The Awakened Kingdom Read online

  But Ia got really quiet for a moment. I didn’t know why. He said, “You embody some aspect of mortality, then.”

  “Maybe?” I could only shrug. “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Some of us predate mortality, Sibling. Our natures are those of existence itself—or things beyond existence.” Yeah, like nothing. Ia was probably one of the really old ones, from back when the Three first learned how to make children. Like Sieh had been.

  “Very well,” Ia said, after a long time that felt longer. “You may remain.”

  “Really?” I caught my breath and bounced a little, excited. “You mean it?”

  “Provided,” he said, and he was all sharp and just a little mad again, “that you take the greatest of care never to cause harm to any mortal.”

  “I won’t! I promise I’ll never hurt—”

  He flicked his hand. “You cannot promise that. You don’t know yourself yet; you may be unable to help it. And there is danger in any interaction between gods and mortals, for both parties; this is not a safe realm, Sibling. But beyond that, I must insist that you try to avoid harm.”

  I tried to stand really tall, which was how I knew mortals showed each other they really meant a thing, but it didn’t work because I was shaped like a little girl and he was twice as big. “I promise to try,” I said. “I’ll try hard! I don’t want to ever hurt mortals like I did before.”

  “If you do,” said Ia, scary again, “you will answer for it, to more than just me. Do you understand?” After I nodded hard, Ia unfolded the world so that we finally stood firmly in the gray place.

  The gray place was a thing mortals called a HOUSE, which is what they used to keep their flesh safe and dry and comfortable. Some mortals carried their houses around with them, or made new ones wherever they slept, but human-mortals made places that stayed. (Sometimes they moved around, though, and swapped houses between them.) This house was bigger than the ones around it, and it had lots of space inside and a wide flat thing on top. The wide flat thing was meant to keep rain outside, but someone had also put furniture and a frame and drapes on it, so maybe it was also for living, too. The frame and drapes made a shady place underneath, and in this shady place were two mortals, who looked at us in surprise. I was surprised, too, so I asked Ia without words where we were and why.

  “We are in the house of Fahno dau she Miu tai wer Tellomi kanna Enulai,” Ia said aloud. “Someone you will need to know, if you mean to stay here.”

  In the mortals’ language her name meant that Fahno was the daughter of Miu and of the clan Tellomi, and she was also part of some group of people called enulai. I didn’t know what a clan or an enulai was—maybe like niwwah and elontid and mnasat, which were the different kinds of godlings? Maybe a family, like all us gods? If so, I liked that she was a daughter. I was a daughter, too! Maybe we could be friends.

  But I needed to be polite now to prove to Ia that I could be here and not do bad things. I took a deep breath and spoke really softly this time when I said, “Hello!”

  The two mortals looked really confused. Ia made a sound that was annoyed. “Don’t whisper.”

  “I don’t want to be bad again!”

  “Just speak at the same volume they do.”

  I whispered louder, because I was getting annoyed, too. “They haven’t said anything.”

  “Then speak at the volume I am using,” he snapped, so I tried that and said hello again, very carefully.

  One of the mortals was sitting in a big, wide chair, and she was big and wide, too. The other stood beside her, because he had been showing her something on a scroll before we appeared. He was tall and narrow. I thought maybe he was younger, too, but both of them were so much older than me that I couldn’t tell! I could tell that both of them wanted to laugh, though. I don’t know what was so funny.

  “Hello,” said the wide one back. She showed her teeth; that was good! I grinned back. I was doing hello right! Then she looked at Ia and raised her eyebrows.

  “Not mine,” Ia said, looking more annoyed, which I hadn’t thought was possible. “The Three have at last blessed the realms with another godling.”

  “That is a wondrous thing,” the wide one said, looking very surprised and pleased. “And may I assume the task of raising her has been given to you? I did not think godlings did things like us mortals, but I have always thought you would father fine children, Ia.”

  Ia pushed his glass things up. “Godlings raise themselves, Fahno-enulai. I’m simply providing…guidance. And attempting to minimize the damage.”

  “That sounds like raising children, to me.” She tilted her head and looked at the narrow mortal. “Arolu? Men know more of these things.”

