The Law of Isolation (4 page)

Just in time. The strange sailors lowered a boat from the other ship, and a dozen of them climbed aboard. A hush fell over everyone as it rowed across. Ozor made a few quick adjustments to where people were standing. “Follow my lead,” he said, his voice low enough not to carry across the water. “Be ready to respond if they prove hostile.”

Nirel’s heart swelled with pride as she looked over the waiting ranks. These were her people. Everyone stood relaxed but alert, ready to wield their weapons in an instant. Whoever the strangers were, they wouldn’t find it easy to take them. They’d go down fighting if they must, to the last one.

The boat drew closer. The man in the big feathered hat shouted at them, but the distance was too great for Nirel to make out his words.

Ozor called back across the waves. “Leave us alone and we won’t harm you.”

The man, who was probably the other ship’s captain, conversed with his men. He shouted more rapid words, but Nirel couldn’t make out what he was saying. He pointed to himself, and up to the deck of their ship. Ozor frowned, but eventually nodded.

Nirel breathed deeply, trying to slow her racing heart. At least they weren’t making any obviously hostile moves. She was certain these sailors couldn’t be from Tevenar. The thought both thrilled and terrified her. Where had they come from? What could their intentions possibly be?

The boat bumped against their hull. Ozor barked an order and Gan dropped one of their ladders down the side. Two of the sailors came up, followed by their captain.

Up close, the captain looked even stranger. The big hat cast his face in shadow. His wavy hair was short, and his chin and upper lip were shaved clean, but he had thick patches of beard on his cheeks. His tunic, in addition to its odd construction, was made of shiny fabric with a fuzzy nap. It was marked with sweat stains beneath the arms. He wore an odd knife in a sheath hanging from his belt. It was long as his arm, but narrow, with a round framework of metal around the hilt.

He removed his hat with a flourish, held it before his chest, bowed to Ozor, and spoke. But even though Nirel could hear him clearly, she still couldn’t understand his words. They flowed from his mouth in a torrent of nonsensical syllables. She looked across at Gan, who stood by the strange sailors at the rail. He met her glance, raised his eyebrows, and shrugged one shoulder.

The captain stopped speaking and looked expectantly at Ozor. Ozor inclined his head. “We welcome you aboard our vessel. My name is Ozor, and I’m the leader of this company. Be warned though, if you plan to take by force what is ours, we’ll resist you. But if you don’t seek to rob us, you have nothing to fear. We ask only that you leave us in peace, and we’ll do the same for you.”

The captain cocked his head, drawing his eyebrows together. Apparently Ozor’s words were as strange to him as his were to Nirel. He consulted with one of his sailors, then turned back to Ozor and spoke a shorter set of nonsense words with a different rhythm and sound to them.

Ozor shook his head. The captain frowned and spoke in yet another fashion.

Still meeting only uncomprehending stares, the captain grimaced in frustration. He twisted his hat in his hands. Taking a deep breath, he spoke more slowly, every syllable distinct. “Yo-siv Le-garre” The final sound rolled from his tongue. He laid his hand on his chest and repeated the words. “Yosiv Legarre.” He gestured across the ocean, toward the western horizon. “Ev Ramunna.”

Ozor’s eyes widened. He nodded and held an open palm out toward the captain. “Greetings, Yosiv Legar.” He couldn’t quite manage the sound at the end, though he tried. Nevertheless, the captain bobbed his head encouragingly.

Ozor mimicked the man’s hand-to-chest gesture. “Ozor.” He swept his hand in a vaguely northeast direction. “From Tevenar.”

“Ozorre. Tevenarre.” The r’s at the end of the words rolled extravagantly, but it was clear the captain understood. He spread his hands, wide and empty. “Nen fitta.” At Ozor’s frown, the captain looked over at Nirel and the other archers. He mimed holding a bow and lowering it. “Nen fitta.” He drew a few inches of his long knife out of its sheath and pushed it home again. “Nen fitta.”

“Nen fitta,” Ozor repeated in agreement. He waved toward the archers. “Put your bows down.”

Nirel lowered her bow and replaced the arrow in her quiver. She sighed in relief. It looked like they wouldn’t have to defend themselves against the strangers after all. Maybe they could even puzzle out more of the captain’s strange speech. Did everyone where he came from talk that way? Or did he have some weird impediment? No, the other sailors spoke in the same fashion.

She supposed there was no reason people on the other side of the world should speak the same way they did in Tevenar. Although if the people of Tevenar had come from across the ocean long ago, shouldn’t they? Maybe it was like the way the farmers back home in the mountains spoke more slowly and fluidly than the rapid, staccato way of talking she’d heard in Elathir. Only more so.

