The Games Gods Play

Fiction by James Rossmoor

Karaculiak, lord of the seas, maker of shells, patron of the ocean peoples, master of the reefs, and keeper of the secrets of the hidden depths, had adopted the form of a crab for the purposes of the game. His shell bore an intricate geometric pattern of black and gold. 

Annabassis, lady of the forests and sovereign of all beasts therein, watcher of the mountain peaks, and ruler of the great deserts that know no end, had appeared as a serpent for the occasion, her scales shining bright in red and black. On the table between them sat a wooden bowl. There was no reason to discuss the rules of a game they had played so many times before. 

The end of Annabassis’ tail wrapped around a glass jar with all the dexterity of a monkey’s toes. She tipped thick clumps of dry earth into the bowl and proceeded to sculpt them, creating towering mountains, rolling hills and great canyons. Karaculiak watched with interest. In turn, he pinched a severed coconut shell between his claws, and from it poured a thick, dark liquid. Annabassis hissed as she saw her creation drowned. On the furthest edge of the bowl, only the peaks of her mountains remained above the liquid, becoming islands in a dark sea.

Karaculiak leaned in close to the bowl and blew. His breath and spittle became wind and rain, the ocean rippled with white waves, and clouds gathered above. Annabassis bared her fangs and gathered up a pinch of seeds and grains. She scattered these upon the earth, and from those tiny specks grew vast, irrepressible forests: thick tangles of palms and pines and oaks that stretched from the highest peaks to the water's edge.

She watched as Karaculiak deftly dipped his claw into her sack. He emerged holding a large, juicy apple which he placed in the space between them. It remained, hanging in the air without suspension and tracing a thin loop above the bowl. As it moved, it seemed to drag the liquid with it, creating tides that carved vast beaches along Annabassis’ shoreline. Though she longed to snatch it down from its perch, she wouldn’t. Not yet.

Instead, she scooped up a collection of beans and berries and scattered them across her lands. From within, birds and beasts burst forth and the forest shook with their hoots and cries. Karaculiak tipped a sticky handful of spawn into the water, and shoals of fish shimmered in the moonlight.

Annabassis collected a measure of clay from the riverbank, where it was soft and malleable. She mixed in sand from the desert and bark from her most deeply rooted trees. From this, she sculpted a race of men and women, crafty hunters, strong warriors, and loyal friends. Karaculiak gathered mud from the coasts of his islands, mixed in with a measure of bright, sharp coral and rock-hard coconut husks. He created a people of his own and gave them courage and a sense of humour. He made them skilled sailors who could navigate ferocious storms, and drink away their fears afterwards.

With her final move, Annabassis severed the peak of her highest mountain, and from this mixture of mud and rock she crafted a champion. She scoured the forests for noble beasts and bestowed upon him their finest attributes. She gave him the strength of an ox and the dexterity of a chimpanzee, the foresight of an owl and the courage of a jaguar. He was a man to lead his people with compassion and wisdom.

Karaculiak in turn scooped mud from the deepest abysses of the ocean and created a champion of his own. She was fierce and nimble, with limitless ambition and a mind unlike the world had ever known. She would navigate a course for her tribe with confidence and imagination.

Annabassis and Karaculiak faced one another across the table. Karaculiak raised his coconut shell once more, now filled with foaming chicha beer. His claw shook and he spilled the drink across the table. In its wake, it brought ferocious winds, great storms, and floods to the world they had birthed between them. Annabassis respected her opponent too much to allow his moment of distraction to go to waste. Her tail reached under the table, behind his back, and stole away his champion.

But Karaculiak’s claw had never wavered before, and it did so then only by intent. He was so impressed by his foe’s creation that he had fabricated the mistake as an excuse to swoop over the table and pinch her champion. The sleight-of-claw went unnoticed, and each party was so delighted by their own subterfuge that neither stopped to wonder what they might have lost.

#

Kuna’s stomach began to settle once their canoe left the ocean behind. They had entered the mouth of the dark river that would bear them into the heart of the forest. His mother had meant well when she’d forced a large breakfast of maize, fried fish, and plantain upon him. However, he’d lost his breakfast within the first minutes of the ocean crossing, much to the amusement of his compatriots.

