by As The Shore To The Tides, So Blood Calls To Blood (html)
As The Shore To The Tides, So Blood Calls To Blood
Karlo Yeager Rodríguez
I was busy pummeling my mind into a stupor when the messenger found me. There had been only enough room in this hole for me, Old Rodrigo, and the barrel of rotgut he kept ladling into my cup when, panting, he showed up. The curtain drawn across the entrance fluttered, letting in too much light and heat, and he was already at my elbow saying my name. I must have made some small noise of assent because he drew something out of his satchel and waved it in my face.
A letter. Interrupting my sacrament, its blessing swirling in my belly like fire and dulling the call of the sea. This far from the shore, almost to the mountains, the Wound’s pull was faint but ever-present. Rather than give into it, all day I swung a hammer in the salt quarry until my body was numb; off my shift, I tossed back cup after cup until my mind was too.
I blinked at the square of vellum, its seal swimming into focus, a spiral pressed into the wax. Even in the dim light, I recognized the Vortex my brother Ostred took as his symbol, and the heat drained out of me.
Implacable as the tides, he’d found me.
The messenger waved the letter again, as if me not seeing the damned thing was the problem. I focused on moving my cup around it without spilling any. Almost there. I licked my lips in anticipation.
“Don Jacinto.” The messenger’s gaze was dull. “Please.”
I should have had some sympathy for the man, especially if my brother sent him, but I was too far gone for any of that. All that time keeping myself hidden from the sea—any sea, not just the Wound—now useless as pouring every drink I’d ever taken into the empty black of a well.
“By the god’s quivering pucker.” I slammed my cup down, drink going everywhere. Goddamn it. I was on my feet, now, and snatched the letter out of the messenger’s hand. “How the fuck did you find me?”
While I spoke, something inside the letter uncoiled. It writhed, hot between my fingers. I cried out as the sensation of hot needles pierced my eyes and screwed them shut against the pain. I blinked away tears, receiving a vision of my world drowned. Rodrigo’s empty eye-sockets stared at me as crabs picked his cheeks to tatters and the messenger’s pale lips opened to let a long ribbon of blood billow out.
Shuddering, I threw down the letter, and the vision passed.
“Go.” I righted my chair, my drunk now curdled. “Piss off.”
After he was gone, I took the letter again, making a game of guessing what I’d felt moving inside. Knowing my brother, he might’ve sealed a live scorpion within, but now—nothing.
I broke the seal to reveal my brother’s flowing hand, scratched onto the vellum in an ink the color of old wounds:
My dearest brother Jacinto,
How many years has it been since last we set eyes on each other? I’ve long searched for you. I strove to find one shore, one errant wave that could scent you, but all the currents of all the waters of the seas brought me not one sign of where you’d gone.
Come back, I beseech you. I’ve found us a new family just like our old one, and they’re oh so eager to meet you after I’ve told them about you, brother.
You know you cannot hide from your destiny—
I crumpled the letter in my fist to stop myself from reading any further. I recognized the ink, a tincture of godsblood drawn up from the red waters of the Wound, often laced with sorceries to bend the will of the reader to follow the wishes of its author. How many of Mama and Papa’s notes had forced our little family to punish those who opposed their plans?
Old Rodrigo pulled aside the barrel’s lid and scooped out another ladle for me. For a split second, my reflection gazed back and reminded me of the vision. Shaken, I looked away and covered my cup with a hand.
I fumbled out some clay chits when I heard the shouting outside. I tore the curtain aside and lurched into the blaze of late afternoon. A knot of miners had gathered, looking at someone sprawled in the dust.
Even before I got there, I knew who it was.
The messenger’s dull eyes met mine as he gasped for breath, rust colored water leaking out of his mouth. The others kept muttering about his blood, but I knew what it really was: seawater from the Wound, drowning the poor bastard some twenty leagues from its shores.
Water dribbling from his mouth cut a spiral in the dust.
