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

  I was ahead of Azlii and Nez in the queue. Lon, the doumana serving that morning, ladled half-a-bowlful of vero into my dish. These doumanas finally must have noticed that I rarely ate more than a spoonful. I took the bowl and went to find three open chairs together.

  Azlii sat down hard in the seat beside me and clunked her bowl on the table.

  “I asked for more,” she said, keeping her voice quiet, “and was told there wasn’t more. We always run a little low at beginning of First Warmth, but we’ve never been on halves.” She scowled at her dish. “After morning meal, a talk with Binley will be in order. Perhaps the First of supplies has an explanation.”

  I stared down at my white bowl and the few scoops of dark-green vero.

  “I can’t eat a bite this morning,” I said. “Here.” I split my meal in two, pouring half into Nez’s bowl, half in Azlii’s.

  Nez took hers with the yellow-orange of gratitude flaring quickly on her neck, then winking off. Azlii’s neck showed the brown-yellow of annoyance, and it stayed.

  Kroot kroot, Home sent, to get our attention. Binley is coming.

  And? Azlii sent back without glancing away from what she was doing.

  She looks worried, Home sent.

  Azlii cleared her throat, got up from the pillow where she’d been going over some figures on a small, black textbox, and took a few steps toward the door. Binley was in charge of supplies for Kelroosh. I didn’t remember her ever coming to our dwelling before.

  Home swung open the front door and Binley came inside. It hadn’t been a stretch for Home to say she looked worried. The blue-red of anxiety was lit on most of her emotion spots, making her neck look bruised.

  “Welcome,” Azlii said, but her stance was anything but that — legs apart, her hands lightly fisted and resting near the top of her hipwrap.

  Nez and I started to rise from the pillows where we sat, intending to leave the room, but Azlii said, “Stay.”

  At Lunge, all praise and condemnation were given publicly, all information shared among the commune sisters equally. Or so I’d believed until I discovered that Simanca, Lunge’s leader, shared what she wanted and held back the rest. Corentans shared some things publicly and some in private. Maybe Nez and I were coming to the corentan view, since neither of us wanted, or felt the right, to hear the conversation between Azlii and Binley.

  “Please,” Azlii said, her eyes on Binley, her voice chill for the word. “Sit. I have some questions.”

  Binley didn’t wait a breath. She burst into speech before she’d even settled onto the orange-red sitting-pillow.

  “I’m glad you’ve called me here, Azlii. Things are getting serious. Something has to be done or we will be rationing more than the morning meal in ten days’ time.” The First of supplies wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them toward her chest. “We’re running out of food.”

  Azlii glared at her a moment. “And you’ve waited this long to tell me?”

  Binley shrugged, and I saw she was a bit afraid of Azlii. But that wasn’t what had kept her from speaking out. Her silence had some other root.

  “How did this happen?” Azlii asked, her voice softening. “We’ve never run this short before.”

  “We have extra mouths to feed.” Binley glanced our way. “Not that you two make that much difference. Khe doesn’t make any difference at all.” She turned back to Azlii. “But last year we were rewarded nearly half again the number of hatchlings we usually get. And…” Three of her emotion spots lit with the brown-green of shame. Her words rushed out. “My predecessor made some mistakes.”

  I expected anger from Azlii. Commune doumanas would never blame a sister for anything. Not to a leader. But these doumanas were corentans, and so much was different about them.

  Azlii nodded once slowly. ”You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to throw dirt at your sister’s memory.”

  “Yes.”

  A small silence set in. Nothing showed on Azlii’s neck, but everyone in the room could see that she was thinking.

  “Our next stop is the spice growers’ commune,” she said. “No extra food for us there. And then we’re scheduled for a weavers’ commune. Nothing to eat there, either. But Lunge isn’t far. We could detour. Trade with them for supplies.”

  A finger of heat raced through my chest. I hadn’t been near Lunge commune since the day I crossed its borders and left my life and my sisters behind.

  “Will they trade for food?” Binley asked. “It’s still First Warmth. They’ll have only their own storage from last year left.”

