"I don't think I want to say it," she said.
"There's something that you have to do, something that others can't do, isn't there?" Isika looked up from the path, startled.
"I knew it would be something like that. If it was about danger to the rest of us, you'd tell us right away."
She shrugged. "I think it will be dangerous for everyone, but everyone is expecting danger. Nirral said that I might be the only one who can tackle this particular evil, as he called it." Her throat felt tight then, and she dropped her head, remembering Jabari's words of the night before. Demon magic.
Ben linked his arm through hers and they walked that way for a while. His quiver bumped her elbow every few steps, but she didn't want to pull away.
"We have to find Kital," Ben said again. "He deserves a chance to live here too."
"Do you like it with the Maweel?" Isika asked, angling her head to look at his face.
"Of course I do!" he said. "You do too! Or you did. Right?"
"Yes, I do," she said, but she was thinking about Jabari again. Maybe even if she didn't go back to the Worker village, she could live somewhere else. She didn't want to live where people looked at her with suspicion. She had lived her whole life that way, and it didn't seem fair anymore.
The farther they walked, the angrier Isika felt toward Jabari. She had long conversations with him in her head, telling him what she thought of him. At one point she was so focused on the imaginary conversation that she forgot to watch her feet and stumbled into Ben. She laughed and apologized, but he pulled away from her.
"Watch it!" he said, scowling at her.
She frowned back at him. "Sorry. You don't have to talk like that."
"I wouldn't if you weren't so clumsy," he said, his voice getting louder as he spoke. "Be careful!"
She gasped. "I'm not clumsy!"
"Tell that to all the dishes you broke back in our house, right before this brilliant plan of yours to find the brother who we still can't find," he responded, and he sped up so he was walking ahead of her rather than beside her. She wanted to scream at him, but she bit her tongue and stared at the back of his head. What was happening? She looked around. Ivram, at the head of the company, was shaking his head and thumping his staff on the ground.
"Coming unprepared to meet an enemy camp is unacceptable," he shouted. "We don't have enough for lunch for all these people. Have you ever tried boarding enemy ships on an empty stomach?"
"And what about the fact that we have no boats?" Gavi yelled back. "Have you thought of just how long it will take the rangers to retrieve our boats from up river? Or did you expect us to run along the water's surface like insects?"
"You know nothing of war or battle plans!" Ivram shouted, halting in his steps so the ranger behind him stumbled into him.
"So this is war, now? I thought it was a rescue party!"
At the back of the company, Aria yelled for Jabari to just leave her alone already. Isika rubbed at her forehead with her hands.
"Stop!" she shouted. Everyone turned to look at her with scowls on their faces. "This is the poison the Othra warned me of," she said, her voice ringing out in the silence. "We must be almost there. We have to stop arguing and be on our guard."
Ivram pinched the bridge of his nose, frowning, then he smiled a thin smile.
"Just now I wanted to tell you to stop thinking you know more than an elder. This truly is dangerous poison."
"I was going to say the same thing," Jabari said, his fists clenched at his sides. "And I might still say it. Are you so much better than everyone around you, Isika?" He sneered. "You are new as a baby bird, there's no way your knowledge can be so advanced, it doesn't work that way. Unless, of course, your knowledge comes from demon magic."
Ben growled. "Don't talk to her that way," he said, advancing on Jabari with his own fists clenched.
"Oh, great deserts," Isika said, tugging her brother back toward her. "Listen to yourselves." She scanned the air for signs of the Othra, wishing for peace, but the sky was as clear and open as water. She looked at Ivram, pleading for his help with her eyes. He raised a hand.
"Okay, Isika is right. I'm now giving orders. Walk forward, carefully, and guard yourself against ill temper toward your friends around you. We are very nearly there."
They walked again, this time mostly in silence besides an occasional, "Watch it," hissed in annoyed tones.
