The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree

by S. A. Hunt

  I also learned quite a few nautical terms from the crew, earned a few pieces of Ainean currency (called “council talents”), and got a better look at their strange segmented armor.

  The armor looked like a dark-green version of the Batsuit from the Christopher Nolan Batman films, only it had no cape or cowl. It was not crafted by any Ain or K-Set blacksmith...according to a sailor named Gosse Read, the thin green plates were artifacts left by the original inhabitants of the Antargata k-Setra, the Etudaen.

  He took one of the gauntlets off and let me examine it. The material visually resembled the shell of a June bug, but it was completely impervious, as Read demonstrated when he scared the hell out of me by attempting to break my arm with an oar.

  I also got a chance to examine the lightning-gun the crew of the Vociferous had used to stave off the Saoshoma. It was also an artifact from K-Set. The lone engineer-bosun hired to maintain it had a rudimentary understanding of how it worked, but had no more idea of how to reproduce it than I did. He told me that it was salvaged and repaired by a scientist named Atanasije that had gone missing in the war against the No-Men.

  He didn’t have the insight I did, coming from 21st century Earth. I could plainly see that the turtle-shell “protective dome” he so proudly demonstrated to me by firing a musket ball at it was in fact the solar-panel array that powered it. I told him that if he kept damaging it, the “storm spear” (as Walter had described it) would no longer work.

  I looked underneath the shell to see if there was any other damage. I got a glimpse of a strange, familiar icon stenciled on the body of the machine...a stylized eagle, wings spread and head in profile. It was barely visible, worn away by age. Something was underneath it—it looked like words—but they were so deteriorated they were illegible even if I had been able to read the language.

  He told me to “shite yerself and away with ye, smart-arse”.

  While I was roaming the Vociferous, Sawyer held constant vigil over Noreen as she became more and more ill. It was beginning to look like more than a simple cold, as the coughing had worsened. Everything after the evening of Day Two came in disjointed episodes, as I had elected to sleep through the rest of the trip in one of the rope hammocks.

  To my chagrin, I found that it is nearly impossible to lie face-down in a hammock without breaking one’s back, so as I lay curled on my side, I faded in and out of consciousness. At one point I woke up to the smell of honey and lemons. Sawyer was administering some sort of steaming-hot fragrant mead to Noreen.

  “If you can keep this down,” Sawyer was saying, “we’ll try the soup again.”

  The next time I awoke, it was to the sound of shouting. We had made landfall.

  Sawyer reluctantly left Noreen in her hammock and came topside with me to watch the ship come into port. We stood at the starboard bow bulwark, as the crew brought us in at a slow angle.

  Salt Point was a pleasant surprise, a bustling seaside metropolis that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an island in the Mediterranean back home. Tall chalk cliffs overlooked the bay, arrayed with layers of chiseled terraces. These were clustered with half-timbered houses with green saltillo roofs.

  The streets were a fine lacework of narrow cobblestone pathways; towers and battlements of older pedigree speared upward from the maze. They were joined by squat gothic towers constructed of grim gray stone and capped with tall steeples, their tips streaming long red pennants.

  I could even see a gravel path winding out of town into the scrubby highlands, where the jagged ruins of a lighthouse held dominion in the skyline with tufts of desert brush and a sail-armed windmill. A flagpole on one of the towers flew a banner with the now-familiar Kingsman symbol, an elegant shield with a pair of sixguns over a stylized wolf-face.

  I got the general impression of a medieval German village that had been transplanted into Mexico.

  I smiled at Sawyer as armored sailors scurried around us, preparing to dock.

  “How does it feel?” I asked.

  He couldn’t help but return the grin. I could feel him restraining the joy of finally seeing the land he’d vicariously grown up in. “It feels fantastic, Ross. This is...unbelievable. If I had to do it all over, I’d step right into that elevator with you again.”

  That did all but eradicate the guilt I’d been feeling at bringing them into this world. “Is it anything like you imagined?”

