Walls of Wind and the Occasional Diamond Thief Boxed Set Read online

  He examined my abdomen gently, then his hand drew a quick arch in the air pausing at its highest point while his right foot rose and briefly held: “It is time to begin.” He walked to his side of the room and returned with a final potion. I drank it at once. The pain receded though I could still observe the rigid furrows that clenched across my taut belly.

  Gant’i bent toward me, his face solemn. “You must have great courage,” he motioned. His body arched over mine. His hands, not quite touching me, met above my head and moved down the sides of my body to meet again below my feet: “I will not let harm reach any part of you.”

  My courage returned with the lessening of my pain. I raised my right hand, two fingers extended and curled like claws, while my left hand rapidly encircled my bulging abdomen: “I am two warriors’ womb-parent.”

  Gant’i bowed his head. When he raised it, his face was damp, but he was composed. His left hand drew a circle around his eyes and moved to draw another around my eye: “You see things as I do.” He drew a circle about my eye again: “See—”...and a straight line from that circle to touch my belly: “—into your womb.”

  I indicated my acceptance with a quick shrug, but I felt myself drawing back in fear. I wanted to look away, but didn’t dare.

  “You will bear a Broghen.”

  In the wake of his words I heard a strange sound, strong and rhythmic, pounding. I concentrated on the wild sound of my heart, until I could breathe again.

  It never occurred to me to doubt him. The babies in my womb had been offered again and again in forfeiture; the first three by Saft’ir, the last one by Gant’i and by me. It was insanely fitting that the Wind should send a Broghen to accept our sacrifices.

  “All second-year matings produce a Broghen,” Gant’i signed, bending toward my body as though he sensed my retreat from him. “Always a Broghen is born. But I’ll take care of it, it won’t harm the others.”

  They think they understand each other. I heard my thoughts as if they were someone else’s, referring to myself and Gant’i as though to strangers. But the signs and movements can’t mean the same thing to both of them.

  “Rennis, do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  With a rush I returned to myself. I slashed my left hand downward, twisting my torso and face away from him as much as I could: “No! I reject what you offer!”

  Knowledge. I was rejecting knowledge, if what he said was true. I looked at my belly as it shuddered with contractions I could barely feel through the haze of the drink he’d given me.

  But I’d come to trust Gant’i. If he was telling me this, it was because I had to know, because my knowing might keep our infants alive. I didn’t question why he hadn’t told me before; I wished he hadn’t had to tell me now. Reluctantly I cupped my ear with my hand: “Tell me.”

  “The Broghen will not hurt you. Pity it, rather than fearing it, at least in infancy. I’ll capture it and take it far away where it can do us no harm.”

  “How...?”

  “No one knows where it comes from, or why. It’s created at second mating, we know that from our records.”

  Second mating. I felt the inaudible intake of air that was my breathing: so I was not dead. It was only the shadow of death, that had left me when I joined with Gant’i, and was returning now. It pressed down on me, stilled my heart within me, stilled even my breath. Into the weight of darkness pushing against me, into the stillness that froze my arms at my sides, I whispered, “Saft’ir and I had second mating.”

  I couldn’t see Gant’i but I felt his hands on my shoulders. When my vision cleared, his face was almost against mine, as though he would understand my Bria words just by nearness. Slowly I signed to him what I had said.

  “When?”

  “The afternoon before he died. He scented early. We believed it wouldn’t matter, stillseason was only a few weeks away. And then, when he died... Unborn is unborn at any stage. I didn’t think it mattered.”

  Gant’i looked away from me. I wanted to ask him, but I couldn’t. Sensing our distress, Maaris came from the cookwall where he’d set a large pot of water to boil, his last task before leaving us.

  “Maaris must stay. He may be needed,” Gant’i signed when he turned back. My throat closed over the words, I had to try twice before I could pass on his message. Maaris was a healer. When I told him Gant’i wanted him to stay, he touched his breath without asking questions, though I’d never heard of any but the Ghen father attending a birth.

  Once more Gant’i’s body arched over mine, his hands outlining my body. This time I took little comfort from his assurance. He would do all he could. Within my womb I imagined my Bria infants fighting for their lives against two Broghen.

