Excerpt

Silluka skulked through the alleys of the Huaca, looking for a pocket to pick in the early morning haze. She existed in a tenuous position. Not an undesirable—yet—but also not a full citizen with all the rights accompanying it. She would have to test for that, and if she did, the elders would take one look at her, and at her arm, and fail her. So, she skulked.

Except she only had two days until her eighteenth birthday. It was the last chance for her to test. The last chance to become a citizen, or to get left behind when the Huaca moved inland again. Her people had lived in this Huaca—this place of shelter in the tumultuous earth—since before she was born and before her parents had been born, ever since the coast had fractured and fallen beneath the sea. Now a new coast was slowly rising into a mountain range, heralding the coming of a new island, drawing nearer from out in the boiling ocean.

But none of that mattered, as Silluka was on her own to secure her next meal. Anything to keep from going back to the miserable farm where her brother Ichu barely scraped by, now their parents were gone.

There was a line of old people—easy targets—in the village center, performing the morning ritual, taking the chayu slower than the younger Huaca. The wall of storms hiding the boiling ocean from view made everything damp. The line of rain and thunder surrounded the coast, and this morning, she could barely see the forms of the storm warriors zipping in and out of the wall of water and mist. The extra fog would give her a little cover.

In the village center, the practitioners' hands opened from fists, one finger at a time in The Wing Grows. That morphed into open hands moving across the body in The Wind in The Leaves, which became Raven Spreads Her Wings, where the arms opened full, then came back together and pushed forward in Giving Water. The ritual took five minutes moving quickly, but it could be stretched out to thirty minutes or more when performed slowly, then it could be performed again. And again. Perfection was the goal, placing the body in the exact position to call down the power of the gods. The last move, Pray, was always omitted in the morning ritual, to keep that very thing from happening. The Uncles, Aunts and Entles did not look favorably on people trying to steal their power, so it was said.

Silluka rubbed the stump end of her right arm, just past her elbow. There was a nub on one end that might have been a thumb, in a better life, and it was serviceable to hold light things. But it would never perform the graceful finger curls and stretches bodycasting required of a citizen.

Which meant she had no guilt about relieving some of these old slowpokes from their bags of spokes while they did what she could not. What use was keeping money when the whole village would have to move inland again soon? They were penned in, with the desert to the west, the wall of storms to the east and north, and the volcanoes to the south. The desert would become arable in a few more years, their geologists said, as the mountains continued growing from the coast and water began tricking inland from the wall of storms.

Silluka crept forward until she was just behind the last line of elderly Huaca. She set her feet in Basic stance, gripping the ground. She was marginally better at chayus requiring only her feet, but she had never produced the ampuka, the glow from the gods that accompanied the correct performance of a chayu. The sign of a citizen.

They were nearly to Mossy Rock Leaps the Bank, the first forward flip in the morning ritual, and Silluka took the time to position her feet and her arms—as much as she could with the right—in the higher position required, not for the morning ritual, but for Quirra Hides His Nuts, the perfect chayu to remove things people didn't want removed.

It was best performed in Dexterity or Reflex stance, but Silluka wasn't very good at those. She didn't see the need to practice like the rest of the Huaca, when she would never pass the test. She brought her arms closer, mimicking a quirra's. The chayu wouldn't work for her, not fully, but the motions at least were the right ones to snatch an object in front and bring it in close, hiding it. An old man's spoke purse was right in front of her, and he was tucking his hips under, ready for the forward flip, which put his purse right within reach.

Her left hand, with its quick fingers, shot out…and missed. The old man had moved out of the way, lithe as a grass snake, and glared at her. She saw his eyes flick to her stump and then back, the invariable pity warring with anger in his face.

"Don't make me call the patrol, girl," he whispered. "Just go back to the undesirables, where you belong."

She wasn't an undesirable. Not yet. By all the gods, her brother was the best bodycaster in the Huaca. Stung, Silluka stepped back, her feet reaching for the darkness of the alley, away from the overcast sky.

Yet her eyes lingered on the figures flitting about the wall of storms, barely visible from here. They were the guard of Tiyu Pacha, Uncle Sky, gods unto themselves. They kept the Huaca safe from the worst storms. There was no sense worrying when the next tsunami or tidal wave would come, because the storm warriors would shield them from the worst, or the people of the Huaca would call out with their bodies to Tiyu Pacha and he would protect them. The citizens would.

