I destroy three of them on the first day after I leave you. As you stand sharing a mellow with Ykka, I tear apart Ykka’s stone eater, the red-haired creature that she’s been calling Luster and you’ve been calling Ruby Hair. Filthy parasite, lurking only to take and give nothing back! I despise her. We are meant for better. Then I take the two who have been stalking Alabaster, hoping to dart in should Antimony become distracted—this is not because Antimony needs the help, mind, but simply because our race cannot bear that level of stupidity. I cull them for the good of us all.
(They’re not really dead, if that troubles you. We cannot die. In ten thousand years or ten million, they will reconstitute themselves from the component atoms into which I’ve scattered them. A long time in which to contemplate their folly, and do better next time.)
This initial slaughter makes many of the others flee; scavengers are cowards at heart. They don’t go far, though. Of those who remain near, a few attempt parley. Plenty for us all, they say. If even one has the potential… but I catch some of these watching you and not Alabaster.
They confess to me, as I circle them and pretend that I might be merciful. They speak of another old one—one who is known to me from conflicts long ago. He, too, has a vision for our kind, in opposition to mine. He knows of you, my Essun, and he would kill you if he could, because you mean to finish what Alabaster began. He can’t get to you with me in the way… but he can push you to destroy yourself. He’s even found some greedy human allies up north to help him do so.
Ah, this ridiculous war of ours. We use your kind so easily. Even you, my Essun, my treasure, my pawn. One day, I hope, you will forgive me.
14
you’re invited!
SIX MONTHS PASS IN THE undifferentiated white light of an ancient magic-fueled survival shelter. After the first few days you start wrapping cloth around your eyes when you’re tired, to create your own day and night. It works passably.
Tonkee’s arm survives the reattachment, though she gets a bad infection at one point, which Lerna’s basic antibiotics seem powerless to stop. She lives, though by the time the fever and livid infection lines have faded, her fingers have lost some of their fine movement and she gets phantom tinglings and numbness throughout the limb. Lerna thinks this will be permanent. Tonkee mutters imprecations about it sometimes, whenever you track her down in the middle of core sampling or whatever she’s doing and force her to go meet with the Innovator caste head. Whenever she gets too free with the “arm-chopper” insults, you remind her first that unleashing a piece of the Evil Earth to crawl through her flesh was her own damned fault, and second that you’re the only reason Ykka hasn’t had her killed yet, so maybe she should consider shutting up. She does, but she’s still an ass about it. Nothing ever really changes in the Stillness.
And yet… sometimes things do.
Lerna forgives you for being a monster. That’s not exactly it. You and he still can’t talk about Tirimo easily. Still, he heard your raging fight with Ykka all through the surgery that he performed on Tonkee’s arm, and that means something to him. Ykka wanted Tonkee left to die on the table. You argued for her life, and won. Lerna knows now that there’s more to you than death. You’re not sure you agree with that assessment, but it’s a relief to have something of your old friendship back.
Hjarka starts courting Tonkee. Tonkee doesn’t react well at first. She’s mostly just confused when gifts of dead animals and books start appearing in the apartment, brought by with a too-casual, “In case that big brain of hers needs something to chew on,” and a wink. You’re the one who has to explain to Tonkee that Hjarka’s decided, through whatever convoluted set of values the big woman holds dear, that an ex-commless geomest with the social skills of a rock represents the pinnacle of desirability. Then Tonkee is mostly annoyed, complaining about “distractions” and “the vagaries of the ephemeral” and the need to “decenter the flesh.” You mostly ignore all of it.
It’s the books that settle the issue. Hjarka seems to pick them by the number of many-syllabled words on their spines, but you come home a few times to find Tonkee engrossed in them. Eventually you come home to find Tonkee’s room curtain drawn and Tonkee engrossed in Hjarka, or so the sounds from beyond would suggest. You didn’t think they could do that much with her bum arm. Huh.
Perhaps it is this new sense of connection to Castrima that causes Tonkee to begin trying to prove her worth to Ykka. (Or maybe it’s just pride; Tonkee bristles so when Ykka once says that Tonkee isn’t as useful to the comm as its hardest-working Strongback.) Whatever the reason, Tonkee brings the council a new predictive model that she’s worked out: Unless Castrima finds a stable source of animal protein, some comm members will start showing deprivation symptoms within a year. “It’ll start with the meat stupids,” she tells all of you. “Forgetfulness, tiredness, little things like that. But it’s a kind of anemia. If it goes on, the result is dementia and nerve damage. You can figure out the rest.”
There are too many lorist tales of what can happen to a comm without meat. It will make people weak and paranoid, the community becoming vulnerable to attack. The only choice that will prevent this outcome, Tonkee explains, is cannibalism. Planting more beans just isn’t enough.
The report is useful information, but nobody really wanted to hear it, and Ykka doesn’t like Tonkee any better for sharing it. You thank Tonkee after the meeting, since no one else did. Her lower jaw juts out a bit as she replies, “Well, I won’t be able to continue my studies if we all start killing and eating each other, so.”
You shunt the orogene children’s lessons to Temell, another adult orogene in the comm. The children complain that he’s not very good—none of your finesse, and while he goes easier on them, they’re not learning as much. (It’s nice to be appreciated, if after the fact.) You do start training Cutter as an alternative, after he asks you to show him how you cut off Tonkee’s arm. You doubt he’ll ever perceive magic or move obelisks, but he’s at least first-ring level, and you want to see if you can make him a two-or three-ringer. Just because. Apparently higher-level teaching doesn’t interfere with what you’re learning from Alabaster—or at least, ’Baster doesn’t complain about it. You’ll take it. You’ve missed teaching.
(You offer an exchange of techniques to Ykka, since she shows no interest in lessons. You want to know how she does the things she does. “Nope,” she says, winking at you in a way that’s not really teasing. “Gotta keep some tricks up my sleeve so you won’t ice me someday.”)
An all-volunteer trading party goes north to try to reach the comm of Tettehee. They do not return. Ykka nixes all future attempts, and you do not protest this. One of your former orogeny students was with the missing party.
Aside from the food supply issue, however, Castrima thrives in those six months. One woman gets pregnant without permission, which is a big problem. Babies contribute nothing useful to a comm for years, and no comm can tolerate many useless people during a Season. Ykka decides that the woman’s household of two married couples will not receive an increased share until someone elderly or infirm dies to clear the way for the unauthorized baby. You get into another fight with Ykka about that, because you know full well she meant Alabaster when she offhandedly added, “Shouldn’t be long,” to the woman. Ykka’s unapologetic: She did mean Alabaster and she hopes he dies soon, because at least a baby has future value.