The other members of the warparty seemed to have undergone the same journey in reverse. At first, they were full of excitement, hooting and cheering as the sail caught the breeze and they skipped rapidly across the bright surf. They slapped Kuna on the back and laughed at his discomfort; the size of a whale, yet as helpless as a babe on the open water. Then they had entered the forest and grown quiet. The trees leaned in closer on either bank, entombing them as certainly as the grave. Strange beasts hooted at them from beneath the cover of the canopy. The men clutched their weapons close, harpoons and spears, bows, arrows and axes.

Kuna didn’t carry a weapon. He had an enormous paddle, customised specifically for his size, and a double-headed lumber axe. Nobody begrudged him his refusal to fight. After all, if he couldn’t handle his stomach on the water, what use would he be when blood was being spilled? His only battle would be with the fierce river current. He propelled them onwards as surely as the wind had carried them before.

In exchange for paddling, the warparty had allowed him to accompany them to the mainland, a voyage he could only have dreamt of on his own. There he would cut down a tree and tow the lumber back to the Island. Then he would build a strong and sturdy home on the patch of land owned by Alinea’s mother, and in doing so prove himself worthy of matrimony. 

That was the plan, yet the further he paddled, the more terrified his fellow islanders became. They muttered quietly to one another, pointing at shapes and shadows that flickered in the wilderness. Kuna was enjoying this stretch of the journey. The water was smooth, the sun pleasant, and he was fascinated by the endless birds and animals he could neither recognise nor name. 

“Cut it out, Kuna, before you paddle us halfway up the bloody mountain!” Kuna lifted the oar silently from the water. He was pleased to note that the speaker was Magundi, who had been more forthcoming and less friendly in his taunts when they had been out in open water. Now he was the pale one, and looked as if he might vomit at any moment. 

A single cry split the silence, followed by a barrage of spears and arrows. The seafarers loosed their harpoons in return, serving only to rustle the leaves as they whistled into the jungle. When the second volley came, the islanders didn’t wait to meet it. They slipped into the river with the smooth elegance of seals diving from a rock. There they regained a measure of their courage, hurling insults as they came up for breath before diving low and letting the current carry them back to the ocean.

Kuna preferred to take his chances with the darts and arrows. They were slow; he could anticipate their origin and subsequent direction, then ensure that he was in a different place once they reached their destination. Some of the spears were lost to the river, but others wedged deeply into the canoe. Kuna wrenched these free and sent them hurtling back on the journey they had taken. More often than not, he was rewarded by a scream in the wilderness.

Kuna began to discern figures scurrying along the riverbank. They were daubed in thick, dark mud, to which they had fixed leaves and branches. They were so confident in their camouflage that they didn’t bother to hide themselves behind trees or barriers. Kuna punished their hubris, plucking them easily from the riverbank.

One figure stood out. Like the others, she had daubed herself in mud and foliage, though this only served to make her more conspicuous against the forest background. Her features appeared familiar to him, yet her skin was ethereally pale and her hair a vivid shock of white that seemed to illuminate the shadows around her. She was thin and lean, with piercing eyes that seemed more deadly than the blades of her countrymen. Kuna doubted whether she had the strength in her skinny arms to hurl the tall spear she held, yet some instinct told Kuna that she was more of a threat than any other man or beast in this forest. 

Kuna grabbed his axe and took a moment to judge the distance between them. He was about to throw when a great bull of a man took up position next to her. He carried a bow that was half as tall again as the man himself. Kuna began to spin, once, twice, a third time before he launched the axe into the tree line. He had a fraction of a moment to savour the guttural roar as the blade bit into the man’s flesh, before the tall spear took him in the shoulder and knocked him into the river.

#

Tourani knew she was meant to hate the seafarers and their crab god, but she never quite followed the logic as to why. She understood that if Karaculiak and his followers had their way, they would usher forth tides that would drown the forests. The problem was, Tourani loved the water. As a child, she was forever sneaking away from her chores to seek out the coastline, dive into the water and swim among the rich reefs that lay close to the shore. When word had spread of invaders paddling upriver, Tourani had followed the warriors as they hastened through the secret forest paths, desperate to catch a glimpse of those who lived and died at the whims of the ocean waves.

