Carthia.
The rules were different here.
Girls at Carthia walked around practically naked like it was nothing. The local outfit was a belt with a flap of cloth front and back leaving hips, legs, tummies, breasts, and bare feet exposed. Every delicious curve of the female body was available to my covetous eyes.
And they were everywhere. Native girls with that dark-green skin, white hair and yellow eyes, Goloagi girls, alabaster-colored Tobori girls, many with slave numbers branded into their arms, Herali girls, Saeni girls, mixed girls, and girls of some ethnicity I'd never seen before. I saw one girl with colors like Sarina—deep yellow skin and black eyes with bronze hair that kinked into a puffy mass.
She saw me staring and glowered back.
Because talk to the wrong girl, one of those lizard creatures will rip your liver out and eat it.
Taganu had told me where to find the Daenma church. He'd said to follow a narrow street that followed the north side of the outer wall, a curtain of gray and yellow stone that backdropped a row of buildings three stories high on the right.
On my right was a recessed area between buildings. Stones and timbers had crumbled into piles crawling over with vines. In the center were six of those girls standing in a circle around a man on his knees. He was blindfolded, covered in scrapes and bruises with crusts of dried blood all over his skin, and his hands were tied behind his back. One of the girls clutched his hair in a fist and held a large knife in her other hand. Another faced him with paper unrolled in both hands. The rest glared at him with their arms crossed.
They all looked up at me.
At first, my eyes danced from one to another admiring their bodies, but they stared. As one, they fixed their stone faces at me with ice in their eyes. I probably should have looked away.
A sharp hiss cut my trance.
Another one of those lizard-riding girls blocked my path. My heart raced. Images of the beast knocking me down to rip out my liver flashed through my mind. The creature bared its jagged, serrated teeth and maneuvered its head to block my view of whatever was going on in those ruins.
The rider was as the others, short with powerful muscles bulging beneath dark-green skin. The flap of cloth she wore was a rich blue silk with a crest embroidered in gold and silver thread. Unlike the others, she also wore blue silk arm bands with the same crest. About her belt was an array of weapons - knives, nets, ropes, hooks, things I had no name for, with even more hanging from her saddle. Her bare chest was crisscrossed with a strap that held a sword on one side, and a bow-and-arrows on the other. She locked her jaw, aimed those yellow eyes at me, and pointed down the street. "Go!"
I froze.
Something pressed into my back; the lizard had snaked its neck around to usher me along with its snout. Images of those huge talons tearing my flesh from my bones ripped through my mind, and I kept the fuck walking.
I looked behind me, and the reptile watched me through one eye with a black vertical slit while the girl looked off in another direction.
As for the church, I almost walked past it. Several overgrown bushes choked with weeds took up a small courtyard, including a small tree that almost blocked the entrance.
Inside, cracks broke through mortar leaving trails of green algae to seep down the walls with pools of water scattered about the floor. I wasn't expecting the Grand Cathedral in the Imperial capital, but at least something that wasn't so… a vine crept through an open window overhead—one of its tendrils clung to a chunk of mortar that had broken off and hung there. On a rotted wooden shelf, black mold spots crept over a book of Scripture.
I knelt to pray.
Father in Heaven, thank you for granting us safe passage to Carthia. Although, safe passage to a war, I don't know the value of that, but I don't want to be ungrateful, so thank you. Thank you for Davod and Geraln, and thank you for my new friends. I pray that you keep all of them safe in this war, and if the time comes for me to give my life for them, grant me the courage to do what's right.
Take care of Sarina for me? I know that I…
A tear fell down my cheek.
I wiped it away.
… Father in Heaven, give her a good life, OK? Introduce her to a man worthy of her, someone… not like me.
More tears fell. I sniffled and looked around. The four-point-triangle of the Deanma hung on one wall, rusted with two brackets pulling from their place and threatening to fall, and a small anole lizard nibbled ants crawling out from a crack in the floor.
I was alone.
I checked around the open entrance to make sure. Frogs croaked from a pool of rainwater outside.
