Ever

  I haven’t escaped. The stairs to the upper world disappeared when I arrived here—and I couldn’t climb them anyway.

  I yank feathers out of my arms and legs. New feathers grow in as quickly as the old come out. Both the plucking and the new growth burn. Imps of pain race along my skin.

  After a few minutes I give up the plucking. I’m still a warki. At least I can continue my search for Admat.

  But I want Olus more than I want him. Forgive me, Admat! Olus is more real to me than you are.

  I watch the lava bubbles drift overhead toward the other warkis. If I walk against the tide of bubbles, I should reach the bottom of the volcano. Maybe from there I can see the sky.

  I stand and set out, no longer needing to limp. Gradually the carpet of feathers thins, exposing bare patches of packed dirt. The lava bubbles crowd together overhead. Before me is a thick mist. I hear hissing and gurgling. Thank you, Admat! Thank you, any gods who may be watching over me.

  I run into the mist. Soon I am standing under a rock arch at the edge of the lava lake, which seethes and steams. I can’t see the sky through the fog, but I know that above is the world of mortals and gods and night and day.

  What day?

  The air is fresher here. Rock walls rise on either side of me. They must be the bowl of the volcano.

  Can a warki climb out?

  On my right the rock is smooth, but on my left a ledge curves upward. The ledge is above my head, and few handholds or footholds lead up to it. If I fall, I’ll boil in lava.

  I take off my sandals and slip them onto my arms, like bracelets. I need bare feet to have a chance at reaching the ledge. It is lucky that my fingertips and the bottoms of my feet are free of feathers.

  The mud at the edge of the lava lake simmers. Hopping in place, I find fingerholds in the rock.

  Admat! Olus! Puru! Any god who can help me! Make me able to lift my legs and climb. Mati! Pado! Aunt Fedo! Pray for me! Let me climb!

  I can! I position my hands and feet carefully and climb, clinging to whatever I can find: chinks, cracks, tiny nicks. I am panting from fear and strain. After I catch my breath, I climb again. When I’ve placed myself a third time, the ledge is within reach. Muscles straining, I hoist myself up. Sitting tight against the wall, I don my sandals and stand.

  The ledge is littered with rocks, and a few yards ahead it disappears into the lava mist. Still, it leads upward. I hurry. My month may not be over.

  I halt, remembering. Olus may have failed at his championship trial. He may be trapped somewhere.

  Maybe I can help him.

  A hundred years may have passed. He may have forgotten me. My family may have died long ago.

  The ledge slants steeply upward. I climb. The chill air of Wadir warms. I strain for speed. My breath comes in gasps, but I fight onward. Finally I have to rest. I turn to see how far I’ve come. The mist obscures the view, but what I do see is a trail of feathers. I’m shedding!

  A few feathers poke from the pores on my arms. When I brush at them, they fall off and are not replaced. They drop off my legs too. I hold the tunic away from my body, and a shower of feathers falls on the path. Hardly daring to hope, I touch my face.

  The down is gone! I am no longer a warki. And, without my noticing, I am no longer racked with hunger and thirst.

  The only feather I still have is Taram’s, threaded below the neckline of my tunic. I’ll save it to show Puru when I tell him how I thwarted fate—if an end in Wadir was my fate. Maybe I was always destined to find my way out.

  I laugh. Maybe it is all foolishness: fate, Puru’s advice, Admat, the claims of the warki god.

  I continue up the path as the mist begins to clear.

  51

  OLUS

  IT IS NOON BEFORE my wildest winds are caught in the jug. My tame winds I leave free, including my herding wind, which is still guarding my goats. My buffering wind continues to cushion Hannu’s workshop. I hope they will keep at their tasks, but if not, so be it.

  In my mind I apologize to Hannu and to Arduk for not saying farewell. I couldn’t risk them stopping me.

  Kezi, I am on my way to you.

  I leap off the edge of the volcano.

  52

  KEZI

  THE MIST IS BELOW ME. I look up for my first sight of the sky.

  A new warki?

  Its arms and legs are splayed, its face rapt.

