Beyond the Waters of the World

by Ruth Nestvold

  "Thank you. I will be back again at our usual time." Kislan watched the door close behind his friend. Could it truly be Toni? She had said she would come after him, had told him to retrieve his fashar so she could find him. He fingered the lace around his wrist. Yes, she had promised, but it had been over five exchanges of the moons since he had been returned to the sea.

  He leaned back in his chair and gazed at the accounts of the exploits of the great nation of the Tusalis gracing his walls, the fine lacework of the words, a manly pursuit here, something he could learn and practice without regret or fear of punishment. Even if the prisoner was not the woman from the stars, did he want a woman of the Thirteen Cities treated the way he knew in his heart the Tusalis would treat her?

  No.

  Whether the woman being held by Rwuseni was Toni or not, he had to help her and whoever had come with her. It was one thing to look the other way when a woman of Belraash was mistreated, since anything else would be seen as meddling in the business of those who had given him a new life. For some reason, it was another thing entirely to know that the woman had not grown up among the Tusalis.

  He twisted the length of lace around his wrist. He was well aware that it made no sense to think the way he did, but there it was. Courtesy towards those who had taken him in warred with his own instincts at some of the things he saw on the streets and in the houses of Belraash, but if he added a woman of the Mejan to the equation, the result was completely different.

  Or a woman from the stars.

  Kislan pushed back his chair and rose. He had to get to the offices of the city guard before it was too late.

  #

  It was a tall building that stood on the edge of a busy square, the entrance visible to all who passed by, which meant there would be no sneaking in.

  Then Kislan would just have to enter openly.

  He gathered his winter cape at his throat in one fist and strode up the steps. The place was strangely deserted for offices meant for the city guards. It was nearly evening and the darkness of night was gathering in the sky while the men and women of Belraash gathered in the bars near the harbor, but these offices did not shut down, as far as Kislan knew.

  The walls were hung with the usual records, citations of various sorts, a certificate from the council of Belraash, but other than that the main room was relatively bare. Two halls lead back into the recesses of the place.

  Where was Kislan to start? Where would they hold strangers they thought to be spies?

  Then his ears picked up a faint rattling and pounding down the hall to the left, and for want of anything better, he headed that way.

  Then came a voice, in strangely accented Alnar ag Ledar, the language of the men in the Thirteen Cities. "Let me out!"

  Sam.

  Kislan hurried forward to the door. "Sam! It is I, Kislan!"

  "I know," Sam said through the door. "I saw you on my Ayai." Which made no sense to Kislan at all, but that wasn't what mattered now. "Is Toni with you?"

  "No. We have to find her. Can you break down this door?" Kislan looked around and grinned. Hooks on the walls contained a series of keys, and the third one he tried fit.

  Just as the lock clicked, another door opened, and a tall young man wearing the reddish-bronze tunic and leggings of the city guard appeared out of the shadows at the end of the hall.

  "What is going on here?"

  "Distract him," Sam urged through the door, just loud enough that Kislan could hear. "Get him away, and I'll slip out and try to find our weapons."

  Kislan stepped forward. "Is that you, Rwuseni?"

  The guard shook his head. "Kislan? What are you doing here?"

  "Yöndahko told me you were holding some spies from the Thirteen Cities. I thought perhaps I could help, find out what they are here for."

  "I need no help," Rwuseni said, his voice impatient. "They speak the language of the Tusalis, at least the woman does."

  He had Toni.

  He cocked his head to one side in what he hoped was a gesture of scepticism. "She does?

  That's unusual. The women of the Thirteen Cities do not even acknowledge that the Tusalis still exist. The sea is the domain of the men among the Mejan."

  "Well, this one has ventured across the sea, and whether she acknowledges our existence or not, she speaks our language."

  "Perhaps she is from my family," Kislan said, pushing past the other man before he could draw his sword.

  "I said, I have no need of your help!" Rwuseni said, grabbing Kislan's elbow. Rwuseni was big, but Kislan was bigger, and he shook the guard off as casually as he could, stepping through the door just ahead of Yöndahko's son.

