Storyteller

by Amy Thomson

  "Samad, there's only so much you can worry about. There are lots of people who really care about Teller. There's the har captains, and the storytellers, and hundreds of people she's helped out, one way or another. People will be there to help Teller, and to help you, as well."

  "But what if. . . what if she dies?"

  "She's a survivor, Samad. She's lived through more than you can imagine."

  "But that's what Abeha's worried about. And she knows Teller better than anyone else could!"

  Florio stopped and turned to face Samad in the darkness. "Samad, if she—if the worst happens, then I promise that I will be there to take care of you. If you want me to, that is. If you don't want to stay with me, there are plenty of other people who would be honored to take you in. You have more friends than you probably realize. But," Florio continued. "I don't plan on letting Teller kill herself if I can help it."

  Samad glanced sidelong at Florio, moved by his offer. But he wasn't worried about himself. He'd managed before Teller came; he could survive without her if he had to. What worried him was the promise he'd made to Abeha, that he wouldn't let Teller die.

  "Thank you, Florio. I appreciate that." He sighed. "I— we're going to need a lot of help."

  "I'll be there, Samad. I promise."

  Teller watched Samad and Florio walk away. They paused every hundred meters to set a trail beacon to guide them back to camp in the dark. At last they passed out of sight, and she sighed in relief. Teller gathered her gear, checked it over carefully, and walked down the other side of the ridge toward the shore of the bay, laying down her own trail of beacons. Humans were barred from the bay during mating, but the harsels had quietly made a rare exception for Teller. She had received permission to be in the water during mat­ing, as long as she told no other humans. Much as she loved them, Samad and Florio could not be told. For a while, she thought that Samad's and Florio's solicitousness was going to keep her from her swim, but then Florio had volunteered to tell stories in her place, and she had urged Samad to make his debut. Her heart contracted with guilt as she recalled Samad's look of concern as he left. But the boy was ready. Silently, she wished Samad luck and hoped that his debut would go well.

  Teller made her way carefully down the hill to the arm of a point that enclosed a secluded cove. The air seemed charged by the harsels' singing. The sun had set, and it was dark by the shore, though there was still some light in the sky. Teller set her gear down by a convenient large boulder near the bank of shingle that was the shoreline during more normal tides. She took her mask and artificial gills out of the pack and then pulled a clinking string of empty wine bot­tles out as well. Teller undressed, neatly folding her clothes and putting them in her pack, where they would stay dry. She set a beacon on top of the rock, so that she could find it again in the dark, and tucked another of the egg-sized bea­cons inside her mask.

  She slung the wine bottles over one shoulder, and carry­ing her diving gear, crossed the exposed tidal flats to the water. The closer she came to the shore, the stronger the elec­trical feeling of excitement became. At the edge of the wa­ter, she set her clinking burden of wine bottles down, and set another beacon so she could find them later.

  Donning her mask and unfolding the ruff of gills on her rebreather, Teller waded into the milk-warm water. The harsels' singing throbbed in her bones. When the water was past her waist, Teller dove in and began swimming. She swam with strong, assured strokes through the dark water out of the cove and into the bay. Out in the bay, the harsels' singing was so intense that the water felt like it was made of music.

  Suddenly the singing stopped, leaving an echoing still­ness behind. The only sound Teller could hear was the pulse and hiss of her rebreather. Into that sudden silence she heard Abeha begin a new chant, one that Teller had heard before, in other mating seasons. But not sung with Abeha's voice. Here in the water it was powerful enough to dissolve her sense of self. She let herself drift on the slack tide, awash in the harsel's mindsong. Abeha's powerful song resounded through the bay and echoed off of the bones of the encir­cling hills. Her solitary voice was exultant yet sad. Teller's listening heart swelled with pride, grief, and wonder at its beauty.

  Then the other females joined her, weaving their own voices over and around Abeha's, creating a tapestry of sound and emotion. Teller could just make out the females sailing in the darkness toward the surrounding ring of males, their pale sails gleaming faintly in the starlight.

