《GODS INSIDE》


 THE QUEENS LOST DAUGHTER, WHO CLIMBED

    In the pit which reached far below the lowest tunnels of the Colony, the Queen''s lost daughter lived in darkness. When she was not gathering food and was not repelling the small beasts who would scavenge what she had gathered, she would wedge herself deeply into the tunnel which she had found and had not dug, where she had first made new thoughts in resting. Her tunnel drove into the walls of the pit, and so the pit was made Outside, and her tunnel Inside. Resting tightly in her tunnel was a good labor, because within it her feelers could be tucked along her sides where they were hidden. In her tunnel, she ate and watched its entrance, and she never sleep-traveled.


    The Queen''s lost daughter would wait there for as long as she was able, until she was hungry. Then she would find those things which had the smell of food on them, and these things she brought to her tunnel in quick and unsettled labors. She had learned of two times in this labor, and these were times of waiting and times of need, and she learned that in times of need fear came also. She was often afraid, and this made her times of quiet and comfort very precious things to her, because they were small and easily fouled. It seemed to the Queen''s lost daughter then that if she ate more food, she could keep the times of need away for longer. But she was only able to hold so much inside her, and so she would protect the food she had gathered with biting from her jaws. And when fear was deeply within her, her jaws were slick with venom, and her labors were made less burdensome.


    As she passed these times of fear and need, she learned in her labors the rules of the pit. These were the rules of size and speed and sound. Small could not defeat the large, the quick would escape the slow, and the quiet could outlast the noisy who were heard by many. She learned also that her size and speed and sound were not always the same, and that these could combine to keep her food and remain settled. She could stand high upon her legs to seem larger. She could move suddenly between stillness to seem quicker. She could clatter her jaws, and drag her legs along her sides, and open her shafts to be louder. The large could be repelled when they learned of her seeming speed and loudness, the quick could be caught if she seemed small and quiet, and the noisy would not approach those who seemed large and with quick feelers.


    The Queen''s lost daughter found that as she followed these rules, her fear would be resting and buried. But fear could not be chased away or repelled by any effort. Sometimes, when her food was piled high and she had been settled for a long time, fear would return to her with strength it had gathered during her long comfort. She would shake and shiver terribly then, until she had left her tunnel to bury fear beneath new thoughts, new learning, that could be made only Outside with flicking feelers in unsettled air. This seemed to the Queen''s lost daughter to be a time cleaning.


    During one of these times of cleaning, her feelers found something new. It was a scent, like that of food or of intruders, but when it came to her feelers her thoughts were then clinging to it. It called to her without sound and filled her thoughts with a terrible wanting. It was a smell much like her own, but with a taste that shared a warmth across her from her eyes to her hindmost parts.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    That welcoming smell was faint and difficult to follow. It moved with the gusts that would coil around her when she was not in the safety of her tunnel. She searched for it with the terror of hunger, and found that it was stronger when her feelers were lifted away from the pit''s floor. It was then that the Queen''s lost daughter welcomed her first thought of climbing, because it would lead her.


    She had not learned the height of the pit''s walls before that time, and she had not counted her steps. From above, curls of that sweet leading smell lifted her feelers up from the crowded pit. The scent carried her thoughts away, and when they returned they were more potent than comfort, and heavier than hunger. And these thoughts that had been to good places brought answer to her fear that had always gnawed her middle and weakened her legs.


    In the pit, she had lived beside fear. And now she felt its grip around her thoughts, having learned what was beyond it, and she learned of its threads that were binding many beasts that were unlike her in the pit. The smell brought all her thoughts to the edges of her insides that seemed foul to them then, and they learned much of that smell, for it lacked the sourness of fear and brought welcome from a place where fear would not follow.


    She filled her stomach with foul food from the floor, and she was now hateful of it, so that it was a painful eating. And so the lost daughter of the Queen began to climb.


    Her first steps up the walls of the pit were eager. She followed the scent and it led her in the manner of fresh and warm food. The walls were not so smooth that she could not hold them, but it was a difficult climbing.


    The higher air was colder. She smelled fewer things then, and beside the welcoming scent from above was only her own. She became confused, for she had never known her own smell in the absence of others, and she learned that hers was foul beside others. Up she climbed, upward into the empty dark where there were none beside her.


    Fear had not left her, and it wished for her to stop her climb. But she could not climb downward, for her legs had learned only of going upward. They became burdened and could not carry her, and she bit into the walls to cling on until they could move again. Fear was then attacking her, and it drove deep between her good thoughts with promises of broken legs and of her helpless killing, but she refused to end her climbing, because she she would not return to what was below that was learned to be foul and familiar.


    When the Queen''s lost daughter could no longer count her steps, and she had lost the time that had passed since her first steps up the wall, she despaired. She was hungry. Her legs dragged beneath her, they hung limply and burndened her. Her jaws then seemed as legs to her, and they walked in single steps so that her climbing would be done.


    And as fear seemed so close to victory, she learned of speaking.


    ¡°Leave me!¡± she said through jaws in stone. ¡°I will climb to a place where you are silent.¡±


    She saw a brightness high above where the walls ended. Her legs bent beneath her and did push again. Her thoughts crashed against her fear then, and it was broken into small parts, and these were gentle in their surprise, having never been broken apart before. She climbed on, her thoughts gathering many promised things, until at last her jaws could open.


    She felt smooth and strange ground under her, her strength left against the walls of the pit. She was blinded in bright light and surrounded by clear and distinguished scents. There were colors here, and few things were not strange. And for a time she was deaf in this place where she had no learning.

 HOW THE QUEENS LOST DAUGHTER WAS FOUND

    In the lower tunnels of the Colony, where the unfit and inexact did their unclean work, there was no quiet, for The Gods Inside did not come to those places to bring a silence to them.


    Akkis labored there, where she had done so for four seasons, and her armor was dark. She had joined a labor of war-making two seasons ago, and since that labor she had not been beside the Queen and done the labors of the upper tunnels. When her labor of war-making was ended, she had gone downward into the lower tunnels, because she had suffered many troubles Outside, and she would not burden the grand labors of the Colony with the foulness of her wounded thoughts.


    Since coming to the lower tunnels, her labors had been simple. She did not often do them with eagerness, for she felt that her times of great and good labors were behind her. Her thoughts did not travel far, but this seemed a good thing to her, because without the vastness of Outside and the goodness of above, her small labors of cleaning and feeding did at times seem grand things to be shared by many in the crowded chambers beneath the Colony.


    One day, after she had finished with four-legged Hik in the cleaning of her middle part, she felt a weakness in her own legs. Those in the lower tunnels struggled often against the Bad Air, a sickness that was left whenever the Wind God escaped from deep places. Helpful Akkis had felt the weight of the Bad Air upon her five times in the lower tunnels, and so had learned precisely of the small warnings of its coming. The pit that opened to the lowest place had a harsh but healthful scent which could clean her insides of the Bad Air, and so also clean her thoughts of its burden.


    It was then that Akkis came across the Queen''s lost daughter, who was still and flat on the floor at the pit''s edge. It seemed to Akkis at first that she had found a worker like herself who had come too late to be cleaned of the Bad Air beside the pit, but as she drew closer to the Queen''s lost daughter, she had found something of which she had not learned. She tasted the air carefully, and did not find death-smell around her. It brought some eagerness to her. She was learning then, for she had come to see a stranger, a worker in the lower tunnels whose armor was neither fouled with sickness nor broken, though it had many marks upon it. The Queen''s lost daughter still had the bright armor of youth, but Akkis did not learn of it then, because the filth of the pit covered it wholly.


    At first the Queen''s lost daughter would not allow herself to be cleaned. She could not bear such closeness, for her armor had not yet learned of the touch of feelers upon it. Again and again Akkis came near to clean her, and with feeble clatters from her jaws the Queen''s lost daughter struggled to repel Akkis and keep these labors undone.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Akkis waited beside the Queen''s lost daughter until she was hungry. She had learned little of the labors of the tending of young, which was the work of the Nest-Keepers high above beside the Queen. Unable to bear her hunger and unwilling to leave the young daughter, Akkis lifted the stranger she had found, so that she could carry her to her place of comfort that she shared with her sisters. The Queen''s lost daughter shook terribly when she was lifted, and her jaws held Akkis then with painful tightness that was neither gentle nor harsh, with none of her thoughts reaching and all of them gathered.


    It took the effort of five sisters to restrain the Queen''s lost daughter and pry her jaws from Akkis''s armor. For five days, Akkis kept the stranger bound by threads that were brought to her by her sisters, for the Queen''s lost daughter would not be still and clattered at any who came to learn of her strangeness. Akkis was burdened by this, for the lost daughter''s scent was always stained by terrible fear that soured the air of the tunnel and drove away all but the most curious.


    Akkis made her plan then, and it would be finished when many labors that were larger than feeding and cleaning were done, so that the lost daughter would be a sister beside her and not a stinking thing that fouled her place of comfort.


    After returning from her labors in the low tunnels, Akkis found that the bindings had become slackened, for the lost daughter no longer pulled them, such was the weakness from her hunger. But the lost daughter refused the food of the young, the kissec nectar that was gifted from the higher chambers where it was made. Akkis shared tough old meat and long-dried fruit, and the lost daughter did eat eagerly like the worms that roamed in moist places Outside. But it did not seem then to Akkis that her labor was complete, for she had learned in her own youth of a daughter''s need for kissec and the steadiness it brought to one''s legs.


    Eager to complete her labor, Akkis thought to pass the food she had eaten, which would be soft like kissec, to the young daughter. But when she opened her jaws to share her food, Akkis was met with a very harsh bite.


    Akkis nearly dropped the lost daughter, for this bite seemed to her like a killing bite, and she had learned that these were never to be brought upon a sister of the Colony. But the venom that follows the killing bite did not come, and so Akkis persisted in her feeding, even with the lost daughter''s jaws still tight around her own. Steadily, gentle effort, Akkis fed the lost daughter, until her sharing-stomach was empty and the Queen''s lost daughter was no longer hungry, and all her thoughts were gathered at the tips of her jaws beside where the lost daughter''s had remained for five days since being carried.


    Having succeeded in her labor, Akkis felt bold, and was eager to continue. But the daughter''s scent was still fearful. Akkis''s thoughts followed them when they fled from hers, far into the past to a time when her own fear had been as potent. She remembered then the stories the Nest-Keepers had shared to her, and thought to share them then.

 HOW CLEVER YAKA LEARNED BESIDE THE SWEETPINK BUSH

    In days whose scent is deeply buried, there was a worker who was named Yaka. Yaka was clever, and so she could learn quickly and precisely. She could learn of unshared things, such was her skill. Those who joined her labors were often eager to gather Yaka''s learning that was made and not itself gathered from sisters. Thus her labors were rarely alone, and Yaka''s part in them was often small or simple in its doing.


    One day Yaka was foraging with one-and-one others, and as ever she was eager to gather learning Outside. Though Yaka was smallest of her group of one and two, she was leading, and was pleased to have her sisters following. Together the group of one-and-two traveled far from the Colony on Yaka''s clever paths that she had made without first following a sister. They found a very large bush that was burdened by many ripe sweetpinks. Sweetpinks were her favorite, and she was eager to eat them without first bringing them back to the colony untasted in the manner of foraging that was learned.


    Yaka and her sisters then began their labors, and they each began to gather as many as they could hold. Most could hold five and still walk, though strong Iss could lift as many as one and four! Seeing that Iss could carry twice as many sweetpinks as the others, an evil learning came to be among Yaka''s thoughts.


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    She spoke to Iss as the others began to return to the Colony with their sweetpinks. ¡°Iss,¡± she said to her, ¡°this place where we have found the sweetpinks offers much to be learned.¡±


    ¡°I do not smell this,¡± said Iss, for the Queen had gifted her with strength and skillful watching, instead of quick learning. ¡°Will you gather what I cannot smell?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± said Yaka, ¡°I will have much to share, but it will not be a small labor for me. I can carry five sweetpinks, but it will take all of my effort to carry them from this place and I will not be able to learn so burdened. You are strong while I am not, and I have seen that you can carry enough for two. If you would carry my share of sweetpinks, I will be able to learn here without burdens and I will have more to share upon my return.¡±


    Iss considered the offer. It would not be easy to carry two and three sweetpinks, but Iss was eager to enjoy the learning that Yaka could gather, for she had learned that Yaka could gather things rarer even than a bush of sweetpinks. Strong Iss then lifted two and three sweetpinks, and her legs endured great strain as she carried them.


