The Song of a Poisoned Star

9

When Saltha woke, she panicked: all she could see was thin, pale rays of light, and she thought she was back in the white forest. But then she felt the thin matting on a wooden floor beneath her, and saw the reed walls, and she knew that she was out.

'You're awake. Welcome to Kut Natta,' said a voice.

Saltha rubbed her eyes and nostrils, and rolled over. The speaker was old, with thinning feathers and a dark plumage, wearing simple grey clothes. So old that she was almost old enough to start becoming male. A door was open beyond her, and the sunshine streamed in, illuminating the small loom she was working at.

'How are you feeling? You smell like shit,' continued the old esl'inth, not looking up from her weaving.

The only reply Saltha could make was a croak.

'There's water by your feet.'

Saltha found a small wooden bowl, and a larger jug. She gulped down a bowlful. It was the best thing she'd ever tasted.

'Thank you,' she whispered.

'Come and sit up here.'

Next to the old esl'inth there was a log to sit on. Saltha dragged herself to it, and found another small wooden bowl, this one full of keta bread, salted and sprinkled with some unfamiliar northern spice.

'Eat it. No more than that, or it will all come back up again.'

She was too hungry to reply, and tore into the food. When she had gulped it down, she drank more water, put her bowl down, and wept.

The old esl'inth continued weaving.

She wept for herself, a slave to the vile, damp humans; she wept for her dead sisters, killed in the raid; and she wept for whatever had murdered the people in the Temple of the Shunned Flower. And she wept because she was so far from home and that home was now just soot and bones, and she had no idea what to do next.

As the tears rolled down Saltha's face, she could hear the click of the shuttle, the sighing of the threads, and the snick of the old esl'inth's claws. She cried to the gentle rhythm of it, and gradually, as the old woman weaved, she reached a kind of calm.

'I'm sorry,' she murmured, wiping her face with a dirty sleeve.

'Don't be.'

She looked up, out of the open door. It was early morning, and the sun was a blaze of light above the horizon. The settlement's buildings were all around her, built in the northern style: ribs of wood holding up reed mats, the living areas suspended on stilts above the wet ground. She remembered the Temple she had been in, and how its intricate stonework had echoed this with its ribs of stone: and then she remembered the real ribs of long dead esl'inths, and she closed her eyes so that she didn't weep again.

'When you're ready, the goddess wants to speak to you. My name is Guoda, by the way,' the old esl'inth said.

Saltha shook herself, opened her eyes again, stared at the blazing sun as it shone weak hope onto the great, wet plains. She took a deep breath.

'My name is Saltha. I'm proud to share your waters, Guoda.'

Guoda grunted, not bothering to give the formal reply.

#

The community was small, perhaps two hundred adults. The males' hut looked large enough for maybe ten. The children were playing a rowdy game of chase. They darted between and under the huts, all under the watchful eye of a group of clutch mothers, who squatted in the sun, eating breakfast from wooden bowls. They were chatting and laughing, and two of them were chewing keta bread for very young hatchlings, who wriggled and wanted to join the game the older children were playing. One of the children ran towards Guoda, but she snapped her beak and the child ran away, giggling. Saltha tried to count the children, but they were running too quickly.