She had a guess as to how the rest of the story went. “So the divers swam down to find the shipwreck, and while they were down there they found the bones?”
“Exactly!” Gregori beamed. By his feet was a pail of dead, dried bugs; he snatched a handful and tossed them into Bango’s stable, but the animal was too distracted by his pal to bother eating yet. “I’m not sure if they even ever found the ship. But they certainly found bones. No skull, though. Always a disappointment to not find a skull.”
“Sure.”
“You know what I think?” Gregori then asked.
The sun was only just starting to set, so it wasn’t too late in the evening. She wanted to get home, but she could indulge her father’s friend a while longer.
“No, what?”
“I think there’s an aeon living under the sea still!”
Kali tried not to laugh. “Oh yeah?” she grinned. “What makes you think that?”
“Just a hunch,” he shrugged. “This is only the second time we’ve found hard evidence of one. It seems silly to assume there aren’t any alive at all in the world, right?”
“But if there were, wouldn’t they have made themselves known at some point?”
“Not necessarily!” Gregori objected. “One might just be swimming along far beneath the surface, minding its own business. Having the time of its life down there, blissfully unaware of all the nonsense we’re getting ourselves into up here, like some ill-conceived war with Vareda.”
“If that happens, you think we’d be wrapped up in it?” Kali asked him with a frown. She hadn’t really considered that prospect.
Gregori nodded. “Surely,” he said. “We’ve been staunch allies with Gillus for years and years. Atlua, too. Any sour affair one of us gets into, the others follow, for better or worse.”
“Well, let’s hope it was only pirates, then,” Kali sighed.
“Let’s hope, my dear.”
“Any other sensational or dreadful news?” she inquired.
“I’ve got one that fits both: I might be jumping back into the dating pool.”
Kali laughed. “You say that every time I see you,” she pointed out.
“Well, it’s true this time!”
“You always say that, too.”
“Well,” Gregori chuckled, “whatever you say. I’ll leave you to your goodbyes. Come back soon! The little guy misses you when you’re not around. I can tell.”
“Thank you, Gregori.” As the old man marched away, his boots pounding imprints into the sand with each slow step, she turned to face Bango and said to him, “You don’t seem so little to me.”
Bango managed to tear himself away from Letty for a moment to say goodbye to Kali. She stroked his scaly head, running her hand past his beady black eyes all the way down his long, curved snout. He huffed in appreciation.
Kali found herself occupied with thoughts of war as she strolled through Seroo’s Eye. She was sure it had simply been a pirate attack; there was no reason for the Varedan military to sink a civilian ship, and besides that, Gregori was an old man who’d seen a lot in his day and he was more interested in the sea bones than any impending war. It must be fine.
The city was oddly quiet. Not that it was usually raucous except during the Direlight Festival, but it seemed especially subdued. Perhaps it was just her dour mood casting a haze over the world.
She already had enough to worry about with her plans to book a ticket on a ship to Atlua without throwing pirates on top of it. They were always a concern in the back of her mind, but it had been so long since she’d heard of an attack—such a fatal one, anyway—it had felt like a distant, fantastical concern. Not anything real. She decided she would ask her father about the events once she saw him. He had always been a wise, worldly man.
In the lower half of the city, it was possible to see through the oval eyehole from anywhere you stood. As Kali navigated the streets, her feet sinking into the familiar sands of home, she occasionally glanced up and peered at the bright moon against the black canvas of the sky. It was a rare sight for the moon to be completely visible within the scope of the hole, and it felt somehow like a good omen. She had come back home to dive head-first into her journey to Atlua, and hopefully it would be a promising start in spite of Gregori’s grim tale.
Home was a pretty substantial walk from the Gaze, tucked away in the streets on the southeastern edge of the skull, not too far from the bone wall that caged the city.
Her family had originally lived on the north side of town, near the Spine Gate, but moved here when she and Lissia were eight years old, roughly twenty years prior. Her father had since claimed many a time that he would die there. He and their mother were settled in for good.
When they first moved, Kali had been fascinated by the bookstore down the street. She and Lissia spent countless hours inside, leaning against walls, reading whatever they could get their hands on. At first, they had been scared of getting kicked out by the owner for reading the books without buying them, but the first time they got caught the woman laughed and assured them it was fine.
So they continued to visit every day after school, reading book after book—Kali loved reading novels, trying to find new ones with more advanced prose after each completed volume, while Lissia opted for textbooks. Whenever one of them discovered a book they were truly passionate about, their father usually bought it for them so they could read it as much as they wanted at home.
Eventually, Kali’s fire dimmed, though she still enjoyed reading a good book every so often. Lissia never let up, though, and it clearly steered her in the direction of her current career as a scholar.