  The males raised their voices in reply, weaving their own longing into the females' tapestry of mindsong. As the ring of females reached the surrounding males, the chorus dis­solved into thousands of individual courtships, males call­ing to females, and females responding.

  The dissolution of the chorus woke Teller from her trance. She reached with her mind, searching for Abeha's voice in the chaotic chorus. Abeha was surrounded by amorous males vying for her attention. The males crowded each other, blocking the wind from each other's sails, tolling bell-like challenges at each other, building themselves up to a peak of arousal. At last Abeha sailed alongside a male, ac­cepting his suit. The male lay over on his side, releasing a cloud of milt beside her. Several other smaller males shoul­dered close to Abeha and her chosen mate, releasing their sperm as well. Abeha opened her hold, taking in the milt, then withdrew, watching the other males vie for her favor. After fifteen or twenty minutes, she sailed forth and chose another male.

  The bay was a frenzy of mating. The males' milt diffused into the water. The breeze carried the musky, low-tide smell of it to Teller. As the mating built in intensity, she could taste it on her lips, fishy and oddly astringent. Her mouth began to tingle pleasantly, and soon she could feel that tin­gling all over her body. She swam back to shore and re­trieved her string of empty wine bottles.

  Teller swam out into the bay again. When she reached a spot where the tingling on her skin was particularly strong, she uncorked the bottles, filling them with a rich broth of seawater and milt. The males' milt was reputed to be a pow­erful aphrodisiac, and sold for a high price. She would give the bottles to people who had helped her and Abeha.

  The tingling grew stronger the longer she stayed in the water. When the tingle grew to a sense of urgency, Teller emerged from the bay and washed off in a nearby freshwater stream. The tingling ebbed to a warm, throbbing glow. It was getting late. She dressed, restowed her gear, and began the long climb up the hill. She was back in camp only a few minutes before Samad and Florio returned. Samad seemed

  surprisingly subdued for a newly made Journeyman Teller. She glanced at him worriedly. He saw her looking and van­ished into his tent. She started after him, then thought bet­ter of it. He clearly wanted to be alone.

  She took Florio's hand and led him off into the darkness, to a hollow in the hills where she had spread her blanket.

  "Is Samad all right? Did his story go well?" she asked Florio when they were safely out of Samad's hearing.

  "His story was fine. It's you he's worried about," Florio told her. "He's terrified that Abeha's death will kill you, too."

  Teller, her body tingling and eager from her swim, was brought suddenly to earth. She looked away into the night, toward the singing darkness of the bay.

  "Will her death kill you, Teller?" Florio demanded, his hands tightening on her arms.

  Teller shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I can't imag­ine living without Abeha. His—" She paused and corrected herself, "Her voice has been in my mind all the years I've lived on Thalassa. I—"

  "Samad needs you," Florio said hoarsely. "And I need you."

  "And the har captains need me, and the Guild needs me, and the harsels too. . . ." Teller continued. "Everyone needs me,, but I'm not always going to be around to help. Sooner or later, Thalassa is going to have to manage without me."

  "You know what you are to this world," Florio stated. "How can you leave us all?"

  "Everyone dies, Florio," Teller pointed out. "Sooner or later, the rejuve will wear out
, or I'll have an accident. I won't live forever, aghapitos."

  "So you'll just abandon us all to our fates, then? Samad, me, the whole damned world?"

  "It's not like I have a choice, Florio."

  "Yes, you do!" Florio insisted.

  "Dammit, Florio, you just don't understand!" she whis­pered, all too conscious of Samad, curled in his sleeping bag just beyond earshot. "It's not that I don't want to live after Abeha dies. I don't think I can!"

  Florio took her in his arms and stroked her still-damp hair. "Tell me about it."

  "Abeha holds most of my memories, most of my stories," Teller confessed. "If I'm away from her for more than a few weeks, they start to fade. I lose some of them. When I see her again, they come back, bright as ever. I don't know how much I'll lose when she dies. Maybe it'll all go", and I'll wind up a drooling idiot." She lifted her head off of his chest, looking into the darkness. "I don't want to live if I get like that, Florio. It would be cruel."