Isika fought deep doubt in herself. Did she have demon magic? The question repeated over and over inside her spinning head. How could she have magic from the Uncreated One when she had spent her life in the temples of the goddesses? She barely saw the path in front of her, but at some point her eyes widened. The rocky path grew more damp, saturated with sea spray. They were drawing near to the great ocean.
She was just about to pull on Ivram's shirt to warn him, when one of the rangers waved frantically for them to halt. They were in a narrow place between two sets of rocks, damp with spray, and just through the rocks was a cove. The rocks continued into the sea in giant, intricate formations, and at first Isika was so distracted by the lacy, towering cliffs that she didn't see what everyone else was muttering about. But then she pulled up beside Gavi and saw what they pointed at. She felt sick, as though she would lose her breakfast. She put a hand over her mouth.
The sea was stone still, a putrid, slimy green, with bubbles occasionally burping to the surface, yellowish foam gathered in heaps. In the distance, past the towering rocks, Isika could see two ships, spinning slowly, impossibly, as no ship can ever move, one clockwise and the other counter clockwise, an endless whirling. It was horrifying and it made her sick to look at them, but still she stared, trying to discern whether Kital was on one of the ships. Of course she could feel nothing.
One of the rangers broke away from the company and ran to the water, ignoring the screams that followed him. He waded into the scummy water and it happened instantaneously. As soon as his feet touched the water, he fell, heavily, his eyes open and staring. Gavi and another ranger ran to pull him by his shoulders, heaving him onto dry sand. The company gathered around the man. Another ranger stepped forward and bent over him. She touched her palm to his face and shuddered.
"I can heal him," she whispered. "But it will take all my strength. No one else can go in."
Jabari's breath hissed out between his teeth. "Uncle, what is this?"
Ivram's brow furrowed as he looked out toward the ships that spun at the mouth of the cove. "I've never seen anything like it," he said. "It looks as though the sea people are caught in it as much as we are."
The healer yelped. "He's dead," she said, her voice frantic. "It happened so quickly, I don't know how, like he was pulled beneath my reach." There was a stir as the other rangers rushed to kneel by the dead ranger. Ivram bent and checked the man's pulse, then bowed his head. Jabari jumped to his feet, shaking his head.
"It's no use," he said. "We need to give this mission up. There's nothing we can do."
Isika clenched her fists, shaking. "We can't give up! They have our people. You don't want to give up! What's wrong with you? Poison is making you talk like that." She felt the poisons working on her, so that even as she said it, she doubted herself.
"We don't know that they have Kital," he said. "Or the others, for that matter. How can we ever tell, with this horrible water between us?"
"The Othra told me Kital was here," she answered, her chin thrust out at him.
"But we couldn't hear that, could we? Convenient of you to be so bold about something none of the rest of us could hear." She stared at him, telling herself it was only poison, she couldn't blame him for unkind words.
"Ask them, Jabari. You can ask them."
"They aren't here, are they?" he said. "They've disappeared as usual." Isika stared at him. Surely he wasn't doubting the Othra's intentions now! She looked around. Every face was turned toward her and she saw that no one believed her with a full heart, not even Ivram or Ben. Worse, their faces were shadowed
and discouraged, as though they had all aged years since they arrived on this horrible rocky beach. Tears silently streamed down Aria's cheeks. Ivram's staff looked like nothing more than a stick in the gray light.
"We have to try, right?" Isika asked him, but even as she said the words, she felt a wave of the strongest longing, to turn back and go home to Auntie, to sleep on those beautiful cushions and drink a cup of hot tea, to forget it all.
"First we must sing our songs of loss and mourn our brother," Ivram said. "And then we can talk, but I fear that there is nothing more that we can do, child. This poison is stronger than any I have ever seen in all my years. I don't even know what it is."
While the others piled stones around the body of the dead ranger, Isika sat on the beach to think. Before her, the boats spun in a sickening dance. Behind her, the Maweel sang the deep, mournful funeral songs.
