Dark the Dreamer's Shadow

by Jennifer Bresnick

  “Not at all,” she said, pushing back a bedraggled lock of hair and tucking it behind her ear, as if that would do anything to make her seem more presentable. There were no bathing facilities on the ship, other than a bucket of brackish water on the forecastle once a week if she was feeling adventurous, and even though she thought she was getting better, she was quite sure she didn’t look it.

  “I thought you might like to take a turn on deck,” Nikko said. “The fresh air will be good for you.”

  “Must I?”

  “Yes indeed,” he nodded briskly, steadying her as she climbed out of the swinging contraption, scattering her pillows on the floor as she did so. “And I’ll thank you not to kick me in the face in the process,” Nikko laughed, leaning down to pick up the cushions.

  “I’m so sorry,” she replied, her face going a little pinker than it really ought to have. He had such an intoxicating smile, and she had to keep reminding herself that there wasn’t the slightest bit of interest in her behind it.

  They had been spending a lot of time together, after managing to overcome their rough introduction with a little intermediary help from Leofric’s cooler head, and she was starting to enjoy his company a great deal.

  He was engaging and entertaining, quick with his wit and quick to laugh at hers when she could muster it, which made her brutal days pass more easily. He did not relish being her nursemaid when the seas kicked up – she certainly did not blame him for that – but endured the close and somewhat smelly confines for his own good as much as hers, because everything about Nikko made Durville’s crew very uncomfortable.

  Many of them had sailed on the Tortoise’s maiden voyage, where Elargwyd had so violently put an end to their cruise, and they were deeply displeased to find a neneckt among their company again. Many more were simply unable to accept the nature of Nikko’s relationship with Leofric, despite the fact that the two of them had been quite careful to keep their distance from each other. The evidence didn’t need to be exhibited to be understood, and though Durville kept a tight rein on his crew’s discipline, it was starting to fray some of their more delicate nerves.

  Nikko had taken the hint, and turned to Megrithe in her private cabin for company and to keep out of view. He filled their hours with stories from his homeland, regaling her with his chatty descriptions of the workings of his native isle. Her short time on Niheba had not prepared her for how complex its society was, with its long histories of rival clans who could barely even agree on how much they disliked the humans who served their needs.

  Far from being a stable, unifying force, Nikko painted Tiaraku as a divisive and disputed ruler, his throne built not just on rock and coral but on blood debts and violence and shifting alliances that occasionally erupted into death and vengeance, just as the cracks in the deep earth’s crust spilled scalding gasses and ashes into the sea.

  Tiaraku wasn’t only using the Siheldi to try to snare the humans in his net of fear and pain. He was trying to control his own people: the Bluegills, growing rich and fat and discontent with the limits on their business interests; the Black Salts gathering their strength again after decades of oppression and slavery; the Cuskeels jockeying for position with the king’s own Kitefins, rubbing up against each other in quarters of the city too small to contain both.

  “Which one are you?” she had asked, and Nikko had laughed.

  “I’m a Daggertooth,” he had told her. “And don’t I wish we were as fearsome as that sounds. We are masons and miners, for the most part. Nothing but a minor branch of the Green Stone Crabs, who have dropped far below the station they enjoyed when they built most of Emyer-Ekvori, long ago in the Sunset Days.”

  She had thought that sounded romantic, in its way, but speaking of his own past seemed to put Nikko on edge, and she hadn’t pursued the matter much further. Instead, she had asked about Leofric, a subject Nikko had been more than willing to pursue. With his wide smile, he boasted about his lover’s achievements in King Malveisin’s service, wooing the neneckt into the Treaty of Libourg that now held such sway over all their dealings and helping to quell the bloody Ravenaught Rebellion that had swept along the eastern coast of Rhior-Adril twenty years ago, when King Malveisin had been nothing more than a novice princeling sent by his father to sort out the starving peasants who had made such a mess of his trade routes.

