The nights of travel blurred together. Tatsu’s legs ached and then hardened, the blisters on his toes healing and scabbing over stronger. The dull throbbing in his shoulders from the pack never wholly went away, but he learned to ignore it. They picked their way around rocks, sidewinders, and at least one section of sand that Jotin identified as a desert-mire, which he claimed they would sink down into, much like stepping onto rotten ice and falling straight through to the icy waters beneath.
Somehow, it became possible to sleep better during the relentless days, but Tatsu didn’t think his body would ever truly become acclimated to the heat.
As they walked, Jotin shared with them the old stories Joesarians told about the gods—the Five they thought that ruled over the lands and determined each person’s fate, old tales that Tatsu had read snippets of growing up in his father’s books. Chayd’s tales of the old gods always ended with the men who had come after them and settled the lands in the gods’ names, but Jotin never mentioned any old Joesarian heroes. The tales in the sands, it seemed, kept the deities at the full seats of power.
On the last day, as the sky turned pink and bright against the tan, Tatsu could identify scents carried on the breeze. There was the tang of spice and the low note of animals held closely together in the sun—a sweaty, briny assault on his nose—so he knew they had to be close to Moswar. At the top of the next ridge, the city materialized into view, almost as if it had shimmered into existence as they grew closer to it. The loose, stretched sides of it blended in with the expanse of sand around it.
It was bigger than Tatsu had expected; from afar, he could see the sand-block houses and tents grow closer around the center where the bulk of the color was concentrated. There was no castle or palace that he could see, but instead, a low, flat sort of mansion that reached out instead of up and sported bright blue awnings trickling into the rest of the city. In front of the manse was a large, square area filled with carts and tents, and a few people that Tatsu could see in the morning sunlight.
Jotin stopped them there on the ridge and pulled out two extra linen wraps that had been rolled into thick blocks.
“I cannot fully disguise you as Cabaj clan,” he said as he handed them each one of the fabrics, “but we can at least attempt to buy time before the others mark you as outsiders.”
Yudai slung the wrap around his head and shoulders and then helped Tatsu with his.
“Whatever poisons were used on you were no doubt illegal,” Jotin continued. “They are not easy to come across. You must talk to the right people, and they will not come clean about possession of such things readily. It may take several tries to find someone willing to talk.”
He gave Tatsu a pointed look. “Coin loosens many a tongue.”
“I don’t have much,” Tatsu said. “Just some Chaydese coppers and a few bronze omn.”
“The traders will take them in exchange for Joesarian miros,” Jotin said. “Traders are always good for that much.”
“How will we know where to start looking?” Yudai asked.
“All of the alchemy adepts offer at least a selection of their wares at the Raydrau.” When Jotin received two blank looks in response, he clarified, “The night market.”
Yudai sighed. “Then we have an entire day to wait before it begins. The sun only just came up.”
“Try and keep your heads down,” Jotin warned. “I doubt we will find anyone so spoiling for a fight that they attack by virtue of your origins, but it is better to be safe. There are some foreigners in Moswar, though not enough to fully hide you.”
Yudai sighed again and tugged his headscarf down off one shoulder. “Then let’s go. That sun is merciless when it gets high.”
With a fluttering in his belly, Tatsu followed the other two down the final hill of sand and into the capital.
Five
Moswar was built into a flat horizon of beige, but once inside, the tan of the tightly clustered buildings pulled back to reveal a multitude of colors. The entrance to the capital was marked with two large carved pillars in identical shapes—warrior figures, solemn and poised with swords ready—and between them started the long, wide road of the city itself. On either side were clusters of the sandstone buildings, sometimes draped with worn leather hides that stretched out on spindly wooden poles, and Tatsu was glad for the shadows they offered even in the early morning hours. Already, sweat was beading along his neck and running down his back beneath his shirt and his pack.
