Living in absolute autonomy in the depth of Amazonia, the tribes calling themselves Amnamar seem practical and frank, specializing in spear hunting, staff fighting, and the medicinal properties of regional plants and native species. They speak an 'earth dialect' with the same name as the jungle in which they live, called Amnamarandhi. Until we can better communicate, a more objective analysis of these bird-human savages is limited. However, their rituals seem profoundly superstitious, their shamanic practices chaotic and freakish, and overall they lack mental complexity. 

 

T. R. Lowe, Anthropologist, 1932

Bry'e

Bry'e's hiding place was a wet cleft of dark earth in amongst the palms and broad ferns, where a lacy falls tumbled down from above on either side. To her right, the water splashed over tiered jet black stones, and as it fell, spoke in a slow and laughing hiss. To her left, a deeper voice of whitewater spilled over into a sun-dappled gully below, where the two ribbons of froth met. As one, they swirled around a series of fern-laden boulders and massive fallen trees softened by dense moss. The happy water fed eventually into a pool where Bry'e often hid, dipping herself in deeply enough so that only her gray eyes and red feathered forehead broke the water's smooth skin.

Astride the base of a young Lagau tree leaning out over the cliff, Bry'e sat forward so that her cheek rested against the soft green skin of the trunk. She closed her eyes and felt the distance between her heartbeats lengthening, as the steady white hush of the place moved into her own rhythms and calmed them. The sun touched her shoulders and beak, and little winged insects tickled in her feathers. Her breath came slower and slower, until she was the sound of the falls itself.

The roof of Bry'e's home spread outward in every direction in a verdant, high and rolling massiveness of trees. At night, as the cosmic bird Glynmarra raised her wing and blotted out Oraphau's lamp, the Great Bird's tears shimmered above in vast nights silent and deep, and as Glynmarra's wing fell once again and Oraphau's light warmed her back, grumbling thunderheads roiled and clashed their staffs in the sky. The ground beneath the canopy, busy with ants and huge beetles, thick with ferns and climbing with mosses, was touched by long spears of golden light. Quenching rains fell in warm torrents, sifting through dense leaves, and to fill the pitfalls of the carnivorous drum-flowers. Through the branches and vines wove a constant silence of mist, and in this shifting white shroud a great many creatures and plants found protection and sustenance.

All life here had adopted an architecture of armor or thorn, a disguise, a treacherous thickness of sap, or a chemistry of poison. Even the youngest leaf was barbed and laced with formidable toxins, meaning to discourage or prevent ingestion. The tribe who had settled here in the Deep Time called the place Amnamarandhi, or 'The Green Dangers', and called themselves the Amnamaran, or 'green children'. However the tribes of Amnamar were not green at all; rather their body feathers were crimson red, with pale white plumage in stripes across their arms, faces and legs.

To survive in such a hostile ecosystem, the Amnamarans had learned to harvest and ingest a blue-gray clay which coated the esophagus and stomach, protecting the digestive system from the venoms of their food chain. The clay licks where such mud could be found were not without their perils, even for one so agile and fledged as Bry’e. But it was the custom of Amnamar to appoint particularly lithe or alert birds to the gathering of such sustenance, and among the Amnamar living in this high, remote forest, Bry’e was among the strongest and most intelligent.

Bry’e’s mother, Ehyabrenna, held the highest rank among all Amnamaran leaders within reach of every horizon. Bry’e, for the moment, stood in her mother’s shadow, but it had been spoken openly for many of Suryama’s Beads that Bry’e should be the next in line to lead her people.

Rising to her feet in the soft wet earth, Bry'e padded soundlessly down a steep embankment, leaping into the stream and then pouncing from rock to rock and log to log on her way toward the pool. Each step she took, she felt a surge of life spill upward into her from the stone, from the softening wood, from the spray of the water and the wet of the air, even in the touch of the light. She gained momentum as the land dipped down, the water knifing faster through a sloping gorge draped with bracken, roots and vines. As the close walls spread onto a rocky cliff, Bry'e lunged, and for a moment Suryama's beads seemed to slow. She felt the thrilling rush of wind through her feathers as her clawed red feet left the rocky ledge, and the sun spread its wings across her back as she sailed forward into a womb of air. Beneath her the pool awaited, still, broad and deep, and in every direction the jungle unfurled, with a small break of cloudless sky directly above. Still in midair, she drew her knees up to her chest, tucked her tail feathers in, and closed her eyes as into the water below she plunged.