  Olus! He came for me!

  But he’s falling, not riding a wind. Thoughts come in a rush. I can’t save him. I can die with him. Fate may be thwarted.

  No happy outcome, unless—

  As Olus falls, I pull Taram’s feather from my tunic. The instant I touch it, the feather multiplies. Wings form. Muscle and sinew and bone grow on them. A body takes shape: head, neck, torso, legs, hooves, mane, tail. In a blink the feather becomes a winged stallion, wheeling and banking and fairly begging me to leap onto his back.

  I do leap and hug his sides with my legs. The horse dives and sweeps Olus up as he enters the lava steam, settling him behind me, on his belly, hanging across the animal’s wide back. I reach back to take his hand.

  53

  OLUS

  I RAISE MY HEAD. Kezi?

  It happens so quickly. I die and become a warki in a second. Wadir must have winged steeds just as Enshi Rock does, although this one is gray and ours are white. I roll over, straddle the horse, and circle Kezi’s waist with my arms. I lean into her shoulders and breathe her in. Cinnamon, yes, but also mold and sadness. Is she sad to be dead? Is she sad I’ve come?

  54

  KEZI

  WE PASS OVER THE lip of the volcano. I grasp the stallion’s mane and guide him down the mountain, although he seems to need no guidance.

  Olus was willing to die for me. He would become mortal, Puru said, if he followed me to Wadir.

  The wind is bracing. I let go of the horse’s mane to raise my arms and wriggle my fingers. I smell pine, not mold. The trees are alive. Every breath makes me want to smile, not weep. The sky is cloudy. Enshi Rock is hidden.

  I wish Senat and Merem and Aunt Fedo could see me on this flying steed.

  The stallion flies over a river, then a strip of trees, and lands in a meadow. Olus and I dismount, and the huge creature begins to graze.

  Olus kisses me. He’s growing a beard. The hairs tickle.

  After the kiss, he murmurs into my hair, “Where are our feathers?” He sounds disappointed.

  For a moment I don’t understand. Then I’m laughing against his shoulder.

  He holds me out at arm’s length, his expression puzzled.

  Oh dear, he thinks he’s dead and wants his feathers. It takes me a few minutes to get out, “We’re not warkis. This is Mount Enshi.”

  His face is so surprised, I laugh even harder.

  He begins to laugh too.

  Real laughter is the opposite of Wadir. Gradually we sober.

  “You saved my life.”

  “You were going to die for me.”

  “I was going to find you.”

  A bird trills. I’ve never heard anything sweeter.

  “You’re a heroine now. You escaped from Wadir.”

  I take this in. A heroine. The first step to becoming immortal. I sit and watch an ant crawl through the grass.

  “I couldn’t count the days down there.” I’m afraid to look up. “Has the day of my sacrifice passed?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When?”

  “Fifteen days after today.”

  Nine days lost in Wadir. Only nine days. He might have said nine years and I wouldn’t have been surprised. I’m grateful, and yet . . . Nine days out of the twenty-five I had when I entered the tunnel. Nine days of sky and sun and kisses.

  Olus sits next to me.

  I lean against his shoulder. “If you had fallen into the lava, I don’t think you would have become a warki.”

  “No? I was mortal as soon as I jumped.” He folds his fingers over mine.

  “The
warkis are not the dead.” I tell him about Wadir.

  He listens. Sometimes he says “Oh, Kezi” in such a soft, sorrowful, and respectful way.

  The respect is the most soothing of all. My tears spill out. “The warki god said his worshipers are not the dead, but they come seeking the dead.”

  “Did you see new ones come?”

  I shake my head. “To go into the moldy earth . . . few would do it. People must be grieving terribly. They probably cause the melancholy in the air. Taram wept when I asked her what her name used to be. Her eyes were always sad. I’m glad I won’t go there if I die. I’m glad Pado and Mati and Aunt Fedo won’t.”

  He kisses me.

