***
She awoke suddenly, after a long, dreamless rest, to the feeling that something was burning in the middle of her chest. Trinka gasped and put a hand to the front of her dress. Her fingers closed around a hot little bottle. The cap flew open, and a cloud of purple mist began snaking its way out.
“Nefertari,” she groaned.
How had her cousin’s pet ended up coming with her? She raised her head―it still felt clunky, but not nearly so heavy as the night before―and looked around. The purse she had gotten from the genies lay next to her. The clasp had broken, and hundreds of talismans lay strewn across the ship. Nefertari, now fully formed, stretched her claws and stepped among them daintily, surveying her new surroundings with an air of extreme distaste.
As Trinka began scooping the talismans back into the genie purse, she couldn’t help but marvel at the incredible variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, and wondered what they were all for. Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. A rough-looking man with puffy cheeks covered in thick beard towered over her.
“What’s all this?” he demanded.
“It… it’s my talisman collection,” Trinka faltered.
The cracks in the man’s forehead deepened into a frown.
“My name’s Raido,” he said gruffly, “And as cargo master of this ship, I like things orderly.”
“I’ll try to get them all picked up,” Trinka stammered, as the ship’s motion made yet more of the talismans slide away from her grasp.
“All right, then. Best get you some breakfast.”
Trinka hurriedly scooped as many of the talismans as she could find back into her genie purse―all except Nefertari, who seemed to be in a very bad mood and hissed every time Trinka got near her. Even when she did manage to get her hands around the amorphous creature, they went right through the misticat’s middle.
“Come on, then,” she beckoned.
Nefertari hesitated, then brushed past Trinka with her tail held high and her eyes glowing brightly through suspicious slits. Trinka followed.
The men were gathered around a deep, round pot that hung from three poles that leaned in on each other like a tent. A dish of pale blue flames wavered underneath, and the stench that rose from the pot made Trinka’s nose and stomach turn as she drew near. She had thought that nothing could smell worse than the chunk of goat cheese Tarian had sent with her to the Parthalan School of Peace, but if such a thing existed, these sailors surely had it.
One of them offered Nefertari a small, a slippery looking creature with transfixed eyes on both sides, coaxing her with a “here kitty, fishie, fishie,” but the misticat turned up her nose and stalked off. She proceeded directly into the fire, lay down, and curled up contentedly among the flames.
“We’ve got to put the fire out,” the cook protested. “She might get up and walk off with it.”
A few of the men chuckled, but one of them removed the pot from its hook and stood over the blue flames with a bucket of water.
“Go on, get out of it!”
A single drop of water fell from the bucket and hit Nefertari’s tail. With a hiss, she sprang toward Trinka, and the sailor doused the flames. Trinka disentangled one arm from the misticat’s claws and held out the little jeweled bottle. With her source of warmth gone, Nefertari seemed only too glad to return to her plush, familiar surroundings. She floated up in a formless mist and disappeared inside. Trinka clamped the top closed hastily.
As the first group of men scraped the last bites of fish from their shallow bowls, dumped their dishes in a bucket of water, and went back to work, a second shift made their way over. Bram was among these, and Trinka felt a lump rise in her throat as he sat down beside her.
“What’s the matter? You’re not still sick from traveling, are you?” He put a rough, cold hand against her forehead.
“No.”
“Here, have something to eat.” Before she could protest, he shoved a low, two-handled bowl into her hands. Its handles curved into gently spiraling wave shapes, making it look a bit like a miniature version of the ship itself. A few pieces of gray, blubbery-looking flesh and a lot of flat, stringy green and brown pieces of plant floated in a salty smelling liquid. Her stomach grumbled and churned discontentedly.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“No, not for this, anyway,” she said softly.
“Really? You loved seaweed when you were a baby.”
“Dad!” Trinka exclaimed.
Bram chuckled. “Your mother used to send me out to—” he stopped abruptly. They looked at each other for a moment, painfully aware of the silence. Bram hurriedly scooped the last of his food into his mouth.
Trinka was suddenly aware that, without the warmth from the blanket or fire, she was shivering from head to toe. Her lightweight dress and soft house slippers from Apostrophe had been completely soaked through by the cold, wet winds of Brace.
