[Closed] Something Foreknown to Me

[Tom Cooke]

Crossing the Desert • Eastern Erg

Evening on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

H
e doesn’t look as they come back up; he’s absorbed in scooping up the last dregs of his stew, making sure the flatbread soaks up every bit of the sauce. When he does smile up, his eyes don’t linger especially on either. He does his best to look as if they’ve never left, or as if they’ve only jaunted off to do what you have to do even on a cold desert night. He smiles at ada’xa, whose words seem to be struggling round a stopper.

It’s Ipiwo that gets the engine started again, and they’re all happy enough to follow her lead.

Our celebrations, she says, with the tribes around Serkaih. He doesn’t spend much time picturing it, but he can’t help the brush of his thoughts against it – the boch maw he knows of Nkemi, climbing canyons and playing with goats. He can picture Ipiwo playing with the wick bochi even less well than he can picture her petting mischievous goats, but there’s a lot, he supposes, he can’t picture.

“It was the song before that woke me,” he says to ada’xa, setting his empty bowl aside. It’s been wiped fair clean by the flatbread.

He’s shifted to cocoon himself proper in the blanket. The wind is unexpectedly cutting; it’s nothing like the temperate, just-this-side-of-chilly breeze on the isles, and even less like the swelter of the day, though there’s a dryness to it – the smell of it, and the brush of it against his cheeks – that has nothing of winter about it.

He’s as bundled up as the prefect is straight-backed beside him, but she’s grinning, and he’s grinning. “I wasn’t sure, at first,” he admits, some of the politician gone from his voice. He feels the deepening of Nkemi’s caprise and returns it, grateful, letting go the last knot of his concern to unravel warm in the shared mona. But he’s telling Ipiwo this. “When they came around to me again, I thought it’d be a terrible shame…”

The sky is a map above; he’s never seen anything in his life like it. Once or twice, when the conversation drifts away from him, he catches himself looking up at it, so lost in the thicket of lights that he couldn’t begin to look for a hammer or a fish. He’s thought the shadows of the desert can’t get deeper or darker, or the wind cooler, or the sense of space greater, and all of them do, by the minute.

There is a weary, full-belly lull. The bowls have been taken; he’s firmly cocooned, now, occasionally tucking his chin into the warm scratchy wool. The fire light glints in Nkemi’s eyes, and he follows them – once – to the fire, where they’re scrubbing the bowls out with sand.

He’s a strange feeling; he searches for the man with the scarred face, but he can’t find him. The rustle of a tent-flap jerks his eyes away. Inis and Ole emerge with the instrument, Ole almost-smiling; another few natt are carrying out a couple of long-necked vessels and more than a handful of small clay cups.

If a flicker of tension ripples through his field at the sight of the vessels, it’s only a flicker. “Usa’dzosat,” he repeats, curious.

“Usa’dzosat?” He’s learned again somewhere through the wind of conversation that his name is Ofero. He won’t, this time, forget.

“An old tradition, ada’xa, sir.” Ada’xa Awaro sits near enough to hear, grinning. The spice kov is watching them pour a little water into the cups first, then a little tsenid, and pass them out. “It’s not wise to take much tsenid,” he goes on, “to mock Hulali’s gift, but it wouldn’t be a desert night without usa’dzosat.”

Awaro looks knowingly at Nkemi, still smiling. He, too, glances at her, lifting his brows, then back at Awaro. “It is not spoken of before the blessing, ep’ama,” he says to Ofero, “I’m sorry, sir,” to him.

He waves his hand as he takes a cup of the milky-white, licorice-smelling stuff.

He takes one, too, glancing up at a scarred face, meeting the glitter of eyes in the firelight. “Domea domea,” he says under the burble of Ofero and Ipiwo’s thanks, under Nkemi’s. The clay is cold in his hand; he shivers, looking down. Nobody is drinking just yet; he sees something in the prefect’s eyes that says to wait.

When all of the meagre party has a small cup, Inis takes her place by the fire with her instrument. She drinks, and then Ole beside her drinks, and then – the drink ripples through the camp.

It is, he thinks neutrally, tsenid. Fair strong tsenid, too; he hears a couple of cleared throats.

After a few moments of silence, Inis raises her voice. “How does it taste?” she asks. Her eyes skitter about the camp. Ole’s mouth is set deep in a frown, but Inis is half-smiling still, her eyes glittering.

“Like fennel,” comes a voice, finally, from somewhere in the camp, “from Dzil’uho’s own garden.”

Inis grins, but keeps looking round.

From beside them, Awar: “Distilled with all Hulali’s blessings.” He glances over and catches a wink from him; lifting an eyebrow, he turns back to Inis across the fire.

