by Geoff Rodkey
Or slaves.
I got a sick feeling in my stomach that had nothing to do with the Clutch, or even the lack of food and water.
I got them into this. It’s my fault we got captured.
I’ve got to make it right. I’ve got to get us out of this.
Maybe I can bargain with the Moku. Offer them the map for our lives.
But who knows if they even care about the Fist of Ka?
More likely, they’ll just pass it on to the man who buys slaves from them.
Millicent stumbled and fell, bringing us all down. I hit the stone paving with my elbow, and a burst of pain shot up my arm.
The Moku leader barked something at his men. Two of them opened up our water skins and forced us to drink. The one who fed me did it so roughly that half of what came out of the skin wound up dribbling down my neck. Then they shoved pieces of cured meat in our mouths, raised the log to force us to our feet, and prodded us to get moving again.
The road snaked through a pair of hills. On the far side, the forest gave way to cropland. Most of the fields were untended and overgrown with weeds, except for a few orchards of skinny trees heavy with a kind of yellow-brown gourd I’d never seen before. In one orchard, we passed a group of Moku women and children picking the gourds and stacking them by the side of the road in big, messy piles.
Then we rounded another hill and got a view of the valley ahead. In the distance was an anvil-shaped hill, and above its thick cover of trees rose the upper reaches of what Kira called Mata Kalun, the Temple of the Sunset. It was the shape of a cropped pyramid, its smooth sides tapering up to end at a perfectly flat platform with a big square box perched on top of it.
Even from miles away, it was awesome. I couldn’t believe human beings had built something that enormous.
The road was headed straight for the temple. We continued on through the wasted cropland for several miles, until we approached the base of the temple hill and another forest swallowed us. We were seeing more and more Moku on the road now, mostly older women bent at the waist from the weight of large woven containers strapped across their backs, or clusters of male warriors carrying dead game strapped to poles, just like we were.
The road wound up the hillside in a series of switchbacks. When we turned one corner, we came upon a group of young boys shouting skyward at two of their friends who seemed to be in a race to the top of a pair of tall trees by the side of the road. The lead warrior called out to them, and several of the boys split off from their friends to run full speed up the road, quickly disappearing around a turn.
At the top of the hill, we came upon a wide, six-foot wall of stone that at one point must have been gated to keep out intruders. But there was no gate now, and for several feet on the right side of the road, the wall had been reduced to a pile of rubble. It was still intact on the left side, and a lone sentry stood atop that section of wall with a rifle. When we appeared, he turned, cupped his hands to his mouth, and shouted an announcement to the settlement behind him.
We crossed the ruined wall and entered the town. Ancient-looking trees lined both sides of the paved road. Between the trees and down the cross streets were low stone buildings of varying sizes. A lot of them had collapsed, many more were scorched black from fire damage, and the handful of undamaged ones all looked abandoned.
I had the eerie feeling that we weren’t walking through a city, but a graveyard.
After a hundred yards or so, people began to appear, and the buildings started to look more lived in. But as often as not, the low stone structures had been used as a platform on which the Moku had built little thatched huts like the ones we’d seen in the Flut villages, leaving the original stone buildings to their snuffling pigs and rib-skinny dogs.
It no longer felt like a graveyard, but it didn’t quite seem like a city, either. It was as if the Moku, having driven off the Okalu, weren’t living in their enemies’ city so much as camping out there.
We neared the city center, and up ahead I got a glimpse of a giant, open square, with the massive base of the temple visible on the left. Then our captors stopped us, and when I craned my neck to look past the others, I saw why.
A group of ten Moku was striding down the avenue toward us. Up in front were two men who couldn’t have looked more different from each other.
One was the size of an ox—the Moku who captured us were all a good six feet tall, and the two Moku who’d kidnapped us in Pella were even bigger than that. But the ox made them all look puny. He wore a jaguar cape like the other warriors, and underneath it his bare chest looked like it was made from slabs of rock the size of the ones that paved the road.
