Beyond the Pool of Stars

by Howard Andrew Jones

  Rendak and Tokello had their swords out, but the monster swung away from the falling bodies, the dawn revealing her malignant grin.

  Heltan shouted something in his own language and dove after his brother.

  Kalina was more surprising. She reached toward her round cuirass and produced a slim metallic disk a little wider than a pie pan, then sent it curling through the air after the rising harpy.

  The weapon caught the creature in the shoulder blade just over the black wing and brought forth a scream of pain. The lizard woman sent a second of the weapons whirring at a another harpy. This one was in mid-dive for Ivrian, who’d ended his slide against the submerged ship rail. Kalina’s second throw was even keener than the first, and sheared through the creature’s neck.

  The womanlike head bounced one way while the limp body dropped near Ivrian.

  That, apparently, was enough for the harpies. One turned and beat wings to the northwest. The one wounded by Kalina tore the weapon from its body and tried hurling it back. The cast flew wide and the disk dropped into the choppy water. Kalina pushed off the deck in a graceful dive, parting the waters at about the same place the weapon had vanished.

  The wounded harpy flew after her sister and they circled like vultures a half league out.

  Mirian paused to catch her breath and take stock of the situation.

  The sky had lightened further, though the coastline was still a dark silhouette to the north. She spotted a low, sickle-shaped sandbar beside the reefs, and in moments she was urging those in the water to swim there and right the overturned boat.

  She could find only seven living sailors, and five were streaked with blood. It was hard to tell how severely injured they were, so she sent Tokello to the sandbar to treat them.

  As the Galanors climbed over the deck to join them, Heltan dragged Jekka out of the water. The warrior had survived, but his right leg was twisted at a gruesome angle.

  The ship seemed to have settled in, though it still creaked ominously. Mirian was staring at it when the Leopard’s strapping first mate’s rowed in from the stern. Chilton had eight crew members with him, and she waved him close.

  The man made a handsome spectacle as he braced himself in the prow and formed a speaking trumpet from his hands. “Where’s Captain Akimba?”

  “He didn’t make it,” Mirian answered grimly.

  At that moment, Kalina rose from the waves with one of her silver disks and dropped it beside her mate. Her appearance brought an audible gasp from the nearby sailors. She ignored them, turned, and dove back in.

  Chilton called to Mirian. “We’ve got to load up and get out of here.”

  “Take the crew to shore, then come back. My people will salvage supplies.”

  This met with some debate aboard the boat, which the mate silenced before calling to her again: “Ma’am, you’ll be killed.”

  “We’re salvagers,” she answered. “This is what we’re experts at.”

  The boat rocked with another wave. “But what about those harpies? You’ll be in danger from them as well.”

  “Go on, Chilton,” Alderra urged. “Mirian knows her job.”

  The mate still looked troubled. “We can watch for ourselves,” Mirian assured him. “We need food, and maps, and a compass or three. By the time you have a camp up on the shore we should have everything ready. Leave us the one boat, and take the rest of the sailors.”

  There were mutters about not boarding a boat with any frillbacks, but Chilton called back, saying he’d row back with a few people once they were settled.

  “I’ll head in with them to help pick a good site,” Kellic suggested.

  Mirian didn’t want to criticize her brother in front of the sailors, so she kept silent as he splashed out waist-deep and clambered on board. All but two of the sailors on the sandbar went with him.

  Earlier, Kellic had sworn he meant to prove his worth to the salvage team. His chances of that were sunk even further than the Red Leopard.

  “We’ll come back for you,” Chilton called. “Good luck!”

  Mirian waved a farewell, and soon the vessel was rowing out, heavily laden. She thought she caught Kellic looking back at her, but turned away in time to see Kalina resurface. She’d nearly forgotten the lizard woman was below. Her people truly must be able to hold their breath for a long time.

  Kalina exchanged a few hooting chirps with her mate as she stepped onto the sand, then turned to Mirian. “Why doesn’t your healer mend Jekka?”

