I expected a grand ship. Something that would make the aazh’kaa Kyrae and I had arrived to Ess’Sylantziis on look like just an aazh, a simple boat propelled by either one’s tail or paddles.
Instead, what I saw was a simple, sleek ship of a smaller size than the merchant ship we’d been on prior. A ship designed for travel on the Hssyri, and nothing more.
“Why’s it so… simple?” I whispered to no one.
Surprising both Kyrae and myself, Dyni answered from next to us. “We are to be mere passengers on the great Hssyri. On or in the river, all are equal in the eyes of Jaezotl.”
Kyrae hummed. “But what about the fancy ships we’ve seen?”
“Self-righteous fools. Ussen or kss’kaa who think they are above the Serpent God. It is one thing for a vessel from the ocean to enter the holy river—respects may be paid and tribute given—but wholly another for a ship whose purpose is to ply these waters to act out so boldly.”
“You must really like ships,” I said, unable to think of anything else.
“I have much time to watch the river when your sister is slithering free of your sire’s sight.”
I had a strong image of Dyni coiled in a tree, watching the river go by as Ssiina stole out of the grounds of the Emerald Palace. I giggled at the thought, and both the bodyguard in question and my sister shot me a look.
I didn’t mind, and slithered ahead, straight down the dock and to the ramp up. I only saw one obvious guard and three other hidden ones, so there were probably a dozen or more watching. I wonder how many Kyrae’s seen? Or Ssiina.
Once on board, Kyrae and I were ushered belowdecks and led to a room that was a lot more like what I’d expect some high-class person to travel in. There was a hatch that could be opened for sunlight, and a comfortable circular bed of soft, rich-looking fabric. There was another, smaller door attached and places to store clothing, other belongings, or to eat.
The place was almost the size of the single-room home Kyrae and I had months ago, but was far, far nicer.
Kyrae and I stared from the doorway, and I heard someone else slither up behind us. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Ssiina, who smiled and waved when she caught my gaze. Raising an arm, I waved back awkwardly.
“Where will you sleep, Ssiina?” I asked, looking for a second bed.
“I presume I have my own room. Kyrae as well,” Ssiina replied. “Such a luxury is nothing for us, as you’ll no-doubt see.”
Dyni coughed politely. “Did Hssen Tyaniis not send you down here, Hssen Ssiina?”
“She did.” Ssiina cocked her head to one side.
“Did you hear why?”
Ssiina shook her head. “No; I suppose I wasn’t listening.”
Dyni sighed. “This is to be your room as well as Issa’s. Between Ussyri Noksi and Hssen Tyaniis staying, the other single passenger rooms are taken.”
Ssiina’s smile faltered, and her face froze. “S-surely, you don’t mean—”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Sis, don’t you want to share a room with me?”
“W-what!?” Ssiina waved her hands in front of her, blushing. “That’s not it at all, I just, well, I want space for all my… my…” she trailed off.
“The things Sire Tyaniis didn’t allow you to bring?” Kyrae offered cheekily.
Ssiina hung her head. “Y-yes. But!” she pointed into the room. “There’s only one bed! And there’s no elf bed for Kyrae!”
Kyrae hugged against me “I’ll sleep with Issa. She gets nightmares if I don’t and she likes my warmth.”
Ssiina looked up at me and all I could do was nod and mumble, “…s’true.” I held one arm against my side with the other and worried my lower lip.
Ssiina blushed even harder. “W-well, there’s still no bed for me, and what’s there isn’t possibly big enough for all of us.” She glared at Dyni.
The bodyguard sighed. “There is a spare bed in the closet, Hssen Ssiina.”
Ssiina sighed in relief. “I assume it’s not going to be uncomfortable? You know how particular I can be when it comes to my bedding.”
Dyni said nothing.
Ssiina went from blushing to pale, looking around the room again. “W-well I suppose it’s… fine enough. The color’s wrong and I don’t like the wood and I’ll need the window open during midday to ensure the temperature is just right and I’ll also need to find a way to make sure my scales aren’t neglected or my hair or…” she kept mumbling and slid past me and Kyrae into the room.
My elf sister and I shared a glance. It’s almost easy to remember just how different we are.
