“Fancy shit,” Jhoma teased when he realized Micha hadn’t tracked down all the rodents himself. The others had no idea of the extent of his gift with large predators.
“Don’t tell Edmon though. He considers it cheating.” I burst into laughter at Micha’s concern at being considered a fraud. He was still worried about getting back and earning a pendant, rather than just surviving this. It was the best I had felt since the Turtle.
“What animal is the cat?” I asked Tototl, hoping for the Nakben word for the animal only found here.
“Ocotochtli.”
Tiger
. I had heard rumors, but never had the chance to encounter one. Having seen her up close, I found myself very impressed.
“And this?” I asked pointing to the tiny scraps that remained on the plate just before I popped them into my mouth.
“Tochi.” There was no Madurian equivalent to the rabbit-like creature with a pointed face, large night eyes and a long, flat tail. No matter its name, it tasted like a delicacy to someone as hungry as me.
The four men let me finish eating before dispensing information about our destination.
“We’ll reach the southern side of the island sometime tomorrow, depending on the wind. It’s cooperated so far, but there’s always the chance we get to a dead spot again,” Khasla said, reminding us of the three days we sat like a leaf on a puddle, just waiting for the wind again. “Then Tototl says he can take us to the palace to see the queen.” Apparently, the bilingual group had gotten along well enough without my translations.
“Then we get the hell out of here,” Jhoma finished. It sounded like an easy plan, but I was sure it wouldn’t play out that way. Nothing had gone right so far.
As I licked my plate clean, Khasla arrived with a second helping and I dove in again. Physically, I felt better than ever. Aside from the ache in my shoulder, my long sleep had replenished my strength and I felt like I was thinking clearer than I had in a long while. The ache in my chest had dulled significantly, only a hint of the pain before.
Maybe I should take a week to sleep more often.
Emotionally, I was still reeling about Khea. I kept looking for her over my shoulder or thinking of something I’d like to say to her, only to remember she’d never be around to hear it. I had grown so comfortable with her thoughts in my head that it seemed as if I’d lost a piece of myself, a feeling that left me a bit lost. I wasn’t sure that I would ever truly get over her, but at least I was feeling well enough to help my friends rather than hinder them.
“We need to be careful who we run into. I think they have a Reader who told them to expect us.”
“What makes you think that?” Micha asked first.
“Khasla’s restraints. How did they know he’d be able to melt the metal? Someone made his out of stone, just for him. They had to know.”
“But we still got out.”
“I think they just didn’t realize how good he is. Controlling heat without producing a flame is a rare skill for Strikers.” Khea had worked to perfect that ability for the nights we could get away in the Oakwick.
“Well that sounds great and all, but it’s not like we can stop ourselves from thinking. There’s not a whole lot we can do about it,” Jhoma said.
“The bracelets,” Micha said, knowing instantly where I was going. “They block readers.” He pointed to Tototl’s copper band around his wrist.
“So first things first, when we get to Uxmal, each of you needs a bracelet.”
“Why not you?” Khasla asked.
“I have a ring.” A moment later I added the explanation, “Khea charmed it.” Micha’s large hand fell to my undamaged shoulder as I said her name.
“What ring?” I held up my left hand so Khasla could see for himself but he continued to give me an impatient expression. At once I connected his thread and learned he couldn’t see it at all. To him it just wasn’t there.
I looked back down at my own hand to make sure I still wore it and sure enough it was right there on my fourth finger. I smiled thinking how powerful she must have been to charm it well enough to make it completely invisible to others.
God I miss her.
“Never mind. Just be on the lookout for a bracelet if you get the opportunity. Hopefully we’ll be in and out and it won’t make a difference.”
The wind kept up like a dream and pushed us straight into the last island by the following afternoon; we couldn’t have hoped for any better. It was still going to be a day or two to walk through the surrounding jungles to reach the capital city, but each of us were eager to get off the ship and get it done.
An access road led from the port on the northern face of the island to the capital city at the center, but we chose to avoid both the port and the road. We were far too weary of the Nakben people to volunteer a run-in with any more.
