Tuk smiles, watching the Tuanu captain approach him. “Later,” he says.
He goes on to exchange a few words with the captain, after which he dismounts and hands Ilapara the reins of his abada, smiling reassuringly. Even so, a feeling of wrongness runs through her as she watches him follow the captain up the stairs to the largest hut in the square and then disappear beyond the arched wooden door.
Salo stares at the door as well, the line of his jaw visibly tense. “What now?”
“I guess we wait,” she says, because it’s not like they have any other choice.
More villagers trickle into the square. Children chase each other across the open space while their parents point at Mukuni and murmur to each other, occasionally throwing Salo glances that raise the hairs on Ilapara’s skin and make her itch for her weapon. The Tuanu warriors remain on guard nearby with their bows, spears, and leashed jackals, ready to spring at the slightest provocation. Obviously they think Salo is the bigger threat.
“A friendly lot, aren’t they?” he says, clearly nervous.
“They know what you are,” Ilapara says. “And I’ve heard they don’t like mystics very much. Just don’t give them a reason to want you dead.”
“I feel much calmer now, Ilapara. Thank you.”
She smirks, saying nothing.
At last the captain emerges from the hut with Tuksaad, the former looking mightily pleased and the latter with a subdued, slightly smug grin. Stepping forward with his hands on his waist, the captain bellows something that might as well be a proclamation of victory given how his men raise their weapons and cheer.
Salo watches them anxiously. “What’s happening?”
“I think Tuk just sold his gauntlet,” Ilapara says, looking up at the strange young man. “He’s not wearing it anymore.”
“I get that it’s a powerful weapon, but isn’t their reaction a bit much?”
“I bet Tuk will know the answer to that question.”
In front of the big hut, Tuk bids the captain farewell, getting a vigorous handshake before he is allowed to leave, and as he walks over, the grin he was smothering spreads to the rest of his face.
“Success, I presume,” Salo says to him.
His eyes are as bright blue as the New Year’s Comet. “Indeed. There’s a ship about to set sail, in fact. It awaits us by the docks.”
Ilapara gives the cheering men one last glance. “You’ll have to explain this to us at some point.”
“I will, but on the ship.” Tuk starts prodding Wakii toward the young warrior waiting for them on the other side of the square. “Come on. This way.”
A full-bosomed Tuanu woman in a long green khanga is waiting for them at the docks with her three sons, and by the heavy set of her brow, she’s clearly not pleased that her waterbird has been chosen to transport the foreigners. While her sons load crates of mouthwatering fruits onto the ship, she gives Tuk a long, winding speech involving furious gestures, like he’s the cause of her every woe on the planet.
Tuk nods apologetically the whole time, but the smile he wears when she finally allows them to board mirrors the one on Salo’s face.
Ilapara tries not to hate them for it.
Up close, the vessel is even larger than it appeared from afar, a looming presence of exquisite carpentry. The sight of it makes her stomach feel unsettled. Am I really doing this?
“The ferrywoman and her sons are going up north to trade for livestock,” Tuk says as they lead their animals along the landing stage. “There’ll be room for our mounts belowdecks, but I’ve been warned it reeks down there, so we might want to stay up on the main deck.”
“I don’t mind,” Salo says. “I want to see everything.”
“You and me both, my friend,” Tuk says, and Ilapara makes a face behind them.
By the gangplank she plants her feet on the landing stage and traces the glossy vessel with her eyes, from the swan figurehead at the prow to the slightly upturned and tapering stern, lingering on the reddish, diaphanous winglike structures currently tucked into the broadsides. When Salo notices the look on her face, he throws her a smirk.
“Is something the matter, Ilapara?”
She cuts him a warning glare with her eyes. “Why would you say that?”
Not heeding the warning at all, he says, “Khaya-Sikhozi is pretty dry, isn’t it? No lakes, no rivers?”
“We have rivers. What’s your point?”
His grin widens. “Don’t worry. I’m a good swimmer. If we should sink, I’ll be sure to save you.”
That will not do. Not even a little.
Smiling dangerously, Ilapara grabs Ingacha’s reins and braves the wide gangplank, outwardly calm and composed. Just to make her point, she stops halfway up to look back. “For your information, Musalodi, I happen to be a superb swimmer, so if anyone’s going to be saving anyone, it’ll be me.” She flicks her head away, then walks up onto the deck. Salo chuckles as he follows her.
Her confidence wavers, however, as soon as her boots hit the main deck. She can swim just fine, but she’s always been a child of the fields and the open plains, where she has a strong measure of control over her own destiny. To step onto this ship now is to give up this control and put herself at the mercy of the winds and the waters, whose capricious temperaments she can never predict.
Dear Ama, let this trip be mercifully short.
Salo helps lead Ingacha and Wakii down a steep ramp to the animal stalls in a lower deck, using his blessing to lull both animals into relaxed states. His totem remains wide eyed and alert where he has curled up by the starboard bulwarks.
With the animals settled, they take the time to explore the vessel. Its sleek, fluid lines, flowing from bow to stern, lend the ship a distinctly avian feel. A complex system of ropes, pulleys, and netting weaves over the decks like a canopy. Its lovingly polished surfaces don’t quite gleam with newness; indeed, the whole vessel bears the aura of many storms weathered, but only in that graceful way of things that grow better with age, like a fine wood or high-quality wine.
Ilapara feels the dread in her stomach unknotting itself. This isn’t so bad.
“Curious,” Salo mutters to the side. When she looks, she finds him with his shards softly aglow, searching the air with empty fingers.
“What is it?” she says.
“This vessel has been recently possessed by a spirit . . .” He tilts his head up. “But where’s the mind stone?”
He dims his shards when the youngest of the ferrywoman’s sons—a boy who’s seen perhaps fifteen comets—begins to arrange a set of musical instruments on the benches bolted down toward the bow of the ship. If Ilapara didn’t know better, she’d say he was setting up for an ensemble’s performance.
“The Tuanu have an ancestral talent that makes mystics practically redundant,” Tuk says while he watches the boy. “That’s why they kill anyone caught trying to awaken.”
Salo’s face contorts with a grimace. “And I was beginning to like this place.”
“Come now, Salo,” Ilapara says. “It’s not like the presence of mystics is always a good thing. Sometimes people are better off without them.”
“That’s certainly true for these people,” Tuk says. “They were slaves to their mystics until they realized they didn’t really need them. Their talent allows trained individuals to replicate any charms of Red magic, no matter how powerful or complex. All without casting a single spell.”