If you like this and want to read it in a better-organized format go here:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/105895/gods-inside
https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/63668572/
As the sun began its watching, one-and-two sisters came to the spine-tree that had sung of their labor's end. These sisters had walked far from Our Mound in a searching labor. They had searched faraway places and faced many dangers, but now their foremost labor—that of finding Sett who had been stolen—was completed. Sett was found upon the spine-tree, and many feelers were jumping to share their great satisfaction at the end of such a troublesome labor. Soured food trickled from where Sett's jaws were deep in a wet wound on the spine-tree, and her legs were hanging.
The six sisters of Our Mound stood upon each others' backs—Satiak was largest, and she was beneath the rest. Kiyit was topmost, and she touched her feelers to Sett's backpiece. As if bitten, Sett pulled her joints close, until Kiyit said to her gentle, “You are found, sister Sett. You will be lifted, and carried.”
Kiyit lifted Sett from the spine-tree, and passed her to Iksith, the youngest sister among them. Iksith passed her to Skatta. Skatta passed her to Rekki, who passed her to Ayik. Sessa and Atter together held Sett, and they carried her to the ground as Satiak, standing above the others even with her legs bent, was watching. They sang a quiet song to Sett as they cleaned dirt and beast-lymph from her armor, and on the sand they each spat a portion of the fouled food in her sharing-stomach, until it was emptied.
Our Mound—with death repelled.
And as the foulness of Sett's troubled and pathless walking was wiped away, the one-and-two sisters who had found her smelled something strong beneath the stench. They smelled something potent, and something old—something that swept over their thoughts and brought their feelers together with Sett's broken ones. For upon her, they smelled a God Inside, one that so rarely was smelled in Our Mound, where labors are completed without trouble and sisters are not left Outside.
It was Iki-Ikas, who is mother to all workers, that they smelled upon Sett. They took up new labors of cleaning that were more eager than before, digging away every last piece of Outside that was upon the armor of one who bears the scent of the Worker God. Good thoughts of safety and resolve came to them, and they learned that all the troubles of their labor to find her had wasted no food. They would forever tend a place in their thoughts of the morning when they had cleaned a sister and smelled Iki-Ikas beneath.
When the sun was highest, Sett came troubled from sleep-travel. She eagerly joined the small labors of her sisters, cleaning them as she had been herself cleaned, with her armor shining. And as Sett came beside each of them, she asked them each to share their names. She was most eager then to share her learnings with Satiak, a name that was familiar to her from old labors of foraging.
Satiak shared with her of Our Mound, and its troubles. Our Mound had repelled a host of impostors who had taken the shapes of soldiers, but were laborless beasts that had sought to steal Our Mound's males. Sett was most eager to hear of Tattik's role in this great change, and Satiak told her of how Tattik had been lost, and how she had returned from a path through all the outposts to do war-making.
“We labor in a god-touched season, this I have learned,” said Satiak with great eagerness. “Tattik returned with the voice of Rakkitik, and we heard it clearly when the impostors were killed. A Queenly smell was upon her also, and so Our Mound will host many new labors. No longer will we gather eggs—now we will have a Queen, and there will be birthing within Our Mound.”
Satiak had not expected to smell a small fear upon Sett at these words. Sett said, “It is strange that you say that Tattik is a Queen—I have walked long with Tattik, as leader and follower both, and she is no Queen. She is a soldier, and she is smaller than many workers. I have learned that she should do her labors in the Learned Castes, where her skills are matched.”
Ithsik approached then, and she told Sett of how her learning was inexact, for the Learned Castes had been cleaned before Tattik's war-making. Sett was troubled greatly to learn of how their chambers had been emptied, and Ithsik continued to share this learning even when Satiak came beside Sett to comfort her. And Ithsik told Sett then most eagerly of the war-making that had been done in the tunnels of the central chamber, and how the conduit-lines were being made newly.
