by J. M. Lee
“You think she’s really with us?” Amri asked.
“Without a doubt,” Tavra said. “She saw your truths and she will lead the Vapra—and the other clans—accordingly.”
“Accordingly,” Onica said, catching the tail end of their conversation as she returned to the cabin. Amri didn’t love the idea that the ship was sailing out into the ocean with no one watching the helm, but he had to trust the Sifa knew what she was doing. And anyway, if the Chamberlain did come to the shore looking for them, he would rather be stranded on the ocean than trapped in the Skeksis’ horrible claws.
“You still doubt her? Even after what she said?” Naia asked.
“All-Maudra Mayrin is the ordained ambassador between the seven clans and the Skeksis,” Onica said with a shrug. “She speaks to Emperor skekSo himself. I find it hard to believe that in her position, she could have remained completely oblivious to what the Skeksis were doing. She is not naive. She is merely well practiced in turning the other way.”
“But she said the fire was lit and that the Vapra will fight the Skeksis,” Amri said, unsure. It was hard to misunderstand what she’d said, so forthright in the dream. Yet he felt like Onica’s intuition was not to be dismissed. “Tavra, what do you think?”
“My mother will do the right thing,” she said, but there was a hesitation. He wished he could see Tavra’s reaction, but while she stood on his shoulder all he could sense of her was her voice. Almost as if she were speaking from inside his head, a constant sternness talking into his ear.
“The right thing, eh?” Onica said with a raised brow. “As she did when she found you were sneaking out to the wharfs to visit a Sifa Far-Dreamer?”
The hesitation grew. “That was a long time ago.”
Onica sighed, as if the argument were old and tired. It probably was. “When your mother does the right thing, it will be what is right for the Vapra alone. She wears a heavy mantle in Skeksis colors, and it will not be easily changed for a suit of armor. Not everyone is like you, my love.”
And to that, Tavra had no response. Through the porthole, the light of the Waystar grove was nothing but a distant speck of light in the dark, icy mountains.
Naia pulled her locs over her shoulder and put both hands palm down on the table.
“We came this far to deliver our truth to the All-Maudra, and now we’ve done it,” she said. “I don’t have time to doubt her. We’ve still got to light six more fires, like Aughra said. She gave me that task, and I’m going to see it through.”
There she was again. Fierce Naia, who had seen the cracked Crystal. Seen it, and lived to bear its pain, its call for help. Amri didn’t know what to make of the dream they’d all seen. Not the one Aughra had brought to them, nor the strange image of the wall that Onica’s Far-Dream had shown him when he’d asked a question too big to be answered.
Even so, he knew one thing.
“Us,” he told Naia. “Aughra gave us a task.”
Kylan nodded. “We’re in this together.”
Onica stood and withdrew a scroll from her vest. She set it on the table.
“Then I suggest we first go to Cera-Na,” she said, gesturing at the scroll. “Shortly after the pink petals landed, Maudra Ethri called the Sifa to gather, but why, I do not know. She is usually not so secret about her intentions, so it seemed strange. I was planning to sail soon to find out what’s going on.”
“Cera-Na?” Amri asked.
“The bay where the Sifa convene, on the western coast of the mainland. It’s only a day’s journey by sea, and if anyone is brave enough to light a fire and rise against the Skeksis, it will be Maudra Ethri.”
Naia smacked a fist into her palm. “Then it’s decided. We’ll go to Cera-Na first and meet with the Sifa.”
CHAPTER 6
Amri woke in a corner of the cabin under a pile of cushions and quilts. Something crawled across his face, and he took a swat at it—then yelped when it pricked him.
“Wake up. Up!”
Early-morning light glowed from the colored glass that filled the porthole windows. Another blinding day would soon begin. Amri wished he could sleep through it, until it was night again, but that was all it was—a wish—and he forced himself up.
“Why? Are we there?”
Tavra skittered up his sleeve.
“No. You have training to do. Up! Take my sword.”
“Training? What are we now, captain and soldier?”
