Encante

by Aiyana Jackson

  Interesting.

  “She finds your adventurous streak stupid?” Drusilla smirked. “Would she rather you stayed at home and did needlepoint with her?”

  I blinked, astonished at the coincidence in her question and my earlier musings about what Cecelie might be doing. “I don’t know that she’d find my stitching appealing, but she certainly doesn’t approve of my travels.” And that’s without knowing they take me to parallel worlds. “In fact,”—I hesitated—“I’ll be retiring once this little sortie comes to an end and we’re married.”

  Another point upon which Cecelie had insisted. I sensed Cane wasn’t too happy about this, but more because Cecelie was attempting to dictate to him than because he valued my expertise. The truth was, I could be just as useful to him at home, perhaps more so, and he had commented on several occasions that he did not like the prospect of anything ill befalling me while I was away. Or the thought of me getting caught. To be a known member of the rebellion meant certain death. Cane knew this better than most; Oswald Deryn had been his mentor, as Cane was mine.

  “Retiring?” Drew sounded genuinely surprised. “On the whim of some wench? You’re hardly older than our Axel here.” He nodded at his son. “You’re most certainly not ready for the shore just yet, lad.”

  “I don’t mean to say I won’t work, merely that I will be doing work of a different kind.”

  “Such as what?” Drusilla smirked again. “If not stitching, then what? Writing? Or accounts perhaps? Would you be good with numbers, Mister Escher?”

  “Simeon,” I stuttered, gaping at her slightly, for Cecelie had indeed proposed I take up accounting, or writing something for public purview, or in fact . . .

  “Law, perhaps?” Drusilla asked innocently.

  . . . law.

  That was disturbing.

  “You’re to be a lawyer upon your return!” she declared.

  “I assure you, my lady, I cannot imagine anything more contemptible.”

  As I said it, I realised it was the truth. For the first time it occurred to me that perhaps it was unfair of Cecelie to expect me to give up my career in such a manner, even if she didn’t know what that career truly was. Especially, in fact, if she didn’t know what it was. She had no idea how important our work was; how could I possibly expect her to understand I had to continue? I’d have to tell her, I realised with a sinking heart, knowing the reaction I would get. I’d simply have to, it was the only way to get her to understand I could not do as she asked. But the moment the thought occurred to me, my heart sank further, as I realised it would be impossible. Even if Cane were to allow it—which he would not—it would only make her more determined to keep me at home.

  “The captain had the right of it.” Drew shook his head. “The sea’s in your blood, boy, near as damn as it’s in my Drusilla’s; you don’t give up your blood without a fight.”

  “Forgive my father, Mister Escher, you should of course do as you please. If you love this Cecelie with all your heart then you should do whatever it takes to make her happy, as I’m sure she does for you.”

  Drusilla watched me carefully, and I had the disconcerting notion that she knew. She spoke fair, but she knew. As I stared into her eyes, I sensed that she knew I feared Cecelie did not truly love me at heart. That I suspected Cane had encouraged her in our match as he wished for me as a son-in-law. That she had gone along with it to please him, and that she herself was woefully unhappy about our coupling. Perhaps most disturbing of all was that Drusilla also knew that it hadn’t been until that very instant, as I looked into her face and saw my own feelings staring back at me, that I’d understood I didn’t truly love Cecelie at all. In all the time I had known her, I had never once felt anything close to what I was feeling in that moment, as I stared into the eyes of a total stranger. I had told myself I had fallen in love with her, but how was I to know? I had never been in love before. To what was I comparing my feelings for her? Childhood crushes and passing infatuations. Of course I felt more for Cecelie than that; she was the daughter of my closest friend.

  But was that love?

  “Why is the sea in your blood, my lady?” I blurted the question before I had chance to consider it. It only seemed to make her smile all the more.

  “My mother was encante,” Drusilla said.

  Minerva pushed her seat abruptly back from the table, picked up her considerable skirts and stalked out of the room. None save Axel marked her departure, and he only to roll his eyes.

  “She passed on, I’m afraid, some years ago,” Drusilla continued, as if the departure of her step-mother had not even registered for her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I lost both my parents to the Kabbalah when I was young, so I know what it is to lose your mother.” She met my eyes again, and for the first time I saw the violet shine that should have been the giveaway. I also saw the pain there, the desolate hole left in one’s heart when they lose someone in such a manner. I had always thought that was something Cecelie and I shared, the common bond of losing a parent, for her own mother was dead also, but I realised now she had never felt the loss as I did. Perhaps because her father was still alive; perhaps because he had taken a lover so soon after his wife’s death. Cecelie might never have been without a mother at all. She was so young at the time I doubt she even recalled it. “I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “So am I.” She smiled sadly and returned her attention to her meal. A meal, I noticed suddenly, that included no form of fish.

  Chapter Six

  Sleep eluded me that night, despite the relative comfort of Reuben Williams’ bed. My conversation with Drusilla had left me restless for more than one reason, and I sought the soothing half-light of the watery windows which graced the corridors of the Narwhal. Somewhere in the ship, floating to me down those corridors, was music so sweet I might well have been dreaming. My feet followed the melody, or possibly only the casements of water, one after the other, until I arrived, perhaps inevitably, at the hydroponics bay.

