A Wind in the Night
Page 11
Wayfarer took some of the blame for this, for their disguises had mostly been her idea. If only she had realized how far Léshil was going to take her suggestion.
He had insisted that she stuff wads of extra clothing beneath her own to make her look fat. The greimasg’äh had then tasked her to learn to walk like an old, feeble woman. Léshil added an oversized cloak, purposefully made filthy, and a gnarled stick for a walking cane that he had scavenged from somewhere in the large inn.
Getting to the port in that stooped, hobbling fashion had left Wayfarer with an ache in her lower back. But the poor majay-hì . . . Poor Chap was in a much worse state.
He was covered in so much crushed and powdered charcoal that he was almost completely black. And of course he paused often to scratch. Wayfarer more than once warned him to stop or he might reveal his true colors instead.
Worse again, Léshil had wrapped up Chap’s muzzle with leather straps to make him appear dangerous to others, so they would keep away. And the straps’ ends were tied at the back of his head to pin down his ears. Léshil had also arranged this so that Wayfarer could give a hard jerk on the straps’ ends to free Chap’s jaws in an instant, should she require protection.
The poor majay-hì—Chap—looked like an untamed beast caught in the wild by savages.
“The Numan ship?” she whispered again in the language of her people, so no one nearby on the busy waterfront might catch even one word.
—I think not— . . . —the Suman first—
Chap’s suggestion made her stomach feel cold.
Wayfarer had tried to hide her sadness at being forced away from the Cloud Queen and the only two friends she had made in this strange human world. She did understand that Magiere was pursuing an important purpose and that they must move on as quickly as possible. However, talking to people in Numanese was difficult enough without the thought of trying to interact with even more foreign Suman sailors.
Chap did not seem to notice her discomfort and went on.
—The Numan vessel came . . . from Drist— . . . —Its crew . . . and captain . . . may have heard of . . . an altercation there— . . . —A cargo vessel . . . raided after dark . . . by people . . . with . . . a large wolf— . . . —If the captain . . . heard . . . descriptions—
“Yes, I know,” Wayfarer answered with a sigh.
She glanced left and right around the edges of her too-big cloak’s hood. There were so many people in the crowd pushing about along the waterfront, and she wondered where Brot’ân’duivé might be hiding in all of this. He would not lose track of them, no, but that was both comforting and distressing. Never in her life had anyone watched her quite like the greimasg’äh did. He might view her as an orphan who had become his responsibility, but the lengths he went in meeting that assumed responsibility did not extend beyond making sure she was fed and sheltered and constantly watched.
Osha had been her only true friend on the long journey from her homeland, but he had chosen to remain behind in Calm Seatt . . . with Wynn.
Though that thought brought her fresh pain, she was beginning to find comfort in the reserved but fierce mothering of Magiere, and of all the unexpected others . . . in the company of Chap.
Crouching beside him, she tried to remain resolved, reminding herself again that this little scheme had been her idea.
“When we find the Suman captain, what do I say? What if he does not speak Numanese?”
—He will . . . or one of the crew— . . . —Or he would . . . not . . . sail here . . . so often—
Chap had become more skilled at raising words quickly in her head in her own tongue. He picked them out of any old memory he had caught in her mind at some time. The words sometimes came from too many different voices out of her past and gave her a small headache if he went on too long. Léshil claimed that the more memories Chap caught in someone, the more smoothly he could use them to speak with that same person, given time. It was a relief to her, for Chap was the one she now talked with most often. Still, sometimes it was unsettling to hear a majay-hì.
—Tell the captain . . . you seek . . . passage for four . . . and . . . your dog— . . . —Ask what this . . . will cost . . . and when . . . his vessel . . . sails—
Wayfarer could not help remembering what had happened to some of the last crew that had given them passage. Chap’s eyes locked with hers, and she frowned, knowing he must have seen that memory and her worries.
—You can . . . do this—
“Yes,” she agreed, trying to sound confident.
Those crystalline sky blue eyes were so intense that she wondered what he was thinking. That notion had not passed when he pressed his bound muzzle into her hand, smearing her palm with charcoal dust.
Before recent days, she had been hesitant to even touch him. She pulled her hand away and wiped it on her cloak, which was already filthy. Then she leaned over and, avoiding the soot on his muzzle, touched her cheek to just his nose. It was strange to be so familiar with one like him, after the majay- hì in her homeland had stared at her so often as if to say, You do not belong here.
A vivid image flashed in Wayfarer’s thoughts. It was so strong that the world around her washed out of her senses for that instant. She appeared to be in the cabin of a ship. And there, to the side of a desk, was the captain of the Cloud Queen, sitting on the floor with a stiletto protruding from his shoulder. Suddenly she was rushing across the floor’s planks and straight at the desk’s front, which was somehow taller than she was.
She felt like she was running—charging—too quickly on all fours, and then she leaped up over the desk.
A snarl ripped out of her throat as she charged at a tall anmaglâhk fighting with Léshil. And Léshil swung upward with one of his winged blades, and . . .
