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The morning after the meeting of the Degen and Imba Jassi, Gebrem and Tiyana returned to the Fidis’ ship. Some of the foreigners had awakened, and were being fed and ministered to by healers and their shamashas. Of those who woke, some blinked in disbelief, as if they were having trouble coming to grips with the reality that they were still alive. The ones who had regained more of their senses stared in curiosity at the Leba and his daughter, who paid little attention to them as they made their way toward the cabin of the sorcerer, the white-haired man of power.
The father and daughter had talked earlier, after the end of the meeting in the Gebbi Senafa; and after hearing what had transpired at the council, Tiyana had insisted on participating in the healing and questioning of the blue-robed Fidi. Gebrem was not certain that task would be safe for her. He wondered if her ashuma was strong enough to withstand the powerful flare of the Fidi’s spirit.
“He came during my Calling,” Tiyana argued when her father voiced his misgivings. “It’s as though the Fidi were the ones I Called, not Nama-kwah. I feel responsible that he and his people have come among us. And you, Father, have always taught me to live up to my responsibilities.”
Gebrem could have ordered her to stay behind, and she would have had no choice other than to comply. He did not do so, however, because his own feelings about the coming of the Fidi echoed hers. He, too, felt accountable for their arrival, because as Leba, all aspects of the First Calling ceremony were his responsibility – even those that he did not undertake directly. And now, he and his daughter would share the accountability for this unknown man who carried an ancient Matile artifact as though it were a talisman.
As they made their way to the Fidi’s cabin, Tiyana carried a tray of food and a flask of kef. Ordinarily, that would have been a task for a shamasha. But Gebrem had earlier relayed orders that no one other than himself and Tiyana would be allowed to enter the cabin. He was confident the Emperor would not countermand him this time. There was no reason for him to do so. But sometimes, Alemeyu did things for no rationale Gebrem could discern, and Gebrem had long since given up trying to comprehend his cousin’s motives.
When they opened the cabin door, Gebrem and Tiyana were surprised to find the Fidi sitting up in his bed. The man’s eyes were clear, and his face had lost its death-like pallor. A smile lifted the corners of his mouth when he saw who it was that was entering the cabin. The Ishimbi figure that had eased the initial apprehensions the Matile had experienced lay near him on the bed.
As the two Matile approached the bed, the Fidi spoke to them.
“Greetings to you, my friends. My name is Kyroun ni Channar,” he said. “Please accept my sincere gratitude. My people and I owe you our lives. We are deeply indebted to you.”
Tiyana nearly dropped the wooden tray she was carrying, and Gebrem’s mouth fell open in astonishment. The Fidi was speaking fluently in the language of the Matile – yet, at the same time, he was not. Gebrem and Tiyana’s ears heard a language they could not comprehend, presumably the Fidi’s native tongue. But in their minds, they were hearing Matile words.
The incongruity between the unintelligible sounds they heard and the words their minds understood was disorienting, if not frightening. It was yet another manifestation of this man’s sorcerous power. Because the extent of that power was still unknown, Gebrem was only a moment away from calling the guards.
Then Kyroun reached out to steady the tray that teetered precariously in Tiyana’s hands. His gaze held hers for a moment, then shifted to Gebrem. The unfamiliar gray color of the stranger’s eyes was disconcerting. Looking into them was like gazing at storm clouds roiling in the sky moments before thunder would begin to peal and lightning flashed.
Despite Kyroun’s still-obvious weariness, a deep well of strength showed clearly in his eyes. But there was something else in those gray depths that forestalled Gebrem’s impulse to call the guards.
It was sense of urgency – a need, like that of a man about to die of thirst in a desert.
“The Spell of Tongues is a simple one, Jass Gebrem – Amiya Tiyana,” Kyroun said, ending the short, tense silence.
“The sounds of human speech are infinite, yet the essence of the meaning of speech is universal. The Spell of Tongues distills that essential meaning from the sounds, thus rendering my speech intelligible to you, and yours to me.”
