“Naroba!?” I said in alarm, jumping up to my feet. Why would she have my mother’s staff!? I thought in alarm. Only if—
“No, it can’t be true…” I said, feeling the shock rush up through me.
“Time for talk later, Nari,” the woman who was a little older than me by a handful of years said. “There are more of those Three Kingdomers everywhere, and they’re skilled. Not like the slavers.”
“They’re the Red Hounds, a famous Torvald mercenary unit,” Abioye said, massaging his ankle as he slowly sat up, looking cautiously between me and my rival. “You two know each other, I take it…?”
Naroba cast a quick eye at Abioye, and I could see the way that she looked at him—just the same way that she had always looked at the people she thought might be a threat. The way she had always looked at me, I remembered.
“He’s a Three Kingdomer. Is he with you? Or were you his slave?” Naroba said, hunkering her shoulders slightly, holding my mother’s sacred staff across herself, ready to strike.
“No, I—uh…” I stumbled over the explanation, as my thoughts and worries were still for my mother. Where was she? Was she here? Was she alright? “It’s complicated, Naroba. But he’s an ally—” I said.
“Complicated,” Naroba muttered darkly, before shaking her head. “Whatever. We have to leave. Now.” Naroba pursed her lips and whistled another string of notes into the mist, for it to be repeated in a muted echo, far off in the distance. My rival didn’t waste any time in turning in that direction and breaking into a jog, with the other Souda behind her doing the same. I looked at Abioye, who was watching me with a similar sort of confusion to the one I felt.
“I guess we’d better go.” Abioye got to his feet but waited for me to make the choice.
“Yes, I guess we must,” I said, breaking into a jog to follow the woman who had stolen my mother’s staff.
I didn’t have time to question Naroba about her theft as she led us across the fenlands of the Sea of Mists, but I did have time to begrudgingly admire her skills. I didn’t know what was worse—worrying about what had happened to Tiana and the other Daza of the expedition… Or realizing that Naroba had grown from the arrogant young woman I remembered to a clearly capable hunter.
She wasn’t always in sight as she was in the lead of our group—which I now saw was comprised of a handful of fellow Souda tribespeople. I could hear her often repeated whistles though and heard them repeated from farther ahead. Every time that Naroba communicated, I noticed how she adjusted her track to head towards them—and after a little while I heard voices.
Naroba had met up with two more Souda tribespeople—also whom I recognized as proficient warriors and hunters—who fell in with our group before the whole process of whistle-call and whistle-response repeated again.
She set up a relay system, I thought, admiring her efficiency. Leaving a couple of Souda at prominent places in the fens to help guide them on their way through. Wherever her warband was, just so long as they stayed with earshot of another whistler, then they would be able to coordinate their way back through the mists. I guessed that the actual calls she used also indicated something—perhaps ‘stay’ or ‘return’.
We gathered three more groups of Souda guides before I found that the ground underfoot was becoming drier as it rose, with the thick-stemmed fenland grasses giving way to the wispy strands of the taller, thinner Plains grasses, and soon enough, the mists started to clear entirely as we stepped out onto the Plains proper.
“Rest up,” Naroba said as we stepped up the rise of land and into a hot afternoon, with the whisping blanket of the Sea of Mists behind us. I saw a collection of small cookfires and realized Naroba’s warband was much larger than I had expected—and had already captured a large gaggle of people who now sat under the straggling stand of trees, with their hands tied behind their backs. The guards from the expedition! I thought—and although I recognized their faces—none of them appeared to be that creep Homsgud.
But I was more concerned with the sudden assault of once-familiar sights, sounds, and smells as I walked, on the Plains, amongst a traditional Souda hunting-camp. A tremble ran through my entire body, and I knew only a part of it was exhaustion and hunger. My heart felt like it was too big in my chest—I was out on the Plains once again with my people just as I had always wanted—and I was free!
But there was also my worry for my mother, hammering my heart in equal measure. I couldn’t bear it so I made my way to where Naroba was hunkered down under some of the straggling trees, discussing something in a muttered voice with Benassi and Namki.
“Naroba—please, you have to tell me.” I stood before her, wavering and wobbling. I wished that I could appear stronger. I wished that I wasn’t wearing these slaves’ rags before her. I wished that I could summon the same dignity and authority that my mother always did.
Naroba looked up at me with those bright eyes of hers and cocked her head to one side without saying anything. It was a customary gesture amongst the Elders of the tribe, when they had something important to think about and were wondering whether the questioner deserved the wisdom that they could impart.
“Naroba—tell me!” Her reticence made me want to either weep or scream, but in the end my words only came out as a desperate whisper.
The woman who had been my rival blinked slowly—she had always been so like a cat!—and gave a sharp, quick nod. “Narissea? Your mother is Walking the Spirit Lines,” she said, and her words did nothing to ease my confusion and distress. I didn’t know why my mother would feel the need to Walk the Spirit Lines—a practice that we Daza used only rarely and only when we were deeply troubled. In fact, it was rare for any Daza to perform such an act, and usually they never came back.
I knew that to Walk the Spirit Lines meant to venture out into the Plains, sometimes only for a few days, sometimes for months, following what strange impulses, signs and portents as made sense to your heart. The seeker would return, and then depart again, and return and depart for as long as it took until they had recovered the wisdom or healing that they needed.
Usually, it meant that the person was brokenhearted—as when someone loses a loved one and has to wander, alone, until they find out who they are without them. Sometimes it was also the choice of the terminally ill, or those noble and proud Elders who knew that their time was coming to an end and did not wish to be a burden on the tribe anymore.
The seeker would come back rejuvenated, filled with a new sense of purpose and calm—if they came back at all.
“But—why?” I said, and my voice sounded high to my own ears. “She’s the Imanu! She has a duty! She has a task for the village—”
Namki coughed, and I saw even Benassa look away from me in embarrassment.
“What? Namki, Benassa? Tell me!” I stepped forward, suddenly hot and angry.
“Nari,” Naroba took a deep breath. “Listen. Your mother is not the Imanu anymore. That role was taken from her and given to me when your mother…became erratic,” Naroba said. I could see that she took no joy in telling me this, but she also added no comfort or kindness to her words, either.