by Chris Howard
"Breaking the Girl."
He choked on the words he was about say, nodded, and flagged down a cab.
"Bachoris?" The little girl part of Akastê called him as he swung open the door. "I will tell your sister then that her brother has earned her two months without pain. How she wilts like a waterless flower in the light of my lady. She will be so happy. Happier still when you return with the Sea's crown."
He slammed the door but looked back at the three as the cab sped away.
The tall ocean-haired Akastê spun in the doorway. The sun haloed her, wrapped her in warm radiance. She was a woman in a sunlit doorway, a sun goddess, and she waited until every gaze inside was on her. Then she walked along the glass and put her fist through the front windows with the giant Starbucks logo. "Damned mermaid with a crown."
Bachoris kicked off his sandals and tried to pick up a ribbon of dry seaweed with his toes. He curled in his big toe, then his little one, concentrating on squeezing the strip of plant against the ball of his foot. Almost had it, but the wind gliding over the sand picked it up like a kite, leafy and light and see-through as old parchment, and it was gone.
He pulled his knees up and leaned forward on them, disappointed. "Maddening," he said aloud, and the tight pull of muscle in his jaw and along his throat showed that he was bending all his thought on one activity, holding in the memories of his twin sister Agenika.
And as if it was something difficult he had to remember and relearn every time it happened, he let it all go, released the knot of his fists, closed his eyes, and fell into reminiscence. Tears rolled off his chin. He saw her running, black hair in the wind, a smooth sheet of it with the heaven's gleam, but not really reflecting, less like a mirror, almost as if she had trapped a band of blue sky inside. She laughed and ran along the path to the sea. He felt the guilt-weight in his chest, and he reached for her shoulder, but he could never catch her—only lead her to the snare. Someone was waiting for them, a tall woman with dark hair that moved like the ocean. He cried out to his sister. Agenika turned, startled by his pleading. What is wrong, brother? Wasn't this the friend he was telling her about?
Agenika took Akastê's hand and they were gone. The last look on his sister's face, pale, dying inside, heaven gone from her hair, her smile like the dry seaweed—see-through as old parchment.
"Monkey toes." He whispered the words and the strain smoothed off his face. He still couldn't find enough strength to smile.
Agenika would have been able to pick up the seaweed—probably tie it in knots using only her toes. It was a childhood nickname that she had been proud of. The dexterous manipulation of objects with her toes, one of many things she did far better than her brother.
She had also been good at keeping the two of them out of trouble, but still no match for Bachoris who had always been especially good at getting them into it.
Bachoris wiped the tears off his face and breathed, a deep pull of sea air. The sun was warm on his back, a hot white disk standing just above the summer rental roof lines on the other side of Ocean Boulevard.
He turned to his right, squinting one eye against the glare behind him. Half a day loafing on Hampton Beach and he had already found...not just her, but them. Three of them walking ankle-deep at the edge of the Atlantic, all seaborn with their braids and seashells, not even trying to hide the fact that they didn't come from this surface world.
"Wonder which one she is?" He studied each of them, and thought that they might possibly be sisters. The one nearest the shore was blond, and a little shorter and thinner than the other two. The middle one had pure black hair, a small dance of sunlight along her braids that reminded him of Agenika. Her skin was also quite a bit darker than the other two—almost as dark as his own. The one on the ocean side was the tallest, brown braids swinging along her back. She walked fluidly, far more sure in the ocean than the other two.
"That's her."
Even as Bachoris said it, she stopped and turned to face him, one hand shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. She looked right at him, and he looked right back, her eyes widening when she couldn't get inside. Then he smiled and looked down at the sand, almost shyly.
It didn't take long.
A few seconds later the three of them stood in front of him, and it was obvious which pair of feet belonged to Kassandra, pearl polish on the nails chipping, thin lines of brown scar tissue between each toe.
"That must have hurt." He looked up at her.
"I was a year old. It was pain before I had memories. My hands, too." She showed him, spreading her fingers, the webbing between them cut away.