Most of the buildings near the entrance had open-air windows covered with wares and goods for sale. There was a small, square shop with a spread of dyed linens, and another window that displayed bread-like loaves that seemed to be created from a coarse, yellow grain. But it was the smell that completely enveloped them: the scent of burning incense mingling into a pungent fog, impossible to discern a single note within but constantly cloying around their faces. Sometimes Tatsu thought he could detect bits of Chaydese spice within it, pulling up sweet-smelling memories, but as soon as he tried to focus on it, the scent faded into something else he didn’t recognize.
Jotin led them down the main road. Some of the people they passed were dressed similarly to Jotin with light, layered fabrics and high leather boots, and others were clothed in leather vests that had no sleeves, tied and fastened across their chests with thick-looking cord. A woman pulling down a heavy awning had a headscarf around her hair that seemed to pile up in impossible directions, ending with three loose tassels that fluttered out from the top. Around him was a steady hum of conversations, though as they moved, it seemed that instead of opening for the day, the majority of the sellers were closing down. The Joesarians disappeared into their houses to avoid the heat of the sun.
Overcome by the sights and by the surprising nostalgia swelling in his chest, Tatsu slowed to try and drink it all in. To his right was a large opening cut in stone filled with hanging beads, leather, and feathers that created a curtain obscuring the rest of the shop. Beside that were two large crates piled high with broken pottery pieces, the remnants of sculpting too imperfect to sell. He was so caught up in the world around him that several moments later, he blinked back into awareness and found himself alone on the street.
He swallowed back the exclamation of either name; they couldn’t keep much of a low profile if he caused a commotion by shouting. He had just started trudging forward again when the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and a familiar tingle shot down his good arm.
Tatsu froze and then snapped his head around to the space behind his right shoulder.
There was nothing there except for a worn-looking horse being patted down by a Joesarian man clad in very light linens and two Joesarian children hauling lopsided baskets back inside a building, their knobby knees knocking together with each step.
Still, Tatsu let his gaze linger. Something had triggered his instincts.
“What is it?” Yudai asked, reappearing in front of him. “Why did you stop? Jotin thought we’d lost you already.”
“I just… I got the feeling that I was being watched.”
Yudai snorted ungracefully. “Of course you’re being watched. At this point, we look like half-dead scraps the latest traders brought in from the desert. It’d be more suspicious if people weren’t looking at us.”
“I swear something’s off,” Tatsu said and frowned. Peering closer to the people on the road didn’t reveal anything out of place. Everyone around them was preoccupied with their tasks, and most of them were moving wares out of window sills to close up for the day.
“You probably just imagined it after days of being almost completely alone in the desert,” Yudai said. “With this many people around again, my skin is crawling too.”
Whatever it’d been, it was gone. Tatsu’s senses calmed back down, and he took a deep breath, inhaling more of the incense haze. It had been a long journey without others, and he was badly out of practice—even in Dradela, he’d often crumpled under scrutiny. Tatsu shrugged the pack back up hi
s shoulder where it had begun to slip and shook his head.
“I’ll keep my eyes open, just in case whatever it was comes back. It’s probably nothing, but at least I’m paying attention now.”
Yudai gave him one last look of disbelief before saying, “Let’s go, then.”
They walked until they met back up with Jotin, who didn’t say anything but did take quick look at Tatsu’s face, which he knew had to be wearing his apprehension openly. Tatsu’s opinion of the man rose when, as they began to move together again, Jotin’s right hand slid in to gently grasp the hilt of his sword. It remained there until they passed the bulk of the storefronts.
The road itself was well-worn and packed, though walking along it kicked up a fine layer of dust that settled on Tatsu’s boots. The sky above the blocky horizon line of square-molded buildings had begun to turn a clear, dazzling blue as the dawn colors faded away. Tatsu pulled the linen around his head and shoulders closer as Jotin took a left turn at the next small side street, which was narrower and less populated. Instead of large open windows, the buildings had small slatted openings in groups of three.
“Where are you taking us?” Yudai asked.
