Transcendent 3 by Bogi Takács

Author:Bogi Takács [ed., Bogi Takács,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 2018-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

“Small price,” said Maari, ignoring Usithan’s hooting laughter. “He tried to kill one of us.”

“And that one gave judgment,” Anbu said.

“A bad judgment.”

Their mother said, “The sharp blow to the pride did improve him. He came to rule well enough, and to think twice about what he heard. It helped that, ever after, when someone compared his might to Raman or his beauty to Maayon, he had to wonder whether they were calling him purple.”

Usithan said, “You’d think with all those blue gods they’d be fonder of the look.”

“Perhaps if it wasn’t for the smell?” said Anbu.

“Your elder sibling’s mistake in judgment came later,” said the bird. “The day she left.”

“Oh,” said Anbu on a downward note. “Oh no, what did she do?”

“She asked Kabilan one question. What do you think it was?”

Maari said, “Whether he understood that we could destroy him?”

“You should be a hound,” said Usithan. “You keep chewing that one bone.” And being well practiced, he leaped onto the roof before the last word, leaving a laughing message tube behind.

Anbu said, “Whether he loved his father.”

“No no no,” scolded Usithan. He dropped into their lap with a clang. “He’d have said yes. Probably loved his father in absence more than ever before, that’s how it is with people who annoy you.”

“Are you saying you love Maari?” they teased.

“Maybe I’m talking about you.”

Maari said, “What then did she ask, o wisest of sages?”

“Whether he wanted his father back. Is that not so, mother?”

Their mother spread her wings. “The point of this lesson,” she said, “is to find your answers. Not mine. I’ll say this much: that from that time they abandoned the name I gave them, and used Ramaa when more female and Raman when male, for their bruised heartspring could only continue by counting their past self dead.

“They kept the parrot form for many years, getting me to change only their head coloring, redder when they were more male and more purple as their heartspring shifted again to womanly. Chola fortunes fell before the Pandyas; Alabar built homes and farms and towns, always increasing, till we moved our sangam finally to Madurai. Your sibling still lived among them—though never again the Cholas—advising, telling stories, and gathering information for our traders. They even went west over the sea with a merchant once, as far as Aksum, in the years before trade from Rome gave way to Greece.

“The parrot form suited them, both for how beautiful it was and how easy to ignore. Some Alabar tried to cage them, but none managed, and nobody in all those years tried to kill them.

“But one day they returned to me and said: Mother, that second body you made me. Do you have it still? I need them to see me as a girl.”

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