The Waters Rising

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Xulai frowned. “Chances are he didn’t father either one of them. No. But Mirami doesn’t slaughter indiscriminately. One would think . . . but no. She always has a specific reason for killing someone. Unless she has killed people we don’t know about.”

  Precious Wind said, “The fact that the creature has suspended general slaughter has been discussed by Clan Do-Lok. They think the creature has gone beyond its original function and has set itself some other goal.”

  Justinian asked, “Is this believable in a machine?”

  Precious Wind smiled ruefully. “So we wondered, as well. But the creature was made from a human being, and such reasoning might not be beyond its capability so long as the end result is more killing, for killing is what it was designed to do. All its satisfactions, all of what one might think of as its comforts, are supplied during its maintenance, but it can have maintenance only after it has killed.”

  “It earns pleasure by killing?” murmured Xulai.

  “So we believe. In this case, the Old Dark Man has allowed some of the work to be done by its creations, its Miramis and Alicias and the many others before them that we know nothing about.”

  “Just a minute,” said Abasio. “If its satisfactions come from killing, how do killings done by others satisfy it?”

  Precious Wind said, “All the ones we found and destroyed were in maintenance cocoons. They had been there for many centuries. It is possible that this last slaughterer, realizing it would be dormant for a long time, created others to kill while he could not kill. Others’ killings were not instead of his own, they were merely supplementary. Perhaps he even intended to create others who would go on killing after he, it, eventually died.”

  Xulai remarked, “And, if the women are its creation, they hate Tingawa without needing a reason. If one or both of the women are still alive, will they come after us?”

  Precious Wind shook her head. “Their immediate ambitions were for Norland . . .”

  “No,” said Xulai, contradicting her. “Alicia had larger ambitions than that. I heard the duchess, remember. There in the forest, that night, she talked about finding something for the Sea King, and how he would give her machines, and how much power she would have.”

  “Are you sure you remember that correctly?” Justinian asked.

  Abasio said, “I was there. The duchess and Jenger talked about finding Huold’s talisman or whatever Xulai’s mother had hidden in the forest. In return for either of those things, the Sea King was going to reward her with machines, but it was the Sea King’s ambassador who promised, not the Sea King himself.”

  Precious Wind said, “The few ancient machines left in Tingawa are guarded, protected, kept from doing damage. They will not be used to reward anyone.”

  “You told me about one at the embassy,” said Justinian.

  Precious Wind nodded. “It could not harm anyone. We call it a far-talker. It dates from far back in the Before Time, to an innocent age, long, long before the slaughterers. It is so simple that we can actually make more of them quite easily. It allows messages to be sent through the air, but it needs both a sender and a receiver. The priests allowed the ambassador to take one of each of these to the embassy so our people could summon a ship if they needed to go home. When Lok-i-xan returned to the islands, he left it with the emissary, for the same reason.”

  “Is this something they can carry with them?”

  “Yes. It’s a small thing, no trouble to carry in a wagon or cart. Its power can be provided by someone cranking it. I know the emissary has wearied of talking to King Gahls and plans to leave for Merhaven. Once they know this ship is gone from Merhaven, they will use the far-talker to ask for another ship. Since the embassy also communicated with Merhaven by pigeon, our captain may already have asked for a ship for them.”

  “Is there one of the devices on this ship?” asked Abasio.

  She nodded.

  “Can you talk to the embassy and find out what’s happening?” Abasio asked. “It might be helpful to know. If this creature is as you’ve described, it might follow us by sea, and that has me bothered. I dealt with similar but totally separate critters years ago, near the Place of Power, and the death toll was very great.”

  Precious Wind sighed deeply. “We believe the creature cannot travel under the sea. It was built to ape humankind. It breathes air.”

  “So do human beings,” said Xulai in a strange, faraway voice. “Humans can’t travel underwater either. So they build ships.”

  “And we have prevented ships from crossing the sea.”

  “How were the other monsters destroyed?” asked Justinian.

