Whisper of Waves

43

26 Tarsakh, the Year of the Wyvern (1363 DR)

ALONG THE BANKS OF THE NAGAFLOW

The lone dista’ssara set up his camp near the bank of the river with a slow, relaxed air that Svayyah found hypnotic. The naga had never thought of humans as particularly interesting, but from the first time she’d seen that one in particular, she’d been unable to banish him entirely from her mind.

He was a male, and watching him brought out Svayyah’s female side. It wasn’t natural, she knew. It wasn’t acceptable, but when she looked at him, she felt like a female.

Nothing would ever come of that, of course, and the four-limbed freak was a dista’ssara-one of the hands of the embodiment-and so would always be her lesser, but again, the man had a certain quality.

Svayyah watched him from the water, which was where she always felt more comfortable. The humans called the river the Nagaflow, and Svayyah and her tribemates liked the name. It was a warning to humans and their apelike kin that the water was home to their betters, the naja’ssara, the water nagas.

He was looking at her, and she hadn’t noticed.

A chill ran down her serpentine body, like tickles of lightning running all twenty-five feet from the base of her skull to the blunt tip of her tail.

“Are you all right there?” the man asked, standing and moving closer to the water, as if he was about to swim out to her.

“We are fine, dista’ssara,” she said, bruising her tongue with his inelegant language. “Keep your distance.”

He was surprised by that and said, “I didn’t see you there. If you’d prefer, I can set up my camp elsewhere if you’re bathing here.”

He looked around while Svayyah tried to figure out what he was trying to say.

“Are you alone here?” he asked. “Are you from the keep?”

Ah, Svayyah thought, he thinks we’re human.

She suppressed the natural tendency any of her kind would have to be mortally offended by that implication and shook her head. Her face would have resembled a human’s, especially from a distance. He thought she was some dista’ssara girl out for a swim.

“Do you practice the Art?’ she asked, though she felt confident she knew the answer.

“Magic?” he said. “No, I don’t.”

“Strange,” Svayyah said, surprised. “You carry yourself with a confidence that only a strong connection to the Weave could bring, especially for a dista’ssara.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” the man replied. He was cheeky, Svayyah had to give him that. “What does that mean, dista’ssara?”

“In your insufficient tongue, we believe: ‘hands of the embodiment.’”

He took a step backward and said, “You’re a naga.”

“We are Svayyah,” she said. “We are naja’ssara, what you would call a water naga. Does that surprise you?”

“No,” the man said, running a hand through his orangered hair. “I suppose it shouldn’t anyway.”

“Do we frighten you?”

“No,” he answered quickly enough and with sufficient confidence that Svayyah believed him. “Do you want me to go?”

“If we did, we would have told you to go,” she said.

“‘We’?” the human asked. “Are there more of you?”

“We are alone here,” she replied, and the man appeared to understand. “We have seen you here before, when the dista’ssara started to build that tower.”

The man looked up at the structure, nodded, and said, “Does that offend you?”

“It surprises us,” she replied. “It is beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“We knew it,” Svayyah said. “You are responsible for that structure, aren’t you …”

“Ivar Devorast,” the human said.

“Ivar Devorast,” the naga repeated. “Why are you here? Why would you camp at the riverbank and not live in your own work?”

“That’s a long story,” he said.

“Which is a long story?” Svayyah asked. “Why you’re here, or why you don’t sleep in the human tower?”

“Both, I suppose,” Devorast replied.

“Well, then,” said Svayyah, “light your fire, sit, and tell your tale, Ivar Devorast.”

He looked her in the eye for some dozen heartbeats, then an understandably suspicious smile came across his face and he said, “Thank you, Svayyah, I would like that.”

Svayyah blinked at him, stunned into silence while she watched him set his campfire. He’d answered her as if her command to light his fire and tell her his story had been a request.

Another tingle played down the scaly length of her snakelike body, and Svayyah writhed in pleasure as the human began to speak.