Crossroads of Canopy (Titan's Forest #1)(76)

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.

“Go on, Nameless,” Kirrik snapped.

The bird began panting, beak distressed and open, as Unar pressed it again. It laid two white eggs in quick succession, one of which hatched almost immediately into a second, identical bird. Core Kirrik had said that life came from eggs and semen, but Unar had already learned from Issi’s healing that any part of the body could act as a seed. The new bird laid two eggs, one of which hatched and grew into a third bird, whose pair of eggs brought the total to four.

Unar fell silent, again, astounded and confused at once.

“What is it?” Kirrik demanded. “Why do you look like a poleaxed tree-bear?”

“It’s just … Core Kirrik, when I was in the Garden, women came for increased fertility. They went away again. Sometimes they got with child. Other times they didn’t. If this is Audblayin’s power, then why can’t her Servants do this? Why don’t women leave the Garden with babes already in their arms?”

Core Kirrik’s expression turned smug.

“You could make people. If you wanted their corpses for food. These birds are blank, mindless; it is life and learning that shapes brains, not quickened growth, and you have made them from air and water, as plants are made. But that is not how animals are made. Minerals are required, from Floor. Look at them.”

Unar did look at them, really look. The birds lay helplessly on their breasts or on their sides in the empty basin. They could barely coordinate their breaths, much less stand, peck, or fly. Their feathers flaked and flew away, turning to dust. The very first one that Unar had made stopped breathing and turned blue. The shells of the eggs trembled, jelly-like.

Overextended, like the branches of the trees. Dead because of her inexperience.

Unar released a long, drawn-out breath.

“I see.”

“Skin them and cook them, Nameless. Grow some mushrooms to go with the eggs. Grow them on the living wood at your feet. They derive their minerals from the tree. Make sure they are more nutritious than these birds. After that, your next chore is to make bread.”

Kirrik took something from a shelf; it was a single grain. She placed it on the bench before Unar.

“Grow the grain in the flooring, too. Make as much as you can. Make enough for a hundred men, and then a hundred more. There is salt in the pantry. You will find yeast in the air you breathe. Choose wisely, or the bread will not rise. Fuel for the ovens is in the box behind the door. Do you have any questions? Speak up. I am busy.”

Unar didn’t have any questions about the bread making. After her failure with the birds, she would use more caution. Focus her awareness. Yet she hadn’t forgotten the fact that she and Kirrik had been on watch together. Kirrik had brushed it off, but she must be afraid of the Master, too. The source of her malice is fear.

“I have a question. Not about the bread.”

“Willful wretch! What is it?”

“Who is your patron, Core Kirrik? From which goddess or god do you derive your power? Is it Ulellin? Is that why you can see the future? Aren’t you afraid that the Master will use you up, too?”

Kirrik stared at Unar again in the odd way Unar couldn’t read.

“I have no patron,” she said at last. “Only those born above the barrier can forge a link with a Canopian goddess or god. You said it yourself. People born in Canopy are under the gods’ protection. But there are other alliances we can forge. I fear no one. My skill is that I cannot be killed.”

Unar’s jaw dropped.

Frog came into the kitchen then. Unar almost didn’t recognise her; she wore a fresher, finer black tunic and trousers, and her hair, oiled and combed back, gleamed.

“Core Kirrik,” Frog said.

“You have come to supervise Nameless the Outer,” Kirrik said to Frog, “while she prepares the Master’s supper.”

“What? Oh. Yes, Core Kirrik. The Master’s supper.”

“Do not let her waste the salt.” With that, Kirrik swept away, leaving Frog and Unar alone.

They stared at each other for a moment.

“Where have you been—” Unar started to say, at the same time as Frog said with astonishment, “You ’ave not refused any orders? You ’ave not attacked Core Kirrik?”

“No. I haven’t attacked Core Kirrik. Why would I do that?”