Vergence

by John March

  As though her words had broken some kind of paralysis, the other people around the table took deep breaths, and started to drift away in small groups towards the stairs. Captain Lim stood at the head of the table, with a fixed smile on his face, bowing at his departing guests. Ebryn thought he looked like a man putting on a display of satisfaction after being forced to swallow something poisonous.

  Addae accompanied Ebryn down, chuckling. “You did well my friend, your speed is worthy of the finest of my people.”

  “I'm not so sure. I've spoiled the feast — it finished early because of me. The captain looked very upset.”

  “Do not worry. It was not for your doing Kurkuora sent us away, it was the anger in Romain.”

  “But if I'd been more careful he might not have been so angry—”

  “Had you not prevented him,” Addae said, “had he harmed this ship, you and I might not reach Vergence on this journey.”

  “I really wanted a chance to see all the others show us what they could do,” Ebryn said.

  “Yes. This I would also like to see.”

  “What about yours? What were you planning on showing?” Ebryn asked.

  Addae paused at the bottom of the flight of stairs to let others pass. “What is this flying thing you have, it goes near light in darkness?”

  “Do you mean a moth?” Ebryn asked.

  “Yes, moth,” Addae said, cupping his hands to demonstrate the size. “In my land we have the mendnyi, like the moth, yet it is this big, like one of your great birds.”

  Something brown and fuzzy launched itself from Addae's hand, buzzing softly, and plunged over the edge of the ship to disappear quickly into the darkness.

  “It is like my home now,” Addae said. “Fighting and fat mendnyi.”

  Sash

  THE NEXT MORNING EBRYN woke from a deep dreamless sleep. He sat up disorientated and narrowly avoided cracking his head on the top of his bunk, staring around blankly for a few seconds before realising where he was.

  By the light of day his cabin looked much smaller than it had the previous evening. He felt as if his eyes and mouth were thick with sleep. His head seemed to spin when he moved and the sensation of falling he'd experienced on the sky-skiff had returned.

  He was barely up when Hui-ta tapped softly on the door and entered carrying breakfast on a platter. There were sweetened breads, baked with chopped nuts and fruits, and a flagon of water flavoured with lemon and a warming spice. It burnt slightly on the way down but settled his stomach.

  When he had finished he headed out of his cabin and down towards the lower decks. Hui-ta had suggested he might try the second but last deck if he wanted a better view or a walk somewhere peaceful. Unlike the upper decks where the limited number of viewing platforms were often crowded by crewmen going about their work or obscured by rigging, and the lateral fan-shaped sails.

  On the lower decks walkways encircled nearly the entire vessel, two yards wide with generous headroom. The outside of the walkway was protected by midriff height railings. Large triangular ribs cut through from floor to ceiling at regular intervals, each as wide as the width of the walkway. The sections between pairs of ribs felt almost like discrete chambers, connecting at each rib via a shallow alcove which formed a narrow passage from one segment to the next.

  As he manoeuvred through one of these spaces he collided with a young woman moving quickly in the opposite direction. She was under a head shorter than Ebryn, with long fair hair tied back from her face, and skin a light shade of polished bronze. She wore a simple cream coloured sleeveless v-necked tunic pulled in at the waist by a fabric belt, and loose flowing trousers tied at the ankles over bare feet. She had a perfectly proportioned face, flawlessly beautiful, with eyes the colour of molten amber.

  “Hello,” she said, seeming to recognise him. “You were the one at the reception last night, weren’t you? You were talking to Addae, and fighting with Romain?”

  “Err … yes,” Ebryn said.

  “You must be Ebryn then,” she said, extending a hand and smiling at him. “My name's Sash — well, it's Sashael, but everybody calls me Sash.”

  He stared at her hand feeling awkward, wondering if he should make some response. After a moment she withdrew it, looking him over with undisguised curiosity — taking in the dusty travel-stained clothes, and mud-splashed boots. Her eyes travelled back to his, and for a long moment they stood regarding each other.