  Mirian looked to Tokello, who was watching the receding boat. “Tokello, we have wounded still.” She pointed to the lizard man lying beside Heltan.

  The big woman frowned, stepped around the Galanors, and moved in close Mirian.

  She spoke almost directly to Mirian’s ear. “You want me to heal the frillback?”

  The extent of her hostility was startling, and Mirian pulled back in surprise, studying the older woman’s blocky face. “I want you to heal one of our company.”

  “Each time I use the magic, it drains me. You want me wasting it on a frillback when there’ll be who knows what to worry about ashore?”

  Mirian had no time for nonsense. “He’s one of our guides, and without them, our ship and family are on the chopping block.” Her voice snapped like a whip. “And it’s a gods-damned order, not a request!”

  Tokello grumbled, but stepped away and knelt by Jekka. She set her meaty hands to the wounded lizard man’s leg.

  Jekka’s mouth opened spasmodically in a hiss, his eyes widening further, but as the healer chanted, the warrior’s leg straightened, and a dark brown patch among the green scales faded completely away. Tokello rose, wiping sweat from her brow, then frowned at Mirian.

  Mirian was disappointed to discover such prejudice in a woman she’d always admired, but she had more important things to worry about. She glanced over the rest of her team. Rendak and Gombe waited with the Galanors. Ivrian, she thought, had proven more able than she’d expected. More useful than her own brother, at least.

  “How far off course do you think we are?” Alderra asked. She looked a little disheveled, but capable and determined, her long silvery hair clubbed in a ponytail.

  “I’ll have a better idea when we reach the shore,” Mirian answered. “Right now, though, this is a job for experts. I want you two to stay with the sailors and—”

  “We can help,” Alderra objected. “We have air bottles.”“

  “We only have one, actually,” Ivrian added. “Mine broke when I lost my balance.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mirian said. “You two aren’t trained. Stay close. We can hand things down to you.”

  Heltan had come up beside Alderra. “We, also, can assist. And I thank you for having your priest heal my brother’s wounds.”

  “We’re working together now,” Mirian said.

  Kalina emerged again from the choppy water, this time bearing Jekka’s staff. The lizard man visibly brightened before formally bowing his head. So thankfulness was not unknown to him. He and Kalina stepped up to stand on either side of Heltan.

  “You were pretty formidable with those weapons of yours,” Mirian told Kalina.

  The lizard woman regarded her with luminous eyes. The dawn painted her in reds and golds. “We call them gwangas.” Kalina sounded a little breathless. “Usually I hunt for meat,” she added, “but I do not think those bird women would be good to eat.”

  “No,” Mirian agreed. “Kalina, I want you to stand watch. You’re the only one besides me with a distance weapon. Heltan, Jekka, pull those bodies out of the water.

  “Ah, yes,” Heltan agreed. “To keep predators off.”

  “Yes,” Mirian agreed, although she had actually been thinking of burial.

  “You two,” she motioned to the remaining sailors, “stand here with Lady Galanor, and we’ll hand goods down to you.”

  The elder of the two, a sun-browned woman with a bulbous nose, knuckled her forehead in a casual salute. “We’ll help any way we can
, ma’am. We’re glad you’re not leavin’ the bodies for them monsters.”

  “No.” Mirian’s voice softened as her mind turned back to poor Akimba. “We won’t.”

  Her gaze tracked to where the boat closed toward the shore. Gods willing, the sailors would face no challenges once they put onto the beach. All she could see with the rising sun was white sand and palm, but there was no telling what lurked within the jungle. Along with the standard predators could be any number of angry tribes, human and otherwise. Maybe, if their luck had turned, there’d be an Ijo fishing village close by.

  “All right, you lot,” she said to her salvaging party, “come with me.”

  She started up the slanting deck, using rails, barrels, and broken lines for leverage. “First priority’s looking for survivors, then finding the rest of our gear. Be careful in the hold. The ship seems wedged pretty tightly but—”

  “This ain’t my first dance, Mirian,” Rendak said, not unkindly. “We’ll get it out. And then the ship’s stores?”