When she found them, Tourani saw in their dark, fearful eyes the same oppressive claustrophobia that still haunted her dreams. Only one of them appeared free from terror. He stood tall, perfectly balanced even as the canoe shook beneath him. The breadth of his shoulders made him appear like a thickly rooted oak, as naturally a part of the forest as monkeys and macaws that hooted along with the sounds of battle. He seemed to mock the weapons of her countrymen, dancing between them before sending them back with double the force. 

She envied him. Once he had beaten them, he would sail back into the freedom of the ocean. She would remain amongst the trees, trapped as surely as if they were bars in a cage. She had not come to fight, but it was with this thought that she raised her spear and aimed for his heart. 

She caught his expression at the moment he realised he was going into the water. It was an expression of complete remorse and fear, such as that of an infant unexpectedly removed from his mother’s breast. Even as those around her were crying out from their wounds, Tourani could only think of that lonely body floating out to sea. As they tended to one another, Tourani slipped past them with light feet, down to the riverbank and away.

She came across him a mile downriver. He had dragged himself clear of the water and now lay propped against a thick palm.

“That’s some arm you’ve got,” he called out. 

“Sorry,” she replied awkwardly. She had honed her aim on river caimans and wild geese; they rarely remonstrated with her afterwards. The spear had torn loose and missed his heart but had left a deep tear in the densely knotted muscle. 

“Why are you here?” Tourani demanded. She hadn’t asked for this; she’d been defending her home. Now he lay before her like a wounded calf, leaving her with only one option.

“I came to cut down a tree,” Kuna said.

“A tree? You sent an entire warparty to cut down a tree?”

“No. The others came to fight. They believe that martial success will bring about great floods, and what is now dense forest will become wealthy reefs and corals.”

Tourani drew the knife from her belt. It would be a kindness, she told herself. The trail of blood would lead all manner of ferocious beasts to him, if he was lucky. If one of her countrymen found him first, he would die a far crueller death.

Kuna remained preoccupied with his wound. Tourani peered past his shoulder and into a pair of dark eyes in the jungle.

“Get out,” Tourani roared, “you vexatious spider!”

Kuna leapt to his feet and span to meet the threat. The leaves shook before them, and a young woman leapt clear. Tourani hurled the knife after her, and it thudded into a trunk.

“Who in the name of Karak’s claws was that?” Kuna asked. Tourani didn’t know how to explain, but she tried. She had known Nyani for as long as she could remember. Where Nyani had been loud and popular, Tourani had been quiet and withdrawn; when Nyani had grown into a tall, full-bodied woman, Tourani had remained slim and muscular. Worse though, was that Nyani’s skin had always been a deep, ochre brown; Tourani had been born inexplicably pale, with pink eyes and white hair. Nyani had never missed an opportunity to remind Tourani how different she was, how she would never fit in, never find a husband and never grow the tribe.

“I’ve always hated her,” she concluded, “and when I threw that knife, I threw to kill.”

Kuna had listened intently.

“It is a rare condition in the islands too, though not a dishonourable one. A child such as yourself would be named a Guardian. When the great serpent Annabassis will return to swallow the moon, taking with it the tides and waves that bring balance to the ocean, it will be the Guardians who fight her off and save the world. The arrival of one will always be considered a gift, a cause for great celebration.”

Tourani didn’t have time to listen to such nonsense. 

“She saw us talking. She will tell them I helped you; she will invent foul lies about me, she will…” 

Kuna put a hand on her shoulder to stop her pacing back and forth. Even his fingers were strong; she realised he might not have been such an easy kill after all.

“I cannot return home,” she said. “They will kill us both.”

“Nor I,” Kuna replied. The canoe had floated listlessly downriver before becoming snared in a tree further on. “I couldn’t sail that thing on my own, even if I spent two lifetimes learning how.”