Wayfarer sucked air in a whimpering squeak, fell on her rump, and quickly scooted backward.
Chap jerked his head up, his eyes wide.
They stared at each other as people dodged around them. But Wayfarer did not catch a single word.
What had just happened?
In the past, when Chap had watched and studied her, there had been a few moments when she had felt . . . something. At other times, such as when she had been reading in the little guild annex in Chathburh, she had a sudden sense of not being alone. When she had looked about, there he was in the archway, watching her.
The moment that had flashed in her mind was a mere instant, but Wayfarer was afraid.
—What did . . . you do?—
She scooted back again at those words in her head.
“Me?” she whispered back. “What did . . . what did you do?”
Not a word rose in her head. Still staring at her, Chap dropped on his haunches.
That moment of movement lingered in Wayfarer’s head, as if she had been in it, and . . .
“Did Léshil kill . . . one of the caste who was following—?”
—Stop!—
Wayfarer flinched.
Chap was panting rapidly through his nose with his muzzle still strapped closed. He shook in a shudder, and a small cloud of charcoal dust rose from his stiffened hackles.
—We . . . will speak of this . . . later— . . . —Now we must . . . gain passage . . . on the Suman ship—
Wayfarer hesitated and then nodded slightly, relieved at the dismissal of whatever had just happened, and she was not sure she wanted to talk about it later or at all. She struggled up to her feet under the burden of all the wadded-up clothes that made her look heavy, and she picked up the gnarled old cane that she had dropped. When she reached for the fallen end of the rope around Chap’s neck, she hesitated again.
“Which one is . . . is the Suman ship?”
Chap started forward, and she quickly backed out of his way.
—The slender one . . . with two masts . . . near the end of . . . this pier—
—Lean over . . . and walk . . . as you . . . were taught—
Chap proceeded up the pier, and Wayfarer tried to regain her stooped shuffle. But all the while she watched his back and not where they were going. That moment in her mind that had flashed and then vanished was still fresh with the feel and sound of it.
It was not any moment that Wayfarer herself had ever lived.
• • •
Dänvârfij completed her errand, following the two Shé’ith to determine in which inn they were staying. She then returned to the waterfront and spoke briefly with the harbormaster, from whom she learned that the Cloud Queen had set sail the day before.
Captains stopping at any port large enough to possess a harbormaster’s office were often required to report any passengers who would not reboard. The harbormaster claimed the four passengers had “disembarked” in Soráno.
As she stepped from the office and into the cutway between it and the nearest warehouse, she gained renewed hope. Likely her quarry was still here. Watching the waterfront, she studied every pier in sight and the people moving everywhere.
Dänvârfij did not expect to spot anything worthwhile. Brot’ân’duivé was far too cunning to allow anyone under his protection to wander the docks. Then she crept back to the cutway’s mouth, and her gaze stopped upon a heavyset woman, covered in a cloak and leading an enormous black dog down the fourth pier.
Something about the way the woman shuffled was wrong—too affected, too quick for her age . . . too conscious in so much effort.
The dog and then the woman—not the other way around—boarded a slender, two-masted vessel. They remained there for a while as Dänvârfij waited, and when they finally reemerged, it was if the large dog pulled the woman along.
At the end of the pier, the dog turned without waiting for its owner and headed south along the waterfront. Both vanished in the crowds.
Dänvârfij’s first instinct was to follow this odd pair, but there was still too much to accomplish this day. She glanced back at the vessel.
It was much like the Suman ship that had borne her and her team from the Isle of Wrêdelyd all the way to Drist, so it was likely from the south as well. She hesitated at leaving the shadows beside the harbormaster’s office. The traitor might be hiding and watching even now from a rooftop.
Even so, instinct would not leave her be.
Dänvârfij pulled her hood farther forward, stepped out into the sun upon the waterfront, and made her way in, flowing with the crowds toward the fourth pier. After that she strode its length to the slender Suman vessel.
Strange characters were written on its bow’s side; she could not read them, though they were the same script that had been on the side of the last Suman vessel she and hers had used. The ramp was down, and she was halfway up when a sailor at the top who was holding a broom spotted her.
Dänvârfij paused. “Pardon,” she tried in Numanese, and hoped he understood; her skill with that human language was passable. “I am . . . separate from my friend. I think . . . was she here today?”
The sailor was young, with dusky skin and curling black hair. He looked inside Dänvârfij’s hood at her tan face and amber eyes.
“I think you are right,” he answered in what sounded like fluent Numanese. “Pretty girl, green eyes, with a dog? She looked a little like you. Thought she was an old woman at first, but she only limped and needed a stick.”
Dänvârfij was caught most by that short, telling description—a pretty girl with green eyes who looked like an an’Cróan.
“Yes, my friend. Where she go?”
He shook his head with a shrug and frowned. “She talked to the captain, then left, but the dog got the deck filthy.” He made a sweeping motion with his broom. “If you find your friend, help her clean that dog up before you come back. No more soot and black stuff on my deck.”
Dänvârfij glanced once down the pier, but the girl and the dog would be long gone.
