Ages of Wonder Read online

  Tiqa muttered something under her breath and slid towards the door. Lopo tracked the girl’s movements until she disappeared into the house, the sign of discomfort and regret clear behind his strange green eyes.

  “She still hates me, yes?” he asked.

  “She’s just in a bad mood,” Aduka spoke in the foreigner’s language, a skill he had picked up during all those times he spent in their camp.

  Lopo set his heavy satchel aside to untie his boots. “On account of you leaving with us, I suppose?”

  Aduka nodded.

  “I don’t blame her. You’re the only family she has left and this journey promises to be a long one.” He tugged the boots free, then rested his helm at the top of the stairs. “There’s nothing you can do now but let her cool off on her own.”

  “I wish I could make her see . . .” Aduka shook his head. “No, she won’t understand. Few of the villagers will.”

  “Look, friend. People are wont to fear what they don’t understand. Your willingness to help us will be repaid with knowledge and wisdom your people will thank you for. There will be many wonderful changes here because you have chosen to help us. Your sister will understand when she sees the rewards for herself, all right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’ve seen what we can accomplish,” Lopo said, green eyes locked straight to Aduka’s brown in that strange, piercing way the outsiders seem to favor. “Soon those accomplishments will belong to your people as well. Have faith in what you’re doing, my friend.”

  Aduka returned no response. Despite his eagerness to leave, a part of him, the part that grew with the magic here, writhed with a palpable sense of concern and doubt. What if his sister was right? What if this was all a huge mistake?

  Aduka held his sister’s hand tightly, trying his best to sound as calm as he appeared to be. “Look, I’ll come back as soon as I can,” he promised. “There’s no reason for us to keep arguing.”

  “Ever since you learned their language and became part of their circle, you’ve lost your ties to our earth,” Tiqa said. Worse, the hostility she threw at him yesterday had melted, replaced now with a concern that pained him even more. It was always easier to face her anger rather than her misery.

  A lopsided smile turned one corner of his lips. He flicked his woven leaf sack over his shoulder. “Don’t be silly. My gift can never be lost.”

  “Aduka, come on. We’re late enough as it is!” Lopo called out to him. The outsider was already heading towards the beach. Wayfarer’s impressive sails and gilded dragon figurehead could be seen some short distance offshore, ready to leave with the tide.

  “Everything will be fine, Tiqa. You’ll see.” With a final reassuring squeeze, Aduka let go of her hand, then turned to take his leave.

  He had taken barely two steps when a ringing sound raided the air around them. Warned by instinct, the man spun around seconds too late. A blast of white sand slammed onto his chest and knocked him several steps backwards.

  “Tiqa!” He coughed and spat dirt from his mouth. The vortex of sand swirled around him, attuned to the graceful movements of his sister’s supple hands as she summoned the elements to do her bidding.

  “See? You have lost it.” She let her hands drop. The sand fell as she stilled her movements. “What good are the Varamithian guns and technologies, when our lives are interlocked to magic?”

  Aduka cursed, but in those final moments their gazes interlocked, his, wrapped in a mask of hope and optimism, and Tiqa’s, mournful, fraught with the plea for him to stay here where it was safe. He turned his back, quelled the rest of his qualms with brute force, and jogged after his shipmate.

  The carrack’s bow sliced through water as glossy and dark as the deep abyss. The rolling sea seemed to groan under Wayfarer’s blundering passage. To Aduka, leaning over the rail, the ship was no longer the graceful instrument he thought her to be. In spite of all the wonders she had yielded before this, the novelty of her design was quick to leave him. His soul screamed with the sensation of being terribly out of place, of being confined. A yearning for the familiar, simple feel of his father’s proa raided his thoughts unmercifully as he gazed into the briny sea. He did not belong here—that much he realized.

  “Aduka? We need to talk.” A familiar voice made him snap out of his musings.

  Aduka turned to find his childhood friend Suria coming up to him. The night wind batted the man’s face as he approached, forced him to squint. He reached up to adjust his headwear before the breeze could claim it.

