Abdo kicked me under the table. I’m teaching you Porphyrian!
Of course you are, I said, but I need all the help I can get.
Abdo crossed his arms and glared at me. Ingar, oblivious to the tension between his tablemates, said: “Let me guess: you gender only the most obvious nouns correctly, you confuse the dative with the ablative, and you are completely thrown by the optative.”
Abdo’s mouth fell open. It’s like he knows you! he cried, and then he was speaking in Ingar’s head, where I couldn’t hear. Ingar smiled benignly, occasionally answering aloud in Porphyrian. I could follow much of what he said; I was a good listener, if nothing else, and my vivid imagination helped fill the gaps in my comprehension.
Ingar’s enthusiasm began to curdle, however. His eyes dulled and his speech slowed and slurred. Alarmed, I glanced at Abdo, only to see him staring in rapt fascination at a spot just above Ingar’s head.
Ye gods, said Abdo. She’s pouring into his mind right now, filling him up like a jug. A big, empty jug.
I pushed back from the table reflexively. Ingar’s eyes unfocused and a docile smile rippled across his fleshy lips. I waited, tensed like a hare, but Ingar only blinked vaguely. What’s she doing? I asked Abdo. Is she not here to speak to me?
Abdo frowned. Not everything she does is about you. She’s been visiting Ingar for years. They must have their own things to talk about.
Ingar’s head drifted a little to one side, like butter melting in a pan. He sighed.
Abdo and I helped Ingar to his feet, draping his heavy arms across our shoulders. Our mismatched heights meant we propped Ingar at an angle; his head lolled downhill, toward Abdo. The sailors grinned knowingly as we passed, as if we were helping our drunken comrade to bed.
Ten days later, Porphyry finally came into view, gleaming like a pearl. The city had been built into two enormous bowl-shaped depressions in the side of a double-peaked mountain. The twin branches of the river Omiga rushed out from behind it, plunging to the sea in a series of cataracts on the west side and a single, terrifying fall to the east. As our ship passed the lighthouses and entered the harbor, I began to see dark columnar trees sticking up like fingers from private gardens. Gilded statuary glinted atop the alabaster domes of temples; colonnades and porticoes, built from the purplish marble that gave the city its name, cast dramatic shadows in the afternoon sun. The city climbed vertically, terraced like the seats of an amphitheater, the eyes of the buildings fixed upon some captivating nautical comedy in the harbor below.
At least I hoped we were a comedy. That seemed preferable to the alternative.
Porphyry was not, strictly speaking, part of the Southlands, and Porphyrians would have been insulted by the suggestion. Abdo had told me more than once that his people considered Ninys, Samsam, and Goredd a backwater. Porphyry was the southernmost city-state in a vast trading network that extended to the far north and across the western ocean to countries we’d only heard the vaguest rumor of: Ziziba, Fior, Tagi.
Porphyry’s twelve founding families—the Agogoi—had settled at the mouth of the Omiga River more than a thousand years ago, believing it a strategic position for controlling trade with the Southlands. They weren’t wrong, exactly, but it took a few centuries before the Southlands were fit to trade with.
The Southlands in those days comprised dozens of chieftaincies, warring with each other and preyed upon by the dragons from the northern mountains. Eight hundred years ago, the legendary Queen Belondweg united Goredd under one banner and drove the dragons back for the first time. It didn’t last; the dragons returned in force in the Great Wave.
That conflict ended with the Age of Saints, six hundred years ago, when Saints walked the Southlands and taught us to fight dragons more effectively. There followed a two-hundred-year lull, the Peace of St. Ogdo, during which Ninys and Samsam were established. The dragons, however, were only biding their time.
The last four centuries had cycled surges and restorations, war and incomplete peace. Comonot’s Treaty had brought the first real peace since St. Ogdo’s.
All that time, the Porphyrians had watched and waited, apart from our turmoil. They’d made peace with the dragons as soon as they’d landed and could not fathom why we did not do likewise—or why we had not sensibly settled somewhere dragons didn’t care to hunt. The Porphyrians traded intermittently with the chaotic south and more steadily with the distant north and west, and while this hadn’t made them wildly wealthy, they’d lived comfortably enough to dabble in philosophy and scholarship and culture.