Sett's thoughts were then storming, and all her comfort became brief, as it was buried beneath the learning that war-making had been done Inside.
“Many have been killed, this I have learned,” said Sett.
“Our Mound suffered, and lost one sister for each two that still live,” said Satiak. “It is an evil thing, because war-making was done so soon after Our Mound glimmered, and the scents of that good day are now buried beneath death-smell.”
Young Ithsik shared more to Sett then of war-making, for it was her first learning. She had come from her final molting into it, and so she had learned precisely of its doing. She had killed many, even while her armor was still stiffening on her first day. Her eagerness, made bolder by the small count of her days, was answered by a cold stillness from Sett to whom war-making seemed a very foul thing.
“The labor of war-making is familiar to you. Why would such a great labor trouble you?” asked Ithsik.
Satiak said then, “You will not dig up Sett's troubles, Ithsik. Our labor here is completed, and when we bring Sett to Our Mound, much sharing will be done there in comfort.”
But Sett was still eager to learn of Our Mound, and she was then beside Satiak who did not bring trouble to her thoughts as young Ithsik did. Satiak shared to her of the outposts, and how they had all been emptied, for many sisters were needed in Our Mound for the labors that precede a Queen.
But when Sett asked of how the Learned Castes were to labor to welcome this change to Our Mound, Satiak told her of how the Learned Castes had been emptied. And to Satiak, Sett seemed very strange then, because with each thing that was shared of the killings in the chambers of the Learned Castes, Sett was hungry for more, and she had the scent of a desperate labor. Satiak's reluctance was made more potent with each buried name that she said, until her thoughts repelled this labor, and she shared no more so that her own thoughts could settle.
Sett was then more troubled than before by the loss of her feelers, for she was needful then of her sisters' scents that would calm her. “I have learned that Our Mound will die” she said to Satiak. “There is much death in my thoughts now, for with the killing in the Learned Castes, my labors of dueling have been killed also. My two-tandem with my sister Tattik with whom I dueled has been killed. And the scents of so many good things are dying, because they are being buried so deeply beneath my thoughts that they will never be carried upward to me again.
“I am eager to bring calm to you, worker Sett,” said Satiak, “but it would be an evil thing to share my learning of Our Mound inexactly. Our Mound is marked by many wounds. Some are large—none larger than the breaking of the conduit-lines, which many sisters now follow without eagerness. But that there are deeper and smaller wounds beneath our armor that cannot be cleaned.” She fluttered her feelers in the direction of Ithsik, who had kept one of her own pointed to Sett always. “So many sisters were born into the labor of war-making, with death-smell surrounding.” For a moment her feelers were to Ithsik, until they met Sett's. “These sisters are strange to me. They are eager for war-making, this I have learned.” Satiak once more cleaned Sett, though her tongue found no filth and ran over scars only.
“I have smelled great joy, beyond any thrill, warmer than sunlight, with the wind's lightness, and this was when worker Sett and Queen Tattik descended from the Learned Castes, having completed a long-made labor. Had I learned then of the troubles that would follow it, I would have waited longer in the tunnels through which you had walked together, and put my feelers into the dirt until the last pieces of that scent were deeper than their reach. It was a godly scent, one now buried beneath death-smell. I now feel no eagerness to return to Our Mound, which is an evil thing, but the tunnels are filled with death-smell, and my labors Outside have been less troubled than those done Inside.”
Sett could not smell it, but in her thoughts, she heard a gentle voice, one that had come to her while she had clung to the spine-tree throughout the night. She spoke to Satiak then, and it was the voice of Iki-Ikas that was heard. “Go to your labors, and bury all foulness beneath them.”
Satiak pressed close to Sett then, to be soaked in the scent of the Worker-God that rolled from her sister. “Wise Iki-Ikas, gentlest sister who walks far with armor cleaned—you have shared a wisdom to me. I will do the labor that I have joined, and bring us in safety to Our Mound, and we will labor, and the death-smell that has fouled the tunnels will be buried also. Yours is a name I am eager to share to all my sisters, worker Sett, whose wounding has let the Worker Mother speak clearly within you.”
