Sparks (23 page)

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As we gathered our things in the morning, Quauhtil still snored loudly from the other room.

“Wait,” Khea said just as we were headed out the door. She walked quietly into Quauhtil’s room and knelt next to him in bed, holding her hand over him in a moment of concentration before she turned and walked back to me.

She hadn’t let me sense what she was doing, so I was forced to ask aloud. “What was that about?”

“A gift. For his hospitality.” Then she remembered to let me in and showed me how she had woven the strands of his nerves back together, giving back his eyesight. He would wake and see the world for the first time in a decade.

I pulled her in close to me and kissed the top of her head.
Thank you.

Micha and the others were waiting at the harbor, their horses already loaded onto a small merchant vessel named Ayotl, or Turtle. I laughed thinking that they had possibly picked the slowest ship in Firethorne.

“There you are.” Micha would never admit it, but he was nervous about going to the islands. He had heard all the same stories I had, but he didn’t speak the language nor did he feel confident he was suited to track there. The others had no idea, but if any of us could track in Nakbe, it would be Micha with his strong sense for animals.

“Just had to see an old friend.”

“Only you would have a friend in a remote village in the Andover.” I smiled that he was feeling well enough to joke, and I feared the day he stopped.

“The ship is headed to Uxmal?”

“That’s what the captain said. She can drop us off in Chimalma on the way.” Micha and the rest of our group were still operating on Lheda’s original instructions to get to Yaotl.

Once we were well underway, I would have to convince them to travel to Uxmal instead, but I could only guess at what their reactions would be. Within minutes, we pushed off the pier and began to sail through the dark purple waters of the Northos Sea; even the ship’s wake was lavender.

As we stood on deck, lined up along the rails with Khea’s wind blowing past, the captain came down from the helm to address our group. I immediately noticed she was wearing a copper bracelet that limited my ability to read her, though it didn’t block me completely, giving me a private pleasure that I was able to get through.

“Good morning, they call me Captain Mitzli. Welcome to the Ayotl.” I translated the message for the others, giving the captain a sense that I was the leader of our group. She had dark blue pants that tightly gripped to her legs and a loose brown shirt. Her long, dark hair was tied up behind her, a match for the stern features of her face.

Micha had given her at least half of our coin in exchange for direct passage to Chimalma; the captain would take us there directly as she traveled to restock the supply of iron to trade with Madurai. It was comforting to know that she didn’t intend to mislead us despite the bracelet she wore.

“Captain Mitzli. We would like transport to Uxmal. There is no need to visit Chimalma.” Only Khea knew what I was asking, but it was better the captain understood we had no interest in Chimalma from the beginning.

“Coin was paid for Chimalma.”

“Coin will be paid for Uxmal.”

She nodded her agreement and waited. I motioned to Micha to give me the rest of the coins in the small leather pouch he carried, and he reluctantly handed it over. I dropped the bag in the captain’s hand before she turned and headed back to her quarters.

“What was that about?” Micha asked.

I sighed and decided there was no getting around it.
Might as well get it over with.
“We’re not going to Chimalma and we’re not seeing the priestess. We’re going to see the queen instead.”

“Says who?” Jhoma asked.

“Avis. Lheda’s story was a ruse. We’re here to warn the queen. Chimalma is dangerous and we have no reason to be there.” I sensed they didn’t like it but they didn’t have much of a choice since they were already on the ship. None of them really had much stock in the mission anyways; they were doing it to earn their pendants and that was all they were interested in.

Captain Mitzli assigned a hugely-built deck hand named Tototl to show us around the Turtle and help us bring down our things, though she overestimated how much we had packed. Aside from the grain bags and sleeping pads still tied to the horses, we each only carried a small shoulder bag.

“This is the first time the Captain has allowed visitors,” Tototl said as he showed us the ship.

“We appreciate her taking us on,” I replied in Nakben.