It was the way of the world. Those who were not in the protection of the Huaca died. In the Huaca, the strong survived. Where did that leave her?

"I wasn't…I was just…" The excuses fell from her as an older woman, with none of the man's pity, pointed.

"Thief!"

The shout made heads turn across the town center, including a group of young bodycasters, led by a familiar figure, who immediately headed her direction.

Hufi. He'd received his citizen chit two years ago. His parents had been friends with hers, when they were both young. Before her parents had been crushed in an earthquake. The last time he'd talked to her, he'd asked when she was planning to test for her citizenship, as if it was something he thought she could ever pass.

Silluka ran, her mind scrambling through every chayu she half-knew. None were good for running and she wasn't good at any of them anyway. The patrol behind her were fit and strong. She was short for her age and thin, without the benefit of regular meals. No wonder she looked like an undesirable.

Fortunately, she knew the alleys of the town, and swung left, slipping in the mud from the ever-present drizzle. The sun came out rarely, this close to the wall of storms.

The patrol was closing already, faster than her. She turned another left, then a right, into a closer alley between two houses. It had exits from both ends, and the houses had low roofs. Plenty of places to escape.

Silluka planted her feet in Basic stance, her whole left arm in front, her stump behind it in a guard. The end was sensitive, but she could give a surprising punch with it.

The patrol panted around the corner, skidding to a stop in front of her. Five of them against a small girl with one hand. Hufi grinned, in the lead, his feet planted in a perfect Dexterity stance, hands already rolling through the matched motions of Jakua's Claws, each finger flexing precisely. It was adroitness Silluka couldn't hope to match, and her nose wrinkled in distaste. Hufi had been a pain in her backside when they were little kids, too.

"Stealing again, Silluka?" he said. Talking gave him a chance to finish the chayu. It was a tactic he'd used before.

"Why don't you stay with the old people, Hufi?" she answered. "Maybe they can teach you a few things about speed."

Silluka struck first.

Her punch went wide as his hips shifted him out of the way, but it interrupted his chayu just as the glow of the ampuka was starting to build.

He barely seemed to notice, as one hand, still in a claw, caught her punch and pulled her across his body and toward his cohorts.

Silluka moved with the momentum, trying to slip between a tall, pretty girl and a meaty boy, making sure her stump was up front and in their face. No reaction from the girl, but the boy blanched and fell back, just enough for her to slip through.

She reoriented, scanning the group. The others had rearranged as she turned, and Hufi was halfway through Jakua's Claws again. One of the last two, a girl even shorter than her, was performing what looked like Tortoise's Heavy Foot from Strength stance. Any strike she made would be amplified with strength given from Tiyu Tiksimuyu—Uncle Earth. The longer this fight lasted, the more the odds were not in her favor. But if she ran now, they would chase her down again, and she would be more tired from the chase.

Instead, she slipped back into the fray, throwing her stump into Meaty Boy's face. She'd pegged him as the most skittish from the beginning. She sidestepped the strong, but slow, blow from the short girl, and reached for the low roof on the right. Just a handsbreadth away.

Hufi's hand grabbed her right bicep, Jakua's Claws giving him unnatural gripping strength, fingers digging into her flesh. Silluka gritted her teeth and strained to climb on the roof, but it was like climbing with her arm tied to an iron spike driven into the ground. She glared over her shoulder.

Hufi was surrounded by the ampuka.

His whole body glowed with light from the gods. To have performed a full chayu so quickly, so precisely, spoke of skill far above her own, even barring her stump.

While she strained, Tall Girl and Meaty Boy caught her shoulders and other arm, pulling her away from the roof.

"Don't you have a birthday coming up, Silluka?" Hufi said as he handed her off to his team. "Another few days and you won't be able to test. Then what happens when the village moves inland? The undesirables get left behind, you know."

"I know. I have plenty of time," Silluka said. "Two whole days. I was planning on wowing the elders with something like Foam Tossed in the Waves tomorrow."

"Doesn't that require lots of finger movements?" Meaty Boy said. Both Silluka and Hufi stared at him until he looked away, embarrassed.

"Not the brightest patrol they stuck you with, is it?"

