by Devin Madson
When I felt well enough to stand, I risked a look under the blankets. Only wet ashes and charred pieces of leather remained. Not a single book was left, even at the bottom of the box.
14. RAH
The little boat rocked more violently than an unbroken horse, churning the soup and wine in my gut. I felt better once I had thrown up into the dark waves, though not well enough to do more than grunt as the empress shouted into the wind. She was pointing at distant lights, wind and rain pelting her face and ripping loose her dark hair, the pale robe she wore more sail than the one furled above our heads. At one end of the boat the big white and gold dog lay as flat as it could, like a roll of fur to be traded at market.
The boat rocked still more, its timbers creaking as the empress strode its length and dropped onto one of the benches, gripping the oars.
Clouds passed back over the moon, leaving us in darkness. I hadn’t realised how bright a few moments of moonlight caught in a gash between clouds could be until it was gone. Only my grip on the side of the boat allowed me to aim overboard when the next urge to vomit swept over me.
“Rah!” the empress called over the rhythmic slap of her oars hitting the water. “Rah!”
I patted my way across the small deck toward the rowing bench and pulled myself up with aching arms. It had been at least twelve years since I had last rowed anything, since the Torin had summered with the Sheth along the Uku River in the golden days of my youth. The Sheth boys had laughed at our lack of aptitude with their little river boats, but if the Empress of Kisia laughed now the sound was lost to the storm.
I grabbed the oars and thrust them into the sea. The sudden drag almost ripped them from my hands, but I lifted them and brought them around, hitting the empress’s oars with a crack. Thrusting them back into the water, we managed a few more pulls, only for it to end with another clack that sent vibrations up my arms.
She kept rowing, and over the sounds of the sea and the rain, began to shout the same word over and over, a few seconds apart. She was giving me a beat. With my stomach lurching toward sickness, I once more pulled the oars around and dropped them into the sea, hauling them toward me.
It became easier to ignore my stomach’s demands as my world narrowed to her voice. Squalls of rain pelted us from every side, and when brief snatches of moonlight cut through the clouds it illuminated nothing but the black, rolling sea and Empress Miko’s back. Water dripped from her hair and her robe stuck across her shoulders, showing the bulge of her muscles with every pull.
Most of the time we were alone, in the middle of nowhere rowing to nowhere, surrounded by endless sea, but now and then a light would appear on the forward horizon, or the looming bulk of land would rise. Always on my left, the land, and though Kishava had often mocked my sense of direction, I knew that meant we were travelling south. I just didn’t know what south meant. I needed to get to Kogahaera. To my people. To Gideon.
Losing myself completely to the empress’s rhythmic shout, I didn’t notice the growing calm until our oars once more collided. The wind had died to a gentle breeze and the rain to a drizzle. Even the sea had stopped pitching us up and down with quite so much ferocity.
I had not thought it possible for my arms to ache more once I stopped but they did, and I hissed a breath through gritted teeth. The empress hunched forward on her bench, heaving deep breaths. For a time neither of us had strength to do more than huddle upon ourselves and wonder how we had ended up in such a place. I was in a small boat, off the coast of Kisia, in a storm, with the Dragon Empress and her dog. The dog had not moved, and I envied its safe, dry hidey-hole.
Empress Miko stood suddenly, the movement rocking the boat more than the waves. She pointed at the sail and spoke, her voice hoarse from shouting our rhythm. She cleared her throat to try again, only to find it no better, and gestured instead. She was asking if she ought to unfurl the sail, but my knowledge of sailing was minimal and I could only shrug. She began working the knots loose with shaking fingers. At last the small sail unfurled and, catching the wind, lurched the boat toward the dark bulk of land still tracking alongside.
The empress squeaked and pointed along the coast then at the shore, and no matter how little I knew about sailing, it was more than she did. Oh, how the children of the Sheth would have laughed. But the empress didn’t laugh when I grabbed the sail arm and turned it until we were heading the right direction; she sagged in relief. I pointed from the rope to a nearby iron bracket and she moved to tie it in place, but as soon as she let go the wet rope pulled loose. Snarling, she tried again, threading the rope around itself in a decorative mess.
