“Perfect,” Kirrik said. “How perfect you are. And gifted, as Frog promised you would be. Even considering the bone, you travelled here quickly. I will use you, Nameless. It has been a long time since I had a Canopian adept of my own to use. Greatly preferable to lurking by the border and snatching whatever song or speech I could.”
“A long time, Core Kirrik? May I ask what happened to the Servant of Airak who made these lamps?” Unar hoped she wouldn’t be chastened for speaking out of turn. Kirrik only smirked.
“Oh, yes. He was the last, before you. Not a full Servant of Airak, only a Skywatcher. Just as you are only a Gardener, but he was weaker. The Master had to use him up, all at once, and it killed him. That is what happened to the maker of the lamps and why we could not replace the fifth one when it failed.”
Two birds quarrelled over a spray of seeds. Unar concealed her shock. How much worse could these people be? A great deal worse, as it turned out. She had foolishly offered herself for use, only to now discover that she could be used up, like a gourd full of monkey oil or a knife sharpened into nothingness.
It wasn’t too late. She could leave. It was only Kirrik, here and now, and Unar thought she could overpower her. From what Frog had said, Kirrik would not be able to kill using Unar’s power, and seeing the future or feeling the approach of adepts would surely be no protection against Unar’s fists and teeth, not to mention a club or two of living wood. There were even five kinds of tree for Unar to choose from.
They will not take my magic from me again.
But how would she learn if she left the dovecote? Kirrik had asked her, How do you find the barrier from this side, girl? Without the secret, despite her confidence, Unar had to confront the possibility that she could bang her head against the barrier for a hundred years and not get through, since the magic of Canopy had faded from her skin. The Master might be her only way back. And she couldn’t leave Frog. Not again.
“I see,” she said. “Thank you for explaining, Core Kirrik.”
Kirrik turned away. Took a few paces towards the table. Her fingers traced the surface grain contemplatively.
“If the Master used you up all at once,” she said, “he could grow an entire great tree, I think. Grow it through the centre of the Garden and break open Audblayin’s egg. The goddess would fall into our waiting arms, Bodyguard or no. What do you think of that?”
Was this the test? Kirrik must know that Audblayin was dead.
“The egg is empty,” Unar said. “Besides, Audblayin is only one deity. Your Master needs to speak with all thirteen.”
Kirrik laughed again.
“He does need all thirteen,” she said, “and he’ll have them, Nameless the Outer. You will be allowed to help us, once we can be sure of you.”
So. Unar had guessed right. Help them to gather all the gods and goddesses of Canopy together? Perhaps to murder them if they proved argumentative or incapable. Bring the barrier down. It remained as impossible today as it had been yesterday. It was ludicrous.
“I owe a debt to you. For my sister. I’ll help you. I’ll pay the debt.”
I’ll stay until I’ve learned as much as I can learn. But Frog can’t have realised that the Master’s path leads nowhere; I’ll convince her of the truth.
“Not enough. You must come to know, as we here know, that the city of Canopy is a defilement that must be torn down.”
“How shall I come to know that, Core Kirrik? I’ve heard of the Old Gods. They may be brought back to the forest, but how do you know they’d have greater care for Floor and Understorey than the new ones do?”
“Do the gods and goddesses of Canopy have a care for Understorians and Floorians, then? I have not noticed them! I have not seen the flowers of Irof or tasted the bounty of Ukak’s bees! After you have lived with us for long enough, you will wonder why you ever wished to crawl and kiss Audblayin’s hand.”
Unar forced herself to gaze patiently at Core Kirrik, who’d worked herself into something of a frenzy.
“And until then?”
“You will require supervision. Tiresome as that may be. You have chores to do, Nameless. The Master breaks his fast this evening. You can be trusted to make a meal for him, I think. Follow me.”
Kirrik led her away from the wide room with its round table and writing materials, along a dim corridor. Open doors lay to left and right. Each room contained a blue-white lamp, four bunks to each wall, with each bunk bearing a bundle of bedding, and a washstand. Here, where there was neither magic nor wood smoke to deter uninvited guests, the tiny, high windows had insectivorous plants smothering the sills. The last room on the right was a kitchen of sorts, with four hearths, clay chimneys, and pots dangling from hooks on the ceiling. To the left, another open door showed a primitive privy: two holes in the floor and two water barrels.
At the very end of the corridor, a spiral staircase led upwards. Unar had put her hand out to point at it, to ask what was at the top of it, when her fingers rebounded from an invisible surface.
Like the barrier. A smaller version. What can be created can be destroyed. They practice replicating it so that they can determine its weaknesses and tear it down. Or perhaps they plan to help the gods and goddesses, to make a better, stronger barrier. One that can protect everyone. One Forest.
The Master’s quarters must be at the top of this staircase.
“Here,” Kirrik ordered, marching into the kitchen. All the hearths but one were cold. Beside the lit one, enough cut wood to last the whole of the monsoon and then some made a wide stack from floor to ceiling. On a wooden bench top, a single white egg rested in the bottom of a deep basin of water. Kirrik looked at it, then looked at Unar. “The Master will have four eggs. And three birds. You have permission to use magic for this. Begin.”
FORTY-FIVE
UNAR BLINKED. She swallowed.
She thought she understood what Core Kirrik expected her to do, but she’d never tried anything like it before. As Frog had shown her, Unar began singing the godsong, using it, tentatively at first, then with greater confidence as she located the spark of life within the egg and it broke open to reveal a hatchling of a type of bird she’d never seen. Long-legged and with splayed toes, it stood belly-deep in the basin, regarding Unar with a startled brown eye ringed by bright orange down. The rest of its fluffy body was yellow and grey.
When Unar pressed it with her magic again, it made a soft, grunting sound. Then it was abruptly taller, with sleek black feathers on its body and a bald, colourful head and neck.
The level of water in the basin had gone down. Unar stopped singing, startled that she’d somehow incorporated it as a raw material without even knowing. But why should she be surprised? She’d grown crops in the Garden and fruit for herself and Frog, as late as the day before yesterday.