He nodded. “Yes. Of course. I will pack my bags - and I had better tell Tyve.” He lifted a whistle hanging from a string around his neck to his lips and blew hard. Auraya hid a smile. Tyve appeared to be happy to be summoned thus, but she wondered how long that would last.
“Wilar!”
She turned to see Tyve swoop down to land on the platform.
“Pack your bags,” Leiard told the boy, smiling. “We’ve got another tribe to treat.” Tyve’s eyes widened as he comprehended what that meant. “Auraya must return to the Open and deal with the illness there.”
Leiard met her eyes and a faint smile curled his lips. She thought of the coldness that had been in his gaze when she had first arrived in the village.
“I will tell Speaker Veece of our plans,” she offered. “Take care of yourselves.”
Leiard nodded. “We will. Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
She moved to the edge of the platform and leapt into the air.
Glymma’s towers and walls had disappeared in a haze of dust not long after the ship set sail. The low pale line that was the Avven coast passed on their left, while the right horizon was flat and indistinct. Reivan leaned on the ship’s railing and thought of what lay beyond.
Not that all of Northern Ithania beyond the mountains was fertile, useful land. A dry wasteland existed at the center and the mountains of Si were near impassable. Circlians had far more usable land than the Pentadrians, however. Mur was crowded between the escarpment and the sea, Avven suffered droughts, and Dekkar’s riches came from cleared jungle, but the soil quickly turned to useless dust within a few years.
Reivan had picked up some information from Imenja. “Borra is a circle of islands,” she had said. “But they don’t venture out to them often for fear of raider attacks. They live, instead, in a city accessed by an underwater tunnel.”
“There is another entrance, above ground.”
Reivan jumped, and turned to find Imenja at her elbow.
“I see,” she replied. “That’s good to hear.”
“Oh, we probably won’t use it. The Elai don’t trust landwalkers, so I doubt we’ll be welcome in the city at all.”
“How will we meet the king, then?”
“On the islands, perhaps.” Imenja shrugged. “We’ll see when we get there.”
“Has Imi settled in?”
Imenja smiled. “Yes, she is in the pavilion, changing her clothes for something more comfortable. She’ll join us soon, I suspect. It seems even the Elai suffer from seasickness. How are you feeling?”
Reivan grimaced. She was trying to ignore the queasy feeling that nagged at her. “I could be worse.”
“You’ll be fine in a few days.” Imenja turned to face the sea. “I have a task for you.”
Reivan looked at her mistress in surprise. What could Imenja possibly want her to do? They were stuck on this ship for the next few months.
“What is that?”
“I want you to learn Imi’s language. It would be better for us all if I was not the only one who could communicate with the Elai.”
Relieved, Reivan smiled. “I can do that, though how well I learn it depends on how much time I have. Is Imi willing to teach me?”
Imenja nodded. “Yes. We’ve discussed it. It’ll give you both something to do while we travel.”
“And I brought all those books thinking I would have plenty of time to read,” Reivan said, sighing.
The Voice smiled. “There’ll be plenty of time for reading, too. You have to keep me from going mad with boredom as well.”
“Definitely can’t allow that.” Reivan looked at Imenja sidelong. “Being stuck on a ship with an insane Voice doesn’t sound at all pleasant.”
Imenja chuckled. She looked out at the sea again, then drummed her fingers on the railing.
“Imi hasn’t yet realized I can read her mind. She is puzzled that I knew her name and can speak her language, but she hasn’t worked out how.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Not yet. I suspect knowing I can read minds will make me seem even less trustworthy to the Elai than ordinary landwalkers.”
“It could. Although Imi may work it out in the future. She may think you avoided telling her deliberately in order to deceive her.”
“Yes.” Imenja frowned. “It would take a lot to shake her trust. I must come up with a plausible explanation.”
The ship suddenly heaved upward under a wave. Reivan felt her insides shift in an unsettling, uncomfortable manner.
“I think I may throw up,” she found herself saying under her breath.
Imenja laid a hand on her shoulder. “Keep your eyes on the horizon. It helps.”
“What am I supposed to do at night, when I can’t see it?”
“Try to sleep.”
“Try?” Reivan laughed, then clutched the railing as the ship plummeted down the other side of the wave.
“One other thing,” Imenja said. “Don’t lean too far over. You might lose your pendant. Or fall in.”
Reivan looked down at the silver star hanging from the chain around her neck. “You’d just make me another one, wouldn’t you?”
“I can’t,” Imenja said. “Inside each pendant is a tiny piece of coral, carefully grown by secret methods known only to Voices and a chosen few Servants. The coral’s natural habit is to send out a telepathic signal to other corals, on one night each year, triggering a mass release of coral seeds. We’ve bred one special type of coral that allows us to channel our own signals - or thoughts - on any day of the year. That is what allows us to communicate via the pendants.” Imenja chuckled. “I don’t have any spare pieces of coral on me, so don’t lose the pendant.”
Reivan lifted the star and turned it over. The back was smooth but for a small indentation in the center, filled with a hard black substance. She had often wondered what it was, but her old habit of investigation as a Thinker had lost against the fear of meddling with something sacred to the gods.
“Coral,” she said. “I wonder what the Elai would think of that?”
“They will not find out,” Imenja said firmly. “It is a secret, remember.”
“Of course.” Reivan let the pendant swing back against her chest.
Imenja drummed her fingers on the railing again.
“So, which books did you bring? They’re not all Thinkers’ books, are they?”
Rolling her eyes, Reivan took a step back from the railing.
“Come on, then. I’ll show you.”
Mirar chuckled to himself.
