by J. M. Lee
“And we don’t have forever,” Naia agreed. She folded her hands. “I once thought meeting urVa and urLii was by chance, but now I’m not so sure. The Mystics are wise, but whenever we ask them questions, they never give us full answers. If we go looking for them, something tells me we won’t find them until they’re ready. If the Mystics are part of all this, they’ll find us.”
There was nothing else to say after that, and they listened to the sloshing of the waves against the hull.
A gust of wind blew, and Amri smelled earth. Onica stood, shading her eyes with her hand. A dusty red line had grown from the sea, far away on the horizon.
“Cera-Na awaits us,” Onica said with a glint of pride. “Prepare for landfall.”
Kylan put his book away and joined Amri and Naia at the rail. Together, they gazed out at the distant line of mountains that grew steadily closer. Any exhaustion from their sparring lesson earlier flitted away as Amri grew more and more excited to land.
“You think it’ll be difficult to convince the Sifa to join the others against the Skeksis?” Kylan asked.
Amri glanced at Naia. The wind ruffled her wings like iridescent sails as she watched the land draw nearer, a more pensive look on her face. Determination, resilience, he figured. He tried to temper his own feelings to match hers.
“They’re still Gelfling,” Naia said. “I have no doubt we’ll be able to bring the truth to them. Light the fires of resistance, whatever they are.”
Mmmmmnnnnnnnn . . .
Amri winced suddenly, pressing his hand against his ear. A low moan rumbled out of the ocean, like a deep voice trapped below the waters, calling for help. Then it was gone, lost again under the blustering of wind and sloshing of waves.
“Amri, are you all right?” Naia asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“I thought I heard . . .” Amri trailed off, scanning the waves with his eyes and ears. Nothing remained of the sound he’d heard. “A deep cry, like a creature in pain.”
The sunlight set off the top layer of the seawater, a salty green blue capped with white. Below that, Amri realized, they could see nothing. He had no idea how deep it was, or what lurked below. He reached over the side of the rail, dipping his hand in the water. The ocean’s voice was meaningless to him, its words dense and incoherent to his touch that only knew the language of stone. He wiped the salt water from his palm.
“I don’t know what it was,” he said. “It’s gone now.”
With the wind at their back and the tide rushing toward the cliffs, the Claw Mountains seemed to grow by the second. Just as the Three Brothers began their tilt in the sky, heading toward the other side of the ocean, Cera-Na came into view.
The mountains were huge up close, dense ridges of red and tan rock like a giant’s hand resting in the shallow water near the cliffs. Among them, hundreds of ships docked along the rocky headland and sea stacks. With their battened sails in a rainbow of colors, they looked like a shoal of hooyim fish, gliding in and out with fins like colored glass in front of the light of the suns.
Amri gasped as they came around the main headland, then winced and had to shield his eyes from one vessel that rested in the arms of the bay. He squinted through his fingers at a magnificent ship that dwarfed all the others. It was not made of wood but coral; glittering white and pink at the keel, brilliant carnelian as its fronds reached higher. The masts were thorny spires, growing out of the coral body like trees and bloused with flowing anemone sails.
Onica, with Tavra on her shoulder, leaped down to the deck.
“The Omerya,” the Far-Dreamer said. “Maudra Ethri’s ship . . . Welcome, my friends, to Cera-Na.”
CHAPTER 7
“Though Sifa ships may sail alone for many trine at a time, we always return here . . . and when Omerya is in port, we are all home once again,” Onica explained as she brought them into port and tied the ship to one of the many white coral spires rising from the coastal floor. The water was clearer along the spires and near the headlands, in some places shallow enough to see the sandy, shell-littered bottom. Seabirds sang above them and Gelfling voices sang and yelled to one another from the decks of the ships and the planked docks. Amri caught sight of a pink petal on the air. A few danced along the waves near where the ocean met the land.
As the suns began to set, casting a cascade of blue and pink and gold off the cliffs and the shore, Cera-Na came alive with firelight. Torches burned where the docks entwined, and from lanterns dangling from ship bowsprits. As they followed the docks farther into the bay where Omerya rested, Amri saw what Onica meant. Cera-Na was a village that was forever changing, like a living body. The houses came and went as the ships did, the streets changing as gangplanks were set and withdrawn.