  "But maybe you won't," Florio suggested. "Maybe you'll be just like the rest of us, a bit fuzzy around the edges. Have you written it all down?"

  "I've always kept a journal, Florio," she told him.

  "Then use that."

  "But it's not the same!"

  "Sh-h-h, aghapitee. Worry about what you can change," Florio whispered soothingly. "Trust the people who love you. We'll still be here, even after Abeha's gone. Let us help you. Please."

  Teller smiled. Poor Florio, he wanted to help so much, and there was so little he could do. "Thank you, aghapitos," she said. She laid her head against his chest, taking comfort in his warm, familiar presence. Her body's restless urgency was reasserting itself.

  Florio sniffed her hair. "You've been swimming in the bay, haven't you?"

  Teller turned in his arms, placed a finger on his lips, and

  pulled him down onto the blanket. "I can't say anything. Don't ask."

  She kissed him. She felt him responding. The heat she had repressed since her swim in the mating bay kindled into passion. Soon they were making love in the grass.

  Samad lay in the tent, unable to sleep. He wished that he could talk to Teller about what he had seen and felt back at the inn. The two men together, and how it had made him feel.

  Distantly, Samad could hear the sound of Teller and Flo­rio having some kind of intense discussion. The conversa­tion subsided into murmurs of reassurance, then silence for a while, followed by the faint, but unmistakable sounds of passion. He rolled over angrily, jamming his pillow over his ears. Sex was everywhere tonight. That must be it. Like everyone else, he was just responding to the lust broadcast by the harsels' mating. The whole thing was just a fluke. He would forget it had ever happened. He lay there, doing his best to forget until sleep took him.

  The next morning dawned bright and clear. Florio's cheerful singing and the clatter of pots and pans woke Samad from a disturbing dream of arousal. Samad lay there, looking up at the sunlit roof of his tent, trying to remember his dream, but already it had evaporated in the bright morning light.

  Samad threw back the covers of his sleeping bag and peered out of his tent. Florio was whipping up eggs for an omelet. There was a thick, crusty loaf of bread that Florio had brought up from the inn last night, neatly sliced; and next to it was a crock of salty butter with a knife standing hilt upward in it. A bottle of grape juice floated in a bucket of cold spring water.

  "You're in a good mood," Samad remarked.

  Florio beamed back. "It's a beautiful day," he agreed.

  "And you got laid last night," Samad accused, feeling a rush of anger as he said it.

  "This morning, too," Florio conceded cheerfully. "I'm glad we didn't wake you." His eyes flicked downhill, where Samad could hear distant splashing. "She's feeling good this morning," he pointed out. "I hope her mood lasts."

  Samad gave a grudging shrug and helped himself to the grape juice without a word, unwilling to destroy their good mood with his own worries.

  "Good morning!" Teller caroled, striding up from the stream, her hair still wet. "Brrr! That water's cold! Did you sleep well, Samad?"

  He nodded, incredulous at her cheery mood. Teller peered into the bowl of omelet filling that stood waiting by the grill. "Braefish roe and mushrooms!" she exclaimed. "Yum! I'm hungry this morning!"

  "And good sharp cheese," Florio added, as he poured the eggs into the waiting pan, carefully swirling it to get a pa­pery thin edge. He set the pan back on the grill, and gave her a big, happy hug. Samad was so pleased to see her happy that he nearly forgave Florio for his smugness.

  After breakfast, they sat on a high hill overlooking the bay. The green water was stained with the males' rusty brown milt. The females tacked slowly across the bay, with many pauses while they mated. The harsels' songs became more insistent as the tide surged back into the narrow pas­sage, green swirls of seawater mingling with the milt-stained waters of the mating bay.

  There was something hypnotic in the endless calling and circling. Samad didn't notice the ebbing of Teller's good mood until midafternoon, when hunger broke the spell of

  watching. By then she was slump-shouldered and with­drawn again.

  Samad and Florio did what they could to lighten her mood, but nothing really helped much. The next day and the following night inched by with agonizing slowness. Teller sat and watched, hunched and miserable, while the harsels endlessly called and circled and mated.

