Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) (13 page)

“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.”

“Better to spread things out,” Larta said. “Doumanas who’ve lived their lives together are likely to have a too-close harmony of thoughts. We want as many different ideas as possible, so we can choose the best. One from Chimbalay and one from another kler. One from Kelroosh, one from another corenta. One from Lunge, one from another commune. The same with the males.”

Nez nodded. “But that leaves either me or Larta out, since we are both from Chimbalay.”

“Trah,” Azlii said. “That won’t work. You want to spread out the corenta and commune choices, that’s fine, but we need both of you.”

Nez squirmed in her seat, but I saw Larta nodding. The decision was made.

“We haven’t been idle since that night,” Larta said, meaning the night the lumani were destroyed. “We figured a way to direct visionstage presentations to any single site or to multiple sites as we choose.”

Nez and I gaped at her. Visionstage presentations went to all klers and communes at the same time. It ensured harmony of knowledge among all doumanas. Once, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine a presentation going to some but not all.

“Was that your idea?” Nez asked Larta.

“My idea, but the technicians at Presentation House worked out how to do it. It’s surprising what we can do when presented with a problem to solve, especially when the technicians are anxious to prove they weren’t the lumani’s creatures after all. So we can send a message to Lunge and another commune without it going to everyone. Corentans don’t have visionstages, so we’ll have to figure another way to reach them.”

Nez cleared her throat. “Maybe we should have an empath on the Council. Someone who can see hidden truths.”

I wished she hadn’t said anything about an empath, and I saw that Nez was sorry, too. The soft-gray of sorrow was alight on her throat. I knew she was thinking again of Inra, her sister at the hatchling house and an empath. Inra, who was Returned by the lumani.

“Or a weather-prophet,” Larta said. “Weather-prophets are empaths, from what I’ve seen of them. They say they taste the upcoming weather, but that doesn’t make sense. I think it’s more like what Azlii says about corenta structures: that they’re in tune with the planet.”

I thought of Marnka, a weather-prophet turned babbler, as much a victim of the lumani as I was. She’d saved me in the wilderness, and I had all but abandoned her. I promised myself that I’d find her soon.

Azlii shrugged. “It’d have to be male. All the doumana weather-prophets have been turned to babblers, unless some are hiding somewhere we don’t know about. We’ll have to hope there are male weather-prophets who are still sane.”

“Male then, if we can find some who are.” Larta’s guardian bracelets slid down her wrists as she made a note on the textbox on her forearm. “And if we can reach them. Males don’t get the same visionstage presentations doumanas do.”

“The corentas can do it,” Azlii said. “The structures all talk, the doumana and male corentas. I’ll speak to Wall and have it get the word out. The male corentans can tell each kler and commune as they reach them.”

“That’s too slow,” Larta said.

Azlii flicked her wrist. “Not slow at all. I’d guess that it could be done in under eight days. Of course I can’t say how long it would take after that for the males to pick their representatives. We’ll have to set a date and give them a deadline or it might never get done.”

Larta stood, stretched her arms over her head, and sighed. “I’ll speak with the technicians. The invitations will start going out tomorrow.”

The guardian who knocked at the door that evening was small, with pale-red skin and tiny eyes. She wore her cloak drawn up tight around her throat, so her emotion spots weren’t visible, and rocked from foot to foot before she spoke. I’d heard the things being said, and knew some of the guardians were unhappy I was in Chimbalay, in Justice House. They blamed me for what they’d suffered after the energy center was destroyed.

“The orindle, Pradat, is here and would like to speak with Khe,” the timid guardian said. I wondered how she’d gotten her assignment — most guardians were bold in presenting themselves. “She’s waiting in the small courtyard behind. I’ll show you the way.”

Azlii raised her eyebrow ridges. Nez pressed her lips tight together. I shrugged, grabbed my cloak from the peg by the door and followed the little guardian down the hallway. The passage was lit now even though it was day, the dark clouds outside blocking what natural sunlight usually came through the many windows.

She walked ahead, not beside me, and only looked back when she pointed and said, “Straight that way and out the orange door.”