“We should not remain in the streets during the day,” Jotin replied. “I am taking us to the sayen, where we can rest and prepare for the Raydrau later this evening.”
Tatsu wanted to ask what a sayen was, but never got the chance. Jotin turned into the round-arch opening in the high sandstone wall to their right that ran parallel to the street. Once inside, it opened up into a courtyard the likes of which Tatsu had never seen before. The entire area was dotted with tall palm trees and shoulder-height wooden posts, except in the center, where everything had been cleared out and the ground was covered with braided mats. The rugs made a circle around what looked to be a wooden barrel and an old, rusty iron well. Concentrated near the middle and radiating outwards were hammocks strung between the palm trunks and the wooden posts, some containing the still bodies of those sleeping and others laden with bags and sacks.
“Travelers and traders who do not have their own carts stay here during the day to wait for the market,” Jotin said while weaving them through the hammocks and posts towards a single awning on the far left side that was tacked onto the inside of the wall. It drooped down to create a curved shadow along the ground. “The sayen-guide will be able to take your Chaydese coins and give you hammocks to rent.”
“And we just sleep here with everyone else?” Yudai asked.
“Sleep with one eye open,” Jotin suggested, “just in case.”
The sayen-guide was a dark-skinned woman wearing a wide, cape-like tunic that reached down to her ankles and wrists and folded itself into thick bunches along her elbows. She took a handful of Tatsu’s coins and produced three corded bundles of rope from a large basket at her feet. Jotin then motioned for them to follow, moving through the sayen until he found an area that seemed to suit him. It was near one of the high white walls, with only a few trees, and Tatsu was glad that Jotin had thought to keep them away from most of the foliage.
It wasn’t difficult to set up the hammocks by looping the rope between posts, and it didn’t take them long to prepare their resting areas. Once they’d finished, Jotin led them to the middle where the aged barrel and the well were. When he pumped the well’s handle a few times, flakes of rust drifted off the iron, but the water it produced was clear and surprisingly cool.
After drinking their fill, Jotin pulled the warped and lopsided lid off of the barrel.
“Ugh,” Yudai said, recoiling from the odor that was released, a potent smell that combined decomposing eggs and strong herbs. He put a hand over his nose and mouth. “What is that?”
“A paste to keep the insects away,” Jotin said. As if unbothered by the smell, he dipped one hand in the barrel and came out with a blackish gel coating his fingers. “There are no nets at the sayen, so you will need to rub this on your skin.”
Yudai’s look of disgust intensified. “You want us to put that on our skin?”
“It is either this or be devoured by the midday mites,” Jotin said with a shrug that seemed to say he didn’t much care what Yudai did or didn’t do.
Tatsu followed Jotin’s lead with his good hand and, wrinkling his nose at the assault on his nose, smeared the paste along his neck. The odor was so strong he worried he’d pass out, but after a few moments, the strength of it faded. Eventually, Yudai gave in and put the mixture on himself, and once done, helped Tatsu cover his good arm.
The sayen was relatively quiet save for the soft snoring from the hammock a few paces away and the sound of the wind rattling the palm fronds above their heads. Settling in against the ropes, it certainly wasn’t uncomfortable—looking up at the blue sky above the trees, the feel of his body gently swaying from side to side was soothing. Still, being so exposed left goosebumps on his skin even with the wall surrounding the rest area, and his mind resisted the siren’s call of sleep for a long time before he finally drifted off.
He dreamed of the desert and the never-ending yellow of the sand. Back out in the dunes, he could hear the clicking of the arachnids as they scurried between the shadows of the ridges to keep cool. The sun was directly overhead, but Tatsu couldn’t feel the heat—except for on the skin of his damaged arm. The blood beneath his useless appendage began to boil, as if the sun was evaporating his very essence right out of him.
His arm began to throb and burn like it was on fire, and he clutched it close to his chest. He fell onto his back and started to roll, tumbling down to the valley between drifted sands. He was wildly afraid that his entire body was going to burst into flames until a shadow drifted over his form to block the worst of it. He squinted up at the face hovering above his own to see long waves of hair tumbling over hunched shoulders.
