They do, in fact, set out the next morning. The Seers are obviously anxious to be rid of them. As Kyosti had predicted, the Seers decided they would head up north into Sorn Iorn first, then catch the first available boat into Mayna or Tenash. It would be a long journey, but shorter than waiting for the long winter to pass.
Sanji made no comment about this plan, but her silence sounded incredulous.
The elder attempted to keep their party size down to just the two of them and Anglorae, but then Anglorae threw a fit about leaving John Greenwood behind. The other Seers balked, but after an hours-long tantrum they allowed her to take John with her.
It would be a long, long couple of months. At least a month to Mardoo, the only city in Sorn Iorn with a dock large enough to house ships to take them across the Medlyn Sea, six months to cross the sea, and then at least another month south again to Chithoobra.
Kyosti’s only consolation is that maybe he really would run into another Innis to give the knife to.
There is no celebration when they leave the camp, and---as far as Kyosti can tell---the elder is the only person who comes to see them off.
“Just follow Anglorae,” the elder told them. “She and John Greenwood have been north to Mardoo many times. Once you reach the lake country, it’s due north to the ocean, then---”
“Oh shut up,” Anglorae snapped. “Didn’t you just tell him to follow me?” She grabbed Kyosti’s arm roughly. “Come on, useless, we don’t need to waste any more time.”
Kyosti jerked his arm out of her grip. “If you won’t show respect for your elders, at least let me,” he growled, then turned to face where he thought the elder was. “Thanks to the Seer’s Camp for your warm welcome and the supplies for your journey. I will request Her Majesty Queen Galveston send you a mighty gift as thanks when I return.”
The elder huffed. “We already requested a mighty gift from her, young man. If she didn’t send it through you, then when will it come?”
Leaves and the light covering of snow on the ground crunched as he marched away.
“Let’s go,” Anglorae insisted. “I’m not waiting for you anymore.”
***
The Seer’s Camp lay in the shadow of the Sue Mountains, which they now had to cross to reach the Mel Iorn, a vast plain of rivers and lakes streaming down to the sea from Ella’s Glacier. Luckily for them, there was a pass leading up from the Seer’s Camp to the other side; it could be wild and windy, though, and sometimes infested with vicious beasts. They would also have to hurry through it before a really bad winter storm hit.
To literally no one’s surprise, Anglorae threw another fit around midday and demanded a rest for a couple hours. Kyosti would have put her over his shoulder and kept going, but John offered no support to his protests and even Sanji pleaded with him to let her stop.
Giving into Anglorae’s tantrums seemed like a bad way to start the trip, but eventually he gave in, and they paused by a grouping of rocks. Anglorae griped for a bit about the damp and the wind, but settled down to sleep soon enough. Sanji and Kyosti settled on the ground away from her and John, under rays of sunlight that Kyosti could feel strongly despite the chill.
For a long while after Anglorae fell silent, Kyosti and Sanji sat side by side on the damp ground, enjoying the sun. Kyosti thought for a moment of their religious arguments, but what did that matter right now? Probably best not to discuss such things under Rokolo’s Infinite Eye, however weak he was in the south in winter.
“Will you describe them to me?” he asked Sanji quietly. “Anglorae and John,” he clarified as she said nothing. “I don’t know what they look like.”
“Anglorae looks a lot like you,” Sanji replied. “Makes sense, since you said Innis and Seers have a common ancestor. John is Chith, I think. Not as dark as most Chith, I’ve seen though? Almost the same color as you and Anglorae. His hair is long though...is that because he’s been living with the Seers? Most Chith seem to keep their hair short.”
Kyosti thought about that description. He was mostly experienced with Chith from Tel Iorn, Leonella, or Tenash. “Probably from one of the Iorns. Probably grew up in some fishing village on the shores of the Bengal Ocean.”
“Do they have slavers up there?”
“They have slavers everywhere.”
“Not in the north,” Sanji said firmly, but Kyosti shook his head.
“It’s probably just another form of slavery,” Kyosti replied, thinking of the soldiers who patrolled the south during the summer. He had never been bought and sold with money, but his indenturement into the army, no matter how they packaged it, was simply another form of slavery.
They had been told, when the soldiers took him and his siblings away, that it was for their own good. All Innis knew of the law that prohibited Innis from having more than two children. So when the soldiers had come across his family in the snow with nine children in the camp, they’d acted quickly. His older sister Qera had claimed the youngest boy, Synell, as her own. With almost thirty soldiers surrounding them, Kyosti’s parents had claimed Q’la and Sqoda as their own and watched as the soldiers had taken the others away.
The real tragedy had been when Sqoda, enraged at seeing her twin sister Reqala taken, had lashed out against the soldiers and been killed. They hadn’t allowed Mother and Father to choose a replacement child.
“Sorry,” the lead soldier had sneered down at Father kneeling in the snow. “They’re not yours anymore. They belong to the Chith Empire.”
“Kyosti?” Sanji asked, and he drew in a breath.
“Everywhere has slaves, Sanji,” he repeated. “Sometimes, even the enslaved don’t realize it.”
They didn’t speak after that.
_____________
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