Compis: Five Tribes (14 page)

Nikka picked up the bags she'd set down and dragged them over to the stone circle. It was not too large, but would have stood three or four others comfortably.

“Now, you are Compis, so I expect you will pick this up rather quickly. Close your eyes. No, release your bags dear, and hold out your hands, you'll need them free.”

Nikka did as she was told and waited for her next instructions.

“Now I always tell Initiates that the feeling is like trying to catch moving water. You can see it and hear it slipping beside you, but try to catch it and it's gone. Do you feel it?”

Nikka felt for whatever it was, but there was nothing she sensed. She took a deep breath and tried again, expanding her senses. She heard animals moving about in the copse of trees near to them and the water of the river rushed on her other side. She lost herself in that for a moment, until, very near the river, she felt a tug in the center of her body, as though the river was trying to lift her. She opened her eyes and gasped.

Flowing around them outside the circle, was a shimmering, pulsing light, coming up from the ground and towards the sky as high as she could see before disappearing. She reached out a hand to touch it, to catch it, as Jilli had mentioned, but it trickled through her fingers like water. It felt warm and comforting, however, so she held her hand there until Jilli interrupted.

“What in the name of Iam are you doing?” she asked, an impatient edge in her voice for the first time, “When I said it flowed like water it was a metaphor, to help you visualize it in your mind. You can't see it for real, dear.”

“You can't?” Nikka wondered, staring at the strange light. “It isn't a river of light flowing around us?”

“No of course not! The Praetra is in a realm that is impossible for the human eye to see. We only know where the Praete lines themselves are because they were marked and passed down for our use many many years ago.”

Nikka moved her hand with some reluctance and tried to ignore the Praete Line and its glorious beauty.

“If no one can see them, who found them in the first place?” she asked.

“You know, I don't have any idea of that. I'm sure some have wondered and there may even be a record of it in the great Library that the Divinaris care for, but no one has ever told
me
.”

Nikka sighed. “So now what do we do?”

“Well, this first time, as I said, you will need me. What you do, to travel using a Praete Line, is to imagine yourself in the flow of the water I mentioned earlier, and imagine it carrying you to your destination. In this case, I will be picturing a spot near to my home where there is another Praete Line. That is the other rule, you see. You can't go where a Praete Line doesn't exist.

“Once you have the trick of this, my dear, you'll be able to go anywhere you can picture, which is how we go back and forth to the Citadel. Even the Ignis can do it, because for some reason, they have always been able to work common magic.

“I never travel by wagon if I can help it. That is only for Initiates. Now take my hand and I will take one of your bags while you take the other. Close your eyes.”

Jilli closed her eyes, Nikka supposed, to concentrate on the
water
that she couldn't see with her own eyes. Nikka's eyes remained open, and she became disoriented when the pull she'd felt in her chest became a tug. She and Jilli moved faster than she thought possible, through a whirling and bubbling cauldron of light and power. They moved for mere moments it seemed, before they were in a completely different placed than they'd started.

Jilli opened her eyes.

“Ah yes, now where is my carriage?”

He'd made his way home through the Praete Line and was packing a bag with extra clothing when his sister raced up the stairs and bounded into his room.

“Zyan! Father showed me how to travel without the wagons, it was wondrous! I guess there is still some magic we can do-” Her voice cut off when she saw that he was filling a satchel with clothing, choosing his oldest and most ragged clothes.

“Zyan, are you packing? Where are you going? We've just arrived home.”

“Lea, I-” he stopped, sighing, and sat on the bed. “Father and I had a bit of a disagreement and he—I decided it might be best if I wasn't around here for a while.”

“This is about Nikka, isn't it?” Alea asked, grabbing her brother's hand. “You care for her, don't you?”

“Father is worried about the impropriety of Nikka staying here with the boy she dallied with during the gathering. He thinks our little romance, though temporary, might cause the other tribes to believe we are influencing her to join us.”