  I took a few furtive looks around, fearful of encountering Garrett and his boxlock again, but it appeared he was abed. The encante seemed to be absent also; I wondered if they slept, and if so, whether their beds were watery or dry. I had noted their odd ability to emerge from the water as dry as if they had never been in. They were certainly the strangest amphibians I had ever seen, and that was before I considered the odd mechanical tails they employed while swimming.

  I gravitated towards the belvedere, oddly comforted by its familiarity. I had a gazebo of a similar nature in the forest gardens of the home Cane had provided me with in Hollowvale: dome-roofed with elegant columns and arches giving out on all sides to an expansive view of the valley. I’d been wondering what was within this one since I first saw it. Now it would seem I was about to find out. The lights were dimmer than they had been earlier. Evidently Garrett chose to save on whatever fuel powered the overhead spheres, which had illuminated the room upon my arrival. Now the only light came from the water below and a smattering of half-guttered sconces on the walls. I picked my way carefully, peering into the water beneath me only long enough to determine the light there came from some of the vegetation itself, perhaps even some of the larger fish, who didn’t seem quite so coy now they thought themselves alone for the evening. They were quite mistaken in that belief however, and so, as it happened, was I.

  As I stepped inside the belvedere, movement startled me. It was so unexpected I reeled backwards, the heels of my ill-fitting boots catching on a join in the platforms. I tumbled backwards, flailing like a fish in a net, and would have drowned for the second time that day had I not been caught at the last and righted again.

  “My apologies, Mister Escher, you surprised me.”

  “And you me, Axel, I’d thought I was alone.” I smiled at the captain’s nephew, who was far more visible now he’d stepped out of the shadows. I glanced behind him to see sumptuous pillows surrounding a low table within. Upon it lay a bottle of wine that appeared mostly e
mpty, and a large, cerise flower of such exquisite beauty I wondered instantly what it would look like in Drusilla’s hair. The thought did not become me, and I blushed, thankful the dim light would hide it from Axel. He seemed too distracted to notice, however, and I wondered suddenly at the oddness of him drinking alone in the dark with a flower.

  “I have trouble sleeping,” he told me, as if by way of explanation. If he was in any way drunk, his words showed no sign of it. “I come here for the ambiance.”

  I glanced around us. “I can well understand why. I’m afraid I was having a similar problem. Forgive me; I should not be wandering the ship alone.”

  “And why not?” he asked. “You are our guest; if you see fit to wander the ship alone at night, I say let you. Wander wherever you choose.” He laughed as if something were painfully amusing, and I wondered if perhaps he was a little tipsy after all. “I’ll say nothing to stop you,” he assured me. “Hell, I’ll encourage you.” He leant closer to me. “I’d even suggest you try the places I couldn’t show you earlier.”

  “So there were areas you kept hidden.”

  Axel snorted. “Areas? People more like. My uncle is concerned you will not understand the . . . racial demographics of our society.”

  “You mean the encante?” He nodded. “There is more to your relationship with them than Everett would have me believe, that much is plain. It has been obvious since I arrived, if for no other reason than this is my fourth visit to Idele, and I have never before seen one of them. I have never even heard mention of their race, on this world or any other. They are of a lower class?”

  “Class?” Axel exclaimed. “Franklin Garrett is of a lower class; Bridger Quinn, is of a lower class. Even Reuben Williams, our third mate, the man in whose bed you should even now be sleeping, is of a lower class.” Axel shook his head. “The encante are not separated from us by class, Mister Escher, but freedom.”

  “You mean to say they are slaves?”

  “Of course they’re slaves. You think they wear those god forsaken machines of their own volition?”

  It took me a moment to catch up. “The tails?” I considered the implications of a species who could breathe underwater and swim at great depths, living in a submersible with ready access to open water. “They keep them from escaping somehow?”

  “Yes, one of Amos Newton’s finest inventions, don’t you think? A device which allows its occupant to swim outside the ship enough to remain healthy, perform maintenance and other duties, but which incapacitates them should they try to stray too far.”

  “Amos Newton?”

  “Newt, as my uncle calls him. He finds it humorous, what with the majority of Newton’s research having to do with our amphibious cousins.”

  “That is truly abominable.” I caught myself. “My apologies, it is not for me to criticise your—”

  “No, sir, you’re quite correct, it is abominable.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You forget, my sister is half encante; I do not see them as any less than human. In fact, in many instances they act with more humanity than most men.”

  “That I can believe.” I considered the flower on the table. “Forgive my asking, but if your sister is half slave then . . . ?”

  “How is it she is treated as an equal?” Axel laughed again, bitterly. “My mother has been asking that very question for years. Drusilla is younger than me, you see, not by much, but enough. My father’s indiscretion would have been shameful enough for Mother, but his choice of companion is something she has never suffered to bear. If Dru’s mother weren’t dead, my own would have killed her.”

  I stared at him in silence, utterly appalled.

  “Don’t look so shocked, Mister Escher. To Minerva, the woman was nought but a slave.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She was executed. It’s a crime to bear the child of a full blood, or indeed to be the progeny of such a union.”

