Song of the Sea Spirit: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles) (16 page)

“How long will it take to reach Jolver?” she asked.

“Not long with the sails up,” Elder Gastone said. “We should dock before suppertime.”

One man on the left side of the boat drew his comrades’ attention to something in the water. Jora went to the other side to see. It was a dorsal fin and a spray of water. A dolphin jumped out in an arc and dove back under as it swam beside the boat. Jora couldn’t see it clearly at this distance, but she thought it might be Sundancer. She smiled, wondering whether Sundancer knew somehow that she was on the boat, or perhaps she made a habit of swimming alongside boats for fun.

“Is that your friend?” Elder Gastone asked. Even though he was standing next to her, he had to shout over the wind noise to be heard.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.” She could only hope so.

Chapter 11

For the first few hours, the wind was strong enough that the boat’s sail pulled them through the dark water of the sea at a good pace. The two Truth Sayers remarked at the excellent progress they were making and speculated they might reach the capital in less time than it had taken to sail to Kaild.

With one hand on her head to keep the hat from flying off, Jora kept her gaze on the shoreline and did her best not to engage the Truth Sayers in conversation, though her curiosity bloomed the nearer they got to Serocia’s capital.

Adept Uster’s unsmiling face and watchful eyes made Jora nervous. She didn’t believe he would behave inappropriately, but whenever Elder Gastone stepped away to have a word with the boat captain, she fidgeted under Uster’s stare and watched for Gastone to return. What was perhaps most unnerving was that he rarely said anything to her except when Gastone was present. Jora was convinced that during those times they waited for the elder to return, Uster was observing her in the Mindstream, perhaps finding those times in the past where she was bathing or undressing. She didn’t know this, but his blatant staring along with the creepy feeling of being watched made her fairly certain of it.

What’s fair for the rooster is fair for the hen
, she thought, closing her eyes. She opened the Mindstream and found his thread. As she was about to zip back in time to see what he’d been up to, she found herself slammed out of the Mindstream as if she’d been kicked in the chest.

“No!” Uster hollered. “You must never observe a Truth Sayer. Ever.”

“You’ve been observing me,” she shot back.

“You aren’t a Truth Sayer, Novice. You aren’t even a member of the Order yet.”

“Sorry,” she said grudgingly. “I didn’t know.”

He glared at her for a moment and then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “You won’t become a Truth Sayer until you’re promoted to Disciple, usually after three years in the Order. We have many rules and laws, and you’re bound to make mistakes from time to time, but I caution you not to make that one again. The punishment is severe.”

“Sorry,” she said again. “I won’t.”

Gastone returned to his seat with a good deal of groaning and grunting. He walked hunched over and acted like a man past his eightieth year. Jora took him by the elbow and helped him lower himself down onto the bench.

“Thank you, Novice.” Gastone settled beside her, a serene gent with a kindly smile and understanding in his eyes. He hadn’t spoken about his own family or where he was from, but Jora suspected he’d been similarly “requested” by the king and couldn’t refuse.

“I’ve been looking at your notes,” he said. “Like you, I’m intensely curious about this language the dolphin seems to be teaching you. Has... Sundiver, is it?”

“Sundancer,” she said. The dolphin’s name, whistled in Azarian, had translated to Sun Dancer, as she’d guessed.

“Has Sundancer taught you anything interesting?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “Besides the language itself? No, we just talk.”

“What is the calling?”

Jora’s mind went blank. Sundancer didn’t want her to tell him. She’d specifically asked Jora not to tell anyone about the calling. “I don’t know yet. You pulled me away from my home, family, and friends before I had a chance to find out.”

“What about the odd words you wrote?” Elder Gastone asked. “Words like...”

She got that strange feeling again, like she was being watched.

“...
Dobe caf i io
. What does that mean?”

“It means calling,” she said. “That’s all I know.” In fact, that was an instruction for how to play the Azarian word for
calling
on the flute, but she wouldn’t say so. Perhaps she couldn’t stop them from observing her and reading what she’d written in her journal, but they couldn’t make her betray Sundancer.

“But how did you come up with those words,
dobe caf i io
? How do you get that from a dolphin?”

“I never learned conventional musical notation, so I made up a shorthand to help me remember how to play the sounds.”

For the next hour, he questioned her about the notes she’d taken from the Book of Azarian, not the fierce sort of interrogation she’d seen Gunnar and the drill master before him conduct when teaching the boys about being captured by enemy soldiers, but she could tell his curiosity was burning within him as it had her. Maybe his interest in the dolphins made him somewhat of a kindred spirit, but he was, in her mind, still her abductor and prison guard, and that made him her enemy until he proved otherwise.

“I’m going to recommend you be transferred to my hierarchy and Adept Uster’s. If Elder Kassyl agrees to it, I’ll give you leave to visit the shore once per week so you can continue your conversations with Sundancer. How does that sound?”

She would rather go back home and forget them all. “What did you say about petitioning the king to be excused from this service?” she asked.

Uster snorted softly. Gastone gave her a gentle, regretful smile. “You may petition, Novice, but don’t tighten your heartstrings over it. He’s not in the habit of granting such excuses. In the thirty years I’ve been saying truths as a member of the Order, I’ve seen only one such petition granted.”

“Then he might do it.”