“Come,” her father said as he stood and plunged his bowl into the bucket. “It’s time we get you set to sail.”
Trinka didn’t particularly want to spend time with him just then, but if it was either that or sit there shivering and eating seaweed, she had little choice. She scampered off after her father.
At his direction, she ducked inside what seemed to be the only place on the ship with any privacy—a cramped storage room built into the bow that made the hold on the airships seem spacious. She rummaged through her genie purse and pulled out her clothes from Bedrosian and Ellipsis.
“Here,” Bram returned with an armful of clothing. “I’m not sure how well it will fit, but… a sweater from Knop,” he began passing out items, “pants from Vann, and some old galoshes from Matros. They’re the smallest guys on the ship,” he explained, as Trinka held up the slick, dark overalls to her shoulders and watched the pants unroll until the knees were about even with her ankles.
“Thanks,” Trinka replied uncertainly.
Her father swung the hanging door down, leaving Trinka to figure out how to arrange her assorted clothing. She finally settled on putting her old school robes under everything again. If they kept out the mist on Ellipsis, they might do some good here—and they were certainly the most comfortable. She threw on her goat-hair jacket, but left off the skirt in favor of the sailor overalls, which she managed to resize somewhat by crossing the straps in back and rolling (and rolling) up the legs. The thick, sea-plant material made her legs feel like silk caterpillars packed into cocoons. Finally, she just managed to slide the galoshes over her goat-skin boots.
Trinka picked up the sweater, and its smell—damp and slightly salty, yet somehow fresh and invigorating—reminded her of her dad, and the joy she had felt each time he returned to Ellipsis from Brace. While Elora had begged Bram to leave his sailor clothes outside and put on something more suitable, Trinka had loved to be wrapped up in his arms just as he was.
Whatever sea plants the fibers were made from resulted in waves of blue, green, and even slightly purple strands in every shade, all rippling together. Tiny bits of silvery white flecks danced through the pattern here and there, like points of light glinting off the water’s peaks. Each color had its own unique texture, too: while some felt thick and bumpy and others were fine and delicate, none of them were rough and itchy like the goat hair fiber. The sea plants made each one soft and silky with just a little bit of shine. She remembered being laughed at when she had snuggled up to Bram as a small child and termed it a “rainbow of feels.” As she pulled the sweater over her jacket and overalls, it was still strange to think she really was here with her dad now, and wearing such a sweater herself.
She tucked the genie purse into the pants’ generous pocket, and emerged feeling rather bulky and ridiculously fashionless, but dry and warm.
Bram was waiting for her.
The two of them leaned over the side of the ship and looked out over the deep water mirroring the endless sky. Unlike the clouds on Ellipsis, which were constantly swirling and recoiling, the sky her
e was blanketed in a uniform gray, almost as if it were missing altogether. Like someone had replaced it with a blank canvas.
“So,” Bram began slowly, “is Annelise…?”
He seemed in no hurry to finish the sentence.
“She’s fine. She’s doing well in school. She made me the talisman so I could come see you after I… I didn’t get accepted into the Academy.”
Trinka watched her father closely for a reaction, but he only nodded slightly and kept staring out at the sea. “I tried to come by airship, but I fell off and ended up in Ampersand. I found Kolinkar. He’s happy there, and he’s married.”
Bram turned in surprise, and she saw that she had his attention. Trinka felt a glimmer of hope growing inside her. It only made sense that he hadn’t believed her story during her fevered confusion of arriving, but now he would understand.
As she began to explain, Trinka realized how much she had learned during her journey, and how little her father knew of it. Carefully, she recounted the events as clearly as she could, from leaving Ellipsis, to traveling through Ampersand, to finding her mother in Apostrophe. Her father’s eyes flickered a few times, but he stood in silence, his arms resting on the side of the ship, his gaze still staring out across the sea.
Trinka rummaged through her genie purse and found what she was hoping for.
“I’m telling you the truth,” she insisted, “Look.”
She held out the truthstone. It glowed a deep, heartfelt red.
“You’ve got to come and help her.”
Bram still said nothing, but absent-mindedly took the truthstone, rubbing its smooth surface between his hands.
