Fire Island: Book 3 of The Chatterre Trilody (Chatterre Trilogy) (16 page)

Cameron swallowed and admitted to himself that he, too might be offended if someone called him by another name. But surely, he wouldn't shun the person... unless, due to the incorrect name, he hadn't realized someone was addressing him.

Perspiration broke out on his brow and he vowed that at next prayer, he would use both names.

Tem-aki put aside the inferior print and picked up a map of their island.

Chapter 21

"If you believe you can not, then you never will. If you believe that you can, it becomes possible," Nimri yawned, as she murmured encouragement to herself. They had spent hours working out how they could try and locate Tem-aki's location, so between that and Mica's middle-of-the-night feeding, she was so tired that she was afraid she would fall asleep, as soon as she relaxed enough to free her myst-energy. "If you believe you can not, then you never will. If you believe that you can, it becomes possible," she whispered to herself, again, as she relaxed, so she could to launch her myst-energy straight up into the morning sky.

Thunder had gone inside moments before, and would soon begin his part of the project.

She yawned so hard that her ears popped. And, she continued to yawn. Hopping up, she dashed over to her Ashwagandha plants and plucked several bright red berries. Nose wrinkled at their flavor, she quickly ate them, then grabbed a mint leaf to chew.

Feeling more energized, already, she wondered if the raw berries had actually worked that quickly or if she simply felt better because she had moved.

She suspected the later, however, she didn't know how to harness myst-energy when she was moving, so she sat down in the hatha position and again, began to relax her body. Though another yawn threatened, she was able to get beyond the desire, so soon, her exhausted body had relaxed enough for the separation.

A glance at the window, far above her, assured her that the skull was still glowing, which would allow Thunder to make his jump. So, with no reason to stay, and every reason to get the information they needed, she allowed her myst-form to move straight upward.

The higher she rose, the cooler it got. Eventually, it was downright cold. And then, it got colder than she would have ever believed possible. Had she needed to breathe air into her lungs, she suspected she would have frozen from the inside out. She looked down and around, but only had a hint that the river was meeting something that might – or might not – be something other than land.

So, she moved even higher.

Then higher.

And higher.

Finally, she was so high, that she could no longer distinguish Sacred Mountain from the long range of mountains it stood in, and the river was only a thin dark line, which appeared to begin at an enormous, deep blue lake. But she knew the water flowed toward the big body of water, so obviously this was where all the water had actually gone, not where it was coming from.

How very curious.

And how extremely cold!

She looked for Thunder, but couldn't see him. Since she couldn't distinguish Sacred Mountain, this didn't surprise her.  Nimri realized that her home-world now looked like a brown, green, white and blue ball suspended in black ink. It was a view of her home-world that she had not expected, but something that Larwin, Thunder and Raine had all seemed to expect her to see.

Looking down, Nimri followed their instructions and memorized how all the greens, browns and whites were shaped against the blues. Then, before she could lose the mental picture, she told herself, "Wake up."

The taste of mint infused her mouth and another yawn threatened, but before she could forget any of the information she had collected, she grabbed paper and ink and began drawing. When she was finished, she went inside to compare what she had seen to Thunder's observations.

To her dismay, aside from being round on the exterior, his drawing looked nothing like hers. In fact, if he'd gotten his colors correct, most of what he had seen was a glob of brownish green in the middle of what appeared to be mainly blue, while what she had seen had been more of an equal distribution of colors.

Seeing her expression, Thunder grinned, then grabbed one of Kazza's balls and began duplicating his sketch on its hard, wooden surface.

"Didn't you see any white?" she asked.

"Sure. Mostly here, but some here." He pointed to opposite sides of the ball. "Of course, there were also areas of cloud-cover, and those were mainly white, but since those are always changing, I didn't bother to put them down."

"Clouds?" Nimri blinked. "How could you tell they were clouds?"

He opened his mouth to answer, then got a strange look on his face. "I'm not sure, but I think that one might be a cloud." He pointed to a big, lumpy white crescent, which intersected all the other colors. "When you saw that, did you have the feeling that it was on top of the other colors?"

"Now that you mention it, yes." She quickly put a few dotted lines in, connecting the 'lower' colors. Then, she did the same with three other lumpy white areas. Soon, her sketch began to have a more defined feeling.

Larwin and Raine entered the dining room. He put four large mugs of rose-hip tea on the table, and sat down, while Raine, who had Mica in her arms, stayed on her feet. She moved to where she could look at the drawings and said, "So this confirms it, she is on this planet."

Nimri looked from her sketch to Thunder's. "It does?"

Raine nodded and using her free hand pointed. "See here and here?" Nimri nodded. "That is the same area, but it was drawn from the opposite perspective... Kinda like if two people painted you, but one person was looking at you from your right side and the other one was on your left... or, in this case sort of half-way between facing you straight on and your left side."

Nimri narrowed her eyes and studied the two areas Raine had pointed at. Even though Larwin was nodding in agreement, she could not see how the two drawings were of the same area. Fortunately, she didn't need to understand this part, so she leaned back in her chair, sipped her tea and listened to the other three share ideas on how to get to where Tem-aki was. Raine referred to the location as an island. Larwin's finger frequently hovered over the large blue portions of Thunder's drawing. Nimri wondered if he was fascinated by the abundance of water in Tem-aki's location or if he was as bothered as she was by the difficulty of getting to her.

~o~

Cameron waited until Tem-aki left the shop, then before it closed, dashed in for a closer look at that map that had held her attention. Frowning, he realized it wasn't even an accurate depiction of the land and currents, but then this map was designed more as a work of art than anything to navigate by.

When Cameron left without making a purchase, the proprietor closed the shop door with unnecessary force.