  “They’ll have enough,” I said, wondering if it was my place to speak. Lunge had the extra that I had provided for them, when Simanca had sent me, season after season, to the fields. It seemed fitting that Simanca now share that with my new sisters.

  Azlii and Nez looked at me. They knew what Simanca had done — how she’d discovered my ability to make crops grow, and how she had used me even when she knew that pushing the crops was aging me. Simanca was the reason that any day could be my last, and that I would never see another Commemoration Day. Sometimes I hated her for that. Most times.

  Azlii turned back to Binley. “We’ll go and we’ll ask. If the doumanas at Lunge won’t help us, we’ll try Grunewald. Someone has extra that they’ll be glad to profit by.”

  Azlii’s neck was clear, but I sensed worry in her, worry that was cool and unemotional, and so didn’t show on her throat.

  Binley rubbed her stomach once, then stood to go. Home swung open the front door before it was asked. Outside, a light, misty rain was falling. Binley pulled up the hood on her cloak, touched Azlii’s neck, and left.

  Azlii stared at the door after it closed, her bottom lip sucked in, thinking. She turned to Nez.

  “I’d like you to join the trading group at the spice commune.”

  “Me?” The greenish-orange of amazement flickered on Nez’s throat.

  “Why not? Make yourself useful.”

  “And do what?”

  “Listen,” Azlii said. “Observe. Feel.”

  “I’m not an empath,” Nez said. “Not like Inra was.”

  Azlii nodded. “You are diluted, but you’re the best we’ve got for now.” She glanced at me, her eyes narrowed. “Except for Khe, of course, when she feels up to helping. Hard for a kler or commune doumana to keep a secret from her — she sees them too clearly. Still, it never hurts during trade to have two doumanas poking around, looking for the truth of things.”

  “I’m honored,” Nez said.

  Azlii scratched her knee idly. “You can help Khe with the chair, if she needs it.”

  I didn’t like mention of the chair. It reminded me that for what I’d gained when the lumani changed me, there was much I’d lost. Some days I felt strong enough to walk on my own, and on those days I was happy to join the trading crew; it made me feel useful, a contributing sister in the corenta. If I felt weak, Nez would have to push me in the special chair that glided a hand’s breadth above the ground, like a transportation vehicle, but needed a helper to steer it. Azlii had procured it somewhere — she wouldn’t say how it came into her possession, just laughed when I asked and said, “If your spots could light, Khe, I would hope they would be bright with the brown-green of shame at your rude behavior. A gift is to be accepted, not questioned.”

  I’d kept my thoughts about that to myself. The lumani had given me gifts too.

  Nez stared out the window and shivered. “Looks cold.”

  In the late afternoon, Nez, Azlii and I were warm and comfortable inside Home. I stood next to Nez, sharing view through the clearstone. The sky was grayish and the air had the shimmery look of chill. Home had a firecave set into the wall of the receiving room but we rarely used it, even through Barren Season. I fastened on a new hipwrap Azlii had given me, and asked Home, How do you keep us so warm?

  Home chuckled low. That’s why I like you, Khe. You are not corentan, and yet are wise enough to know it is I who keeps you warm when snow
is on the ground and cool when the sun batters the world. I do it with my stones, transferring heat and cold back and forth, inside to outside, so that all are comfortable, myself included.

  I’m impressed, I sent.

  Rightfully so, Home sent.

  Azlii handed Nez and I each an intermediary’s cloak, with one brown and two green stripes running down the front. Nez tried to hide her smile, but we both saw it. She wrapped the cloak over her shoulders and seemed to grow a little taller. Intermediaries carried information from every commune and kler in their heads — who made what, what it was worth last year and the year before and the year before. To wear the cloak was an honor. Nez didn’t have that information, nor did I, but we didn’t need it. Azlii only wanted us to observe. She handed us thick, white neck collars as well, to hide our emotion spots during trade, though it was unnecessary for me.

  “Walking or riding, Khe?” Azlii asked.

