Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(14) Taiki: An Age in Stories

I'm not ready to head straight into the city yet. I don't say anything, but Ande and I have been traveling together for so long, we barely need to talk anymore. Ande's always been good at telling what people are feeling, too. I've noticed. She does the same for me, and as soon as the guards leave, she breaks off her approach so we can circle Rapal at a distance. It's not a comfortable distance, but I'm pretty sure the only place I'd be comfortable right now is back by the islands, so this is the best we can do.

Either way, the distance helps. I take in the city and all its movements, mapping it out so I won't be surprised when we actually get closer. I figured out a long time ago that I'm okay in crowded spaces as long as I know my way around them—socially and physically—but as soon as that gets taken away, they get overwhelming fast. It doesn't make sense, but some parts of my mind just don't, and people who work differently have never been weird about it. Ande included.

I'd like to go all the way around the city at least once, though that's going to take until nightfall. I hope all the sharks here don't change behavior when it's darker. I've already seen people petting them, children riding on them, and at least one Ashianti sending one off with what was probably a message-song, a Nekta-direction, or both. But you never know with sharks.

Rapal looks slightly different from all angles, a changing view that's probably at least partly the result of the sun going down. Shadows stretch, and the city's amazingly intricate textures start to blend together. It's a weird in-between after my day-vision can no longer make out details, but my dark-vision hasn't kicked in yet. It makes the flurry of motion all around the city even more all over the place. Ande moves us back a ways. That's better.

From here, I can see the full shape of Rapal. It really is beautiful; I have to give it that. The eel Kels built in symmetrical patterns, and the corals followed as they kept growing. The great coral branches have taken on their own shapes since then, but even now, hundreds of generations later, their overall arrangement is still just as satisfying. It stands out enough that even with the pile-on of new generations of dens and burrows, the original shape remains.

Then, around the back of the city from the side we first approached, even that haphazard symmetry breaks. Here, the coral has grown—or been coaxed to grow—straight out in a broad, flat shelf before a series of structures I know immediately must be a palace. Open arches stand in place of round dens on these structures. Bigger entrances mean easier access for enemies, but the Sami, going back to eel-Kel times, clearly haven't cared. The arches are a statement. A taunt, even. Daring any enemy to come fight the Kels inside.

Beyond the arches, the lowest level of the palace flares broadly, spreading into a series of interconnected, domed dens so big, the smallest would easily hold my whole tribe. The biggest would hold that plus Ande's village, plus our Risi shoals. These domes start to gather together in the middle, until they grow to a single spiral shape that wraps around one of Rapal's huge coral outgrowths like a shell. I see blue lights inside the lower-level domes, through scattered holes. The Ashianti royals must keep luminescent creatures as pets. Some domes are so bright, they glow from the inside, but the upper, shell-shaped part of the palace is dark.

Somewhere in there are the Ashianti royals who keep this whole territory out of the fighting. Out of the war. Looking at their palace, it doesn't seem hard to imagine someone taking them down, but I know the stories too well to fall into that trap. Karu stories, passed down when they and the Sami still interacted regularly. Whole Saru armies have gathered and tried to attack Rapal before, and never even gotten close to the city. Assassins have snuck into the palace, only to wind up dead before they've crossed two rooms.

Yet other Sami still try to overthrow the city. I wonder if it's jealousy, or because the hierarchy here is so unconventional. It's all upside-down to have people fighting for the ones who rule them, when those rulers are physically smaller and weaker than many of them. The Ashianti hold the city on singing skill and the love of their people, and I'm sure most of the other Kels out here don't understand how.