The Orphan's Tales

by Catherynne M. Valente

  The Saint leaned in close to Sigrid, her face as round and ruddy as the day she vanished, and laid one finger aside her nose, her mouth spreading into a conspiratorial smile.

  “Gods are always a disappointment,” she clucked.

  Grog whipped her tail noisily through her brine, demanding attention like a kid who cannot reach her dam for the suckling of her siblings.

  “I don’t rightly care who you are, you fancy sea dog. Your ship looks like it fell bow-first into a barrel of old cheese. Not what I’d call prime captain-ship, you know, Saint or not.”

  The Saint glanced dismissively at Grog’s gesticulating tail. “Misadventures at sea are as common as apples in autumn…”

  LONG-EARED TOMOMO WAS THE FIRST CAPTAIN OF this ship—we carved that figurehead to remember her—but I’d wager at least one of you already knows that. She was a fine woman, and I loved her. But a fox’s place isn’t really at sea, any more than it’s in a Palace. She gave the wheel over to me after we had been on the waves together for many a year, despite many other women being senior to me. She said that a lady should always leave her worldly goods to a daughter, not an aunt or even a sister. She touched my hair, just a moment’s touch, and went into the forest when we made port, with a bag of gold under each arm.

  I never saw her again, and the Maidenhead was mine.

  And for a while, our lives were bright as moon reflected in black water.

  I suppose it was my fault. I became convinced that we were charmed, that Tommy had gifted us with her fox-magic before she left our berths, and like that clever, black-nosed fox, we would never be caught. My first mate, Khaloud, was always the best of us when it came to finding treasure for us to plunder, and she usually tried to make sure that it was ill-gotten, so that we could sleep easy. It is a talent of the Djinn; they can smell gold like game in a wood. Unsurprisingly, it was a great number of Djinn, led by the great Kashkash, who founded the city of Shadukiam in all its jewel-drenched glory. Or so they claim. I have never heard the name of Kashkash except that Khaloud swore by him constantly.

  It was night, after our dinner of roast pork and fresh apples plundered from the stores of some local governor or another, that Khaloud took watch with me. We stood in our customary place, smoking—I with my whalebone pipe and she with the little silver one she had brought with her from the Rose Domed city. In the evening, she cuts quite a figure, with her hair of smoke and spark, her fiery skin banked to a contented glow. Her eyes could still scald me like a pair of hot tongs, though—and so they did that evening when she told me of her latest scheme.

  “It would be easy, Sigrid. Easier than stealing corn from a crow. There is no one to guard it but an old woman with a lame leg—she couldn’t even hobble after us. And the stories I’ve heard about the treasure she keeps! A magic satchel, plain leather on the outside, but within, a supply of gold that never runs dry! By the beard of Kashkash! What madness it would be if we did not seek it out?”

  I drew deeply on my pipe. “Khaloud, heart of my heart, I know your lust for coin has never failed us, but this sounds like a child’s story. We have had a good year. Why go chasing after magic purses when our own, very real purses are full?”

  “Do you believe that the purse which brims today will brim for all time? Perhaps you can sleep sweetly, believing it is summer. But my duty does not let me rest, and I must see after our purses in winter, as well. And as for magic and children, here we stand on a ship whose mast bears oranges and pomegranates for our pleasure, and a woman of fire speaks to the mother of Griffins.”

  “As ever, you are wiser than I, you old genie. May the Stars grant that you are always here to look after me.”

  “Are you taking up religion in your old age, then, Captain?”

  “Hardly. Habit, my love, habit.”

  Thus it was that we set out for a small island in the midst of a murky, misty bay, as they all are, a rocky, barren place full of slate and basalt, festooned with silver clams and deep blue mussels clinging to the sea-worn stones. In the center of the island was a hut, and that was all that marked out this island from hundreds of other dead reef-shards floating in the ocean. Khaloud had traded a vial of her heartsfire for the chart, and when we saw the pitiful little house, we called that too highly bought. There would be hardly a need for blades; I took only my Djinn ashore. How foolish I was—but it seemed such a desolate place. The wretched hut was thatched in straw and leaves, and poorly thatched at that, as haphazard and tangled as a bird’s nest. Its walls were wattle-and-daub, stinking of dung. It rested on splayed feet that seemed to be a pelican’s or a heron’s, the talons gripping slick rocks for purchase.

