Meliu

by L. James Rice

  “I did, but they moved me here not long after.” Temeru eased from Meliu’s hug, her face worried. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Where the hells else should I go? Shadows and Taken, Kaludor is lost.”

  “Not here. A monk murdered the Lord Choerkin, and High Augur Meris… They say she jumped from the Watch—”

  “Meris!”

  “Dead and burned to the sky, but I say someone threw her. But she wore a monk’s habit as if to disguise who she was.”

  “She oversaw the Night of Bones in Istinjoln… Now she’s dead—”

  Temeru’s quizzical stare stopped Meliu’s words. “That’s impossible, she never leaves these stars.”

  “No doubt, it was her.” The priests here were woefully behind on the stories from Istinjoln.

  “There were a few days I didn’t see her, but… No matter.” She laughed, the inflections making clear she was unconvinced. “There isn’t an adherent safe on this island. A mob hanged three monks two days past.”

  “But you’re safe here.”

  “Yes, the Choerkin promise our safety, within these walls. But, no. Those with the long vision say the ice is coming, and on it rides evil.”

  It was hard to believe the Shadow’s power capable of freezing a bridge so far into the bay, but she’d seen so many things she’d never imagined, she’d feel foolish questioning her words. “We’ll stop it, somehow we must.” Everything she’d witnessed argued against her statement, but she needed to believe.

  Temeru’s eyed widened and she leaned in. “You were at the Crack of Burdenis? Is it true the Shadows struck the shrine first?”

  Meliu sighed, she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to remember. “Yes. It’s true, then Istinjoln, but Lord Priest Ulrikt sent me to the Fost hours before they attacked.” Before the summoning? The hells if she wanted to discuss details and speculation.

  “You’ve seen them, then. Wait, Ulrikt sent you?”

  Meliu pulled the scroll from her haversack and handed it to her, pleased to be rid of the damned thing. “Sent me with this message, for High Priestess Adelin, he claimed.”

  Temeru unrolled the scroll, sucked her breath. “Priestess Meliu…”

  The woman’s formal tone caught her by surprise, as did the lavender hued glow of her face.

  Temeru turned the scroll for her to see, and in place of “Flee Kaludor” were the words “Sail to Tomarok” in flowing script with a light purplish glow.

  “My dear, you’re in the wrong place.”

  The air fled Meliu’s lungs, her muscles giving way to weakness, but in a flicker she replaced the air with anger. She snatched the scroll from her friend and stormed to the door, shoving it open to read the scroll beneath the light of day. “Flee Kaludor. That son of a…” Deelee and Temeru stared at her. Still best not to call the Lord Priest names around living ears. “Where the blessed heavens is Tomarok?”

  8

  Person, Place, or Thing?

  Chew the sand, slap the hand,

  Breathe the foam from the loam:

  Deadly Frog.

  Witness the brilliance in the Dark,

  Fright at the shade in the Light.

  Shade, shadow, dark, oblivion, the void.

  the Great Separator.

  Impossible? Impossible. Possible I’m, says I.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  The library beneath Skywatch was well-stocked with the wisdoms of the augurs, but she figured the odds of finding mention of Tomarok were slim. Still, a tickle in her nose didn’t put it past Ulrikt to leave some clue on purpose, so she climbed the stairs every day. She scrounged through bound tomes, loose pages, and scrolls, but not a single reference to Tomarok. When not reading, she listened to word from the outside world: Eredin had arrived to the Watch, but there wasn’t even rumor of High Priestess Sedut and her artifact. More ships were leaving for the continent, and all attempts to stop the bridge of ice had failed, including One Lash’s Fire.

  The only good coming from their trip to this island was they both bathed daily with a quick trek across the street. Once Deelee smelled better, half the folks in the temple adopted her. One fitted her with robes, and soon after, adherents began calling her “Urchin the Pious.” Deelee frowned at first, just like she did at smelling nice, but the moniker grew on her.

  Then, official word came from the Choerkin: Abandon the island. Several priests vowed to remain behind in Skywatch to fight to the death; Meliu wasn’t one of them.

