“That will be Socres,” Tiyharqu said with a smile, getting up and following the man out.
“Well, good luck today,” Vale nodded to Samaki. “Sorry my boys and I can’t help.”
“Don’t worry yourselves over us. You’ve already given us more help than we deserve,” Samaki spooned another mouthful of the porridge into his mouth. He’d rather finish eating what he could before the hard labour started.
“I’ll say,” Vale’s oldest snorted under his breath, and his mother shot him a warning glance.
Samaki shovelled the last few bites into his mouth, and before he even finished swallowing, he hurried out the door. Socres’ small fishing boat was docked next to Vale’s, and he saw the group of men heading over to the chosen tree. Socres was younger than Vale and worked with his brothers who were helping to carry the chains they had brought.
He was eager to speak with Socres and walked quickly towards the shore. So was Tiyharqu of course, but as Tiyharqu thought about materials needed for the ship and what they had to trade for them, Samaki had a different matter he needed to discuss with the man.
“Ahoy,” Socres called out. He was a tall, wiry man, with a bushel of wild auburn hair, his face tanned and overrun with prickly stubble.
“Socres,” Samaki reached him just before Tiyharqu, and the two men clasped arms. “Harqu tells me you’re going to the northern isles today.”
“Yes, I’m bringing them a couple nannies for breading,” Socres motioned with his thumb to his ship where two young white goats were secured to the mast, chewing on some oats with little care for the world.
Socres had started his life out as a fisherman, as most men here did, but through a few fortunate opportunities, he realized there was a good living to be made trading and delivering goods between the islands, and that’s how he made most of his living now. Tiyharqu was continuously surprised how quickly Socres could find and set up a trade for the materials they needed.
“Can you take me?” Samaki asked. He had a golden ring in the palm of his hand if fare was needed.
“Don’t see why not. I can put you on the oars if the winds turn bad,” Socres grinned. “So long as you don’t dally, I can even bring you back this evening.”
“Anything to avoid manual labour,” Tiyharqu sighed.
“You build the ship,” Samaki slipped the ring back into a pouch without anyone noticing. Waste not, want not. “I’ll build the crew.”
They sailed through deep black water, jagged emerald islands surrounding them, to reach the northernmost island in the sequestered archipelago. These islands were named after the dark waters here. The Black Isles. He had heard of this place only in passing and always imagined the isles to be terrible, treeless, and blackened by evil. But these islands were like jewels in the night sky. The darkness of the water only intensified their beauty. He wondered if he was wrong to want to build a villa in the Sephian Islands. Maybe he should find a nice island here for his villa…and a beautiful wife with auburn hair and emerald eyes to match the land around them.
Whenever they passed someone on ship or shore, they would holler friendly messages at each other. It would seem nearly everyone here knew one and another. Although separated by black water, this was still a community in every sense. They traded goods and gossiped; they came together for feasts and celebrations. They mourned together. The northern island, known as Grand Island for its size, had been the most damaged by what they called the Grand Wave. The islanders here had all come together to save Grand Island.
Unlike the other islands, this one didn’t rise as high and the ground was fairly even. From the orderly square plots separated by crude roads or deep ditches, he could see nearly all of the island was farmland, with merely one small town situated in the bay of the crescent shaped isle.
The effect of the wave was visible everywhere. Obviously, the island would have lost an entire season’s yield from the wave. Although they had crops in nearly half the plots, the other half being worked hard by lines of men with picks churning up the soil, the people still looked sickly, and there was a coldness in their eyes.
On the way Socres had explained what had happened here. The wave had indeed destroyed all their crops and all the buildings. The ones he saw now, two rows of neatly placed mud-brick buildings, still looked new and unmarked. Of course most of the villagers died, but a few were fishermen out to sea, and a few souls miraculously survived being washed out to sea while clinging to the flotsam of their old tables.
As they tied off the ship on the bright, new wooden quay Samaki could see the men and women here were young, those who had been strong enough to survive. Though many of the people here had lived on different islands before the wave. Apparently many young and orphaned people had abandoned their own farms either because they couldn’t do the upkeep themselves, or someone else had inherited the land. They had all come here, hoping to find work, and at first it was good. There was plenty of fish donated by fishermen who felt sorry or wanted to garner favour for future crops, and there was plenty of work for everyone. But soon people heard the good news and came here from the southern mainlands, which had also been wrecked by the wave, and now there were dozens or so skinny hands reaching towards him, asking for food, asking for work, and begging for hope.
As Socres bartered with whomever the goats were for, Samaki smiled and walked towards the desperate men and women. Many of the men looked far too weak and sick to survive a journey at sea. There were still many who obviously received work and food from time to time. Strong men with no home or prospects, desperate for a different life…They made the best seamen.
NESATE
YOUR PRESENCE HERE IS DANGEROUS
The banging on the door woke Tersh. The room was still dark, though the grey of dawn was creeping under the fabric she had wedged into the narrow window to keep out the cold night air. The winter stalked Nesate. It came early and stayed late. Soon the valley would fill with snow. She lay for a moment, confused if the noise had only been in her dream. What had she been dreaming of? The memory seemed to have faded away…There was the banging again, real and insistent.