  Leofric was far more accomplished than most people knew, she was pleased to learn, though Nikko’s conversation almost always wandered away into meaningless anecdotes about their life together that held little interest for anyone who wasn’t in love with the man.

  She didn’t really mind it. She just liked to hear him talk. It distracted her from her troubles and made her forget her anxieties, if only temporarily. Remnants of his initial prickliness could still rise to the surface, if she spoke about aspects of Niheba that he didn’t think she could really understand, but more often than not, as the miles slipped by, there was something about Nikko that made her feel very comfortable.

  He was a confident soul who had clearly decided that he would simply pay no mind to anyone who expressed disapproval of his choices, and that was fascinating to her. It seemed impossible that she could ever approach that level of certainty within herself, and she envied him for it.

  Despite winning all of the battles that had stood between her relatively humble beginnings and the bright iron prize of an inspector’s badge, even her Guild-given authority had never felt wholly natural to her. She had spent the entirety of her adult life telling other people what to do, but when she blew out her candles at the end of most days and settled into bed, she still felt as if she was that half-grown girl parading around in her father’s shadow with a crossbow she didn’t know how to use.

  Megrithe had been told, at times when her doubts slithered away from her and into the ears of her confidantes, that everyone felt that way. Everyone was unsure of their choices, and everyone faltered from time to time. When she was younger, she hadn’t been able to believe it. She had been convinced that everyone other than her had all their affairs well in hand. But they just told her that everyone at her age felt like that, too.

  Her work had soon taught her what false courage really looked like, and she had stopped fretting so very much once she learned how prevalent it was. But being in the rare presence of real conviction could still shake the foundations of her surety, driving her into private despair. It was in those moments, she found, that she most craved what Nikko and Leofric gave to each other: the love and trust of someone who exuded quiet assurance wherever they went.

  Leofric kept to himself as well, fully aware of his part in the sailors’ discomfort, but she watched the two of them together as often as she could. His domestic choices may have ended his more public ambitions, and cut short his ability to gather the accolades which his partner recounted with such pride, but Megrithe had the feeling that he didn’t regret it.

  Every time he caught Nikko’s eye, she was struck by the depth of feeling he could exchange in nothing more than a glance. It always made her look away and blush, as if she had intercepted a very private letter than no one else was ever meant to see.

  It shamed her to think of how she had always assumed that such unorthodox relations were based on nothing more than a peculiar sort of lust that she could never really understand; some powerful attraction of flesh to flesh that pulled two people together more strongly than the mores of the earthly world or the admonishments of heaven.

  She knew she must be wrong. She had never seen the same look between a tavern floozy and a licentious drunk, but only between husband and wife, whose bonds were deep and patience strong and lives long lived in tight unison. A neneckt could make itself into anything, but she did not think even a sea-dweller could falsify something like that.

  The hurried journey was no time to start longing for secret glances of her own, flinging herself as she was into deathly danger and unknown peril. But it made her think, while she lay in bed with green skin and a stomach
full of heaving vinegar, how nice it must be to draw such strength from a love that outweighed the fear of a world that hated them for it.

  She mused often about such acts of true courage, and those thoughts frequently turned to contemplations about Arran Swinn. He had thrown glances towards her, to be sure, but they were of the ordinary, fleeting kind – a perfunctory ogling that held no malice but little meaning. She had done the same to him, when he wasn’t looking. It was only natural, really.

  Megrithe hoped with all her heart that he was still alive. She thought he must be. The eallawif wouldn’t lie to her, would she? Could she? Find him before he shatters us all, she had whispered, and the words still made Megrithe shiver even though they had been running through her head a thousand times since they were first spoken, each repetition strengthening her conviction that she must obey them, regardless of what it would cost her.

  “Megrithe?”

  “What?”

  “You’re staring into nothing again,” Nikko said.

  “Oh? Yes. Of course. I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “You wanted to go for a walk.”

