Blue Sea Burning by Geoff Rodkey

Author:Geoff Rodkey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

KIRA WAS SITTING at the kitchen table, her eyes red and swollen from tears. Mr. Dalrymple was refilling her teacup from a pot with a knitted holder, his lips pressed together in a sad look.

A man I’d never seen before sat next to Kira. He was Okalu, with the same broad nose and full lips that she had. His skin was wrinkled and spotty with age, and his Continental-style clothes hung loose over a bony frame.

All three of them looked up at me when I entered, and I felt like I’d barged in on a funeral.

The old man asked Kira a question in Okalu. She answered him. Then she wiped her nose with a handkerchief and introduced us as he stood up from the table, using a wooden cane to support his weight.

“Egg Masterson, Makaro Uza.”

“Hello,” I said. He held his free hand out, and I shook it. It wasn’t like that Cyril fellow’s handshake—Makaro gave me a good grip, and he held it firmly but not too tight.

“Greetings,” he said. His accent was so thick it was hard to understand him. “I thank you for your service to my people.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. Although judging by how sad they were, I didn’t think I’d done anybody much of a service.

Makaro sat back down next to Kira, leaning his cane against the table. The copy of the map that I’d made for her back on the Grift was sitting on the table next to the teapot.

“So you know what it says?” I asked.

Kira began to cry. Makaro put a fatherly hand on her back to comfort her, and she buried her head in his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Guts had come in behind me. Mr. Dalrymple gestured for us to sit down.

“Please, please,” he said. “Sit.” There were only four seats at the table, but Mr. Dalrymple insisted we take the last two while he fetched a high stool from the other room.

Kira was still crying into Makaro’s shoulder. He whispered something in her ear. She nodded, straightening up as Mr. Dalrymple returned with the stool and took a seat just behind Makaro.

“I’m sorry I was so rude earlier,” I said to Mr. Dalrymple.

“Oh, quite all right,” he said. “Rather extraordinary day, I think. Puts us all at sixes and sevens.”

Kira wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “You want to know what it says?” she asked me.

I nodded.

She exchanged a few words in Okalu with Makaro. He pulled the map toward him and lifted a finger, shaky with age, to hover over the first line of hieroglyphs. Then he began to speak Okalu in a low voice, his finger moving across the lines as he spoke.

Kira took a deep breath and started to translate the century-old words—the ones I’d copied down from the tomb wall and carried with me, over weeks and miles and endless trouble, without knowing until now what they meant.

“‘I am Cromazol the scribe,’” she began. “‘Servant of Hutmatozal Fire King—man-god, instrument of Ka, father of the Dawn Princess.

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