  The Choerkin promised to get everyone off the island, but promises weren’t something she attached faith to these days. “If Tomarok is a place, the docks… the Luxuns might be the folks to ask, plus, I need to secure berth on a ship.”

  Temeru stood stoic, fingers entwined in front of her nose.

  Meliu sighed. “I spent days without a soul knowing I was a priestess, I think I can survive a trip to the wharf.”

  “Skywatch has hired a ship with a captain we trust.”

  “And that ship is tethered to this island and surrounded by a hundred smaller boats. No offense, old friend, but I’ve seen more Shadows than I care to. Deelee and I will leave soon as I can manage.”

  Temeru exhaled her further protests, pulled a pouch from her robes, and placed it in Meliu’s palm. “If you insist… As you travel at the behest of Lord Priest Ulrikt himself, the Temple of Skywatch feels a duty to assist in your journey. This should see the both of you to wherever Bontore directs your winds.”

  Meliu didn’t open the pouch, but gave it a small squeeze; flat round coins, in addition to what must be cut stones. She smiled and fought tears as she hugged her old friend. “Thank you.” She stepped back, glanced to Deelee. “I’ll be back soon as I’ve something arranged. And I’ve spoken to the Luxuns.”

  “I don’t like it. What if you never come back?”

  The child hadn’t been away from her side, even learning to read a little as Meliu pored over texts, but sometimes a little sister could be a pain. “I’ll be back. Besides, you’ve a hundred sisters and brothers now.” She rubbed the girl’s head, inhaled through her nose. “Ahh! You smell so pretty.”

  Deelee slapped at her hand. “Shut yer mouth.”

  And the three giggled.

  Meliu stepped into a chill, cloudy day wearing a dress and cloak, and her hair hung loose about her shoulders as any ordinary girl, but the pain of the lie sat in her belly. She might return, she might not. Everything depended upon what answers she found.

  The docks swarmed with people, but there was a different music to the milling. The sound on her arrival had been chaos and relief and desperation found in the stomping of feet and shouts and cries and curses, of crates slammed in a hurry, dropped or thrown to the side. There were no fewer people now, but the notes struck were filled with order despite a thousand musicians. They passed supplies hand to hand with muffled grunts of exertion. The calls were polite, whether questions, answers, or commands. This swarm of people arrived as a mob, but departed as gears in a greater machine. An army without arms or armor, and if somehow given weapons to defeat both Shadows and Taken, Meliu didn’t doubt for a flicker they’d retake their homes. But instead, this militia performed another time honored tradition in battle: Retreat.

  She moseyed along the docks seeking the attention of any captain or ranking sailor who’d meet her eye, and by the time she walked halfway to the Entiyu Emoño, she resorted to holding aloft a coin. “A fifty silver-song for anyone with passage to Tomarok!”

  The coin caught several glances, but only a single stare; a skinny captain of a skinny boat, and she wondered if it was seaworthy. “Aye, I can take you there.”

  She smiled and palmed the coin as he reached. “First, you tell me where it is.”

  The man guffawed and she moved along. Another captain, of a small but sturdy ship waved her over.

  She asked, “You know of Tomarok?”

  He wore a black mustache dangling to his sternum, and his grin sported a missing lower fron
t tooth. His words carried a whistle when he spoke. “Can’t say as I do, and I know me a thousand places. But I’ve space aboard and’ll get you to the continent, damned sure.”

  “How long until you depart?”

  “Be an hour, maybe, when a channel clears to get our oars out of here. Won’t be too many boats safe fer a pretty lady all alone, I’ll guarantee that.”

  She nodded, certain he didn’t lie on that account, but she wasn’t so sure how safe his boat would be either. “I may be back, Captain.”

  She gave him a curt bow and continued her journey to the Luxuns. Not another soul bothered trying to lie the silver from her fingers, nor offer her passage elsewhere. Whatever, wherever, Tomarok was, either no one knew, or they weren’t willing to take her there.

  The Entiyu Emoño sat loaded with crates, but the stacks diminished as supplies disappeared below deck like bits of food down an ant’s hole. Captain Intœño stood staring at his sailors with arms crossed as if in constant judgement of their efficiency.

