The grandmother was now clucking over Lakeo, Dak was grabbing his gear, and Yanko realized the shadowy figure was talking to him.
“Yes... sir.” He couldn’t guess at what the man’s title or status would be and winced at what was an inappropriate honorific. “I’m Yanko.”
“Clan name?”
Yanko hesitated. The man hadn’t shared his name yet, and if he was from the Great Land, he might recognize the significance—or lack of significance—of Yanko’s. Still, the manners that had been ingrained in him demanded he answer an elder.
“White Fox.”
“Oh? Huh. I’d expected... or assumed you would be from a more distinguished family. And older,” he tacked on as if he had realized his other words had been insulting. “I’m Mee Nar Silver Star. Or I was before I retired and moved here. Over there actually.” He waved up the beach in the opposite direction from town.
“Yes, he’s been spying on the house for some twenty years, I understand,” Dak said, giving Mee Nar his squinty-eyed glare. “I wonder how long it was after you heard we were coming that you waited before showing up here. Five minutes? Two?”
“Spy? I’ve merely been enjoying the climate,” Mee Nar said blandly. “Being married. Having children. Hardly the activities of a spy. I’m certain you’re far more aware of what that lifestyle entails than I am.”
Yanko kept his mouth shut and did his best to filter out the conversation Lakeo and the grandmother were having—which, yes, had to do with not eating enough food—so he could listen to this one. They were being good enough to speak in Nurian. Maybe he would finally find out what the rest of Dak’s name was and what mission he was on.
“I doubt it,” Dak said, then turned his back on Mee Nar and spoke to the grandmother in Kyattese again.
She pointed toward the front door.
“This way.” Dak gripped Yanko’s shoulder and prodded him toward the steps.
Yanko almost balked, wanting to hear more from this Nurian, even if he had been somewhat insulting. It wasn’t as if Yanko wasn’t used to that. But Dak’s prodding turned more determined, and Yanko would have had to fight to escape—and he would lose any fight with Dak. He didn’t want strangers to see him carried across the threshold over his bodyguard’s shoulder, so he went along meekly.
He did manage a glance back at Mee Nar and caught more of his face this time. His hair was far more gray than black, and he had a potbelly. Not the image Yanko had in mind for a spy, but then neither was Dak.
The scents of roasting pork and pineapple teased Yanko’s nose as soon as they made it into the house’s open great room, and his stomach gurgled, reminding him that he had not eaten since breakfast, and that had only been a couple of rock-hard biscuits from the ship.
Before his nose could lead him to the source of the food, an ear-splitting squawk came from the left of the door. A large red and blue parrot perching on a coat tree peered at Yanko and Dak.
“Jorrats, jorrats!” the bird announced, then followed it up with a stream of Kyattese words Yanko did not recognize.
Dak sighed.
“That’s a racial slur, isn’t it?” Yanko asked, stopping to return the bird’s stare. “Against Turgonians? It’s the Kyattese word for ape, isn’t it?”
Dak opened his mouth to respond, but the parrot spoke again. “Puntak, puntak!”
“Oh,” Yanko said. “I know that one.” Another racial label, it referred to Nurian slitted eyes. Yanko scratched his head, trying to imagine the old grandmother outside teaching the bird such words.
“Yes,” Dak said, “it’s particularly fond of me. The story I got is that Mela’s father was very against his granddaughter marrying a Turgonian and had a lot of impolite things to say about anyone who wasn’t Kyattese. And a lot of Kyattese too. This was his bird.”
“So, he passed on, but the parrot didn’t?” Yanko shared a soothing feeling with the bird. It was a male that was prancing around on its perch, an agitated ruffle to his feathers.
“Ten years ago. The family keeps leaving the doors and windows open, hoping the bird will return to the wild, but it was with the old man for thirty years. It seems content to continue living here.” Dak waved to a dining room as large as the great room. “You can sit at the table. The family has eaten, but Mela said she’ll bring us something. She’ll insist on it. Vehemently, if not violently.”
“You know these people.” Yanko headed for the table, not about to argue with food.
The bird had calmed down—and stopped calling them names.
