by Dawn Cook
Satisfaction warmed Alissa. Lacy’s boat was too small. How tragic.
Kole frowned as he turned his attention over Strell’s shoulder to a noisy group that had entered and arranged themselves at the counter. Alissa couldn’t help but notice their shoes were wet with mud. “Now?” Kole said as he looked back. “The silvers are spawning in the shallows, and the leather is ready up-coast. Strell, you know as well as I you won’t find a ship willing to forgo the usual runs for a pleasure sail out to the current. There’s too much money to be made the usual way. Not unless you can meet the profit of a regular run.”
Strell smiled confidently. “Put the word out anyway?” he asked as the innkeeper rose.
Kole bobbed his head. “Aye. I’ll do that.” He looked to the back of the room where the dark blackness of a hallway beckoned. “Take the last room on the left if you want, on the ground floor. It’s the largest, and my wife has a curtain over half of it. There’s a bed that ought to be long enough for even your legs. Help yourself to the stew.” He nodded to Lodesh. “I’ll let you know when you’ve run out of what you gave me already. Though if you eat like Strell, here, it’ll be tomorrow.” He was smiling when he said it, and with a nod to Alissa, he returned to his counter and the newest patrons.
Alissa turned to the dark mouth of the hallway. A curtain? she wondered. She would have preferred a door. Strell had leaned back on two chair legs, a very satisfied look about him. “Now what?” she asked him.
Grinning, Strell thumped back to an upright position. “Now we eat and wait.”
Lodesh set his mug down, his gaze fixed upon it. “Room and board for a song,” he said softly. “Perhaps I went into the wrong profession.”
Strell smiled, but Alissa thought there was a trace of sadness in his eyes. “For a song. For now,” he added. “By next week, the novelty will have worn off, and it won’t get me even a bowl of bilge slop.” His gaze met Alissa’s, filled with an emotion she couldn’t place. “But I don’t mind moving from place to place.” He set his hand atop hers. “Not anymore.”
8
Alissa balked in the dark of the hallway, her toes edging the arch of lamplight in the inn’s common room. It was astonishingly quiet for the number of people crammed into it to hear Strell perform. Only Strell’s voice shifted the hush, rising and falling with the cadence of music.
Beyond the gaping front door was the night-black street. Alissa wondered what time it had gotten to be as she fingered Redal-Stan’s watch on its cord about her neck. Forcing her hands down, she rubbed the red scratches on her knuckles. It had taken all her guile to lock Talon in their room, and she felt more alone than usual without the bird on her shoulder.
Earlier this afternoon, Alissa had been lulled to sleep by the damp heat. The cool of evening and the noise of song had awakened her. Actually, Beast had woken her, pulled to the forefront of Alissa’s thoughts by the rhythmic thumps of a dance tune. It had since stopped, but Beast drifted at the edge of Alissa’s awareness, should it start again, comforting and familiar.
Alissa was glad Beast had woken them. Quite by accident, Alissa had reached Silla’s thoughts while asleep. As before, the young Master had startled herself awake upon catching wind of Alissa. Perhaps next time, Alissa thought, she ought to try to appear as a raku. She never had before. Alissa sighed, running a hand over her head to try to smooth out the wave her pillow had put into her hair. She didn’t like being the Navigator’s night demon.
As if drawn by her motion, Strell’s gaze met hers from across the room. His beard had grown in over the last few days to make him look more like one of the sailors surrounding him. He nodded his distant greeting, his intent, spellbinding speech never hesitating as his hands gestured expansively. The only other movement was from a few subdued women and young boys tending the astounding variety of coastal people who had come to hear Strell.
The seamen, their skin dark from the sun and leathered by salt, leaned forward with an honest anticipation. They rubbed elbows with well-dressed women who chimed with every move, their eyes wide with alarm and their delicate hands covering mouths more often than not. With them were men in carefully tailored garments, their upright stance as much as their clean fingers saying they dealt in goods they didn’t make themselves. Most tried to hold a faint air of disinterest, but it was obvious they were as caught up in Strell’s magic as everyone else.
