by C. T. Rwizi
“Something so important . . .” Isa bites her lip while she thinks about it. “Somewhere no one can get to, perhaps even somewhere I myself couldn’t get to once I put it there, in case I was later coerced into finding it.”
The Arc offers her the ghost of an approving smile. “And that, Your Majesty, is precisely what happened. The young mystic who was given charge of the Diamond after its creation hid it in such a place as you’ve described, and you happen to be standing right next to it.”
Isa’s eyes fall to the water. “You mean this pool?”
“This isn’t just a pool. This is a one-way portal to a chamber in the temple’s innermost courtyard, a repository of powerful knowledge and artifacts that must remain hidden until such a time that they must be found—such a time when someone with the key to that chamber arrives.”
The Arc begins to walk around the edges of the pool, dragging one scarified hand along the low wall and the pillars. His eyes gleam longingly in the water’s pinkish glow. He stops and stares at Isa from across the pool.
“To destroy the curse, a mystic who holds this key must retrieve the Diamond from the chamber, but the rules are such that whoever this mystic is, they cannot be coerced into doing so. Retrieving the Diamond must be something they unquestionably want to do, or the chamber will not reveal it to them.”
Isa braces herself, sensing she’s about to learn what heavy price she will have to pay. “Do you possess this key, Your Worship?”
What do you want for it?
“I do not.”
Confused, Isa frowns. “Oh?”
“But I know someone who does. The first part of your task will be . . . manipulating him into retrieving the Diamond for us.”
Isa blinks. “Manipulating, Your Worship?”
“The inner sanctum contains millennia’s worth of knowledge, Your Majesty,” the Arc says, his eyes flashing. “Dangerous knowledge, and this individual holds the key to it. Our only advantage is that he is not aware of what he holds, because if he were, we would all be in grave danger. So yes, he must be handled deftly.”
A game piece on a board can do nothing but accept what is given to it. I came to him thinking I was taking control of my destiny, but what if I’ve been maneuvered here? “And the second part of my task?” Isa says, so quietly she almost doesn’t hear her own voice.
The Arc gazes at the pool for a good long while, and Isa could swear she can sense him convincing himself to say what he says next: “You will have to die, Your Majesty. It is the only way to destroy the Covenant Diamond.”
39: Musalodi
On the Way to the World’s Vein—Kingdom of the Yontai
Salo is rummaging through Mukuni’s saddlebags for his medical supplies when the ferrywoman and her sons return from belowdecks looking rather peeved. While her sons set up their musical instruments, the ferrywoman scans the deck thoroughly, marks the new passenger with a hard gaze, and then frowns at Salo in a way that would have killed him were frowns given to such a thing.
She seems even more incensed as she glares at his shards, which are still making up for the large stream of processed arcane energy he borrowed from the future when he cast the lightning barrier.
He breathes a sigh of relief when all she does is shake her head resignedly and join her sons. Soon their music summons a waterbird spirit to power the ship into motion.
“Now I understand why they didn’t want us around,” Salo mutters as he crouches next to Tuk with his bag of medicines. “They probably knew what was coming.”
Tuk has slumped against a crate on the main deck. He’s trying to stanch his bleeding arm with the other hand, but it isn’t quite working. A worrying pallor has washed over his skin. He gives a wan smile. “Meh, I don’t pity them. They could have at least warned us.” He glances at Salo’s glowing shards with a questioning look. “Are you still casting spells?”
“Technically,” Salo says as he wipes his hands with a moist disinfecting reedfiber cloth from the bag, “I’m drawing essence for spells I’ve already cast.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I have one ring,” Salo explains. “I couldn’t have cast that barrier without accessing a larger pool of energy.”
“So you took it from the future?” Tuk says, sounding incredulous. “That’s actually possible?”
“If you build your Axiom right, it is. Gives you one devil of a headache, though. Also means I can’t cast spells until the debt is paid.” With his hands clean, Salo sets the cloth aside and leans to take a closer look at Tuk’s injury. “I’m no healer, but I can dress it for you. I need to check for alchemical poison, though. Do you mind lifting your hand?”
