Nebula Awards Showcase 2013

by Catherine Asaro

  Do you think we have a bargain?”

  The Sea King does not answer:

  But he shrugs his flashing shoulders

  And I take this for a yes.

  It wasn’t like a marriage:

  No broom or blood or bonfire

  But he made a few adjustments for my sub-aquatic breathing

  Taught his certain way of speaking, like a whale when it’s singing

  And a kind of seeing clearly through the brine and murk and current

  And when I see him clearly, see my Sea King underwater

  (He isn’t much to look at—until he’s underwater)

  Then madder do I love him, love his glimmer in the gloaming

  Like a tooth or moon or treasure

  That you wish might be a knife-blade so to wed it with your flesh

  Sure enough his children love me, seven princes crowned in lilies

  We are happy in our frolics, and they giggle at my ragging

  At my bad jokes and my chitchat, and the way I tease their father

  At breakfast we are raucous, and at dinner most uncouth

  At supper, always laughing—well, the kids and I are laughing

  But the Sea King sits in silence and recalls his wife Agneta

  “She heard the church bells ringing—and she left me, never caring

  For my soreness or despairing

  Forsaking all her children

  Forgetting her beloved.”

  His wet blanket on our banquets

  Somewhat dampens the hilarity, somewhat chisels at my charity

  And the boys slink off for climates more conducive to their gaiety

  And I tell their father gently, with what kindness I can muster

  That our memories are fragile, that we cannot help forgetting

  And that precious poor Agneta—please recall, my dearest Deep One—

  Had been practically lobotomized by all his fell enchantments

  So please strive for some compassion!

  “Agneta!” cries the Sea King, “Agneta!” and “Agneta!”

  And even though I love him, there are times I’d trade his kingdom

  (Yes, his castle made of coral, and his princes crowned in lilies)

  For a single good harpoon

  By late April I am brooding

  And by May I’m truly scheming

  And in June I hatch a plan half-conceived in idle dreaming:

  “Oh, the bells, the church bells ringing!”

  I groan unto my Sea King, rending small strategic punctures

  In my robes of pearl and seaweed

  “The steeple bells that scream matins—the sound of papa weeping!

  In waking or in sleeping, every night and noon I hear them

  As if I stood just near them! Oh, the bells, the bells—I weaken

  At their tintinnabulations!

  Won’t you let me, dearest Sea King, break to surface and behold them!

  An hour, just an hour, but one hour I do beg you!”

  Well, the Sea King doesn’t like that.

  Does not like that.

  Not at all.

  He is roused to indignation, which in turn ignites to fury

  He is bright as any blizzard, he is cold and white and wondrous

  And his bare feet stomp a tidal wave that would have swamped Atlantis

  (If Atlantis weren’t already swamped from when Agneta left him)

  And he blusters and he thunders, and he coaxes and he wheedles:

  Don’t I like his coral castle with its turrets neat as needles?

  And its grottos and its bowers and its gardens and its mazes?

  Don’t I love to love his children, am I not content to stay here

  Like the lampreys and the stingrays and the sharks who come to play here?

  How he sulks and how he scowls, how he pleads and how he howls!

  But—“The bells! The bells!” I mutter, growing slack and wan and fainter

  ’Til he grants me what I ask for: “Just an hour, mind—ONE HOUR!”

  And up he swims me, grimly

  And he doesn’t see I’m smiling

  My father’s at St. Agnes, where he’s often found on Sundays

  With his choir, and his piano, and the band that plays on Sundays

  And I sit with the sopranos, and I join in at the descant

  And my father smiles a little, even winks a droll good morning

  He is busy with conducting and he’s maybe even praying

  Thus I stay the hour allotted me, through Eucharist and homily

  But—all in all I’d rather be

  Fathoms down beneath the sea, with magic and with mystery

  My seven heathen darlings

  And a very cranky Sea King

  When the bells have ceased to ring, I kiss my father swiftly

  He tells me that he’s missed me

  I let him know I’m happy

  (even lacking crowns of lilies)

  (even sopping wet and smelly)

  I say I’m truly happy.

  It’s all he ever wanted.

  When he sees me rushing toward him, arms out-flung and smile kindled

  The Sea King looks astonished, quite bewildered and bedazzled

  Like he’s never seen my likeness

  “Your hair is bright as goldfish! Your face is sweet as morning!”

  Taking up his silver hand, I vow as how I’ve missed him

  Missed his scales and his spackles and his webbed and clammy skin

  “How choking is the incense! How blinding are the candles

  After months spent in the darkness of your castle made of coral.

  But it’s nice to see my father! Let’s go visit him this autumn!

  We can introduce the children.”

  The Sea King’s rapid smile is a dreadful shock of pleasure

  Like a little boy’s first mischief, like a damsel’s foremost coyness

  Like a man who’s given manna when he begged for stale bread

  He cocks his head and murmurs through the tousles and the tangles:

  “I never brought you lilies.”

