Search: A Novel of Forbidden History (21 page)

The knotpoint he marked set the position on the open sea, beyond sight of any land, for a wayfinder to change heading from one particular star to the next. The second star was made easily identifiable as it rose above a horizon board, provided that board was held away from the eyes the particular distance set by the red knot in its wayfinder cord.

To sail from the quarries to this outpost, a wayfinder required a single horizon board, three different cords with a series of precisely measured and colored knots, and knowledge of only eighteen stars. To sail between all the local islands, and to the nearest great land, required knowledge of fewer than two hundred stars.

But to know the star paths between all twelve outposts and home—that is, to be able to sail anywhere around the world in any season—required knowledge of more than twenty-four hundred stars, plus the signs of the sea, of the clouds, and of the winds. Those who held that knowledge were star path masters, a rank to which Mordcai had dedicated himself five years ago, and a rank he might achieve in another five years of study. He’d be twenty then, and would spend his final few years traveling the world, looking for changes in the star paths, so that others might learn after him.

Adma used bright red plaster to fill in the hole she had made in the wall map.
Then Mordcai used slender fishbone needles to position a length of fine twine along the properly calculated arc between the previous knotpoint and this new one, in order to guide the route-marking he would etch and color.

As he brought his flint scribing tool to the wall, the ground shook.

Lisafina gasped, and a ribbon of flame trailed from the open lamp she carried and now spilled.

Adma looked at her fellow student with disapproval. “It’s just the Earth growing.”

Mordcai smiled. “Not quite, little one. The Earth’s size hasn’t changed in all the years it’s been measured.”

“At the equinox!” Adma exclaimed.

Mordcai nodded. It was common practice at an equinox to measure the size of shadows cast by perpendicular rods set at different known distances from the world’s central circle. At the same time, young students were often tasked to demonstrate simple geometry. By using the differences among those measurements, they were able to calculate the circumference of the world.

Adma was proud to recite her knowledge. “But the land changes!”

“The land changes,” Mordcai agreed. “So do the seas.”

“But slowly!”

“Usually.” Mordcai noted Lisafina’s skeptical expression and chose to elaborate on his qualification. “I’ve been on mountains far inland and high above any sea, where I’ve found shells and the skeletons of fish. Such a thing would only be possible if, in time past, the tops of those mountains were underwater. So parts of the Earth do grow, but not the Earth itself.”

Lisafina flicked her eyes at him in disbelief. So Mordcai turned that disbelief into a lesson as well.

“You’re right to doubt the word of any one person, Lisafina. But I’m not the only one to have seen the shells and skeletons. And the more people who see something, the more times a thing is seen, then the more likely it is to be true.”

The young girl remained resistant to the unfamiliar, a trait of the
ahkwila
, Mordcai knew. “I haven’t seen anything like that.”

“It’s not possible for anyone to see everything.” The apprentice master tapped the gold sheet, finely textured with the intricate glyphs of star paths. “That’s why it’s everyone’s duty to record what’s seen, so it can be shared with others and added to. That’s how we learn.”

The ground shook again.

Lisafina’s doubt changed to worry. “We should go outside.”

Adma objected. “We haven’t finished marking the path.”

“We can finish it later!”

Mordcai shook his head. Adma was right. Once begun, a task had to be finished. However, before he could devise a lesson about duty to impart this concept to Lisafina, he heard running footsteps in the corridor leading to the hall.

It was Qiamaro, a young
ahkwila
apprentice to the builders, his face glistening with sweat from working outdoors, breathless from running and from fear. “The wall has fallen! Master Balihann . . .”

He could say no more. He didn’t have to.

In the central courtyard, the sudden movement of the ground had brought down an unfinished wall and its scaffolding. Dust still hung in the air.

It was true that Architect Master Balihann was dead. Mordecai could see a well-muscled leg and arm emerging from the tangle of wooden scaffolding that surrounded a fallen stone block, as a nest surrounds an egg. Thick blood pooled around what was visible of the body. As a group of
khai
watched, a group of
ahkwila
builders worked frantically to position a makeshift lever to move the stone block.

Adma, at Mordcai’s side, was fascinated, and as her teacher, Mordcai made use of that.

“See the wound on the body’s leg?” Mordcai pointed to where a splinter of stark white bone had punched out through the outer thigh. It seemed his good friend had been standing upright and died instantly when the block had crushed him, driving straight down onto his head.

“Where the bone is?” Adma asked.

“Correct. What does the nature of the blood there tell us?”

Adma stared at the wound and the bone and the blood, her young face contorted in concentration.

Mordcai gave her a hint. “Is the wound still bleeding?”

“No . . .” Then she had it. “That means the heart’s stopped!”

“So . . . ?”

“So he’s dead, and there’s no hurry to remove the stone!”

“Very good.”

Adma smiled up at Mordcai; then both looked over to the scene of the accident as they heard Lisafina wail.

