by Traci Chee
“But you will someday.” She smiled sadly, but he knew from the pain in her eyes that her sadness was not for him.
When he didn’t say anything, she clasped her hands around her knees and looked up at the sky through the glass ceiling. There, between the clouds, they could see the constellations—each set of stars a story, spelled out in needlepoints of light and the imaginary threads that connected them.
“Do you know the story of the great whale?” the Second asked.
Lon nodded. “When I was a kid, and my parents tucked me in at night, they used to tell me all sorts of stories about the moon and the stars and the shapes of the trees. When they were home, at least. Before their troupe was called off again to who-knows-where.”
“Tell it to me.” Her voice shivered, like a ripple in the still surface of a lake.
He looked at her for a moment, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. So he found the stars that formed the shape of the whale, inhaled the deep scent of earth that surrounded him, and began, his voice falling easily into the cadence of the old stories.
“Once there was, and one day there will be. This is the beginning of every story.
“Once there was a great whale, as large as an island kingdom and as black as the night itself. Every day, the whale would swim across the oceans and rise up out of the sea at sunset, making a great leap into the sky with drops of water still clinging to its skin. All through the night it swam across the sky, and when dawn came, the whale dove into the sea again to repeat the cycle: through the water by day, through the sky by night.
“At that time there was a famous whaler whose name has been forgotten, though his deeds have not. He had killed more whales than any man who ever lived or has lived since. They said his ship was made of whale bones and he drank from cups of whale teeth. Every night, he watched the great whale swim through the sky, and he knew that no matter how many ordinary whales he killed, he would never be the greatest whaleman until he had killed this one.
“It took many long years of preparation, but eventually he was ready. At dawn, when the sparkling black whale dove back into the sea, the whaleman released his harpoons. The great whale was caught! But it was so strong that it kept swimming. All day it swam across Kelanna, pulling the little whaler behind it.
“As night approached, the whaler prepared his ship for flight. But as the whale leapt into the sky, the lines snapped. The ship slammed back into the water. Many men were cast overboard and lost in the dark seas. But the whaler would not be stopped. He and his remaining crew sailed the ship into the air . . . but it was too late. The great whale was already halfway across the sky, and though the whaleman pursued his quarry through what remained of the night, the sun caught up to him, and he and his ship disappeared into the light.
“The next night, a new set of stars appeared: it was the whaler, doomed to chase after his quarry for the rest of time. And the great whale swam freely through the ocean and the sky, untroubled by men.”
As Lon finished his story, the Second’s hands drifted to her bloodsword, and the scent of metal bloomed in the greenhouse.
“Your parents told you this?” she murmured.
“Didn’t yours?”
Her gaze fastened on him. “I have no parents,” she said.
“Right. ‘I shall forsake all ties to kin and kingdom.’” Lon rattled off the words of their oath. “But you had parents, at one time anyway.”
As her fingers tightened on her scabbard, he could see the scars and nicks on her skin shifting over her tendons.
Finally she released her grip on the sword. Her shoulders drooped and she hugged her knees to her chest. “Will you tell me another?” she asked.
For a moment, Lon studied her. She had closed her eyes, and the blue-gray light edged her forehead, her lashes, her nose and lips. He’d never seen anyone look so vulnerable and so impenetrable at the same time.
“Do you know the story of the bear man who split the Gorman Islands?” he asked.
Almost imperceptibly, the Second shook her head.
Leaning back on his hands, Lon stared up at the sky. “Once there was, and one day there will be . . .” he began.
He told her story after story, skipping them one by one like stones into the darkness, where they disappeared without a splash. She didn’t say anything about her mission, and he didn’t ask again, but they spent the rest of the night in the greenhouse, until the sky lightened and the smell of green and growing things overpowered the scent of blood and iron.
Chapter 22
The Stowaways
Sefia didn’t know how much time had passed since Archer had fallen asleep, but judging from the way the sounds of the ship had gradually faded—the voices, the footsteps, the sudden unfurling of sails like turning pages—it was night by the time Archer stirred.
He woke as quietly as he did everything else, with the barest twitching of his fingertips. She felt him sit up.
“We have enough food and water for three days, if we’re careful about it.” She began feeling along the edges of the box. “We need to find a way out.”
After a little pushing and prodding, one side of the crate cracked open. Fresh air came streaming through the opening and they breathed deep, happy breaths. Their relief lasted only a moment, however, because as they shoved harder against the wall, it jammed and wouldn’t open farther.
Archer slammed his shoulder into it, pushed, feet and hands and body. Sefia crawled out of his way. He flung himself at the walls, fists and head and legs. The crate seemed to shrink around them. The imaginary smells of blood and urine, old straw and fouled floors enveloped them.
“Archer, please!”
He ignored her. He shoved his whole weight against the side of the crate. She could feel his panic as palpable as sweat.
Then, with a scraping noise, the wall gave way. Archer wriggled out into the hold at the bottom of the ship. He crouched there for a long moment in the semidarkness, listening. Sefia held her breath.
But there were no signs that anyone had heard—no sound of the watch, no footsteps.