The man next to him was old and shriveled, and while he had longish limbs, age had made them sort of fold in on themselves, so the effect was like looking at a wrinkled grasshopper. He wore a chest piece made of bleached-out bones strung together, and atop his head was a teetering headdress of feathers in such bright reds, blues, and greens that they almost glowed with color.
The other Moku treated him like royalty. As he spoke to the lead warrior, even the ox hung on the old grasshopper’s every word.
The warrior gave the grasshopper the firebird necklace, and the old man held it up to the late afternoon sun for a better look.
Then the whole group made a slow circle around us, squinting at our faces and bodies like we were livestock for sale.
On his way back around, the grasshopper stopped in front of Kira and asked her a question. She answered in her flat, emotionless voice. As he asked a second question, he raised a bony finger and jabbed it at the sky overhead.
Kira nodded. “Ke. Ka mol.”
He snorted, like she was a trader who’d just quoted him a ridiculous price on something.
He took a few steps back and took us all in with his watery eyes.
Then he looked again at the firebird necklace in his hand. He gave a curt order, turned, and started back toward the city center. The ox and the rest of their party followed him, along with the warrior leader and one of his men.
Four warriors stayed with us. One of them took hold of the front end of the tree trunk and yanked it sharply around, forcing us to stagger backward and sideways as he reversed course and started back down the road in the direction we’d come.
Three-fourths of the way back to the ruined wall, the warriors led us off the main road, down an unpaved side street with just a couple of scattered buildings. When we turned down the street, I heard Kira sigh, like she knew where we were going and wasn’t happy about it.
We followed the road past the last of the buildings, to a wide patch of rocky dirt surrounded by trees. In the middle of it was a gaping, twenty-foot-wide hole in the ground. At the near edge of the patch, a bored-looking Moku warrior lounged on a rock. One of the warriors called out to him, and he stood up.
The five of them guided us over to the open pit, past several lengths of knotted rope that lay in sloppy coils on the ground. A couple of the ropes had big woven baskets tied to them.
They stopped Guts right at the edge of the pit. I was the farthest from it, and from that angle I couldn’t see anything in the pit but a dark chasm.
One of the warriors pulled a black stone knife from its sheath, and with a few quick sawing motions, he cut Guts free from the trunk.
Then he shoved him into the pit.
It wasn’t as deep as it looked—right away, I heard Guts hit bottom with a thud and an oof. Then there were muffled voices of surprise from inside the pit, but I couldn’t focus on them because I was getting jerked nearly off my feet as the warriors pulled Kira up to the edge.
They cut her free and shoved her in.
Millicent was next.
Then me.
MY FEET CAME DOWN partly on Millicent’s back, and she yelled as we tumbled together onto the smooth-worn rock of the pit. It stank of human waste and sweat down there, and it was so dark and gloomy that at first I could barely see anything. There was a confused jumble of voices, not just the
four of us but a man bellowing in Moku.
“Fola batakay! Fola batakay!”
“Sorry! You all right?”
“I think—”
“Fola batakay!”
“Tuma pa!” That was Kira, warning off the Moku.
“Back off!” That came from Guts.
Then there was another voice, so familiar I felt an instant jolt of recognition.
“Watch ’im! Got a shank, he’ll stick ye!”
I knew that voice.
But it was impossible—
“Fola batakay!”
“Back off!”
“Ay! AY! Yer Rovian?! So’s me!”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I blinked hard, trying to get a look at him through the gloom. He was big and hulking, I could see that much.
“Wot ye—EGBERT?! Wot the deuce…?!”
He stepped over to me, and I finally saw his face. He’d lost a fair bit of weight, making him look hollow and drawn. A ragged beard was growing in patches around his jaw.
We stared at each other, dumbfounded. A thick lump of emotion started to swell up in my throat.
Which was strange, because I hated him.
