“Wonderful. And how were you supposed to get back to the Inner Lands? Janus couldn’t get you any farther. And you couldn’t walk. And you were trying to go in the wrong direction. Not to mention conversing with rocks and bushes, as near as I could tell.” Bel leaned over her. “You know, Rowan,” she said, “you can’t expect to do everything by yourself. Sometimes you just have to shut up and let your friends help you.”
Rowan looked up at her. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I’m hardly in a position to argue. Oh, my …” This when she attempted to sit up again, to no visible effect whatsoever. The effort left her suddenly, completely, drained.
“What do you need?” Bel asked immediately.
“Um …” Rowan was a moment recovering words. “Water?”
Bel rose, thumped on the ceiling three times, sat again. Above, the murmur of conversation ceased. Footsteps crossed the deck toward the companionway. “Hey, ho,” Steffie called as he descended. Rowan heard him in the pantry; then he entered the cabin with a cup in his hand. “Here you go, then,” he said to Bel, and passed it to her.
“Have a seat. She’s talking sense.
A glance in Rowan’s direction. “See how long that lasts.”
“As long as I can manage to stay awake, I should think. And don’t worry: I don’t intend to greet you like a long-lost brother, as I seem to recall having done so a number of times already.” It took a great deal of effort and concentration to make so long a statement, but Rowan was rather pleased with the effect.
Steffie sat right down where he had stood, opened his mouth, closed it again. “That’s the most she’s ever said in one go.”
“And she’s been at it for a while now.”
“It is possible to address me directly,” Rowan said. Bel held the cup and steadied Rowan’s head as she drank. The water was cool and delicious, and Rowan felt herself somewhat stronger.
“Well,” Steffie said when she was done, “sorry. Zenna was saying that things’d settle down for you pretty soon. Guess she was right. She could be a healer, if she wasn’t a sailor, except she’s a steerswoman.”
Rowan lay back again, nodded. “Can you send her down here?”
“Why?” Bel sounded suspicious.
“I’d like to find out where we are …”
“We’re on the water, and we’re on our way home. That’s all you need to worry about right now.”
“I was thinking more of our actual position …”
“Um …” Steffie said; and then he announced the ship’s position, down to minutes of longitude and latitude. “Except not any more, because that’s from dawn. Couldn’t see the Guidestars after that.”
Rowan regarded him with pride. “That’s a very good job of remembering numbers,” she said.
“I’m not likely to forget those, ’cause Zenna made me watch while she figured them out three times through, and then made me do exactly what she did. Five times through. And I got it right the last time. Well, the last-and-a-half time.”
“I see she’s been keeping you busy.”
“You don’t know the half of it. And here I’d thought we’d be taking things easy, myself. With so many people around, I don’t have to haul a sheet every time Zenna wants to tack. Guess she showed me.”
“I suggest you get used to it.” Rowan discovered that she had closed her eyes again. It seemed like a good idea. “I suppose Janus has recovered enough to pull his own weight?” she said.
Silence. Then, someone took a breath to speak; but Rowan spoke first. “He’s not here, is he?”
“How did you know?”
Rowan found herself unable to organize her explanation, and lay regarding the back of her eyelids. After a pause, Bel amplified. “He jumped ship, two days ago. We had gone close to shore to bring in some fresh water, and that night Steffie heard him go.”
“We were still near shore,” Steffie said. “Close enough for him to swim for it, but none of us fast enough swimmers to catch him.”
“Zenna’s upset.”
“Can’t think why he did it. Rotten thing to do to Zenna,” Steffie went on; but he spoke to Bel, and quietly, as if having decided that Rowan was asleep. “Her coming all this way, just to help him out of trouble, and all. Couldn’t see Gwen doing that for me.”
“Hm.” Bel shifted, stretching her legs, by the sound of it, and moving the cup to do so. “Would you do it for Gwen?”
“Well, sure.” Steffie sounded surprised. “You don’t leave people in trouble, if you can help it. Even if you don’t like them much. Well, don’t like them any more. I mean … well, I’ll always have a soft spot for Gwen, and all— ”
“What did he tell you?” Rowan asked.
A pause. “Janus?” Bel asked.
“Yes. About the demon lands,” Rowan said.
They did not immediately reply; then Steffie said, “Well … everything.”