“I’ve passed through Kyatt a couple of times,” Dak said.
“Isn’t it dangerous to bring us here then? What if our presence causes trouble for this family?” This family that was related to the Turgonian president’s family. All Yanko needed was for something to befall them because of him. Then he would have Turgonians hunting him, as well as Nurians.
“The twins have warded the grounds around the house and are capable of defending themselves from mages.”
The twins? The two teenagers on the porch? “They’re younger than I am. You’re going to pit them against mages and assassins? Don’t forget the mage hunter.”
“They’re precocious. This won’t be their first battle, and I’ll be around. But my understanding of the household’s defenses is that they should be intimidating enough to convince a wizard not to step foot on the property.”
“I didn’t notice anything when we were driving in.”
“I don’t think they were active. Or maybe it was because we came in the family’s runabout. I don’t pretend to understand magic that well.”
Lakeo and the grandmother—Mela, presumably—walked inside. The twins jogged after her, but only waved before charging for stairs at the back of the great room. They almost knocked over a blond man in his twenties, but grabbed his arm and swept him upstairs with them, a whirlwind collecting all in its path.
“They’re excited to plan upgrades to their defenses,” Mela said, speaking in Nurian this time, even as she propelled Lakeo toward a chair. “Sit, sit. There’s plenty of food left. Dak, you sit too. Too skinny.” She pinched his side again on her way back, clucked, and gave Lakeo a wink that startled Yanko.
Not sure how to interpret that, Yanko merely sat in one of the chairs.
“Do you want help—” Dak started to ask, but Mela hushed him to silence and disappeared into the kitchen.
“The, ah, neighbor isn’t invited to dinner?” Yanko asked.
“No,” Dak said, his glare quelling.
Yanko shrugged easily, but he was thinking that he might like to talk to this neighbor. Especially if Dak didn’t want him to. If Mee Nar had been living here as long as he had implied, might he have ferreted out some of the Kyattese people’s secrets? Maybe Yanko could sneak out of the house later and try to find him. Of course, he would have to get more details as to the “defenses” the twins were developing. And whose twins they were, for that matter. He had yet to see anyone of the age to be parents of teenagers. More important, dare he try to confide in them? If they were his age, they might be willing to have some secrets from the adults, a conspiracy of youth. But would they know Nurian? The grandmother spoke it wonderfully, as had that librarian. Maybe it was taught in the schools here.
“Here we are,” Mela said, carrying a tray almost as wide as she was tall into the dining room at the same time as Akstyr entered through a back door, toting an armload of books, which he plopped down on one end of the table.
“You live here?” Lakeo asked him.
“Until I am paying for a dwelling for me.” Akstyr gave a wistful look toward the stairs.
Mela set the tray down, jostling his arm in the process, and narrowing her eyes at him briefly before unloading plates and silverware and inviting them all to enjoy the food.
Yanko stood up and pressed his hands together for a bow. “Thank you, Honored Host. We appreciate your offering.”
Mela paused and blinked a few times at him. “You’re welcome, young man. Akstyr
, that discussion we had on manners? This was it.” She pointed at Yanko, then headed into the kitchen.
Akstyr called something after her in Kyattese. If Yanko had to guess, he would translate it as Akstyr was pretending not to have understood.
After she left, Akstyr grabbed a chunk of pork off the platter, not bothering to take a plate, and flung open one of his books. But he only eyed the pages for a moment before glancing at the kitchen door and sighing. “She thinks I be too old.”
“To learn manners?” Yanko suggested.
“For the girl?” Lakeo guessed.
Akstyr looked toward the stairs again and said, “Koanani,” this time with a longer sigh.
“I thought you were on the hunt for Nurian women.”
“Only because Koanani is... does not... Mela said... It’s not wrong. I am nineteen. She is sixteen. And she is—” Akstyr lifted his hands in the air as if he might outline her attributes, but he caught Dak glaring at him and let them drop down again. “Mature. And sweet. And beautiful. Shiny. Voracious.”
“We need to work on your Nurian adjectives,” Lakeo said.