We followed our sister into our shared room and helped her unroll the bed, doing our best to ignore whatever inane thing she was grumbling about. What even is a vanity? When we finished, Kyrae flopped onto our shared bed and hummed into the weirdly flower-smelling fabric. Is this silk?
“I’m surprised you’re not crying for servants to do something as menial as this,” I joked, still staring at the nearly-reflective clean fabric. Feels almost wrong to sleep on this.
“Certainly not!” Ssiina retorted, bending over to put her smiling face under mine. “Sire’s tutors and my own escapades have ensured I am the picture of self-sufficiency. I can weather the indignity of part or all of the servants’ work! Just like I can weather such…unadorned surroundings.”
I looked around the room. On one wall, a great serpent had been painted, and the wood all over was smooth and free of splinters. I shrugged. “This seems great to me.”
“Oh, sisters.” Ssiina put a hand on my shoulder and turned from our twinned beds. “I will show you both everything you have missed in life—I promise you.”
“And I’ll show you all the fun meats you can find in the low market,” I replied with a broad, challenging smile.
Ssiina’s eye twitched.
Just then, we felt the ship start to move under us. Ssiina, Kyrae and I slithered and ran together up onto the deck. Sire Tyaniis and Ussyri Noksi were already present, the latter discarding her cloak the moment the ship left its berth.
“Do you truly think these ‘disguises’ have accomplished anything, Hssen Tyaniis?” Ussyri Noksi said in an exasperated tone.
“Perhaps not,” my sire said with a chuckle.
The Ussyri glared at her as we approached.
“Is the room to your liking, daughters mine?” Sire Tyaniis asked warmly.
I looked at the bustling city and the growing gap of blue-brown water between us and Ess’Sylantziis, then to my sire smiling warmly down at me, dressed in regal clothing. I nodded. I guess we really did find opportunity here, sis.
“It’s… nice, Sire,” Ssiina said softly. “Thank you.”
Tyaniis leaned down and put an arm around her daughter. “I’m glad you’re okay with the arrangement, Daughter mine. I felt it could do you some good.”
Ssiina nodded, and next to me Kyrae perked up.
“Are there… four rooms like that on the ship?” she asked Tyaniis.
“Why yes, Kyrae, there are,” our sire replied with a smile that I almost thought looked mischievous.
Oh.
“I’m glad Ssiina’s staying with us,” I mumbled truthfully. “Even if she’s weird sometimes.”
“Hey!”
Tyaniis laughed, and together we watched the blue-brown confluence of waters and the city above it fade into the late morning mist as the ship slowly moved down the Hssyri.
***
“Do you have any hobbies?” Ssiina asked me once she, Kyrae, and myself were back in our shared room. “Kyrae?” she turned to our other sister.
“Well, I like good meat… and I’d probably like my powers if they weren’t dangerous to me.” I slumped against the soft fabric of my and Kyrae’s bed. Underneath us, the river was calm.
“Uhm, no,” Kyrae answered after a short pause shifting up to use one loop of my lower body as a seat. “Sleight of hand tricks and street games, I guess, but I know the cheats and it makes them less fun.”
“You know the cheats?” Ssiina asked, eyes practically shining.
“Not all of them…” Kyrae mumbled.
“What do you like to do, Ssiina?” I cut in.
“Well,” Ssiina responded, and I had just enough time to realize my mistake as she starting listing things off on her fingers. “I like designing clothing, decorating, sculpting, painting, some of the weapon training Sire’s had me take, and magic even though I’ve not made much progress yet.” She took a breath. “Oh, I also like bathing with sweet oils and eating good food, particularly from the human lands—I just find their tastes fascinating.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Sire’s trained you in magic?” Kyrae asked quickly, practically jumping off my tail.
“Of course!” Ssiina preened, placing a hand delicately over her chest.
“What can you do?” I asked.
“Watch!” Ssiina twirled her hands about, mumbling some words I didn’t understand. A ball of white-green light formed at the end of one of her fingers. “S-see! Marvelous, is it not?” Her voice was strained, coming out between clenched teeth.
“Pretty!” Kyrae exclaimed. “Can I touch it?”