  She held his gaze with a direct, unselfconscious confidence, which Fidela might have described as immodest. The woman of Conant village, as dark in temperament as the woodlands surrounding their homes, would have called her brazen.

  Sash brushed a stray hair from her face, revealing three fine cords, two dull red and a third of faded blue, wrapped in a complex pattern from her wrist to her shoulder.

  Not cords, Ebryn realised, but some kind of skin paint. Apart from these she wore no jewellery or decoration, again unlike the women of Conant, who were seldom seen about the village without a jangling collection of necklaces, bangles, and earrings.

  “Sashael. Where have you gone?” Addae appeared behind Sash with a look of mock exasperation on his face. His expression shifted to a broad smile when he saw Ebryn.

  “Ebryn — I wish you good morning. Now I see what has been keeping Sashael.”

  By daylight, Addae seemed even more physically imposing than he had the previous evening. He topped everybody else by a head, and was half again as broad as Ebryn. A long patterned sleeveless tunic worn over a calf-length kilt, revealed heavily muscled shoulders and arms. Fine pale lines marking his dark skin revealed scars from at least a dozen past injuries. Ebryn thought he looked much more like his idea of a warrior than a caster.

  Sash stepped aside to make room, slipping an arm through Addae's.

  “What do you think of the ship?” she asked. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? We’re down here looking for the best view. Do you want to join us?”

  Ebryn nodded and they turned, and headed towards the bow.

  Sash released Addae's arm and dropped back to walk beside Ebryn. “It’s more interesting at the front. Sometimes you can nearly see whole shapes of things from where we're heading.”

  “Vergence is visible already?” Ebryn wasn’t sure what to expect when they arrived as he had missed the moment on his first voyage.

  “Not yet, but we might be able to see some early signs. When we arrived at Icisor we had patterns in the mist for hours before. Each time it’s a little different, a bit like travelling from kitchen to kitchen and getting a different smell at each. We tried to see who could notice something first, Addae or me, but he is better at knowing what to look for.”

  Ebryn looked across as indistinct shapes drifted slowly past. They looked like a mix of sheer rock faces and steep rubble-strewn slopes, but slightly unreal ghostly forms, as if seen through layers of fine fog. Nothing he could see looked anything like the descriptions he'd read of Vergence.

  “Are we arriving soon then? I thought it was supposed to be mostly houses,” Ebryn said, hoping he didn’t sound too untutored.

  Sash looked at him and the corner of her mouth twitched. “You think I’m making it up, don’t you?”

  “No,” Ebryn said. “But I don’t understand how we are supposed see Vergence if we aren’t there yet.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know why, but you can. Addae you understand it better than I do, can you explain it?”

  Addae nodded, leading them around another rib. The next section of walkway curved inwards towards the prow of the vessel, allowing them to see in the direction they were travelling.

  “Here is a good place for us,” Addae said. “Now we will see what there is to see.”

  Ebryn joined them at the railing. Despite the dancing curtains of spectral mist surrounding the vessel he could see the ground drifting past no more than a hundred yards below. He gripped the top firmly as he looked down, unable to shake the sensation of falling.

  “Is it too h
igh for you?” Sash asked.

  Ebryn shook his head. “No … well, not that much. But I think I'm better on a horse than flying. I always feel like I'm falling when I'm on one of these ships, once it's under way.”

  “Then it may be you are ulimsafir — one who is a walker between worlds,” Addae said. “This is one of the marks of the ulimsafir, to feel a falling in the between.”

  “Yes, I've read about world travellers,” Ebryn said, thinking of Ullvenard. “Walking from world to world, sometimes taking people with them.”

  “I am told it is this I will learn in Vergence,” Addae said.

  “What were you going to say about why we might see some part of Vergence before we get there?”

  Addae appeared to think before answering. “To pass from Icisor to Vergence, this is like the ship moving over a bridge. The bridge touches on both ends at once. Behind the stars is this — the Volanians call this the between. A ship is like a long spear in the hand of one man, and passed to another. When it is passed, both men hold it for a time. In the same way, the ship touches where it has been and where it is going, both at once. This is how we see the journey's end, as we are like the spear which is passed. So I was taught.”

