The Dukes of Odwego finds Astra (secret necromancer, former nun, and displaced librarian of Qordashi) drifting ever farther from the life she knew and deeper into a world she never expected to see. The powerful, winding Hoshikwazu river leads her, her ailing best friend Traz, and the ever-enigmatic Xavai to a city that glitters with wealth but reeks of corruption. Within its walls, sour magic whispers, alliances shift like silt, and every kindness hides a price. To save the people she loves, Astra must rely on her wits, her courage, and maybe, maybe, a little necromancy.
Previously: Astra sailed the legendary Hoshikwazu
They ended up begging a tow into the town’s docks, which were built out far into the river. The tow was grudgingly granted by a family living on a fishing boat, who took pity on Traz’s obviously sick condition. Astra suspected their whole appearance was bedraggled and pathetic, but if it worked in their favor, she was not complaining.
The temple dogs had to be hidden under one of Traz’s blankets, hopefully to look like some kind of cargo. It was a futile hope, and Astra was glad they were coming to dock just after evening, and that the raft at least had some coiled rope suitable for tying them up. Small mercies from the Gods, she thought with a quick prayer of thanks.
From a small draw-string purse hung around her neck and tucked inside her shirt, she pulled two small rubies she had pried out of the necklace. She held out her hand and he cautiously picked them up, inspecting them briefly before crawling out of the low-riding boat.
He paused on the dock, looking down at them. “We should find a better boat, or pay for passage. This raft will not last much longer on this kind of waterway.”
“Medicine, food, and water first. We will decide the rest tomorrow.” She looked up the dock to where a stout and angry man was headed their way.
“What will I tell him?” Xavai hissed nervously. Despite his usual fierce demeanor, at the moment he was scruffy and uncertain and adorable.
Astra considered that, deciding it was best to stick to something close to the truth. “The obvious: That while on a pilgrimage to Qordashi we were robbed by a band of raiders, and escaped on this raft with nothing but our lives and a few of the precious gems we had planned on giving to the Gods, and are now seeking medical assistance for our companion who was harmed in the attack.”
Xavai looked surprised for a moment, then smiled softly. “You are quick and wise, Grav Astra.” He turned to face to dock master.
With a sigh, Astra sat down again. Ruby moved under the blanket, so Astra put her hand on her head to keep her still. The last thing they needed was for the dockmaster to spy two temple dogs lounging in the raft. While they were rare creatures kept within the grounds of important temples, they were not easily mistaken for normal dogs of any breed and would no doubt give rise to many unanswerable questions.
Xavai was talking to the dock master in a clipped, simple version of Kwa, the common language of the river and most traders through the Balashilar mountains, and Astra huffed in annoyance that she had not thought to ask if he knew it before, as it would have saved her much annoyance. It was one of the first common languages Astra had learned at the monastery, after Dishilli, simply because so many nuns knew it from their lives before renouncing. It was also one of the most bastardized languages due to how many different peoples shared it, borrowing a lot of words from many other languages. There were also several regional dialects, and nothing Astra ever read could pin-point exactly where the language had come from originally. There were no “Kwa people” or tribes, or nation, or kingdom.
Obviously, Xavai knew enough to conduct business. The dockmaster looked over at them with a suspicious expression. He seemed heavily armed for a dockmaster. Not that Astra had the experience to know the difference, but there was something tense and hostile in his posture, the way his eyes slid around as he barked at Xavai. Fortunately, the soldier did not appear discomfited by the treatment, simply nodding and then repeating their story and answering questions. He finally came back and got on his knees on the dock to lean over and talk to Astra.
“He is demanding a high price for us to berth a raft, and I do not think he believes our story without question. But he’s agreed to take me to a banker so I can exchange our ‘goods’.” He paused, frowning. “If I do not return within a bell’s time, untie and push off, get some distance.”
Astra nodded, but had to ask. “What is it you fear?”
He glanced back at the impatient dock master, lowering his voice further. “The river can be a hard place, so I’ve heard. Many towns and cities are their own kingdoms, for all they claim allegiance to one nation or another. Some harbor pirates. I do not have a good feeling about this place.”
Traz was too sick for them to safely try for another town down the massive river, but Astra could only nod in understanding. If staying tied to the dock put all their lives in danger, then she would untie the boat and push off. Xavai, she knew, could take care of himself, but she was the only one who could take care of Traz.
Xavai got up slowly and reluctantly, taking a long look at Astra before turning to leave. The dock master waved for Xavai to follow him and they headed off into the town.
“You are fond of him,” Traz whispered.
“He is a fine man,” she countered, nodding, and hoping against hope that Traz would drop the subject.
“So your eyes say,” he said with a smirk.
She glared at him. “I’m still a nun, dedicated to the Bu of the North.”
“Technically, I am still a nun too, dedicated to Jaga of the East.” He shrugged.
“Perhaps you should have run away two weeks before your dedication ceremony, instead of two weeks after,” Astra hissed at him.
