by May, K. C.
“I see now why you’re so reluctant to leave,” said a man’s voice.
Jora startled and turned about, finding Elder Gastone squatting on the shoal behind her. “Elder. I didn’t hear you approach.”
He pushed his hood down to reveal his bald head. “I like to watch the sun rise over the sea in the morning, but my duties occasionally take me too far inland. It’s a rare journey that takes me to the shore. Your flute called to me. It wasn’t until I neared that I realized you weren’t simply playing an odd melody. Who is your friend?”
Sundancer lay on her side in the water, watching the exchange with one eye. “You not tell man about calling.”
“I call her Sundancer because she likes to dance in the glow of the sunrise. She seems to enjoy my playing and often whistles back to me.” Jora didn’t want to reveal the depth of her relationship or exchanges to the Truth Sayer.
“You’ll find, Novice Jora, that the truth is plainer than you might think. Your writings, the back-and-forth exchanges, the late nights spent reading by lamplight—these things would suggest there is more to your friendship with the dolphin than you’re saying.”
She swallowed, ashamed her omission was so easily discovered. He was a Truth Sayer. Of course he’d have observed her activities before coming here. “I’ve learned a little bit of the dolphin language. She tells me about her fishing adventures—”
“Novice,” Gastone said in an admonishing tone, “don’t insult me by lying to my face. Do you not think I can read? Your own hand betrays you.”
“Sorry,” she said, ducking her head. “So sorry. Our private conversations mean a lot to me. I hesitate to share them with anyone, especially someone who seeks to remove me from my home and end my ability to converse with my dear friend.”
For a long moment, he regarded her with compassion. “It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” he asked finally, looking out to sea. “That a creature without thumbs could be capable of deep thought. I’m certain we can convince your elder to let you continue exploring this knowledge in Jolver with the understanding, of course, that you share what you learn with the rest of the Order.”
“Why do I need an elder’s permission?”
He frowned, his bushy white brows low. “The structure within the Order requires you to seek permission to pursue knowledge that falls outside the scope of your assigned duties.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then we all lose, my dear.” His joints popped loudly as he rose. “Say something to Sundancer. Let me hear you exchange words in this language of music. Azarian, it’s called?”
She nodded and turned back to Sundancer, raising the flute to her lips. “Man is not Autumn Rain friend.”
“I know. You not tell other humans about calling.” She whistled a few more notes, and Jora looked them up without writing anything down. Elder Gastone might be able to read her writing, but he couldn’t hear her thoughts. “You promise,” Sundancer had said.
“I not tell,” Jora assured her. “I promise.” Why the dolphin didn’t want her to share the knowledge with others, she didn’t know, but she would respect the request.
“Push man in water,” Sundancer said. “I drown man.”
Jora’s eyes widened in surprise. “No, Sun Dancer, you not drown man.” She wasn’t sure if Sundancer was serious. The dolphin did have a sense of humor, but the suggestion that she would kill him was more appalling than humorous.
Sundancer twittered. “I go now hunt. I see you in big city?”
Jora wasn’t sure how to answer the question. “Yes, I come when I come.”
“Autumn Rain is Sun Dancer friend. Goodbye, Autumn Rain.”
Tears fell from Jora’s eyes. “Goodbye, Sun Dancer.”
A great many people gathered around her table at breakfast to wish her well and express regret at her leaving. Her departure was such a surprise to everyone that few had time to come up with a customary parting gift. Her sister, Cacie, offered a wide-brimmed canvas hat for her journey; Nuri, a leather duffel bag she’d been planning to sell to the traveling merchant; and the cordwainer gave a pair of boots made of the very pieces Jora had cut for her the week before. The five councilwomen gave her ten shells as a parting gift, having agreed amongst themselves they didn’t want her to leave Kaild with no money at all. She folded the bills and tucked them into the bottom of her duffel bag.