“The Novice requesting to be excused had been injured in the war, captured by the Arynd-ban forces, and tortured. His tongue had been cut out, his eyes removed, his eardrums burst, and his fingers cut off. The petition was made on his behalf by his wife, and granted on the grounds that he wasn’t able to communicate anything he’d witnessed. King Yaphet obviously released him from his obligation.”

Jora shuddered. All right then, maybe the fact that she had a dolphin friend and a willing husband wasn’t enough to persuade him. She would have to think of something else.

“If it’s any consolation, Novice,” Gastone said, “life in the Order is not unpleasant, as you’ll soon discover.” He looked toward the city growing larger ahead on the right.

Smoke rose in dozens of thin ribbons all over the city. Even from a distance, she could spot the multicolored buildings, and as they neared, her awe deepened. Part of her had to admit to harboring a mild excitement about her adventure.

The boat drifted up to the dock, and a few sailors disembarked to moor it. Jora retrieved her bag and accepted a hand from one of the men to climb over the side and step onto the pier, thankful to be on solid ground once again. Her stomach wasn’t quite right, yet she was hungry from the hours spent without food. She didn’t dare nibble on the food the cooks sent with them for fear it would all come back up. The smell of fish was strong here. On the next pier over, several men were rolling barrels off a pair of ketches while gulls circled above.

With the strap of her duffel over her shoulder, she walked up the pier ahead of the Truth Sayers and stopped when she reached the shore, looking around. The city was teeming with activity: people walking or running in every direction, horses with riders and horses pulling carriages, dogs pulling carts, and plump, gray pigeons strolling boldly in the streets, pecking at morsels of discarded food. She waited while the Sayers caught up to her. She hoped the Justice Bureau was nearby. The way Elder Gastone hobbled, he wasn’t going to be up for a long walk.

“Adept Uster, would you kindly fetch us a carriage?”

“Of course, Elder.” The adept went into a nearby inn and exited a few minutes later. “It’ll be around momentarily.”

A horse-drawn carriage pulled up and stopped. The driver hopped down from his seat atop the rear of the carriage and put Jora’s duffel into a trunk under his seat while the two Sayers climbed into the carriage and settled on the front-facing seat. Jora took her hat off and got in, barely able to maneuver to the opposite seat without stepping on their feet, and she had to sit with her knees touching theirs. The carriage, though built for four passengers, was only comfortable for two.

Each side had a door with an unglazed window. A hinged, wooden flap inside the carriage hung ready to lift into place to keep passengers dry in a downpour, or hidden from the view of passersby, though she imagined the carriage would be quite dark and stuffy with it in place. The carriage creaked and groaned as the driver climbed atop it to take his seat, and soon they were off, rumbling noisily along the cobbled streets. Judging from the way the carriage tilted—and Jora’s need to constantly push with her legs to keep her rear on the seat—they traveled uphill. She looked out the window at the sights.

Nearly every building was painted a different color, almost every color of the rainbow. Her eyes feasted on the painted stone buildings, the brick streets, the many merchants with shops and carts, the children running and laughing, and the dogs chasing them. There were cats, too, some perched on ledges high above the street, others watching with unblinking eyes from beneath steps or within shrubs.

“The city is so colorful, but why are there no red buildings?” she asked.

“Red is only for Houses of Prayer,” Elder Gastone said. “There are four such Houses here in Jolver. Has your hometown no House of Prayer?”

Jora shook her head. “We used to, but our last monk died when I was a child. We didn’t have a god vessel anyway.”

“You should make a point to visit the temple, then. The First Godly Redeemer is the closest, and they’ve several god vessels that Retar favors.”

She looked at him with wide eyes. “Me? What would Retar have to say to me?”

“He answers questions, Novice. Have you never encountered a god vessel?”

Again, she shook her head. Jora was about to ask what kinds of questions people asked when the carriage stopped in front of a stately white building with wide stone steps leading to a grand double-door entrance. The carriage creaked again, and the driver opened the door. Jora climbed out first and gaped at the building. It looked so majestic, like how she envisioned the king’s palace. Deeply etched into the building’s stone fascia were the words
Honora veritatem.
The driver retrieved her bag from the trunk while Adept Uster jogged up the stairs and went into the building.

When the driver turned to Elder Gastone with his hand open, the elder said, “Adept Uster will return momentarily with your payment.”

The door opened, and two Truth Sayers in violet robes rushed down the wide steps. “Welcome home, Elder Gastone,” the shorter one said, a woman. She handed him a pair of bills, which he gave to the driver.

Jora had seen plenty of men with bald heads, as every boy was shaven when he left to serve in the Legion and every man when he returned. She’d never seen a bald woman before and couldn’t help staring. It hadn’t occurred to Jora until then that she would be forced to shave her head as well, and she felt the pang of the impending loss.

“Thank you, Novices.”

The other purple-robed one smiled at her. He was tall and broad, roughly her age, with pretty hazel eyes. “Welcome,” he said.

“Novice Gilon, Novice Adriel,” said Elder Gastone, climbing the steps, “kindly show Novice Jora around, starting with the registrar.”

Gilon! She snapped her eyes back up into his. He was alive and well, and none the worse for wear. “Gilon, I’m so pleased to finally meet you.”