"It doesn't take smarts to do a chayu," Hufi said. "Just lots of practice. And two hands. Let's see what the elders do with you."

Silluka sniffed. Hufi had been a brat when he was tugging at his mother's heels, and he was a brat now.

They let her walk to the town center, where the elders' building was, and didn't try to carry her. She wasn't concerned about being brought up for stealing. It had happened before. She would be assigned some community work—which she would do halfheartedly—then everyone would pretend to forget they didn't provide for those less fortunate in the Huaca.

No, the issue, as she and Hufi both knew, was that her eighteenth birthday was in two days. Once they realized who she was, they wouldn't care if she was stealing, or even if she was feeding the old people to the jakuas. The elders were getting ready for the next migration, which meant they were sorting the Huaca into who would go and who would stay. Who was a citizen, and who was not. They'd be forcing every young person in the town to test.

Which was why Silluka didn't struggle as at least two of the patrol kept hold of her shoulders or upper arms at all times. She didn't let herself even contemplate escape. Better to let them think she was defeated.

"Why steal, Silluka?" Hufi asked while they walked, almost companionably. As if his group of barely tamed jakuas hadn't run her down in an alley. "You could be practicing, preparing for your test. You could help the Huaca instead of hurting. Work with the older folks or something. It's close to migration time again. The coast is barely habitable. I'm sure your parents' farm isn't doing great either."

"My brother's farm," Silluka corrected. "And if our parents hadn't died in the last big earthquake—one the Huaca didn't help them survive, I might add—they might be able to support me. Ichu does what he can, but he might as well try to hoard nuts in a rock."

Hufi looked abashed for a moment, then straightened. Silluka completely ignored his four cronies. "I'm sorry about that, Silluka," he said. "The whole town suffered. My parents had to build a new house."

"Did they." Silluka let the obvious implications—that he still had parents—sink in. She waved her stump for emphasis, showing off how it ended just beyond her right elbow. "I'm not so good with a hammer and nails. Glad the Huaca decided to support you in your hour of need, like they do for all citizens." Her parents had both been citizens. "You know what the elders will make me do when we get there. You're forcing me to be left behind when the migration starts."

It wasn't quite true—she could have practiced more. She'd put off the test, attempting to gather supplies on her own because she subconsciously knew what the result of testing would be. She could have asked Ichu to help her—but her words had the desired effect. Hufi stopped trying to talk to her after that, and they marched in silence. By the time they reached the town center, the pretty tall girl and Meaty Boy had begun to relax their grip, just a little. Jakua's Claws had faded away, and Hufi didn't have the ampuka around him any longer.

Silluka waited until they were at the three steps to the raised hall where the elders sat to make her break.

She ducked low, twisting, her stump slipping easily out of Tall Girl's grasp. Meaty Boy held her fast, though, and she didn't have enough momentum to pull him, not in such close quarters. Instead, she dropped her knees, getting her center far underneath his, though he must weigh nearly twice what she did. She pushed him on his rear and surged past him, straight into the smaller girls' arms. She had a grip like iron and Silluka's mouth pursed in distaste. The members of the patrol were all well-toned and well-fed, taken care of by the elders. She could have been hoarding food for her own personal migration by now, if she'd just gotten some spokes.

Hufi, the tall girl, and the last member, a thinner boy with a swoop of dark hair, were moving their hands rhythmically in Strength stance. Silluka squirmed, but couldn't get free. They were performing a group chayu, but one she didn't recognize. There were hundreds of chayus and no one could remember all of them—or at least she couldn't.

Hufi and the two others began to glow with a shared light as Meaty Boy got to his feet and helped the short girl hold her. Then Hufi stepped forward, the other two flanking him, and grasped her shoulder with one hand. Silluka gasped at the firmness. It wasn't painful, but it was like his fingers had wrapped all the way around and through her shoulder.

"Root Grows Around the Rock," Hufi said. The other two stayed close, obviously concentrating. "Keeps people from getting away so easily. It's something they teach us when we start going on patrols, as citizens. It's time for you to try to be one. The elders won't care about you stealing, you know, but they will want you to test."

He stepped forward and Silluka moved with him. She couldn't not. It was the inevitable force of tree roots growing through soil, pushing her to her confrontation with the elders. Whether she wanted to or not, she would find out if she had the skill to become a citizen, or forever be cast out as an undesirable.