Alissa smiled. Apart from the few requests Strell had honored, the last two days had been stories and songs extolling the rewards to be found in chancing a path the timid shunned. It was obvious to her that Strell was trying to sway his audience. So far, no one was budging from well-traveled paths and known profits.
Strell’s familiar voice was compelling. The intensity of his gaze and the sound of his spellbinding voice seemed to touch her core, sending a shiver of emotion through her. Flustered, she turned in a sudden commotion, finding Lodesh making his careful way across the room.
“Did you have a good rest?” he whispered as he came up beside her.
“Yes, thank you,” she said. He took her arm and led her to a small table almost behind a support post. Her bells sounded loud in the hush, and she winced as heads turned. The basin-sized table held only one man, and after meeting his eyes for permission, Lodesh edged out a chair for her. Alissa gratefully sat as she recognized the old man who had seen them arrive several days ago. Immediately one of the serving boys was at her elbow.
“Tea?” she whispered. The boy nodded, slipping away with the stealth of a servant. She glanced at the man, relieved he wasn’t ignoring her but not bothering her either. Lodesh stood behind her as there were no more chairs. His hands rested upon her shoulders, and the scent of mirth wood slipped over her like a balm. Alissa breathed it in, feeling herself relax into that odd tautness he seemed so adept at pulling from her. She tugged at the hem of his shirt, and he dropped to a crouch beside her. “Any luck finding someone to take us out?” she asked softly.
“No,” came his vexed whisper. “Strell and Connen-Neute spent their afternoon arranging what we need for an extended voyage while I went through every tavern in town and even one under the docks. No one will risk deep water if there’s a sure wage to be made near shore.” He sighed. “I don’t want to go home because of someone else’s good business sense.” His smile was charmingly lopsided. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Alissa returned his smile, and he stood back up. She simply had to find Silla if only to convince the girl she wasn’t going insane.
“What about Keribdis?” Beast intruded. Alissa started, not knowing her second consciousness had been listening. “They go together, you know,” Beast added, sounding frightened.
“I know.” Alissa pushed her worry aside to concentrate on Strell’s story. It was one of her favorites about a raku learning how to sail. She had taught it to him, actually, hearing it from her father before he died, and she was delighted at the rapt attention of the crowd.
Her roving gaze found Connen-Neute sitting alone in a corner surrounded by a respectful distance his supposedly blind status conferred. He looked decidedly uncomfortable. The rims of his ears poking beyond the scarf were a shade of red she could see over the distance. “What’s wrong?” she sent privately across the crowded room.
Connen-Neute turned his scarf-wrapped eyes to her. “I nearly lost my fingers when I got them caught between a rope and a winch,” he said.
She blinked. “That story is about you?” she asked, and he shrugged glumly. His hand trembled as he lifted his drink, and her brow furrowed in concern. Lodesh had said he had been shopping. Alissa thought it looked more like he had been working the fields all afternoon. “You look tired,” she said, thinking haggard might be more accurate.
Connen-Neute’s shoulders shifted in a sigh. “I found a shaduf today,” he said, his thoughts tinged with a remembered pain.
Alissa’s lips parted in surprise, but before she could say anything, the young Master’s thoughts came slipping into hers with a
guilty swiftness. “I gave him a mercy burn. Turned his tracings to an unresonating ash. I had to, Alissa. The boy was on the edge of suicide, not knowing why he was having visions of death that always came true.”
She went cold, and her thoughts turned guilty. Shadufs were an unhappy accident that arose when there was too much mixing between the coast, foothills, and plains. Their tracings were almost complex enough to make the jump to Master as she had but were tragically malformed. Even so, they could do something no Master could: trip the lines of time forward instead of back. The talent would have been prized except that only death was strong enough to force itself backward through time. It had almost been her fate, missed by a very narrow margin.
“You should have woken me,” she admonished, reaching up to touch Lodesh’s hand as he placed it upon her shoulder. It was obvious the Keeper knew they were talking but was too polite to intrude. “I could have helped carry the pain.”
