Beneath Ceaseless Skies #118 Read online

  When they sobered, Nhia hugged her knees and stared at Tau until Tau gusted a sigh that set sparks flying from the banked fire.

  “Perhaps I did suggest to Koro that it would be an excellent chance to document the rising of the first Stone Moon in twelve storm seasons by traveling further to the south and west,” Tau explained.

  “And even if that had not made enough of an impression on Lau’maa, it would have given you the chance to show off your superior carving skills. You would gain your very own vessel, even if you were not chosen from the five keel-women candidates.” Nhia’s teeth glinted gold in the firelight.

  Now it was Tau’s opportunity to snort. “Superior? Hardly.”

  Nhia paused, as if marshalling another of her peuru-sting retorts, but instead she lowered her voice and said, “Your oka is very beautiful. You gave a whole new life and meaning to that wiro-leaf trunk. You must chant me a cadence of its carving some time soon.”

  A whisper of impending death raised a ripple on Tau’s skin. She fumbled for another dismissal but finally mumbled her thanks.

  It was only after she had settled down in a sun-warmed, grass-lined sand hollow to silently track the path of stars did she ponder what had gone unsaid. Had Nhia guessed at Tau’s feelings, or had she accepted her effect on everyone as a given? Stone Maidens were allowed some arrogance, Tau thought; they had little choice in so many other things.

  The two of them played a game with quick glances, Nhia poking at the fire. Tau pondered whether she saw an invitation in the crinkle of Nhia’s eyes. But then it was gone as Nhia hummed a bawdy drinking song and looked away.

  Tau attacked her star carvings. Nhia, her Ia-sister, her friend, did not suffer pity gladly.

  * * *

  “You do not believe in the sacrifice.”

  Tau’s head jerked up as she snapped out of a light doze. She rubbed her eyes against the mid-afternoon glare off the water and tested her thoughts before her thick tongue got the best of her.

  Nhia paddled on, face impassive despite the sure-growing ache in her shoulders. Tau had seen her five year-old blood sister Mai’a with a better technique, but Nhia had insisted on learning something from the experience, even if it was about the formation of blisters.

  Tau washed the sleep fuzz from her mouth with a swill of fresh water from Nhia’s handmade gourd set to double as a gathering gift. “What makes you say that?”

  “You have not asked me to turn around and save myself,” Nhia replied, matter-of-fact. “It is traditional, you fathom.”

  “I fathom.” Tau splashed some ocean water on her hot face and looked off to the horizon, as if searching for the small atoll that would be their evening camp.

  The second day of their journey had been going well until that point. With only a little prompting, Nhia had helped Tau create her oka-building chant. Nhia’s sweet voice and her ability to choose just the right words made the felling, hollowing, and carving of the single wiro-leaf trunk over a span of two seasons sound quite the epic feat.

  Now she had gone and spoiled what had been a pleasant day on the water by bringing up politics.

  “Are you going to ask me turn around? To plead for my life, like all good keel-women are supposed to do?” Nhia stopped paddling and flashed a grin over her shoulder to take the salt-sting out of her words.

  Tau made a face and gestured at the paddle, though in truth she did not mind the slower pace Nhia’s efforts set. They were making excellent time and still had three days before the gathering began. Nhia set her face with a patient squint—another gesture eerily reminiscent of Lau’maa, though she was not a blood daughter of the chieftess—as she waited for Tau’s answer.

  “Then I must not be a good keel-woman.” Tau busied her eyes and hands by searching amongst the food sacks for a strap of dried eel.

  “On the contrary,” Nhia argued, dipping her paddle; the boat slipped through the water more or less smoothly. “You fathom the sea like no-one on Ia, and can chant the traveling cadence word-perfect. You can smell bad weather coming before I even see the clouds on the horizon. You paddle all day without complaint. And you are very pleasant company.”

  Tau snorted at the last as she handed over a hunk of eel. “The sun must be cooking your brains under all that hair,” she teased. “Perhaps you should put a hat on.”

  Nhia swotted away the favorite childhood insult like she would a salt-fly. “Answer the question.”

  Tau stretched eel skin from her teeth until it snapped. “I have forgotten.”