I shuddered through a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Father, I'm sorry. I feel… deep down I know that in my own selfishness… reaching out for some way to weasel out of my duty cost Dune her life. I should have prayed that her survival was a sign that you wanted me to come here instead of the other way around. And for lust. Stupid, stupid lust, lusting after Guenevieve, lusting after Oasis, why am I like this? Why can't I control my thoughts? These stupid urges, and look how I've offended Miyani and I only just got here. I want her to know that I'm sorry. I want to tell her, but I'm afraid to tell her. I'm afraid that if I try to talk to her now, that would just make it worse.
I'll leave her alone. Father, if I see her again, give me the strength to look the other way. I should have never noticed her like that in the first place. That's how I screwed things up with Sarina, isn't it?
Will she ever forgive me?
"Caleb!"
Faren stood beneath the open archway. He was a man of average height, and his sweaty shirt clung to his lean figure. He hadn't smoked his happy cabbage in several days, yet his eyes were still droopy and his smile was still easy.
Show me your truth, for thine is the honor, the glory… please take care of Sarina, amen.
"I didn't mean to interrupt."
I stood and brushed my knees of dirt, gravel, and… whatever that was. OK that's really sticky. "I was done."
He traced the small room with his eyes. "So this is the Daenma church?"
"Yeah." A large crack in one corner of the ceiling still dripped water from the rain earlier, and chips of faded paint littered the floor on one side of the room. I put four kren beside the book on the shelf.
"What's that for?"
"Tithe."
He stared at the coins for a moment, and a smile cracked his lips. "No priest, no nothing, not even a drop box. Who are you tithing to?"
I glanced back as we left. "I suppose God will lure someone in here who needs it."
Faren smirked, then turned back. "I could use it…"
I laughed. "Come on, man!"
He smiled, then pulled some small, yellow globes from the overgrown tree and ate one.
I took one as well. "I suppose you know for a fact these aren't poisonous?"
"Where's your faith, man?" he chuckled. "Would your god allow poisoned guavas to grow in hisdivine courtyard?"
The fruit had a delightful floral scent, and when I bit into it, soft red flesh gave way to a deep, mild, unassuming sweetness with just a hint of tart. There were also loads of hard kernels for seeds that I had to spit out.
I took a few more, and we made our way out to the street while Faren ate another. "What if your god found you a sack of fresh mortar to fix that roof for four kren, but then some child came and took it to buy some cake?"
I shrugged. "Then a child will have the memory of cake to hold them over in dark times. By the way, where's everyone else?"
The street was a narrow line of broken black slate with tufts of grass growing between them and stone buildings three stories high on both sides, nearly naked girls everywhere. "Davod, Ales, Northstar, Rock, and Kelint found a fighting pit down that way, so they're off losing money, and your boy Geraln got lost in the library. You have got to see this library, man! I have never…"
To our right, a girl had bent over to clean out a washbasin. She glanced up at him, smiled, and gave him a light wave of her fingers before resuming her work.
Faren was spellbound. "I never… uh…"
Laughing and chatting came from a balcony of a building to our left, where three girls stood in a circle. Two of them were natives. The third was Tobori with white skin, golden-yellow hair, and a number branded into her arm. The three of them glanced down at us, paused their conversation, and came to the stone handrail to lean over.
Glorious, pendulous breasts, all three. Nearly naked, all three. Each had an embroidered loincloth that hung down from their marvelous hips and left smooth skin everywhere else to our viewing pleasure. Faren looked up at them, then faced me with excitement plastered all over his face.
The girl in the middle called down to us in Herali with a thick accent. "xello, new men!"
I answered back, "hello, new girls!"
The Tobori girl sucked her teeth, the other two dropped their inviting smiles, and all three of them turned away.
I stood still, gazing at the vacant handrail while the three girls went on with their conversation as if we weren't there.
Faren scratched his head. "That was quick."
"Uh-huh."
On the other side of the street, I thought someone was watching us. A shadow of a person disappeared down an alleyway as soon as I turned.
Faren slapped my shoulder. "Anyway, you have got to see this library, man. It's better than Kyoen Central!"
"That's… impossible."
He popped his eyebrows and grinned wide.
The street followed the curve of the outer wall before entering an area of large, canvas awnings stretched over a stone frame. Girls worked throughout large vats suspended over hot coals, others fed those purple-green grasses into giant pistons driven by massive gears, and still others lined burlap sacks with paper and filled them with some white powder. There was a large white snake with an orange diamond pattern on its back resting on a pile of burlap sacks. One girl gently lifted it out of the way, dropped another sack in its place, and gave the snake an affectionate nuzzle before setting it back down.