In the beginning, two brothers divided the world between the bitter waters and sweet. Tiago parted the bitter waters of the boundless deeps, and his brother Jaime carved the revealed land with his lakes and rivers and streams so they could flow and empty into the seas his brother so loved.
They looked upon their handiwork and were well pleased.
In time, towns and great cities grew along the shores of the rivers and lakes and streams Jaime had created, and the people raised their voices in worship of him. Even sitting upon his Stormwrack Throne, built from the timbers and keels of a thousand wrecked ships, Tiago could hear their adulation. None but the most salt-bitten did more than fear him and curse his name, and with what reason? Did the sweet waters not drown as easily as bitter? Did he not guard deeper mysteries and wonders than his brother?
So it came to be that he saw Jaime walking along the shore one day and rose to greet him. From the surf, Tiago called out, “Brother, how pleased I am to see you! How do you fare?”
“Greetings!” Jaime smiled but did not slow his stride nor turn to face him. “I am well, if occupied at the moment.”
“Occupied?” Tiago laughed, not believing his ears. “Surely, you have time to speak to your beloved brother?”
“Of course, Tiago.” Jaime’s smile was a mere tightening of his lips. “What do you wish to tell me?”
“Your people.” Tiago was taken aback by his brother’s demeanor. When had Tiago ever been less than generous and gracious with his kin, always speaking to him as his equal in all things, face to face? “I hear so many people who call your name in reverence, and the few who I have curse mine, afraid of me.”
“Yes.” Jaime dug new beds for rivers that meandered without emptying into the sea and said nothing more.
At last, convinced his brother was not listening to him any longer, Tiago spoke again. “Why?”
Droplets of sweat fell from Jaime’s brow, splashing into the dust to grow into fast-moving streams, chattering as they sprang from stone to stone. When he was done, he realized he’d become lost in his task and his brother was waiting for his answer. The force of Tiago’s glare made him step back, raising a hand as if to ward off a blow.
“Forgive me, but I don’t know the answer to what you ask,” Jaime said. “I know people prefer to drink my waters and use them to grow their crops. They carve their own beds to tame my waters and lead them under their clever wheels to mill grains, or as canals between my rivers. And though many more drown in the sweet waters than the bitter, they find your domain to be the more terrible.”
“Are they children, to be afraid of me, brother?”
“All day, I hear nothing but their cries,” Jaime said. “Pleading for my blessing or my intercession. I try to help them, but I am but one to their many and my work would never end.”
“Give some of them to me, brother.” Tiago strode to the very edge of the sea, his hand almost touching him. “Let me help you.”
“If it were so simple, dearest brother. I fear driving them away to let you try to win their hearts would make them turn away from us both.” Jaime fixed his gaze inland, seeing in his mind’s eye all the small villages and towns crowded along his waterways.
“Then let me come to them,” Tiago said and clen
ched his fists. In response, the bitter waters of the sea surged across the land in a flood. “And they may then come to know me as well as they know you, brother.”
As seawater reclaimed the land, the wails of his people reached Jaime’s ears and he was struck by how small they appeared against the vastness of Tiago’s realm. Some lashed together what remained of their houses into rickety ships, but the waves swept them far out to sea.
“Brother, please.” Jaime turned to face Tiago. “Stop.”
“Stop? I’m helping you.” Tiago noticed the set of Jaime’s jaw and realized his brother’s anger was but a low-banked ember on the verge of blazing to life. “Brother, do you love them as your children?”
And with each cry of his people like a pain through his heart, Jaime realized he must keep them from his brother’s regard because he did love his people like a parent loves their children.
“Forgive me, brother,” Jaime said, digging his heels into the sands of the shore. “But they are as my children and I must protect them.”
“You choose them?” Tiago rose from the waves, his anger a fist of storm clouds roiling in the sky above them. “Over your brother?”
A vast multitude called upon Jaime to save them, and between gritted teeth, he promised to keep them from the bitter waters. Cyclones sent down tendrils around them, and Tiago, lightning-crowned, was dreadful to behold, but Jaime laid hands upon his brother and fought him.
