by Richard Nell
This isn’t real, he thought. What was I doing? Where am I?
He remembered bright lights, danger, and the sadness of strangers. The details hid behind an ache in his eyes that spread to his temples and scalp, pulsing like a heart trapped inside a drum.
Nishad, he heard a boy’s voice whisper, they who stay.
Kale recognized and trusted the voice, but couldn’t remember why. He squinted, trying to see something, anything in the black canvass all around him. He felt fear, because he knew now that he had ‘gone’, or was ‘going’. He knew he didn’t want to.
Eyes twitched in the corners of his vision, and he spun to see them clearly but lost them. Shadows emerged in man-sized shapes, somehow darker than the absence of light. He could move here with his spirit and fled them. But he did not know where to go.
Where is my body and my spirit-house and my windows?
He flew blindly, terrified, hoping only to out-run whatever it was he could see or feel lurking in the void. The creatures whispered and hissed and screamed, their inhuman voices without meaning as they reached for his feet, brushing his skin with what must have been claws.
Their touch was fire. Kale flew faster, he reached out for threads of power but found nothing. He scanned in every direction, feeling no up or down in this nightmarish world. But far below him, he saw a light. It looked faint and blurry, but he knew the darkness was death and he flew on without hesitation.
As he neared it, he remembered: I was pulling at threads, that’s what I was doing; I was using my magic, and I was surrounded by people.
The ‘air’ he crossed numbed his face and hands, and a pair of shadow’s claws raked his back and neck. It was hot, sharp, the contrast to the wind making him feel like he burned and froze at once. But he couldn’t scream.
He thought back to his navy brothers—swimming past pain and reason and fear to win a distance-race. He remembered ducking waves and pulling his heavy body one arm at a time while all the others fell away. He thought of riding the wind and flying to Ketsra, alone and free except for winged-things who couldn’t see or harm him.
It wasn’t only his life he fought to save, somehow he knew that—it was a hundred-thousand lives waiting, counting on him.
The light grew wide and clear, now encircled by rings of greens and blues and greys. Kale hurled himself without slowing. More shadows tried to catch him, surround him, and he didn’t care what this place was or where, knowing only that life was better than death.
He stopped ‘flying’, and fell, dropping through cool mist with half-closed eyes, wanting only to curl up and weep at the pain coursing through him. But the mist ended. He saw good, green earth but felt helpless to slow his fall. He crashed head-long into mossy dirt, sinking into it as if he were a stone thrown by some angry god.
His head throbbed, his face thawed but tingling, his skin on fire just at the touch of his clothes. But he was alive. The fall seemed not even to truly harm him. He crawled out from the crater he’d made, moving pull by pull to a cold, dark place surrounded by huge, blurry trees.
“Hello,” spoke a deep, pleasant voice.
Kale twisted for the source but found he could hardly move. He groaned, which he’d intended to be a greeting. He tried again.
“Help.”
His sight swam, dull as it had been when he first ‘reached’ out with his senses in Nanzu. Then he was lifted off the ground in strong arms. He felt the coolness of rain on his skin and wondered when it started, feeling somehow the rain was important.
“You’re safe now,” said the voice, “I’ll take you to my mother’s house.”
Kale bobbed his head enough to see his savior. It was a giant with pale skin, whose yellow eyes shone in the dark. These stared down at him, not with cruelty, nor with kindness, as if he simply observed.
“I’ve never had a guest,” said the giant, sounding pleased. “But you are most welcome here.”
The sounds echoed, and Kale lost even the strength to hold up his eyelids. As sleep or unconsciousness took him, he looked up at a jagged-tooth smile and a distorted face. The bright eyes faded like lighthouses on some distant shore, and Kale thought he still saw shadows lurking at the edges of his vision. But he could do no more. He shivered in the cold, and closed his eyes.