Instead, we opted for a thickly-wooded trail Tototl had used sometimes to take iron to the Turtle for selling in Madurai. Again, we pulled the Little Turtle ashore as close as we could until Khasla and I could get out and swim it in the rest of the way. The black sand beach had a much steeper slope and we couldn’t reach bottom until we were nearly ten feet from shore.
The trees there were the same as the ones at the Silver Spring, though thankfully a lot more spread out, which allowed for low plant growth on the ground. There were wild amberberries growing all over, causing our group of five grown men to stop and enjoy like kings at a feast. I soon noticed a strange, orange flower with thorns on the petals and bright yellow stalks that burst from the center.
“Tototl, what is the name?” I asked in Nakben as I pointed to the nearest orange one flower.
“Zonec michi.”
Fish of light.
The lightfish. I plucked an orange petal from the flower and marveled at how such a simple and strange thing could have meant my mother’s life or death. A quick whiff revealed it smelled more like cooking meat than the pleasant scent that usually accompanied forest flowers. I sat and stared at it for a long while as I thought about how much my life had changed because of that little plant. If it had grown near Lagodon, my family wouldn’t have needed the money Rhorken offered. I would still be there, hunting the Creekmont every day. I would never have met Khea, or Micha, or Avis. If it grew near my home, my mother wouldn’t have died.
That night, we stopped to make a camp but didn’t make a fire. Tototl helped us to pick a few types of berries that would hold us over until morning, and we had plenty of amberberries from the coast. The ground was hard, but the layer of leaves that covered it offered more comfort than the unforgiving wooden deck of the Little Turtle. I let my shoulders and hips sink in until the soil perfectly formed to my shape. I finally fell asleep after several minutes of waiting for Khea. Would I ever stop waiting for her?
As soon as the sun began to climb up into the sky, we packed up what little we had and set out for Uxmal. I hoped it would be a short day of getting into the palace, warning Xiuhpilli, and getting back out without anyone being sacrificed or kidnapped. I didn’t know if I could take losing anyone else.
The jungle thinned by midmorning, opening into extensive farmlands and areas devoted to the raising of various forms of livestock, though we never saw any horses. Tototl reminded me that horses were too difficult to keep on the islands because of the limited areas that suitable grass would grow. By early afternoon, we walked down busy streets with vendors and families going to market. All of the people wore a cloth around their waist as their only form of clothing, and long, straight, black hair on every head. Aside from the clothing and the language, it was just like any other day in the city.
“How do we find the palace?” Khasla asked after a few minutes.
I relayed the question to Tototl in Nakben and waited for him to point it out. After he showed us, I think we all felt a little simple. It rose high above the other buildings and appeared to be made of gold.
How could we have missed that?
The gilded palace began to rise farther and farther above us as we moved towards it. By the time we reached the foot of it, the crown seemed to reach at least fifty or sixty feet up. The exterior was completely covered in stairs, so a person could climb to the entrance on any side, but an opening about thirty feet up seemed to be the only way to get inside. After admiring the stunning structure for a few moments, we began the climb to the queen.
Arriving at the opening, we walked through a dim hallway until we reached an older man sitting at a desk, holding a feathered pen, and looking disinterestedly at a stack of parchments in front of him. I was reminded again at how strange the whole scene seemed considering the Nakbens didn’t have a written language.
“Name?” he asked without looking up.
“Lark Davies of Madurai,” I answered back and waited as he began writing on the parchment.
“Cause?”
“We need to speak with Queen Xiuhpilli.” It was then that the man looked up as if he were tired of explaining.
“Everyone wants to see the queen. What is your cause?”
“We have a warning.” The man wrote again on the parchment before motioning us past him.
The hallway emptied into a sunlit room full of Nakben people. Opening up all their threads, the ones I could read told me they were there to discuss a matter with the queen: their neighbor accidentally burned down their barn, their only plow ox has a broken leg and they can’t afford a new one, a whole host of daily complaints. We were going to have to wait for all of them before we could be seen.
“How long is this going to take?” Jhoma asked dishearteningly as he saw the crowd.