He nodded, a sympathetic pull at the corners of his mouth, and then got to his feet. "Sorry. Left my manners at the office." He bowed. "I am Bachoris."
The blond nodded back to him, tanned and smiling with seashells jingling in her hair, sky blue eyes sliding to her sisters. "I'm Jill."
Her thoughts were so open and so vivid that he couldn't help smiling. She practically broadcasted the fact that she was already in love, and there was more than a hint to her sisters to not let this guy go by without trying him out first.
"Nicole," said the second with a curt nod, not very pleased to meet him. When he looked her in the eye, he got a clear read: you hurt Kassandra, and I'll break every fucking bone in your body multiple times and really really slowly—and stop smiling at me or I'll start on your teeth.
He blinked, shut his mouth, and nodded his head. This was going to be more difficult than he'd expected.
"And I am Kassandra." She held his gaze, trying to break it, and then her focus softened and she wandered off inside her own head. She was back a moment later.
Bachoris could tell because she flinched against something painful surfacing in her thoughts. She swallowed, and her whole body went tense. "That must have hurt."
The breath caught in Bachoris' lungs, and he felt his heart thump unpredictably hard. "What?" He didn't understand why she had repeated his words, but something about the way she said them shook his confidence. "What must have?"
Kassandra held his eyes openly, a dark spill of loneliness in hers, and then she whispered, "Losing your twin sister, Bachoris."
Chapter 6 - The Boot and the Vents
The Solenivara, a dry bulk carrier out of Louisiana turned into the Atlantic wind with twelve-thousand tons of cement in her holds, following the westward curve of the Keys from the Gulf of Mexico.
A fight broke out in the ship's cramped deck-crew quarters, but was over in seconds. The hatch manager's assistant huddled in the corner, his nose caved in. Warren Tukes from the engineer's crew leaned against the wall, his right fist bloody and cut to the bone along the knuckles. Who'd have thought someone's nose could do so much damage?
Tukes' left hand still worked. He grabbed the hatch assistant's brand new work boots, raced aft along the narrow painted steel halls, past a row of shipping containers.
He put the final touch on the fight by heaving the assistant's boots over the railing at the ship's stern, and then staggered off to see the medic.
The two shoes, laces tangled, orbited one another all the way down, sixty feet through the air from the railing to the water. They vanished in a smear of white foam, lost in the wide blue Atlantic Ocean.
The boots drifted into the depths where a strong current sucked one apart from its match.
One boot rode the stream across the ocean, dropped like a stone through nine thousand feet of water, and was found by Lord Gypselos, this year's judge who presided over cases of crimes against the king. The hatch assistant's boot fell freely through the Protection, into the open spaces between fortress walls, slamming into the top of Gypselos' head. His nose hit the ornately carved stone judging block, scattering sheets of eelskin and shattering an ink bulb.
And Phrastor had been about to have all charges against his client cleared—one as severe as treason—but through someone's random loss of footwear, the right currents, and the mischievous Atlantic, was then obliged to accept
punishment for the war-bard's daughter.
Phrastor's arguments failed against the angry Lord Gypselos, and Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides was sentenced to the Vents for one day.
"I am not going to the Vents." She wiggled a few fingers, sang a clipped note to make it clear that she was ready for a fight. "I can bend old Gypselos into a fucking knot."
The Vents would mark her for a long time with a sulfurous stench she couldn't wash off, darkness that she'd get used to, which then made it difficult to look at the deep in a normal light. It was the best Phrastor could plead from the judge after the boot incident.
He rubbed his eyes, and then kicked in a circle around Nikasia, gesturing at the central fortress floating in the gloom above them. "Do you not fear the king? Opening a hole in the city wall—through the King's Protection, you put us all in peril."
"Good." Nikasia folded her arms, picking at her teeth with her tongue, glaring back with an I-am-not-at-all-pleased expression.
