[Closed] All that was shown to me

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 27 Bethas, 2720
The Town of Tsaha’ota

Yes,” Nkemi agrees, looping her arm through Anetol’s once more. “It is best not to be late for Ohihú.”

The Úwaq’dzola is at the heart of Tsaha’ota; Nkemi leads Anetol back into the main stalls of the market. It is morning now, full, and the thin rows that wind between the stalls packed busy. Still, the crowds do not brush each other; they weave in and out, around stalls of vegetables and fruits, of lentils and other, stranger grains, of herbs set out front and hanging far at the back, of cloths and books and far, far more.

The path empties out, suddenly, into what seems like a wall of cloth. That it is a circle, stretching in a circle at the outside of a kint, is obviously after a moment, but at first it is only a sudden, abrupt change. Bits of blue leak overhead, and smoke, heavy and white, trails out of some invisible opening far above.

“We are not too late,” Nkemi says with a grin. Her arm has not left Anetol’s; they wind around the edge of the tent, to the large flaps which are drawn back, and they step into the smoke.

The same white smoke which winds its way out of the top of the tent fills the inside, too; they drift through it. The tent is full of other figures, here and there; they are hard to make out individually, almost indistinct in the rush of it. The strongest smell is sage, but other scents drift through as well, thick and heavy in the air.

Nkemi remembers standing in the midst of it as a girl, looking up, unable to see Nkanzi’s face, so swallowed were they by the smoke.

Now, she glances over at Anetol, and he is only blurred sharp planes, a hint of red hair which emerges from the white, and the trace of color on his clothing. She keeps her arm looped through his, and knows not to let go.

It starts slowly. There is a steady chanting in monite from the center of the tent; she knows Ohihú by his voice, deep and rich, thicker than the smoke. It bellows out, and the smoke puffs outwards; for a moment, all is clear, and Nkemi and all the rest can see through it.

There – across the tent – she sees the three wicks from earlier, now without their cards. Inis is there too; it has been years, but Nkemi knows her at once, standing with the other caravan leaders in a half-circle behind Ohihú. Ohihú, too, is as Nkemi remembers him; he sits on the ground in a pool of white robes, long scrawny arms thrust out from his sleeves. He is a bellows of a man, all ribs, his arms and legs spindly scrawny, and his voice is deeper even than Anetol’s; his thick hair is white all through, making a cloud like the smoke around his head.

Ohihú chants; whatever little conversation there was falls silent.

Nkemi glances around; she feels the prickle of eyes on them – on Anetol, she thinks, though there are few enough like them inside the tent. Two humans watch them; she recognizes one as the camel man from the caravan, although the man next to him, with a scar down his cheek, she does not know. He stares, directly at them, unblinking. Next to him, a third man fades half into the shadows; he too turns their way, but Nkemi cannot see his face.

The smoke rises again, and writhes, and fills the spaces between them, leaving only the faintest of gaps around Ohihú. Ohihú comes through what in a clairvoyant spell Nkemi might call the invocation; he falls silent. His eyes, gleaming gold, search the room, slowly, and Nkemi does not doubt he can see through the smoke.

“You who would ask of the flames and the smoke,” Ohihú says in Estuan, his voice low and deep, “you who would ask of the wind and the sky, you who would ask of the earth and the rock, you who would ask of the water and the tides. State your questions now; pour them out like the smoke, and I will shape them.”

[Tom Cooke]

Tsaha’ota • By the Turga

Just After Dawn on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

M
y name is Utúwos pez Utawas,” says a young man, stepping forward. He’s one edge of the crescent behind Ohihú, and the rest stand silent, disappearing into the flickering shadows behind the billow of the elder’s smoke-white hair. “I speak for Ehú’orik.”

There’s a pause. The thickness of the smoke renders his face a hazy shape, his eyes two dark pits, his shoulders a broad shadow; a sheen of sweat glints on his forehead. The shadows of his lips move, but there’s no noise. Not a whisper runs through the gathered, though the lines on Ohihú’s face seem to deepen.

The air is heady with sage. Glamours have their own sort of etheric, and the air is light and wild with the old man’s. The feel of it stirring about them is bittersweetly familiar.

Strange, the words in the invocation he recognizes – enough, now, to know it’s like nothing he’s ever heard before, even with the loose tekaa monite. The mona warm to the repeated phrases like old friends, so many tangled together he can’t hope to differentiate them. The smoke has thickened preternaturally, though he sees the flash of gold eyes through it.