Another tossed a basket full of plant scraps to a family of pigs on the opposite side of the street. She glanced up at me as we passed, and the way she smiled as her eyes meandered over my body sent tingles over my skin.
I leaned into Faren. "I'm not seeing any men here."
"A fact I intend to exploit to the fullest!" He couldn't pull his eyes from a voluptuous native girl who worked a strainer through a tub of steaming clear syrupy fluid. She looked up at him and smiled back, following him with her gaze.
"Why do you think that is, though?"
"I know why that is! All the more reason to appreciate it while we're still breathing."
A sharp whistle cut the air. A burly older woman covered in sweat had her fingers to her lips and leered at us. "zawa ʃiko!"
Several girls crowded together to gawk. One followed with a hand on her crotch. "ʒɪ dowa 'ezasu gʊpeŋe?"
They all pointed and laughed. Another one pursed her lips and made kissing sounds at me.
Another added, "'oto da'uʃo fufuvisa!" before turning around and slapping her arse.
The others in the crowd pointed and laughed at us, while one winked at me and thrust her tongue out to wiggle it up and down.
Another lady, much older, shouted at the group and snapped her fingers. "pʊ go'uwe θamigɪ!"
They all scattered and returned to their work.
Something about it felt… off. My skin crawled, and my heart beat faster than it should have. We walked, and for the moment I went back to wondering if I'd broken some rule. Unable to put what had just happened into any framework I could understand, I looked behind me once more.
As soon as I did, two girls about twenty yards behind us stepped aside to talk to someone.
I cast about for words and came up empty, but Faren broke the silence. "That didn't seem friendly."
He checked behind him as well, but I tried to change the subject. "So what makes this place better than Kyoen Central?"
His eyes lit up and he grinned. "You'll see when we get there!"
Faren led me around the corner along another narrow street with rows of stalls on both sides and a thick throng of girls we had to work our way through.
One stall had rugs with images woven into them. Another had burlap sacks with aromatic spices in powders of reds, yellows, greens, purples, whites, oranges, and blues. I saw oblong red fruits with grooves, fat green spiky fruits, long yellow fruits, and in the next stall, an old woman held out two big green coconuts to passersby.
There was a commotion in an alleyway tucked between two buildings on the left. About a half-dozen children gathered around something. Most of them had the dark-green skin of the natives, but also long, dark-green hair like me and Faren.
Out of curiosity, we stepped closer, and the children parted for us.
One girl who was likely the same age as Teryn back home sat before a wooden box with three cards turned down. Behind her, another one of those vita'o lizard creatures with burnt-orange scales with irregular black flecks rested its neck over the girl's back and its head on her shoulder.
Another child pointed at the center card. The girl turned it over, revealing a gray-brown goblin creature with fangs carrying a sack over its back. The other child cheered. The girl pursed her lips and handed over a small stack of coins.
"Do you want to play, mister?" one of them said to me.
"Sure." I crouched down.
The girl with the cards spoke fluent Herali without a hint of accent. "You in for twenty-one kren, mister?"
"OK," I said, and pulled out a sixteen and a five from my purse. She added twenty-one of her own and turned the goblin back down, turned to kiss the lizard on the side of its head, and shuffled the three cards about. The lizard cracked its mouth open and rubbed its head against her cheek.
I felt bad. She wasn't very skilled, and I was able to follow it easily. I didn't want to take the child's money, so I resolved to keep only my original coin and let her keep hers. But when I flipped over the goblin, it wasn't the goblin. Instead, a fire-breathing lion with a billowing mane looked back at me.
"Bathi's coming!" another child urgently called out.
In a sudden rush, the girl took up all the coins, the wooden crate, and the whole crowd of children along with the lizard scattered and melted into the city.
I stood and looked at Faren. "What just happened?"
He doubled over laughing.
I scratched my sweaty head trying to make sense of what I'd just fallen for, staring at the empty nook where the girl had sat, a narrow alleyway between two stone buildings darkened by shade. A line of small, pink pigs crept out from beneath one building and crossed over to duck beneath the other. I looked at Faren. He looked back at me, still smirking, and still heaving with laughter. "I'm sorry, man!"