“I’m sorry!” He collapsed down on the blanket, staring up at the sky again. “I am sorry, Astra’bua.” The words were stilted and awkward, because they were spoken in the tongue of her unknown homeland. Astra had said the words “I am sorry” so many times when she first got to Qordashi that he had picked up on the phrase over time, guessing at their meaning. It had become something of a secret code between them, a connection she did not have with anyone else: the ability to say something in her native language and for someone else to understand it.
Over time, she had lost her original language except for a few phrases like that, and she treasured them. She had started writing a collection of them for the library’s archive of cultures, with the hope that maybe she’d find a scholar one day who understood them, or at least knew where they originated. That Traz remembered one phrase at all made her heart ping loudly.
She took his hand, shaking her head. “I understand why you left, although it took time for me to see that Dzrezor is a cruel man at heart, unworthy of Bu’s service. He hated you and would have done his best to ruin you. You did not have Naboch to protect you, as I did.”
“Astra,” Traz sighed and squeezed her fingers. “It was not just that---it was not just him.” He sighed and settled back down, pain etched in his features.
“No?” She could not think of much else, certainly not anything as bad as Dzrezor himself. Traz had seemed to enjoy his life as a novitiate, learning the Histories of the Winds and climbing up to the meditation caves with Astra.
“No, of course you don’t. You love the monastery. Even now, if the zephyrs of Tema lifted us up and we could go back instead of forward, you would go.”
Astra nodded, because of course. Her library needed her, and she wondered about the fate of their sibling nun Zochur, whom they had left behind. And so much else---was the monastery still standing? Who had survived? Did the Yosoi claim it as a distant outpost, or had they fled once they knew their prize had slipped through their hands? She shook her head to clear her thoughts.
“So did you, once,” she said, feeling confusing for the first time when she saw the regret in his eyes.
“Astra,” Traz said, breaking her reverie. He frowned. “I loved parts of our lives, but I never felt liked I belonged. I never felt at home.” He took a hitching breath and Astra grabbed his hand to hold him through the pain. “I’ve always felt like a stranger there.”
Traz was a native of the Balashilar Mountains in a way that Astra was not, born there and dedicated to the Four Gods of the Four Winds by his family when he was a baby. His words made no sense.
“You never said. Was I not always the greater stranger there?” She gestured at her riotously curly hair, which had started turning gray almost to the day she turned thirty years old. The curls and the early-onset gray had set her apart from most people of the Balashilar ranges, and even from many people beyond them, as far as she could tell.
He sighed. “I think, sometimes, that is why we bonded so well, as children: we were strangers in a strange land. I do not know who my family was any more than you do, and sometimes think they gave me to the Four Gods as expedience rather than piety.”
These were all strange, new words to Astra, and shocked her to her core. She just sat there and stared at him. Had broken out in a sweat and his voice was growing weak, but he kept talking.
“I believe Dzrezor knew, though...he knows who I am, and hated me for it, whatever that reason was. I had to leave. Dzrezor’s corruption made it easy, in the end, but once my dedication ceremony was over, I realized I was trapped there, at his mercy. I had to go, Astra. I had to go!”
She shushed him and used one of the rags they had been dipping in the river to cool his forehead. They were quiet awhile, the sounds of the dock drifting around them.
“I think Naboch knew more about me than she ever revealed,” she admitted, whispering the words.
“They...lied...they hid...” He tried to speak but she pet his cheek and the lapsed backwards.
“I was eight years old when the dragon dropped us on Naboch’s head.”
Traz chuckled, because he had heard the story of how the bundle she had been wrapped up in was very nearly exactly dropped on Naboch’s head as described.
“I still remember where I am from, a little---the green rolling hills with not a mountain in sight. I remember my mother dying, that my father loved me. I remember the rooms I called my own. The strange tapestries on the walls, and all the weird clothes.” She rubbed his hand. “I felt so lost at Qordashi for so long, and no one could explain where I was from or why a dragon would steal me, and then deposit me like a wayward egg. I understand your feelings, Traz, but surely we could have found a better answer than for you to...to disappear for twenty-five years!” She blinked back tears.
“I was young and scared, Astra’bua.” Traz’s voice was fading a bit as he tried to doze off. Astra was torn between letting him rest as he needed, and fearing that in sleep he would fall into unconsciousness and she would be unable to rouse him.
She sighed as he drifted asleep. “After you left it felt like a foreign land again. I had to relearn how to love it, without you there.” She stopped, wiping tears from her eyes.
He was asleep, though, and did not hear her. The dogs, shuffling out from under the tarp, looked around at the darkness, then jumped off the ramp to the dock and quickly slid into the night beyond, disappearing from view.
Next: Exceptionally Unlucky
Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕
Find KimBoo: Notes • Bluesky • Tumblr • Facebook • House of York
Support KimBoo: Ko-fi • PayPal