  The narrow mortal, Arolu, had the laughing look, too, although he put a hand inside his sleeve and covered his mouth while he did it. “I would say no, Fahno. A child is both joy and pain, and I see only pain in Lord Ia’s face.”

  “Yes, well.” Ia turned back to the wide woman. “An expert concurs.”

  The wide woman shook her head. (Was she FahnodausheMiutaiwerTellomikannaEnulai, or was she Fahno-enulai? I had not known that mortals had lots of names the way gods did. How did they decide which to use when?) “Enough with your chattering, both of you. You’ve interrupted us, Lord Ia, but since I hadn’t felt like discussing the household accounts anyway, I don’t mind so much.” She waved, and the narrow man sighed and straightened, tucking the scroll into his arm. Then she focused on me, and I got scared again, because I had not realized mortals could feel like gods but this one really really did. She had a big, strong presence, and I was suddenly aware that she was trying to decide if I was worth her time. I straightened up, hoping she would think so.

  “Please introduce your sibling, Lord Ia,” she said. “We must teach her good manners, after all.”

  Ia pushed up his round eye-things. “That might be difficult, Fahno—the name, that is, and not the manners. She has no name as yet.”

  “No name?” Fahnosomething frowned.

  “We create those for ourselves, too, or choose a name from what others call us. Generally later, once we’re more certain of who we are—but that is why this sibling of mine has come, in fact. She seeks to learn her nature, and thinks she might find it here among your kind.”

  “Fascinating.” To me, Fahnosomething said, “What do your parents call you, little one?”

  I jumped. “They call me You, FahnoIDon’tKnowWhichOtherNamesToCallYou. I don’t mind if you call me that, too!” Even though the mortal word for you was so thin and flat. It contained nothing of my essence or experiences, nothing of what Fahnosomething thought of me. It was just a syllable.

  Fahno twitched, which was a funny sort of thing for her to do. “You may call me Fahno-enulai. And—I’m sorry, but we’ll need something more than You to work with. Can you just choose a temporary name for now?”

  I looked at Ia, frowning and trying to understand why this was so important. “Mortals cannot perceive one another’s souls,” he explained. “They need names, and sight and other things, to tell one another apart.”

  “That is so sad!” I looked at Fahno and put a hand to my mouth, because that was one of the worst things I’d ever heard. “You poor things.”

  “We get by,” said Fahno in a wry tone. “But names are one of the, ah, coping mechanisms we use.”

  “Oh. OK, then.” I thought really hard for a minute. Well, I was in a mortal shell, so I would start with that word. “Shell? Ssss. Ssss…shhh. Sh.” I liked the roundness of the sh sound, and the languor of the ll. “Shrill?” No, but—“Shill?” It had…weight. And even meaning: in their language it was decoy. I was pretending to be mortal, wasn’t I? “Shill.” I looked at Ia, who ignored me. I looked at Fahno. “Shill? I like Shill.”

  “Shill it is, then.” She looked me up and down. “Interesting.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, you appear to be a healthy Darren girl of perhaps six or seven years old. Except for your eyes—oh!” I ha
d just made my eyes brown instead of gold, like Fahno’s; she chuckled. “Ah, yes. Now you could pass for some niece or granddaughter of mine. Did you do that on purpose?”

  I shrugged, because I hadn’t, except the eyes, which I had, and I didn’t know how to answer. “It’s what other mortals on this continent look like. Also, it just felt right.”

  “Ah. And why did you choose that name?”

  “I just picked things that sounded pretty and put them together.”

  “Why those syllables, though?” I blinked, and Fahno sat forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “Even for gods, a name encapsulates some proportion of who you are. There’s a reason those syllables sounded pleasant to your ear. There’s a reason you combined them in that particular manner, and a reason the whole appealed to you. Perhaps you should think about that.”

  I inhaled and stared at her. “You know a lot about gods!”

  She chuckled. “Thank you for noticing. That was just observation, though. I’ve never met a godling child before.” She took a deep breath and turned to Ia again, her smile fading. “Which is why, old friend…I’m going to turn you down.”