She laughed, though it wasn’t joyful. Joyful didn’t seem like a word that would ever describe her, though Amri wondered if that could change. “You’re hardly a soldier. But we’ll see what we can do, especially if you are all so set on becoming traitor rebels.”
Amri took the sword and stumbled against the wall as the floor lurched one way, then the other. He resisted the urge to throw himself down onto the planks, lie as flat as he could, and hope the bobbing and rocking would just go away.
“Oh yeah. Boat.”
“Straighten your posture. Tie your hair back. You’re not in the caves anymore.”
He braided his hair and tied the end in a knot, swallowing his indignation. The Vapra was only trying to help. Probably. Naia had said the same thing, back on the cliff, but in a kinder way . . . and having his hair out of the way did help in the whipping ocean wind. But he didn’t need to give Tavra the satisfaction if she was going to be so bossy.
“Posture,” Tavra reminded him. Even after Naia had coached him on walking upright, he’d already begun to return to his usual crouch. Determined to join the daylighters, he did as Tavra said, drawing his shoulders up and straightening his back. It didn’t help his balance, especially not while he still had the sandals on, but he did it anyway. He stepped out of the cabin onto the deck.
Wind filled the fins of the ship, no longer biting and cold. In fact, the gusts that pushed them along were warm enough that Amri could catch the scent of the sea, salty and full of life. They raced atop the waves in an endless bowl of blue green, contained only by the white strip of light that sparkled on the horizon where the suns rose. He had never seen such unending space before. Looking out at it made him dizzy, surrounded by so much water and air instead of stone.
“Good morning!” Kylan called from above. He stood with Onica on the roof of the cabin, a bouquet of rigging in his hands. He listened intently as the Sifa pointed at the ropes and then to the sails. “What are you up to?”
“Apparently, Tavra’s going to make me into a Vapra paladin,” he declared with a joking flourish that ended with him almost dropping the sword. “Soon you will bow before Amri the Strong!”
“Amri the Strong, eh? Hope you’re strong enough for me.”
Naia stood opposite him on deck, dagger in hand. She grinned at him and twirled the thing so it shot rays of sunlight across the ship and in his face. Her locs were tied back, her feet confident and unwavering on the constantly shifting deck.
“Amri the Strong accepts your challenge,” he said.
“Go on, to the foredeck, both of you,” Tavra directed. The foredeck wasn’t big at all, but at least they were out of the way of Kylan’s sailing lessons. The nose of the ship jumped up and down on the waves, and Amri wanted to crouch on all fours to keep his balance. But no one else was, so he didn’t.
Tavra took her place on his neck, where he could hear her over the roaring of the ocean waves and wind.
“All right, then. Naia, thirty lunges. Amri, thirty parries. Begin.”
“Thirty! I don’t even know what a parry is.”
“If we’re going to war with the Skeksis, Naia is going to need someone to watch her back, and you’re not going to be able to rely on your strange Grottan tricks every time.”
“I could if I had a bigger spice pouch.”
“Come on, Amri the Strong!” Naia laughed, then struck a pose. She looked like she could take on anything,
from darkened monster to cruel Skeksis. Like a hero, Amri thought. “It’ll be fun! I’ll try not to beat you too badly.”
He glanced up at Kylan, who was tying off one of the sails, and wondered if he’d rather be learning to sail—but he knew as much about ships as he did swords. The Spriton boy gave him a little wave, as if to say, Good luck. You’ll need it.
“All right. Here I come.”
He held the sword and spread his feet like Tavra had told him to before when he’d faced the Chamberlain. Something about it did feel good, holding a sword as the ship raced across the open water. Even if he was sure that any moment he’d drop the blade and lose it in the depths.
Tavra showed him how to parry. Naia’s blade was shorter than the sword, made for stabbing and cutting. Her thrusts were strong and to the point, and even when Amri successfully parried, he felt the jolt of impact where the blades collided. By the time the second Brother crested the horizon, Amri’s entire body ached and the salty breath of the ocean coated his face.
“Are you sure you never trained to be a guard at the castle?” he asked.
