It had done no good. He wanted to blame the visits of the Ones Above for causing this foolish striving for progress, but the truth was the companies had been talking of outposts on the Pantheon for years. Dusk sighed. Well, these survivors were likely dead now. He should leave them to their fates.
Except … The thought of it, outsiders on Patji, it made him shiver with something that mixed disgust and anxiety. They were here. It was wrong. These islands were sacred, the trappers their priests.
The plants rustled nearby. Dusk whipped his machete about, leveling it, reaching into his pocket for his sling. It was not a refugee who left the bushes, or even a predator. A group of small, mouselike creatures crawled out, sniffing the air. Sak squawked. She had never liked meekers.
Food? the three meekers sent to Dusk. Food?
It was the most rudimentary of thoughts, projected directly into his mind. Though he did not want the distraction, he did not pass up the opportunity to fish out some dried meat for the meekers. As they huddled around it, sending him gratitude, he saw their sharp teeth and the single pointed fang at the tips of their mouths. His uncle had told him that once, meekers had been dangerous to men. One bite was enough to kill. Over the centuries, the little creatures had grown accustomed to trappers. They had minds beyond those of dull animals. Almost he found them as intelligent as the Aviar.
You remember? he sent them through thoughts. You remember your task?
Others, they sent back gleefully. Bite others!
Trappers ignored these little beasts; Dusk figured that maybe with some training, the meekers could provide an unexpected surprise for one of his rivals. He fished in his pocket, fingers brushing an old stiff piece of feather. Then, not wanting to pass up the opportunity, he got a few long, bright green and red feathers from his pack. They were mating plumes, which he’d taken from Kokerlii during the Aviar’s most recent molting.
He moved into the jungle, meekers following with excitement. Once he neared their den, he stuck the mating plumes into some branches, as if they had fallen there naturally. A passing trapper might see the plumes and assume that Aviar had a nest nearby, fresh with eggs for the plunder. That would draw them.
Bite others, Dusk instructed again.
Bite others! they replied.
He hesitated, thoughtful. Had they perhaps seen something from the company wreck? Point him in the right direction. Have you seen any others? Dusk sent them. Recently? In the jungle?
Bite others! came the reply.
They were intelligent … but not that intelligent. Dusk bade the animals farewell and turned toward the forest. After a moment’s deliberation, he found himself striking inland, crossing—then following—one of the refugee trails. He chose the one that looked as if it would pass uncomfortably close to one of his own safecamps, deep within the jungle.
It was hotter here beneath the jungle’s canopy, despite the shade. Comfortably sweltering. Kokerlii joined him, winging up ahead to a branch where a few lesser Aviar sat chirping. Kokerlii towered over them, but sang at them with enthusiasm. An Aviar raised around humans never quite fit back in among their own kind. The same could be said of a man raised around Aviar.
Dusk followed the trail left by the refugee, expecting to stumble over the man’s corpse at any moment. He did not, though his own dead body did occasionally appear along the path. He saw it lying half eaten in the mud or tucked away in a fallen log with only the foot showing. He could never grow too complacent, with Sak on his shoulder. It did not matter if Sak’s visions were truth or fiction; he needed the constant reminder of how Patji treated the unwary.
He fell into the familiar, but not comfortable, lope of a Pantheon trapper. Alert, wary, careful not to brush leaves that could carry biting insects. Cutting with the machete only when necessary, lest he leave a trail another could follow. Listening, aware of his Aviar at all times, never outstripping Kokerlii or letting him drift too far ahead.
The refugee did not fall to the common dangers of the island—he cut across game trails, rather than following them. The surest way to encounter predators was to fall in with their food. The refugee did not know how to mask his trail, but neither did he blunder into the nest of firesnap lizards, or brush the deathweed bark, or step into the patch of hungry mud.
Was this another trapper, perhaps? A youthful one, not fully trained? That seemed something the company would try. Experienced trappers were beyond recruitment; none would be foolish enough to guide a group of clerks and merchants around the islands. But a youth, who had not yet chosen his island? A youth who, perhaps, resented being required to practice only on Sori until his mentor determined his apprenticeship complete? Dusk had felt that way ten years ago.