The others went quiet. Even the skinny, crazed-looking Moku quieted down—he kept growling “fola batakay,” but with much less energy.
Guts finally spoke. “Who are you?”
When Adonis didn’t answer, I spoke up for him.
“He’s my brother.”
REUNION
Adonis stared at me like he was seeing a ghost. “Ye come lookin’ fer us?”
I shook my head. “I had no idea—”
“Where to look!” Millicent broke in, talking over me. “At first. But thank heavens we found you. Egg was worried sick!”
We both turned to stare at Millicent. I had no idea what she was talking about. My brother scrunched up his face and squinted, trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. Then he remembered.
“Yer that Sunrise girlie! Come to get yer balloon back?”
“Of course not! We came to rescue you! Egg insisted on it!”
“No, I di—” I started to say.
She kicked me hard in the foot. I shut my mouth.
What she was saying made no sense. But at the moment, nothing did.
“Fer true? Ye really come to rescue us?” For the first time in my life, Adonis was looking at me with something besides a scowl.
Did he say “us”?
“Dad and Venus are here?”
“Course! Didn’t ye see ’em?” He jerked his head skyward. “Dad’ll be by soon. Brings me dinner round now.”
My head felt like it was floating up off my shoulders.
My family’s alive. All of them.
“Fola batakay!” The crazy-seeming Moku was pacing back and forth against the far wall, yelling at us.
“Tuma pa!” Kira yelled back at him.
Adonis stared at her, then at Guts.
“Who’s these two?”
“I am Kira Zamorazol.”
“Name’s Guts.”
Adonis’s lip curled up in a sneer. “Kind o’ name izzat?”
“Pudo la, ye billi glulo.”
“They’re friends of mine,” I managed to say.
Adonis looked confused.
“Since when ye got friends?”
“Since…uh…” I was having a hard time making my brain work. “How did you get here?”
“Landed. Didn’t have no choice. Can’t steer a balloon. How’d you get here?”
“Walked.”
“Across the Blue Sea?!”
“Oh…That part was a boat.”
“Still got it?”
“Got what? The map?”
Millicent kicked me again. But Adonis didn’t even blink at the word. He had other things on his mind.
“The boat, stupid!”
“Oh…No.”
“How ye gonna rescue us with no boat?! Crimey, Egbert! Can’t do nothin’ right.”
“Can I sit down?” I was starting to think I might pass out.
“Yeh. On them rocks. Keep yer back to the wall—otherwise, that lot’ll shank ye.” He nodded in the direction of the crazy-seeming Moku, who’d retreated to a dark corner to mutter “fola batakay!” at us.
We all sat down on some big rocks at the far end of the pit.
It was a relief to get off my feet. My whole body ached from the day’s forced march. And my head was spinning like a top.
“How’d ye know where to find us?”
“Just lucky, I suppose,” said Millicent. “We’ve been scouring the countryside.”
Adonis scrunched up his face again. Thinking didn’t come easy to him.
“Ain’t too lucky, if yer in the pit,” he finally said.
“How come you’re down here, and Dad and Venus aren’t?”
“’Cause Venus is a — —,” he said, using two of Guts’s favorite words. “Tryin’ to get me killed, she is! And Dad can’t keep her in line. She was my daughter, I’d smack her silly ’fore I’d let her go on like that with them savages.”
“Go on like what? What did they do to her?”
He snorted. “Do to her? Made her queen’s wot they did!”
“What?!”
“Lives inna palace! Runs the whole show!”
What he was saying was so crazy I must have misunderstood him.
“You can’t be…what?”
“Yells ‘boo,’ they all jump! Look wot she did t’me! Had ’em toss me in here—”
“Adonis!” The unmistakable growl of my father’s voice boomed down from the mouth of the pit. “Heads up! Dinner comin’!”
I looked up. One of the big woven baskets I’d seen lying near the pit was dangling above us on a rope. Just past it, I could see Dad standing at the pit’s edge, feeding the rope through his hands.