Tototl was young, with about fifteen or so summers, had the black hair and dark eyes of all Nakbens, and wore a strong charmed bracelet. He seemed excited to be the one asked to show us around, which was the complete opposite of the other crew members who wanted nothing to do with us. He was a few seasons younger than me, but you wouldn’t have known it based on his size. While Micha and I were each rather tall, and Micha had his width as well, Tototl towered at least six inches over us and was nearly as wide as the two of us standing side-by-side. Along his left arm were several square bands of tattoos that wrapped around his muscle, telling me there were quite a few stupid men in Nakbe who would willingly challenge Tototl to combat.

“You have not been to the islands before.” He said it as a statement, one of the stranger points of Nakben language.

“No, this is our first visit. We plan to hunt game on the small island.” There were so many false plans going on, it was starting to get difficult to keep them all straight.

“We will get you a copper ring. There is the law.” As he mentioned the ring, he brought up his wrist to show the copper bracelet he wore there as well. When I looked around, the rest of the crew also wore the charmed jewelry.

“Nakbe has a law to wear them? Why?” Tototl just shrugged happily and moved the tour along. I had trouble reading him entirely, but I sensed that he had no idea the bracelet was charmed or why it would be illegal to go without wearing one. It gave me a sudden chill to think of what was really going on there.

The Turtle was an older, wooden boat but simply designed, with only one lower floor for living space, and the lower decks used for storing the iron they would sell. There was a small cabin for the captain and the rest of the crew slept in a series of hammocks that hung one above the other in the single room. On deck, a wooden rail surrounded to keep the crew on board. Sailors were notoriously terrified of falling overboard, though I guess I would be, too, if I couldn’t swim. Three broad, orange sails marked the ship as a merchant, and the flag not-surprisingly depicted a turtle in the sunset.

When we all had a hammock assigned and had eaten the morning meal, there was little left to do except look over the rails and watch the water go by. It would have been the most boring few weeks if it wasn’t for Khea.

I have a bad feeling
, she told me as we stood on deck.

Me, too. The bracelets are a bad sign.
It seemed like someone was expecting us, and intentionally set out to block us. Though there was no way they could know we could both get through the charm.

I considered the idea that Lheda or Mathias had tipped someone to our trip, but that seemed counter-productive to their goals. They wanted us to reach Yaotl and determine her true intention to follow their plan to attack Takla Maya. What could be gained from making our journey more difficult?

A few days after leaving Firethorne, Captain Mitzli, Tototl, and the other half-dozen members of the crew each removed their Madurian styled pants and shirts, instead donning a single wrap of black fabric around their waists. It was the standard style for Nakben people, and only occasionally did someone wear a wrap that was colored or have a piece of jewelry added to it. Micha, Jhoma, and Khasla were suddenly much more aware of the presence of the captain once her long hair covered her otherwise bare chest.

By the second week, the uneventful voyage suddenly became a lot more interesting. Captain Mitzli called the crew to deck to make an announcement. “The freshwater storage has leaked. There is enough water for three more days, so we turn to Chimalma to make repairs and resupply. All persons need to limit water until we arrive. We have five days.”

A quick, blurry read told me the captain was telling the truth. It was just unfortunate timing for such a problem, and we would have no choice but to ride with the ship to the southern island.

As the crew dispersed, Khea approached the captain with a worried look. “Captain Mitzli, if there were enough water could we continue to Uxmal?”

“Even with rain, there will not be enough. We must stop.”

“But if there was water, could we continue?”

“We would go on.”

“Then you will have your water. You do not stop.” I didn’t know if it was a good idea to risk revealing–or even hinting about her abilities to anyone, even the captain, but there was no other option. We couldn’t risk Chimalma.

The captain’s brows furrowed as she considered the information, but nodded her agreement all the same. As promised, Khea offered a light rain each afternoon, and the crew left pots, dishes, and any type of container on deck to collect the water. No one but the captain had ever suspected Khea was responsible, but the water came and the little ship continued moving.