For a moment, he began following Tem-aki, then he thought about her apparent interest in maps, so he veered toward the harbor and took his dory out to The Sirocco, where he collected several charts of their land's surrounding water and one that was an accurate representation of their land. In fact, the only area where the map maker had put more emphasis on art than accuracy was Dragon Ridge, which looked more like a dragon sleeping, than the sheer escarpment that it was. Of course, since one of his order had made the map, Cameron understood why this one had been drawn that way. Making Dragon Ridge special was understandable, while drawing houses, fish, poultry and orchards on the one for sale was simply silly. So was the oversize boat drawn in the harbor.

Cameron paused by the deck's railing to look over the peaceful harbor-area. The dying rays of sunlight shimmered in a soft glow, but the water close to the cliff was already in shadow, so the homes and shops, which had been carved into the rock, already had candlelight shining from several windows, so the darker water was striped with many thin, bright, elongated reflections.

He never tired of this peaceful view, or the sun's gentle benediction on another day.

Still, unless he decided to sleep aboard the Sirocco, he needed to paddle back to shore.

Cameron went to the kitchen area, where he securely wrapped the precious maps in oiled cloth, then he swung down the boarding ladder.

When he got back to shore, the market was closed, as were the doors for homes. He didn't see another person, for a good quarter mile, and then, he heard the sound of rushed footsteps and saw a glimpse of dark robe rounding the corner of a mud-brick apartment building.

Shadows were deep when he passed an open window of the building, and though there was no candlelight inside, voices were raised. "Are we going to keep tolerating this?" a familiar voice demanded.

Cameron paused to listen.

"How much longer are we going to waste our time worshiping a figment of some historical figure's imagination?" Varlet demanded. Cameron's teeth clenched. "Do you know how desperate the dracos are to keep control?" Several voices made negative sounds. "Desperate enough for Draco O'Ryan to pretend to discover Draco Shakura's staff of power!" He paused dramatically, as a confusion of voices expressed outrage. "And that isn't all. While the brotherhood and I were preparing the ridge for the upcoming ceremony, he also discovered two females, which he wants us to believe are some form of divine beings."

There was another surge of noise, where Cameron could not identify individual speakers' voices or what they were saying, but the message was clear. Varlet needed to be cut from the order, and for a reason everyone could understand. Somehow, they also needed to find proof that the beliefs his brotherhood had followed for more than a thousand years were true. Obviously, his discovery of Tem-aki, GEA-4 and the staff were not enough to renew faltering faith, but having an initiate publicly state what Varlet had was equivalent to a wound developing a life-threatening infection.

Though Varlet was obviously speaking to a group, on some level, they knew they were wrong. Why else hadn't they lit candles? If they'd known they spoke the truth, they would do so in the light of day where they could see each other's faces.

Read the truth or lies in each other's body language.

Tempting as it was to march into the building and confront Varlet, he knew that accusing Varlet right now would be a bad choice.

And calling a hearing about this wouldn't work, either. Varlet Bledgood was nasty, but he wasn't stupid, so he would undoubtedly have one or more people who would give evidence and testimony in his favor and perhaps even claim that he, Cameron O'ryan, was making malicious accusations about Varlet.

For a moment, Cameron considered rushing to get Nolan and bring him back, but common sense told him that any tarring of reputation would work just as well for two as it did for one. He didn't need what would amount to hearsay, he needed tangible evidence.

Yet Varlet could even twist solid evidence, like Tem-aki, GEA-4 and the staff to create doubt. Though how the initiate had managed to turn those hopeful things against their order was something Cameron knew he would never understand.

There had to be a way to get the man to leave their order without creating more disruption. But how?

~o~

Tem-aki and GEA-4 stood side by side at the long table and watched Cameron roll out several old-fashioned charts, which looked worthy of a museum. When the ends tried to curl, he calmly weighed the woven paper down with two candles, a bowl of sweet beige graduals and finally, with nothing else nearby, the palm of his hand.

Then, with his free hand, he pointed at a spot of the chart, made sure they looked where he was pointing, then, he pointed at the floor.

Tem-aki nodded in understanding, despite the rough texture of the paper, and the fact that she could see how long, thin individual leaves had been woven to create the paper, she could also understand the simplistic lines of the coastline. In fact, the only surprising thing was the fact that Cameron's chart showed that water was on all sides of the landmass.

Confident that they understood him, Cameron went over to the cooking area, broke off a small piece of twig, then returned to the table and insinuated himself, so he was standing between them. Tem-aki put her right palm down to hold the corner he had abandoned, while he ceremoniously placed the small stick in the middle of the harbor-area. "Sirocco." He tapped the stick and pointed out the window to where she knew the actual boat was sitting in the harbor. "Sirocco."

She dutifully nodded, even though she wondered why he was explaining this as if he was speaking to a two-year-old.

Cameron smiled, and seemed to gain confidence. Then, he slowly moved the piece of wood out through the harbor entrance, which she knew was overlooked by the extinct volcano, then he continued moving it about a third of the way around the land mass, and into a smaller, almost perfectly round harbor. He started talking and gesturing far too fast for her to understand the words, but Tem-aki had the distinct impression he was talking about the harbor where she had first seen his boat. As if he had read her mind and wanted to make certain she understood him, Cameron began to walk backwards around the table.

"Do you know if he is trying to make a point?"

"Probabilities indicate affirmative, but I am uncertain what his objective is," GEA-4 said.

"He is talking about our voyage from the first place to here, right?"

"Probably."

Cameron stopped on the opposite side of the table and stared at them. "Why do you refuse to speak to me?" he asked, enunciating each syllable distinctly enough to Tem-aki to understand.

"Speak slower," she said, drawing out each word, as he had just done.

His brows shot up and he leaned forward. "YouthinkI speak toofast?" His words jumbled.

Tem-aki nodded.