  “They were inside their maintenance containers. We used explosives and both creature and maintainer were blown to bits, then the bits were raked up and molded into concrete, and the concrete was taken and dropped into the depths of the deepest parts of the sea. The Old Dark Man’s maintenance device will probably have been destroyed by now. The monster itself can also be blown to bits, if we can find it! We need to know where it will be at a given time.”

  Precious Wind sighed and turned toward Xulai. “Among the things this master can do is to transport you, very quickly, away from danger. It can, therefore, be used to escape from peril.”

  Xulai first nodded, then shook her head. “Our lives are complicated enough, Precious Wind. You keep the thing master and put it in some place where it cannot send one of us off into the sea by accident. We all need to think of something else for a time, but let us be very careful to tell whatever ship goes to Merhaven that it must not bring back an evil barnacle upon its hull.”

  Full of discontent and unwarranted guilt, Precious Wind took the device away. It might be useless so far as Xulai was concerned, but it had been very beneficial for her wolves. And the wolves might well be very beneficial to everyone concerned.

  It was some days later, in the predawn darkness, that a wolf woke Precious Wind and pulled her garment with his teeth, telling her to come. On deck, all the wolves were assembled, staring across the sea. They had heard something, she thought. She could not hear it. The men on watch had heard or seen nothing. She woke the captain, who climbed the mast and turned his glasses in the direction the wolves were facing. “I see a light out there,” he called. “Watch! Run up the signal lights!”

  The watchman ran the lights up the mast, and the captain hung them there, one green; one red, above it; one white above that. The sails were shifted so the other light, far ahead of them and to one side, was in the direction of their movement. The captain stayed aloft, after a time returning to say, “They’ve hung answering lights. She’s our sister ship, the Axan-xin from Tingawa. The Night Wind.”

  Precious Wind went to her cabin, where Xulai saw her busily writing something. Everyone else hung across the railing waiting, seemingly interminably. Eventually, along about dawn, when the ships came within sight of one another, Precious Wind joined them. When they were within shouting distance, the captain of the Axan-xin shouted that he was coming across.

  “I know him,” cried Precious Wind excitedly. “He is the Gull of Caspos, so called for his ability to ride out storms at sea. We were schoolmates once.”

  A small boat was lowered and came skimming across the calm water, rowed by six of the men from the Night Wind. Indeed, the captain and Precious Wind remembered one another, for there was much hugging and giving of introductions, and bowing to Xulai and Justinian.

  “We are three days out of port, and we knew you were on the way,” said the Gull, whose name was Bunjasi-velipe: “Protector of Knowledge.”

  “His whole name is Bunjasi-lok-koularka-velipe: ‘Protector of Ancient Seagoing Knowledge,’ ” said Precious Wind, as an aside. “Just call him Bunja. It’s easier.”

  Bunja had news. “We’re on our way to Merhaven to pick up our people. We received a far-talker summons from the emissary. All the members of the embassy staff, those still living, are assembling in Merhaven. The place is destroyed.” He looked a question. “
I presume you know which place. And, Xu-xin, I am sorry to tell you, but your friend Bear has been killed. The emissary is Xakixa for him. The emissary told me to tell you Bear did not die forsworn. I don’t know why that is important, but the emissary said it was.”

  “Ah,” said Precious Wind, grieving. Her grief was echoed by Xulai. Both of them felt both sorrow and a kind of shamed relief. Bear had not been forsworn. His memory would not be soiled to those who had known him.

  “How?” they asked in one voice.

  “Ul monga-paf, the thing we do not mention, killed him. It killed several of the embassy warriors as well. Ul monga-paf escaped. It moved like lightning, so quickly it could not be seen.

  Xulai looked at Precious Wind, who nodded. The thing had an ul xaolat.

  Cursing silently, Precious Wind asked, “And we are expected?”

  “Lok-i-xan knows you are coming. They are in council, debating how ul monga-paf is to be killed. Again, it has gone away and we do not know where.”