I saw her suddenly with lumani eyes, the blue-red of nerves rising like steam from her shoulders. Was she afraid of me, or should I fear what lay beyond the orange door?

Outside, the air was heavy with mist. Pradat, wearing a hipwrap and foot casings but no cloak, stood under the shelter of a tree, its thick purple and red leaves forming a canopy as solid as a stone roof. Rain could stream like water from a tap and we’d stay dry.

Pradat stroked my neck when I reached her.

“How are you, Khe?”

I pulled my arms out from beneath the cloak, turned my left arm over, palm up, and displayed the thirty-five age dots showing there.

“I thought,” I said, hope leaping up in me, “when I looked at my arm this morning, the dots maybe seemed a little lighter in color.”

Pradat bent over and peered at my skin. “Perhaps. The light isn’t good enough here for me to tell. I’d like to give you another treatment tomorrow, if you feel up to it.”

I didn’t need her spots to light to know she was thinking about what had happened at the last treatment nearly as hard as I was. That day had shown me my future too clearly — the pyre on which I would rest before Commemoration Day returned.

“I’ll be in Chimbalay a while,” I said. “I can come any day you want. As many days as you want.”

Pradat nodded, but said, “It may not be wise for you to stay in the kler.”

“Because the doumanas blame me for what happened.”

A cold gust blew through the courtyard. “Do you want to come inside where it’s warmer, Pradat? You don’t have a cloak.”

She gave a small shake of her head. “Some doumanas do blame you for the destruction of Energy Center, others for the destruction of their comfortable lives. With the lumani gone there has been some chaos.”

“I know. Azlii thinks things are going to go bad very quickly. We’ve been talking about — ”

The clouds opened and rain fell, hard, fast, and cold. Pradat shivered.

“Please come inside,” I said.

She shook her head again. “I don’t want to risk what I’ve come to tell you being overheard.”

Rain splattered in the dirt outside the protection of the tree. I pulled my cloak tight over my chest.

“I know about the idea for a council,” she said.

It didn’t seem like Pradat to be hurt or jealous over not being invited onto the council, but I’d seen doumanas get upset over lesser things.

“It’s my sister-orindles,” she said. “Some aren’t happy with the idea of a council making decisions for them. The lumani, of course, had things they wanted us to do.” She shivered slightly — but not from the cold, I thought. “But largely we were left alone. With the lumani gone, the orindles were free to go in whatever direction interested them. They worry this
council
won’t understand our work and will put a stop to much of it. They worry the council will order us to do things that waste time.”

“There will be orindles on the council,” I said. “Males, but orindles. We would have asked you, but the way the makeup worked out, the slots for Chimbalay were full.”

Pradat drew in a deep breath. “My sister-orindles aren’t hoping for a spot on the council. They want there to be no council. They want to be the ones in charge.”

Larta’s hands squeezed the arms of her chair as I’d told her what Pradat had said. “Then we have to hurry.” She levered herself to her feet and began pacing a tight circle in the large room. “Once all the council members are chosen and here, there won’t be anything the orindles can do to stop us. We need to go to Presentation House now, get the word out, put things in motion.” She stopped and shook her head, as if trying to shake out the thoughts lodged there. “Has the entire world turned babbler? The orindles are our sisters. If they were worried, why not come here and speak about it?”

Azlii rubbed her chin, her hand sawing back and forth. “The structures say it was like this when the lumani first came — sisters turning on sisters. Uncertainty breeds fear. The sooner some organization is in place, the better.”

I had a thought to add, but it flitted through me and fled. My stomach tightened. A strange smell filled my nose and I heard distant voices — no, one voice, far away, unhappy. Frightened. Pained. And a rumbling, deep and low beneath my feet.

“Trah!” Larta yelled, and grabbed for a chair but missed and was thrown to the floor, the walls shivering, the floor suddenly alive beneath us. I grabbed for Nez, catching her upper arm. Her eyes widened and her neck glowed with the muddy-brown of fear. The same color was on Azlii’s and Larta’s necks.

