(eng) Maria Dahvana Headley - Magonia 01 by Magonia

Author:Magonia [Magonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

{AZA}

Dai and I are out on deck at twilight, sharing watch, peering off into the sky. There’s nothing in view, just a darkening not-much, a shiplessness.

I think about the crew’s tall tales—the ones I’ve overheard or, lately, asked about. They’re reluctant to share with me; they peek around corners, drop their voices to a whisper. Still, I’m learning.

They talk about airkraken, and about ghost ships in the skylanes. They whisper about fields of Magonian epiphytes, these magic plants that can grow in the air. These plants were once so common, they’d halt Magonian ships. Fields of them all over the sky, and their roots would tangle in the batsails’ wings until the Rostrae grew weary, and they fell from their flight.

Some of this must be pure legend, of course. But some of it seems worryingly plausible. So it’s not crazy that I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, off the deck rail. If the crew’s to be believed, there’s plenty to be afraid of.

“What am I doing?” I mutter to myself after I’ve been staring into the dark for a while. “Nothing’s out there.”

“Everything’s out there,” Dai says.

He’s pacing, and I’m dithering starboard. Despite the cold, he’s shirtless, possibly just to stress me out. His canwr, Svilken, is in and out of his chest, singing and chattering to the birds above us in the cote.

Against my will, Dai’s biceps keep appearing in my peripheral as he climbs around in the rigging and circles the deck. Magonians are casual about nudity, and seem not to feel cold.

Well, unless they’re me. Apparently my ability to regulate my core temperature was ruined by years in the milder climate of the undersky. I have no likelihood of shedding my shirt out here.

Also, I’m still Aza from earth, so shirt-shedding? Never, never, no, and no.

I’ve been on Amina Pennarum almost four weeks, or at least, that’s what I can count. I’ve started understanding things, started remembering that I do, in fact, have a brain, even if I’m new to this world. And I may not be singing the way Dai desperately wants me to, but I can listen.

Periodically another ship comes alongside us, unloads our holds, and takes our harvests to Maganwetar—the Magonian capital. So there’s plenty of food around, but as far as ship’s rations go, the crew—the Rostrae—live on what seem to be cakes of birdseed.

There are no plants in Magonia, of course. So our foraging from earth, our storm creation, is necessary.

Up here, all the weird things people see from below and wonder about make sense: the freak snowstorms, the rains from sunny skies, the way a wind can kick up out of nowhere and blast half a city block. Super tornadoes. Hurricanes. Giant thunderstorm cells?

Magonia, all of it.

Apparently, once, in the 1600s, Magonia harvested a bunch of fields of blooming tulips from Holland, because Magonians assumed the tulips were food. They weren’t. Disgusted Magonian ships ended up dropping tulips from the sky, and the poor people of Amsterdam must have been utterly bewildered.

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