“Nothing walks among us tonight,” she says at last. He feels a sinking, a twisting, in his heart; he looks down at his cup, frowning.

There’s a flurry of other responses, and cups are raised to lips again, nothing like the first tense tasting. Inis has begun to test the strings of her instrument again, and the sound curls out warm over the fire. He hesitates, then finishes his own cup. Inis raises her hand after a time, and another hush falls.

“Those of you who know the prayer, please sing with me,” she says, “so that we may all sleep easy tonight, and in the nights to come.” Ole looks at her, intent.

He is silent, even when he recognizes words. The song is not so long, and almost all in Mugrobi. There’s a sad tilt to the strings; Uquwidi is uncharacteristically solemn. After the end, there’s another rush of spitting in the sand, and a scattering of whispered prayers, no two the same. He leans to spit off the carpet, but he doesn’t know what to pray for, in the end, and he mouths empty words. He thinks the taste of the tsenid has gone bitter in his mouth, after all.

The camp stirs. Inis and Uquwidi are at it again, but their audience dwindles. He catches sight of the scarred man talking to another kov in the shadows near one of the tents; the other man moves away.

“It was an honor to share the evening with you, ada’na, ada’xa,” he says to Ipiwo and Ofero, bowing once more. “I should retire; tomorrow will be a long day.” Should, not will. The man is in the corner of his eye, but he smiles at Nkemi, inclining his head.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 27 Bethas, 2720
Tseq’ule Caravan, Crossing the Desert

The warmth of the day is gone, now; in the dryness of the air there is nothing for it to cling to, and so when it goes it goes swiftly, and cold rises with the darkness and the stars. The wind spreads and brushes it around, and Nkemi pulls tight the colorful folds of her wrap and curls against it.

Her bowl is taken, as well; her shoulders and back are curled ever so slightly, her posture easy. She feels the lingering sun-heat, somewhere inside; her eyes have grown heavy, and all the bones of her too, and they weigh her down against the sand, as if the weight of the dinner, after so much, was more than she could bear. Nkemi stifles a yawn into the fold of her wrap, bringing it up with her hand, and lets it tumble back down once more.

“... reach Serkaih tomorrow night?” Ofero asks.

“It is possible,” Nkemi answers, blinking her eyes open. She swallows her yawn this time. “There are as many ways through the desert as grains of sand,” she offers, smiling.

Ofero grins.

Ipiwo sighs. “I wonder if I shall dream of sand.”

Usa’dzosat. The echo of the word drifts around the campfire; Nkemi sits a little straighter; she raises her eyebrows at Awaro when he looks to her.

The wind picks up; it scatters through the fire, and sends a dance of flickering embers spiraling up into the air. They burn out almost instantly, glowing for just a moment before they do. Nkemi takes the small cup of tsenid in her hands.

They are familiar words; it is a familiar gesture. She remembers her mother pressing a cup into her father’s hands, holding him in place; she remembers herself, small and uncertain, staring down at the milky-but-not-milk liquid clutched between two hands. She can hold the cup now; she understands, now.

Inis drinks first, then Ole; Nkemi raises her cup and takes a sip too.

Nothing walks among us, Inis proclaims, amidst the chorus of voices. Nkemi thinks of an inky dark blackness which reached out from itself; she does not look around but all the skin of her prickles, and she feels leirabumps rush over her body like a wave.

Nkemi takes another sip of the tsenid; it tastes strong and clear, like licorice. She wonders; if she had brought it down into the crypts, how would it have tasted? She cannot say; she does not know.

They sing all together; this is not a raucous song, but steady, with a rhythm like a prayer. Nkemi knows the words of old; she finds them as if she has never left.

Wash me in the sands,
Let me know Your mercy
And too let me be clean
The night is dark and clinging
The day is bright and long
What is there in the between
I scour myself within you
In search of Roa’s praise
I drink of all the brightness
And so it will wash away
There are those who wander
Who search and search until
Let them not look on here
Let the night be still

Nkemi exhales out the last of the song; she gathers the moisture in her mouth and spits off the edge of the carpet, into the sands beyond.

She thinks of a hand on her own; she thinks of drifting lights and colorful walls. She feels an ache in her stomach; she sits, a little longer.

Nkemi is glad when Anetol shifts. She bows as well; she smiles at Ipiwo and Ofero. “May you find the currents of your dreams smooth,” Nkemi offers in Estuan.

“May Roa light the way for us all,” Ipiwo says, solemnly; she shivers. “I had forgotten,” she admits. “Such superstition,” her voice is pitched low, all the same.

Nkemi inclines her head, lightly. “The dark has deep depths.”