Tourani followed his gaze. She wrenched the knife from the tree, sawing back and forth a little so that a sticky clump of sap oozed out. She took this between her fingers and mashed it into a paste, which she applied to Kuna’s wound like a poultice.

“A cause for great celebration you said? If I came to the islands, I would not be harmed, perhaps?”

“I have no doubt my mother would welcome you as her own daughter,” Kuna said. Tourani thought heavily upon the words.

“I’ll get you back to your people,” she said. “If I can keep the canoe. Maybe by the time I come back, they’ll have forgotten me. Or maybe I’ll just keep sailing until I find a new place to live. Either way, I’ll take you home.”

“You think you can sail it?”

Tourani rested her eyes on the stricken craft. For the first time in her life, she felt at home.

“I’m certain of it.”

#

Kuna settled into the prow as the current carried them downstream. Tourani held his massive paddle, gently adjusting their course as they coasted down the river.

“What’s the tree for, then?” Tourani asked.

“I’m going to build a house.”

“Don’t they have trees on your island?”

“Some, not enough,” he said. “I need to build a big house, large enough for a family.”

“You’re married?”

“I hope to be.” Kuna watched as Tourani digested this new information.

“Is she very beautiful?”

Kuna considered the question carefully. 

“No, not especially.”

“Is she a brilliant cook?”

Kuna shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t much like fish, and that’s really all there is to eat.”

“She must be wealthy then, of a noble line?”

“No and no. Quite poor I think, if it matters.”

“What is it then? Why are you planning to marry her?”

Kuna sighed. It was hard to explain in a way that didn’t make him sound like a coward.

“Her mother owns a patch of land. It isn’t big, but it lies right at the centre of the Island, surrounded by houses on all sides. If I could build a home there, I could wake up every morning, and no matter which direction I looked, I wouldn’t be able to see the ocean. In a few years I might be able to forget it exists altogether.”

The river was no longer the unstoppable torrent he had battled against on the journey up. It had slowed to a trickle.

“Have you ever seen the river this low?”

Tourani shook her head.

“Kuna!” He raised his head at the voice, an urgent hiss that seemed to come from the river itself. The receding water had left behind channels and dunes. Poking their heads above one of them were Magundi and the others. Wincing a little at the stiffness in his shoulder, Kuna pulled himself to his feet and waded across to meet them.

“By the Abyss, Magundi, what are you doing here?”

Magundi stood upright. It was curious; on the boat he had seemed to tower over Kuna. On firm ground, he barely measured up to his shoulder. 

“We could hardly swim back home, could we? River only flows one way, figured we’d get the canoe back eventually.” The other men rushed towards Kuna, slapping him on the back and pulling him into tight embraces. Magundi shifted uncomfortably. “Credit where it’s due, that was a hell of a rearguard action you fought back there. Good job.”

“You talk almost as if you had planned the whole thing.”

Magundi didn’t respond. His attention had shifted.

“Who’s this lovely specimen?” 

Kuna turned to follow his gaze. Tourani had clambered out of the canoe and approached with wide-eyed curiosity. Kuna shook his head. Magundi had a pregnant wife back home, but that hadn’t stopped him pestering the other young women on the Island.

“I’m the person who did that to Kuna’s shoulder,” she explained calmly. “I’ll do worse to you if you keep looking at me like that.”

Magundi shrivelled like a sea anemone. 

“Why is she here?”

“She promised to take me home. She’s keeping the canoe.”

“That’s my canoe!” Magundi protested.

“Not anymore.” Kuna squared up to him. With the sun on his face and the warm forest breeze on his neck, Kuna felt invincible. His shoulder was a distant ache, and the memories of seasickness long forgotten. Soon he would have to begin the painful journey back, but in this place he was strong. “You surrendered your claim when you leapt off it.”

#

The other seafarers considered the matter settled and proved eager to teach Tourani the tricks of their craft. By noon, her eyes could read the tides and currents more keenly than any of theirs. It was as if she knew the ocean as completely as the sibyls knew the ancient poems, the lengthy histories and prophecies of his people.

