Chapter Nine: Hepthys

Hepthys spent two days with her alchemically-enhanced eyes restlessly probing the horizon, the one place that wasn’t rocking up and down with the swells, in search of anything solid. Sighting land, at first a narrow black dot on the horizon, filled her with relief. She watched it for a few moments to be sure it wasn’t a trick of the light on the shining sea.

“Land!” she cried, then suddenly self-conscious, “I see a...a thing.”

“A thing?” Kono asked.

She made a lump with her hands, trying to describe the feature she had seen on Tethys. “Um…you know, when the land is...higher?”

Kono blinked. “You talkin’ ‘bout a mountain?”

“Yeah! A mountain!” She pointed.

Kono shaded his eyes with one massive hand and let out a whistle. “You got some good eyes, sky-girl.”

“Thanks,” she said, not wanting to get into the specifics of the enhancements. Though not as immediately obvious as her wings, the eyes were a point of pride for Atumite alchemists.

“But you don’t have many words. You don’t know mountain?”

“I’ve heard the word,” she said defensively. “Just, we don’t really have them on…in Atum-Ra.”

“No mountains? So it just flat like sandbar?” He moved his palm out in a gesture even he didn’t quite believe.

“Um...kind of?” He wasn’t going to understand the real shape of Atum-Ra’s geography. That there was no ground at all.

“Well, you seein’ a mountain, that’s the volcano at the center of Kamo’loa. You seein’ home,” he said, and the wistful smile over his broad features softened Hepthys somewhat.

The trip itself hadn’t been hellish, but it had been far from fun. For one thing, it took forever. Every crawling second she was farther from her ship, but closer to their destination. She sat on the edge of a blade, and she didn’t know when she’d be able to rest.

She wasn’t used to life on the sea, and wasn’t certain she ever would be. When she’d first learned to fly, the sudden updrafts and terrifying downdrafts had turned her stomach inside out. Shabunet had held Hepthys’s hair as she’d emptied her guts over the side of the aerie after they’d looked into the sunset skies of their home with the intent of being part of them. Shabunet had taken to flight like she was born with wings, laughing with pure joy the first time she leapt into the sky. It was the one physical task in which Shabunet had been the superior.

Kono’s joy was palpable as the village came into view. He sat up straight in the vessel, hand on the tiller, his smile shining like the sun. Watching him light up as he saw his home made her miss her own all the more.

The village of Kamo’loa was not the primitive collection of huts Hepthys imagined. Against the backdrop of the mountain and the impossible emerald green of the jungle, a statue arose. It was massive, and soon she saw buildings clinging to it, and villagers traveling it on wooden walkways, rope bridges, stairs, and nets. The statue was a horror, a tentacled thing bursting from the earth. Plainly a monster, it was utterly at odds with the natural beauty of the place. The skill it would have taken to build the statue, and then to construct the village on top of it was incredible.

As they drew closer, Hepthys did her best to edit out the shock of the statue and watch the inhabitants. Kamo’loa, as Kono had named his village, his people, and his god, was idyllic. A calm bay dotted with craft similar to Kono’s, ranging from dugout canoes fit for one to platforms of wood supported by outriggers on either side with complete houses built on their backs. A beach, streaked with white and black sand, wound up to a wide path through a jungle, to the statue itself, where the bulk of the village was nestled. A few other buildings dotted the ground proper, and the whole area was bordered with great green trees, heavy with striped fruit.

Hepthys was twelve before she had ever seen a building that rested on the ground and whenever she did, there was still a brief flash that it looked somehow wrong. Buildings were meant to float on elegant aryabhatiya engines. She’d learned in Academy that Atum-Ra was an outlier, but actually seeing buildings just sitting on the ground would never not be slightly eerie.

The biggest buildings, longhouses and great halls, sat on the central mass of the statue, growing smaller out onto the tentacles, like hawks roosting on great branches. The beige walls looked to be made of dried mud on a wooden skeleton. The roofs were yellowed foliage woven together in mats. The technology might be basic, even primitive to Hepthys’s eyes, but after depending on it for several days at sea, she’d never dismiss it.

Beyond, the verdant jungle rose into a black-capped mountain. It took a few moments for her to summon the right word: A volcano. Not uncommon on other worlds, if memory served. They erupted, throwing molten rock into the air. She could barely imagine such a thing. A quick flight over would show her there was nothing to fear, but if she could fly, she wouldn’t be here in the first place. No, she was already a disappointment, stymied by Ash World pirates. She couldn’t see a way out, but a Kheremun would have. The daughter of Nawaret should have.