  He was right, of course. She felt a little foolish, but decided against apology. “Right.”

  The salvaging job proved one of the simpler she’d managed. As the storm dispersed, the waters smoothed, which meant the ship remained safely against the rocks. There were no survivors left aboard. Charts, weapons, and a great deal of food stores were recovered easily enough, and the shoal was soon crowded to overflowing.

  They’d also found one of the ship’s cats, which had clung ferociously to Gombe’s shoulder and badly gashed his arm as he handed the feline down to the sailors. The ship’s rats were out and swimming in a line for the shore, sensing the route by sight, scent, or some sense unknown to Mirian.

  Heltan’s assignment had proved the most challenging, and when Mirian popped out of the forecastle hatch to hand the last case of charts to the waiting sailors, she saw him resting a few feet from a pile of sodden bodies. The lizardfolk’s white robe was stained red.

  “What happened?” Mirian asked.

  “A wave pushed him against a reef,” Kalina answered. “He is but surface-hurt. The rest of the bodies are lost to the sea god. There are sharks now.” She pointed.

  Fins circled only a hundred yards out, and two sharks wrestled with a lumpy, pale object in the water. Better not to think about what that had been.

  Mirian made a last trip with Rendak up to the captain’s body. As she bore his front half she couldn’t help reflecting that he and all of his crew would be alive even now if she hadn’t sought his services.

  “You,” she said quietly, “were a good man.” She would have liked to have known Akimba better, in gentler circumstances, and she was somber as she handed him down to his waiting sailors.

  When the ship’s boat returned, pulled by weary sailors, they loaded it with weapons and the dead. The other was weighed down with casks of salt pork, fresh water, and themselves.

  Almost everyone on the shore seemed inclined to laze on the sand, thinking their survival had been enough work for the day, but Mirian and Chilton organized them into work parties. Watches had to be set, food had to be prepared, bodies had to be buried, and temporary shelters of canvas rigged.

  The sailors approached all of these duties a little less grudgingly after they’d breakfasted on some salt pork and meal cakes.

  “Any idea where we are?” Mirian asked Chilton.

  The big mate shook his head. “The captain tried to hold us on course, but I’d need landmarks to know for sure.”

  “That’s what we’ll find, then.” She spent some time going over the peninsular map with Rendak and the rest of her team, Ivrian watching over their shoulder.

  That reef that had keeled their ship was almost surely the Manta’s Spine, but she’d been in the wilds long enough to know that not verifying locations could be very dangerous. She sent Rendak and Chilton east along the shore while she and Gombe journeyed west. She’d hoped Kellic would volunteer for something, but he seemed set on losing every possible chance to make a good impression.

  The tropical sun blazed down as they walked, and Mirian was glad they’d been able to recover footgear, for the shoreline beyond their landing point was rocky.

  The jungle steamed in the morning, and a cacophony of sound rolled out at her as she advanced. She did not fear the jungle, but she treated it with wary respect. There was good reason to stay clear of it this morning, for once they were a few paces within they’d have no chance of seeing any landmarks through the vegetation.

  She and Gombe walked forty-five minutes southeast before spotting the broad mouth of a river. Seabirds hovered over the water, diving now and then for fish.

  There could be no mistake about their location, for there was only one true river in all the Kaava Lands—the Oubinga. Mirian chuckled a little and looked at the expanse of fronds directly to the north, otherwise completely identical to all the others they had passed.

  “Captain Akimba got us close enough for spitting, storm or no storm,” she told Gombe. “This is just about where we need to be.”

  “You still mean to go in?”

  “I don’t see why not. Chilton can find a fishing village and Lady Galanor can get word back to Eleder. By the time we come out of the jungle there’ll be a ship waiting to take us home.”

  Gombe stretched a hand up to rub his nose, then nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds just like what your father would say. Why not? We’ve got everything we need to do it.”