  “Look,” Sash said. “Look there, there’s a colour, and it’s not from Icisor.”

  She didn’t seem to have paid any attention to Addae’s explanation. Instead, she leant alarmingly far over the side and pointed directly forward, in the direction the vessel was travelling. Making an effort to ignore the phantasmal ground gliding past beneath him, Ebryn leant out, trying to see past Addae, clutching tightly to the rail.

  “It’s not moving, there’s a blue … and an orange.”

  It took him a few moments to see what she was trying to show them, like the faintest hint of a rainbow, an intangible translucence held the colours of an early dawn.

  They watched in silence for a while as the traces of colour strengthened and coalesced into distinct ribbons which drifted and waved like the seaweed of the coastal rock pools Ebryn had played in as a child, tugged back and forth by the restless tides.

  The colour intensified rapidly to a brilliant pale sky blue, leaching in to the space between the ribbons, which seemed to thicken before their eyes.

  After a time, Addae stepped back from the railings. “This is not halfway. We are closer.”

  “Really? How long have we got?” Ebryn asked.

  “Before this morning is gone we will be at Vergence,” Addae said.

  A look of annoyance passed over Sash's face. “Oh, I’ve got to pack my things. They could have given us some warning. I hope I can find everything and fit it all back into my cases in time.”

  She led them back to the upper decks, taking them up a steep set of spiral steps near the bow, through a series of tight poorly lit corridors, navigating them across the vessel without any hesitation, and ended up just outside the passenger quarters.

  “Addae's cabin is just in here. Which side of the ship are you on?” Sash asked.

  “The far side,” Ebryn said.

  “Yours must be near mine then,” Sash said. “Let's meet up on the top deck when we're finished, Addae. We can find somewhere good to watch the arrival.”

  “I will see you there,” Addae said.

  They found Quentyn pacing back and forth across the deck near the entrance to the far cabins. He bustled over as soon as he saw them, stepping in front of Sash, turning his back on her, and standing uncomfortably close to Ebryn.

  “Ah, Ebryn, there you are. Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.”

  He looked very pale. His pallor had achieved an odd grey tone with eyes sunken in hollow sockets, and blue veins visible through the skin on his forehead.

  “The steward tells me we're about to arrive so you need to make sure you’re ready,” Quentyn said, without waiting for a response. “It won’t do you much good if you don’t get off at the right place, hmm?”

  “I’ll be ready,” Ebryn said.

  “Now what's this about you showing us up with your brawling last night, eh?”

  “Brawling?”

  “Did you think I wouldn't find out? I know you want to show off, but you can't just go picking fights with anybody here. He's the son of a baron, you know. Do you think knowing Lord Conant will help you get out of trouble here, eh?”

  “No,” Ebryn said. From the corner of his eye he could see Sash watching, and felt himself flushing.

  “From what I hear, we're all lucky you didn't cause any serious damage to the ship,” Quentyn said.

  “Where are we going when we get there?” Ebryn asked, trying to change the subject.

  Quentyn blinked at him. “I’ll have important matters to attend to. You’ll need to find yourself somewhere to stay until your test. You’re already registered, so you won’t need to do anything but get ready. But as I was saying—”

  “I'd better go and pack then,” Ebryn said quickly, turning away.

  Sash followed him through the entrance to their cluster of cabins. “Who was that?”

  “He's called Master Quentyn.”

  “Your teacher?”

  Ebryn thought he detected a sympathetic tone in her voice, which somehow made his embarrassment worse. “No. He was sent from Vergence to test my abilities — to see if I would be able to come here. I had other teachers when I was younger. Master Spetimane, and Master Yale.”

  For Ebryn, packing involved throwing a few items into his travel bag. After that he sat on his bunk. As he waited, his thoughts turned to what he would do when he arrived. He had some money, but felt his stomach tighten when he considered finding his way through a city.