The walls have disappeared from view, now, but he remembers the rippling cloth, like a wall made out of dreams. Sunlight drifts down from the opening somewhere above, but there’s nothing in here of the warm morning outside, with its broad blue sky. As they passed through, he felt a strange sensation, like passing out of himself; a memory skims just underneath the water, of a place without sight, where the sun shines but does not warm. There are whispers – he catches curious dark eyes; they both do, brushing their fields against skin and glamour – and he’s grateful for Nkemi’s steady arm.

“I would ask of the water and the tides,” says the young man, voice almost faltering, “I would ask of the Turga at its widest and its narrowest, and of the Yun, too, when the water will first overflow the banks.”

Nearby, a man he doesn’t recognize shakes his head slowly, passing a hand over his scalp. The corner of Ohihu’s mouth is pinched, and he’s silent. Slowly, he takes a deep breath and begins again in his deep voice; he reaches somewhere in the shadows and mist beside the pool of his robes. There’s a flash, like scattered pearls, and then the hiss of water against fire. Then again, and again. He chants and chants and stares into the smoke and fire.

His field flares, etheric. The monite stops on what he recognizes as a curl; he takes an audible deep breath, thin chest swelling. “The Turga speaks of Hulali’s mercy, this rainy season, but sister Yun is in a temper. Those who travel the Yun are ill-favored; Bash sends strange currents down from Hox.”

“But how long will we have to wait in Xer –”

Ohihu’s field, still strong with etheric runoff, sigils. The young man flinches under the blow. The elder says nothing more, and Utuwos takes a step back into the half-circle, his eyes downcast. The man nearby crosses his arms over his chest.

Ohihu begins again: “You who would ask of the flames and the smoke…”

As the deep voice drones on, his eyes rove about the great tent, at the moving, shadowy shapes of people in the dense smoke. The back of his neck prickles; the backs of his arms, too. He catches a woman’s eyes, but they dart away quick. Past her orange head-wrap, he sees a natt – the man, he thinks, who was saddling camels earlier, absorbed in the ceremony. But beside him is a pair of staring eyes, and a long jagged scar.

The eyes don’t look away, even when he meets them. He blinks, frowning, then looks away, ignoring the prickling. Even through all the smoke, he thinks he must be a sight to see.

“...pour them out like the smoke, and I will shape them.”

“I am Inis Aqem, and I speak for Tseq’úle.” It’s a woman’s voice, this time, with an unmistakable tekaa slant to her accent.

Her hair is as much a cloud about her head as Ohihu’s, but black, except where the firelight picks out the barest brush of red at its edges. Her face is rounder and more delicate than most of the humans’, with a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyebrows are heavy and dark.

The step she takes is uneven. One of her shoulders is much higher than the other, almost higher than her ear, though her long tan wrap drapes comfortably round it; it’s been tailored to her, he notices. The top of her hair barely comes up to the shoulders of the men around her, but she holds her chin up high.

With no hesitation – and with practiced ease – she goes on in a high, ringing voice, “I ask the wind to speak of its motions over the earth past the south banks of the Turga, where the hills slope into the desert, in the days before the first floods.”

Taking a deep breath, Ohihu reaches for something at his other side. This time, it’s sand scattered into the smoke, glittering aloft in the thin etheric air. He begins again, this time fair different monite.

He watches Inis’ face, set jaw and relaxed brow. He doesn’t know whether he can feel the press of eyes on them anymore, but his skin prickles.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 27 Bethas, 2720
The Town of Tsaha’ota

There had been a blue cast to the smoke as Ohihú chanted, like a shadow curling around the base of it, like waves lapping at the white. It cleared out as he went through the invocation again, the one in monite and the one in Estuan, so all the world is drifting white once again.

Anetol is silent beside her, watching still; she feels the shift of him as he takes a breath in, though Nkemi does not dare to turn her attention from Ohihú before her.

The smoke drifts yellow now; it curls in on itself in massive rolling heaps, like dunes etched into the sky before them. Nkemi feels the faintest prickle of grit on her face, as if the sand which Ohihú swept into the smoke has been cast about far enough to reach here – it is there and then gone. For a moment, the air thickens around them; the scent of sage strengthens.

Inis’s face curls deeper into its frown, her heavy brows pulling together.

Ohihú curls his spell, sitting straight upright, his head titled back; the smoke clouds swirl thicker and faster for a moment, and then cool, drifting white once more. He breathes in deep; they all lean in, just a little closer, to listen, and when he exhales his words out, the smoke drifts away, following the shape of his breath.

“The winds are uneasy,” Ohihú says, clearly, lifting golden eyes to the room at large. “All the skies of Vita are as one; cold winds blow from the middle kingdoms to greet our desert warmth.”

There is a sudden shifting whisper from around them; Nkemi holds Anetol to her, tightly, easing closer to him in the silence.