Tuk shies away, still clutching his wound. “Don’t worry. It’ll heal. Atmechs are supposed to be weak, docile, and pretty, but we’re built to recover quickly from abuse. That way our masters can knock us about if they like.”
Salo holds his gaze for a long moment. “I’d rather treat it anyway.”
At this Tuk smiles, but his eyes remain stormy and threatening. “But I’m not weak. Not anymore. I’m strong now.”
“You’re very strong, Tuksaad, maybe the strongest person I’ve ever met, but you’re not indestructible. Let me dress that wound before it gets infected, all right? You might even be poisoned for all we know.”
A startling flash of red visits Tuk’s eyes for the briefest instant, but then he catches himself and shakes it off. His shoulders slump; he leans back against the crate and nods. “All right.”
Salo begins by scanning the wound with his talisman. Tuk watches curiously as the red steel serpent rears its head and flashes its crystal eyes at the wound, subsequently producing a mirage of diagnostic information above Salo’s wrist. Nimara would have known exactly how to interpret every line on the chart; Salo understands only those sections relating to infection and poisons.
At least he thought he did. Now he’s not so sure.
“Let me know if you need help,” comes Ilapara’s voice.
Salo glances in her direction and sees her settling down on a crate nearby with a waterskin in one hand. A sheen of sweat slicks her forehead. One of her long red dreadlocks has peeked out of her veil—the first Salo has seen of her hair—and some of the kohl on her eyes has been smudged. Besides this, she got away from the battle with barely a scratch. Now her hawkish gaze won’t stray from the newcomer. The Asazi, however, doesn’t seem bothered at all as she strolls around the deck, studying the ship with visible curiosity.
“I think I’ll manage,” Salo says, returning to the mirage.
“If you say so,” Ilapara replies distractedly.
Salo squints at the mirage, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. He thinks Tuk has been poisoned with a particularly virulent alchemical toxin, but the levels of toxicity seem to be ticking down quite rapidly, which shouldn’t be possible without strong spells of Blood craft.
“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” he says. “Hang on a second.” Following a hunch, Salo commands the talisman to scan the wound for active prose and is quite shocked when a window of rapidly shifting ciphers appears in front of him. “Dear Ama,” he gasps.
“What is it?” Tuk says.
“You have prose running in your blood, Tuk, and it’s . . . purging the poison on its own. This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Tuk flashes a sly grin. “Why, thank you. I get that a lot, actually.”
Ilapara snorts. “You’re so full of yourself.”
“The universe is not kind to the timid, my dear Ilapara,” he says with a smirk. “One must be confident in one’s own assets.”
“A big ego is one of yours, I see.”
“Yes, and uncommon beauty is another,” Tuk says, which makes Ilapara roll her eyes.
Still mesmerized by the ciphers displayed in the mirage, Salo shakes his head. “Your blood has so many built-in charms I’m not sure there’s anything that could make you sick.”
Tuk blinks at him wit
h green eyes. “I did try to tell you.”
“We’ll dress the wound anyway,” Salo decides and sends his talisman to sleep. He begins by wiping the gash with a cloth soaked in one of Nimara’s antiseptic tinctures. Tuk hisses in pain the instant it touches him, which makes Salo smirk. “The pain will go away when I apply the flesh-knitting salve.”
“That would be much appreciated,” Tuk says and then sighs, stretching his feet out in front of him. “But I deserve this for letting myself get distracted.”
Salo feels a blush spreading down his cheeks. “That was my fault. I shouldn’t have . . . shrieked like that.”
“No, I should have paid more attention to my surroundings. A mistake like that in the heat of battle can easily become the last you ever make. Unacceptable. I have to do better.”
“You handled yourself well, in my opinion,” Ilapara says, echoing Salo’s thoughts. “You must have killed, what, twice as many of those things as I did? And your footwork is amazing. What kind of weapons are those swords of yours, anyway?”
