Kiravi's Travelogue Ch. 06
As usual, a little bit of non-narrative description before we jump in: this is a world where "settled peoples" would probably never travel more than a day's walk from the place they were born. Even nomads or herders like Leotie's people would tread the same trails and paths following game or pasture generation after generation. The idea of one city-state marching an army over the hills to conquer another one and then trying to govern the conquered territory is absolutely a new and unfamiliar concept for these peoples. So too, is a journey like the one Kiravi has embarked on, or a profession like Kapak's.
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"Wake up, foolish man," Leotie's voice was sharp, just like her sandal-wrapped toes nudging me in the ribs.
My entire body ached, and my head throbbed like the worst hangovers from my time at the Academy. Even my conduit groaned in protest, a sensation I hadn't known since my failed exams to advance into the more prestigious echelons of Eldritch study. "Ugh, what did that girl do to me?" I groaned, slowly opening swollen eyes.
Leotie smirked, then grimaced, "I don't know, but I saw what you were doing to her."
I snarled in annoyance and pain, and the pain tinged my response with more venom than I'd perhaps intended. "I suppose you'll be wanting to remain hired on with Kapak's band, then. You certainly seemed to enjoy the guard captain's company."
She recoiled slightly, a look I hadn't seen before flashing across her round face, but her smirk returned after a moment. "I had needs, Kiravi. If that impetuous little girl hadn't been clinging to you like a tick on a pudu, perhaps I would've fulfilled them with you," she shrugged, her tightly bound but still bountiful chest moving wonderfully under her glittering breastplate. "Besides, Yava saved my life in the canyon, and I owed him a debt."
"Another Blood Debt?" I arched an eyebrow, which sent another dagger of pain through my skull.
"Nothing so serious," she said, still regarding me with curious pain in her sandstone eyes. She reached down and offered a calloused hand, and I took it, struggling through the haze of pain to my feet. I hadn't checked when I shot awake, but Serina had gone, her pack filled and cinched tight.
The sun was already threatening to breach the Ketza hills, but the qhatuqs hadn't started striking camp. Scents of steamed meat, frying dough, and strong tea helped convince me to finish emerging from my dugout and face the day. The ragged cheers and claps from Kapak's merry band at seeing me rouse all but convinced me to hide again, but a blushing Serina appeared with a bowl of food and cup of tea for us to share.
"I think they heard us last night," she whispered. Her blush deepened, but her full lips curled into a deviously pleased smile.
Just what in the Chaos Wastes was happening with this girl, and what had I gotten myself into?
My two companions and I ate quickly and mostly in silence, Leotie standoffish and fidgeting uncomfortably; Serina crouched close beside me and practically radiating excited energy, "Why are we packed if the qhatuqs aren't?" I finally asked, scalding my throat with mouthfuls of tea to distract me from the pain everywhere else.
"Because the boats I left here last season need mending, but I have prepared the best canoe for you to depart today," Kapak had appeared behind us, still somehow spry and unencumbered by the fatigue of our long journey.
"You offer too much," Leotie said before I could. Her voice had an aggravated, almost bitter edge to it. What was her problem?
"Nonsense. You may consider it your payment for guard services rendered. Kazmari canoes are better than anything you Anghoreti make, and you can sell it for a good price."
I shrugged, grunted: it was a good deal.
"Taking a...a boat? Down all that water?" Serina said with a nervous gulp. I won't lie, dear readers, and say that I didn't feel very similarly.
Kapak smiled, "It takes only three days to reach Tebis from here by canoe. The banks of the Seleyo are difficult south of here, and the journey would be long." Serina glanced at me, at Leotie, and nodded very slightly. He turned to where I still crouched with my tea. "Master Kiravi, may I speak with you at my fire before you leave?"
I nodded, some of the pain from unwillingly conducting Serina's magic starting to fade, and limped after the indomitable Enges. Dark smoke curled up from the chimney hole of his shelter, and his steward emerged from the tent just as we arrived. A strange, alkaline stink emanated from within the magical fabric.
"How can I help you, Master Kapak?" I asked as we ducked inside.
