Their laughter, the easy camaraderie. No one was easy around him, although he wished them to be, and beyond his tutors, he had never had anything that resembled friends except his crows. So he bound the cloth around his head for the sake of others. Before he left the room, he pulled his cowl up over his head, too, an extra precaution.
He moved silently, the low creak of the canoe on gentle waves the only sound. He marveled that people could build such a ship and have it withstand the power of the sea. It seemed only wood and resin and wild faith to him, but he was a man who knew wild faith, so perhaps it was not so strange after all.
It took him some time to locate the plank the crew had left for crossing to shore, but once he found it through touch and remembering where it had been when he boarded, he crossed easily enough.
The sand under his feet was packed and solid. He pushed his way up a small rise toward the voices, listening to what his new environment could teach him. First there was the lap of water against land, a different sound from both the roar of waves in the harbor and the staccato slapping of smaller waves against the canoe. Then the voices of the crew all made distinct by variation in accent and tone. He could determine personality, mood, sometimes origin, although he wished he had heard more foreigners speak during his time in Obregi to better place them on his map.
The voices were low, both in register and in location. Some lively but most dulled with fatigue and drink. They seemed to be at the bottom of a hill or closer to the ground. He imagined the crew spread out along the ground at the dip of the hill somewhat below him. A breeze danced through the night sky, carrying the scent of spices and oils and what he had recently learned was fish. There was also a slightly sour undertone that he guessed emanated from the drink the men consumed. Shadows danced on the corner of his vision, suggesting that there must be a low fire nearby, the smell of smoke confirming it.
Another voice joined the talk, a feminine one. Authoritative, and used to directing men. That must be the captain. Her voice came back to him on the breeze, as if she was standing with her back turned to him. And there was the first mate he knew was named Callo, his distinctive cadence easy to recognize.
He listened for a while longer, enjoying the scene before him, until silence fell, and he knew they had seen him.
“Beex gala’ee,” he greeted them, employing his limited Cuecolan. He smiled in an attempt to reassure them of his benevolent motives, but that only made the shadowed figure nearest flinch. Ah, his teeth. He had forgotten. He closed his mouth.
“It’s the Obregi,” someone murmured, and the word circulated through the crew on tongues both curious and wary.
“My lord,” a female voice said, not scared but definitely cautious. “We are honored to receive you.” It was the shadowy shape that had flinched, the captain. Serapio inhaled, taking in her scent. It was white salt warmed on dark skin. Azure water, deep and endless. Power, bright and furious.
Magic.
He breathed her in, half-giddy. Who was she? What was she?
The figure next to her moved. Tossed something toward Serapio. Instinct had him calling shadow to his fingers before he realized whatever it was had fallen to the sandy shore well short of him. He released his power immediately, but the feeling of it lingered around him, a dark vibration in the air.
A small gasp of irritation from the woman. “Callo!” Her voice was sharp with reprimand. “Don’t be an idiot. Get our guest something to eat,” she said, emphasis plain, a reminder to the first mate to keep his manners.
Callo. Serapio memorized his scent, too. Salt, yes, but wet and clotted, more like human sweat than the clear summery smell of the captain. And there was the sour drink, even more than what he caught from the captain. And… something acrid. Confusion, perhaps. Something that smelled of deceit and indecision, conflict and fear. Callo was to be watched.
He heard hesitation, then dragging steps as Callo moved back toward the fire.
Serapio realized he was indeed hungry. He had gone without food before, for days sometimes when his father had forgotten him or when his tutors thought hunger would teach him a necessary lesson, so he was used to the empty feeling, the knot in his belly. But he was pleased when Callo came back. The man paused a few paces away and proffered the bowl in his outstretched hands, as if he feared getting too close.
“Oh, mother waters,” the woman cursed, grabbing the bowl from the man and closing the distance between them. “Here.” She thrust the food at him. He took it. “And with my apologies. But…” She sighed, sounded burdened and embarrassed. “Best you eat on the ship, eh? You’ve got the crew spooked, and they’re superstitious enough without someone like you showing up in the moonlight like a specter.” She pulled gently at his arm. She wanted him to follow her.
He allowed her to lead him back the way he had come.
Once on board, he reached a hand in to feel the contents of his bowl. All unfamiliar except for the imperfectly round cakes he assumed to be corn. He pulled a long scale-covered creature out and held it up.
“A fish?”
“The Cuecolans call them shushu. These have been smoked.”
“Smoked” meant nothing to him in particular. He was not a gourmand by any stretch of the imagination. Food, when it came, was simply a necessity to keep him functioning. He took no delight in flavor and method and texture. He held the fish to his mouth and bit into its side. Scales cut his lips and the roof of his mouth. Alarmed, he ran his tongue over his bruised flesh.
“You like them?” she asked, humor in her voice.
“Yes, I think. But they are difficult to eat.”
She snorted. “Your Cuecolan is terrible. You speak Trade?”
“Yes.”
“Let us talk in Trade, then. So, Obregi has no seas?”
He shook his head no. The fish was strange but good, and now that he was eating, he was ravenous.
