distance away across the Canopy. A rising wind set the bridges swaying and Noetos found his attention taken by keeping his balance. A man of open spaces, of sea and shore, he could not make sense of direction and distance in the tops of the great trees. This was further compounded when they were forced up narrow ladders consisting of nothing more than notched branches. Their guards climbed with nonchalance, some with bows in hand or bags of weapons and stores, while the captives wrapped themselves around the ladders and inched their way upwards.
Finally the captives stood before the door of a hut almost identical to the one they had left.
“Come in,” said a woman’s pleasant contralto.
Lost, confused and almost completely off balance, Noetos ducked to enter the building, a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. He was made to line up with the others along the side wall of the hut.
This time there was no doubt as to whom they would be speaking.
“Siy tell me you taken on the plateau at door of Godhouse,” said a broad-faced woman of middle years. Her voice was like golden syrup poured into his ears and he found it easing his troubled mind. A trick, of course, he told himself. Four older women flanked her, two on each side.
He nodded to the woman, as did Heredrew. How will these elders cope with two spokesmen? At least he and the tall Falthan seemed to be of similar mind. They refused to speak to us, so we should be slow to answer their questions.
“That plateau our heartland. Outsiders not allowed in our heartland. Unless you supply best reason for this, you will be ended in traditional manner.” Such a beautiful voice.
Heredrew laughed. “I haven’t heard the Wordweave used so clumsily in some time,” he said. To the others he added: “It’s a form of basic magic. The speaker weaves a surreptitious meaning between her words. I believe we are supposed to feel safe, among friends, and therefore willing to answer their enquiries. You realise she just promised to kill us all?”
Yes. Noetos had heard the words, had even known what they implied, but it simply had not disturbed him, so sweet had been her voice. Magic. How he hated it.
“The Bhrudwan Recruiters use it,” he said, remembering that night in Fossa. He was about to explain about the Recruiters, but Heredrew nodded.
“They are trained in all the arts of the Voice.”
How does he know?
Now he understood what the woman was doing, her voice didn’t sound quite so compelling.
“Do I explain traditional way enemies of Padouk are ended? They are taken to tallest tree in Canopy and cast to ground. Is noble death for Padouki. Not so noble for guests. So unless you wish to descend more quicker than you came up, please tell. Tell now.”
“Here are our reasons,” Noetos snapped, tired of the manipulation. “First, your man Siy gave us leave. This was after he filled our companion, the god Keppia, with arrows.”
“He kill Keppia?” the woman said, her mouth stretching wide, whether in surprise or in a smile, Noetos could not tell. “Keppia dead?”
“No, even the andali did not hurt him,” the man Siy said. “This man is correct. I granted them leave because there was no other choice; they were in the company of the god. We have not seen him for many years, and all Padouk remembers what happened when last we resisted him.”
“Ai, he slaughter Fumi Canopy,” the woman said, and the women on either side of her pulled their lips back, exposing their teeth in an expression of grief. “All who live there die when mother tell Keppia not to take daughter. He kill Canopy and take daughter anyway.”
“You are angry at Keppia,” Heredrew said. “So are we.”
“You his friends. You still-awake ones maybe gods too, little gods. Now he not here to protect, we likely end you quick.”
Noetos took a step forward. “You told us we were to be judged because we went into your heartland. You lie. You want to kill us because you think we are Keppia’s friends. But we are no friends of Keppia. We want him dead, him and his sister Umu both. In the House of the Gods we slew his body, but he has escaped us. The body may have come back to life. Please give us leave to pursue the body and end it forever. If you have any ability to sense the truth, believe me when I say we have devoted ourselves