Satiak then went to the sisters she had accompanied in their labor to find Sett, to share her eagerness. But there was disagreement between them. Satiak smelled eagerness to return to Our Mound on Ayik and Rekki, and they brought this eagerness to Ithsik, who was beside Sessa and Atter. Ithsik, Sessa and Atter were eager instead to more precisely do the labor they had brought from Queen Tattik, which was not only to find Sett, but to kill the threats that had carried her away.
“On Sett I smell something evil,” said Ithsik, and Sett stepped away from her. This brought agitation to Sessa and Atter, who found it strange that Sett would avoid young Ithsik's attentions.
“Why do you not share of the threat that stole you?” asked Sessa.
“Why do you hide the smell on your armor?” asked Atter.
Ithsik's feelers twisted as her thoughts were disturbed. “It is an evil thing to hide such learning from your sisters. We will hold you, and take this learning, if you will not share it.”
Satiak chattered her jaws at Satiak then. “You will not hold a sister who has joined our labor—this is a great evil, and it is made greater by the smell of wise Iki-Ikas upon her.”
But to Ithsik, this did not seem evil. She said to Satiak, “It was not Iki-Ikas that I smelled around me on my first day, when I drove my jaws into strangers who would welcome the God of Death and Eating into Our Mound—it was Rakkitik whose voice brought goodness to my thoughts. If Iki-Ikas is wise, she will speak now and agree.”
But the voice of Iki-Ikas was silent in Sett, who spoke instead. “There was one who brought me so far from Our Mound, this you have learnedprecisely. But I think that you will not complete this labor of finding her, for she has learned much of being unseen and unsmelled, and her skill is greater than any of Rakkitik's daughters. This labor may be impossible for we foragers to complete.”
“We will find her, and kill her,” said Ithsik eagerly. “You will lead us to her, for you have surely learned much of her and how her skills might be followed.”
“We will abandon this labor!” said Satiak. “I will not pursue a doomed labor that will bring us even further from Our Mound, where we will go quickly to bury war-making's foulness. We have been far from our Mound for many days, and we are made stranger by each day beyond the entrance hall!”
“Finding is a small labor,” said Ithsik. “It is a far greater labor to kill impostors, to make safety and comfort for Queens!”
Satiak then disagreed, and it was with the harshness and stiffness of falling stone. “You have learned that labors most good—of returning to sisters, of filling the wounds in Our Mound by bringing its sisters to its safety Inside—are small labors? You are a wounded thing, for your thoughts gather joy only in those labors done in troubled days!”
Ayik and Rekki came to Satiak's side then, and the three of them faced Ithsik, who had Sessa and Atter at her sides. All had their feelers raised high, and Satiak and Ithsik both stood high upon their legs in opposition to the other.
Sett was very afraid to see the evil that had taken hold of her sisters' thoughts. She was comforted that Satiak would stand to defend her, but she could not find an answer in her thoughts as to why she had fled from Ithsik's attempts to smell Skith upon her. And in her thoughts then was a split that was not unlike what had risen between her finders, and so her legs were trapped by a new pathlessness.
“You are filled by the God of Death and Eating,” said Satiak to Ithsik. “But I will do evil and repel my sister, if you will not lower yourself and follow me untroubled. We will bring Sett to Our Mound, and let this labor bury any others we have brought!”
Ithsik strained her legs to stand even higher upon them. “Your armor is the only piece of you that is not soft, and it is brittle after many days. You are old, Satiak. Your thoughts have become soft and imprecise—you have lived too long without threat, and you have learned little of repelling it.”
Satiak and Ithsik then armored their thoughts against the other. Wind announced itself in the silence, and the sun overhead watched eagerly. Sett, with her skill in dueling, could see that Satiak was stiff all over, and her legs that stood highly had little steadiness.
