At that moment, the convoluted border of the island took another turn. Suddenly, an opening appeared to port. With quaking hands, Brod steered straight for the cul-de-sac. It would have been insanely rash under any other circumstance, but Maia approved wholeheartedly. At least the bitchies won't get to watch us die at their own hands.
One side of the opening exploded as they passed through, sending cracks radiating through the outcrop, blowing the skiff forward amid cascades of rock. The next shell seemed to beat the cliff with bellows of frustrated rage. Cracks multiplied tenfold. A tremendous chunk of stone, half as long as the Reckless itself, began to peel away. With graceful deliberateness, its looming shadow fell toward Brod and Maia. . . .
The boulder crashed into the slim gap just behind the tiny boat, yanking them upon the driving fist of a midget tsunami, aimed at a deep black hole.
Maia knew herself to have some courage. But not nearly enough to watch their ruined boat surge toward that ancient titan, Jellicoe Beacon. Let it be quick, she asked. Then darkness swept over them, cutting off all sight.
Dear lolanthe,
As you can see from this letter, I am alive . . . or was at the time of its writing . . . and in good health, excepting the effects of several days spent bound and gagged.
Well, it looks like I tumbled for the oldest trick in the book. The Lonely Traveler routine. I am in good company. Countless diplomats more talented than I have fallen victim to their own frail, human needs. . . .
My keepers command me not to ramble, so I'll try to be concise. I am supposed to tell you not to report that I am missing until two days after receiving this. Continue pretending that I took ill after my speech: Some will imagine foul play, while others will say I'm bluffing the Council. No matter. If you do not buy my captors the time they need, they threaten to bury me where I cannot be found.
They also say they have agents in the police bureaus. They will know if they are betrayed.
I am now supposed to plead with you to cooperate, so my life will be spared. The first draft of this letter was destroyed because I waxed a bit sarcastic at this point, so let me just say that, old as I am, I would not object to going on a while longer, or seeing more of the universe.
I do not know where they are taking me, now that summer is over and travel is unrestricted in any direction. Anyway, if I wrote down clues from what I see and hear around me, they would simply make me rewrite yet again. My head hurts too much for that, so we'll leave it there.
I will not claim to have no regrets. Only fools say that. Still, I am content. I've been and done and seen and served. One of the riches of my existence has been this opportunity to dwell for a time on Stratos.
My captors say they'll be in touch, soon. Meanwhile, with salutations, I remain—Renna.
22
In near-total darkness she stroked Brod's forehead, tenderly brushing his sodden hair away from coagulating gashes. The youth moaned, tossing his head, which Maia held gently with her knees. Despite a plenitude of hurts, she felt thankful for small blessings, such as this narrow patch of sand they lay upon, just above an inky expanse of chilly, turbid water. Thankful, also, that this time she wasn't fated to awaken in some dismal place, after a whack on the head. My skull's gotten so hard, anything that'd knock, me out would kill me. And that won't happen till the world's done amusing itself, pushing me around.
"Mm ... Mwham-m . . . ?" Brod mumbled. Maia sensed his vocalization more via her hands than with her shock-numbed hearing. Still unconscious, Brod seemed nevertheless wracked with duty pangs, as if at some level he remained anxious over urgent tasks left undone. "Sh, it's all right," she told him, though barely able to make out her own words. "Rest, Brod. I'll take care of things for a while."
Whether or not he actually heard her, the boy seemed to calm a bit. Her fingers still traced somnolent worry knots across his brow, but he did stop thrashing. Brdd's sighs dropped below audible to her deafened ears.
In its last moments, their dying boat had spilled them inside this cave, while more explosions just behind them brought down the entrance in a rain of shattered rock. Amid a stygian riot of seawater and sand, her head ringing with a din of cannonade, Maia had groped frantically for Brod, seizing his hair and hauling him toward a frothy, ill-defined surface. Up and down were all topsy-turvy during those violent moments when sea and shore and atmosphere were one, but practice had taught Maia the knack of seeking air. Rationing her straining lungs, she had fought currents like clawing devils till at last, with poor Brod in tow, her feet found muddy purchase on a rising slope. Maia managed to crawl out, dragging her friend above the waterline and falling nearby to check his breathing in utter blackness. Fortunately, Brod coughed out what water he'd inhaled. There were no apparent broken bones. He'd live . . . until whatever came next.
All told, their wounds were modest. If the skiff had stayed intact, we'd have ridden that wave straight into some underground wall, she envisioned with a shudder. Only the boat's premature fragmentation had saved their lives. The dunking had cushioned their final shorefall.
Maia felt cushioned half to death. Even superficial cuts hurt like hell. Sandy grit lay buried in every laceration, with each grain apparently assigned its own cluster of nerves. To make matters worse, evaporation sucked the heat out of her body, setting her teeth chattering.
But we're not dead, another voice within her pointed out defiantly. And we won't be, if I can find a way out of here before the sea rises.
