by E. S. Bell
“P-pour a little into my p-palm,” she said through chattering teeth.
Julian did as she said, and Selena blocked out the dubious murmurs around her. She ground out the sacred word out from between her teeth. The water in her palm glowed orange and she laid it over the man’s shoulder. The glow spread upward, over the man’s face and neck. The huffing mists of his breath became longer plumes and the cords or his neck relaxed. He lay back and peered at Selena blearily.
“An…angel,” he sighed.
Selena gingerly laid her damp hand on the burnt skin of his face. “Illuria,” she said again, almost a whimper.
When the orange light faded, his flesh had lost much of the angry red color. The white scarring that remained gave the appearance his wounds were years old instead of minutes.
Boris sat up. “Cain’t shoot a harpoon one-handed. Or wrestle with a bowhead on churning seas.” He turned his incredulous stare to Selena and clutched her arm with his hand that had resembled a bird’s claw only a moment before. “You saved me life in all ways. Yer an angel, it’s true. Thank the Two-Faced God fer sendin’ you.”
Selena smiled faintly as the crowd cheered over the howl of the wind. Men moved to haul Boris to his feet but he waved them off and stood on his own accord. He tossed his head back and beat his chest, roaring at the storm to more cheers and hands clapping him on the back.
Selena struggled to stand but her legs buckled under her. “I can’t feel my feet,” she breathed. “I can’t…”
Julian bent swiftly and hefted her in his arms and she turned her face to his chest against the wind.
“Let me,” said a voice and Selena realized Ilior had followed them out into the storm after all.
“You can hardly stand,” she heard Julian snap. “Go. I’ve got her.”
The townsfolk ceased their cheers and Boris’s voice rivaled the storm’s ferocity. “Ye god, what’s a matter with the angel?”
“She’s fine.” Julian’s voice rumbled against her cheek that was pressed to his chest. “Healing wearies her.” Selena breathed a sigh of relief. Julian smelled of leather and salt, and his arms around her were strong.
The party on the beach trekked back to the White Sail. Boris showed off his red, puckered skin as it held battle scars, declared that the next round was on him. His “Aluren angel” would not be permitted to want for anything.
But when Julian made to seat her again by the fire, Selena shook her head.
“I can’t,” she whispered against his long black coat. “Please…my room.”
Julian said nothing but reversed his course and headed for the stairs. He placated the concerned townsfolk with a few gracious comments about the healing having worn her out and that she needed to rest.
“I’ll take her,” Ilior said again, but Julian ignored him. The captain carried her up the stairs to her room that was situated above the common room. She heard the heavy thump of Ilior’s footsteps behind.
At the landing, two old men crossed their path and stopped to let Julian pass by. Selena heard one say to the other, “Oi, look at this. An Aluren.”
“I still remember the Bazira witch, don’t you? Our good librarian will shit his britches…” and then the men were passed them.
Selena sucked in a breath. “Did you hear that? A Bazira…”
“I’ll see what I can find out tonight,” Julian said.
Selena had heard there was a library on Isle Nanokar –a curiosity that harbored ancient relics and scrolls, much of it flotsam that had washed on the beaches over the decades. A vague hope of being able to see it had flitted through her but the cold was unbearable. Now hope burned in her.
But a Bazira witch was here. Accora? If so, the god is good. My suffering here has a greater purpose.
In her room, Julian set Selena down on the feather bed while Ilior went immediately to the hearth to build a fire. It wasn’t a large room but not small either; homey and neat. Aside from the bed, there was a wardrobe made of fine teak, and desk and chair by the window, and some pleasant paintings on the walls of brigantines under sail. Selena tried to remove her sword belt but her hands wouldn’t cooperate. Julian appeared over her, his face hard and cold.
“This is all a bloody mistake,” Julian spat. He tore off her sword belt and dumped it onto the floor, then yanked off one of her boots.
“I had to help him. He was in so much pain…”
Julian looked to say something and then snapped his mouth shut. He pulled off her other boot.
