22: UNDER A VERDANT SKY
(Kihrin’s story)
The drakes made a slow circle around us, moving back and forth.
“Are they waiting for us to run?” Thurvishar asked nervously.
“Maybe,” Teraeth said. “But there’s one other possibility—” He raised his voice and shouted out a greeting in thriss.
After a moment’s silence, thriss voices answered.
“Don’t attack,” I whispered to Janel.
“Why would I—?” She tensed as a half-dozen thriss walked into the campfire light. “Oh.”
The thriss looked basically human, if covered in snake scales and possessing snake heads. I’ve always considered any variations largely cosmetic.
“I didn’t know any thriss lived in the Manol,” I said to Teraeth, keeping my voice light and conversational.
“Are you kidding? All the thriss live in the Manol. Where do you think they went after Quur pushed them out of Khorvesh?” Teraeth said something else to the thriss, which I followed well enough to recognize as a polite introduction.
The Black Brotherhood had a large thriss contingent, since the thriss had switched from worshipping their god-king Ynis to worshipping the god responsible for Ynis’s destruction: Thaena. It made a strange sort of sense.
Anyway, Teraeth and the thriss continued talking for several minutes.
Meanwhile, Thurvishar attempted to feed crocodile meat to a drake, who crept forward as cautiously as a feral cat. Thurvishar didn’t even lose a hand in the process, which was impressive.
Teraeth stood. The tension lessened. A thriss stepped forward and clapped Teraeth on the shoulder.
“This is Vsizinos,” Teraeth explained to us, “a cousin of Szarrus’s. He’s heard of us.”
To underscore the point, the thriss in question gave me a broad grin, opened his arms, proclaimed, “Sligoltho!”
I groaned even as Teraeth laughed.
Janel leaned over to Thurvishar. “What did he just say?”
“Monkey?” Thurvishar offered tentatively, unsure of the translation. “Apparently, there’s a golden-furred monkey found in the Manol…?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “One of my weapons instructors, Szarrus, gave me the nickname. One I thought I’d escaped when I blew up the island I lived on at the time.”
Teraeth grinned. “That wasn’t you. Don’t take credit for the Old Man’s temper.”
Janel’s eyes lit up. “Monkey? They call you Monkey? That’s much better than Scamp. Can anyone join this club and call you Monkey?”
I gave her a serious look. “No.”
Teraeth slapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, Monkey. They’ve offered to take us to their village. Let’s go sleep in real beds tonight.”
I can’t fault thriss hospitality.
The “village” ended up being quite large—easily a full town anywhere in Quur. Farther into the jungle, the houses sat on stilts to escape the floodwaters. This close to the edge, everything rested at ground level.
Thriss preferred daytime, so most townsfolk were sleeping when the hunting party returned with us. A few heads peeked from windows. At one point, a door slammed open and a tiny thriss ran out and attached itself to a hunter’s leg, to much amusement and laughter all around.
I’d never seen a thriss child before. None of the thriss on Ynisthana had been raising families, so I’d only met full-size adults. I couldn’t determine the child’s sex, but if I’m being honest, I have that problem with grown thriss too. Either way, the kid was adorable.
The thriss brought Teraeth’s crocodile as well as other animals they’d hunted with the drakes’ assistance.
Since it was late, we skipped any greeting ceremony. The thriss showed us a room with four rush-covered wooden beds. I fell asleep the moment I lay down, didn’t wake once the whole night.
The next morning, they treated us to a magnificent breakfast of wild bird eggs and crocodile meat, along with coffee and a yeasted thriss breakfast bread called shorva I’d grown to love during my stay on Ynisthana. We knew we needed to rush, but Thurvishar insisted we take the time to recover from our ordeal. None of us fought his logic.
All day, I found myself grateful for thriss generosity. They provided us with food, baths, and clothing. Someone lent me a razor sharp enough for shaving. Teraeth, who held a near-to-holy status among the thriss, had explained the urgency of our quest. Yet I’m sure they would’ve helped us even if they’d never heard of Thaena; the thriss were not a stingy people.
Of course, what they considered clothing, others might call armor: layered stiff leathers and specially cured leaves treated until iron hard. The thriss made their clothing in pieces they laced or knotted together with thread, so no tailoring was necessary. Their weapons were particular to thriss sensibilities as well, since the thriss used curved swords similar to the Khorveshan style.1 Daggers were ever present.
I was readying a pack when Teraeth made a strangled noise next to me. I looked up to see what was the matter.
Janel was the matter. Oh gods, was she ever the matter.
The thriss had given her typical thriss clothing, which she’d modified to satisfy her propriety. So a snakeskin raisigi she’d bound as tightly as possible to mimic a Joratese bodice, sturdy boots, and tight leather kef. Most thriss preferred a knee-length skirt or a split loincloth, but she’d somehow managed to find pants. Even though it had been a while since she’d ridden a horse (which had to be killing her)—and who knew when the opportunity would arise again?—she’d still insisted on riding-appropriate attire. Just in case.
She’d also convinced our hosts to give her jewelry—how, I had no idea—carved crocodile teeth and various shells. She’d taken those pieces and woven them through her laevos. She wore more bracelets on her wrists, cords around her neck. Joratese stallions expressed their masculinity through jewelry and body ornamentation.
I don’t think it struck either Teraeth or myself as excessively masculine.
We both stared.
The funny thing was, her clothing in the Blight had been more revealing. This was more distracting—although Teraeth’s bare legs were doing a fine job of competing for that prize.
I found myself feeling uncharitable as I reflected on how Teraeth had lied to me about Janel. He’d known her for years before she and I had ever met. Known her, courted her, and never once suggested he knew us both. Even though those damn prophecies talked about Janel and me ending up together. Even though he had known the link between us in our past lives. Even though he knew Xaltorath had hunted me down and slammed Janel’s existence into my mind for reasons I still couldn’t fathom.
I walked over to Teraeth and clapped him on the shoulder in exactly the same way the Manol vané had done to me the night before. “Remember what you told me four years ago?”
Teraeth tore his gaze away from Janel. “You may need to be a little more specific.”
I smiled. “Four years ago, back on Ynisthana. I was falling over myself for a woman not too dissimilar to the one standing right over there. You offered me some sage advice. I’m curious if you remember what you said.”
Teraeth narrowed his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he remembered or if he just smelled the trap. And I was feeling in a nasty mood, so there was most definitely a trap.
I leaned over to Teraeth’s ear and whispered, “She’s not for you.”
Then I walked away.