Many of them followed Jora and her visitors to the beach, where she said tearful goodbyes to her parents, her sister and nephews, her cousins and aunts and friends. Kayla smoothed Jora’s hair and brushed tears from her cheeks with her thumbs, encouraging her daughter to write when she could and do as she was told. Dyre had no parting words for her, only a lingering hug that ended only when Kayla pried his arms loose and admonished him not to crush the poor girl. She hugged her half-siblings and stepmothers, and her younger brother, Loel, whose Antenuptial she would miss. Tearna and Briana said their goodbyes with tears and hugs and angry glares at the two Truth Sayers for taking Jora from them.
Anika bid her goodbye with a tight embrace and kiss on the cheek. “Send word from time to time. Let us know you’re all right.”
Gunnar’s Third Wife, Marja, also gave her a hug, but her smile was more joyous than everyone else’s. “It’s for the best,” she said into Jora’s ear before kissing her cheek.
Jora was taken aback by the cruelty beneath the surface of those words, but she nodded anyway. Perhaps it was. Marrying Gunnar would have created problems between herself and Marja, and Jora avoided conflict like she did wasps.
Gunnar stood sullenly by, waiting until the very end to say his farewell. Jora met his gaze with a sorrowful longing, wishing things had turned out differently.
“I’m sorry my plan fell apart at the end,” he said quietly, taking one of her hands in his. “Plans do that sometimes. I’ve admired you from afar for so long, it breaks my heart to see you go.”
He had? she wondered. She had no idea he’d noticed she was female until the last few weeks, when she’d caught him looking at her while she stole a glance at him. “I’m sorry, too. I’d have said yes, you know.”
He smiled. “It warms me to hear it. I wish you well, dear Jora. I hope to see you again someday. If you can manage a message now and then to let us know you’re well, we would all appreciate it.”
Jora nodded. She would keep her mystic eye on her hometown as she had their beloved sons and husbands.
“This is for you,” he said, handing her a water skin. “I filled it for you too, so you won’t go thirsty before the first stop.”
She put its strap around her neck and slipped one arm through. “Thank you.” It hadn’t occurred to her to request a bag of food or water. She’d assumed the Truth Sayers would arrange everything.
He bent to kiss her cheek, or so she assumed, but his lips landed squarely upon her own. By the time she recovered from the surprise enough to enjoy their softness, the kiss was over, leaving her slightly breathless and wanting more. “Take care, dear.” Gunnar stepped back, letting her hand drop, and pressed his lips together in regret.
The boat’s captain suggested she take off her shoes, which she did. She put them into her duffel and carried the bag across her shoulders to avoid the waves as she made her way to the boat. She was met by a sailor standing in the chest-deep water. He took her bag and tossed it up to two of the sailors who had already boarded. She grabbed hold of the rope ladder and began a wobbly climb up. Wet as she was, the task wasn’t easy. The man in the water put both hands squarely on her buttocks and pushed, surprising her with both the rudeness of his uninvited touch and the assistance. When she reached the top, two sailors grabbed her by the armpits and hauled her over the side as if she were another piece of cargo, banging and scraping her knees and shins.
The elder and adept joined her in the boat, and once the last sailor was aboard, they pulled up the anchor and raised the sails.
People on the shore watched solemnly. Jora waved to her friends and family an
d blew them kisses, tears streaming down her face, and the boat headed out into the sea. She’d never considered marrying outside Kaild, and here she was being dragged off to the capital city. Soon, the people of Kaild became but a speck on the beach behind them.
“How long will it take to reach Jolver?” she asked.
“Not long with the sails up,” Elder Gastone said. “We should dock before suppertime.”
One man on the left side of the boat drew his comrades’ attention to something in the water. Jora went to the other side to see. It was a dorsal fin and a spray of water. A dolphin jumped out in an arc and dove back under as it swam beside the boat. Jora couldn’t see it clearly at this distance, but she thought it might be Sundancer. She smiled, wondering whether Sundancer knew somehow that she was on the boat, or perhaps she made a habit of swimming alongside boats for fun.