  “Were the women mentioned? The queen, Mirami, and her daughter, Alicia?”

  He smiled grimly. “Oh, yes! Cleanse them from memory! Those evil ones are dead! The oldest witch died in the castle in Ghastain of some quick, terrible disease. Her daughter died in the same manner in her cellar at the place. Where her machines were. Where Bear died.”

  “The Old Dark House,” said Abasio.

  Bunja made a gesture of revulsion. “Gol mongapaf! We do not mention that, either. It is no more. It is gone.”

  Precious Wind had a very strange expression on her face. “Just a moment! When Alicia died, when her mother died, did anyone describe the illness?”

  He nodded, face screwed up in revulsion. “They had a smell, like rotted meat, like one long dead, vomiting of blood, much blood.”

  Precious Wind held up her hand as though to say, Don’t talk, let me think. “Is it possible ul mongapaf got any of that blood on it?”

  Bunja considered this. “As the emissary described it, it would have been hard to avoid. He said she spewed blood everywhere . . .”

  “Ah,” said Precious Wind. “Then let us get to Tingawa as quickly as we may. That information may give us a way to find the thing!” She took a paper from her pocket, folded and sealed. “Bunja, old friend, I have written here something I need you to take care of for me when you reach Merhaven. Read it when you have time. Justinian’s old friend Genieve lives there in a place called the Watch House. She can help you find someone reliable to do what we need done.” She put it into his hand and folded his hand around it. “It’s important. If you cannot find Genieve, find someone else. And do not forget to have your divers examine your hull before you leave Merhaven. It has been suggested the thing we do not mention might possibly make some kind of oxygen device and attach itself, like a barnacle, to the hull of a ship. If so, tell them not to notice it, not to touch it, to use the far-talker first and talk to me!” She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “We will see you soon in Tingawa, Bunja. Sail safe. Be well.”

  The few remaining days of the trip, though they seemed endless, were in fact very swift, for the winds held true. They began to pass little islets that had been, so Precious Wind said, sizeable islands fifty years before. They passed between two mountainous and still sizeable islands that marked the entry to the Tingawan Sea. The capital city of Ushiloma al Koul, Great Mother of the Sea, lay before them. It had obviously been recently moved. As in Merhaven, there were buildings on skids, and the piers were floating. They saw the umbrellas even before they reached the pier, tall, fringed, golden umbrellas.

  No, Xulai told herself, they were parasols. Parasols were the symbol of nobility in Tingawa. Precious Wind had told her about them when she was only a child. “Here, in this world of Norland, a crown is put onto the head of a person at a coronation, making that person the king. Both the act and the ownership of the crown can lead crowned heads to the belief that they have some inherent right to rule. In Tingawa, the parasol, a symbolic shield against evil, is held over the head of the leader by representatives selected by the people. The ruler is thus always reminded that power is not inherent but is granted and can be taken away.”

  The ship docked. The walkway went down onto the pier. Two parasol bearers came aboard to stand at either side of the walkway. “This honor is for you,” said Precious Wind. “You have to go first, then Abasio, then Justinian. Then the rest of us.”

  Xulai went first, suspended in time, suspecting that all this business of honoring was silly, believing at the same time it meant much to those who gave it, thinking that this land could never be home, wondering at the same time whether it might not be more of a home than any she had yet known. Those holding the parasols came with her. Well, her mother had been a princess. Perhaps that was enough reason. She made herself stand up straight and walk gracefully as Precious Wind had taught her. Precious Wind had also told her who the man at the end of the walkway was: her grandfather, Lok-i-xan.

  He smiled at her, leaned forward to kiss her gravely upon her cheek, gave her his right hand and Abasio his left. He nodded at Justinian and Precious Wind, then turned and led them down the pier toward the city.