“The desert at day or night can make any man meet his imagination,” Ofero says cheerfully. “Good night to both of you.”

Nkemi rises from the blanket, her shawl held close. She takes a few steps away with Anetol; she raises her eyebrows at him. “Our tent is there,” Nkemi offers. They are close to the edge of the camp; nor the last tent, but perhaps the second last, with blue threaded through the cloth. “Some of your things are inside, should you have the need. I hope it is well that we may share.”

There are no locks in the desert, Nkemi does not say; she smiles at Anetol instead.

[Tom Cooke]

Crossing the Desert • Eastern Erg

Evening on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

H
e inclines his head at ada’na Ipiwo, his face a careful neutral, and then at ada’xa Ofero. He stops the shiver dead at the base of his neck, before it has a chance to crawl down all the skin of him. He thinks to say something light and easy, on the heels of it. Smooth, ada’na, and with no sand.

He doesn’t, and he bows low to both of them. Superstition, he thinks, turning with Nkemi as they begin to move away, turning to catch Nkemi’s raised brows – and her smile. His hangs on his face a moment; it’s as if he’s still swallowing the tsenid, as if it’s stuck halfway down his throat. It’s a moment or two before he can chew through what she’s said, and he glances over her shoulder.

The moon glints off blue threads, silvery as the wind ripples through the cloth. Nobody inside. No kov flanking the flap, at the ready. Nothing to mark it, not the stakes, not the poles, not the cloth, not anything he can see.

He looks back at Nkemi. Whatever was caught has come loose. He doesn’t know when the change happened, but it’s warming and crinkling his eyes. The fire’s echo dances in hers still; he takes her hands in his. “Very well,” he says. “You honor me.”

Can he be honored? They never seemed to figure that one out. He can set it aside awhile.

It’s not hard to let it fill his voice, the thought of sleeping easy with no shadows looming large across the canvas, the thought – if the dreams take him sour – of rising and going out to search the stars. His hands slip from hers, and he hesitates.

Maybe he imagines the way her voice gave it weight. The expression he couldn’t read, when she took a swallow of the cloudy liquor. It’ll be gone in the morning, he tells himself, all this. It’s not that the dark is less deep in the day; but when you shine a light in, it has a way of vanishing, of hiding just how deep it goes. He thinks of their talk of shadows and light in a different place, a different time.

He also caught her stifled yawn, the flutter of her eyes. They’re both damned tired.

Lead the way, Nkemi, he almost says, bright as you like; it’ll be an early morning tomorrow, and a long day after.

He doesn’t glance back over his shoulder. He lifts his eyes, instead, to the blanket of stars. “I’d like to stay outside for just a little longer,” he says. The last of Inis’ songs has petered out, and only Ole’s still out, supervising the natt; the smell of pipe smoke lingers on the air, ghostlier and ghostlier.

If she’s troubled by it, he can’t tell; she’s caught the look in his eye well enough, as he thought she would, and he hasn’t told a lie, not really. As she heads toward the tent, he sees her stifle another yawn; he suspects she’ll be fast asleep in no time.

The back of his neck prickles. The dark is thick all around, and he feels small again – and alone. He glances round for Ofero or Ipiwo, and he doesn’t see them; his eyes alight, rightaway, on a glint of scarflesh, still smoking in the shadow of a tent.

Ofero’s words flutter round his head like so many moths. Imagination. The rhythm of his sandals, muffled on the blanket, crunching in the sand, seems to stir up the prayer. Words, thrumming with his heart: ayaq … ikiun … aqawe … tsageq – he doesn’t make a beeline, but walks carefully round the camp.

Round its edges first, with the desert sprawling off in one direction, dizzying-vast, like the greatness of it could suck him in. Then, round the tents, round the edges of the blankets; he inclines his head to the lanky man who brought him his bowl earlier, murmurs a greeting to the bearded natt helping pack up the clay ware. He feels Ole’s eyes lingering on him, but she’s occupied.

Pulling his blanket closer about him, he passes the last waft of earthy smoke from the dark fire pit. All he can taste is the tsenid in his mouth. He remembers Nkemi’s watchful eyes in Thul Ka, on the cable car, in Ivuq’way. He will only linger a moment, still. He will do nothing to dishonor her.

He stops near the narrow way between the two tents. He doesn’t let his field brush the natt, and he doesn’t look closely at him, either; he eases himself back against the nearby support, tucking his arms into his blanket, and looks up at the sky instead. “Evening, ada’xa,” he says as if idle, then pauses. “This must be old hat to you,” he adds, gesturing lightly up at the spread of stars, smiling through the prickling in all his nerves.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 27 Bethas, 2720
Tseq’ule Caravan, Crossing the Desert

Anfe doesn’t bother overmuch with washing his face. He splashes a palmful of water against it, and the next he pours into his palm and drinks. He swishes it around, and spits it out into the desert; it’s too dark to watch the sand drink it up, though he knows it does. He runs his fingertips over the prickle of hair on his chin and cheek, and spits again, grimacing.