Tersh stumbled to get up, throwing off her wool blanket and shivered as her bare feet touched the cold stone. She shuffled quickly to the door and opened it. She thought it would be Tuthalya, but the young boy who stood at the door was unfamiliar. The boy held a torch in one hand, and with the other held out a small clay tablet, mumbling a few urgent words Tersh could not understand.
She took the dry, flat piece of clay, no bigger than her hand., shifting from one foot to another as the cold bit into her skin. There on the tablet, written in neat script, was a line of hieroglyphs from Mahat. Tersh recognized them because they were often carved on the sides of buildings, and she knew each one made a sound when read aloud, but she had no idea what they were. To her this was just a line of drawings—an extended arm, a stork, the open jaws of a crocodile.
Tersh looked back at the boy who was clearly waiting for some kind of reply. Tersh searched her mind. Who had sent this? She didn’t think Tuthalya could write hieroglyphs, though it was possible, so really the only other person who came to mind was Zidante. He was the only other person here she’d met who was fluent in the tongue of Mahat. Surely he had learned to write as well.
The information did nothing to help her, though. She pointed to the tablet and said the one thing she’d learn to say with any competency in the Metawega tongue since she had to say it nearly every day: “I don’t understand.”
The boy looked confused, scrunched up his face, and said something else Tersh could not understand. The boy continued to wait, causing Tersh to feel even more exasperated. She continued to hop from one foot to the other, and then with a huff, the boy took off and ran down the hall, perhaps going back to whatever master had sent him.
Tersh closed the door and went to the small fire pit against the wall under the window, pulling out the large wool square of cloth to let in a little more of the grey light. Then, s
he lit a fire using her fire knife and a stone, the sparks flashing and catching the kindling. Soon a small fire warmed her. She looked at the note one more time. Even though she knew it was a language most people here did not understand, she knew even better that it wasn’t safe to keep. She smashed it against the stone floor, and threw the pieces onto the flames, where they blackened and were soon covered in ash.
The next knock on the door was a servant holding a tray with a circle of flatbread and a bowl of lumpy yoghurt. Tersh had not really taken to yoghurt, though she’d been offered it many times during her stay in Matawe. She didn’t like the texture, and sometimes it didn’t smell right. The bread was also disappointing, stale and tasteless. She remembered the baker in Hattute she had befriended, Piye, who always gave her bread flavoured with honey or baked with dates. Maybe she should have stayed and kept trying to convince the kings. Here there was only the cold and the looming menace of death.
The remains of the human skull sat in a bowl on a table by the wall. She had ground it into dust, which had taken her several days because she was being extra careful to get it extremely fine and not let any go to waste. She was still working out what to do with it. One skull would one be good against one person. In Tersh’s opinion, it would be a waste to use it on the Queen, who would be dead by next winter if the rumours were true. Using it on the elderly princess might be equally wasteful. Though, even if she did find the right person to curse and end this civil war, she had never actually cursed anyone before. It might not even work.
Another knock came just as Tersh finished the last bite of tough bread. She got to her feet, feeling less cold and annoyed, and this time was met with Zindate’s dark face and hair.
“Good morning, go-man,” he looked up and down the hall quickly. “Let me in.”
Tersh strongly disliked the idea of being alone in a room with this man, but she also wondered about his uneasiness. It was probably because it would be dangerous for them to be seen together. Why? She’d only really know the answer if she let him in.
“Be cautious, but be receptive. Let others seek you out,” Tuthalya had advised her.
Tersh opened the door a little wider, and Zidante slipped in like a shadow, quickly closing the door behind him.
“That’s a good idea,” Zidante nodded to the fire, going towards it and holding his fingers over it. “The mornings will only get chillier now that summer is over.”
“Yes, I’m truly looking forward to seeing winter here,” Tersh said, wondering if she would actually survive the winter when it came in a few more turns of the moon.
“My messenger was a little perplexed by your answer. I’d hoped to avoid meeting face-to-face, and this will certainly be the last time in these quarters,” Zidante looked around with a frown. Tersh got the impression he was saying that less as a matter of safety and more as one of taste. “You couldn’t understand the message?”
“I couldn’t read the message,” Tersh felt a surge of annoyance as Zidante shot her a look of bemusement.
“Oh, I thought as a holy woman, it was something you were taught,” his lips curled up.
“I am not a holy woman of Mahat.”
Zidante nodded, looking Tersh over. “You most certainly are not.”
The Whisperer couldn’t help but wish in that moment she had something grander than a wool tunic and cloak to wear. Her Ancestral Cloak didn’t help either. Rather than make her look regal, she looked frightful. How was she supposed to help when no one here respected her?
“I came to invite you to a meeting,” Zidante’s tone had dropped whatever lightness it had held. His entire manner suddenly became more serious.
“A meeting with whom?”
“A lord who listened to your message,” he leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. “The message the kings and queens of Matawe ignored. The message you bring from the gods.”
“Where? When?” Tersh asked eagerly.
