Crossroads of Canopy (Titan's Forest #1)
Thoraiya Dyer
Acknowledgments
This is my first published novel. Along this tortuous path I’ve left many beta readers broken and crying behind me (Shout-out to David Fenwick-Mulcahy! Who could have guessed that the were-platypus novel would be buried by another ten full novel manuscripts as well as various detritus left by the raising of actual children?), or something. In short, if the thought of my naked gratitude makes you squeamish, look away now. Or you’ll go blind! You have been warned.
Most immediately and in regards to this specific book, I must thank my agent, Evan Gregory; my editor, Diana M. Pho; plus everyone at Tor involved in production, publicity, etc (thanks again for the beautiful artwork, Marc!). Next, my faithful and, necessarily, slightly cruel manuscript readers Anna Tambour, Jenny Blackford, and Kaaron Warren. Sofia Samatar, your owlish feedback was hugely appreciated, and to Rowena Cory Daniells and Jason Nahrung, for helping wrestle the stupid series proposal into shape, you have my eternal thanks. During the editing phases, kudos to Cat Sparks for the burgers, Rivqa Rafael for the tea, and Zena Shapter for the ferry rides.
Moving further back in time, I have to thank the Australian spec fic writing community at large, too huge to name, but anyone who has been snapshotted in the last decade, you rock and I couldn’t have done this without you.
Sincere thanks to all my small press and magazine editors and publishers, Australian and international, for teaching me not only about the industry, but to trust good people who know what they’re doing, and about my own strengths and limitations. Special indebtedness to Tehani Wessely, who believed in me from the time she pulled my very first published story out of the Andromeda Spaceways slush.
To anyone who has helped me with critiques and/or research, whether for this manuscript or earlier ones, your patience and advice was much appreciated; to Mark Brothers, who helped with sailing; Warren Keen with rock climbing; Graeme Stockton with Scots; Peter Holz with dasyurids; Andrew Harrison with helicopters; David Dyer with the air force; Simon Petrie with chemistry; Chris Large with geology; Dirk Flinthart with bone flutes; Christopher Bobridge with the superstructure of ships; the books you helped with may someday see the light, but in case they don’t, at least I’ll have thanked you here. Because I couldn’t have written this book without first writing those ones.
Thanks to my WoT Clan, Shen an Calhar (Look at me! I wrote a Tor book!) and other WoT players (hi, Mathias!), my Raymo board pals, and my PotBS Society, Les Condamnes. Not to mention my archery club, my Sydney Uni vet friends, my bemused coworkers at Port Stephens, and my Singo school pick-up and library book club posses. Your encouragement was fuel in my writing tank. Sunshine on my solar cells. The tide in my tidal generator, etc.
Thank you to Juliet Marillier, mentor and role model (Margaret, you get major brownie points for introducing me to her work), to Nancy Kress, who gave me hope, and to the legendary Ursula K. Le Guin, whose writing has irrevocably shaped mine.
Finally, to my friends Melissa, Sarah, Kelly, Danielle, Morgan, Fiona, and Jessie, and to family members of the Dyer, Bousaleh, Frankcombe, and Dillon persuasions, it is my privilege to know you. Until I find copies of books that have been signed to you in Lifeline and Salvos stores. Then I’m putting you in the next book as monkey poo collectors. XXOO.
PROLOGUE
UNAR LIES as still as a twelve-year-old can lie.
Eyes shut tight, anticipating her mother’s pleased and surprised reaction to her day’s work, she breathes, deliberately and deeply, with intent to deceive, in the wreckage of the cot that belonged to her sister. A curtain divides the cot from the rest of the hollowed-out, one-room dwelling. The corner twitches. Tickles her foot. Father checking on her.
Unar’s bent arm is her pillow. She keeps her legs curled so they won’t dangle over the splintered edges. The cot bars have been broken off to burn for fuel but the body remains whole.
Father thinks she’s sleeping. She’s never been so wide awake. He lets the curtain edge drop.
“It’s time to sell her,” Unar’s mother says from the other side of it, dashing Unar’s excitement to dust. Unar can’t remember if she was breathing slowly in or breathing slowly out. She can’t breathe. She doesn’t want to breathe.
And then her old friend anger finds her. Anger heats and eases open her lungs, letting in the steamy, mould-smelling air.
Father says in his soft, befuddled voice, “Wait a little. She’ll marry. We’ll have a dowry.”
“A slave price is more than a dowry.” Mother is as merciless as splinters.
“Your belly’s speaking, Erid. Eat these.”
Unar smells nut oil. She hears the rattle of cooked grubs being shaken out of a gourd. Surely, now, Mother will show surprise, will take back what she said about selling her only remaining child.
“What are they?” Mother asks, though she must be able to see what they are. “Why so few?”
“She grows too heavy for the highest branches,” Father says. “Besides, she spends the mornings helping me.”
Today, in search of prey, Unar trespassed over the border of their niche, into the Kingdom of Oxorland. She loves climbing into the mango-coloured sunset sky on the uppermost arms of the great trees of Canopy. Hugging the smooth, cool, powdery barks of gobletfruit and floodgum, she had pressed her ear to the wood, listening for the grind of grub jaws. Pried the fat, white gnawers out of their little tunnels with her bore-knife.
“She’s fit only for the block,” Mother says, voice muffled, mouth full.
In Oxorland, the suntrees, smothered in gleaming, poison-nectared flowers like copper bracelets weighing down a rich woman’s wrist, host many more grubs. They have softer wood, besides. Unar’s bore-knife went into them so easily.
“What’s the use, Erid? You’ll spend it all at once if we sell her. I know you. A lode of metal. A fine gown for begging from high-borns.”
“No! We’ll keep it. We’ll make sure it lasts till the end of our days.”
As evening approached, from her seat in the wind-tossed suntree crown, Unar saw a woman with midnight hair bound in a yellow-feathered headdress walking lithely along a branch path. Light-footed, the woman wore nothing but two slim cloths over hips and breasts, her moonset skin covered in sunburst patterns as though gold metal had been somehow pressed into her flesh. Merchants and slaves on the path had scattered hastily out of her way. The biggest man that Unar had ever seen, holding a wooden shield and bronze sword, walked in front of her, and six Servants in hooded honey-coloured robes walked behind.
It was the incarnation of the sun goddess, Oxor.