Maybe Lissia has some books about aeons at the Repository…
The thought was swept away as she entered her home, immediately trudging upstairs, clutching the knapsack to her side.
“Dad?” she called as she marched up the steps, growing farther from the dining room chatter. She was thankful her appetite had not yet returned. It sounded like a madhouse in there.
As she came to the top of the staircase, she nearly collided with an older woman who whipped around the corner. The woman let out a small yelp before realizing who stood before her.
“Kali!” she smiled, wrapping her arms around the girl. “Welcome home!”
“Hi, Mom,” she said, squeezing tight. “Is Dad around?” She couldn’t imagine anything that would’ve taken him away from the inn at this time of day.
Knyla Shiar pulled away from her daughter and said, “He’s in Double-Six, talking to our new performer.”
Kali was taken aback. She was under the impression the singer they’d hired wouldn’t be arriving for another few weeks at least. “She’s here already?”
“Oh, no,” said Knyla, shaking her head. “Your father found someone passed out on the streets and took them in. Naturally. As it turns out, the young man is a singer, so your father offered him a temporary job to earn a little money.”
“Ah.”
It certainly sounded like something her father would do. Botro Shiar was the most kind, generous man she had ever met. Literally the first interaction between them was, technically, him providing her with help. He and Knyla had adopted Kali when she was two years old, abandoned by her birth parents. Since then, they had never stopped showering her with love and generosity.
On cue, over her mother’s shoulder she spied her father exiting Room VI-VI (a numbering system her father had devised, which seemed convoluted to her, but it apparently worked for her parents). He slowly pulled the door closed behind him, and his eyes lit up when he realized who his wife was talking to, which only took about half a second. The swirling pastel colors of Kali’s skin were impossible to mistake.
She approached him and they trapped each other in a hug. “You’re back earlier than I expected,” he said once they separated. “Business not too booming?”
He was a perceptive man. “Not too booming,” she echoed. “That’s actually something I kinda want to talk to you two about
, but it can wait until tomorrow.”
Botro frowned for a moment, but then put on a smile for his daughter. “I hope your trip was pleasant, at least?”
There was no reason to worry him with what had happened at the outpost, so she simply said, “Pleasant as can be.”
He smiled and scratched at his protruding belly. “Very glad to hear it. Hey, our new singer is about to perform. Come downstairs and watch with us.”
The three meandered down into the inn’s bar, which was a relatively new addition, only built three or four years earlier. It proved to be a wise investment, as guests loved gathering there at night to drink and chat after being served dinner.
They stood off to the side of the diminutive clay stage, leaving the various tables open for their patrons. As they waited for the mystery singer to make an appearance, Kali leaned over and whispered, “Have you heard about this Gillusian airship that went down recently?”
Her father nodded. “Sunk by Vareda?”
“Yep. Gregori was telling me about it.”
“Nasty business. Close to a hundred people killed, is the statistic I heard. So senseless.”
“Do you think it’s gonna start a war?”
Her father pondered this for a moment. Kali and her mother both watched him mull it over with anticipation.
“I’m not sure,” he finally said. “I don’t see any good reason why officials would attack the ship, but then again, I don’t know who was on it. Perhaps someone important.”
Kali’s heart sank. “So you think it’s possible.” She did not know whether it was better or worse than a pirate attack; at least the Varedan government wouldn’t have any real reason to target a ship she happened to be on.
Botro shrugged. “I think it’s unlikely, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”
It reassured her, but only slightly. She tried to put it out of her mind. With her position in the world, there was no use worrying over something like that unless it actually came to fruition.
A stout fellow then entered the bar. He was a qarm, dressed in a smart suit a shade of pink that popped against his blue skin. From the expression he sported, Kali guessed he was unaccustomed to wearing such clothing and wasn’t much of a fan. His eyestalks rotated wildly, taking in every detail and angle of the room.
The man ambled up onto the stage and faced the audience with his hands on his stomach. After a couple seconds, he removed them and clasped them together behind his back, leaving behind faint wet markings on the front of his suit.
“Hello,” he croaked for the audience of ten or so people who had already migrated over after dinner. “My name’s Puk. I’m gonna sing a couple songs for you tonight, I suppose. If that’s alright with y’all.”
There was a smattering of approval from the crowd.
“Well, alright,” Puk muttered. Kali chuckled. “This first one’s called ‘Sweet Sheri.’”
The qarm cleared his throat and once again placed a sticky hand on his belly. He inhaled deeply, and then the words spilled out of him in a beautiful, surprising tenor.
“I saw her underneath the sway
Of branches twisted a hundred ways
She smiled and the leaves, they fell
And I saw her close her eyes, I pray
Sweet, sweet Sheri, sweet, sweet Sheri,
It’s hard to believe, what I can see
The shade of the tree
Left me in peace, somehow.”