  He had no idea how to go about finding a place to stay, and couldn’t imagine what it would be like to negotiate his way amongst thousands of people and a town with hundreds of buildings in it.

  When he felt he'd given Addae and Sash long enough, he made his way to the upper deck. He was surprised to find them both already waiting for him, leaning back against the railing above the stairway.

  “Here you are, my friend,” Addae said.

  “You were quicker than I thought you'd be,” Ebryn said.

  Sash smiled at him, showing perfectly even white teeth. “Yes, Captain Lim sent some men to help me carry my things.”

  Addae produced a small bag from a fold in his robes and held it out for Sash.

  Sash waved it away. “I can't eat anything now.”

  She gave a slight shake of her head, and mouthed a silent “no” at Ebryn, as Addae held the bag in his direction. It contained small solid tubes, about the size of his thumb, with flaky dark brown skins, like sausages allowed to roast until the outsides had crisped and cracked. They had a sour, peppery smell.

  “What are these?” Ebryn asked.

  “This is called ngisolonga, cooked in oil,” Addae said. “These grow in wood when it is dead. In this language they are called grubs.”

  “Grubs?”

  “You know — like really fat worms,” Sash said.

  “Uh, right … I'm not hungry either,” Ebryn said.

  “I will save some for you to eat later,” Addae said, nodding towards where hints of blue appeared in the undulating silvery grey clouds surrounding the ship. “Now we must find a good place to see this city.”

  They walked round to the bow of the vessel to a position which they thought would provide a better view of Vergence as they approached. Squeezed into an arch between two supporting struts under the fore steering vane, Sash wedged herself between Ebryn and Addae. She seemed incapable of standing still, and Ebryn found her excitement contagious.

  Abruptly, the lingering sense of falling was gone and the light ahead brightened, suffused with streaks of pale blue.

  “Do you feel this change?” Addae asked.

  Ebryn nodded without taking his eyes off the view ahead.

  “Feel what?” Sash asked.

  “I'm not falling any more. I mean I don't feel like I'm falling. It's stopp
ed,” Ebryn said.

  “We must be just arriving then,” Sash said.

  The ribbons of blue expanded and brightened, washing away the gloom to reveal an ice blue curtain of light, like the surface of a vast frozen lake, extending out beyond sight in every direction. There was no sense of progress against the blue-white expanse in front of them, but a gradual intensification of light and colour until, just as Ebryn had started to wonder if they were arriving at all, the outline of solid shapes started to appear.

  He felt Sash become still as the whole of the city unfolded from the evaporating mist, streets and buildings stretching to the limits of their sight. Clusters of buildings drifted past beneath them, brief impressions of sand and honey coloured stonework as indistinct shapes rapidly solidified.

  They flew low over a rocky outcrop at the edge of a ridge on one side of a narrow terraced valley, and out over rows of buildings piled up against the steep sides.

  Below them, dozens of world-ships of every size nosed lazily forward, edging above empty spaces on the terraces, or drifting upwards, unfurling and adjusting large fan-shaped sales as they turned to head in the opposite direction.

  A broad waterway, cluttered with long flat boats, ran along the lowest point of the valley, where a massive, pot-bellied vessel swayed ponderously in the air, tiny figures on the upper deck working to reel in anchor lines and sail rigging.

  The floor of the valley rose up towards them as the world-ship tilted forward and accelerated downwards, cutting off their view of the greater part of the city. Smooth stonework flashed past barely a mast-length from the right hand side of their vessel, a rush of air in their faces whipping Sash's hair around their shoulders. Ebryn gripped the rail tightly, fighting the urge to shut his eyes, determined to see as much as possible.

  Just as it seemed impossible they would stop before crashing, the nose of the ship levelled, and they slowed to barely a walking pace above a broad terrace, halfway up the valley side.

  They were so engrossed in the view that it took them a few moments to realise a crewman had approached, and stood waiting patiently behind them.