  And sitting in its doorway was an ancient woman, her lap full of clapping mussels.

  Her head was bent so that Khaloud and I could not see her face, a mass of ash gray hair snarling from the crown of her head to her heels. But behind her arms, the crone had long black wings; at their crest bunched small clasping claws which were something like hands, and at her calves began leathery black talons which were something like feet. The feathers gleamed in the sun and seaspray. Her clothes were ragged, falling apart, no more than a few strips of animal pelts stitched together with sinew. She grumbled as we approached, and slurped the orange flesh from a mussel, pitching the empty shell straight past my head.

  “Old woman!” Khaloud announced, speaking before I could. She often did that, so that if some hapless soul were to become enraged with us, they would leap at her before they would cut my own throat. “We’ve come for the satchel. You can give it to us, or we can take it from you, as you like, but by the flame of Kashkash, we’ll have it.”

  The old woman tossed another shell, which struck the Djinn directly between the eyes.

  “Oh, yes,” the crone growled. “Come and rob an old lady’s chest of drawers, eh? So easy to do, is it not? Her bones are chicken-brittle, they’ll snap so sweet it’s almost music.” She chuckled deep in her throat. “Only I am not such an easy mark, my beautiful peacocks, oh, no.”

  She straightened her hunched back then, the mussels spilling out of her lap and skittering across the rocks. She stood up and threw her head back, and we saw with horror that the face beneath was not withered with age or strung with spittle—it was not even middle-aged, but a hale and grinning man whose eyes flashed black and silver. The mass of hair streamed back over his shoulders, tumbling past his knees. He fluffed his wings impressively—and slung over one feathered shoulder was a fat leather satchel, bulging like a wineskin.

  “Is this what you want, then? A couple of girls playing pirates come to take it from old Ghassan, eh, weak and helpless as he is? Yes, you and many others before you. And I’ll give it to you, without even a fight, if you can match me drink for drink the whole night through. I’m a sporting man, after all.”

  I considered for a moment, sure that he had more tricks than simply costumes. “You’ll swear to me that the purse is magical?” I asked.

  “Oh, aye! It is at that. Now, are you coming in—and just you, mind you; I’ve no mind to go gambling with fire-demons—or are you going back to your ship to tell your crew you couldn’t contend with a meek old woman?” He waggled the satchel mockingly from one of his three-fingered claws and strode back into his hut.

  Khaloud looked sidelong at me with those coal-eyes of hers, and pulled a tiny vial from her belt. “Heartsfire,” she whispered, her voice like the last wisps of smoke from a doused fire. “This very morning I bled it from my wrist. A drop in the drink and he’ll fall like a rock dropped from a Castle tower.”

  I took the dusky orange liquid and slid it into my sleeve, sharing a familiar smirk. And, as full of folly as a maid who milks a bull, I followed Ghassan into his stinking house.

  A low table was set with clay cups and a large pitcher the color of birds’ tongues. Ghassan sat on one side of it, his wings folded neatly at his sides, beaming at me.

  “Well done! Have a seat, my girl, and try my best vintage. Brewed from mussel shells and li
vers—best the islands have to offer.”

  I knelt and cast my eyes down in demure submission. “Among my people, it is customary for the female to serve. Will you allow me?”

  For a moment he looked suspicious and I was sure he would refuse. But it is difficult for men to disbelieve a woman who insists that she wishes to serve them, and he nodded assent. I took the two glasses and filled them with the sickly liquor, which flowed out thickly, a viscous yellow slime. And, letting my sleeves droop ever so slightly over them, I let three drops from the vial drip into his drink. He took it with pleasure in his stunted hand and quaffed it in one gulp.

  “My appetite is famed the world over,” he leered.

  “As is the fact that you are an old woman with bad knees,” I countered, and quaffed my own mussel brew.

  We had drunk only three times before Ghassan began to reel on the floor, his eyes rolling in his head. I had not even begun to feel dizzy, and he appeared to be ready to vomit, or faint, or both.