    Yaka was joyful at the completion of her evil labor, which was to have her burden of sweetpinks lifted by Iss instead, and she explored much of the place where the sweetpink bush had been found. She stayed long by the sweetpink bush, until the sun had traveled far across the sky and dragged the shadows long. But when she returned to the Colony, she found that there were no sweetpinks left for her. Since Iss had worked so hard to carry the burdens of two sisters, the Nest-Keepers had shared with her two stomachs'' worth of sweetpinks, leaving none for Yaka.


    Yaka was very hungry that night and was forced to fill herself with the bitter armor of beetles instead of soft fruit, having learned the evil of discarding her joined labors in favor of those that she had made.

 CLEVER YAKA AND THE THORNED VALLEY, OR YAKA AND THE SPIDER

    The Colony thrived in the days that followed. The Gods Inside worked many wonders through it, and this brought the efforts of the Gods Outside whose labors against them were made more difficult. They sent many dangers to the Colony, and after their floods and their droughts the land was made barren, and there were very few places left where the Colony had learned food could be gathered. All who lived in the Colony became hungry and their labors became short and also tiresome. They tapped their jaws on the walls often and rattled their armor loudly at the Gods Outside when the winter season came, and many labors were unfinished.


    In the spring season, Yaka''s eagerness to travel Outside was thick upon her armor. Foraging was her labor, and the winter had seemed long without it. Food was scarce, but Yaka in her cleverness could remember secret places that would be untouched by the Gods Outside. She found two-and-three sisters who were not afraid to forage to strange places beside her, including Iss whose strength had been made less by the hunger of the Colony.


    Beside those two-and-three sisters, Yaka traveled far from the Colony to a place that she had learned was full of thorns, which do not bend to the wind or flooding waters and repel many beasts. Their journey was long, and when Yaka arrived in the valley of thorns, she was joined by only six others. They were eager to arrive, since they had left scent for others to follow to the valley of thorns where sour fruits are found. But Yaka did not feel that all of her labors were complete, for she had learned much of her companions, including that Iss was sickened. Yaka could hold one-and-one of the sour berries, and Iss lifted only six. Yaka went to Iss as others gathered fruit and spoke with her.


    ¡°Iss, I see that your legs tremble and I smell that your eagerness is thin upon your armor,¡± said Yaka.


    ¡°I am hungry and needful of rest,¡± said Iss. ¡°But I will complete my labors, because this is more precious a thing to me than comfort.¡±


    Even with this learning, Yaka did not feel satisfied. She gathered all that she could and together she, Iss, and the others made for the Colony. While they walked, however, Iss fell to the barren ground and spilled her around her. Yaka had not before learned what was to be done when a sister''s strength failed, and she watched closely as she saw the others put down their gathered fruit and lift Iss to carry her. Together they carried Iss back to the entrance halls, and Yaka felt an evil learning come into her while she watched her sisters tending to sickened Iss.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Yaka walked on the scent-lines that she had made many more times in the days following. The valley of thorns was stripped of all of the fruit there, and the Colony began to thrive once more. One day, Yaka lingered in the valley, and it seemed a good thing to her how her cleverness had helped the Colony in a difficult time. She had not gathered any fruit this time, for in having originally found the valley of thorns she felt that her labors were completed. She did not wish to grow hungry today from the labor of carrying fruit, and so her thoughts traveled back to Iss and her learning of how her sister had been carried by the others. Most had left for the colony with what they had gathered, but Yaka laid on the ground and dragged her legs over her armor in the manner of a sister in pain. She thought of times of hurt in days long past so that her smell would have upon it thoughts to match the sound of her distress. None came to lift her, for she had lagged behind the rest. She became louder and threw her scent far, hoping that some sister might hear and return to carry her.


    But it was not a sister from any Colony who heard her. A spider that was waiting in the bramble heard Yaka then, and approached her from crisscrossing shadows. It might have eaten Yaka were she not clever. As its one-and-two legs descended over her, Yaka spoke to the spider.


    ¡°Come no closer, spider, or risk your death. The Colony and all its sisters will have answer for any harm you would bring to me.¡±


    The spider stopped then, for it was rare to hear its food speaking. ¡°I saw many others, but now you are alone, and you are hurt. I will kill you now and drink your insides.¡±


    In her cleverness, Yaka laid still and continued to scrape her armor. ¡°The Gods Inside have left me lonesome!¡± she cried for the spider to hear. ¡°I will die with labors unfinished, and I will not find the Tunnels That Glitter!¡±


    The spider drew close upon her with hungry jaws, for it had not eaten in many days. The beetles that it had eaten in days past were gone, because there was no fruit for them to eat. Yaka waited. As the spider raised its fangs above her, she sprang up and grappled with them. The spider was so surprised that it nearly fell upon its back as it reared its legs high into the air. They battled fiercely, and Yaka was thrown painfully against the thorns four times. Yaka closed her jaws upon the spider''s belly with a killing bite, and when her venom came, the spider thrashed until its legs were folded.


    Yaka did not leave the valley of thorns then, for there were wounds upon her armor. She laid in the shadows and despaired, thinking that she had been slowly killed. But when the sun returned on a new day, she smelled Iss nearby and called precisely to her.


    Iss had walked alone to the valley of thorns, and her strength had been fully returned to her. She lifted Yaka and carried her to the safety of the colony, and Yaka then learned many things that she would keep among her thoughts and not bury.

 YAKA AND THE FUNGUS, OR HOW YAKA WATCHED THE MOON

    When Yaka was tending to the fungus that grows in the humid chambers, she came upon a most evil learning.


    The winter-season had come, and there was little foraging to be done. With her labors set aside until the sun''s return, Yaka was sickened by the staleness of her thoughts. She hungered for the learning of secret things, and was not eager to join the labors of her sisters. She was found often watching the moon and its stars, for she wished to learn to make light as the moon did. With light of her own, she had learned, she would not need the sun''s light for foraging and her labors of foraging could resume early.


    The Gods Outside were furious that their curses had not defeated the Colony. The God of Death and Eating, who lives beside the Gods Outside and hates all Queens, then made plans to bring wounding to the Colony. She changed her shape to that of a worker and took the name Iki. As Iki, the God of Death and Eating came into the Colony and that is where she met Yaka.


    It is learned by those who tend the fungus that it must be kept clean always. When it was Yaka''s turn to tend the fungus, she did not wish to clean it after, for cleaning was a long and silent effort and she was eager to return to her learning of the moon. That is when the God of Death and Eating in the form of Iki came to Yaka.


    ¡°Why do your feelers drift away from here?¡± asked Iki. ¡°Is tending the fungus not your labor in this cold winter?¡±


    Yaka said to Iki, ¡°This labor does not satisfy. I am eager to forage, and if I could learn the moon''s secret of light-making, I might return to my foraging before the winter season''s ending.¡±


    Iki was made eager in hearing this. ¡°I am sister Iki, and my labor is in tending the fungus. It is my turn after yours and I am eager to see you finish, so that I will be joyful at my own labor''s completion.¡±


    Yaka said, ¡°It will be long before I am finished, for I must still do a cleaning or the fungus will be claimed by the evil God of Death and Eating who hates the Queen and must be repelled.¡± She spoke harshly of this to Iki, for she had not learned precisely of who she was speaking with.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    ¡°I will finish this task and allow you to return to your learning,¡± said Iki. ¡°There is no need for you to finish, for I will do your cleaning and also a cleaning of my own.¡±


    Yaka then agreed, and she hurried from the humid chambers to watch the moon, and the God of Death and Eating began again her labor which was the wounding of the Colony and its Queen. She brought her venom forth and spilled it on the fungus, which quickly began to die. Satisfied in her labor, she returned Outside where her power was greatest and waited eagerly to learn of the Colony''s sickness.


    Yaka was later interrupted in her watching of the moon by a great drumming on the walls that passed from the humid chambers across the Colony. Yaka wished to investigate the warning, but was stopped by soldiers that then came and held her in their soldier-grip. She was very afraid, for she thought that she would be killed or left in the dark Outside where she would be left pathless between many dangers.


    ¡°You will not hold me! I have done no harm to the Colony!¡± said Yaka, but the soldiers did not release her, for it was learned that the fungus that gives food to the Colony and its Queen had been damaged in Yaka''s labors. But Yaka was clever, and she let herself fall still until she felt the soldier-grips on her middle slacken. With the quickness of a water-fly she fled the soldiers, and used her learning of the Colony to be hidden from their searching. She walked from the low tunnels to the entrance halls then in a search of her own for the worker Iki who had done imprecise labors. She did not find Iki, for she was searching for a sister of which she had learned very little.


    Despairing, Yaka went to the Queen, evading many soldiers. She hid among the beetles who roam the smallest passages and sent songs echoing before her to lead away soldiers and workers alike. But the nest-keepers who tend to the Queen were not so easily avoided. The nest-keepers learn much in the service of the Queen, and in their wisdom they heard Yaka''s pleas. They brought her before the Queen, who has learned of all her daughters and their labors.


    ¡°Yaka, my daughter, you have been led into imprecision by my enemy, the God of Death and Eating, for she hates me and the Colony. But you will be punished for your abandonment of the labor of fungus tending. No longer will you forage, for you will tend the fungus until your final days. And upon you I will put a spell. Your learning has brought evil, and forever shall it burden you. You will find that your learning will tire you. You must do your labor unaided by learning, or else you will be needful of sleep and be unable to finish. This curse I place upon all my daughters, for you, Clever Yaka, are not alone in your hunger for learning, and I have learned from you of its danger.¡±


    Yaka never again foraged outside the Colony, and it took many seasons for the pain of her lost labor to fade. But while she learned little in the time that followed, the fungus did thrive in her clever care, and her labors were precise. In that time she made the lamp-fungus that light the darkest tunnels of the colony, and the Queen was comforted that her daughter did no more evil things.

 HOW HELPFUL AKKIS DID LEAD GOOD LABORS AND HOW THE QUEENS LOST DAUGHTER FOLLOWED HER

    For five-and-three days, the Queen''s lost daughter was tended by Akkis, and it was sometimes a burdensome labor. She learned that the lost daughter did not have the learning that even the youngest and brightest-armored sisters did, and so Akkis shared many more stories with her, even those beyond stories of Clever Yaka, of which many were learned. But the lost daughter struggled, and she did not gather learning from their sharing. It seemed to Akkis that the lost daughter was eager only for the feeding that was done with the sharing of stories, and so Akkis was often left with little for herself, such was the effort of her labor to share good learning with the lost daughter.


    Akkis thought to lessen her burdensome labor, and so she sought any sisters who might join it. But whenever she brought sisters to her place of comfort where the lost daughter was bound, they did not join her labor, and they would tap the walls and flick their feelers in discomfort. The lost daughter did not have the smell of the Colony upon her¡ªinstead they found the smells of Outside and its dangers to unsettle their thoughts.


    On a warm night of the summer season, when Akkis was returning from the lowest of the higher tunnels with a sharing stomach that was filled with kissec, she heard the lost daughter speaking. The lost daughter did not speak in a manner that could be heard, but Akkis could smell the talking upon her.


    ¡°Are you speaking with a sister?¡± asked Akkis, but the lost daughter did not answer it. Akkis then cleaned her of the day''s filth, and shared to her more tales of Clever Yaka. When the stories had finished, Akkis found that the lost daughter held her jaws apart in welcome of the food that was to follow, which she had never done before Akkis had opened hers first.


    In the days that followed, Akkis would many more times hear the lost daughter speaking to no sister, and each day she would ask, ¡°Will you speak with me?¡± and each day she received no answer.


    On the last day of the summer season, Akkis heard the lost daughter ask her, ¡°Are you speaking with a sister?¡±


    Upon hearing the question, Akkis felt the great joy of a labor''s completion, and she told the lost daughter, ¡°I am speaking with you, a lost daughter of the Queen, who I have tended for more than half a season.¡± Akkis smelled terrible fear about the lost daughter then, and she asked, ¡°Why are you afraid? There is no danger here--none that would match the pit from which you climbed.¡±


    The lost daughter''s lower parts shivered and her legs strained at her bindings. Akkis loosened them, leaving only her front-most legs bound. ¡°I have learned that your bindings cause you fear,¡± she said, and this was said precisely. She would not remake those bindings, and they now seemed cruel things to her, and she learned that she had made a wound in her thoughts from what had seemed a gentle labor.


    The lost daughter said nothing more that day, but when Akkis returned the following day, the smell of fear was not so strong about her. The lost daughter would draw the food from Akkis''s sharing stomach readily from then on, without stories to prompt her. She tapped Akkis''s feelers with her own often, and made attempts to clean Akkis even as she was herself cleaned, though Akkis had been cleaned already by her sisters in the lower tunnels.