The hammocks made for better sleeping than I would have expected, but they were hopelessly made for a single person. No matter how we tried, Khea and I just couldn’t get into the same one. For once, I regretted my broad shoulders and wished I were a little smaller if it meant getting to lay next to her at night. We finally made the decision to sleep on deck on our sleeping pads instead of the hammocks; at least we could be together that way.

Tototl and the rest of the crew got a good laugh about our sleeping habits. Nakben customs only provided for coupling with women with the intention of producing children, rather than actually sleeping at night. Only once a child was born, and the father took responsibility for it, were the two married. Finding us on deck each morning fueled hours of gossip.

For nights when we needed more privacy, we crept down to the lowest levels and found an old bit of fabric used for packaging iron. It was dark enough that we operated solely with sound and touch, but it provided a bit of excitement. Her narrow waist would search out my hips, and our lips were rarely apart. When she was close, her back would arch and her nails would grip the skin of my shoulders, though I never wondered what she wanted.

Her thoughts and needs came more easily down the thread as we became comfortable spending our days together. She was more open to me, less and less needing to consciously send me what she wanted me to sense. Of course, she always knew exactly what I wanted, what got my attention. If her chest was bound perfectly in her dress, she sensed it and offered me as many glimpses as she could manage. When her pants were tight across her ample cheeks, she would walk to accentuate the movement, then wink when no one was looking.

The more time we spent together–and the better we got to know each other–the easier it was to communicate with our Spark and the better the visits to the lower decks became. It was shocking that it was possible to feel more desire and more caring for her than I had that day by the deep-water pool.

Because our Sparks have grown
, she sent in response to my line of thought.

As we learn to use our Sparks, this will get stronger?
Avis had said the Affinity had ignited in earnest because our Sparks had matured since the last time we had seen each other.

I couldn’t see her nod or her wicked smile, but I knew they were there and, of course, she was right. As it was, my heart was liable to burst from my chest at any second, and it swelled with a fever to be with her. Any more might kill me.

The second emergency came when the captain announced the food had spoiled. Aggressive insect larvae had managed to destroy the supply. Again the captain told the crew to limit their consumption until we could make it to Chimalma.

“We can hunt. There are birds and fish. Every one of us is capable of hunting, even on the Turtle,” I whispered to Khea. Again she approached the captain to tell her we would take care of it, and not to turn into the city. Soon, we would be past the southern island, and any crisis would send us to one of the other islands. We only had to make it a few more days.

That afternoon, Micha, Jhoma, and I stood on deck and waited for something to get close. We tied a light string to an arrow on one end and the rail of the ship on the other. As soon as an animal came close enough, we could shoot it down and pull it in.

For several hours, there was nothing. Then Khea remembered she could help in her own way and turned the wind so the sea birds would have to ride the echelon of the ship’s sails. We shot down four in the next hour after that, and Micha managed two good-sized fish. We would get enough; we would make it.

Two days later, a mountain came into view on the horizon where Micha and I stood on deck. It was the tallest structure I had ever seen, even despite the distance, and I remembered what Quauhtil had said about the origin of the islands.

“It’s a dormant volcano,” I told him. He didn’t respond, looking blankly over the rails. It wasn’t hard to anticipate his distraction; his thread showed his thoughts dwelled on Iseut.

“She’s fine,” I tried to relieve his unease, but it was no use; he was too worried. They hadn’t been apart for this long since their first tracking round. Part of him was just used to having her around.

“You want to know what she’s doing?” I asked, prompting wide eyes of curiosity from my friend.

“You can do that?” he asked incredulously.

I sent a thread out, far to the south and found her sitting in the library, absently staring at a book describing animals of the Creekmont.

“She’s in the library, pretending to read.” Micha laughed knowingly. Apparently holding a book and actually reading were two distant islands for Iseut. With the thread connected, I relayed her thoughts to Micha.

“She’s bored. She doesn’t have anything to do until the next round back to the Creekmont, but she doesn’t want to go without you. She misses you.” A moment later I added the sentiment he was really waiting for. “She loves you, you know.”