Starburner

by Claire Luana

  Outside her door, nestled against the wall, lay a neat row of green leaves covered in trinkets—flower petals, coins, candles, berries. What were they? Rika left them behind as the dim lavender light of Tamar’s lantern continued down the tunnel. She tried to hurry to catch up with Tamar but found herself as weak as a kitten, leaning against the cold stone wall for support. Rika squinted into the gloom as she slowly passed openings into other rooms, searching for inhabitants within. Was this truly the place from Vikal’s story? The labyrinth of tunnels felt ancient—she could almost imagine the great snake thrashing about beneath the mountain before breaking free, winging towards the sky.

  The smooth floor of the tunnel angled up ever-so-slightly until it deposited them into the next cave. If it could even be called that. Rika’s jaw dropped as she craned her neck to take it all in. The cavern was big enough to fit half the palace at Yoshai. The ceiling soared above them, gleaming stalactites barely visible in the gloom. The walls’ cracks and crevices glowed lavender, illuminating the space in fairylike light. Rika bent down to look into Tamar’s lantern more closely, groaning at the pain in her side. The lantern was filled with a glowing lichen, or fungus of some sort. It must have been native to the cave, and the inhabitants were using it to light the space.

  And the inhabitants…Rika could hardly comprehend the number of people housed here. From the tunnel where they stood, a spiderweb of wooden walkways snaked down to a veritable city of fabric tents. People chatted and cooked over fires while children chased each other through the narrow alleys between rows. A woody smell like incense mingled with the smoke from the fires and the ancient scent of the caves, forming a strange perfume that set her teeth on edge. Tamar led the way along the edge of the cave and Rika followed, not sure whether to watch her footing or the people. Vikal’s whole city must have been here.

  The sounds of murmured conversation and children’s laughter died down, fading to silence. Rika looked back to the cavern that stretched below her. The people had grown still and were now staring at her and Tamar. Quiet voices like a wave sounded as Vikal’s people realized who she was. “Dewa,” they murmured. Then the murmurs rose to a buzz—calls and cries of “Dewa” echoing through the space. Rika stumbled against Tamar, edging past the girl towards the tunnel leading out of the massive cavern.

  In her haste to leave the strange scene, Rika crashed into a hard body, recoiling. Vikal, she realized with relief. She fought an urge to hug him, so thankful was she for a familiar sight. “What are they saying?” she asked, turning back towards the cavern, where the people had quieted again.

  “Dewa,” he said. “It means goddess.”

  Rika shook her head, trying to shove down her rising panic. “I’m not their goddess. I’m nobody’s goddess.” Two dead soul-eaters did not a goddess make. Just a few short days ago, before black sails had appeared on the horizon, before her father…she might have welcomed this. But now…she felt like a fraud. She hadn’t seen Cygna again since they had arrived and she had so unceremoniously sunk their boat, destroying her only way back to Kitina. She had almost gotten herself killed battling a few thralls. If she was truly these people’s goddess, she couldn’t help but think that they were in for disappointment.

  Concern was etched on Vikal’s face. He blessedly ignored her comment. “How are you feeling? Are you sure you should be out of bed?”

  “I needed to see…to understand where we were. What had happened. What… What did happen?”

  Vikal said a few words to Tamar, who curtsied and handed him the lantern. He reached out to ruffle her hair, but she ducked out of the way, sticking her tongue out at him before scampering off. Rika raised an eyebrow. “Does she know you?”

  “She’s my niece,” Vikal said, ushering her to walk with him through the corridor. Niece? she thought, questions swimming in her mind. She and Vikal hadn’t had much time to exchange small talk, and that included personal histories. What other family members might she come across in this place?

  “What do you remember?” Vikal asked. He walked slowly next to her, keeping pace with her pained shuffle. His hand hovered behind her like he was afraid she would topple over at any moment. Though in fairness, her knees seemed to be considering that very possibility. Vikal had changed into a pair of green trousers and a white collarless shirt. The dark shadow of stubble was gone from his jaw, and he smelled fresh—faintly of eucalyptus. He looked softer than he had in his black leather. She liked this domesticated version more than his black armor-clad self.