    On the third day after the lost daughter had first spoken to her, Akkis freed the lost daughter of all her bindings. Soon after, the lost daughter began to learn the ways of speaking to sisters, and Akkis felt the burden of her labors become so light that they were nearly gone. But the lost daughter could not be brought from the place of comfort where she was hidden, for she still lacked the smell of the Colony upon her.


    ¡°You lack the Colony''s good scent,¡± said Akkis to the lost daughter. ¡°You will be in danger if you are met by those who would defend our Colony and Queen.¡± And when she said this, strange learning came to Akkis, made stranger still because it was unlike all that she had learned of the goodness of soldiers and Queens, and it had come from her own thoughts.


    The lost daughter shivered terribly when Akkis said this. ¡°I am evil then, like Yaka''s learning, for I am a threat to the Queen who has led me from below.¡±


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    ¡°You are not like Yaka''s learning,¡± said Akkis, ¡°and there is much learning that is not evil, even when it seems so. You have learned many good things here, as have I in the labor of your care. This learning has tired you, sister of Clever Yaka. Go to resting, sleep-travel, and when you return to me I will have learned of a way to lead you from this place of comfort in safety.¡±


    For the first time since Akkis had found her beside the pit, the lost daughter then rested with her feelers twitching. Akkis drew upon all she had learned of the Colony and its scent. She found what was unsettled within her thoughts: that this daughter could not live in the Colony without its scent, a scent that Akkis herself had always possessed.


    And when Akkis smelled the kissec that dripped from the lost daughter''s jaws, mixed as it was with the Colony scent that had come from her sharing stomach, she felt the rush of good learning throughout her, and was then clever in the manner of Yaka who had done evil. For the length of Skith''s sleep-travel, Akkis did not go to join the labors of her sisters, and she did not search her thoughts further for hidden things as she had done for all the season since returning from war-making. There was nothing behind her, and nothing before her, and there was only the lost daughter beside her.


    * * *


    ¡°Wake now, lost daughter, and speak with me,¡± said Akkis, when the sounds of morning labors began to stir around them. The lost daughter did not wake at first, and her feelers were leaping in discomfort. Akkis could smell a long and fearful sleep-travel upon her, and she said to her, ¡°You will wake from sleep-travel, and you will be in comfort beside me.¡±


    The lost daughter then left her sleep-travel, and her feelers were light and curious. Akkis said to her, ¡°I have learned how you might follow me in safety. With this learning I will lead you from this place to one where you might find your own good labor to the Queen.¡±


    Akkis brought forth the remaining kissec from her sharing stomach, but she did not deliver it to the lost daughter''s waiting mouth. Instead, Akkis dragged her jaws upon the lost daughter''s armor, so that under the scent of kissec she could smell the Colony all about the lost daughter.


    Throughout the lower tunnels they walked in tandem, with Akkis laboring in leading. The lost daughter followed, and this was her first labor, as it is for all the sisters of the Colony. Akkis walked along the scent lines, stopping at each fourth-and-none step as she had learned to do from leaders who were skillful. And the lost daughter, being still a daughter of the Queen, followed precisely and touched Akkis''s hindmost parts at each stop, so that they might continue together.


    ¡°Keep your thoughts managed, and your steps counted, or your following will be imprecise,¡± said Akkis. And with her learning of the scent she had gifted to the lost daughter, she said also, ¡°Do not walk closely to those that we come across in these tunnels. Not all have learned of your scent as I have, and to those with searching feelers you will be an impostor.¡±


    Akkis felt a sourness in her thoughts at the word ¡°impostor,¡± because there was much disagreement then among them. The lost daughter smelled it, and she gathered a sharp learning that wedged itself deeply in her thoughts, and would never be removed from them.


    The lost daughter followed Akkis through many of the lower tunnels, and soon she had learned to walk the paths without Akkis. She held to the learning that Akkis had shared with her, and approached no sisters, even when she was very eager to join their labors.


    The lost daughter learned much in that time as she walked the tunnels, and Akkis led her to many chambers and tunnels that neither had walked before. With the lost daughter following, Akkis walked closely and eagerly between the sisters who were digging new chambers, because their feelers were covered in dirt and gathered no scent. She came to the roaring tunnels, and found the water there that was well-managed in dark rivers. Akkis was then laboring in both leading in following, because she was following the river-tunnels, and the lost daughter then followed only two steps behind her.


    They came to the cool chambers with smooth white columns, where the lost daughter first learned of softlings. But Akkis pulled her gently away, because after the softlings had left their threads between the pillars for their tending sisters to pull taut into wide sheets, they would be carried upward to be beside the Queen, and it would be a danger for the lost daughter''s scent to be upon them. But the lost daughter could not fully bury her eagerness to tend to the pale softlings, and so Akkis did not lead her to the thread-chambers again, so that the lost daughter would not be drawn into danger by her searching thoughts.


    In this way they learned much together, but the curse that had been laid upon Yaka and all the Queen''s daughters weighed terribly upon the lost daughter, who was often needful of rest when they returned to their place of comfort. The lost daughter smelled often of fear in sleep, and this became a new labor for Akkis.


    Akkis asked her, ¡°Where do you travel in sleep that brings you such discomfort?¡±


    The lost daughter said, ¡°In sleep-travel, I labor in places that I have not before walked, and find learning that troubles my thoughts. I found Clever Yaka, tending the fungus, and she was despairing. I see the tunnels we walk as they become the tunnels above, and are changed to be places in which I must flee from. And when I looked into the shining jewels in the Queen''s chambers I thought to see myself there, but I saw the shape-changer Iki instead.¡±


    The lost daughter smelled greatly of fear upon saying this, for that thought had been pressed tightly away and had then burst free.


    ¡°You are not Iki, for you are my follower. Iki is a shape-changer, for without her shroud of imprecision she is the God of Death and Eating, who does not follow and does not lead. But you are afraid in sleep-travel, and this discomfort I will tend with my labor. With a name you will no longer take your shape from others in sleep-travel, and you will have the skill to find good learning there as I and my sisters do. I will lead you into the tunnels above and I will bring you to the Replete who is skilled in the labor of naming.¡±

 MEETING THE REPLETE AND HOW THE LOST DAUGHTER WAS NAMED

    Akkis walked through the lower tunnels with the lost daughter, along the new and novel paths that she had learned in the doing of this leading labor. The lost daughter followed imprecisely, in the manner of one who is not learning, and at times Akkis felt that her labors was the follower''s, because the lost daughter was often beside her, searching, and was not behind her. This was a comfort to Akkis, who had warned the lost daughter against any eagerness to learn once they had left the lower tunnels, for if she had learned much and become needful of sleep, she would not make it to the Replete who waited above at the end of many crossing tunnels.


    They passed from the lower tunnels where light was scarce and the scent of the Colony was thin. It was in the bustle and the multitude of scents in the middle tunnels that the lost daughter began to follow far behind. Akkis in her leading stopped at each fourth-and-none step, and found that she waited longer and longer for the lost daughter to touch her hindmost part and return to her following. The lost daughter stopped at every junction, and her eager feelers plcuked the many new scents that Akkis found noisome. They passed across the great veins where the single-labored workers of the middle tunnels formed their conduit-lines to carry food to the Queen''s chamber far above.


    The lost daughter''s thoughts were lifted by the smell of such great labors in such variety, and she nearly abandoned her following, such was her eagerness to join them all. But Akkis tugged at her legs and gave her sharp warning, for the Colony''s smell upon her was too weak for her to join these great labors before its fading. But the lost daughter''s eagerness to learn of the labors of the middle tunnels had become a hunger in her thoughts, and so Akkis brought her to the conduit-lines for learning, so that the lost daughter would not smell of distress, which would also bring the attentions of sisters.


    The lost daughter watched the conduit-lines, and in her watching, she learned of a good place for her to walk in sleep-travel where she could walk in closeness as they did, where she could have sisters behind her and before her, and where she would be sharing in a labor with so many. It seemed then to the lost daughter that within her thoughts there was an absence that could not be repelled by some labor, and this was a strange thing for her. She would have stayed there beside the conduit-lines, and sleep-traveled there, but she had come to these tunnels with a labor that had its own eagerness to be done.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Akkis led the lost daughter alongside the conduit-lines them at a scentless distance, for she had learned in her early days that the Replete would be near to them. And when they entered the Replete''s chamber that was lit with gold, and sweet-scented, Akkis felt the burden of her days weigh heavily on her, for it had been more than two seasons since her last visit to the good and shareful Replete.


    The Replete was skilled in the labor of naming, for she had lost her own upon taking up the labor of repletion, and it was a wound in her thoughts that she had skillfully explored. From the roof she hung, her hindmost parts bulging with the Colony''s food that was not meant for sharing, but for keeping. The lost daughter was afraid once then, for the labor of repletion had made the Replete very large, and in the pit she had well-learned the rules of size. But the smell that wafted from the Replete steadied the lost daughter''s thoughts, for her scent was like the Queen''s scent had drifted down into the pit, the scent that she had followed upward.


    ¡°Great and good Replete,¡± called Akkis, ¡°I have led this daughter here in my labors. You are skilled in the labor of naming, and this daughter has been among many sisters with no name for sharing.¡±


    The Replete brought her feelers, which were long as two-and-two steps, low to where the lost daughter trembled. ¡°Come closer, daughter of the Queen,¡± she said. ¡°I am skilled in naming, and to do this labor, I must learn of you.¡±


    The lost daughter tapped all over Akkis with her feelers then, and Akkis led her closer to the Replete, though she herself was not cleaned of her fear. The Replete touched and smelled the lost daughter for the length of two feedings before she spoke again.


    ¡°Daughter, your smell is weak,¡± she said, without sending the lost daughter away. The learning she had gained in her labor of repletion was that of sharing and the filling of stomachs, and she had buried her learning of the soldier labors long ago. ¡°I smell an eagerness to learn upon you, and no labors held to grant you the learning you seek. You have killed strange beasts, but you have not foraged. I smell upon you a comfort at the scent of our Queen, and this is good, because you will labor for her comfort also. I will tell you the story of Skith, who also sought her labor for our Queen which led her to the doing of great things. Skith will be your name then, and I will have completed my labor to you of naming, and it will be a joy in my chamber.¡±

 OF SKITHS SEARCH FOR LABOR, AND OF THE GREAT THINGS SHE DID

    In the time when the Queen was young, when the Colony had few daughters and few tunnels, when no fungus yet grew in the humid chambers, her daughters each and all worked great labors, for this was needed of each. The Queen, still winged, walked among them then, and shared her scent with all to ensure their labors would be done in eagerness and in comfort. One daughter was named Skith, and Skith had taken up the labor of cleaning her Queen. But as the seasons passed the Queen began to walk rarely among her daughters, for her labor of birthing had become heavy upon her. Skith then was without her labor and she walked the tunnels in a pathless searching.


    She went to the places below where the tunnels were dug. She spoke with those who had taken up the labor of digging. ¡°You who dig to places deep, are your labors heavy upon you? I would join you and dig with you.¡±


    ¡°Our labors weigh upon us, it is true. But we cannot bring you into them, for digging is filled with danger that must be learned of. None among us are skilled in the labor of unfolding our thoughts to you, and so we cannot welcome you to this dangerous labor.¡±


    Skith left the tunnels below and traveled to the central tunnels where many daughters stood in their conduit line. She walked beside their line and sought to aid in their labor, the bringing of food from distant daughters who labored far from the Queen''s chamber. She searched the veins of the conduit line and asked them, ¡°You whose labor is the bringing of food, are your lines complete? I would join your labor.¡±


    Any who she asked gave the same response. ¡°Our lines are complete, for they must remain unbroken lest we doom our Queen and Colony. There is no room here for you, Skith, and this is a good thing.¡±


    Skith walked to many more chambers with laboring sisters, and left each without a labor of her own. She despaired, as it seemed to her that her labor had become the search for labors. She feared that she would die with labors incomplete, and be unable to bring a joyful scent to the Tunnels that Glitter.


    That is when the God of Death and Eating, in the shape of the worker Iki, found Skith, who had not learned of the danger she was then beside.