A second snarl spurred me to motion, and keeping low for fear of falling into the dark sea, I crawled toward her over the slippery benches. I held out a hand rubbed raw upon the oars, and after a reluctant pause, she gave me the rope. The fickle moon once more dove behind its blanket of cloud, but I needed no light to tie saddle knots, even with rope so thick and sodden.
I crawled back to the other end of the boat and sat with my legs drawn up before my aching stomach. I couldn’t tell what had hurt it more, all the rowing or all the vomiting.
Behind me, the empress’s dog whimpered. Recognising a fellow sufferer, I held out my hand to let it sniff me before I ruffled its ears.
“Shishi.”
Empress Miko had curled up at the other end of the boat, but her shadowed form gestured toward the whimpering dog.
“Shishi,” the empress repeated. “Miko. Rah. Shishi.”
“Shishi,” I murmured, smiling at our first successful dialogue as I scruffed the dog’s ears. “That probably means something to your mistress, but to me it’s the rustle of wind in the trees. In summer, when their leaves are dry.”
I kept my hand on Shishi’s head for a long time, trying not to think about my empty stomach. I wished I could ask the empress where we were and where we were going, wished I could ask what had happened, wished I could be anywhere but caught in a boat with someone I couldn’t understand, but as Matriarch Ama had always said, wishes were for sunny days of plenty. In hard times all you can do is laugh and keep walking.
“Lovely night,” I said, gesturing at the clouds and the spray-swept darkness. “Very… atmospheric.”
The empress tilted her head.
“You don’t think so? I understand, sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what you’ve got when you see it all the time.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Our weather is a lot better.”
She rolled her eyes and gave up on me, lying down in the bottom of the boat. Shishi nudged my hand to keep me patting her. “I think I won that argument, don’t you?”
She pressed her head into my hands and I lay down to rest, taking comfort in the dog’s proximity.
When I woke from a doze sometime later, it was to the overwhelming need to purge the nothing in my stomach, and I lunged drunkenly for the edge of the boat. Weak predawn light had changed the sea from black to deepest blue, and as my bile peppered its surface I breathed the bite of salty water deep into my lungs.
I sat back, stomach cramping, and once more reached out my hand. The dog was gone. While I dozed, Shishi had slunk away and now lay with her head upon Empress Miko’s leg. They were both asleep, a companionable sight that could not but make me think of Jinso. We had been through so much together, he the constant in every day since I had been Made. Travelling together, eating together, even sleeping side by side upon the dry grass. My ilonga, a friend I could never replace, left behind to the care and mercy of Kisians I could not trust.
I stared up at the sky. At least the rain had ceased, allowing the ever-brightening dawn through cracks in the clouds. And on the horizon the lights of a ship winked.
“Empress,” I said. “Empress.”
She started awake, causing Shishi to back away as the empress rubbed heavy-lidded eyes. I pointed to the ship. It was little more than a shadow on the horizon, but words exploded from her lips with the force of curses.
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br /> Pulling a dagger from her sash, she cut through the sail-rope, sending the boat lurching once more toward the dark land. Shishi leapt out of the way as water sloshed up over the side, soaking the empress’s feet.
The boat rocked, but before I could help, a gust of wind caught the mangled sail, propelling us faster toward the dark shadow of land. A loud crack split the air and shuddered the boat. Thrown off my feet, I tumbled over the tortured sound of splitting timbers and hit water. Breath burst from my lungs. Something scraped my arm and my leg as I struggled toward air amid a curtain of bubbles, only to cut my hand on sharp rocks as I broke the surface.
The boat’s keel loomed overhead at a drunken angle, its timbers juddering as waves crashed around its stricken hull. The waves swept on toward the beach, but in the roiling sea there was no sign of either empress or dog, only floating scraps of wood and sea foam.