It was gone so quickly that if we weren’t all sprawled on the ground, I might have thought it hadn’t really happened. Larta pulled herself to her feet, crossed the few steps to a chair and collapsed into it. I let go of Nez’s arm. No one spoke. The sky opened and rain poured down, beating loudly against the windows.

Did
you
hear
it
? I sent to Azlii, not trusting myself to speak.

She nodded.
The
rumble
.
Like
a
hillside
parting
from
itself
,
rocks
tumbling
.

That
, I sent.
But
did
you
hear
the
voice
?
Someone
was
hurt
and
very
afraid
.

“Maybe it was Larta,” Azlii said aloud, obviously trying for a joke.

No
, I sent.
It
was
far
away
.
Almost
…
underneath
.

Azlii shook her head.

Larta sent Azlii a hard look and stood up. “We need to go to Presentation House and call for council members now. The sooner this is done, the better.”

The fierce rain, and likely the sudden shiver of the world, seemed to have driven the doumanas of Chimbalay indoors. The streets were nearly deserted as we made our way to Presentation House. We walked with our heads down to keep the rain out of our eyes. Maybe Pradat’s treatments were working — I was able to keep up with my sisters. Or maybe it was fear driving me. Fear, and the echo of that frightened voice in my head. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the voice wanted me to help it. But how could I help when I didn’t know who or what was asking, or what the problem could be?

“You’re sure the technicians will let you make a presentation?” Azlii asked Larta.

She blew out a breath. “I’m First of Chimbalay now. There won’t be any problem.”

The bright-green of pride bloomed on her neck and then was gone, replaced with the orange of embarrassment. The others couldn’t see the colors, not through the hooded cloak pulled so tightly around her, but I saw it with my lumani eyes. I wanted to reach out and stroke her throat. It was a strange place Larta had found herself in — a situation she’d not asked for but had embraced. I understood both her emotions.
The
Rules
of
a
Good
Life
say, “To serve our sisters is the glory of our lives” but I’d long since learned the foolishness and lie of that. We took pride in ourselves, our accomplishments. Why shouldn’t we?

The three cold and wet guardians huddled at the doors to Presentation House pulled their backs straight when they saw Larta was in our group. One rushed to open the tall wooden doors.

Larta stopped before crossing the threshold. “How long have you three been on post?”

“Since just after morning meal,” a guardian said.

“Before this rain started,” Larta said. “Why didn’t you call for cloaks? You must be freezing.”

“We did,” the guardian said, “but no one has come.”

Larta tsked and undid the fastenings of her cloak. She held it out it to the guardian. “Here. It’s wet on the outside, but it’ll keep you warmer.”

Nez unfastened her own cloak even as the guardian at the door was reaching for Larta’s. Azlii had hers off as well, and gave it to the third guardian. I felt odd, the only one still in the cloak she’d walked over in; the only one who would be warm and dry when we left, if the rain kept falling. I was sure Larta, Azlii, and Nez wouldn’t ask for theirs back, and there was no way to share one cloak among the four of us.

The lights were on inside here, as they’d been at Justice House — a poor substitute for the bright sunlight this time of year usually provided.

“Where is everyone?” Larta whispered, mostly to herself, as we crossed the wide foyer.

She asked the question again, this time of a lone doumana standing in the receiving area.

“Trying to get things working again,” the doumana said. “The shaking made things fall. Some of our equipment was damaged.”

Larta muttered under her breath so softly that even with lumani hearing I couldn’t catch her words. She shaped her lips into a smile and said, “Thank you. We’ll go and see if we can lend a hand. Where, exactly, is everyone?”

“I’ll show you to the others,” the doumana said.

She led us down a series of hallways until we reached a door painted the dark-blue-red of curiosity. A fitting color, I thought, given that the visionstage presentations sent from here were meant to educate.

The doumana creaked the door open and then scuttled back down the hall.

The room was a busy nest of activity, but it didn’t seem these doumanas were trying to fix things. They were walking to and fro, heads bent over textboxes, but not doing anything that seemed at all useful.

