Taiki doesn't say a word all the way back up the canyon. We stay close—closer than I would like—with my dagger drawn and him humming some covert version of the sounding song. I asked him once what the difference was between it and the seeking song, given the similar purposes they seem to serve. I learned they're quite distinct. The seeking song is sensitive to Kels and only Kels, which on first thought is exactly what we need here. But the sounding song is only felt by its singer and those immediately around them.
Seeing Taiki here, I'm reminded of my conversation with Satomi, about the songs and how long it takes to master them. How few of them most Kels know. Taiki doesn't seem bound by those limits. It's one more strike against the shattered trust I once had in him. Nobody that smart spirals this far by accident. Either he's spun out on some trauma that he's never recovered from, or he's in this with an ulterior motive in mind. Either way, he's not in his right mind.
We reach the top of the canyon after a far longer swim than I remember. Either Taiki has taken us farther up it, or some combination of the current and my whirling thoughts is warping my sense of distance. We drift to a halt on our stomachs just below the canyon rim. Taiki gestures for me to wait and creeps up to peek over the edge. He stiffens. Rather than jerk back, he eases downwards, already humming a different song than when he left.
I've never felt this one before. I scratch one hand as it starts to go numb, then twist my head sharply. Is my vision blurring? I can't taste the water properly. Taiki lights one hand the barest amount.
"That's normal," he signs. "Lie still."
I try, though my whole body now feels padded against any sensation from the water or the rocks. It's a horrifying experience. My vision has dimmed, and none of my other senses are working properly.
And then something moves up on the canyon rim. My problems with lying still evaporate as the silhouette of a Kel glides overhead, two arm-spans away. It's big. Bulky and broad-shouldered, with a muscular body and a thick fish's tail. Its tail-fin dips back and forth with a tight efficiency that makes me shudder to think what its owner's top speed is. The Kel is already fast, and it's barely trying.
The Kel swims a short ways out over the canyon, where its silhouette is lost from sight. I feel the pulse of the water a split heartbeat before it whizzes overhead again. Taiki stops singing and trains his attention on the faint vibration of voices somewhere up on the plain. They grow fainter as the Kels move away.
Only as the song's effects wear off do I realize Taiki is gripping my hand. I shake him off violently. Rashi help me. He blinks and murmurs something that looks apologetic, like he didn't realize. I don't know what his impression of this alliance is, but it clearly differs from mine.
I don't think I've ever seen Taiki embarrassed, and this is no exception. He rouses himself and drifts back to the canyon rim. This time, he's there for so long without a twitch of motion that I begin to wonder if he's fallen asleep. I cast about for something long enough to jab him with. Before I can find it, he gives a small head-shake and signs the all-clear. Rather than swim up onto the plain, though, he retreats and strikes out horizontally along the rocks of the canyon wall. I take a moment to scrub my free hand with sand before I trail after him at as much of a distance as I safely can.
We can only go so far before the canyon runs out and the plain greets us with a mocking lack of cover. I'd like to think we're past the Saru-Kels and into some kind of safe zone, but Taiki is more tense than ever. It runs up and down the lights of his tail in little shivers, scarcely visible with the stars already so dim I can barely see them. When I drift up beside him, he starts, and a nasty shudder extinguishes his outline altogether. The stars return slowly.
I ignore this. "So? Where now?"
"We need somewhere safe to sleep." He tips his chin at the darkness ahead. "There are sometimes caves in the Shalda"—something-something. Or Ki-something.
I cross my arms and wait. He's already near collapse with nerves and exhaustion, but he still manages to wilt another increment when he sees the look.
"Shalda-Ki-Te." He makes four signs: near-land, away from land, upper, and lower. "Ki and Ro, Te and Tu."
It's an ocean classification system. If I assume the modifiers can be applied to Shalda, Sami, and Karu in varying combination like I've seen him use, that means his people sliver the ocean into at least twelve different regions. And that's not even counting territories and landforms. Rashi help me, it's water. All deep, salty water. Though I guess not all of it is deep.
I test the system on the other mention I've seen of it. The Seers of the Shalda-Ki-Tu. If Ki is near land—apparently the seafloor counts—and Tu is lower, Shalda-Ki-Tu translates, as far as I'm concerned, to deep-mud-deeper. The bottom of the ocean. I guess that explains why a Karu queen found the Seers while travelling across the seafloor in pursuit of a giant clam demigod's song.
Taiki stops short of tapping me on the shoulder, gives me a nervous look, and beckons me instead. Good, another improvement. He's learning to treat me like a proper island sun-dancer; like someone who owes him nothing, and is letting him stick around when she could very well leave him to the Baria Kels instead. We sneak together across the plain, suddenly very exposed after the rocks of the canyon. I feel the change in the current before we reach the wall it's flowing down. Well, "wall" isn't really the best description. It's more like a hill, rugged and as packed with growths of strange life forms as the canyon was.
I poke my finger into a translucent, gaping, mouth-like thing on a fleshy stalk, and nearly wet myself as it clamps shut. It's as soft as fabric. I poke another stalked thing next, this one resplendent in long, feathery plumes like a miniature replica of a palm tree. Unlike a palm tree, the plumes move, scrunching in on themselves.