  My goblet runneth over, so I scold him, rather sternly:

  “There is time enough for trinkets—

  Time immortal, time forever, time for starfish in my bathtub

  Time for flowers and a foot rub, time for tokens meant

  For me alone—and not some ghostly maiden, be she

  Ever pure and pious, be she pretty as a lily

  For you see, my doughty Sea King, I am from a doting family

  And I know that you’ve been lonely, and I know I’m no Agneta—

  But I’m warm and I am willing

  I can offer what I offer, but it will not come to begging

  Do you want me for you lover? Or pine for one who left you?”

  The Sea King pauses, pondering

  (I almost punch his face in) then he smiles like a

  dolphin, like a green wave clean and leaping, and he solemnly incants:

  “Come down with me, come under!

  Come beneath and be my consort

  I will tell you all my secrets, I will let you take me deeper

  Where no Sea King dared to venture, where Agneta never wandered

  You will whisper your desires, and together we’ll uncover

  All the fire in the ocean.”

  Then I give my awkward Sea King

  This small thing that I’ve been saving

  For a moment like this moment when both he and I are ready

  First a kiss and then a promise, then a topple and a tumble

  It is frantic, it is frenzied, and we finish in a fever

  Come unclasped in joyous moisture

  And he leads me to the river

  Where we hear the children singing.

  Kit came to Nearside with two trunks and an oiled-cloth folio full of plans for the bridge across the mist. His trunks lay tumbled like stones at his feet where the mailcoach guard had droppe
d them. The folio he held close, away from the drying mud of yesterday’s storm.

  Nearside was small, especially to a man of the capital where buildings towered seven and eight stories tall, a city so large that even a vigorous walker could not cross in a day. Here hard-packed dirt roads threaded through irregular spaces scattered with structures and fences. Even the inn was plain, two stories of golden limestone and blue slate tiles with (he could smell) some sort of animals living behind it. On the sign overhead, a flat, pale blue fish very like a ray curvetted against a black background.

  A brightly dressed woman stood by the inn’s door. Her skin and eyes were pale, almost colorless. “Excuse me,” Kit said. “Where can I find the ferry to take me across the mist?” He could feel himself being weighed, but amiably: a stranger, small and very dark, in gray—a man from the east.

  The woman smiled. “Well, the ferries are both on this side, at the upper dock. But I expect what you really want is someone to oar the ferry, yes? Rasali Ferry came over from Farside last night. She’s the one you’ll want to talk to. She spends a lot of time at The Deer’s Hart. But you wouldn’t like The Hart, sir,” she added. “It’s not nearly as nice as The Fish here. Are you looking for a room?”

  “I hope I’ll be staying in Farside tonight,” Kit said apologetically. He didn’t want to seem arrogant. The invisible web of connections he would need for his work started here with this first impression, with all the first impressions of the next few days.

  “That’s what you think,” the woman said. “I’m guessing it’ll be a day or two—or more—before Rasali goes back. Valo Ferry might, but he doesn’t cross so often.”

  “I could buy out the trip’s fares, if that’s why she’s waiting.”

  “It’s not that,” the woman said. “She won’t cross the mist ’til she’s ready. Until she feels it’s right, if you follow me. But you can ask, I suppose.”

  Kit didn’t follow but he nodded anyway. “Where’s The Deer’s Hart?”

  She pointed. “Left, then right, then down by the little boat yard.”

  “Thank you,” Kit said. “May I leave my trunks here until I work things out with her?”

  “We always stow for travelers.” The woman grinned. “And cater to them too, when they find out there’s no way across the mist today.”

  * * *

  The Deer’s Hart was smaller than The Fish, and livelier. At midday the oak-shaded tables in the beer garden beside the inn were clustered with light-skinned people in brilliant clothes, drinking and tossing comments over the low fence into the boat yard next door where, half lost in steam, a youth and two women bent planks to form the hull of a small flat-bellied boat. When Kit spoke to a man carrying two mugs of something that looked like mud and smelled of yeast, the man gestured at the yard with his chin. “Ferrys are over there. Rasali’s the one in red,” he said as he walked away.

  “The one in red” was tall, her skin as pale as that of the rest of the locals, with a black braid so long that she had looped it around her neck to keep it out of the way. Her shoulders flexed in the sunlight as she and the youth forced a curved plank to take the skeletal hull’s shape and clamped it in place. The other woman, slightly shorter, with the ash-blond hair so common here, forced an augur through the plank and into a rib, then hammered a peg into the hole she’d made. After three pegs the boatwrights straightened. The plank held. Strong, Kit thought. I wonder if I can get them for the bridge?

  “Rasali!” a voice bellowed, almost in Kit’s ear. “Man here’s looking for you.” Kit turned in time to see the man with the mugs gesturing, again with his chin. He sighed and walked to the waist-high fence. The boatwrights stopped to drink from blueware bowls before the one in red and the youth came over.

  “I’m Rasali Ferry of Farside,” the woman said. Her voice was softer and higher than he had expected of a woman as strong as she, with the fluid vowels of the local accent. She nodded to the boy beside her: “Valo Ferry of Farside, my brother’s eldest.” Valo was more a young man than a boy, lighter-haired than Rasali and slightly taller. They had the same heavy eyebrows and direct amber eyes.

  “Kit Meinem of Atyar,” Kit said.