Yanko wasn’t that concerned about Akstyr’s female problems—even if he could empathize completely. He dug into the barbecued pork, pineapple rings, and a number of vegetables he did not recognize. Local varieties, presumably. Slathered in a savory white sauce, they were delicious, but he barely noticed the food after the first few bites. His mind was on the neighbor again and how to run out and find him. If he waited until everyone in the house went to bed, Mee Nar might be back in his home and in bed, as well.
The parrot squawked and started chanting a single word over and over.
Yanko touched his mind, trying to get a sense for what he wanted, but the answer soon came when the kitchen door opened, and Mela walked out, a small basket of chips in hand. Thanks to the bird, Yanko now knew the word for taro chips. He smiled, faintly amused at the idea of a parrot being his tutor. But as the bird chomped on its treat, a new idea jumped into his head. What if the bird could deliver a message for him?
It had to know the neighbor, especially if he came around often. Yanko wished he had gotten a better look at the man. He tried to share what he remembered with the parrot.
“Puntak, puntak,” the bird said, bits of chips falling from its mouth.
“No, it’s Nurian, Nurian,” Mela said in a soothing but slightly mortified tone.
Trying to unlearn a bird of thirty years of racist terms could not be easy. In this case, Yanko found the outburst heartening. The parrot had understood him. As soon as Mela finished feeding it chips, he shared further thoughts, trying to suggest that more chips would be available if the bird flew out, found Mee Nar, and repeated, “Yanko wants to talk,” a few times.
At the promise of more chips, the parrot flexed his wings and ruffled his feathers enthusiastically. He wanted to open his mouth and practice his new line, but Yanko urged him to wait until he got outside. The door Akstyr had come through was still open, the warm salty breeze whispering into the house, and Yanko pointed this out to his new ally.
“No, it’s Nurian,” the parrot said and flew off the coat tree and out the door.
“Oh, it sticks this time?” Akstyr lifted his head. “Much shame. I love that beak.” He grinned devilishly and said something else in Kyattese.
“Even when it’s calling you an ape?” Dak asked.
“Yes. It is funny.”
Yanko tracked the bird’s progress as it flew toward the coast, heading farther from town, in the direction Mee Nar had indicated. Then he caught Akstyr giving him a funny look and let the connection go. Maybe Akstyr sensed him using the mental sciences.
Lakeo yawned. “So, we’re sleeping here tonight? And hoping Yanko’s new friends don’t come to visit?”
Dak nodded. “Yes. Mela will have rooms for everyone.” Dishes were clattering in the kitchen.
“It’s nice of her to house us when we’re strangers.” To Yanko’s relief, Akstyr turned his attention back to his books.
“Some of us are strangers.” Lakeo glanced at Dak.
Dak was finishing his second helping of dinner and did not comment.
“I’m tired, as well,” Yanko said. “Perhaps I’ll go help Mela with the dishes and ask about a room.” Preferably one on the first floor with a wide window ideal for sneaking out.
As he stood up, heavy footsteps thundered on the staircase. The twins—nobody had given Yanko the boy’s name yet—raced down, taking three steps at a time. The blond man followed, as well as a young girl of twelve of thirteen. Some new recruit from the family?
Yanko thought they might be passing through, on the way to pilfer snacks from the kitchen, but they took over the end of the table, the girl with a box full of wooden cat figurines and the boy with a map of the property, which he spread out for everyone to see. Dak propped his chin on his hand and watched without commenting as the girl plunked down large black panthers to pin the corners. Akstyr kept reading his book as he pretended not to notice the twins’ arrival. Or perhaps the girl’s arrival.
“We’ve placed alert alarms at the four corners of the property,” she said in Nurian, waving to the panthers.
“Actually at the seven corners,” the boy corrected. “Our ancestors were not geometry zealots. The original property boundaries meander.”
“Can you tell us who the intruders are likely to be?” The girl held up smaller cats—bobcats?—and smiled brightly at Yanko. “Are they other practitioners? Fire mages? Or maybe pirates? I heard there were pirates over in the southern keys lately. We’re ready for them. In addition to the alarms, we have proximity stun mines, smoke bombs, trip wires, and those pokey things Father gave us for the tree house.” She looked at her brother.