Connen-Neute pushed his cup of drink farther from him. “I managed. Besides, if Talo-Toecan finds out, I’ll be the only one in trouble.”
Alissa flicked her gaze to Strell and back again. “You should have called me anyway,” she repeated, almost angry. Her hand dropped from Lodesh’s at the thought of the agony he had endured to help the boy. Phantom pain or not, it hurt as if the Navigator’s Wolves were ravaging one’s soul when one burned another’s tracings, even in mercy. “Are you all right?”
“I will be tomorrow,” he thought faintly as he slowly spun the glass in his grip. “At least there were no septhamas in his family. That I’d have to tell Talo-Toecan about—and then he would investigate—and then he would want to know how the boy got burned in the first place.” He shuddered, the motion visible across the distance.
“How could you tell?” she questioned. “I thought the only way to find them was to work back from an upsurge of Keepers in a family line that should be commoners.”
Connen-Neute leaned to run a finger between his boot and his leg. “I asked the boy if any of his family could see ghosts. He said no.”
Alissa made a sour face. Sometimes the simplest tests were the ones she overlooked.
Septhamas were a rare group of people—almost as rare as her. Unlike shadufs, they were largely undetectable until their children all became Keepers instead of the expected commoners. Like shadufs, they were caught between Keeper and Master. But their misaligned tracings allowed them to exorcise ghosts.
Useless had spent an excruciating three days giving her the technical explanation, spouting terms like psychic imprints and ether frequencies. From what Alissa had picked out from his twaddle was that a tragedy often left behind an invisible imprint of the event. When a similar emotional state was reached, even hundreds of years later, it set up a resonance, setting the first imprint to relive itself, hence ghosts. Septhamas could change the frequency of the imprint so it no longer was capable of resonating.
The Hold largely ignored septhamas as they had yet to find a use for them. It would be extremely improbable to run into one as—like a shaduf—they needed a background hailing from the plains, foothills, and coast. To find one, though, would mean the Masters’ carefully contrived division of humanity into three separate groups had come dangerously close to completely breaking down.
The serving boy cut between her and Connen-Neute, and she straightened, dismissing her worried thoughts. There was a second cup for Lodesh, and she poured tea for him first. Lodesh crouched beside her to take the hot cup as she offered it to him. “Was Connen-Neute telling you about the boy?” he asked, his face frighteningly grim. She glanced at Connen-Neute and nodded. “I’m glad he did it,” Lodesh said. “His life was a living hell.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes, relieved when he stood back up. The cup of tea was hot in her hand, but she didn’t drink. Though she had nothing to do with the Hold’s policy of capitalizing upon the shaduf’s abilities, she still felt guilty. The Hold had refused to prevent Lodesh’s first love, a woman named Sati, from turning shaduf. Watching his future bride turn bitter and cold, losing even her ability to return his love, had nearly killed him. That Alissa had been the one to end Sati’s torture seemed a pale restitution for the Hold’s collective callousness.
From behind her, Lodesh shook his head in amazement. “Bone and Ash,” he said, his tone carrying a respectful awe as he clearly tried to change the subject. “Look at them. Every single one hanging on his words, wealthy and poor alike. I’ve never seen anything like it—and I’ve seen my share of story-tellers.” He shifted his weight to his other foot, his eyes on Strell. “I’d wager he could convince a queen into giving him her firstborn,” he said softly.
“I don’t think there’s anything he can’t do,” Alissa said as Strell met her gaze.
Lodesh made a muffled groan. She glanced over her shoulder, finding him pushing his fingers into his forehead as if he was in pain. “Are you all right?” she asked, concerned he might be still thinking about Sati.
“Yes.” He set his cup down and edged away. “I need some air is all.”
“All right.” Concerned, she watched him move through the crowd. His steps were unusually loud, and he vanished into the blackness beyond the open door. Alissa turned to the old man, giving him a noncommittal smile before going back to her tea. It had come with a hard biscuit, and she nibbled at it, surprised at the sharp, tangy taste.