  “I don’t know. So far, it’s more than I ever thought it would be. The Saoshoma was a thousand times scarier and more incredible.... I mean, it was mind-blowing. That thing was downright majestic...for a sea serpent.”

  As we drew near, men began to assemble at the edge of the dock to receive us, ropes coiled over their shoulders.

  “I’ve been wondering something.”

  “What?” Sawyer asked, his eyes fixed on the wharf.

  “Destin...did my dad make it up, or has it always been here?”

  “Like, did he write it into existence? Or did he discover it, and wrote about it?”

  “Yeah. I can’t make up my mind.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think it’s always been here. Like the story Bayard told you, the Silen came to tell Ed about it, to ‘slake the thirst of imagination’ with the waters of the Sea of Dreams,” he said, elaborating the phrase with a grand flourish of his hands. “But who really knows?”

  “We’ve got to find the Silen,” I said. “I want to find out who killed my dad, and and I want to know why the Silen brought us here.”

  “I wonder if Normand knew about your dad’s life in our world. They were pretty close at the end of the last book your dad published. Eddick Bridger was serving as Clayton’s steward, housesitting the Rollins estate in Maplenesse while Clayton and Normand went to fight in the war.”

  “I don’t know. Do you think he’s still alive?”

  “We could ask Deon Rollins.”

  “Ask him what, pray tell?” said Walter, strolling leisurely up behind us, twirling a leather chupalla on his finger as a nearby sailor stepped past us and flung a coil of rope off the side of the ship. The Deon whipped the hat onto his head and tugged the brim down.

  Sawyer took the reins of the conversation. “Did Normand Kaliburn survive the war?”

  “Survive it?” laughed the Deon. “He didn’t merely survive it—after King Fairbairn was slain by the Redbirds during the Battle of Ostlyn, Normand was appointed as his replacement by the Council, in gratitude for avenging Jude Fairbairn’s death. You lot have really been out of the news, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah,” said Sawyer. “Way out in the ass-end of nowhere.”

  As he spoke, I saw a light come on in his eyes and I turned to find Noreen standing behind me.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked. She made a face and shook her head. I could tell she was still cold, as she was clutching my jacket tightly around herself like a shawl, even though the afternoon was comfortable to me even in my shirtsleeves.

  “I feel absolutely horrible. Wow!” she said, cutting between us to lean against the rail and take in the stately beauty of the timber-frame buildings now looming over us.

  Walter asked me, “Where do you plan to go after leaving Salt Point?”

  “I’ve been told that my father was serving as steward for your father when the war began,” I explained. “I’d like to go to Maplenesse and talk to Clayton about Lord Eddick, if possible, and to see if my father left anything that could be of use to the investigation, or of sentimental value to me.”

  Walter screwed up his mouth in empathy for delivering disappointment. “I do loathe to be the bearer of luckless tidings, but my father the Chiral is in Ostlyn with the King and the Council. He more or less lives there now, and he’s left the ancestral manse to me.

  “However,” he said, “I would not be averse to accompanying you to our estate so you can visit your father’s house. I will be departing for home without my contingent and would be glad of the company—it’s a long and lonely journey when a man has no one
to banter with.”

  “I like the sound of that,” I said. “I’ve never really been to Ain, and I’m a bit lost.”

  “I’m assuming your father sired you in K-Set and you’ve lived in the colonies ever since.”

  “That would be correct.”

  “Well, then!” exclaimed the Deon, throwing his arms wide, as if to encompass the glory all around us. “Welcome to the land of Ain, traveler!” he said, then promptly walked away and down the gangplank, sidestepping a soldier carrying a heavy crate. “Come fetch me once you’ve seen to your friend. I will be at the Vespertine.”

  _______

  We were left to roam Salt Point, looking for somebody that could sell us what we needed to help Noreen. We had to get it cracked before it turned into a deadly-serious issue. As we marched up and down the cobblestone streets looking for signs that indicated the shop of a “seplasiary”, the Aineans paused to assess us and went back to their business with little more than disapproving headshakes and sidelong glances to their companions.