Rising to the surface Bry'e could feel the deep, slow purr of the jungle amplified by the body of the water; keeping her ears just below the surface and spinning slowly, she could hear the roots of the trees drawing up deep stores of moisture from the black soil. She could feel the tiny footsteps of beetles, the whirring clusters of ants and the faint creak of boughs as they reached higher into the air. She heard the infinitesimal birth of millions of tiny blossoms, the scuttling of uncountable spiders, lizards and snakes, and the crackling of underbrush as huge snails pulled heavy and slow through the detritus. Even the worms at work in the dirt made their own incessant gurgling, but beneath these higher and busier sounds, a low rumbling stirred, and these were the stones speaking beneath the earth.

Nearby on the surface of the pool on a partially submerged branch, a winged taminth landed, and Bry'e couldn't resist stealing in for a closer look as the insect paused to clean herself and her four tapered, lacy wings. Sensing Bry'e, the slender blue spark cocked her insect head, observing the distorted shapes of the bird woman beneath the water. Only Bry'e's forehead and eyes were fully visible as she paddled gently closer, and the taminth watched, flicked her wings, and brushed a foreleg over her tiny mouth. Her blue-green compound eyes met Bry'e's, and for a few beads both she and the taminth, along with the pool around them, stood perfectly still. Bry'e was close enough now that she could see the delicate palps flanking the taminth's mouth, and the filling and emptying of the single lung which ran the length of the insect's pinlike body.

Then, a puff of wind unusual for the Amnamarandhi raised the leaves and unsettled the water, and the taminth shot straight up into the air so suddenly that it made Bry'e suck in a breath through her nostrils.

The wind began to tear and swirl, though the sky above was clear, and no scent of storm came with the climb of the breeze. Finding a foothold on the stony bottom at the edge of the pool, Bry'e stood to full height, her deep red feathers dripping and her long beak gleaming with water. As she stared in the direction of the wind with her eyes upturned, rivulets ran down her abdomen and legs as the fleshy vents of her chest pouch emptied of water.

Shouts went up from the Amnamaran village nearby, and also in the woodland on the far side. She heard the word 'Gh'ipyn'yi' and 'Akidnu'un', which meant 'flying' and ' sacred trees', and no sooner had she craned her neck in the opposite direction, when indeed she saw the them above, and also heard the great whooshing rush of their leafy wings as they surged along. As their passing shadows temporarily blotted out the sun, Bry'e lifted an arm over her head, knowing that the migrating plants always dropped from their roots a sifting of dirt, pebbles, grubs, and stones. And just so, the surface of the pool was suddenly disturbed by falling debris. Though in this rather enclosed grove she was sheltered from the largest of falling objects, a small gray rock plunked upon her head, then fell into her chest pouch. Rubbing her skull and plucking out the stone, she also discovered that a tiny fish had trapped itself in the pocket of skin upon her. The wriggling creature gasped for breath as she lifted it out by the tail and returned it to the pool. The jungle about her still swayed and tossed as the last of the trees passed over, and in the wake of the wind she heard her name being called, and the sound of quickening footsteps surging through the forest toward her.

* * *

"Bry'e," Yaffa stormed quietly, nudging her sleeping friend on the shoulder with the shaft of her fighting staff. "Cre'uchit'i," she said, and then after her eyes darted about to see if anyone was near enough to hear her say it, she tried a different language, whispering, "Wake up!" 
Bry'e stirred, then startled. Her grey eyes came slightly open, seeing Yaffa, a mature but youthful Amnamaran looking directly down at her. She wore a tribal headdress, less elaborate than Bry'e's, made of leaf sinew, bone, flower petals and stretched hide.