Zidante chuckled and leaned back again. “Tomorrow night. When the sun sets, I’ll send for you. I shouldn’t have to mention this, but…” and his face looked the same as it had when they had been in that terrible, dark dungeon. “Do not tell anyone.”
As soon as Zidante left, Tersh almost rushed to Tuthalya’s room to tell him and get his advice, but she stopped herself. If Zidante really was paranoid about them meeting, then what if he was also paranoid about Tersh betraying his secret? There were hundreds of people in this castle, and any one of them could be sending messages to Zidante—or anyone else for that matter.
She needed to figure this out on her own.
Honestly, she didn’t really know why Zidante, or this other lord, wanted to meet with her. Was it just because they believed her message? She doubted that for more reasons than one. Zidante was being too paranoid and the way Zidante had spoken to her by the bull seemed authentic. There was an anger inside that man—she had literally felt it as he had beat her—and Tersh was certain it was directed at the Sisters.
When night had come the next day, Tersh was waiting at the door. The knock that came was so quiet that if Tersh hadn’t been next to the door she doubted she would have even heard it. She opened to see a figure alone in the dark, the hood of his cloak hiding his face in shadow. He carried no oil lamp or torch and said not a word.
Tersh followed the man down the dim hallway. Obviously, he knew this place well, because while Tersh could barely see him in front of her unless they passed a torch, the man did not slow or pause when he turned a corner. He had walked this path a thousand thousand times. Tersh became so lost she knew there was no way she would be able to find her way back.
For the first time, it occurred to Tersh there might be a completely different reason to lure her away. A reason she had never even contemplated, that perhaps these men were trying to help the Sisters by getting rid of her. Tuthalya had said he wanted the people to look at Tersh as a rallying point. What if that thought had occurred to the Sisters, and they had asked Zidante to get rid of her—quietly?
They stopped walking, and Tersh looked back down the hall from where they had just come, a single torch flickering light in the distance. So what if she didn’t know the way back? If she got lost, eventually she’d find someone willing to help her. She was about to turn around, when finally the cloaked figure spoke with a grunt, pointing to an open door.
Turn away, and she might save her life. Turn away…and she might also lose the only chance she had to gain allies, to find a way to depose of the Sisters and unite Matawe again under one ruler. The gods had sent her here, to this place, now it was her job to see their word turned to action. The gods would protect her. She could not turn away.
Tersh took a step forward, seeing that the door led to a stairway. The man motioned for her to go down, and Tersh took a tentative step onto the first stair, almost expecting an assassin to jump out. But nothing happened, and so she took another step and another. Then she heard the sound of the door creaking closed behind her. She could see nothing in the dark, but a quick sweep of her arm proved the man hadn’t followed her.
She kept her hands on the walls, feeling her way as she continued to descend. The stairs turned and twisted, always going deeper, and showing no sign of ending. The wall against her fingers became more and more uneven, and finally damp, as though she were feeling the walls of a cave instead of a castle. Had she descended so far that she was no longer inside the castle but beneath it? Inside some catacombs? Had they just led her there so she’d lose herself? Had there been turns she hadn’t noticed? Was she in a labyrinth, where she would slowly starve to death?
Just as the panic was about to overtake her, she noticed something. The darkness had abated; she could make out her arms and the soft outlines of the walls. There was light, somewhere, beyond a bend up ahead. She took a deep breath and went forward. Sure enough, the farther down she went, and after another turn, she could see just fine in the dim light.
The stairs ended, and hard rocky ground met her feet. She could
see the cave continue before her and the source of the light, an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling by a chain. She moved towards it, not surprised to see that she really was in a cave. The only manmade thing around her was the lamp and the stairs behind her. Echoes of water dripping far off in the distance were the only sounds she heard.
She moved forward, the cave turning slightly, and then she finally saw the end, a metal door set into the stone. She could see the light creeping out from the cracks and heard the hushed whispers from inside. She stopped walking, listening a moment to see if she could recognize the voices. But they had become silent. Then suddenly the door was thrown open.
Tersh winced as the light blinded her for a moment, but then she could make out the shape of a man standing in the door.
“Good, you’re here,” Zidante muttered, stepping aside to let Tersh enter the room.
It looked to be a storage room of some sort, large clay vases and wooden boxes were piled along the room, but everything was covered by dust and the boxes looked so rotten they were about the fall to pieces. The strong musty odor of rot hung in the air. In the middle of the room was a table, a bright oil lamp sitting atop it, and leaning on the table stood a man Tersh had never seen before.
He was an older man with long grey hair and a short beard that only had a few black hairs remaining. From the similar shaped nose and eyes, not to mention the copper amulet of an eagle hanging from his chest—the same symbol Zidante had on his cloak pin—she assumed these men were related. The man said something in Matawega.
“He thanks you for coming,” Zidante translated quickly.
“And who is he?” Tersh turned to Zidante, who was closing the door and barring it.
“He is Lord Wattalis, the true Lord of the Damais Tiessar, Zidewa’s younger brother and rightful heir of the title.”
“Your uncle?” Tersh was starting to understand.
Pekari -The Azure Fish Page 26