He’s tried letting it grow before, thinking – but the skin around the scar grew nothing, and it had left him with a face half in shade, the thick hair making the puckering around the scar more visible, not less, from what he’d seen in the water barrel. Shaving in the desert was a flooding fool’s errand, though, but then what the flood about this wasn’t? He grimaces, running his tongue over his teeth, spits once more onto the desert sand, and leaves the water barrel behind.

Ole glances over from the fire, her face caught by the darkness. She doesn’t like him – either of them, Anfe thinks. Well, that’s her flooding qalqa. They’ll be at Serkaih tomorrow, day after next at latest, and he doesn’t think they’ll see Tseq’ule again after that. Maybe Ole’s guessed; maybe Inis has. He’s told Kafo not to speak so much of Serkaih, but he isn’t sure Kafo can help it.

None of it much matters. They haven’t been with Tseq’ule long before this; it suits him fine. There aren’t many men he cares to call brother, even in a caravan sort of way; too many secrets, and too many lies. He never knows what they see – what they guess – what they know. Doesn’t matter; they’ll be gone, soon enough.

Anfe goes back to the tent. Koro glances up from the clayware, watching him; Anfe nods, and Koro nods back after a moment, and keeps packing away the small cups scrubbed clean. The whole place smells of tsenid; he’s never liked it much, but there’s nothing to be done for it. A woman like Inis, she’ll notice if you step away during the Usa’dzosat. There’s nothing for it but to grit his teeth and swallow the first sip, and then all the rest to come.

Tent rope’s twisted. Anfe kneels to deal with it; he glances inside, but Kafo’s not in the tent, not yet, nor Qadi or Dhafo. Qadi’s over by the fire; Dhafo’s with the camels, even though Anfe doubts anyone asked him to be. Kafo, Anfe doesn’t know; he crept into the dark after the tsenid. He’ll be back, Anfe knows, though he feels a strange prickle down his spine for thinking about it.

Anfe looks up at the sound of shuffling footsteps in the sand. The orozem’s there; he’s leaning against the post, wrapped in some flooding blanket like a cloak. Anfe watches him; he rises, slowly, not coming too close. He can’t feel his field, this far off.

The orozem gestures up; Anfe’s gaze lifts up to the sky. He runs his tongue over his teeth; he inclines his head. “Ada’xa,” he says, looking at him. He looks up again, at the stars; flooding pinpricks in the sky, not enough light to see by but not dark, either. He isn’t sure what the orozem’s asking him.

Kafo comes into the edge of the light around them; he lingers, just at the edge of it, looking between them, but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he shifts away, busying himself with the ties of the tent; he glances up once at the orozem, then back down at his hands.

“Seen them before, ea,” Anfe says after a moment. He looks up again, then back at the Anaxi, who’s watching him still.

Kafo’s hands are on the rope but they aren’t moving; Anfe feels that same prickle, all down his spine, and doesn’t look to the other man.

[Tom Cooke]

Crossing the Desert • Eastern Erg

Evening on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

I
haven’t, much,” he replies rightaway, cheerful.

It’s not hard, after all, to keep the wonderment in his tone – not with his eyes looking up at that blanket of glittering. At their corners, he watches. There’s not much light to glisten off the scarflesh on the kov’s face, not anymore, and not any to glint in his eyes.

Another has come up, working with the ties. He’s just a shape, light-limned, face in shadow. Something prickles at the back of his neck, ‘til he realizes the other kov’s oddly still; there’s no motion of the shadows of his hands, though perhaps it’s too dark to pick up. He doesn’t dare to look over. Whatever it is, he tells himself he’s imagining it. The desert can make any man meet his imagination.

What he hasn’t imagined is the snort and flinch of a camel. Nor the lingering thick-tongued syllables, the slushy squeeze of each consonant past the scarred kov’s lips and teeth. The accent is unmistakable, but he can’t read much past it; the way he talks swallows up everything but the Mugrobi lilt. He hasn’t much to say, anyway.

He’s not sure what he expected. A confrontation, maybe. A meaningful word. A threat, now they’re alone, now the prefect’s not at his side. But they aren’t alone, not really. The other man’s still at the base of the tent, still working – fair fair slow – with his hands. He can see little more than a glisten of something, fleeting, in the dark.

