Marrying A Monster

CHAPTER ONE-2

Neither Kajjal nor Rina had ever done anything of the kind, and Rina sometimes wondered if it wasn’t the contrast with Amita that kept Paa from getting more wound up than he already was about Rina’s and Kajjal’s fashion designs and their willingness to model the clothes themselves.

“Anyway.” Maa didn’t even seem to notice their reactions. “The priests will wait until nearly the end of the blooming if they have to. If you need to wrap things up down here, you should have a little time.”

“Your mother and I will need to start back soon, though, so we can prepare. You might be on your own for the trip up,” Paa warned her.

“That will be fine,” Rina said. Fond as she was of her parents, she didn’t feel like traveling with them all the way up Mount Snarl.

Rina managed to get things sorted out in less than a week, but then the river that cut through Rivertown overflowed and took out the bridge closest to her home.

She had to take a motor rickshaw halfway across town to the south to find a bridge that wasn’t bottlenecked with politicians heading up to their vacation homes in Summertown, or tourists trying to get to one of the bigger, more commercial smokeflower festivals in the foothills of the Blue Smoke Mountains.

She had planned to travel on the cheap, narrow-gauge train as far as Summertown, but there had been an accident on that line, and the only train going to Summertown was the luxury express.

It was evening by the time she and her suitcase reached the bus stop on the edge of town, and she sat down on her suitcase to wait for a bus that would take her up to Summertown.

Do I have everything? Rina worried. What did I forget?

She’d brought a nice chiffon sari with her for more formal dinners, and some chic skirts and shirts in the latest Imperial styles just to make everybody’s eyes pop out at home.

Her mother had told her not to worry about her clothes for the ritual; the family would take care of that, which meant that she was probably going to look gaudy and tacky in the end, but with any luck, there would only be a couple of photos of her dressed like that.

Sometimes, Rina envied curvy little Kajjal for her ability to make saris look good—Rina was taller and leaner, and although knee-skimming Imperial style skirts looked great on her, she had to choose her saris carefully so that she didn’t look rangy and gangly in them.

Rina had her phone, and the plugin charger for it, even though electricity was a dicey proposition where she was going, and the solar charger for when the electricity was out—were her subscriptions to the mobile novel site up to date?

She dug the phone out and tapped the screen a couple of times. Yes, the phone had chapters from all the serialized novels she had planned to subscribe to.

She had her purse, which meant she had makeup, money, a pencil and a small design sketchbook, and a couple of pairs of nice earrings to wear if she wanted to or could sell if something went wrong and she needed more money.

Right now, she was wearing tan and white tennis shoes, denim shorts and a cream-colored polo shirt that hopefully wouldn’t show the grime too much.

The bus pulled up, and she got on. Men brushed past her repeatedly as they squeezed their way to the rear. She didn’t like the way some of them looked at her, but she tried not to let it bother her. She needed to wear these clothes to stay cool and move around more easily, and she wasn’t going to be intimidated by anyone leering at her.

She did not manage to get a seat, but she grabbed one of the overhead grip straps toward the front with one hand, planted her suitcase between her legs, and then held on tight to her purse.

Her balance was good enough that she didn’t fall down or bump anyone when the bus lurched into motion.

A couple of hours outside of Capital, the bus passed through a stretch of mango orchards. The season for their fruit had passed, and there were no workers moving among the trees, but what always struck Rina about this place was how overgrown the space under the trees looked, with paths that looked like they had been made by deer rather than people.

A toll gate with its barrier lowered blocked the road ahead. There was no booth for collecting money from the drivers who passed through. Instead, there stood a creature like a six-foot-tall praying mantis, its shell gleaming maroon and yellow in the sun.

“Is that a Gnosha?” a pale-skinned tourist with an Imperial accent asked. “I always thought they were some sort of hoax your government put on to fool you lot.”

“I don’t know why the government gave them this stretch of land when there was already a major road on it,” said one of the other passengers with disgust.

“I do,” Rina said. “The minister of agriculture realized that the hills on the other side of the Gnosha reservation would make a great addition to his tea plantation. So, he confiscated that land by eminent domain for a road that’s no use to anyone but the truckers hauling his tea to market.”

The tourist’s eyes were starting to glaze over, but Rina plowed ahead.

“Then the minister had the government sell him the leftover land it didn’t need for the new road. At a discount price, of course.”

“You make the Gnosha sound like a bunch of innocent victims,” the man next to Rina said.

He was college-age, with a grubby plaid shirt and jeans torn at the knees, and a weak attempt at a beard.

Rina knew the type: going to college on the money raised by a working class or lower middle class family, but determined not to learn anything or work at anything, just smoke, drink and hit on women.