  I’d felt stronger since Pradat’s treatment, my legs and arms not the limp grasses they’d been since the lumani had changed me. When I felt bright, I believed that the treatment was working. When I felt dark, I believed I only imagined my new strength. Time to put it to the test.

  “Walking.”

  Nez sent me a look that was as hopeful as it was worried.

  “Good,” Azlii said. “That chair is annoying.”

  It was even colder outside than I’d expected. I pulled my cloak close around me. The doumanas we passed on the trek through Kelroosh all wore cloaks, and several had pulled the hoods up over their heads.

  Good trading, Wall sent as it swung open the main gate.

  Do something about this weather while we’re gone, will you? Azlii sent back, joking.

  Nez drew in a breath and I could guess at what she was thinking: that maybe it had been a mistake for her to stay in Kelroosh, that she should have gone back to Chimbalay — that the kler, not the corenta, was where she belonged.

  Where did I belong? Not to commune, or kler, or corenta. What was I now? Not doumana or lumani, but some abomination in between.

  Kelroosh had set down on the outskirts of a fallow field. Two-ling wasn’t a farming commune on the scale of Lunge, and the residence structures were only a short walk away. The doumanas of Two-ling chattered among themselves as they passed us — we heading to their commune, they heading into Kelroosh to trade. The orchard trees that lay between us and the dwellings were mostly bare-limbed, but here and there the red and purple promises of new leaves and buds showed on gray wood. The air smelled of loam.

  I stared through the trees and fixed my gaze on the dwellings. I’d made it to the gate under my own power; I could make it across the field.

  “The guide here is Rill,” Azlii said when we reached the dwellings. “She was hurt in an accident years back. Her face is scarred and she has a damaged arm. Don’t stare.”

  As if someone had heard Azlii’s words, the door swung open on one of the buildings, a smallish cube the same grayish-yellow as the soil in the fields. The door was dun-colored as well. Three doumanas walked out — cloakless, despite the cold. The doumana at the lead had one arm cut off about a hand’s breath below her shoulder. Her face was scarred on the same side as the missing arm. Nez sucked in a breath. Kler doumanas didn’t see this sort of thing, and certainly it wasn’t something you’d see on the visionstage, but commune life was hard and I’d seen this kind of damage before.

  Azlii stepped out in front and touched Rill’s neck in greeting, and I caught sight of the sixteen age dots that lay on her left wrist. I clenched my teeth and tried not to, but I couldn’t stop myself. I stole a glance at my own wrist. Thirty-five dots. Foolish of me to hope Pradat’s treatments would make them disappear overnight.

  Rill stroked Azlii’s neck in return. It seemed they knew and liked each other, but it was hard to know for certain with their emotion spots covered by the thick, white collars.

  “Come join us for refreshments.”

  Rill turned without waiting for an answer. We followed the commune doumanas into the dun-colored building.

  Inside was more comfortable and colorful than I would have guessed, looking at the plainness of the outside. The receiving room had several well-stuffed chairs with high backs and low armrests. There was a long, high-backed chair that could seat four or five doumanas. The furniture was upholstered in soft, rich fabrics, each in its own color, but the colors were harmonious. A large visionstage was set in one wall. Aromatics burning in a small brazier filled the room with a subtle, spicy aroma. Nez and I had seen country doumanas when they came into Kelroosh to trade, but this was Nez’s first visit to a commune. In Chimbalay, kler doumanas sometimes made fun of commune doumanas as naive and rustic. Lunge was. But if they saw Two-ling, they’d stop their silly talk.

  Rill eyed one of her commune-sisters and tilted her head. The doumana scuttled off to another room and returned pushing a rolling cart with enough goblets for all of us and a pitcher of what looked like zwas, though I doubted it was, since neither side would want to be intoxicated now.

  Rill poured drinks and handed them around. I took a tentative sip. The drink was delicious, light and fruity but with a surprise tart bite that came after the first taste of sweetness.

  “I’ve said this before,” Azlii said, “but it is a pity this milt squeezing won’t travel.”