“Ral?” he asked.
“Tatsu!” she said, and against the backdrop of the sun, he could barely make out her mouth widening into a smile. “Wake up!”
He blinked, and he was back in his hammock lying beneath the late afternoon sun. The fogginess of the dream clung to his mind in spiderwebs of lingering images, and it took him a moment to get his bearings back. The shadow above him remained as it had been in the dream.
Tatsu’s chest constricted and he shot upright, nearly flipping the hammock entirely. “Ral?”
“Tatsu!” she repeated, flashing the same toothy grin. Tatsu was up and on his feet before he realized that he was moving, pulling her into a one-armed hug. His heart was pounding as he pulled back to look her over, finding no evidence of trauma on her face or clothes. She seemed fine; her bronzed brown skin was gleaming from the heat, and her dark hair still loose and fluttering against her back. Beneath the neckline of her tunic, Tatsu could see the chunky beads of the Oldirr necklace.
“What are you doing here?” Tatsu asked. “How did you get here?”
Ral just smiled again and turned to Yudai, greeting him with the same enthusiasm, which he returned with a somewhat dazed embrace. It was only after she moved that Tatsu could see the figure approaching them from behind her, and things began to click into place.
“Alesh,” he said, and she stopped a few paces in front of him.
“Tatsu.” Her narrowed eyes fell to the linen sling curved around his shoulder. “What happened to your arm?”
As evening fell over the city, and Moswar’s citizens started to trickle through the streets again, their rag-tag group sat split between the three hammocks. Ral and Alesh sat together, bowing the bottom of the ropes almost all the way down to the sand-strewn ground, and Ral kicked her heels up, swinging the entire thing back and forth. Jotin, meanwhile, stayed back against the wall, smoothing out one of his leather straps with a small knife while his eyes tracked between the rest of them.
“She was just so agitated,” Alesh said with two fingers gently touching her sister’s arm. “She wouldn’t stop talking about you, and then she just started running off without me until I had no choice but to give in.”
“But how did she know we were heading here?” Tatsu asked. “We didn’t even know until only a few weeks ago. We didn’t head straight into the desert after leaving Chayd.”
Alesh shrugged. “I don’t know, but she was insistent. We went west into Rad-em and found a trader willing to give us passage in the cart.”
“How did you pay for something like that?” Yudai asked. “That journey takes well over a week.”
She didn’t answer, but her face grew hard. After her gaze skipped over Yudai—with a flash of something that Tatsu couldn’t quite identify but wasn’t sure that he liked—it settled on Tatsu.
“Alesh,” he said, his heart sinking down into his stomach. “Don’t tell me—”
“Then I won’t,” she snapped. “I did what I had to. What else was I supposed to do, let Ral try to get here on her own? I couldn’t convince her otherwise, and I couldn’t force her to stay.”
Ral’s mouth puckered at the sides. “Tatsu here.”
“You don’t have to talk about her like she isn’t sitting right next to you,” Yudai said.
Alesh jerked her head to face him. “What would you know? Why do you think you have any right to tell me what I should be doing for my own family?”
“I know her too,” Yudai shot back.
“Please,” Tatsu said. A bone-deep weariness was already settling through his limbs. He pressed his fingers against his brow, wincing at the pang that blossomed beneath the touch. “Please, let’s not do this. We have so many other things that are more important.”
“Such as the Raydrau,” Jotin said. “It will be starting soon.”
“We’ve visited the night market,” Alesh offered.
Tatsu didn’t want to ask the real question dangling in front of him—if they had visited the Raydrau with their trader-wagon that probably dealt in black market wares. Instead, he waited for several breaths and said, “Actually, I’m glad you’re here. You could identify some of the poisons they used on Yudai in Runon, and Chayd likely tried the same toxins. We need to figure out which ones he was given and if there are any antidotes.”
The Mage Heir Page 6