Blankmap: Book I

30. Arrivals

Jacques found Melion lounging comfortably against a coconut tree. He was deep off the path, in the thick of the tangled trees and vines on Kwajro's eastern tip. Beside him lay a half-dozen freshly-carved spears. His machete sat half-sunk into the flat stump on which he rested his feet. His eyes were closed.

"You're far from home."

"Better wood here," Melion said evenly. "And fewer people."

"I suppose I'm ruining that part of things."

"No more than usual, my friend." Melion grinned. "And after all it was I who asked you to find me."

"So you did. I won't pretend I don't know why."

"That will, I think, make things go more quickly."

"You've always had an infuriating habit of telling me how bad my ideas are."

"You admit you have an idea, then. I believe, Jacques, I know what it is."

"Are you going to tell me it's a bad idea?"

"Not when you seem to know so well already."

"Look, brother," said Jacques, trying to match Melion's calm. "There's no guarantee I'll even have to do anything. You know, maybe some of the ri-Rooj are right. Maybe they aren't even coming. Nishaya could have been a coincidence. It could."

Melion opened his eyes for the first time since Jacques had arrived. He fixed them, bottomless gray, on his companion's blue ones.

"And do you truly believe that? Or do you simply wish to make it so by saying it?"

Jacques sighed.

"I don't know what I believe. This wasn't supposed to happen. This Blankmap, the ri-Gotterdamm...none of it. I brought Solomon out here in the hopes of making him whole again. And I fear I may have set things in motion that could break him even further, when he doesn't even know he's broken."

"Everyone breaks some time. The lucky ones figure out how to put themselves back together before too long so they can save the rest of us."

"And you think Solomon is that kind of person?"

"Truly. You have raised quite a son, Jacques Hyrax."

"I'd hardly say I raised him. The trees and his dreams did that far better than I ever did."

They were silent again. Jacques picked up one of Melion's spears, looking it over with a practiced eye.

"Tell me, old friend," the bearded man said, "is it traditional for the Irooj to carve weapons for his own people?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Thank the stars," smirked Jacques. "These are terrible."

* * * * *

Juda shuffled back to the beach. His stomach was full of rabanu -- steamed crabs, coconut shavings, and plantains. He paused at the last bend before the path opened out of the trees and onto the sand, looking around tentatively. He took a deep breath, tried not to look wounded, and stepped out into the sun.

He couldn't see Solomon or the Lodrik, and for a moment he wondered if his friend (if he even still wants to be my friend, he thought with a pang) had given the water horse some terrible offense and been dragged to the bottom of the sea. The dragging wouldn't kill him, since he had the gift of jeijin, just like the ri-Marij, but Juda thought perhaps that the Lodrik had torn him to bits on the way. Of course he had never heard of a Lodrik doing that, but one could never be too sure.

He had just finished this impossibly gloomy and creative rapid-fire train of thought (as only ten year-olds can devise) when he saw a glimmer way out on the surface of the sea. Another minute of watching and it got bigger and bigger, until Juda could make out the features of Solomon Hyrax, riding high on the back of the Lodrik that had been bucking him so ferociously all day. Solomon -- so frustrated, so angry only an hour ago! -- was waving to him like crazy. Juda's face cracked a smile. He raised his hand and waved gleefully back. His friend was an impossibly quick study, one hand knotted in the mane like seaweed, half-standing thanks to the natural spurs of his ankles. Juda lowered his hand, but Solomon wouldn't stop. Boy and beast got closer and closer, and still he waved.

He would be cocky, Juda was certain, but his friend had earned it.

Just shy of the shore Solomon dismounted with a flying leap, splashing down in the shallows. Laughing, Juda ran to the water and grabbed his sputtering friend by the hair, yanking him from the shallows.

"THAT WAS INCREDIBLE! YOU WERE DOING IT, SOLOMON! REALLY DO--"

"THEM!" roared Solomon, saltwater pouring off him. "THEY'RE HERE!"

"...Who?"

"The...the ri-Gotterdamm! The Dammerung! Them!"

"I do not understand."

"No time!" Solomon was on his feet. "We have to find our fathers!" He took off at a mad gallop, wet sand flying at his heels, Juda hard behind him.

They flew across the beach, through the trees, to the edge of the village that sat at Kwajro's heart. Here Juda finally caught his friend.

"Solomon Hyrax," Juda panted, "You must slow down."

"We have to find them!"

"We will! But it will help to ask if anyone has seen them. Follow me."

The boy galloped from house to house, yelling the same Marij-bwe phrase at each open door. When they reached a house Solomon recognized as belonging to Akijon and Amja, for whom he had done such long labor on one of his first days in Kwajro, they heard a reply ring out.

"AMJA SAW THEM HEAD TO THE WOODCUTTING PLACE," Juda yelled over his shoulder, leading Solomon out of the village and up the eastern curve of the shore towards a thick outcropping of trees.

They crashed through the underbrush and dodged the thickly-clustered palms, fronds slapping their bare skin. More than once Solomon felt something sharp scratch his face or chest, but he had no time to slow down, to consider the stings of pain, nor the raggedness of his breath as he followed Juda at full bore. After what felt like an impossibly long time they burst into a small clearing, like a room in the jungle, where Jacques and Melion both crouched, spears in hand. The expressions of their fathers turned from concentrated strength to bewilderment in an instant.

"What is--"

"The Dammerung! Father, they're here, I swear it! I was on the Lodrik and it took me out, far out, and I saw the ship in the lee of a small island, a white ship with a sail of royal purple," panted the young adventurer. "The--"

"Were you seen?" cried Jacques. "Did they pursue? Are they coming?" The spears that he and Melion had just lowered came back to the ready.

"No, father, I swear it! I was half-hidden by an outcropping of rocks; there were overhanging vines, too. As it was I dove swiftly into the water and swam back beneath the Lodrik for as long as I dared without losing my sense of direction."

Melion was questioning Juda in rapid Marij-bwe, but the boy's story was so much more bare than Solomon's that after a moment he was forced to switch back to questions that Jacques' son could understand.

"There is no chance, Solomon Hyrax, that you saw a regular-looking ship in our waters? There are many who use the channels on this side of the great Chasm, pirates of Ile d'Est, Tiberian traders, even the bird masters of the mountains."

"No, Melion. I swear it. It was a white ship with purple sails. I have never seen the likes of it before in my life."

"You did not know that the ri-Gotterdamm travel in ships of those colors before? Rip Rap may have mentioned--"

"No! You must believe me. I mean no disrespect," he mumbled, looking down at his bare feet, which were crisscrossed with small bloody scratches from the underbrush. "I saw it. I did."

Melion looked at Jacques for a long moment.

"Then there is only one thing to be done," said the Irooj of Kwajro, and for an instant Solomon thought he looked a thousand years old.