  I stiffened, almost resisted, as Gant’i moved to the end of the shelf and stroked my legs apart. I no longer wanted my questions answered. Better the slippery grasp of fear than the firm grip of grief. I had known both; I knew which one was better.

  And so I was unprepared for the sight of my firstborn, unprepared for his delicate perfection or for the all-embracing joy that seized me when Gant’i laid him in my arms. His tiny, treble mewling, more lovely than the music of the wind, his fragile features, furless, almost translucent skin, skeletal little body wrapped in one of the warmed cloths Maaris had prepared, all so enraptured me that I forgot to be afraid.

  “Look aside,” Maaris said quickly, his Bria warble barely rising above the sudden, crazed shriek as Gant’i guided forth a writhing mass of fury from within me. My cry of horror added to the din before I could control it, but already Gant’i was deftly easing the infant Ghen from the Broghen’s bestial grip, wincing as its claws pierced his fingers. Maaris reached for a small box I had not noticed before, lifted its lid with hands that trembled. Gant’i dropped the Broghen inside and closed the lid.

  I tried to ignore its frenzied assault upon the walls that enclosed it, its demonic screeching, tried to concentrate only on nursing my child, and Saft’ir’s, when Gant’i handed him to me. No sacrifices, I implored Wind, over and over, but my prayers brought no relief to the tightness in my throat, the pounding of my heart, the clench of fear as Gant’i reached once more into my heaving womb.

  Again a struggling mass of Ghen and Broghen emerged, but smaller, more desperate. The Broghen, having had its full natural maturation, had the upper hand against the premature Ghen. I couldn’t see how badly he was hurt but he bled from a multitude of wounds and when Gant’i eased the raging Broghen aside, his tiny youngling gave a sigh and lay limp.

  Maaris lifted the still body and laid it on the cloths he’d prepared. He bent over the tiny infant, massaging its chest, breathing into its mouth, counting softly as he worked on it.

  Gant’i sat still.

  “My second youngling,” I urged him. He didn’t need to understand Bria; the desperate edge to my voice was clear enough. He sat still, not looking at me.

  “No!” I screamed, “Not my youngling!” I saw him close his eyes and bow his head. Weakly I flung my arms out against him until he looked at me again. “I did everything you said! I did everything right,” I signed.

  Maaris looked up from the table where he was now suturing the worst of the premature Ghen’s wounds. Tears dampened his face, but his hand was steady. Gant’i sat as still as his child, staring at the little mound of bloodied flesh between my legs as though it had been he who’d failed to keep it safe.

  “Rennis!” Maaris said, sharply, “There are two infants; three, I hope, who need you. There will be time for mourning later.”

  I stroked my infant’s back as he suckled, trying not to think of the little sibling who should be lying against my breast beside him. Yes, I would grieve later. Grief always waited for me.

  “Tell Gant’i to take the Broghen away while I attend his youngling,” Maaris said. I touched Gant’i, unable to speak of the monsters I had birthed. He started, and glanced at the writhing beast still struggling in his hands. A look of rage crossed his face, so fierce I did
n’t know him. I gasped and shrank away. Perhaps he heard my breath, or felt a premonition of the sorrow that attends all sacrifices, even Broghen. He restrained himself.

  I couldn’t look at the Broghen. The thought of two of them coming from my womb nauseated me. I wanted to die for having brought such vicious, hideous things into the world. Long after Gant’i had taken them away I heard the echo of their insane shrieking. I would hear that sound as long as I lived.

  Maaris kept up a continuous chatter, speculating on my youngling’s future and offering stories from my own childhood. This, and the infants suckling at my breast, drew me slowly back from the abyss. Finally I slept.

  Was it half a remove or half a day later when a feeble whimper wakened me? Maaris raised his head as I looked up, his mouth curving into a cautious smile.“Gant’i’s child will live,” he said.

  Savannis came to see me soon after my delivery. I used to think he went to bless the babies and congratulate the Bria parents. That was when I thought they were recuperating, not hiding in shame and horror, unwilling to go outside and look on Wind with knowing eyes.