Something doesn’t add up. He feels all at once like a fool and like a divinipotent. Maybe there’s nothing to it, after all. If he looks at the thought head-on, it seems more than ridiculous to him. The desert, night or day, can make any man meet his imagination.

But sometimes shining a light on something makes it seem shallower than it is. Sometimes the dark gives way to the depths; snuff the candles, and the walls vanish into endlessness. Cover the walls with cloth, and they could hide anything. He’s no quantitative mancer, but he trusts the lessons of both his lives, and his sense of depth.

“You don’t see them in Vienda,” he’s gone on meanwhile, sighing, “or even in the Rose.” The smile hasn’t gone from his face; he studies the stars. “The lights in the streets are too bright, eh? You live in a place like that long enough, ada’xa, you come to think Vita is what’s lit, and the sky is dark. Out here, it’s the other way round.”

How is it Lilanee does it? You get so tired, and you find you don’t know the half of what you’re saying back. Nobody suspects somebody like that of anything, he thinks.

His muscles relax, and he rolls his shoulders against the post. “That’s what I mean, ada’xa. You say that like it’s nothing new. I’ve never had this good a view of the stars in my life.”

In either of my lives. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but he knows mant better than that. He thinks of Nkemi; he wonders if she’s sleeping sound in her tent. He feels a pang.

The tsenid was strong, and the ghost of it clings to the back of his tongue. It would be cloying, if he didn’t want more. He thinks wistfully of a glass bottle tucked in his bag. He wonders if it would wake Nkemi for him to – he stops himself short.

Easy, he turns. “How rude of me,” he says, bowing. “I believe we’ve met a few times, now, haven’t we? Anatole Vauquelin. Good to meet you, ada’xa.”

His grip on the blanket is tight as he bows deeply. He still doesn’t step close enough to brush the natt with his field; he doesn’t step close enough to see more than the shadows under his brows. He forces himself to look at them. He doesn’t look at the other kov, as if he’s just passing through, though he’s still there.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 27 Bethas, 2720
Tseq’ule Caravan, Crossing the Desert

Anfe watches him. The orozem’s head is tilted back; he’s gazing up steadily at the scars. Anfe feels it again, prickling all down his spine; he wants to shift away, though he doesn’t.

They all know about her, the little prefect. Anfe knew better than to ask Inis or Ole himself at all, and so did Kafo. Koro asked, though; Inis didn’t deny it. He heard it around the fire tonight, too. Prefect. She’s not with him now, though; Anfe doesn’t know why, but he knows not to ask.

Prefect’s a Thul Ka title, he wants to tell the orozem, who’s gazing up and wandering on the stars. Worth less than a drop of water out here. Except he knows it isn’t true; except he wouldn’t say it, that sort of lie. He thinks he know what Inis’d do; he’s not so sure about Ole, except that it doesn’t matter, much. She’d follow Inis, in the end.

Kafo’s hands start to move again on the ropes. He isn’t doing shit, Anfe thinks; he’s just brushing his hands over it. He glances over at the other man, but Kafo’s gaze is as intent as if he’s untangling the biggest godsdamn knot in all Vita. Anfe feels it, then: a rush of frustration, verging on anger. Kafo glances up and looks at him, then back down. It drains away.

Orozem’s still going on about stars. What good’s seeing them do? Anfe can’t see it. Nothing useful about stars; nothing up there that’ll help you.

The orozem bows. Anfe bows too, and straightens back. “Anfe Aroq,” he says, slowly. The name he’s practiced; he says it clear and even through the slurring that his words always seem to want to take. “You are welcome.” By the prefect, anyway; by Inis, anyway.

Kafo’s holding the rope still. He lets go; he isn’t wearing more than his thin day clothes, threadbare, Anfe notices. He doesn’t know where the flooding fuck the other man’s shoes have gone, but he’s barefoot in the sand still. Anfe’s jaw clenches; pain shoots up through the scar, and he lets it go, shaking his head out.

Kafo comes closer; he glances at Anfe.

“This is my brother,” Anfe says, slowly, reluctantly. “Kafo.”

“Kafo pez Halef,” Kafo says, suddenly. Anfe doesn’t jerk, but it’s a flooding close call. Keep your mouth shut, ersehole, he wants to tell him. Kafo bows as well; his gaze is intent on the oroqem. He comes a little closer, close enough that he must be able to feel the man’s field. He holds in the edge of it, looking at the Anaxi. “Ma’ralio, ada’xa.”

Anfe doesn’t glance back behind him; he would swear he can feel the eyes of the entire flooding caravan on them. Koro’s probably looking up from the fire; Qadi and Dhafo could come at any time. It’s an early flooding day tomorrow; every day’s an early flooding day. He shifts, uncomfortably; he digs his feet into the sand, and doesn’t look over at Kafo. Stay out of it, he wants to say. How hard is that?

