Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(16) Taiki: The Karu Queen

I think Ande was up late. She sleeps in well past the time she's usually awake, and grumbles when I shake her. I'm willing to bet she snuck out to read more stories. When she refuses to get up, I leave. I'm much less nervous than I was yesterday, and if she's not going to come with me, I can do other things alone.

Outside, it takes me a long moment to get my bearings in the sudden shock of sunlight. The squiggles in my vision resolve slowly, sinking into written form all across the pinnacle wall. It's covered in writing. Most of it is worn away, but there are patches where past inhabitants uncovered it, etched it deeper, and filled it in with their special inks. I trail my fingers over the darkened coral. Even with that previous effort, the wall down here is still poorly maintained. Algae has grown over it again, and though it looks neglectful, my time in Karu territory makes me wonder if this growth could be removed anymore without damaging the writing beneath it.

I press my fingers into the algae. I can feel the symbols beneath, frustratingly close, yet completely indecipherable. Not that I could read them. The eel Kels' language died with them, and there are Karu who study its written form, but I never found or learned from one of them.

I move along the wall, half looking for food, half looking for patches where the stories might be clear enough for me to study them. I know I won't be able to make sense of anything, but the idea of interacting with writing left by our long-dead ancestors is compelling enough for me to at least try. I'm also hungry. This wall has been picked almost clean by hungry Kels or whoever maintains it, so I know I'm going to be searching for a while anyway.

Ande comes to find me when she gets up. I haven't gone too far from our den, and I've found food, but I'm not sure I'm allowed to take it. Prying shellfish off the walls seems like an easy way to damage the writing. Not that leaving them is any better, but this way at least the writing is intact somewhere, rather than lost forever.

Ande at least sees my dilemma when she pulls up. "There are fish up above," she signs. "I think I'm almost fast enough to catch them."

Other Shalda leaving the dens on the wall are diving, and it occurs to me that there may be a point on the pinnacle past which the writing ends and we can harvest shellfish again. Given how far I see Kels going before they disappear in the clear water, though, I suspect that point is a long way down. I want to go back to the deep and its safety. But we're also here for a reason, and we really should make use of any time we spend looking for food.

"Let's go up by the reefs," I sign. "We can eat while we keep looking."

We set out back up the city's broad curve together. It's just after midday, and Sami are by far the most common Kels moving around. Karu reef Nekta swarm in and around the dens. Their stripes and spots and other patterns are striking, accented by muted colours that I've often wondered whether Karu can see more than I can. All the Karu I ever knew had a hundred different names for colours, most of which are just shades of grey to me. They told me night-swimming Sami- and Karu-Kels saw the same way as I did. I wonder if it's a trade-off for being able to see better in the dark.

We start our search on the same coral branch we circled yesterday. Ande splits her time between frantic fish-chases, making snarky faces at crabs that lift their claws at her, and actually reading stories along the growth ring we identified as the place we want to look. She reads a lot faster than yesterday. That's good; today we have to actually read each story rather than just skim it for key words, and it's going to take a while. We work our way all the way around the branch without any sign of the prophecy, move to the next branch, and work our way around it, too. By the time we're back where we started, the sun is headed for the horizon. Two great branches out of twelve.

Ande lets herself fall through the water like she's died and sunk, and lands on a den below with a dramatic flop. "My head hurts."

We've found two more stories mentioning the rumbling ocean, but no sign of the prophecy. A whisper in the back of my mind asks whether it might be here at all. There's a flash below me. I look down to find Ande angling the sunlight off her brilliantly shiny scales. It flashes in my eyes again, and I wince. She grins.