Soon Sefia crawled out and stretched her legs. The rest of the hold was stocked with crates, barrels, burlap sacks. Archer inspected the hatchway that led to the lower deck above them, but there were no signs of movement.
Near the fore of the hold, Sefia picked the lock to the galley store and found potatoes, salted beef, carrots, hard cheeses wrapped in cloth, butter, suet, eggs, and in the corner, an unlit lantern with a cracked glass globe.
She blinked, and the history of the lantern swam before her eyes: the rough seas when it broke, where it had come from, images so quick and confused that she couldn’t focus on them. Nausea washed over her and she stumbled, banging the backs of her legs on a nearby crate.
Why did her vision work sometimes but not others? Shaking her head, she blinked and tried again, but still she found herself floundering in the sea of hands, faces, glimpses of dark places. Her vision leapt from the past to the future: she saw herself lighting the lantern, the shadows of Archer’s face, and then she was slipping through history to a glassblower’s workshop, with the heat on her face, watching globes of glass spin on iron rods like enormous globs of crystal taffy.
Then she blinked and returned to the present, where Archer stood in front of her, a smile lighting up his eyes. Sefia’s stomach flipped, and not just because of the nausea. How long had he been watching her? What did she look like? She almost laughed, and nervously clamped her hand over her mouth to silence herself.
Archer’s smile widened.
Busying herself until the heat in her cheeks subsided, she collected the lantern and rummaged around until she found oil to light it. Then she and Archer retreated silently back to the crate.
Over the course of the next few days, they ate their own food first, but when their stores ran out, they started stealing, always taking a littl
e less than they needed: half a handful of peas, a scoop of water, a small wedge of pork. They were always hungry. Their stomachs grumbled. But they couldn’t afford to be full.
They learned to recognize night from day by the way the sounds of the ship faded away, keeping time by the sudden eruptions of noise at the changing of the watch, and only came out after the rest of the ship had gone to sleep—just a few minutes to stretch and gather supplies.
Once they were sneaking crumbs of cheese when footsteps sounded on the deck above. They ducked behind the nearest crate as lantern light flooded the dark hold. There was a sound of rats scurrying away into the corners.
A long shadow crossed the hold to the galley store, where the ship’s boy unlocked the door and began poking among the barrels, a silhouette of long limbs and curls on the curving timbers. “Butter,” he said. “Butter, butter, butter. I’ll never get used to it. We oughta get a cow and make our own, at the rate he’s usin’ it.” He found it bundled in the corner of the hold, took a hunk, and stomped back up the stairs, still grumbling under his breath.
They didn’t take any butter after that.
It turned out that trips to the hold were fairly regular, occurring a few hours before each meal, with only occasional unexpected visits, and Sefia and Archer grew accustomed to the boy’s comings, goings, and mutterings.
They slept during the day, curled up next to each other, waking only at the sounds of footsteps above, holding still and barely breathing, until the footsteps faded and they were alone again.
In the hours they spent awake, through the darkest, safest hours of the night, Sefia practiced using her vision. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes she saw old Delienean pastures, rolling green hills with black-and-white cows grazing in the shadow of Kozorai Peak, where overgrown trenches and stone walls served as reminders of a siege that had occurred hundreds of years before, in the heat of the Ken-Alissar blood feud. Sometimes she saw rough hands picking apart ropes and twining them together again, with salt in the air and a breeze in the sails. But every moment of seeing brought headache and vertigo and nausea, and she couldn’t maintain her vision for long.
Other times, when she deemed it was safe enough, she lit the lantern inside their little crate. Archer leaned in close, the light playing across his chin, his cheekbones, his golden eyes. And she read. Her voice surrounded them with stories, until they were saturated with the world inside the book, breathing it in, hearing not the creaking of their own ship but that of the one in the story, the one with the green hull, sailing for the western edge of the world.
The Current of Faith and the Floating Island
Leaving Captain Cat and the bones of her cannibal crew behind, they sailed on. By the time they found the floating island, it had been over six months since they left the Paradise Islands, and they were feeling the effects of starvation. Even Cooky, for all his tricks with vegetable peelings and bone broth, couldn’t ease the twinge in their guts. Some days Captain Reed sacrificed one of his meals to Harison, the ship’s boy they’d picked up in the Paradise Islands, or Jigo, the oldest man on watch, but they were all going hungry.
So it was no surprise that at the sight of the island, the crew raced to prepare for landing. Reed stood at the prow while they flurried around him, with Jigo and the chief mate at his side.
The mate lifted his weathered face to the wet breeze. “Judging by the wind, I’d say we’re headed straight into that storm,” he said.
Beside him, Jigo nodded and rubbed his hip with his knotty old hands. “It’s a real beast, all right. Gonna last through the night.” After a hard fall from the rigging twenty years before, he’d claimed he could predict the duration of a storm by the ache in his bones. As far as anyone knew, he’d never been wrong.
Reed squinted at the clouds, bristling with rain. “I don’t like bein’ moored in a storm any more’n either of you, but we ain’t gonna last if we don’t find something on that island.”
Jigo grunted and hobbled off to join the rest of the larboard watch.