“Do you like the stars?” Kafo asks. He hasn’t retreated; he’s still standing at the edge of the Anaxi’s field. Anfe felt it earlier, soft and thin compared to the prefect’s. He doesn’t move into it again. Kafo glances up slowly himself, his long thin neck tilting; he shivers with a gust of wind, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He looks back down at the Anaxi.

[Tom Cooke]

Crossing the Desert • Eastern Erg

Evening on the 27th of Bethas, 2720

O
ther kov’s stepped in, now. He looks down for a moment at the trodden sand between them, the faint light rippling over a slush of sandal and footprints; he looks at his feet, and then at the other man’s, silently measuring the distance. Three steps, he knows – he knows it by heart. More than three steps, now, if the natt back home are any judge. The other man must be just at the edge of the woobly.

They don’t often come so close, do natt, not intentionally. He remembers it himself. Woobly had felt different, back then; even weak woobly had itched and wriggled at his skin, stirred up the hairs on the backs of his arms, as if the air round gollykind was more alive than it ought to be. It had been uncomfortable, then, and he hadn’t presumed to come so close; a wick wouldn’t caprise, either.

He looks between the two men, his smile unfaltering; he looks at the second man with something like pleasant surprise on his face. “Ma’ralio, ada’xa Kafo,” he says, and turning to Anfe, “ada’xa Anfe.”

Brothers. The other man is as rangy as Anfe is heavyset; there’s something odd about the way he carries his weight, just as odd as the thick slither of Anfe’s syllables.

His glance flicks to Kafo’s arm, then back to Anfe’s face. Anfe Aroq, Kafo pez Halef, brothers. But there are many reasons why one might choose a name and one might stick with his father’s. Anfe’s face had stayed still at the name, though he’d watched it in the corner of his eye.

Is it because he’s not your father, ada’xa? Is it a lie, if he’s the brother of your flesh? No – every time he gets close enough to it to touch, the thought’s ridiculous. He remembers the snorting and shifting of the camel. There’re plenty of reasons a camel doesn’t like a kov, and most of them have more to do with his nature than the state of his soul.

Scarflesh glistens. The low fire behind casts their shadows long and strange on the sand, but they’re both taller than him by a mant. He’s never been intimidated by a tall man. He lifts his chin.

He glances at Kafo, now, and genuine surprise breaks across his face. “I do,” he says. Something gives him pause. He sees the glitter of Kafo’s eyes up, somewhere behind him.

He feels the urge to step back. He doesn’t. His pause only lasts for a moment. He lets no sign of unsettlement reach his face. He pulls his blanket closer about him when ada’xa Kafo shivers; he makes a point of brrrring with his lips.

Then he grins. “I don’t suspect I’d ever get tired of them, out here. See…”

He makes a decision. He turns, casual-like, opens his stance; the motion takes him just far enough away that he’s just out of range of Kafo, just out of range, though it would take only a shift – a half-step – for Kafo to feel the edges of it again.

Grinning even broader, looking up at that expanse, he gestures. He doesn’t look, but he watches the two of them in the corner of his eye; he keeps the camp, with its light and its folk milling about – and Nkemi’s tent – in his eye, too.

“That there, I believe it’s Phaeta, isn’t it? That little red dot, there. The other stars just blur into each other,” he wanders on, “but you can always recognize her. They say if you get close enough, she’s full of craters, like the moon…”

He glances over. “Oh, forgive me rambling. Do you like stars, ada’xa Kafo? Ada’xa Anfe?” He raises his brows. “But I must be keeping you,” he says, softer. “It’s going to be an early morning.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 27 Bethas, 2720
Tseq’ule Caravan, Crossing the Desert

Kafo’s weight moves in a faint twitch when the oroqem steps back. Anfe’s head turns to him – not sharp, but he looks at him full on, long and deliberate. Kafo’s eyes are fixed, still, on the Anaxi; he looked back down from the stars as soon as the man began to move, and hasn’t looked back up yet.

Come on, Anfe thinks; come on.

Kafo doesn’t move. Something ripples through him like another shiver; it could almost be the same as the last one.

The Anaxi’s staring up at the stars again, as if he’ll find the answers to all the questions the gods don’t want you to ask written amongst them. He burbles on about the names of them, about craters; Anfe shakes his head, ever so slightly, running his tongue over his teeth once more. He prods at the loose one in the corner of his mouth, and shifts his tongue away.