  She really wished people would stop telling her how she was doing just what her father would have done.

  Upon their return they discovered Rendak had experienced even better luck. He and Chilton had found a small Ijo village just a half hour east. The Ijo had coexisted peacefully with the colonists for centuries. The sailors could make their way there, and back to Sargava, safely.

  While Chilton had his surviving crew ready their gear, Mirian gathered her expedition.

  Once apprised of the situation, Heltan eagerly bobbed his head. “If that is the Oubinga, I can find us the Pool of Stars.”

  Kellic ceased playing with a silver cuff link. “Wait. You mean you want to go in? Still?”

  “Everything we need survived intact,” Mirian said. “Lady Galanor can go with the sailors and send another ship to pick us up.”

  “I’m going with you,” Alderra said. “I thought I’d made that clear. I can send a letter with Chilton to deliver to the Minister of Defense. They’ll take care of us.”

  “I thought you might insist on coming.” Mirian’s gaze drifted to Ivrian.

  “Don’t even suggest staying behind, ma’am.” Lady Galanor’s son shook his head. Of all of them, he was the only one who looked well rested. “I know what I’m in for.”

  “I don’t think you do.” She cleared her throat and glanced at Alderra, wondering why she was so set on taking the boy with her. Did she really think he was up to this? Her attempt to season him would likely kill him.

  Rendak spoke up then. “What Mirian’s being too polite to say, m’lady, is that we’ll have our hands full enough just keeping ourselves alive, and we don’t want to take anyone in who can’t hold his own weight. Now I know you’re brave, lad, and I know you can use a sword, but it takes more than that to survive in the jungle. No one here will think less of you if you go with the sailors.”

  But Ivrian was already shaking his head, adamant. “I’m a fast study.” He all but bounced on the balls of his feet, so eager was he to get moving.

  The elder Galanor didn’t interject her own opinion; she simply observed. If anything, Mirian thought, she looked amused and a little proud.

  “All right then,” Rendak conceded. “Just so you know if you fail to heed us, it might be your final lesson.”

  “Social station’s got nothing to do with survival in the jungle,” Mirian continued. “You two need to do what we say, when we say it, if you want to come out alive. Understood?”

  “Indeed it is,” Alderra said at last. “You’re the expert, and my s
on and I both know it.”

  Mirian still didn’t think that either of them quite grasped what they were getting themselves into, but they were adults.

  “Very well. Lady Galanor, you’d best get that letter written so Chilton can deliver it. The rest of us will start gearing up.”

  She started to move out from under the canopy of sailcloth with the others, but her brother plucked at her sleeve. His voice was low. “Mirian.”

  She stopped, turned.

  He had trouble meeting her eyes. “Do you remember your murals?”

  What a stupid question. Mirian had loved her bedroom, and painting it with assistance from her father and mother remained one of her happiest childhood memories.

  “I used to stare at your murals for hours,” Kellic said. “I’d sneak in when you weren’t there and pretend I could vanish into that jungle wall, into a land of adventure, or go diving into that seascape.” He finally found the courage to face her. “But I’m not as brave as I thought. I’m not an explorer like you and father.”

  She nodded, slowly. At least he was being honest. “I was starting to guess.”

  “I realized that I’m just not cut out for this.” He was fiddling with a small ring on his right hand, set with a ruby. “The whole time the ship was sinking, and all morning, I just kept thinking about Sylena, and how if I died I’d never see her again. And now I think about walking into that jungle and I just can’t do it. I don’t want to be anywhere without her.”

  So maybe it wasn’t that he was a coward. He was in love.

  “Look.” His dark eyes bored into her own. “You’ve got a gift for this, it’s clear. Why don’t you stay and run the ship? I’m sorry I was so rude before. I was trying to take care of things, and I should have realized we really needed someone on the ship. Someone like you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to stay, Kellic. I’m leading this one expedition for you and mother. Then I’m gone.”