Брендон Сандерсон: Sixth of the Dusk

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 to 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.”