“Dad!!” I yelled.
He stopped lowering the basket and craned his neck out over the hole. “Izzat…?”
“It’s Egbert!” Adonis yelled to him.
“WOT?!”
“It’s me,” I said. “Egbert.”
The light was behind him, hiding his face in a shadow as he stared down at us.
“How the blaze…?”
“Came to find us, them savages tossed him in here,” Adonis explained. “Drop the food, will ye? Starvin’!”
“Is it really you, Egbert?”
His tone of voice wasn’t at all like the Dad I remembered—it was husky and low, almost tender. I felt another big lump swell in my throat.
“It’s me,” I croaked.
“Savior’s sake…Saw ’em bringin’ in prisoners, but I never woulda—”
“Dad! The food!” Adonis wasn’t about to let our reunion get in the way of his dinner.
“Right.” Dad began to feed the rope again, and a moment later the basket bumped to the ground. There was a small corked jug and a leg of what looked like either a big chicken or a little turkey, charred black from a cooking fire. Adonis snatched them up and hurried back to his rock, turning away from us as he tore into the bird leg.
“Would you mind sharing that?” I asked him. “We haven’t eaten in a while.”
“Ai’m muff fu fare!” Adonis protested through a mouth stuffed with meat.
“Think I might jump him fer it,” Guts muttered to me as he licked his lips.
Dad spoke up again. “Ye really come all this way, Egbert? Just to find us?”
Millicent kicked me in the side of the foot again.
“Will you stop!?” I hissed at her. Then I called up to Dad.
“We, uh…sure did,” I said. I must not have sounded too convincing, because Millicent gave an annoyed snort.
But it was good enough for Dad. “That’s sumpin’…Sure is…”
He started to hoist the empty basket back up.
“Gimme a few. See ’bout gettin’ ye outta there.”
“Wait! I brought friends. There’s four of us.”
His head swi
veled from side to side as he peered down into the pit. “How’d ye get friends?”
“Just…did.”
“Mm…See wot I can do. Dunno wot kind o’ mood she’s in.”
“Who?”
“Yer sister.”
“Is it true? Did they really make Venus queen?”
His shoulders slumped a little. “Sumpin’ like it. Yeh.”
Then he started off. “Back soon.”
“Wait!”
“Wot?! Gettin’ dark!”
“We’re awfully hungry. Thirsty, too.”
“Awright. See wot I can do.”
DAD WAS GONE until after sunset had taken our last bit of light. By that point, it was clear to me that Adonis wasn’t himself. He was still generally horrible—I’d had to stop both Guts and Kira from getting into fistfights with him after he made some ugly comments about both Guts’s missing hand and Kira’s sundown prayer to Ka. But in the hour or so we spent together, he didn’t slug me once, or even take a swing at me, which was some kind of record for him. And the handful of insults he lobbed at me were halfhearted at best. I wasn’t sure if it was because he knew he was outnumbered, or if he’d genuinely changed how he felt about me.
The Moku might have had something to do with it. It was clear he was terrified of them. “Stone killers…,” he kept saying. “Treat ye rough…Ye’ll see.”
“But why on earth did they make Venus queen?” My sister was the last person I could imagine inspiring a bunch of strangers, let alone the Moku. She was vicious enough for them, I guess, but they seemed like a pretty clever bunch, and Venus was dumb as a post, and lazy on top of it—back home, she didn’t even like to cut her own food if she could get somebody to do it for her.
“Dunno,” was about as much as Adonis had to say about it—he repeated that about twenty times in response to my questions, along with “can’t figger it” and “stone crazy, it is.”
And he had a thousand questions of his own, some of which were tough to answer—especially with Millicent sitting next to me with her foot at the ready.
“Why do you keep kicking me?” I muttered, quiet enough that Adonis couldn’t hear.
“Because you can’t tell him the truth!”
“Why not?”