"Ikits'a'hka, you were having visions again," Yaffa said. She began to lightly tap the carved wooden staff she held in her palms. Bry'e groaned, covering her eyes with her hands. “Sho k'ni'ahak'la maie?”

"I wake you because it is morning. P'ehe namawe," Yaffa said, spreading her arms enthusiastically in reference to the Great Bird, who again had stretched out her broad wings through the sky. "T'um Suryam-wahiri'ene."
Bry'e rolled away from Yaffa, covering her ear as the tapping of Yaffa's fighting staff grew louder.

"Ach'pahat, Yaffa!" Bry'e hissed softly, squeezing her eyes shut. The images of the trees, and the sensations of the pool still swirled fresh in her memory.
"No, I will not stop," Yaffa said, playfully.
"Nat'halto'ku!” Bry'e snapped.

"P'yng'gynamutma Jaikur'nemi," Yaffa said now, which meant 'I'll tell your mother. This did not have the effect Yaffa had hoped. “Nat'hal'ga'awai!” Bry'e responded.

Yaffa tried another approach. “Nemekt'itu,” which meant 'I'll eat your breakfast.'

At this Bry'e suddenly sprung up from the ground. “You're going to get it!” she laughed.

Yaffa shushed Bry'e, in a reminder that it was not wise to speak a human tongue so openly where others in the tribe might hear it.

Bry'e scoffed, grabbing her staff from the ground beside her, and immediately Yaffa sprung forward. They circled on a tamped, earthen patch of ground, holding their staffs close at one end and tapping the opposite ends together in the air, first high, then low, high and low again. Other Amnamarans who had been sleeping in the same grounds awakened at the sound; some sat up and watched. Others rose, took up their staffs and spears, and also began pairing off to engage in the morning's fighting.

Yaffa stabbed hard, lunging at Bry'e. The tip of her staff tapped Bry'es forehead.
"A'e!" Bry'e sniped, as her brow stung from the impact. 

Speaking in Amnamarandhi, Yaffa laughed, “Too close, you stand too close. Stay back!”

Yaffa took a fast swing and Bry'e blocked it, poking Yaffa's foot slightly with the end of her staff as it slid along her stick.

"Aho!" Yaffa yelped. 

"I'tska!" Bry'e apologized, as her friend hopped around on one foot for a few seconds. 
"S'kelu," Yaffa giggled, saying that it was all right. They spun and paced around each other in a circle, with the glow of Oraphau's lamp just breaking gold through the trees. The staffs cracked against each other, and for some time they lurched, stabbed, poked, dove and blocked swings.
"Why weren't you at the stick dance last night?" Yaffa inquired in Amnamarandhi. "You missed the fun." She lunged forward with a series of slaps through the stick, which was pliable enough to bend a little at its edges. She controlled the bend of it, using its malleability to vary its contact with Bry'e's staff rung in her grasp, and for a moment she stepped back and shook out her forearms, which burned from the vibration. 
"I had more important things to do," Bry'e responded, ducking forward with renewed vigor and swinging the staff low so that Yaffa had to leap over it. Bry'e drove her friend back a few steps, but then Yaffa forced back hard with a series of slap attacks. Bry'e lost ground, and the fight gained momentum.
"Aho -" Yaffa retorted, which meant 'I see'. "Heitak, cre'ealah?" she laughed, asking 'What, sleep?'
In a sudden swinging motion of her staff Yaffa pinned Bry'e, who fell backward onto the ground. The sparring circle fell silent for a moment, as those fighting nearby paused, seeing that yet again Bry'e had been defeated. Bry'e sighed, and Yaffa stood over her, not victorious, but also not pleased.

"B'yime da'an b'mirut n'wakhan?" Yaffa sighed, asking in a saddened tone, 'Why do you never win?'
Bry'e laid her staff aside. “Ulur'e k'mitck'eno wahir'ene,” she admitted, saying 'maybe I prefer not to fight.'