Children playing on the beach stopped their games to peer out at the approaching skiff, hands shading their eyes from the sun. Fisherman looked with interest upon the new arrivals. Most of them looked like Kono, but she spotted a few who looked a bit more like the pirates. All were dressed simply, in breeches or kilts, with sparse jewelry made of stones, shells, or animal teeth. Some were entirely nude and displayed not a single bit of shame. Hepthys felt her face growing hot whenever she saw one of these, and turned her eyes away.

“Kono?” Hepthys said.

“Hey, Mailani! How’s the catch today?” Kono was saying, waving to a fisherwoman. He had been waving constantly since they got into sight range.

“Kono!” she hissed.

“What?”

“Can I borrow your cloak?”

“What? Why?”

She gestured to her wings. “They’ve never seen anything like me.”

“True,” Kono said. “They might be curious, but don’t you worry. You a guest.”

“Kono, please!”

His expression softened. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinkin’. Yeah, here you go.” Kono picked the garment off the floor of the boat and tossed it to her. She pulled it on carefully to avoid jostling her wings too much. The material was hard and unforgiving, a slick sheen over it attesting to the waterproofing. Hepthys gathered the rest of her golden armor and adornment and put it into Kono’s bag. He gave her a conspiratorial wink, then turned back to greeting his village.

They looked honestly pleased to see him, if curious as to why he had another person in his boat. “Hey Kono!” called one of the fisherman. Even from this distance, Hepthys could see he was a giant. Larger than Kono, who until that moment was the biggest man she had ever seen. He didn’t quite have Kono’s girth, but he made up for it with muscles that were positively titanic. “Who you find?”

“Talkin’ to the elders first, Haku! I tell you when we finished!”

Haku gave Kono a playful brush off and sat back down on his boat. It rocked dangerously at the movement, but the big man never reacted with anything close to alarm. He was as at home on the water as Kono.

Kono steered them into the shallows, then hopped out, the surf sloshing up to his waist. He dragged the boat up the shore, and Hepthys got out when she could do so without having to risk swimming. A group of children had gathered on the edge of the sand, peering excitedly at Hepthys. Some of them were already larger than she, and by their features, she could see they were far younger.

“Okay, fry. Stay back, all of you. We got a guest who don’t like being ogled like dinner!”

The chorus of voices came back. “Who is she? Where’d you find her? Why she so little? Why she got that hunch? Why she in your cloak?”

Kono raised his hands up and wiggled his fingers and roared. The kids shrieked with glee and ran up the beach, making Kono laugh. “Come on, sky-girl. We gotta talk to the elders before we do anything else. Bet they never seen anything like you either.”

She had to smile; he was taking pleasure at the thought of surprising his tribal leaders.

She followed Kono up the path to the village. Hepthys wobbled as she walked, unused to ground that didn’t slosh around. She glanced up at the sky, but it was locked off from her. She focused on walking without listing to the side. More people were coming out of the buildings, no doubt alerted by someone who had come running earlier. They stared, but their eyes weren’t hostile. Whenever she met anyone’s eyes, they immediately smiled at her, some waving. Hepthys was in a land of giants, but she wasn’t afraid. For all the venal cruelty she’d seen in the pirates, she saw only friendly curiosity from the Kamo’loa people.

They climbed a set of wooden stairs that looked rickety but carried her and Kono without protest. Up on the back of the statue, villagers paused in their daily tasks to gape. Kids were dancing, or else running after one another, or playing a game with fishing lines. Some adults carried baskets of fruits from the jungle, others were near the center of town, tending a fire and drying meat and fruit. Yet more were weaving fronds into canvas; it was a stunning sight to see the loose leaves turning into a weave almost as tight as the cloth Hepthys wore. Some painted, or sculpted in the village’s central plaza.

“Kono? What is this thing we’re walking on?”

“This thing?” he asked, gesturing to the coral statue. “Kamo’loa.”

“That’s your god?”

“Ugly thing, huh?”

Hepthys still couldn’t wrap her mind around the way Kono spoke of his god. Fear and disrespect in equal measure. It never would have entered her mind to portray Sekhmet as anything other than kind and loving. To speak a word against her would be blasphemy. For Kono, it was a way of life.