The workers were removing two other bodies from the rubble, both
ahkwila.

“I think that one was her father,” Adma said.

“It was.”

“Should we finish the map?”

“We should,” Mordcai agreed, but he stopped Adma from going to get Lisafina. “She won’t be finishing it with us. Not today.”

Adma looked at him in puzzlement.

“It’s not their way,” Mordcai said.

That night, Mordcai and the other
khai
disposed of Balihann’s remains by fire, to prevent the spread of disease. Afterward, since the necessary business of elevating an
apprentice to replace the master architect could not be finalized until the rubble of the fallen wall had been cleared, Mordcai went to the workers’ camp near the beach. The public health traditions the
ahkwila
followed were, as always, a mystery.

By firelight, the elder women of the workers’ camp wept and sang as they cleansed the dead men. Mordcai saw younger women preparing long strips of cloth with which to wrap the bodies—cloth they wouldn’t use for clothing but would waste on the dressing of a valueless corpse. At the same time, the men of the camp struck rhythmic, ritual poses around a large bonfire. Bellowing loudly, they were drinking large quantities of a liquid made from the root of the sava plant—not fermented, but potent all the same. Mordcai knew this behavior would last three days. There was no chance of the rubble being cleared until then.

Young Qiamaro had joined the men around the fire, but when he saw Mordcai, he left the others. A few moments later he offered Mordcai one of two half-coconut-shells filled with the sava drink. The apprentice master accepted it politely. He had seen how the drink was prepared—by groups of
ahkwila
males chewing the roots, then spitting them into a communal bowl. He had no intention of consuming the resulting liquid unless it had been boiled to eliminate particles of disease. It had not. Boiling apparently also eliminated the drink’s potency.

“It’s good you came,” Qiamaro said in the true language. He spoke as if his lips were numb, and laughed lightly when he failed to make the proper click. “I have something to ask you.”

“Of course.”

“I would like a set of wayfinder’s tools.” Qiamaro swayed on his feet, obviously relaxed, though his eyes remained sharp and clear in the firelight. “A horizon board . . . a set of knotted ropes . . .”

“You want to change your apprenticeship?” It was likely Qiamaro was too old to ever study long enough to be a star path master. Still, becoming a pilot or a local wayfinder was a possibility for him.

The young
ahkwila
surprised him.

“Not for me. For Natano.”

“Lisafina’s father. One of the dead.”

Qiamaro nodded and took a gulp from his coconut shell.

“Why?”

“To guide him.”

“The dead man.”

Another nod. “In the next life.”

Mordcai moved to correct the youth. “That’s not a known fact.”

The youth rolled his head from side to side, as if his muscles had lost the necessary tension to hold his head erect. “Not for your kind, maybe. But for us, no doubt.”

Mordcai regarded Qiamaro, curious. “Can you prove it?”

“Can you?”

“I don’t have to.”

Qiamaro swayed, almost toppled, caught his balance just in time. “You’re going to be surprised, then.”

Mordcai waited for enlightenment.

“When you die, and you find yourself with the gods.” Qiamaro laughed, spilled some of his drink, very cautiously balanced the shell again, and drank from it.

Mordcai reached out and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “There are no gods, Qiamaro. At least, none that have made themselves known in a consistent manner.”

The youth shook his head vigorously in denial and almost immediately looked as if he regretted the action. “Look around you, Master! Where did all this come from—the sea, the land”—he held up his shell—“the sava! If not from the gods?”

“I don’t know,” Mordcai said simply.

“Don’t you want to know?”

“Wanting to know a fact is not an excuse to make one up.”

Qiamaro shrugged, uncomprehending. “Can I have the wayfinder’s tools?”

“For Natano, the dead man.”

Qiamaro nodded.

“All right. I’ll find a set,” Mordcai said.

The young
ahkwila
smiled his thanks, then half stumbled against the much taller apprentice master. “Now when you die, Master, Natano will be there with his tools to help guide you to the gods, too.”

Mordcai sighed. How could the
ahkwila
see the same world the
khai
saw, yet still not understand it?

He tried once again to make the youth see reason.

“Qiamaro, listen: Each time you drink the sava, it has this effect on you. Each time your fellow workers drink it, the same thing. That makes the effect of the sava a known fact. But your gods . . . beings that see us but we can’t see them . . . beings that we go to when we die . . . Do you not see that being dead means to never exchange information with anyone ever again, that—to our knowledge—what happens after death can then never be known?”

Qiamaro only stared at him as if his words held no meaning and never would.

Mordcai threw up his hands in frustration. “There’s no reason to accept that gods exist until you can prove they exist. I ask you again, Qiamaro. Can you do that?”

Then the ground moved again. And again. And the first blast of incandescent lava shot up from the central peak of Nan Moar, sending red light flashing across the island and up against the sudden black cloud of scalding gas and smoke.

Mordcai and Qiamaro,
khai
and
ahkwila
both, stared up at the tower of flame and destruction.