  Ia frowned. “You are the best of the enulai, Fahno. If anyone can manage a newborn godling—”

  “I am also the oldest of the enulai, Ia. I’ve retired! All the godlings I once looked after have been assigned to others. I haven’t the energy to keep an eye on a mortal child, let alone one who can gallivant about the universe at will. I’m sorry, old friend, but I just can’t.”

  Ia looked surprised and sad and sort of…scared? I didn’t know why. It was weird that somebody so scary could be scared too! I would ask him about it later. To Fahno I said, “What’s all that mean?”

  I don’t think Ia heard me. Fahno had a weird sad look on her face while she looked at Ia, but she said to me, “We call it the Compact, little one. An agreement made some three hundred years ago, when mortalkind finally grew weary of being caught in the gods’ cross fire, and the Three left us to manage our own affairs. If you mean to do more than just visit this world now and again, if you would live among us, you must have a minder to see that you wreak a minimum of havoc. An enulai.” She touched her own breast. “But I cannot be your enulai; I am too old.” She paused for a moment, her gaze flicking back to Ia again. “I think my dear friend forgot that even we demons eventually grow old, and die.”

  And that is when I screamed and ran away to another galaxy.

  OK that was not my fault. Naha told me all about demons! She said they were full of POISON and they can make me die and they are as bad as NOTHINGNESS and MAELSTROM except they have killed way more gods and that is why I ran away!

  But Ia came and got me and told me I was being stupid and rude and I should stop. He told me how enulai are, yes, demons who have agreed to keep an eye on godlings so they don’t do bad things, and how that is only fair because it is the mortals’ planet, after all, even if we have earned the right to be on it by fighting for it and dying on it and making children there. (Demon children!) And he said the demons will not kill me unless I do bad things to mortals, so don’t do bad things and everything will be fine.

  I was still scared until Ia finally got mad and made himself scarier and so finally I went back to Fahno and said I was sorry. Ia is mean and I do not like him at all, and it’s not fair that he’s so strong because I don’t think he should be, I don’t care how old he is.

  Anyway. Fahno accepted my apology and told me I could stay with her and her family while she tried to find another enulai for me. I was happy then because I would see what it was like to live like a mortal! And that is when I realized Fahno had said it to distract me so I wouldn’t be so scared anymore, but she meant it, too, so that is OK. It worked and I was happy again.

  “You really are just a child,” she said after all this, shaking her head.

  “Well, of course I am,” I said. Mortals were very strange.

  After that Ia said he was tired of dealing with me and went away. Arolu took me to another part of the house and showed me a room that had things for me to use while I was staying there. One of them was called a BED and it was for lying on during sleep! But godlings do not sleep so I asked Arolu what I should do instead.

  “I’m sure you can find some way to occupy yourself,” he said. “But do it quietly, please, because the mortals of the house will be sleeping.”

  Then he told me about the house’s library, and I was really happy because I had heard of books! I sat down to teach myself to read and promised to be very quiet all night. I was, too, once Arolu left. OK, I got bored and made up a song to sing but I sang it in sounds mortals can’t hear. The song went Hey hey hey hello hello hello how are you I am fine I have a name it is Shill. But nobody heard me.

  (I liked Arolu. He was big and his voice was always warm and he had lots and lots of long black hair, which reminded me a little of Naha. I asked him if anybody ever got lost in his hair, and he sort of blushed and said that was a question only a wife should ask. I didn’t know what that meant.)

  Some time passed. It was not even a year, but it felt much longer. Time in the mortal realm is very strange! All the mortals went to bed and got very quiet, so I dissipated my body and went to go look at them. Mortal sleep is not very interesting to watch. They just lie there and fart and dream. One of the bedrooms in the house was empty, but there was a familiar smell all over it. I wasn’t sure what made it familiar, so I went back to wandering through the house.

  And then I got annoyed. Everything was boring! The mortal realm was supposed to be fun! I decided I just wasn’t seeing enough of it, and jumped out the window to go exploring.