There was some kind of cloud over her mind and she rubbed at her forehead to clear it. Brother. Kital beside her, curled next to her at night, sleeping, just a tiny baby without a mother. Kital touching her face after she had been beaten, Kital chasing the chickens in the yard when he was a toddler, falling over every few steps. She thought of him tied up and struggling on one of those boats, and a deep rage boiled up in her.
She pushed at her mind, trying to send it out over the sea, to see as far as she could into the murky green water, searching for any form of life, searching the gray skies, and after a moment she gasped.
Efir, she said. Can you hear me?
Yes, child. Of course. What do you need?
Can you show me what you see?
It was as though Isika was sky-borne, drifting on a warm wind above the murky waters. She could see the boats from above, see the grim whirlpools they were inexorably caught in, see that the people on the boats were asleep. The rescuers huddled in a corner, piled on one another like sacks of wheat. Kital slept on his side with his hands under his cheek, and wherever Isika's body was, she gasped, but she was with Efir, flying, circling, looking for anyone awake, anything she could speak to.
And then she saw him. A tangle of black hair and cloth, he stood on the deck of the ship, glaring up at the Othra. There was a red glint in his eyes, and he moved jerkily, as though he wasn't quite awake. Isika drew in a breath. He raised a fist and shook it at the Othra, and when he spoke, his voice was cracked and hissing.
"You know me from the temple, girl, and you turned your back on me. You cannot steal from Fate. I own the world and I will have this boy whose fate was set as soon as his family betrayed him. He is mine. You can't steal from me!" His voice boiled, it rippled and screeched. Isika was shivering uncontrollably. She wanted to flee from Efir's vision, but she forced herself to stay.
Tell him I will not stop seeking my brother.
Efir spoke to the demon thing. "The World Whisperer will not stop seeking her brother."
The man's face twisted in hate. "I own the seas, I own the sun's rising and setting, I own the death of leaves, the seasons trotting out their steps without sight, without understanding. How will a girl steal from me? Look at my power! Look at these ships! I am everything, I am the end. You cannot steal from me!"
Isika was shaking violently now, her teeth rattling. She couldn't stand the red glare of the horrible man much longer. She forced herself to tell Efir one last thing.
Tell the goddess I can and I will. Tell her that just as I have a choice about how I will rise every morning, I will defy her, I will destroy this spell and take my brother back.
She heard Efir speaking, saying her own words, and the sound filled the skies above the ships. The tangle of hair and clothes, this man being used like a glove for the goddess, jerked and foam bubbled out of his mouth as Fate shrieked in anger at Isika's defiance.
Isika came to herself on the beach, every part of her aching. Benayeem's face was close as he stared at her with terror.
"Isika?" he whispered. Isika realized she was leaning against Gavi and that Jabari was pinning her arms to her sides.
"I'm okay," she said, and her voice was hoarse. "You can let me go."
"What has happened, young one?" Ivram asked. He loomed over her, his staff dead-looking in his hand.
"Who is the World Whisperer?" she asked, slowly rising.
He stared. "Where did you hear that word?" he asked.
"The Othra used it just now, speaking with the goddess Fate," she said. "They called me the World Whisperer."
He staggered then, and Jabari caught him by the elbow, his face wreathed with worry.
"I'm all right, young one," he said to Jabari, straightening again. "Child, you flew with the Othra?"
Isika nodded.
"I saw Kital. I saw the rescuers asleep on one of the ships. I spoke to the goddess, who was," she paused, shuddering, "speaking through the body of one of the sea people. Efir spoke for me. The goddess is violent and angry, but I know we can defeat her, we must! Ivram!" her voice cracked. "Please tell me what this means! Why did they call me that?"
"They said it because you are the World Whisperer, child," he answered, and as he spoke, tears filled his eyes and his staff glowed briefly before dying out again.
CHAPTER 29
Isika stared at Ivram. "Yes, the Othra told me I am the World Whisperer. But what does it mean?"
"You can't be serious," Jabari said to Ivram, getting to his feet, looming over Isika. He frowned down at her.