“Go-go—” Ssiina’s spell-light went out and she exhaled hard, smiling apologetically. “Oh, never mind. Sorry, Kyrae—like I said, I’m no good at magic.”
I couldn’t help but feel the shadows in the room, and in other rooms. My power was coiled and ready, but I knew and feared what lay down that path.
Could I control it? If I could…
“Is it something like an inherent talent?” my elf sister asked.
“Yes and no,” Ssiina took on a lecturing tone. “As hssen, specifically kelaniel, we have a natural aptitude for magic as was granted to our bloodline by Jaezotl. However…” She sighed and stared at her hand. “However, Sire says that I lack the patience—the mindset—to truly learn magic.”
“I’m… sorry,” I found myself saying. The shadows in the room twitched.
“Issa,” Kyrae warned, grabbing my arm. “Don’t—please. Not now.”
I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Okay, Kyrae.”
Ssiina tilted her head at us. “What?”
“Kyrae doesn’t want me showing off my powers.”
“Kyrae!” Ssiina whined. “Don’t be like Dyni!”
“Ssiina,” Kyrae said seriously. “It’s dangerous. You don’t… you don’t know what those powers did to Issa.”
“But Ussyri Noksi healed—”
“No.” Kyrae shook her head. “Not that.”
My stomach dropped. “Kyrae is now—”
“Now’s the perfect time.”
I whimpered, and Ssiina’s jovial mood dropped to serious in an instant.
“Issa, when you use those powers, you change. And I don’t mean the eyes—you stop trusting or relying on anyone else.”
“But with them, I can protect—”
“—No—”
“—other people,” I talked straight over Kyrae’s protests. “I can learn, I can get better. Phaeliisthia can teach me how to get the better of whatever gave me this and use it as my own. I’ve felt death—or something like it and I’m not gonna let that happen again.”
Kyrae bit her lip.
“Please—I’ll listen and I won’t use my powers now, but when we get to Uzh, I need to learn how to use them. I won’t be able to stand having them there, tempting me forever—I’ll give in at the worst time…again.”
“Let’s let Phaeliisthia decide, then!” Ssiina clapped her hands together. “Do you think you could teach me and Issa some sleight of hand, Kyrae?”
“Hey! I already know how to do most of that stuff!” I protested, jumping on the sudden change of topic.
Kyrae didn’t bite. “Issa. Be careful, okay—and don’t reject everyone else if you need help. Please.”
I nodded, chastised.
My elf sister looked back at Ssiina. “Fine. I’ll teach both of you, but don’t think of trying to pull any of this on our sire. I have a feeling she’d catch you.”
***
We didn’t talk about my powers after that, but I still felt the shadows calling to me the rest of the day and into the night until I fell asleep, wrapped up with both of my sisters. Ssiina’s bed sat empty to one side, and Kyrae was lost under a mass of scaled coils.
The next day we watched the river in the morning and played more in the evening. We ate twice, and I slowly felt myself relax. Out here, on a ship, with smiles all around me, I could almost believe this was real.
The rest of the voyage was almost like a dream, in this way. I learned a lot about fashion for ussen and hssen: what colors and fabrics meant, and how the cuts of sleeves told different things. Funny how with all that knowledge, Ssiina still couldn’t pull off looking anything other than wealthy. Ssiina even showed me some of what our sire had taught her of swordplay and magic.
I caught on to the swordplay a little better: the idea of moving one’s upper body as an extension of the lower, like a serpent, fascinated me. Unfortunately, the ship was no good place to practice, and our sire put an end to any attempts rather quickly.
Kyrae took better to what little magic Ssiina could show her through traced sigils than I did. Sigils, as Ssiina called them, made my head hurt. They weren’t lamian glyphs either, but from another, older language, and modified for magic. The ship didn’t carry much by way of scrolls or parchment to practice with, and even if it did, I wasn’t about to attempt something like that when I didn’t even know many of the lamian glyphs.
The trip certainly wasn’t perfect: the ship was small, and in my freedom I found the hiding places all too quickly. However, I reveled in comfort and warmth, even as the familiar humidity of the low river started to tinge with the salt I remembered so well.