Only in the last forty years, with the stability of Comonot’s peace and the Southlands needing to rebuild, had Porphyry finally begun to see the trade its founders had hoped for. I’d seen Porphyrian merchants at Goreddi markets my entire life; many had settled in the Southlands to run that end of their import-export operations.
Porphyry’s ancient treaty with the Tanamoot meant that the city had a very different relationship with dragonkind. The community of exiles that Eskar had been courting, trying to persuade them to Comonot’s cause, could never have existed in Goredd. We liked our dragons transient and clearly marked with bells. Even Porphyrian attitudes toward ityasaari, if Abdo’s upbringing in the temple was any indication, spoke of a very different dragon-human dynamic. I was eager to see it in action.
Abdo was just plain eager. The moment his city had drifted into sight, he had climbed onto the capstan and bounced with uncontainable joy.
Movement in the sky caught my eye. Dark shapes swooped and dove over the mountains behind the city. They darted in and out of sight, possibly dozens, too swift to count or keep track of. I tapped Abdo’s shoulder and pointed. “Dragons!”
Abdo shaded his eyes with his good hand. Those will be our exiles. They’re permitted to fly at the four corners of the year, during our Games of the God and Goddess at the solstices and equinoxes.
“Don’t tell me we made it here by midsummer!” I cried. Somewhere in all my illness, I’d lost count of the days.
Ingar, with us at the prow, questioned a scurrying sailor. “Midsummer was five days ago, he says. This is the last day of the games.”
We’d reached Porphyry only five days after Kiggs and Glisselda had planned that we should, months ago, in the comfort of Castle Orison. We’d had enough mishaps and unexpected detours that I could hardly believe we’d been so timely.
I just hoped other things the Queen and prince hadn’t been able to plan for—the progress of the dragon civil war, and whether it would move south into Goredd—had not yet made our journey superfluous. I’d have to find the Goreddi embassy as soon as I could, contact the Queen, and learn what was happening.
Our ship put into the eastern harbor, at the cargo docks. I’d been shy about inflicting my Porphyrian on the crew, but as we waited for the gangway, I spoke to the young boatswain standing near us. “Have you the knowing for where we are able to find this desired thing, the Goreddi pigeon coop?”
The lad goggled at me.
What are you doing? asked Abdo, elbowing me with unnecessary severity.
I’m asking him where the Goreddi embassy is located, I said.
No, you’re not, said Abdo. Besides, I’m sure he doesn’t know. You may have stupid-foreigner license, but that can be stretched only so far.
Stupid-foreigner license? I asked.
Porphyrians expect you to speak badly and have the manners of a goat; we find it amusing when you do, and a little disappointing when you don’t. The sailors are subtly leaning closer, even now, to hear what absurd thing you’ll say next.
I glanced over my shoulder. An elderly sailor grinned toothlessly at me. Embarrassed, I turned back to the gangway, which was almost down.
“I do need to find the embassy,” I told Abdo. “And we should get you to the temple of Chakhon and this priest, Paulos Pende.”
Later, he said, looking ready to bolt off the ship as soon as he could. I want to go home first and rest.
Ever since he’d quit
the temple—for reasons he still hadn’t made clear to me—Abdo had lived with his aunt Naia, an accountant for a shipping firm. Her apartment was near the harbor market, in a neighborhood called Skondia. Abdo’s grandfather, who would’ve returned to Porphyry months ago, was to have informed Naia we were coming.
The harborside was full of sailors, stevedores, cargo cranes, crab pots, and fishwives; gulls aggressively darted around, stealing scraps. Abdo slipped through the churning crowd, as skilled and nimble as the gulls. He was hard to follow, not least because I didn’t know which way we were supposed to be going. I’d spot him beside a piled net, lose him, glimpse him near a guano-coated pylon, lose him again, and then see him materialize beside a musician playing some sort of miniature oud. We worked our way east, finally emerging into emptier, shadier, gently sloping streets lined with apartment blocks.
I had not been keeping track of Ingar, hoping maybe he’d trip over a fishing line and fall into the sea, but he’d doggedly kept up with us.
