SEEKING A new home, Tsenid’a’wi at last came to Nyen’łtchiki, The Red World. The Red World was mostly desert. It was hot and dry and inhospitable. But there was life. There was a great river, and rains came every year to replenish the waters. Tsenid’a’wi thought it would be a hard, but a better place than the Ocean World. There were many spirit-people-animals already there, of many clans. Some were like the animals we know today: some were like insects, some resembled fish. Many looked a lot like frogs. In fact, the Red World was also called Nyen’ch’ahł, The Frog World, because so many of its inhabitants resembled the frogs we have today. Still others were more like lizards. Some were very large, some small. Some had learned to walk on two legs, as humans and birds walk today, although there were no humans or birds. Tsenid’a’wi saw this and wondered if walking on two legs might be useful. He kept that thought for later.
Tsenid’a’wi went back and told his people about Nyen’łtchiki, The Red World, and many of them agreed that it sounded like a better place. But many of the Heeyets would not go. They preferred the Ocean World, even with all its problems. Even with the risk of death, they preferred their home. And so they stayed.
But the others decided to go with Tsenid’a’wi to the Red World. But first they had to go to Qeemelehk’e, The Place Where They Changed and prepare to live on land. When they had changed into land creatures they went to the Red World, the Frog World, and made their homes for many generations. They met the spirit-people-animals who lived there. Some they became friendly with, some they became relatives to, some they became enemies of. Everyone kept changing, but still spirits and people and animals were the same. And like the Ocean World, the Red World was bounded by the Silent Stagnant and the White Brilliant, and so it changed, too.
THE SOUND of thunder ran down the canyon, an invisible drummer the size of the sky. Wind came with it, mostly gentle, but gusting playfully now and then, stirring up the red, yellow, and brown leaves, ruffling Tchiił’s hair like a grandmother’s hand.
“It’s raining on Spruce Everywhere Mountain,” Q’esh said.
Q’esh was Tchiił’s cousin, and his friend. They were of the same age. They had spent the day wandering up Tsełtchik Tch’i’a’i Gorge, playing in the creek, catching water-diver beetles and letting them go. They had made a magnificent dwelling inside of the compact limbs of a nut-pine and cracked its hard kernels between stones to get at the sweet white meat within. And they had wandered far from the tents their elders had pitched on the ridge downstream. When they started out, the sky had been blue, without the faintest mist to screen the sun. Now cloud-people were gathering in the northeast.
“Yes,” Tchiił said. “I think it must be. But it isn’t raining here.”
“No,” Q’esh said. “It isn’t. But my uncle said to come back if it started to rain.”
“It’s not raining.”
“He said if it rained anywhere,” Q’esh said.
“It’s a long way back,” Tchiił said.
Q’esh nodded. Thunder muttered again, and more wind came, smelling wet. The willows nodded as if growing sleepy. A flight of mimic jays went by, all in a line. Reluctantly, the two boys started back down that canyon, toward the encampment, walking along the edge of the creek.
As they traveled, it seemed to Tchiił that the stream was talking to them, or perhaps singing. It began as a whisper, but with each step it grew louder, its message more urgent.
“It’s getting deeper,” Q’esh said.
His cousin was right. The stream was quickly becoming a river. No, not a river.
A flood. In the dreaming part of his mind, he could see it now: the rain falling on the plateau above, running off the sunbaked soil, finding its way downhill, filling all the dry stream beds.
All flowing here.
“We have to climb,” Tchiił said.
The creek was twice the size it had been, climbing out of its bed and spreading into the oaks and sycamores, willows and cottonwoods and nut-pine along its banks. The tops of the long-shaggy reeds that grew at the edge of the water were almost covered already. The boys reached the slope of dirt and crumbled rock and scrabbled their way up it, pulling themselves along by the trunks of the trees. Below them, the sound of running water became a hushed roar.
The slope came up against the layered walls of red-and-yellow stone, and there they could ascend no higher, for the cliff was too steep and without sufficient handholds. Q’esh and Tchiił stumbled along, hoping to find a better surface for climbing. The water kept rising toward them. Thunder sounded again, this time very near, and the sky grew darker. Huge drops of rain began spattering against the leaves, and their feet began to slip.
“We’re in trouble,” Q’esh said.
“Yes,” Tchiił agreed. Maybe they shouldn’t have strayed so far. But it had been a nice day…
He closed his eyes as the rain began pounding them in earnest. It was cold, surprisingly so.
Help us, he asked.
But the stream was in no mood to help. He was excited, exuberant, running as fast as he could after long seasons of crawling. And the sky—the sky and its people did not care about the little things below them.
They pushed on as the sandy soil turned to slippery muck and began dragging them toward the flood of churning brown water. Tchiił saw a whole tree go by, roots and all.