  “Then how . . . ?”

  “Did Drusilla survive?” A wry smile crossed Axel’s lips. “My father is more pirate than he would have my well-born uncle believe—he hid her well enough, at first. When they were finally discovered, he was able to save Drusilla, but not her mother. The guilt of that is still with him, I fear, and shall be until the end of his days. He truly loved her, in a way he never loved my mother. He realised too late he had married Minerva out of convenience, rather than love. You may not have noticed, but I bear my uncle’s surname, not my father’s; of the two, my uncle is seen to far out rank him. He was a deck hand, raised through the ranks. He won his own ship through skill and cunning, a canny business sense and a decent heart, unlike my uncle, who was born to his position and fortune.”

  “You surprise me. Captain Everett seems born for the seas.”

  “Do not mistake me.” Axel smiled. “Uncle is a fine sailor. He is not, however, a fine man.” The boy’s eyes dropped to the lip in the platform over which I had just tripped and he kicked at it in agitation. “Their views when it comes to my sister’s people differ greatly.”

  “He treats your sister as if she were his blood, Axel, that is no small thing for a nobleman to do with any illegitimate child, let alone one born of an illegal union. It is one thing to save a child from death, quite another to have her raised as a true-born daughter.”

  “She was almost three by the time Uncle found out what Father had done.” He shook his head. “He tried to have her killed.” The boy looked up at me, eyes searching my own for my response. I did not have to feign my shock, or my outrage.

  “I was only a young thing myself,” he continued, “but I remember it. It was the first time I met her, and from the second we laid eyes on each other I knew . . . she was part of me. Mother, of course, only encouraged Uncle in his response. I often wonder how any of us survived that day.” He fingered a long, slender scar running the length of his jaw, left ear to chin. It was barely visible and I had never noticed it before; had he not touched it so obviously, I doubt I would have had cause to notice it at all.

  “What saved her?” I asked.

  “She had already started displaying certain . . . gifts. Even at that age she had some skills with alchemy. My uncle is an intelligent man, enough so to recognise an opportunity when it presented itself. Between his own observations of the way she reacted to that fight, and tests he had Newton perform, they soon realised Drusilla had very useful abilities.”

  “Abilities?”

  He looked at me as if I were slightly dim-witted. Perhaps I was, for once he told me, the truth was plain.

  “She hears thoughts”—he tapped a finger on my temple—“and sees truths.” He smiled. “I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner, but I assumed you would realise.”

  “That’s how she communicates with Vee?”

  And how she seemed to know so much at dinner. I found myself blushing again.

  “The encante have a form of telepathy—they have no oral speech. Before my sister, they made do with ugly hand gestures. Now she speaks for them, and to them. A few others are able to pick up something of their meaning—Garrett, for one, gets some sense of what they’re trying to say, if not the exact words. It’s one reason Uncle suffers to have him aboard.”

  “And she hears human thoughts too?”

  “She knows if a person is lying. She senses their emotions, and if they think something particularly strongly, she will hear. It takes concentration though; if she’s distracted by aught else, she won’t hear you, and some people are better at hiding what they think than others. I’ve grown very good at it, having spent so much time with her; I love her dearly, but a man needs his privacy.”

  “Indeed.” He looked at me questioningly. “I’ve been wondering how it was your uncle so readily believed my tale, and I thought it odd when he seemed to look at her for affirmation. Evidently she was able to glean enough to know I wasn’t lying.”

  Axel nodded. “As I said, Uncle saw her value immediately. He does not keep her for love, Mister Escher, but for information.”<
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  “You said she sees truths, but what does that mean exactly?”

  “You’re a very inquisitive man.”

  “I am, and I make no apology for it, I’m afraid; I’m a born explorer.”

  “And yet you intend to give it all up for a woman you do not even love?” That took me aback.

  “What makes you think I do not love her?”

  “When I asked if you did, your response was that you were soon to marry. Marriage and love are two very different things.” He laughed. “I learned that from my own parents.

  “My sister has some precognitive abilities, although Uncle and that ghastly Newton refuse to believe it is so—a lack of empirical proof, they say. Proof be damned, I know what I know—I’ve seen her look into the future and always her visions were true. I also believe she has knowledge inherent to the encante—it was she who told Uncle of this passageway into another world. I suspect it’s some form of genetic memory their species possess; she came to her gifts too young and too easily for any other explanation. She knew things at that age that full-growns of her species do not.”

  “Such as . . . ?”

  “The legends tell of a time before humans conquered the seas, when all encante had such knowledge and gifts.”

  “So it was your sister who sent the captain on this hunt for Hollow Earth?” That was interesting. That was very interesting.

  “I wouldn’t say sent, exactly. She made a few well placed comments and he came to think it was entirely his idea. Drusilla has wanted to find the hidden sea for as long as I can recall.” Axel yawned suddenly.

  I shook myself. “My apologies, I’m keeping you from your bed.”

  “It is late, and I have first watch. You should rest also; my uncle will doubtless expect you to join him on the morrow.”

  “I think I shall walk the causeways a little more before I retire, the water is oddly relaxing.”