Evidently many in the audience were familiar with the tune, because once Puk glided into the second verse, some began to sing along with him. It didn’t quite seem like a pub song for others to join in on, but Puk was undeterred and even appeared to crack a smile that Kali almost missed.
There were a few more songs in his repertoire, none of which Kali had ever heard before. She wasn’t sure if they were traditional qarmish songs or Puk originals, but no matter the case there was no way she would have recognized them. “Sweet Sheri” had been a solid opener, but her favorite ended up being a fast-paced tune titled “Hop Along.”
When he finished, Puk thanked the audience (which had since doubled in size) for being so kind and inviting, then hopped down off the stage and approached the Shiars.
“Thank you, Botro,” he said, genuine gratitude evident in his voice. “The last time I got on stage, things…well, they didn’t go as well as that, let’s just put it that way. It felt really good. Thanks for giving me a shot.”
“You’re quite welcome,” said Botro. He then placed a hand on Kali’s back and said, “This is my daughter, Kallia. No relation,” he grinned. It was a joke he’d trotted out relentlessly over the past twenty years that somehow never grew stale to him.
“Nice to meet you, Kallia,” said Puk, extending a hand.
She took it and said, “I go by Kali. I really enjoyed your performance!”
“That’s very kind of you. I fucked up a few times, but I still had fun up there. It’s all about fun, I guess.”
“The crowd seemed to have a good time as well,” Botro observed. “Would you like to sing again tomorrow night? Or wait a day?”
“Tomorrow’s good, I think,” said Puk. “Let’s do tomorrow.”
“Same time, same place,” Botro grinned.
“You got it. I’m gonna go grab a drink, if that’s alright. Y’all have a good night, now.” The qarm nodded a farewell and ambled over to the bar, pulling himself up onto a stool.
Knyla muttered, “He sure is eager for a drink, given how little money he has…”
Kali was not surprised by her mother’s pettiness. Botro said, “I told him he was allowed one free drink each night he performs, but yes, he would have to pay for any additional ones.”
“Did you tell David that as well, or will he try to swindle our bartender out of extra free drinks?” Clearly her mother was not as big of a supporter as her father. Kali wondered in what state he had found the man to garner such ire.
“David is well aware,” Botro assured his wife.
Knyla huffed and took her leave.
Botro then addressed Kali. “I take it you’re beat after a few days of traveling. You haven’t even been up to your room yet, have you?”
“Nah, but I’m feeling okay. Tired, but okay. I think I’ll grab something to drink before I head upstairs for the night.”
Her father hugged her and wished her a good night, then departed to carry out the various tasks required of an innkeeper.
Puk was already nursing a beer when Kali sat on the stool beside him. He turned his right eyestalk toward her, then turned it back facing forward. The bottle parted from his lips and he said, “Hello again.”
“Hi. Interesting choice for a free drink. I would’ve thought liquor would be the best value.”
“You’d be right, and perfectly in line with my tastes as well. But alas, your dad placed some limitations on my options.”
“That doesn’t sound like him,” said Kali. The bartender, David, then asked her what she wanted, and she requested a water.
“Yeah, well, maybe he saw somethin’ special in me,” Puk mumbled. “I can’t complain about a free beer and a paycheck, though. Not for something as simple as singing.”
“Is it really that simple?” she asked him, smiling at David as he handed her a cold glass of water. She took a sip, then said, “You’re very talented. I’m sure it took a lot of training.”
The qarm shrugged. “I’ve had my fair share. There are plenty of good places to learn in Atlua.”
She perked up. “You’re from Atlua?”
He scoffed. “I sure as shit ain’t from the desert.”
Of course. Stupid question.
“Right,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “I’ve always wanted to visit Atlua. I’m working on saving up some money to get there right now, actually.”
“Me too,” said Puk. “Fallen on a bit of hard times.”
“Me too,” Kali echoed. “Ranneth doesn’t sell like it used to down here.”
�
�What?” Puk asked before glugging more of his beer. His head faced forward, but his eyestalks were looking at her.
“Nothing,” she said. “Doesn’t matter.” She drank from her glass and noticed that Puk had nearly finished his drink. She asked, “Where did you learn those songs you sang tonight?”
“Which one?”
“All of them, I guess.”
He paused a moment to recollect. Then he said, “The first one I sang I picked up from a rocyan in a huge city called Din’s Keep. You ever heard of Din’s Keep?” Kali shook her head. “It’s a real shithole, if you ask me, so I wouldn’t recommend goin’ there. But anyway, I’m what you’d call a ‘heavy drinker,’ so I frequented a tavern there and learned it from a fellow heavy drinker.”
As if to illustrate his point, he chugged the remainder of his beer and slammed the empty bottle on the counter with a belch.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “The second one—”
Spit and Song (Ustlian Tales Book 2) Page 10