  The morning after the final night of mating dawned misty and silent. The mating was over. The harsels drifted across the brown water like mist-shrouded shadows, their sails hanging slackly in the strange, mist-softened light. It looked like they were floating in a sea of old blood. Samad shuddered at the thought.

  There was a step behind him. It was Teller.

  "Florio's asleep," she told him quietly.

  "The mating's over, isn't it?" Samad said in a low voice.

  "Yes." Teller confirmed. "They'll be leaving today. They're waiting for the high tide."

  "Will Abeha make it out all right?"

  Teller shrugged and looked down, pushing at a clump of grass with her toe. "I wish I could be sure, Samad. You saw what the bottom of that passage looked like at low tide. If she catches up on any of those rocks ..." Teller closed her eyes in pain. "The eldest leaves first. That's Abeha this year. If she grounds in the Narrows, she could block all the other females inside the bay, as well as most of the larger males. They could lose the entire mating."

  "Why doesn't she leave last?" Samad asked.

  "She's the eldest; going first is her right. And the harsels begin to leave when the tide is at its peak. If she waits, her chances of getting out safely are much worse." Teller looked down at the eerily still bay and shook her head worriedly.

  "Abeha's smart," Samad soothed. "She knows the passage. She won't hang up."

  "I hope you're right, Samad," Teller said. "I hope you're right."

  The two of them waited as the tide rose. The clear green seawater borne in on the incoming tide swirled in visible gyres through the reddish brown water of the mating bay. The clinging mist lightened but did not entirely burn off. Florio joined them about midmorning. A light breeze be­gan to ruffle the surface of the water and stir the grass around their legs. As though the breeze was some kind of signal, the harsels glided silently into formation.

  "It's time." Teller said, her voice tight with tension. "They're getting ready to go."

  And silently as a dream, Abeha led the harsels toward the channel. Florio glanced at his watch.

  "I prevailed upon the dam keeper to open the floodgates on the hydro dams upstream this morning," he confessed. "The surge should just be reaching the passage about now. It'll give Abeha an extra twenty or thirty centimeters in the Narrows."

  "Florio!" Teller chided, "What if the harsels find out?"

  "Who's going to tell them? I didn't tell the dam keeper why; I just promised him one of your little bottles. I won't tell, and neither will Samad. That leaves you. You won't
tell the harsels, will you?" he said, looking pleadingly at her.

  Teller looked at him for a second, and then smiled as though a burden had been lifted from her. "Thank you, aghapitos," she said, gratefully. "I hope it helps."

  "I hope she doesn't need it." Florio answered.

  "We'll soon see," Teller said. "She's in the passage now."

  The three of them stood watching as Abeha glided ma­jestically down the narrow channel. Samad's breath caught in his throat as she approached the spot where the fangs of

  barnacled rock rose in her path. The harsels following Abeha stopped, waiting to see what would happen. Abeha lowered her sail and slowed to a stop. She approached the hidden shoals cautiously. She made one attempt to pass the rocky fangs, then suddenly backed up in the water, and ap­proached again a dozen meters to starboard. Suddenly she rolled sideways, her dorsal ridge nearly touching the water, and gave one, two, three powerful strokes of her massive tail. She slid forward, and then stopped with a sudden lurch. Samad heard Teller's breath catch in her throat. Abeha heaved with her tail several times, and the great fish shud­dered forward, righted, and then raised her sail and glided on down the channel. She had passed safely over the jagged rocks of the Narrows.

  Teller's face took on a look of concentrated abstraction as she spoke inwardly to Abeha.

  Then she smiled and let out her breath with a whoosh, and Samad took a breath of his own, feeling the clean, sweet air in his throat.

  "She made it! She's safe! She's scraped up some, but she made it through!" Teller hugged Samad and Florio, nearly dancing in her excitement. Samad felt a dizzying sense of re­lief. Abeha had made it through the Narrows. She was all right. And they were finally going to leave this place. It felt as though he'd been here forever.

  "Are you ready to go?" Florio asked.

  "We'll need to pack up."

  Florio shook his head. "Everything's all packed. I did it when you and Samad went up on the ridge to watch the harsels."