Taiki gives me a weary look. I interpret that as an ask to stop poking sea life, so I immediately look around for something else to poke. There's a nice, button-like space in the center of a nearby anemone. I stick a finger in it, then whip back as a blistering sting straps me across the back of the hand. The tentacles that brushed against me invert into a fat pillow like the thing has swallowed its own arms. I whip out my dagger and stab it. Taiki winces.
He can go suck on his own tail.
We wander the incline for a bit until Taiki finds the first cave. I'm not really helping him look. I approach the hole in the rock, but he has the nerve to hold out a hand to pause me. I'm tired and hungry and not in the mood to listen to anyone—let alone him—so I slap his arm down and shove past him. I'm met with teeth. Taiki drags me back as I flail, trying to stab the thing. I try to stab him instead. His hand closes on my wrist in a grip much stronger than I was anticipating. The next moment, I'm armlocked. Efficiently armlocked. I twist and spit like a wild thing.
Something slithers from the cave and into the darkness, and Taiki finally releases me. I spin around, but he jets out of reach and hovers there, glaring.
"You don't intrude on an eel's cave without asking permission," he signs.
"I do whatever I want."
I light my hands and swim into the cave with a lot less caution than I know I should be exercising. I don't care. I'm so caught up in my anger, I nearly run smack into a wall of jelly before I see what's ahead of me. I freeze in horror.
Ropes of small, round globules clustered into bundles pack the cave ceiling, dangling to chin height. Half are a clouded white infiltrated by sooty patches. The other half are already rotted. My wake rolls up the back wall and tears into a row of ropes. Shreds of material and the limp carcasses of baby octopi swirl down in a cloud.
I backpedal faster than I have in my life. Billows of dead stuff chase me out of the cave, surging as the current of my escape rips through the eggs. The sickening fog nearly swallows my tail. Right before it reaches me, something grabs my arm and jets backwards. Thank you, Taiki. He releases me the moment we're out of reach and backs out of dagger range again. We both float stricken as the cave coughs up more clouds. They settle over the slope below like a film of ash.
"What was that?" Taiki signs.
"Octopus eggs."
"Not living ones."
"You think?"
A hideous taste seeps through the water. I gag. Rocks speed by as I beat a hasty retreat, spitting until what could well be death itself gets out of my mouth. Taiki keeps pace. If anything, he's even paler than he was when I emerged from the cave.
"Got any explanations?" I snap.
"The eggs die if the nest is abandoned. Something could have killed the mother? But then her watcher-eel would be gone, too... I think someone called her away." He looks unsure about both of those options.
I stab a finger back towards the cave. "Called? Called? Rashi help me, how big was that thing? If that's one nest, that was an octopus bigger than my bed."
"I know. And nesting." His hands twist together, and he shoots a glance at the sky. "The only people I've seen who could call away a nesting Nightcatcher are Ashianti Kels. But they don't come this close to shore."
"So something ate the mother."
"Nothing usually tries to. And then the eel wouldn't still be here."
"You just said it was an option!"
He cringes at the angry flash of my hands and tail. "I don't know," he mumbles. "Maybe something ate it."
He clearly doesn't believe it. Great. Now I've got a cringing squid Kel and a dead octopus nest mystery on my hands. I dump them both.
"Well, find another cave." I rip a mussel off the rocks and sit myself on a rock throne to crack and eat it. Taiki is as jumpy as a songbird, and flinches when I hit the shell on the rock. For once, he might have a point. I finish cracking the mussel more quietly while he skulks up the slope in search of another shelter.
I've eaten two more shellfish by the time my entourage returns with better news. Another cave.
"Empty?" I ask.
"No. But the eel it belongs to is going to will let us sleep there."
I arch one eyebrow. "So we're sharing with an eel?"
"No!" He looks momentarily scandalized, then drops his gaze again, his hands fidgeting. "It took the offering and left. If it wants the cave back, it'll come back. But until then, we can use it. We just have to be gone by midday."
I eye the sky. Morning's sapphire blush has made an appearance since we left the canyon. That won't be long to sleep. "Can't we just keep the cave?"
I might as well have just called his mother a sea slug. Which she might have been, come to think of it; it's not like I've ever seen her. Taiki is so furious at my proposition, he doesn't even answer—just gives me a look that would do a seastorm proud, and swims away. I set a leisurely pace and force him to match it to avoid losing me in the dark.
In spite of his earlier betrayal, I'm suddenly quite pleased about this whole situation. If Taiki believes I'm the Singer, I've got the full protection of the prophecy behind me, not to mention a weapon far superior to anything he's ever carried. He won't touch me. He can't; his kind will murder him. I might yet, too, but that's my prerogative.
In the meantime, we're on our way back to my island, Sami or no Sami, and squid-tail here is going to show me a way to get close. He'll heal me if I get hurt, and he's gradually proving spineless enough to do anything I ask if I just glare at him or, that failing, show my dagger. Or even so much as touch its hilt. There are luxuries in the sea after all. I feel as close as I can get to my status back home.
I need to get back to Telu, but I plan to travel like the sun-dancer I am the whole way there.