AS THE sun went down, scratching, preening, and soft conversation announced the arrival of the flowerfowl and two Skywatchers of the lightning god.
Imeris dragged her guilty thoughts away from Oldest-Father’s final words—She must be silenced before she kills him. Use your throwing rope, Imeris—and arranged a slightly more carefree expression for her brother. Leaper was sixteen, quick-thinking, and supremely confident, almost as broad-shouldered and muscular as Middle-Father if not as pale-skinned.
Only, his hair had been shorn close to his scalp. That had the look of a punishment about it. He grinned mightily when he saw her.
“What are you so pleased about?” Imeris asked, embracing him. “Is it so amusing that I am beaten by Aurilon again?”
“Of course not,” Leaper answered. “I’ll tell you what I find amusing after you’ve told me what happened and how you’re going to beat her next time.”
Leaper had a way with words. He’d lost his Understorian accent within a year of coming to Canopy, adopting a highborn’s formal speech when necessary by sheer force of will. Now he strutted like a king’s son in his Skywatcher’s black velvet skirt and bearskin sandals. Heavy brass bracers inscribed with silver bolts covered the spines hidden in his forearms and shins, the intricate clasps and locks secured by the lightning god himself, who kept the key. Those in the Temple who accepted Leaper’s service had not crippled his climbing ability, but nor would they allow him to roam unattended.
Aforis, his eternal chaperone, kissed Imeris on both cheeks. The older Canopian was a Skywatcher, too, demoted from a Servant’s silver around the time that Imeris was born. It was a story she hadn’t been able to get anyone to tell her, though she suspected the Godfinder had something to do with it. Unar looked momentarily stricken when she saw Aforis, but she composed herself, offered him the best cushion, and served him ti before anyone else.
“I do not know how to beat her,” Imeris told Leaper, resisting the urge to rub her bandaged arm. “When I return to Loftfol, I will choose a different teacher.”
“She’s pretty old, isn’t she, old Aurilon? Maybe she’ll die soon of old age.”
For all his broad shoulders, muscles, and fancy clothes, he was helpless when she turned on him. She seized his little finger with her good hand and twisted his arm behind his back. Learning to fight had never interested him. Working hard at anything, day by day, until all aspects were mastered, had never interested him either, unless it was kissing the backsides of royalty.
“Ow! Let go, Understorian savage!”
“I do not want Aurilon to die!” Imeris growled. “I want her to teach me!”
“She’s never going to teach you, dimwit, that’s the whole point, don’t you understand? How does it go, again? You can’t beat her till she teaches you, and she won’t teach you till you beat her. Any idiot could grasp immediately that’s an unwinnable scenario.”
I do not have to beat her.
“Imeris,” Aforis chided, “your ti will get cold.”
She let Leaper go. At least the smirk had disappeared from his handsome face. They sat down on cushions, sipped ti, and glared at each other.
“I’ll tell you what Leapael was laughing at,” Aforis said. “We passed the king’s palace on the way here. Soldiers of Orinland have come to Airakland at the goddess’s request. They’re trying to enlist our king’s soldiers in the search for a criminal.”
“Must be a dangerous criminal,” Unar said, blowing nonchalantly on her ti to cool it. “Imagine sending soldiers across two niches after some petty lawbreaker. Very provocative.”
“Not a petty lawbreaker,” Aforis said. “This man, called Anahah, was the Bodyguard of the bird goddess. Now he’s fled Orinland.”
“The king of Orinland threatened to call a Hunt if the traitor isn’t found,” Leaper said excitedly.
“A Hunt can only be called for a demon,” Unar said, rolling her eyes. When she saw Imeris frowning in puzzlement, she waved her half-empty ti cup and elaborated. “In the early days of Canopy, when the barrier was first built, there was an agreement between all thirteen royal families that if it was breached and a demon came through, each niche would send its best hunter on the Hunt.”
“No demon has come through the Airakland barrier for a hundred years,” Leaper boasted. “Our god keeps his part of the barrier—”
“All the goddesses and gods do their best,” Unar said shortly. “People are always killing them.”
“When a chimera came through in Odelland,” Imeris said, “Aurilon killed it by herself.”
“Aurilon this,” Leaper muttered. “Aurilon that.”
“How come your head is shaved?” Imeris asked keenly.
“I was trying out a hairstyle to see if it suited me. The Shining One didn’t like it.”
“Who is the Shining One?”
“The Servant of Airak who makes the death lamps,” Aforis said.
“What kind of hairstyle were you trying?” Unar asked.
“Half black,” Leaper replied, “and half white. It’s only a matter of time.”
Unar snorted her tea. “I, too, expected to become a Servant,” she said darkly.
“Is that who has half white hair and half black?” Imeris asked. “Servants of the lightning god?”
“Yes,” Aforis said.
“I’ve still got a souvenir,” Leaper said. “Even though the Shining One held me down and shaved my head.” He hooked his thumb into the top of both wrap skirt and loincloth beneath, pulled sharply downwards, and showed Imeris the top two finger widths of his pubic hair. It was half black, half white.
