by Alex Lidell
Kederic blushes, and we dive into trigonometry.
Our two-ship convoy dwindles to one with the Hope making her departure signal several days short of the Diante port, so it is only the Solace sailing in our wake when the lookout calls “Land ho!” I join the seamen gathering on deck to get the first glimpse of the Diante harbor. It’s one of the most monotone places I’ve ever laid eyes on. Sand, small whitewashed huts, and more sand. The only sign of color I see in my borrowed spyglass are occasional three-pronged cactuses peppered amidst dunes. I wonder whether the rest of the Diante continent is anything like this, or just this part near the Siaman Sea.
I drink in the details, memorizing each one. This is as close as anyone in Lyron gets to the Diante Empire. And this is where my eventual journey to the Diante capital will one day start—a small port near the Bottleneck Juncture. I wonder how long I will have to travel to get to the Metchti Monastery. We’ve no maps of the inner part of the Diante Empire, but I imagine the capital city is a good ways off if these villagers condescend to trade with foreigners instead of traveling south to meet with their own kind. “Recluses,” I mutter.
“When you are self-sufficient and powerful enough to little worry about your neighbors, you can afford to be a recluse.” Domenic walks up beside me and leans on the rail. He is so close, I smell the salt clinging to his clothes and the harsh lye soap he washes with. “Catsper and I will be heading ashore to arrange purchase of stores and water. You may share our boat.”
I lean away. “You are still intent on forcing me into visiting a physician?”
“I rarely issue orders for the pleasure of hearing my voice.”
My jaw tightens. “As you wish, sir.”
Domenic growls softly beneath his breath. “This isn’t a punishment, Nile.”
“No, it is you using your position to get into my business. Sir.” I go to step away, but Domenic grabs my upper arm. Hard.
“One other point, Ash.”
I try to jerk free, fail, and glare at him.
Releasing his grip, Domenic links his hands behind his back. “It has come to my notice over the past week that the Aurora’s middies have both improved their mathematics and gained an uncanny sense of the weather. Yesterday morning, Kederic was inspired to order his division to turn out for inspection in foul-weather gear. They were the only ones to stay dry in the rain that followed.” He waits until our eyes meet before continuing. “I would be very disappointed to hear that you’ve done the middies’ work for them or disobeyed the captain and had contact with the prisoner.”
My eyes flash. Thanks to the middies’ efforts, the Aurora is on her way to becoming halfway competent—probably for the first time since the buffoon in the captain’s uniform took command.
“The middies’ calculations are their own, and I make no habit of visiting Price.” That Kederic and Thatch Lawrence organized themselves, drawing pictures to bridge the differences in language. I straighten, adjusting my tunic. “If there is nothing else you wish to decide for me or accuse me of, sir, may I return to my duties?”
It is a quiet ride from the Aurora to the docks. Domenic and I sit as far apart as the small boat allows, while Catsper examines the edge of his boot knife. The port is small. Several merchantmen sit at anchor, and many fishing boats bob in neat lines. Despite their number, there is an unnatural uniformity in the boats’ white paint and trim. The approaching pier is uncommonly quiet despite heavy foot traffic. As we get closer, I realize that the only raised voices I do hear belong to the foreign merchants. The Diante walking along the pier stay in lanes, as if someone had drawn invisible lines down the wooden walkways.
“Are our hosts always this boisterous?” asks Catsper.
Domenic shrugs. “I’ve come ashore here only twice before to purchase water, and it was thus then. If there is something for which the Diante lack protocol, I am yet to see it.”
The seaman at the tiller maneuvers us smoothly to the dock, where a pair of gray-uniformed Diante dock workers await. Their almond-shaped eyes tilt up at the corners, giving their faces a hint of a feline appearance. Felines dressed in billowing gray pants and thigh-length tunics, held tight with wide strips of yellow cloth at the waist. The two men bow in unison before throwing us a line.
Dock workers. Bowing.
At the height of discipline, Ashing dock workers avoid spitting on the walkway.