“Roa cautions those who love Her to take care,” Ohihú goes on; he shakes his head, his thick clouds of hair bouncing, and he falls silence.

There is another scattered burst of whispers, but no one who dares to raise their voice. Someone spits onto the floor, and then there is a sudden sweeping of it.

Nkemi, too, draws up the moisture in her mouth and spits; she whispers as prayer to Hulali as she does so, his name on her tongue and the tongues of all those around. It is an offering like any other on the dry edge of the desert; it is a haras’turga all its own.

Ohihú begins to chant again, his voice echoing monite through the tent. He shudders; he sits upright. “You who would ask of the flames and the smoke,” he booms through the smoke-drifted air. “You who would ask of the wind and the sky, you who would ask of the earth and the rock, you who would ask of the water and the tides. State your questions now; pour them out like the smoke, and I will shape them.”

“I am Eri’qye,” says another man. He is scarred, with lines that cut through his face and bare scalp; one eye is white, unseeing. He is tall even for a Mugrobi, and the cut of his white clothing does not hide the bulge of his muscle, “and I speak for Dzoh’egokiq. I ask of the earth whether it shall hold against the banks of the Turga from here to Thul Ka, when the flooding begins.”

Ohihú scatters pebbles from his hand; they clink against the flames. Grayish smoke drifts, now, rising up, thickening to waist height. He chants, slowly and steadily, his deep voice strong through the curl of the spell. “Bash keeps his own secrets,” Ohihú says; his eyes gleam. Sweat trickles down his face; he leans forward into the flames, and blows. Smoke billows outwards; Ohihú’s voice cuts through it. “Fear the loose rock; fear the place where the river bends. In the first days, you will know.”

There are no more questions, after this; Ohihú chants through the end of the ceremony. Water, rock and sand come together, and douse the flames; the white smoke settles, leaving only a thin, flimsy haze through the tent.

[Tom Cooke]

Tsaha’ota • By the Turga

Just After Dawn on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

I
nis has backed out of sight, like she came from a dream in the first place, and with her the heavy frown and the grit of sand on the face; he doesn’t know what to think of it, can’t linger on it. His mouth was dry, then, drier and drier, but he drew such spittle as he could up for it. Beside him, Nkemi had murmured something in Mugrobi; it must have been a prayer. The hushed moment passed him by wordless, and he’s numb through Eri’qye’s question.

The smell of sage is dizzying, now, and the air is so thick he can barely see the semi-circle. There are Ohihú’s eyes, gleaming through the smoke, and then he breathes in and blows into the fire.

He expects to smell woodsmoke and sage. He’d swear he catches a whiff, instead, of mud and petrichor. He breathes it in deeper, frowning, listening.

Eri’qye is back with the others. His face is as set as it was, his dark eye downcast, a line between his brows. He runs one large hand over his scarred jaw.

The Oya Iye lads are standing not too far off, the bearded wick with his sinewy arms crossed over his chest. There’s a glinting; one finger’s tapping against his elbow as Ohihú begins chanting again, following the rhythm of the amandation. The bald wick from earlier looks strange with a frown on his face, and the youngest is only watching, absorbed. He wonders which piece of news they got; he wonders if it lines up with whatever he saw in his cards.

The smoke’s thinning, now a film less thick than smog. There are a few scattered murmured prayers, but nothing like the spitting, to his surprise. It’s a boch breaks the quiet, first, as it always is – and soon enough, the hush of the ceremony is bubbling up, and there’s laughter to be heard amid the serious talk. Looking about at the folk milling, it’s hard to believe they hadn’t all been transported someplace else. The smell of sage lingers in the air; he knows a little something of wick performance, and he finds himself smiling.

After a time, Ohihú unfolds himself from behind the black coals, his robes a shivering waterfall of white about him. He reaches to touch his toes and then stretches his arms above his head. A few men, unmistakably tekaa, move in after him. One’s little more than a boy, in a robe that’s as white as Ohihú’s but shorter and hemmed with dark embroidery.

“Úpúr,” the young man says. He takes up the now-empty bowls, murmuring another, quieter prayer. Now, the old man stands rubbing his lower back, and waves the lad’s concern away abruptly.

He searches the crowd for the scarred kov, but he’s gone; he shakes off a shiver. He looks over at Nkemi finally, searching her face, Ohihú’s warning swimming back to his awareness.

“Sir,” comes a familiar voice, “ada’na, sana’hulali.”

The accent is as broad with tek as it was, but lilts through its vowels, closer to Nkemi’s than any Anaxi wick’s. He looks over and down. Inis Aqem approaches, a few men – one familiar from earlier – in tow. There’s another woman beside her, tall, strong-jawed, and shaven-headed, gold eyes rimmed with kohl. Neither of them offer to caprise, so he holds back, but he can feel the strength of the tall woman’s glamour.