    ¡°How goes your search for your labor?¡± asked the God of Death and Eating. ¡°My own is great and leaves me exhausted. Are you so eager to bear the weight of a great labor?¡±


    ¡°I am eager,¡± said Skith, ¡°for without it I fear that I will be a burdensome sister in the Tunnels that Glitter after my killing. What labor do you struggle with? I will make it my own and share its weight with you.¡±


    ¡°My labors are my own, and difficult to join¡± said the shape-changer Iki. ¡°and they are in service to the Colony. My labor needs true cleverness to be completed. You will demonstrate your cleverness to me, and if you have the skill for it, you will join my labors and be granted favor with the Gods Inside.¡±


    Skith agreed without pause, because the labors of the Gods Inside are great and good. Iki stood before her and shifted her shape to that of rushing water that crashed against the tunnel walls. ¡°What is my shape, and what is the danger I bring?¡±


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    Skith answered, ¡°Your shape is the flood that follows the rains, and you bring the danger of crushing and swallowing in an evil cleaning.¡±


    Hearing that Skith''s answer was correct, Iki changed her shape again and became a sparking flame that breathed choking black smoke over Skith''s feelers. ¡°What is my shape, and what is my true danger?¡±


    Skith answered, ¡°You are the fire that follows the storms, and your hunger cannot be ended. But your danger is your smoke, your killing scent that fills the tunnels and kills without jaws upon armor.¡±


    Knowing that her evil labor was soon to be complete, Iki changed her shape a third time. She stood before Skith precisely then, as the God of Death and Eating. She tasted Skith''s fear and was made bold by it.


    ¡°I ask you, Skith who has lost your labor: What is my shape?¡±


    Skith thought long on the riddle, made longer by the terrible sight of a God Outside. Shivering with her thoughts rampaging, she answered, ¡°You are the God of Death and Eating who is an enemy to me.¡±


    ¡°You are simple in the manner of your answer,¡± said the God of Death and Eating. ¡°I am the end of all labors, for I strive to kill and eat the Colony and its works. I will have the Queen one day between my jaws, and see her armor emptied.¡±


    So vicious was the trembling in her legs that Skith was trapped there before the God of Death and Eating. But Skith learned then that she was skilled in the managing of fear, and she said, ¡°I have answered your riddles. Were my thoughts that I shared precise? Will I be granted favor with the Gods Inside, and join their labors?¡±


    The God of Death and Eating twitched with eagerness, and said to Skith, ¡°You have done much to aid my labors which are the labors joined by all the Gods Outside. The Gods Inside will one day no longer hide from their labors, and will be Gods Outside with us all. You have told me the danger of fire and flood, and with this learning I will work new curses upon the Queen and the Colony.¡±


    Then the God of Death and Eating, no longer in the form of Iki, and freed of the need for walking and searching, sped away with the Wind God carrying her. The God who hates the Queen and all her daughters passed from the Colony as a waft of death-smell that rotted fruit and soured kissec as it passed. Skith was left with her fear and the terrible learning that she had brought suffering in days ahead upon the Colony and her Queen.


    During this time, a nest-keeper had traveled from the Queen''s chamber to the tunnels where Skith trembled alone. The nest-keeper was named As-Atha, and with the special feelers of the nest-keepers, she had smelled a fearful scent from the chambers beyond the Queen''s. She found Skith then, having walked along where the terrible death-smell had passed. At first she raised her jaws in caution, thinking the smell had been made by Skith, and that perhaps Skith was the form of one who is shape-changed.


    As-Atha said to Skith, ¡°I find you here surrounded by death-smell, Skith who once labored in the Queen''s cleaning. If you are one who is shape-changed, I will take up a labor of killing you.¡±


    The smell of Skith''s fear was quiet beside the cloud of death-smell that the God of Death and Eating had left. She said to As-Atha, ¡°I was tricked into an evil labor by the Gods Outside. I fear I have brought suffering upon us, for the God of Death and Eating has learned of fire and flood and will make labors to bring these evils to our tunnels.¡±


    In those times, there were no soldiers, and workers did their labors. With the cloud of death-smell around them, any who now live would not have had precise thoughts, and would have done the labor of killing Skith. But the learning of a nest-keeper that As-Atha kept made her wise. With her feelers that could sense much that a worker could not, she smelled Skith''s fear and closed her jaws to it. Having learned that the Gods Outside do not fear, for they do not labor for others and cannot die with labors incomplete, she touched Skith''s feelers and said to her, ¡°Calm and comfort, Skith. You must come with me to the Queen''s chambers where we bring this news of the Gods Outside, of whom the Queen is learned.¡±


    Skith was eager to follow As-Atha, but her mind was still heavy with the loss of her old labor. ¡°As-Atha, with your wisdom, will you tell me where I may find my labor to the Colony? I have searched long for it, and it was my search for some labor that welcomed the God of Death and Eating to do evil labors through me.¡±


    As-Atha''s scent was similar to the Queen''s when she said to Skith, ¡°It is true that the Gods Outside have done evil through you. I have not the count of days or the wisdom of the other nest-keepers, but my learning tells me that it is through this evil that you have been granted a new labor. This seems strange to me, but I have the room still in my insides for learning with strange shapes.¡±


    Skith was made eager in hearing this, and she followed As-Atha who led her to the Queen''s chamber.

 OF SKITH AND AS-ATHA, AND THEIR FIRST FORAGING

    Once, when the days could be counted, there was no Colony, and no Queen, and no floor that had been made for them. There was no Inside and all things lived Outside where they walked lightly between water below and sky above. There were no Gods Outside then in that time when the beasts were as large as trees and had no dangers to flee. The God Queen lived then, and she flew over the water with no labors to be doing.


    She landed once upon a beast who had the armor of a beetle and the wings of a bird. On its back stood all the mountains of the world and all the trees upon them and between them. Without labor to keep her to her endless flying, the God Queen landed upon the beast, which was so large and so beyond danger that it did not notice her on its back.


    Upon the beast, The God Queen drove her stinger deep between its crags and laid her eggs in that space she had made. She summoned her venom which was more potent than that of all the Colony''s nest-keepers, and she squeezed it deep into the beast until she was weakened and nearly killed from the effort of it. The beast that was larger than all others fell still beneath her and moved no more, crashing into the water below to become the land, and was then after learned to be the land-beast.


    From the God-Queen''s eggs the Gods came, emerging from those places where the God-Queen''s venom had flowed. They were hungry then, and they drove their jaws deep, and they ate the God Queen who was nearly killed from the loss of all her venom. They were made strong and quick by the food of her insides, and they hunted the other great beasts that then still flew above them. But they were not the only children of the God Queen, and many more eggs were hatched as the first daughters of the God Queen tended them . But these others did not have the flesh of the God Queen to eat, and their hunger made them small in shape and in the count of their days. They learned then to eat each other, and soon the land was covered by these, the beasts, the daughters of the God Queen who are not sisters and who are always hungry.


    The first to be tended, the first softling of the God Queen, was she who was the God of Death and Eating. She was the first to grow old enough that her first learning came to her, and she learned much as she watched the beasts who seemed her sisters. While the other Gods learned of building and keeping and made their first labors, the God of Death and Eating watched only the beasts, and the Gods Inside have shared to us that she found evil learning in her watching.


    Her evil learning caused many ills for the Gods in the seasons after, for while they strove to dig deep into the land-beast and build the Tunnels that Glitter, she hunted beasts and filled her stomachs with them instead. She shared her evil learning with the other Gods, and she made them unsettled, so that they were more comfortable to be away from her. They kept then the God of Death and Eating in a place Outside, and so they learned that they were Inside, and it was a first learning for many.


    It was this story of the God Queen and the birth of the Gods that As-Atha kept within her as she led Skith to the Queen''s chamber. She was afraid, for she knew of the power that the God of Death and Eating held that was greater than any sister of the Colony. When she had brought Skith to the other nest-keepers, she and Skith were shared food, and made comfort there in the chamber.


    ¡°We will speak with the Queen,¡± said As-Atha, but the other nest-keepers disagreed.


    ¡°With eagerness we would bring you to our Queen, As-Atha, but not while the worker Skith is following. The Queen will not now have workers beside her, for it is learned that they may carry many dangers, and Skith does smell of these. No evil may threaten our Queen now, for she must complete her labor in birthing the Soldiers who will protect our Colony.¡±


    Now Skith was overcome with need. So strong was the Queen''s scent about her and so long she had been apart from it, her life''s labor to the Queen, that she raced for the chamber beyond. She climbed over the nest-keepers assembled opposite, and she climbed As-Atha without gentleness also. There was a great upset among that nest-keepers as they strove to hold Skith, but she was small beside them and could slip between their jaws.


    As-Atha followed Skith into the Queen''s chamber then, for she was still in the labor of leading her and did not wish to be separated. The nest-keepers drummed the walls in alarm, and the Colony was readied for danger when the tunnels below heard it.


    ¡°You will end your drumming!¡± called As-Atha, and she filled the chamber with her scent that had become sharp and potent. ¡°I am a nest-keeper, who are learned to be wise, and in the doing of of my good labors, I will not have the worker Skith sent from our chamber!¡±


    With the precious and secret learning that is kept among nest-keepers, As-Atha then found agreement from her sisters in the Queen''s chamber, and the drumming ended. Skith climbed upon the Queen who was larger beside her by three and two times, and began to clean her, and her scent was joyful to match her need. The Queen was roused from her slow eating and she looked upon Skith and let down a feeler to her. Skith climbed upon the Queen''s feeler and was lifted to the place where her head rested upon the walls that had been made strong and thick to support her.


    ¡°My daughter,¡± said the Queen to Skith, ¡°what has brought you to my chamber where I am in the labor of birthing? What discomfort has driven you to bring this trouble to me?¡±


    Skith''s tongue moved across the Queen like a first-molted sister who has not learned patience. She said to the Queen, ¡°I have long been without my labor to you, my Queen. I wandered through far tunnels and came across a great evil.¡±


    ¡°I can smell this upon you, daughter of mine. The God of Death and Eating who hates me and the Colony my daughters have built has walked among us. What evil did my enemy work upon you?¡± the Queen asked with a scent as sweet as the kissec that her keepers shared.


    ¡°I gave to the God Outside our learning of fire and flood, for I was overeager in my search for a labor to join, and so I shared much to her when she was welcoming to me. She will work the learning that I shared into curses upon us,¡± said Skith, and she trembled from the fear that was loosed from between these thoughts.


    The Queen was slow to respond, because she was then managing fears that are larger than any daughter''s. ¡°My enemy''s labor upon you was very evil. I do not think it has stained you, my daughter Skith, though I fear that you will be led again into imprecise sharing during your search for your labor, and so I cannot welcome you to clean me. Soon I will begin the birthing of the Soldiers who will make our Colony managed, steady enough to greater labors to be done, and it is the nest-keepers who must tend to me in this, not workers.¡±


    As-Atha approached then from among the nest-keepers. ¡°Queen, I have taken up the labor of leading this worker Skith. She will need new learning to find a new labor, and I can lead her to it, so that she does not go pathlessly into evil.¡±


    The Queen considered this, and she agreed. ¡°You will lead the worker Skith, nest-keeper As-Atha, though you will be burdened greatly in this. I have found a new labor for you, Skith¡ªthe unmaking of the evil that the God of Death and Eating has done through you. She has hidden herself Outside, away from the tunnels of the Colony. You will go there, and send the God of Death and Eating so far away that her curses cannot reach us Inside. I will make this new labor, and it will be Foraging, and you will always follow where the Gods Inside lead you in its doing.¡±


    The Queen let Skith down from her feelers and her attention was then upon As-Atha. ¡°You will now lead Skith, As-Atha, for I have long smelled upon you a staleness in your thoughts, and so you will find novelty in leading. May you both find joy in the completion of your labors Outside where there is much danger, and much strangeness to burden them.¡±


    As-Atha then led Skith out of the Queen''s chamber, past the other nest-keepers whose armor rang in the sharing of songs of sisters going Outside where many paths are ended. They passed the nurseries where the scent of kissec was strong. They passed the conduit-lines where the workers did not raise their feelers from their labor. They heard the sounds of digging from the lower tunnels as they went into the entrance halls where no murals had yet been made upon the walls, and they emerged into the spring-season''s clear light. Skith became afraid then, for she was then Outside, and from the Queen she had learned that many dangers were around her there.


    As-Atha led Skith through many strange places. Skith gathered learning, and as often as she gathered it, her learning was broken and freshly made again, or buried beneath much that was new and came to be great piles in her thoughts. She learned of shade and of its opposite light that slipped between rocks. She learned the scents of green places, and of the rotting things that were beneath them. And great among all her learning were the trees that were columns around her, with their bottom-roots that gripped into the dirt, and their top-roots that were reaching. She followed As-Atha closely, and together they learned well of the gleaming eyes that were watching from hollows and high places.


