by Geoff Rodkey
Kira slipped her pack off her shoulders, set down her machete, and knelt on the ground, facing the sunset. Then she carefully arranged the firebird pendant in front of her.
“We’re wasting time—” Millicent started to say.
“’Nuff outta you!” Guts growled at Millicent.
“Oh, stuff it, Guts,” Millicent snorted.
Still kneeling, Kira straightened her back, pointed her chin skyward, and began to whisper in Okalu.
As the strange words tumbled out of her, she slowly lowered her head and rounded her back until she was flat on the ground, arms stretched out in front of her on either side of the pendant.
I didn’t know whether to watch or avert my eyes. I’d never known anyone who prayed like that—come to think of it, I’d never known anyone who prayed at all—and once again, I had the sense that we were involved in something much bigger than us, and that shouldn’t be trifled with.
Kira stood up, the necklace in her hand. “May I hold this?” she asked Guts.
He nodded. “Yeh. Course.”
As Kira pocketed the necklace, Millicent nudged me.
“He fancies her, doesn’t he?” she murmured under her breath.
“Shhh!” I whispered, worried Guts had overheard her. “No! Don’t talk about it.”
Kira hoisted the pack onto her shoulders, and we headed for the hills.
IT WAS FULLY NIGHT by the time we reached the foot of the nearest hill, and the tree cover was so thick we could barely see far enough in front of us to keep moving. At first, we tried to climb straight up, but the hillside was much steeper than it had looked from a distance, so we had to settle for moving at an angle.
“Do we really want to be going inland?” Millicent whispered to me. We were hanging back, letting Kira and Guts take the lead.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Well, where are we headed once we lose the men from the ship? Won’t we need to find a port? Where’s the Fire King’s treasure?”
“We don’t know yet,” I said.
“What do you mean, you don’t know yet? What did the map say?”
“Haven’t gotten it translated. That’s why we’re going to find the Okalu.”
“Find the Okalu?! I thought she was Okalu!”
“She is. But she can’t read the writing.”
“So she’s illiterate? Oh, smashing.”
“I wouldn’t call her that if I were you.”
“Let me get this straight—you hitched your wagon to an illiterate, knife-wielding maniac—”
“I really wouldn’t call her those things.”
“Because why be honest? Is that it?”
That got me mad. “Don’t tell me about honesty! When you won’t even admit—”
“I swear to you, Egg, say the word slaver and I’ll beat you in the head with a rock.”
I left the sentence unfinished. I’d made my point.
Millicent let out a little huff of disgust. “What on earth have you been doing the past three weeks?”
“Looking for an Okalu!”
And listening to Guts play guitar while I stuffed my face and lounged in the sun. But I couldn’t exactly admit that.
“And Crazy Knife Girl’s the best you could do? That’s pathetic!”
“Shut up, Millicent.”
“What a clever retort. All that time hanging around illiterates certainly sharpened your wits.”
We were both quiet for a minute after that. In the silence, I kept getting more angry. I’d forgotten how annoying Millicent could be.
I wasn’t the only one who was getting angrier. When Millicent opened her mouth again, her words dripped venom.
“Should’ve left you to die.”
“What kind of comment is that?!”
“Another honest one. It’s one thing to be a fool. But I never took you for a pig. Thanks for proving me wrong.”
I was stunned. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’ll tell you what,” she spat. “I nearly died saving you! I didn’t have to be on that boat. They were going to send me to Rovia. To the finest boarding school on the Continent! And I gave it up. I ran away and hid in that filthy hold, days on end, no food or water—just to save your stupid life! And you couldn’t even be bothered to thank me.”
Her voice was husky with emotion. I tried to defend myself.
“I did—”
“You didn’t! Not once! And worse—you just stood by and let those two rip into me. That shrew was going to slit my throat, and you didn’t even try to stop her! You’re not just a pig—you’re a coward.”
There was a sick, hollow feeling spreading in my stomach. I wanted to yell at her, to tell her she was dead wrong.
But I couldn’t, because I knew at least part of it was true.
“I’m sorry.” The words sounded small and weak.
Millicent let out another huff of disgust. “I should’ve listened to Cyril,” she said.
“Who’s Cyril?”
“Nobody…Just the boy I’m going to marry.”
UPHILL
My brain shut down completely. The sick feeling in my stomach kept spreading, and I had to stop for a second because I was getting dizzy, and I thought I might fall over and tumble down the hill.
Then I realized Millicent had stepped up her pace and was almost as far ahead as Guts and Kira—and all three of them were about to disappear into the darkness.
I rushed to catch up, but I didn’t pay enough attention to where I was going, and the broken end of a dead tree branch stabbed me in the forehead. It was excruciating, but the pain seemed to clear some of the fog from my brain. I managed to stagger forward until I was only an arm’s length behind Millicent.
“Who’s Cyril?” I asked the back of her head. I meant to whisper, but it came out much louder than that.
“Shhhhhhhhh!” all three of them hissed at me.
“Sorry!” I whispered.
I resolved to quit trying to talk to Millicent while our lives were still in danger.
But I couldn’t help myself.