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The people around her didn’t look like those she would associate with that foul word, blasphemy. Nor were they what she pictured when she was taught about the dangers of Ash Worlds. Yes, these people lived without modern civilization, but they didn’t look like the bloody-handed savages of her lessons. The pirates, however, did.

Hepthys wrapped the cloak closer around her, wincing as it wobbled her damaged wing strut. She didn’t want these people to see her wings. To know how truly alien she was. She didn’t want the curious, but ultimately friendly gazes to turn dark.

Kono led to one of the larger buildings, squarish, set near the northern end of the statue. Trees grew up to its level, partially shielding it with leaves. Wooden steps led up to an open porch, and double doors made of a wooden frame and more of the ubiquitous waterproof canvas.

As soon as Kono’s paddle-like foot touched the bottom step, the door swung open and four people emerged. They were evenly split between men and women, and ranged in age from a little older than Kono to an old man with sagging skin and a long white beard. All were giants, and all were tattooed, the older ones more extensively than the younger. The old man was entirely covered, from the crown of his bald head to the tops of his feet.

Hepthys turned to the eldest of the women. Her hair was threaded with gray, and her pendulous breasts were intricately tattooed with the geometric markings of Kono’s people. She wore thick canvas bracelets dyed orange and decorated with shells stitched in other patterns. Her features were broad, her small eyes deep and observant. Hepthys waited for this woman, clearly the person in charge, to speak.

The old man hooked his crooked thumbs into the waist of his blue loincloth, hitching it up as he peered first at Kono then at Hepthys. She would have expected his eyes to be rheumy or even have the beginnings of cataracts, but they were sharp and clear, a deep brown like well-stained wood.

“Home early, without learnin’ the lesson no doubt.”

“Elder, no, I was learnin’, but...” Kono fell silent and looked around. Half the village lingered at the edge of hearing, doing their best to eavesdrop. “Uh...I think we should talk inside.”

Hepthys tried not to act surprised. The old man was the elder. She wasn’t certain about the wisdom of placing leadership in the hands of a man. They were too emotional to lead. Hepthys was familiar with other planets having more egalitarian ways, but it never struck her as a particularly good idea. Still, she would be respectful here. Being outnumbered by giants was a great equalizer.

The elder looked Kono over again, then Hepthys one more time. He hmphed, but nodded, making his way back inside. The other ma’hanu—that’s what they had to be, Hepthys realized, as no one else had quite the same kind of tattoos— parted to watch as the two newcomers went up and into the cool darkness of the building.

It took Hepthys’s eyes a second to readjust from the blinding sunlight to this place. Light streamed in through windows, reflected in panes of volcanic glass to reach every corner. Thick mats along with sheets of folded canvas were stacked in one corner. Another statue of Kamo’loa, this one of white wood and just as disturbing, was in another. The bulk of the room, though, was entirely bare. With its high ceilings and a lack of things to run into, it reminded Hepthys of one of the combat rooms at Academy.

Unbidden, she remembered learning the staff. She had taken to it easily, but Shabunet had trouble. She’d taken hits to her knuckles so many times they’d swollen and turned black and blue. That evening, before lights out, Hepthys had rubbed the soothing medicine over Shabunet’s fingers. She could almost feel the contact, the slick warming of the alchemical cream, and underneath, the delicate digits of her...her first love. She barely let herself think the words. Their parents, separated by too wide a gulf would never approve, but neither Hepthys nor Shabunet could escape their feelings for one another. Now they were across the galaxy from one another.

“All right, make your talk, and make it good,” the elder said.

Hepthys jumped, not even realizing she’d been woolgathering. Shabunet wasn’t here. She’d never heard of this place. She’d likely be wondering where Hepthys was, why the daughter of Nawaret was taking so long with what should have been her birthright.

The ma’hanu surrounded her and Kono in a loose circle. This was the first time she felt something akin to danger from these people, though they were more focused on Kono. He was withering under their collective gaze.

“I was out on the island, really thinkin’ ‘bout what I done. About how I was never gonna do it again.” Kono paused, broke into an unctuous grin and nodded. No one else moved. “Then I see a point of light fallin’ from the sky.”

“It happens,” the elder said. “The cloak of night bein’ rattled and some such.”

“This was daytime.” The note of triumph in Kono’s voice was impossible to miss, and it made the elder scowl.