  “I remember fighting the soldiers and the leech. I was stabbed. But I killed the soul-eater, right?”

  “You did.” He nodded. “You fought well, but you were injured. You were near death when we brought you here. You are lucky to be alive.” Vikal’s voice was grave, his face stony. “You were in a fevered sleep for so long. Though Sarnak said you would live… I still worried.”

  “How long?”

  “Three days.”

  “Three days?” Rika yelped, her heart sinking. What damage had the soul-eaters done to Yoshai in three days?

  “Yes. We came so close to losing you.”

  Rika didn’t miss the word choice. We. Not I. She needed to remember. It didn’t matter if the hazy memory of his thumb on her cheek sent the butterflies in her stomach into a maelstrom. Vikal cared about her for one reason, and one reason only. She was a tool to free his people. And he was a tool to get her home.

  “How did we get here?”

  “After you fell, the forest showed us the way here. It was a close thing.”

  “Thank you for saving me. Again.”

  “It was you who saved me, Rika. Without you, I would never have seen this land again. My friends and family. So it is I who owe my thanks.”

  “We’re even,” she said, uncomfortable with the intensity of his words.

  “Do you feel strong enough to meet the other gods?” Vikal asked. “They are gathered. We’re discussing what to do about the leeches.”

  Rika nodded, following Vikal down the dark tunnels dimly lit by violet light.

  “How long can your people last in here?”

  He looked at her, and when he answered, his voice was a whisper. “Weeks. If they’re lucky. Without the tana root, the people would have starved by now. Going outside to hunt or forage is a great risk. If one person were to be captured by the soul-eaters, they would give up all their knowledge, including the location of this place.”

  “So what have people been eating? What’s a tana root? The orange mush?”

  “A vegetable that grows in the ground. Sarnak discovered it in these caves. It is not exciting, but it fills the belly. It can grow in the dark, so the people have been cultivating it in the tunnels by the light of the lava lichen.”

  “Is that the glowy purple stuff?”

  “Yes.” Vikal smiled. “You have quite a way with words.”

  Rika raised an eyebrow. “Was that a joke?”

  “I am as surprised as you are,” he said. “Goa Awan—Nua herself—has provided everything our people needed—caring for them when I could not. But one cannot live on tana root forever. If we are to survive, we need to strike back soon.”

  “I’m amazed that they’ve lasted as long as they have,” Rika said. “It’s very well organized.”

  “That is all Kemala. And Bahti. They are Tamar’s parents.”

  “Who are you related to? You said Tamar’s your niece, right?”

  Vikal hesitated. “We have arrived,” he said instead, pushing aside a ragged curtain that hung over the opening to yet another cave, holding it for Rika while she entered.

  Three people were gathered around a large table. Though they all had the ebony hair and tanned complexion that Nuans favored, that was where their similarities ended. A woman, dark and lithe, her features exquisite, leaned back in a chair, examining perfect fingernails. Around her throat was a dazzling necklace of what looked like white and black diamonds. It was the type of jewelry Rika’s mother would hav
e worn to the fanciest of ceremonies and complained about the whole time. But it suited this woman, as if the dank cave should have dressed itself up, rather than the woman dimming her beauty to suit.

  At the other end of the table sat a man of about Vikal’s age with a thick, black beard and a warm smile revealing straight, white teeth. Beside him leaned what looked like a man-sized golden fork, as tall as Vikal. Some kind of—pitchfork? The last man stood behind the woman, as menacing as she was elegant. He seemed made of squat bulk and menace, his muscled arms crossed before his broad chest, his jaw set in anger. In the darkness, his eyes glimmered red as rubies. Rika swallowed thickly.

  Vikal spoke to the three people in the room in their language before motioning to Rika. “Rika,” he said. She gave a little wave.

  “Rika, this is Kemala, Bahti, and Ajij.”