Not an easy proposition, she admitted, shivering. This undercut cave probably fills and empties twice a day, routinely washing itself clean of jetsam like us.
Maia guessed they had at least a few hours. More life-span than she had expected during those final moments, plunging toward a horrible, black cavity in the side of a towering dragon's tooth. I should be grateful for even a brief reprieve, she thought, shaking her head. Forgive me, though, if I fail to quite see the point.
In retrospect, it seemed pathetically dumb to have gone charging off to rescue Renna—and to redeem her sister—only to fail so totally and miserably. Maia felt especially sorry for Brod, her companion and friend, whose sole fatal error had been in following her.
I should never have asked him. He's a man, after all. When he dies, his story ends.
The same could be said for her, of course. Both men and vars lacked the end-of-life solace afforded to normal folk—to clones—who knew they would continue through their clanmates, in all ways but direct memory.
I guess there's still a chance for me in that way. Leie could succeed in her plans, become great, found a clan. She sniffed sardonically. Maybe Leie'll put a statue of me in the courtyard of her hold. First in a long row of stern effigies, all cast from the same mold.
There were other, more modest possibilities, closer to Maia's heart. Although the twins' minor differences had irked them, important things, like their taste in people, had always matched. So, there was a chance Leie might be drawn to Renna, as Maia had. Perhaps Leie would forsake her reaver pals and help the man from outer space, even grow close to him.
That should make me feel better, Maia pondered. I wonder why it doesn't?
In successive ebbs and flows, the waterline had been gradually climbing higher along the sandy bank where they lay. Soon the icy liquid sloshed her legs, as well as Brod's lower torso. Here comes the tide, Maia thought, knowing it was time to force her reluctant, battered body to move again. Groaning, she hauled herself upright. Taking the boy by his armpits, Maia gritted her teeth and strained to drag him upslope three, four meters . . . until her backside abruptly smacked into something hard and jagged.
"Ouch! Damn the smuggy . . ."
Maia laid Brod down on the sand and reached around, trying to rub a place along her spine. She turned and with her other hand began delicately exploring whatever obdurate, prickly barrier loomed out of the darkness to block her retreat. Carefully at first, she lightly traced what turned out to be a nearly vertical wall of randomly pointed objects .
. . slim ovoids coated with slime. Shells, she realized. Hordes of barnaclelike creatures clung tenaciously to a stone cliff face while patiently awaiting another meal, the next tidal flood of seaborne organic matter.
I guess this is as far as we go, she noted with resignation. Depression and fatigue almost made her throw herself on the sand next to Brod, there to pass her remaining minutes in peace. Instead, with a sigh, Maia commenced feeling her way along the wall, trying not to wince each time another craggy shell pinched or scraped her hands. The thick band of algae-covered carapaces continued above her farthest reach, confirming that full tide stretched much higher than she could.
Still she moved from left to right, hoping for something to change. Shuffling sideways, her feet encountered a gentle slope . . . alas, rising no more than another meter or so. Yet it made a crucial difference. At the limit of Maia's tiptoe reach, her fingertips passed beyond the scummy crust of shells and stroked smooth stone.
High-water mark. The ceiling's above high tide! This offered possibilities. Assume I waken him in time. Could Brod and I tread water and float up with the current, keeping our heads dry?
Not without something strong and stable to hang on to, she realized with chagrin. More likely, the waves' flushing action would first bash them against the abrading walls, then suck their fragments outside to join other rubble left by the reavers' bombardment.
The only real hope was for a cleft or ledge, above. If there's'some way to get up there in time.
She returned to check on Brod, and found him sleeping peacefully. Maia bent a second time to drag the boy up the little hillock she had found. Then she began exploring the cave wall in earnest, working her way further to the right, patting the layer of barnacle creatures in search of some route, some path above the killing zone. At one point she gasped, yanking her hand back from a worse-than-normal jab. Popping a finger in her mouth, Maia tasted blood and felt a ragged gash along one side. May you live to enjoy another scar, she thought, and resumed searching for a knob, a crack, anything offering a hint of a route upward.
A minute or two later, Maia almost tripped when something caught her ankle. She bent to disentangle it and her hands felt wood—a shattered board—snarled with scraps of canvas and sodden rope—fragments of the little skiff they had wrecked without ever giving it a name.
Shivering, she continued her monotonous task, whose chief reward consisted of unwelcome familiarity with the outline of one obnoxious, well-defended marine life-form. A while later, the sandy bank began to descend again, taking her even farther from her goal, and nearer the icy water.
Well, there's still the area leftward of where I put Brod. She held out little hope the topography would be any different.
On the verge of giving up and turning around, Maia's hand encountered ... a hole. Trembling, she explored its outlines. It felt like a notch of sorts, about a meter up from the sandy bank. It might serve as a place to set one's foot, to start a climb, but with a definite drawback: the proposed procedure meant using the sharp, slippery barnacle shells as handholds.