An open, yet unresolved look went between Yaffa and Bry'e, and then Yaffa tossed her staff aside.
"Jaikur'y matnuk'ao yi'yeklum ehe-itak'sh," Yaffa scolded, saying 'Don't let your mother hear you talk like that.' She held out a hand to help Bry'e up, and as Bry'e rose they clapped arms about one another, walking away into the morning sun.
"Bipkila," Yaffa said, meaning 'come on'. Making sure that no one else in the tribe could hear her, she added, "Let's go find something to eat."

* * *

Later, alone, Bry'e approached the Main House of the Amnamaran village on foot, carrying her fighting staff. Amnamarans went about freely and purposefully, tending to smoke pits, tanning hides, playing gambling games with painted stones and practice shooting with short, flint-tipped hunting darts. Others drew pictures in the loose dirt with the whittled, woody ends of their weapons. As Bry'e passed by. many among the tribe looked up, and some whispered to each other. Bry'e did her best to ignore it. Ducking into a shadowy, bark-clad earth house, Bry'e found her mother, Eyabrehna the Warrior Queen of Amnamar, kneeling at the tribal alter toward the rear of the room. Her fierce taloned hands were sharpening the bone edge of a frightful double blade made also of polished wood and tightly braided sinew. Bry'e had seen the weapon for many of Suryama's beads, as it had been passed down from one Jaikur to another, but always it had made her feathers prickle.

Several of Eyabrehna's attendants were in the hut, and conversation faltered as Bry'e entered. Many whispers in the village now spoke Bry'e's name, and it seemed her life was being led down a path she did not want to follow.
"Nat'halto'ku," the Queen ordered, and with a single wave of her hand all the attendants rose, leaving the hut in a swift but orderly manner.

Bound in muscle, poised and regal, Eyabrehna exuded an intelligent composure, but always there was a spark in her, as though the fires of her suspicion never went out, and at any bead she might strike with a word or a blow.

Eyabrehna continued to sharpen the blade with her back turned, waiting. The many prizes of fur, human hair and plant sinew woven into her headdress spilled down over her broad back, which glistened with a slight sheen of sweat in the morning heat.

In the tongue of Amnamar, Eyabrehna asked, “N'wahir'ene, tok'el shtekalye?” which inquired if the sparring had gone well that morning.

Bry'e shrugged. “Ahk'y,” she said emptily.

Eyabrehna turned, and seeing that Bry'e still stood holding her spear upright in one hand, the Queen's nostrils flared and her dark eyes simmered. Realizing that she had forgotten to place her spear properly on the floor, Bry'e awkwardly knelt, and in her nervousness placed the spear it in the wrong direction, with the tip facing east, rather than west, as was the tribal custom. It was considered an insult to point the spear upward in the main house, especially in the presence of the Queen, and to point the spear east could incite the anger of the sky spirits who had originated there. Eyabrehna snarled, and Bry'e corrected her mistake, muttering her apologies. Remembering that it was offensive to step over the spear rather than walk around it, Bry'e approached her mother, reluctantly.

The Queen stood and turned, so that she was taller than her daughter and could look down at her from an appropriate distance. Speaking in Amnamarandhi, the Queen's voice was thorny and low. “You anger the Warrior Queen. Why are your skills not improving? You must make your mind see only the task before you.” She held up the weapon she had been sharpening in both hands, and its fierce edge glinted in the faint light of the hut. “N'pyeut B'qual vay'e n'ghit tjzazj'e,” she stung in a whisper, which meant 'Only then you are best.”

Bry'e sighed. “N'baht'o meyeula, Jaikur'nemi,” she answered emptily, which meant 'I will try harder, mother.'

Eyabrehna returned the ritual bone blade reverently to the alter, with the gentleness one might afford a young child. Then as she turned, her stance hardened once more, and she took her daughter firmly by both shoulders. It made Bry'e fiercely uncomfortable, as she had so rarely been touched by her mother all her life. The presence of the kill blade also made Bry'e shudder, as she had seen its edges spattered with blood.

