by G. Howell
Jenes’ahn hooked my arm with a claw and led me right on by the Ambassador. Chaeitch, Rraerch and Rohinia peeled off. An intense little conversation took place while the Mediator took me on down the wharf. I saw the spot where I’d seen the murdered bodies of those two guards and stopped, swallowed. Jenes’ahn looked from me to the faint stains where planks had been vigorously sanded down. “What is it?” she asked.
“A reminder,” I said and she tugged my arm again.
We boarded across a wooden gangplank. On either side of the narrow plank were railings of thick white rope supported by brass stanchions. Land of Water guards stood at station at the top of the ramp. At over twenty meters long the ship was larger than the Ironheart had been; with three masts and the larger crew required to work that rigging, it had to be. Most of the hull was painted with spotless white lacquer and the visible wood was pale, oiled and polished to a gleam. The bow was rakishly angled, with a long beam of polished timber jutting forward like a glowing horn. Rigging was slung back from that to the forward mast. There was a forward cabin, slotted in between the first and second masts and lined with small portholes and skylights. At the rear another cabin jutted out above a swept stern. Windows of small lead-framed diamond panes wrapped around the back of the cabin while on its roof was the pilots wheel. The name of the ship was written in gold scratches across the back: Royal Goose.
Royal Goose? I wondered if I’d misread something.
Rris were busy everywhere. Cargo was being carted down into the holds through hatches in the deck. Crew were carting and coiling ropes, checking ties on rigging and performing other arcane rituals intrinsic to their art. Jenes’ahn had a quick word with a startled guard and then hustled me back to the stern cabin. There were a few steps down and then stooped shuffle along a short gang-way to a door near the end of the gangway. The cabin was a stateroom and was large by shipboard standards; tiny by mine. I couldn’t stand upright under the overhead. There was a narrow, recessed bunk that was also considerably too short for me. The compact space smelled of wood and paint and tar and wet Rris, a smell that seemed soaked into the timbers. At least there was a real window at one end of that little space, one of those diamond-pane ones I’d seen from outside. Jenes’ahn told me to wait.
I did. For about five minutes I sat on the bunk, hunched over so and listening to banging and thumping overhead, shouts. Then I got bored and annoyed and headed back above decks.
Sitting out of the way on the roof of the cabin watching what was going on, that was more interesting. Especially when Jenes’ahn spotted me. She bristled and bridled and tried to get all Mediatory on me again. I sat firm and work gradually ground a halt as crew and guards stopped to watch our little standoff. Finally, looking like she was going to come at me with bared teeth, she closed her eyes, hissed, then spat, “You will stay there. You will not move until we are away from here. Do you understand?”
I shrugged. “If it makes you happy.”
She stood rigid, actually trembling. Her ears were flat, her black lips repeatedly twitching back from her teeth and for a second I was afraid I may have pushed too far. But she reigned her temper in, settled her fur with a couple of sweeps of her hand, then turned and stalked off. On the way down the gangplank she passed Rohinia coming up. It looked like he asked her something and she just slashed her hand in a disgusted swipe and stalked past. He watched her rage off, turned to give me a thoughtful look, and then continued on whatever he was about.
Chaeitch hopped up to plant himself on the cabin roof nearby, legs dangling. “What was that about?”
“Just letting her know I’m not a domesticated animal,” I said.
His head turned slightly to track her and I saw an ear twitch. “A? You could try and be a little more accommodating. They are trying to protect you.”
No, they’re trying to protect something they value but can’t even really define.
I didn’t say that.
“If you’ll forgive me, I’ve seen a lot of Mediator protection recently. It’s been a mixed... gift.”
“She may be easier to live with if you actually did as she requested occasionally.”
I snorted. “I’ll be a little more... accommodating when she takes that broom out of her rear end.”
He cocked his head. “Now there’s a colorful image. I’m sure she’s only trying to do her job.”
“I’ve met a few Mediators who haven’t been so officious about it.”
“Huhn,” he rumbled. For a few seconds there was only the sound of the dockside: calling Rris and gulls, squeaking of pulley wheels, the racket of steam tugs out on the water.
“What does that mean?” I eventually asked.
He scratched at the side of his muzzle. “Ah, she’s a Mediator. She’s supposed to be officious, a?”
“So?”
Another scratch and then he turned around, folding his arms on the roof of the cabin. “It’s what they do, you know. People expect it; so,” he waggled his furry fingers philosophically, “they act as people expect. Perhaps there was a reason for them to act otherwise towards you.”
Good cop, bad cop. Lies and tricks; leverage and controls. I’d seen them all from the Mediators. “I wouldn’t mind knowing what that was,” I muttered.
His ears caught that. “You think so? Believe me, sometimes, in the dark political forest, it’s better not knowing things.”
“I don’t think one of those times is when your life is depending on knowing just what the copulation is going on.”
“Sometimes especially then,” he said, tipping his head. “There may have been an excellent reason for it. For all you know it may have been the only thing keeping you alive.”
