around a corner and saw them.

  Larta and Jonton rolled together on the ground, each desperate for the top position, both of their necks aglow with the black-blue of determination. I froze where I stood. Doumanas didn’t do this. Young beastlets, I’d seen them rolling and tumbling with each other, fighting, but not doumanas. It wasn’t in our nature. Hadn’t been in our nature.

  Larta seemed to have won for the moment — she had her hands crossed on Jonton’s chest, holding her down. She leaned low, as if to say something in the orindle’s ear hole.

  Jonton bit hard into Larta’s shoulder, and Larta yelled. Crimson drops rose on her skin in the shape of the orindle’s teeth. In the eye blink when Larta lost concentration from the pain and surprise, Jonton shoved her hard, throwing Larta onto her back, and climbed on her chest. The orindle drew her arm back. Her hand squeezed tight and Jonton slammed her fist hard into Larta’s jaw. The guardian’s head lay at an awkward angle on her neck.

  A hot flame streaked down my chest at that sound, at what I’d seen. Anger roiled through me, as fierce as any I’d ever felt. Jonton jumped up and, before I could grab her, she ran down the passageway — not the way we’d come, but deeper into what was unknown.

  I didn’t think. I chased after Jonton, determined to bring her down and back to Larta. Jonton’s lead was slight. Her neck was still lit black-blue, but the blue-red of anxiety had bloomed there as well. She should have been anxious. However single-minded she was to escape, I was more resolute that she wouldn’t. I ran hard until I was within an arm’s length of her. I leapt toward her back, wrapped my arms around her and hauled her to the ground. The whoosh of air streaming out of her lungs as she landed was strangely satisfying. I didn’t like that it made me happy.