  To find Toni sprawled on the floor, her hands tied, her clothing torn, and a bruise disfiguring one side of her face.

  Despite the swollen eye, Toni's face lit up. "Kislan!" Instead of answering, Kislan bellowed his pain at seeing her like this. How could anyone do this to a woman --let alone the woman who haunted his dreams?

  A wrenching anger tore through him that took his mind away. Almost without his volition, he whipped out the sword at his waist and whirled around to face the son of the man who had done everything in his power to make a place for him here among the Tusalis. He would have cut Rwuseni down without a thought, without loyalty or practicality or humanity, but then Sam appeared in the door, something small and metallic in his hand that looked like a dagger --much too small to do any harm.

  The strange-looking man from the stars yelled words Kislan couldn't understand. Rwuseni turned instinctively at the intrusion. The dagger-that-wasn't made a strange noise, and the guard fell.

  Yöndahko's son lay on the floor, not moving.

  For a moment, Kislan was so surprised, he lost his anger. "What did you do to him?" Sam ignored his question, hurrying to Toni's side. Kislan followed, and they untied her and started to help her to her feet. Toni and Sam spoke rapidly in the language of the stars. She was shaking and tracks of tears stained her cheeks.

  A yelp escaped her when she tried to stand. "I think my ankle is broken," she said in Alnar ag Ledar so that Kislan could understand.

  "That's going to complicate things," Sam replied in the same language, following her lead. Toni rubbed the tears from her cheeks and took a deep breath. "We shouldn't have come here."

  But she had. She had promised and she had come. And Kislan realized that although it ended the new life he had just begun to make for himself, although she seemed to think the price had been too high, the fact that she had come meant more to him than he cared to think about right now.

  Kislan wished he could take her in his arms and comfort her, but he didn't know if he had that right. As she had once pointed out, over a life he had lost ago, the two of them were from worlds so different, it was a wonder they understood each other at all. As it had turned out, there was much they had not understood, repeatedly. It was easier to remain neutral than to try to base his actions on what Toni being here might mean. He turned to Sam. "How will we get her away?" he asked. Sam shook his head, denial in the star worlds. "Good question. Any suggestions?" Briefly, he was surprised that Toni's colleague was asking him for advice, but then the urgency of the situation took over --they had to get out of Belraash. Kislan gestured toward the fallen guard. "I will take his uniform, lead you away." Sam nodded shortly --a "yes."

  He knelt down next to Rwuseni, reluctant to get on with the business at hand. "Is he dead?"

  "I did not set to kill," Sam said. At least that was what Kislan thought he said. He did not know how it would be possible to set anything to kill. Weapons that were designed to kill kept their original meaning even if they were only used for sport --how could they be anything else? But then, the people from the stars had made him rethink much, over and over and over again. And his life among the Tusalis had been yet another lesson in rethinking. Kislan felt the guard's wrist. Yes, the other man still had a pulse. Despite what Rwuseni had done to Toni, now that Kislan was no longer acting in the heat of the
moment, he was grateful the young guard lived. Kislan owed Yöndahko much, and he would not want to be responsible for the death of his son.

  But that didn't mean he couldn't steal his clothes.

  He had Rwuseni's tunic off and was unlacing his leggings when they heard an outside door open. The three of them froze, staring at each other.

  Sam tossed a dagger-that-wasn't to Kislan. "Get up. You may need this." Kislan rose, inspecting the strange object. "But I don't know how to use it."

  "I set it already. All you have to do is press the button in the middle." Sam still supported Toni with one arm while training the strange weapon on the door with the other. Toni too held a weapon now, and her expression was grim. From the hall came a raised voice. "Rwuseni! Kislan!" It was Yöndahko.

  His mentor appeared in the doorframe, taking in the situation in a moment.

  "He's not dead!" Kislan called out, but Yöndahko already had his sword drawn and was charging them. Before Sam or Toni could use the dagger-things, Kislan had his own sword out and had stepped in front of their weapons, blocking Yöndahko's attack with a weapon he understood. "Yöndahko, they are the people from the stars! They have weapons so strong they do not need to fight. Let them go!"