Ithsik, however, was not stiff, and she stood higher still. “Your fear is thick, Satiak. I have smelled it many times while I have followed you. Put your feelers to me and smell the sureness of my thoughts.”
“You will lower yourself,” said Satiak, and she swayed to each side upon her legs. Ithsik disagreed.
Their duel began immediately. It was no practice duel, and each took up a labor to see their opponent brought to the dirt. Their combat lasted five-and-three contests. Satiak could not be easily forced low, for she had learned much of danger in her many deep and dangerous forages. With her springing leaps that had carried her to many difficult places, she crashed upon Ithsik's armor where jaws could not reach her. But in all her labors of foraging, she had not learned precisely of dueling, for she had repelled only beasts who have no labors.
Ithsik's legs gripped the sand precisely. For each contest that she failed, she took two in answer, for she was skilled in struggle against sisters. She could move leftward and rightward in ways that Satiak could not. When she was near to Satiak, her feelers jabbed boldly, searching always for openings in thought and armor. And she found these, for Satiak was troubled by Ithsik's eagerness to wound her.
For the last six contests, Ithsik forced a retreat in each. On the fifth-and-third contest, Ithsik climbed upon Satiak's armor. She slipped her jaws behind Satiak's head, and pressed harshly. All the steadiness left Satiak's legs, and she was lowered.
Ithsik opened her jaws and let forth a her satisfaction. “You are defeated, worker Satiak. You will follow me, and you will join my labors.”
Satiak agreed, and said, “I will join you in the labor of finding the one who stole our sister Sett.”
Ithsik's eagerness was potent, and Sett watched it spread among the others, save for Satiak. With flexing jaws, Ithsik brought her feelers around to face Sett.
With scent to guide them, Sessa and Atter were at their Ithsik's side, and they came upon Sett.
“You will no do this!” said Satiak from the ground. She rose suddenly, and made to bring Ithisk under her strength before her thoughts could gather. But to disregard the duels she had lost was a most evil thing, and it was learned by all. They pounced on Satiak, with Ayik and Rekki joining.
Held immobile, Satiak could not stop Ithsik from slipping her jaws between the backpiece and middlepiece of her armor. Her sisters hopped free as she struggled in pain, soon to die from such a terrible wound.
In moments, the labors of the five sisters who remained began. They pressed Sett to the sand, and held her legs as they had held Satiak's. Ithsik's feelers touched each part of Sett's armor, and she brought her feelers to her tongue after.
“A very strange scent,” said Ithsik. “But it is potent. Finding the stranger will not be troublesome.” She shared the scent with her sisters, who each gathered something different from it.
“It is a worker-smell,” said Sessa.
“This smell is of danger,” said Atter.
“I smell fear beneath it,” said Rekki.
“A killer smell,” said Ayik.
But Ithsik had smelled it closely, and she said, “This is the scent of venom, which I smelled upon the jaws of the impostors that were killed in the central chamber of Our Mound.”
At once, each sister began their labor of finding the source of that scent that was venom's. They brushed all the sand around them flat with their feelers, searching for the path toward the impostor who had stolen Sett. Ithsik was always walked furthest, and brushed most precisely, for she labored with a Queen in her thoughts.
Without her sisters holding her, Sett went beside Satiak, whose legs were bunched beneath her. Satiak said nothing, but her feelers were reaching weakly.
“I cannot smell you,” said Sett. “But I see that you are not yet stilled, and so it seems to me that death-smell is not yet upon you.”
“Ithsik has not shared a quick death to me,” said Satiak.
“Do you despair?” asked Sett. “I cannot smell your troubles.”
Satiak agreed. “I will die with my labors incomplete.”
“I have learned how this might be changed,” said Sett then, and Satiak said to her, “This is a comfort. Did Iki-Ikas share this learning with you?”
