Chapter 11
DELAYED HOMECOMING
“ ... not in the bazaar, I’m sure of it.”
“Gaff said they didn’t leave by the main gate ...”
The voices floated over the sound of the waves slapping stones amid the rickety pilings of Sardinia’s harbor.
The two boats navigated between rocks that rose out of the darkness with little warning. They slipped along the ramshackle wharves, passing under the wharves between large gaps in the pilings. Niri glimpsed stars through the haphazard boards that stitched a path down the docks.
Everything appeared empty and silent with just the occasional shout or refrain of music heard from the businesses near the docks. But as they neared the last set of wharves, the sound of voices became more consistent over the waves.
Niri ached from head to toe as if whipped. Exhaustion overtook the deep sense of right which had come from undoing the sadistic poisoning of the well. She had never done anything like that before. At times while she was fighting to keep the impurities in suspension as they stabbed at her power, she thought she would not succeed. The pain as she struggled with the polluted water while it warped and twisted the humming that liquid caused in her blood had nearly drowned her. It seemed no small feat that she sat in the narrow boat, knee to knee with Ria.
Figures, barely seen in the dark night, moved quietly along the dock. The largest group was gathered near shore. Two left the milling group and walked up the hill into town. Niri’s heart beat quicker.
The two fishing boats drew side by side under the tenuous shelter of the next-to-last wharf. For the moment, the hull of another boat hid them from shore. But over a hundred feet of open water separated them from the last dock and the Grey Dawn. Even with the almost moonless night, the distance was too far. They would be seen.
“There they are, running down the beach!”
Niri’s heart double beat before she realized that the directions did not point to where they bobbed on the waves. Figures peeled off down the shore path after a few shadowy figures racing over the dim sand. The fishing boats lunged forward in the opposite direction, as paddles dug in and propelled them toward their ship.
Ty was first up the side of the Grey Dawn, clambering up the wooden hull with familiar ease despite the dark and the distance.
“They were from your village?” Ty asked Hahri.
“Yes, don’t worry. They will be quick, blending into the night and the pursuit. But you should leave now.”
“We will, thank you,” Ty replied, reaching for his sister’s wrists. With a well-practiced motion, Ty pulled her up as she pivoted with one foot on the boat’s hull.
Hahri’s boat drifted away, bringing Niri’s alongside. Niri steadied Ria as she stood uncertainly on the seat of the narrow boat, reaching up toward Ty. He caught her just as the boat dropped under her feet in the trough of a swell. She struggled with feet dangling in air and only Ty to keep her from falling. When she was finally on deck, she angrily pulled away from Ty’s hold.
Niri sensed the sea around her as if it was her soul. The bobbing boat could not trip her. She felt every wave, was part of every drop of water. With the lift of an incoming crest, Niri added to it. The gap between fishing boat and deck closed and Niri made a leap. She caught the rigging to the mast in her left hand while her feet found the ship’s rail. Waiting for her but not quite ready, Ty instinctively reached out, his hands encircling her waist. Standing on the rail of the ship, she was equal in height to him. They found themselves with only a breath of wind between them for the second time that day. Too surprised to say anything, Niri froze.
Ty hesitated a moment before stumbling back to let her step over the rail.
“Thank you, Hahri. Blessings to you and your village.”
“Blessings to you and your journey, Niri. Stay well,” Hahri replied. His voice floated in the dark, Niri uncertain which of the four men was him. The narrow fishing boats drifted further away, blending into the dark night and the waves.
“Cast off the ropes, quietly,” Ty whispered to his sister. Lavinia was a not-quite-so-deft shadow of her brother as she moved silently around the boat, dropping the dock lines and freeing the sail. The rigging to the boom creaked like a banshee. Niri winced.
Niri put her hand on Ty's arm to capture his attention. "I will take us out," she whispered as she called her power. The boat stopped drifting and moved along the harbor channel as if under a ghostly sail.
Lavinia and Ria sat on the cockpit benches. Ty stayed next to Niri, one hand on the ropes for the rigging as if ready to pull them if needed. The boat picked up speed, slipping past boulders and debris. Twice Niri held a swell at its height to give them enough water to pass over rocks. The immensity of the ocean mingled with her power and held her exhaustion at bay.
