Silluka stared up at the beauty above her. The sun was peeking through clouds for once, and its rays were like a halo around the other girl’s head, highlighting her cheekbones.
“Are you a goddess?” The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she struggled to sit up, then fell back again with a groan, clutching her head, which threatened to explode.
Ichu was next to her, appearing from somewhere out of her vision. “Slow. You’ve been out for three days. Elder Quilqi says you did too much bodycasting. Your body was breaking down from the strain.”
She did bodycasting? Silluka blinked at the memories flooding back. She had performed Flying Quirra, but it had been easy once she caught the method behind it. Intent was everything, just like Elder Quilqi said. She could do it again now…
The ampuka drew up inside her, and Silluka let her concentration go. She could tell from the way her body complained that she wouldn’t be able to do any more bodycasting until at least she had gotten some food, and likely not until she had rested for several more days. It might not seem like it took effort, but it took a toll on the body.
She frowned up at the tall, stony woman above her, who had a strange, half-shocked expression on, then felt her cheeks heat as she realized what she’d done.
“Did I just say what I thought I said?” she asked.
The words focused the other woman’s attention and she nodded, a smile playing at her full lips. “Afraid so. Too late to take it back. I’m keeping that compliment.” She dropped into a crouch beside Silluka, eyes intent on her. She was wearing rough linen fabric, but was obviously heavily muscled underneath, arms straining against the sleeves, and her chest barely contained in her shirt. “Cosquella. And you are?”
What was her name? Surely she had one. Maybe she could ask Ichu.
Ah, that was it. “I’m…I’m Silluka. You’re not from the Huaca are you?”
“My father and cousins have a farm north of here, but a volcano came with the new island.” She turned, and Silluka saw the ripple of back muscles under her tunic. “See there? You can just make out the glow from the mountain.” When she turned back, her eyes reflected the sunlight. They were dark, but not brown. Were they blue? Purple?
The Huaca are fleeing the island too,” Silluka managed. “And the turtlemen who come with it.”
Cosquella’s face screwed up like she might shout for a moment, then it cleared, and she laughed, a loud, deep sound. “I can see that, I can. Turtlemen indeed. That’s a good name for the Eztli Mecatl. Like turtles. Huh.”
She chuckled to herself while Ichu helped Silluka sit up.
“I’m going to check on the other newcomers,” he said. “You, ah, look like you’re ready to welcome Cosquella to our Huaca, so I’ll leave you to that.” He gave her a sly smile. “I think Lugopo is going to meet the new Allwiya, too.”
Silluka couldn’t stop the smile she returned to her brother. She’d teased him enough about his conquests over the years. She’d spoken with Tamaya briefly after they practiced together under Elder Quilqi, but the tall pretty girl had been hustled off into helping with packing. She and Waskar, the meaty boy who had been in Hufi’s patrol, were surprisingly accepting of her, but Silluka had lost track of them in the confusion. They must have been around the sleds somewhere, but Silluka couldn’t take her eyes off this new beauty. She should introduce Cosquella to the others, after all.
“Yes, I can make her welcome,” she said.
In fact, it was more like Cosquella was showing her around than the opposite, as the camp was packing up and getting the sleds in position to float once more. Silluka had been unconscious since they started their journey, and Cosquella had made a similar journey from their farm to this join in the river. She was more familiar with how the sleds worked on water. Plus, Cosquella had to practically hold her up. She was still shaky and weak. Not that Silluka was going to complain about the contact. Cosquella’s arms were rough, almost scaly, but they were also firm, muscled, and warm.
Cosquella helped lift her from the ground to the lead sled, and Silluka might have let her fingers trail for an extra moment on Cosquella’s hands before the larger woman hopped up beside her.
“You should see my father’s sled,” Cosquella told her, pointing where a small craft was tied to the main Huaca’s sled. It had strange, high sides, but seemed to nestle into the river better. “The Allwiya designed it for us just when the volcano began to form. They spent all night attaching the extra planks to the sides.”