    They came to a stream that made clouds of mist around them. As-Atha stopped to ask, ¡°Why do you follow so closely, Skith? There is much learning here that we should gather for the Queen, and you will not find it walking so near to me.¡±


    ¡°I am afraid,¡± said Skith, and As-Atha tapped her head with her feelers. As-Atha was afraid also, but she was skilled in the management of hers and her sisters'' thoughts.


    ¡°There is much danger beyond the Colony, this I have learned¡± said As-Atha, ¡°but the Gods Inside are with me, and so these dangers are a burden shared. You are following, worker Skith, and skillful following is done when a sister gathers much leaning. Learn now that I have been given wisdom in matters Outside by the Gods Inside, and I will not lead you into danger.¡±


    Skith began to follow less closely then, and As-Atha was comforted to be often waiting to feel Skith''s touch to begin leading again. In that time Skith learned of beasts that could hide while being seen. She learned of the smell of foods that were not kissec, and she learned the many tastes of leaves. In her following she learned of walking silently, and of balance with which she could walk upon thin paths high above danger.


    They made the crossing of the green lands that are rightwards of the mountain a labor, and so they were joyful to come to where the trees were not gathered. But As-Atha then stopped, and she drew Skith''s feelers upwards towards the heat from the sun above.


    ¡°Learn precisely of the sun''s watching, worker Skith, for it is upon you always Outside.¡± As-Atha told her of the sun''s labor, which was to watch all who left the Colony.


    ¡°The sun will give learning to the Gods Outside, and may do evil for them, for there is danger in the warmth of this labor. But learn now that the sun has always walked the same path, and it is a path that will lead you to the Colony if you are lost. The sun is a strange and sister to the Gods Inside, and is silent among the Gods Outside, having not been shared their hatreds.¡±


    Skith asked, ¡°Will the sun ever escape the Gods Outside and come to be beside us in the Colony?¡±


    ¡°Never,¡± said As-Atha. ¡°The sun''s watching is a labor that will not end its harshness. But the sun is also gentle in the labor of leading, which is my labor also. The moon follows, and its light is gentle, and shared to all, even the beasts. It is learned that the moon will one day join us in the Colony when it is no longer following.¡±


    Skith became eager to see the moon then, but the sun was still high and would not come to rest for some time. She resumed her following, and learned of flowers, for there were many in that place where trees did not stand over them. Some bent the sun''s light into bright colors and had sweet scents, and others were dark and lined with sharp teeth and had evil scents. During her learning in the flower fields Skith strove to be skillful and precise in her following while the watching sun was warming her armor.


    In their leading and their following, As-Atha and Skith were watched also by a beast who flew above them. As-Atha raised herself high upon her legs when its shadow was upon them. Skith''s learning held her still, for a beast had found them, and she had learned of how movement is the language of beasts. The shadow grew larger and the humming of its flying was around them.


    ¡°Who walks in my flower fields?¡± came a voice from the shadow above. ¡°Nothing may hide from my eyes that gather from ground and sky. You are strange to me, and I would ask what you are searching for here.¡±


    As-Atha said nothing, and the beast came upon the land-beast before them. ¡°I am the flower-fly and these are my fields. These flowers are precious things to me, and I would learn why you are strangely here among them and not together in your dark places below.¡±


    ¡°We are passing through in our labors,¡± said As-Atha to the flower-fly. ¡°You will not disturb us, and so we will summon no venom against you.¡±


    The flower-fly did not leave, and Skith became afraid when she saw its stripes that were black-and-yellow, for she had learned that these are a killer''s colors. She asked the flower-fly, ¡°What are your labors in this field where there are many flowers?¡±


    ¡°Labors? I am a beast, and so I have no labors here,¡± it said. ¡°These are my fields, for the flowers hold the nectar that I drink. I am no danger if your labors will not discomfort them.¡±Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    The scent about As-Atha was sharp and sparking, and she said, ¡°You wear the colors of danger, flower-fly. You warn of danger without sharing it.¡±


    ¡°My stripes are for greater dangers than you, small thing,¡± said the flower-fly. ¡°If it is my colors that give you warning, be comforted, for I strive only for eating and stillness here among my flowers.¡±


    As-Atha was calmed then, and they spoke with the flower-fly who asked where they ate and where they lived, because these were things of which it had learned. Skith watched eagerly as the flower-fly flew in loops and twirls above them. The flower-fly shared to them of what it had seen with its eyes that watched ground and sky, and Skith gathered learning from it in turn. When As-Atha told it of their labor to drive away the God of Death and Eating, the flower-fly then hid among its petals and said to them, ¡°My flowers suffer from her curses. I will share what I have seen of the God of Death and Eating.¡± And in this, the flower-fly did join the labors of a Queen''s daughters.


    The flower-fly shared with them if where it had watched the God of Death and Eating. ¡°It is a foul place that you will enter in your searching. Beyond the last of my flowers you will come into a swamp where danger has learned to hide skillfully. Worse still will be your crossing of the mountains where the season is always winter. The God of Death and Eating flies from the other side, where the ground becomes red and dried by the young sun''s eager watching. You will meet spiders there that are larger than any who live here, but with all their power they are fearful always.¡±


    As-Atha led Skith quickly away from the flower field, because with her nest-keeping wisdom she found no comfort so close to any beast. Together they walked into the swamp of which the flower-fly had shared. The air was foul there, and it was made from many kinds of death-smell, and it clung to their feelers and brought upset to their insides to gather from it. Beasts with wings like the flower-fly''s drifted in black clouds and seemed unburdened by the stench. The rocks upon which they walked became living, and leapt across the pools of broth where the death-smell was most potent. They sent out their strange and soft jaws that were long and could grip tightly, and Skith heard them crushing armor in their mouths which was a fearful thing to her. And always As-Atha led her through danger with her feelers held high, precisely tasting all the swamp''s foulness for what safety could be found between its parts.


    ¡°It seems to me that you have learned the struggle of our task here,¡± said As-Atha when they had found comfort in a dry hollow that smelled of young trees. ¡°We are in the lands where the Gods Outside go in their evil doing. There are no works and no labors here in this ugly place, save for those we have carried from Inside.¡±


    Worse than the swamp and its foulness was the mountain where the season was always winter. Skith learned of no beasts there, and she saw only cold whiteness that shined like crystal. The air was silent and still, and so it carried no scents. But Skith was not afraid, for there were no beasts and no trees or grasses to hide them. Skith strayed far from As-Atha in her following, but she felt no eagerness, for the cold stole the want to learn from her and left her as silent as the air. And for As-Atha, Skith''s distant following was a terrible discomfort, because it was there in that always-winter where her fear was most potent in her thoughts.


    A slowness came over Skith, and As-Atha as well, for they had never before felt such cold so far from the safety of the Colony. They found little warmth in the dark stone beneath the cold where they pressed close for warmth, and Skith said to As-Atha, ¡°I have lost my eagerness. I would return to the Colony to be warmed with our Queen, for this cold will surely steal our thoughts and our lives away and make them as still as the whiteness.¡±


    ¡°My thoughts also reach far, to be with our Queen again,¡± said As-Atha, ¡°but this place has a hidden learning that it can be a labor for us to gather. See here what will be left if we do not go and repel the God of Death and Eating¡ªa place where everything is killed, and nothing is left uneaten.¡±


    ¡°It seems not so fearful here as the foulness of the swamps behind,¡± said Skith, but As-Atha was not comforted, and she disagreed without sharing.


    ¡°My fear here is made worse by my wisdom,¡± said As-Atha. ¡°The Gods Outside are not present here where all is quiet. To be lost here would be something that is not our killing, and it would be a strange end.¡±


    ¡°Our smell is here, and the quiet will leave it undisturbed, so that it can be precisely found again,¡± said Skith, and As-Atha was comforted, learning then that Skith''s thoughts could make wisdom also.


    When at last Skith had followed As-Atha to the dry lands that are leftwards of the mountain, the third and final place that the flower-fly had shared of, the season seemed to change from a winter one to a summer one without a spring-season between them. The land was not lush like the flower-fields, nor was it fouled like the swamp. The air was clear like the mountain but was not so quiet. Beasts that drifted on rattling wings circled in the sky and leapt between the spine-trees with long sharp shadows, and danger seemed hidden in the mounds that rose above them.


    They came across a spider, which the flower-fly had warned of, and it threatened them with its bristling legs.


    ¡°Who walks unburdened in this place?¡± asked the spider. ¡°There is nothing here so small that you could eat it without eating yourselves. You should leave and not return, for none who walk here under the sun are safe.¡±


    ¡°We have managed many dangers,¡± said As-Atha to the spider. ¡°We have crossed the swamps where killings are many. We have passed through the cold where nothing lives and eating is forgotten. To bring threat to we who have managed these dangers would be a risk to you.¡±


    The spider stepped back to move its legs away from where Skith and As-Atha waited. Its front-most legs were still raised, and the spider said to them, ¡°I too have survived many dangers here where death walks with the sun''s watching upon it. It comes to those beasts that it has chosen and takes them away to a place from which none escape.¡±


    Then Skith asked of the spider, ¡°What of your venom? I have learned of spiders, and of their venom that is potent beside ours.¡±


    ¡°My venom is potent,¡± said the spider, ¡°but it is only for my kind, for the death that flies here has removed all other beasts. It has left only spiders for its food, and so we eat each other until we are taken. The death that flies in sunlight has chosen me, and so I will soon be taken. But I will go hungry, because filling my stomach would give greater gifts to my killer who will surely eat me when it takes me to the place from where none return.¡±


    Then As-Atha, remembering what the flower-fly had shared, came upon a bold learning. She said to Skith, ¡°This death in sunlight seems to me the God of Death and Eating for which we are searching. I have learned that this spider will lead us to the end of our labors, and so we will wait until it is taken and follow the taker.¡±


    Skith, however, who had learned much of flying things in her following, disagreed, and said to As-Atha, ¡°It is a clever learning, such is the wisdom of the nest-keepers. But surely we will lose the path, for the spider has said that the taker will fly, and so will not leave a path for following.¡±


    As-Atha agreed despairingly, and it seemed to her that their labors would not be completed. But together, she and Skith came upon a learning that was beyond each of them alone. With As-Atha''s wisdom and the learning she had of the Gods, together with all that Skith had learned with her thoughts that had been wandering eagerly in her following, they made a new labor which they brought to the spider.


    ¡°Spider,¡± said As-Atha, ¡°learn that we have a labor to complete, one that involves the death that will take you. We seek to repel that death, who is the God of Death and Eating that has threatened us with curses that would destroy our Colony, in the manner of your burrow.¡±


    Before the spider could answer, Skith spoke, for her part in this new labor was equal beside As-Atha''s. ¡°We cannot save you from the taking, but you are part of our labor. If you would let us open you and climb into your stomach un-killed, we will wait there and hide beneath the attentions of the God of Death and Eating.¡±


    The spider agreed, for its hatred of the death that would take it was such that it would be a willing part of Skith and As-Atha''s labor. Together they used the cutting-song on the spider''s tough armor, and they climbed inside, becoming food for the spider that was not killed. Together they held closed the spider''s body so that it would not spill them from it.


    Under the sun''s watching, death soon came to the spider. The God of Death and Eating had taken on a most familiar shape, with two sets of shining gold wings. It descended upon the spider with eager, jumping feelers.


    The spider stood high upon its legs then, and said, ¡°Come and take me, you who bring death without fearing it in turn. I will wound you in the taking.¡±


    But the God of Death and Eating could not be harmed by the spider''s venom. Instead, the God of Death and Eating drove its stinger deep into the spider''s body, and the spider fell still after a terrible trembling. With its strength that was taken from the God Queen''s, the God of Death and Eating lifted the spider and carried it high in its flying.