  Now it was Nhia’s turn to kah. “You are treating me like flotsam again, sister.” The emphasis on endearment was not entirely affectionate. “I see how you simply mouth the oldest of the cadences at island gatherings and flush red when the elders praise Ia’s exploits. I hear the words you substitute during Blood or Water or Stone tellings when you think no one notices.”

  Tau’s flushed, her cheeks and ears as hot as bad sunburn cut with salt crust.

  Nhia continued, “So you are not a traditionalist. That is fine by me. We can not let our future daughters and sisters drown beneath the tides of the future.”

  Tau choked on something between a cough and a laugh. “Storm-washed sky, what do you mean?”

  “Do you listen to anything your sisters talk about around the fires late at night?” Nhia kah’d, which became quick grunts as she pushed the oka forward by the power of her anger. “Or is your head forever up in the sky?”

  “The heat of the fire pit makes me sleepy,” Tau said cryptically, shading her eyes. Another oka had shimmered out of the haze ahead of them.

  Nhia sunk her paddle deeper in the water. Tau picked up the spare paddle and joined in the effort.

  “Then embers will be lost in the dark, and the ash will be scattered on cold ground,” Nhia replied just as cryptically between grunts.

  The other oka contained travelers heading for the gather: a Stone Maiden named Kai’Lei and her keel-woman Keke, from a closely grouped set of islands to sunsetward called Lai’Lei. Tau enjoyed the distraction of throwing chants back and forth between the boats. By the end of the day, five more okas had joined the procession. As sunset cast its wine-colored net, the travelers lashed their boats together and made the best of a night in the doldrums.

  Everyone shared the tasks all travelers had had drummed into them from the moment they could chant: someone brought out a large clay brazier, for cooking and cheer; another produced a seven-string luuk, fingering clever chants for each of the evening’s activities; someone else set up a fresh water still, weighting a polished piece of kiho fabric between a folding frame.

  Tau, as she erected their sleeping frame in their oka, stretching a large piece battered fabric to shape, bent a surreptitious whisper into Nhia’s ear. “There’s something strange about that keel-woman from Lai’Lei.”

  “Who, Keke?” Nhia had always been better with names. “Of course. He is a man.”

  Tau knocked her head on a post as she shot up straight. She rubbed her head and stared open mouthed. “Fathom that!”

  Nhia chuckled low in her throat as she gathered her spear, sighting down its length. “Has the wind swept your brains? You fathom what men look like.”

  “Koro is different. He is, well, old. He is one of us. I do not think of him as male.”

  Nhia rolled her wrap into a kawat around her hips and upper thighs before sliding into the water. Tau hitched up her own skirts and followed, squinting at the new sister-friend limned by the brazier he was setting.

  “But how do I chant in front of him?” Tau asked, stroking in place. “What is he doing as a keel-woman?”

  “How do you chant in front of your moon master?” Nhia sucked in air deeply, readying her lungs for a dive. “And I suspect he is more than just a keel-woman.”

  Tau stared at Nhia as the dying light swallowed her. It was not like her to sound so bitter. Refreshingly sarcastic yes, but never as twisted as a loka root. “What do you mean?”

  “Fathom, no? Have you
not seen they only carry the essentials in their oka? Their island must be seed-rich. He is Kai’Lei’s gathering gift.”

  Nhia dived to supply the repast, showing off by swimming deep and long, bursting from the water with a wriggling catch ensnared on her spear. The firelight glinted off her thick-as-night hair, and water ran rivulets along her nut-colored skin as she delivered each fish with a grinning flourish.

  Tau’s worrying became boredom as the night wore on. There were no rules about not making friends with the maidens—this was the way many inter-island trade and seed-partnerships were formed—but there was an intricate weave to the relationships that Tau struggled to fathom.

  Tau watched Keke across the brazier as they shared their travelers’ banquet gleaned from ocean and varying delicacies from each oka, including gourds of fermented wiro-fruit juice. She tried to make herself feel attracted to him. Male seed was often welcome in some of the more distant communities. She fuzzily tried to recall Lau’s words about men, remembering her fond tone. She still had not decided whether to go back with her gourd filled.