“You ... know our names,” Gebrem said while Tiyana surrendered the tray to Kyroun. “What ‘spell’ explains that?”
He remembered the brightness of the flame inside the Fidi ... he remembered how that blaze had nearly consumed him ....
Still struggling with his uneasiness, Gebrem sat down in the same chair he had occupied when he had healed the Fidi. He looked at Kyroun, waiting for an answer to his question.
Kyroun smiled – another quick upturn of his thin lips, sufficient to reassure Gebrem, if not Tiyana. Her father had told her of his experiences during his healing of the stranger, and she could not ignore the notion that the Fidi’s power was the reason Nama-kwah had conveyed her message of danger during First Calling. But she had not mentioned that thought to Gebrem. For all she knew, the Fidi could just as easily have come to warn of the same danger that Nama-kwah had, whatever it might be. Yet her reservations remained.
“Your names, I know, but little more than that, Jass Gebrem,” Kyroun said. “At the moment my life-light was flickering to its end, my mind touched yours, and I learned the name of the one who rekindled it – and, as well, I learned the name of the one he holds dearest.”
He smiled at Tiyana, who lowered her gaze and looked away.
“I cannot count the days that have passed since I last smelled good food, let alone tasted it,” Kyroun said.
“I am sorry ...Kyroun. Please eat,” Gebrem said. “There will be more than enough time for talk.”
He motioned for Tiyana to pass the tray to the Fidi. Kyroun took the tray from her hands, then ate heartily, using the injerra to scoop up the wat as though he had done so all his life. He also sipped the hot kef carefully without choking, unlike most of the Fidi outside the cabin, who had tried to gulp it down as though it were merely colored water the first time they drank it, then suffered the consequences when its bitter taste burned their throats.
While Kyroun ate, Tiyana sat on one of the other chairs in the cabin. Sunlight streamed through the open porthole, illuminating the bed, chairs and desk crowded into the small room. A map was unfurled across the top of the desk. Gebrem walked over to the desk and peered down at the chart. On it, he recognized the outline of Abengoni’s northern coast – and the boundaries of the old Matile Mala Empire. When he gave it a closer look, he saw that the map showed cities that no longer existed because they had been obliterated in the Storm Wars.
A sense of sadness for what the Matile had lost assailed him, but he willed that feeling away. He needed to concentrate on understanding how – and why – the Fidi had braved the Sea of Storms to come to Khambawe.
“They still talk about this drink in my country, even though no one has tasted it for centuries,” Kyroun remarked as he swallowed more kef. “We never could get the beans to grow, even in the hottest climates.”
A polite silence followed while Kyroun finished his repast. When the last of it was gone, Tiyana spoke quickly and bluntly, broaching a topic Gebrem would have approached with greater subtlety.
“You and your people have taken an incredible risk to come to us through the Sea of Storms. Why?”
Gebrem opened his mouth to admonish her, but then closed it without speaking. Tiyana’s own life had almost been lost during First Calling; she had a right to know the reason why the Fidis’ ship had nearly crushed her against the wharf.
Kyroun locked eyes with her. The creaking of the ship’s timbers was the only sound to be heard in the cabin as the clash of gazes intensified, with Tiyana refusing to yield despite the strange color of the Fidi’s eyes and the power that lay within their depths. Then Kyroun smiled broadly, deepening the lines on his face.
“It was you,” he said softly.
Tiyana gave him a quizzical look.
“When it seemed that we would never reach land; that the wind and waves would defeat us and send us to the bottom of the sea, your magic shone like a beacon, guiding us to safety,” Kyroun explained. “I knew as long as I concentrated on the source of that magic, we had a chance to survive. And so we did. You, Tiyana, are the one who saved our lives.”
The sincere warmth and gratitude that shone in Kyroun’s eyes as he spoke was almost enough to cause Tiyana to forget that his ship had come close to killing her the day before.
Almost, but not quite.
“As for the question you ask, the answer is simple,” Kyroun added. Then he paused, as though he were preparing himself for the reaction his next words were certain to elicit.
“I have come home,” he said.