A figure appeared in the rain ahead of them, walking in the same direction they were.
“Hey!” he said.
He saw it was a girl, maybe a little younger than they were. She gestured for them to keep up.
Not knowing anything else to do, they followed, and pretty soon she led them into a crack in the cliffs hidden by nut-pine that they probably wouldn’t have seen in the downpour. Water was rushing down it, but the girl knew where the hand- and footholds were, and by following her they were able to climb up until at last they reached a pocket in the cliff, a little rock shelter that shed the rain.
Once they were in she turned around, and for the first time they could see her face.
It looked as if she was wearing a mask made of white sycamore bark, with two little holes for eyes and a slightly larger one for her mouth. Then Tchiił understood it wasn’t a mask at all.
The girl was a naheeyiye. Someone had heard his plea after all.
“Older sister,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” she said. “You are welcome, Yeqeeqani.”
“That isn’t my name,” Tchiił said. But even as the words escaped his mouth, he knew it was, or would be.
The girl’s mask-face showed no expression, but she inclined her head toward him.
“Remember us,” she said. “And remember those who were taken.”
“I will,” Tchiił said.
“It is good,” the spirit said. Then she turned and vanished into the rain.
He felt tired. He and Q’esh curled up together and were soon asleep.
When they awoke, the sun was shining. Everything outside smelled wet.
“You’ve changed again,” Q’esh said. “You are T’ade now.”
T’ade nodded. So she had.
“I never know when it will happen,” she said. “They say when I was a baby, every time I fell asleep I woke different. Sometimes with the parts of a boy, sometimes with those of a girl, sometimes both. Now it doesn’t happen as often.”
“I wish I could change,” Q’esh said.
“Mother says everyone does,” T’ade replied. “And no one does.”
“But everyone can see your change,” Q’esh replied.
“Does that matter?” T’ade asked.
Q’esh shrugged. “Do you think one day you will be just a boy or just a girl? Just Tchiił or just T’ade?”
T’ade considered that for a few moments then shook her head. “I will always be both, whether I change like this or not.”
“Then why do you have two names?”
T’ade thought about that as she poked her head out of the shelter and gazed up at the sky. It had been grey, but the cloud-people had moved on and now it was blue again. Tonight it would be black. But it was always the sky.
“That spirit called me one more name,” she said. “Yeqeeqani.”
“I heard her,” Q’esh said. “Everyone has been saying that about you.”
“I know,” T’ade said. “But it’s one name too many. You’re right, Q’esh. No more boy names and girl names. No more T’ade and Tchiił. And I’m not Yeqeeqani, either—not yet, at least.”
“So what can I call you?”
“Cousin.”
“I have other cousins,” Q’esh pointed out.
“Then call me what my father and my uncle always do,” she replied. “Call me Yash.”
“And what about those other names?”
“They’ll always be there, if I need them.”
* * *
“TCHIIŁ?” TOWER Master Bright said, as if the name tasted bad in his mouth. “Isn’t that just the word for ‘boy,’ in your barbaric language?”
“It’s what they call me,” Yash said. It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Bright put two fingers to the dimple between his nose and top lip, with his thumb on his chin.
“I know you people dislike revealing your real names,” he said after a moment. “That is fine, for now. It’s something I can pronounce, anyway. Do you care to tell me why you’re here, Tchiił?”
“No.”
Master Bright sighed. “I refuse to let this become tedious,” he said. “You came to the fortress either to rescue Princess Yash or to murder tower masters, or both. And when you arrived, what did you see? The light of my bright-star arrows, speeding toward your homeland. You accurately guessed I was the most dangerous and immediate threat to your people, so you came here to kill me. Does any of that sound correct?”
Yash didn’t say anything, but she strained at her bindings. They were strong.
“Deng’jah?”
But no answer came.
“I admit, I am impressed,” Bright continued. “I still don’t understand how you approached the fortress without being detected. More remarkably, you almost entered it unnoticed. But Ruzuyer—that’s the large bird you might have seen overhead—perceived something out of the ordinary, which occasioned me to make a closer inspection. When I couldn’t find you—which is strange, in and of itself—I thought I might lure you to me by attacking your homeland in the most visible way possible.”
“How did you know I was from Zełtah?”
“An educated guess. But correct, I gather.”
Yash closed her eyes. “You are wise,” she said. “The flying stars. What do they do?”
“It would be difficult to explain the agency to you,” Bright said. “But imagine a ball of light, small where it strikes, but expanding: the size of a man, then a house, then a village, and everything in its illumination as if struck by lightning. It’s really quite terrifying, but most effective where there are a lot of people at once. Towns, encampments, warriors massed for an assault. The farther the arrow flies, the larger the explosion. I can show you later, if our talk does not go well.”