“They’re her family, Trinka,” he answered at last. “If she hasn’t been able to get away, she hasn’t been trying very hard.”
With a sudden motion, he flung the truthstone out into the open sea. It skipped across the waves, then sank beneath the surface.
Trinka opened her mouth to protest―how could he have just thrown away her truthstone?―but she saw in his face that he hadn’t even noticed what he had done. He was as lost in his own thoughts as the stone was lost in the sea.
But she had noticed one thing before her talisman had disappeared beneath the water—the stone had been completely black.
Unable to look at her father or the waves that claimed her truthstone, Trinka turned away. A quick, scuttling motion caught the corner of her eye, accompanied by an unmistakable clanking. Whatever had made the noise seemed to have disappeared near the hull of the ship.
Trinka listened for a moment, resting her ear on top of a nearby barrel. A faint scuffling noise came from within, and she was sure she could hear voices too. Her curiosity aroused, Trinka got to her knees, crept around the edge of the barrel, and peered inside.
“Aaah!” Trinka pulled back with a start as a small, bright orange creature came bursting out with flickering blue flames shooting from his hands and head. A long, low creature with a thin blue body supported by four short feet trotted out and squirted him with water that came from a rubbery cord around his neck. The orange creature’s flames went out, and he stopped screaming as he stood there, dripping.
“Hello!” the blue creature said, still drizzling water. He blinked and smiled. “How do you do? I’m Spout. And this is Spigot.” A third creature spun around, shut off the water, and hopped down from his perch atop Spout’s head. He had a large, six-sided face with enormous eyes, a V-shaped smile, almost no body at all, and three stubby legs. Without him, Spout looked kind of like a small, skinny, blue dog wearing a flat, round hat.
“And this is Butwhat,” Spout nodded toward the orange creature.
“Butwhat?” Trinka stifled a smile.
“Well, we just call him that,” Spout supplied. ”’Cause he’s always saying ‘But what if something happens?’ Nothing ever does,” he added sadly.
Spigot swiveled his head wistfully.
“My real name is Alfredo,” Butwhat said stiffly. “Alfredo the emergency flare. It’s my job to alert the crew if any emergencies arise.”
“What kind of emergencies?”
“Oh, you know,” Spout explained. “Like if the ship starts to take on water—”
“What? The ship’s taking on water?” Alfredo shouted, his flames beginning to flicker again as he dashed back and forth.
“No, but if it did, Spigot and I could bail it out faster than you can blink,” Spout said proudly. “Say, how’d you get aboard anyway? You’re not here to bail, are you?”
“No, I’m Trinka. I’m just here to…” Trinka swallowed hard. “to, um, visit my father.”
“Good. Let’s inspect the rest of the ship.” Spigot and Spout scrambled off enthusiastically, with Butwhat hopping behind.
Spout dribbled water on everyone’s shoes, then accidentally stomped on one of the sailor’s hands, causing him to drop his rope.
“Sea gizzards and nereid spit!” he grumbled. “Can’t a sailor get any work done around here? I see you found the emergency kit. There’s no emergency, I trust?”
“No,” Trinka stammered. “Actually, they found me.”
The next sailor jumped back as Butwhat came hopping by, sending small sparks skittering dangerously close to the stack of green, cross-hatched sailcloth one sailor was unfolding. As another reached out to pull the cloth from harm’s way, one particularly enthusiastic spark hit his hand right in the middle of his tattoo.
“Of course there’s an emergency,” he fumed as a nearby sailor poured water on his hand. “There’s always an emergency when the emergency kit is here―they make all the emergencies themselves!”
Several of the sailors had even less kind words to say, and Spigot hopped into Trinka’s arms for safety while Spout took refuge under the hem of her skirt. She didn’t really mind their cold, damp bodies pressing into her clothes, but she eyed Butwhat nervously. He was hopping closer and closer to her, and if he decided to join Spout, she would be in greater danger of catching fire here than she had been in the jewel caves.
“Why do you keep them, then?” Trinka asked without thinking, until she saw the tears well up on Spigot’s face.
“Regulations require ‘em.”
“They’re just trying to help,” Trinka offered lamely, glancing down at Spout’s watery eyes peering up beneath the hem of her skirt. “It is their job.”