“The Dock Master will be with you as soon as it is possible,” one of the dock workers says in heavily accented Lyron once we climb onto the pier. The two bow in unison again and dissolve to other duties without waiting for coin.
We stand alone, disrupting the perfect flow of traffic. Ocean and ships spread out on our left, fields of sand to the right as far as the eyes can see. I can only presume that whatever passes for civilization here is somewhere ahead, where I see outcroppings of those whitewashed buildings I spied through the glass.
Raising my face to the breeze, I draw a deep breath. The familiar scent of ocean salt mixes with seaweed, filling my nose with air that’s slightly sulfurous, briny, and green. The same green that coats ropes resting beneath the water and stilts holding up the docks. I wonder if the smell will follow me when I venture into town, and pull my coat tighter around my shoulders. Despite being south, it’s colder here than I expected, because there isn’t one bloody thing to block the wind.
Catsper turns his hand in question.
“I don’t know,” says Domenic. “Last time, they directed me immediately to their purser.” He shifts uncertainly, and I can’t help feeling a smidgen of satisfaction at his discomfort. If he is making me find a quack Diante healer, he deserves what he gets here.
“If you excuse me, gentlemen, I will be about my business,” I say and set off down the pier, hoping my departure adds to his worries. Plus, if I’m to be ordered about like a child, the least I can do is pretend I’ve some dignity left.
Truth be told, beyond whispers of the Metchti Monastery, I know embarrassingly little of the Diante—and much of the ignorance is of my own making. Growing up with the threat of the Tirik Republic saturating the last decade, I had little patience to spare for learning about an isolationist nation who refused to notice a great war on its doorstep.
The Diante stare at me, those slanted eyes penetrating and quietly displeased. When I smile in return, they hurry away, tight-lipped. After a few minutes of seeing no other women on the pier, an uncomfortable feeling creeps down my spine and my steps slow. Even the merchies have kept their female crew on ship. Finding a physician is well and good, but I’m not about to walk off the docks when the entire town thinks me an exotic beast.
“Ash.”
I turn toward Catsper’s voice.
Saying nothing more, the marine falls in step slightly behind me.
At the end of the pier, a man with a whistle and a long stick steps before us. Like the others, he wears a uniform of billowing pants and long tunic, though his is blue instead of the dock workers’ gray. A stiff woolen hat, round with a small point in the center, sits atop his head.
“Where you go?” he asks Catsper, plainly struggling to find the Lyron words for the inquiry.
“We are looking for a doctor,” I say in Diante, which, while strained, is several times better than his Lyron.
The guard looks over my shoulder at Catsper, somehow managing to portray the very essence of politeness—even holding the stick angled away from us as not to give offense—while ignoring me utterly.
I step forward. Catsper shoots me a quick glance and sticks his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels as if to say it’s all you, for as long as you wish.
Bowing to the guard, I find my Diante skills again. “I am Nile Ash, a sailor aboard the Lyron Ship Aurora. Might we be permitted to go into the main town to find a healer?”
“Where you go?” the guard asks Catsper again.
Catsper cocks an arrogant brow at the man, then looks to me.
I draw a breath to calm my nerves, but
it does little good. First Domenic decides he knows what’s best for me, now this. After the Aurora’s Eflians, I thought myself immune to further insult. “Forget it.” I turn on my heel. “I need nothing here.”
I manage a single step before I feel it. The sudden fear with no cause, the sense of impending doom. My heart races. Not here. Not now. Not before Catsper and the thrice-damned Diante, who stares at me. I go down to one knee as flashes of green light flicker before my eyes. My right arm and shoulder shudder. Again. Again. Again. Again.
Chapter 27
“Ash.”
I hear Catsper, but can’t respond.
“Is she unwell?” the guard asks in Diante, his voice suddenly tinged with panic.
Catsper grabs my shoulder.