  Aduka lifted his hand to touch his own headwear, forgetting he had worn it earlier to protect his head against the sun. He gripped the knot that held it in place to make certain it was secure, then trailed his fingers to where a piece of the cloth was folded upwards to form a small pointed edge.

  “I don’t understand it, Suria. We’ve only been out here four days, and I already feel like we’ve been out here for an eternity.” He sighed. “I sail on my father’s proa for days on end all the time. It never feels like this.”

  “I think you have bigger things to worry about right now,” the other native said, and only then did Aduka become aware of his friend’s apprehension. Suria gave one quick sweep of their surroundings and added, “Have you been talking to any of the Varamithians lately?”

  “No. They’re busy minding the ship. Captain Lopo said we’ll have more time to speak when we reach the islands.”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that they have been avoiding us ever since we left home?” Suria spoke in a low tone, well aware that at least half of the sailhands on the carrack had picked up their language during the few months they spent on their island.

  Aduka frowned. “They can’t be minding this ship and talking to us at the same time.”

  But it was a poor defense. Even as he gathered the words to salve his friend’s concern, that part of him which writhed uneasily at the thought of this journey bothered him again.

  Suria’s expression was unreadable in this dim-lit atmosphere. “Come take a walk with me. You’ll see what I mean.”

  They made their way across the main deck towards the aft end of the vessel. Made uncomfortable by the confined spaces belowdecks, the natives kept to the upper portions of the carrack. Most of the crewmembers had already retreated to the crew’s quarters for some well-deserved sleep, but the few that stayed abovedecks that night did not fail to raise Aduka’s hackles.

  Their familiar faces counted for nothing, for in those brief moments when light from the swinging lanterns revealed their eyes, he glimpsed sentiments masked from him before. The sharp, intense glares they cast towards the natives were far from friendly. From the way their shoulders stiffened at the natives’ approach, it was clear that they were disturbed by the villagers’ presence.

  “I don’t remember seeing this much hostility back home,” Aduka muttered.

  “Exactly,” Suria whispered. “I have a bad feeling about this, Aduka. I don’t feel safe out here with them.”

  “Hey, you two!” someone shouted. Startled, the natives stopped dead in their tracks.

  The Varamithian who challenged them stepped away from the shadows cast down by the towering mainmast, hands clasped firmly on his arquebus. His breastplate armor and their distinctive engravings reflected the light spilled from the lanterns. “It’s late. What are you two still doing up here?” he demanded in the native tongue, his accent thick enough to make their language seem so primitive.

  At least a head taller than the villagers, the outsider’s height and build lent him the physical advantage. Suria acknowledged that fact with a muttered curse and backed a step.

  Aduka tried a smile, but the gesture did naught to soften the outsider’s stern carriage. “We prefer to stay where we can see the sky.”

  The foreigner sneered, turned his head, and spat. “Think you’re better than us, is that it?”

  “What? No, I didn’t say—”

  This time he shifted to his people’s language
. “I’ve spent weeks in that damned village of yours, listening to your people’s insults, enduring their taunts and their damned snobbery. Since you think so highly of yourselves and your magic, why don’t you show me what you can do?” The man took another step forward, tapped the muzzle of his arquebus on Aduka’s shoulder. “Where is all that power your people claim to possess?”

  Such rudeness would have caused his sister to bristle like a tigress. Understanding every word and no longer smiling, the villager clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.

  “Don’t do it.” Suria held him back. “Let’s go back to the front part of the ship. We want no trouble here.”

  The outsider drew breath for a retort, but the words turned to a startled curse when something knocked the ship’s side. Wayfarer swayed to the intrusion like a child’s toy boat. Thrown off balance, the three men braced themselves against the mast as water splashed onto the deck.

  “What’s going on?” the outsider gasped.

  No one dared to move, until they heard the patter of footsteps against the planks. Roused by that violent intrusion, Captain Lopo emerged from below—confused, anxious sailors at his heels.