“Tell you what then,” the rope-making sailor announced. “If you’re so attached to troublesome creatures, you look after them.”
Several of the sailors murmured in agreement, and Spigot got so excited that all three legs slid out from under him, leaving him sprawled completely flat. He peered up at her like a very odd but adorable baby.
“Ahem, and speaking of troublesome creatures,” Raido announced. “Would you mind looking after the ones you already have?”
Trinka’s eyes followed his pointing finger and groaned inwardly. The faulty clasp on her genie purse had come open again, and a dozen talismans lay strewn nearby.
A tall, jeweled bottle lay tipped on its side, and beside it stood a genie.
“Hello!” she said pleasantly as Trinka approached. “I’m Ullali.”
Ullali looked very much like the other genies Trinka had seen at Aunt Vashti’s palace, but she didn’t seem to have quite the same bubbly personality. Her eyes had a dreamy, far-off look, and instead of the usual enthusiastic mannerisms, she swayed gently in time with the ship’s movement. Every now and then, she absent-mindedly produced a silky, pink genie scarf and let it flutter to the ship’s floor.
“Um, Ullali? If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind fixing my genie purse?” Trinka asked.
“Mind? I don’t mind anything,” Ullali answered. “Can I make you something to eat?”
Trinka thought of all the crisp, juicy fruit and sweet pastries that adorned the tables in Aunt Vashti’s palace. She knew genie food wouldn’t make her any less hungry, but maybe she could take a bite of it now and then while trying to choke down her next bowl of seawee
d.
“Yes please, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“What is?”
“Making me something to eat.”
“My goodness!” Ullali laughed. “Why would you want to be something to eat when you’re such a nice little girl? Oh, well, if that’s what you really want…” she raised her right finger.
“No!” Trinka exclaimed.
Ullali paused. “No what?”
“Um, never mind,” Trinka murmured. Her eyes turned to Nefertari, who had just come out of her bottle and was slinking toward the other end of the ship.
Leaving Ullali to absent-mindedly produce scarves, Trinka followed the misticat, who had just slipped through a crack in an open door that led to a storage area below. She pressed gently on the door, and her eyes grew wide with amazement. Inside, piles of clear jewels and white crystals filled the ship almost to the top of the low ceiling.
“Raido,” a voice called from above. “You’d better go see.”
The cargo master’s broad, bearded face appeared at the doorway. He looked at Nefertari, who had curled up on top of the jewels. She peered down at the “intruders” haughtily.
“Well, she won’t do ‘em any harm,” Raido said finally.
Trinka, relieved for the moment at least, hung the little bottle on a peg near the door in case the temperamental creature decided to return to her own quarters.
“You sure have a lot of gadgetry,” Raido commented as Trinka found a few more stray talismans strewn across the deck and put them back into her bag. She picked up a small yellow jewel that turned a pale blue when she held it up.
“Ah, feldspar,” Raido remarked. “Now that’s a useful thing for navigating. It shows you which direction you’re going, even when the sea spray gets so thick you can’t tell your own nose from your neighbor’s.”
“Ha! That’s a whopper. You know it’s no good except in fair weather,” another sailor countered.
Raido picked up a few of the scarves that Ullali had dropped, letting the soft, fluid fabric run across his hands. “Never felt anything like it. Never seen anything like it. I sure have seen some strange stuff since you came.”
Trinka couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve seen my share of strange things too, since I left Ellipsis.”
“You’ll have to write them down,” Raido responded. He gestured toward some marks on the deck and sides of the ship. “It’s getting pretty full, but we still have some room.”
Trinka looked at the marks more closely as she put the last scarf in her genie purse. She had noticed them before, but had forgotten to ask what they were.
“Is that how you write?”
“Sure. How do you write?”
“I don’t,” Trinka admitted.
“Thork!” Raido called. A man near the mast of the ship wiped his hands on his pants and walked over to them.
“Better teach this one how to write. She’ll be covering the ship with stories.” He winked and walked off.
“So, you never learned to write, eh?” Thork asked.
Trinka shook her head, embarrassed.
“How ‘bout read?”
“No,” she managed to mumble. “Do you think I could learn?”