“Who’s Cyril?” I asked again a minute later, this time managing to pitch my voice low enough that Guts and Kira couldn’t hear.
“What do you care?” Millicent whispered over her shoulder.
Because you’re supposed to marry ME!
I couldn’t actually say that. It wasn’t like we’d ever discussed it.
“Just…curious.”
“He’s a boy from Sunrise. Well, a man, really—he’s nearly seventeen. Six feet tall, wealthy, brilliant…has his own boat. We’ve known each other forever.”
“How come I never heard of him?”
“Why would you?”
“I did live in your house.”
“He was away at school then. In the Fish Islands. Just came back—they kicked him out for seditious behavior. He’s terribly rebellious. But not in a stupid way.”
“Shut up!” Guts growled from up ahead. “Both of ye! Gonna get us killed!”
I quit trying to talk to her after that, not only because Guts was right, but because I didn’t know what else to say.
I felt awful, in all sorts of different ways. I wanted to throttle Millicent for betraying me by taking up with some other boy—and worse, for never having told me about him in all the time we’d spent together.
And I hated this Cyril person even more. I tried to conjure up an image of him just so I could imagine him getting eaten by sharks.
I hated myself, too. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thanked Millicent for saving us. But when I ran through the past day in my head, I not only couldn’t remember thanking her, I couldn’t recall having said anything nice to her at all.
It made me sick and ashamed, and somehow I felt like if I’d just been a better person—more kind and considerate, and not full of cruel thoughts about things like her breath, which was much better now, and which I knew had only turned foul because she’d gone days without food and water to save my life�
��maybe she’d want to marry me instead of Cyril.
And I hated myself for not being older. And taller. And rich. And having my own boat.
That business about the boat was particularly irritating. Who had their own boat? His parents must have bought it for him.
How big was it? Did it have a crew?
Maybe I could get Kira to teach me how to make fireballs so I could burn it down.
I fantasized about that for a while. It was a lot easier to imagine than a shark attack, and more satisfying, too—or at least it kept me from focusing on the awful gnawing sadness in my gut.
I was numb and exhausted by the time we reached the top of the hill. It was as thick with trees as the hillside had been, but we found a good-sized rock jutting out over the far slope and climbed it to get a look around.
Below us, a wide, flat valley seemed to stretch west forever under the moonlight. Straight ahead, the north side of the valley was bordered by a distant range of craggy peaks. I wasn’t good at figuring distances, but it looked like at least a two-day hike across the valley to the mountains, and possibly more. The thought of walking that whole way made me even more tired than I already was.
I wasn’t the only one. “We should rest,” Kira said.
We climbed down from the rock and settled into a sheltered spot to one side of it. Kira handed out half our remaining food, which wasn’t much. I ate my share in a few quick gulps, then curled up to go to sleep between Millicent and Guts.
“I’m sorry about everything,” I whispered to the back of Millicent’s head. “I really appreciate your coming to save us.”
“Shhh,” was all she said in reply.
I was drifting off when I heard Guts whisper to Kira.
“How’d Pembroke off yer dad?”
She didn’t answer. He started to apologize.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean nothin’. Stupid.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “It was four years ago. We were in Edgartown. In the Fish Islands. My father was a diplomat.”
Her voice was so low I had to strain to hear it.
“Wot’s a diplomat?”
“An elder who goes to other tribes and tries to form alliances with them. When I was little, I almost never saw him. He was always traveling, and I stayed home with my mother. It was better for the Okalu then—there was always war with the Moku, but the fighting rarely touched us. We still lived in our homeland, in the Valley of Ka—on the other side of those mountains in the distance.”
She sighed. “Then came the Dark Time. Do you know about it?”
“No.”
“It was after the war between Rovia and Cartage.”
“You mean the Barker War?” I whispered.
It was silent for a moment before Kira answered. I don’t think she’d realized I was awake and listening.
“Yes. Before the war, sometimes slavers would come from the islands and try to capture Natives—from all the tribes, not just Okalu. The tribes would fight them, and so would the Cartagers. Li Homaya didn’t want Rovians in the New Lands, and his army had good relations with the Natives, so his soldiers would come north from Pella Nonna to drive away the slavers.
“But after the war, Cartage was much weaker, and Li Homaya stopped sending his troops to the north. He kept them in the south, to protect Pella Nonna and the gold route.
“Then something worse happened. The slavers made an alliance with the Moku. They gave the Moku guns and cannon to fight us—and in return, the Moku gave the slavers any Okalu they captured.
“For hundreds of years, the Moku had tried and failed to defeat us. But the guns and cannon changed everything. In just a few weeks, the Moku drove us from our lands in the Valley of Ka—they captured our temple, burned our homes, took the men for slaves…and slaughtered the women and children.”
She paused. I heard her take a deep breath before she continued.
“When the Dark Time began, my father was away, on a mission to another tribe. My mother was killed in the fighting, and I fled with the others across the Cat’s Teeth. Eventually, my father joined us. By then, the elders knew we had no hope from any alliance. No one would help us against the Moku and the slavers.
