The Fifth Season

15 you’re among friends

YOU REACH “THE PLACE WITH all the orogenes,” and it’s not at all what you were expecting. It’s abandoned, for one thing. It’s not a comm, for another.

Not in any real sense of the word. The road gets wider as you approach, flattening into the land until it vanishes completely near the middle of town. A lot of comms do this, get rid of the road to encourage travelers to stop and trade, but those comms usually have some place to trade in, and you can’t see anything here that looks like a storefront or marketplace or even an inn. Worse, it doesn’t have a wall. Not a stone pile, not a wire fence, not even a few sharpened sticks jabbed into the ground around the town perimeter. There’s nothing to separate this community from the land around it, which is forested and covered in scraggly underbrush that makes perfect cover for an attacking force.

But in addition to the town’s apparent abandonment, and lack of a wall, there are other oddities. Lots of them, you notice as you and the others look around. There aren’t enough fields, for one. A comm that can hold a few hundred people, as this one seems to be able to do, should have more than the single (stripped bare) hectare of scraggly choya stalks that you noticed on the way in. It should have a bigger pasture than the small plot of dried-out green you see near the town’s center. You don’t see a storehouse, either, elevated or otherwise. Okay, maybe that’s hidden; lots of comms do that. But then you notice that all the buildings are in wildly varied styles: this one tall and city-narrow, that one wide and flat to the ground like something from a warmer climate, yet another that looks to be a sod-covered dome half set into the earth like your old house in Tirimo. There’s a reason most comms pick a style and stick to it: Uniformity sends a visual message. It warns potential attackers that the comm’s members are equally unified in purpose and the willingness to defend themselves. This comm’s visual message is… confused. Uncaring, maybe. Something you can’t interpret. Something that makes you more nervous than if the comm had been teeming with hostile people instead.

You and the others proceed warily, slowly, through the empty streets of the town. Tonkee’s not even pretending to be at ease. She’s got twin glassknives in her hands, stark and black-bladed; you don’t know where she’s been hiding them although that skirt of hers could conceal an army. Hoa seems calm, but who can really tell what Hoa feels? He seemed calm when he turned a kirkhusa into a statue, too.

You don’t pull your knife. If there really are lots of roggas here, there’s only one weapon that will save you if they take exception to your presence.

“You sure this is the right place?” you say to Hoa.

Hoa nods emphatically. Which means that there are lots of people here; they’re just hiding. But why? And how could they have seen you coming through the ashfall?

“Can’t have been gone long,” Tonkee mutters. She’s staring at a dead garden near one of the houses. It’s been picked over by travelers or the former inhabitants, anything edible among its dried stalks gone. “These houses look in good repair. And that garden was healthy until a couple of months ago.”

You’re momentarily surprised to realize you’ve been on the road for two months. Two months since Uche. A little less since the ash started to fall.

Then, swiftly, you focus on the here and now. Because after the three of you stop in the middle of town and stand there awhile in confusion, the door of one of the nearby buildings opens, and three women come out on the porch.

The first one you pay attention to has a crossbow in her hands. For a minute that’s all you see, same as that last day in Tirimo, but you don’t immediately ice her because the crossbow isn’t aimed at you. She’s just got it leaned against one arm, and although there’s a look on her face that warns you she has no problem using it, you also think she won’t do it without provocation. Her skin is almost as white as Hoa’s, although thankfully her hair is simply yellow and her eyes are a nice normal brown. She’s petite, small-boned and poorly fleshed and narrow-hipped in a way that would prompt the average Equatorial to make snide remarks about bad breeding. An Antarctic, probably from a comm too poor to feed its kids well. She’s a long way from home.

The one who draws your eye next is nearly her opposite, and quite possibly the most intimidating woman you’ve ever seen. It has nothing to do with her looks. Those are just Sanzed: the expected pouf of slate-gray hair and the expected deep brown skin and the expected size and visible strength of build. Her eyes are shockingly black — shocking not because black eyes are particularly rare, but because she’s wearing smoky gray eyeshadow and dark eyeliner to accentuate them further. Makeup, while the world is ending. You don’t know whether to be awed or affronted by that.

And she wields those black-clad eyes like piercing weapons, holding each of your gazes at eyepoint for an instant before finally examining the rest of your gear and clothing. She’s not quite as tall as Sanzeds like their women — shorter than you — but she’s wearing a thick brown-fur vest that hangs to her ankles. The vest sort of makes her look like a small, yet fashionable, bear. There’s something in her face, though, that makes you flinch a little. You’re not sure what it is. She’s grinning, showing all her teeth; her gaze is steady, neither welcoming nor uneasy. It’s the steadiness that you recognize, finally, from seeing it a few times before: confidence. That kind of utter, unflinching embrace of self is common in stills, but you weren’t expecting to see it here.