I spun, legs pumping. “Empress!” I shouted to the rising wind. “Empress!”
A voice answered and I spun toward it. She was clinging to the back of the boat. Blood dripped down her cheek, and as our eyes met, she stuck out her arm, pointing. “Shishi!”
I had seen nothing but the pale crests of waves, but trusting the empress’s higher vantage point, I struck out in search of the dog. The Sheth children had mocked my swimming as well as my rowing, but I clawed my way through waves that slopped at my face, again thinking of Jinso—my oldest, most loyal friend, left behind. I would not let that happen to Shishi. Could not. And though my arms and legs ached I kept on, spurred by pleas that transcended language.
My clothing weighed me down, but there was little I could shed barring my boots and my sword belt. The former I parted with, pushing each off with the other foot as I hunted signs of white and gold fur amid the waves, but even as I gripped my belt buckle, I knew I could not let it go. I had lost my home, my herd, my horse, and my honour. I would not lose my last sword too.
Still clinging to the wreckage, the empress shouted again, pointing now toward the land. I struck out toward the shore, stopping only to look around, but weighed low in the waves I could see nothing and feared every moment the empress’s anguished cry. Some mad part of my mind insisted it was just a dog, but my heart replied that Jinso was not just a horse, and I swam on with cramping limbs.
A cry erupted behind me and I spun back. My sword bumped my leg as I turned, hunting Shishi to the tune of Empress Miko’s cries. A nose peeked above the rolling waves. Shishi was struggling to stay afloat, her paws digging and her panicked eyes bulging through slicked-back fur.
A few kicks brought me to her side and I tried to haul her up, but the combined weight of water and fur and a dog large enough to be a wolf was too much to lift. She would have to stay in the water. I looked around for Empress Miko, but she had disappeared, leaving the boat just a timber skeleton being torn apart upon the rocks.
Fear jolted through me. I wasn’t sure I could even save the dog, let alone the empress as well. Might I get Shishi to land only to find the empress had drowned? Ought I—No, that was the sort of dangerous thinking that got Swords killed. She had sent me for Shishi so I would save Shishi, trusting the empress could take care of herself.
Constantly changing the way I carried the dog—first under one arm, then the other, then trying to manoeuvre her onto my stomach—I struck out toward the shore chanting a mantra. I needed rest. I needed food. I needed never to have to swim again for the rest of my life.
As the shore grew steadily closer, I began stopping every few lengths to see if I could stand, but except for sharp, jutting rocks the water remained deep until we were close enough to see dawn light creeping up the sand. When my feet found solid ground I stood, exultant, and lifted Shishi from the waves. Water ran off us like a hundred tiny waterfalls, doing little to lessen her weight.
The dog made no attempt to break free, not then nor when we stood in shallows being sucked out to join the next crashing wave, and though I had been doing most of the work her chest was heaving.
I struggled clear of the clinging ocean and staggered up the beach, legs shaking. Once out of the water, I set Shishi down in a patch of sunlight and she collapsed into a trembling mess of sodden fur.
I did not want to swim back out, hated the thought so much that I did not immediately turn to discover the empress’s fate. It was only a moment of hesitation, but it stung me with shame, as did my relief when I turned to see her swimming toward us through the gold-flecked sea, the supply satchel on her back.
Freed from further obligation, I sat on the damp sand beside Shishi to wait, my mind numb.
By the time the empress staggered up the beach, my breathing had calmed and my legs ached rather than cramped, but I did not move as she collapsed on Shishi’s other side and pressed her face to the dog’s damp fur. Somehow the three pins keeping her hair up had survived the swim, caught in the tangle of what had once been a neat bun. They stood proud now, the tines of a trident pinning her to the beach.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, watching the clouds roll and the sea beat its eternal frustration against the land. It might have been mere minutes, or long hours, and we might never have moved again had not a ship appeared on the hazy horizon.