Kapak ignored me for a moment, squatting in the gloom by the heavily smoking fire, "You know I've traveled far and met thousands in those travels," he produced a thin baton of black wood, maybe two hands long and polished smooth, and prodded at the smoky embers with the pointed tip. "I will never claim to be blessed with the magic that lets mortals peer into minds and souls, but I like to believe I have learned how to read people." Something about the tone in his rumbling voice made me lean forward, pay attention, "Whatever you may think, Master Kiravi, now or when you left the Nekoar, you were made for this."
"For what?" I tried to focus through the bleary haze of pain.
"This," he waved at the world beyond the dark tent, at the dusty gravel. "Life on the track. As a qhatuq, or a magus, or anything else. Think about that as you continue on to Tebis with your...friends," he smirked knowingly at me, slightly, before his features set again, "There will come a time, soon, when you may be able to turn home and leave the track behind. Think about the world far beyond the Mother Rivers before you make your decision."
I was impatient to continue, the smoke was stinging my eyes, and I struggled to come up with a reason not to go home with honor if given the opportunity.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because the world is changing, Kiravi. Growing smaller, and darker, and more dangerous. The more we ask of the gods, the farther away they seem. The Kwarzi resent us, and the Huri circle ever closer, sniffing for their prey," he poked at the fire with his strange baton again, "You are, I think, a good man, Master Kiravi, who leaves some goodness wherever you go. So why not go as far as you can, eh?"
"Perhaps," I grumbled, trying to digest his words, chew them like a stubborn piece of gristle. I will say, dear readers, that Kapak's tales of the wider world had seemed exciting, but the arduous life on the track conflicted with the urbanite nature of my upbringing and of everything else I'd ever known. "Is that how you've lived, Master Kapak?"
He snorted, chucked, "I try and make sure my clan remains fed and can keep their high valley, even when surrounded by the Anghoreti, the Yavloni, and the Ymdroki. Whatever else I can do at the same time..." He let the statement dangle and shrugged massive shoulders. After another moment of thought, he twirled the baton to ensure the tip was coated in hot ash and palmed a flat and weathered stone. "You've helped me, Master Kiravi, even when there was little reason for you to do so, and you have saved my life. So, I offer you a life as well," he reached up to the opening of his tunic, pulling down the fraying hide to show a tattoo along his chest: three small crosses with arms of equal length in a row along the thin skin over his sternum. The tattoo was old, the ink faded.
"What does it mean?" I asked.
"Among the Kazmari, it marks a wanderer, one who is strong enough to brave the high passes to carry news and aid between the villages. Over time, it became the mark of those who lead the caravans connecting Kazmar to the lands around it, and it became known to them as well. Anyone bearing this mark is welcome in any town or village of Kazmar, Anghoret, Ymdrok, Yavlon, and Gavic," he gestured at me with the pointed baton. "And I offer this to you."
The haze in my mind was gone, my aches suppressed by the weight of Kapak's offered gift. "I'm not the man you think I am, I think," I said softly.
"A life, for my life," Kapak repeated. "A new life, a different life."
He was offering me a door, a door I felt that, if I went through it, I would never be able to return to my father's manor. Did I really want to spend however many more years I had left struggling up and down one track or another? Could I turn away from the cities and Academies to subsist on roots and berries and dried pemmican? Was this even the door I thought that it was?
And what of returning home? If I found something to restore my honor in Tebis or elsewhere within the Empire's borders, yes, I'd be able to return home with head held high. But how long would it take to chafe under the chastising and backhanded remarks my father and eldest brother would surely make? At the very least, though, I'd be comfortable and safe, free to take trips into Anghu to satisfy my needs for drunken brawling and expensive female company.
I decided to keep all of my options open, so I pulled off my cotton shirt in the gloomy tent, and Kapak nodded. The sharp point of the baton dug into my golden-bronze skin, a trickle of blood running down between my chest muscles. I winced, hissed, and he offered me a jug of cool liquid that smelled like overripe fruit. It burned and stung my throat more than anything I'd ever drunk, but I needed the immediate fog it delivered to my mind as Kapak began to tap the base of the baton with the flat stone. As the blood welled from my chest, he wiped it away with a rag soaked in more of the potent liquor, and he periodically burned the blood from the baton before covering its tip in more of the dark and stinking ash.