  “Nonfoñu!”

  He turned, eyeballed her, and the feathers of his head flared before he strode her way. “Nonfoñu. Erbit entoñeo.”

  She crossed the plank, stomach churning just to set foot on a ship again.

  “I am well pleased to see you alive. Are you ready to embrace the sanctity of the Wave Dancers and join our crew?”

  She glanced to the deck, confused. The Wave Dancers were the gods of the Luxuns, deities who took the form of dragons and other beasts to dance in the ocean’s waves, but the question felt out of place. Meliu smiled when she deciphered his meaning: She wore a dress rather than black robes. “Sometimes a woman’s piety needs hidden.”

  “Indeed! Yet, if you’ve come to claim half a keg of ale for your lost passage, I fear it sits in the bellies of my crew.”

  “Or pissed over the rail.”

  He laughed, a vibrato sound with a hint of trilling chirp. “Still, the ale was passage for two, if you care to join us we’ll call a debt squared. I may owe you for how you amuse me.”

  She bowed deep, but she wanted to give him a hug. A clear channel lead from the docks to open waters for this ship alone, a gift by Choerkin decree if they needed to sail fast. She might have to hide if the wrong faces came aboard, but it’d be worth the price. “It would be a privilege. But I also have a question: Have you heard of a place called Tomarok?”

  Intœño’s right eye squinted. “-arok, not Tomlok?”

  “Tomarok. But they could be the same. Words change when they travel.”

  “They do, they do. Tomlok is a city on the west coast of Northern Vandunez, an independent city of the Ayumbar Peninsula.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Once only, a fortress-city of tan stone… You would think its people more peculiar than you find me.” He grinned. “Does it sound like your… Tomarok?”

  “I believe not. It could be an old word, the name may have changed… I don’t know. But I’ve been told to find it, by an elder I suspect is dead now.”

  “The dead should leave directions, yes?”

  “For certain. Would anyone onboard know?”

  “You may ask as we travel, a few might know of places I don’t.”

  She was no closer to solving the mystery, but passage on the Entiyu Emoño meant more than a fast voyage: it meant Deelee could join her in safety. “Would a fifty silver-song earn berth for a young girl?” She held up the coin with a grin.

  The Captain snatched the coin from her fingers with a wry smile. “That’s more profit than I stand to make for the next month, the way the Dancers align of late.”

  “When do you shove off?”

  His head bobbed. “There is no hurry.”

  “The lady?”

  He smiled and tapped his nose with her coin before strolling back to the stairs leading to the stern castle.

  She wasn’t a dozen steps from the Entiyu Emoño before a handsome man in his thirties smiled at her with a greased mustache above teeth whiter than the stars. “You asked of Tomarok?”

  Her heart jumped, but an ill twinge struck her spine. The man’s gaze was as slick as his facial hair. “I fear I gave up the last of my songs for space on the Luxun vessel.” She took three steps past him, but he trotted until turning in her path. “Knowledge for free, miss.”

  She planted her feet. “Quit milking and pour the cream then.”

  He cast an abashed smile. “No, heavens take me, I know not a lick. The master of the Fair Wind sent me.”

  Not the captain, the master, the owner of the ship if she knew her dock talk. It did little to settle her unease. “Forgive me for not recognizing the name, I know more mountain trails than boats. And I won’t meet no one who don’t give their name.”

  “The mistress may slap me for saying… but, Shae Turvil. She owns three merchantmans, a finer lady of trade you won’t find.”

  She walked around him, smiling, and engaging. “I’ve no longer a cause to find Tomarok, but thank you.” Too damned convenient the master was a woman. She glanced into the crowds for any familiar face, in case the man persisted. Even a Choerkin would suffice, though she’d prefer Eredin to Ivin.

  The man jogged to circle her again, his smile too broad, his bow too deep. “The master takes her invitations right serious, I beseech you to follow.”

  Her heart raced. A hundred people around them, what would he dare do by light of day? “And I beseech you to let me pass before I call the guard.”