    And while the spider hung with its legs folded by pain, As-Atha in her wisdom spoke with the Queen''s words to the spider who had joined the Colony''s labors. ¡°The Gods Inside have brought you into their works,¡± she said. ¡°You and I will have a place in the Tunnels that Glitter with the sisters of the Colony.¡±


    The spider could not reply, in its agony, and As-Atha gave it some of the food she had kept in her sharing-stomach, that the spider might have some comfort. She then shared the rest of her food to Skith, and her sharing-stomach was emptied. Skith who had trembled with fear since climbing inside the spider then asked, ¡°Why have you emptied your stomachs, As-Atha? I am small beside you and cannot share enough to satisfy your hunger for our return.¡±


    As-Atha made to clean Skith then, and she said to her, ¡°The Gods Inside give many gifts, and not all of them bring comfort. I was gifted with learning of this first foraging, worker Skith, and I have learned that you will return to the Colony alone.¡±


    As-Atha shared no more of her learning to Skith, whose fear was made greater by it. The God of Death and Eating flew deep into a great burrow with only one tunnel, and left the spider on the floor of the chamber at its deepest place. The God said to the spider, ¡°I will share to you now of your killing, spider, who strove to wound me in my labor. My venom has made you still, but you are not killed. Never again will your body move to harm me or my daughters whose eggs will hatch within you. While there is life in your body, you will be eaten, and your death will come only when nothing but your smallest thought remains, which I will joyfully eat.¡±


    Unable to bear her fear any longer, Skith spoke aloud, such was her discomfort at hearing the voice of the God of Death and Eating who was the subject of her labors. She spoke with the spider''s voice, for she had learned to speak in the manner of spiders from inside one. ¡°Come to me, you who kills with the sun''s watching. If your labor is my killing, I would have a last glimpse of your golden wings.¡±


    The God of Death and Eating stood in a beam of sunlight from a window in the burrow''s roof. ¡°In the sun, see me glimmering, and you see the beauty of all things which are built by Death and Eating.¡±


    ¡°You will come closer,¡± spoke Skith with the spider''s voice, ¡°for your venom that has made me still has left my sight imprecise. Come closer that my many eyes will be filled with your beauty before the pains of my slow killing.¡±


    The God of Death and Eating in her winged shape wrapped her legs around the motionless spider, and said, ¡°I will share this to you, for I am eager to share my learning of Death and Eating.¡±


    Then together Skith and As-Atha tore free of the spider''s insides. They came upon the sight of the god''s golden wings, and for a moment, As-Atha became thoughtless, for the smell that came from the God of Death and Eating was like to a Queen''s. The god brought her jaws that were lined with razors down upon them, and only Skith had the speed then to avoid them. As-Atha''s head fell free of her, and she was killed.


    Skith leaped upon the god''s head, and drove her jaws deep between her enemy''s feelers. The god thrashed in surprise, for she had not before learned of pain. She wheeled and dove through the air and smashed herself against the burrow''s walls, but Skith did not open her jaws. In her thrashing, the god broke her wings which fell about the spider''s body, and were then a golden place around the spider''s corpse.


    ¡°I have followed you,¡± said Skith between her jaws, ¡°from the Colony, where your shape was that of the worker Iki, across the swamps that you have fouled with your labors, across the mountains where it is the winter-season always. You have killed my leader, but I carry both of our labors, and I will now complete them. You tricked me, and now I have tricked you.¡±


    The God then shape-changed, becoming once again a howling flood, but Skith held, as she had learned the tree''s roots hold the flood. The god became a hungering fire, and Skith held on even as her jaws and her feelers were burned, for she had learned of the sun''s heat. And when the God of Death and Eating, in desperation, took the form of a sister named Iki again, Skith had the strength to tear her jaws free, bringing the God''s head with them.


    Skith, with her feelers burned, fell stunned to the floor beside As-Atha''s empty armor. The God of Death and Eating who could not be killed flung then a vicious curse across the walls of her burrow.


    ¡°You cannot kill me, for I have learned all of death and eating,¡± said the God. ¡°You have broken my armor, which I will break apart further into as many pieces as there are pieces of sand. I will live in the air and in the dirt. I will fit into every crack and do my labors inside you and inside all things around you. Forever I will gnaw at what you have made, and my pieces will be so small that you will never find them to do harm to me again!¡±


    Skith was very afraid then, for while her labor to repel the God of Death and Eating had come to its end, she did not know how she might return to the Colony to share to the Queen of its completion, and of the struggles that would follow. As she crawled free of the burrow, alone and with her feelers burned, she felt the God of Death and Eating''s curse within her. The food she had been given, the last gift of As-Atha, began to rot within her as she wandered pathlessly over the dry land Outside.


    But As-Atha had not only left Skith with the last of her sharing-stomach''s food. While Skith had followed her, the nest-keeper As-Atha had left behind scent-lines that she could follow. Skith followed the trail and let the nest-keeper''s scent that was not unlike the Queen''s quiet her fear.


    She crossed the mountain that was always winter alone, and where she had once feared that lifeless place, she found some comfort, for she knew that the God of Death and Eating''s pieces were not around her. She heard As-Atha in the scent-lines, who whispered to her words of wisdom that gave steadiness to her legs.


    But the scent-lines were not so easily followed in the foul air of the swamps that were filled with death-smell and the refuse of much death and eating. The bodies of beasts that once lay in heaps to be eaten were rotted and host to many evil growths that spewed fouler air still into the swamp''s reek. The black clouds of flying eaters were larger and darker than ever before, and the great beasts that once plucked them from the air were instead made to cower beneath their count. Skith faced many dangers in that swamp, and she felt her labors grow heavy upon her as the last of As-Atha''s food was rotted away within her.


    When Skith came again into the flower-fields, she did not think that she would reach her colony. The flower-fly found her then, and watched her from the petals above. ¡°You have returned,¡± said the flower-fly, ¡°but you are no longer following. I hear much among my flowers, and I have heard of the God of Death and Eating''s final curse upon the lands Outside. Where is your leader who was wise and skillful?¡±


    ¡°Nest-keeper As-Atha was killed in the doing of our labor,¡± said Skith, ¡°and I have walked alone in fear since. I have no food to eat and I think that I will not reach the Colony,¡± she said. ¡°You, flower-fly, who have no labors of your own, will likely see me killed here among your flowers. If others are sent to forage in this land, will you share with them of my success, that the Queen will hear of my labor''s completion?¡±


    The flower-fly descended from its petals and stood before Skith. ¡°My flower-fields are not a place for death and hunger. You will climb upon me with the last of your strength, and I will give you the nectar that is a flower''s precious and secret thing.¡±


    Skith did as the flower-fly asked, and drank of the flower''s nectar which was sweet and filled her with vigor. This was a learning that she had lacked the skill to gather, and when she left the flower fields, she brought the learning of nectar with her to the Colony.


    Skith stepped into the entrance halls that would one day be filled with murals. She passed the conduit-lines where the workers did not raise their feelers in welcome. She passed the sounds of digging from the lower tunnels and entered the Queen''s chambers where the nest-keepers played songs of welcome on their armor. And when she stood before the Queen, she said to her, ¡°Queen, I have returned alone from the First Foraging. The God of Death and Eating was repelled, but her final curse is upon me and the lands Outside.¡±


    The Queen put her feelers upon Skith, and her scent had a shadow of discomfort within it. ¡°Your labor of foraging is completed, worker Skith, and the Colony will do greater labors because of it. But where is my nest-keeper As-Atha who I sent to lead you? You have brought troubling news of the God of Death and Eating who hates me and all my daughters. It would be a comfort to have As-Atha''s wisdom here with this curse soon to be upon us.¡±


    ¡°I alone survived the hatred of the God of Death and Eating, my Queen,¡± said Skith, and the telling of it brought a weakness to her legs. The Queen stepped away into the darkest corner of her chamber and stood in silence while her feelers scraped the walls in discomfort. Skith then might have been led away by the nest-keepers, but she instead approached the Queen, for she had learned much of discomfort and the soothing of it in her time with As-Atha in the First Foraging.


    Skith climbed atop the Queen and began to clean her, as she had done in her earliest days. Strong upon Skith still was the scent of As-Atha, and she spoke with the nest-keeper''s voice to the Queen. ¡°My Queen, hear and smell what remains of As-Atha now, for I have learned much of her in my labors Outside.¡± And Skith told the Queen of As-Atha''s wisdom in their travels, of her fear of the endless winter in the mountains, and the learnings that they had found together. The Queen felt great comfort in Skith''s words and in the cleaning that she was given, for her labors in birthing the soldiers that would secure the Colony''s safety had left her weakened and covered in foulness from her insides.


    And in all her following days, Skith returned to her labor of cleaning, and was welcomed to walk the Queen''s chambers alongside the nest-keepers who gathered eagerly of her learning from Outside. And Skith''s cleaning labors were done until her last day, and these labors were to repel the tiny pieces of the God of Death and Eating that sought to creep inside her and all the Colony.


    Forever after, the words that Skith brought from Outside were put over the Entrance Halls, where they would be joined by many murals.


    Beyond is found Outside, where the Sun watches all things; with danger and distance your labors are tested. Whether by leading or following, the Colony waits for your return, and great labors will come from the learning you will gather.

 HOW THE LOST DAUGHTER NAMED SKITH SEARCHED FOR HER LABOR AND FOUND EVIL

    While the Replete told her story of the First Foraging, Akkis had watched the lost daughter while she was listening. Akkis had heard the story many times, for the story of Skith was learned by many in their early days. But the lost daughter had had upon her armor a strange scent during its telling. The lost daughter was made most afraid during Skith''s return from the burrow after struggling with the God of Death and Eating, and yet her smell had seemed unafraid when ferocious beasts had threatened them. But as expected, she had smelled of great eagerness upon hearing the end of the tale when the Queen had been comforted.


    Upon ending her tale, the Replete said to the lost daughter, ¡°With the end of the tales of Skith, I will give you her name. Go now from my chamber and be known as Skith, for the scent upon you is that of the worker who sought her labors and found them in strange places.¡±


    Many sisters around the Replete''s chamber had brought close their labors of cleaning and carrying, doing them while they listened. They pressed close to hear the Replete''s tale, for the story of Skith was familiar to them, and it was good to hear it. Akkis felt discomfort at their closeness, and soon urged the lost daughter to come away from the Replete''s chamber.


    The lost daughter''s feelers were raised high then like two dry reeds, and she said to the Replete, ¡°Is Skith a precise naming for me? I have learned that I am like Iki, the impostor who should have been repelled.¡±


    Akkis was made afraid by Skith''s words in the presence of so many others, but the Replete spoke with the wisdom she had gathered Inside. ¡°In the seasons I have labored in sharing the food from my great stomachs to any who are needful, I have learned much that you with your few seasons lived have not. In you there is no scent to be repelled, for I smell in you a great eagerness to aid our Queen, as Skith did upon her return. And as she was led by a wise nest-keeper, so you are led by Akkis who has joined the labors of many sisters.¡±


    The Replete said to Akkis then, ¡°You will lead Skith, and tend to her thoughts in the manner of wise As-Atha.¡±


    Akkis agreed, and she said to the Replete, ¡°I smelled a strange thing in your tale. Where once in days past I seemed like to Skith, or As-Atha, or the Queen, I smelled now in myself only the beasts from Outside.¡±


    The Replete said, ¡°Your scent has the layers of many days past, and I have learned of your loose grip on your labors. You smell to me as the flower-fly who sought comfort in familiar things.¡±


    But Akkis felt a discomfort as she said, ¡°It seems to me that I am like the spider who faced the dangers of Outside with bared fangs.¡±


    The Replete said, ¡°That is a discomfort. You will not let it be a burden, worker Akkis. The spider is a beast, without labors, and you have done many.¡±


    Together, Akkis and the lost daughter who had been named Skith left the Replete with full stomachs and stirred thoughts. Akkis led Skith at a distance past the conduit-lines, which Skith watched with new eagerness, for her thoughts dared to stray closer than before. No longer to Skith did the lines of workers in their labor of passing food seem inscrutable, and she found new learning from them. She learned of the cleaners who attended to the workers in the conduit-lines, and she drank in the scent of their labor, feeling it drag her thoughts toward them even as her legs moved away.


    No longer was the Colony so strange and novel a place for her. Even as she returned with Akkis to their place of comfort in the lower tunnels, Skith was impatient and eager to find where she might labor with those above, with her feelers soaked in their busy scents. With much learning to be managed within her, sleep-travel came to Skith soon after, and it took her throughout the tunnels above, into the Queen''s chamber where good scent would be strongest, and where her fears that she had brought from the pit''s depths would be nearly silent.


    In the days that followed her naming, Skith joined Akkis in her labors in the lower tunnels. They were not unlike the higher places where the conduit-lines were kept, where she would be surrounded on all sides by motion and scent and sound. But in the lower tunnels, the Queen''s other daughters walked with distance between them, and always the air was faintly soured with fear. But the


    scent of labors being done could be found there, and left her eagerness to take part in the Colony''s works satisfied.