  She wasn’t sure if the benefits of the fresh air compensated for the nuisance of the buffeting breeze snatching at her clothing and raking through her shamefully greasy hair, but once she was settled on the little bench nestled into the transom rail, the shade and protection made it less of a bother. The sun was gently warm on the nape of her neck, and she smiled to thank Nikko for persuading her out of her burrow.

  “You look like you’re on the way to recovering your health, Miss Prinsthorpe,” Leofric said, bowing somewhat formally before sitting down next to her.

  “I certainly hope I am,” she replied. “Durville says we will arrive in a day or so. I’d like to be strong enough to leave the ship on my own two feet.”

  “And after you accomplish that?”

  “I rather thought you might be the one to tell me,” she said.

  “You want us to find a neneckt that doesn’t want to be found,” Nikko said. “That is not easy. I’m not even sure I would know where to begin, and I have experience being on both sides of the equation.”

  “I know where we can start,” she told him.

  “And where would that be?”

  “With his true name,” she said quietly.

  She wasn’t entirely sure how Nikko would react to that news, especially since she had been keeping the information to herself so far. She hadn’t been sure when would be the right time to bring it out. “The eallawif gave it to me,” she added, as if that would help absolve her of the serious breach of neneckt propriety.

  Leofric and Nikko exchanged one of their looks – not such a pleasant one this time – and Megrithe suddenly got very studious about the state of her fingernails.

  “That is not knowledge you should have,” Nikko said eventually. “Why would an eallawif tell you something like that?”

  “She wanted me to help her fulfill a bargain. I would not have asked unless it was absolutely necessary,” she continued, but she thought that was probably a lie. She had just wanted to make her job easier.

  “Be that as it may,” Leofric said, possibly even less pleased than his partner. “It seems like a foul trick to use that against him.”

  “I know. But it is the only leverage I have.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Leofric said. “I know of this Bartolo character you mentioned. He would be nothing but a petty street swiller if it wasn’t for his ties to the Divided. They are a force not to be ignored.”

  “The night-fire cult?” she asked. She had heard of them, but not as anything more than a strange offshoot of a long-dead religion devoted to worshiping the Siheldi as gods.

  “They are more than that on Niheba,” Nikko said. “They are dangerous. It will be extremely problematic if they are working with Tiaraku.”

  “What would we do then?” she asked.

  “Lose your phantom war,” Leofric said with his wry smile. “Without any doubt.”

  “But we can get help from the Guild,” she said. “Even on Niheba, there is always the Guild.”

  “And what makes you think they will aid someone who has broken with their ranks?” asked Nikko.

  “They don’t know I resigned,” Megrithe said. “Not yet. There isn’t a ship that could have gotten there before us – nor one that would have any interest in spreading news about me. And…and I may have taken some of my cards with me,” she added in a low voice. “Just in case.”

  “So that you can find yourself in even more trouble once someone discovers that you’re lying?” Leofric asked.

  “I am unlikely to escape a prison sentence no matter what I’m caught for,” she replied. “What’s an extra few years for impersonation?”

  Nikko laughed. “That’s the spirit,” he said, patting her hand. “We can only hope prison will be the worst thing that happens to us.”

  Leofric was not as amused. “Maybe we can turn to something more or less legitimate first. I still have friends in Tiaraku’s palace. I worked with a fellow called Genedi for several years on the trade agreements. He’s always had a finger in the right pies, and he’s been favorable towards the Guild. Maybe he can help.”

  “What type of fool puts his trust in a Bluegill?” Nikko muttered, but Leofric didn’t hear him.

  “Very well,” Megrithe said. “That sounds like a good place to start – if you think he’ll be a better friend to you than he is to Tiaraku.”