She bows deeply, bending more at the knee than at the middle; if it troubles her, there’s no sign of it on her face. If there's a grim edge about her smile, it's a smile nonetheless. “You will have heard,” she says, “my name is Inis Aqem, and I lead Tseq’úle. I would be remiss if I did not introduce myself – and Ole pezre Dzoya, my second.”

Ole bows neatly. There are more introductions, more bowing, and more curious looks, though he’s a feeling ada’na Inis knows well not to stare.

“We go to join the rest now,” says Ole, thick-accented and clipped, looking down at the two galdori.

“In a moment.” Inis is still smiling, her eyes dancing. She raises a hand; she’s unadorned, except for a thick metal bangle that covers her wrist, etched with blossoms. She’s at eye level with Nkemi. “I thought I knew the name Nkemi pezre Nkese. Three maw ago, was it, we crossed paths? Do I remember well, ada’na?”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 27 Bethas, 2720
The Town of Tsaha’ota

Anetol is still a long time, and Nkemi does not seek to move him. She sees his gaze linger a long moment on Ohihú, watching the old wick unfold himself and stretch out all his long, scrawny limbs. There is a flash of bare, gnarled feet beneath his robe, unadorned, as knobby and boney as all the rest of him; he turns, and the back of his robe is all damp with sweat, clinging to him; he plucks it away with a sharp-fingered hand, and cracks his neck, side to side, the sharp twist of it audible.

Anetol looks away then, and Nkemi with him; she follows his gaze through the crowd, although she does not know what he looks for. She sees many faces, some set and some solemn; she sees something hard and sharp on the face of Utúwos, who wished for more than Ohihú and the mona had to offer. Another man leads him away, and they talk, low-voiced and intent; Nkemi can make out none of the words, but the look on his face does not relax.

The wicks who they met at breakfast are waiting; Dzúziq, who has asked no questions today, jerks his chin at them from across the tent. They turn; Nkemi feels the brush of the card reader’s glamour at the edge of her senses, just shy of a greeting.

When she feels Anetol shift to her she looks up at him, and smiles; it is a solemn smile, for she has heard well, and she knows something of what such words mean. It is not only his showmanship that Ohihú knows well. She has heard worse warnings of the desert; she has heard warnings of sandstorms that strip the flesh from man and camel both, that will last for days or weeks. She, too, has heard glimpses of easy journeys, of calm winds and smooth sands.

It is for Inis to know; Nkemi’s choice is made. When she booked her passage with Inis, she entrusted to her this interpretation; Nkemi will not go back on it now.

Three years ago found Nkemi a prefect already, returning to Thul Ka from another trip to Dkanat; a prefect’s training teaches one to draw a picture within the mind, to remember – with and without the aid of spellwork. Inis Aqem looks as Nkemi remembers, held tall on her dignity and full of life. She bows, and Nkemi bows too; she lets go of Anetol for the gesture, which is low and very deep.

Ole pezre Dzoya Nkemi does not remember; she doubts they have met before. Nkemi thinks she would remember, if that had. The glamour at the edges of her field is strong. She feels the earth shifting within it, and the wind too, and she bows as deeply as she had to Inis, for the glamour and the title both.

“You remember well,” Nkemi says with a smile, meeting Inis’s eyes unhesitatingly, “and you honor me by the recollection. We met at a campfire in a place with no name, when I traveled with Dzum’axer.” Outside of Thul Ka prefect has a meaning still; outside of Thul Ka, where ever she goes, she is Junior Subprefect Nkemi pezre Nkese of Windward Market, then and still. This is the name she has used in booking all their passage; all the same, she does not speak it here, in the midst of the tent. All the same, there is a baton in her carrybag, not her trunk.

“I am glad,” Nkemi says, simply, “to introduce to you my friend Anetol Vakelin,” she glances up at Anetol. She is not sure why the words taste unfamiliar on her tongue.

The crowd is thinning out; the last of the smoke is drifting through the opening in the ceiling and the wall, out beneath the cracks and crevices, although the smell of sage lingers still. Nkemi breathes it in deep, and unhesitating. It is the spicy lingering smell of the market, the warmth of kofi, the smell of many bodies, pressed close together in the growing heat of the day, the sage of Ohihú’s smell, and much else besides. She stands in the midst of it all, and drinks it in, for she knows what sort of life the rest of the day holds.