Kafo has tilted his head up again, as if he, too, can see whatever the flood’s been written up there since Anfe last checked. Anfe’s spine is crawling; all the hair on his arms is standing up, waving beneath the thick cloth of his clothing.

“Yes,” Kafo says, frowning. He’s still looking up at the sky; there’s something uncertain about his voice. He looks back down at the Anaxi. He shifts, his lips together, as if he means to say something. He glances at Anfe, then, and holds silent instead. His gaze flits away, and he looks instead at the warm glow of the firepit, not quite yet extinguished.

There are footsteps behind them in the sand. Anfe glances back over his shoulder; Qadi hovers at the edge of the darkness. He glances between them; he doesn’t come closer.

“Early morning for you too, ada’xa,” Anfe says, slowly and evenly, shaping the words as carefully as he can. He looks at the Anaxi, with his freckle-dotted face odd in the shadows. “Pardon us.”

Kafo doesn’t move; Anfe reaches out and cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. He is slow, still; he turns, shifting, to look at the Anaxi, and then over to Anfe. He inclines his head; he goes, then, into the tent, and Anfe feels a pulse of relief. He looks back at the Anaxi once more; he doesn’t quite mean to, but he meets his gaze.

Anfe shifts; he runs his tongue over his teeth again. He inclines his head.

It’s not until the oroqem has left that Qadi comes closer. He spits into the sand, glancing at the man’s back, and turns to Anfe, raising his eyebrows.

Anfe shrugs. “Cracked in the water barrel, that one,” he says in Mugrobi. True enough, isn’t it? What the hell would a man like him know about honor? There’s a sharp rustle from inside the tent, and for a moment he half holds his breath. Whatever Kafo thinks, he knows better than to say a flooding word, this time.

Qadi shakes his head, lightly. “Get some sleep, adame,” his tone is more grim than friendly. He brushes past Anfe and disappears into the tent, crawling to the corner furthest from Kafo.

Anfe exhales, slowly and evenly. He climbs in as well, and lies down in his bedroll, stretched out next to Kafo’s; he closes his eyes. He can hear all the flooding same when Dhafo comes in, the shifting of the tent fabric. He can hear, too, Kafo’s soft, uneven breathing next to him. It’s not until Dhafo’s still and he and Qadi both are snoring that he moves; it’s not until later, still, much later, that he yields to sleep.

[Tom Cooke]

Crossing the Desert • Eastern Erg

Morning on the 28th of Bethas, 2720

H
e goes for it once in the night.

The first half, he dreams of them, ada’xa Kafo, ada’xa Anfe. The shape behind them, just a glint of eyes from the edge of the firelight. He felt Kafo’s eyes as he looked up at the stars; through the rippling tent walls, he imagines them on him still. In his dream, the moment stretches out into an eternity: yes, the rangy kov says, changing shape in the shadows, and then tells him of how the night sky is a blanket…

There’s only the ruffling of canvas when he rises again. Some distant lonely howl. Faint light trickles in through the cracks in the tent flap, and Nkemi is a dark bundle not far off.

He finds his bag. He won’t sleep, he’s decided; no chance of it. So he unbuckles the buckles, reaches in, finds where the soft cloth gives way to heavy, rectangular glass shape. The only sound is a gurgle of water as he takes it out. He holds it, glinting in his shaky hands. He wants it more than anything else in Vita. He thinks the morning doesn’t matter, if he gets this tonight. If the morning doesn’t matter, what of the days to come? What of Serkaih? What of Nkemi’s fami?

He puts it away, folding the rich purple amel’iwe back over it, buckling his bag silently. Shivering, he creeps back to his place, glancing over to see if he’s woken her.

He sleeps – poorly, but he sleeps. In this dream, there’s a wave of groaning round the fire. Inis isn’t smiling anymore. The air smells of sour tsenid. It burns his throat like fire, like no liquor he’s ever tasted. He begins to choke, and he can see Nkemi’s eyes on him, reflecting the firelight, horrified.

He tosses, turns, catches strange half-syllables and snippets of whispered wards on his tongue in the moments he wakes. Then his shallow breathing deepens, evens out, and he sleeps.

It’s Nkemi who wakes him, eventually. Some soft dawn light is streaming through the tent flap. The first thing he smells is strong dark kofi, then frying oil.

Outside, the tents are going down, one by one. The fritters smell like fried grain and lentils, and a blend of spices that’s not unlike the stew from last night. Over by one of the tents, Inis is fastening the ties on a great scuffed case, her hair a cloud round her shoulders, the brace at one of her wrists glinting. Uquwidi leans nearby, sipping kofi out of a cracked clay cup; he’s a toothy grin.