Bry'e kept her eyes down, shrinking away inwardly from her mother's grasp, but knowing she could not yet pull away. The scolding words would come, the same as they had for as long as she could remember. But instead the Queen said, “Send Yaffa.”

Bry'e's eyes came up, vulnerable and questioning. Was the Queen going to punish her friend? Eyabrehna saw Bry'e's fear and her shoulders tightened. She pointed to the entrance of the hut, her feathers bristling. “TSAK,” she said harshly, which meant 'Now.” And Bry'e broke away immediately, barely remembering to retrieve her spear from the floor as she went.

Eyabrehna stood alone for the falling of a few beads, with the sound of her blood drumming loud and fast in her ears. She made fists with both hands and brought in one great breath. Exhaling it, she turned once again to the alter, her brows rigid and her eyes sparks. She knelt, stroked the bone blade with both hands, and returned to her ritual chants.

* * *

The Main House was empty as Yaffa entered, with bold afternoon sunlight pushing in fierce blades through holes in the thatch above. Clouds of tiny gnats whirled in the air outside, and back and forth just past the main house door, Amnamaran folk went back and forth on foot. The calves and feet of two guards flanking the entrance were visible as Yaffa entered. Setting down her spear properly, she knelt at a fair distance from the Queen, and waited.

Eyabrehna's muscular back was turned as she knelt also, cleansing herself by drawing smoke from the alter over her head and shoulders with both hands. She had scented Yaffa's entrance, but went on reciting a Glynmarran chant to herself quietly.

Chimaquatka, parala, prem pal'a py'nee

Z'wat-cha, clatka pana'apa, z'wedg'a clat'ha kea

Universe around us, see us inside you

look, see that we are one

At last the Queen rose to her feet, and Yaffa sat up straighter, glutes on her heels with her claws lightly dug into the floor behind her. Eyabrehna spoke in her deep and resonant voice, but did not turn.

"Iyitko, Yaffa," the Queen said in a tepid greeting. The tone of her voice was authoritative, and matter-of-fact."

Yaffa swallowed. “Ie'm-daiya, Jaikur.” Still in Amnamaran, she added, “You asked for my spear?”

Eyabrehna replied, “For many of Suryama's beads I have trusted you to prepare Bry'e for her rightful place in the Amnamarandhi. You are our best fighter, our fastest runner, and our swiftest climber.” She placed the palms of both crimson hands on a long oiled wooden box placed upon the alter, stroking its lid lightly with her thumbs. An elaborate carving of Chimaquatka, the Universal Mother, was etched into its surface and inlaid with pale, iridescent river shells. The kill blade had been put in its rightful place, and for now was concealed from view. Smoke continued to curl lazily around the Queen's shoulders and back as she spoke. A fly hummed in slow arcs around the interior of the main house, landed on one of the roof beams, and then all fell quiet again.
"And yet," Eyabrehna continued, "all these things you cannot pass into the next Queen in her training."

Yaffa's beak dropped open to speak, but immediately one of Eyabrehna's hands came up in a halting gesture.
"I do not ask you to explain," she said, low and abrupt, perhaps even slightly irritated. "The paths of this have already been walked in my mind." Now she turned, and looked at Yaffa over her supple red shoulder. "Some things," she said, her hard gray eyes flashing, "cannot be taught."

She faced Yaffa now, the beads and bones dangling from the various piercings on her body making soft tinkling sounds as she moved. Her beak was smeared with ritual herbs and dotted with pigments, her body feathers clean, and glistening. The many prestiges of human hair decorating the underside of her headdress spilled amply over her shoulders, giving her the formidable, frightening appearance characteristic of all leaders of Amnamar. The tatters of animal skin hung about her hips had been collected by many of the tribal members, and were embossed or embroidered with tribal patterns going back into the Deep Time of Amnamar.
"Did you know, Eyabrehna continued, "that for a time your mother, until an early death, ruled the Amnamarandhi as high Jaikur?"