“Flashbrands.” Tuk splays his hands to show the fancy golden rings on his middle fingers. They are different from each other in design, though Salo senses magic-infused cores of moongold in both rings.
“They’re Void weapons,” Tuk says, “with a little illusion and lightning mixed in. They can take a range of different shapes, and the best part is they weigh almost nothing.”
“More specimens of Higher technology, I presume,” Salo says.
“Probably the most iconic,” Tuk says. “Flashbrands are status symbols in the Enclave. You’re not a proper aristocrat if you don’t own one.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at them at some point.” When Tuk’s eyes dim somewhat, Salo begins to walk back his request. “It’s fine if you don’t—”
“No, it’s not,” Tuk cuts in. “You can look at them whenever you want. I insist.”
Clearly there’s a story there, but Salo decides not to pry, and so does Ilapara.
For a time, Tuk watches the Asazi as she inspects the vessel’s wing structures across the deck, and then he says, “So you communed with the Lightning Bird, huh. How’d that go?”
Salo sets the bloodied cloth aside and starts applying the healing salve, smiling when Tuk releases an almost comical groan of relief. “I know how the waterbirds work now.”
“You do?”
“There’s an immensely powerful mind stone at the bottom of the lake. It’s home to the Impundulu and many lesser waterbird spirits. Powerful enough to move ships even from hundreds of miles away.”
“But what did you see?” Ilapara says, joining the conversation. “And why the devil did you jump?”
“I don’t remember jumping,” Salo says. “I remember falling asleep, and then I had this dream . . .” His cheeks flame at the memory of that dream. Was it why he jumped? “Anyway, I’m not exactly sure what I saw down there. It was a story about the Lightning Bird. He was a king, I think? And then there was a war and a princess of the stars—” He stops talking when he sees Tuk wincing and rubbing his temples with his good hand. “What is it? Is it the poison?”
Tuk shakes his head. “Just a headache. Sorry, were you saying something?”
“I was telling you about the visions I saw in the lake. There were stars and—Tuk? Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I think I’m getting a migraine,” he says.
“Ugh, me too.” Ilapara tilts her head back, pressing the flats of her palms against her eyes. “By Ama, I can feel it throbbing behind my eyeballs.”
“Must be an echo of what I’m feeling,” Tuk complains. “Like someone’s raping my skull or something.”
“Not a pretty image, Tuk,” Ilapara says.
“Not a pretty headache, Ilapara.”
A familiar uncanny feeling sinks into Salo’s bones. He stops tending to Tuk’s injury and watches the others closely. “Do you recall what we were just talking about?”
They blink, both looking confused. “That’s weird,” Tuk says. “I must really be tired.”
“What were we talking about, actually?” Ilapara asks.
“I don’t remember either,” Salo says, returning to the injury on Tuk’s arm.
When he’s done with the salve, Ilapara offers to wrap the dressing. He agrees and steps aside, and though he keeps it off his face, his thoughts are now troubled.
By now both suns have cleared the horizon. A new day in the same old world, and yet it has never felt more alien to Salo.
What does it mean that he can know things others can’t? What is it that makes them forget? What did those visions mean?
“A question, Salo.” Alinata has snuck up behind him.
He turns around, instantly held captive by her intense hazel gaze. “Go on,” he says.
Alinata is the queen’s apprentice, the envy of every Asazi her age, and she oozes it. Salo can feel just how deeply her bones draw from the queen—so deeply she’s probably as powerful as any mystic of middling ability. She also has one of those faces no formula for beauty can conceive, only a happy accident of birth.
A weapon, that face of hers, designed to ensnare and disarm.
“I’ve seen the skill nexus you hid in your workshop,” she says. “By all accounts it should have taken your mind the first time you used it. Why didn’t it?”
An ambush. She wants to see how I react. “And how is it you were in my workshop, Si Alinata?”
“Please, Alinata will suffice. And I searched your workshop soon after your awakening. Queen’s orders, of course.”