I gnawed my lip. Turning that over in my head. “I think that annoys me,” I finally said. “The idea that an organization just... uses people the way you would use a tool. You don’t explain anything to it, you just use it. That was what it felt like. That’s what she seems to do. I don’t like it.”
“Your kind doesn’t do that?”
“Yeah, they do. Guilds and governments do it and deny it. People know they are doing it and complain about it or ignore it. But nobody does it as... as openly as the Guild here does. And there are the Mediators like her who seem to expect to be able to treat everyone like that.”
“But does that mean you have to rub her the wrong way like that? It just means she’s going to do the same to you.”
“I know. But... it’s just difficult to take anyone who takes themselves so seriously, seriously. Something there just rubs ME the wrong way. Does that make sense?”
“You do have a reputation along those lines,” he said and then flashed teeth at me. “Perhaps that’s why her Ladyship got on so well with you.”
“Perhaps.” She certainly never acted like a Mediator.
He gave me a smug look and turned again to watch the activity on deck. “And why you get on so badly with Shyia,” he said over his shoulder.
I grimaced. Yeah, those two were furry peas in a pod. “Funny, he said Rohinia was his instructor, but Rohinia seems a lot more... ummm... not as arrogant?”
“Age can bring new perspectives,” Chaeitch noted. “Maybe he’s learned a few other tricks.”
“A,” I shrugged again, absently, watching Rohinia down near the pointy end of the boat where he was talking with another grizzled and salt-furred Rris. The ship’s captain? Whatever it was, that person didn’t look too happy about something. That seemed to happen a lot around mediators.
I looked up, at the foreshortened height of the masts and the furled sails there, the canvas glowing white as the sun struck it. There were Rris clambering up weirdly-formed rope ladders, headed for the top of the tall masts. They didn’t look exactly nimble about it. I could see they were wearing gloves of some kind and didn’t move with the fluidity I’d seen
experienced humans climb ropes like that. They took it a bit at a time before moving on. I grinned, then wondered how much that would slow things down in an emergency. And how long would it take us to get home anyway? By now Chihirae would be thinking something...
“Oh, crap no!” I cursed as I got that sinking feeling again. “Dammit! No.”
Chaeitch’s head twitched around. “What? Now what?”
“I’m dead,” I said. “I’m so dead.”
“What?” Now he looked really concerned. “Mikah? What is it? I’ll get the guards...”
“Her gift,” I flopped back onto the polished wood of the cabin roof and threw my arm over my eyes. “Dammit! I said I’d get her something from Open Fields. I never had a chance!”
A silence, then he said, “You are worried about that?”
“Shit! I promised her,” I said to the sky, then sat up and looked at him, at his drooping ears and asked. “Do you think they would hold the ship for a while?”
He clapped hands to his eyes and muzzle and groaned.
------v------
The tow line splashed into the water and Rris crewmen hastened to reel it in. With a churning of its paddle wheel the sputtering little steam tugboat heeled about and fell away to the left, streaming a ribbon of black smoke into the air as it flailed its way back to the city. The Goose drifted on under its own inertia briefly, while Rris shouted orders and sailors clambered up into the rigging and hauled on ropes and lines. Sails dropped, unfurled, blossomed into white wings that spread into the sun and wind. The masts - the entire hull - seemed to creak and groan, flex and stretch and awaken as the sheets boomed, inhaled and caught the morning breeze. The bowsprit swung around to point into the brass gong of the rising sun and the whole ship drove forward into the dawn.
Crew bustled about, rushing here and there while officers shouted orders that were just gibberish to me. Most of them were naked, male and female alike, save for fur or belts for knives or other tools. Some of them wore gloves or bracers that I thought were a bit odd until I saw them in use: they had hooks or something on the backs and they used those while climbing the rigging, snaring lines with the hooks and twisting them to hold on. Their hands just weren’t as good as ape paws for clambering around ropes and rigging.
I sat back on the cabin roof and squinted into morning sunlight that flickered and glowed past billowing sailcloth, then looked around toward the back of the boat. In the distance the shore and the city was receding. Closer to hand Chaeitch was standing at the railing, staring at the water.
“Yeah, it’s still wet,” I offered as I stepped up to the railing beside him. The thing was built for Rris height and weight so leaning on it didn’t really feel very comfortable. Or safe.
He didn’t turn. “The Ironheart’s down there somewhere,” he sighed toward the water slipping by under the Goose’s hull.
Oh, for Pete’s sake...”Let it go,” I said. “It’s only a boat. Like you said: You can build another one. A better one. With cup holders.”
He deigned to turn his head my way, snorted, and then turned back to the water. “They found part of it, you know,” he said. “Part of the bow washed ashore.”
I stiffened. “Any survivors?”
Another snort. “You would have to ask her.”
Her? I glanced around and flinched. Jenes’ahn was leaning on the railing on my other side. I hadn’t heard a thing.
“Were there?” I asked.
She didn’t look around. “I really couldn’t say. That wasn’t my assignment.”
I took a guess. “Shyia?”
