Rory & Ink

Chapter One

Before

Inkiri

There is a saying on Aër: Love lives in the mind as much as it lives in the skin and under your tongue. Two Earth years ago -- almost three years now -- I didn’t understand what that meant, but I remember the day when the seeds of understanding it were planted.

It was stormy, and a constant drizzle saturated the air. We were huddled in a shelter we’d erected to keep us hidden from sight since we were on the Kankarraz side of the border, in Koa Esher territory.

Vergis was sitting on a rock, the hood of his Earth-made cloak drawn deep over his face. Nokim barely managed not to pace, and Fellisse kept guard opposite me, watching the Lugarra side of the border. We were waiting for Lissir, who was late.

He will be fine, won’t he? Nokim said.

I could always hop into town, Vergis said, unconcerned as he so often was.

I growled, an automatic reaction, but I pulled myself together. No. You would stand out too much, Vergis. With your clothes. Those would give him away as someone from far away, and if anyone knew the fashion, they would know it was human-made stuff. What I didn’t say was that Vergis was likely to turn heads with his looks alone, never mind his clothes. And none of us were willing to risk him getting taken by guards and brought before the Koa Esher, not when he was not a trained Raikenga. Not when he was hangu and a mage.

Vergis sighed and gave that odd shoulder jerk. Whatever. I wasn’t going to parade around town. But suit yourself.

And so we waited, time stretching. The wind changed a few times, but it beat the rain into my face for most of the waiting. It was unpleasant, but I was Raikenga, and my place was here, in the rain, to wait for our spy to return to us.

When it happened, I felt it even as the rain picked up, the relentless wind forcing me to squint. It was like vertigo but not, a tingling feeling, an urgent need that came from deep inside me. I didn’t know what the feeling was, could not say if it was pain or pleasure or something else entirely.

For a moment, the confusion was all-encompassing, and the world around me grew distant. I had never felt anything like this. What crystallized from all the many and conflicting things I was feeling was a blood-deep need. After a while, it settled into a throbbing, pulsing sensation, and I was once more able to see the world and make sense of it. I looked around, not knowing then what I was looking for, but it was when I realized what this had to be: a mate call.

A mate call. Stories made them sound like this felt, but the reality had been different for many years now.

I took a step to the side, swayed back against the tarp of our shelter even as next to me, Vergis hissed and stood.

What the -- something is happening, he said, switching to his oddly accented English.

The need burned brightly, and I looked around again, desperate for something, and in my desperation, I very nearly ignored Lissir, who was drawing his own hood back to let us know it was him approaching, and not someone from the Kankarraz side.

He… Lissir, I said and pointed.

Vergis? Nokim was torn between taking care of Vergis and going out to Lissir, and Fellisse clicked to soothe Vergis, who looked like someone had hit him too hard, his eyes wide and his hands balled. He shook a little as if with cold, but he had assured us that his cloak was waterproof and windproof on top of that.

Inki? Fellisse said, and I nodded, clicked back.

It’s… I will go out to him. Do you have Vergis?

Fellisse and Nokim nodded, and so I walked into the rain and wind, my feet light, although I knew I needed to be going elsewhere. I needed… the one who wasn’t here. My mate. I knew he lived out there, knew it by the absence, by the way my skin ached to touch him, and my tongue to taste him. By how my mind wanted to learn everything about him, starting with his name.

Lissir had pulled his hood back down, but his cloak, more a trader’s finery than sensible clothing for the moors, was soaked.

Sorry, I met a merchant from Rowazza, and he was enamored by the sound of his own voice, Lissir said when he reached me. He tilted his head. Inkiri?

You… did you meet with your informant? I asked.

Lissir nodded. Yes, and he has given me outpost locations all along the border. What is wrong? You don’t look well. Will you be able to head back across the moors?

I grinned at Lissir, then hugged him. I feel him. My mate, I whispered in his ear. He’s… on Earth. How exactly I knew this, I wasn’t sure, but as soon as I said it, I felt the truth of the words.

Huh. Lissir pushed me back. Then best not hug other hangua. And how do you know he is on Earth? Is he a mage as well? And are you saying you are feeling a mate call pulling you to Earth? That makes no sense.

I… don’t know, but I feel him. I know it’s Earth. Where I need to go. I looked back to the shelter, because that meant I would need to get Vergis to take me.

Well, if you are going to Earth, we are coming, but we need to get the information at least to Esaka before we leave. Lissir pulled me along at a brisk pace, his merchant’s disguise getting waterlogged even further.

Yes. We have to inform the Raiken as well, I said when Lissir ducked under the shelter. His blue-gray hair was dripping wet, and heavy drops fell from the tips of his gray horns. He tried to get out of his cloak, but the strings that drew it shut had taken on too much water.

Inform the Raiken? Vergis asked. Anything bad you picked up in town, Lissir?

Nokim swooped in to help Lissir, cutting through the knots and pulling the wet garment off while Lissir wiggled. Nokim had done his best to keep Lissir’s Raiken cloak dry, but in this weather, that wouldn’t make much of a difference.

Well, as bad as any outpost with Koa Esher stationed there ever is, I suppose, Lissir said and pulled his Raiken cloak on. Inkiri feels a mate call.

Mate call? Nokim said. He’d been clicking at Vergis, whose pupils were still too wide. I didn’t miss either that our mage’s hands trembled in the overlong sleeves of his cloak.

Wait. You felt that just now? Vergis said.