  Most of them were coming home from wherever they worked, their spouses doing a bit of last-minute cleaning, their kids playing a odd version of hopscotch in a gamespace of fifteen concentric rings, like a target. They hopped toward the center, yelling and pausing, laughing every so often.

  Like I mentioned before, our fashion wasn’t so far removed from theirs; we could have simply been ahead of the style curve, so to speak. Luckily, none of us were wearing shirts with Earth-culture pictures on them.

  I was wearing a gray henley shirt, tan cargo pants, and my trusty dock shoes, Sawyer had on a blue sweater, a pair of corduroys, and Doc Martens, and Noreen wore jeans, Plimsolls, a colorful sundress that looked like an African dashiki, and my leather jacket. Not quite the linen and wool suits, ponchos, and petticoats the Aineans were wearing, but not too anachronistic...at least, that’s what I told myself.

  We still stuck out like sore thumbs. It behooved us to find something more appropriate to wear, before people started asking too many questions.

  After a little while of wandering through winding alleyways, we came into an open marketplace, populated by dozens of stalls, kiosks, and shops. The street was long and straight, running between two-story buildings along the back side of town, and choked with traffic milling in both directions. Gravel crunched and crackled under our feet, and the air was chaotic with the voices and street-music of a hundred or more people.

  I was grateful for the crowd, because it cut down on our visibility and ironically made it easier to move through Salt Point unnoticed. All thought of subterfuge, however, went out the window when I saw the wares for sale.

  There were tables arrayed with a collection of things made of some honey-colored stone, a beautiful translucent gem shot through with veins of dark, sparkling green. Vases, statues and figurines, flutes, dishware, chalices, hinged jewelry boxes, cameo pendants, tiny scale models of castle towers, spheres that looked like bowling balls and billiard balls made of amber. It was inlaid into the long necks of lutes and fiddles, and framed the striking surfaces of tall bongo drums ribbed with bones.

  We also saw garments in many colors and styles, from wool three-piece suits in earthy shades, to frilly velvet skirts trimmed in snow-white lace, and also pieces of the sleek green armor salvaged from K-Set. Intricate, embroidered linen tunics, hide vests, finished and unfinished leather overcoats, silk robes in a hundred dazzling colors, and even the blood-red cloaks worn by the Grievers.

  We passed a table with a great many revolvers, glittering like polished silver in the afternoon sun, accompanied by oiled leather gunbelts and cases of brassy cartridges. Laid out beside them was an assortment of wicked-looking knives and swords of many shapes and sizes.

  A few stalls had cages containing a veritable menagerie; one cage held a huge black parrot with brilliant green eyes that was methodically picking apart and eating one of the potato-apple vegetables. In another was a pair of tiny yellow birds with black crests on their heads that made them look as if they were wearing wigs. I even saw something that looked like a skinny red koala with a pendulous, flaccid nose and ears that flapped like those of an elephant.

  As we passed each display, the men tending them called to us in friendly, eager voices, trying to wave us into their space. Even miserable Noreen couldn’t help but marvel.

  Once or twice I accidentally caught one of their hands when they offered it and was led into a stall to my friends’ amusement, where I had to pretend to be interested, and then excuse myself. “I’m sorry. No, I’m sorry. I don’t have enough money! Maybe later. Thank you, though! They’re very nice. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

  Sawyer and Noreen had spotted a shop across the street with a huge collection of colored bottles in the window. The sign over the door was in bizarre lettering none of us could understand, or at least I couldn’t. I’m sure they had some degree of familiarity with Ain written language.

  A shirtless man sat on the sidewalk outside, playing a steel lap guitar and howling nonsense lyrics at the top of his lungs. I couldn’t understand him, but I could’ve stayed and listened to it if I had time.

  We ventured inside and found a rather dark, rustic shop only illuminated by the furtive flames of a candle on a back shelf, and the sunlight coming in through the entrance and the colored glass bottles. The floor was floured with sawdust and creaked as we walked on it.