"Where'd you say this library was?"
He kept laughing. "This way."
We continued to elbow our way through the marketplace, bumping into nearly-naked ladies on all sides as we passed that unmistakable smell of kafi coming from one stall, and a burning incense in another. Faren turned to follow a passing girl on his right with his eyes. "I'm getting an erection just walking down the street. Gods, how is this place possible?"
"Easy," I said. "We'll be dead soon."
Another girl approached in the opposite direction. She had dark skin, but not so dark as the others, with sandy-green hair and bright yellow eyes. She was a little taller than average, with hypnotic curves up and down her body, and she smiled at me as we came close.
"Zawa," I said to her.
"Zawa!" she echoed back as we passed by.
I glanced over my shoulder only to see her glancing back at me just the same and let out laughing. She sang, "vʌ koðosa" before turning back around.
Faren's whole face grinned. "At least we'll die happy!"
And what would Sarina say?
Up ahead, I saw another one of those lizard riders. She wasn't the same one as before, but she wore the same blue silk armbands with the gold-and-silver crest, and had the same array of weapons. She looked directly at us with a stern expression, leaning into another girl who covered her mouth over the rider's ear with one hand. She, too, watched us.
The rider nodded to the other, and they both disappeared into the city.
"zawa θʊʃiko!"
Two native girls stood outside a building with others inside getting their hair decorated. As soon as I noticed them, they faced one another for a brief moment and wandered over to us.
Faren glanced up at me with his eyes wide and a grin curling his lips. The girl who approached him had a full, voluptuous body and wore a white silk flap with a red flower print in one corner, a gold bracelet inlaid with diamond-tree stones on her left wrist, with another on her right ankle. "I am puŋi. New boys welcome to Carthia!"
The other girl stood directly in front of me and locked her eyes onto mine. She was taller than Puni but shorter than Faren, with a lithe body and delicate figure. Her black silk flap had silver embroidery like writing I'd seen elsewhere in the city and barely draped below her privates. White hair fell over her shoulders to half-cover her nipples, and she wore a thin gold chain necklace with a snake's head for a pendant that held a pristine white pearl in its jaws.
She fixed her yellow eyes onto mine without a word while her friend leaned into Faren and spoke. "You are cute for Herali boy, but you should dress like more comfort, yes?"
"Yeah," Faren blushed. "I probably should."
"Your friend is tall. What's your name? I call you Sweet Cake."
Memories of that time I spent in Kyoen flashed through my mind, and I took hold of my coin purse. I tapped Faren in his side and showed him as well.
He nodded.
Just in case.
The girl in front of me's searing, unwavering eye contact inspired a reaction in my body, and I struggled to peel away from her slim face. While the plump girl groped her fingers up and down Faren's arm, this girl didn't break her gaze from my eyes for more than a blink. Her voice was low and smooth. "ga'i ŋæɣʊɣa ʃa kʌŋʌ soyiʃʌde θemoveviɣa."
Puni erupted in muted laughter.
I didn't know what else to say. "Um… ti?"
"ti!" Faren echoed. "That's a yes, for both of us. ti."
Puni's fingers meandered over to his back, and she smiled wide. "Do you know what she says at you?"
"No," I answered, "but my answer is still ti."
"You need give to her your name."
"Oh," I chuckled. The girl was fixated on me. Her deep amber eyes still wouldn't pull away. My heart was pounding. "Um… Caleb."
"Umkelib," the girl in front of me cracked her lips slightly. "ʒɪ sɪmi 'ezaɣe vɪdifipeŋe?"
I glanced at Faren, and he shrugged his shoulders. Puni splayed her fingers over his arse. "You should relax. You want relax?"
Faren's chest heaved and his face was frozen in a dumb smile. "Uh…"
I turned to Puni. "What did she say?"
Puni smirked. "peŋe is pussy. You want it?"
Faren's eyes bulged and he swallowed. He looked at me, but I had nothing. I didn't know what else to say. "Uh… I'm chaste."
Puni spat the word with incredulity. "Chaste?"
"It means—"
She sucked her teeth, released Faren, and turned to the girl who still tethered her eyes to mine. "vʌ divoʒu ʃʌkæ. toto teɣoʒi peŋe."