  I refused to speak of the birth to Savannis. When he mentioned my lost infant, I stared him into silence. Then he spoke of Saft’ir, saying there was something I should know about his death. I lost all patience and ordered him to leave me in peace. I had all I could cope with, without reopening the past.

  ***

  I named my youngling Tyannis. Gant’i named his Yur’i, and the other Ghen infant Saft’ir, after its parent. It wasn’t my place to comment on the naming of Ghen, but Gant’i saw my displeasure.

  I had to force myself to put little Saft’ir to my breast. I couldn’t help it; I felt that I was nursing a mangarr’h, born to betray any who trusted him. I resented his very health, his robustness. I had paid for my willingness to sacrifice an innocent: I’d lost a child. Gant’i had paid for his part also. His youngling was lame and had an illness that made him gasp for breath at times. Stillseason in the lungs, the Bria doctor called it. Often we sat up all night, massaging his little chest to keep him struggling for air, praying to Wind to spare him.

  I prayed from force of habit, going through the motions of belief. Faith itself was too tenuous, too difficult—like walking on the wind. I’d lost the necessary balance long ago.

  Yur’i was cheerful and uncomplaining, even in illness. He had his parent’s gentle nature. I responded to him with an almost desperate care, partly guilt, because he was paying the price of Tyannis’s life. Tyannis, too, had lost something, though he didn’t yet miss the sibling-love most Bria grew up experiencing. Little Saft’ir alone emerged untouched by all our terrible choices. When fire rages, don’t the victims always resent those who walk through it unscathed? Saft’ir was a hero, his youngling was strong and healthy. Where was the justice in that?

  “Why do you avoid little Saft’ir?” Gant’i asked me at last.

  “I don’t,” I lied. How could I say I wanted the child to suffer? Had I learned nothing at all? But I was as proud as Saft’ir had been, for in my deepest heart I still wanted to make Wind’s choices for Him: I wanted little Saft’ir to be ill instead of Yur’i. Or, if one must die, why hadn’t it been him instead of my second youngling?

  “It hurts him when you turn aside. You must be more kind,” Gant’i persisted. His criticism stung me.

  “Saft’ir!” I cried. “Always Saft’ir, adult and child both, forcing sacrifices on others while they sacrifice nothing!”

  “Sacrifice nothing?” Gant’i looked at me closely. “Saft’ir sacrificed everything.”

  “For his pride!”

  “Saft’ir was bitten by a Broghen. I thought Savannis told you.”

  “A Broghen?” I was shocked for a moment. But what difference did that make, really? “Even if he was, the wounds weren’t fatal. I saw that for myself.”

  “Rennis,” Gant’i took my hands in his, held them absolutely still, to say: “This is important.” Gently he moved in our language of body and breath, as gently as a healer sews a wound.

  “Saft’ir fought a Broghen, fought it alone. Perhaps the monster caught him unaware; Broghen haven’t attacked our wall outside of stillseason in years. Saft’ir must have moved from his post for a moment to stretch his legs; his firearm was found leaning against the wall.

  “He killed the Broghen with his knife and bare claws, before it broke into our city. Only when the wall was safe, the monster dead, did he drag himself over to his post and call for help. He took his life when he saw me coming to replace him.”

  I looked away, then back at Gant’i, “Saft’ir sacrificed my Bria younglings when he took his life,” I signed. “Tyannis’s sibling is dead because of him.”

  “No, Rennis. A Broghen’s bite is poisonous from the moment it first eats meat. It isn’t necessarily fatal to Ghen, but it is to Bria. Saft’ir couldn’t mate with you again. He would have brought you death in his mating, you and your Bria infants.”

  “His dying almost killed them anyway. It did kill one.”

  “I killed your youngling. The Broghen of our mating caused his death. Saft’ir’s youngling held back Saft’ir’s Broghen. My Yur’i was too small.”

  “That’s not Yur’i’s fault!”

  “No, it was mine. I wanted you too much. Saft’ir knew that, he knew I’d join with you. That’s why he killed himself when he saw me coming.”

  “Why didn’t he just tell me?”

  “How could he explain to you? You didn’t know about Broghen. And you would have refused to mate with another while he was alive. He must have thought he could only save you and your infants by dying.”