The bottom floor of Aunt Naia’s apartment building held stores and businesses; Abdo led Ingar and me to the stairs, wedged between a bustling tavern and a net-repair shop. A waft of cardamom tea and frying greeted us; a baby’s cry echoed down the stairwell. Neighbors, descending in the dimness, exclaimed happily at Abdo and stared at Ingar and me. His aunt’s flat was at the top, four floors up.
A short, rounded woman, dressed in a practical yellow tunic and trousers, answered Abdo’s knock. Her chin-length brown hair was divided into countless tiny twists tipped with blue and green ceramic beads. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched upon her nose; a stylus protruded from behind her ear. She beamed at the sight of Abdo and held out her arms to him.
Abdo burst into tears and collapsed against her bosom. She staggered back a step in surprise, then held firm, kissing his head, holding him tightly, waiting out the tears. “Sweet bean,” she muttered into his hair knots. “What’s this, then?”
Abdo dried his eyes and held up his left hand. He did not, in fact, need bandages anymore—the wound had healed—but he still kept it wrapped. Aunt Naia’s brow creased and she began speaking too rapidly for me to follow. Abdo tried to answer with hand signs—I’d seen him sign to his grandfather—but his injured hand hindered him.
Aunt Naia signed back. I wondered how long it would take Ingar, who watched intently, to work out this finger language.
“Forgive me,” said Naia suddenly, addressing Ingar and myself in simpler Porphyrian. “You are Abdo’s friends. Please come in. Guests are from the gods.”
Ingar, at least, knew how to answer: “A generous heart is the truest temple.”
Aunt Naia ushered us into the apartment’s main room, modestly furnished with a backless couch, a low table piled with ledger books, a charcoal brazier, and a number of small carpets and cushions. A square window with a view of the harbor let in the lingering evening light; curtains closed off the entrances to three other rooms.
Abdo plopped himself on the couch and extended his bandaged hand. Help me take this off, Phina madamina, he urged. And tell her what happened. I’m having trouble.
I sat beside him, unwrapping the bandages, and told Aunt Naia—with Ingar’s translation assistance—of our travels through the Southlands, how helpful Abdo had been, and of the attack that had led to this injury.
His hand lay inertly in my lap. “Show me, fig,” said Aunt Naia, kneeling.
Abdo swallowed hard and wiggled his thumb. He wiggled it again. His other fingers splayed rigidly, as immobile as sticks.
The next morning Abdo pleaded illness and stayed in bed; he slept on a folding mat in an alcove full of ledger books, a curtain pulled across the doorway. Naia, Ingar, and I tiptoed around, quietly breakfasting on fish and eggplant fritters brought up from a restaurant downstairs. Naia checked in to see if Abdo would eat, then came out of the alcove shaking her head sadly.
“He mourns his hand,” she said, rubbing her forehead with her thumb. “Let’s give him some time.”
I suspected it wasn’t just his hand. He’d also been depressed about Jannoula invading his mind, but he’d had to keep moving or he never would’ve gotten home. Now that he was home, the full weight of it had landed on him.
After breakfast, Naia was adamant that Ingar and I attend the public baths. “I know you Southlanders are afraid of your souls being sucked down the drain,” she said firmly, “but that’s a myth. It is good to be clean.”
Ingar seemed interested, which astonished me, considering that the hunch under his shirt was a pair of vestigial wings. My heart shrank from the prospect of revealing the scales on my arm and midriff to dozens—hundreds?—of strangers. I pleaded shyness fervently enough that I was off the hook for the morning, anyway. “I will take you this afternoon, at Old-Timers’ Hour,” said Naia decisively as she gathered her basket of bath things. She left Abdo a note and prodded Ingar out the door with one finger.
I left when they did, heading the opposite way per Naia’s directions—west through handcart traffic along the cobbled seawall road—in search of the Goreddi embassy and a thnik with which to contact Queen Glisselda. The sky arched overhead, outrageously clear and blue; the sun on the back of my woolen doublet grew hot. Everyone I passed—from the lowliest gull-baiting harbor urchin to the bearded, perfumed merchant checking his inventory off a list—was dressed sensibly for this weather in light, drapey fabrics. I removed my outer layer, but the linen shirt beneath was already drenched with sweat.
Naia was right that I needed a bath. I needed some lighter clothing as well.