Because she’s a rogga, of course. You know your own when you sess it. And she knows you.

“All right,” the woman says, putting her hands on her hips. “How many in your party, three? I assume you don’t want to be parted.”

You sort of stare at her for a breath or two. “Hello,” you say at last. “Uh.”

“Ykka,” she says. You realize it’s a name. Then she adds, “Ykka Rogga Castrima. Welcome. And you are?”

You blurt: “Rogga?” You use this word all the time, but hearing it like this, as a use name, emphasizes its vulgarity. Naming yourself rogga is like naming yourself pile of shit. It’s a slap in the face. It’s a statement — of what, you can’t tell.

“That, ah, isn’t one of the seven common use names,” says Tonkee. Her voice is wry; you think she’s trying to make a joke to cover nerves. “Or even one of the five lesser-accepted ones.”

“Let’s call this one new.” Ykka’s gaze flickers over each of your companions, assessing, then back to you. “So your friends know what you are.”

Startled, you look at Tonkee, who’s staring at Ykka the way she stares at Hoa when Hoa isn’t hiding behind you — as if Ykka is a fascinating new mystery to maybe get a blood sample from. Tonkee meets your gaze for a moment with such an utter lack of surprise or fear that you realize Ykka’s right; she probably figured it out sometime ago.

“Rogga as a use name.” Tonkee’s thoughtful as she focuses on Ykka again. “So many implications to that one. And Castrima; that’s not one of the Imperial Registry-listed Somidlats comm names, either, although I’ll admit I might just have forgotten it. There’s hundreds, after all. I don’t think I have, though; I’ve got a good memory. This a newcomm?”

Ykka inclines her head, partly in affirmation and partly in ironic acknowledgment of Tonkee’s fascination. “Technically. This version of Castrima has been around for maybe fifty years. It isn’t really a comm at all, officially — just another lodging stop for people heading along the Yumenes — Mecemera and Yumenes — Ketteker routes. We get more business than most because there are mines in the area.”

She pauses then, gazing at Hoa, and for a moment her expression tightens. You look at Hoa, too, puzzled, because granted, he’s strange-looking, but you’re not sure what he’s done to merit that kind of tension from a stranger. That’s when you finally notice that Hoa has gone utterly still, and his little face has sharpened from its usual cheerfulness into something taut and angry and almost feral. He’s glaring at Ykka like he wants to kill her.

No. Not Ykka. You follow his gaze to the third member of Ykka’s party, who’s stayed slightly behind the other two till now, and whom you haven’t really paid attention to because Ykka’s so eye-catching. A tall, slender woman — and then you stop, frowning, because all at once you’re not sure about that designation. The female part, sure; her hair is Antarctic-lank and deep red in color, decoratively long, framing features that are finely lined. It’s clear she means to be read as a woman, though she’s only wearing a long, loose sleeveless gown that should be far too thin for the cooling air.

But her skin. You’re staring, it’s rude, not the best way to start things off with these people, but you can’t help it. Her skin. It’s not just smooth, it’s… glossy, sort of. Almost polished. She’s either got the most amazing complexion you’ve ever seen, or — or that isn’t skin.

The red-haired woman smiles, and the sight of her teeth confirms it even as you shiver to your bones.

Hoa hisses like a cat in reply to that smile. And as he does so, finally, terribly, you see his teeth clearly for the first time. He never eats in front of you, after all. He never shows them when he smiles. They’re colored in where hers are transparent, enamel-white as a kind of camouflage — but not so different from the red-haired woman’s in shape. Not squared but faceted. Diamondine.

“Evil Earth,” mutters Tonkee. You feel that she speaks for the both of you.

Ykka glances sharply at her companion. “No.”

The red-haired woman’s eyes flick toward Ykka. No other part of her moves, the rest of her body remaining stock-still. Statue-still. “It can be done without harm to you or your companions.” Her mouth doesn’t move, either. The voice sounds oddly hollow, echoing up from somewhere inside her chest.

“I don’t want anything ‘done.’” Ykka puts her hands on her hips. “This my place, and you’ve agreed to abide by my rules. Back off.”

