Chapter Six
Kythe came and looked at her drawing. He began pulling papers from their piles, coming and looking at hers, comparing them. Putting them back, he came and sat with her, turning his chair toward her and hers toward him.
"You are making a map of the world?" he said.
"Yes. Yours maps is being wrong, Kythe," she said.
"How accurate is this, Indya?" Kythe said, his hand moving over her map. "What you've drawn." He seemed to be holding his breath.
"No map is perfect because I making flat it is round. The best map is a round map."
"How do you know to draw this, Indya?"
She shrugged. "I live in a ship above the world, Kythe. All people on Atlantis knows this. We learning them."
"But how do you remember?"
She sighed, thinking how to explain. "My people knowing how to remember. I teach you, you want. I am learning your language. It's not difficult. I put a thing I remember in a place in my mind. When I seeing again that place again in my mind, I remember the thing I wanted. Pictures in our minds. I knowing your words, many. I is putting in order that it is for difficult, knowings how manys and what time for to be."
"Places in your mind," Kythe echoed.
"Where do you think that you are right now, nina, on your map?" Zen said, leaning over it.
"I know I am here but not where. Atlantis, my ship, is going there," she said, pointing to a place in the ocean. "I am dropping on land. This is the only land we crossing before the ocean. But I don't know if I am at the water here or if I am here."
"We are here right now," Zen said, pointing to a spot in that area. "Just inland. I recognized the coastline."
"So close to the water? It's a good thing I falling before the water. The ocean is deep under for like the tall mountain. It is being black, no light, and I dying at the bottom of no air." She shivered.
"There is that much land to the east?" Kythe said. "This is a huge landmass."
"And the ocean is so much larger," Zen said. "This is to scale, Indya?"
"I said. It's not a ball. It's looking bigger the ends, top and bottom, than things here," she said, pointing to the middle, "and they looking smaller they are. But yes."
"We wanted to know about the coast of Venta, Kythe," Zen said, pointing. "We wanted to know about the passage."
"We could get to Onteria through there," Kythe said. "Onteria, Zen. We could bring boats up. It would cut off months of travel."
"Fata, if we had the right boats, like the Chusan, the light boats that ride high in the water, we could bring trade goods down this route," Kythe agreed, coming around and looking where Zen was pointing, his eyes darting.
The brothers both looked up at her.
"I'm going to get you better paper," Kythe said. "A finer pen."
"Your people making writing again and again?" Indya said.
"What?" Kythe said.
Her eyes went up "You have a mechanism? When your words going to others, you write the words? Or you make many?"
"Why can't I understand her, brother?" Zen said, looking at Kythe.
"I know what she's saying," Kythe said. "Yes, we have a means to print. I brought a print press from Jassa. I know how it works. It's slow, though. It takes a long time to set up."
Indya gestured to her ear. Kythe smacked his pockets for a time and found it, putting it in.
"I can help you to construct a better one, a press with replaceable pieces that will be faster and make many a day. If you want the map to be more accurate, I will need a compass, a sextant, a quadrant, and a scale. Your people have a scale?"
"Like for weight?" Kythe said.
She shook her head. "For measuring small distances that represent large distances."
Kythe shook his head. "I don't know, but our engineers will."
"You're happy for this," she observed, speaking in Odien again.
Kythe put away the earpiece. "For an accurate map of the world?" Kythe said. "Yes, Indya. We're happy for this. Our father will be happy."
"It won't be accurate all the time. I am remembering."
"You've drawn places we didn't know existed. We will know the size of things. We could navigate to another place and see the way through, alea."
"Is that Jassa?" Zen said, pointing.
Indya listened to them for a time and then she got up, both of them still talking, putting Zozo, already asleep on her bed, his paws twitching, in his box. Undressing, she took down her hair and brushed it, humming and then singing softly, her knees under her. When she was done, she pulled the covers down and turned to get in and stopped.
Zen and Kythe were watching her.
Her eyes shifted between them. She thought about it. Sex would be so nice, and they weren't difficult to persuade. Indya smiled, walking to Zen, his eyes going to her body. She came close, Zen's face a little expressionless like he got. "You want to have sex with me, Zen, with Kythe?" she said, asking outright because this tended to work with them. "I would like to do that."
"She does this, brother," Zen said, coming toward her, that intensity to his face, backing her up. "I almost didn't believe you." He grabbed her so she couldn't retreat anymore and Zen was kissing her.
Just Zen kissing her, so sensual, made her sex twinge and ache, Indya pressing against him, rubbing on him.
Kythe was behind her, bringing her arms behind her back and holding them with his, Zen's mouth going to her nipples. She arched, Zen's hand also going between her legs and they kept her there, tormenting her until she was panting and slippery.
Finally backing her up, Kythe sat in the chair with her, and his sex was free. Her arms were still trapped behind her and he bent her forward, Indya feeling his sex nudging, Indya jutting for the angle as he slowly penetrated her. He hooked his arm under her knee from behind, switching hands, and spread her wide over his legs. When her butt had met his hips, he stopped moving. She was caught in his hold, arching, impaled on him, unable to move. Her legs were spread, her arms trapped, her breasts thrust out and Kythe's sex in hers.
Zen approached her. He had the short stiff whip with the flat end. She struggled a little when she saw it, a deep and sharp ache coming to her sex, spasming around Kythe, who grunted. Her nipples were hard.
"Whip her nipples, brother, and then her thighs, and then her pula, her little nub. Make her come with it. I want to watch," Kythe said, sounding excited.
"I have wanted this, nina, since I first saw you," Zen said, beginning with several smart smacks on her breasts and then her nipples, not so hard, alternating, Indya's voice high, and then Zen leaned down and put his mouth on them, sucking and tugging.
Indya was aware she couldn't move, of how spread open she was, Kythe's hold relentless. Zen pulled back and touched the end of the whip to her sensitive inner thighs, a series of sharp smacks, Indya jerking and writhing, Kythe grunting again.
