Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

“Every other word not ‘dung-eater’ or ‘belly-biter,’” Thistle said with a cat-grin. “Wouldn’t have Fessran any other way, right?”

“Well, she gave me a lot of trouble once, before you came into the clan, but she’s my friend now. I’ll tell you about that later.”

“About the hunters and us …” Thistle began. “They are the same, but they grow up to be not the same. Instead of each one learning to think and speak, they learn to let True-of-voice think for them through the song. Instead of learning to be wide awake when they hunt, they learn to dream-stalk.”

“Do you feel that is wrong?” Ratha asked as the two paced together.

“Feelings mixed up, like you. Sometimes is better, easier not to be always thinking, to have someone or something else do it. But sometimes want to decide for me, don’t want anyone else to. Wouldn’t like True-of-voice to force me.”

“He doesn’t?”

“Not to me.”

“What about the others?” Ratha asked.

“Doesn’t force them either. Doesn’t need to. They don’t fight against him.”

“They don’t … arrr … resist? Is that the right word?”

“Resist,” said Thistle. “Yes. They don’t know that they can.”

“Doesn’t that bother you? That they don’t have a choice?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes a lot, especially when they meet something new and get stuck. Don’t like to see that. Sad.”

“I don’t like it either. But if they don’t know they have a choice, how did Quiet Hunter escape?”

Ratha saw Thistle turn her head, fixing her with that intent uncomfortable sea-green gaze.“Didn’t escape. He lost the song. Remember? Song escaped away from him, made him have to think open-eyed like us. Hurt him. Nearly killed him.”

Both padded along, tails swinging. Being smaller than Ratha, Thistle had a crisper pace, which made her tail swing faster.

“I remember. But he did it.”

“Because he was young, like me. Young ones, thinking can bend, twist, stretch. Older ones, thinking is strong, but sometimes too stiff. I could learn Named ways — Named talking and thinking — because I was still young when Thakur found me. If older, would be still limping on beach, eating sea-scraps.” Ratha detected a slight note of longing in Thistle’s voice that was reflected in her scent. She missed her seaside home, despite the hard life she had led there.

“Will go back for a visit soon. Now things are quieter here. Will take Quiet Hunter, show him sea-mare friends, teach him to swim in the waves.”

“That should be fun,” Ratha said cheerfully. “You know, though, that the clan’s mating season is coming soon.”

“Will be here for it. Will catch fish and bring back. Just a short trip.”

“Good. Even though you don’t have to be here, I’d like it if you were.”

“Want to be here. May need a little help, maybe a little scared of new feelings.”

They walked together in silence for a while.

“So you think we and the hunters aren’t that different. Do you think we can live together without fighting?”

Ratha heard Thistle take a deep breath.“Know that you may want to make them more like clan members. Also know that you know it would be wrong to try. Living together, maybe, but have to be very careful. They are they and we are us.”

“But cubs are cubs, and that’s what makes me hopeful, cub of mine,” Ratha nuzzled her daughter.

“Mothers are mothers, too, Makes me glad,” Thistle said.

Now is for blackness within. Black beyond black. Darker than this coat that eats stars. Blacker than dead coals in the canyon. So many song-hearers burned. The song itself, burned.

Thoughts tumbling like smoke. The thick-skinned prey running in fear. The hunters wanting the thick-skinned prey. These jaws, carrying the log where the burning thing lives. These paws, scraping it out into dry pine needles. Knowing that the thick-skinned prey fear it and that they will run into the claws of the hunters.

Not knowing that death would run with it and fill the canyon. Not knowing that the song would char, become terrible for the part within.

Now is for painful questions. For asking what the jaws took, what the paws loosed and why the song of all senses has turned to black, to soot, and has blown away so that these paws cannot gather it back.

This night coat that eats stars is no longer known by the true voice and that is a black deeper than pain.

Now is for bewilderment, for suffering.

Now, alone.

A few days later, Thistle was walking on her beloved beach at low tide, her treeling, Biaree, on her shoulder. Behind her paced her chosen partner, Quiet Hunter. She had longed to show him this place, since it had been, and still was, a treasured part of her life. Ratha had told her that things were quiet and that she should take this opportunity to go before the chaos of the mating season entered clan life. She planned to be back just before it started.

Ahead of her, in the scrub brush that lay high above the dunes, she heard the neigh of a dappleback. The little horses didn’t live near the seacoast; she had brought this dappleback with her from clan land.

Biaree, on her back, scratched his side with the flurry of a rear foot, and then lifted whiskers, sampling the strong, salty sea breeze. He blinked, not sure if he liked it.

His clever paws and his growing ability to tie things together under her guidance would make this trip to the beach even more fruitful than before. Biaree, with the help of some other treelings, managed to make some baggy nets that would hold fish and other seafood. The things were a bit of a mess, but they were a first effort, and they worked when Thistle tried them out on the stored fish in her creek-side pool. With some help from Thakur, she managed to tie these basket nets onto an older, placid dappleback in a similar manner to the beast-riding pads they had made for the cubs. Then she had to have something to lead the horse. She had tried her new herding skills, and they worked, but it was hard making the animal go any real distance without herder and herd-eel becoming exhausted. A treeling-knotted vine rope around the animal’s neck was far easier, both for her and the horse.

Once she was sure that the animal wouldn’t bolt or stray, she put a few fish in the net bags and walked around clan ground with her fish-carrying horse. She did get a few puzzled looks from both herders and Firekeepers, but she was used to that.

The dappleback didn’t seem to mind. She was the same animal that Quiet Hunter had used to exhibit his beginning skills. The mare probably found this duty less onerous than being chased and mauled by Thakur’s introductory herding class, Thistle decided. The horse hadn’t objected strenuously to anything yet, though she neighed a bit when Thistle rolled a heavy rock onto the end of the lead rope and left the dappleback to browse.

Now she was returning to get her packhorse and load the net bags with fish, clams, and other dainty morsels. She had recently discovered that the big sea snails were succulent and tasty when you clawed them out of the shell and bit any bad-tasting parts out. Now her catch was waiting on the beach, buried in wet sand to keep it fresh and safe from other fish-eaters.

When she and Quiet Hunter reached the sea grass and brush where she had left the dappleback mare, she pushed the anchoring rock aside with Quiet Hunter’s help. Taking the lead rope in her jaws, she made a clicking sound with her teeth and pulled gently.

At first, leading the dappleback hadn’t been that pleasant. The beast had a rocking walk and its head bobbed up and down with each steps, sometimes jerking the line. Once the rope had stuck on Thistle’s fangs. That hurt, but the dappleback didn’t mean it. The horse’s small hoofed toes clicked and scraped on rock, unlike the silent fall of feline pads. That had annoyed Thistle too, but she was getting used to the sound and had even started to like it.