Chapter 13: Five Clicks in the Water
Shlp... shlp... shlp.
The blue head vanished beneath the stone shelf and carried its fifth click west.
Ivara moved first. She dropped to one knee, pressed two fingers against the water, and tapped the stone four times.
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
Nothing answered.
She tapped again, harder.
The stream kept moving.
Mataon looked at the roots hiding the western passage. "I assume chasing the witness through the forbidden entrance would be considered poor manners."
"It would be considered trespassing," Zahr said.
"You don’t know their law."
"I know you."
Almina cut between them. "The creature is reporting something. Decide whether the report matters before the report acquires an audience."
Barni stepped to the joined channel. His wet fur still stood out around him, making him look twice his proper size and half as dignified. He lowered his nose.
A bubble rose beneath it.
Plup.
Barni jerked back.
Mataon covered a smile. "A formidable exchange between local authorities."
Barni slapped the surface with one paw.
Splsh.
The small blue head rose again a handspan away. It blinked at Barni. Barni stared back.
Click.
Then the creature drifted toward Ivara.
Click.
Orvek.
Click.
Mataon.
Click.
The creature remained in front of him.
Its black eyes did not move to anyone else.
Click.
Two for him.
"At last," Mataon murmured. "Recognition."
"As a problem," Zahr said.
"Recognition is recognition."
"You have very low standards for public approval."
"I died in politics. Of course I do."
Almina’s answer came flat and immediate. "Both of you, stop celebrating the possible parasite."
Mataon watched the creature instead of replying.
It had not counted shadows. It had not clicked at the waterskin, the bow, Orvek’s chain, or the control-seal plate wrapped inside Ivara’s pouch. One sound for each of them. A second only while facing him.
He almost asked All-Knowing Worlds what it meant.
Orvek shifted against the wall and touched the bloodied braided cloth inside his belt.
The injured escapee was still west.
Mataon closed his mouth.
The mystery could wait thirty seconds. A bleeding person might not.
He drew four body marks in the grit, then placed two short lines beside his own. He pointed at the creature, at the marks, and finally at the hidden route. After that, he drew the symbol they had been using for blood and pressed Orvek’s cloth beside it.
Ivara understood the question beneath the question.
Did the fifth count stop them from reaching the injured person?
Her jaw tightened. She touched the third knot on her wrist cord, then held up one finger and pointed west.
One scout could not decide.
Before Mataon could answer, five dry knocks came from behind the roots.
Tok-tok. Tok. Tok-tok.
Ivara’s bow was in her hand so quickly that the string whispered.
Twp.
Orvek pushed himself upright despite his leg. Barni moved in front of Mataon and immediately looked offended by his own choice.
"I appreciate the sacrifice," Mataon whispered.
Barni did not look back.
"He is reconsidering it," Zahr said.
"Then please don’t influence the vote."
A narrow section of root shifted inward.
Not a door. Three living roots had simply been trained to overlap, leaving a gap when pulled in the correct order.
The person beyond them entered sideways.
He was an adult Beastkin man, lean and slightly shorter than Mataon, with dark brown hair, small rounded ears high on his head, and a long sable tail held low behind one leg. Mud dulled the grey layers of his clothes. A short hooked spear rested in his right hand. His left held a flat stone marked with five pale cuts.
His eyes went first to the water creature.
Not Mataon. Not Orvek. The count.
The creature clicked five times.
The scout stopped breathing for one beat.
Then he looked at the four bodies.
His gaze returned to Mataon.
"That seems unfair," Mataon said quietly. "I haven’t even introduced myself."
"You appear to have introduced yourself twice," Zahr replied.
"You live in my head. This may be your fault."
"We do not live there."
"You argue from there. The distinction is administrative."
Almina’s patience broke with impressive efficiency. "There is an armed stranger deciding whether you are one person or an infestation. Focus."
The Beastkin scout said a name—short, sharp, perhaps Tovan—and Ivara answered with her own. Their language moved too quickly for Mataon to separate more than tone.