Such was my exaggerated sense of Goreddi importance that I’d expected to find the embassy among the monumental marble-faced buildings around the city’s central square, the Zokalaa. After staring stupidly at the columned temples, the Vasilikon (a domed hall where the Assembly of Agogoi met), and the Grand Emporio (a busy covered market), I was forced to inflict my questionable Porphyrian on passersby. First I tried one of the couriers darting across the square like bees, but he wouldn’t stop for the likes of me. Then I tried a young mother with two trailing servants, one with an enormous shopping basket, the other carrying the baby. She smiled indulgently and directed me up a side street so steep it had steps and so narrow I could touch the whitewashed walls to either side. There was no traffic here except a man driving a donkey laden with copperware. I had to duck into a doorway to let him pass.
At last, upon a plain wooden door in a shadowy alcove, I saw the bronze plaque that read Embassy in both Porphyrian and Goreddi. The knocker was shaped like a rabbit, Pau-Henoa, the Goreddi trickster hero.
A Porphyrian doorman opened a tiny peephole at eye level, took my name, and shut the portal again. I waited, shading my eyes against the strengthening sun. He popped out at last, like the cuckoo of this particular clock, handed me a folded parchment envelope, and disappeared again.
I hesitated, considering whether I should knock again and ask to see the ambassador, but surely if he’d wanted to see me, I’d have been asked inside. Maybe he wasn’t even here, but petitioning for Goreddi interests at the Assembly of Agogoi.
I presumed that was how it worked. They had no royalty here in Porphyry.
I opened the envelope, and a thnik fell into my palm, gleaming dully, another sweetheart knot. I wouldn’t have to share with the ambassador after all; apparently Glisselda had sent word that I was to have my own. I walked downhill, back toward the harbor, looking for a private place where I could talk to my Queen, since I couldn’t just go back to Naia’s. Jannoula might listen in through Abdo.
The western docks cradled travel and pleasure vessels, and on the far west side, a breakwater extended nearly half a mile across the mouth of the harbor. At its end rose a lighthouse, the mate of a second beacon on the other side. I set out for the breakwater.
It was a popular place to walk; one could take in the sea air without the bustle and stink of fishing boats. Couples young and old enjoyed the cool breezes; carts selling eggplant fritters and sardines-
on-a-stick were set up at intervals, in case anyone had skipped breakfast. Most of the walkers wore gold circlets on their heads, meaning they were wealthy Agogoi. Servants sometimes followed a few steps behind, holding a sunshade or carrying a baby. Masters and servants alike watched me with a mixture of amusement and confusion. A foreign fool, pasty, overdressed, and sweating like a pig, made a quaint novelty this sunny morning.
The promenade split and circled the bottom of the lighthouse. The strollers turned around here but did not linger. Could one grow immune to the sight of sea meeting sky? The island of Laika, where the Porphyrians harbored their navy, slumbered to the southwest. Seabirds reeled giddily around it; when the wind was right, I could hear sea lions roaring, although I couldn’t distinguish them from the rocks. I sat upon a block of stone, warmed by the sun and not too guano-covered, and called home for the first time in weeks.
“Castle Orison. Identify yourself, if you please,” said a page boy.
“Seraphina Dom—” I began, but Glisselda was apparently standing right there.
“Phina!” she cried. “You made it to Porphyry. Everyone is well?”
I grinned at her enthusiasm. “Everyone is a lot of people to account for,” I said. “But yes, I’m well. Abdo …”
Was not well. My voice snagged on that.
“We got the message you sent through Lars,” she said. “It was clever of you to make sure Viridius knew what had happened. Lars seems to have been compromised.”
The breeze turned colder; a gull screamed. “What happened?” I said.
“Lars came to tell us your news,” she said. “Just as you’d expect. Big, loyal Lars, and Viridius with him, propped up on his canes. Lars told us you ran into trouble and lost your thnik, but you were on a ship to Porphyry now, and we could get a new think to you there. The whole time, Viridius was saying, ‘Yes, but, my dear, tell them about—’ But Lars kept talking over him. Finally Viridius got fed up and cried, ‘See here, the most important news is that Lars’s brother, Josef, has usurped—’