Part II - Ask the Trung
Chapter 38
Ruka brought venison from his Grove, but it arrived black and stuffed with dead maggots. He threw it overboard with the equally undrinkable Grove-water before the other men saw, wondering why it was so.
In the past two days they’d nearly finished all meager drops and scrapings left by the former crew, their barrels moldy and poorly kept, rat corpses kicked away into corners. They must have just been returning home.
Unless it rained soon, and Arun managed to fish, other worries need not be considered. All three of them would die of thirst, or hunger.
But they had other problems. Their new ship’s hull was damaged. It was built for coastal skirmishes, not weeks or months in open sea. Arun was the only one healthy enough to search, to set sails, to turn the rudder and make repairs. Kwal at least gave instruction sitting or lying down, still pale from pain and blood loss. Ruka tended their wounds. He also built and salvaged missing supplies from his Grove.
The other men watched this but neither said a word. Ruka laid out sail-cloth and frame on the deck from nothing, sparks and steam rising from his outstretched hands. He passed Arun steel hammers and nails and silk rope from his curled fists as heat rolled from his hands in waves.
The act of passing was painful to his wounded body. Indeed holding or touching anything was torture. But Bukayag took it.
Ruka brought herb poultice, too, and rubbed the clumped, stinking mixtures on Kwal’s wounds before his own with the backs of his hands. “It will prevent corruption,” he said. The man nodded without complaint or question.
The first evening he set his own leg and braced it with wood as the others pretended not to stare.
“Do you need help?” Arun asked only once, very quietly.
Ruka shook his head as he popped the bone into place and tied it tight without a sound. Bukayag took that, too.
“What will we do for supplies?” his fledgling servants grumbled as morning came on the second day.
Ruka still did not know, though he searched his mind for answers. In the Ascom fresh water was scarce. His mother taught him to boil unknown sources in pots before using it to drink, or even wash, if you could manage it. But it still required fresh water. It was the salt that made sea-water useless, and all he had was sea-water.
“Just keep us moving South,” he said, and scooped up pailfuls of sediment-filled water from the salt-lake in his Grove.
Somehow, he would need to remove it.
He tried different methods, first transferring from pot to pot as he tried to strain it. Removing dirt with tight-weaved grates or fabric was not so difficult, but no matter what he did, the taste was salty.
But he knew there was an answer. All things had answers with enough knowledge. This was the closest thing to faith Ruka had.
He boiled more pots and tried to think of something so small it might strain salt, but somehow once submerged in water the crystals dissolved and became part of the water itself. He stood watching, lids covering his pots as he considered. Droplets fell from the edges and sizzled as they struck the fire. Ruka froze. Water could become steam, but could salt?
He collected the droplets, tasted them, and smiled.
He brought the pots and lids from his Grove to sit on the deck, as well as a metal stand to hold the wood-fire above the vulnerable hull. He had Arun fill pails with sea-water, dump them in, then set them beneath the off-center lids.
As the fire boiled, the water rose as steam and droplets fell having abandoned the heavier crystals, and collected.
“Taste it,” he said later when they had half a pail.
Arun tried it, then grinned for the first time since they’d changed ships.
Ruka shook his head and nearly cursed himself for a fool, thinking it such a simple thing. No doubt the methods could be improved. It might be useful even on land, but for ships they could use such methods to reduce the need for barrels and barrels of storage.
“We might survive the crossing without food,” Ruka said, “but I’d rather not try. I’ll make us something to catch fish.”
The dead—at least those with unbroken fingers—were already threading huge ropes into square netting. In the world of the living, Arun nodded, a thing growing in his eyes now like Ruka’s first retainers—a wonder, perhaps, or deference born from a secret wish for a master.
In truth, Ruka wished men never felt this way. He wished they were stronger, and better than they were—that he could find ways to make them do what was required without fear and awe and greed. But he had yet to find them.