“Where ship bound?” she asked.
Sweeping again, he appeared mildly surprised. “To il’Dha’ab Najuum. We make the run back and forth. There are no other ports between here and the Suman Empire, just the desert.” He frowned. “Look at this mess.”
Dänvârfij turned and strode down the ramp, for she now needed guidance from Most Aged Father.
• • •
Brot’ân’duivé lay flat upon a warehouse rooftop next to the harbormaster’s office. It was the optimal place from which to watch over Wayfarer and Chap. He saw them board the Suman vessel and was mildly surprised when they departed shortly after. They came straight down the pier and headed back into the city without any further stops.
Had they been successful on their first attempt? Or had something gone wrong and Chap rushed the girl back to the inn?
Brot’ân’duivé began inching back from the edge in order to follow them. Later he was uncertain what had made him pause and look back along that pier. A tall, slender figure in a weathered cloak walked up the pier toward the same ship that the girl and the majay-hì had left.
He froze on all fours atop the roof and fixed upon that one person.
The figure was fully covered and hooded, but its smooth gait of soft steps was too familiar. The figure stopped halfway up the ship’s ramp for a few moments, appeared to speak with a dark-skinned sailor sweeping off the deck, and then turned around and came back down the pier at a quicker pace.
Brot’ân’duivé debated between following the cloaked figure or making certain that Wayfarer and Chap returned safely to the inn. His purpose here, by his own insistence, was to ensure the safety of the girl and the majay-hì. Frustrated, he backed away from the edge and soft-stepped to the roof’s far side to go after Wayfarer and Chap.
• • •
Dänvârfij walked into the forest south of Soráno, though it was little like those with which she was familiar. The trees here were mixed somewhat with palms and other tall, broad-leafed growths. She knelt beside a gnarl-limbed tree somewhat like the coastal pines of her land. Her hands shook slightly as she reached into the side of her vestment for an oval piece of smooth, tawny wood no bigger than her palm.
It was often called a “word-wood,” and this was the last one left to her team. When pressed against any tree, it let her communicate with her caste’s patriarch from anywhere in the world, for it had been created from the very tree in which he now dwelled.
Reaching out, Dänvârfij pressed the word-wood against the tree’s trunk and whispered, “Father?”
All of her caste called him Father.
I am here, Daughter.
At his words in her mind, she faltered. How could she begin to tell him what had occurred in Drist, that they had lost two more of their brethren to Brot’ân’duivé’s blade? They were now down to four in number, and of those remaining, only she and Rhysís were in proper condition to fight.
“Father . . .” she began. “I require your guidance.”
It pained her beyond measure to tell him all that had occurred since they last spoke. The words grew easier once she reached the events of that morning.
“The old woman—the girl who boarded the Suman ship—could only be Leanâlhâm,” she said without doubt, “with the wayward majay-hì in disguise. They must have been arranging for passage farther south.”
Where is the vessel bound?
She could feel the tightness in his voice within her thoughts. He was disappointed in her for all that had happened, though he would never chastise her. This only weighed upon her more.
“To a place called il’Dha’ab Najuum,” she answered. “A sailor on board told me there are no other ports between here and the Suman Empire, only a great desert along the coast.” She
hesitated for an instant. “How do you counsel us to capture our quarry before they flee again?”
He remained silent for so long that she began wondering whether the link between his tree and the one she touched had been broken. And then . . .
It appears they have been striving to reach this destination all along, since they keep pressing southward. I wonder why and what they seek there.
He was quiet again for a moment.
What of the Suman vessel you commandeered in . . . Drist, was it? You killed the crew before you chose to take the Cloud Queen?
“Yes, Father. It was a small Suman ship called the Bashair. All aboard were silenced, including the captain.”
She wondered why he was asking.
Can you arrange passage from your current location to il’Dha’ab Najuum?
“Possibly . . . The Falcon, the Numan vessel we arrived on, is heading south. I could tell the captain that we wish to travel onward.”
His train of thought left her doubtful. Her first instinct was to set a trap for their quarry in this city.
Do not attempt capture in Soráno. You are spread too thinly. If the Numan vessel is fast, gain passage and get ahead of Magiere, the traitor, and all with them. Reach il’Dha’ab Najuum first and be ready for their arrival.
She hesitated to question his word, but she could not help asking, “If you feel we are too few, how can we be more assured of capturing them in the Suman port?”
Because you will arrange for assistance from the local authorities, and you are not the first of us to travel there. The Sumans are reputed to be a . . . lawful people. Listen carefully. . . .
• • •
Leesil couldn’t stop pacing. His armor and weapons were strapped on, and he was ready to leave in an instant. He both tensed and exhaled in relief when a knock came at the door of their room—and sooner than he’d expected.
Magiere beat him to the door and pressed her face against it with one hand on the latch.
“It is us,” said a soft voice from the other side.
Magiere jerked the door open and pulled Wayfarer inside. After Chap trotted in with a trail of charcoal dust in the air, Magiere pushed the door closed . . . almost.