“No, the fire please,” she said when he went to the bed and made to turn the blankets down. He nodded grimly and lifted her again. She looked up at him. A small hook-shaped scar marred the olive skin under his chin and his breath smelled of honey from the mead. His eyes were like chips of sea green glass; beautiful but hard and dark under furrowed brows.
“We had to come here,” she told him. “Or else be overrun with merkind.”
He grunted in reply and then set her at the hearth that Ilior was stoking into a huge blaze. Julian brought the bed’s blankets to the floor and Selena curled up on them while he tucked them around her. She burrowed in but with little hope. She had been wearing the wound long enough to know better.
“I’ll watch over her,” she heard Ilior intone from above her. Inside, in the warm room, his voice was strong again and brooked no argument.
Julian muttered something unintelligible, the door opened and shut, and there was silence.
“Is he gone?” Selena asked, staring into the fire. When Ilior said yes, her tears fell in earnest. She heard a great creaking of leathery skin stiffened by cold, and then her friend was beside her.
“Are you in pain? Are you…?”
“The townsfolk,” Selena said, her breath hitching. “Do you hear them? Down below, celebrating and laughing and dancing?”
“Yes.”
“It’s life.” Selena recalled the sound of Julian’s heartbeat against her ear and the strength of his arms around her, holding her. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a steadying breath. “If I weep too much I won’t stop.”
Ilior hand was heavy on her shoulder. “Rest. I’ll keep the fire burning.”
She drifted into a fitful sleep, waiting for the warmth of the fire to reach her. It never did.
Windpaint
Selena awoke with a miserable headache; the result of sleeping with her jaw clenched tight and every muscle in her body rigid. She healed herself to dispel the aches and pains, but the exhaustion of a fitful night lay heavy on her.
No, she thought, sitting up. A Bazira was here. I heard it. The god is testing me and I must answer.
The window revealed a sky was flat and gray, but still. The storm had ended and the moon would soon be full. She thought those good omens, both.
Even so, climbing out from under the bundle of blankets took effort. She moved like an old woman of ninety summers. Ilior was at the fire, stoking it with a poker. He met her eye, his brow ridges raised.
“I’m fine,” she told him, and he nodded. His silence was worth more to her, at times, than his words. “What is the hour?”
“Nearly noon,” he said and held up a hand when she would protest that she’d stayed abed too long. “You tossed and turned until the wee hours. It wasn’t until dawn that you actually slept. I was not about to wake you.”
“Thank you.” Selena rose to her feet to peer into the mirror. She still wore her bulky seal fur coat and her hair was a tangled mess. “I heard a man speak of a Bazira last night.”
Ilior nodded. “I heard the same.”
Selena flexed her stiff fingers and combed them through her hair. “My first teacher, High Reverent Coronus, once told me that the Two-Faced God’s intentions were like the phases of the moon. That at times, there is darkness and pain. That is the Shadow face’s new moon—black and cold. But if one serves faithfully, patiently, the blessings of the Shining face appear, like the waxing moon in the night sky.”
Ilior said nothing.
&
nbsp; Selena tamed her hair into a smooth, tight braid. “The sky has been black a very long time but with Skye’s decree about my wound, finding Captain Tergus to take us off Uago, and now this…” She nodded at her reflection. “The moon is waxing. Accora was the Bazira they spoke of. I can feel it. Our fortunes are turning.”
They have to, don’t they? At long last…
They descended the stairs to a full common room. Nearly all the whalers were home from the season’s last catches and the celebratory carousing would last until the merchant packets from Isle of Lords arrived, and then start again when the coin and goods had been exchanged. Julian sat at a table with the whaler captain from the night before. He waved her over.
“Captain, this is Selena Koren and Ilior,” Julian said. “This is Captain Tunney. He was kind enough to let us sail past yesterday morning.”
“I remember.” Selena sat across from the captain; grateful Julian had been thoughtful enough to pick a table nearest the roaring hearth. She took a chair and set her back to the fire. “Well met, and thank you.”