"The Othra have spoken, young one," Ivram replied.
"They haven't told me," Jabari said. "Why haven't they told me?"
"But think of how they have attended her, protected her!"
"Please!" Isika said, her hands balled into fists. "Tell me what you are talking about."
"World Whisperer was the title of your grandmother," Ivram said. "More than being our queen, she was the one selected to tame the creation, to soothe it and put it to rights, to heal it and calm it after poison has touched it. Mugunta is always trying to destroy and taint the creation, and the world cries out to the Whisperer for healing. This is what Efir means when she says you are the World Whisperer. You are the one who has taken the Queen's place." He looked into her eyes, and she nearly took a step back, his eyes were so piercing.
"Does that mean I can rescue Kital?" she asked.
Jabari snorted. "Don't you hear what he's saying? This goes well beyond Kital or any one of us! If what he's saying is true, we must all defer to you!"
The rangers gave each other confused glances, and Gavi shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Ivram turned to regard Jabari with a cool glance. Isika felt sick to her stomach.
"I don't care about any of that," she said to Jabari, meeting his angry eyes. "All I want is to get my baby brother back."
A rush of peace filled her heart, and she looked up to see the Othra circling overhead. She felt tugging inside her, the strongest pull she had ever felt, and she realized that the ocean, the sick and betrayed ocean, was calling to her. She walked toward it, ignoring the mutterings of the others. When Jabari grabbed her arm, she tugged it out of his grasp and ran, evading his grasp. Isika waded into the ugly, sick water, and she did not fall.
The sorrow and terror of the sea washed over her. She spoke to it in her mind. All will be well, she said, and a small part of the water cleared, just around her feet. She took a step forward, and she felt the poison soaking into her, meeting the flame of her heart and fizzling out. Ripples of clear water spread from her legs and she waded farther in, until the water came up to her thighs. The poison flowed into her and evaporated. A few fish woke up and sea plants swayed under the clear water.
The healthy water spread outward, rushing along the beach and out toward the ships. She grinned. Fate needed to see that she would never let go. As the water resurrected, its life revived her as well. She had strength to keep moving. Voices called to her from the beach, but she ignored them, concentrating. She waded farther, until the sea came up to her chest, with small fish darting around her feet. She could see the sh
ips clearly now. The fog lifted and the sun shone brightly on her head.
She pulled her feet from the bottom and swam. Could she swim all the way to the ships? She didn't know, but she swam on. Waves were starting to make the rushing sounds of crashing on the shore, and the water she swam through was cold and clear. More and more fish darted around her, swimming through her legs, brushing against her arms. They were happy to be free, and they passed their joy into her body. Once again she was covered in tiny lights outlining her arms and legs as she pushed through the water. But she was exhausted already, her chest and arms burning from the effort of swimming. She gritted her teeth and kept going until she could barely move. And then she heard them.
They came shyly toward her, the two naia, the dolfina with their strong, quick bodies, nudging her with their minds.
Thank you, the bigger one said.
It is my pleasure, she said back to him.
Can we help? The smaller one asked.
I would be grateful for it. I am not as good at swimming as you.
A naia swam to each side, and she felt the joy and kindness of their souls as they nudged their heads under her arms, swimming swiftly through the water, toward the ships. Isika watched as the luminous water spread from them until none of the green, slimy water remained. Slowly, the boats stopped spinning. They were bigger than she had thought, and she wondered how she would climb onto them, but then she saw that the four kidnapped rescuers had awoken and stood looking at her over the ship's railing. A boy threw her a rope, and immediately one of the sea people tried to draw it back in, but the other rescuers grappled with him and Isika quickly clutched the rope.
Thank you, she breathed to the naia, and they quivered under her touch. Wave after wave of joy flowed into her, a stream of sunrises and sunsets, the joy of a clean dive, the sea spray, the salt in the water, the healing of the ocean, and she took a deep breath and hauled herself up the rope.
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