  Rill smiled. “But then it wouldn’t be so special, would it? And you might not look forward with such gusto to visiting us.”

  “True,” Azlii said. “Then I would only come for business and out of friendship, instead of business, friendship, and milt.”

  The room went quiet as we sipped our drink. When Azlii had drained her goblet, she held it in her lap and said, “Now, to business.”

  All the doumanas in the room sat up a little straighter, all but Rill.

  “What’s wrong?” Azlii said.

  Rill swiped her hand over her scalp. “I know the first thing you’ll ask is how much fertilizer we want this year.”

  “First Warmth,” Azlii said. “You always set your order now, based on what spice or flavoring you’ll be planting this year. Is there some question about that?”

  Every doumana in the room looked at Rill.

  She sighed. “I don’t know how much to order because I don’t know what we’ll be growing.”

  Azlii turned her empty goblet in her hands and frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s no one to tell me,” Rill said. “The Powers are gone. Who makes decisions now?”

  Azlii, Nez, and I stared at her. Slowly the importance of what she’d said seeped in. For as long as anyone could remember, the Powers — the lumani — had decided what each growers’ commune would plant. They declared what beast would be bred on the beastkeeper communes. They set the total yardage the weaver communes would make, what colors they would use. They determined where the klers would be built, what job each kler doumana would fulfill. On and on, keeping control over our world. Until I’d destroyed them. With Azlii’s help, and Larta’s, and Pradat’s, but it was my name the doumanas of Chimbalay cursed.

  Azlii blew out a breath. “Pftt. Decide for yourself. What do you want to grow this year?”

  Rill folded her hands in her lap. “We could plant again what we’d planted last year, I suppose.”

  “Fine,” Azlii said. “Then you’ll want the same order that you had last year.”

  Rill nodded and said, “Yes. Well, maybe not.”

  Azlii waited for her to continue.

  “We’ve had some calamities,” Rill said. She nodded toward one of her sisters.

  “It was my fault,” the commune doumana said. “I would have sworn I’d shut the storage doors tight, but I must not have. Vermin got in and ate a good portion of our seed.”

  “So you see,” Rill said, “I can’t say how much we’ll need because I don’t know how many fields I can fill.”

  “I can get more seed for you,” Azlii said. “It shouldn’t be too much trouble to find a commune
with extra they’d be willing to trade. Or some new crop, if you want to branch out.”

  The scars on Rill’s face turned white as the blood drained from her face. “New? I wouldn’t know what new to grow. How could I decide that? What if every growers’ commune picked new crops based on whim? It would be chaos.”

  Azlii’s face stayed as smooth as clearstone. It was fortunate she wore a collar, or the colors of annoyance would be there for everyone to see. Corentans can’t understand what it’s like to be a commune dweller.

  But I understood Rill’s hesitation. It would never do for each commune to choose for itself. What if everyone decided to grow kiiku because it fetched a high price? What if no one grew awa because of how difficult it is to pollinate? Or didn’t raise preslets because of their nasty dispositions, leaving us without their warm feathers to line our cloaks? There had to be balance, enough of everything.

  “I know what you mean,” Nez said softly into the long silence that had grown in the room. “It’s very difficult to make this kind of decision. As your commune’s leader, it’s your responsibility to make sure your sisters thrive. If you’re wrong, your commune could suffer. Your sisters could suffer.”

  Relief flooded across Rill’s face. “Yes.”

  “But if you do nothing,” Nez said, “your sisters will certainly suffer. You have to make a decision.”

  Rill stared at Nez a long moment and then said, “We’ll plant what seeds we have. Nothing new. Nothing untried. Nothing that could be a mistake.”

  “How much fertilizer will you need for that?” Azlii asked.

  Rill’s eyes opened wide. “I have no idea.”

  Four

  Azlii’s steps were hard and quick crossing the distance back through Kelroosh. She didn’t speak until we were inside Home with the door firmly shut.

  “I swear those doumanas have been eating villisity.” Azlii undid her collar and squeezed the rim in her hand. “How hard is it to make a decision?”