Between the smoke, the liquor, and the blinding white fog of pain as he tore and scarred my chest, I lost track of just how long the old Enges worked on me. Vaguely, I felt cool rags and sticky clay on my chest—a heavy hand on my shoulder. Gruff words whispered in my ear, "Until we meet again, Kiravi. I will greet you with open arms, and hear all of the stories of your deeds."
I felt as if I was floating above and around myself, my skin prickling with sweat, my heart fluttering in my chest. Fingers curled along my brow and cheek, more words muttered and whispered just beyond my ability to understand. My guts churned, rebelling against the strange intrusion. When I stopped floating and felt smooth wood against my back, the whole world still seemed to bob and ripple, and I turned my head to violently heave and empty my stomach. Angry voices barked back and forth somewhere near me. I groaned, the whole world throbbing with pain, and let myself slip into the bliss of sleep.
* * * * *
Leotie may have disliked water, but she'd managed to get the dugout canoe into the center of the slow-moving river and keep it there while Serina tended to my drunken, bloody heap of a body. Once I was coherent, I took over from her at the rear of the finely made craft, nudging the stern with gentle motions from the broad paddle. The dugout canoe had been crafted from a single Kazmari pine twice as long as I was tall and wide enough for two of us to sit abreast. The boatwrights had burned out the heart of the tree and chopped out the rest of the heartwood with stone axes before steaming the remaining shell of wood to gently bring the bow and stern to a more pointed shape and widen the center of the craft.
We sheltered from the worst of the sun under crude awnings made from spear hafts and stretched-out hide tarps from our various packs and doffed kit. The air was still oppressively hot from soon after the sun rose to after it set, but the breeze blowing down the valley from the mountains kept the air from becoming too stagnant. I wore nothing more than my loose breeches, trying to let the scar on my breast heal in the open air. Leotie had stripped to her breeches and bandeau, curled in the bow with Niknik, and Serina huddled close to my feet, sweating from more than just heat in her thin cotton dress.
From the moment I'd awoken, Leotie had been angry. And nervous. And, it seemed, it was all my fault. Somehow.
"I'm getting tired of picking you up every time you fall down drunk, or..." She momentarily shifted her glare to Serina, "Or otherwise incapacitated." She repeated the same complaint she'd started from the moment I'd woken up for the thousandth time, and Niknik grumbled sympathetically.
I sighed, ignoring her as I had all morning and gnawed on a piece of pemmican. She was right, at least slightly, but was conveniently ignoring my having to scoop her drunken form up in the alley in Atala. Of course, my young self wasn't going to admit any sort of dependence on her, especially not when she was being so prickly.
Serina, though, trapped between her maybe-mate and the on-edge huntress, had clearly had enough. "It's not his fault Kapak's ritual did that to him!" Her eyes flashed; literally, the light catching on the gently rippling water around us.
"What business does he have performing rituals and scurrying off when he knew we needed to leave?" Leotie snapped back, "He's not some grand Mayor or chieftain; he's just a washed-up drunk. Why should he receive Kapak's mark of honor while we have to drag his drunken bulk into the boat?"
I searched for an opening to interject and hopefully defuse the building argument with some self-deprecating humor, but Serina's ordinarily soft voice was rising as she defended me. "We've only made it this far because of him! He got us into the caravan, and he killed that, that bastard Sata!" Serina spat the words, her slender fingers pointing back and forth between Leotie and me. "Can you imagine what would have happened to us if we'd tried to go alone? You are so, so... ungrateful!"
Leotie stood up to snarl at Serina but faltered as the canoe rocked to the side from her movement. "Why are we even out here, huh? What's the point of wandering from one city to the next? I never should've followed you, you hear me? Or are you still too drunk to understand?" She spat, jabbing her finger at me before turning back to Serina, "And you, you just follow him around because you're drunk for his arrogant cock!"
Serina spluttered, spit flecking on her lips as she stood up to face Leotie, and the boat rocked further. I knew I was going to have to intervene, and my muscles tensed. Either they were going to tip the canoe over, or Serina's magic was going to burst out of her. "You only say that because you want him too!"