They wrestled for an age, feet trampling the world into the shape known today. That is, until Jaime threw his brother down. Tiago’s hands fell away and plucked at the stone spire that had impaled him. He held a trembling hand out as if asking for help, but Jaime turned his face and hardened his heart against his own brother lest the land be drowned under his waters again.
Ashamed, Jaime left his brother where he fell ever wounded, ever bleeding until his spilled blood covered him and became the great sea called Wound. There, in its deeps, Tiago thrashes, and his fury over Jaime’s betrayal churns the waters into a great vortex. Jaime stood watch from shore, his face ever towards the sea, and vowed to protect the world from Tiago should he ever rise again.
Long ages have passed since, but to this day, wise men say they can see Jaime’s face in the craggy summit of the holy mountain Ajh. If he remains, then his brother does as well, biding his time and nursing his fury until he may rise once more and reclaim all the earth and make of it his domain, as it was in the beginning.
I pushed past the gawkers, eager to get away from the scene and back to my barracks. Had anyone seen the messenger come out of Old Rodrigo’s? I doubted it, but if any of the bosses got wind of it, they’d want to lean on Old Rodrigo. Didn’t matter how loyal my custom; his livelihood depended on the bosses looking the other way.
How the bosses dealt with the incident would also depend on whether word got out to the local Jemmite magistrate, who also turned a blind eye to what happened in the quarry. At best, if I was involved in the death, the bosses would clap me in irons until they decided how best to dispose of me too.
Either way, I reckoned it best to be far away before then.
Sitting on the edge of my cot, I was shoving my scant belongings into a sack when I overheard my name. The barracks were filled with off-shift workers getting themselves ready for sleep before lights-out. Already, the place was abuzz with gossip about the messenger. My work crew was dicing in a corner, but none called me to join them. I liked to think we had all swung hammers together for a long while, but I knew that wouldn’t amount to one copper jot once the bosses squeezed them.
Fast friends turn coats quicker, Mama and Papa liked to say.
Even so, none of my work crew, no one working in the salt quarry, deserved the awful end Ostred wanted for them. I saw them all, bodies floating in the red waters that would cover the world if my brother succeeded. I could run away from all of it again, the same way I’d been doing ever since I was old enough to leave the orphanage. I could pack everything up and head west, into the basin beyond the mountains. Hide myself all over again, except this time I’d plunge into the wild ancient forests of the Riverlands, or maybe head south and watch the sun rise over the stupas of Qawaat’s jungle kingdoms. I blinked as my crew erupted into raucous laughter over an unlucky throw and knew Ostred had to be stopped.
This realization added itself to the old familiar tug of the Wound, and where I’d until that moment been a tossed die, tumbling end over end without falling this way or that, now I was decided. Even if I paid for it with my worthless life, I must find a way to stand between my brother and his plans.
I had to return home and stop him rousing the god from the deeps.
Long after lights-out, I lay in my cot staring into the dark, remembering. I was twelve again, praying to the Wounded God to return my big brother Ostred so he could come back and break me out of the orphanage. By first bells, though, the Jemmite brothers and sisters found me watering their cabbages with bitter tears because both my brother and my god had forsaken me. The old anger bloomed again, coiling so tight around my chest that it crushed the breath out of me. Gasping, I reached for my rucksack and fled into the night.
Outside, I couldn’t do anything but suck cold air in long shuddering breaths for a while. The second moon peeked over the edge of the world by the time I set feet upon the road. I picked my way through the rocky scrublands by moonslight until I found the trail leading down to the banks of the Saltwash. Here, the river rushed through the highlands before widening into the vast waterway that emptied into the Wound.
If I followed the river, I could reach Bloodport within the week, but if I could catch a barge at Aster’s Crossing, I could be there within days. A few times, I stopped, cocking an ear because I was sure I’d heard footfalls behind me. I worried Ostred had sent another of his creatures after me, but it turned out to be nothing but echoes.
