Crossroads of Canopy (Titan's Forest #1)(112)

“Do you want to wear these?” She touched Unar’s cheek in the dim, greenish glow of the fluorescent fungi, and her eyes slitted a little with envy. “They’ll fit you. You are still so young.”

Unar took the breeches from her and traced the faded cloth.

“No. I have no right to them now.”

“What will you do?”

Unar wanted to tell Oos that she had nothing left to do, once Audblayin was delivered, but to die, but she was overcome with giddiness at the realisation she didn’t want to die anymore. He thirsts for the heights.

What could she do, in place of allowing herself to fall like a leaf?

The rest is up to you. Unar licked her lips.

“Become a fuel finder, I suppose,” she said slowly. “My father may still be alive. Although I doubt it. Frog said he was bleeding for wood in Eshland. What have you done for sixteen years, Oos? Stayed here? Lived here? Without a thought for the Garden?”

Oos shrugged prettily and looked at her feet.

“I’ve become an accomplished musician, Unar. I’ve travelled the twelve towns of Understorey, playing with Marram, while Ylly and Hasbabsah tended the sick. Though I’m sure you noticed Hasbabsah is gone.” Yes. Unar remembered Leapael’s voice. Great-Grandmother is dying. “We couldn’t go to Gannak, because of the history that Marram has there, but you’ll see when you go outside, Unar. It’s only in the summer that the great trees stand apart. In the dry season, there are ropes and bridges connecting all of these people in a vital, beautiful web. They have so little, but they all work together. And what is the Garden but the place where the goddess resides? All this time, we’ve had her here, with us. We’ll miss her.”

“The Garden is more than that,” Unar muttered, dunking her hair in a bucket and shivering as she worked out the soapleaf lather with her fingers.

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t know.” But she did know. It was the place where Aoun waited.

I will not weep.

*

AUDBLAYIN OPENED the barrier for the diverse little party.

Leaper climbed the fastest, scuttling up the vertical surface like a skink. The snake-tooth spines seemed large on his lithe body, compared to Bernreb’s, but Unar supposed hers were proportionally the same. Third in line after Leaper and Bernreb went Issi, with a swiftness and stamina that made Unar think, with another pang, of Edax. Seventeen years since he had died, and who still mourned him? Aforis, perhaps. Perhaps even the goddess Ehkis. The old acquaintances of a deity might seem fireside tales, but the heroes of tales could be as close as kin if the tales were told with conviction.

Issi would want to meet her real mother, Unar supposed. She wasn’t sure she could remember the way to the House of Epatut.

Fourth was the goddess Audblayin herself, less sure of her climbing skills than the others. Or maybe her mind was on the task ahead, of claiming her rightful place while keeping her father and siblings from harm.

Fifth, and last, came Unar. To be higher than a goddess was disrespectful, after all, and she would have to be careful not to touch Audblayin anymore. It might have been an aftereffect of her long sleep, or simple reluctance to confront her failure again, but she climbed through the barrier almost wishing it would close on her.

Magic rushed into her lower belly as she returned to Canopy, swirling invisibly around her, welcoming her like an old friend. Audblayin gasped and went limp, hanging from the tree like a piece of fruit, until Unar climbed up to her and kissed her cheek.

One final touch.

The aroma of quince and wood fern was overpowering.

“Wake up, Holy One,” she said.

Audblayin’s lashes fluttered.

“What’s wrong with her?” Leaper called down the trunk of the great tree.

“Nothing,” Unar called back. She lowered her voice. “Can you keep climbing, Holy One?” She knew what was wrong. She had gone to merge with the tallowwood, only to find Audblayin already merged with it.

“I think so,” Audblayin said faintly, and struck out with her forearm at the tree. She followed up with the opposite knee. “It hurts her, when we climb.”

“She doesn’t mind,” Unar said, hovering, waiting to catch Audblayin if she fell. “Pain reminds her that she is alive.”

They reached the platform in front of the Great Gate before noon, as Audblayin had wished. The carved doors themselves were open. Aoun stood outside them with a shaven-headed Gardener, now a white-robed Servant, whom Unar vaguely remembered.

Aoun carried the lantern of his office in smooth fingers that had never been scarred by fighting. His handsome face carried a little more flesh around neck and jaw, he wore a short, tidy beard and his eyes seemed slightly more hooded, but the steadiness, the solidness of him, had not changed.

“Are you the Gatekeeper?” Bernreb asked him.

Unar made a choking sound.

Aoun looked at her and frowned, slightly. He opened his mouth as if to speak, said nothing, and pressed his lips closed again.

“Only devotion to wickedness,” the shaven-headed Servant said, her eyes wide, “could have kept you so young, Gardener Unar.”

But Aoun directed open astonishment towards Audblayin, now, and his hand holding the lantern trembled.

“It’s not wickedness, Iririn,” he breathed. “Audblayin has come home. It was she whom Unar brought to me in the middle of the battle. Wasn’t it, Unar? But I didn’t know her. I didn’t take her.”