Leotie paused for only a moment, a moment that stretched out as the huntress' eyes flicked to meet mine. I could see that she was on the very cusp of taunting Serina with the fact that she'd already had me, that she'd tempted and teased me throughout the entire journey through the Ketza, that she'd watched, enraptured, as I took Serina by the fire two nights before. But, I could also see the way she hesitated, the conflict on her face that started with a surprisingly vulnerable, uncertain look and changed immediately into an outraged snarl.
I grabbed the gunwales of the canoe and rocked hard to one side, sending both women stumbling to the bottom of the craft with squeaks and curses.
"Enough!" I roared, my sudden anger chasing away the last of the ritual and magical hangovers lingering in my mind. The sound echoed off of the sheer hills surrounding the river, scattering annoyed waterfowl into the air. "Enough. Leotie," I met her gaze with my own, "I'm sorry about yesterday. I had no idea what Kapak wanted with me, and I know you've been eager to continue on. So I'm sorry," I forced myself to repeat the unfamiliar words before slipping into a tone much more familiar with my younger and impetuous self, "But you're being a gods-damned bitch, and I think there's another reason why. So out with it."
Leotie's lips curled back into a new snarl, but Serina cut in, "I can see it, Leotie. You look different."
I squinted at the huntress and couldn't see any change, but I had to remember Serina could see the world very differently. The girl's face had softened again, returned to its tender and youthful concern. "Let's just all calm down and talk this through. Is there something else wrong, Leotie?"
Her face ran through a dizzying, confusing mess of emotions, from renewed anger, to anxiety, to the same vulnerable hurt I'd seen the morning before and during the march through the Ketza. "Yes." She mumbled.
I sighed and sat back down by the paddle at the stern, stress beginning to flow out of me, "What is it?"
She glared again, her fury back in full, volcanic force, "It's not something you would understand, petty noble. Coming with you was a mistake."
"It's her magic, Kiravi," Serina said simply, head cocked to one side as she studied the other woman.
"What would you know of it, Oracle," Leotie spat, muscles tensed so much she trembled. "You don't even know how your own magic works."
"Leotie..." I mumbled.
"Fine...fine," Leotie sighed, finally settling against the side of the canoe. She squeezed her eyes shut, her hand absently scratching Niknik's ears. The beast rumbled affectionately, curling close to his master and nuzzling her hand. "The Kwarzi here, they're different. For as long as I can remember, I've communed with them, felt them." She scowled and pulled at her tightly braided hair, "But they're different here. They speak strangely, and they don't want me here."
Again, dear readers, I paid little attention to the mumblings of priests and shamans in my youth, but I knew a little about a little. The Kwarzi were generally tied to the land, I knew that much, but I knew little more than that. Serina, it seemed, knew even less.
The girl's eyes widened slightly, "You can speak to them? Truly?"
Leotie paused, shook her head slightly, "Yes...no, I can't explain it the right way," she sent me a barbed look and tossed another insult, though the venom had somewhat abated, "If our Magus had paid more attention in his studies, he could explain it."
Serina's voice was tender, soothing, as different as night was from day compared with her spluttering tirade moments before. I watched her with a strange feeling swirling in my gut as she edged across the canoe to rest her small hand on Leotie's shin. "Try, Leotie. Perhaps explaining it to me will help you help yourself?"
The half-breed huntress glanced between the two of us, reluctance warring with her underlying discomfort, "I...they...Shedia's Balls, fine," she grumbled at herself, and I failed to hide a smile born from her stubborn reaction. "They don't speak to me in words like you would understand. But I feel what they feel; I know what they want. Does that make sense?"
Serina smiled, gently crept closer, her hand still on Leotie's leg. "I understand. My goddess moves within me the same way. I can always feel her, but it's hard to make sense of her power."
I watched, only an observer, as one of the women in my life tried to soothe and calm the other. The water sloshed quietly around the canoe, and the wind tugged at the awnings. I didn't dare, my dearest readers, interrupt whatever was happening.
"So, um, I...I knew the Kwarzi on the far bank of the Nekoar. I grew up with them, knew their whispers and their moods. They wandered the land like we Bhakhuri did, and they lent me their power in return for my listening to them."r"
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