  “You cheated!” he gasped, clutching his belly.

  I stood and laughed at him. “Even pretty girls playing at pirates know how to play them well.”

  Ghassan grunted, drooling a bit out of the side of his mouth, and lay down heavily, eyes drooping, his feathers crunching beneath him. “Take the satchel then, you lying wench. I hope you enjoy its fruits!” And with that, his body slackened and his great head with its crown of matted hair crashed to the floor. His snoring filled the little house like a storm beating at windows. I bent and slung the satchel from his body, pleased with myself—a simple ruse, quickly accomplished.

  I knew nothing.

  When I returned to the Maidenhead with Khaloud, the crew greeted us with cries of triumph. They crowded around, eager to see the purse perform its magic. I held it over my head for all to see, then thrust my hand inside the thick leather to bring out the first handful of gold.

  But when I pulled my hand from the satchel, there was no coin in my fist. Instead, my hand was fouled by a thick white ooze; it clung to my skin, my fingers, like a snail’s body. A great clump of it had come away from the satchel, and now the leather sack was full of it, overflowing with pale sludge, splashing thickly onto the deck. I wiped my hand quickly on the wheel, disgusted by the stuff, which reeked of fish and salt. And then I saw—we all saw. The slime was hardening, wherever it fell, and spurting from the satchel like a fountain. It had already covered half the ship as thick as snowfall, bubbling into strange egglike shapes and stiffening into the familiar gray-white rocks of barnacles.

  Of course I ordered the girls to get the decks clean of it, but nothing they did was of any help, even when they fell to hacking at it with their swords. We were halfway out of the bay by the time the red ship was red no more, and all of us in a panic. Halfway out of the bay when Ghassan woke—too strong, it seemed, to fall beneath Khaloud’s fire for long—and came screeching out of his hut.

  “Go! Go! You stupid hens! Carry them as far as you can, carry my babies until they use your ship as a nursery and foul it with their first dung! Fools! Steal from an old woman and see what you get! Thieves! Villains! I hope they tear open your livers for their birthday breakfasts!”

  Sick with dread, Khaloud and I stood at the bow of my once-beautiful ship, and stared after the bird-creature, who cawed and flapped his huge black wings, cackling in the stiff wind.

  “IT WAS NOT LONG AFTER WE LEFT GHASSAN THAT we encountered the Echeneis—that is not a very interesting story, no story involving a sea-monster is. A ship meets the monster; it either escapes or is devoured. We were swallowed whole, and found ourselves on this strange sea. But somehow, time is stretched here, and it has been hundreds of years. Hundreds of years and the barnacles have not hatched, we have not aged much, nothing has changed. We have eaten the creatures the Echeneis eats, and you would be surprised how many seals and sharks it has swallowed. We have never wanted for food. And from time to time, there have been other ships. But none who sought us out, as you did.”

  The shadowy woman sidled up to the Saint and kept her hand on the hilt of her sword. Snow knew her immediately by her fiery skin: Khaloud.

  “Your timing,” she said throatily, in a voice like flames rippling, “could almost be called providential. Can you not see the creatures stirring in their eggs? The birth is coming; I would swear it by the lamp of Kashkash.”

  “Indeed, it is. Within the day, I think—I do have some experience with hatching birds. The barnacles have never been so large, and we can see blackness fluttering within.” The Saint looked critically at the four strangers. “We have decided to attempt our escape. Will you help us or hinder us?”

  Sigrid seemed to stifle the urge to fall to her knees. “Anything I can do, I will do, my lady.”

  Grog belched. “Well, we haven’t got any choice, have we?”

  “You old trout!” a voice came from belowdecks, quickly followed by a body—a woman with the tail of a wolf, the haunches of a deer, and bright blue wings. Magadin strode across the ship to the Magyr’s tub, her gray eyes blazing.

  “I thought I told you to see my ship safe home! You brought her back here to get chewed to pieces?” she bellowed.

  “What? Look, this lot kidnapped me!” Grog looked away, nervously, picking at the scales of her violet tail. “I was going to take it back, I swear. But they made me come back, and shouldn’t you thank me for keeping her bow and stern attached as well as I have? And besides, I hardly expected you to survive, did I? And dead women don’t complain.”