  An old man stood up from behind the counter, wearing a vest and shirt with arm-garters. He had a goatish beard—and hair just as long and bushy. He could have been a bookie that took bets on gator wrestling in the Everglades.

  “What can I do for ye?” he asked, taking in the sight of us over the rim of his glasses. He was missing several teeth, which made him whistle a bit as he spoke.

  I took out the money I’d won back on the Vociferous for singing and showed it to him. “You are the local seplasiary?”

  “I am, I am. You don’t seem the sort to be shopping for perfume, so I guess you’re here for something a touch more medicinal?”

  “You are correct. Our friend here fell in the ocean last night and got sick.”

  The seplasiary came out from behind the counter to appraise Noreen. He ordered her to open her mouth, looked down her throat, and then in her ears, manhandling her head as if it were a cantaloupe. She looked rather bemused by the examination.

  He wrote something down on a notepad. “I expect it’s a touch of the sea-plague. Your friend’s got a day, two at the most.”

  “What?” we all said in unison.

  “That was a joke,” he said, going to the shelf to sort through the vials there. He spoke over his shoulder, “It takes a clever man to understand my geeeen-ius brand a’ humor.” He took down a couple of bottles and a paper envelope and brought them over to the counter, where he picked up a clipboard and checked them off on an inventory ledger.

  He handed it to me and said, “Just sign here.”

  I found a fountain pen by the cashbox and picked it up, figured out how to use it, and was about to put down my signature when a thought hit me. “Just what’s in these bottles, anyway?”

  “Oh, you know,” said the seplasiary. “The usual.”

  “What’s ‘the usual’?”

  “How the hell should I know?” he said, throwing his hands up in a shrug. “I’m just watching the place while the shopkeeper takes a piss. I don’t know nothin’ about any of this stuff.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Why hell, no! Just sign your name, ya dodder—afore I die of gray age.” And with that, he picked up a nearby vial, popped the top, and took a long swig of the dark green contents. Sawyer made a face as I signed the ledger. The seplasiary burped.

  I put the brassy “council talents” on the counter. They looked measly next to the bottles. “Is this enough? It’s all I have.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said the man, lifting his glasses to look under them at the money.

  “What?”

  “That’s just abou
t exactly what you needed,” he said with a wink, and put them in the cashbox.

  Sawyer took the vials and put them in his pockets. I lingered at the counter for a second, thinking, and finally the old man seemed to snap out of it.

  “Oh, right. Ahem. The slightly yellow long-necked phial,” he said, indicating it with one knobby-jointed finger, “That there’s your tincture of astragalus. Put a few drops of that on your tongue every day. The envelope is tea leaves for cham-o-meel. Does a body goooood,” he crooned through his teeth, puckering his lips. “The big bottle is coconut oil. You can just gulp that down any ol time. You can even put it in your hot bathwater.”

  I uncorked the coconut oil on the way out the door to smell it. It was repulsive and sickly sweet.

  “That bad, huh?” asked Noreen. “He said the magic words, guys: hot bathwater.”

  “No! It’s greaaat,” I said, though I’m sure I was less than inspiring. Sawyer elbowed me. “Where’d you get that money?”

  “Oh, I earned it back on the steamboat on the way here.”

  “Oh yeah? How’d you manage that? You don’t strike me as a cardshark.”

  “I taught a couple guys Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” I said, and almost dropped the bottles when they both thumped me in the shoulders.

  Dirty Dead Arse

  THE VESPERTINE WAS A HONKY-TONK, if fantasy worlds had honky-tonks. As we approached the saloon on the edge of town, we could hear the talking and music down the street, even over the ebbing noise of the dwindling crowd outside. It didn’t have the batwing door I anticipated, and there wasn’t a hitching post outside, but there was an upper balcony overlooking the street, and a few people were relaxing there in the dying bronze light of the day.

  I suddenly realized what I hadn’t seen since we’d arrived in Salt Point: horses. There were none to be found. I was about to ask Sawyer about it when one of the shadows on the front porch detached itself and came out into the sunset’s caress to greet us.