Kiravi's Travelogue Ch. 08

"Do you feel it?" Serina asked one night as she held hands with Leotie under the shelter. Faint wisps of the girl's magic flowed across their bond, and Leotie used it to commune with yet another new community of Kwarzi. The practice seemed to help calm her nausea more than anything else she'd tried.

"Feel what?" I croaked, my throat scratchy from the endless salt spray.

Serina opened her faintly blue-glowing eyes and looked at me. I could feel their simple yet intimate spell at the very edges of my senses, like how you can smell a storm coming up the Mother River before it even darkens the horizon. "You really don't feel it?"

"I can feel your spell, that's all," a light squall had whipped over us from the Choked Sea, the wind-shredded cloud blocking the moons and most of the stars. Rain pattered insistently against the cotton awning, and the wind tore the waves into frothing whitecaps.

"No, beneath that," she frowned at me, seeming three times her age.

I grumbled, pulling my blanket more tightly around myself against the dampness and cold. "I feel like I never should have left Kiral." A melancholy gloom had settled over me as this interminable flight of ours only grew longer and more twisted.

"Don't be dense, Kiravi," Leotie opened her eyes long enough to skewer me with her glare. Her face seemed drawn after days of nausea, but she could keep food down by then. "Here I thought you were supposed to be the one trained in magic."

"Hush, Leotie," Serina murmured, eyes half-closed. "You feel it because the Kwarzi showed it to you. I feel it because...well, I feel it because I feel it. Who knows?" She shut her eyes again but kept speaking, "Try and sense it, my love. Past our spell. It's all around us."

What I wanted to say, dear readers, was that there was a reason few could harness magic without training and a reason why that training was so long and arduous. But, instead, I muttered some half-hearted agreement and shut my eyes to show Serina I was actually trying. I tried to focus, as I briefly did every morning to organize the magic in my mind, and felt nothing different. There was a reason I hadn't taken to magic naturally or quickly with study. I had no patience for such meditation or prayer or quiet contemplation, just as I'd had no patience in my classes.

Sighing, I tried again. I'd told both of them I'd loved them, and for the first time, was mostly confident that I meant it, so I guessed I'd try and do what they asked. Ignoring the spray and the driving lashes of rain, the way my wounds and muscles still ached, I focused on just my conduit. The calm, simple sensation of their shared spell was like...a cool breeze, maybe.

I grunted, sighed again, shook the rain and spray out of my hair. The cool feeling of their spell washed over my conduit, and I felt it fill me, over and through my mind. Trying to feel more deeply than that simple spell, I let my conduit settle further. Of course, I scoffed, not believing I was even in this situation but felt a soft hand on my thigh. Who's, I didn't know.

There. There, a prickle of heat amongst the cool web of their magic. Again. And again, until there was a constant ripple of heat beneath the chill. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was there.

"There, don't you feel it?" Serina said, her lips wavering between a smile and a frown.

"What is it?" I muttered, blinking with fatigue and confusion but feeling my natural curiosity aroused.

"A god died here. Didn't your schools teach you that?" Leotie sniped.

"The god died here, an Ettuku god, I've learned," Serina whispered. "And its magic is everywhere. Everywhere. It always will be; I can feel that. The magic fills this place," she looked directly at me, her eyes fading from pale blue to her 'normal' reddish-orange. "A dead god's magic."

The raft rose up a swell and slid down the other side, and my tenuous concentration on the magic faded. So the priests had been right then, I supposed. I'd always assumed that there was some truth to their tales, but to feel such an echo, a stain of divine power? I never expected it.

"Could either of you feel it before?" I asked, my focus firmly back in reality.

"No," Leotie whispered, "I could never feel it, and the Kwarzi never spoke of it. But, I suppose the god did die here and made the Choked Sea in his death throes, just like the shamans always said."

"What does this mean, though?" I asked, feigning nonchalance but shaken by my brief brush with the old ways of the world.

"I don't know, my love." Serina sighed before yawning. "I suppose none of us know all that much about magic and its ways."

"Even our trained Magus," Leotie teased with a smile.

"Especially our trained Magus," I grumbled.

The women finished their spell and curled up together beneath the rain-soaked blankets. I stayed awake, not out of choice but from some uncomfortable, uneasy twinge filling the back of my mind. Kishka and most of the crew slumbered all around us, crammed in beneath the awning, and the night crew spoke to each other in hushed tones while managing the sail and pushing us ever northwest with their broad paddles.