“Father doesn't think that!”

“Lea, he told me to make myself scarce, so that is what I'm doing.”

“Where are you going?” she asked again.

“Well, at first, I thought I'd stay with Alys and his family until Nikka left, but then I realized, I need to be away, far away, from here.”

“Why? Zyan, look at me! You and I have always told each other everything. Please, tell me, why do you need to be away?”

Zyander felt sick when he finally gathered the courage to look up and say to her, “I don't trust myself, Lea. I think about her all the time. I mean, I did before the Initiation ceremony. Now she's Compis and I told her myself that if she could choose our tribe she should run the other way. She will never choose our tribe. If she was here, for the whole of Astra Cida, I would be tempted to... I would want to... Well, let's just say Father would be justified in being worried.”

“Oh, Zyan, please don't leave. We can do magic together now and maybe find a way to save our tribe. Mother always wanted us to break free of this sickness, or so you've told me again and again.”

“It will be months before you're ready to do anything besides common spells, Lea. It takes years to learn the tribal spells. They're complicated and secretive. It's been three years since my Initiation and I've still barely learned a small part of what the Elders or even Father know. And even if we learned all of those things, we still have no powers to make the spells
work
.

“I'm going to help in the only way I know how. I'm going to Abira. I told Father I was going, as a joke. Yet now that I think about it, nowhere else besides the forgotten city might hold a clue to cure the illness that hundreds of years later is still holding our tribe in these heavy chains.

“Don't worry. I'm not going alone, I've already sent a message down to Alys. It will be out of the way, going to the new settlement to meet up with him, but we'll cut across the meadow and travel down The Elder Road until we catch up with the head of Napalin on its eastern side.”

“Let me come too,” she pleaded.

He shook his head.

“No, sister, you have work to do here. There are weeks and weeks of memorization awaiting you—not to mention your first meeting with the elders. Now, help me with this bag and we can go down to the library. I want to see if I can find any books on spell crafting.”

She followed him downstairs and they spent hours hunting through the dusty tomes in the library before giving up. Zyander took a couple of books to read in his spare time and went out to where Twitchfoot stamped with much impatience.

“Won't you say goodbye to Father? He should be back any minute from his talk with the elders.”

“No, we said our words hours ago. I have nothing else to say to the man who told me to ignore what I'm feeling, because politics are more important.”

“Zyan,” she said, but he cut her off with a hug.

“I love you, Lea,” he said and mounted his horse. “Wish me luck!”

“
Come, Twitchfoot, off we go.”

As the horse cantered off, he looked back and saw her, still standing near the stable door, hand raised in a goodbye.

Jilli waited while Nikka put her bags in the luggage stack of the carriage and when she had scrambled up into the seat next to her, feeling flushed and disarrayed after wrestling with the bags, she took a moment to study the woman. Jilli was impeccable, not a hair in the wrong place, not a lovely, glowing pearl askew. Her gown of pale blue flowed without a wrinkle from her icy white shoulders to her slipper covered feet. She flicked the reigns and the horse trotted forward.

“We are traveling to my house; it's only a few minutes away. I am without a mate, but I do have a housewoman, Agga, who has been with me for many years. You will have your own room, but it's not a large house, I don't need one. When I find it necessary to host parties, I make arrangements to use the meeting hall in town.

“Something will also have to be done about your food. We Aquis, and our servants, as well, eat mostly raw fish. I'll have them send over some of the Initiate's food for Agga to prepare. I'm sure she'll be able to make anything you need.

“If you want to write to your family and friends—doubtless you will—there is paper in the desk and Agga will deliver them. Sea Mothers are very deft with common magic. Some say they were made when a Praete Line opened up into the ocean.”

Thinking of letters made Nikka think of her family and her cousin. She wondered what they were doing now. In a few short weeks she would stay with them and then it would be on to the Terris and then, finally second to last, she would stay with the Ignis. She would be staying at
his
house. She would see him all the time. Nikka wished that he'd at least said goodbye.

