by Mike Grinti
Jala wondered at his ominous words, but by now she knew better about Captain Natari’s superstitions than to bring it up while they were still out on the Great Ocean.
Askel watched the water and the dolphins with an almost desperate intensity. He watched the sailors as they went about taking care of the ship. He listened to the stories and ate their food as if he’d never done any of those things before.
“Were you born on the Lone Isle?” Jala asked him once.
Askel shook his head. “Kade told me I was abandoned when I was just a baby, but I don’t remember it. I’ve been there my whole life.” He looked at her and gave her a crooked smile. “How old do you think I am?”
Jala shrugged. “Old. Sixty years, maybe?”
Askel snorted. “Only twenty. Not much older than your king, I suspect.” He turned away from her. “At first, when Kade warned me about the cost of my sorcery, I didn’t believe him. When I learned he was right, I looked for a way to have others pay the price instead. That was when he banished me.”
“That sounds horrible,” Jala said. “I’d have banished you, too.”
“Horrible to you, perhaps,” he said. “Not to the fire mountain. Not to the Great Ocean. All these things have power, all of them demand the same price, and none of them care about any of our quick, small, little lives. When you make deals with gods, you have to put such things behind you.”
Jala shivered at his words and let the subject die.
So the time passed until one day the sky ahead of them was clear of storms, and Jala realized the horizon was no longer flat.
“That’s the Great Lighthouse of the Constant City,” Captain Natari said, pointing to an impossibly tall, thin stone tower. “Long ago one of their kings decided to build a lighthouse so great and tall that no matter where a man stood he would be able to see its light. He died, of course, and it wasn’t finished. If such a thing could ever be finished.” Natari turned to her as they passed under the shadow of the lighthouse. “We have no friends here, my queen. Remember that. They’ll tolerate us, but we’re in danger as long as we’re on the mainland.”
Jala and Marjani waited at the dock while Boka took a few sailors into the city to trade for transportation and a guide. From the water, the city looked like a piece of gaudy jewelry, with domed towers of bronze and gold, flags of all colors fluttering in the wind. Up close, standing on the dock, everything looked dirty and gray. The buildings pressed in so close in places the sun hardly touched the ground. And it smelled, of fish and rotting food and human waste.
When Boka returned, Jala and Marjani and all but six of the sailors prepared to leave. The sailors left behind would stay on the ship as long as they had food and drink. At least one of them would need to be awake day and night, ready to light the drum of oil and set the ship on fire if anyone tried to take it.
Surrounded by thirty sailors, Captain Natari, Boka, and Marjani, Jala watched the Burst Hull sail out into the water and wondered if any of them would see the ship again.
“Don’t worry,” Captain Natari said. “We’ll make it back. We both have husbands waiting for us back home, and I plan to make sure they aren’t waiting longer than they have to.”
“I didn’t know you were married,” Jala said. “I never asked you anything about your family, did I? I’ve been too wrapped up in my own problems.”
“And the fate of our people,” Natari said with a wink. “I’d say you’re excused, my queen.”
It didn’t make her feel much better. It would be all too easy to get caught up in the big picture and forget to see the people standing right in front of her. The people risking their lives for her mad plan.
“Well, come on,” Boka interrupted, waving them all forward.
“Tell me about your family now,” Jala said, falling into step beside Natari. “While we walk. What’s your husband’s name?”
“Onan,” he said, and then he told her about how they met and the life they’d made together.
The sounds of the city washed over Jala as they walked the streets. There were people everywhere, talking and arguing and laughing. Jala had expected them all to look like the Hashon, with light-brown skin and the straight hair Azi had described, but most of the people here had the same black skin that Jala did, and she kept seeing snatches of home as they walked past: a silk dress from the Bluesun Peninsula in a style her mother had liked, intricate bronze earrings from Shek or the silversmiths of Iz, a shirt dyed the same rich purple that had been a gift to Jala on her wedding.