  I could let him comfort me, but I need to confess. I pull away. “I didn’t find Admat. A believer would have looked longer. No, a believer wouldn’t have had to look at all. I don’t know what happens when anyone dies. We could each have a different afterlife or no afterlife at all.”

  He strokes my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We can go to Enshi Rock. You can come now, and I can take you.”

  “Yes? You’re a champion!”

  He nods, smiling.

  “Were you shut in somewhere?”

  “You guessed! You were thinking of me?”

  “Yes, I was thinking about you!”

  He tells me about the well and the spiders and the bees. “I am no longer afraid. If you’d like, we could live in the cave behind the falls of Zago.”

  I smile, but I’m thinking how awful it must have been for him. “Why couldn’t they have just let you bring me to Enshi Rock?” I realize I’m criticizing the Akkan gods, but I don’t stop. “Why did we have to be tested?”

  Olus’s smile becomes a frown. “I don’t know.” After a moment, he adds, “Why do you have to be sacrificed?”

  “The oath laws. Oh!” If there is no Admat . . . “Who made the oath laws?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A different god? People?

  55

  OLUS

  WHILE KEZI WALKS TO the river to scrub off the stench of Wadir, I ride her winged steed to the jug at the edge of the volcano.

  My winds exit in a trice. I dispatch my clever wind and my fetching wind on an errand. Then I ride the stallion to a higher bend in the river, where I bathe too and shave off my beard.

  Soon Kezi will try to become immortal. If she fails, we’ll have two weeks. Now that I know the truth about Wadir, I won’t have even the consolation of following her there.

  After my bath, I return to the meadow, where my fetching wind has already left a big sack. While the stallion grazes, my clever wind opens the sack, sets up the table and chairs. I command my hot wind to keep the warm food warm and my chill wind to keep the cold food cold. I command my barrier wind to prevent the scents from straying to Kezi and spoiling the surprise. My clever wind arranges plates, bowls, and tumblers, all of them Hannu’s creations.

  The horse would like to share our meal, but my barrier wind keeps him away.

  Everything is ready. Ready. Ready.

  How long can she take to bathe?

  Perhaps a current has caught her. Or a snake has bitten her. I listen for distant noises and hear her singing and splashing.

  “Left foot, right foot.

  Heel, toe.

  Dunk face . . .”

  Now gurgling laughter.

  I wait and wait. At last I hear her surge out of the water. A few minutes later she calls, “I had no soap, but I scrubbed and—” She emerges at the edge of the trees and stops, looking astonished. I grin like a fool and let my barrier wind release the scents.

  “From Enshi Rock?”

  “From the kitchen of the Akkan gods.” Only therka is missing. I pull a chair out for her.

  Instead of sitting, she examines the chair, which is made of golden oak. On each side is a low relief of people walking, arms raised, holding up the armrest. She runs her fingers along the carving. The seat is leather. She leans her palm into it, then finally sits.

  I take the other chair.

  She tilts her plate up. The rim is tan and turquoise, the colors bleeding into each other and rising in peaks toward the center. Behind the peaks a gray sky swirls.

  “My mati Hannu made the plates.”

  “There’s a countryside in this one. If we were tiny, we could go into it. Your winds could carry us to a peak. What would we see far away?”

  I grin. “An enormous bowl of goat stew.”

  “Huge mutton chops.”

  “Would you like an actual duck egg?” I give her a boiled egg from a pile of a dozen and take one too. Then I pour pomegranate juice into each of our tumblers.

  She touches the egg. “It’s still warm, and the shell isn’t cracked.”

  “My clever wind is very clever.” I feel ridiculously proud. “The bean patties are excellent.”

  She nods and takes one. “Mmm.” Her face changes. She puts the patty down. “Olus?”

  “Yes?”

  She leans back in her chair. “I’m being silly, but . . .”

  “Please tell me.”

  “The food. In Wadir it was mud. When I was Eshar, the mud tasted and looked and smelled like duck eggs or stew or soup. What if this delicious food is really . . .” She shrugs. I see she’s on the verge of tears.

  I rub her back, wishing I knew the right words to say. I remember the bees and the spiders and Kudiya who wasn’t Kudiya. This food could be mud.