“Stop! Disgusting!” she cried, leaping to her feet, spilling the dregs of her ti.
“Not about to shave me there, is she?” Leaper’s laugh was warm and loud, echoing in the space.
“I think I need to vomit.”
“I think I need the amenities.” Aforis sighed. “Too much ti. Down the stairs, Unar?”
“Down the stairs,” Unar confirmed.
When Aforis was gone and the curtain lowered behind him, Leaper leaned forwards towards Imeris.
“I found out,” he whispered, “what Aforis got demoted for.”
Imeris wanted to stay standing, indignant, but she couldn’t help herself. She sat back down, cross-legged on her cushion, and leaned conspiratorially towards Leaper.
“Trying to sleep with the god?” she guessed.
“No. What? I mean, yes. He broke his vow of chastity,” Leaper said, “but not with the god. With some woman, right?”
“Now who is the dimwit?” Imeris said with satisfaction.
Leaper’s eyes bulged. He reached from his knees across to hers and squeezed them, hard. Their faces were only a hand-span apart.
“He’s never made a single move towards me.”
“Maybe because you both have made chastity vows and submitted to the magic, idiot, and maybe because he is fifty and you are a child. You really think you are so beautiful that nobody can resist you?”
“That’s right, I am! Whereas the whole of red-blooded Loftfol can easily resist you, no magic required!”
Imeris was deciding whether to resist breaking his face when the curtain swished aside and Aforis began washing his hands beneath the tap in one of the barrels.
“Must I seat you in opposite corners, children?” Unar asked, and Leaper abruptly slid his bottom back on his cushion, away from Imeris. Aforis rejoined them.
“One who walks in the grace of Airak was sorry to hear about the man you called Oldest-Father, Imeris,” Aforis said. Imeris and Leaper immediately sobered, looking in silence at one another with shining eyes and long faces.
“I thought Esse would be the last to go,” Unar said, sighing. “He never left that tree.”
“He left it to fight Kirrik,” Imeris said.
Unar and Aforis looked at each other again. Unar opened her mouth as if to say something, but Aforis gave a slight shake of the head and Unar lapsed into silence.
“When will you return to Understorey, Imeris?” Aforis asked.
“Tomorrow,” Imeris said. “Or the next day.”
“She broke her arm in the fight with Aurilon,” Unar told him, and Leaper’s head came up interestedly. “One more night, and her spines will be able to take her weight again.”
“Who is the best hunter in Airakland?” Imeris asked Aforis, changing the subject. “How is it decided, if a Hunt is called?”
“There’s a relic of the Old Gods,” Aforis said, eyes drifting to Unar. “A tool of Ilanland, a thin bone needle set in a compass. The needle points to the best hunter present at that time in that niche. The compass travels to each Canopian kingdom until thirteen Hunters are found.”
“Quite specific,” Unar murmured. “Not unlike a rib bone that I have heard of, from Akkadland, which allows a person to find their blood relations.”
Imeris glanced from Unar’s face to Aforis’s. Her knowledge of magic, as always, was woefully inadequate. She thought of the bone that made the cool breeze in the ti-house in Wissin. She touched the bone amulet at her throat that protected her from Kirrik’s body-stealing sorcery. Those were simple functions in comparison to the ones the Canopians spoke of.
They went up to the flowerfowl pens to lock the birds safely in for the night. The hens had brown bodies, hatchet-shaped tails, and bald red-and-yellow heads. They honked softly as they finished eating and sorted themselves out among the provided perches. Imeris watched them with envy and longing.
Unar brought out the lantern she’d used for starting the fire in the belly of the stove. She set it above a particularly large pitcher plant full of water and opened up all the panes. Aforis gave the Godfinder a disapproving look but said nothing.
“Is that dangerous?” Imeris asked.
“It’s a failed attempt at a death-lantern,” Unar replied, “by a person who is not allowed to make them. He’s lucky he wasn’t sent away.”
“Our sister is famous in Canopy for her power and grace,” Imeris mused, “while Middle-Father is famous in Understorey for being a murderer who escaped retribution. Will Leaper be renowned for serving Airak or for burning down his house?”
“I think the Godfinder,” Leaper said, leering, “knows something about bringing down Airak’s house.”
“It kills the insects,” Aforis explained mildly to Imeris. “They’re drawn to the light, stunned by the lantern, and fall into the water. What the birds don’t eat in the morning is left for the plant to feed on. That’s why this pitcher is so much bigger than the others. It’s time for us to go, Leapael.”
The higher branches of the scented satinwood obscured the silhouette of Airak’s emergent, but the direction it lay in was plain enough. Imeris allowed her gaze to be drawn to the flicker of lightning striking, cold and with quick, quiet ripping sounds, from a clear sky.
“I suppose it is,” Leaper said, coming to stand beside Imeris, looking in the same direction. “Want me to come educate you some more tomorrow evening, Issi?”
“No.” Beneath the bandage, Imeris tremored her spines in their sheaths. The pain was fading. “I shall be gone. Want me to carry your love to our mothers and remaining fathers? Or have you been sending them message birds?”
Of course he hadn’t.
His smile was rueful as he kissed her good-bye.