“Plead with them all you want,” Cyrt said. “These towers are a secretive clan.”
Gaal continued toward the final keening tree—the eighth tree, called by all Odunao clans The Greater Light. Its sockets empty without crystals, it stood behind the Lesser Light in the traditional place assigned it by the Creator. “Greater Light, perhaps you have some secret to tell us.” He turned to Psal. “Is this tree as useless as some say, Firstborn?”
“It is,” Psal said. “I keep it here because it is a concession to the old superstition…and because the towers complain when I remove it.”
But his thoughts were not on towers or even on the skirmishes and raided longhouses. All his heart’s thoughts were on Tsbosso’s beautiful daughter and their meeting at the festival.
* * * *
Psal woke earlier than usual, and in a good mood. His eyes had opened upon the twinkling blue crystal in the socket of the Lesser Light keening branch: the longhouse had fully materialized at the festival region. Ephan wasn’t in the room, probably sorting specimens or grinding pharma. Or perhaps Chief Studier Dannal had foisted some new burden on him. Psal looked at the parchment at his feet. Tracking towers and annotating parchments. And all the while, my beloved Cassia awaits.
He limped to the window, pulled the woolen curtains aside and opened the shutter. Outside lay sandy desert, gathered longhouses, the Great Mesa, and a ruined city. The sooner he finished his duties, the sooner he could wash the stale Emon from his body and race outside to the spontaneous city of longhouses and the ancient edifices on the desert plain and see Cassia.
To those trained to hear them, tower songs sounded like tinkling bells or like rams’ horns or like wind blowing through the reeds, like drums great or small. Unlike the restrained songs of the Wheel Clan towers, Peacock Clan towers sounded of rhythmic drumming—wild and sultry, like Tsbosso’s daughter. So many towers! A delightful cacophony. But among the varied songs of the scattered clans, a song from a dying, possibly uninhabited, tower. Psal could not place it. Perhaps Ephan can.
* * * *
“It certainly sounds night-tossed, doesn’t it?” Ephan’s face reflected Psal’s curiosity. “Sounds like a Waymaker clan tower. It doesn’t sound abandoned though. But we were planning on going to the Mesa.” He glanced at Psal’s leg. “Are you able to make both journeys?”
Psal considered the day’s challenge: to speak with his beloved and embrace her, to translate treaties for his father, to travel to the Mesa, to explore the possibly-abandoned tower, to return and lie in his beloved’s arms until the third moon rose and night forced them to part. It can be done! He picked up a spyglass from a nearby shelf. “I’m not as weak as others think. Or, Nahas would’ve sent me off to a steward longhouse long years ago. We should claim this tower before others do. Our stewards can repair it. And Nahas would be pleased that we found it.”
Just then Netophah appeared at the door wearing a brown tunic and brown leggings.
“So you wear warrior’s clothes now?” Ephan remarked.
Netophah smoothed his tunic and smiled. “I’m too big for yellow.”
Psal turned to his brother. “Why are you here, birthright-stealer?”
“I heard you speaking just now. I wish to wander with you today. May I?”
“Spying on me for Father?”
Netophah’s eyes widened. “Why would I do that?”
Psal glared at Netophah until the shamed boy lowered his head and left the room.
CHAPTER 3
CHIEF TSBOSSO
Through their communal echo-location, the towers of King Nahas’ royal longhouse, the tower Queen Hinis and the women would use to feast with the Peacock Clan women, and Tsbosso’s two Peacock Clan towers spontaneously created a closed feasting hall. All other longhouses—Wheel Clan, Peacock Clan and the great clans—spread out around them in all directions.
In his annals, Psal wrote:
In forty-nine ruined cities of Odunao, the truce festivals.
And in the Eastern Ruined City, sixty-seven Peacock longhouses,
Seventy-eight Wheel Clan longhouses.
Netophah’s mother’s clan was there.
White-haired, eyes like the crescent moon, the Waymaker clans—a good, gentle, wise people.
But scattered—unwilling to grasp and hold, looking only toward The Permanent Home.
They lived as nomads, taming regions then moving on.
The Grassrope clans—dark-haired and sallow. A filthy, loutish, selfish, grasping clan.
Stout from gobbling, with desperate hungry greedy eyes.
Hinis’ people—the Macaw clan, a people skilled in survival.
Hinis greeted her brother, Bukko, loading their baskets with fine rarities;
All these clans lived in peace with the Wheel Clan.
Then the great and noble Peacock Clans!
Expert, their mastery of animal science.
Out of Tsbosso’s longhouse came lions and reptiles, as docile as lambs.
Of all the great clans, only the all-female Voca was absent.
But who was surprised at that? The Voca hated all male-ruled clans,
From within the Wheel Clan, Ezbel the Voca Queen was born.
She hated them above all clans.
The smaller clans also feasted.
For one day, equal to the great tribes.
And in the distance, the Great Eastern Ruined City and the Great Mesa stood
Reminding all of the ancient time when night spoke of permanence and all the clans were one.
Freed from the duty of translating for his father, Psal clasped his staff and searched for Cassia among the festive crowds. Mark you how gracious, how charming, how exuberant the young prince was when not among his own clan. How he leaped on that withered leg and scampered about with joy! I have forgotten what I am: a prince, forgotten my own peace. Surrounded by other clans, I find myself again. Now, girls from the Waymaker Clans stroked his face; women and men from the Grassrope clans flirted with him, running their fingers through his flowing dark curls; Peacock Clan girls flitted past, flirting in their dyed buckskin skirts, their faces painted like butterflies or virginal white; warriors and studiers from clans large and small bowed as they passed him, warriors and studiers from other Wheel Clan longhouses, pointed at him: That is the Firstborn of the Wheel Clan!
But where was Cassia? She should be with the unmarried girls, flirting with young men, teasing old warriors, showing off her beauty. Finding her should not be so difficult. At last Psal saw her, but she walked among the married Peacock women. Her face was no longer covered in white clay but with red. The roundness of her stomach could not be mistaken. Still, hope was securely lodged in the boy’s heart as he raced toward her. She half-smiled when their eyes met and walked toward him, glancing around her.
“Why are you here, among these married…” A marriage tattoo on her cheek. Even if she has married someone since the last time we met, it is possible her husband has died.
Cassia carried a large wooden bowl. She placed it atop a broken stone column. The bowl of steaming Yisin grain wobbled, but did not fall.
Psal’s heartstrings tightened. Could you not have waited for me? “So you’re another man’s wife now?”
“I have wanted to see you…to explain,” she said in the Wheel Clan tongue and kissed his cheek tenderly. “But Father has kept me from you all these moons. When you sent messages