Thork looked surprised. “Of course. Anybody can read.”
“I can’t,” Trinka confessed readily.
“Well, of course you don’t know how if no one’s taught you.”
At least he doesn’t seem to think I’m just stupid, Trinka thought, feeling encouraged.
Thork pulled a short, sharp blade from his pocket and found a little empty spot in the side of the ship. He plunged the knife into the soft, spongy wood and carved a small straight line, then capped it off with two angled lines.
“See? All of the marks represent sounds that you say. That marks the t sound. Here’s the r” Thork quickly swished three slightly curved lines, one above the other. “The i sound,” (one straight line), “the ng” He drew a curved line with a circle on the end that Trinka thought looked sort of like a wilting plant, “the k” (one tall straight line with two straight lines branching off it), “and the uh.” Thork finished with a low, curving line with handles on each end and a short, flat line underneath it.
“That’s my name. Trinka.”
“Now every time you see this mark,” he pointed to the “t” again, “you’ll know it makes the same sound as in your name. Here. You’d better keep this. I have a feeling you’re going to be needing it.” He folded the short blade back into its wave-shaped handle and gave it to Trinka, who slipped it into her purse.
Trinka soon found more “t” and “r” and “uh” marks among the many writings on the ship. Thork patiently interpreted the sounds for marks she hadn’t learned yet. (Thork claimed there were thirty-seven in all, but some of them looked alike to Trinka.) It was grueling at first, as she slowly sounded out each mark, but before long she was recognizing words here and there. With Thork’s help, some of the lines were beginning to make sense.
“Good,” Thork praised her again. “See? I knew you could learn.”
Trinka couldn’t help but smile.
The day passed quickly now that she could look at the symbols (well, some of them anyway) and understand what they meant. Everything on the ship was covered in writing, from the majestic verse on the mast (“a thousand ships have sailed the seas and a thousand in between them.”), to the rim of the cooking vessel that read: “Beware to all who touch this pot... when mouths are full, its bottom’s hot.”
Trinka even discovered writing on the back of Alfredo’s head, who insisted that it couldn’t possibly say “Whenever things are not quite right, you’re bound to see the idiot light”, while Thork and Spigot insisted that it did.
Trinka was just poring over a passage on the deck planks, when she heard someone behind her.
“Trinka.”
She looked up and saw her father standing there.
“Come along, there’s a lyftkarr wind blowing. It’s a strong, low breeze that seems to lift your right off your feet.”
Somewhat reluctantly, Trinka followed her father to the front of the ship. Bram grabbed a hold of a series of twists and knots that hung over the edge of the cargo hold and climbed up. The sea plants squished beneath her fingers and swung a little bit as Trinka grabbed the ropes and followed. He took her hand and helped her to the top of the small deck. A strong breeze nearly toppled her over at first, but she caught the rail and steadied herself.
The wind went rushing past them, lifting her hair and rippling against her clothes. She spread her arms wide to catch the feel of the wind. Even though she wasn’t much higher up than she had been before, she felt as though all of Brace were stretching out before her. A patch of pale, blue sky appeared, like a window in the wall of gray clouds, or the first stroke of color on a canvas. The lyftkarr wind playfully scooped up handfuls of water and tossed them about in tiny waves, making them sparkle in the sunlight like a sky full of shimmering stars. Everything was so wide and open and free. She felt as if she were floating above the waters, carried by the breeze, looking down at everything.
She knew, finally, what it felt like to fly.
She looked up at her father and smiled. The breeze gave an especially strong push that caught her off balance, and she grabbed the rail for support. She looked down and saw that there were words carved into the wood beneath her fingers. She recognized some of the letters, but it was still too long for her to decipher.
Her father read, “All that held us down is beneath us, now that we have learned to fly.”
She smiled at him, elated with happiness. Her father put his arm around her, and she hugged him back. But as he moved his hand away again, she caught a glimpse of something she had forgotten, something that made the joy she had felt just moments before fly away, leaving her with a heavy, guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach. He had a series of five small marks on his hand, and for the first time, Trinka understood these marks were letters that spelled a single word: Ash
ira.
Trinka and the Thousand Talismans Page 19