The Sifa roamed freely between the ships, looking like wind and fire themselves. Most had red hair like Onica, though sometimes it was streaked or dyed in black and blue and turquoise. Some did not even seem to be Sifa at all, or at least not full-blooded, though they were dressed like the Sifa in their seafaring clothing and jangling with charms and jewels. Had Amri seen them anywhere else, he would have thought them to be from other clans. One had long black hair like Kylan. Another looked Vapra, or maybe a mix of Vapra and Sifa.
One in particular caught Amri’s eye. He elbowed Naia, and she looked up at the sturdy Gelfling with long, dark red hair in spiraled locs. His skin was the color of fresh grass, the striped markings on his cheeks dark black and blue. He watched as they passed below his ship, taking a sip of drink from a wooden flagon.
“Captain Staya,” Onica said, tossing a casual nod hello in the captain’s direction.
“Far-Dreamer,” he replied, bowing low. Though it was respectful, Amri caught something like suspicion in the captain’s eye.
“Is he . . . Drenchen?” Naia asked as they continued on.
“Sifa, with Drenchen in his family tree. Third generation, I believe. That ship has been in and out of Cera-Na since I can remember.” Onica’s smile twinkled as she looked back. “That is the beauty of Cera-Na, and Sifa tradition. We are bound together not by blood or by the confines of the earth. We are bound together by heart and by the changing wind. If the prophecies and signs say one must become Sifa, one does. We accept that.”
Amri followed Onica, watching as the Sifa recognized her with warm smiles and sometimes reverent bows as they wound through the docks and makeshift bridges. Tavra looked like a piece of glass jewelry in Onica’s hair. She shimmered, murmuring into Onica’s ear, but she was too small and the air around too full of voices and music for Amri to hear what she was saying.
The Omerya was more impressive up close. Her hull was made of coral reef, and where it was submerged, Amri could see nooks and crannies where ocean life lived. Eels, fish, and water slugs and the like, swimming and darting in and out of the pink and peach fronds. Onica stopped at the gangplank, decorated with glittering hooyim scales, flags, and banners that caught the wind.
“Onica! You came!”
A freckled Sifa with golden-red hair leaned over the side of the Omerya, then hopped down, azure wings opening to slow her fall. She embraced Onica and nodded hello to Amri and the others.
“Tae!” Onica exclaimed. “I’ve missed you.”
“As we have you! I was worried you would stay in Ha’rar after I heard about Tavra . . .”
Amri waited to see if Tavra would say something, but she didn’t. He wasn’t surprised; if he were in her position, he wasn’t sure he’d want to reveal himself to old friends, either. It would be up to her when to share what had happened to her, in her own time.
“I need to see Maudra Ethri. It’s important,” Onica said.
Tae’s eyes sharpened as she held Onica’s arms. She glanced over Onica’s companions, taking in the little group of Gelfling from across the land. She hesitated, as if reluctant to speak around them.
“A Far-Dream?” she ask
ed.
“Something like that.”
“I’ll ask, but she may only be willing to see you alone. She’s been preoccupied. There has been a thief on the loose, and on top of that there’s Ethri’s . . . guest.” Tae tightened her lips. She put her hand on Onica’s arm and turned her away, both whispering so Amri and his friends couldn’t hear them. Naia crossed her arms.
“So much for that harmonious Sifa tradition,” she said.
Tae stepped back from Onica and held her by the shoulders, then scampered up the gangplank and disappeared into the Omerya like a sun-colored fish into the reef.
“What’s going on?” Naia asked. “What did you tell her?”
Onica waited at the foot of the gangplank. She gazed up at the ship, catching the torchlight in her eyes and said, “The truth.”
“Do you know what she meant by guest?” Kylan asked.
Onica didn’t answer. A porthole opened in the side of the ship. The coral curled away like a shutter until it was large enough for them to walk through. Tae stood in the entryway.