The blond woman shifts a little. She doesn’t bring the crossbow up, but you think she’s ready to do so at a moment’s notice. For whatever good that will do. The red-haired woman doesn’t move for a moment, and then she closes her mouth to hide those awful diamond teeth. As she does this, you realize several things at once. The first is that she wasn’t actually smiling. It was a threat display, like the way a kirkhusa draws back its lips to bare its fangs. The second is that with her mouth closed and that placid expression, she looks far less unnerving.

The third realization you have is that Hoa was making the same threat display. But he relaxes, and closes his mouth, as the red-haired woman eases back.

Ykka exhales. She focuses on you again.

“I think perhaps,” she says, “you’d better come inside.”

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea in the world,” Tonkee says to you, pleasantly.

“Neither am I,” says the blond woman, glaring at Ykka’s head. “You sure about that, Yeek?”

Ykka shrugs, though you think she’s not nearly as nonchalant as she seems. “When am I sure about anything? But it seems like a good idea, for now.”

You’re not sure you agree. Still — strange comm or not, mythical creatures or not, unpleasant surprises or not, you came here for a reason.

“Did a man and a girl come through here?” you ask. “Father and daughter. The man would be about my age, the girl eight—” Two months. You’ve almost forgotten. “Nine years old. She—” You falter. Stutter. “Sh-she looks like me.”

Ykka blinks, and you realize you’ve genuinely surprised her. Clearly she was braced for entirely different questions. “No,” she says, and—

— and there’s a sort of skip inside you.

It hurts to hear that simple “no.” It hits like a hachet blow, and the salt in the wound is Ykka’s look of honest perplexity. That means she’s not lying. You flinch and sway with the impact, with the death of all your hopes. It occurs to you through a haze of floating not-quite-thought that you’ve been expecting something since Hoa told you about this place. You were beginning to think you would find them here, have a daughter again, be a mother again. Now you know better.

“S — Essun?” Hands grasp your forearms. Whose? Tonkee. Her hands are rough with hard living. You hear her calluses rasp on the leather of your jacket. “Essun — oh, rust, don’t.”

You’ve always known better. How dare you expect anything else? You’re just another filthy, rusty-souled rogga, just another agent of the Evil Earth, just another mistake of sensible breeding practices, just another mislaid tool. You should never have had children in the first place, and you shouldn’t have expected to keep them once you did, and why’s Tonkee pulling on your arms?

Because you’ve lifted your hands to your face. Oh, and you’ve burst into tears.

You should have told Jija, before you ever married him, before you slept with him, before you even looked at him and thought maybe, which you had no right to ever think. Then if the urge to kill a rogga had hit him, he would’ve inflicted it on you, not Uche. You’re the one who deserves to die, after all, ten thousand times the population of two comms.

Also, you might be screaming a little.

You shouldn’t be screaming. You should be dead. You should have died before your children. You should have died at birth, and never lived to bear them.

You should have—

You should have—

Something sweeps through you.

It feels a little like the wave of force that came down from the north, and which you shunted away, on that day the world changed. Or maybe a little like the way you felt when you walked into the house after a tiring day and saw your boy lying on the floor. A waft of potential, passing on unutilized. The brush of something intangible but meaningful, there and gone, as shocking by its absence as its existence in the first place.

You blink and lower your hands. Your eyes are blurry and they hurt; the heels of your hands are wet. Ykka is off the porch and standing in front of you, just a couple of feet away. She’s not touching you, but you stare at her anyway, realizing she just did — something. Something you don’t understand. Orogeny, certainly, but deployed in a way you’ve never experienced before.

“Hey,” she says. There’s nothing like compassion on her face. Still, her voice is softer as she speaks to you — though maybe that’s only because she’s closer. “Hey. You okay now?”

You swallow. Your throat hurts. “No,” you say. (That word again! You almost giggle, but you swallow and the urge vanishes.) “No. But I’m… I can keep it together.”

Ykka nods slowly. “See that you do.” Beyond her, the blond woman looks skeptical about the possibility of this.

Then, with a heavy sigh, Ykka turns to Tonkee and Hoa — the latter of whom looks deceptively calm and normal now. Normal by Hoa standards, anyway.

“All right, then,” she says. “Here’s how it is. You can stay or you can go. If you decide to stay, I’ll take you into the comm. But you need to know up front: Castrima is something unique. We’re trying something very different here. If this Season turns out to be short, then we’re going to be up a lava lake when Sanze comes down on us. But I don’t think this Season will be short.”

She glances at you, sidelong, not quite for confirmation. Confirmation’s not the word for it, since there was never doubt. Any rogga knows it like they know their own name.