The mate’s dead gray eyes were unblinking. “Is it today?”
“Not today.” Reed took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll leave Aly with you. Send her if you get jumpy. That storm comes down on us, and everyone better be back on board—and our cargo too.”
They were close enough to the island now to see it was teeming with plant life: trees twice the size of the ship and an understory of bushes and tall grass.
“You’ll be cutting it close.”
“Ha!” Reed jammed his hat back on his head and grinned. “I’ve shaved closer’n this.”
The island was moving fast, but the Current was a match for it. They drew up alongside the shore, skimming past mottled beaches and fields of grass. Tiny horned deer loped through the bushes and birds like jewels flitted through the air. The wind kissed their faces and swirled around their arms. And suddenly, all across the ship, the sailors let out whoops of delight, their laughter filling the sails.
The island was not an island at all. It was a giant sea turtle with a broad shell that rose a thousand feet out of the water, its enormous flippers churning the waves in great up-down motions like slow wing beats. Its massive head rose above the waves on a long white neck that gave way to smooth brown scales, ancient heavily lidded eyes, and a sharp beak that could snap a man in two.
Horse adjusted his bandanna. “Well ain’t that something.”
Beside him, Harison murmured in the same awestruck voice: “That’s something, all right.”
At a nod from the captain, Jaunty, the helmsman, began racing the Current against the turtle. He was cackling like a madman. None of them had ever seen Jaunty so excited about anything—head thrown back, molars showing. And the whole crew clinging to the rails, whistling and cheering.
Captain Reed scrambled up the bowsprit and stood there, poised over the hissing sea, howling for the pure joy of it.
And for a moment, they forgot how hungry they were. Because experiences like this were better than all the provisions they could have hoped to rustle up.
As they drew near enough to use their grapples, the captain mounted the rail. All around them was the sound of water—the murmur of waves onshore, the cacophony of water falling from the turtle’s enormous flippers as they dipped and rose in and out of the sea.
To be boarding a creature as old as that! Older than all the stories they’d ever heard. Older, maybe, than all the words in the world.
It was something, all right.
As soon as they landed, the captain sent them off. “Take what we need, but don’t take it all,” he said. “This place is too pretty to be ruined by the likes of us.”
Pairing up, they spread across the island in search of provisions. The undergrowth was lush with tubers, wild onions, and spicy lettuce; the forest, with green and yellow fruit. Large rodents nosed among the roots and munched contentedly on fallen nuts.
In the underbrush, Harison bent to the ground and picked up a green tail feather with a curious curlicue at the end. Twirling it between his fingers for a moment, he tucked it into the top buttonhole of his shirt.
“My ma’s been collectin’ feathers since she was a little girl,” Harison explained. “She’s got at least a hundred of ’em, but she can tell you the story of how she got each and every one. When I left, I promised to bring her feathers from all the places I’d been.”
The captain clapped him on the back. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
As he and the ship’s boy continued digging for roots, Camey and Greta stomped toward them. He had a boar slung over his shoulders, and she clutched three dead birds in her hamlike fist.
Harison made a face as they approached. Reed chuckled.
Neither Camey nor Greta had made themselves popular with the rest of the crew. They kept to themselves for the most part, did only what was asked of them and no more. B
ut they were his crew, and Reed treated them fair.
“Seems this job’d be easier if we could flush ’em out with fire,” Camey said, slapping the boar on the haunch. He was a good marksman: the animal had been shot clean between the eyes. “We done it plenty of times back home. Right, Greta?”
“Vacated their hidey holes right quick, the vermin did.” Greta grinned, her teeth yellowed from years of smoking. She ran her free hand through her greasy black hair, and a flurry of dandruff settled on her broad shoulders. “Like shootin’ bottles off a fence line.”
“This ain’t like back home,” Reed said. “The island’s a livin’ thing, and livin’ things protect themselves. You start a fire here, the island goes under, and you get nothing but a watery death.”
“Either the sea or the sword, eh, Captain? That’s what we got to look forward to.” She clicked her tongue ruefully and, noticing the dandruff on her shirt, began flicking away the largest flakes with her thumb.
“Only a fool runs toward death,” Reed murmured, more to himself than to Greta. “Even if we run from it, we all lose that race eventually.”
“I ain’t a fool,” Camey grumbled. Taking hold of the boar’s legs again, he continued downhill toward the beach, muttering, “It ain’t right, treatin’ us like that.”
Clicking her tongue as if to say, What can you do? Greta followed, the dead birds flopping awkwardly in her hand.
“How long they been like that?” Captain Reed asked, looking after them.
Harison shrugged sheepishly and ran a dirty hand through his thick curls. “Since I can remember, Cap.”
“They’re gonna be trouble if we don’t reach the edge soon.”
After two hours, the rain began. The crew raced back and forth from the trees to the ship, bringing meat and eggs, heads of wild cabbage and casks of freshwater. Huge drops pelted the grass and the surface of the sea. The game disappeared, taking shelter from the rain, and the men began foraging for whatever they could find: blood-drop berries, hard-shelled nuts, flightless birds with white-and-gray wings.