Fellisse, the shelter, I said. And yes. It -- I’m not sure I can explain.

It doesn’t matter, Vergis said. His expression was haunted, not scared, I didn’t think the hangu got scared, but something was amiss. We should leave here. I felt magic, a lot of it, and if it was the Koa Esher, I don’t want to stick around to find out what they’ve been up to.

And I want out of the rain, Lissir said, grabbing one edge of the tarp under which we’d awaited his return.

From that point, we fell back into the practiced routine we always stuck to, especially in hostile territory.

The rain got worse before long, and our progress was slow as a result, seeing as how we had to mind where we stepped. The moors could be treacherous on a clear day, but soggy like they were that day, they became even more so.

Lissir brought up the rear, and Fellisse and Nokim were in the front while I walked behind Vergis in silent agreement to make sure he didn’t get stuck. Vergis did not know these moors as well as we did.

The arrow hit a hand’s breadth away from Vergis’s leg, sinking deep into the ground. The feathers of the fletching might have been green once, but they too were wet and looked a muddy brown color now.

Fuck, Vergis cursed in English and brought his gun out.

I whipped my head around toward our attackers just when the painful noise of Vergis’s handgun rang loudly in my ears and one of the Koa Esher went down, Vergis’s single shot clearly finding its aim.

I cannot see them clearly. Five or six? Lissir said.

There was another shot. Four or five, Vergis said.

Nokim had his own bow ready and fired. Fellisse picked up Nokim’s bag.

Green vial, Nokim said just a moment before his arrow hit, not one of the Koa Esher, but the moor where the projectile affixed to the arrow’s tip exploded.

The force of the explosion was weak because of the weather, but it was enough to make the Koa Esher break out in shouts. Their scholars were not like any from the Raiken, and Koa Esher soldiers knew to fear our makers in the field, even if they did not wear the protector black.

Because of their panic, Vergis managed to hit another one of the attackers. We need to get going, he said.

Fellisse struck the seal of the vial Nokim had told him to get and tossed it between our attackers and us. It was a smoke bomb. Like the explosive projectile, it was weak in this weather, but it afforded us some protection.

Yes, move, I said and waved Lissir to move up ahead in our line so that I could stay in the rear.

For the next minutes, we did nothing but walk, one foot, the other, sometimes sinking up to the knee. Progress was slow, and every step was hard work. The rain was noisy.

We kept looking over our shoulders to see if they were in pursuit, but with luck, it was just one of the border patrols, and with more luck, they wouldn’t want to risk getting close enough for Vergis to shoot the rest of them down. Some of the Koa Esher foot soldiers preferred living to dying a zealot’s death.

At least they didn’t do magic, Vergis said. I thought they would whammy us with something.

He spoke in English again.

What did you feel? I asked and looked back. I did not see them, but I felt eyes upon us, although I could have imagined it. There was so much turmoil in my mind, the aching of wanting my mate strong even with such an imminent threat at our heels.

I’m not sure, Vergis said. He was not one to admit uncertainty or indeed anything he perceived as weakness, and the admission now unsettled me.

It made me ache for my mate even harder, a face I didn’t know yet, a voice I’d never heard, hands that had never touched me.

It was then that I understood: love lives in the mind.

* * *

By the time we got to Esaka, we were wet and cold to the bone. Lissir had gone straight to making his report to Hove without so much as getting out of his wet clothes. Hove himself accompanied Lissir to speak to us in the anteroom of the baths where we were in the process of removing our clothes and the notable quantity of mud and rain that clung to everything.

Something has happened while you were out there, Hove began.

He told us of the news he’d had, of how openings in the veils had just appeared all of a sudden while every koa, every mage, said something strange had transpired, a magic they did not know.

A day later, it had a name: the Lagasar. There were other reports of strong mate calls leading to Earth, and the Raiken’s age-old rule permitting that a mate call may be followed made it easy for me to go. The others, as my sentenmen, took an official leave of absence. We filed those petitions with Hove maybe two hours after we’d first heard the event called the Lagasar.

Hove accepted the petitions right away, even if he and the dena were busy with the reports of tears in the veils on top of deciding how to act on the information Lissir had found them.

I knew my path was set, but I didn’t want the sentenmen to do something they might come to regret. We all decided we would have one last soak before leaving, and I told them I would meet them in the baths after talking to Vergis.

Outside of the doors behind which the baths began, Lissir stopped me while the others went in ahead. He will help you, you’ll see, Lissir said. He… cares about you.

I know that, I said, my eyes tracking the geometrical decorations all along the old hallways. I suspect just how much he cares.

Lissir looked to the ground. I don’t think he will be angry enough to abandon us. And besides, who can say your new mate won’t desire a pretty koa like Vergis?

That was a thought. I didn’t hate the idea. Vergis certainly was beautiful. But something about it felt wrong, like shoes that were a bit too tight, like the way your horns made your skull feel when you slept in a very cold or wet place.

But I had to ask Vergis, and I did.

He had agreed, like Lissir had said, but he’d declined the suggestion to join us in the baths, had said something vague about how he had this or that to do in town. I didn’t stop him. I knew he did not deserve to have his hopes dashed like this, but I couldn’t feel sorry for doing it. I couldn’t have done anything else. My mate, whoever he was, had to come first.

In the bath, I cleaned quickly, overjoyed that I would soon be closer to my unknown mate.

Just one more time, so I can be certain you all have heard: you do not have to accompany me to Earth, I said to the