If Tourani seemed to rise like then sun, then equally Kuna seemed to wane like the moon. The muscles in his shoulder were so swollen he appeared like a hunchback; beneath the rudimentary poultice, his wound had begun to smell like raw fish left too long in the sunlight. He sat in the keel, drifting in and out of a feverish delirium. By Magundi’s account, they were several days away from the Island, and guilt mingled with concern in Tourani’s heart. She decided on an ambitious course of action.

“You can’t sail us into the middle of a storm,” Magundi said. “You just can’t.” 

“You’re not listening,” Tourani replied. “At the heart of the storm, the wind will be fierce enough to rip the sail clear off the boat. On the edge it will be rough, but navigable. I’ll catch the wind, and we’ll race back to your island.”

“You’re a madwoman. We wait it out and get to the Island a day later.”

“A day later and Kuna could be dead,” she said. “We ride out the storm.”

The other seafarers hung suspended between them. In their heads, they knew Magundi’s logic was sound. Yet in their hearts, whenever Tourani issued a command, they found themselves powerless to resist. Magundi threw up his arms in despair.

“It’s your boat, apparently. If you live through this, you can explain to my wife how you made her unborn child an orphan.”

An enormous wave rose against them from the east. Tourani led them over it nimbly. Once over the crest, it was as if they had crossed a threshold into another world. Waves taller than the tip of the sail ensconced them on all sides. At points, the canoe entirely lost sight of the land; the sea was no longer a flat plain, but a relentless labyrinth of canyons and ravines that shifted at every moment.

“Eyes front, Tourani!” Magundi called out. He had sought sanctuary in the keel with Kuna, and they lay together, bodies intertwined. A colossal wave had swallowed the horizon, and now bore down upon them without mercy or compassion. It was the kind of wave that could uproot ancient forests or pull small islands back down into the deep.

“We have to go through it,” she said.

“It will capsize us!”

“If we try and ride it, then it will carry us back to the shore, and break us on the rocks,” Tourani explained calmly. “We go through it.”

Magundi moaned weakly and ducked his head beneath the prow. The other seafarers firmed their jaws, braced against the canoe and awaited Tourani’s instructions. The wave had swallowed up every swell and current before it, leaving a clear ocean between them. Tourani caught the wind, flying across the ocean surface like a seabird in search of prey. The wave loomed above them, blocking out the sun. Men screamed. Tourani held her breath.

The canoe pivoted until it was nearly upright, as if the wood was trying to remember how to be a tree. The momentum carried them up the face of the wave, and the sail became a wing, launching them clear. Those at the front flew upwards as if bucked from the back of a wild beast. The boat hit the water with a spine-splitting crack.

“Everyone alright?” Tourani called.

“My balls…” Someone groaned in response.

Tourani laughed as the men alternately cursed the sea, the fates, and herself. If that was the worst the ocean could throw at them, then it held no further terrors for her. She set her gaze against the horizon and pulled them onwards.

#

They reached the island early in the evening. By the time they pulled alongside the rickety wooden jetty, the seafarers had watched Tourani perform a dozen impossible tasks. They would have sailed with her into the mouth of the Abyss if she’d asked them to.

Islanders threw out ropes to pull their prodigal sons back to shore. They did not appear overly perturbed that the sailors had limped on through the worst storm of that summer, nor did they ask for news of the raid against their ancestral enemy. Instead, they called urgently for Magundi and hauled him frantically onto the pier. 

“It can only mean one thing,” Kuna said. He had emerged from his stupor when they’d sighted land. Nonetheless, he’d needed the help of two men to pull him onto the pier. “To be born amid such a storm is a rare omen.”

A young woman rushed from the village holding a bundle in her arms. She bore her mother’s features, but the sharp, darting eyes belonged to Magundi.

“It is a girl, I think,” Tourani whispered.

“Then there will be a great celebration; we will drink, and dance and pray for the infant’s good health and fortune.”

Magundi had fallen to his knees and wept openly as he pulled his wife and daughter close.

“What if it had been a boy?” Tourani asked.

“We tend not to bother.”