“But my father had been told the King of Rovia hated slavery and outlawed it among his people. My father believed this king was just and fair, and if he knew his own subjects were making slaves of us, he would stop them. So my father went to Edgartown, in the Fish Islands, to seek an audience with the Rovian Governor General and ask him to stop the slavers.
“Because my mother was dead, my father took me with him. He thought it would be a simple thing to speak with the Governor. But it wasn’t. We were in Edgartown over a year before my father got an appointment. To pass the time, he hired a tutor, and I learned both Rovian and Cartager.
“When my father finally got his audience, the Governor told him slavery was against the King’s law—and because it was illegal, it could not possibly exist, anywhere on Rovian soil.”
She let out a little snort of disgust.
“By then, my father had learned the slaves were being sold to a man named Roger Pembroke, to work in the silver mine on Sunrise Island. He told the Governor this. But the Governor demanded proof. He said the word of a Native was not enough—he needed witnesses, Rovian citizens who would come forward and testify the slavery existed.
“My father had made some friends among the Rovians in Edgartown. He asked them to help him find witnesses. At first, they tried to be helpful. Then they became frightened. They told my father Roger Pembroke had learned who he was, and what he was trying to do, and that his life was in danger.
“I didn’t know any of that at the time. I was only ten years old, and I spent my days with the tutor, Mr. Dalrymple. We went out one day to the meadows above Edgartown. I remember he was teaching me all the names for the different wildflowers.
“When we came home, we found my father’s body. Mr. Dalrymple tried to keep me from seeing it. But I did.”
Her voice was flat and steady, without any emotion at all. Somehow, that made the horror of what she was saying even worse.
“Then I had to run and hide, because Pembroke’s men would have killed me too if they could. For a week, I hid in the cellar of a man Mr. Dalrymple knew. Then in the middle of the night, he took me to a small boat, and we sailed to a secret port, hidden in a cove. There were smugglers there. Mr. Dalrymple paid them to take me to Pella Nonna. When I got to Pella, I met a Fingu woman who helped me find work washing clothes for a Cartager family. The family’s father worked for Li Homaya. When he learned I was good with languages, he brought me to the palace, and I became a translator.”
It was silent for a moment.
“I’m sorry. That was much more than you’d asked,” she said.
“No! Fine,” whispered Guts. “’S’all right. Good. I mean, not, y’know—”
“Is she really his daughter?” Kira asked.
I wondered if Millicent had been awake to hear the story. Her breathing sounded deep and regular.
“Yes,” I said.
“We have to leave her. She can’t travel with us.”
“No,” I said. “She’s on our side.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s true.”
Kira’s voice was hardening. “She comes from great evil. It must be a part of her.”
“It isn’t,” I insisted. “She’s good. And smart, and strong—”
“He killed my father.”
“He killed mine, too,” I told her. “And my brother and sister. And I’d still trust her with my life.”
Silence.
“Guts, tell her Millicent’s all right,” I said.
I couldn’t see his face, but I could practically hear it twitching.
“She’s all right,” he grunted. “She’s a pudda bada glulo. But she ain’t evil.”
“You can’t say that,” Kira said.
“She ain’t, tho’. Ye can trust her.”
&n
bsp; “No, I mean the curses.”
“Sorry. Got a bad mouth sometimes.”
“It’s not that—you’re saying them wrong. You can’t glulo a bada. It makes no sense. You can call her a billi glulo. But to a girl, it’s not a big insult. Unless it’s billi glulo domamora.”
“Wot’s that mean?”
“She’s a — —.”
Hearing such foul words come out of Kira’s mouth was a bit of a shock. But Guts ate it up.
“Good one…! Ain’t wot I meant, tho’.”
“You can say bada maya. But I don’t think you mean that, either.”
“Wot’s bada maya? She’s a — —?”
“Exactly.”
“Nah, that’s not right. Wanted to call her a — — —.”
“Oh…That’s pudda hula saca.”
“Pudda hula saca…,” Guts whispered in a dreamy voice. If there was any question he’d gone head over heels for Kira, the swearing lesson pretty much finished it. And it made me think they might have enough in common for the feeling to be mutual.
“Teach me more like that?” he asked her.
“In the morning.” Kira raised herself up on one elbow to look at me. “What did Pembroke do to your family?” she asked.
I told her the whole story, making sure I stressed the parts where Millicent had helped us against her father and his men.
By the time I finished, Guts had fallen asleep, and Kira didn’t say anything except “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” I said. Then I drifted off, not knowing whether I’d changed her mind about Millicent, but too tired to spend any more time worrying about it.
I WOKE UP AT dawn to a strange muttering somewhere above me. It was Kira—she’d climbed the rock we were sheltered behind and was performing the same ritual she’d gone through at sunset, whispering an Okalu prayer as she slowly lowered herself flat, her hands stretched out on either side of the firebird necklace in the direction of the sunrise.
Guts and Millicent were both awake and watching Kira as well. When she hopped down off the rock, Guts motioned to the firebird pendant in her hand.
“Is he real?”
“Who?”
“Whoyecallim. Ka. Sun god.”
“Of course,” Kira said. “Ka is more real than you or me.”