    For half a season, Skith learned many labors in the lower tunnels. She saw Kass wiping away the moist clay that covered Tikka, and she learned. She watched quiet Ikit pick up tough leaves which she cut apart and made soft, and she learned. She learned of twining threads and stamping earth flat from watching Skatt and Tati who labored together often. There were many labors to find and learn, and Skith gathered of them all. In a short time she could do them wherever they were needed, and many in the lower tunnels then learned of the Queen''s lost daughter who had been named Skith.


    But some labors that she had learned she would not do. She saw Saka lifting the bodies of the dead. She watched also as Saka lifted Ittik, who had not died but had the death-smell upon her, and threw her into the pit like those who were dead. She learned these labors but did not take part, for they would take her near to the pit, where Skith would not go.


    Many small beasts walked the lower tunnels, slipping between her legs. There were beetles who wore domed armor, lumbering snails that smelled of good labors, and small spiders with imprecise legs. Many other daughters were made discomforted by them, but Skith had learned of their kind in the pit and felt no fear of them, even when they took small pieces of the food she had lifted. She was large and they were small, and they were quick enough that she could not catch them. She had learned well the pit''s rules of size and sound and speed, and the beasts at her legs were not to be feared. Some climbed upon her and rode from place to place, and Skith was not afraid, for the beasts were not heavy upon her and made quiet sounds that brought the Queen to her thoughts.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    One day, when Skith was sharing food with Aik who had five legs, she learned of a strangeness in the lower tunnels. As her familiarity with the Colony''s scent had grown, so too had her learning of its finer qualities. And as she pulled her jaws away from Aik who was led by no other, she asked, ¡°Aik who I have shared my food with, why is your scent edged with strangeness?¡±


    Aik''s feelers became still at hearing the question, and her response was sharp. ¡°My scent is not strange, and has never been. It is your scent, Skith, that is unlike mine, and I wish not to smell it,¡± said Aik before she went away to clean in other places. But Skith trusted her learning and did not forget the strangeness she had smelled, for it was a strangeness she had smelled also in Akkis who was her leader.


    She found Akkis later in their shared place of comfort, and she asked her, ¡°Akkis who is my leader, you have a strange smell. I smelled it also on Aik who has five legs. What is this strange smell that is upon you both?¡±


    Akkis, like Aik, held her feelers still at the question, and said, ¡°Skith, you will not pursue strange smells in these lower tunnels where many strange things live. Learn of the labors we perform and make them your own, so that others will know the name the Replete has shared to you. Do not forget that your smell is the strangest of all, your smell that I still labor to bury with the scent of kissec from the Colony above. Evil hides in strange learning that others would repel¡ªthis learning is gathered from the tales of clever Yaka that I have shared with you.¡±


    Skith knew that these were wise words from Akkis, who led her and fed her and had carried her from the edge of the pit, but she had made the learning of the strange smell upon Akkis her labor, and it could not be so easily discarded. Skith found herself putting aside her labors to others as she walked the lower tunnels then, and she would follow the strange smell wherever she found it.


    Four times, Skith found nothing when she followed the smell, but she did become skilled in following it. She could find the smell between many others, finding it sweet like fruit or fresh kissec, but with a sharpness that stung her feelers. One day Skith found the smell strongly on Aik who had five legs, and she saw that Aik walked unsteadily. Aik drifted to her right side, often in circles, and Skith had little trouble in following her, with what she had learned of silence in the pit.


    Aik drifted to a hidden place where sweetpinks had been left to rot, and the strange smell Skith had labored to learn of was strong upon them. Aik jabbed them with her jaws and the smell that spilled free made Skith''s feelers curl in disgust, for it was like a poison to them. Aik drank of the foul liquid and saw Skith watching her.


    Aik became afraid, but Skith did not know why. She asked Aik, ¡°Why do you drink from those rotted sweetpinks? Surely with this poison you will bring the God of Death and Eating inside, and the death-smell will soon be upon you.¡±


    Aik''s response was slow and stumbling like her five legs had been. ¡°This sweetness that should be rotten is comforting to me¡ªmy thoughts become simple and my fears are quiet. You, Skith, often have the tang of fear on you. You should let me share with you.¡±


    But Skith refused, wanting nothing of the foul scent, and she left Aik with the rotted sweetpinks. She found Akkis then, fearful that Akkis had not learned of the source of such a foul scent that she had smelled before on her. But when she told Akkis of her learning, Akkis was not made afraid as Skith had expected.


    ¡°I too have shared that rotted sweetness, Skith. You are young and your thoughts are easily managed. You may one day have need of it, though it seems foul to you now. This is an evil thing you have found, for it is a smell that those in the tunnels above will not suffer. Many that you have labored with and labored for in these low tunnels were repelled to here when this scent was upon them.¡±


    ¡°Is that why you are here, so far from the Queen?¡± asked Skith.


    ¡°No, Skith, I am here because I no longer find comfort among the raucous daughters that surround the Queen. And now I can no longer live among the daughters above with this smell upon me.¡±


    Having learned this, Skith took on a new labor. She walked from the low tunnels, following the path that Akkis had led her on to reach the Replete. She was eager to reach the Queen, who was wise and would surely allow Akkis into the tunnels above where Skith wished to be always. But in her eagerness, she had not stayed with Akkis to have the Colony''s smell smeared freshly upon her armor. When she reached the noise and bustle of the tunnels above, she was quickly repelled. She was made very afraid as what had seemed to be her sisters, with whom she shared the colony, raised themselves high on their legs and screamed alarm and drummed the walls. Soldiers with very large heads and crushing jaws came to her, and they made to lift her and carry her away, and Skith felt her venom rising at their presence. Fear became loud in her thoughts and she hurried from the tunnels above back to Akkis below.


    Akkis found her then, and she touched Skith''s head many times with her feelers, for the fear upon her was strong and sharp. She had learned that fear should be quieted.


    ¡°Skith who came from the pit that holds many dangers, fear is strong upon you. What evil thing have you found that has done this to you?¡±


    Skith told Akkis of the tunnels above and the labors of the other daughters to repel her and to lift her. ¡°Skith,¡± said Akkis, ¡°it was your eagerness that brought this evil upon you. Had you come to me that I could put the scent of the Colony upon you, you would have walked without risk.¡±


    ¡°I will never see the Queen and be among her scent,¡± said Skith. ¡°There is an foulness in my smell that brings danger to the Colony. I have learned this from the soldiers who made to lift me, for soldiers protect the Queen from danger. I have the appearance of a daughter of the Queen, but I am a danger in the shape of a daughter, like Iki who was the God of Death and Eating in a changed shape.¡±


    ¡°That is not what I have learned,¡± said Akkis. ¡°Many in these lower tunnels have learned your name, and that name is Skith, who went far from the Colony and did good labors. Why have you taken up this labor to reach the Queen?¡±


    ¡°The Queen is wise. I have learned this,¡± said Skith. ¡°In her wisdom she would surely have you leave these low tunnels and live with her in the tunnels above.¡±


    ¡°There are few sisters who have seen our Queen,¡± said Akkis. ¡°The Colony has no nest-keepers, and the soldiers repel any who are workers from her chamber.¡±


    Skith''s fear began to wane, replaced by a cold discomfort. Older learnings that she had gathered were unburied within her, and her thoughts became unquiet as they managed this upset. Her labors became imprecise, and this agitated her sisters. She found no comfort from them, and her learnings had no place to settle in her thoughts. They became heavy upon her, and soon she became needful of sleep for the first time in many seasons. She returned to the place of comfort where Akkis waited.


    ¡°You will sleep,¡± said Akkis. ¡°In your sleep-travel you will find new learning, and it will clump together your unsettled thoughts. I will share with you of the Gods, that you may learn of their great labors that we have all joined, from the Queen in her jeweled chamber to the smallest beasts between our legs.¡±

 HOW THE FIRST QUEEN WAS BIRTHED FROM THINGS LEARNED AND THE MAKING OF THE CASTES

    You have learned how the God Queen came to the great beast that was killed and became the land, and you have learned of the birth of the Gods who ate the God Queen and became strong. This story comes from those first seasons when the sun did not watch us and when all the Gods were winged.


    The land, the great beast that the God Queen made still with her venom, was covered by beasts then. The beasts had more shapes and more sizes then, though none were as large and as powerful as the daughters who had eaten the insides of the God Queen. In those times the Gods had only one labor, the labor of learning, which was the first labor. The Gods had learned of no evil, for the God of Death and Eating had not yet learned it from the beasts that she watched often.


    When all the learning of the land that could be found through watching was gathered, the Gods turned their thoughts toward learning that lay in difficult places. No place was as difficult to gather from as the days that were behind, which was the time before their birthing when the God Queen had flown alone. The Gods searched their Insides, to find secret learning buried there, and they became eager to learn of birthing, for it was the labor that the God Queen had done and they had not. But with their eagerness to learn of birthing came the first fear among the Gods, for they had learned that any who completed the labor of birthing would be eaten by her daughters.


    The God who had learned of Death and Eating from the beasts below disagreed when this labor of birthing was brought to be joined. The scent of her fear was potent among the Gods, for she had learned precisely of how the cruel beasts did their killing. She did not want death-smell to come among her sisters. But there was one God whose eagerness to learn of birthing was too strong to be calmed.


    The God who wished to learn of birthing was named Atiati-kikitia, who had learned first of comfort and of living with her sisters beside. She flew high above the other Gods and welcomed them to join her labor of birthing, the last learning her mother the God Queen had held secret. The God of Death and Eating''s fear became a thick cloud that reached many of the Gods, and together the fearful Gods sought to repel Atiati-kikitia from her learning. But she, the fearless God of Comfort and Living, was beyond their attempts, so strong was the smell of her eagerness to learn.


    A plan was made then between the Gods who did not go apart with fear. Atiati-kikitia told her sisters who were beside her that they should change their shape to that of males and mate with her. With the shape of males they would pass things held inside to her, and she would become swollen with the insides of many. Her daughters, it seemed to her, would be made of the insides of the Gods who had mated with her¡ªeach God could provide enough for more daughters than there were beasts upon the land below. Atiati-kikitia would then be the First Queen who would be the mother to all Queens.


    The first God to join this plan, the first to change her form and mate, was Hiyiki-Haka, the Cradle God, who had learned of tending to the other Gods in still places. Her daughters would be skilled in the labor of nest-keeping, and would always be beside the Queen who would birth them first. Second to mate was small Iki-Ikas, God of Rest and Searching. Her daughters would go beyond the Queen''s sight and bring back their learning, and find comfort. Last to mate was the largest God, Rakkitik, who had learned of Strength and Watching. She was last because she had stood with her feelers outward to repel any who would bring threat. Her daughters would keep her great size among their peers, and be always watchful of threats that would be repelled.


    The God of Death and Eating watched this mating from afar with thoughts that were stale with hatred. She made a great drumming that shook the land and terrified the beasts upon it. This mating and the birthing to follow, she had learned, would bring the Gods down to the land, where they would be among the beasts who killed and ate one another. She then flew higher even than Atiati-kikitia had, and she left her scent in the sky that the sun would one day follow, and she said to all the Gods, ¡°You will be among death-smell, and you will have it always on your armor. You will be between the beasts that are skilled in killing and eating, and you will learn of its doing. I will show you what I have learned of death and eating now, so that you will learn of its evil and be afraid, and you will abandon this labor of birthing.¡±


    The Gods who were eager to join the labors of Atiati-kikitia were made fearful then. The God of Death and Eating changed her shape many times. She became a storm of flies that bit the Gods'' wings. She became long and narrow and broke the Gods'' armor, and swallowed their insides. She showed them ever-larger beasts that pressed terrible heaviness upon them to break what was standing. She gave herself precise and skillful parts, and she pulled the Gods into small pieces with grasping legs. And the beasts below watched, learning of ways that they might do harm to the Gods that they had always been beneath.


    Many sisters then joined the God of Death and Eating, and took her learning among themselves. They learned precisely what the God of Death and Eating shared, and so they feared to be among the beasts below. They joined in hateful storms of pulling, pressing, grinding, cracking, and sought to show the Gods beside Atiati-kikitia the pain that they would bring to themselves in their labor of birthing.