#

Kuna had hoped to speak to his mother, but there wouldn’t be a chance to speak until after the ceremony. Some traditions could not simply be stepped around, and though the presence of the pale woman in their midst aroused the Islanders’ curiosity, they would need to wait for an explanation. The men and women separated and entered opposite ends of a longhouse of ancient timber and thatched palm. The women took up orderly seats on the benches at one end. The men milled around listlessly at the other, glancing covetously at the large ceramic jars that lay unopened. Between them was a small tent.

The Island’s shaman stepped forth. She wore upon her face the skull of an ancient, unknown beast as a mask. Kuna had always suspected it was a goat, but a breed far larger and mightier than the runts the islanders kept in their coops. She led the Islanders in a prayer. 

A moment’s silence followed, then a mighty cheer from the men. They rushed to crack open the clay jars. The chicha inside, a mixture of cacao, coffee, sugar and maize, had been fermenting for seven days. It was bitter on the tongue and rough on the throat, but it would have the same effect on the men as the wind had on Tourani’s sails. 

The women waited patiently as dancers and musicians glided into their midst. They swung rattles and blew rhythmically on pipes as their audience clapped along. Their intricate skirts glittered in the firelight as they stepped in and out of one another’s paths in a dance as old as the Island itself. 

The men observed no such subtleties. Each man scooped half a coconut shell full of chicha, then clustered in small circles. They would pace around, chanting unintelligibly, until one of them gave a cheer and they gulped down their drinks as fast as they could. Kuna smiled to see it. The chicha filled him with strength and courage, and even dampened for a while the fire that burned in his shoulder.

It was customary for every Islander to offer a drink to the new father. Kuna ducked inside the tent, and a sweaty, shaking figure pulled him into a tight embrace. He couldn’t tell if Magundi was crying, laughing, or both, and Kuna shook him loose with an awkward chuckle. 

Her mother held the child close, glowing with pride, and Kuna shared her smile. Magundi caught Kuna’s shoulder in a firm grip. 

“Things are different now.” His words were slurred, but Kuna didn’t doubt the sincerity he saw in those eyes. Kuna smiled and left the parents to their newfound pride. As he ducked back from under the canvas, his eyes met with his mother’s. She was seated, but even standing, her frame would have been shorter than that of many of the boys on the Island. It had been one of Magundi’s favourite taunts that he must surely have been a foundling, as neither mother nor father bore the remotest physical similarity to their son. 

He was surprised to see Tourani next to her, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been. What mother wouldn’t take an interest in the woman who returned unannounced with her son, who had set out to secure a betrothal? Kuna’s eyes lingered upon them both, their heads bent close together as they whispered to one another. 

At first glance, they could not appear more different. Tourani’s skin was as fine sand next to his mother’s earthy tone. Her splash of white hair looked almost entirely alien next to his mother’s dark braid. Yet there was a likeness there, he realised. They shared a chin, a nose, high cheekbones and a strong jawline. He could have been looking at different images of the same woman. The only difference was the eyes, and even these Kuna recognised. They were quick, bold, and sharp. Kuna could have sworn they had belonged to his father.

They stood up in unison and left without announcement. Kuna pushed aside another cupful of chicha that was being forced upon him. He wasn’t the only person to have taken an interest. From beneath her deathly mask, the shaman’s eyes had watched their steps. Now she paced after them towards the door.

Kuna’s heart raced, and his chest throbbed around the wound. His head pounded with competing thoughts and fears, and he stumbled towards the other door. Once outside, he emptied his stomach of the chicha and wiped the flecks of vomit from around his mouth. He checked nobody had followed him out and began to sidle around the longhouse.

“The prospect that this woman could be your daughter doesn’t sound outlandish at all,” the shaman was saying. “The prophecies tell of how Lord Karaculiak will one day send forth a gift to his people, heralded by a great storm. They also tell of how Annabassis will send forth one of her children to live amongst us, as a serpent crawls through the long grass. So whilst I accept your suggestion, it begs a further question. If this woman is your daughter, who then is your son?”

Kuna chose this moment to step forwards. The shaman raised a skeletal finger towards him. She had only to raise her voice and a dozen men would fall upon him in a moment. 