[Tom Cooke]

Tsaha’ota • By the Turga

Just After Dawn on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

D
zum’axer,” repeats Inis, eyes still dancing. For a few moments they’re only for Nkemi; all of her is absorbed – utterly – and there’s an intensity that lingers about her brows, in spite of her smile. “We crossed with them again not long ago,” she goes on, “in another place with no name. They’ve seen a good maw; Tsud’olu is in high spirits.”

Though there was never any danger of bumping or shoving, such as it is here, the crowd and the smoke are both thinning, and he finds it easier to breathe.

She’s quiet, inclining her head as Nkemi goes on. “You honor me well with your trust on this journey,” she murmurs, “along with all of Tseq’úle.” There’s an edge to the word trust, and again to the phrase, all of Tseq’úle.

It’s not only intensity, he thinks. There’s a spark of something else in her eye, when she looks at Nkemi; curiosity, maybe, or knowing, or something unspoken. A sizing-up or a weighing, the same as he’d’ve looked at a kov he’d been sent to work with, once. Questions that can’t be asked.

Ole’s looking at them with a sort of weighing, too, though more at him than at Nkemi. He meets her gold eyes once, his expression carefully neutral. For all neither of them have reached out, she holds the earthy weight of her field even more separate than Inis, and her frown deepens slightly as she looks over his face.

Nkemi introduces him. He takes a deep breath, pushing down the prickling at the back of his neck – swallowing a rush of guilt that is, with the still-strong smells of spices and incense, strangely dizzying. He doesn’t think he has ever heard those four words one after the other. Adorned, the name is easier, at least, like an unfamiliar body covered up by clothes that suit it.

Ada’na Inis turns to him, dark eyes sweeping over him once, not lingering anywhere in particular before they find his. “We are honored with your trust as well, Mister – Vahkulin,” she enunciates, with only a small pause.

He bows again, just his head and shoulders, and looks at her. Her neck is craned oddly to look up at him. He can’t help but notice it, though he doesn’t look anywhere but her face. Her eyes grab him, anyway, like a challenge; he’s the sense again of being weighed, and he knows better than to look away. In the corner of his eyes, he catches a flicker of gold as Ole looks back and forth between him and Nkemi.

“You are far from home,” adds Inis, smiling. “I hope that Roa has favored your journey.”

“I have a fine host. And friend.” When he finally breaks eye contact, it’s to look at Nkemi. There’s something, not quite a smile, playing on Ole’s lips; she has no eyebrows to speak of, but he’d swear she lifted one, looking to and fro.

Inis laughs. “I believe this,” she says, smiling again at Nkemi.

“Ada’na, sir.” Another brusque bow from Ole. “Daylight is more abundant than water; Roa fills our cups each day,” she says, and he blinks and raises an eyebrow at the flurry of words in her soft, deep voice. “Still, it must not be taken for granted.”

Inis laughs. “You honor me with this reminder, Ole. Ada’na, sir, there is much to be done. You will accompany us back?” she asks, looking at both of them.

As they turn, he casts another look out over the tent. Not many linger. The Oya Iye wicks are already gone, and so is Ohihú, though a smattering of tekaa in robes are still cleaning up by the firepit. Whoever the kov with the scar was, he’s gone, now. For all it still sprawls, the place looks smaller, now he can see the cloth walls rippling with the breeze. Less endless, anyway, now that he can see the shape of it. The muffled noises of the marketplace drift in from outside, and the sky in the gap overhead is bright blue.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 27 Bethas, 2720
The Town of Tsaha’ota

Nkemi inclines her head when Inis speaks of trust; her dark eyes hold Inis’s gaze, intently, and she does not look away for even a moment. She thinks she understands what it is Inis searches for in her, even if she could not name it. She knows it well; she looks for it too.

Anetol is silent a long moment, longer than she expected. Nkemi feels a prickling on the back of her neck; she does not know if there was anything which surprised him, nor or before. She thinks of the restaurant in the Dives, of his solemn offering of a fish head to a little girl the night before; for a moment, all the same, she wonders, with a prickling of unease.

She does not know of anything like these caravans in Anaxas. So far as Nkemi can tell, galdori travel there by airship or else by private coach; she had not thought that so different, but she thinks now of the roads and the lack of roads, and she wonders a little more.

When Anetol speaks Nkemi smiles, easily, and looks up at him. It is a smile which swallows up her face, and she shares it with Inis as well, who laughs.

Nkemi inclines her head to Ole. “We are grateful for your wisdom. Yes, thank you; it is time.”

Nkemi and Anetol follow Inis and Ole from the tent, brushing aside the thick staunch cloth. Outside is a busy bustling world once more; Nkemi knows that Tsaha’ota stands still for the Úwaq’dzola, although perhaps no other time.

