The Etoririq’dzwei, the Turga
“… the lentil capital of Mugroba,” Fera pezre Eraca says, grinning. She takes another groundnut from the rustling back, crackling it open and popping the bits into her mouth. She passes it along; Poro pezre Ndere takes one for herself, and hands the bag on to Nkemi with a grin.
Nkemi takes it, carefully, and withdraws another peanut for herself; she turns to Alefa pezre Lesina, who is lying on her back in the hammock, lantern pulled close, squinting at her book. “Would you like a groundnut, ada'na?” Nkemi asks.
Alefa glances up; her perceptive field flutters, once, against Nkemi’s own and then goes still. “No, thank you,” she looks back down at her book.
Fera and Poro are looking at Nkemi as she hands the bag back. Nkemi grins, and cracks the groundnut open, eating the tender bits of nut within. “The lentil capital?” She asks.
Fera laughs; she goes on. “In the next five years,” she says, firmly. “Most of the lentils we eat here in Mugroba come from the lower Steppes, where it’s cool enough to be grown. Dermoga, though, is actually well-suited climatically for lentils; we’re close enough to the Tincta Basta that it stays cool most of the year, and it’s well watered in the split of the Turga. Our first crops have been magnificent; it’s an effort by the whole community, all together. If we rise, we rise as one; every family, from the largest to the smallest, has a stake in the place.”
“Community is a blessing; each droplet smooths her neighbor's path through the water,” the bag comes around again; Nkemi takes another peanut. “Have you found it easy to sell the lentils in Thul Ka?”
Fera grins; Poro laughs. “Easier this trip than any others! We have decided to start a stall in Windward Market – there is a good man in Thul Ka, the son of a friend from Dermoga, who is already working in the market…”
Nkemi brightens. “Perhaps I may know him! What is his name?”
The night winds on in cheerful conversation. The fifth berth is still empty; the steamship will not stop again before Tsaha’ota, and so Nkemi knows they will be only four.
The water laps outside gently against the ship; in time, Alefa rises and stumbles outside, clammy-skinned; they hear her retching over the deck. Poro clucks her tongue; Fera shrugs.
“I shall go and check on my traveling companion,” Nkemi says, smiling. There are a few more words exchanged, and she slips her sandals on once more and makes her way down the hallway. She doesn’t realize until she is at the door that the noise above the echo of the engine in Anetol’s voice; the moment she does, she knows it for monite. There are no mistaking the harsh syllables; even Anaxi Estuan does not sound so.
Nkemi eases back, away from the door. She stands in the hallway, a long moment, silent; her small face is set. She looks at the door; she thinks of strange faces in water bowls, and Natete’s words. She thinks of They Are Heard, and she thinks of the quiet scratching of a pen in the night, the familiar echo it makes through a wooden door. Slowly, with small, silent steps, Nkemi comes closer again, and listens in the gaps between the wood, closing her eyes and focusing to hear him.
She is right; he is casting. It is a ward; it is not a ward Nkemi knows, but she can hear enough to understand. He is beckoning the mona close; it is not other spells, she understands slowly, which he wishes to intercept, but – she knows these modifications. She remembers them; she remembers the brush of inky black darkness and the cold which seeps all through it. She has read of them, since.
The silence when he curls the spell falls heavy. Nkemi does not hold her breath, but she breathes too quietly to be heard. She eases away, silent, past his door on the other side; she opens the door up to the upper deck as slowly and quietly as she can. She stands in the cold, crisp night air for a moment; she breathes deep.
Then Nkemi turns; she comes back through the door, and makes her way down the steps with a quick, light step – not deliberate noise, but not bothering, either, to soften her footfalls.
“Anetol?” She raps lightly on the door; she calls his name, softly, as if she does not wish to wake him, if he is asleep. If he is focusing, Nkemi thinks. She waits there, silent.