But we weren’t going to Ess’Siijiil. We turned away from the path most ships took and moved into the main, muddy, wide channel as it flowed further out into mangroves. The Hssyri was so wide here, I couldn’t even be sure if I was seeing the tops of mangroves to the sides or just mist off the water.
I also couldn’t see the city of Uzh.
“I thought you said we’d be able to see it today?” I asked Ssiina.
“Today, Sis! Not right now!”
“Then why’d you have us all come up on deck?” I retorted, glancing around the prow.
Kyrae stood next to me, and to the side of all of us, Ussyri Noksi and Sire Tyaniis were engaged in conversation about some boring topic.
Ssiina threw up her hands. “Because we’ll be going there soon and it’s really pretty!”
I blinked at Ssiina and gestured out over the endless expanse of flat brown water.
“Soon!” my hssen-raised sister flicked her tail tip in irritation.
To her credit, she wasn’t wrong. The ship turned and I saw a haze of treetops quickly become a wall of dense mangroves. I didn’t, however, see a city. “Where is it?” I asked.
“I don’t see docks, or any platforms in the water,” Kyrae remarked.
“Uzh is not directly on the Hssyri,” Tyaniis answered, slithering closer. “If I recall, the original city was destroyed by storms… was it four times?”
“Five,” Ussyri Noksi answered confidently. “Although the earliest settlement ill-known and its abandonment is speculated.”
“Destroyed by storms?” I asked, remembering a few terrifying nights in Ess’Siijiil when the monsoon season turned to something far worse. Typhoons.
“Winds and flooding,” Tyaniis clarified. “Are you not familiar, Daughter mine, despite a long, dark part of your life in Ess’Siijiil?”
“We are,” Kyrae answered for me.
Our sire nodded. “Then you know the mangroves bear the brunt of a typhoon.”
As I watched, a clear channel between the mangroves came into view, a black stone marker by its entrance. “So Uzh is on an island in the mangroves?”
“Not on an island,” Ussyri Noksi said, still my length away from us.
“Not on an island…” Kyrae muttered.
“Then what’s it built on?” I asked.
“You’ll see soon enough, Sis!” Ssiina replied, hugging me. “Are the flowers in season, Sire?”
“I believe some of them are,” Tyaniis replied.
“My favorites are in bloom right now,” Ussyri Noksi whispered almost to herself.
I stayed with two sisters clung to me as the ship rounded a bend in the channel. Wide enough for an aaz’kaa if only barely, the dense mangroves to either side of the ship teemed with life, some of which I hadn’t ever seen in Ess’Siijiil. Then again, Ess’Siijiil was mostly on an island near the south end of the Hssyri delta—if I remembered right.
Vibrant purples, pinks and whites tried to compete with rich greens and browns. Birds of all colors flew over the river ship as it passed through the tangle, small furry things darted about in the canopy, and larger, scaled shapes moved silently through the water between the roots.
I let my mind wander at the sight, too far away to worry about the shadows within.
I didn’t know how long I coiled on the prow, mesmerized by the teeming life. Eventually, Ssiina tugged at my sleeve, turning my attention from the side of the ship to the front. Oh…
I didn’t have any words for what I saw.
A city rose out of the watery jungle. Immense pieces of black stone formed foundations and buildings, bridges and canals. Ancient, gnarled trees grew twisted over the cityscape, covered in vines that dangled immense pink flowers. Brightly colored birds raced around the skies or chattered from trees, and behind it all, a clean-lined ziggurat rose, the columned room at its top capped in gleaming white ivory.
Between buildings, along slitherways and bridges, and in canals, people abounded. Many—most, even—wore fine clothing: green and white temple garments or robes and tunics of bright greens, reds, pinks, blues and yellows.
We drifted along the edge of the city, past smaller docks of reddish wood, Ssiina waving all the while. I giggled at the confused looks she got in return. Hssen she may have been, but not everyone knew her appearance. Soon, we turned toward a row of black stone docks and several other ships at berth, all no bigger than ours. A square lay beyond, bursting with barely manicured flowering bushes and statues of both lamias and serpents. A large path ringed the outside, dotted with small, squat buildings, while smaller paths wound their way into the green maze.
“Welcome to the Holy City of Uzh, Sister!” Ssiina cheered, any sense of gloating lost in her own wonderment.