Strell’s voice wove up and down, and Alissa listened to the murmur of it rather than the words. It took her by surprise when Strell finished and the room collectively sighed. Chairs scraped against the floor and loud calls for service rang out over the new chatter. Alissa peered over the rising heads to see Strell taking a well-deserved drink. Mug tipped up, he simultaneously swallowed and waved a hand to forestall any more requests. “Later!” he shouted cheerfully when he came up for air. “Give me a breath!” he added as protests were raised.
The innkeeper bustled out from behind the counter, looking more pleased than a farmer who had finished bringing in his hay before the fall rains. Alissa had all but forgotten the tired man sitting across from her when he leaned toward her and muttered, “He can see, can’t he.”
Startled, Alissa turned to him, hardly noticing when someone bumped her elbow in the press of people. “Beg your pardon?”
He gestured with his chin across the room crowded with motion. “The tall one you came in with. He’s not blind. I’ve been watching him. And you.”
Alissa glanced up to find Connen-Neute hidden behind a wall of people. “Yes, he can see,” she said. “He wears the scarves to cover his, ah, burns.” She frowned, not liking the lies. “He doesn’t want to frighten anyone,” she added to give some honesty to her answer.
The man’s head bobbed. “Aye. Unless you beg, a burn is a mark of shame.”
Alissa didn’t know what to say. She wished she could graciously excuse herself to make her way to Connen-Neute, but the room was too crowded. Fortunately, the man seemed satisfied, and she snuck glances at him as she waited for the room to settle. His hands gripping his mug had almost no nails, so worn were they, and his fingers were thick. She breathed deeply, deciding he smelled like wind, as Useless did. Her eyes closed, eager for her nightly talk with her teacher. It was still too early. Later, when most of the coast was sleeping, it would be easier.
“Is he the one who gave you your bells?” the man said suddenly. “The blind man?”
Alissa opened her eyes. “Ah . . . one of them,” she said hesitantly.
“One?” He took a drink and brushed his mustache. “You must feel very secure to wed a burned man who can give you nothing more in the future.”
“I’m not marrying Connen-Neute,” she said, glancing at Strell. He was deep in conversation with a man in an expensive-looking coat. The man was shaking his head vigorously. “He’s more like a brother,” she continued. “He’s here because he said I needed all the help I could get.”
The old man shifted his chair to put both his elbows on the table. His eyebrows
were shot with gray, but his eyes were clear. “You are going on the water?” he asked.
Alissa slumped, picking at the glazing on her cup. “If we can find someone to take us.”
“You want to go?” the man repeated.
“Of course. I’m the only one who can—” Biting her lower lip, she dropped her gaze.
There was a short silence, and she winced as the man leaned over the small table. “Just what are you looking for, Ma’hr?”
She said nothing. Strell had warned her how superstitious the coastal people were and that it would be best to approach their real goal carefully. Seeing she wasn’t going to say more, the man leaned back, and Alissa’s tension eased. “Why don’t you take one of your ships?” he said around the lip of his mug. “You have two or three hangin’ about your ankle, there.”
“If I had a ship, I’d be on it,” she said, judging that the room was still too crowed to make her escape. “Maybe I could buy one, though. How much are they?”
The man laughed. “It would cost you a pretty bell, that would. And then there’s a crew to be found, and someone to pilot it . . .”
Excited, Alissa leaned across the table. “Really? Is that all?” Not thinking, she reached to untie her anklet strap and set it jangling on the table. “Which one would do it, do you think?” She went cold as she saw his wide eyes, and she wondered if she had broken one of the coast’s many superstitions. But the man’s hand went out and took up her bells with a professional interest, not a voyeuristic one. The people nearby, too, seemed not to care, being more intent on procuring more ale than about her bells on the table.
The man’s brow furrowed in thought, and a hand touched his short beard. “This is an interesting chain,” he said, and Alissa exhaled. If they couldn’t charter a ship, they’d buy one.