  Yöndahko met his parry with another thrust. "Then how were they taken when they first arrived in Belraash?" he bellowed over the clash of blades. Kislan blocked the furious attack, holding the other man at sword's length. "I don't know. But I saw the male fell Rwuseni without touching him."

  His mentor let out a roar of rage, drew back, and renewed his attack, slashing at Kislan like a madman. Then suddenly, he too was on the ground, the sword clattering out of his hand. Kislan turned, feeling morally exhausted.

  "Get the guard's clothes on quickly," Sam said. "We have to leave before anyone else comes." Kislan shook his head in agreement and pulled the leggings off the unconscious man. He felt more like a criminal than when the council of Edaru had decreed that he was to be sent back to the sea. Rwuseni had deserved whatever injury he had received, but Yöndahko ... Yöndahko had helped him, made a place for him far from his home, welcomed him in a strange land. And then he had come upon a scene which looked as if it had involved the murder of his son by the man he had taken in.

  Kislan's betrayal of Yöndahko was more of a crime than he had committed in Edaru, and he'd had less of a choice.

  "We have to get out of here," Toni said. Her voice was low and angry and shaking almost as much as her hands had been earlier.

  Kislan stripped Rwuseni, only briefly worrying about her sensitivities. Everything was changing once again, and he was giving up his second life.

  "The darkness will help us," he said as he pulled on the guard's uniform.

  "It won't help us find playned," Sam said. Kislan didn't have any idea what the playn was, but he didn't bother asking. They had to get out of the town before anyone found Rwuseni and Yöndahko.

  And then what? Was there any place left on his world where he wasn't a criminal?

  #

  The red of Kislan's uniform and the growing darkness protected them through the streets of the city and into the ancient ruins and the thick vegetation beyond. Kislan supported Toni now, while Sam led the way. One leg was useless, but her tears had dried, and she didn't complain.

  Once in the hills outside of the town, they paused for a moment to give themselves a rest. Stretched below them lay the ruins of a world that had destroyed itself, and beyond, its shimmering reflection in the night-dark sea. While they stood there, silent, Toni leaned her head on his shoulder.

  Somehow, the simple gesture felt so much more intimate than his arm around her slender waist --which was no more that the assistance she needed for them to get away from those who would soon be seeking them.

  As he thought this, drums began to pound in the city on the other side of the ruins.

  "They have noticed your flight," Kislan said.

  "We have to move faster," Sam said. "Toni --?" Before the lishik-eyed one could complete his sentence, Kislan swept Toni up in his arms. She was no lightweight, but perhaps this way they could move fast enough to get out of danger before the Tusalis organized a search party.

  The woman from the stars slung her arms around his neck and they made for the bare trees beyond the ruins.

  #

  Toni leaned her right cheek against Kislan's shoulder, almost ready to cry with relief at being off her injured leg. Perhaps if she wasn't trying to walk on it, the nanomeds would work faster.

  And it certainly hurt less.

  Kislan had that cinnamony smell everything on Christmas seemed to have to a greater or lesser degree, and Toni inhaled, using his scent to force herself to relax and breathe evenly. Her leg throbbed, pulsing through her whole body, hurting like hell. And around her left eye and the cheekbone below, the skin was hot and aching and sensitive to the touch. Toni didn't want to think what would have happened to her if Kislan hadn't arrived. Sam pulled out a flashlight when it grew dark, the wonder of which Kislan neglected to comment on. He was in for a quite a few more wonders before the night was over --perhaps he had guessed as much himself.

  "I'm sorry I could come no sooner," Toni murmured. "And what a mess I made of it when I did."

  "It is no matter." As Kislan spoke, she could feel his voice rumble in his chest.

  "Ah, but it does. You had no need of saving, did you? No one owned you."

  "No, no one owned me."

  "What was life like among the pirates?"