Phrastor's gestures grew wilder, but he went on as if he hadn't heard her. "Gone for three days. Broke the curfew, left the protective walls of Nine-cities, and then lied to the king's guards?" Her motives were incomprehensible. "You drilled a hole through the rutting city wall!" He brought his voice lower, a forceful whisper. "Then through the King's Protection. Do you have any idea what you have done?"
A slight smile sharpened the corners of her lips.
"Of course I do." Her brows went innocently up. "I could even teach the king a thing or two about strengthening it. For one, I wouldn't allow someone's lost shoe from the surface through it." She made an impatient twirling gesture with one hand. "I mean, I understand that it must let inanimate objects of a certain size through, and the ocean's currents, and smaller fish, but shoes? That's sloppy. Seems like the king has plenty of time to correct this, since all he seems to be able to do is lose wars and not look for my father's murderer."
Phrastor's jaw swung open, gaping, the water stilled behind his teeth. He stuttered over his response, started and stopped another couple words, and finally went with, "Not getting through." He caught the water in his mouth, and let it out before continuing in a very quiet whisper. "This is why I cannot let you speak to the judge. Lord Gypselos would have your throat cut for slighting the king—or trivializing your crime."
"Crime? What do you call being locked inside the Nine-cities for years, if not a crime?"
"Prudence."
"Prudence is a crime."
He grabbed her by the shoulder, begging her, "Take this punishment, milady."
Nikasia glared at him, and was about to swivel her eyes to the judge, when Phrastor snapped up her collar, tugging her face to his.
"Take it, Nikasia." He pushed the words through is teeth. "Gypselos is already in a foul mood with that rubbish from—" He looked up. "—up there hitting him on the head. Take it, please." Phrastor's lip twitched. He didn't have the courage to tell her the other choices. It was the Vents, a finger severed, or an eardrum poked in—maybe the whole ear cut off if the honorable Lord Gypselos had to wait too long.
And what would her mother do to him if her daughter was mutilated like this? A similar fate awaited him, he supposed. Was't that the way it always was—the lawyer for the powerful suffers the same penalty or reward as his client?
Theoxena possessed the most beautiful voice in all of the Nine-cities, but she could choke the life from a man with one carefully sung phrase, and Theoxena's youngest daughter was nearly her equal—but without the discipline or crown-loyalty.
Phrastor released Nikasia's collar, smoothed it out, and opened his hands in a forced friendly gesture. His voice sounded cheery, but his hands trembled, revealing his effort. "Come. Half of what you hear of the Vents, they—they're just stories to frighten children."
She didn't look the least frightened by the punishment. "Which one of the king's surface slaves had the nerve to poison me? Who would use a needle with poison? Was it Fenhals? Tell me and I will go to the Vents."
Phrastor glanced around furtively, whispering, "Yes. Fenhals. Now do you agree?"
He shook her to get her attention back—she'd clearly gone off on a mind-swim that involved retribution and flowing blood, Mr. Fenhals' blood bubbling out of his old body, teeth rattling across the paving stones, fingers twisted, broken, stretched into knots or ripped completely off.
He shook her again. "Quick! Or Gypselos will make the choice for you."
"Fine." She straightened imperiously, and spun away, kicking so that her body flipped upside down, feet toward the faraway surface. She looked down at him. "Just one day? When?" She spun halfway through another cycle, turning her back to him, pulling all three of her dangling black braids into one thick cord.
"Any day he names. Don't play with your hair," Phrastor snapped. He had two daughters of his own and knew the kinds of things you had to tell them over and over. His gaze swung back to the judge. Anything, the slightest gesture, a downward tilt of your mouth could be taken as in insult by Lord Gypselos.
"Remain here. I will speak with him."
Phrastor approached the stone judging block after an impatient come-forward wave from Gypselos. He bent down, kicked a few times, and cleared the twelve-foot high stone in one fluid motion, his black robes billowing, pale underneath like a manta ray. Phrastor was short and balding with a soft round featured face—too soft for his profession.