“Is that your friend?” Elder Gastone asked. Even though he was standing next to her, he had to shout over the wind noise to be heard.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.” She could only hope so.
Chapter 11
For the first few hours, the wind was strong enough that the boat’s sail pulled them through the dark water of the sea at a good pace. The two Truth Sayers remarked at the excellent progress they were making and speculated they might reach the capital in less time than it had taken to sail to Kaild.
With one hand on her head to keep the hat from flying off, Jora kept her gaze on the shoreline and did her best not to engage the Truth Sayers in conversation, though her curiosity bloomed the nearer they got to Serocia’s capital.
Adept Uster’s unsmiling face and watchful eyes made Jora nervous. She didn’t believe he would behave inappropriately, but whenever Elder Gastone stepped away to have a word with the boat captain, she fidgeted under Uster’s stare and watched for Gastone to return. What was perhaps most unnerving was that he rarely said anything to her except when Gastone was present. Jora was convinced that during those times they waited for the elder to return, Uster was observing her in the Mindstream, perhaps finding those times in the past where she was bathing or undressing. She didn’t know this, but his blatant staring along with the creepy feeling of being watched made her fairly certain of it.
What’s fair for the rooster is fair for the hen, she thought, closing her eyes. She opened the Mindstream and found his thread. As she was about to zip back in time to see what he’d been up to, she found herself slammed out of the Mindstream as if she’d been kicked in the chest.
“No!” Uster hollered. “You must never observe a Truth Sayer. Ever.”
“You’ve been observing me,” she shot back.
“You aren’t a Truth Sayer, Novice. You aren’t even a member of the Order yet.”
“Sorry,” she said grudgingly. “I didn’t know.”
He glared at her for a moment and then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “You won’t become a Truth Sayer until you’re promoted to Disciple, usually after three years in the Order. We have many rules and laws, and you’re bound to make mistakes from time to time, but I caution you not to make that one again. The punishment is severe.”
“Sorry,” she said again. “I won’t.”
Gastone returned to his seat with a good deal of groaning and grunting. He walked hunched over and acted like a man past his eightieth year. Jora took him by the elbow and helped him lower himself down onto the bench.
“Thank you, Novice.” Gastone settled beside her, a serene gent with a kindly smile and understanding in his eyes. He hadn’t spoken about his own family or where he was from, but Jora suspected he’d been similarly “requested” by the king and couldn’t refuse.
“I’ve been looking at your notes,” he said. “Like you, I’m intensely curious about this language the dolphin seems to be teaching you. Has... Sundiver, is it?”
“Sundancer,” she said. The dolphin’s name, whistled in Azarian, had translated to Sun Dancer, as she’d guessed.
“Has Sundancer taught you anything interesting?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “Besides the language itself? No, we just talk.”
“What is the calling?”
Jora’s mind went blank. Sundancer didn’t want her to tell him. She’d specifically asked Jora not to tell anyone about the calling. “I don’t know yet. You pulled me away from my home, family, and friends before I had a chance to find out.”
“What about the odd words you wrote?” Elder Gastone asked. “Words like...”
She got that strange feeling again, like she was being watched.
“...Dobe caf i io. What does that mean?”
“It means calling,” she said. “That’s all I know.” In fact, that was an instruction for how to play the Azarian word for calling on the flute, but she wouldn’t say so. Perhaps she couldn’t stop them from observing her and reading what she’d written in her journal, but they couldn’t make her betray Sundancer.
“But how did you come up with those words, dobe caf i io? How do you get that from a dolphin?”
“I never learned conventional musical notation, so I made up a shorthand to help me remember how to play the sounds.”
For the next hour, he questioned her about the notes she’d taken from the Book of Azarian, not the fierce sort of interrogation she’d seen Gunnar and the drill master before him conduct when teaching the boys about being captured by enemy soldiers, but she could tell his curiosity was burning within him as it had her. Maybe his interest in the dolphins made him somewhat of a kindred spirit, but he was, in her mind, still her abductor and prison guard, and that made him her enemy until he proved otherwise.