“Of course.” Salo considers his options and decides that being honest won’t hurt. “I suppose the secret to the skill nexus is wanting what it offers so badly you’re willing to die for it. Bit of a paradox in that way; you’re less likely to die if you’re willing to die.”
“And therein lies my second question: Why were you so determined? I can’t imagine it was the thirst for power. You don’t seem the type.”
This is probably the question Alinata wanted to ask all along, but Asazi are never straightforward. “Not power, just the answer to a question,” Salo says.
“And what was that question?”
Salo’s lips twitch at one corner. “That’s a bit prying, don’t you think?”
“At least tell me if you’ve found the answer.”
Salo began his journey to understand why his ama cared more about her damned Axiom than she did about him. He thought he’d found the answer. But now . . .
“I thought I had,” he says. “It turns out I’m still looking. If I find it, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
She studies him, calculation sparkling behind her hazel eyes, and then she smiles. “You do that.”
Later that day, a bridle path through the jungles leads them away from the northernmost Tuanu village and into the Bonobo province of the KiYonte Kingdom. Ilapara rides ahead while Alinata follows from above, and they race northeast toward the World’s Vein, the roadway that will lead them safely across three provinces and into the city of Yonte Saire.
The jungles are so dense they feel to Salo like a vast green cocoon. At one point he and the others ride through a stretch where a thin haze drifts about the forest floor, shimmering in the streaks of sunlight lancing through the high canopy. Salo wonders at how it swirls and parts before Mukuni’s paws like water before the prow of a ship, spreading away like a living thing.
A patrol of spear-wielding legionnaires in orange tunics stops them as they approach a bamboo village. Its buildings are nestled within the jungles so seamlessly Salo could almost believe they were grown rather than built. As for the legionnaires, they all bear the exact same tattoos on their necks—conspicuous lines and motifs of the jungle bonobo—markings Salo might have considered pretty were he not aware that they were born of a curse.
He is apprehensive at first, but the legionnaires leave him alone as soon as he flexes his KiYonte and explains that he is a pilgrim walking the Blood
way, showing them his queen’s medallion as proof. The mystic Seal emblazoned on it seems to be all the proof they need.
So he rides onward with his companions until late afternoon, when the jungles come alive with the howl of chatting apes, the cackle of hunting birds, and the guttural rumble of something distant and probably monstrous. The sounds are a visceral anthem in homage to all that is bestial and untouched by humanity, and Salo finds it mildly unsettling. He is no stranger to the wild savannas, but a uniquely primal essence inhabits these jungles.
They set up camp in a semiclearing just off the path, which, judging by the charred signs of a campfire and the conveniently arranged logs around it, has seen much use by travelers. While the others tend to the animals, Salo wanders deeper into the jungles with his bow, his leather quiver slung over his back.
The lighting is poorer in these jungles, and there’s a whole lot more cover than he’s used to, but he knows to tread softly on his feet and to keep his eyes open. Easy to get lost in the wilds, and sometimes the hunter can become the hunted.
He soon spots a pair of game birds with colorful plumage foraging for grubs and insects in the thick layer of dead foliage on the forest floor. They are too conspicuous to be bush fowl, but he figures they’ll still make a tasty meal. He spied an okapi among the trees earlier, but he let it go; it was a bit more than they could eat in one sitting, and the city isn’t far away.
He goes down on one knee, hiding behind a mossy tree trunk. The raucous call of a parakeet can be heard coming from somewhere deeper in the jungles. Above him a boa constrictor coiled on a branch stirs. He ignores it.
An iron-tipped arrow is already nocked on his bow. He draws the bowstring to his ear and holds his breath. It’s a secret he’s never told anyone, but training his mind in ciphers drastically improved his archery. With the appropriate muscle memory, hitting a target became the simple matter of executing a calculation.
He’s about to let loose when Alinata steps in front of Mukuni and claps her hands to catch Salo’s attention, like she knows Salo can hear and see through the cat’s eyes and ears if he wants to.