Sett disagreed. “It was not Iki-Ikas. It was the one who stole me away. She is skilled in making new labors.”
“You will lift me, and place me upon my legs,” said Satiak, and Sett did this troublesome labor, because Satiak was made heavy by her insides that were sinking.
“My thoughts are all breaking,” said Satiak. “Our Mound and its sisters have killed me.” She tapped at Sett with the steadiness left in her feelers. “Speak to me, sister Sett, so that Iki-Ikas will speak to me also.”
“Iki-Ikas shared little wisdom with me in sleep-travel,” said Sett. “She comforted me, and settled my fears while I clung to the spine-tree. But she disagreed with me many times. She is a gentle God, Satiak—she would not repel you who have done many labors with her daughters. Learn that you will walk with her in the Tunnels that Glitter. There in those tunnels that are longer than a tree is tall, in those chambers wide enough to fit five Colonies left to right, Iki-Ikas who learned most of rest and searching will come beside you.
“This is a comfort,” said Satiak, and pain struck her again. “It is late.”
“Make this your final labor: share with me the learning that made Ithsik seem to you a threat.”
“She held you, and did not ask that you share your learning of the impostor who stole you. It seems an evil thing that they took it from you in the manner of a beast who is caught.”
Satiak again was pained, and Sett tended to her, but it was a shallow labor. Ithsik and the others continued their searching, and they came to the stone one which the hook-foots had gathered. Sett learned that she had not gone far in her scent-blind walking—her path was knotted and had many circles. They came to the stone one which the hook-foots had gathered,
When the sun was coming downward, Satiak spoke little, because her thoughts were all unmanaged. But between the scents that passed over Sett and were not gathered, she heard one thing: “Take me now, with no fear of wounding.”
Soon after, Satiak had died. Since there was food remaining in Satiak's stomachs, Sett plied her jaws to her dead sister's armor, so that no food would be wasted. But as she began this quiet labor, Ithsik jabbed at her from behind, her agitation potent, having paused her labor of finding.
“The last of Satiak's food is not for you who has done no troublesome labors,” said Ithsik. “I will take it and share it with my sisters.”
“Then I will have it also, because I am your sister,” said Sett.
Ithsik jabbed again with her feelers. “I have not learned this precisely. You will not follow us to Our Mound when our labors Outside are complete—you will be carried. You will be carried until I learn that you are a sister to us, and if I do not learn this, I will butcher you and share your pieces to the conduit-lines.”
Sett lifted her broken feelers in surprise. Ithsik tapped at them, and said, “You say that we are sisters, and yet upon you there are familiar smells. I learned of these in war-making, upon those strangers who were threats to me. They feared me and my sisters beside me as you do now.”
Sett could not reply then, for a drumming came from where Sessa and Atter labored. They went swiftly over the sand, until they were beside Ithsik and Sett.
“I have found threat!” said Sessa, whose thoughts were quickest.
“It is a spider!” said Atter, whose thoughts were keenest.
Ithsik lowered herself and moved beside the two. She added to their drumming, and Ayik and Rekki arrived soon after.
“We followed Sessa,” said Ayik. “The enemy who stole from Our Mound is close.”
They stood in silence with their feelers taut, and it was Atter who first lost the steadiness in her legs. “The spider is very near,” she said, and it was only with Sessa's aid that she could repel her fear of it.
The sun was red in the rightward sky. It was leaving, and they would not have its watching. Against the sky, over the dune nearest, Sett and her sisters saw two long legs curling over its crest.
“We find you!” called Ithsik, and her sisters were steadied to hear her. “Tonight I will learn how a spider is killed!”
The two legs that gripped the rise were joined by a third, and the spider was nearer to them. It would not allow itself to be precisely seen.
The spider, to the surprise of all, then disagreed, and its eyes were upon the sisters of Our Mound, and Sett saw a strange stillness in them. “A beast has not brought threat to you tonight. I wear the spider-shape, as I have changed to be many shapes. All who search after me will complete this labor.”