“I’m going to recommend you be transferred to my hierarchy and Adept Uster’s. If Elder Kassyl agrees to it, I’ll give you leave to visit the shore once per week so you can continue your conversations with Sundancer. How does that sound?”
She would rather go back home and forget them all. “What did you say about petitioning the king to be excused from this service?” she asked.
Uster snorted softly. Gastone gave her a gentle, regretful smile. “You may petition, Novice, but don’t tighten your heartstrings over it. He’s not in the habit of granting such excuses. In the thirty years I’ve been saying truths as a member of the Order, I’ve seen only one such petition granted.”
“Then he might do it.”
“The Novice requesting to be excused had been injured in the war, captured by the Arynd-ban forces, and tortured. His tongue had been cut out, his eyes removed, his eardrums burst, and his fingers cut off. The petition was made on his behalf by his wife, and granted on the grounds that he wasn’t able to communicate anything he’d witnessed. King Yaphet obviously released him from his obligation.”
Jora shuddered. All right then, maybe the fact that she had a dolphin friend and a willing husband wasn’t enough to persuade him. She would have to think of something else.
“If it’s any consolation, Novice,” Gastone said, “life in the Order is not unpleasant, as you’ll soon discover.” He looked toward the city growing larger ahead on the right.
Smoke rose in dozens of thin ribbons all over the city. Even from a distance, she could spot the multicolored buildings, and as they neared, her awe deepened. Part of her had to admit to harboring a mild excitement about her adventure.
The boat drifted up to the dock, and a few sailors disembarked to moor it. Jora retrieved her bag and accepted a hand from one of the men to climb over the side and step onto the pier, thankful to be on solid ground once again. Her stomach wasn’t quite right, yet she was hungry from the hours spent without food. She didn’t dare nibble on the food the cooks sent with them for fear it would all come back up. The smell of fish was strong here. On the next pier over, several men were rolling barrels off a pair of ketches while gulls circled above.
With the strap of her duffel over her shoulder, she walked up the pier ahead of the Truth Sayers and stopped when she reached the shore, looking around. The city was teemin
g with activity: people walking or running in every direction, horses with riders and horses pulling carriages, dogs pulling carts, and plump, gray pigeons strolling boldly in the streets, pecking at morsels of discarded food. She waited while the Sayers caught up to her. She hoped the Justice Bureau was nearby. The way Elder Gastone hobbled, he wasn’t going to be up for a long walk.
“Adept Uster, would you kindly fetch us a carriage?”
“Of course, Elder.” The adept went into a nearby inn and exited a few minutes later. “It’ll be around momentarily.”
A horse-drawn carriage pulled up and stopped. The driver hopped down from his seat atop the rear of the carriage and put Jora’s duffel into a trunk under his seat while the two Sayers climbed into the carriage and settled on the front-facing seat. Jora took her hat off and got in, barely able to maneuver to the opposite seat without stepping on their feet, and she had to sit with her knees touching theirs. The carriage, though built for four passengers, was only comfortable for two.
Each side had a door with an unglazed window. A hinged, wooden flap inside the carriage hung ready to lift into place to keep passengers dry in a downpour, or hidden from the view of passersby, though she imagined the carriage would be quite dark and stuffy with it in place. The carriage creaked and groaned as the driver climbed atop it to take his seat, and soon they were off, rumbling noisily along the cobbled streets. Judging from the way the carriage tilted—and Jora’s need to constantly push with her legs to keep her rear on the seat—they traveled uphill. She looked out the window at the sights.
Nearly every building was painted a different color, almost every color of the rainbow. Her eyes feasted on the painted stone buildings, the brick streets, the many merchants with shops and carts, the children running and laughing, and the dogs chasing them. There were cats, too, some perched on ledges high above the street, others watching with unblinking eyes from beneath steps or within shrubs.