Lord Gypselos eased out moray-like in the water above the block, his cold gaze following Phrastor. He was cadaverously thin, with long knuckly fingers that were very good at prodding wounds, fingering wrongdoers, pointing blame, expressing premature accusations, an occasional rude gesture, and clawing his way to the top.
Nikasia ignored the crowd in the judging square, an open area east of the king's fortress. She cartwheeled in place over the bench of the accused and watched her lawyer and the judge, bent together, speaking heatedly but in low tones that didn't carry over the other conversations in the area.
She kicked upright, her toes drifting over the tiles. Except for her fingers, her body was still, eyes focused angrily on the judge's back. Her fingers plucked and pulled at the imaginary strings of a lyre.
Nikasia dreamed of a song. Only a dream. She concentrated on not singing aloud when she felt anything like the hot metal lump of anger in her stomach. The rolling force of the ocean, the pressure on her skin, it could be hers to command if she wanted. Her eyes closed a little, lashes fluttering. She pulled her legs up, folded them against her chest, her body rolling back, cradled in the ocean's arms. All the energy building inside her floated to the surface in her mind, siphoning into her sense of hearing above all the others, even if it was only in her head that she heard her own voice.
". . .eh-kooos-ahn-tay-ssss. Keer-kays-ah-doooo-say-ssss."
She whispered the last of the song aloud. Then choked and shut her mouth, tongue slamming into her teeth.
A noisy, rumbling chorus of grunting and snorting erupted in the crowded square, followed by an embarrassing silence, and then dozens of men's and women's voices saying, "pardon me" all at the same time.
Nikasia had been singing a story of her immortal ancestor turning men into pigs.
The murmured "excuse me's" and "don't mention it's" died down, and all the legal discussions at various depths in the square resumed.
Nikasia looked up at the block. Cruel Gypselos was wiping his nose with his cloak and gesturing apologetically to Phrastor, who wasn't paying any attention to him. Phrastor glared around the judge's back at Nikasia.
She swung her legs down, shrugged and smiled innocently, mouthing, "What was that all about?"
She didn't expect an answer. She closed her mouth and looked away, not wanting to make matters worse. She tried to keep her mind still, but images and songs filled any empty space she tried to create. On their own her fingers moved along imaginary strings.
Turning her thoughts to less dangerous things, she spent some time wondering what was going to happen next. She had alway
s been in trouble, just not this much—treason! Or if she had been, her mother quickly smoothed things over with the king and assembly.
Lady Theoxena was somewhere on the surface on a mission for the king.
Just me and balding old Phrastor, and...
A soldier from the courts, a big grim woman with her hair pulled back way too tight into braids, drifted in Phrastor's wake, carrying a long loop of finger-thick silver chain.
Nikasia looked up, scowling immediately. Phrastor back-kicked and put out his hands in a calm-down gesture. "It's just tomorrow. One day." He pointed at the links of silver. "I know it is three or four sizes too large for you, but you must wear this. . .bracelet on one arm—it's meant for two while—"
"Bracelet?"
Phrastor flinched at the change he saw in her face. Caution was something Nikasia used once if she used it at all.
"It's big enough to wear as a belt."
"Belt it is then," said the guard with contempt, and untwisted the links from her fingers. The chain uncoiled like a stretching snake of metal, twitching and swaying on its own. She let it go. The links of silver shot at Nikasia, spiraled her waist, met the other end, and locked together snugly.
The guard spun without another word and kicked away. Nikasia's look of hate turned to horror, her gaze dropping to her waist, elbows up to her shoulders, as if something disgusting had oozed down the front of her tunic. Then she turned her look on Phrastor.
He held up a trembling finger in answer and scowled back, looked as if he wanted to yell something at her, but kept closing his mouth before he got started.
Finally he managed a harsh whisper, only getting one word out. "You!"
He swallowed more words. He sputtered curses and pointed up a couple times. He waved ambiguously around at the Nine-cities, and said ambiguous things like, "You could lose all of this if the king decides you are unfit for his service"
"Who? All of what?"
"King Tharsaleos tolerates the Kirkêlatides only."