  Valo asked, “What sort of name is Meinem? It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “In the capital, we take our names differently than you.”

  “Oh, like Jenner Ellar.” Valo nodded. “I guessed you were from the capital—your clothes and your skin.”

  Rasali said, “What can we do for you, Kit Meinem of Atyar?”

  “I need to get to Farside today,” Kit said.

  Rasali shook her head. “I can’t take you. I just got here and it’s too soon. Perhaps Valo?”

  The youth tipped his head to one side, his expression suddenly abstract. He shook his head. “No, not today, I don’t think.”

  “I can buy out the fares if that helps. It’s Jenner Ellar I am here to see.”

  Valo looked interested but said, “No,” to Rasali, and she added, “What’s so important that it can’t wait a few days?”

  Better now than later, Kit thought. “I am replacing Teniant Planner as the lead engineer and architect for construction of the bridge over the mist. We start work again as soon as I’ve reviewed everything. And had a chance to talk to Jenner.” He watched their faces.

  Rasali said, “It’s been a year since Teniant died. I was starting to think Empire had forgotten all about us and that your deliveries would be here ’til the iron rusted away.”

  Valo frowned. “Jenner Ellar’s not taking over?”

  “The new Department of Roads cartel is in my name,” Kit said, “but I hope Jenner will remain as my second. You can see why I would like to meet him as soon as is possible, of course. He will—”

  Valo burst out, “You’re going to take over from Jenner after he’s worked so hard on this? And what about us? What about our work?” His cheeks were flushed an angry red. How do they conceal anything with skin like that? Kit thought.

  “Valo,” Rasali said, a warning tone in her voice. Flushing darker still, the youth turned and strode away. Rasali snorted but said only: “Boys. He likes Jenner and he has problems with the bridge, anyway.”

  That was worth addressing. Later. “So what will it take to get you to carry me across the mist, Rasali Ferry of Farside? The project will pay anything reasonable.”

  “I cannot,” she said. “Not today, not tomorrow. You’ll have to wait.”

  “Why?” Kit asked, reasonably enough, he thought; but she eyed him for a long moment as though deciding whether to be annoyed.

  “Have you gone across mist before?” she said at last.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “But not the river,” she said.

  “Not the river,” he agreed. “It’s a quarter-mile across here, yes?”

  “Yes.” She smiled suddenly, white even teeth and warmth like sunlight in her eyes. “Let’s go down and perhaps I can explain things better there.” She jumped the fence with a single powerful motion, landing beside him to a chorus of cheers and shouts from the garden’s patrons. She slapped hands with one, then gestured to Kit to follow her. She was well liked, clearly. Her opinion would matter.

  The boat yard was heavily shaded by low-hanging oaks and chestnuts, and bounded on the east by an open-walled shelter filled with barrels and stacks of lumber. Rasali waved at the third boat maker, who was still putting her tools away. “Tilisk Boatwright of Nearside. My brother’s wife,” she said to Kit. “She makes skiffs with us but she won’t ferry. She’s not born to it as Valo and I are.”

  “Where’s your brother?” Kit asked.

  “Dead,” Rasali said and lengthened her stride.

  They walked a few streets over and then climbed a long even ridge perhaps eighty feet high, too regular to be natural. A levee, Kit thought, and distracted himself from the steep path by estimating the volume of earth and the labor that had been required to build it. Decades, perhaps, but how long ago? How many miles did it stretch?
Which department had overseen it, or had it been the locals? The levee was treeless. The only feature was a slender wood tower hung with flags on the ridge, probably for signaling across the mist to Farside since it appeared too fragile for anything else. They had storms out here, Kit knew; there’d been one the night before. How often was the tower struck by lightning?

  Rasali stopped. “There.”

  Kit had been watching his feet. He looked up and nearly cried out as light lanced his suddenly tearing eyes. He fell back a step and shielded his face. What had blinded him was an immense band of mist reflecting the morning sun.

  Kit had never seen the mist river itself, though he bridged mist before this, two simple post-and-beam structures over narrow gorges closer to the capital. From his work in Atyar, he knew what was to be known. It was not water nor anything like. It formed somehow in the deep gorge of the great riverbed before him. It found its way some hundreds of miles north, upstream through a hundred narrowing mist creeks and streams before failing at last in shreds of drying foam that left bare patches of earth where they collected.

  The mist stretched to the south as well, a deepening, thickening band that poured out at last from the river’s mouth a thousand miles south, to form the mist ocean, which lay on the face of the salt-water ocean. Water had to follow the river’s bed to run somewhere beneath or through the mist, but there was no way to prove this.

  There was mist nowhere but this river and its streams and sea, but the mist split Empire in half.

  After a moment, the pain in Kit’s eyes grew less and he opened them again. The river was a quarter-mile across where they stood, a great gash of light between the levees. It seemed nearly featureless, blazing under the sun like a river of cream or of bleached silk, but as his eyes accustomed themselves, he saw the surface was not smooth but heaped and hollowed, and that it shifted slowly, almost indiscernibly, as he watched.

  Rasali stepped forward and Kit started. “I’m sorry,” he said with a laugh. “How long have I been staring? It’s just—I had no idea.”