When Niri released her hold on the ocean, the town was only a faint speck of light on the hill above the peninsula. Beyond the point of land, the wind was strong, blowing to the south. Weariness swamped her. She sat, unable to imagine changing the tide to pull the boat forward during the long night ahead.
“Where do we sail?” she asked.
“Tiero, I think. We can resupply there,” Ty answered.
Niri straightened her slouch. “Tiero? That ... that is where I was born.”
“Your home?” Ria asked.
“I guess. I haven’t seen it since the Church came for me when I was nine. I haven’t thought of it in all this time. Even in all the years I sailed by it on my way to the Sea of Sarketh,” Niri said, thoughts cutting off her words. The blindness forced into her by years of training with the Church chilled her.
“You haven’t seen your family since then? They must miss you!”
Ria’s innocent voice pricked open a longing in Niri she hadn’t known she contained. A flood of old memories washed over her. Returning home had once been her greatest wish, years ago. She'd forgotten.
Glancing from Niri to her brother’s exhausted face, Lavinia said, “Very well, Tiero it is. I can take it tonight then.”
Ty blinked at Lavinia as she snatched the rope out of his hand. Niri roused from her thoughts. She hadn’t sailed with Lavinia before and wondered how it would go. Especially considering how tired she felt. As Niri gathered her power, Lavinia spoke again.
“Actually, both of you can go below. Tiero isn’t that far. We can make it in this wind without any aid. Ria and I slept half the day. Ty, did you even eat?”
Ty continued to stare at his sister until he laughed. He shook his head and kissed Lavinia on her forehead. “I'm too tired to argue. Do you need anything?”
Lavinia grinned into the wind. “I have Ria. We’ll be fine.”
—
Sunlight filled the portholes in Niri’s front cabin when she opened her eyes. Her exhaustion was diminished, although something stung in her blood. She would not complain if she did not have to use her power for a day or two.
The Grey Dawn sliced through the waves, rising and falling beneath her as she lay in her bunk. It was similar to the connection she felt with the ocean when she used her powers, but was separate and less personal. Niri’s mind floated in the brightening light until voices on deck made her realize it was later than she thought and reminded her what the day would bring.
“Where do you plan on docking?” Ty asked, his question rolling Niri out of bed. She did not hear Lavinia’s answer as she wrestled with her clothing, feeling the shock of the cool silk anew after years of wearing the rough-woven robes of a Priestess. Hurriedly dressed, she stumbled on deck at last.
Lavinia looked tired after her night’s sail. Still in command of the ship, she sat with her face to the rising sun. The wind whipped her hair over her shoulder in dark rivulets. Behind her, the early light illuminated the finger of the Archipelago that stretched out into this piece of water between the Sea of Sarketh and the Ocean of Ilaiya. The lushly forested green hills and red headlands were tinted gold and scarlet in the brightening day. Ahead across a stretch of lavender sea was
the rising mound of an island. Niri’s childhood home of Tiero lay before them.
Captivated by the sight, Niri watched the tropical foliage and off-white stone buildings with their lofty open walls come into view as they sailed closer. She had never sailed the harbor as a child except for the time she left, so she recognized no buildings. But already the smell of soil and flowers carried across the water was more familiar to her than even the Temple of Solaire. Niri's heart soared.
Lavinia brought the ship in to the dock without any correction from Ty. She returned his easy grin tenfold as she stalled the boat a hand’s breadth from the creamy white, stone wharf. Like the city, the docks were ancient. Arched columns plunging into the harbor’s depths supported the weight of the wharf. They tied the Grey Dawn to a ring held in the mouth of a stone lion; the stone bust so old that tawny brown paint was barely visible in the waves of its mane. Birds and animals called from the dense jungle that skirted the old stone city, the sound competing with the wash of waves.
“I’ll go to the market with Niri, if that’s all right,” Ria said, reading the list of needed items Ty had given her.