  “Why did you burn the Broghen’s body? He could have shown me!”

  Gant’i touched my cheek gently. He glanced at the mat where Tyannis lay sleeping beside the stockier Ghen infants.

  “There’s a story Mick’al tells of a time before the building of this city; a story of mated Bria destroying themselves for fear of the Broghen within them. We are sworn to secrecy because of this. Saft’ir might have given you more credit, tried to talk to you, but his motives were good. He was always impulsive.”

  Could I have lived for over a year knowing a monster grew inside me? Could I have slept at night, fearing that it was even then attacking my babies? Wouldn’t I have started and trembled at every pain, imagining it to be the bite of a Broghen, devouring my insides? I could barely endure the knowledge even now that it was over.

  Would I have gone to another Ghen to breed my babies into life if my joined mate were still alive? To breed another Broghen? It was too much to think about. How could anyone tell right from wrong in such a world?

  ***

  Yur’i survived his infancy, though there were many nights I wakened to his labored breathing and carried him to the corner we’d set up with its steaming bricks and the lounging board where I could rest holding him upright against me. Gant’i devoted himself to Tyannis and Saft’ir when I was busy with Yur’i. We cared for all three together, outside of custom, and therefore by necessity we taught all three the language of our joining.

  We were criticized for doing so, but how else could Gant’i direct Tyannis to come in from play and settle for his nap, when I was in the steam corner with Yur’i? How else could I urge little Saft’ir to retract his claws around Tyannis, or entice him down from climbing the ugappa beside our house, while Gant’i went through the leg exercises he had to do daily with Yur’i?

  In deference to tradition we at least taught them that our sign language was for us alone, and didn’t sign to them away from our home. When I caught Tyannis using it with other Bria toddlers, I scolded him and took him home, so he’d remember.

  Saft’ir was never a concern. By the time he was old enough to play games of hunt and fight with other nursing Ghen, he’d already sensed that our signing was not the talk of hunters. And Yur’i, Yur’i saw no children aside from Tyannis and Saft’ir. We worried about where he would fit in, Gant’i and I, but our first concern w
as keeping him alive.

  In fact we worried about all three, their circumstances were so strange. There was a closeness between them that excluded other children, Ghen and Bria alike. They seemed to treat signing as the language of their hearts, and when Tyannis spoke Bria, or Saft’ir and Yur’i spoke Ghen, something was lost in translation: kinship.

  Not even the same species, and yet they behaved as kin! How powerful is language, and we five shared one unique onto ourselves. I felt it myself. Yur’i, and even Saft’ir, began to seem not merely the offspring of my joined Ghen, but somehow related to me. I spoke to them—praised and reprimanded, guiding their growth as I did Tyannis’s. Gant’i and I argued over their upbringing; gently, deferentially, with a sense of how ludicrous such discussions were. Yet, since all three must heed us both, we had to reach agreement.

  We spent an inordinate amount of time together. When I took Tyannis to visit Bria grain mills and farms and factories, I dared not leave Yur’i. When Gant’i carried his child into the forests or along the walls, he didn’t trust himself to also hold back Saft’ir, impulsive, fearless little Saft’ir. Occasionally he asked another Ghen parent and child to accompany him, but it was an imposition on their bonding time. And besides, I was so distraught when Yur’i was away from my sight, so worried that he might fall or lose his breath, I could not bear it.

  “He’s a hunter,” Gant’i reminded me patiently.

  “Not yet! He will be someday, but he’s a baby now!” I’d protest, reaching for Yur’i, feeding him first to prove my point.

  We agreed to take them places together. I had to address Council for a special dispensation. I pointed out that they had encouraged me to accept the risk in birthing their hero’s youngling. This was part of the price. Briarris supported me at once, his loyalty surprising me. We had both once wanted to evict Ghen from our city, but much had happened since then. After some debate, Council agreed to my request.

  We took all three younglings to Bria artisans and factories. Saft’ir ran circles of boredom around us while Yur’i watched wide-eyed from his parent’s arms. Tyannis asked numerous questions, but with an air of resignation that puzzled me until I caught him later, at home, passing on the information to Yur’i, as if glad to do so and forget it.