Captain Yosiv and Ozor continued to make themselves understood. With many gestures and a few deciphered words, they came to an agreement. Ozor ordered the company to disperse, back to their usual stations or below if they had no other duties. The captain leaned over the rail and called out to the men in the boat, presumably giving them orders. The boat set off toward the other ship, but the captain and his two companions stayed.

Nirel had no work that would require her to stay on deck. She fell in with the others waiting to climb down into the hatch, but kept sneaking glances at the strangers. They fascinated her, with their odd clothes and bizarre speech. She wanted to stay close and listen to Ozor speak to the captain. Sometimes their babbling came tantalizingly close to making sense. She had the feeling she could learn to understand it if she could listen and absorb more.

Ozor led the strangers forward, calling for chairs to seat their guests and for one of their precious casks of ale to be opened and shared. He beckoned a few of his most trusted companions to join them. When Nirel saw him summon Kabos, she broke out of the line and ran after her father. Kabos frowned, but he didn’t send her away. She stationed herself behind his chair. Ozor was too focused on Captain Yosiv to notice.

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand. Can you repeat it?” Ozor shook his head and cupped his hand around his ear.

Captain Yosiv’s smile appeared strained, but he bobbed his head and complied. “Ve tho visartha? Vi-sar-tha?” He waved his hands through the air in a complicated pattern that Nirel could make no sense of.

“I don’t know what ‘visartha’ means.” Ozor’s voice rose. Patience was not his strongest point, even at the best of times. He stopped, took a deep breath, and lowered his voice. “Vi-sar-tha?” He spread his hands.

Captain Yosiv looked around at all the blank stares. “Visartha!” He waved his hands again. “Lek Marvanna ansentatta! Mashikka!”

He reached his hand toward a point in space and focused his eyes there, as if on some object only he could see. He raised his hand and his eyes tracked up. Nirel pictured the object of his attention floating upward.

Her hand lifted involuntarily. It was the same gesture she’d made when she’d told Josiah how she had dreamed of wielding the Mother’s power, reaching out with her imagination to send golden light around the object of her desire. The same gesture the wizard Elkan had used to tear the switch from her father’s hand before it could strike her. The same gesture Josiah had broken off just before his magic would have breached the hull of their ship.

“Wizards,” she whispered. She turned to Kabos and hissed louder. “Wizards, father. He wants to know if we’re wizards.”

Kabos gestured for her to hush, but Ozor overheard. He turned back to Captain Yosiv. “Wizards? Visartha?” He made the same reaching gesture.

“An, an, viss-arths.” Captain Yosiv’s eyes lit up. He pointed at Ozor. “Visarth?”

“Nen.” Ozor made a sharp cutting gesture with both hands. “Not wizards. There are no wizards here. We left them behind in Tevenar.” He pointed northeast, scowling.

“Tevenarre? Visartha et Tevenarre?” Captain Yosiv nearly bounced with excitement.

Ozor clenched his fists. “That’s right. The wizards are in Tevenar. Far from here.”

Captain Yosiv leaned forward. He put his hand on his chest. “Thek mi et Tevenarre. Visartha kam vit mi, et Ramunna.”

Ozor jumped to his feet. “No! I will not take you to Tevenar! I will have nothing to do with wizards! We’re finally free of them, do you hear? We’ll never go back, and we won’t allow you to lead them to us, either!”

Nirel scowled at Captain Yosiv. How dare he suggest they go back to Tevenar? Of course, he couldn’t know the wizards wanted to kill or imprison them all. And with the limited amount of communication they’d been able to establish, it was pointless trying to explain that to him. But there was no way Ozor would agree to guide Yosiv to Tevenar. What did the stranger want with wizards anyway?

Captain Yosiv made placating gestures. Slowly, Ozor resumed his seat. Yosiv waited until he was settled before speaking again. “An, an. Ozorre nen et Tevenarre, nen et visartha.” He mimed rolling a large sheet of paper flat before him. “Chartha, an? Skrib chartha, mi sella et Tevenarre, tho nen. Tho sella et thor homma.”

Ozor frowned. “What? I don’t understand what you mean. You’ll have to—”

“A chart.” Nirel stepped forward, daring Ozor’s glower. “He wants you to draw him a chart, a map. He’ll sail to Tevenar, and we can go… homma… hom… home, is that right?” She turned to Yosiv for confirmation. His words weren’t that difficult to understand, now she was getting used to them. There was a pattern to the way they differed from normal words. It was more than an accent, but not that much. If she quit trying to pick out every word and listened for the gist of what he meant, she could usually make it out.