“It looks like it would work better in the river.”
“I think it does,” Cosquella said, “but I’m not a sled driver, and we had no jakuas. The Allwiya also came up with the poles to help propel them.”
She was interrupted by two figures approaching.
“You’re up!” Tamaya bounded over and gave Silluka a hug, then eyed Cosquella up and down. “And you brought a…friend?”
“I’m glad you’re alright,” Waskar said from behind her. He laid a hand on Tamaya shoulder and Silluka suddenly realized this might not be as awkward a situation as she thought. He stared at Cosquella’s rough skin and strange hair, then shot a curious look at Silluka’s arm. Meaty Boy had never been subtle.
“Yes, Cosquella was the first person I saw when I woke,” Silluka said. “She and her family are traveling with us, so I’m showing her around.”
“These fallen trees aren’t going to clear themselves!” someone shouted from the front of the sled, and Tamaya sighed.
“They have us on cleanup duty, trying to keep the sleds going as fast as possible.” She pulled on Waskar. “Come on, let’s do Tortoise Shoulders His Load again. We’ll see you soon.”
They ran to a group of several other citizens and began their chayu.
“Friends of yours, are they?”
Silluka sighed. “They actually were part of a patrol that forced me to perform chayus in front of the elders before I was ready,” she said, and Cosquella’s stony face grew harder in confusion. “But yes, I guess they’re…friends. I feel like everyone is helping out here but me.” Then Silluka stumbled as the sled rocked in the water, and Cosquella caught her, fumbling awkwardly with the end of her stump.
“You can hardly stand, you.” Her arm was tucked under Silluka’s stump, awkwardly, but she was trying not to show it.
“You might be right. Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt,” Silluka said, referring to her stump. She poked Cosquella in the side with the nub on the end. “See? I can get some use out of it.”
She barely kept the surprise off her face. The other girl’s side was hard as rock.
“And you’ve…always been like that, yes?” Cosquella ventured. “I don’t mean to cause offense.”
“No…no offense taken,” Silluka said. “And yes, I was born with it…or without it, you might say. The elders always said I would never be able to bodycast, without a second hand.”
“But you have, people say? The others said you saved the poorer members of your village.”
Cosquella had a strange, hitching way of talking, like she was more used to speaking another language. Maybe it was simply her family’s separation from the Huaca.
“Elder Quilqi has been teaching my brother and I more about bodycasting. She seems to know of different abilities that those taught in my village. But I…I don’t remember all of what I did. Most of it was in a haze.” Silluka could recall performing Flying Quirra, but what came after that was disappearing quickly. She couldn’t have really floated over a chasm, could she? She must just have found a bridge across, moving lightly with Flying Quirra.
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Cosquella was silent a moment, and Silluka turned the question back to her.
“And you? I noticed your skin is kind of hard. Is that…”
“It’s condition I’ve had since birth, I have, sort of like yours,” Cosquella said. She reached up and ran her free hand over her hair, which didn’t move. “My mother died when I was born, and my father said she had the same condition as me, she did, with rough skin like this and thick hair. He tried to teach me a little bodycasting, but I was never able to catch on. I just trained to be the best I could, did I, without relying on the chayus.”
“I think it worked,” Silluka said, squeezing Cosquella’s arm in hers. It was like squeezing a tree limb. They stepped from the sleds to the bank of the river, walking around the camp. “You’ve got more muscles than my brother, and he’s our champion bodycaster.” Her mind was screaming at her to stop complimenting this odd girl she’d known for mere minutes, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never had any real relationships in the Huaca, unless competing with Hufi when they were younger counted. Tamaya…didn’t count. She thought. She pressed down a lump of sadness at the memory of Hufi. He’d been a pain, but he didn’t deserve that death. Yet life was often short in the Huaca, at the whim of the gods and the weather.