Ivara pointed east. Bellwire. Pursuit.
She pointed to Orvek’s wound and the bloodied cloth. Injured person west.
Then she pointed at Mataon and touched the blue-stained Claimwick Thread.
Tovan’s ears flattened.
He crouched beside the channel and placed his five-cut stone on the ground. Four pebbles went beneath it, one for each visible body. He added a fifth pebble beside Mataon’s mark.
Mataon pointed at his chest, then at the extra stone, and shook his head.
Tovan did not remove it.
He took a strip of dried meat from a pouch and held it over the channel. The creature did not rise. He dropped the strip into the water. It floated past the black eyes without drawing a sound.
Not hunger.
Tovan pointed at Ivara and then behind the western roots. She frowned, but stepped out of sight.
The creature turned toward the place she had vanished.
Click.
Orvek.
Click.
Barni.
Click.
Mataon.
Click.
Click.
Four visible presences now. Five sounds again.
Ivara returned. The creature counted six. One for her. Two for Mataon.
Tovan’s tail went still.
Mataon touched the mark beneath his eye. Then he pointed at his own shadow, shook his head, and opened both hands. He had no better way to say I do not know either.
For once, Zahr did not make a joke.
Mataon addressed him anyway. "Do either of you register as a separate presence?"
"We cannot answer questions that would determine your interpretation of an active unknown," Almina said.
"That is a very polished way to say maybe."
"It is a precise way to say you must observe."
Zahr added, "Also, if we were haunting you, this would be an unflattering first confirmation."
"You complain for people living rent-free."
"We transferred you divine authority."
"A deposit is not rent."
Tovan stared at Mataon arguing with the air.
Mataon gave him an apologetic nod. "This is not helping my case."
Barni made a low sound that agreed far too clearly.
Instead, Tovan drew a circle around all five and cut a line toward a narrow crack on the north side of the pocket. Separate route. Separate holding place.
Quarantine.
Ivara objected. Mataon could not understand the words, but he understood her pointing west and Orvek’s immediate step forward.
Tovan struck the butt of his spear against the stone.
Ktok.
Both of them stopped.
He pointed to the water creature, then touched two fingers to his own eyes. After that, he drew three old tally marks in the grit and crossed each one with the same symbol.
Three past warnings.
Three times the count had mattered.
Whatever the creature was, these people trusted it more than they trusted a stranger’s explanation. Mataon could hardly call that irrational. It had known there was something unusual before any of them had.
A metal note sounded from the east.
Tnnng.
Closer this time.
Leaves shifted beyond the entrance they had used. Not wind. Too low. Too deliberate.
Ivara looked at Tovan. He looked at Orvek. Orvek pressed the bloodied cloth against his chest and pointed west again.
Mataon held up both hands.
Then he pointed to himself and the northern crack. He pointed to Orvek and west.
Take him. Leave me in quarantine.
Orvek understood.
He grabbed Mataon’s wrist and pulled it down.
"That was a proposal, not an order."
Orvek answered in a hard burst of words and refused to release him.
"I believe the proposal has failed," Zahr said.
"Thank you for the translation."
"I offer administrative support."
"You offer commentary with divine branding."
A branch cracked east of the stone pocket.
Krak.
Almina said, "The committee is approaching."
That ended the argument.
Tovan swept up the pebbles. He pointed to all four of them, then to the northern crack. Ivara touched her third knot once more, hesitated, and cut it free with a small knife.
The rule had not vanished. She had escalated it to a second witness.
Together, the two scouts pulled aside a curtain of black roots covering the narrow cleft.
The water creature entered first.
Shlp... shlp... shlp.
Barni followed, though he gave Mataon a look suggesting this was not leadership and should not be recorded as such.
Mataon helped Orvek through. Ivara came behind them. Tovan remained at the opening long enough to scatter the four body marks and the fifth pebble into the stream.
Then he knocked five times against a hollow root.
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
For several seconds, the forest beyond the cleft said nothing.
A latch moved somewhere under the ferns.
Chk.
Five knocks answered from the dark.