Naia didn’t seem winded at all, feet quick and bright eyes focused.
“Ha, I’m sure! But I win the hunting festival every season, in both bola and spear!”
Amri’s arms jolted again as he barely knocked her blade’s tip away.
“Like I said! Not fair!”
“Life won’t always be fair, or kind!” The voice in his ear was like a conscience, reminding him of the things he would rather have not remembered: like that he’d never seen a bola or a spear before leaving Domrak, or that he’d never attended a hunting festival.
“Left!” Tavra ordered. “No, Amri, left. Don’t—”
He thought he saw an opening in Naia’s attack and reacted, flicking his wrist. The silver sword slid against Naia’s dagger, her grip loosening as the blade twisted, and he stepped in. Too quickly, his blade was close, tilted up—and then she rammed her shoulder into his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs as he tumbled to the deck.
“I told you not to strike!” Tavra buzzed, like an incessant insect. “If this had been a real battle, you’d be dead.”
“Well, it’s not,” he retorted. “I thought I saw an opening, so I went for it. What’s the point of practicing if you’re not allowed to take risks?”
“It wasn’t a risk. It was a guaranteed failure.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I did.”
“Well, maybe I’m just tired of you bossing me around.”
“I was trying to . . .” She clicked with frustration, ending with a final-sounding “Never mind. Do as you like.”
Tavra hopped off Amri’s shoulder and left them. He tried not to feel bad as Naia helped him to his feet and brushed him off. He didn’t know if he was angry or glad that Tavra was mad at him. At least he’d told her to stop treating him like her personal puppet. Amri gingerly slung the sword at his hip.
“She’s right. I could’ve murdered you,” Naia said.
“It wouldn’t have been a bad way for Amri the Strong to go.”
She laughed and rubbed his chest where she’d shouldered him. The bruise ached less under her touch, though she hadn’t used any of her healing magic. They took sips from the barrel of fresh water on the deck and found a place to sit.
“She’s just trying to help, I get it,” he added. “And that she’s probably feeling helpless and everything, stuck in that little body. But I can’t be her replacement. I’m Grottan. I can barely stand up straight on this boat, let alone do sword things.”
“Don’t worry about it. You weren’t too bad, really.”
Amri laughed. “You’re just excited to have someone to beat up.”
“Not true!” Still, she grinned. Then shrugged. “What I know about blades is from hunting. It’s not really the same as combat, and definitely not the same as going up against . . .”
A Skeksis. Neither of them wanted to finish that thought. He could still see the snow melting on the Chamberlain’s hot purple scalp, wrinkled from trine and trine of rage. How vindictively he’d drunk the last of the essence, just to spite Rian. And how it had changed him. Youth and fury rushing back into him, making him three times the monster he’d once been.
If those tiny drops in the vial had transformed him so dramatically, what could more of it do? How many Gelfling would it take to feed all the Skeksis, and what kind of unimaginable demons would they become, wild on the life essence of the Gelfling?
No, fighting a Skeksis would not be the same as hunting. The Gelfling had grown in the world as hunters and gatherers. Farmers. Scholars. Song tellers. Even the sailing Sifa clan, as ruthless as they might be to take on the wind and sea, had been raised and nurtured by Thra to be in communion, their voices one with the great song.
Why hadn’t Aughra, who heard the song of the world, foreseen the Skeksis? If all on Thra was part of the song, then so were the Skeksis, as terrible as they were. So why hadn’t Aughra prepared the Gelfling, the children of Thra, for such a great betrayal? Amri wondered if it was some sort of test. But he had heard real fear in even Aughra’s voice, in the dream-space. If Aughra was worried, then how could this be part of Thra’s song? She should already know the melody. The words, the harmony, and the outcome.
It had always been Amri’s nature to be curious, and to ask. That was his role, as a Grottan. To ask the questions in the Sanctuary where the songs of the bell-birds that moved mountains still echoed. To find the answers and protect them in the Tomb of Relics. That was what Thra had charged his clan with, and yet even so, within days they had lost the Tomb and very nearly lost the Sanctuary to the Skeksis. But when he’d asked Thra how to stop the Skeksis, all it had shown him was a stupid wall.