“Find your point.”

“It ain’t a spot of light. I see it now, an’ it’s a girl! She’s fallin’ and...” Kono faltered. His cheeks turned red, and he bulled on, “...she lands in the water. I swim out, and I find her. This girl. I take her back to the island, she wakes up. An’—”

“She fell out of the sky?” the elder said.

“Uh huh.” Kono was trying his best to stay on task.

“An’ she’s alive. A miracle.”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“I used magic to keep her from getting’ squashed,” Kono blurted.

“So I send you off to an island because you use magic an’ what you do? Use magic. Sound to me like I should send you right back out to that island.” The elder let that hang in the air, and finally relented. “Usin’ magic to save a life ain’t no sin. He saved your life, right?”

It took Hepthys a second to realize he was addressing her. “Um...yes. He did.”

“Now, I want to know one more thing. Why she wearing a rain cloak inside?”

Kono looked down at Hepthys and nodded. She swallowed. Kono had accepted the wings, but he could very well be an outlier. A bit of an outsider even in his small community. He had been in temporary exile, after all. Still, she wasn’t going to stay in the stifling canvas cocoon for her entire visit. Carefully, she pulled the cloak over her head, freeing the wing struts of alchemical gold. She felt instantly lighter with her wings free. They were broken, but part of her mind still believed she could take to the sky.

The assembled ma’hanu gasped.

“What is it?” asked the youngest of them, a woman only a few years older than Kono. She was the slimmest one there, and with less fat on her frame, her muscles were far more apparent. Whenever she moved, they bunched and uncoiled like rope. Hepthys worked hard not to stare.

“Sails,” said the other man, who was approaching middle age. The shortest of them, he was balding, with a triple-forked beard beaded with obsidian.

“Wings,” Kono said triumphantly.

The ma’hanu stared at him blankly. Kono motioned to Hepthys.

“They’re wings. I can fly. Well, I could fly, but they were broken in the fall.”

The elder peered at her wings, and he nodded. “I see it. The joint there, like the crane on a warjunk. It’s not right.”

“Yes,” Hepthys said, surprised the primitive man would recognize the engineering.

“She come from a land past the nations, called Atum-Ra. It’s so far away, she never heard of the nations or the tribes,” Kono said.

“No such place,” the elder said.

He was right, but Hepthys wouldn’t admit it. She kept quiet instead.

“Hrm,” said the elder, peering at Hepthys. “Well, she ain’t armed, she’s respectful, and she ain’t tried violence. You vouch for her?”

“I do,” Kono said.

“Then she a guest.” The elder turned to Hepthys. “Welcome to Kamo’loa. You gonna have to meet the chief, but you safe here.”

“Thank you.”

The elder turned back to Kono, his eyes keen. “Somethin’ you ain’t tellin’ me. I see it in the way you don’t stop tappin’ your feet.”

“There’s a warjunk raidin’,” Kono said.

The elder’s eyes widened. “Pua’ku, fetch the chief.”

The younger woman ran off, her feet pounding on the wooden planks. Then she was outside, with only the whisper of sand to herald her.

The energy in the room had turned tight. Anger and fear hung like a string waiting to be plucked. Hepthys shrank, feeling as though this change were somehow her fault. It wasn’t; they were just the messengers.

“It was—” Kono started.

The elder held up a hand and Kono shut up.

They waited in silence for what felt like hours. Hepthys sneaked looks at the other ma’hanu. While the elder kept his emotions under control, the younger two were more openly nervous, the man shifting from foot to foot, the woman making a complicated cat’s cradle with her broad fingers.

Hepthys heard the others coming behind her, and her instincts told her to maintain discipline and not turn around. It was unnecessary; everyone else turned with an easygoing carelessness that would have infuriated her instructors. Hepthys followed suit, curious about who was coming.

She sighed in relief when she saw the chief. Thank Sekhmet, a woman, she thought.

The chief was impressive. She wasn’t the tallest, nor the most muscular, nor the heaviest, though she was certainly all three of those things. The sun found her as though it was looking, rays always illuminating as she moved with a stately grace. Her belly was swollen, and it took Hepthys a moment to realize the chief was, in fact, pregnant. Her features looked to be carved from stone, broad but at the same time angular. Her brown eyes were large, and Hepthys hoped the glimmer of warmth within wasn’t a product of her imagination. The chief wore a kilt dyed every color of the rainbow, and elaborate necklaces, bracelets, and anklets.

