“That gauntlet didn’t look foolish to me,” Ilapara observes, then gives Tuk a pointed stare. “And neither do you, as a matter of fact.”
His mouth curves into a humorless smile, and his eyes briefly fall to the deck. “Fair enough. I guess it’s true that Higher technology is second to none. But if you asked mystics of the Enclave to conjure fire, command beasts, or do any of the other types of magic that come so easily to you folk, they’d look at you like you’d lost your mind.”
Salo frowns. “Is that really true?”
“Oh yes.” Tuk leans against the bulwarks and watches the ship’s slipstream with a faraway look in his eyes. “The Redlands are the only place in the world where magic is still practiced in its pure form. The rest of the world runs on technomagical charms, but casting spells like what you did with the winds, Salo”—Tuk shakes his head with awe in his eyes—“that’s an art they lost long ago. One of the reasons they fear this place, in fact.”
Behind them the music winds down now that the waterbird has reached cruising speed. Only the bright and lively trill of a lyre remains, powering the vessel ever forward.
“You know what, Tuk?” Salo says, tilting his head with a thoughtful look. “Meeting you has made me realize just how insular I’ve been. You came from another continent, yet you know far more about my fellow Red people than I do. Clearly I need to do better.”
“So do I,” Ilapara says. “But curiosity about other places is often a luxury for those who can travel, isn’t it? And you know how our people feel about leaving the Plains or even interacting with outsiders.”
“I can’t say I blame them after some of the things I’ve seen,” Salo says, looking out at the horizon. “But maybe we lose a lot more than we gain by being so isolated.”
“You shouldn’t beat yourself up about it too much,” Tuk says. “Many people of the outside world are just as insular and disinterested in other cultures.”
“Why are you so different, then?” Ilapara asks him.
He thinks for a heartbeat, his eyes shifting into a duskier green. “You could say I’m on a journey of self-improvement. I want to be the best possible version of myself.”
Salo considers him. “Is that why you want my blessing?”
“It will certainly help me reach that goal.”
“But is that the only reason?” Ilapara asks, finally, because she’s been wondering about his real intentions for a while now. What does he really want with Salo?
He seems to catch on to the question behind the question. “I’ve told you the truth since we met. So if you’re asking if my motives are purely altruistic, then the answer is no. But if you’re asking if my motives are unworthy”—he flashes his dimples in a rather handsome grin—“then the answer is still no, though you’d be wise not to take my word for it.”
Salo smiles, and Ilapara fails to restrain a laugh. “At least he’s straightforward.”
Tuk’s eyes flash a brighter green. “I am rarely anything but, my dear Ilapara.”
Maybe he’s not so bad, she decides. She’s still not sure about him, and she’ll be watching him closely, but maybe he really is what he seems.
In the distance, the Tuanu village has become a blink of light. They all watch the tiny glow until it fades into the twilight.
33: Isa
Yonte Saire, the Jungle City—Kingdom of the Yontai
A strange dream troubles a king of late.
She is the lowest of the low among man- and womankind until one day she plucks a red petal from a bloodrose and makes a wish. Then she is transformed and becomes the most beautiful, most powerful, most intelligent person in the world. She proceeds to live a life of bliss, envied and admired by all and assured that she is meaningful now, that her power and virtue somehow make her life objectively significant, absolute.
But then she casts her gaze upward and finds that she can now see a pantheon of beings who dwell in the skies, who she could not see before because her eyes were closed in her wretchedness. They are perfect in mind and body, more perfect than she is even in her newly exalted state, and though she tries to be content with what she has, their presence in the skies shows her an inescapable truth: She is but a travesty of true beauty and intelligence. A fiction.
The truth torments her, and eventually she gives in and plucks a second petal from the bloodrose, making another wish. And a great wind rises to snatch her from the world, elevating her into the sky pantheon, where she becomes a god. The mountains roll away in fear of her awesome power and beauty. Mortals fall to their knees in worship and build temples in her honor. She rules over them from her celestial throne, secure in her power and objective significance.
At least for a time.
One day, however, she spots the foot of a staircase leading up into the stellar vault, and with her godly eyes she traces it all the way up to its highest extremity. There she sees, much to her dismay, yet another pantheon of gods. Greater gods. Gods as great to her as she has become to the mortal shell she left behind.
In a panicked rush she dislodges yet another petal from the bloodrose. Its razor-sharp edges cut into her fingers, but she pays no heed to the pain as she makes her wish. To her relief she ascends into this newer and greater pantheon, where her mind expands into the cosmos as she becomes aware of the stars themselves spinning about their axes.
But alas, soon she finds that there are cosmic gods, and that there are gods above these gods, and yet more gods above those. She keeps plucking petals from the bloodrose, on and on until her blood-soaked fingers are shredded to the bone, ascending through rank after rank of godhood, each one more magnificent than the last, but no matter how high up she goes, she always finds that there are yet more gods above her, gods more awesome and more powerful.
Perched on the only chair in the citadel’s makeshift throne room, Isa gently traces the moongold mask-crown in her hands with her fingers and feels a shiver at the memory of the dream. She has no ambitions of godhood, but the dream that haunts her contains a truth she cannot ignore: the idea that she is powerful is nothing but a fiction so long as there are those above her who can change her destiny with the flick of a finger.
Can a piece on a game board ever claim to be powerful when it is a slave to the hand that moves it?
“It is time, Your Majesty.” The Arc’s scarified face stares grimly at her. “Remember, you are in total command of the mask. Simply order it to take you to the Meeting Place by the Sea, and it will be so. I should warn you, however: you may feel disoriented upon arriving. If you do, relax, and let your mind adjust itself.”
Glowing rubies in small openwork frames float magically in the air above the throne room, casting a warm light on the bamboo struts and arches of the ceiling and on the red tapestries lining the walls. Isa keeps caressing the mask, and her varnished nails glitter up at her like cut amethysts, complementing the silken length of violet cloth wrapped around her body. The garment leaves her back, navel, and shoulders bare, exposing the golden filigree painted onto her bronze skin. It hugs her hips and legs until it flows into a long train that will sweep the floor behind her as she walks. A disk of golden beads sits around her neck in a near-vertical position so that it almost frames her face. Ornate golden bands coil up her forearms. Her hair has been braided halfway and left to flare into a crown of tight curls at the back. She is no princess tonight, no simpering woman, but a king.