Niri hesitated. “My list will take me to the far side of the city, I think. You were helping Lavinia all night. Why don’t you just get your supplies and come back and rest? You don’t need to follow me around all day.”
Ria nodded without enthusiasm. “We can go together, Ria,” Lavinia said cheerfully with a nudge of shoulders. Ria flickered a half-smile. Ty watched Niri a moment before returning his attention to his list.
Despite what she had told Ria, the errands did not take Niri more than two hours. Her recollections of the town grew with each passing street as she trod paths dimly remembered. Finally, Niri directed the last item to be wrapped and waiting for her. She turned her steps up the hill toward the oldest part of the city. Here the streets were so ancient and worn that the spaces between pavers, made of the same shell-colored marble as the buildings, were invisible. The street appeared as one solid piece of stone carved flat by thousands of feet and myriads of storms.
Stylistically more frugal than those near the docks, the buildings on the hill rose to towering heights as if mimicking the mountainside on which they were built. Any remnants of paint hid in shadowed and protected corners, leaving the natural soft hues of the stone alone to embellish carved accents. Roofs of the same chiseled marble fed into elaborate gutters to channel away the frequent misty rain. Niri remembered dodging streams of water jetting from them as a little girl.
But her memories were old and from the perspective of a young child. She could not tell if the city had changed much in the fifteen years she had been away. But she began to recognize what once was familiar: a glimpse of a garden behind a metal gate where she had played with a childhood friend and the stately fountain at the crossroads of two wide boulevards.
Niri’s family had been of high standing in the city government. Her grandfather had been the town elder when she was taken away. The house where she grew up sat near the large public piazza, high on a hill overlooking the sea and the Archipelago. She took a turn by instinct to walk down an alley and along the side of her family’s house and property. As a child, she had rarely used the front door and barely recalled the colonnaded facade.
But the garden she recognized. Her hand trailed along the brightly flowered and fine-leafed hedge growing over the low stone wall which lined the alley. Niri remembered when the leaves had been beyond her youthful reach. So many memories of a childhood nearly forgotten elicited a constricting ache across her chest. She slowed on the infrequently used path.
“Dearest, hurry, please.”
The voice startled Niri out of her revere. She recognized it. It was her mother. Niri raced down the alley, her eyes straining to see over the top of the hedge.
The narrow garden alongside the house opened up to a large lawn bordered by trees on three sides. The back of the three-story house with its walls of open arches made the fourth. A small pool shimmered in the sun at its foot. Nestled in a wide patio, the stone tiles around the water petered off in the grass just beyond the house’s shadow. Close to the trees, a pergola covered in flowering vines stood. Arms crossed over her gauzy coral dress belted in an X from bosom to waist, Niri’s mother stood in the sunlit grass. She looked toward the house with a mother’s patience near its end.
Niri’s heart soared to see her mother. She was older and her hair straighter and grayer. She was not the perfect, un-aging woman of Niri’s memory. But she was real and only a dozen yards away. Then with sudden force, Niri’s spirits crashed. Her mother wasn’t calling for her to come. She waited for someone else.
Her mother didn't know Niri was there, couldn't know. Despite the logic of it, tears stung Niri’s eyes at the realization.
Her mother sighed, dropping her hands in exasperation. She turned and walked under the pergola into the thick shade. No longer fixated on her mother, Niri could see the table decorated with white linen, flowers, and fruit in the flickering shadows. In the moving dark, her eyes found a man sitting at the table. He looked so much like her memories of her grandfather that Niri was confused for a moment. The eyes were her father’s, though. Her father sat only a dozen yards away. Heart hammering, she wondered for the first time if her grandfather was still alive.
Unsteady, Niri reached a hand to the high wall on the far side of the alley. Her vision blurred. Through the tears in her eyes, she watched a young woman walk from the house. Her pace was hurried but careful due to an oversized bowl she carried. She smiled gaily despite the caution in her walk, her summer-blue dress swirling with each step. Long hair ruffled out around her face, lighter and redder than Niri’s, but the dark brown eyes framed by long lashes were the same. Niri’s heart skipped a beat at the beautiful young woman her little sister had become.
