Naamah's Blessing

to Terra Nova, which lay to the east of us, but a vast, uncharted sea to the west.
    All of us stared at it in awe.
    “Name of Elua!” Balthasar murmured. “What do you suppose lies on the other side of it?”
    “We can’t confirm it without navigating it,” Septimus Rousse said. “But if the theories are correct, I’d say Messire Bao’s homeland.”
    Pointing to the highest peak some leagues ahead of us, Eyahue informed us that if we were to climb to the very top, we would see both the eastern and western seas from its heights.
    Septimus’ eyes gleamed. “I’d like to see that! Is there perchance a river that connects the two?”
    Eyahue shook his head when the question was translated for him. “No. Many rivers, yes, but not one such as that.”
    “A pity,” Septimus said with disappointment. “One could sail all the way around the world if there were.”
    Denis de Toluard unbuckled his helmet and removed it to ruffle his sweat-damp hair. “Waterways can be built,” he said thoughtfully. “Look at what the Nahuatl accomplished with canals in Tenochtitlan, or the Caerdicci in La Serenissima. If the isthmus is as narrow as Eyahue says, it might be possible to devise one using existing rivers.”
    The two men exchanged a glance.
    “It would be a mighty endeavor,” Septimus mused.
    “Aye, and it’s an endeavor for another day,” I said firmly. “If we live through this, you can plan it.”
    It was a lush land, and a sparsely inhabited one. There were no great settlements, only small villages along the way whose denizens appeared peaceable and regarded us with wonder and curiosity.
    Eyahue assured us with disdain that they were beneath a
pochteca’s
notice and had nothing worth trading for save food goods. They spoke myriad dialects, of which he spoke but a smattering. Whenever he was able to question villagers regarding a party of white-faced strangers passing through before us, he received blank looks and head-shakes in reply.
    “Do not worry.” Eyahue patted my hand after the third such failed attempt. “It is likely that they took a different route thinking it would be easier to travel through the lowlands. They were wrong. That is why you are lucky to have me.”
    I prayed he was right.
    There was abundant animal life in the unpopulated areas between villages, and thanks to the absence of human predators, they werequite fearless. On several occasions, I was able to procure deer with very little effort, although I could not help but feel a pang of guilt shooting creatures that stared at me with the same mild wonder as the villagers. Temilotzin, who had equal success with his throwing spear, laughed at my discomfort.
    At length, our path descended from the shoulder of the mountain range into the dense lowland jungles.
    “The worst is ahead of us,” Eyahue announced. He pointed south. “This jungle is not so bad. But in two, three days, we will reach the swamp. That will be bad.”
    It was.
    I didn’t mind the jungle. It was hot and dense, and I felt awful for the men laboring in their armor, but it was beautiful, too. We travelled along narrow footpaths through the thick greenery. Here, we began to see the flowers of surpassing beauty that Denis had mentioned so long ago—an incredible array of orchids that sprouted from the trunks of living trees or rose defiantly from the decay of fallen trunks, ladders of delicate blossoms nodding on long, slender stems, impossibly lovely.
    Iridescent emerald hummingbirds darted here and there amidst the blossoms, their wings a buzzing blur. Monkeys chattered at us from the trees, and birds with dazzling plumage took flight with raucous cries.
    “It reminds me of Bhaktipur,” Bao said to me.
    I smiled wistfully. “It does, doesn’t it?”
    But all too soon, as Eyahue had predicted, the jungle turned to swamp. Firm trails turned into a quagmire, with as much as half a foot of standing water underfoot. Everything smelled of vegetal rot. The thick muck sucked at our feet, making every plodding step an effort. I did not know who fared worse, the men in armor struggling to make progress, or our poor pack-horses, who sank knee-and hock-deep in the mire at times, plunging free with difficulty.
    I did my best to encourage the former and soothe the latter, but stone and sea! It was hard going.
    “How far, Eyahue?” I gasped on the first day.
    The old
pochteca
grunted. “Tomorrow or the next day. You are lucky to have me,” he added again. “I know