I expected Makeba to try and recruit new Sandsingers from whatever allies me and Ande have gathered. But I'm also not sure what unspoken conditions might be layered over her question, so I venture, "Among the Shalda-Kels?"
"Doesn't matter."
I don't know how to answer that. Only Ande could tell what might still lurk beneath that statement, or how genuine it is. If I take it at face value, it means Makeba is open to having even Karu-Kels join the Sandsingers. While that might be specific to the Karu-Kels her people live with, she must know they—like most of their deep-sea Karu-kin—can't tolerate the surface waters any better than most Sami can tolerate the deep.
I need to know for sure. "Doesn't matter at all?" I sign. "Or do you have any preference?"
This time, Makeba actually looks annoyed. "I mean, they have to be able to work with us. I can't battle-train someone from scratch, and they need to survive at the surface. But beyond that, no, I couldn't care less. Send us islanders. Send us Shalda. Send us Karu if they're not spies." She flicks both hands up. "Send us Sami for all I care, if they're willing to commit to saving islanders. We can't really afford to be picky here."
She can't mean that genuinely. But the more I actually think about it, the more memories begin to surface in support of Makeba's words. Someone in the Sandsingers knows the Sami-Karu trade language, and must have learned it somewhere. The group has contacts all over the ocean, including—especially—through the Sami- and Karu-sana. And then there are the Sandsingers themselves.
Makeba had a Glauclin as her right-hand woman for almost as long as the Sandsingers have existed. Ruka's kind are still Shalda, but most mid-water Shalda don't see them that way. The same goes for Qiv like Keshko, or red signal squid like Devir. Yaz even told me Devir's family has a particular hatred for the islanders, and complimented him for getting over that enough to work with the Sandsingers. To my knowledge, Makeba never treated him any differently from the rest. If anything, his fighting prowess meant she trusted him with more, not less.
Makeba doesn't care. If someone or something helps her save more islanders, she approves of it. If it doesn't, she doesn't. I already knew her motives were straightforward, but I've never actually stopped to think about the implications. Does this apply to the war, too? If Makeba only cares about that insofar as it helps her save more islanders, that means she has no specific hatred for Sami- or Karu-Kels outside the ones who've attacked the Sandsingers on their raids. But I don't want to make that full assumption without her saying so herself. The stakes for someone like Sar are too high.
Makeba might also be alone in her not-caring.
"We are not accepting Sami-Kels," snaps another pair of hands. "Do not handle this so flippantly."
Fera and Ushi, the silver-tailed sisters, are glaring at their leader from across the camp. They're both mid-water Shalda, and they've been with the Sandsingers for longer than I can remember. They're two of the only original members who're still here.
"I meant what I said," signs Makeba. "If you have an issue with my stance, name it."
"Gladly."
Ushi, the older sister, rises from her seat against the wall. I drift back until I reach stone. I don't like having stone—not water—beneath me.
"You want to know my issue?" signs Ushi. She's halfway across the camp now. "Let's start from the basics, then. Sami-Kels killed half my people in the three-moon deep when Fera and I were children. A second round of Kels then trapped us in a seamount cave until we agreed to sing for our Risi, which those Kels immediately decimated. They wouldn't believe us when we said we had no more food. They kept us there until we nearly starved."
She's almost in Makeba's face now. "When we finally escaped and reconnected with our cousin-tribe, they'd had their usual migration route blocked and been forced to go around. They'd lost two members to the sharks there—sharks likely sung in by other Sami-Kels. We stuck together for as long as we could, but the waters had been nearly picked clean by the surface Kels, so we had to split up again. That was the last we ever heard from our cousin-tribe. When hunger drove us to a seamount to forage on, Karu drove us off again. When we tried to negotiate with them, they accused us of kidnapping their children. They tried to manipulate us into admitting to it. We never took a thing."
She takes a deep breath that shakes audibly. "It doesn't end there. I could list a hundred instances like these. And you want to know what issue we have with you offering membership in this group to Kels who've shown nothing but cruelty towards our people and yours?"
"My people live with Karu-Kels," signs Makeba. "I take no issue with anyone who hasn't proven themselves apathetic, antagonistic, or against our cause. No matter what part of the ocean they claim ancestry in."
"Our experiences mean nothing to you?"
"On the contrary. Show me whatever Kels did those things to you, and I will gladly see them added to the North Faction's raiding roster. We have connections for a reason. What I will not do is dismiss potential recruits on the basis of vague alignment with those Kels, any more than I will dismiss a recruit like Devir for the crimes of his family."