“It’s so pretty!” I mumbled. “How—how can a city like this exist?”
“Does it matter?” Ssiina asked with a smile, taking me by the hand toward the dock we’d pulled alongside.
“I… I guess not, but…” I followed my sister as our sire, led by Ussyri Noksi, made her way to the ramp that had been lowered from our ship.
“Uzh is a temple as much as it is a city,” Tyaniis answered as we followed Ussyri Noksi down onto the warm black stone of the city’s roads. “The Temple provides for the city itself and ussen and hssen alike contribute. Of course, its isolation also plays no small part in its prosperity—the city is granted wealth from outside.”
Isolation… A look back at the channel showed that, at the end of the black stone foundations, Uzh simply stopped. There looked to be no roads in or out, and no shacks or small homes of people clinging to its edges.
Beautiful, but unsettling.
“I will lead us to Phaeliisthia’s estate,” Ussyri Noksi exclaimed from the front, turning her upper body around.
Behind her, I felt something wrong with the shadows as something I couldn’t really see emerged from between two verdant bushes. The shape bent the shadows wrong, and I caught the air almost seeming to waver as it passed. I tensed. What is this? It feels… dangerous.
“Phael rarely leaves, so we should find her there,” Ussyri Noksi continued, oblivious. “When we arrive, let me introduce us; she is… eccentric.”
“Eccentric?” A smooth, feminine voice said from right behind the Ussyri.
I watched a tall, horned elf appear out of the disturbance. Her eyes met mine for a moment and I shivered. Danger. It took me a moment to realize this elf had lamia-like eyes with stark white irises, the vertical, slitted pupils making her look even scarier.
Ussyri Noksi jumped. The ussyri had enough power in her tail to get herself airborne and turned midair toward the speaker, paling at what she saw.
“That’s not very nice, my little Nok-Nok,” the maybe-elf woman said in a lilting voice. She reached out a hand, faster than I could see, and pinched Ussyri Noksi’s cheek.
The intimidating woman paled, her aura completely overwhelmed by this newcomer.
I took a moment, frozen with the rest of us, to take in the scene. Ussyri Noksi, in her gem-embroidered Temple vestments, and with her long twin braids dangling erratically, looked somehow smaller.
The horned woman couldn’t have been more different from the ussyri. She wore a fine, pure-white tunic and trousers of red silk, sandals and sharp gold toenails barely peeking out from underneath. Her tunic was cut deep, showing a good part of the middle of her chest and her unusually pale skin. The whole ensemble seemed to stretch the tall, slender woman even taller. The newcomer stood at around the same height as my sire, and even thin as she was, I’d seen enough to know lean muscle when I saw it.
Her horns were perhaps the most striking part of her: looking like solid gold, they rose from just to behind her temples to far above her long, straight white hair, coming to points capped with nubs of ornately carved ivory.
“P-phael,” Noksi sputtered. “H-how good of you to come meet us yourself.”
Phael? This is Phaeliisthia?
“Well, Nok-Nok,” Phaeliisthia purred, sliding a hand under the ussyri’s chin. Slim, golden, manicured talons tipped each finger. “You told me such great things about my new students-to-be. I just had to see them.”
Noksi gulped and nodded.
“But, more importantly, I wanted to see you!” Phaeliisthia’s voice pitched dramatically upward and she leapt onto Noksi, hugging her. “This city’s beautiful, but I miss you, you know. Gallivanting off to the temple in the capital and leaving your poor parents and poor Aunt Phael all alone.”
“I—I visited last decade…”
“Precisely!” Phaeliisthia nuzzled her cheek against Noksi’s, who looked back at us as her cool, calm image shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Oh, but where are my manners,” Phaeliisthia continued in her lilting, oddly melodic voice. She turned toward the rest of us, showing off a forked tongue and sharp teeth behind a big smile. Brushing her hands along her sides and straightening up, she took a single weirdly-long step toward us and placed a hand over her chest. The horned woman didn’t bow in the slightest. “I am Phaeliisthia, resident guardian of the Holy City of Uzh, and your—” she pointed to me, Kyrae, and then Ssiina after a pause, her white eyes meeting each of ours in turn “—new tutor!”