The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [207]
He glanced at Lirith, then cocked his head. “Are you—?”
“We’re fine,” Grace said, finding Lirith’s hand and squeezing it.
He nodded. “Come on. Falken is practically rabid to talk to Sareth, but it seems they’re going to throw us a feast first. I gather it’s not often the Mournish—the Morindai—accept guests into their circle, so when they do they have to make a big deal of it.”
Grace glanced at Lirith. The witch’s eyes glittered in the darkness.
I am well, sister.
Grace tightened her grip on Lirith’s hand. “Lead the way,” she said to Travis.
69.
The Mournish might have forgotten many things in their millennia of wandering, but how to throw a party was clearly not one of them.
Travis watched as sparks soared upward from a bonfire toward the strange stars above, along with wild strains of music. His belly seemed to contain more spiced meat, flatbread, and olives than should be physically possible, and he held a cup of some sort of red, fiery wine in his hand—the reason the pleasant warmth he felt came not only from the fire.
He stood on the edge of the circle of light, near Aryn, Lirith, and Durge, while the others were gathered across the fire. Melia and Falken sat on piles of cushions as if they were royal guests. Some of the Mournish sat on the ground, making their music with drums, wooden flutes, things that looked like fiddles, and instruments of bone Travis did not recognize.
Those Mournish not making music were dancing to it, swirling in patterns that seemed utterly chaotic, yet which suddenly formed into precise circles or interlocking squares, then just as quickly dissolved into whirls of color again. Even the children made music and danced, the girls wearing bright dresses and scarves, the boys in loose pants and colorful vests.
All the Mournish—whether infant or ancient—wore jewelry: bracelets, necklaces, and rings on their fingers, their toes, and in their noses and ears. However, Travis noticed that only Vani bore tattoos: the strange symbols that coiled up her arms and neck. Grace said they were symbols of her training. Of her skill as a T’gol.
She’s an assassin, Travis. That’s what the T’gol are. Vani has been trained since she was a girl in the art of killing people in the swiftest and most efficient ways possible.
Travis gazed across the fire. For a moment golden eyes gazed back at him, then turned away.
Earlier, he and Grace had stepped away from the fire for a moment to talk.
They think you’re A’narai, Travis.
A’narai?
It means fateless. Vani and Sareth’s grandmother said you have no past and no future because your hand doesn’t have any lines anymore.
So that’s what they meant. The old woman—she said it was not my fate to uncover Morindu, but that it was the fate of the Mournish that they would regain Morindu through me. That didn’t really make sense.
Agreed. And what makes less sense is that they think I’m going to be the one who gets you to the lost city of Morindu so you can raise it from the desert for them. According to her, that’s my fate.
What do you think your fate is, Grace?
But she had only looked away, and Travis couldn’t decide which was worse. Knowing your fate—or not having one at all.
Colors whirled before Travis, and when they stopped he saw a Mournish woman clad in jewel-colored scarves.
“Dance with me,” she said in a lilting voice.
Travis started to stutter his decline when he realized her rich brown eyes were not gazing at him, but at Durge—or rather, at Durge’s hard chest visible through his open vest. The Embarran hastily crossed his arms, but this only caused his biceps to bulge. The Mournish woman draped a scarf around his neck, pulling him toward the music and the light.
“This is not proper, my lady,” Durge sputtered.
“It is quite proper among my people, sayeh. And it is among my people that you are at present.”
Durge cast a desperate look at Travis, but Travis only grinned and waved, knowing there was nothing he could do to save the hapless knight. Towing him by a scarf, the Mournish woman led him into the throng.
“Poor