“My family teased me about it, they did.” Cosquella looked away, and down. Other members of the village preparing the sleds watched them walking, and Silluka tried to lean on Cosquella a little more, as if she still needed the support. “They aren’t mean, and I know Papa loves me dearly, but I always knew I was different, was I, like my Mama.” She laughed again, that deep loud laugh. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I barely know you.”
“I have the same feeling,” Silluka said. She waggled her stump, hooked around Cosquella’s arm, and it didn’t feel strange at all. There was finally someone else like her. Well, not like her at all, but someone else who was different. “Everyone thought I was an undesirable in our village. I’d never amount to anything because I would never be able to bodycast.”
“But you did,” Cosquella said. “Can you show me?”
Silluka frowned up at the other girl. They’d reached the front of the camp and stepped back on a sled angled across the river to make a bridge. The jakua station was ahead, under a stand of trees, and the big beasts were lolling in the sun and shade, some on their backs, paws in the air. The handlers were nearby as always, ready if one got it into their head to take off. They were trained, but the beast chayus were still the best way to control them.
“You really didn’t learn any?” Silluka asked. “But you’re so strong. Nothing like me.”
Was Cosquella blushing? Her ochre skin had an almost gray undertone—not unhealthy, it simply reminded Silluka of marble. Now that undertone shifted to something like a rose quartz.
“I’m…not very good at being graceful,” the big girl admitted. “If you want me to chop down a tree or lug a barrel of water, I can do that, I can, but the small movements are hard to get right sometimes.”
Another similarity. Neither of them were good at chayus.
“That doesn’t really matter,” Silluka said.
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? You have to be exact with how you position your body.”
Silluka shook her head. “I only have one hand. I can’t make the forms of the chayus correctly. But I’ve done several right. I’ve connected with the ampuka. That’s what Elder Quilqi taught me.” She motioned with her stump around Cosquella’s arm again.
“But that’s what my family’s always told me, they did. You don’t think they were…” Cosquella looked scared, or maybe angry.
“No. I think they told you want they thought was the truth.” Silluka was certain whoever raised this woman was a kind and good person. “I was told the same thing. My whole village thinks that way, but Elder Quilqi seems to know something more than them.”
“Show me, please,” Cosquella said.
Silluka reached across to pat her arm as Lugopo approached, all eight tentacles churning at speed. Several other Allwiya were with them, including the newcomers. Lugopo was the smallest of all of them, by far. “We’ll learn together,” she promised. Surely the elder had some technique that would help Silluka’s new friend.
Lugopo scuttled to Silluka’s feet, signaled something to the other Allwiya, then wrapped their tentacles around her linen pants and scurried up her leg. They alighted on her hand, two tentacles holding them up.
“Big news!” the translation circlet chirped. “Many new deathtraps and weapons possible!” Lugopo tapped the thing and Silluka almost thought she detected a bit of chagrin in the new words. “That is, my fellows have showed me innovations they devised. I think it may serve us well.”
“Your Allwiya talks?” Cosquella asked. She made a sign to Lugopo, who returned it, and then another, with more tentacles. Cosquella laughed.
“Not my Allwiya,” Silluka said, “but yes, they designed it themself. I suppose you learned their language on the farm?”
“Lugopo says I have a strange accent, they do. We worked with the Allwiya on our farm. They made all our equipment for us, and even developed fertilizers and new harvest techniques.”
“Which they shared with us as well. Such profound knowledge from Crawling Dark of Squirming! Such blessing. But this is why I ambush you here.” They held up a wooden ball, which they must have kept under their tentacles while they approached. “This shows heat from far below, the core of the world. It is growing, erupting! The coast where you lived is certainly all destruction now. See here!”
The top of the wooden ball spiraled open, and a tiny metal needle pointed to a squiggle carved into a ring placed around the edge. There were more squiggles all around the circumference of the ring.
“What does this mean?” Silluka asked. She supposed the squiggles were Allwiya writing, but she’d only been interacting with the creatures for a few weeks. She hadn’t seen other signs of their language. Whatever it was, it wasn’t like the pictures, arrows, and lines of the Huaca.