  “What if Kezi isn’t my true name? And not Eshar either.” She takes my hand, turns up the palm, and traces the lines in it. “What if I were told my truest name and then I would be someone else and have a pado who never swore an oath and there would be no need for me to be sacrificed or to try to be immortal?”

  Then I might still be Olus, but there would be no Kezi. I clasp her hand, and she squeezes mine.

  “It may all be a dream,” I say. “No matter what anyone wishes, so it would be.”

  “So it would be.” She nods. “Who knows what my truest name would make me? So it would be.” After a moment she smiles and picks up her bean patty.

  I don’t like that smile, so sad it’s barely a smile at all.

  “What else do the Akkan gods dine on?” she asks.

  “Therka is our drink, but I couldn’t bring any.” I load her plate with catfish, beets, barley, and turnips. As I dish out the turnips, I say, “My pado, Arduk, calls me Turnip. It’s his name for me.”

  The smile loses its sadness. “Turnip?”

  “Turnip.”

  She shakes her head wonderingly. “My love is a god called Turnip.” She giggles.

  “He may name you Garlic.”

  “I like garlic.”

  Dusk falls. We end our meal with dates and pistachios. My clever wind brought no figs.

  “Thank you for this meal.” Kezi licks her fingers. “Olus? Does the test for immortality take long?”

  “Only a moment.”

  “A moment to decide everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I could wait almost until the end, right?”

  I nod. In case she can’t see me in the deepening twilight, I say, “Yes.”

  “I have fourteen days after today. You can show me Akka before we have to know the future. Let’s not hurry.”

  56

  KEZI

  WE BED DOWN IN the meadow. Olus wraps us in his warm wind, which is both mattress and blanket. He kisses me good night and then kisses me again more lingeringly. I slide closer. My hand strokes his arm, his back.

  “Kezi . . .” He draws away.

  “If I die . . .” I whisper, moving near again.

  “Shh.”

  In the morning we breakfast on yesterday’s leavings, almost as much a feast as it was last night. I pile the dishes until he tells me to stop. His winds will return everything to Enshi Rock. We can leave.

  I dance to my horse, who raises his head, his lips trailing grass. He needs a name. I rub his muzzle until his name comes to me
. “Your name is Kastu.” Kastu means silver. Grasping his mane, I throw myself on his back. “Let’s race!”

  Kastu’s wings beat the air. We rise.

  I turn, looking for Olus.

  He’s behind and falling farther behind, stroking the air desperately, his face red. I pull back on Kastu’s mane and see Olus’s grin begin. The god called Turnip is a clown! I lower my head to Kastu’s neck and urge him to his greatest speed.

  He stretches himself. The wind whips my hair back and stings my ears. Olus catches up easily and circles us, lying on his back, arms folded, feet crossed at the ankles, completely at ease.

  I have never laughed so hard.

  A moment later he comes to ride behind me on Kastu’s back, so we can talk and be close.

  We circle Mount Enshi and head for Neme, the only city in Akka. It is much smaller than Hyte. The houses are made of wood, and the streets are paved with stones. Olus takes me to the temple, a semicircular wall of marble blocks, sacred to Ursag, the god of wisdom. Words have been chiseled into the wall.

  This is a temple? A wall covered with writing in a script I don’t recognize? “What do the words mean?”

  “They’re a selection of Ursag’s writings.” Olus reads: “‘Lend to strangers; give to friends.’ ‘A man of bad character can never acquire knowledge.’ ‘It is—’”

  “A woman of bad character can?”

  He smiles. “Tell Ursag. He loves to debate.”

  I don’t know if I’ll be able to argue with the god of wisdom, but I think that a smart man or woman can easily acquire knowledge.

  Olus reads on. “‘Widows and orphans owe no taxes.’”

  “We have the same law!”

  “‘No plea to a judge has been made unless it has been made in writing.’”

  I’d better learn to read and write if . . .

  “There are hundreds of adages here, thousands in the library on Enshi Rock.”