Inis and Ole walk with purpose and practice, moving easily together despite the differences between them. This, too, Nkemi sees. They speak with low voices, sharing words together which are lost in the buzz and hum of the marketplace. Nkemi does not strain to hear them; she walks with Anatole on her arm throughout, steady and even.

What was a slow shifting at the caravan camp before is a bustling now, like an anthill kicked over. The wagons are full of trunks - not only the supplies of the passengers but all the rest which the caravans wishes to bring along. The camels are saddled, all of them, and tied together in a long loose string.

Nkemi feels the thrill of it, the leaping in her heart. She turns her face towards the dry cracked scrublands; the streams which twine from the Turga do not flow here, and the ground is as hard as the driest of desert, in this season. It is a clear, sunny day; with no market coverings to shade them, the sun beats down hot, hot enough that even Nkemi feels it. She breathes in, deep, and tilts her face up towards the sun; she does not try to look. She is content to feel the wash of warmth, to glimpse the brightness through eyelids held shut.

Nkemi lowers her face, and turns to Anetol. She smiles.

“You are ready?” Nkemi asks. She takes his hands in hers, squeezing softly. She looks him over once more, frowning. “We will be together on the camel,” she tells him, unsure whether he knows. There is much to tell; she knows that there was a time when she too did not know, but the sharpness of the memories are lost among the great flood which was then unknown to her. The knowledge now lies alongside her bones, made familiar by repetition over many years. She traveled first to Thul Ka more than twenty years ago; no two journeys are the same, and yet there is much they may share.

Nkemi looks at the colorful drape around Anetol’s neck; she takes the edge of it. “If the sand is too much, tie it around your face,” Nkemi tells him. “Like this.” She shows him the way to wrap it, around one side and then the other, and how to tie it right behind his head.

“It is not easy breathing,” Nkemi says with a grin, “but it is better than breathing sand. With this and the hat and goggles, you will be well.” She smiles at him. “And I will be with you.”

“Do you need anything, ada’na, ada’xa?” The man with the scar lingers a few feet away, watching them; something lisps in the shape of his words, as if his tongue is thick and heavy.

Nearby a camel shifts and snorts; it draws back its lips away heavy flat teeth.

“Bhe!” Another of the caravan men comes, clucking his teeth; there is a flurry of motion, two others retreating as he moves close, and the camel calms. He murmurs to her in Mugrobi, his hand settled on her cheek.

[Tom Cooke]

Tseq’ule Caravan • At the Edge of Tsaha’ota

Morning on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

H
is hat is back on his head, but he can feel the heat on his face, even in the shade. Not even the wind that ruffles his sleeves and hems about his ankles can whisk it away; the air has thickened and warmed like a ward. They’re in the air, too, he supposes, and in him, and in the camels they’ll ride; they’re in the wind and the water and the earth, as folk like Ohihu know – and demonstrate.

There’s not much in the way of talk, after. He can’t see Ole’s or Inis’ expressions, but he can hear them talking; he catches a word of Estuan sometimes, and Tek, but mostly Mugrobi. Inis moves quick, for all her swaying, uneven gait.

It’s not as if he hasn’t known folk who look like her. There was a golly, in fact – a solicitor who worked down at Lionshead – but he’d been a slight, wan sort of fellow; to picture him traveling across the desert with a caravan was beyond him. He wasn’t sure what’d happened to old Alderbridge, other than he wasn’t around anymore, and hadn’t any heirs to take the practice. He supposed his things were Hawke’s, like the rest.

At the edge of Tsaha’ota, where the camp has stirred to life like the heat, the camels are tied together in a line; it reminds him of a picture he saw in one of his lass’ books. They pause, and he watches Nkemi lift her face to the light, her eyes shut. He sweats beneath his hat.

He hears, to his surprise, a sharp laugh from Ole. They’re speaking Mugrobi, and he doesn’t know what Inis has said, but she’s smiling, too.

“Ayah!”

“Until later, adame,” Inis says. There’s a moment before he looks away, back toward Nkemi. She reaches with one hand – long-fingered and oddly elegant, in spite of the callouses and the rough-hewn nails – to brush Ole’s upper arm, then the two of them take their leave in separate directions.

Nkemi is squeezing his hands. “Eyo’xaw i’xupo,” he says, but he smiles, and then – “I am ready.”

If it isn’t the truth, he’d best make it the truth. There’s no going back, not now; at least, to take the steamship back to Thul Ka, to hide in his hotel room and write letters he will not send while Nkemi makes the journey home alone, is unthinkable.

But the ground is packed and hard underneath his soles, and the wind that sweeps over the wide plane of earth over Nkemi’s shoulder is not much of a relief – and has an edge of roughness that worries him. He nods, quiet, unwrapping his amel’iwe from his shoulders and tying it as she tells him, then draping it back when he’s got it right.