Lugopo presented the device to Cosquella, who also peered down at it, then shook her head.
“Do you not see the beauty granted by Manylegs of Reaching? This senses the magnet disruptions caused by the interactions of the tectonic barriers between islands. Yes?” They held up the device again, as if that would make everything clear.
“Lugopo, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Silluka said.
“Big boom. The fire under the ground is coming. The sleds must move. Where is the elder?”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Silluka said. She pulled Cosquella with her toward the fabric shelters that had been set up on the side of the river. She was feeling much less wobbly after her walk around the sleds. She wasn’t quite up to a chayu yet, but maybe later that day.
As if sensing them, Elder Quilqi came from one of the tents as they approached. Her face looked like she’d tried to chew a stone.
“Just the two I was looking for. I’ve been working with the best bodycasters to help your father, girl.” She was staring at Cosquella.
“What’s the matter?” Silluka asked. Cosquella hadn’t said anything was wrong with her father, just how he raised her.
“Tried to breathe in a volcano, seems like,” Elder Quilqi grunted. “He’s not in a good way. Collapsed as soon as we got him and his nephew under the care of the best healers.”
“But he was only coughing when we got here, he was,” Cosquella said. “What did you do to him?” She tensed under Silluka’s arm, her skin almost hot to touch.
“Got what dust we could from his lungs, and his nephew’s,” the elder replied. “I have three good healers who know Flower Sends Out Pollen, but it was not an easy task, even when I helped them. We’ll have to wait a few days to see what happens to them.”
“What happens?” Cosquella said. She disengaged from Silluka’s hold, folding her rough arms in front of her. She stood head and shoulders taller than Elder Quilqi, who was not a short woman.
“Island and seas, girl, I can’t do miracles. Your father fell over in a faint as soon as we got him to the healers. He’d likely been hanging on while you all escaped from the volcano. If we’d been any later, there wouldn’t have been a point to even trying.”
“I have to see him,” Cosquella cried, pushing past the elder.
“Don’t stress him, or your nephew,” the elder called after her.
Lugopo tugged at Silluka’s arm, still holding the wooden ball. “Most desperate. Death and suffering for all if not addressed!”
The elder glanced at the ball, then at Lugopo. “That close? We need to get the sleds running now if we don’t want the aftershocks following us.”
“This is my plea,” Lugopo said. They closed the ball and scuttled to Silluka’s shoulder.
“So. You’re awake,” the elder eyes roamed over Silluka’s face. “I see you’ve found a new friend too. Feeling the aftereffects? You’re not powerful enough to control that kind of connection. Flying Quirra was a test, not a map. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking it’s the duty of the strong to help those who are weaker,” Silluka shot back. “I did what you said. I used my intent to perform the chayu, and it worked!”
“It worked, and you almost killed yourself,” the elder corrected. “Good that you’ve unlocked how your intent works. Now you need to learn control, and expand your capabilities. You can’t tap into the core like that and expect the power not to overwhelm you.”
“The core?”
“The core of the planet? Where the gods live? Bubbling magma, what do they teach you kids these days?”
“Then that’s where the ampuka comes from?”
“Naturally. That’s where the gods can affect the world. It’s where all their power derives from.”
“There is much haste needed,” Lugopo put in. They rubbed several of their tentacles together nervously.
Elder Quilqi stood straight, looking toward the coast. “Quite right. This must be a lesson for another time. We need to get the sleds moving quickly. Cosquella’s father and cousin will need to be transferred to the second sled, where we can find an open space.” Elder Quilqi leaned in close. “Keep an eye on the new girl. There is something strange about her.”
“It’s just a skin condition,” Silluka said. “She already told me about it.”
“That’s not all there is. But time will tell. Come, help me with—”
There was a boom like the world had opened, and a gout of orange light appeared in the distance.
People began running, untying the sleds. The jakua herders began Waking Beast.
“Quickly now. The islands are starting to merge. Help me gather the Huaca.”