“Caltrops,” he supplied.
“Yes, it’s a mix of Made devices and mundane Turgonian armament. Grammy doesn’t approve, but we knew this day would come.” If her eyes grew any brighter, beams would shoot out of them.
“I’m Yanko,” he said, feeling behind on the conversation. What exactly had Dak told the family when he had talked to Mela through the communication orb? “Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Koanani. This is my brother, Agarik. We may be young, but this isn’t our first time defending a camp.”
“Granted, it’s slightly larger than our camp on the Mezormosha Islands,” Agarik murmured, more soft-spoken and maybe shier than the girl.
“Yes, I can see that.” Yanko nodded at the map, amazed at the size of the property, especially if he was reading the legend correctly and understood the distance involved. It stretched from the ocean all the way to the base of the volcano and extended a good ten miles north and south. Yanko’s family had that much property, but that was in remote mountains, not in the center of a bustling destination island where land had to sell at a premium. “Is that road the only way on and off the property?”
“If you’re coming in a vehicle, yes,” Koanani said, “but if you’re walking, there aren’t too many places where the brush is too thick to cross, but that’s why our alarms are line-of-sight, strategically placed all around the border. They’ve been there for ages, and actually Father helped put all of this in, but we’ve never gotten to use it. Until now.”
“I’ve never seen anyone sound so happy that their home is about to be attacked,” Lakeo remarked.
“She’s an odd girl,” Agarik said. “You’ll get used to it.”
Without losing her smile, Koanani elbowed him. “This is going to be fantastic. I was disappointed to be stuck here in school, while Mahliki has all the fun, but this will make up for it. Yanko, will it be more than one practitioner? We need more intel, please.”
Yanko looked at Dak, still feeling helpless. Were the teenagers truly planning the defensive campaign for the homestead?
Dak spread his hand. “I’m only visiting. They’re in charge here.”
“I... am hoping no one comes to bother you at all,” Yanko told the twins, “but there’s a wa
rrior mage and a mage hunter after me. At the least. There could be more powerful people. The mage is the only one I’ve met.” He touched his temple to imply met was not quite the word.
“A telepath? Oh. We could talk to him.” Koanani smiled at her brother.
“I wouldn’t,” Yanko said. “He wasn’t witty or charming.”
“Enemy mages so rarely are. He can’t be any worse than that shaman who was in charge of selecting his people’s ritual sacrifices, though. All right,” Koanani went on, barely pausing to take breaths. “We’ll assume they’ll come from the direction of the port.” She plunked a couple of bobcats down on the road.
Mela came out with ramekins full of a creamy dessert that smelled of coconuts. She shook her head at the cat-covered map but did not comment on the fact that her grandchildren were making war plans.
Chips! cried a voice in Yanko’s head.
He nearly fell out of his chair. “Sorry, scratch,” he muttered and rubbed his back, since the twins were looking at him. Even Akstyr had raised his head from his book. Yanko had not expected the parrot to speak into his mind—he had never met an animal, reptile, or bird that could do more than receive. Had it parroted his telepathic link, the same way it parroted people’s words? Someday, he would have to find an animal-sciences specialist and ask about such developments.
Chips? This time the word came with the thought of Mee Nar walking along the coast. Toward the Komitopis house, Yanko hoped, though he had no idea how he was going to slip out to talk to the man, not when he was being grilled for intelligence.
“That’s about all I can tell you,” Yanko said, feigning another yawn. When Koanani’s smile faltered, he felt guilty about his deception, but if he learned what he needed to know from the neighbor, he could leave without endangering the family. Just because the kids wanted a battle did not mean he should hurl one at their porch. “I’m still hoping they won’t come at all. Honored Host, might you have a place where my friend and I can sleep?” He waved at Lakeo, trusting that Dak could arrange his own lodgings. It would be good not to have to share a cabin with him anymore. He didn’t snore, but he was big, and when there were only two hammocks in a room the size of a closet, one didn’t get a lot of sleep.