“No,” Rowan said, “what specifically did he tell you?”
“Are you sure you want this now?” Bel asked.
“Yes.” Rowan drew and released a deep breath, forced her eyes open, turned to regard them. “Right now, please.”
Something in her expression gave them pause. They traded a glance, then told her.
The story was long. They took turns relating it. Rowan needed at first to concentrate very hard to follow the tale; shortly, her anger made it easy to do so. She listened, staring blindly at the splintered bunk above her.
When the tale was done, Rowan hardly knew where to begin. Bel and Steffie watched her uncomfortably. “That’s not even slightly true,” Rowan said at last.
“What, none of it?”
“No.” She was immediately, immensely, weary.
“You didn’t rescue him from the fortress?”
“There was no fortress.”
“No wizard either?”
“No.”
“But you did get burned by a demon.”
“Yes. But not while I was rescuing Janus. While someone else was rescuing us both.”
“What, one of those people from the fortress?”
“She said there was no fortress.”
“Oh … right … But, why make up some story? Makes no sense, does it?”
To gain their confidence. To travel with them for as long as possible.
To hide his crimes. “He’s a murderer.” This brought no response. When Rowan looked, she found that Steffie and Bel had acquired expressions of disappointment, resignation, and extreme patience. “I know I’ve said that before,” Rowan said, and it was suddenly difficult to speak so long a sentence, “but it actually is true.”
“But, Rowan, you’ve got to see that makes no sense—”
Bel said, “Yes it does.” Steffie looked at her in astonishment. “He jumped ship,” Bel went on. “He knew Rowan would get her wits back at some point and give us the truth.”
“So … what she said before, about corpses in the streets, and blood in the sand, and bugs and things eating the people? That’s the real story?”
“I’m starting to think that steerswomen tell the truth even when they’re delirious.”
“Interesting idea,” Rowan said. The words were not at all clear. And her mind was wandering; she forced it back. There was something still to be said; she searched, found it. “Wizards,” she said, with great concentration. “He’s going to the wizards. Did I say that before?”
“Um, no …”
“Why?” Bel asked quickly.
“Because … he can’t kill enough people by himself … He needs magic …”
“Routine Bioform Clearance?” Bel was suddenly very near; her hand gripped Rowan’s shoulder. Steffie made a wordless noise of protest. “The heat?” Bel demanded.
“Yes …”
“Who? Who does he want the wizards to kill?”
Bel’s face was close; Rowan looked up into the dark eyes, understood. “Not your people,” Rowan said. Bel relaxed somewhat. “And not mine.”
Bel rel
eased her, leaned back, her gaze speculative. “Who else is there?”
“Everyone else … the rest of the world …” Rowan could fight it no longer. Her eyes closed.
“Rowan— ”
“Let her sleep,” Steffie said.
“But— ”
“We’ll get the story later. Not like we can do a thing about it in the middle of the ocean, is there? Let her sleep.”
Perhaps Rowan did sleep, but she seemed to herself not to. If she dreamed, she dreamed herself where she was: amid the smell of ocean and the wool blanket, the sound of ocean and ship’s creaking, and the particular flutter of wave-reflected light against her eyelids.
True dreams crowded about her; but one stepped forward, spoke to her urgently and silently.
She found herself trying to rise. “Where …” She cast about weakly.
Bel was still beside her. “What do you need?”
“Did he take it? I had it with me. In a kerchief …”
“Take what?”
“Here,” Steffie’s voice came, and the sound of objects being shifted. He drew near, stooped down. “See? Right here, safe and sound.”
“The magic spell?” Bel said.
“No … not magic …”
Steffie knit his brows. “No?” He regarded it, lying in his hand, on folds of crumpled Alemeth silk. “Then what is it?”
Rowan sighed. “A cry,” she said. “A prayer. A warning.” She closed her eyes again. “A demon’s dying word.”
Rosemary Kirstein is the author of the Steerswoman series: The Steerswoman, The Outskirter’s Secret, The Lost Steersman, and The Language of Power. Work is underway on Volumes 5 and 6.
Paperback versions of the first four volumes were originally published by Del Rey Books.
Kirstein’s short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s and in Aboriginal SF. She blogs at www.rosemarykirstein.com, and occasionally tweets random non sequiturs on Twitter as @rkirstein.
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