“Ah Ehrasai was involved I believe.”
“Why am I not surprised,” I said.
“He did know you the best,” she said, almost sounding defensive. “He did say you thought in odd ways that we might not be able to predict. He was correct. That incident back at the docks; I wouldn’t have predicted that.”
“’Odd ways’,” Chaeitch repeated and used one hand to ruffle the fur on his other forearm. “That’s an understatement. You know about his attachments? Why he did that?”
“It was mentioned,” she said. “He’s developed great affection for the teacher. We were told he values her highly.”
“Values?” Chaeitch coughed. “He went charging into a building filled with some very dangerous individuals on the possibility she may be there,” he said. “It was insane, but he went.”
And while the pair of them talked my mind drifted slightly, just enough to start making some connections about the things they were talking about. And things that had been nagging at me suddenly started resurfacing and there was a feeling of something teetering, just brushing my mental fingertips. I remembered how Shyia had shown up here: How there’d been Mediators watching and then there’d been the arrest and then the firefight in the street and in the confusion he’d hustled me away and I’d been captured by the other faction.
He’d hustled me away. Away from other Mediators so I could be taken by the other side? Or perhaps handed over to?
And something clicked into place.
Then I’d escaped and made my way back to town and... The running and the terror and the narrow escapes. Or what had felt like narrow escapes.
They’d been trying to kill me, hadn’t they? But how hard had they been trying? Whenever Shyia was involved I’d always managed to escape. They’d just flushed me out so Jaesith’s faction could grab me again. Putting me back in the hands he’d given me to in the first place. And why would they do that? Because Shyia was calling the shots. And he’d known exactly what leverage Jaesith was going to use to get me to cooperate: something he’d made sure that she knew I ‘valued’. She’d known what that was, and she’d known that I would try to protect it, but hadn’t know what lengths I’d go to.
Another piece...
Shyia knew. Shyia had always known that I felt things for that teacher from a backwoods town that no Rris could really understand. He’d known that I’d given everything to protect her before. He knew I’d do it again. And he used that knowledge as a weapon in his own little war.
And when the deed was done, Shyia’s people had been there within minutes to pick up their stained implement and figure out what to do with it.
It was twisted and convoluted and inhuman, but it was clearer to me now: I’d been used. I’d been used and manipulated without a thought to what might get broken along the way.
Someone was saying something from a long, long way away. I didn’t hear what it was. Everything felt vague and brittle. Something was knotted deep inside me and when I turned to look at the Mediator that congestion started to unravel with a surge of blood and rage. “You did it,” someone else choked with my voice. “You used me. You fucking bunch of...”
“What are...” she started to say and then looked at me and something on my face must’ve shown because she stiffened and recoiled a step, her eyes went wide. Her hand twitched, moving toward a gun on her bandolier and I just reacted and snapped my hand out and caught her furry wrist and she tried to pull away. I tightened my grip: beneath her hide bones compressed and her expression went from surprise and anger to outright pain and fear.
“Mikah!”
And Chaeitch was there with his ears flat, shoving between us. “Let her go.”
Fucking Mediators! I could just throw the bastard over the side...
“Mikah!”
He was staring up at me and he was scared. Almost as much as she was. I froze up.
“Please, Mikah, don’t do this.”
I opened my hand. Jenes’ahn snatched her arm away, eyes narrowing.
“Go,” Chaeitch hissed at her and he looked frightened. “Get out of here. Please.”
She glared at me, hand flexing as she opened and closed it. If she went for that gun, she would be going over the side. A
nd perhaps she knew that. Her jaw gaped in a sharp, white hiss at me and then she pointedly turned and stalked away down the ship.
Crew were staring.
Chaeitch, however, was panting. “What was that?” he hissed.
I was still literally shaking with rage. I wanted to explode, to do something, but he was the only one around. Frustrated, I spun and hammered my fist onto the railing. Again and again. It hurt. I don’t think the ship felt anything.
“Mikah?” Again my name spoken with some trepidation.
“They... used... me,” I grated. “They used her! He did.”
A pause. “The Guild?”
“Shyia!” I slammed my hand down on the railing. Wood cracked. “He was the only one who knew enough he told them. He made sure they knew so they would...”
And I saw the trap then. I saw why they’d let me go.
I couldn’t say anything. To tell him that Shyia had ensured Jaesith knew that I placed value in Chihirae, had ensured she would make threats knowing that that would be enough to make me do... something, that would be admitting what I’d done: removing the safeties on the Ironheart: potentially endangering the lives of the Land-of-Water delegation and others: letting Jaesith take it in the knowledge that she and other Mediators were riding a bomb that I’d created. It didn’t matter that they’d been trying to kill me. It didn’t matter that they were a faction in contention with the rest of the Guild - according to the Guild there’d never been a schism and I’d still been a fugitive.
It’d been an accident, they said - a convenient accident they had neither the means nor inclination to solve. And if I told anyone, it’d be my word against theirs and I’d also be sentencing myself and through me, Chihirae. They’d used me, and they’d let me trap myself.