The gloom was so deep and my mood so melancholy that it took me a few moments to see the Taungo waving at me from the edge of the raft. My eyes met his deeply set gaze, and he gestured again, more insistently. I rose slowly and picked my way around the slumbering bodies, keeping a small flint knife close at hand.

"Sit, sit," the Taungo whispered as I approached, "Sit, long-legs, or the next swell will toss you into the deeps." His voice was curiously high and nasal but with crackling hoarseness as well. I did as the sailor asked, holding onto the line. "Is it true?" He asked once I was settled.

"Is what true?" I responded sharply, my hand not straying from the knife.

"That there was a revolt," the Taungo said before, very slowly, opening his strange hands to show that they were empty, "and that there's a price on your head."

Just as slowly, I pulled the knife from my belt but kept it low. "I assume you don't intend to collect that bounty?" Panic flared like an ember inside of me, slowly burning to life but not yet a fire.

"No," he murmured, "the Empire has been good to us, protecting us from the sea raiders and the Gavic tribes in the west. We've grown rich selling fish while the fields wither from drought."

Impatience fanned that ember of anxiety, and my voice grew harsh, "Speak plainly, and speak quickly."

"We won't try and collect the bounty," he waved a shaggy arm at the other Taungo." But Kishka intends to."

I glanced over at the sleeping captain and, I couldn't help it, my dear readers, but I slowly raised the knife. "What are you asking from me for this information? Quick, before I kill the man myself."

Surprisingly solid and shaggy fingers settled around my wrist, "Kishka only cares about being paid, Master Kiravi. He's a coward and shies from this conflict and simply means to sell you in Mekek. But, unfortunately, the west has forgotten what the Empire has done for them, and there are those waiting in port to seize you and pay Kishka his bounty."

"So tell me why I still shouldn't just kill him," I growled, that ember of emotion flaring and growing. "You've said yourself that he's a traitor."

"The west hasn't risen up yet. You kill him, and they certainly will." The sailor shrugged, "Besides, he's a good captain. He lets us do what we need to do; he gets us good prices at market. When we reach Mekek tomorrow morning, we will put you off outside of the town so that you can flee."

"Won't he punish you?"

The Taungo shrugged again, worked his protruding jaw back and forth. "We've defied him before. We'll feed him more beer than usual for his breakfast."

Suspicion flared in me alongside the flickering anxiety and anger. I glanced back and forth between the sailor, Kishka's slumbering body, and my lovers." You're being surprisingly gracious, friend."

"You seem like you're a rich man," the Taungo explained, his voice blunt. "A rich man, a well-off man...maybe the type of man that is gracious with his new friends?" His eyes drifted down to the pouch at my belt.

The pouch, dear readers, that barely held two chips of obsidian to rub together within it.

"Not so rich as you might think," I said carefully, "But very gracious."

He chuckled, his small frame shaking with nearly silent mirth, "Only a rich man has two wives such as yours."

I couldn't help but give him an exasperated smile, "They're not my wives."

"If you say so," he made a point of scratching the coarse hair of his arm, "I hope you're a very generous man, Master Kiravi," he slowly stood, turning to look back at the white-capped waves. "We'll change course maybe an hour after sunrise."

I grunted as I rose after him, "You'll have...something in hand by then."

There was a flash of yellow teeth in the darkness, "That's good to hear, Master Kiravi."

I crawled back to my place in the shelter, mind reeling and blood flushing angrily. Twice, I had to convince myself not to clamber over to Kishka and gut him like a traitorous silverfish. Once more, I stopped my hand a hairsbreadth from waking Leotie, having decided that if I was going to murder Kishka for betraying us, I might as well let Leotie help. Instead, I rummaged through our three packs like a rat for anything we still had left that might've been of worth.

Scowling at myself, I rocked back on my heels and pulled a heavy cloak around me, knowing I'd be unable to sleep. My pouch was a bit plumper with a few obsidian chips Leotie had earned all the way back in Atala, and one hand held the gorgeous necklace she'd taken from Sata. The other clutched the knife so hard my knuckles ached and turned white.