Captain Tunney waved a hand. “T’warn’t nothin.’” His face was free of paint, revealing a warm, broad face of middle years shielded by a scraggly beard and bushy brows. “After what you did for Boris…well, I might be in the god’s good graces fer letting you pass so you were there when he needed you.” He looked her up and down. “I heard you was taken ill yerself last night. I hope this day finds you well?”
“Well enough,” Selena said, forcing a smile.
Tunney pushed a plate of grilled fish and turnips toward her. There was a bowl of warm bread and a pot of tea as well. “Eat up, then! Takes a fair ton of hearty food to keep yer inner fires burning against our cold winds.”
Selena cleared her throat. “Again, thank you.” She took up her fork as a serving girl brought a similar plate—with much larger portions—to Ilior.
“Captain Tunney was just telling me about a strange visitor to Isle Nanokar,” Julian said pointedly.
“Strange visitors, indeed!” Tunney said with a nod at Ilior. “An’ here methought our little oasis in the snow was hidden away from the gen’ral excitements o’ Lunos. But we’ve now seen Aluren Paladins and dragonmen—”
“And Bazira?” Selena said with a reproachful glance, but Ilior shrugged off the slur and concentrated on his food.
“Aye, them too.” The captain wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “I understand yer after one such this very moment; the self-same witch who lived among us for two years.”
“Two years?” Selena felt her heartbeat quicken.
“Aye, two years though I couldn’t even recollect her name until young Tergus here reminded me.”
“Accora,” Selena said. “Her name was Accora, wasn’t it?”
“Aye, that was it,” he agreed.
The moon is waxing. She exchanged gladdened looks with Ilior, but Julian shook his head at her and jerked his head at the whaler captain.
Tunney swallowed a forkful of turnips and washed them down with his tea that smelled strongly of tree bark. He wiped his beard with a cloth and said, “But like I told yer Cap’n Tergus, me tale won’t be so much good to you, seeing as it’s nigh twenty years old.”
Selena dropped her fork with a clank. “Twenty?”
“Aye, lady.”
Julian made a face as if to say, “I warned you,” and leaned back in his chair with his mulled wine.
Ilior glowered at him. “But even so there might be something useful in your recollections that will help us,” he told Tunney.
“Aye, I hope that be true. I hate to see a beautiful lass look so aggrieved.”
Selena forced a smile. “Anything you remember will be helpful.”
“Well, lessee.” Tunney leaned back in his own chair and ran his hand down his beard. “I’d just seen my thirtieth winter, already wearin’ in me first schooner. This Bazira, she came on a dark tide, it seems. Like she was up to no good fer her faith. I seem to recall her doing some preaching ‘bout the Shadow face an’ the like but it didn’t last.”
“Why not?”
“Likely she was shunned for being a Bazira,” Ilior said, forking the last of his fish. “Can’t blame you for that.”
“Nay, Master Ilior,” Tunney said, “that’s not how we do things here. The Shadow face and the Shining are two halves of the same coin. And a coin’s value ain’t found but on one side or t’other, but in the whole.” He waved his spoon in the air. “Here, we got the wind an’ sea an’ snow to fret ‘bout. We hafta wrastle the oceans’ giants for our livelihoods. Angering the god be a foolish risk when we got risk enough.”
“Why did Accora cease her proselytizing?” Selena asked.
“It seemed like her heart warn’t in it. Or even like she were scairt. That’s what Byric down in the library thinks anyhow. Don’t know what the likes o’ her had to be scairt about, but there t’is. You should seek out old Byric. He spent more time’n anyone with since she spent most days perusing our library.”
“What was she looking for?”
“That I cain’t say neither. Byric be the man t’ask.”
“Very well. Byric it is,” Selena said, pushing back her plate. “Where can I find him?”
“In the library, o’ course. He’s there most time. Protective he is, of our strange li’l treasure trove.” The captain finished off his tea and set the mug down with a thunk. “I’ll take you there meself, if yer up to go.”
“Yes, now please,” Selena said.