Ushi's face contorts into something ugly. "Devir abandoned us."
"And if he were to return and re-pledge his services, I would take him back again."
"Is that so? Would you take back Ruka, too?"
A long pause hangs over the camp, heavy as the water in the deepest parts of the ocean.
"I would ask her questions," signs Makeba at last. "Questions that I don't have answers to yet. I would make my decision then."
This isn't the Makeba I recognize. Or maybe I just haven't seen this side of her before. She was furious with Ruka after what happened between them. I've heard that story now: Ruka blew her own cover when Makeba revealed she'd known since the coup that Sar likely wasn't dead. Ruka must have been beside herself—she could have spent that whole time searching for them if she'd known.
I need to talk to Makeba alone. It's probably an idiotic thought; she could kill me if she wanted to, and she has no reason to see me as a friend. Ande threatened her last time we were here. But I still have at least one piece of information I think Makeba will want to know, and I don't want to tell her in front of all the Sandsingers.
Ushi hasn't said anything else. She hasn't even moved. Makeba turns away dismissively.
"Did you come here just to see me?" she asks Luli. "Or did you have another reason?"
She must be so used to people coming to see her with ulterior motives. Seeing Makeba alongside someone she knows from childhood brings out a different side of her—or maybe it's my view of her that's changing.
"I'm not the only one who wants to see you," signs Luli quietly.
"If they want me to come to them, I can't." Makeba swallows hard. "We don't know how much time we have left, but with the way the ocean is going, it can't be much."
I now have two pieces of information Makeba will want to hear, if we can get her alone. I flicker my lights for her and Luli's attention. They're not the only ones who look over, and it's my turn to swallow as I find myself the center of attention. I might make other enemies among the Sandsingers by doing this. But I can't care.
"Can we talk?" I ask.
Makeba turns to the buff island man who seems to have replaced Ruka as her second-in-command. "Watch the camp for me. Send Betea if there's an emergency—otherwise, don't come."
He nods once and looks directly at Ushi, pinning her in place with a stare as Makeba tugs Luli's arm and nods me after her towards the camp entrance. She leads us to a private alcove on the other half of Chura's Skull and turns to me with arms crossed, waiting.
I think that's my cue, and I don't know how long this openness will last, so I start with the most relevant piece of information. "We found out how long it is until the end of the prophecy. It's ten moons now." My hands falter as Makeba closes her eyes. I finish with a small, "I'm sorry," even though she can't see it.
Makeba's face twists for a moment, then settles again. She opens her eyes and signs, "Who did you learn that from?"
"An coral Karu-Kel I trust. Their people had records of when the islanders arrived."
I expect a fight for that—at least over the fact that I trust a coral Karu-Kel—but Makeba just signs, "Good. I suspected they'd be the ones to have it written down with any accuracy."
"But you didn't know it? I thought you... I mean, haven't you gotten information from Karu around the islands before?"
"Yes, but it's kind of hard to ask them about the prophecy when all we communicate about is the war." Makeba smiles, and I don't think it's meant to be humorous. "Those who hear otherwise don't last long."
A shiver tickles up my spine like a sea-spider. I'm not sure if that means the Sandsingers themselves go after island-chain Karu who betray them, or something else, but I don't want to take my chances asking. Makeba might be testing me for my knowledge of the Sandsingers' information-sharing activities, which include sending war details to Arcas in Rapal. I don't think I want to give away how much I know from Sar. Makeba's also given me my next opening, though, and my heart works its way back into my throat as I nearly falter out of saying anything. But that won't help anyone but me.
"About the war..." I begin, and Makeba's eyebrow ticks up again. "After we came to see you last time... we went a lot of places, but we ended up in Roshaska. We wanted to check..." I catch myself. I'm telling this backwards. "When we found out Andalua was dangerous to Kels, the Seers said something else we couldn't answer properly. A claim about the changing ocean and Kels fighting that could be interpreted in two different ways. We needed to know which one they meant."
"Kels fighting?" signs Makeba. "How so?"
"That's what didn't understand. Either it meant we all need to gather and fight to stop the ocean from changing, or the current fighting is doing it instead. Andalua is the same as the ocean, so she responds to what happens in it. We needed to know which option it was, so we would know how to stop it. We went to Roshaska because it has old records of—"
"Why not Rapal?" cuts in Makeba. If she's interrupting me again, that's not a good sign. It means she doubts what I'm telling her. "It has more records than Roshaska, does it not?"
I wince. The honest answer is that Sar told us those records in Rapal were destroyed, so we needed something more unbroken. But I can't say that out loud, which means I'll have to lie.