Then Ayik, who had learned many stories, no longer stood in the circle made by her sisters. Her legs shivered and she could no longer keep a grip around her thoughts. “We must not do this labor, Ithsik!” she said. “I have learned of the daughter who shape-changes—it is her, that most hateful God Outside, who has learned of Death and Eating!”
“You have learned precisely,” said then the God of Death and Eating. The beasts who watched in the dark heard the sound of dry top-roots then, and it was made by the shivering legs of sisters. Among them, Ithsik's legs were stillest. The Gods Outside then were gathering also, and the eager wind who goes widely went across them, and the cold that is familiar to them was left upon the armor of all the tight-pressed sisters.
The God of Death and Eating, in her spider-shape, gripped the dune with four legs, and she said to Ayik. “Daughter Sett will come to me—she is mine to carry.”
“Sett is a sister of Our Mound,” said Ithsik. “And her sisters will carry her.”
The God of Death and Eating said, “You cannot take what I will gather. Your labors to carry daughter Sett away from me will not be completed. But you can aid my labors.”
Ithsik flexed her jaws. “I would not join your labors that are against mine.”
Two, then four, and then one-and-two eyes flashed, once, and the God of Death and Eating, with her spider-shape, could see them all. Her shape hung loosely, and walked with hollow armor. The spider-shape's legs cracked dryly as they tensed, for they were without insides to urge them. Behind the spider's eyes was an empty place without lymph to be smelled.
Sett was in that moment comforted that she was blind to the fearful scent of her sisters, for it would surely collapse her thoughts. But Ithsik was strange among them. Ayik, Rekki, Sessa, and Atter were all burdened, Sett learned. She could see their wobbling legs that drew closer to her, because she was largest. But Ithsik was steady, and her feelers bobbed lightly then.
The God of Death and Eating saw this also, and she said to Ithsik, “There is an eagerness in your thoughts, daughter Ithsik, this I have learned. I am eager also to be near a daughter who has learned also of Death. There is more that I would share with you, if you leave this daughter Sett to my labors.”
Ithsik's feelers stretched towards the dried spider on the dune. “I will not exchange, for my labors are great, and should be joined. It is from contests that it can be learned whose labors are most good and should be aided.”
“This I have also learned,” said the God of Death and Eating, and she drew her spider-shape higher and closer atop the rise, until she leaned over them in the manner of a wilting bush. “You are wise as the Gods Outside are, daughter Ithsik. But no daughter of the First Queen Atiati-kikitia, my sister who was so imprecise in her learning, has had victory in a contest with me. Are my labors not then most good? Should you and all your sisters not aid mine?”
Ithsik then walked from her sisters, her feelers stretched to the God Outside's spider-shape. “I will do a contest with you, God of Death and Eating. I have not buried the learning you brought to me on the day of my last molting, when you came to test me. Your learning was a great aid to my first labor that was war-making. Now we are speaking again, and you again offer me learning of Death. It seems to me you have hate for all the daughters of the First Queen, but not for me.”
The spider-shape again cracked and groaned as it sagged down the dune. The God of Death and Eating agreed.
“This is precise, because I am not hateful of you. I will share with you greater learning of death, daughter Ithsik who kills. This will be your contest—if upon you I smell fear, as I did not on the day of your last molting, I will renew my hatreds to you, and I will come to take you when you are in greatest comfort, when I seem farthest from you.”
Ithsik agreed then, and lifted her feelers to receive Godly learning.
This is the learning that the God of Death and Eating shared with Warrior Ithsik:
Leaving sun, see the moon
deep wide sky—small lights
Spread sweet scent, foulness rid
still blank stiff—bent legs
Small beasts, watch them gather
climb and cross—big pile.