The empress stood and, muttering in Kisian, bent to pick up the still unmoving Shishi. I knelt to help, knowing too well how heavy the dog was, but the empress bared her teeth and hissed. Sand stuck to one side of her face and clumped in her hair, and I raised my hands in surrender. She lifted the dog on her own, and with her robe clinging about her legs like damp cobwebs, she made for the mass of trees as fast as she could, listing left to compensate for Shishi’s weight.
I grabbed the satchel and followed.
At the treeline, twisty limbs reached out to gather us into a dense forest, and the sand encrusting my feet brushed off upon damp loam. Water dripped from the canopy and birds sang, fluttering from branch to branch, their wings indistinguishable from the dense foliage blocking out the sky. Unlike the bright, open beach, the forest world was dark and moist and full of insects that buzzed about my face.
Without looking back, the empress wended her way through the trees and on up the slope. I lingered only to cover our tracks as best I could without losing sight of her, a task that became easier as the steepening slope stole her determined pace.
At the top of a mossy ridge she set Shishi down and sat, head in hands, sucking great lungfuls of air. Down in the next gully a stream bubbled toward the sea, and leaving the empress to catch her breath I started toward it, planting my bare feet sideways to better keep my footing. Yet I caught slippery leaves and, unable to save myself, tumbled down the slope like an ungainly hedgehog. Everything spun and the supply satchel dug into my back, but at last I skidded to a halt at the bottom with leaves stuck all over me. If everything had ached before it throbbed now, and I sat stunned beside the rushing water, trying not to think about the sharp pain in my thigh. This was no place to need sewing up again.
The empress joined me a few minutes later. We drank our fill, and then she led the way back up the slope and on toward some mountains looming through breaks in the canopy. Having lapped at the stream, Shishi rediscovered the use of her legs and walked the rest of the way.
I knew not whether we were being followed or where we were going, just followed Empress Miko ever upwards, the pair of us having to lift Shishi up any steep climb or boulder. With the cloud cover it was impossible to tell when noon came and went, but after hours of walking slower and slower in the oppressive heat, Shishi gave up. The regal animal flopped onto the track, her white and gold fur draping the mud like a blanket.
“Empress,” I said, when she kept walking. The woman turned, and upon seeing her dog lying with its tongue lolled into the rain, her face twisted into an agony I knew well and she jogged back.
“We must find somewhere to stop,” I said.
Empress Miko replied before I had finished, holding her palm flat toward me.
“Stay?” I pointed at th
e exhausted Shishi and crouched beside her.
The empress nodded, and a brief smile flitted across her face. She made the same gesture again and set off at a half jog, soon disappearing into the rain.
“You are a very brave dog,” I said to Shishi, glad of the chance to rest. “Your mistress is very brave too, I think. She would make a fine Levanti, fearless and determined.”
Everything I had tried to be, burying my shame in righteousness and honour, only to end up here. The rain drummed its tip-tapping fingers upon my back. “I hope she won’t be long,” I went on, disliking the silence. “I should find you something to eat. I hope you haven’t been fed on fine food like Korune house dogs, because we won’t find any of that out here.”
Talking to Shishi was even less useful than talking to the empress, but she soon stopped shaking and shifted her nose closer to my leg.
The empress was not gone long, and her reappearance, beckoning from a ledge farther along the rise, stirred Shishi to motion. The dog moved slowly, but move she did, suffering only to be lifted when there was no other way to reach higher ground. As I had talked to the dog, so the empress talked to me as we climbed higher and higher up the mountain. Trees gave way to shrubs and then to grasses as the slope steepened, and having risen above the canopy I risked a look back toward the sea. It was so far down, the smashed remains of our boat so small that for a dizzying moment I was sure I would fall. The other ship was still out there being tossed up and down on the waves.
Empress Miko called out. She was pointing toward a dark, narrow opening in the rocks ahead—a cave all but hidden behind a thin waterfall. The water spewed from the ledge above to smack upon our stony plateau, running over her feet. Pointing again, she turned to encourage Shishi into the cave, only to give up and carry her around the falling water.