The softer power his mother had wielded seemed only useful against the weak, and dependent. There was also the island way—choosing roads that benefited most, relying on collective interest and a peaceful nature. But interests could change, and such a comfortable people would quail at the first sign of doom or tragedy.
No. Men needed struggle, and a firm hand. They needed the worst amongst them culled, laws enough to keep the rest only from degradation, enforced by strength but tempered by mercy.
Perhaps in the future there might be better ways. But for now, Ruka would gather the best and strongest and help them rule. Men like Aiden and Farahi, and great matrons like Beyla. Then he would turn his eyes to Grove-magic and mystical island monks, and all mysteries unknown in the world.
It will be your legacy, mother. I will help build a world shaped by your sacrifice, and it will rise above the darkness of ignorance. But first, I must tame the pretenders.
Ruka sat and winced at the pain in his leg. He waited for the foreigners to meet his eyes, knowing he would need these men, and to gain loyalty there must always be a form of truth. The warmth and light of the mid-day sun was not the burden it once was, and he let the heat warm his face.
“Since it seems as if we might live,” he said. “There are things you must know. With a bit of wind, there is perhaps one full moon before we reach my homeland. On arrival I intend to gather a small army on the coast, load them into several ships we will build upon landing, and sail to destroy the Trung. We will sail in four months.” He let that timeline register with the men. “Now is the time for questions.”
Arun snorted but didn’t seem alarmed. Kwal’s tone was plain, and respectful.
“Why do we need more ships, sir? I thought the plan was subterfuge and murder, not conquest.”
A plan can be both.
“I need them for plunder, Captain. I intend to capture as many young women as will fit on board.”
The young sailor’s brow raised at that, his face stretched like a man who heard news he didn’t enjoy. The pirate just rolled tobacco.
“Why women?” Kwal said with a careful tone. “There will be a treasury. If we can manage it, surely that is more valuable.”
“You Pyu value the wrong things,” Ruka answered. “In the Ascom, women are worth far more.”
Arun lit his smoke with the fire on Ruka’s stand, puffing and laying back on his elbows. “Do you have allies? Resources? What do we use to build the ships and hire men? If you hadn’t noticed, we’ve lost our silver.”
Ruka smiled with no attempt to mask Bukayag’s arrogance. In truth he felt annoyance already at the doubt and questions though he’d prompted them. He flicked his gaze towards the sails and pots and tools he’d pulled from nothing.
In truth, he’d seen the man’s greed the moment he’d done it. Arun’s mind would have leapt instantly to gold and silver, and the same lust had entered his eyes as Egil’s when he’d found a Vishan boy who could draw runes.
Small men, he thought with scorn, and their small ambitions.
“I have enough,” he said without a hint of doubt. “More than enough.”
He watched dead men with picks and hammers in his Grove. They were digging down beneath his cave, hunting for precious metals he somehow knew would be there. Already they made piles of ore flecked with metals. Others constructed a special furnace with molds to keep his Grove-coins consistent. He would do far better than the Pyu.
Farahi’s minters had not controlled the mixtures or heat as they should have. Their coins crumbled and blackened, chipped and varied. Merchants were forced to weigh, inspect, and bargain. It was better than the Ascom, but it could be vastly improved.
Ruka lay his body flat to rest while he toiled. No matter what he did, his fate was still in the hands of the sea.
If a storm came they would all certainly die; if they failed to fish and the winds didn’t oblige, he might be forced to eat his companions, and to kill them would require all his strength. For now he stilled like the plants and beasts escaping winter, hoping only to buy time.
If necessary, he could start with Kwal, who was injured and weak. But if he ate Kwal then Arun would no doubt fight him, and damaged as he was, a fight with the Ching master may not end well.
He sighed at the thought, closed his eyes, and hoped for fish.
Chapter 39
Altan stood on the peak of his farm’s highest hill. He watched the boat on the horizon and wished he was on it, knowing but not caring that the men aboard were likely cold and hungry, tired of their fellow’s stink and habits. He sighed, turned to look at the squealing pigs outside his barn, and squinted against the falling sun.