So the company had hired itself a trapper at last. That would explain why they had grown so bold as to finally organize their expedition. But Patji himself? he thought, kneeling beside the bank of a small stream. It had no name, but it was familiar to him. Why would they come here?
The answer was simple. They were merchants. The biggest, to them, would be the best. Why waste time on lesser islands? Why not come for the Father himself?
Above, Kokerlii landed on a branch and began pecking at a fruit. The refugee had stopped by this river. Dusk had gained time on the youth. Judging by the depth the boy’s footprints had sunk in the mud, Dusk could imagine his weight and height. Sixteen? Maybe younger? Trappers apprenticed at ten, but Dusk could not imagine even the company trying to recruit one so ill trained.
Two hours gone, Dusk thought, turning a broken stem and smelling the sap. The boy’s path continued on toward Dusk’s safecamp. How? Dusk had never spoken of it to anyone. Perhaps this youth was apprenticing under one of the other trappers who visited Patji. One of them could have found his safecamp and mentioned it.
Dusk frowned, considering. In ten years on Patji, he had seen another trapper in person only a handful of times. On each occasion, they had both turned and gone a different direction without saying a word. It was the way of such things. They would try to kill one another, but they didn’t do it in person. Better to let Patji claim rivals than to directly stain one’s hands. At least, so his uncle had taught him.
Sometimes, Dusk found himself frustrated by that. Patji would get them all eventually. Why help the Father out? Still, it was the way of things, so he went through the motions. Regardless, this refugee was making directly for Dusk’s safecamp. The youth might not know the proper way of things. Perhaps he had come seeking help, afraid to go to one of his master’s safecamps for fear of punishment. Or …
No, best to avoid pondering it. Dusk already had a mind full of spurious conjectures. He would find what he would find. He had to focus on the jungle and its dangers. He started away from the stream, and as he did so, he saw his corpse appear suddenly before him.
He hopped forward, then spun backward, hearing a faint hiss. The distinctive sound was made by air escaping from a small break in the ground, followed by a flood of tiny yellow insects, each as small as a pinhead. A new deathant pod? If he’d stood there a little longer, disturbing their hidden nest, they would have flooded up around his boot. One bite, and he’d be dead.
He stared at that pool of scrambling insects longer than he should have. They pulled back into their nest, finding no prey. Sometimes a small bulge announced their location, but today he had seen nothing. Only Sak’s vision had saved him.
Such was life on Patji. Even the most careful trapper could make a mistake—and even if they didn’t, death could still find them. Patji was a domineering, vengeful parent who sought the blood of all who landed on his shores.
Sak chirped on his shoulder. Dusk rubbed her neck in thanks, though her chirp sounded apologetic. The warning had come almost too late. Without her, Patji would have claimed him this day. Dusk shoved down those itching questions he should not be thinking, and continued on his way.
He finally approached his safecamp as evening settled upon the island. Two of his tripwires had been cut, disarming
them. That was not surprising; those were meant to be obvious. Dusk crept past another deathant nest in the ground—this larger one had a permanent crack as an opening they could flood out of, but the rift had been stoppered with a smoldering twig. Beyond it, the nightwind fungi that Dusk had spent years cultivating here had been smothered in water to keep the spores from escaping. The next two tripwires—the ones not intended to be obvious—had also been cut.
Nice work, kid, Dusk thought. He hadn’t just avoided the traps, but disarmed them, in case he needed to flee quickly back this direction. However, someone really needed to teach the boy how to move without being trackable. Of course, those tracks could be a trap unto themselves—an attempt to make Dusk himself careless. And so, he was extra careful as he edged forward. Yes, here the youth had left more footprints, broken stems, and other signs.…
Something moved up above in the canopy. Dusk hesitated, squinting. A woman hung from the tree branches above, trapped in a net made of jellywire vines—they left someone numb, unable to move. So, one of his traps had finally worked.