Eyabrehna turned again, lighting another ceremonial wick dipped in fragrant plant extract. It flared, began to smoke, and she set it in place on the alter. Her voice dropped in cadence, and again she kept her back to Yaffa as she spoke. “If Bry'e were not fit to become Jaikur, could I call upon you to lead the clan... When I am gone?”
Yaffa was struck silent for a moment absorbing the words, but she responded, “A rightful Queen must be challenged - and beaten, for another to take her place.”

Still the Queen kept her back turned, and darkly she answered, “Given your skills, this should not be a difficult task for you.”

Yaffa immediately saw through the intentions of the Queen, and a shiver of terror trickled up through her spine. Eyabrehna turned, and motioned for Yaffa to join her at the alter. Yaffa rose, walked around and to the east of her staff, where things began. She hesitated, drawn forward only by the hard, cold eyes of the expectant leader of her family. She knelt tenatively beside Eyabrehna, doing her best to hide the fact that she was trembling in fear and smoothing the feathers at the back of her neck that were beginning to stand up in alarm.
"Yaffa," the Queen said now, in a quiet but rather sinister tone. "Someone thought they heard Manspeech this morning."

Yaffa's eyes swiveled to meet the Queen's, so that as she knelt at the alter now she looked up at Eyabrehna from a great distance, feeling both small and transparent.
"Did you hear this?" Eyabrehna asked in a whisper. Her eyes were flints.

Yaffa shook her head no.

The Queen's eyes held on Yaffa's for a bead that seemed to fall very slowly, but at last Eyabrehna's gaze went back to the alter before them. Yaffa took a deep breath, and closed her eyes as the Queen knelt also, slipping into soft tribal incantations and again smudging herself with the smoke that rose and swirled around them. Yaffa joined in the chant with her, noticing that even her voice trembled as she spoke the familiar venerations.

* * *

Making sure no one had followed her, Yaffa stole into the woods after Bry'e as the eve'ing light burned magenta and gold at the edge of the world. It was assumed by most of the tribe that Yaffa and Bry'e spent their time sparring, and practicing hand-to-hand combats, but this was rarely the case any longer. Bry'e had withdrawn, and their time as friends was strained at best.
"Bry'e!" she whispered, nearing the pool where her friend could often be found.

As usual, Yaffa found Bry'e lingering beak-deep in her favorite pool, and for a moment she stood, arms crossed, on the bank, until Bry'e scented that she was there.Yaffa sighed, and spoke in the human tongue they secreted between the two of them. Bry'e had learned the language from the Dharak, a shaman who wandered in the wilds around their home, and Yaffa had also taken up the speech. The punishment for uttering such tongue in the clan of Amnamar was swift and severe – usually, the consequence was a quick death.
"You cannot hide here forever. Your mother sees what struggles are in  you."
Brye treaded water for a moment, not turning to address Yaffa as she answered. Her voice was sad and defeated as she said, "My mother sits at her alter day after day, praying over a death blade, and over and over she chants, 'Universe around us, see that we are one'. But are we are one with anything? The changes that threaten the trees, our tribe, the unnatural storms that bring flooding and disease - she ignores all of it." She laughed without mirth, and spun in the pool to look at Yaffa now, whose expression was grave.
"Bry'e, your mother means to kill you."

Yaffa saw a flicker of recognition in Bry'e's answering expression, as though she had known this long ago. The two friends regarded each other, and Bry'e rose from the pool, her red body feathers dripping. Together they sat, hip to hip, hugging their knees and watching the wing of Glynmarra raise in the sky, blotting out the light.

At last Bry'e asked, “How do you know this?”

Yaffa looked guilty now as she gathered herself to explain. “I had broken by best spear being foolish, and I was ashamed. I crept into the main house to borrow another until I could remake my own, and your mother's advisors were speaking in earnest to her about you.
They said 'You must not ignore what the Dharak has told us – Bry'e must be eliminated. She is a danger to you, Jaikur.' And your mother replied, 'If she is strong enough to rise up and kill me, think of what strength she could give to the clan'.”

Bry'e huffed, and Yaffa looked stoic.“There is more,” she said, with a rock in her voice.

