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    Never Reach the Sea
    Never Reach the Sea
    Never Reach the Sea
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Never Reach the Sea

    By J.C. Merrill

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    About this ebook

    Almakai, deposed God-Queen of Maseko, has crossed the Plains of Thirst on foot. Trapped in her enemy's body, she aims to find the place where she achieved her lost immortality centuries ago. But Alma isn't the only wanderer with enough hubris to search out the Temple of Peliggok, deep in the heart of the Kao-Riyah river delta. Her guide is an enigmatic local with a complex relationship with the land and its spirits. Her competitor is a man she left for dead half a continent away. Her goal is an Old One who has slept for a hundred thousand years -- a being far stronger and colder than Alma ever was. Stripped of her magic and her immortality, Alma had only her wits, her spear, and no guarantee of survival. Nor of emerging from Peliggok's temple with her mind and soul intact.

    'Never Reach the Sea' is a novella, volume three of the Songs of Esoka, a fantasy series set in a world with African roots.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJ.C. Merrill
    Release dateAug 1, 2015
    ISBN9781311525604
    Never Reach the Sea
    Author

    J.C. Merrill

    J.C. Merrill is the author of the Songs of Esoka, a series of fantasy novelettes and novellas set in a world with African roots.J.C. Merrill is a pen name for Jonathan Olfert, whose short fiction and non-fiction have been published in various markets and under various names. He has an M.A. in political science, an enduring fascination with Africa, and possibly too much interest in necromancy.

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      Book preview

      Never Reach the Sea - J.C. Merrill

      Never Reach the Sea

      Book Three of the Songs of Esoka

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2015 J.C. Merrill

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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      Never Reach the Sea

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      Never Reach the Sea

      From the day her last consort had placed her in this body to save her life, Almakai had hated it. It wasn't the newness that irritated her; she'd switched bodies, by choice or at need, dozens of times. She'd been imposing warriors and legendary beauties. Somewhere along the line, she'd become a connoisseur of the human form, and this one didn't measure up.

      She nursed that annoyance as she ran through the Plains of Thirst. This far south, savannah became desert, broken by clumps of golden grass and clean-picked bones. She ran naked, in the sexless secondary form this body had given her, with just a small carry-bag over her shoulder. The Tantaran officer whose soul she'd evicted had been a shapeshifter of the military kind. The ghast battleform was optimized for long-range scouting, weathered and wiry — she ran across the Plains with a were-hyena's speed and endurance. When she stopped to drink, dirty water tasted as good as clean, and she never got ill. She could eat grass and carrion, and live. Every part of her that was not essential to a military scout had been reshaped into lean muscle and resilient guts. Even her clothing warped into ghast-flesh when she changed.

      She could respect that the ghast form kept her alive. But she hated it, and whenever she chose to be human again, she hated that form too. The officer had been native-born, a traitor to the heritage and homeland she'd shared with Alma. The ghast battleform was a foreign bastardization of the shapeshifting the Tantaran Empire had encountered here in Esoka. Night or day, human or ghast, Almakai felt alien in her own skin. She itched with the need to be out of this shape.

      But the Tantarans had taken her immortality with her kingdom and her magic. This might be the last body she ever wore.

      The desert rolled past as she ran. Ghast senses, sharper than human, told her there were birds in the sky ahead. She sped up, pushing the battleform's limits, and crested a dune.

      Green. Green and silver, a spiderwebbed marshland in the middle of the desert. A rare smile stretched out the skull-like ghast-face in uncomfortable ways, but she kept smiling.

      The Kao-Riyah delta dominated the south end of the Plains of Thirst. This river never reached the ocean, spreading in seven directions from the Kendulah Gates, each branch evaporating as the desert sapped its strength. But between division and destruction, the ever-changing waterways of the Kao-Riyah fed a fertile marsh the size of a kingdom. No king or god owned it anymore, hadn't for tens of thousands of years. There'd been a time, not long ago, when she'd coveted this part of the map. Now she felt nothing but relief.

      Near sunset, in the shadow and thunder of the Gates, she came to the place where the waterfalls fed the river-branches. Like the Kendulah ruins sprawled across the clifftop and split the river, a town spanned the base of the falls. Alma shifted at the first glimpse of people, a group of wagons coming down the cliff from the docks. Cargo from upstream, bound for this town and the half-dozen others around the edges of the delta. The wagons blurred and lost themselves in gray-green trees as her eyes became human.

      Her eyes, and the rest of her. Her stomach growled as if she hadn't eaten in days.

      She squinted at the near edge of the town and made for the closest bridge. Half the town rested on bridges and platforms, interwoven with roots and leaf canopies. She'd been here once before, but the town had changed in three hundred years. The falls were a little lower, the river-branches broader, and the buildings had gone from woven-grass huts to shacks of gray boards. The town looked sullen at evening, even under a clear sky.

      What's this town called? she asked a fisherman smoking by a public firepit. She spoke in Rahi, a common trade language in the south. That power, at least, hadn't been taken from her. The pit rested between shacks on a damp little island, near fishing-boats and rickety piers. After so long in the desert, the smells of this place — rot, life, water, smoke — were stronger than they should have been. The man stopped chewing on his pipe and gave her a cursory once-over.

      If you'd come from upriver, he said slowly, anyone along the way would have told you. He gestured with the pipe, indicating her simple smock. No chance you crossed the Plains of Thirst alone, dressed like that.

      Isn't there? It came out as a bit of a challenge; she couldn't help it.

      His eyes crinkled, and he shook his head, chewing on the pipe again. Not much of one, he said around the stem. And you sure aren't from around here. Don't look knocked on the head or short on memory.

      Thank you.

      After a long moment, he shook his head and leaned back. His chair creaked under him, a rickety thing of the same wood as the town — grayish, greenish, damp, and splintered. The town's called Masozi.

      Tears. It used to have another name, she said absently, taking a seat on another rickety chair. He watched her across the fire, eyes inscrutable. He'd been drawing patterns in the sandy earth with a coal-tipped stick; now he returned to that. She got the distinct feeling she'd bored him. She stamped down her irritation. The Plains of Thirst hadn't left her in the mood to talk.

      Well, no, she felt like talking. She'd just forgotten how. The desert run had stripped down all the pleasantries and eloquence

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