“Come,” she said. She waved and added, “All of you.”
The inside of the Omerya was a maze of passageways, splitting and rejoining organically, sometimes opening into chambers outfitted with seating cushions and lanterns. In other, darker places, the walls writhed with life, and Amri spied at least five glowing shrimp peeking out from their home-holes in the walls. It reminded him of Domrak.
But it wasn’t Domrak. Omerya was a ship of the daylighter world, as were the coastal sands and the unending Silver Sea. He had to stop comparing things to the place he had left behind.
They followed Tae and Onica upward until the tunnel spit them out onto the deck, now overlooking all of Cera-Na. Much of the deck was natural coral, etched and smoothed so it could be walked upon, while other parts grew wild and rough as crystal. At the center of the deck was a round hearth. Despite everything being so different, here in the Sifa’s bay, the hearth itself was the one thing that was familiar to Amri. The center of every Gelfling clan, whether it was aboard a moving coral ship or not.
Amri frowned as he neared it. There was no fire burning, and from the coals and ashes, it looked like there had not been one for some time.
“Onica!”
A Sifa came striding from an exit across the deck, every step jangling with metal chimes and bells. She had wild, dark crimson-and-black hair, accented with glittering beads and copper wire, ears strung with gemstone earrings. One of her green eyes sparkled more than the other, catching the light like a stone.
“Gem-Eyed Ethri,” Tae said with a curt bow. “Maudra to the Sifa of Cera-Na.”
“Welcome home!” Maudra Ethri crowed. She embraced Onica tightly, every bell on her sash ringing.
“She’s so young,” Naia whispered to Kylan and Amri.
Unlike old Maudra Argot, the oldest of the living maudra, or even All-Maudra Mayrin, Ethri couldn’t have been any older than Onica or Tavra. Amri remembered what Onica had said, about growing up together.
Onica introduced them, and Ethri nodded at each of their names. Her eye glinted again, and Amri realized it was a gemstone set in her head. It didn’t turn along with her other eye, its smooth surface seeming to look everywhere at once.
“I’m pleased to meet you, daughter of Maudra Laesid. Yes, very much indeed,” Maudra Ethri said. “Now, tell me, what’s brought you all the way from Sog and Sami Thicket, Domrak and the Caves of Grot. Eh? It must be good.”
“It’s not entirely good, but it is important,” Naia said. “You’ve seen the petals? The dream within them?”
“Of course. I’d have to be much farther at sea to avoid seeing the blasted things everywhere.”
“Everything you saw in that dream is true. It was Kylan’s truth, on behalf of all of us who have seen the Skeksis’ betrayal first hand. We’ve been tasked by Mother Aughra and Thra to bring the clans together. Ready to act when the time is right. Ready to fight against the Skeksis. So now we’re here to ask: Will you join us?”
Naia’s delivery was straight to the point, almost bluntly so. That was Drenchen hard-talk for you. Ethri crossed her arms, leaning on one hip.
“Join you?” the Sifa maudra asked, as if she didn’t understand the question.
Naia frowned, taken aback. “If you don’t believe us . . .”
“I believed the instant I saw the dream stitched in the pink petals. But you’re asking me to pledge myself to . . . what, you? To Aughra and Thra? If I agree to join you, who am I even joining? How will we know when the time is right—is it you who will tell us? Is this a war or an idea?”
Ethri didn’t exactly laugh, though Amri felt like she might as well have. Just as he was about to say something he was sure they would all regret, Onica stepped forward.
“Ethri, I saw a dream myself,” she said. “From Mother Aughra, and from Thra. All-Maudra Mayrin vowed to stand against the Skeksis.”
“Mayrin, eh? Now that, I’m not sure I could believe. She would never resist the Skeksis, after all this time kissing their bejeweled claws! Do you have proof? No? And even if you did . . . If you have the support of the Vapra, then what do you need of the Sifa?”
“All the clans will need to stand together if we’re going to stop the Skeksis from picking us apart,” Kylan insisted. “We may not know exactly how, but we must heed—”
“I did not see that dream. Aughra did not speak to me and neither did Thra. Perhaps if I had seen it with my own eye, but I didn’t . . . My friends, I thank you for coming all this way to bring the news to me in person. Be assured, I will do what is best for the Sifa.”