Maia turned around, counted paces, and knelt to grope amid the wreckage she had found earlier. From remnants of the shredded sail, she tore canvas strips to wrap around her palms. For good measure, she looped over her shoulder the longest stretch of rope she could find. It wasn't much. Hurry, she thought. The tide will be in soon.
With difficulty, she found the notch again. Fortunately, the soles of her leather shoes were mostly intact, so Maia only winced, hissing with discomfort as she set one foot in the crevice and reached high above, tightly grasping two clusters of shells. Even through canvas, the things jabbed painfully. Tightening her lips together, she pushed off, using muscles in first one leg and then the other, drawing herself upward with both arms till she stood perched on one foot, pressed against the wall. Now sharp stabs assaulted the entire length of her body, not just the extremities.
Okay, what next?
With her free foot, she began casting for another step. It seemed chancy to ask a cluster of shells to bear her entire weight. Yet it must be tried.
To her astonishment, Maia encountered a better alternative. Another slim, encrusted notch in the wall—and at just the right height!
I don't believe it, she thought, pushing her left foot inside and gingerly shifting her weight. It can't be a coincidence. This must mean . . .
Checking her conclusion, she freed one hand and felt about until, sure enough, it met another notch. One that had to be exactly where it was. The notches are woman-made ... or man-made, since this place used to be a sanctuary. I wonder how old this "ladder" is.
No, I don't. Shut up, Maia. Just concentrate and get on with it!
The notches made climbing easier. Still it was an agonizing ascent, even when her face lifted above the scouring layer of plankton-feeders and she had only to contend with smooth, rectangular cuts in the side of an almost-sheer wall. Maia's muscles were throbbing by the time her groping hand encountered a ring of metal, bolted to the rock. The rusty tethering collar proved useful as her final handhold before Maia was able at last to flounder one leg, then another, over a rounded lip and onto a stony shelf.
Maia lay on her back, panting, listening to a roar of her own heavy breathing. It took some moments to appreciate that all of the sound wasn't internal. I can hear. My ears are recovering, she realized, too tired to feel jubilant. She rested motionless, as echoes of each ragged inhalation resonated off the walls, along with a watery susurration of incoming swells.
Her pulse hadn't yet settled from a heavy pounding when she forced herself up, onto one elbow. Got to get back to Brod, Maia thought, wearily. The re-descent would be hard, and she had not figured out how to drag her friend up here, if it proved impossible to rouse him. As always, the future seemed daunting, yet Maia felt cheered that she had found a refuge. It drove off the sense of hopelessness that had been sapping her strength."
She sat up, letting out a groan.
More than her own echo came back to her, muffled by reverberations.
"M-Maia-aia-aia?"
It was followed by a fit of coughing. "M-my god-od-od . . . what's happened? Where is she? Maia-aia-aia!"
Resounding repetitions caused her to wince. "Brod!" she cried. "It's all right! I'm just above—" Her calls and his overlapped, drowning all sense in a flood of echoes. Brod's overjoyed response would have been more gratifying if he didn't stammer on so, offering thankful benedictions to both Stratos Mother and his patriarchal thunder deity.
"I'm above you," she repeated, once the rumbling resonances died down. "Can you tell how high the water is?"
There were splashing sounds. "It's already got me cornered on a spit of sand, Maia. I'll try backing up ... Ouch!" Brod's exclamation announced his discovery of the wall of shells.
"Can you stand?" she asked. If so, it might save her having to climb down after him.
"I'm ... a bit woozy. Can't hear so good, either. Lemme try." There were sounds of grunting effort. "Yeah, I'm up. Sort of. Can I assume . . . everything's black 'cause we're underground? Or am I blind?"
"If you're blind, so'm I. Now if you can walk, please face the wall and try working your way to the right. Watch your step and follow my voice till you're right below me. I'll try to rig something to help you up here. First priority is to get above the high-water line."
Maia kept talking to offer Brod a bearing, and meanwhile leaned over to tie one end of her rope around the metal grommet. It must have been put there long ago to moor boats in this tiny cave, though why, Maia could not imagine. It seemed a horrid place to use as an anchorage. Far worse than Inanna's tunnel hideaway on Grimke Island.
"Here I am," Brod announced just below her. "Frost! These bitchie barckles are sharp. I can't find your rope, Maia."
"I'll swing it back and forth. Feel it now?"
"Nope."
"It must be too short. Wait a minute." With a sigh, she pulled in the cord. Judging from Brod's ragged-sounding voice, he wouldn't be
a good bet to make the same climb she had, unassisted. There was no choice, then. Fumbling at the catches with her bruised fingers, she unbuttoned her trousers and slid them off, over her deck shoes. Tying one leg to the rope with two half-hitches, she also knotted a loop at the far end of the other leg, then dropped everything over the side again. There was a gratifying muffled sound of fabric striking someone's head.
"Ow. Thanks," Brod responded.
Brin, David - Glory Season Page 49