He smiles and squeezes Nkemi’s hands back.

He starts at the odd, lisping voice, and then at the camel’s grumbling. He half-turns to look, then freezes at the sight of the scarred kov from earlier. For a moment, his eyes stick on the man’s face, plain now in the bright sun. A ripple of a shiver runs down his spine, and his lips are thin and tight.

I need for you to stop looking at me like that, he gets the strange urge to snap. Like what? He doesn’t know.

He blinks. He catches up with himself and jerks his eyes away, to where another mant kov is calming the camel. “I – thank you, ada’xa,” he says quickly, not looking at the man.

He looks back at the camel, grimacing. It seems calm enough now, though its nostrils flare, in and out. “How do I, ah…?” he asks, trying to hold his voice even, though his jaw feels oddly tight. Kov’s still there; he doesn’t look at him, and smiles at Nkemi. He can’t imagine swinging his leg over the side and letting the thing lift the two of them up on its skinny legs. “I’ve never ridden kenser- or horseback, either, I’m afraid,” he says.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 27 Bethas, 2720
Tseq’ule Caravan, the Southern Edge of Tsaha’ota

I have ridden horseback once,” Nkemi says with an awful shudder. Her eyes are intent on Anetol’s face through it. After a moment, she looks away, back to the man.

“Ada’xa, when will the camels sit?” Nkemi asks.

He clicks his tongue against his teeth; he looks away, turning towards the front of the string. This side of his face is smooth and whole; the sun gleams off of it. When he looks back at them, they can see the scarred cheek once more. “Few minutes, ada’na,” he says, thick-tongued.

Nkemi inclines her head. “Domea.”

He lingers a moment more.

The man with the camel lets her go; he hurried back up the string, busily.

There is a distant shout, and the man with the scarred cheek goes; he finds another man in the shadow, setting his hand on his arm; they both go to the wagons then. There is a faster, almost frenetic sense of movement among the caravan workers. Nkemi and Anetol are not the only ones to stand still; there are other passengers who wander over, standing alongside other camels in the line.

“Good morning!” Calls the man who has just arrived in front of them. He trots over; the woman with him comes behind, smiling. “Ada’na Nkemi!” She says, wide-eyed. They both bow; the man reaches out for a curious caprise with his field, soft clairvoyant mona hovering in the air. The woman joins him, after a moment; her field is physical mona, but a thin scattering of them, like drops of sound. She is perhaps a few years older than Nkemi and an inch or two taller; the man is about the same age, and of a height with Anetol. Both are well-dressed for the desert.

“Ada’na Ipiwo,” Nkem says, smiling; she bows deeply.

“This is my husband, Ofero pez Dhaxero,” Ipiwo says with a smile. “It’s good to see you! It’s been - years. And - I apologize,” she smiles at Anetol. “I am Ipiwo pezre Aferat.”

“Good to meet you both,” Ofero says, after Anetol has introduced himself. “We journey as one, is it?”

“To Dkanat, yes,” Nkemi says with a smile.

Ipiwo smiles at her; she sees her hand on Ofero’s arm. “Maybe we’ll have a chance to talk, Nkemi; it’s been a long time.”

Nkemi bows her head, lightly. “One of the blessings of a journey is that it may be shared so.”

Ipiwo smiles; she shifts, as if there is something else she wishes to say. She opens her mouth.

There is a whistle from down the line. The same man from before and the one they met this morning move down the string, guiding the camels to the ground one by one; their long legs fold, front first and then back, and they heave back and forward.

“Oh,” Ipiwo says. She glances at Ofero.

“We had better be ready,” Ofero says. “Good to meet you both.”

They go; Nkemi turns to Anetol. “While the camel stands,” she tells him, “you must lean back, as far as you can, while you hold the reins.” She grins at him, bright-eyed.

Their camel settles to the ground; her head lowers and rises again, and she chews slowly at a mouthful of some grass. Nkemi helps Anetol onto the back saddle - not so hard with the camel sitting - and climbs onto the front. She wraps her hands in the rope, and leans firmly back.

Up and down the line, all the passengers and caravan workers are doing the same, when they have mounted. There is another sharp whistle; the two men come down the line.

The camel stands. She rises as she sat - her back legs straighten fully, first, so for a precious moment anyone who has not leaned back will be in danger of pitching straight forward, off the seat and headfirst onto the ground below. Her front legs straighten out a moment later, and they have risen - up, off the ground, settled into place.

There are a last few bustling; the sun is high overhead, off back to their left.

