“Yah, I’m not blind. Who was it? A Tensor?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” She’d never seen slackcraft done that way. And Tensors were so strict about the proper methods. “They took my slackcrafting ability and used it to—” Words failed her. “I don’t know what they did.”
“The whole naga disappeared. Just like that.” Adi snapped her fingers. “Crazy.”
The last of the pugilists, his robes oxblood and saffron, disembarked from his lightcraft. As he dropped to the ground he called out, “Hoy!”
Phoenix sprang to meet the tall figure in delight, her feet kicking up compacted sand. “Hey, girl, hey,” Thennjay said, staggering under the assault of her massive snout. “How are you, girl? Hey, hey.”
Thennjay Satyaparathnam liked to say he had achieved two distinctions in life: becoming youngest Head Abbot in the history of the Grand Monastery, and also its tallest. Mokoya liked to add that he was also the Head Abbot who had discarded the greatest number of monastic vows—most notably that of chastity—so perhaps there should be a third distinction.
The son of a fire breather and a stilt walker, Thennjay had once thought he would spend his life in a circus, doing magic tricks and juggling things for money. Then Mokoya received her vision. The fortunes had intervened. He became the Gauri street mutt turned Head Abbot. At their wedding, he had made the predictable “I was the man of her dreams” joke, and Mokoya had almost managed not to punch him. She had made him pay for it that night.
Mokoya found her feet and folded her arms as he approached. “Well, look who I found,” he said.
“What are you doing out here, Thenn?”
“You know,” he said, looking out at the ruined landscape. “Just seeing the sights.”
She didn’t unfold her arms. He sighed. “Akeha told me where to find you. Seemed like you needed help.”
“When I need help, I ask.”
“Do you?”
Mokoya’s lips tightened.
Adi nodded at Thennjay. They corresponded sometimes, a fact that Mokoya did her best to ignore. “Ey, Mister Head Abbot,” her captain said brightly, “how’s life in the Grand Monastery?”
He laughed. “It’s been better. Like those days before my beloved ran off to hunt naga in the wilderness.”
Adi snorted. Mokoya didn’t laugh. Silence descended around them. Thennjay looked at the floor.
Adi sighed. “Okay. Come, lah, got a lot of work to do.” Something in the background caught her attention, a boneheaded nephew: “Oei, Faizal! It’s backward, lah! Bodoh.” She scuttled off to handle the situation. A graceful exit, all things considered.
Thennjay studied Mokoya’s face carefully. “It’s good to see you, Nao,” he said, gently.
“Good for you,” she said. Her chest twinged as she said it, like someone had pulled a string too hard and it had snapped, but she wasn’t about to take it back. She ducked down to pick her cudgel off the floor, refusing to look at Thennjay’s face. She imagined it must hurt still, after all these years, her brushing him off. She didn’t want to know.
Chapter Four
“I TOLD YOU we shouldn’t have gone after it,” Yongcheow said. His chin was pointed in Mokoya’s direction, bright and bitter triumph shining on his face.
“Come on,” Thennjay said. “Now’s hardly the time . . .”
They had retreated to camp. Sunfall was imminent, marking the end of the day-cycles. A pot of stew was boiling somewhere among the tents, spicing the air with notes of cardamom and star anise. Good to know someone still had appetite left.
Yongcheow ignored Thennjay. “You didn’t want to listen, did you? You never listen.”
“Did anyone die?” Mokoya snapped. When nobody responded, she said, “No. Nobody died. And we learned something important.” She stared at Yongcheow. “Which we wouldn’t have if we’d stayed in our tents.”
Adi said, “The two of you are really getting on my nerves.”
Thennjay’s deep voice rumbled over their exchanges. “Right now the most important thing is to decide what we do next.”
“I’m going back to Bataanar,” Yongcheow said. “I need to talk to the Machinist leadership. Lady Han must hear of this. I can’t speak to her here.”
“Oh, good. So there’s no need for discussion, then,” Mokoya said.
“Nao—”
“I’m not going back,” Mokoya said. “That naga is still loose in the desert. We need to find out where it’s gone.”
“Yah,” Adi said. “Sooner or later it’ll come back. We need to be prepared.”
“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” Thennjay said. “We can split up. Half the pugilists can follow Yongcheow to Bataanar, just in case. The other half can stay here—with you—and try to track that creature down.” He hesitated. “I’ll stay with you.”
Mokoya fastened her arms across her chest. “We don’t need your help.”
“Hello,” Adi said. “You don’t put words in my mouth, okay? I want him to stay. You think you one person enough to stop that thing?”
“Fine,” Mokoya said. “Do whatever. I don’t care.” It was Adi’s crew. She was tired and her hip hurt and her chest hurt, and people could do whatever they wanted; it didn’t concern her. She turned and walked away.
*
The edge of the Copper Oasis lay a hundred yields from the camp, its borders tender and marshy, its waters glossy black and unfathomable in the moonlight. Mokoya stood in front of that broad mirror, vast enough to vanish into the horizon, and wondered what it would be like to walk into its cool embrace, to let the oasis close its gentle hands over her head. She imagined silence, darkness, eternal bliss. Her lungs finally full and content.
She snapped herself out of her reverie. There was still plenty of work to do.
The vision of Eien’s death lay curled like a fist on her belt, an explosive housed in thin glass walls. She thought about hurling it into the dark as hard as she could, gifting the oasis its oil-slick contents. But she didn’t have that many capture pearls to waste. Gingerly she removed it from the capture box and undid the knots in the Slack. Light dissipated as the memory was cast back into nothingness, where it belonged.
She wanted to vomit.
Behind her, oasis grass rustled. Mokoya knew who it was before she spoke: Adi, come to make sure Mokoya was all right, as if she didn’t have enough to worry about herself.
“I’m fine,” Mokoya said preemptively. And then, sensing that this was too much of a lie even for her, amended it to “I’ll be fine.”
Adi stood next to her and sighed. “Mokoya, I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?”
“The death anniversary is tomorrow, right? I forgot. That’s why you’re so moody.”
“It’s . . .” Adi wasn’t wrong. “It’s nothing, compared with everything else going on. I should be the one apologizing.” She shook her head. “I know Yongcheow’s just trying to help.”
“And your husband also.”
“And him too.”