She knew the clothes, but none of the people. They had bronze rings in their noses or eyebrows or tongues. Some of the men wore their hair long, in styles Jala had never seen, and some of the women had no hair at all. And it felt lonely to be surrounded by all these people and have no idea what they were saying.
Jala’s group wore scratchy brown robes, the kind they’d normally only use for making sacks or pouches, but Boka had thought it best to go unnoticed as they traveled. The Queen’s Earring still dangled from her ear, but it was a symbol only recognizable to the islanders.
“I never thought there could be so many people in one place,” Jala said, as much to hear a familiar sound as anything else. “And the smell’s getting worse. I wish there was some wind at least, so I could breathe.”
“Maybe you should have brought more ships,” Marjani said. “It feels like we’re being swallowed up. How long before we reach the other end?”
Boka laughed miserably. “If you brought the entire Kayet fleet the Constant City would still swallow it up. We won’t see the end of the city until the sun has set, I think, but my queen won’t have to walk the whole way. There are the horses now.”
He pointed at four huge creatures lashed to wooden carts. As Jala approached, the beasts stared at her with their large eyes and stamped their hoofed feet on the ground. One of them snapped at her with its yellowed teeth, and Jala jumped back with a cry. The man sitting atop the cart laughed at her and said something Jala couldn’t understand.
“Are they safe?” Jala asked Boka quietly.
“Nothing here is safe,” Boka said. “Stay away from the horses, stay away from our guides, and don’t ask me to translate what they say, because you won’t like it. Unless you’d rather return to the ship and wait for my trade ships to arrive so they can take us home.”
“No. We’re here now, so we go on,” Jala said. She waved at the drivers. “Will they take us to the Hashon?”
“Not all the way. They say that there’s a river that runs to that land, though, so they’ll take us that far.”
The sailors, too, gave the beasts a wide berth as they loaded one of the carts with chests and crates and barrels. The cart was soon piled high with food and wine for their journey, as well as two small chests of coins.
The cart bounced hard on the dirt and brick streets while Jala and Marjani watched the city slowly pass them by. They passed through a bazaar, and for a while the smells of the city were drowned out by the smell of cooking food. Jala almost told Boka to stop and buy her something. It felt like forever since she’d tasted food without salt. But they’d just eaten on the ship, and stopping now for food was probably too frivolous. Too soon, they left the bazaar behind them.
The carts turned down one street and then another, seemingly at random, and soon Jala had no idea which way would lead her back to the ship or even the ocean. She hadn’t been able to hear the waves for hours. The only noise was the noise of the city.
“It doesn’t seem like it’ll ever end,” she said. “Like you could spend lifetimes here and never see it all.”
Marjani shuddered. “Why would you want to spend a lifetime here? This place is awful.”
They passed through an old, crumbling stone wall, and Jala thought they must have reached the city’s end, but beyond the wall were more houses and more people. It wasn’t until they passed through a second wall, taller but just as ruined, that the houses stopped. The plain outside the city was crowded with caravans an
d carts and pack animals of all different shapes. Even out here people bartered for goods while they waited to be let into the city itself.
“We’ll travel at night for a while,” Boka said. “Try to put some distance between us and the city, and lose anyone who might try to follow us.”
“Why would they follow us?” Marjani asked.
Askel answered instead. “To take your metal and your clothes and maybe your lives. Or did you think you were the only thieves on the mainland?”
“We’re not thieves,” Jala snapped.
“As you say, my queen.” Askel bowed his head, but there was a note of sarcasm in his voice. “No doubt being from the Lone Isle it’s just harder for me to see the difference.”
Jala ignored him and feigned interested in the scenery. Not that it was very interesting. The land around them was full of hills but few trees. Most of it was grass and dirt and sun-bleached stone. Everywhere she looked she saw another road splitting off and disappearing behind a hill or down into a valley somewhere. Hundreds of roads, all leading to the Constant City.
“How long has this city been here?” she asked Boka.