“You want something from me,” Yash said.
“Yes,” Bright said. “I want you to tell me everything about why you are here, what sorcery you used to fool our wards and sentinels, and whether there are more of you.”
“Really?” Yash said. “That’s all you want?”
“I’m asking nicely at the moment,” Bright said. “But I expect I’ll have to torture you. That will be nice, as I haven’t tortured anyone in a long time. I have some new techniques I’ve been wanting to try. So, please, be as stubborn as you like.”
Yash smiled. “As you say, I came to rescue Princess Yash. I told you my everyday name, but I am also called Yeqeeqani, the killer, the hero of my people. I came alone—there are no more like me. To enter your citadel, I disguised myself as a wind, a trick I learned from Nełts’eeyi Cheen, The Black Wind of the North. You are also correct about what brought me here—I was searching for our princess when I saw your flying-star arrows and decided to stop them.”
Bright blinked. “You are forthcoming,” he said.
“You have bested me,” Yash said. “I am at your mercy, and now you know my secrets. What next?”
“I… well…” Bright said.
“I imagine you’ve already reported my presence to your emperor, and to the other tower masters.”
Bright’s gaze dipped slightly.
“Or maybe you haven’t,” Yash went on. “Maybe you were waiting to extract my secrets before presenting me to your emperor.”
“Yes,” Bright said. “That’s it exactly.” But the tower master stood there, frowning slightly. The silence washed downstream for a time.
“Unless you want something else from me,” Yash ventured. “Something you don’t want to bother the Emperor with.”
Bright’s frown deepened. “I do have another question,” he said. He pulled something from his belt and held it up. The knife Yash had taken from Master Dzhesq the Needle.
“Where did you get this?”
“Um,” Yash said. “That is a… um, knife, sacred to my people. Miłhushi, we name it. It is the weapon of the Yeqeeqani, given to us by the Yachaa, The Sun, in ancient times—”
“It is a knife made of demon bone, of Hje manufacture,” Bright interrupted. “Where did you get it?”
Yash sighed and closed her eyes. “I found it,” she said.
“I’m only going to ask you this once more,” Bright said. “Where did you get this?”
Yash hung there for a moment, silent. Then she sighed. “If I say, my princess will die. I can tell you anything, but not that. Torture me if you must.”
Bright snarled, turned, and strode forcefully out of the room.
When he was gone, Yash worked at her bonds some more, but they were too tight. She pulled herself up by her belly muscles, thinking she might chew through the rope holding her feet, but the fibers it was woven of were too tough. So she rested, conserving her strength.
Presently she heard footsteps, and then Bright came back into the room. He stood for a moment with his hands behind his back.
“You know by now that you are helpless before my power,” Bright said. “Even if you were free of those bonds, you would have no hope of harming me. The same power that struck you down before would incapacitate you again, just as quickly, just as surely. Or simply kill you, if I desire.”
“I believe that,” Yash said. “The tower masters are mighty. This is known.”
“And yet you meant to kill me. Don’t deny it.”
“I won’t,” Yash said. “I did mean to kill you.”
“And someone sent you to kill me. Not your people. Someone here. Dzhesq. Master Needle.”
Yash flinched then hesitated. “I know no one by that name,” she finally said.
“Ha!” Bright said. “I knew it. I can see you are lying. Did you really think you could conceal the truth from me? I knew the moment you arrived that you must have had help from a tower master. The rustic little spirits of your country have no power here. Your princess is in the Blue Needle Tower. That tower belongs to Dzhesq. He caught you trying to rescue her, and then he sent you to kill me. He must have promised you he would release her if you did so.”
Bright paced toward the south window. “It was a good plan. If you killed me, no one would suspect Dzhesq was behind it. If you failed and I killed you, still no one would be the wiser, and he would have lost nothing. He must have promised you that if you did as he asked, he would release the princess.”
“I have never been in the Blue Needle Tower,” Yash said. “But why would this—Needle, is it?—want to murder you, one of his own? A tower master like himself?”
“You do not understand our politics and doubtless have no interest—and perhaps not the capacity—to do so. Here it is, then. Dzhesq and I have our… differences. He has long plotted against me. This is not the first time he has conspired to do me harm. I never thought he would go so far as to kill me, but now we stand in front of it, don’t we?”
“Please,” Yash said. “I only care about my princess and my people. I only do what I must.”
“Is that so, my would-be assassin? Do you confess that my reasoning is sound?”
Yash put on a doleful expression and then nodded. “I see I cannot deceive you,” she said. “It is all as you say. Except that Master Needle himself arranged for me to enter the fortress.”