  “What happened?” Lopo asked as he rushed to the stern.

  “Did we strike a rock?” asked another.

  “Nonsense, we’re in the middle of the ocean! That couldn’t have been a rock.”

  “I don’t see anything,” one of the crew said.

  The level-headed captain silenced them. Under his brisk instructions, the Varamithians dispersed to their stations and worked to steady the carrack against the waves.

  Then, the air became torn by a deep, haunting cry.

  It was a sound only the villagers could hear, one they both admired and dreaded.

  “Are you hearing this? This is our doing!” Suria grabbed his friend’s elbow. “We should never have taken the foreigners out here. We have angered the mythical beings. Now they will bring us down to the bottom of the sea, and no one will find our bodies!”

  Every fiber of Aduka’s being shuddered at the cry and the power that created it. To make matters worse, wild waves continued to tear the sides of the carrack like a demon thirsty for vengeance. Around him, frantic crewmembers hurried to draw the canvas, battling the strong wind and the waves as they continued their concerted efforts to bring the proud vessel down.

  Barrels rolled along the deck. Splinters from some part of the ship crashed down right next to him. Desperate to save their hides, Aduka reached for the forces that brewed within him. A portion of his mind drifted back home, to the tranquility and warmth of familiar, safe surroundings. He thought about his sister, his people, and envisioned the pristine shoreline and the plank houses with their clay tile roofs and high stilts. I don’t belong out here with them!

  His mind surged forth into the sea. “Mercy, great guardians! We mean you no harm,” he called out with all his heart. “A simple crossing on this ocean is all we ask of you.”

  The waves slowly stilled as though the sea had heard him. For one brief moment, he thought the sea’s guardians would let them pass.

  Then, the shadow of something large began to cloak the deck. He felt his blood run cold, flinched when the captain and his sailors screamed.

  A massive creature had surfaced beside the ship, its long neck arched, its head held high. Cloaked by the darkness of the night, it was a creature conjured from his people’s greatest legends. Its only visible features were the black-tipped spikes protruding out of its scales and the eerie glow of its cat-slit eyes. Light cast from lanterns still spared from the sea’s thrashing became reflected on the water that trickled down scales blue, green, and black as the ocean.

  None of the outsiders knew what it was. Men who hadn’t fled for the safety of the chambers belowdecks headed for the cannons, propelled by fear. Among that confusion the natives glimpsed the captain, but failed to understand the instructions he threw at his crewmembers.

  “What is this? This vessel is not familiar to me.”

  The voice boomed inside his head. By the manner in which Suria clasped his ears, Aduka guessed the man had heard it too.

  The creature curled its scaly lips. Lifting its head with its crown of curved horns and spikes high above the mainmast, it probed the carrack with the long whiskers protruding from the sides of its mouth. The movements of the sailors around them no longer made sense, no longer mattered. If they fled for their lives, if they froze in terror, or if they had gathered their wits, Aduka no longer cared.

  The natives fell to their knees and watched in awe as the creature slowly, patiently, investigated the vessel. “Wise Ailliach. Keeper of the ocean. Drake-guardian of the sea. We are greatly humbled by your presence,” Aduka said.

  The creature abandoned its interest on the sails to look at them. The fins on its cheeks spread wide; it let out a purr of delight. “Your hearts beat with the arcane forces of this land. You are children of the Arasmor clan, are you not?”

  “Yes, wise one,” Suria answered telepathically. His voice shook. “We live on the southwest shore of the archipelago, near the bay with the strange rock formations.”

  The creature nodded. “Weaver of elements, this vessel is too large for your needs. The trees you have felled for it did not deserve their demise for your selfish ambitions. Are the proas not serving their purpose?” The creature swiveled its head towards the outsiders, eyes narrowed to angry slits. “And these are not your people. Why are you here with them?”