I knew I should've expected this, should've planned for it, and been ready for the fact that even the west wouldn't be safe for us. Instead, I'd been too worried about Serina's headaches, about how useless I'd felt all those nights camped in the wilderness, about how my loins ached because I couldn't figure out how to tell Serina what Leotie and I had done. I'd been a selfish and ignorant fool, and now my lovers and I were yet again in danger.

We should've hiked cross country or tried to row our own canoe. A thousand what-ifs and should-haves flashed through my mind, keeping me awake alongside a boiling well of hate. It was the same hate I'd felt before carving my way through the mob in Tebis. Then, I'd had an outlet for it, with the strength of my arm and the fury of my magic. Instead, on the raft, all I could do was shake with rage and glare at yet another traitor. The strength and heat of the emotion terrified me, more potent than anything I'd ever felt, and I didn't know why my heart filled so quickly and so deeply with so much rage.

I didn't know then, dear readers, because I was in love for the first time in my life with something other than myself, twice over, and this bastard of a traitor thought to sell our lives away.

The dawn crept over us from the east, and my lovers woke to see me still crouched down beside them. "What are you doing?" Leotie yawned and stretched widely, "And why do you have Sata's jewelry?" Her eyes suddenly narrowed in suspicion.

All around us, the day crew roused and sleepily ate breakfast before replacing the exhausted Taungo still tending the raft. "You'll see soon enough," I hissed back. It took a supreme effort to not glare at Kishka as he languidly got to his feet and strutted about the raft. Instead, I made eye contact with the sailor from the night before; we both nodded slightly at one another.

"What's happening?" Serina whispered, her voice a hair's breadth from being a whimper. Her eyes couldn't leave the knife clenched in my hand.

"Don't worry, darling," I tried not to, but I certainly growled the words. The coastline resolved itself from the dawn gloom, a continuous strand of sand and boulders choked with cactus and brown shrubs. In the near distance, though, I could see the faint glow of fires and the darker smear of buildings.

"Kiravi," it was Leotie's turn to growl. "What in the Chaos Wastes is going on?"

I watched as our ally handed Kishka a fat beerskin alongside a handful of pemmican, "We're not going to the town, Mekek, I think its name is." I glanced around us, "The revolt may have spread here, and Kishka means to hand us over. So, I made sure we're not going to the town." I lifted the necklace, "And this is our payment." I turned and patted Serina's soft thigh. "It'll all be alright, darling."

But, that wasn't to be, dear readers.

I handed off our payment without issue, and our ally worked his way amongst the crew. His hushed orders were followed with little more than a shrug. Oars and paddles churned through the morning tide, and the sail slapped petulantly as Taungo hauled on it with creaking lines. Kishka crouched by the crude rudder at the craft's stern, still sucking on one beerskin after another.

The village was near to passing on our right, figures visible on the long jetty stabbing out into the sea, when everything went wrong.

"What in the Akagi's hells are you lot doing?" Kishka shouted at the crew, pointing at Mekek with a nearly emptied beerskin. He looked as nervous as he was angry, his eyes flicking everywhere on the raft except for where I crouched with my lovers. None of the Taungo offered a response. "Answer me, gods dammit! You're going to overshoot the jetty!"

He growled and shoved the sailor away from the tiller, leaning heavily against it. The craft lurched in response, arcing suddenly to the right and our capture and death. My muscles tensed, the bone knife handle squeaking beneath my fingers.

"Our charter doesn't wish to go to Mekek any longer," our ally explained calmly, moving slowly towards Kishka, "So we're taking them further west."

By then, I could see what awaited us on the jetty. Besides the fisherman preparing their simple canoes and dugouts, a knot of men waited with hide shields and copper-tipped spears. A well-dressed man stood amongst them, the bronze sword at his waist catching the gathering light.

"I don't care what they want," Kishka snarled, "They don't own this ship. They aren't its captain. I say where it goes," he clumsily stabbed a finger into his chest, his words slurring slightly, "And I say we go to Mekek."

The Taungo crew glanced back and forth between the captain, their first mate, and my crouched bulk.

"Sit down, Kishka," our ally, the first mate's voice was stern, "You'll still get your payment."

"You jumped up little shit," Kishka spat the words, leaving the rudder to stab a finger at our ally. Finally, the waves and the Taungo paddles regained momentary control over the raft, and we lurched away from the jetty once more. "I'll have your heart for this, you hear me? And I'll feed it to the fucking barracuda and scatter your bones on the rocks so you never make it to the Second Life!"