The sun spills over the horizon, crisp and golden, casting long shadows of the men and the clayware and the distant scrubs. The prefect’s caprise is warm and easy, and he settles into it; if there was any strangeness to his own that morning, it’s gone by now.

He catches sight of ada’xa Kafo’s lanky frame, helping to roll one of the tents. His gaze doesn’t linger on his arm. There’s something different about his face, lit full by the day. It’s a face, he supposes, like any other. If Kafo’s brother’s among them, he hasn’t yet seen him. He can’t remember if he’s ever met Anfe’s eye in the full light; with all the shadows pitting his face, he couldn’t tell if he met it the night before.

All his muscles ache, even worse than they did the night before. Slow steps he takes, and Nkemi is there as he finds his footing, as he draws in breath and tries to find ised’usa. The air is crisp on his face, still tingling where he washed it. He hasn’t shaved in a few days; his stubble is more than a few prickles underneath the fingertips now, his cheeks dusted with pale orange and grey.

There’s some of yats left, and he relishes in it; he suspects Nkemi’s already eaten, but his stomach aches, and she’s woken him up with enough time before the dawn proper.

“Ada’na,” says Ole, melting out of grey nothing, “sir. I trust you slept well?”

His kofi is halfway to his lips; he nearly jumps, but doesn’t spill it. “I slept, ada’na,” he says, clearing his throat.

The frown on Ole’s face isn’t so deep. She looks to Nkemi, raising her brows.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 28 Bethas, 2720
Tseq’ule Caravan, Crossing the Desert

Nkemi wakes in the night to the quiet shifting of the tent flaps, the sound of footsteps and the shuffling of bedclothes. Sleep closes over her head once more.

She wakes again, at some hour when all is dark and quiet; she hears the shuffling of cloth, and the quiet clink of glass, the slush of liquid. She holds still, and she waits. Half-awake she cannot know; half awake she cannot not know. There is no quiet sound of uncapping; there are no further glugs, just another quiet swish and the soft shifting of cloth.

Nkemi lays awake a little while longer, in the stillness. She feels the hard press of the sand beneath her, and the crisp cold air dancing over her. She saw nothing; she did not look, her eyes closed long before he made his way back. She sits with it; she does not run away back into sleep.

She sleeps; if she dreams, they drift away on the wind, and leave no traces behind.

When Nkemi wakes away it is before dawn, still, but the darkness of the sky is beginning to lighten, a promise of what is to come. She rises, slowly, stiff and careful; she goes in the early morning light to the edge of the camp. The wind ruffles at her face, tugging harder and sharper than the day before, dancing around the rocks; sand slaps against her, and settles still.

Nkemi moves. She knows the cure for these aches, and it is not rest. She finds the sweeping motions of her hands and legs; she shifts herself in fluid easy practice. She wakes herself, from her toes to her fingers, from her feet to her head.

She does not turn away from the tent for more than a few moments, even when she goes to the fire to take a hot fritter in careful fingertips, and nibble at it between sips of kofi. They are not so far on the edge; more than one of the caravan passes by. She sees the man with the scarred face, but he walks past without looking over, heading towards the camels.

By the time Nkemi goes back to the tent the sky is pink-gray, and the wind shudders over the sand. She wakes Anetol; his shaking hand holds fast to hers as she helps him come to his feet, and she is there, balanced, as he totters through his first steps on stiff legs locked tight.

Nkemi takes another cup of kofi by the fire, cradling it in her hands and crouching comfortable on the rugs. Anetol sits, instead, stiff and cross-legged.

“Good morning, ada’na,” Nkemi says, cheerfully. “I enjoyed the stars, but i look forward to the sun’s return.”

The wind rustles again; a gust of sand swirls through the camp. Nkemi covers her kofi with her hand, and glances up at the sky; she looks at Ole and raises her eyebrows, lightly.

Behind them the last of the tents are coming down with a snap; the wagons are almost packed up already. Ofero and Ipiwo are eating across the fire, both of them; Ipiwo is brighter today, moving more easily. Nkemi smiles across the campfire at them as the wind gusts sand over the flames; Ipiwo smiles back, and glances out at the horizon, a small line of worry between her brows. Ofero takes a second lentil cake.

There is a distant haze, like a smudge; there are no clouds overhead, and perhaps it is only the cool morning light. Nkemi’s gaze lingers.

“A boatman does not profit by worrying,” Nkemi says, looking at the horizon for a last moment. She lifts her gaze back to Ole; she raises her eyebrows. “But knowing how the river may bend may help one prepare to steer,” Nkemi takes another small sip of her kofi. “Or so I have often found.” She says; she inclines her head, deferential. Another gust of sand scatters through the camp; the camels shift, and there is a flood of vivid cursing from one of the men.