  Khaloud frowned. “We fished her out of the bile half dead, but taking on monsters is a sacred duty left to us by old Tomomo—we pressed her into service, and she is with us now.”

  Magadin hooked her shaggy arm around the Djinn’s smoky waist. “It is pleasant to be part of a crew, and not manning every sail yourself. Part of a crew and not a prisoner, not a maiden, not cargo. I died in the whale and washed up on the deck of paradise. This is the best death I could have asked for, and I hope to stay dead for a long while.” She smiled, and her tail wagged, and there was no weariness left in the lines of her face.

  “Now that we’re all family,” growled Eyvind, “hadn’t we better see about getting ourselves retched out of this beast?”

  “An excellent suggestion,” the Saint said.

  Within a few hours, both ships had drawn back through the sea of bile, close to the mouth of the Echeneis. Eyvind and Grog had stayed aboard the beast-maid’s ship, while Sigrid and Snow were huddled close with the pirates. Baleen hung in the distance like a glossy door, and they could hear the sea crashing outside.

  “First we must raise the monster,” said the Saint in a hushed voice. “Khaloud?”

  The Djinn drew a dark, curved bow back almost into the shape of a full moon, and lit the arrow from her belly. She fired it directly up into the whale-turtle’s mouth—and for a moment, it simply disappeared into the mist and there was no sound. But then—a dull clunking noise echoed through the mouth and the creature moaned in pain, ascending through the waters to destroy whatever had troubled it.

  “How can we be sure they will hatch?” Snow whispered, clutching Sigrid’s hand to calm her heart.

  The Saint looked grim and glad all at once, drawing a dagger from a sheath bound to her thigh. “We aren’t going to let them dawdle. The eggs should be weak enough now for them to break out—or for us to break in. Get yourself a knife, girl.”

  Grog hollered at Eyvind to drag her to the side of the ship and began to smash the barnacle-eggs with hurled harpoons. Every creature on the Maidenhead was slashing, clawing, cutting, crushing the eggs. Khaloud flicked her fingers at one after the other, engulfing them in little orange flames. The sickening crunch of it made Snow gag, and the smell was worse, like overripe meat. At first it was slow, just a few black infants hopping out of their shells—but then the roaring sound of thousands of wings filled the mouth of the Echeneis, doubled and tripled with echoes.

  It was the Saint who laughed first—and then
the Djinn joined her. They saw, and soon all could see, a great flock of crows rising from the ruined barnacles, their huge wings flapping noisily, like pages turning. More and more of them shattered their eggs of their own accord, eager to join their siblings. Countless wings beat against the wall of baleen, the arched roof, the cheeks of their prison. The mouth was filled with them as if with a draught of fouled wine, and the monster began to roar in rage, a guttural sound like the earth opening.

  And it did open. The Echeneis’s jaws cracked slightly, and a blinding sliver of light seared across the two ships. The sliver became a wash as the mouth opened wide and the sea rushed in, sparkling blue and gray and white, buffeting the ships on its waves. There was a great cheer from the crew of the Maidenhead, and the sails were drawn tight. Eyvind wrestled the rigging of the other vessel, and when the sea flowed out again, they rode the crest of the foam out into the sun and the world again.

  With them, thousands upon thousands of gleaming black crows streamed out of the mouth of the Echeneis, heralding the ships and following them, soaring up and out of the whale like an exhalation of dark angels. The sound of their flapping wings was like grapeshot; the sunlight caught their feathers and glowed deep violet against the pale sky. The monster groaned, almost a whimper, and sank again below the surface as the ships sped away from it with taut sails.

  And so, as quickly as the birth began, it was finished. The red ship and the brown floated together in the broad light some space away from the place where the monster had submerged, lashed together so that farewells could be made. A few lingering crows circled overhead.

  The sun was setting over the sea, its light pooled over the water, unfurling itself like a glove, staining the water a perfect shade of gold, as if a lady had dropped her best necklace into the depths. The golden light flooded over the deck of the Maidenhead, and Eyvind’s eyes filled with tears.