  Keke laughed at everyone’s stories and sang sweetly, performing a nice moon-welcome hand dance as the two Sisters shimmered toward each other.

  But Tau could not do it. His chest and shoulders were too wide, his hips too narrow, and he had the breasts of a man. He would not be a good handful, she mused with a little kah.

  At least he was as polite as Koro, keeping his genitals tucked behind a pretty hip wrap. She knew what to do with them, but she just could not work up the mental image of doing that with him. Every time she tried to put Keke in the picture, he kept turning into Nhia. Tau finally gave up, slugged back juice, and held out her shell for more.

  During the repast, Nhia’s face remained as stony as the impending moon, and her usually enthusiastic voice stayed silent.

  Let her sulk, Tau mused. Perhaps a little competition for the gathering altar will rattle her wits.

  With her mind tossed like a small storm-tossed oka by the wiro-juice, another thought gripped Tau which she struggled to throw off like a wet mantle: she did not want to go back to Ia alone.

  Blinking away the effects of the juice and firelight, she settled into her oka’s bow for her nightly observations, comforted by the gentle slap of water and the creak and scrape of hull.

  “Any sign, sky-gazer?” came a low voice, startling her once again with its strangeness. She eked out a smile as Keke clambered across rocking okas. He maintained a respectful distance.

  “Look there, on the sunrise horizon.” Tau pointed her sharpened naumu. “Do you see that faint glow?”

  Keke’s vigorous nod rocked the boats. “Yes! I have seen that the last few nights.”

  “It is she, preparing to sail our skies and stir the seas to rapid fecundity.” Tau had to look away and make another mark on her current slate.

  “Very poetic.”

  Tau cheeks warmed beneath the salt crust. Lau’maa laughed in her head and whispered that men were just the same as women. Koro smiled down from the Water Moon, his face as seamed as its shimmering surface.

  Keke continued, his voice entwining her thoughts. “Do you still believe that Ia fished the first Stone Moon from the ocean, seeding our waters with the bounty that we enjoy today?”

  “That is a strange thing to ask a gazer.” Tau chuckled. She made another mark on the inside of her hull, marking the position of a star as it winked into being.

  “You fathom so many of the older chants, and you have such a nice turn of phrase,” Keke replied. “You must make a good storyteller.”

  Tau grimaced. “I prefer to be as far as possible from fire-light on clear nights.”

  Keke’s chuckle demanded nothing. “So it seems.”

  Tau decided to take a dive. “Are you here to try and fathom me out? Find out something about Nhia?”

  Keke’s full laugh was as deep and booming as a coral roller. “Prickly as a peuru, and just as to the point. I like that. Yes, I fathom I am.”

  “She sings well.” Tau scratched absent-minded at the flaking salt crust on her skin.

  “I can hear that.” Keke’s chuckle kept moving with the tide.

  Tau paused, and then, prompted by the memory of the looks Nhia sent Keke’s way when he was not looking, she barreled on. “Nhia is fertile now.”

  Keke’s mouth snapped shut like an uglyfish out of water. Ah, so he did not smell the spiciness of the wiro-leaf she chewed and the peuru coming out in her skin, Tau thought. Perhaps Koro’s anecdotes had some merit—men were not as attuned to a woman’s ripeness.

  “Do not fret the knots that tie us all together under Ia’s soft gaze,” Tau assured him. “The others are not long off. Most of them will be ripe by the time the final selection of the gathering is made.”

  Keke was silent for a moment. Tau thought him restrained for not questioning who of the maidens she thought would not be ready in time.

  He finally looked up, his pretty dawn-green eyes lost beneath the tumble of sun lightened locks. His undemanding gaze unnerved her. “Do you ever wonder if the gathering is—”

  He broke off as he slipped over the side of his oka, barely making a sound as his skin met water. “Forgive me, sister-friend, I speak out of turn.”

  He finished with a kah, then pushed off in a smooth breast stroke.

  “Yes, I do often wonder,” Tau said, too softly for him to hear. “More and more, these days.”