The shaman slumped to the floor. Magundi stood behind her, a large rock clutched between his fingers. He had crept up with all the desperate subterfuge of a drunken husband who knows that if he wakes his sleeping wife, his marriage is over. When he spoke, it was with an authority and sobriety that Kuna did not expect.

“You will have to run, Kuna. When she comes around, she will be furious. Especially once I tell her you knocked her senseless with your serpent powers. Go now. Take my boat.”

“It’s my boat,” Tourani said softly. Kuna felt his strength fading, and Tourani and his mother rushed forwards to grab him before he fell. His mother spoke the first words he’d heard since he returned to the Island, and the last words he would hear from her for a very long time. 

“Somebody will need to take him. He won’t make it alone.”

Kuna looked from one woman to the other. He understood now that no blood ties existed between them, yet even when his father had lived, he had never felt more among family than at that moment. His mother would always be his mother, and perhaps in Tourani he had found a sister too.

“It’s my boat,” Tourani said softly.

#

Nobody discovered the Shaman’s unconscious body until the early hours of the following afternoon. By the time bleary-eyed crews hit the water, Tourani and Kuna were lost to the horizon.

“Where are you taking me?” Kuna asked. He had been slipping in and out of lucidity for hours, muttering to himself and the figments of imagination that occupied his thoughts. 

“Good question. You’ll die when left on the water, and I’ll go insane if I’m made to live on the land. Perhaps we could try making a home in the clouds?”

“The clouds,” Kuna whispered. A slow smile spread across his face, and Tourani felt guilty about her joke. 

“I know a place, Kuna. High up in the mountains, firm ground, trees, forests and hills where you can grow strong again. The peaks surround a great lake, so vast it could be an ocean of its own. That’s where we’re going, just hold on a little longer.”

The first sails appeared on the horizon; not the little triangles that heralded raiding parties, but the mighty vessels that bore the Islanders to war. For all of her innate skill, Tourani could not match the speed of their vast sails and teams of strong rowers. 

“What’s that noise?” Kuna asked. They were close enough now to hear the drums, beating a steady rhythm for the oarsmen and firing the blood of the warriors.

“Thunderclouds,” she said. “Thunder to destroy our enemies.”

“The clouds,” Kuna whispered.

The boats approached in unison; a single great beast that threatened to swallow them whole. Tourani risked a glance to her left as one of them pulled alongside. The warriors stood with bows and spears ready, but amongst the oarsmen she recognised a friendly face; one of the seafarers who had sailed back with her from the mainland. 

He risked a quick salute before jabbing his oar forwards and fouling the rowers in front. The bank of oars on the other side remained unimpeded, and the vessel spun in a wide circle, right into the path of another canoe that followed in its wake. 

Those who had sailed with Tourani through the storm had scattered themselves across the pursuing vessels. Each of them picked their moment with care, fouling oars, cutting sails loose or breaking the tillers to leave the boats floundering—anything to give Tourani the moments she needed to break free.

She cut east along the face of her pursuers, daring them to follow her path and tie themselves in knots. They could beat her over distance, but up close, none could match her nimbleness. Even when the missiles began to fall, she tacked in and out of range, taunting the warriors and making them appear sluggish and impotent.

Only when she felt the first gusts of wind on the back of her neck, the first crackle of energy in the air, did Tourani turn away from them. She felt a storm coming that no one would dare chase her through.

#

Tourani had erected a canopy over Kuna to protect him from the worst ravages of the sun. From where he lay, Kuna couldn’t see the water, only a thin patch of sky that separated the canvas from the canoe. Thick wreaths of cloud were lit from behind by the sun, casting them in gold and bronze.

Despite the pain in his chest and the fog that wouldn’t leave his brain, he was not afraid. He wasn’t afraid because they weren’t sailing anymore but flying, flying into the land of white and gold before them just as Tourani had promised. 

Even when he heard the claws of Karaculiak snipping at the side of his boat, and felt the breath of Annabassis on his neck, Kuna laughed. Tourani laughed too, and they flew onwards, defying the laws of luck, logic and fate, and making a mockery of the games that gods play.

THE END