A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,127

but not wishing to forget our original thread of conversation, I pointed to each circle and said, “People here. All skin like yours?”

“Yes. Most.” He pushed down with the flat of his hand once more. “Some small changes. Small differences. But not dark.”

I gestured with my fingers to get the map back and then pointed to the three new circles to the east of Ecula. “These places,” I said, then moved my finger to point to our continent. “Bigger than here?”

He shrugged, though I could not tell if it was because he didn’t know or didn’t care or some combination of both.

“You go to Joabei, Omesh, or Bačiiš?”

“No.”

“Those people come to Ecula?”

“No,” he said, his face twisting with impatience at my stupidity and sighing over the fact that I even had to ask. “Man-eaters in the ocean.”

Yes, but so what? He had passed over those same man-eaters to get here. Baffling. “How do you know they are like you?”

“Zanata Sedam.” Ah, The Seven Kennings. How kind of him to bring it up. I had it with me in a leather case containing my notes, and I brought it out so that he could see it. As before, the sight of it brought him rushing to the bars, and he stuck his hand out, demanding that I give it to him.

“Those places—those people—are in here?” I asked.

“Yes. Me give.”

“They have kennings?”

“Yes.” His hand remained out, and for a moment Reinei’s wind ceased to blow in my lungs. If they had kennings, then there must be somewhere else than the six nations where one could become a tempest or a cyclone or a fury or a tidal mariner. When I took breath again, I pointed at his holy writ.

“But this place, my people, are not in here?”

“No.” His fingers curled into a fist and spread out again. “Please give.”

“I cannot give. But I can read. Any part. Any page. I would like that. Would you like that?” I thought I could manage to at least pronounce the words correctly, if not recognize their meanings.

Disappointed, he withdrew his arm and scowled at me, resentful as I suppose any prisoner would be.

“Any page,” he finally said. “You read.” He slouched to the back of his cell, sitting on his cot and drawing his long legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them, and closing his eyes.

I flipped at random to a spot a little past halfway and began to read in my halting Eculan. I thought I was doing well until a low growl began in the cell and rose to a roar. “You wrong are!”

“Sorry. Please. Make me right.”

It went more slowly after that, with frequent stops for subtle coaching on my pronunciation.

“Must correct say,” Saviič insisted. So I concentrated on forcing my mouth to produce the sounds the way Saviič did and missed a lot of meaning; that wasn’t terribly tragic since it was dry, boring stuff about being righteous. I had no complaints; I was learning and enjoying the linguistics if not the content. I kept at it for an hour before I was feeling ready for a break, but then a sentence’s meaning broke through my basic decoding and translation to sink in and make me reread it. Even then it took me some time to untangle the syntax.

I muttered a quick translation in Kaurian: “In the dark of the moon the Seven-Year Ship comes to take the faithful to the…land? Island?…Of the Seventh Kenning, and there they shall know the fullness of Teldwen’s…gifts?”

I looked up with questions in my eyes, and Saviič flashed his crooked brown teeth at me. He didn’t know Kaurian, but he knew that the words were having effect.

“Best part is,” he said.

“Good is,” I agreed, then questioned him on the unfamiliar words to make sure my translation was accurate. Island was correct, but the word I thought was gifts was more accurately translated as blessings. That took quite some time to figure out, but once I was satisfied, I probed for an explanation.

“Seven-Year Ship comes?”

“Yes. My life, two times comes,” Saviič said, holding up his thumb and index finger. His middle finger flicked up, and he continued, “But this time—third time—no come.”

“Which time?”

He told me the Seven-Year Ship was supposed to have come last year but didn’t.

“Where does the Seven-Year Ship come from?”

The Bone Giant shrugged. “Here.”

“Here? No.”

“Somewhere here. I not know.”

Using the map, I asked if he meant the Seven-Year Ship came from Kauria; that was an improbability if he had seen