The menders. That’s what Aughra had called them. Amri glanced to Naia, who had turned to face the wind. Naia, who had seen the Crystal and lived. Naia, who had come from the farthest reaches of the Skarith land, who now feasted aboard a Sifa ship on the Silver Sea. Feasted with a Vapra, a Spriton, and a Grottan, no less! Who found friends wherever she went, who won respect with her unbridled bravery.
Perhaps Thra had a plan, after all. He just didn’t know what it was.
They looked across the length of the ship, watching Kylan climbing the rigging as Onica directed him from the deck. The Far-Dreamer saw them watching and waved, her hair a tangle of red and chiming silver bells. She swung down from the rigging lines to join them, taking a sip of water from the flask at her hip.
“The song teller has a good hand at ropes,” she said. “Where’s Tavra?”
“Being Tavra,” Naia replied. As much as it said nothing, Onica understood it all too well. She leaned against the taffrail beside them, watching Kylan handle the sails on his own. “How long have you two been together?” Naia asked.
“Together! My, what a relative term.”
Amri tilted his head. “You mean because of her mother? Because you’re Sifa?”
“My people come in and out of Ha’rar with the seasons. Tavra’s mother never knew my face, only that when the spring and autumn came, her middle daughter was errant. Young and foolish.” Onica shook her head with a wistful smile. “We thought we were getting away with something, meeting out at the seafarer’s lantern. We weren’t.”
Amri almost said that he didn’t see what the problem was, but he thought it through. Tavra was second in line for the Vapra crown, even if her older sister was the living heir. And the All-Maudra had to produce Vapra heirs—with pure Silverling blood, no doubt. Not a mix of snow and salt water.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be. In a way, for the first time in a long time, now we are together without Mayrin looking upon us with disdain.”
Sadness pricked the Far-Dreamer’s eyes, and Amri hastily changed the subject.
“So when we get t
o Cera-Na, then what? Do you know Maudra Ethri well?”
“I do. We grew up together. She is not a Far-Dreamer, but she has always believed in prophecy and the whispers of the wind. She sent out a call for the Sifa to gather, soon after Kylan’s pink petals reached Cera-Na . . . It is possible she already knows, and believes, and is ready to rebel against the Skeksis.”
It sounded like hope, and Amri decided to hold on to it, at least for a little while.
Onica showed them how to cast nets to catch their lunch. At least that was something Amri was good at. They brought in ocean clams and bits of floating coral. She taught them how to crack the spiny pink corals open, revealing the tender green core. They stripped the cores and made a cold salad of them, after Amri chopped the clam meat and seasoned it with more of Onica’s fire dust.
As he stared at the two halves of the shells, joined in one hinge and mirroring each other in swirling abalone, he thought of the Skeksis. Fighting the Skeksis felt impossible. For all Amri or anyone knew, the Lords were immortal. And with the power of the Crystal and feeding off Gelfling essence, they might as well have been. But maybe . . .
“Do you think we should seek out the Mystics?”
“Mystics?” Onica asked. “The creatures in the dreamfasts?”
Kylan took his book out of his pack and paged through it.
“Their race are called the urRu,” he explained. He showed Onica a drawing of one of the long-necked creatures, with four big arms and a long white mane. Now that Amri knew they were connected—somehow—to the Skeksis, he could see parts of the resemblance. But where the Skeksis were secretive and shrewd, the Mystics were wise and gentle.
“They’re bound to the Skeksis, by some power we don’t understand,” Kylan continued. “We don’t even know what they are, much less how to find them. We’ve only met them by coincidence. The Archer and the Storyteller.”
“I didn’t even know urLii was a Mystic until I met you two,” Amri admitted. “I just thought he was a strange old sage. If you had come to Domrak and asked if I knew of any Mystics, I’m not sure I would have thought to tell you about him. It could be the same anywhere we go, and it could take forever.”