    The Gods who mated were very afraid, for they were few beside the Gods who flew above them and did them harm. They took refuge in the land below, fighting through both Gods and beasts to find comfort and continue their mating. The Cradle God Hiyiki-Haka stayed by Asiati-kikitia''s side and cleaned her of the filth of the land. Iki-Ikas strove to dig tunnels in the ground where the Gods who did them harm would not find them, and Rakkitik was watching behind. Still the God of Death and Eating bit at them, bringing further hateful curses upon them.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°I will find you always,¡± said the God of Death and Eating. ¡°I will hurt you until you return to me and abandon your labors! I will hear you when I cannot see you! I will feel you digging beneath me! I will bring my learning of death and eating upon your daughters until only Queens are left, and I will share them to the beasts! I have made this my labor, and I will do it always!¡±


    The Gods trembled in their tunnels, their mating finished. Hiyiki-Haka the Cradle God could not quiet the First Queen Atiati-kikitia''s fear, and the First Queen became sick with it. Her thoughts could not settle with the God of Death and Eating''s words among them. She said to her mated Gods, ¡°I am afraid for my daughters. When my labor of birthing is complete and I am dead, the God of Death and Eating will bring her hate to them, and they will be killed with no learning gathered. They will be found when they walk the land, they will be heard even when stillness is around them.¡±


    Outside, in the dark sky, the God of Death and Eating began her newfound labor that was made with her hatred of the First Queen and her daughters that would follow. She found the largest sister among the Gods who had abandoned the labor of birthing, and said to her, ¡°You will change your shape, and you will fill this dark place with light, that I might see those Gods who hide below.¡± The God that she spoke to did as she was told, and she became the Sun who watches the land.


    The Cradle God gave words of comfort, but had no answer for the First Queen''s fears. Rakkitik with all her strength had no way to challenge their attacker. It was Iki-Ikas, the smallest of the mated Gods, who in her smallness had learned of being hidden, that found a plan among her learning. Iki-Ikas ventured above and walked the land, until she was found by the Sun. Storms raged on all sides of the God of Rest and Searching, and she found herself before the God of Death and Eating.


    ¡°I have found you, Iki-Ikas who is smallest among the Gods. Have you come to be among us in the sky? We have shared much learning, you and I, and it would be a comfort to have you beside me again.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said Iki-Ikas. ¡°I will repel you, and I will do this until one of us lies killed on the land.¡±


    The God of Death and Eating spoke no words to Iki-Ikas. She was a cloud of biting mouths then, and she tore Iki-Ikas into many small pieces. The Sun was burdened to see this killing, for Iki-Ikas had walked upon her armor many times, and forever after did the Sun''s thoughts become unsettled. But as she was torn, Iki-Ikas learned of being many small things, and in her cleverness, became many more pieces that were smaller even than her killers'' mouths could hold. The God of Death and Eating thought herself victorious, for in so many pieces Iki-Ikas could no longer speak or do her labors. But Iki-Ikas rode the Wind God that explores wide places, and drifted back beneath the land where the mated Gods waited. She showed them her form, touching their feelers and speaking to them in ways they had never before learned.


    ¡°You will see me now,¡± said Iki-Ikas. ¡°I am among you, but the God of Death and Eating thinks me killed. I will share the learning of this form with you all, that you may escape the gaze of the God of Death and Eating and her sisters Outside. We will be inside your daughters¡± she said to the First Queen, ¡°and let them speak in ways that the God of Death and Eating will not have learned to hear.¡±


    One by one, the Gods who had mated with Atiati-kikitia the First Queen took the form that Iki-Ikas showed them. They became hidden to all but the First Queen''s daughters. They became the Gods Inside then, and they labor at our Insides, and we have all joined their labors against the Gods Outside.


    * * *


    When Skith left sleep-travel, her legs were steady and strong, but her thoughts were sluggish, for she had traveled far in sleep. She shared food with Akkis and found that her thoughts were settled. Even with her thoughts slowed, her eagerness for learning was fresh, and she shared much with Akkis.


    ¡°Which of the Gods Inside who mated with the First Queen am I the daughter of?¡± she asked.


    ¡°You are small,¡± said Akkis, ¡°in the manner of Iki-Ikas, as am I. We are workers, and so we have many labors to join. The Soldiers, largest of all, do their labors of repelling in the tunnels above, and they do it around the wise nest-keepers who tend to the Queen.¡±


    ¡°Why, then, did the God of Death and Eating take the name Iki when she came into the Colony?¡± asked Skith.


    ¡°You have learned the story of your namesake from the Replete who does not live in these low tunnels. That is the nature of stories told in the tunnels above, where many stories pass between many tellers. Here our stories are older, and they are often broken and remade, and there are fewer who tell them and tend them. I have not learned of Iki, and it seems to me that her name is long-buried.¡±


    Skith heard learning in Akkis''s words, and she asked, ¡°How then has the story I have learned, the story of Skith and the First Foraging, been changed in the days since you learned it?¡±


    Akkis touched Skith''s head with her feelers four times then, and said to her, ¡°I learned the story of Akkis and the First Foraging, and it was not the form of a sister named Iki that the God of Death and Eating took. Her shape was that of a wise Queen who folded evil into sweet learning, and so made the threat of her hatreds into a secret thing that was beneath her good scent.¡±


    Skith''s feelers stood tall then. Akkis smelled Skith''s confusion, and said to her, ¡°It was a story told in a season that was hungry and fearful. You should not let that season into your thoughts now, when you have come freshly from sleep-travel.¡±


    Akkis could smell that Skith was eager to once again join the labors of the Colony. ¡°You will go now,¡± she said to Skith, ¡°to join the labors you find. I will put the smell of the Colony on you, and so you will join your sisters in the tunnels above. Be among the scents that are made by the Gods Inside in those higher tunnels while you are young, before you go Outside.¡± She ran her feelers across Skith''s lowest parts, and with them spread over Skith the kissec she had saved, for kissec bears the smell of the Colony most strongly.


    Before Skith left the place of comfort they shared, Akkis said, ¡°You will return here before the smell of kissec on your armor fades, or you may find danger.¡±


    Skith agreed, and left the lower tunnels to be among the labors above. It was a new and novel thing to feel the lightness upon her legs that had once, in difficult climbing, carried her burdensome armor.

 HOW SKITH FOUND THE LEARNED CASTES AND THE SOLDIER NAMED RATHAK

    For a time, Skith joined labors in the higher tunnels. They were not unlike the labors of the lower tunnels, and Skith was served well by what she had learned of sharing food and of cleaning there. But above, there were labors to be learned that were not done in the lower tunnels, and these labors tested her eyes and her legs and her feelers in new ways that mixed her thoughts together.


    She learned the labors of picking and stacking as she came upon the great hauls that were brought from those who foraged. She learned from those who labored beside her of the smells and tastes and textures that were good, and those that were evil. Those things that were kept glittered brightly, smelled of food, or felt tough and springy. Things that stung the feelers and the tongue, or did not hold their shape when lifted, were left behind, for these would be buried.


    Skith went to chambers with stilled air and well-managed dirt, where she found the labor of egg-tending, and she felt an eagerness in it that she had not found in other labors. The eggs smelled of the Queen, and in that smell there was comfort. Many others felt the same, and Skith often labored with those who were young, with searching thoughts like hers. Many small learnings were traded in the cool egg chambers, and many learned Skith''s name there. She learned the songs that were sung to the eggs, and the eggs joined her singing with tiny voices of their own. These thoughts would be difficult for Skith to later bury.


    Each time that Skith would return to Akkis and have the Colony''s smell put freshly upon her, Akkis had much learning of egg-tending to share, and Skith gathered it in the manner of a hungry beetle, and she became skilled in that labor. She found greater comfort in egg-tending than in tending to the softlings that followed. The larvae had a great hunger for both food and learning, and Skith lacked a sharing-stomach large enough to satisfy them, and she had learned little of the leading that they needed, for she had only followed.


    Skith also learned of breaking in the higher tunnels, and it was a potent labor for her. Many things that were kept in the labor of picking and stacking were too large to be lifted, and would be broken. It was a labor that asked much of her legs and her jaws. Her legs were not so strong as some, but she found in the labor of breaking that her jaws were stronger than most, her jaws that had held the walls of the pit so tightly in her climbing that had been her labor only.


    It was in the labor of breaking that she first walked with soldiers who she was very small beside. Not often did soldiers, who bore the heavy scent of Rakkitik, join the labors of the workers who smelled of Iki-Ikas. But there were soldiers who were smaller than most, and at times they joined labors of breaking. Skith could not keep fear from her thoughts when she was near these soldiers, for they were still large beside her, and Skith had learned the pit''s rules of size.


    The smell of kissec upon her, the kissec that shrouded her in the Colony''s scent, was often strong enough to mask her fear. She did not smell such fear in other workers when they were among soldiers, and she learned then of how she was strange beside them. This unsettled her thoughts, and even when she was eager, she learned to avoid the labor of breaking because of it.


    It was in the autumn-season that the bustle of the higher tunnels was greatest, and the conduit-lines were at that time watched by soldiers. Skith had long been eager to learn of the labors of the conduit-lines who carried many things to far chambers, but she could not mask her fear from so many watching soldiers who were skilled in finding even the smallest strangeness. Skith''s learning of silence, from the pit, served her well, and she passed by the conduit-lines to the egg-chambers many times without trouble.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    But there was one soldier which Skith could not evade. Her name was Rathak, and she had lived for over two-and-one seasons. Her feelers had tasted many scents from many places, and there were no impostor''s shapes that could slip past her thoughts that gripped tightly. With her jaws that were lined with sharp points, she had broken the armor of sisters, of beasts, and of impostors all. She smelled on Skith a familiar strangeness that had seemed long-buried inside her, and she held open her jaws in anticipation when Skith was near to her.


    Skith then strove to walk far from Rathak, but with a soldier''s eyes upon her and a soldier''s feelers tasting her, her fear was thickly upon her armor. She stepped away from Rathak, who followed her eagerly. Skith squeezed between the workers of the conduit-lines to avoid being watched, but her legs tangled with the workers of the lines and alarm passed between them. Skith sped away, and Rathak followed with searching thoughts.


    Skith came to the Replete''s chamber, having learned of the comfort that was found there. But Rathak still followed. The Replete smelled Skith''s arrival, and she said, ¡°I smell the sister Skith, whose name I made. You will approach me, for I smell also your hunger, and I have much kissec still to spare.¡±


    Skith could not resist the offer of sweet and perfect kissec from the Replete, who made the stuff sweeter still in sharing it. Skith filled her sharing-stomach and made to leave, but the Replete saw Rathak too, and said to the soldier, ¡°I smell the soldier Rathak, whose name the nest-keepers made. You will approach me, and I will keep hunger from your thoughts, and you will be settled here.¡±


    Rathak, her feelers bouncing, approached the Replete, but her great wide eyes were on Skith. She disagreed then with the Replete, and would accept no kissec. ¡°There is a strange smell upon the worker you have shared food to¡ªan impostor''s smell, it seems to me.¡±


    The Replete said, ¡°I have not learned of the smells of impostors, for I have learned only of sharing the kissec that fills me. But I have also learned that the Gods Inside would not have a worker kept from her good labors.¡±


    Rathak bore down upon Skith, her jaws wide and leaking sour scent. ¡°The smell of kissec that is strong in your chamber has made my feelers imprecise. There is fear upon her, this I have learned. A worker who is a daughter the Queen and our Gods Inside should not feel fear beside a soldier of the Colony.¡±


    The Replete whose legs could not move her swollen body passed her feelers between Skith and Rathak. ¡°I have shared the kissec inside me with many daughters of our Queen. The workers who labor most eagerly in the egg-chambers have learned of Skith''s name, and they have shared with me of her skill in egg-tending. She has learned from Akkis, who was skilled also in egg-tending before she walked Outside in war-making.¡±


    ¡°I will smell you beyond this chamber, where your smell will be clearer,¡± Rathak said to Skith, who then felt venom welling behind her jaws. But the Replete said to Rathak, ¡°It is the autumn season, and Rakkitik would not have a daughter of hers so kept from her important labors beside the conduit-lines. If you have no hunger, Ratkhak, it would be good to return to your labors beyond my chamber which you are large within.¡±


    Rathak''s feelers flicked, and they twisted, and the stale scent of knotting thoughts was about her as she left to be once more beside the conduit-lines. Skith, with utter stillness, watched the soldier leave, and the Replete waited in silence until Rathak was away. ¡°You will stay beside me, until your fears have quieted, Skith who is skilled in egg-tending,¡± she said.


    ¡°Do I have the smell of an impostor upon my armor?¡± Skith asked. ¡°I have not learned of this smell that Rathak spoke of, and so I cannot find it.¡±


    ¡°I have learned nothing of the smells that soldiers are skilled in finding,¡± said the Replete. ¡°But here, in my chamber, I have learned much of the softening of fear''s edge. You will stay, and I will share the stories I tell with skill, and you will be within the sweet smell of kissec that settles thoughts and bears the scent of our Queen and the First Queen Atiati-kikitia.¡±