Midnight. The moons echoed over a white-splashed sea.
A faint wooden scratching sound, even and repetitive, followed by a rustle in the palms. Tauga raised the pole on her palm, perfectly balanced and still beneath its weight.
Once a glass khopesh had rested in a sling over her shoulder. Now there hung on her belt a sheathed Alefprian gladius, wrought in bronze. The light of the Ophanim competed with the eyes of Vulamera far above her head.
A presence emerged among the palms. Tauga's tongues curled around it by reflex. For a while there was quiet.
She looked up. "So."
"You have returned."
"Felt like it was time."
Quiet. She went back to trimming her mast. Flakes of bark and wood fell from her obsidian knife.
"You're out of your shell."
"Yes."
The response drew her eye. There it coiled, barely the length of her forearm, a snake or fluke lined with bulbous blood eyes. Not 'correct'. Just 'yes'.
"Aren't you scared?"
"Your presence makes me safe."
She looked down, watching the ocean with her spare eyes. "Oh."
"Tell me where you came from."
Cocked head. "But you already know."
"It would benefit Tauga to recall her story," said Heartworm. "Start at Alefpria."
Her head dipped. She took out a pair of callipers and began to measure.
"When the Alefprians beat me, I blacked out. By the time I came to I was halfway to their city. I'd never heard of it before. I was in chains. I didn't care."
As she spoke, she heft the mast on her shoulder, an impossible burden, and carried it to the waves. A catamaran rested on the lagoon. "I learned that the Rotflies were dead. Sen, Dracces, Jinini, everyone. And the City was gone. Just a hole in the ground. I didn't think much about. Much. I just ate when they told me to. I said words when they talked to me. Sometimes, anyway. I'm dead. I don't know what they wanted."
"They put me on trial. There was no one to confess. No Énas to answer to. It was so quiet. Like a... I was a quiet beggar. They expected me to say something but I had nothing to say."
"After a while they decided I was broken. And, guess I am. They sent me to a gibbon monk who... She'd seen girls with fear dreams before. But she knew I was different. So, she arranged to let me go.""I was in the city for a few months. Eventually the god-emperor found me. Their god-emperor.""He told me to go back. Said he had work for me. Said that my sins could be atoned, and he needed a loo- lieute- a right hand. To govern Amestris, and build a new City. While he went on conquest."
"He named me Marquise. That means, 'border lord'."
"So I spent the year... learning... The gibbon had sweetmeat..." She shook her head, beak to the sand. Her memories weren't too clear. "And now here I am."
"Not Amestris."
Tauga shrugged. "If he wants me to rebuild Xerxes, I'll go to where Xerxes is."
They looked out together. The Metatic waters spread in all directions for thousands of miles.
There was a sound like a weight in the sand. "This."
Tauga picked up the maul. The Emaciator had disgorged it head-first, like a trick from a hat, though it was eight times Heartworm's length or more. It was the same weapon she remembered: an executioner's hammer, all haft and a small head, with a dull point on one end and a curved spike on the other. But it was more, too. A new weight suffused it, more suited to her obscene strength. The bronze gleam was only a tint, and a spike had been affixed to the killing end.
"You found it," she said.
"Adamantium carbide. Used in divine weaponry."
Faint nod. She spun the weapon, feeling its weight. A small mace had been flanged onto the butt end. Setting it to the sand, it was maybe twice her height, and taller than any man. She gripped the bludgeon cords whistling high above. It was an aerial weapon, not meant for close quarters. Hovering a few feet above the sand, she rocked it back and forth in her hand, then fit it to the clasp in her suit. Once more her silhouette was complete. Sword and hammer, polearm and sidearm.
Heartworm inspected the pile of canvas inside the catamaran. As Tauga swooped down to set her feet on the boat, it unzipped its teeth and stretched the fabric with black tongues, cutting it evenly into shape.
"Hey."
"Triangular sails. Efficiency."
Tauga watched it work. Together they attached it to the new mast. Heartworm perched on her shoulder as she did so. She regarded it coolly with her side-eyes.
"You and I are a team, Tauga."
Vec
Timemaster