“I’m going to take a guess and say a while,” Micha answered sarcastically.
At least he’s back to joking.
We found an abandoned corner of sleek, black stone tile to sit, not far from one of the large, exotic potted plants that occupied the perimeter of the open space. The room never really emptied over the next few hours, but a name would be called and a person or group would go in through the door while others came down the hallway to fill the room again. It was a never-ending rotation of people eager to see the queen, each certain their cause was most important.
While we waited, Micha pulled off the bandage on my shoulder to check the wound from the tigress.
“No shit,” he said, making me wonder how bad it really looked.
“Getting worse?”
“No, it’s healed. You hardly have a scar.” I reached my hand back to feel, and just as he had said, I could feel the slight raise of scar tissue but nothing else.
“I guess all that sleep really helped,” I offered, though I knew no amount of sleep could heal such deep cuts so quickly. Maybe it hadn’t been as bad as it had felt at the time.
“Whatever.” Micha knew it couldn’t be true, but he wadded up the old linen bandage and threw it to the side; I wouldn’t need it anymore.
The wait to see the queen wasn’t as long as anticipated, or maybe it just hadn’t seemed that long. Through the overhead opening, the sunlight had only just begun to fade with the late afternoon.
A young Nakben girl, who looked to have around eight or nine summers, appeared to escort us to the queen, but she wouldn’t say a word. I was less than surprised when I could sense nothing from her. She led us through a small, intricately-designed gold door and down a series of twisted passages until we arrived at another large, open room. The floors were tiled with bone-white stone, and placed in its center was a single jade bench, a bored-looking woman sitting idly on top.
She didn’t look much like I expected. A piece of blue fabric was wrapped around her waist but was short enough she had to be conscious of how she was sitting. Her torso was completely bare except for sleek, black hair that fell over her chest and covered it–barely. I would have thought she was very attractive if I hadn’t already fallen for the most beautiful woman; she was a pale comparison.
“Lark Davies,” The small girl announced. I realized I hadn’t noticed she was still with us. Immediately she turned and ran back down the twisted hall, leaving us alone with the queen.
“Welcome to Uxmal, Lark Davies.”
My childhood in Lagodon, and even my years of training at Myxini, hadn’t prepared me to be in the presence of royalty. How should I address her? How was she going to take my words? Would she kill us for trying to warn her? I had no choice but to swallow my doubts and get on with it. I kept my eyes low and my hands at my side in hopes I wouldn’t seem threatening in any way. “Queen Xiuhpilli, we come from Madurai with a warning.”
“What could Madurai know that I do not? Other than a plan to attack?”
Oh no
.
“They do not plan to attack Nakbe. A woman met with Yaotl to secure a deal to attack Takla Maya. Many Nakben and Mayans will be killed so this woman can come into power.”
Xiuhpilli smiled and I wondered what could have been humorous about her people dying. She flipped her wrist and curled a finger innocently; a moment later the room filled with soldiers holding spears. There were at least fifty and they surrounded the room completely, coming out of unseen spaces. Not a one of them had a readable thread. Even with my skill in fighting, there was nothing I could do.
Khasla immediately produced a flame in his hand and threw it at the soldiers nearest him, but it merely bounced off as another Striker stepped forward to deflect it. The young Nakben soldier seemed amused at Khasla’s attempt. A stream of fire was sent to the soldier again, and again it was blocked. After the third attempt, Khasla dropped his hand, resigned to his fate.
“Why?” I asked the queen simply.
“The Yellows told us you would come, but I wanted to know why. And you may yet be useful.” Again, she flipped her wrist and pointed a finger, prompting the small army of soldiers to close in and slam us onto the white, stone floor. Jhoma cried out as the pain in his arm flared from the hit, but the rest of us waited in silence. There were far too many of them for us to stand a chance.
In a moment, we were pulled to our feet and pushed towards a hidden space in the far right corner of the queen’s room. Each of us was shoved down several sets of stairs until I was sure we were underground again. Only torches provided light in the deep corridor that led farther and farther into the earth.