  “His friends are largely negotiable,” Leofric said, “and I am very persuasive. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

  After dodging Durville on her way back below, Megrithe spent the rest of the day and most of the following morning dozing quietly, trying to shake her weakness. It wasn’t easy, especially as they drew nearer to the island and her nerves started to fray again, leaving her shoulders twanging with anxiety at how slowly the wind could carry her.

  Eventually, however, the bellowing cry of the lookout shook her from a nodding sleep, and she sat bolt upright in her hammock, the excitement of the long-awaited moment practically throwing her out of the bed with its insistent force.

  She managed not to hang herself in the tightly twisting ropes and dressed herself properly, slipping her feet into her shoes and pattering out of her cabin before Nikko could come to fetch her.

  “I don’t see it,” she said, craning towards the horizon when she found the neneckt leaning on the rail, gazing down into the water instead.

  “Not yet,” he replied. “You’d have to be higher up. And don’t think I’ll let you go climbing the rigging. We’ll be there sooner than you think.”

  “What’s down there?” she asked, following his stare into the depths.

  “Nothing. Not anymore,” he said. “Do you have all your things together?” he asked, raising his head and smiling brightly.

  “Yes, I packed up earlier – is that smoke?” she said suddenly, pointing towards the horizon where a haze of dark cloud was hanging ominously in the north.

  “It looks like it,” Nikko replied, frowning as he followed her finger. “Old smoke. I wonder if another warehouse went up by the dockside. It’s rather common, unfortunately.”

  Even in Paderborn, fires started by homeless squatters or careless tenants in the slums could decimate huge swaths of the crowded city. It happened to some degree at least once or twice a year, bringing a high death toll and a great deal of misery for the suddenly dispossessed. For an unattended storeroom to burn to the ground was nothing unusual at all, but the breezy blemish in the sky made her feel more than ordinarily uneasy.

  “It still makes my skin crawl,” she said.

  “Me too,” Leofric said, coming up behind them to stand next to Nikko, searching out the neneckt’s hand to hold, hidden between their bodies and the rail. “I lost a house to fire once. I can’t say it’s an experience I would ever wish to repeat.”

  “Nor I,” Megrithe said, recalling her brush with death in the Paderborn Guild House. The burn on her arm had
stopped being painful, but she suspected she would carry the mottled red mark of it forever. “Hopefully it’s nothing.”

  They talked idly about other things for a while, trying to pass the time, all three of them glancing occasionally at the lingering smudge in the sky until a distant bank of clouds marched in to obscure it. The wind began to shift as they drew closer to the island, backing to blow southerly into their faces.

  Durville was muttering to himself on the quarterdeck as the helmsman tried to steady their course against the strengthening breeze. His face darkened as the line of clouds deepened into an unpleasantly purplish hue, charging towards them on the wind and bringing along the scent of charred wood and ashes.

  “There will be a right old storm tonight,” Nikko said after a while, pulling his collar up against the growing chill. “A proper typhoon.”

  Durville seemed to be of the same opinion, and started shouting orders to his men to strike the sails and secure the empty barrels and other items they had started to bring on deck in preparation for landing and replenishing their supplies. It was work wasted, and the men couldn’t help but grumble a little as they undid everything they had spent the morning doing, but no one tarried as the sky closed over and the first cold, fat drops of rain began to splatter on the planks.

  “Time to go below,” Leofric told Megrithe, catching her arm as the backstay beside them suddenly stretched taught with a peculiar, half-heard twang. “And get your bucket ready. We’ll be tossing around all night.”

  “No need to remind me,” she grimaced. Her stomach was already lurching again as the Tortoise fought the kicking swell, and she held onto Leofric’s hand as he guided her towards her quarters. “Will we not make land today, then?”

  “No, I shouldn’t think so. It’s impossible to tell how long the storm will last.”

  “Can’t Nikko – I don’t know. Can’t he do something?”

  Leofric smiled. “Ten miles from Tiaraku’s throne? As much as I love the fellow, I am under no illusion that he is powerful enough to control the weather under the nose of such influence.”