“I suppose someone has to feed you.”
He trudged downhill with his slop in freshly washed buckets. It was mostly leftovers from his family’s daily meals, which they produced in embarrassing amounts. The youngest twins still preferred to throw their pork and fish rather than eat it, pelting siblings and walls and laughing as the dogs scampered madly for pickings. His Matron, Noyon, gathered up the dirtier pieces and stored it for the animals. Altan wished she’d make them eat it anyway.
“Boys your age in the South would kill for that,” he’d say, and his children would all roll their eyes.
“In the South they kill for anything,” once said the oldest, now seventeen, voice dripping with confident disdain, and Altan reminded himself how little they’d all seen of the world.
He hurried to open the feed slots and toss his heavy load. The sows whined and lined up in their order of size and aggression, the single boar waiting in his place up front. Altan had no time tonight to sort them out, but tomorrow he’d have to separate his stock into pens and make sure they all ate their share. Left to their own devices, pigs would let the weakest starve, no matter how much food you gave them.
He left the buckets for his sons to deal with later, hurried to the site of his new house and covered up the foundation with wooden planks. It would rain tonight, or perhaps tomorrow, and he’d rather not deal with a mud pit. He covered the boards with old, cheap furs, stitched together by his parents from half a dozen breeds of beast. It should be his sons doing the work, he knew, but there was still time for that. When the rain dried they’d come down together as a family and he’d show the boys how to build a frame, how to square off the ground and carve proper walls for storage.
It would be a fine home—large, and warm enough to hold four women and their families, if the Mother graced them. When his daughters took mates they’d be offered first choice, but who knew what they’d decide. They might Choose the Order or move to a town; they were more educated than most, and there was always need for teachers and birthers, or they might try their luck as merchants and take a portion of Noyon’s wealth to start. None of this bothered Altan, he and the land earned her plenty, and his sons would stay at least until he had son-in-laws.
He smiled at the brightness of his children’s future, feeling a pride and grace that made him kiss his knuckles in thanks to the Goddess, but there was no time for idleness.
The ship he’d seen rounding Cayer’s Rock would be close
to his shore. He scrambled around freshly planted fields—mostly durum and coriander, though the wheat was sicker every year from disease and he should plant something else. Damn the chiefs and their quotas and all ignorant townsfolk, he thought.
Meeting sailors was more important than ever. The income offset his weakened crops, and he and a neighbor had been running a supply trade of sorts for years.
The coast of Altan’s land was a good slope and protected by trees—so he’d built several docks and kept it readied with fresh water and grain in barrels; his neighbor cut and stocked lumber, rope and cloth, coming by every few weeks to re-supply and settle the costs. They found merchants ideal customers—always loaded with useful goods or silver, always knowledgeable of a thing’s worth so the haggling was short. They split the profits, with Altan receiving a fee for handling the exchange.
In truth he was pleased to do it. He loved hearing the men’s stories, often inviting them to his home for a meal or a night if they seemed honorable. It made him long for a life with more danger and freedom—a life where a man could pit his wits against the sea and weather and forget the politics of land and chiefdoms and priestesses. But he would miss his family.
For now he unfurled the furs covering his goods, pushed up a white rag on a stick to signal his interest, then waited on a bench trying to make out his visitor. He hoped there was news of last year’s harvest in the East, or perhaps the men would have a skald of sorts to tell his children stories.
He stood on the bank and looked and looked at the outline of his guest. But no matter how long he stared, he couldn’t quite understand the shape of it.
The sails were wrong, first of all. Perhaps they were damaged. They looked rounded rather than square, as if the wooden frame had fallen apart. And they were huge, he realized, as the distance lessened.
He stood watching, and soon the sun shrunk to a sliver, and though the boat was shrouded in gloom, it became clear: this was the largest ship Altan had ever seen.