Captain Yosiv bobbed his head. “An. Hom. Ozorre sella et hom.”

“Home,” Ozor echoed, his voice heavy with irony. They had no home to sail to.

Tereid bent close to Ozor. “Give him what he wants. He’ll let us go. Let those fools in Tevenar deal with him.”

Ozor kept his voice low and fast. “But what if he leads them straight to us? I don’t want any hint of where we are to get to the wizards. That’s all they would need to drag us off to prison, or worse.”

“We could be halfway across the archipelago by the time he led them here.” Tereid dropped his voice even softer, so Nirel had to strain to hear. “Even
if
the map we gave him was any good.”

Ozor cocked his head, considering. At length he shook his head. “I don’t like it. It’s too much of a risk.” He turned back to Yosiv. “Nen. Nen chartha.” He waved his hand. “Ozor sail-a home-a. Yosiv sail-a home-a.”

Yosiv frowned. He glanced over his shoulder to the northeast. Nirel wondered if he were calculating the odds of being able to find Tevenar without Ozor’s guidance. She doubted he could. The islands were very easy to get lost in. Only detailed records of their travels had allowed them to find their way back to the islands with the best hunting and foraging.

He must have come to the same conclusion, because he huddled with his two companions, speaking so softly and rapidly Nirel could understand none of it. The three of them engaged in a heated discussion, almost an argument. But at length they came to some sort of agreement, for Yosiv straightened and returned his attention to Ozor.

He spoke slowly and carefully. “Ozorre kam vit mi, sella et Ramunna.” He held up a hand as Ozor began to shake his head. “Vet. Yosiv tek Ozorre et Matrarcha. Ozorre tella Matrarcha ev visartha. Matrarcha kiv Ozorre kolth. Gretha kolth.”

Ozor glanced at Nirel. She flushed, but answered. “He wants you to sail with him to Ramunna.”

“I heard that much. What else?”

“I think he wants you to speak to someone named Matrarcha. Tell her about the wizards? And she will give you…” Nirel shrugged helplessly, spreading her hands.

“What?” Ozor turned back to Yosiv. “What will Matrarcha give me?”

Yosiv pulled the hilt of his long knife forward, and indicated a yellow filigree inlaid into the steel. “Kolth. Gretha kolth.”

Nirel and Ozor spoke at the same moment. “Gold.”

Ozor eyed the gleaming metal with unmistakable avarice. “Gretha gold, hmmm?” He stroked his beard. “What of your wizards? I don’t want to fall afoul of them. I want nothing further to do with wizardry, whichever side of the ocean I’m on.”

Yosiv creased his brow and looked at Nirel. She made her best attempt. “Visartha et Ramunna?”

He still looked puzzled, but answered. “Nen. Nen visartha et Ramunna. Visartha et Tevenarre.”

“No wizards.” A slow, calculating smile spread across Ozor’s face. “A whole land with no wizards, eh? And gretha gold. I think I might like your Ramunna, my friend.” Tereid started to protest, but Ozor held up his hand. “Yes, Yosiv, I will sail with you to Ramunna.”

Yosiv bobbed his head, grinning in delight. “Kuth, kuth! Ventherfalla! Ozorre tella Matrarcha ev visartha, Matrarcha kiv Ozorre gretha kolth, Matrarcha kiv Yosiv gretha kolth.”

“We understand each other well, it seems.” Ozor stood and held out his hand to Yosiv. After a moment’s uncertainty, Yosiv took it. Ozor shook it firmly. He looked around. Tereid still looked wary, but the prospect of profit seemed to have mollified him. Kabos was as cold and unreadable as ever, but Nirel knew her father would do whatever Ozor asked without question, no matter what his personal feelings might be. The others all seemed cautiously pleased.

Nirel tried to imagine what Ramunna might hold. A land full of people, but no wizards? Who was this Matrarcha, who would shower gold on those who pleased her? Why did she want someone to tell her about wizards? What sort of folk lived there, far across the ocean? Yosiv was friendly enough, but how would the rest of his people respond to strangers from across the sea?

A deep thrill of excitement bloomed in Nirel’s gut and traveled in a shiver up her spine. She was going to see wonders beyond anything she’d ever imagined. She was going to travel where no one in Tevenar had been in a thousand years. She was going to meet people whose existence had yesterday seemed no more than a myth.