“Um, hello?” she said.
A woman, Dusk thought, suddenly feeling stupid. The smaller footprint, lighter step …
“I want to make it perfectly clear,” the woman said. “I have no intention of stealing your birds or infringing upon your territory.”
Dusk stepped closer in the dimming light. He recognized this woman. She was one of the clerks who had been at his meetings with the company. “You cut my tripwires,” Dusk said. Words felt odd in his mouth, and they came out ragged, as if he’d swallowed handfuls of dust. The result of weeks without speaking.
“Er, yes, I did. I assumed you could replace them.” She hesitated. “Sorry?”
Dusk settled back. The woman rotated slowly in her net, and he noticed an Aviar clinging to the outside—like his own birds, it was about as tall as three fists atop one another, though this one had subdued white and green plumage. A streamer, which was a breed that did not live on Patji. He did not know much about them, other than that like Kokerlii, they protected the mind from predators.
The setting sun cast shadows, the sky darkening. Soon, he would need to hunker down for the night, for darkness brought out the island’s most dangerous of predators.
“I promise,” the woman said from within her bindings. What was her name? He believed it had been told to him, but he did not recall. Something untraditional. “I really don’t want to steal from you. You remember me, don’t you? We met back in the company halls?”
He gave no reply.
“Please,” she said. “I’d really rather not be hung by my ankles from a tree, slathered with blood to attract predators. If it’s all the same to you.”
“You are not a trapper.”
“Well, no,” she said. “You may have noticed my gender.”
“There have been female trappers.”
“One. One female trapper, Yaalani the Brave. I’ve heard her story a hundred times. You may find it curious to know that almost every society has its myth of the female role reversal. She goes to war dressed as a man, or leads her father’s armies into battle, or traps on an island. I’m convinced that such stories exist so that parents can tell their daughters, ‘You are not Yaalani.’”
This woman spoke. A lot. People did that back on the Eelakin Islands. Her skin was dark, like his, and she had the sound of his people. The slight accent to her voice … he had heard it more and more when visiting the homeisles. It was the accent of one who was educated.
“Can I get down?” she asked, voice bearing a faint tremor. “I cannot feel my hands. It is … unsettling.”
“What is your name?” Dusk asked. “I have forgotten it.” This was too much speaking. It hurt his ears. This place was supposed to be soft.
“Vathi.”
That’s right. It was an improper name. Not a reference to her birth order and day of birth, but a name like the mainlanders used. That was not uncommon among his people now.
He walked over and took the rope from the nearby tree, then lowered the net. The woman’s Aviar flapped down, screeching in annoyance, favoring one wing, obviously wounded. Vathi hit the ground, a bundle of dark curls and green linen skirts. She stumbled to her feet, but fell back down again. Her skin would be numb for some fifteen minutes from the touch of the vines.
She sat there and wagged her hands, as if to shake out the numbness. “So … uh, no ankles and blood?” she asked, hopeful.
“That is a story parents tell to children,” Dusk said. “It is not something we actually do.”
“Oh.”
“If you had been another trapper, I would have killed you directly, rather than leaving you to avenge yourself upon me.” He walked over to her Aviar, which opened its beak in a hissing posture, raising both wings as if to be bigger than it was. Sak chirped from his shoulder, but the bird didn’t seem to care.
Yes, one wing was bloody. Vathi knew enough to care for the bird, however, which was pleasing. Some homeislers were completely ignorant of their Aviar’s needs, treating them like accessories rather than intelligent creatures.
Vathi had pulled out the feathers near the wound, including a blood feather. She’d wrapped the wound with gauze. That wing didn’t look good, however. Might be a fracture involved. He’d want to wrap both wings, prevent the creature from flying.
“Oh, Mirris,” Vathi said, finally finding her feet. “I tried to help her. We fell, you see, when the monster—”
“Pick her up,” Dusk said, checking the sky. “Follow. Step where I step.”