  Mesmerized by the depth of its eyes, Aduka was oblivious to everything else on that ship. “These men, these outsiders are friends of ours. They seek to explore the lands out here, for their maps.”

  An answer that failed to please, for Ailliach snorted incredulously. “The islands out here belong to the other clans. Turn back, children of Arasmor. Leave the company of these outsiders.”

  “Our passing through your territory will be brief. Please, let us all through.”

  The creature lowered its head until its snout was no more than a few inches away from his face. “How much do you know of these friends of yours, impetuous one?”

  “They haven’t done anything . . .”

  “You have yet to answer my question. How much do you know of these outsiders?”

  There was no easy answer for that. Despite all the time he had spent in their encampment, he knew far too little about them. Lopo never spoke of anything beyond the wonders of their advanced civilization.

  “They’ve raised several forts in the northern part of the archipelago,” said the creature. “It will only be a matter of time before they claim the northern provinces as their own.”

  “What?” Aduka and Suria gasped.

  “This journey is a military expedition more than anything—to scout enemy territory for weaknesses. The way they hide behind their metal scales and carry their fire-spitters should have told you what their interests are. Soon they will take ‘your’ village and change your ways. Your people will be slaves to their technology, their beliefs, their arrogance.”

  Aduka flinched as disappointment coiled around his belly. “Captain Lopo never told me.”

  “Ah, you poor fool. You are not the first who was misled by these outsiders’ lies. You will certainly not be the last.”

  Suria swallowed, then said, “Tell us more, great drake.”

  For what seemed hours, Ailliach spoke. The drake unveiled the colonists’ true nature, told the natives of the lands the outsiders have conquered, and the lies they had spun to gain the trust of the villagers. In the end, all the glories the Varamithians promised him lost their appeal. Tiqa was right all along. They were using him.

  “Fire!”

  That command jolted Aduka out of their telepathic conversation. The explosions that followed after came so loud they hammered the villagers’ heightened senses and sent them reeling in confusion. Yet what they heard next would haunt them for many years to come. Rising above the echoes of the explosion was the creature’s mou
rnful, wretched wail.

  The outsiders whooped with joy. Aduka and Suria ran to the side of the ship and cried out in dismay to see the creature falling into the water in a dead heap. Blood stained the water all around it. The natives could do no more than stare in dumbfounded shock while it sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

  “Lopo, what have you done?” Face drained white, Aduka all but screamed. “You killed one of our sacred guardians!”

  Lopo met that challenge unfazed. In one fluid move he spun on his heels, snatched a freshly loaded arquebus from his first mate, and lifted the weapon parallel to the native’s head. “Stand back, savage. I can kill you now and send you down with the beast’s corpse.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Aduka snarled, hurt by that betrayal. “I trusted you!”

  “Your magic called the beast to us, for all we know. This victory is ours,” the captain said smugly. To his sailors, he raised the weapon aloft. “Let that be a reminder of who we are and what we are capable of. Nothing in this world, magical or mythical, can stop us and the might of our guns!”

  But the only response which came from his crew was absolute terror. All eyes were pinned not on their officer, but on the massive shadow that lurked behind him. He turned around to see what could have compelled his men to sudden silence. That moment, everyone, even Lopo, knew he was beyond salvation. His last vision of the world was of a beast’s gaping maw, rows of jagged teeth, and the acrid stench of certain death.

  Aduka looked away when the guardian took their captain’s life. The sound of his bones breaking and his scream, cut short in death, was enough to spur the sailhands on deck to scatter like frightened rats. The few brave powder boys made a futile dash to the armory for dry gunpowder while the handful of men who stayed to mind the cannons fumbled to get the weapons reloaded.

  Larger than the previous creature, this bristling guardian reared its horned head back and let out an indignant hiss. A sudden surge of power rattled the boards at Aduka’s feet. He jerked his gaze towards Suria and watched as the villager gathered the water with his magic and threw it towards the Varamithians. Four men fell from that impact, their gunpowder soaked and rendered useless.