  Chapter 9

  The Sea King

  Led by Lok-i-xan with Xulai on one side, Abasio on the other, they proceeded away from the sea on a wide boulevard lined with silent, smiling people. The boulevard ended between two ornamental pillars at the bottom of a broad, conical hill where a slightly narrower road made a gentle turn to the left and began spiraling upward. This road was also lined with people, some Tingawan, many in costumes of other lands that Xulai had heard of or read of, others who looked totally unfamiliar. Lok-i-xan did not let go of her hand for a moment, and she quickly came to understand that this long walk through the city, among the people, was a kind of . . . what could one call it? An adoption. If she read it correctly, the head of Clan Do-Lok was saying that she and Abasio were of his kindred, that Justinian was also of his kindred, and that was that.

  “You have questions,” he murmured halfway up the hill. “I can hear your brain sizzling. Are we walking you too quickly? There is yet some way to go, but we can stop to drink tea.”

  “That would be . . . very nice,” she agreed. The distance and the climb weren’t wearying her physically, but the entire experience was beginning to overwhelm her. It didn’t seem to bother Abasio, but then, he’d been traveling here, there, and everywhere for years. He was used to being confronted on every side with new sights and sounds. He simply strode along, nodding to the crowds, smiling at anyone who smiled at him.

  Lok-i-xan turned his head very slightly toward one of the parasol carriers, who promptly fell back, spoke to someone in the procession, then resumed his place. The person spoken to fell in behind Lok-i-xan, who murmured, “Next tea stall for five, please.”

  The runner went forward up the rising road like a sight hound after a rabbit, zipping around the bend. In moments he came back into view at the center of the road, bowing and gesturing to usher them forward to the right.

  If there had been people against the hill along that particular stretch of road, they had been moved away. Now there was only a bright awning over a table and five chairs before a stone-lined hollow containing a fiery little stove and shelves laden with pottery. They sat: Xulai, Lok-i-xan, Abasio, Justinian, Precious Wind. The parasol holders moved away and began a slow dance on the road, the parasols twirling, the feet pointing and leaping. A brilliantly robed old woman came from the hollow, her steps timed to coincide with those of the dancers; she bowed and set cups before them, poured tea from a pot shaped like an elegant dragon, and was replaced by two equally brilliantly robed women who also danced as they set bowls of tiny cakes before each of them.

  Xulai realized she was hungry. They had come into port early in the morning; no one had bothered to eat. There had been a last-minute complication before they left the pier: the business of seeing that Blue and the wolf pack would be provided for during their absence, which had to
be settled before any of them could take part in the procession.

  It was this furor that Lok-i-xan referred to when he leaned toward Precious Wind and asked, “Are your animals settled, Xu-xin?”

  Xulai noted that he spoke Norlandish, well-sprinkled with Tingawan words, and, of course, he used Precious Wind’s Tingawan name.

  Precious Wind swallowed before answering. “The wolves weren’t happy at being left alone. That’s what all the howling was about. Neither was Blue at being left with them. That’s what all the kicking and whinnying was about. He says herbivores don’t take kindly to carnivores in bunches. So, we have Blue stabled in a building by the pier and the wolves will stay aboard until I am there to take them to the place we’ll prepare for them. A couple of the sailors have become friends with them, and they’ll stay, too, until we get the other arrangements completed.”

  Lok-i-xan cocked his head, smiling the least possible smile. “Wolves, Xu-xin? A whole pack of them?”

  She flushed. “I foresaw a need, Your Wisdom.”

  He cocked his head at her. “Ah, well, we have learned to respect your foreseeing. I am surprised at the horse! I didn’t know any of our technology was available on that continent.”

  Abasio said, “It may be a survival, Your Wisdom.” He had been told this was the polite form of address. “When I was younger, I sometimes passed among walled areas surrounding the old cities. The places were called Edges. Precious Wind—that is, Xu-xin—likens them to the abbeys and monasteries that served as repositories of old knowledge elsewhere. My native area was generally a barbarian state . . . no, one can’t call it a state. Perhaps ‘a loosely federated group of tribes’ would describe it better. Still, I believe your technical people and the people in the Edges would likely speak the same language.”