I strain against the hold, the joint threatening to come undone. I’m about to scream in agony when, as suddenly as it left, my body returns. A wave of nausea washes over me, and I just manage to twist free of Catsper’s hold before stumbling to the pier’s edge and emptying my stomach into the water. That finished, I sit on the dock and brace my pounding head on my knees.
The guard clears his throat. “Allow me to escort you to a medicine woman,” he offers quietly.
I don’t know to whom he addressed the words. And little care. My head, my shoulder, and everything else hurts. I allow Catsper to grab the back of my tunic to keep me steady as I plod, step by step, after the guard.
Ocean on the left. Sand on right. Wooden-planked walkway. Whitewashed huts getting closer with each step. I’m aware of the boardwalk ending and us veering southwest onto a sand-packed road. The houses are close now, all perfectly square and lined up like soldiers. Instead of Ashing’s shaped shrubbery, the decorations here are made of stone. I’d appreciate the mosaic if I wasn’t still woozy. If many sets of piercing slanted eyes weren’t watching every step I make, the distrust radiating like sunrays.
The guard stops at a house that looks like all the others. He knocks on the door and calls something in Diante too quickly for me to understand, then motions for me to proceed on alone.
Catsper crosses his arms and leans against a boulder to wait.
I slip inside. My head is still heavy, but I hope the Diante healer might have something to settle my stomach. It would be easier to conceal the jerking spells if I stopped vomiting afterward. I keep my hope in check. I was telling Domenic the truth when I said the Diante notion of medicine is a long way from scientific.
There is a thin partition before me. “Hello?” I call, stepping toward it. Getting no answer, I circle around the makeshift half wall and step into the back room of the hut. I want to see rolls of clean bandages, neatly lined jars of medicine, and plenty of light. Instead, the windows are drawn with heavy canvas drapes, and the air hangs laden with competing scents of burning candles and incense.
A middle-aged woman kneels on a floor cushion. She is grinding herbs in a small stone mortar and pays me no mind.
I put my hands on my thighs and bow, as I saw folks do on the docks. “Hello. You are the healer?” I ask in Diante.
The woman’s eyes flicker toward me, weighing me with their gaze.
I stay still for the inspection, but my mouth is dry and my heart is beating faster with each breath. The room is stifling and the woman oddly still as she studies me. As if I were a fish flopping on deck. Licking my lips, I pull coins out of my pocket and hold them out on an open palm toward her.
She snorts. “No manners, eh? Well, I’m little surprised. Take your shoes off and sit down.”
I obey and kneel gingerly on the cushion in imitation of the woman’s own posture. “I’m looking for medicine to help my nausea,” I say, getting to the point. “I’m on a ship, and I am seasick. Can you help?”
She watches with an unsettlingly deep gaze. “Nausea?” she echoes finally. “Are you with child?”
I recoil. “No!”
She snorts.
My face heats. All of me heats. “I’m quite certain. I’ve never been with a man that way.” I’ve never been with a man in any way.
“So you say.” She shrugs. “We will know soon enough.”
I clear my throat. “What ails me is—”
“Hush.” Waving away my words, the woman takes my wrist, her fingers digging into my pulse point. She holds me so long that my fingers tingle. Her face tenses as she releases my wrist. “The other hand,” she demands. Her voice isn’t irreverent anymore. It’s tight. On edge.
Something is wrong. I can feel it. “It’s my stomach, ma’am,” I say. “When—”
She silences me with a flash of her gaze, dark with flecks of green.
My heart beats hard. I stare at the flickering flames of the many candles. I’ve heard Diante place great stock in pulse reading, but my nerves are surely throwing the reading off course. I’m certain one must be relaxed for this to work. Relaxed and calm and…
Oh storms and hail, who in the bloody storm cares. The woman cares nothing for symptoms and is busy diagnosing pregnancy. I swallow. Tense. Brace my free hand on the floor. This whole thing, this meeting, this sham of a diagnosis, is a mistake. Bad information is worse than no information. The last thing I need is superstitious nonsense as difficult to separate from the truth as a tan from skin. “Thank you, ma’am,” I say, pulling back on my wrist. “But I find I feel better than I thought.”