  The city we were in was called ARREBAIA. It told me its name with the wind and the mortals’ thoughts. It was really old! Way older than me, but everything was older than me so that didn’t matter. It had big stone walls all over the place, holding dirt in terraces for the mortals’ gardens and streets and markets, and it was full of heavy old cubes and pyramids that the mortals lived in. It was a perfect city for playing in.

  So I ran down a pyramid! I ran up a cube! I jumped into a penned-in place and there was an animal called an ALPACA! I petted it; it liked me. I ran down the street with my arms out, which made the mortals turn and stare, but I did not care because it was nighttime and I missed Naha. (I was really fast, anyway, so the mortals did not have to look at me for very long.) There was bright shiny moonlight on my skin and nice cool air and I think I ate a bug. It tasted awful! There were all sorts of things everywhere, and they were amazing! I loved them all.

  But then! I heard something!

  Something jumpy and beaty and steady and off-steady. I did not know what it was! It was way over on the other side of town, not too far from Fahno’s house, so I ran back as fast as I could (and maybe I folded spacetime a little, but just a little, so that is not cheating). The beaty sound was coming from the forest outside town, right where its edge stopped against the city’s outermost terrace-wall. I hopped over the wall and went into the trees, which was hard because the trees were big and tangly and wet and I was making so much noise that I worried I would scare the beaty sound. I turned into a lizard, and that made it easier. The smell of humans got thick, and then I saw a campfire through the trees, and the beaty sound was a feeling too now, all heavy and pounding down in my lizard-guts.

  Then I got through the trees and gasped—because it was another city! A little bitty city, just a few buildings and they were little, just a few streets and they were made of dirt, just two terraces and they grew wild, not planted or lived on at all. But it was a real city, because it was fierce and angry and it said who are you so I said who I was and then I asked who it was. It had a little bitty name, too: YUKUR. Arrebaia means “the city of the conquerors,” but Yukur is just “the men’s place.” Still, I told the city that Yukur was a very pretty name, because I wanted to be nice.

  Yukur sort of huffed and told me I was not supposed to be there because I was not really a boy, bu
t it was maybe OK because I was shaped like a lizard, and anyway I was a godling so it could not stop me. I could tell that it did not like me being there, though, so I made my lizard body into a boy lizard body, and promised I would only wear a boy body, or no body at all, while I was in the city’s limits. Then it was happy, and I was glad, because I had done the hello thing right again.

  I skittered down a wall and up some steps and then jumped into some bushes when people went by: two boys, all aflutter in their pretty robes and long hair, rushing up the steps like they were late for something. I could hear one of them whisper to the other, “It’s Eino tonight!” I didn’t know what that meant.

  (I know you know, but I am telling the story! Shut up! Interrupting is rude.)

  The other boy giggled and then they both were gone up the steps. I followed them but it was slow because I was only a little lizard. I decided to be human instead, but since I had said I would be a boy, I made a boy body. Every boy I had seen since coming to the mortal realm—except Ia, but he was weird—wore heavy drapey robes and long hair, so I made myself like that, too, and ran after the two I had seen. It is hard to run when you are covered from neck to toe in robes, though, and when your hair is four feet long, and also when you have stuff between your legs that dangles and flops around! I did not like any of it, but I had made a promise. Eventually I figured out that I had to hold my head really high and gather up my robes, and run in this weird very straight way or I would hurt the dangly bits—but if I did all this, I could run like those other boys.

  And I wanted to run! There was another sound over the beats that had drawn me to Yukur: deep and rough and rhythmic mortal voices. I did not know what it was, but it made me bouncy; I wanted to make the sounds, too, and move with the beats. I could have just dissipated and gone to see as a godling, but this was a mortal thing, all body-stuff, pounding blood and tingly skin and heavy breath. I needed mortalness to know what it all meant.

  Finally I got to the top of the terrace. And! I saw!

  Fires and smoke! And lots of boys all gathered in a circle! Some of them were to the side of the group, hitting things made of wood and leather which is what made the beaty noise—drums; Itempas had told me all about them. The rest of the boys were trotting about for a better position in the circle, or already in the circle, moving all together and making sounds in time with the beats, some high and some low and all of it together beautiful. Exciting! So this was MUSIC!