She laughed a small, relieved laugh. “You’re just a man, then.”
He paused, the fish already halfway to his mouth. It was a statement she had made, not a question, so he said nothing and let her assumption go unremarked. He took another bite.
“The way you came up out of nowhere just now, I thought for a minute…” Her words drifted off. “You see strange things at sea sometimes. A black bird that turns into a man in a black robe would not be the strangest.”
“What would be?” he asked, curious.
“Women with fish tails and a voice that can change a man’s will,” she said, and her tone told him that she was making fun of herself.
He took another fish, this time biting off the head instead of starting on the side.
“Seven hells,” she said, laughing. “Has no one taught you to eat a fish?”
The thing was slick in his mouth, the bones trying their best to slide between his teeth. “No.”
She tapped his arm. “Give it to me.”
He handed it over as he swallowed the bit in his mouth.
“Sit,” she commanded, and he followed her quick steps over to the paddle benches. Whatever she did, she did fast, and then she handed him back the fish. “I’ve cut it in two. Watch for the bones. They can stick in the throat. But the white flesh is good. Eat that part first.”
“White flesh?” he asked.
“My mistake,” she said, sounding apologetic. “Just pick the meat from the bone. Can you do that?”
“Of couse.” It took him a moment to figure it out by touch, but soon he was using his fingers to pry the flesh free. It was soft and melted against his tongue. So much tastier than the scales and bones.
“Here.”
She handed him something else. It was one of the shell creatures that had been in the bowl with the corn cakes and fish. She had opened the shell, and it sat in two pieces in his hand, just like the fish had. He reached in with his fingers.
“No,” she said. “You suck an oyster down. No hands. Just your mouth.”
He held the shell to his lips and sucked. The oyster slid
down his throat in a salty wash. It was even better than the fish and easier to eat.
“Another,” she said, and he took a second oyster. He could feel her eyes on him, watching. Deciding.
After his fifth oyster, he held up his hand to say no more. He reached inside the bowl that sat on the bench between them and took a corn cake. He broke it in half, the crumbs falling between his fingers, and offered her a piece. After a moment she took it.
“My name is Xiala, but you can call me Captain,” she said, chewing.
“I am Serapio.”
“You can see.” It was another non-question.
“Shapes, shadows, and light. Movement. The rest is scent, taste, touch.” He did not tell her about the crows or about his god.
“You’re good at it.”
“Better than most that are not blind.”
“And the cloth on your eyes, it’s just for show?”
“No. And yes.”
She made a sound like she understood. “I had a dagger like that.” She took another bite, chewing loudly. “You scare the crew.”
“I know.”
“They’re good enough men, strong. But I’m in a particular situation.”
He said nothing, only waited. Finally, she seemed to make a decision. “You know what I am?”
“The captain?”
The canoe creaked as she leaned back against the ledge. “Good,” she said, a grin evident in her voice, “but I mean the other thing.”
“Teek.”
“That one. They’re scared of that, too.”
“I heard them chanting for you.”
“Aye,” she acknowledged. “But two days ago some of those men were happy to blame my being Teek for turning the salt bad.”
“What changed?”
“Not sure. Balam? Cacao in their hands? A belly full of good food?”
“Callo?”
“Him, too.”
“So it could change back.”
“You are a smart man, Obregi.”
“Observant.”
She laughed at that, as if he had told a great joke, and perhaps he had. “Tomorrow you come out in the daylight. Wear a white skirt like the other men, not these black robes, let them see you. But…” She hesitated. “Keep your eyes covered, yeah? Sometimes it is best not to tell them everything at once.”
“I don’t have a workman’s skirt.”
“I’ll give you one. There’s clean ones in the storage under the awning.”
He thought about it. She was trying to show the men he was harmless, a man just like them. It was a lie, but he understood the necessity of it. “All right.”
“Good.” She stood up. “They’ll sleep on shore tonight and you in your room. I’ll be here on the ship, just outside your door, so if one of them gets the notion to come drown you in the middle of the night, I’ll be here to protect you.”
He thought of the crew—their songs, the camaraderie that he envied. He would not kill them if he didn’t have to, but if they impeded his mission, they would die. She would, too, although he did not enjoy that thought.
“Who protects you?” he asked, not doubting her abilities but curious to hear her answer.
It was brash, much like the captain herself.
“The sea herself,” she said. “I am her daughter, and when I’m with my mother”—she exhaled gustily—“nobody fucks with her children.”
CHAPTER 13
THE OBREGI MOUNTAINS
YEAR 319 OF THE SUN
(6 YEARS BEFORE CONVERGENCE)
Violence should only be used in defense, and even then, it corrupts. If you must kill your enemy, do it quickly and be done. To linger only invites humiliation of both the victim and the self, and there is no honor there.
— On the Philosophy of War, taught at the Hokaia War College
“These are very beautiful,” the stranger said as she entered the boy’s room. Her voice was low, rough, and had an accent Serapio had never heard before. Her footfalls were light and quick, and she carried something that she tapped against the stone floor in rhythm with her steps. “When Paadeh sent for me, he said you were talented, but I did not realize I was to train an artist.”