She shakes her head in concentration, her hold tightening. “You are Gods touched,” she says softly.
My heart pauses. “My people worship different gods from yours.” I get my hand free. “Thank you. I’ll go.”
“Your people call it Gifted. Yes?”
I shake my head. Hard. Too hard. “My brother is Gifted,” I blurt. “I just wanted something to settle my stomach. But it is of no consequence.”
The woman lifts my chin with her finger. “You’ve too much mind for a metal caller and too much muscle for a stone speaker. Water… No, you move without the fear those whose blood will not thicken carry. Air, then.” She nods to herself while my heart pounds. “Tell me, what does it feel like to have much air and yet no breath? And when you convulse, do you foul yourself before all who watch?”
I rise and back away.
“Are you ready to die?” she asks.
I swallow. “Can you aid me?” I whisper. “Or is fear the greatest medicine you can offer?”
She chuckles. “Both. But you shall little like what I say, and I wish you to be clear, up front, on the choices you have.” She pats the pillow and waits until I kneel again before continuing. “The Gods’ touch flows very strong within you. Strong enough to kill. If you wish to continue living in this world, you must learn to respect the Gods’ will. If you do not, you shall lose.”
Storms and hail. I’m unsure what’s more terrifying, that the woman could read the Gift in my pulse or that her best treatment involves appeasing gods I don’t believe in.
“Do you understand how your Gift works?” she asks.
I decide on the truth. “The magic in my body attracts the air. I can keep the magic contained for a bit but eventually must let it loose. When I do, the air comes. And then, the jerking spells.”
“Pfft.” She waves away my words. “Magic. You speak of it like a parasite, something separate from you, when it is entwined with your life force.” Her finger pokes my gut. “Your life force—your ki—is here. The Gods have infused your ki with a divine fire, what you northerners call magic. It needs to engage with its element—air for you—to live. Yet, give too much and the divine fire will burn so hot, it shall burn you. Too little and you shall smolder. Balance the fire, child. That is the key to your life. Do you understand?”
Of course not. I rub my forehead.
She sighs. “You must pay mind to your ki’s divine fire, to your magic. Learn how it feels, what it needs, how it moves and shifts and grows. Focus on its needs instead of your own. When is it restless and slumbering? What wakes and calms it? You must learn to recognize when your magic will need release before the n
eed grows too great to control.”
“It sounds a lot like learning to use the toilet,” I mutter.
She laughs, her eyes crinkling. “At first, perhaps. But you should soon find it is more like taming a powerful beast that always rides beside you. It might seem, at first, that all you have to contain it is a length of leash. But, once you and your beast connect, you shall find the leash is but the most rudimentary of your communications.”
I rub the back of my head. “And how does one do this? Feel this beast, tame it, teach it tricks?”
The woman presses her lips together at my tone. “Discipline,” she snaps. “Meditate daily. An hour four times a day to start, then more. The magic, you, and the element must meet in short, controlled dances. Start with blowing out a candle without upsetting its pedestal.” She raises her finger. “That last is vital. Do not lose control if you want your life.”
Start with four hours a day? Then more? Following this guidance would leave me doing nothing but meditating and extinguishing candles—which are forbidden on a ship altogether. “How long does it take to master this balance?” I ask instead of arguing.
She blinks. “A lifetime.”
Practical.
“True balance is striven for but never achieved,” the healer tells me. “The journey itself is the greatest of things.”
No. It isn’t. “If I balance my ki’s divine fire, will the convulsions stop?”
“No.” She shrugs dismissively. “They are the tribute the Gods exact. You should bear them with grace and humility.”
A growl builds in my chest. The woman knows everything except the minor detail of how to fix the problem. I check my frustration and bow. “Be that as it may, if you have something for my stomach, I am willing to risk the Gods’ displeasure in exchange for not vomiting on myself.”
She frowns but limps over to a basket. “Ginger,” she says, placing a thick white root into a bag. “Eases nausea.”