"We got back from the Seers on this side of the ocean," I sign. I guess that much isn't lying, at least. "That's why we came to see you again, last time. We already knew about the prophecy's timeline, so we didn't want to spend another couple moons going back to Rapal when Kels there said Roshaska also had old records. Records of the last time the ocean turned violent like this, so we could see what ended it or made it worse that time."
That's not actually a bad lie. All its bits and pieces are true or almost so, and we did learn about the records in Roshaska from a Rapal Kel. We just learned it from Sar. I watch Makeba nervously for any sign of her disbelieving me, but I must have been convincing.
I continue, "I also know Roshaska a lot better... my people swim through it every season. So we went there, and found those records. They said—"
"How did you read them?"
I freeze. I didn't think to cover off that part of the story, and I might know a lot of languages, but the language of the eel Kels isn't one of them. It's known to mostly be studied in Roshaska.
Only mostly. The other people who study it are Karu scholars, especially around the islands. I have a different excuse I can use for this.
"I did," I lie. "I... I used to live with Karu, too. I still know their language. And I pestered their scholars to teach me how to read the eel-Kel writing."
There's a long silence that stretches almost too tight to bear. Then Makeba laughs.
"You know what?" she signs. "I actually believe that. Which dialect do you know?"
"Eel Kel or Karu?"
She waves a hand around. "Either. Both?"
My heart is trying to escape my chest by shattering my ribcage now, but I stuck beside Sar for a lot of our time in Roshaska. Especially while assessing the writing on the walls on our way to the city core. I know enough about this to keep lying.
"The eel Kel language, I'm not sure about dialects, but it changes over time, so I guess I know the newest version? The one they were using before they died. It gets harder to read as it gets older. For Karu language, I know Eni-Karu."
A smile dances about Makeba's lips. "The Gods' Teeth."
I nod.
"Show me."
She's asking me to prove myself, and I can. "I guess you probably can't understand this, but..." A lump forms in my throat. "You're not far from where I lived. I miss it."
Neither of them reacts with recognition, and the bitter lump grows again. Saying it out loud feels different, even to people who can't understand. Makeba doesn't even hear the words—just their vibration in the water, undoubtedly Karu even without sound. We're not far from Lix'i here. I could reach it in a quarter moon. If it's not under siege by the aggressive North Faction of the island Karu, that is. Yaz says they've taken over a lot of territory at the upper end of the island chain.
"That could prove useful," signs Makeba.
I blink and resurface. "What?"
"That language. Having Karu-Kels you could speak to. That could be useful."
I pull back, wary of whatever she might be thinking. "I'm not joining you."
"I didn't ask if you were. What did you find?"
"Where?"
"In Roshaska."
"Oh. Well... we found an old story from another time the ocean did this, just without the islanders. It said... it said Kels fighting made it worse."
Makeba doesn't reply. I drag my eyes from her hands to her face, dreading what I'll find there, but she's just watching me again, her head tipped to one side. She's not glaring. She's not making any expression I can read at all.
"Is that a problem?" I venture.
She doesn't reply. Just continues to watch me for a while, then signs, "I'd like to talk to Luli in private. Do you have anything else to tell me?"
There's nothing I can immediately think of, so I shake my head.
"Are you planning to stick around?" asks Makeba.
"Should I?"
"We might be a while."
"That's fine."
"Your call, then."
She waves a hand, dismissing me. I swim halfway back to the camp before realizing I may not want to be there without Luli or Makeba, so I find another alcove and press myself into it. The water of the stone forest is always clouded, but I can just barely see the entrance of the Sandsinger camp. I'll see Luli and Makeba when they return to it.
Is Makeba angry at me for conveying that information? Am I endangering myself by staying here, or opening up more chances for an alliance conversation? My hand finds the bone dagger at my hip almost subconsciously. I still feel a little bad for stealing it from Underfarrow, but I'm sure Yaz would have approved. She always told me I didn't make enough use of the fighting skills I've picked up over the years. If all goes wrong and Makeba is angry, at least I might be able to escape an attack.
If she's not angry, meanwhile, then she's either dismissed me completely, or she's thinking about the implications of what I just said. I can't imagine inflaming a war for years, only to discover it was causing harm to people I cared about. If she cares about mid-water Shalda at all, that is. But she must. She wouldn't have spared a Sandsinger to train refugees here otherwise.
I probably shouldn't be the one to approach her again, and I don't know if she'll come find me. With no better option, then, I turn off my tail-lights and settle down to wait.