The girl blinked and popped her eyebrows, and they both turned and walked off. "You should smile more."
Faren stood perfectly still, gaping at the world in front of him. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths.
"You alright, man?"
He blew a deep breath out through pursed lips and watched them leave before turning to me. "I'm not chaste!"
"Sorry… I…"
He shook his head vigorously, and his easy smile was back. "The way that one was looking at you, though! Gods!"
"Did you understand any of that?"
"Nah, man, but have you ever seen girls so… forward?"
"No, I haven't."
The marketplace opened up to a dias from which streets fanned out. To the right were more stone buildings like the rest of the city. To the left were clusters of mud huts covered in grass stacked three high, and beyond the library, tall towers of the inner sanctum reached towards the sky.
At the center of a mound with carefully manicured trees and shrubs with pristine brick walkways that snaked through lush green grass, was a building that felt large. Gray and yellow mortared stone rose three stories high and continued beyond the trees. Animal statues decorated the roof: Falcon, Bear, Cougar, Wolf, Alligator, Orca, many others I didn't know. The front door was dwarfed beneath a stained-glass rosette in a multitude of colors, and all along the walls and the outside, people sat reading in nooks and beneath awnings.
I nodded. "It looks nice, but I don't know if it's bigger than Kyoen Central."
Faren huffed and grinned from one corner of his mouth. "You haven't seen the good part!"
The front entrance was graced on both sides by stone columns leading to a high arch filled with intricate stone sculptures depicting men, women, children, animals, in all sorts of arrangements as though each told a story. Inside, we were greeted by the clickety hymn of a water organ. Polished-marble pillars held up meticulously crafted stone floors of smooth slate with rows and rows of wooden shelves stuffed full of books.
The foyer had several tables where people gathered, Goloagi, Herali, Tobori, Saeni, and an equal number of the natives, along with a multitude of people who boasted features blending all into one. In one cluster some girls sat while others stood for a lively discussion in that native language. Some of them looked at us, and then went back to their discussion. At another table was a girl with dark-green skin, as with the others wearing naught but an ornate, woven loincloth and a gold chain around her neck. She perused one book, then put in on a pile with some others and grabbed another from a different pile. A young boy brought another stack of books, and she nodded to him in thanks.
Faren's eyes were wide with excitement. "Borrowing fee is only one kren, and you've got to see this!
He led me up a staircase with iron balusters that wrapped around one side onto a balcony with a commanding view of the central area below, and another balcony above.
"This way." Down a hallway of books and far in the back was a walled area with a door on one side. Above the door was a sign in six languages, including Herali. Forbidden Books.
I glanced at Faren with one eyebrow raised.
He was giddy with excitement. "Every single one of these books is illegal in the Empire! And over here, the Sewu'oni banned these. Those are banned in the Southern Kingdoms, and that…"
It sat on its own shelf in the corner. It was bound in red leather with strings poking through the spine in knots I didn't know, and the writing on the cover was some swirly script unlike anything I'd ever seen.
"... pissed off someone powerful somewhere! Isn't this amazing?"
His eyes watered with giddy excitement.
My eyes found a small, unassuming tome of tanned leather with painted-black lettering written in Goloagi called The Truth of the Great Plague. I opened to the introductory page and read it aloud. "The Great Plague was not an accident. The Emperor planted it in Umaz, deliberately, to exterminate the Umeazi people."
I looked up at Faren with my eyes wide. "I wonder why this was banned."
Faren chuckled.
I shook my head. "There's no way. No one could be that evil."
He grinned. "Be fucked up if it were true, man."
Then I saw it.
Blood rushed to my face. Goosebumps crawled over my skin. My breath froze.
Indictment Against the Orthodox Daenma Church
Faren saw what I was looking at and pulled it from the shelf. "What's this?"
I couldn't tear my eyes from it. Its power. Its mystery. I warned him. "Having this book will get you burned at the stake. Just holding it in your hand…"
"So it's a good read, then!" Faren opened it up.
Footfalls rushed down the hall towards us, and suddenly Geraln appeared, panting heavily. He rested his hand on the door frame and spoke through labored breaths. "Ales has been stabbed!"