  Kemala, the woman, flourished a graceful half-salute. Bahti, the angry man, merely glowered at her, one of his hands drifting to an ornate dagger at his waist. Was it possible sweet Tamar had come from this man? Ajij, the bearded man, stood and came to meet her. He took her hand and bowed low over it, speaking strange words in a tone filled with welcome. She squeezed his hand, and when he stood, he studied her with eyes as blue as the sea, endless and deep. Between his brows was a tattoo in dark blue ink, identical to Vikal’s. Bahti scoffed. Ajij threw him what looked like a lewd gesture as he went back to his chair, saying something.

  “You’ve met Cayono,” Vikal said, turning to introduce the tall, muscular man who had just entered from the hallway behind them.

  Cayono bowed low and deep. “My goddess,” he said, in Rika’s language. “I am indebted to you for freeing me twice over. You are truly our saving grace.”

  “You speak my language?” Rika asked, relief welling at this bit of familiarity amongst the strangeness. Then it dawned on her. She turned to Vikal. “Because he was a thrall?”

  Vikal nodded. “Some of the knowledge of the leeches is imparted to the thralls, particularly that which they think is useful, like the language of the land we are conquering. As soon as the first person from your land was taken, the soul-eater hive learned your language. All the way down to the thralls.”

  Rika’s half-smile faltered. The first person taken. Her father. These men knew her language because her father had been killed—eaten alive. She couldn’t forget that, however friendly they seemed. She didn’t belong here. She needed to get home.

  Bahti let out a string of words that sounded spitting mad. Vikal responded in a reproachful tone.

  “He doesn’t like me very much,” Rika observed.

  “Ignore him. Bahti is hotheaded. It is in his blood.”

  Vikal asked another question in his language and Kemala answered this time, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Here I am,” a gravelly voice said behind them. Rika turned to find a short, wiry man, completely bald, swathed in orange robes. He gave off the impression of age, and wisdom, and…darkness. His eyes were inky pools shrouded in shadow. She took a step back inadvertently. Vikal placed his hands on her shoulders to still her. “This is Sarnak. The god of endings.”

  Sarnak reached out for her and grasped her wrist in his gnarled one, pulling her from Vikal’s grasp. “Our newest goddess is to come with me. There is something I have to show her.”

  “Come with you? Where?” Rika asked. How did he speak her language? Had he been enslaved to the leeches?

  “Sarnak is the keeper of our histories and a master of magic,” Vikal explained. “He helped all of us learn to use our powers. I asked him to help you.”

  Sarnak stood as still as a statute, his hand locked around her wrist in an unyielding grip.

  “You trust him?” she whispered.

  “With my life,” Vikal said gently.

  “Very well,” Rika said, shoving down her trepidation and letting the strange little man lead her from the room.

  SARNAK DROPPED RIKA’S hand and reached into his belt, drawing out a small glass orb. He tossed it into the air with a flourish, and instead of falling to the ground, it bobbed before them, suspended in midair as if hanging from a string. A pure light blossomed from within, illuminating the tunnel and lighting their path. “You took your time arriving,” he said. His words held the strange staccato cadence that she was coming to recognize as the Nuan accent.

  “Excuse me?” Rika asked, forgetting her questions about the strange orb in the face of his comment. “I didn’t even know this place existed more than a few days ago.”

  “To forget your own people,” he chided with a shake of his bald head. “What did you do wrong? To get so turned around during your reincarnation.”

  “Maybe you sent me down the wrong door or plane or whatever during my last ending,” she shot back, her hackles raising. Was he blaming her for what—being born in the wrong world?

  He looked sidelong at her and coughed. Or was it a disguised laugh? “This is not exactly how it works.”

  “Then teach me. Rather than judging me.”

  “I can do both.” Was he toying with her?

  She rolled her eyes. “Were you under the soul-eater’s compulsion? How do you speak my language?”