Ilior shook his head. “After last night—”
“I will go,” she insisted. “The god did not send us here without purpose.”
“It’s not near,” Tunney said, “but we can take me dogs. I know they be itching for a run.”
“Why would we take your dogs?” Selena asked. “Is the way dangerous?”
“Nay, t’isn’t. My dogs be fer pulling the sled.”
“Very well,” Selena nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Not yet, lady,” he said. He swiveled in his chair. “Oi! Hilka! You got any windpaint?”
The innkeeper’s voice called back from the storeroom behind the bar. “Not if yer to use it in me room an’ make a holy mess o’ me tables n’ floors!”
Captain Tunney chuckled. “Pardons. I’ll acquire our necessities an’ meet you in the cask house, out back.”
“Captain Tunney told me about the library last night,” Julian said after the whaler had left their table. “It’s tucked in a wind-swept canyon underground, reachable only after a two-league trek.”
“Then Ilior, you must remain here,” Selena said. “The cold won’t kill me, but it can you,” she told her friend. She gentled her tone. “You can’t protect me from it.”
Vai’Ensai pressed his lips together. “Twice now, you’ve tried to leave me behind.”
Selena took his hand. “For your own health. I don’t want to see you suffer needlessly.”
“And what of your suffering?”
“Accora is a means to its end,” Selena said. “Its final end. I can’t falter now.”
She was relieved when Ilior finally nodded, albeit slowly, stiffly, as if it took everything he had to let her go. He turned to Julian, his eyes hard. “You will go and watch over her.”
Julian snorted a laugh into his wine cup. “As you command.”
“I’ll come too.”
All three glanced up to see Niven, bundled in a fur-lined cloak. He drew himself up. “It is an Aluren matter, after all, and I am a devoted adherent to the Shining face.”
Selena was about to protest but thought better of it. If there is an injury along the way, I may be too weak to heal it.
“Yes, of course. Let’s go.” She paused to lay her hand on Ilior’s arm. “Stay warm.”
He rumbled deep in his throat, like stones rolling down a hill. “Stay safe.”
“I will,” she said, and left him at the fire; the Vai’Ensai’s face dark and grim as he watched them depart.
Behind the White Sail sat the cask house, a large, squat, stone building that reminded Selena of the Guild for its plain, square shape. Inside, the walls were lined with barrels, stacked atop one another and the floor was strewn with pine needles that whispered underfoot. By the light of Captain Tunney’s oil lantern, Selena counted seven or eight long wooden tables with benches. They were shielded from the wind in here but the air was crisp and cold.
“Sometimes, the carousing gets to be a bit much when the merchantmen come to buy and sell,” the captain said, “and the Sail be full to bursting. The overflow comes here.” He set the lantern on the nearest table along with his other burden: two small buckets, one splattered with white mud, the other dark brown. “There be other inns an’ taverns on Nanokar, but Hilka an’ her old man run the best o’ the bunch. Merchants from Isle o’ Lords, especially, prefer her lodgings. They be used to the finer things.” He thumbed his nose and gave Selena a wink.
“Is this where the oil is stored?” Niven asked, looking at the casks.
“No, young sir,” Captain Tunney said. “That treasure be kept elsewheres, far away from flame and hearth fires, and drunken men with their pipes and smokes. And I cain’t be saying where so don’t ask,” he said with a laugh. “These here hold wine and mead. Now then. The trek be long and the wind be biting, as we like to say. Paint up.”
Selena watched as the man dipped his hand into the bucket of white mud and smeared it on the lower half of his face.
“It’s to protect the skin,” Julian told Selena, “from wind and sleet and the like.”
“Aye, how else you think I keeps me youthful looks?” Tunney laughed.
“Does each person wear the same designs?” Selena said, thinking back on the elaborate designs she’d seen some of the sailors wear.
“You can paint yerself however you please, but most men end up choosing something meaningful to them.” He gave them all a stern eye. “An’ you cain’t be asking ‘bout a man’s choosing, neither. T’is bad luck.”