“Well, they were,” Rina said. “It wasn’t their idea, and there’s not much they or anyone else can do when the government invokes eminent domain.”

“At least they got this toll road in compensation,” said one of the other passengers. “That’s surely a gold mine for them.”

Rina shook her head. “You must not have traveled this road since they took it over. The Gnosha aren’t interested in money. You’ll see.”

The bus stopped in front of the barrier, and the driver opened the door on the passenger side. The Gnosha stooped forward and leaned into the opening, gripping the frame of the doorway with three-fingered hands no bigger than Rina’s.

Most of the passengers flinched, and Rina thought she heard a startled yelp from one of the small children on the bus.

For her own part, she tried to squash her gut-level dislike of insects by focusing on the Gnosha’s face, which looked like that of a cartoon frog, with large, shining green-gold eyes and a wide, thin-lipped mouth that turned up slightly at the corners.

That expression of friendly curiosity reminded Rina of the two or three other Gnosha that she had met. Maybe they weren’t all like that, but the ones who were interested in dealing with humans usually were.

“Greetings,” said the Gnosha in a voice that sounded like it was made by a complicated flute rather than a human throat. “Welcome to the territory of the Stetemo Hive. We collect tolls in a different way than you do.”

He paused. At least, Rina thought this one was a he; she had been told that these relatively small Gnosha, who had no cutting edges on their forearms and shins to defend themselves with, were builder drones, chosen for toll duty because humans found them less intimidating than the other castes.

“Everyone must leave the bus and come with me,” the Gnosha said. “To the sandpit over there.” He gestured to a square, sand-filled area within sight of the road, framed with weathered wooden beams.

“What are you going to do to us?” The question came from an austere-looking woman with the shaved head and orange-yellow robes of an ascetic in religious orders.

“Whatever it is, you’re not going to do it to me!” the driver snapped. “I’ve got to stay with the bus.”

“Don’t be silly,” Rina said. “I’ve been this way before, and all the Gnosha want us to do is draw a picture in the sand. Each of us, in turn. That includes you,” she said to the driver, “because they won’t let you leave until you draw your picture, and without you to drive us, none of us are leaving, and I for one have to reach Thundermouth by the end of the week.”

The driver scowled at her, but Rina could tell from looking around that most of the passengers were scowling back at him. Nobody wanted to be stuck here for any length of time.

One of the few people who weren’t scowling was a man standing up a couple of rows back from Rina. He was taller than the people in front of him, but not enough to show Rina more of him than a hawk-like face set on a strong-looking neck and a pair of shoulders that seemed to match the neck.

The man was wearing a white dress shirt open at the throat. His face had a look of polite curiosity that reminded Rina of the expression on the Gnosha toll collector’s face.

“Fine, you win,” the bus driver said. He turned off the bus and started to step out of the vehicle. Over his shoulder, he added, “But you’re coming with me.”

“I should hope so,” Rina said. “Someone’s got to show you how it’s done.”

She followed him out of the bus. The rest of the group came after them. Rina walked confidently up to the sandbox and started to draw an embroidery pattern she had sketched the other day in her idea book, a pattern full of loops and spirals. She looked up at the Gnosha to see what he thought.

“The Hive approves,” he said. “Thank you for contributing to our understanding of how humans think.”

The bus driver went next, drawing a stick man next to a box with a money symbol inside. Then came a woman with the saffron robes and shaved head of an ascetic, who drew an ancient religious glyph.

Then came the tall man Rina had noticed earlier. He might have been anywhere between thirty-five and forty. Seen close up, his longish hair was limp and sticky from the humidity, as was his shirt and the somewhat battered khaki pants he was wearing.

The clinging clothes hinted at a lean, well-formed figure as the man dropped into a graceful crouch and drew a four-legged stick figure with a smiley face.

Rina only recognized it as a horse when the man added a mane and tail. Then he drew a series of jagged, angular things that might have been writing in a language Rina did not know.

The Gnosha was silent for a moment, then said, “I have told the Queens that after paying the toll, you expressed a wish to speak with them. They are willing, if you will meet them at the main Hive dwelling right now.”

“I would be honored,” the man said. He had a heavy, rather nasal voice, not unattractive, but with a bit of a growl buried in it. “Can you tell me where to go, please?”

The Gnosha pointed toward a narrow trail that started at the toll gate and wound away into the underbrush.

“Thank you.” The man bowed at the waist, in as close to the Gnosha style as a human being could manage, and set off down the deer trail at a jog.

“What’s that i***t trying to do, break his neck?” the young man with the beard sneered.