Crack and tumble, go flat
No rest, noise and shaking
You are seen, you are watched
Quick comfort, quiet, safe
Leftward sharp, rightward slick
No escape, you are joined
Every piece, peeling back
These things do not fly free
The God leapt her spider-shape high then, and there was a one-and-two legged shadow in the moonlight over Ithsik. And instead of coming downward after its jump, as all spiders must, it remained above the land-beast, until a great crack came from it. Its body crashed to the sand, its legs curled close, but the spider's head swung free, and it sped away to the highest part of the spine-tree that Sett had been found upon.
“I will take you, Warrior Ithsik, and join you to my labors!” said the God of Death and Eating.
But Ithsik disagreed, for the learning that had been shared with her had brought her much discomfort. She retreated then, and her sisters all were overcome with fear.
“I will follow you, and from your insides I will take back the learning you would steal from me!”
A new shape emerged from behind the spine-tree, of a strange daughter whose armor was marked with a killer's yellow-black, and whose legs trailed flashing threads. “You are mine!” said the daughter-shape, and it leapt from the spine-tree. It crossed the air over Ithsik and her sisters, who fled from the shape that wore many signs of death and could walk upon the wind.
Sett could not follow the terror of her sisters, and when they were out of sight beyond the dunes, she was lost, and she waited despairing to be claimed. Her thoughts had settled, for she could not escape the labors of a God Outside. But where she had expected to feel a sting, or sharp jaws in her armor, she felt only the light tapping of familiar feelers.
“Take me, hateful God of Death and Eating,” said Sett. “Take me, and take Satiak beside me, and I will not wound you in the taking.”
But the feelers that explored her armor did so without harshness, and it was a comfort to hear the voice that was behind them.
“I am Skith, worker Sett. No God Outside has come for you.”
With eagerness, Sett agreed. “Where is the God of Death and Eating?”
“She waits where she has always waited—beyond sight, and beneath attention,” said Skith. “This was a threat that I made with false thoughts and false scent.”
Skith's cleverness was then revealed. With her skills in the twining of threads, she had pulled at the corpse of a spider from atop the spine-tree. With the corpse, and with the death-smell that was upon Satiak, she had made a God of thought alone and nothing else. She had not changed her shape, nor had she shared Godly learning with young Ithsik.
“Where have you learned these skills of Godly speech, and of thread-twining?” asked Sett, whose fear had changed into lightness.
“This learning I will share, when our small labors are completed. We will bury the worker Satiak, who had joined my labor without learning it. She has aided our labor to climb the mountain, and we will not allow the fear in which she died to stain the air.”
Sett, who hungered for good labors, was eager to join this, and so she dug into the sand as she had done many times in foraging. She could hear Skith speak small things to the corpse of Satiak, which she then split with her jaws. She shared the sweet food from Satiak's insides as they buried her. They covered the hole with managed sand, and Skith said, “You will rejoin our labor to climb the mountain.”
Sett agreed, and all her plans that had been hidden were buried as Satiak was. “You are strange to me, Skith, and I think that I have not learned of you precisely. I have been searching for some threat from you, and I have not found this.”
“This is wise,” said Skith. “I have not shared all of my learning with you. I have learned now that I must share it all, or I will be hidden from you in the manner of an impostor that hides from watching.”
“You will unfold this learning, then,” said Sett, and Skith agreed.
“I have walked in many Colonies, beside many sisters, and I have worn all their scents. I have labored beside strange sisters, and I have slipped beneath the scented air that would divide us. I have learned that hatred is a thing that the Gods Inside make, in their hidden chambers beneath armor, from which thoughts that would come beside them are repelled.”
“Why do you bring me far from my sisters, and into the dangers of Outside?” asked Sett.
“We are not Outside,” said Skith. She looked high, to where the moon was climbing to be beside its stars. “Outside is where we do not live and do not labor. We are Inside, and we walk on the floor of a very great chamber. There are many of these chambers, and the tunnels between them have been buried by the Gods Outside. In a season that is far from this one, there will be a meeting between sisters digging, and labors will be done that those made by the Gods Inside will seem very small beside.”