“Be assured?” Amri cried. He bit his lip, trying not to speak out of turn, but he couldn’t help himself. “The Skeksis are eating our people. That’s the long and short of it! Devouring us like moss from the cave wall!”
His outburst was rude, but Maudra Ethri didn’t seem to care about that. She merely waved her hand. “Then you ought to decide what to do that is best for your clans, as well. I have an important guest that I cannot keep waiting any longer. I trust you’ll enjoy yourselves in Cera-Na. Take as long as you wish before you hurry on to entreat the other maudra to join you. Onica, a word?”
Maudra Ethri left them with the air of a parent dismissing a child’s tall tale. Tae followed behind her. It was even more frustrating that the maudra was hardly older than they were. The only thing that kept Amri from shouting rude things after her was how tightly he bit his tongue. Beside him, Naia’s fists trembled.
Onica frowned, the pensive look ill-befitting her usual features. In the short moment they were alone on the deck, she gently took Tavra from her hair and set her on Amri’s shoulder.
“Something is not right,” she said. “This is not the Ethri I knew. I will speak with her and see what I can see. I’ll meet you back at my ship. In the meantime, Tavra can show you around Cera-Na.”
Footsteps came, and Tavra scurried under Amri’s hood when Tae returned to the deck. Her mouth was an uncomfortable, apologetic half frown.
“This way,” she said with a little sigh. “I’ll show you back to the dock.”
The Sifa girl was silent about the exchange they’d all shared, eyes fixed ahead as if troubled or thinking or both. The longer they were in Cera-Na, the more Amri picked up the feeling Onica had spoken out loud: Something wasn’t right. He wished he could ask Tavra more questions, but whenever they were around others, she wouldn’t come out of hiding. Whatever she could tell him would have to wait.
Once, as they walked through the bowels of the ship, Amri thought he heard distant, throaty laughter. But the walls of the coral were too thick to make it out, and soon enough they were back on the docks.
“I’m sorry about Ethri,” Tae said. “She’s usually more hospitable. I would show you around myself, but I’ve got something I need to do. So please, make yourselves at hom
e. Onica means very much to all of us here, and so her friends do, too.”
“Not enough to make a difference,” Amri muttered.
Tae looked down, opened her mouth as if to say something but didn’t. She tossed them a simple salute and left them standing on the dock beside the Omerya.
“That could have gone better,” Kylan said as the three of them—four if Amri counted quiet Tavra—walked away from the Omerya. More and more lanterns were lit as the evening settled in. Amri heard music and singing, smelled fire and smoked fish.
“Wonder who’s the guest?” Naia spat. “Better be someone important. Aughra’s Eye! It’s like she couldn’t care less. I didn’t expect uniting the clans was going to be easy, but I thought the difficult part would be getting them to believe. But it’s as if the truth doesn’t matter. She knows, and she believes, but she’s not going to do anything.”
Now that they were alone, Tavra revealed herself on Amri’s shoulder, moving down his arm.
“Why are you hiding? Don’t you trust Tae?” Amri asked.
“I don’t want people to know” was her simple reply. If she felt anything about it—pain, embarrassment, or otherwise—she kept it frozen under her usual ice. “Listen. I want the three of you to return to Onica’s ship. Wait there. I am going to find out more about this guest that preoccupies Ethri. In the morning, we’re going to force Ethri to commit to the Gelfling. It is her duty as maudra, to her people and the Gelfling as a race.”
“Force her!” Naia exclaimed, surprised and impressed. “How?”
“You’re not the only one whose mother is maudra. There is a reason the Vapra have led the seven clans since the rise of the Skeksis rule.” Tavra leaped from Amri’s sleeve onto the rope of the dock that snaked back toward the Omerya. She would be invisible as any other bug aboard the living-coral ship. As she left, she said, “Don’t find trouble while I’m gone.”
Then she scurried off, nothing more than a glint of starlight on the dock.