“This Season won’t be short,” you agree. Your voice is hoarse, but you’re recovering. “It will last decades.” Ykka lifts an eyebrow. Yeah, she’s right; you’re trying to be gentle for the sake of your companions, and they don’t need gentleness. They need truth. “Centuries.”

Even that’s an understatement. You’re pretty sure this one will last at least a thousand years. Maybe a few thousand.

Tonkee frowns a little. “Well, everything does point to either a major epeirogenic deformation, or possibly just a simple disruption of isostasy throughout the entire plate network. But the amount of orogenesis needed to overcome that much inertia is… prohibitive. Are you sure?”

You’re staring at her, grief momentarily forgotten. So’s Ykka, and the blond woman. Tonkee grimaces in irritation, glowering particularly at you. “Oh, for rust’s sake, stop acting all surprised. The secrets are done now, right? You know what I am and I know what you are. Do we have to keep pretending?”

You shake your head, though you’re not really responding to her question. You decide to answer her other question instead. “I’m sure,” you say. “Centuries. Maybe more.”

Tonkee flinches. “No comm has stores enough to last that long. Not even Yumenes.”

Yumenes’s fabled vast storecaches are slag in a lava tube somewhere. Part of you mourns the waste of all that food. Part of you figures, well, that much quicker and more merciful an end for the human race.

When you nod, Tonkee falls into a horrified silence. Ykka looks from you to Tonkee, and apparently decides to change the subject.

“There are twenty-two orogenes here,” she says. You flinch. “I expect there will be more as time passes. You all right with that?” She looks at Tonkee in particular.

As subject changes go, it’s perfect for distracting everyone. “How?” asks Tonkee at once. “How are you making them come here?”

“Never mind that. Answer the question.”

You could’ve told Ykka not to bother. “I’m fine with it,” Tonkee says immediately. You’re surprised she’s not visibly salivating. So much for her shock over the inevitable death of humanity.

“All right.” Ykka turns to Hoa. “And you. There are a few others of your kind here, too.”

“More than you think,” Hoa says, very softly.

“Yeah. Well.” Ykka takes this with remarkable aplomb. “You heard how it is. If you want to stay here, you follow the rules. No fighting. No—” She waggles her fingers and bares her teeth. This is surprisingly comprehensible. “And you do as I say. Got it?”

Hoa cocks his head a little, his eyes glittering in pure menace. It’s as shocking to see as his diamond teeth; you’d started thinking of him as a rather sweet creature, if a bit eccentric. Now you’re not sure what to think. “You don’t command me.”

Ykka, to your greater amazement, leans over and puts her face right in front of his.

“Let me put it this way,” she says. “You can keep doing what you’ve obviously been doing, trying to be as avalanche-subtle as your kind ever gets, or I can start telling everyone what all of you are really up to.”

And Hoa… flinches. His eyes — only his eyes — flick toward the not-woman on the porch. The one on the porch smiles again, though she doesn’t show her teeth this time, and there’s a rueful edge to it. You don’t know what any of this means, but Hoa seems to sag a little.

“Very well,” he says to Ykka, with an odd formality. “I agree to your terms.”

Ykka nods and straightens, letting her gaze linger on him for a moment longer before she turns away.

“What I was going to say before your little, ah, moment, was that we’ve taken in a few people,” she says to you. She says this over her shoulder, as she turns and walks back up the steps of the house. “No men traveling with girls, I don’t think, but other travelers looking for a place, including some from Cebak Quartent. We adopted them if we thought they were useful.” It’s what any smart comm does at times like these: kicking out the undesirable, taking in those with valuable skills and attributes. The comms that have strong leaders do this systematically, ruthlessly, with some degree of cold humanity. Less well-run comms do it just as ruthlessly but more messily, like the way Tirimo got rid of you.

Jija’s just a stoneknapper. Useful, but knapping’s not exactly a rare skill. Nassun, though, is like you and Ykka. And for some reason, the people of this comm seem to want orogenes around.

“I want to meet those people,” you say. There’s a slim chance that Jija or Nassun is in disguise. Or that someone else might have seen them, on the road. Or that… well. It really is a slim chance.

You’ll take it, though. She’s your daughter. You’ll take anything, to find her.

“All right, then.” Ykka turns and beckons. “Come on in, and I’ll show you a marvel or three.” As if she hasn’t already done so. But you move to follow her, because neither myths nor mysteries can hold a candle to the most infinitesimal spark of hope.

* * *

The body fades. A leader who would last relies on more.

— Tablet Three, “Structures,” verse two