Will he continue to press upon my mind like a stone?

They pulled up in front of a cottage made of black stone. It was two-floored with several windows looking out on the road they'd come in on. Jilli slipped from the carriage and waited for Nikka to grab her bags, then she led her around the right side of the house.

“I thought I'd bring you this way so you could fully appreciate the view,” she said.

Nikka dropped the bags and raced to the edge of a porch that was walled in by a wooden fence. Out in front of her, in a wide blue-green vista, was the ocean, tumbling and spraying. Nikka had never seen the ocean in her life, though she'd seen pictures in books.

“The books don't tell you how loud it is,” Nikka said. “Does it always crash so?”

“Yes, and for a few nights you might have trouble sleeping, but after a while, the waves will be a lullaby that sends you to sleep every night.”

Jilli, for the first time since Nikka met her, looked like more than a statue. Nikka could see the love in her face when she spoke of the sea.

“You built your house here, to overlook the sea?”

“It was some other family's home, but yes, they built it here because it looks out on the ocean. You'll understand if you become Aquis, but we can't be away from water for long. Some of us are for the ocean, and others are for streams, rivers, ponds or lakes. We must all be near water to feel happy.”

She turned away and opened the glass door into the house and Nikka hurried to get her bags and follow.

Jilli's house was the perfect size for her or for a small family. There was a living area that looked out on the porch and had a beautiful view of the ocean through glistening glass windows. The room was decorated in pastel blue and green, with navy accents. The chairs didn't seem particularly comfortable and the room was as cold as it was pretty. Nikka knew that she'd be looking in her bags for a sweater, the first chance she got.

They moved through an archway and entered the foyer of the house, which split off in three directions: the left side led to a dining room and the right side led to a door, the other option was towards the front door and it was a staircase.

“The kitchen and dining area are this way,” said Jilli, pointing to the left. “The necessary is down here, under the stairs, but the bath is up this way.” Nikka climbed the stairs with her bags dragging behind her at this point and stopped with every gesture of her hostess.

“This is my office and over here is the bath. There is running water, hot as you want it. This will be your room, and mine is at the end of the hall on this side, if you need anything.”

She opened the door and led Nikka into a small room with a bed, desk and tall bureau for her clothes. There was another of the large windows looking out onto the front yard where the long trees shaded the lane and there was not another house to be seen for miles and miles. With an ache, she once again felt loneliness invading her peace of mind.

“One more thing, my dear, and then I will leave you to get settled. You must come and meet Agga.”

They went back down the stairs and through the hall into the kitchen. It was a sunny little room with a small stove and an immaculate cooking and preparation area. There was a cold box in the corner, and a small table across from it, for casual dining. Standing at the counter, moving about bits of food that smelled suspiciously like raw meat, was a little woman. At least, that's how she appeared until she looked up.

“Agga, this is Nikka. She is a creature of some rarity among the Five Tribes. She will be staying with us for all of Polya Nimba, and if we're lucky, she will decide to stay among us, the Aquis, for good. Nikka, you can come to Agga for anything you need—food, drink, household things.”

Agga wore a kerchief that wrapped around her scalp as though it was meant to keep her head warm. She was bald, and her skin was soft and pink like a baby's except it was also wrinkly. It didn't fit right over her body. She had a round flat face with an even flatter nose and large black eyes that looked at Nikka with all the sadness in the world. At least, that was how it seemed, until she spoke, muttering, “So I have more work now in the form of this know-nothing girl with Iam's light all over her like honey. Fetch and carry, Agga, it's all you're good for.”

Nikka looked at Jilli, who laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “Now, now, Agga,” she scolded, “be nice to Nikka.”

Agga wore many layers of clothing, shirts and sweaters and a long dress and the ugliest thick woolen socks Nikka had ever seen. She had short stubby fingers that seemed to be constantly pulling at the enormous apron she wore.