Serapio paused. Despite her flattery, something about the woman felt threatening, although he wasn’t sure what. He set his current carving down on his workbench. It was the same bench that Paadeh had first brought to his room two years ago. He slipped the chisel into his trouser pocket. It was not much of a weapon, but it was enough to dig into a throat or to sink into vulnerable flesh if he had to.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“You should be able to figure out the answer to that, crow son,” she said from across the room. He heard her pick up a carving from a shelf, presumably to admire it. Movement broke the line of light streaming in from the window as she tossed the piece up in the air and caught it again. He heard the wood slap dully against the flesh of her palm. “In fact, you should have expected me.”
“Please,” he said, voice strained. “Each of my carvings represents many hours of work. Does Marcal know you’re here?”
She snorted, but he heard the tap of wood being set back on the shelf.
“Your father thinks I’ve come to teach you how to use a staff to see.”
He cocked his head. “Have you?”
She exhaled, sounding annoyed. “After a fashion.”
She was being evasive on purpose, he could tell. The slight tic in her enunciation, the way her voice seemed to come from a distance, as if she wasn’t looking directly at him. He did not exactly fear the woman in his room, but something about her boldness, the way she spoke, kept him wary. He no longer had a guard or servants coming and going to care for him, and he was acutely aware that he was alone with a stranger whom he had not invited in. But she claimed that Paadeh had sent her. Did she know Paadeh was dead?
“Did you make all of these?”
He knew she must be talking about the small menagerie of wooden animal carvings he had meticulously arranged on the shelf along the far wall. “Yes.”
“And this trunk, too? The one on the table under the window?”
It was his triumph, an ornately carved trunk of rosewood, the lid a map of the Meridian continent hewn in meticulous detail. Paadeh had made him build it, insisting that Serapio learn geography and knowing the only way to do it right was to create the map on his own as only he could. His tutor had whipped his hands when he’d gotten something wrong and made him start again. Each city, road, sea, and mountain was to scale, his fingers committing to memory the lay of the continent better than any traditional map might have taught him, each mountain range and sea colored with his blood and sweat.
“Yes, I made the trunk.”
She was quiet, as if studying his art, studying him.
“You may call me Eedi,” she said, moving closer. Her footfalls ended abruptly. She fully blocked the little light that came into his room from the windows, increasing the shadows around him. He felt the weight of her gaze, heard the tap, tap of whatever she was holding against the floor. A staff, he realized.
“I am your second tutor,” she said, “and I am here to serve.”
He felt movement. Had she bowed to him?
“As Paadeh served?”
“Where is that old bastard?” she asked.
“I learned all I could from him,” he said. “He said he would not come again.” It was a lie, but he did not trust her enough to tell her the truth.
She was quiet, and his hand tightened on his chisel, ready.
Finally, she spoke. “Good. It is best you do not get attached to any of us, crow son. We are here to teach you the things you will need, but we are not your friends.”
“Paadeh said pain was my only friend.”
“He would,” she said, and he could almost see her eye roll. “But it’s overkill, isn’t it? There’s nothing good in the fate Saaya set for you. No friends, either, but the rest is… well, Paadeh always did like to turn philoso
phical.”
“I have a higher purpose.”
“Paadeh told you, eh?”
“The crows did. And my mother.”
Quiet, and then, “Paadeh sent a letter saying that you were a strange one. You talk to the birds? I don’t remember that being part of Saaya’s workings.”
They are my friends. “Do you come from Odo, like Paadeh did?”
“Did?” She held on to that past tense, and Serapio realized his mistake, but she continued smoothly. “Is that what he told you? Odo? No, boy, neither of us is from Odo, although he’s closer. He was from Tova city, at least, although somewhere called Coyote’s Maw. You know it?”
He shook his head.
“I hail from the war college at Hokaia. Surely you know it.” She sounded proud, but there was a hint of something else there, too. Bitterness, perhaps.
He had heard of Hokaia, but only in stories, tales of the city on the mighty river a thousand miles north, the place where the peoples of the continent signed their peace treaty, the place where the Meridian continent sent its children to train in the arts of war in hopes that one never happened again. And he knew what that likely made her. “You’re a spearmaiden.”
“I used to be a spearmaiden,” the woman said, that bitterness he detected before blossoming to resentment. “Now I am the trainer of spearmaidens. And blind boys, it seems.”
He thought perhaps she was trying to anger him, but he was long past rising to every provocation, especially ones that were the truth. Besides, she interested him. “If you are from Hokaia, how can you be here to serve me, a crow son?”
“Ah,” she said. “The reach of your god is long, and some of us chafe against the Sun Priest’s influence. Your people and mine are united in purpose if not blood, and for that, I have pledged my life. Plus, your mother was a persuasive bitch.” She laughed fondly.
“Did you love her?” he asked suddenly. A hunch, but something about the spearmaiden’s voice made him think it.
“We all loved her,” she said, sounding startled, “and hated her, too. But mostly, we admired her.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Let’s just say that there are those in Hokaia who wish Tova and the celestial tower reformed.”
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