The two Amnamarans looked at each other now, and a flicker of fear went through Bry'e's eyes.
"Today your mother asked me if I would walk in your place."

As Yaffa finished, Bry'e stared off at the surface of the pool, and said nothing. Both Yaffa's and Bry'e's hearts were heavy, but it seemed Bry'e was not overly surprised by Yaffa's words.
"Well challenge me then, and fight me," Bry'e hissed. "We know who will win."
"But I do not want to fight you," Yaffa whispered. "Bry'e, you must leave."

Bry'e huffed softly, scraping at the ground with the claws of her right hand and raking up a bit of mud and grass in her palm. “The jungle would kill me if not you, or my mother,” she huffed.

Yaffa drew Bry'e's gaze now, taking her by the shoulder. “No. You are wiser in the ways of the wild than any of us in the tribe. You are something... I don't understand. Even coming to this pool by yourself. No one else in the clan does this – We think as one and live as many, but you think as one, and live as one.”

Bry'e darkened, her jaw set as she stared into the deepening eve'ing. “I think of many, and I live as one.”

Yaffa recoiled a little, feeling affronted by Bry'e's remark. Bry'e would not look at her. “Please just...” Bry'e shook her head now, her eyes filling with tears. “Leave me alone.”

Yaffa rose to her feet, deeply hurt in her expression. “Always, I have meant to help you.”

Bry'e slid her feet into the water before her, and stayed on the ground. Her words were dead and resolute as she answered, “You have done what my mother told you to do.”
"It is more than that," Yaffa exclaimed, "and your hearts know it. I have ever been your friend!"

Bry'e tugged herself back into the water so that her hips, feet and hands were submerged, and glared sharply at Yaffa over her shoulder. “My only friend is this pool, where I am not what I am expected to be.”

Yaffa scoffed, and Bry'e's hard stare drew tears over her beak. She opened her mouth to speak again but thought better of it, and then lunged away, her footfalls dispersing quickly into the distance as she ran back to the village.

* * *

It was nearing dusk now as Bry'e wandered into the Amnamarandhi. The pool had, until that night, been a source of solace, but in the wake of Yaffa's words, it felt wounded, as she did. As the first of Glynmarra's tears winking in the womb of the sky, Bry'e went into the gathering shadows aimlessly, feeling anguish at the thought of going back, but feeling fearful at the thought of leaving.

She did not go far before a strange scent pulled past her nostrils. The air, for only a breath at first, carried on its back a smoky thickness, as though the wind was ill with burning. Bry'e stopped, pulled in an inhale, closed her eyes and searched past the darkness behind her eyelids. Her skin asked of the air, and her feet sank deeper into the dirt, seeking the rhythms seeping up from below. The ground answered with tiny pricklings of alarm, the roots and mosses a quickening of whispers. Bry'e turned, pulled in another breath. Abover her in the deepening gloom the branches of the trees were speaking to each other, the leaves quivering. Near Bry'e's feet a river of jungle ants scurried into the ground, emitting a sharp pheromone of alarm. As her thoughts pushed further into the soil she could feel the worms and grubs fleeing, and as she searched for the rhythms of larger animals at the surface, she found none.

Then, in a heavier push of grim air she tasted smoke on her tongue, but this was not from a flame born of lightning, nor was it cook fires from a neighboring tribe. It bled with an oily residue, and as she inhaled it her throat and her eyes stung. She lunged forward into the scent, her pores oppressed by an astringent sensation, and her lungs filling with a vapor that choked.

The further she ran the more frenetic the jungle around her became, the leaves shuddering and the roots detonating warnings into every crevice of the earth. The sound of the jungle's fear became so loud and so cacophonous and that Bry'e instinctively covered her ears, and for a few seconds all she heard was her own crashing breaths. But the noise of the jungle quickly permeated her cells and synapses, it shrieked in her muscles and rattled her bones – even her organs drummed with it, disrupted by a rising swell of terror..