They can see the distant ripple of motion down the line; the first camel moves and then the next, and so on. It comes to them, finally; their camel shifts beneath them, and moves, slowly and steadily on her long knobby legs, and carries them south, deep and then deeper still.

[Tom Cooke]

Tseq’ule Caravan • Traveling South

Morning on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

M
oa rise all at once, as anybody who’s ridden one knows. They’re the easiest, he supposes, with their narrow, sturdy backs that stay level with the ground, even as their skinny, feathered legs scratch at the dirt. The easiest, at least, if you’re of a weight for them. Once, he thinks as he settles himself toward the back of the hump, shifting uncomfortably, he was too big for most nags, and he’d never cared to try his luck with kensers.

There’s the soft sound of the camel’s jowls working at something. As the whistle rings out, he remembers what Nkemi says; she’s leaning back, and he’s leaning back, too, and he has the presence of mind to grab onto the reins with both hands. The whole of it tips ponderously forward, and he lets go with one hand, just long enough to hold his hat on his head. Then the front legs begin to unfold themselves.

He grimaces, then laughs. “Domea,” he breathes, grinning at Nkemi. As the camels begin to move, he reaches down to pat a patch of soft tan fur round the swell of one flank.

There’s the sound of feet in the dirt, the chatter of voices, the hot hum of the sun blaring down. The wagons creak alongside them, wheels rolling easy over the packed flat dirt. He doesn’t look back, but he can imagine Tsaha’ota and the long glimmering band of the Turga receding.

Holding on now, he shifts his hat on his head, peers out over the expanse. The sun’s still in the east, and shrubs cast soft shadows west. The trail of camels winds off in front, humps and slow-moving legs, bobbing heads and hats and ruffled cloth. He can’t see ada’na Inis or Ole, but they must be here somewhere; so must Nkemi’s friend – he wonders – and her husband; so must he.

The back of Nkemi’s headwrap is radiant in the sun.

Their fields are comfortably intertwined, cheery and light. He thinks to say something. He knows she must’ve noticed. He told her, eyo’xaw i’xupo; his hands, even now, shake a little, and he holds himself straight so as not to sag in the sun. You know me, he has the urge to say as the thought washes through him like cold water. It wasn’t about him. It’s never about – that.

Don’t be ridiculous, he tells himself. He remembers the smooth, unscarred profile, maybe even handsome in its way. He shuts his eyes, easing back as best he can. He sags a little, tilting his head back; sweat trickles down his back.

“You were right,” he says, opening one eye to the bright blue expanse. He’s surprised to find his voice sounds normal, like the warmth leaching back into numb-cold hands. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

Another laugh, one that’s steady and strong. He’s not used to having his legs situated like this. Nkemi rides ahead of him, prefect-straight, though he can’t see her face. He wonders momentarily if it’s easier for her, though he doesn’t think too hard on it; fidgeting doesn’t lessen the chafing.

He’s wont to talk, at first, in his way, though he doesn’t ask about ada’na Ipiwo or ada’xa Ofero, and he does not bring up the man. He does not, either, bring up lunch or dinner.

As the minutes draw on – to a half hour, then an hour – he begins to peter out. It’s not just the chafing, or even the strain in his thighs; it’s not just the heat or the way even this light, airy fabric is beginning to stick to his back. It’s not, eventually, the first pricklings of hunger in his belly, or the dryness of his throat, or the way everything is beginning to blur together, sound and light and movement. It is, in fact, all of these things, and he feels for once very like an Anaxi galdor.

His mind drifts out of him, thinks on what thoughts it can snatch into clarity. Tsaha’ota lingers in it like the smell of sage, and so do all the faces. Anatole, now, he thinks once, looking again at the back of her head – not Incumbent, here. He wonders if she arranged it under his title; he wonders if Inis knows who either of them are. He’s glad that Ipiwo and Ofero, at least, did not caprise an incumbent.

Once, he feels strangely frightened, as if she somehow Knows. He thinks of the man standing at a distance, but he can’t picture his scar; instead, he thinks of a scar tracing over his lip, splitting his eyebrow. He thinks of glittering dark eyes on him, from underneath a heavy brow.

He speaks, then – chatters – so he knows he’s not spilling his thoughts aloud. He strokes the camel’s flank, and asks about her and about camels in general. He asks about the goats again, remembering Iki’dzof’s name, when he exhausts camels. He’s a burst of conversation, and then a lull back into quiet.

They wind on into midday, until the sun is high up overhead. Now, the shrubs’ shadows have shrunk close and ink-black. So have the wagons’ and theirs. He draws himself back up where he’s slouched, straightens his back, and lifts his chin to the expanse. There’s a long way yet to go; he hasn’t the space of mind to think on what it means that there’s no turning back now.