A medium-sized technician with dark-red skin and eyes as dark as river-muck stopped and looked up at us. “Welcome.”

“Jonton,” Larta said, clearly confused. “What are you doing here?”

Nez grabbed my arm. “I know Jonton. She’s no technician. She’s an orindle.”

Jonton swept her palm up in a welcoming arc. “Please, come sit. Take some warm refreshment. This rain has made everyone feel cold.” She nodded to a doumana who quickly disappeared through a door at the back.

The room was made for presentations, filled with equipment large and small that meant nothing to me. There were tables covered with textboxes. I could see symbols and script scrolling over the faces. Several hard, straight-back chairs sat tucked under the tables or pulled out and left askew, as though the doumanas who had occupied them had left in a hurry. There was a small raised dais strewn with the traditional flowers of Emergence Day, reminding me how close we were to it. Emergence, then Commemoration, and thirty-five dots on my wrist.

“Shall I have your cloak dried for you while we talk?” Jonton asked, reaching toward me as if to remove my garment herself.

The purple-gray of concern colored Larta’s neck, but I wasn’t sure what, exactly, bothered her. Jonton’s neck was exposed for all to see. The only colors she showed were faint blushes of the crimson of happiness and the greenish-blue of hope. Colors that — as an orindle — she chose to show. Colors that could have meant so many things.

“Thank you,” I said as I undid the cloak fastenings and slipped it off my shoulders. Azlii and Nez kept their eyes focused on Jonton as she handed my cloak to someone who I guessed was also an orindle, though she could have been some sort of aide. None wore the green hipwraps that were standard for orindles or the yellow wraps of helphands. Instead they wore brown — a color that didn’t describe a position in Chimbalay.

What’s
your
guess
? Azlii sent, as the second doumana walked away with my cloak.

I
don’t
know
.
Kler
ways
are
a
mystery
to
me
.
At
Lunge
,
this
would
be
considered
good
manners
.

Azlii scratched her neck.
The
brown
hipwraps
?

A
disguise
?
To
what
purpose
?

I wished we could ask Larta. Something was bothering her, but I didn’t know what.

The door at the back opened and the doumana sent to fetch warm drinks returned with a rolling cart carrying a wide, covered bowl with steam curling from beneath the lid, and several cups. The drink’s woody yet sweet scent floated through the room. The doumana didn’t come toward us, but went across the back of the room to another door that irised open at her approach, revealing a room behind it. She pushed the cart through and was lost to our sight.

“Join me,” Jonton said, and walked toward the opened door.

The room beyond was large, and warm — not chilled like the room with the equipment. Several long chairs faced each other in a square, with a large, low table in the center. The doumana sent to fetch refreshments had set the steaming bowl and cups on the table and disappeared again. So many doors in Presentation House. Doors that meant rooms and hallways, and confusion perhaps for anyone trying to find her way out.

Jonton dipped a cup into the bowl, drew the cup to her lips and sipped.

“Mmm.” She lowered her cup. “It’s very good. Please help yourselves.”

The warm cup felt good in my hands. I took a tiny sip of the drink. It was fruitier in taste than in smell, and overly sweet. Larta must have been thirsty, because she gulped her first cupful down and dipped in for a second. Azlii and Nez sipped more slowly, but I could see they were enjoying it. I felt a pang of regret that food and drink no longer brought me pleasure.

“Let us talk about this council idea of yours,” Jonton said.

I couldn’t tell if her statement was meant to surprise us, or to show that she knew that we were aware the orindles were against the scheme.

Larta set down her cup. “It’s no secret there’s been confusion among the doumanas since the Powers left. This corentan — ” she motioned vaguely toward Azlii without giving her name, “has visited several communes where the leaders are at a loss as to what to do now, without direction from the Powers. The corentans feel that we may find ourselves with a shortage of food, clothing, and other necessities if order isn’t restored. Our idea is to form a council from among kler, corenta, and commune doumanas and males. Our hope is that such a council will find a way to end this confusion before a crisis arrives.”