By sunrise, my feet beat a tattoo on the boardwalks of Aster’s Crossing. Mule-driven carts lined the banks, waiting to unload slabs of salt from the quarry. I hurried past, nervous that one of the teamsters might recognize me.
I spied the customs office ahead, the Many-Waters Seal of the Jemmites swinging in the morning breeze. A filthy, wild-haired boy sat in the building’s shade. Unsettled by the way his dull gaze followed me, I gave him a wide berth. As I passed, he gave me a smile full of blackened teeth, nodded, and said “huy-huy” in greeting. Instead of answering, I made my way down to the docks.
I passed several barges before one of the captains called. “Ey-ey! You headed to Bloodport, brother?”
I rolled my flinch into a shrug. “Depends who’s asking.”
“That’d be me.” He flashed one gold tooth as he tapped his chest with his thumb. “Cap’n Ixto. Ready to load up and go before noon. If you put your back into it so’s to make sure I’m back before the Red Tide rolls in? Well, you’d have paid your way.”
I slowed my step, thinking it over.
In my pocket, my brother’s letter seethed as if a hornet’s nest was trapped in its folds. Was the captain another of Ostred’s creatures, sent to find me? Or was the godsblood ink warning me—like it had with the messenger—about the captain’s final reward if I came aboard his ship? I wasn’t sure, but either way I didn’t like it. There was only one thing I should do.
I kept walking.
The barge captain hounded me, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. He walked the length of his barge trying to coax me aboard until he was forced to spit curses at me from the bow. I waved them off with a rude gesture of my own as I put him behind me.
The Red Tide—I’d forgotten about the festival until he’d mentioned it. Two moons in the sky, the Red Tide is nigh was an ancient fishmonger’s rhyme to keep a tally of the holy days. It had been the last day of Red Tide when the Jemmites boarded our home of lashed-together ships and slaughtered us. Below-decks, barricaded in the hold, Mama and Papa hurried through their prayers and anointed my brother as one of the god’s chosen. They ignored the sounds
of axes chopping their way to us. When they reached out to me with trembling hands, I hesitated, and it was too late. The Jemmites broke through. Mama and Papa threw themselves atop Ostred and I in a doomed attempt to save us. I felt the blows that killed them shudder through their bodies before we were taken to the orphanage to save our souls.
That night, after scraping out a space under a thicket near the banks, I settled for a few hours of fitful sleep and woke, heart racing. In my pocket, the letter pulsed in beat with my own heart. Someone was moving through the brush nearby and I froze, straining my ears to listen.
“Huy.” A tentative whisper, as if calling to someone in hiding. I turned my head to see a lanky shadow moving along the bank. It was the wild-haired boy, and by the god’s festering heart I could smell him from where I lay hidden. “Huy-huy,” he repeated, and cocked his head the way a bird listens for a worm. After a time, he moved far enough away I could no longer hear his inane call anymore.
I struggled to sleep again, with no luck. The morning sun found me trudging along the river, cursing myself. Why hadn’t I thought to ask Old Rodrigo to fill me a skin before running off into the night? I stared at the bright-scaled surface of the river with bleary eyes. As sailors poled their barges past, I wondered if any of them were Captain Ixto’s, and if I’d made a mistake in not taking his offer.
The rest of the journey to Bloodport blurred into the old blood-drenched nightmares that chased sleep away. If not that, I lurched awake, certain I’d heard someone crashing through the brush nearby again, straining my ears to hear “huy-huy,” so much like the call of some night-bird. By the time I stumbled my way through the High Gate of Bloodport, my hands ached for the curve of the cup.
I let the flow of the festival crowd pull me along, gaze drawn to the slopes of Mount Ajh and to the shining walls and temple spires of Mirdhras. The holy city loomed over the people of the Wound in the way their god kept watch for his brother. With the same ruthless mercies and thou-shalt-nots the Jemmite brothers and sisters had done with Ostred and me at the orphanage. I gave the holy city my back to take the path down towards the Wound.