And then ahead, on a slope that had once fed into a low and mossy stream bed, she saw it. Beyond a last stand of broad-leaf palms, the jungle – everything – lichen and fern, bark, trunk, bromeliad, vine, strangler, branch and leafy canopy, had been entirely ripped away to the bare ground, not by beast or storm, nor by the hands of a neighboring clan, but by the machine of Man. Her footfalls slowed, and the deafening cries of earth hollowed in her body as a silence like none she had ever heard spilled in upon her. Suryama's beads stopped falling, and her hearts stalled inside her. She fell to her knees, the ground onto which she dropped layered with a film of ash, and sprinkled with sawdust. The flesh of the earth had been ripped open, and the scent of innumerable deaths rose from the soil. 

Pulling herself up she stumbled forward into a deadened landscape of crushed leaves and smoking soil. Each step moaned with disconnection, suffering and death. Again she lost her footing, dropping against the corpse of a tree. Bry'e gasped, overwhelmed by the urge to weep, yet she was unable to cry. The wound in the earth seemed to lash through her spirit and her flesh. Pressing herself close to the stump and grasping it with her palms, she sucked in hollowed inhales and felt the voice of the once massive tree still whirring softly with questions, with confusion and fright. The wood of its body was calling out for the roots and branches that had given it life, connection, air and water. Bry'e's body shook, and the blood moving through her seemed disoriented. She lifted her head. The stars above were a cold, still blaze, as though a million eyes pierced down.

At the edge of the devastation she sensed a rhythm similar to her own, a life amongst the ruin, and squinting her eyes she spied a familiar silhouette standing eerily still, as though he might be a tree himself. It was the Dharak, eldest and wisest bird shaman of the Zakurit people. Since the Deep Time, Amnamar and the Zakurit had exchanged wisdoms, and the Dharak had been one of Bry'e's greatest teachers.

The Shaman's eyes winked like sad jewels in the gathering night as Bry'e approached, and neither he nor Bry'e could speak. The trees at the brink around them observed the emptied lands like mourners at a burial.

A faint breeze laced through the jungle, lifting the dense layers of dried grasses cloaking the Dharak's lean form.The pigments on the bared patches of his sinewy arms and shins were gray, red and white, the same showing around his eyes with exacting white thumbprints pressed into gray plant paste across his cheeks and brow. The tip of his beak had been dipped in white pigment, making it appear as though he had grown a mustache. The long grasses of his headdress were tied at the crown of his head with orchid fiber, bones and bromeliad, A small, woven breastplate, decorated with beads and dried grass hung from his neck, and a spray of many kinds of feathers, molted and given to him from neighboring clans, framed his kind, but mournful expression.

Bry'e stumbled into his embrace and burrowed herself in under his long beak. He received her and brought his arms about her shoulders. For a moment nothing moved but the smoke.

"Iridia has come," the Shaman said in a dead voice, still holding the young Amnamaran close. His voice was like a wind through branches, creaking and dry, but gentle and slow. Bry'e withdrew, tears streaming down through her feathers and over her beak. 
"I watched them take the trees," he said, "with fire, and axes, and with saws. I do not know who it was that cut down the boughs in their souls, but only those with no forest in their hearts could do such things."

Bry'e did not have to ask why with words, as her eyes implored the old shaman instead.
“They clear the way to graze cattle. Some in Iridia decided that these lands were not being used 'rationally'. Those who would speak for us in Iridia tried to stop them, but their voices were not heard.”

Bry'e sank to her knees. “You knew this was coming?”

The Dharak sat upon the root of a tree and sighed. “The machines moved faster than the words.” His eyes met Bry'e's, and the lids of his gaze were rimmed with tears. “Long have I feared these days would come.”
"We are all in danger, Amnamar, Zakurit, even Atuyara to the North -"
"It was for this reason that I gave you the wisdoms you hold in both hands." He meant the hands of her heart and mind, the two places the Shaman had taught her should 'reach out'. He took Bry'e's palms now, and into his expression fell a different weight, a heaviness that was not for the trees, but for Bry'e. "You... have questions for me."