The man next to her could only be a grown son; their features were mirror images. He was as young as Kono, and fresh-faced. Handsome too, though to Hepthys this was more of an abstract appearance of a well-formed person. If Kono was a mountain, this young man was a planet. His wavy hair was long, his face shaven clean. He carried an obsidian knife on the vine belt of his breeches.

The two of them entered, followed by Pua’ku. All five ma’hanu bowed, and Hepthys followed suit.

“Hapua,” the chief said to the elder, “Your girl says there’s news. An’ an outsider?”

“Chief Kuani, yes. News in plenty, I’m afraid. First, not an outsider, a guest. This is—now you talk,” Hapua said.

“Hepthys baht-Nawaret,” Hepthys said and offered another bow.

“Why does she have sails on her back?”

“She’s from far away,” Hapua the Elder said, and by his wry tone it was clear he didn’t really believe it. “That ain’t the point. She’s been respectful, peaceful, Kono vouches for her. She ain’t no trouble.”

“Welcome, Hepthys baht-Nawaret,” said the chief, and Hepthys was impressed the woman remembered the name perfectly. “As long as you here, you’re one of us.”

“I’m honored.”

The chief turned her attention to Hapua, her eyes as keen as his. “All right, then. Only one thing gets me roused midday, so out with it. Kono saw a warjunk.”

Kono nodded. “Did indeed. Raidin’ the Mele tribe.”

“Far from where I sent you.” Hapua glowered at his student.

“Um. Yeah,” Kono said.

“That was my fault,” Hepthys said. She stood up straight in the face of the chief’s and the elder’s scrutiny. “We sighted the warjunk, but it had something of mine. I persuaded Kono to follow it, and in so doing we found where it was headed.”

Hapua hmphed again.

“Good,” the chief said. She then spoke over her shoulder at her son. “Ali’kai, send the messengers. And send scouts to Mele.”

“Yes, Mama,” he said, and sprinted out of the room. Hepthys marveled at the young man’s speed. She turned, catching Kono watching Ali’kai in much the same way Hepthys would watch Shabunet.

“Kono, get this girl something to eat. She’s tiny,” the chief said.

“That’s our next stop,” Kono said.

"Good.” Chief Kuani swept the room with her gaze once more, nodded to herself and left.

“You heard the chief. You find someplace for your guest to sleep,” Hapua told Kono. “Then you and me gonna discuss what you did and didn’t learn while you supposed to be out thinkin’ ‘bout what you done.” Hapua paused. “Go on now!”

Hepthys offered him a bow, but she wasn’t sure he saw it, then followed Kono out the door. Ali’kai and two others were by the shore throwing sacks into three different boats. Others helped push them into the water, then the pilots dipped oar into water and rowed out past the sandbar. There was no calling, no waving. The faces were grim. Despite the sunlight, the glittering beaches, the verdant jungle, a funereal pall had descended.

“Where are they going?” Hepthys asked.

“Warn the nearest tribes. Then those tribes send boats to the nearest tribes. Soon, everybody know when a warjunk’s on the move.”

Hepthys nodded. Considering the general lack of technology, it was as good a solution as any. “Then what?”

“Then we get a council together. The nations bring war when they come down here. Make us bring it back.” Kono sighed. “Okay, sky-girl. Let’s get you a place to sleep. If I wasn’t a ma’hanu, you’d sleep in my place, but I’m up in the lodge with the others. You ain’t a ma’hanu, so you can’t stay. Sorry about that.”

“Why can’t we return to Mele?”

“We will. They gonna send ma’hanu and warriors, and drive off the warjunk, but it’s gonna take a bunch of tribes to do it. Meantime, we find somebody to put you up. Or I build you something.”

Kono’s promise that they would return to Mele made Hepthys feel the tiniest bit better. Her blood was jumping at the prospect of leaving this place and returning to her true quest. These people dealt with warjunks. They were frightened, but resolute. She couldn’t fault them for the fear; from what little Hepthys seen, the single ship had been enough to sack an entire village. They were also kind and welcoming, people who had every reason to distrust outsiders had welcomed her into the village as a guest.

The warjunk was out there, and there was nothing to stop it from following the same currents she and Kono had. She had only been in Kamo’loa a short time, but the thought of the warjunk arriving here already broke her heart.