  “This is a worthy question. My role is unique among the gods. To begin and end—to rule the cycles. All things on this Earth turn in cycles. The seasons, birth to death, the ocean to rain—”

  “Right. But how do you speak a language fluently when you’ve never even heard it before? Or have you?” she asked.

  “All people are related. All languages are related too. This is part of the cycle.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. His explanation lacked something. Like an actual explanation. “You have no idea, do you.”

  He shrugged, a smile playing across his wrinkled face. “I will meditate on this thing. If I come to understand this secret, I will share it. To oversee the reincarnation of the other gods is part of my duties. My guess is that my soul’s role in placing you in this cycle imbued me with this knowledge.”

  “Your soul’s role…” Rika shook her head. “So did you know I was in Kitina?”

  They had reached the end of yet another tunnel, and Sarnak paused before the dim doorway, motioning for her to proceed. “This is something we will speak of. All in due time.”

  She entered a chamber with a soaring ceiling. The cave was sparsely furnished, a bedroll on the floor, a shelf with a few books. The room was lit not by the low lavender glow she had seen elsewhere, but a quicksilver light pouring down from above, bathing the mundane furnishings in a magical ambience.

  “This is a benefit of everyone thinking you are a little mad. You get the best room,” Sarnak said.

  Rika let out a surprised laugh. “Where is the light coming from?”

  “To let in the light, a path of tunnels lead from this cave to the side of the volcano. The light of the sky is reflected into this room. This is the best place to practice your magic.”

  “Practice?” Rika swallowed. She hadn’t managed much control in the days since her magic had manifested. She didn’t want to blow this man up like she had the boat. Or the soul-eater.

  “Vikal said you are powerful but untrained. To do magic, we must first understand it. First we learn. Then you wake. Then we practice.”

  Wake? Rika wondered. She was already awake. Though in truth, this all did feel like a strange dream.

  Sarnak retrieved a book from an indent in the wall and settled onto the floor, patting the ground beside him. Rika sat down beside him, awkwardly tucking her feet behind her. Damn this ridiculous skirt. She wished she had her leggings. He opened the book to the first page, which revealed an image of a dark expanse. The writing was a strange script of swirl and dots—nothing like the writing she was used to. “This is one of our vedas, or religious texts. The one tells our history. The world we know was created from the void by four great creator spirits.” He turned the page. “The land we walk on was made by a spirit we call the great turtle. He placed it on his back, where it st
ill rests today. The sky was formed by the flying snake, who fans the currents with his wings. The ocean was created by a great leviathan, whose tail swirls the tides. Underneath the volcano is the dragon, who breathes the fire that fuels the Earth. We take care not to anger him, for when he spits fire, Nua suffers for his wrath. Above this all is the floating sky, where the world of human emotions and love are born and live. Beyond that is the endless sky, where the stars and planets sit. Each of these forms have unique energy and attributes.”

  Rika peered at the image, at the layers and depictions of beasts. “Vikal told me about the snake.”

  “To rule the land were created seven gods and goddesses, who are reborn into human bodies.”

  “Seven?” Rika asked, ticking off the numbers in her mind. If she counted herself—which she wasn’t sure she did—she had met six. “Who’s the last one?”

  The next page of the book depicted seven people, proud and regal and clothed in glorious fabrics and gold. Sarnak pointed to the first. “The god of green things—that’s Vikal. He governs plant life and is the first among the gods. The king of kings, if you will. The goddess of bright light—that’s you. Then the goddess of open sky rules over the air and the winds. She died many years ago and has not been reborn this cycle. The god of the deep sea is Ajij.”

  “What’s with his golden fork?”

  “His trident. It is his totem. I will explain that as well.”

  “And then Bahti and Kemala, god of the mountain and goddess of dark spaces.” He pointed to the last two. “And me.”

  “So one of the gods govern each of the realms of creation. They all make sense except the goddess of dark spaces,” Rika said. “What is her power?”

  “This goddess governs humanity, human emotions. Love, joy, hope, hate, jealousy, envy, courage…the best and worst of humanity, the thoughts and emotions that fill the dark spaces of our minds.”