“A long time,” he said. “Maybe before the fire mountain birthed the Five-and-One. The Nongo have a story that they used to live here, until a great flood came and washed them up on the Fourth Isle. The way they tell it, they populated all the other islands, and all the families are really Nongo children.”
“I’ve never heard that one,” Jala said. “Sounds more like something the Rafa would tell.”
“I don’t think it’s meant for other families to hear. A Nongo story, meant for the Nongo.”
The sun set, and they rode on, their way lit by bright moonlight. Against the starry sky, Jala watched thin plumes of smoke rise from nearby campfires. Other travelers, other caravans, perhaps a village somewhere nearby. The cart rocked and rattled and creaked while the horses breathed loudly and the driver whistled to himself. After a while, Jala fell into an uneasy sleep. It was still night when Boka woke her to tell her they’d stopped. She barely remembered eating before she curled up on a sleeping mat.
So it went for several days, as they passed fields of gold-brown plants that Boka called grain, or fields covered in vines. Sometimes they stopped at smaller farms and traded for melons or fresh bread. Every day the sun seemed to grow brighter, and the grass thinner, until one day Jala looked out of the cart and almost thought she was home again. Palm trees grew along the shores of a river. And beyond the river, beyond the grass and palm trees, was an ocean of sand.
There was a cry from the guards. The prisoner struggled against the ropes, crying out in his own tongue. “Hashana! Hashana!” He stared at the river, his eyes wide. The Bardo sailors fought to hold on to him as he thrashed about.
“Take him down to the water,” Jala said.
The sailors glanced at her, then shrugged and did as she commanded. The prisoner stopped struggling as they walked him down, but then he wrenched forward, tearing the rope out of their hands. He fell to his knees at the water’s edge and lowered his head until his forehead touched the muddy riverbank. He whispered prayers under his breath.
When they pulled him up again, he seemed to stand straighter, and though his eyes shone with tears, they were bright as they took in everything around him. He called for Boka as they brought him back to the carts.
Boka went out to meet him, and they spoke briefly.
“He says this river will take us to his people,” Boka said afterward. “Captain Natari thinks we’ll be safer if we travel by water. We’ll trade for a boat as soon as we can.” He waved a hand at the horses. “It’ll be nice to be away from these stinking beasts, too.”
“They do stink,” Marjani said, “and I’ll be glad to be on a ship again, but I think I’ll miss them anyway. I won’t miss him, though.” Her eyes flicked to the prisoner. “I don’t like the way he stares at you. What if he tries to hurt you now that he might actually be able to make it home?”
“I know,” Jala said. “But what else can we do but trust him?”
Boka smirked. “He asked to talk to you but wouldn’t tell me why. Should I tell him yes, since you trust him so much?”
Jala glared at Boka. “All right. I’ll hear him out.”
“As you say, my queen,” he said, and called for the prisoner to be brought closer.
Marjani leaned in to whisper, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“If thirty sailors can’t keep me safe from him, then I don’t see what difference it makes,” Jala said. She stepped off the cart to meet the prisoner.
“Thank you,” the man said. He struggled with the words, but it was clearly Jala’s own tongue that he spoke. She glanced at Boka sharply, but the trader just shook his head as if to say, I didn’t know. “You are . . . great criminal . . . but thank you.” He gestured at the river. “Hashana. Once more see Hashana.”
“Hashana. Is that the name of the river?” Jala asked, unsure what else to say.
“Hashana is river. Hashana is home. Hashana is people. Hashana is . . . life.” The prisoner nodded to her, then turned away to stare once more at the water.
Captain Natari came to stand next to Jala. “My queen, we should move soon, before the sun is too high and hot.”
“No. There’s something we need to do before we go any further in Hashon land. We’ll rest here for a while. If the river really is life the way our friend seems to think, then I think we can all take this opportunity to wash, as well.”
“I’m sorry if our smell offends you,” Captain Natari said with a hint of a smile. “We’ve smelled worse. But a rest won’t be unappreciated.”