  * * *

  A treasure-trove of wood littered the half moon bay, but this was no mere storm debris. The finely carved hulls of many oka knocked a symphonic counterpoint to the hush of waves, pierce of ululations, and hoarse wail of shell horns. Hands fluttered with the voices and breeze. Smoke from numerous cooking fires and ceremonial braziers promised scents of mystery and delight. Skin of brown, burnished gold, ebony and copper flashed against a myriad of colored wraps and lush greenery.

  The days of the gathering had been spectacle enough to warrant a hundred new chants, but the nights had truly been a wonder. As a keel-woman, Tau had little time to enjoy the pleasures of the evening. Any time left her after primping, oiling, dressing, accompanying, introducing and ego-stroking Nhia was given over to the Stone Moon.

  Having escaped the fourth evening banquet and dance, Tau watched the almost-moon’s sliver shiver on the horizon. Her nightly observations were an in-held breath, shared with like-minds. This close to moon-rise, many were torn between their duties to their sisters and their gazing; for this moment she had the beach to herself.

  The moment the moon breached its ocean womb—surely only two or three nights away, Tau had calculated by celestial angles—someone would die.

  “There you are.”

  A pair of legs as familiar as her coral-etched shins whisked out of the bushes. “The Blood Moon wanes. You should be getting your rest.”

  Nhia gave an inelegant snort and plopped to the sand with the ease of the long limbed, which Tau envied. “The activities in the next wari made it a little difficult to sing to the Stone Mother.”

  Tau choked off her chuckle. “If Kai’Lei is caught—”

  Nhia flipped a hand. “No need to dip your oar too deep. Kai’Lei has, shall we say, been going for many long walks. I suspect she might even be sleeping on the sunriseward beach some nights.”

  “Keke?”

  “He is a very popular person.”

  Tau grunted and dug her naumu into the wood, skewering a star into place with more force than its luminosity required.

  “He has eyes for you, you fathom?”

  Tau’s chin shot up and she stared at her sister-friend defiantly.

  “I can smell it on you,” Nhia said, the light from the kissing moons casting hard shadows across the usually pretty angles of her face. “You are close to your Moon. If you so wished, you could beget a welcome seed together.”

  Tau used the same shadows to hide her blush. Nhia’s own fertile scent had become hard to shake. Tau’s late-night gazing excursions we
re also an excuse to avoid the infused air of the snug-thatched wari they shared. She often caught herself bending her face close to Nhia’s hair as she weaved in flowers, tiny shells or beach beads, prettying her for her next test.

  Their closeness in fertility made Tau’s belly twinge, as if in sympathy or need. She had not decided which.

  Tau could not stop a shudder, and a mischievous smile drove a dark slash across the harsh planes of Nhia’s face. “Ah, the tide is coming in now. You do not desire him.”

  “Yes. No. I—” Tau heaved a great sigh and gently put down her shell and naumu. “You are leaning into the wrong wind, sister.”

  “Then tell me which way it blows.”

  Tau made a show of brushing sand off her newly carved shells, cutting a look at her sister-friend. Tonight, there was a layer of weariness tripping over wariness, an edge of fear along the usual knife edge of her teasing. Tau wondered if the irrelevancy of the tests imposed by the gathering elders were getting to Nhia.

  During each evening’s eliminations, the elders eyes slid off Nhia just a shade too fast. She had made it this far, and yet...

  No one liked to see the knife lifted the knife above someone they truly care for.

  Tau crossed her arms across breasts that protested the harsh treatment. “I do not deny he would be a worthy contributor of seed to Ia’s children. However, I—” She kah’d, unable finish the thought out loud.

  “You are too fertile of mind at this point in your life to carry a parasite,” Nhia finished.

  Tau could not help but laugh. “There is no need to put it so crudely!”

  “You get the drift.” Nhia’s teeth flashed blue white in the whispering dark.

  “Lau’maa will be disappointed if I do not return fecund.” Tau’s laughter drifted with the tide that crept on dark feet up the sand.

  “She will not.” The forcefulness of Nhia’s tone made Tau peer again at her sister-friend, noting the strain around her dancing eyes. “If you think that, then you fathom your mother not at all.”