“Of course,” Bright said. “Dzhesq, for all of his faults, is as clever as he is devious.”
“My princess knows nothing of this,” Yash said. “Please do not punish her for my mistakes.”
Bright regarded her for a moment. “Well, Boy,” he said. “Here is what we shall do. Or rather, what you must do. Return to Master Needle. Tell him you have killed me. That will distract him and might earn his trust, at least for a few moments. Use those moments to kill him and return here with his head. Do this, and I will cease visiting destruction on your people.”
“And my princess?”
“With Dzhesq dead, you may be able to rescue her. I will not hinder you, but I cannot be seen to help you, either. Your only other choice it to perish—here, now—with no hope of success whatsoever.”
“If I attempt this, how can I kill a tower master?”
“Dzhesq plans to kill you, of course, so you will be unable to tell the Emperor of the bargain he made with you. But he will want to know if you succeeded in killing me. You will have a moment. Act quickly. He keeps a chuaxhi in his skin. Perhaps you have met it? Do not give him time to release it. He also keeps a creature of some power in his apartment, but, if he allows you in, it will not harm you.”
Yash nodded with as much seeming reluctance as she could muster.
“I will do as you say, Tower Master Bright.”
Bright nodded. “Of course you will,” he said. He made a motion with his hand, not directed at Yash.
As she followed his gesture, she saw a creature emerge from one of the holes in the wall.
It was black, mostly head, the size of a toddler, with insect-thin legs and little feathery wings. It stared at her hands, and a dazzling beam of light shot from each of its eyes. She felt a flash of heat, and the ropes fell smoking from her wrists. She let her arms down so they were touching the floor as the creature repeated the trick with the bonds on her feet. She broke her fall with her hands and rolled up to standing. She went to the where her clothes were folded and started to put them on.
“I didn’t ask,” Bright said. “Why were you wearing a woman’s shift?”
“It is what Master Needle gave me to wear,” Yash replied. “He said I would not be noticed.’
“Some private joke of his perhaps,” Bright mused. “Or perhaps he wanted you to appear more harmless than you already do. For a hero of your people, you are remarkably small and scrawny. You’re hardly more imposing than your princess. But again, perhaps that is the point, yes?”
Yash nodded. “Master Needle believed that a larger, more imposing warrior would attract more attention,” she said. “It does not seem to have mattered.”
“No,” Bright agreed. “He should have known better than to plot against me. I have always been his superior. Now, go the way you came.”
“That will be difficult,” Yash said. “I jumped out of his window and crossed the roof. I do not think I can jump far enough to reach his window from the roof. I may have to go through the fortress.”
“Very well,” Bright said. “It is no concern of mine how you reach him.”
“But you said the clothing was wrong. And he had guards at the base of his tower.”
“If you are wearing something different than you were when you left him, he will be suspicious. It will put him on guard.”
“I understand that much,” Yash said. “I will keep the woman’s garment and change back into it when I enter his tower. But until then, perhaps I need clothing that will not attract attention.”
“I see,” Bright said. “Very well. Wait here.”
While he was gone, Yash examined the room, this time from an upright perspective. The creatures in the holes must have been what rendered her unconscious. But what were they? She reached back through her memories, trying to remember some story that would explain them. But as with Needle’s giant and Yellow’s beetle-woman, they were too changed for her to identify. There was something a little familiar about them, but she could not quite fit the stones together to make a wall.
Perhaps Deng’jah would know. Or perhaps he had been destroyed.
Bright eventually returned with a bundle of garments.
“This is the uniform of a tower courier,” he said. “Couriers are young men who take messages between the tower masters and other important people. It should allow you to move about without attracting attention. But do not test that. Go as quickly and directly to Dzhesq’s tower as possible.”
“Are there guards below?”
“Yes. Tell them you arrived here yesterday at midday and have been helping me with a task. None of them were on duty then.”
Yash nodded and donned the outfit, which consisted of a skirt and top that wrapped around and tied at the waist. She wondered what set it apart from the clothes women were supposed to wear. The shift had been a single garment, but her wedding dress had been two, much like this.
She listened as Bright explained how to reach the Blue Needle Tower through the halls of the fortress. When she was sure she understood, she left, descending the stairs of Bright’s tower.
The guards were alert by the time she reached the bottom floor. They stared at her suspiciously, but when she told them as Bright had instructed, they let her pass without comment.
When she was in the fortress, alone in a corridor, she felt the air stir on her shoulder.
“There you are,” she said.
“I couldn’t follow you into Bright’s chambers,” Deng’jah said. “The things he has in there would have discovered me.”
“Do you know what they are?”
“Not for certain. But I have some ideas.”
“Good. We’ll talk about that later. Right now, find Chej for me.”