  Kislan was silent for a moment. "With zhamtendagar, you refer to those who raid and steal?" Of course, Toni was well aware now of the relationships between the words in Almar ag Ledar and Tusaliso, the false friends in these related languages that had their basis in history. "I didn't mean --"

  He ignored the beginnings of her denial, and it hit her just how much the time he had spent among the Tusalis had changed him.

  " Zathendagro," Kislan cut in, using the word for the men in the Tusalis tongue, the word related to "pirate" in his native language, "they helped me start a new life. I was a factor at the docks, much like I had been in Edaru. I had never known how many of the goods that came through our ports were from a people we were made to believe no longer existed." As Kislan spoke of his life among the Tusalis, Toni began to realize how unnecessary was all the damage she had done --and all because she couldn't resist assuaging her conscience. He talked of a strange life and new friends, of ways unknown to him, anger and wonder in his voice at the same time. And over and over again, he threw in words from his new life, words for which there was no direct correspondence in his native tongue, his accent perfect as far as Toni could judge from the vids she had studied --after only four standard months among these people, and without memory enhancements.

  The man was a natural linguist.

  "You learned some of the Tusalis way of writing?" she asked. Kislan shook his head in assent, and she felt his hair brush against the top of her head. It had grown out again and curled around his ears and at the back of his neck. The last time she had seen him, his long tresses had been taken away, the colors denoting family that had once been braided into his hair gone, his head shorn in a symbol of his shame. There was a smattering of gray in the bangs at his forehead now too. His banishment?

  "Perhaps you can teach me the writing and the language of the Tusalis when we are back in Edaru," Toni murmured.

  Before Kislan could answer, barking burst through the silence of the night sky in the distance

  -- rhaysh, descendants of Terran dogs.

  "Bija!" Kislan muttered. Shit.

  Some things were very nearly universal.

  #

  Now it was Kislan's turn to lead them or they would never have a chance of shaking their pursuers. Sam wasn't strong enough to carry Toni, and so she leaned on her colleague as they limped behind. They waded through a stream uphill and then another and another for what seemed hours, until Kislan grew impatient and took her up in his arms again. Her injury an
d the zig-zag path they were taking made the journey back to the skycar much longer. The single leg she was able to walk on was cold and aching, while her injured leg was a mass of pulsing pain. Toni was almost sure that her ankle was broken; if it had only been twisted, the nanomeds would have repaired it by now. On the other hand, she didn't know what effect trying to use an injured body part had on the efficiency of the nanomeds. Nodding away on Kislan's shoulder, aching and tired and guilty, breathing in the physical scent of Christmas, Toni felt suffused with much-needed warmth --and oddly happy. She smiled and nestled in closer to the crook between his shoulder and his neck. They forged on, and gradually the baying of the Kailazh hounds grew more distant. When she began to snore gently, Sam and Kislan exchanged brief smiles and continued to follow the flashlight and Sam's navigation system.

  #

  Once Kislan had helped them lose their pursuers, Sam led them down the range of hills west of Belraash. By the time the dark of night began to lighten and the lace in the sky became visible again, Kislan was barely conscious, but he plodded on, Toni gripped tightly in his heavy, aching arms.

  "Stop," he said finally. "I need to rest." Sam nodded. "I'll support Toni again. I think we're almost there." Kislan slowly lowered the arm that was under her legs, allowing Toni to slip down his body. At the change, she mumbled and rubbed her eyes, awakening gradually. But when her feet rested on the ground, she groaned and her eyes shot open.

  Kislan tightened his arm around her shoulders. "It's all right. I have you."

  "I can't believe I slept." She peered at Kislan in the near dark. "How far did you carry me?"

  "I don't know."

  Sam spoke a few words in their native language.

  "Not possible!" Toni said in Alnar ag Ledar. Kislan felt a smile tugging at his mouth despite his exhaustion.

  "How is your foot?" Sam asked in the same tongue, once again including Kislan in the conversation only at Toni's instigation. As if it mattered. He could no longer be included anywhere. Where was he to go now? Perhaps the Kishudiu would take him --enemies of enemies.