Life & Death in the Manjya Tree

Arrival of the Blue Women

Zho squinted down the avenue at the Manjya leaves flapping in the wind and realized he had never seen all the way to the end before. Fear prickled his spine. This time of evening, the sunlight should have glowed through curtains of the nävey nutrient web. Tonight, the nävey hung in thin, disconnected strands.

He dared not walk the avenue tonight, not even to bask in the setting sun at the tip where sunlight was most plentiful. Säsey said the nävey must be conserved for the pups, whose young bodies would not thrive on sunlight alone. Zho was centuries older, but Säsey was the clan wife, and her word was to be obeyed in all things relating to the pups. If they must have nävey, then he would have to find another way to feed.

Almost without thinking, Zho knelt to scrape away a bit of loose bark before it could get caught and tear, injuring the tree. Some of the younger Manjyans had taken to wearing vines tied around their feet in fancy knots, in direct rebellion of the age-old custom of going barefooted. Zho shook his head; this tear was a direct result of the foolishness of youth. He grabbed a low branch and hoisted himself high enough to reach the avenue above, then gently shooed away the beetles that shared the nävey. Scooping a handful of the gooey orange liquid, he dropped to the avenue and smeared it over the tear, careful to cover the entire exposed area. His heart seized as he thought of the pups, but he shook off the feeling. The Manjya Tree must flourish, or the nävey would not matter.

"In your day, young people were respectful of the Manjya."

Zho looked up at Säsey's mocking smile. She was easily the most gorgeous Manjyan he knew, even dressed in her nighttime metik of rough vine weavings. Her turquoise skin still glowed from her walk through the nävey, the capillaries in her delicate face expanding to absorb the last of the pearly orange fluid. Her skin was greener, more capable of receiving nourishment from the sun than most in Drazjanta, owing to the fact that she had been born five levels above, but she looked so beautiful with the nävey on her skin that he was glad she did not settle for the sun! How could a Manjyan from as high in the tree as Säsey love someone with skin as blue as his? He had never understood, but when he invited her to join his clan, she did not make it an issue.

Little Tyna peaked from behind Säsey's legs, thumb in mouth. She had her mother's exotic yellow eyes and long, delicate fingers, but Zho had always been disappointed with her sky blue skin. He would have preferred that she look even more like her mother, so she would have all the opportunities of a true greenskin.

"It's late. I thought you would be abed already!" Zho reached for Tyna, boosted her up onto his shoulders, where she squealed with delight. He was old, but not too old to play.

"There was not enough nävey in the knot for all the pups, so we volunteered to walk for ours tonight, didn't we Tyna?"

"I wanted to hear The Story," Tyna whined from her father's shoulders.

Normally, that would have concerned Zho. History should not be taken lightly. Tyna should hear The Story every night with the rest of janta. But he lingered on Säsey's words, ignoring his daughter's frustrated sigh. "Not enough for the pups, even? But the clan leaders—we've been careful—"

Säsey shook her head. "I helped Jora carry the last of them out this evening to feed. But that's not the worst, Zho! Tonight a blue woman climbed up from seven levels below, begging for nävey—begging! She was thin as a chord vine from lack of nourishment, almost collapsed right at our feet. Jora and I tried to get her to the nävey right away, but she resisted. She wanted us to let her lower a metik basket and bring up her pups." Säsey's voice shook.

"What did you do?" Zho asked. He leaned closer to Säsey and patted her hand in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. In truth, he had never had to comfort Säsey before and was not sure he knew how.

"They told her no," Tyna reported in a lisp when her mother hesitated. "If we have to take our own pups outside the knot to feed, how can we feed the pups from another level?"

"It's true!" Säsey's voice defied Zho to challenge her. "The nävey is receding everywhere. What if the knot goes dry? What if the entire level goes dry?"

Anxiety shrunk her capillaries, causing the remaining nävey to bead on her skin. Säsey was far too thin already; she could not afford to waste even a drop of nävey.

"Be calm, Säsey. Our knot has never gone dry, and therefore Drazjanta has never gone dry," he said. Surely, if the nävey had gone dry, Davey would have told the story once during Zho's three centuries. Wouldn't he?

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure." He tried to sound certain, but his heart pounded with fear. Even he had not heard the whole history of the Manjyans and the Tree. Only the storyteller, the eldest among them, could be sure. "You'll see. The nävey will return, and those who climb up will return to their own jantas."

"Husband, I know you don't want me to worry, but I have to hear this from Davey himself."

Säsey took his hand, and they walked back to the knot together. He should have tried to find somewhere to feed—his weak knees almost caused him to stumble—but instead he slept while he waited to hear from Davey.

***

Seven more blue women climbed up to Drazjanta in the morning, some from as far as thirty levels below. All carried pups in metik nets on their backs, and the last nearly slipped back into the abyss as she struggled to hoist herself up with twins. Zho jerked away from her reaching hand, but Tegel pulled her up, where she collapsed in a pile with her blue sisters. Zho stood a little behind the rest of the Manjyans who had gathered around the invaders, trying to be invisible and wishing Davey would arrive.

"Nävey, please." It was little more than a gasp from the lips of the blue woman carrying twins, probably the senior clan mother. They looked like a cluster of spiny bark beetles, all hunched over with little lumps on their backs. Dark eyes peered out of narrow midnight faces; these must be from many levels below. Zho felt the eyes of the other clan leaders on him and swallowed. Where was Davey?

"Zho, you must speak for us," Tegel whispered, and Zho felt his friend's hand on his arm. "Davey is at meditation."

Zho opened his mouth, and Säsey's own words came to his mind. "You must climb higher, friends, to where the sun shines all day. We don't have enough nävey to feed our own pups, and we cannot spare the nävey for yours."

Judging by the lack of green in their skin, they would find little nourishment in the sun on the levels above, but their capillaries were so shrunken he doubted any of them could be saved with nävey, anyway. It would be a waste to give them nävey when healthy pups could be saved. He looked up into Tegel's shocked eyes.

"I am called Tegel, third eldest," his friend said to the blue woman with twins. "If you're seeking a new clan, you'll find shelter in my knot. Your pups will become my pups."

As the other blue women were invited, one by one, to join Drazjanta with other clan leaders, Zho's anxiety grew, until he stalked away from the group. Seven clan mothers and eight pups! Fifteen new mouths to feed. Even if the nävey returned, it could not return soon enough for them to be able to feed all of the blue women who might seek shelter.

But despite his certainty that he had done the right thing, his own words to Säsey haunted him, as did Tegel's face. His young brother had taken three strangers into his knot, feeding them nävey meant for his own pups! Zho had spoken for the janta, but six clan leaders had followed Tegel.

"I did not mean to shame you, friend. But I could not turn them away. They are our sisters."

Zho turned to see Tegel following, his new wife stumbling in his wake.

"You could have told them to climb. There is sunlight at the top. It is free and plentiful," he said, giving Tegel a hard look. "They climb or we climb, and this is our home. When your own pups starve, when your clan wives leave you for the green men above, you will regret this."

He walked away and did not look back. There were no moral choices in survival; he would do whatever it took to save his janta, if it meant sending Tegel's blue woman into the abyss himself.