Skith's feelers flicked eagerly then, and they reached to Sett, whose thoughts were then striving to gather at the tips of her own. But they could not, because their tunnels were broken, and so they gathered at her eyes, and she saw Skith's feelers lowering.
“I am far now from Our Mound,” said Sett. “You have led me far from it. I walk there in sleep-travel still, but as the count of my steps becomes larger, I go more shallowly Inside. I have learned of terrible troubles there, and I flee from them, because I cannot follow you if I am burdened. It seems an evil thing to me, because Our Mound is in need of good labors and skilled sisters to manage its troubles and settle its air. I fear also that Our Mound has been changed. I fear that I may be repelled, for I have not learned of its changes, and I will seem strange to the sisters there when my name has been learned only by beasts and strangers.”
“This is an evil thing,” said Skith. “You have learned this precisely. But I will lead a sister far away, because the good learning that we will gather is greater than any small evil.”
Sett's thoughts were hungry then, and she said, “You will share of the dangers before us. Now, I have walked Outside without following, and I was afraid. I will learn, and I will unfold my fears, and keep the parts that are not foul.”
Skith agreed, and she shared the food she had rescued from Satiak's corpse, for there were many learnings to share, and all their small labors would need completing so that Sett's learning would be exact. In a deep tunnel that a serpent had made, where they were hidden from danger, Skith shared learning of many dangers. She shared of striped beetles with their fire-venom. She shared of the egg-flies that kill with their birthing, and of the giants whose walking leaves wounds in the land-beast. She shared of them, and of the labors that could avoid them. Sett's thoughts that had been waiting to gather novel things were very eager, and her fear was buried, until she gathered of threats for which Skith had made no labors to avoid. These were the Godly threats, of burning air and falling cold, and of the God of Death and Eating's many shapes and all their curses that could cling to any sister that they touched. But when Sett's eagerness was soured, and her thoughts welcomed no more, Skith shared of the many comforts that were only Outside—of the star-flies that meet when the sun is leaving, of the tree-beasts that sing brightly in green places, and of the high places where so much can be seen. Sett's thoughts learned then of gathering quickly behind her eyes, and they would be skilled in this.
“What will we find atop the mountain?” asked Sett, her thoughts becoming soft and light.
“Atop the mountain, at the sky-point, there is special learning,” said Skith. “I have walked around the mountain's base, with many starving sisters. Their troubles pulled harshly at me, and so I kept my feelers skyward, and I learned much of the mountain while death-smell was piling around me.”
“You have walked from very far places, this I have learned,” said Sett. “Why would the sky-point atop the mountain have learning that other places do not?”
“Sky point seems to me a place unlike all others. It is beyond the Gods Outside, beyond even the God of Death and Eating herself, for there should be no death-smell there where no beasts and no sisters walk.”
For a while, Sett dug her legs deep into the warm dirt of the tunnel. “What good learning could be gathered in a place where no sisters walk?” she asked, and her thoughts were stiff with reluctance. “Why were you walking around the mountain with starving sisters? So much death-smell will stain learning deeply—I have learned this precisely,” she said, and her broken feelers flexed.
For a moment, Skith was silent. “You will share this,” said Sett, boldly, and Skith agreed after a short time, during which her feelers were still.
“This is a story that I have kept knotted in my thoughts, so that it will stay buried,” Skith said. “I am not eager to unfold this.” She brought her feelers to her jaws, and Sett saw her tongue rasping them. She let them fall to the sand, which was then clinging to them, and Skith then seemed to Sett like a Learned sister with feelers waxed.
“I will tell you of the Four Tree Colony, and why I do not labor there now.”
This is the story that Skith unfolded, in the hollow made by a serpent, when Sett had not followed her fleeing sisters.