A young man walked from the pergola to meet her, taking the dish from her arms as he leaned down to kiss her lips lightly. She beamed when she looked at him. Dark-haired and with the same warm skin tone typical of the islands, he was athletically built, standing a hand taller than her sister. The deep green tunic he wore was richly embroidered at the wide oval neck and the hem at mid-thigh. His sandals’ straps laced up to his calves below the knee-length pants common to the often muddy and rain-swept island. Niri sighed as his features softened into something greater than physical beauty as he gazed at her sister.
“You are late,” he teased her as they turned to finish the last of the distance together.
“I know something that will appease her,” Niri’s sister answered, taking his arm now that he carried the bowl. He chuckled in response, the sound drifting across the lawn. Niri’s father stood and took his youngest daughter in his arms. Still tall, his shoulders under the deep lavender tunic were not as straight as Niri remembered. He cupped his daughter’s cheek affectionately before letting her go.
Niri’s heart hurt so much she didn’t think it could withstand more pain. The rushing of her pulse and the inability to breathe kept her feet frozen and voice silent. She felt like a ghost come back to see her loved ones a last time.
“There she is!” Her father’s voice boomed across the lawn just as Niri remembered it.
“Nirisine, come! It is time to eat, not play.”
Her sister’s voice was full of laughter. Niri watched a little girl with raven-dark hair run through the grass after a ball. She was only a few feet on the other side of the hedge, but her attention stayed on retrieving her toy. She didn't notice Niri in the shadows. Not more than four and still a little chubby, the girl was slimming out to an active youth.
“Coming, Mama!” the little girl chirped in a high soprano.
She grabbed the ball and ran barefoot across the lawn, her light-green dress streaming behind her. Niri’s mother stepped into the sunlight, her face radiant with joy as she bent down and opened up her arms for the little girl.
“Come to me, my little Nirisi.”
Niri sobbed into her hand. She turned
away and stumbled blindly down the alley. Her only thought was to get beyond the yard before tears overwhelmed her. Tear-blinded, she tripped on the stone pavers and threw her hand forward to catch herself. Instead of falling and finding hard stone, her hand found warm fabric over a solid chest. Strong arms caught her and pulled her close, cradling her gently.
“Shh, Niri, I’ve got you.” Ty said, his voice a soft murmur. Held by him, Niri sobbed until she didn’t think any water was left in her.
“I couldn’t ... I can’t bring this to them,” Niri said to Ty through her tears. “If the Church found I had been here ... what they would come and do. My family is all I have left.”
Ty brushed strands of hair clinging to her moist face behind her ear. “I understand, believe me.”
“How did you find me?” she asked, leaning her cheek against his shoulder, grateful and curious that he had.
He hesitated and when she peaked at him, a faint blush colored his cheeks. He shrugged. “I saw your face as we sailed into Tiero. I know what I would want to do ... so I followed you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
Ty walked with her back to town, helping to pick up the packages she had bought. The slow pace gave her a chance to regain composure. As they arrived back at the boat faint wisps of clouds were forming in the late-afternoon sky. Ria and Lavinia stood on deck, eyes on the weather.
“It looks like rain,” Lavinia said as she reached for their bundles.
“It wouldn’t be surprising. It often rains here except when the wind is out of the north from the headlands.” Niri said, finding her throat felt raw as she answered.
“The wind has shifted, coming from due west now. We should get going,” Ty said as he stowed the new rope.
“We’re going to cross?” Ria asked, excitement and nervousness waring on her face.
“Yes, we are going to cross to the southern shore.”
Niri watched the lines of Tiero blur as their boat sailed out of the harbor. It was a sight she had once begged for as she screamed in the hold of the ship taking her back to the Temple of Solaire. This parting ached as well, but like a wound healing instead of being cut.
Out of the harbor, Ty swung the boom and raised a foresail to give them added speed. The boat heeled over as it turned to race along Tiero’s western edge, the heights of the mountains now lost to the building clouds. Ahead of them, murky fog hovered over tossing waves.
Lavinia’s voice shattered the silence as she stood to point behind them. “That is our parents’ ship!”