  His voice lowered, but he stayed in a bow with a pleasant smile. “I could gut you and flee to one of a hundred boats to disappear.” His hand snaked to her, and a prayer for Light to blind this bastard was on her lips, but his palm was open and empty except for a wheel of wax the size of a coin, its face stamped with a lion’s head. It was the Seal of Istinjoln. The Seal of Lord Priest Ulrikt.

  He’d struck curiosity to her gut, and didn’t need to run. “Who is your master?”

  “The lady, Shae Turvin. She wishes to speak, don’t make me bleed such a pretty lass as you.”

  Meliu took the wax from his hand, peered close at its indentations. There was no mistaking the mark after carrying Ulrikt’s scroll for so long. “If I scream, you believe you’ll live?”

  “Maybe, or not, but you won’t.”

  Meliu clamped the seal in her hand. “Take me to this Shae, then.”

  He straightened with a jovial smile that lacked all hints of sinister from a flicker before. “The master was correct as always… mentioned you were a smart lass. Shall we? Name me Fedal, if it pleases you.”

  “Your blood would please me.”

  His smile grew happier still. “Exceptionally right about you.”

  “I’ve never heard the name, Shae. She knows me less than she thinks.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh! The master has many names.” He offered his arm, but in jest, before strolling thirty paces and turning down a dock, but he made certain not to lose her no matter how slow she walked. But the seal assured she didn’t want lost, she wanted time to think. Istinjoln lore spoke of one ring passed from lord priest to lord priest, meaning there was little way Meliu could conceive that this Shae wasn’t linked to Istinjoln. Perhaps Ulrikt himself. Curiosity would drive her feet beyond the fear which raised bile in her gut.

  Fedal’s cocksure strides lead them to a cog with a massive, single mast. The Fair Wind bustled with sailors and passengers; it was clear the ship approached casting off, as smaller boats cleared a channel from the docks. The man stepped aside and gestured to the gangplank. When she hesitated: “Lass, you done came this far, and I’m just being a gentleman.”

  He followed her onboard, too close for her taste, but she gave him credit for one thing: The nerves he set on edge made her stomach forget it was on a boat. She squeezed the seal in her hand, surprised it didn’t melt in her sweating palm. “Take me to this Shae.”

  Fedal scooted around her with a hop and a skip between crew. “This way.”

  Double doors w
ith huge, but plain, brass handles barred entry to the captain’s cabin beneath the stern castle, but they weren’t locked, and Fedal cracked them enough for a slender girl to enter.

  Her eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light of twin lanterns hanging from support beams, but when they did, she forgot to breathe. A figure draped in holy black robes stood with their back to her, and as the hooded cowl turned she half expected Lord Priest Ulrikt. But Fedal hadn’t lied; the master was a woman with long black hair and a porcelain smile.

  High Priestess Sedut.

  “Meliu of Veleen. Welcome to the Fair Wind.”

  The doors clacked shut behind her, and Meliu remembered to take a breath. And bow. “High priestess.”

  “My apologies for the awkward invitation. Wine?” It was less question than statement; she poured and handed Meliu a goblet as she gestured to a seat. She neither drank, nor sat.

  “Your bastard threatened to gut me.”

  Sedut’s right cheek wrinkled with a smirk. “He knows better. But I wanted you with me, and he got you here.”

  “High Priestess Adelin? Is she here as well?”

  “With sadness, no. She died, but without being Taken, gods be praised for a single mercy.”

  Sedut pulled a chair from a table and sat in its plush velvet.

  “Lord Priest Ulrikt’s fate?”

  “Who’s to say? Like you, I was sent from Istinjoln candles before… whatever happened.”

  Meliu didn’t trust a word the woman’s tongue stroked so smooth from her lips, but a face so steady and relaxed was impossible to read for a lie. “Tomarok?”

  “You tell me.”

  Meliu took a drink on that note, letting her fury settle. “You shittin’ me?”

  “There’s the mining camp girl Ulrikt loved.” The woman sipped from her goblet, and Meliu resisted the urge to slap it into her face. “Did you know Ulrikt, too, was born in the mountains?”

  Meliu rolled her eyes. “Your man told me you know of Tomarok.”