The first mate sounded angry for the first time, "We won't let you be a part of the revolt, you drunken bastard, just to earn some flint! If you want any of this," he brandished the necklace, "you'll sit down now!"

A swell caught the raft as we cut awkwardly across the surf, and the raft bucked upwards.

Kishka dashed forward, his balled fist hammering down into the side of the first mate's head. Our ally reeled but lashed out with his own long arm. The blow was wild and uncoordinated and only glanced off of Kishka's ribs. Then, with a drunken snarl, Kishka brought his knee up and into our ally's face with a sickening crunch. The Taungo staggered back and, before we'd even come down off of the next swell, Kishka had snatched the knife from his belt.

The flint blade slashed right through the shaggy red hair and skin of our ally's neck. Blood steamed as it sprayed, bright and hot, over Kishka and the balsa logs at the feet. "I'm the Captain! Me! Do you fucking animals hear me?! Now, heave to, and get --"

His orders died in his throat. I imagine, dear readers, it was difficult for him to speak with my knife lodged in his lung. I'd leaped up the moment Kishka had drawn his knife and was a few moments too late. I twisted the knife, tearing through his lung and into his heart, clutching his shuddering body with my left hand while I eased him down to the wet deck.

Silence. Nothing but the slosh of water against the raft and the sail slapping in the wind. The paddles were still. The sailors' eyes bored into me. My lovers stared just the same and held their breath. And, all the while, the tide sucked us towards the jetty.

"Take us to the west," I barked, "To some beach where we can debark." The sailors stared. At me. At the two corpses, and they didn't move. "Row dammit!" I was entirely aware I sounded precisely like Kishka. Unlike him, I gathered an aura of burning magic around my left hand, the air shimmering with heat, "Row, or I'll burn this fucking raft to ash before any of you even think to swim away! Row!"

They rowed. We splashed ashore, away from the traitors. And we ran.

***

That entire day, the next night, and half of the following day, we ran through the rocky and scrub-filled coastlands. Did the Old Noble waiting for us give chase? What had happened to the raft and the Taungo I'd threatened into rowing further west? Had that even been an Old Noble, and was he intent on seizing me for the bounty?

I had no idea. All I knew was that my feet and legs ached, our bodies were covered in new scrapes and bruises, and that I was tired of running. We all were.

We rested at noontide beneath a strange, wide-canopied tree none of us had ever seen before. Its small leaves were an intense green that seemed out of place in the rest of Anghoret, and even the bark of its thick trunk was a pale green. Our water and beerskins were depleted, our packs rubbed our backs raw, and our nerves were frayed ragged. We'd fled into and lost our way in a strange land, but at least we had shade and a sturdy tree to rest against.

Painfully green leaves fluttered as they drifted down around us. Niknik curiously sniffed at the ones that drifted by his head. I shut my eyes and tipped my head back, feeling the dappled light on my skin.

"How do you do it?" Serina asked, her voice barely loud enough to overpower the chirping of birds above us.

I didn't open my eyes but furrowed my brow in annoyance, "Do what?"

"Kill. So easily."

I opened one eye and glanced at her, "How do I do it? How do you? How does Leotie?

Leotie's face contorted into something resembling...embarrassment? Shame, maybe? "I never killed a mortal before that night in the Ketza."

Both of my eyes snapped open, but I looked up into the speckled pattern of light passing through the impossible greenery. "Yet you were ready to butcher those bandits like so many llamas?"

Her voice took on an edge, "You know why I had to. They took my family from me. They had to die."

I sighed and shut my eyes again. "Why do you need to know?" While I waited for either of them to respond, I thought about my own response. Sure, I'd killed more than a handful of toughs and cutpurses in Anghu, but always to defend myself. Those bandits in Juniper Valley, too; it had either been me or them that had their souls scattered into the Second Life.

"We need to know," Serina spoke quietly now, her voice so hushed I had to lean forward to hear her properly, "because we've left everything behind, and you're all we've got." Her eyes bored into me, and so did Leotie's. "I...I helped you kill those men at the springs. And I..." Tears sprang from her altered eyes and traced through the dust staining her cheeks, "I killed that man in the Ketza. I jabbed that spear through his neck, and I watched the life leave his eyes." She closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath to keep from breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing. "I see his face every night. Every night."