They all did as Jala had suggested, washing and sleeping through the hottest part of the day.
“Your pet Hashon is right,” Askel whispered as they sat listening to the river. “This water is alive. It travels a long way, listening as it brings life and death. Did you know that all water is one, oh queen? I think somewhere this river must reach the Great Ocean, and from there the Five-and-One. Maybe that’s how they found us without a grayship to guide them. There’s power in this land. Not so much as in the fire mountain, perhaps, but it’s an old power, and it does not sleep the way the fire mountain does.”
Later that day, they passed through a small village, but the people there eyed them suspiciously and wouldn’t part with any of their fishing boats. It was two more days before they found a larger town where they could trade for two large boats to carry all of them upriver.
Captain Natari scowled as he walked the length of one of the boats. “The wood’s rotten, and I’ve seen better craftsmanship from the boats my son makes out of sticks. I wouldn’t trust this to float in a puddle of piss.”
“If you’d rather swim, be my guest,” Boka growled under his breath. “They don’t trust us, so this is all we’re going to get from them, and we’re lucky we still have anything left to trade.”
Natari glanced around then leaned in to whisper in Jala’s ear. “My queen, we have thirty sailors. Let’s simply take the boats we need tonight.”
Jala hesitated. It made sense, but she didn’t like it. They had no grayship to escape on, and more was at stake than their own lives. “We don’t need them to cross the Great Ocean, just sail down a river. They’ll be fine. And we don’t need to draw any more attention to ourselves than we have to.”
“Drawing attention won’t be a problem when we’re all drowned,” he muttered. “I won’t be captain on one of these. It’s a disgrace.”
“I’ll be your captain then,” Jala hissed. “We take these boats, and we leave.”
Natari gritted his teeth. “Yes, my queen.”
For a while it felt good to be back on water again, and Jala liked having the familiar palm trees around them. But that feeling only lasted a little while. During the day, the sun shone down mercilessly on them, so hot it made the deck painful to walk on. At night, the air turned cold, and they huddled together for warmth.
Of
ten, Jala sat and watched the people around them as they paddled or poled their small boats loaded with goods, or fished along the riverbanks. It had been impossible to tell the color of the prisoner’s skin, for it had gone ashen with his premature aging, but now she saw that many of his people were lighter than she was, with brown skin and shiny black hair that lay flat and straight. They wore it plain, either cut short or in long tails that could be easily bound back with a piece of thread. Jala felt a childish urge to style it for them.
The river grew wider and more heavily trafficked as the day went on. Inquiries into their business came more often. They had little left to trade, so they couldn’t be merchants. They didn’t speak the language, and so far from the Constant City even the trade speech was becoming useless. Boka had to rely on what he’d managed to learn of the Hashon language. How would they ever reach the rulers of this land when they could barely speak with the people?
Their prisoner took pleasure in hearing the cries of the other boaters to each other, but it made Natari nervous, and he kept the prisoner back under the canopy that covered two-thirds of the boat. More than once, Jala saw the prisoner’s eyes linger on the chest where she kept the Hashon book.
She pulled Askel aside. “We have to hide that book somehow. If something happens and they take it from me, then there’s no reason for them to deal with us. There must be some sorcery that can help us. Can you make it invisible? Or change it into a rock? Things like that used to happen in the old stories.”
“If such magic ever existed, it’s beyond me,” Askel said. He considered her for a moment. “But maybe there’s another magic that can help you. Tell the captain to stop when night falls.” A few hours later they beached the two boats on an empty bank on the same side as the ocean of sand. “Come,” Askel told her and he led Jala and Natari out across the dunes.
“Where are you taking us?” Natari asked.
“Nowhere,” Askel said, smiling in the moonlight. “A place no one could ever find again. Bury the book here and it will be safely hidden.” He gave Jala a shrewd look. “There is a price for what I’m about to do. One that I must pay, and one that you must pay, oh queen.”