Vathi nodded, not complaining, though her numbness would not have passed yet. She collected a small pack from the vines and straightened her skirts. She wore a tight vest above them, and the pack had some kind of metal tube sticking out of it. A map case? She fetched her Aviar, who huddled happily on her shoulder.
As Dusk led the way, she followed, and she did not attempt to attack him when his back was turned. Good. Darkness was coming upon them, but his safecamp was just ahead, and he knew by heart the steps to approach along this path. As they walked, Kokerlii fluttered down and landed on the woman’s other shoulder, then began chirping in an amiable way.
Dusk stopped, turning. The woman’s own Aviar moved down her dress away from Kokerlii to cling near her bodice. The bird hissed softly, but Kokerlii—oblivious, as usual—continued to chirp happily. It was fortunate his breed was so mind-invisible, even deathants would consider him no more edible than a piece of bark.
“Is this…” Vathi said, looking to Dusk. “Yours? But of course. The one on your shoulder is not Aviar.”
Sak settled back, puffing up her feathers. No, her species was not Aviar. Dusk continued to lead the way.
“I have never seen a trapper carry a bird who was not from the islands,” Vathi said from behind.
It was not a question. Dusk, therefore, felt no need to reply.
This safecamp—he had three total on the island—lay atop a short hill following a twisting trail. Here, a stout gurratree held aloft a single-room structure. Trees were one of the safer places to sleep on Patji. The treetops were the domain of the Aviar, and most of the large predators walked.
Dusk lit his lantern, then held it aloft, letting the orange light bathe his home. “Up,” he said to the woman.
She glanced over her shoulder into the darkening jungle. By the lanternlight, he saw that the whites of her eyes were red from lack of sleep, despite the unconcerned smile she gave him before climbing up the stakes he’d planted in the tree. Her numbness should have worn off by now.
“How did you know?” he asked.
Vathi hesitated, near to the trapdoor leading into his home. “Know what?”
“Where my safecamp was. Who told you?”
“I followed the sound of water,” she said, nodding toward the small spring that bubbled out of the mountainside here. “When I found traps, I knew I was coming the right way.”
Dusk frowned. One could not hear this water, as
the stream vanished only a few hundred yards away, resurfacing in an unexpected location. Following it here … that would be virtually impossible.
So was she lying, or was she just lucky?
“You wanted to find me,” he said.
“I wanted to find someone,” she said, pushing open the trapdoor, voice growing muffled as she climbed up into the building. “I figured that a trapper would be my only chance for survival.” Above, she stepped up to one of the netted windows, Kokerlii still on her shoulder. “This is nice. Very roomy for a shack on a mountainside in the middle of a deadly jungle on an isolated island surrounded by monsters.”
Dusk climbed up, holding the lantern in his teeth. The room at the top was perhaps four paces square, tall enough to stand in, but only barely. “Shake out those blankets,” he said, nodding toward the stack and setting down the lantern. “Then lift every cup and bowl on the shelf and check inside of them.”
Her eyes widened. “What am I looking for?”
“Deathants, scorpions, spiders, bloodscratches…” He shrugged, putting Sak on her perch by the window. “The room is built to be tight, but this is Patji. The Father likes surprises.”
As she hesitantly set aside her pack and got to work, Dusk continued up another ladder to check the roof. There, a group of bird-size boxes, with nests inside and holes to allow the birds to come and go freely, lay arranged in a double row. The animals would not stray far, except on special occasions, now that they had been raised with him handling them.
Kokerlii landed on top of one of the homes, trilling—but softly, now that night had fallen. More coos and chirps came from the other boxes. Dusk climbed out to check each bird for hurt wings or feet. These Aviar pairs were his life’s work; the chicks each one hatched became his primary stock-in-trade. Yes, he would trap on the island, trying to find nests and wild chicks—but that was never as efficient as raising nests.
“Your name was Sixth, wasn’t it?” Vathi said from below, voice accompanied by the sound of a blanket being shaken.