UNAR’S STOMACH growled.
“Will we be eating, while we’re on watch?” she asked.
Kirrik, hands clasped over the umbrella’s handle, jerked her head in the negative.
“The Master is fasting. It helps him to see the future more clearly. While he fasts, so do we.”
“And what is the Master looking for in the future? What is it that you do? What do you hope to achieve?”
No reply. Unar pressed on.
“Core Kirrik, you said I woke you from a future-searching. In Canopy, only the goddess of wind and leaves can speak prophecies that come true.” Although unspoken prophecies can come true, too. “Will I be taught to see the future?” She was aware she sounded too greedy, too eager. But how much faster would she find Audblayin if she could see into the future? Pretending nonchalance, she murmured, “I don’t need to see it, anyway.”
But Kirrik heard her.
“No? You are so certain of your destiny? And what is that, then? Tell me.”
Unar floundered for a moment. The test is of your ability to serve, Frog had said. Should she say that her destiny was to serve the mysterious Master? Unar needed to learn everything that these Understorian sorcerers and sorceresses could teach her, the better to equip her to leave them behind. But what if they caught her lying? They wouldn’t teach her anything.
“There are five paths leading to this house, Core Kirrik,” she said. “Should I watch the other side, so we can see in both directions?”
Kirrik’s smile only deepened at the change of subject.
“In the rain, vision is not our most valuable sense. Did you not serve Audblayin? Can you not discern the approach of living things without using your eyes?”
“I could. When I was in Canopy. I could try, here, but you said I wasn’t to use magic without the Master’s permission.”
Kirrik laughed softly. There was magic in her laugh, darker and different from the power in Oos’s voice, or Unar’s.
“If you cannot use your ears without opening your mouth,” she said, “I will watch for both of us until you learn.”
Unar’s whole body ached. She was famished. Core Kirrik stood and stared into the rain like the legs hidden beneath her black skirts were made of wood. Unar looked for a flat part of the branch to sit on.
“You will stand and watch,” Core Kirrik said.
Unar had never wanted to disobey an order more. Fragments of speech beat about her exhausted brain. The Master will decide what you are to be taught. You are so certain of your destiny? And what is that, then? The place where we meet. Where the Master rules. What is it that you do?
This is anyone’s home who would fight for justice.
It dawned on Unar that the justice Frog referred to was the freedom for Understorians, perhaps even Floorians, to walk in direct sunlight. Could that be part of Unar’s destiny, something she could be truthful about? Was it something that she should help fight for? It was the logical extension of her abhorrence of how slaves were treated. If there were no slaves, though, who would do the work? The poor would. Stricken and out-of-nichers. Canopians, like her own mother and father.
Unar thought, Let them do the work. I don’t care about Understorians, Floorians, or Canopians. I care about my sister and about finding Audblayin, proving that the Servants were wrong about me. Proving that Aoun was wrong.
He had said, You’ve breached wards that have been impenetrable for four hundred years, Unar. I can’t imagine a true disciple of the Garden would ever do such a thing. And also: Only banishment to Understorey could make you safe.
How could he have ever thought she would be a danger to him? No matter how he always sided with the Servants against her, she could never do anything to hurt him. Not much, anyway.
Only another adept could do this to you. Break your bonds this way. Who was it? I’ll kill them.
Unar sighed.
I’ll break your bonds, Aoun.
She resisted the urge to sit.
“Very well. I can stand and watch. What exactly are we watching for, if the lamps keep demons out?” Even as she asked, Unar realised she knew the answer to her own question. She had seen Bernreb, Esse, and Marram use ropes and gliders to overcome all sorts of obstacles.
Not in the rain, though. They didn’t fight in the monsoon. The five-month monsoon that would not end for another two months, unless something drastic happened to Ehkis, the rain goddess.
“If you had met the Bringer of Rain’s Bodyguard,” Unar said, “you wouldn’t be worried about the monsoon ending early.”
“Oh,” Kirrik said scornfully, “is he fearsome, indeed? Is he a ruthless killer? Does he stay by her side every moment? Is that how you were able to meet him, in a great meeting, a council of deities?”
“No,” Unar admitted. “Our deities don’t meet. They stay in their own niches. Edax was … He is … His goddess sleeps at the bottom of a deep pool. Anyone would find it boring, to stay by the side of a sleeping goddess at the bottom of a pool. He could, if she commanded it. He showed me. It’s not by the application of magic, but by a permanent change to his body. He can stay down for days without air if he has to. Like the goddess. But nobody else can, so why bother? She’s safe there.”
“Except from the treachery of her adepts. Everyone knows that Canopians are deceitful. Do not think you will get close to the Master until you have been deemed trustworthy.”
“I’m not treacherous! And the goddess Ehkis doesn’t need to fear the treachery of her adepts. She’s well loved. Rain makes life.”
“Bria’s Breath.” It had the sound of a curse, and the air around Kirrik seemed to ripple; the closest of the lamps momentarily dimmed. “Eggs and semen make life, girl. What does your fool mistress teach you? Can you not think of anything the goddess Ehkis has to fear?”
“You don’t mean to suggest that Ehkis fears Audblayin,” Unar blurted, but abruptly she realised something else: Kirrik appeared to be in a position of seniority over her, but here she was, outside in the rain, right beside Unar, the lowest of the low. “What did you do to offend the Master, Core Kirrik? What fool question did you fail to answer?”
At last, Kirrik took her eyes from the darkness beyond the death-lamps.
“I am here because my future-searching showed that I must be here. Something is coming. Would you meet it alone, Nameless the Outer?”
Unar felt a chill.
“What is it?”
“Something that threatens the Master’s plans.”
“And what are the Master’s plans?”
“How do you find the barrier from this side, girl?”
It seemed a non sequitur; Unar struggled to make the connection. Did the Master mean to destroy the barrier? That was impossible. And why? There was a way through. Otherwise Hasbabsah couldn’t have become a slave.
“How do I find the barrier? I haven’t seen it. I haven’t touched it since I fell.”
But I’m sure it has a weakness. Somewhere. The window of the Odelland palace opened for me, and so did the wards of the Garden.
“And if you desired to feel the sun, what then? If you needed fresh fruits to cure a child’s illness? What if you had fallen and your family remained above, and they were forced to watch while demons ate the flesh off your bones?”
“That would be my misfortune.” If I hadn’t been born gifted. “The barrier is to keep demons out of Canopy. Without it, chimeras would grow fat, and it would be the end of us all. The gods use more than half their strength maintaining it. Each one spends power on the section that protects their niche.” That was what Unar knew for sure. What came next was guessing. Thinking aloud. “They can’t fashion one that lets Understorians in but keeps demons out. Any large, warm body—”
“Lies. Chimeras live in Understorey, and yet we thrive. And Canopians pass through the barrier. Why them and not us?”
“Canopians are born under the gods’ protection. It’s your misfortune, as I said.”
“Why can they not protect everyone? Are they so weak?”
“No! That is, I don’t know—”
“One Forest,” Kirrik said. “One people. That is what the Master seeks in the future. That is what we hope to achieve. We believe the gods can and should protect everyone. And if they cannot, they are not true gods, and should be killed to allow the Old Gods to return.”
The Old Gods cared for everyone, Hasbabsah had said. Now Kirrik seemed to be saying the same thing. Yet Unar had seen a neck bone in the bedchamber of a princess, and an ear bone in Frog’s custody. And those had not been small bones. They had not been human bones, and in her experience it was rare enough for humans to care about other humans.
From which distant country would the Old Gods come, if their souls were to be reincarnated in the bodies of giants? And why did the Canopian gods have to die for it to happen?