Through the Whirlpool

by K. Eastkott

  “Acchh, girl, you’ll kill yourself if you don’t take more care to keep dry out there. Why do you think cloaks were invented?”

  “I like to feel the surf on my skin.”

  “You aren’t immortal, you know.”

  “So many years now, I’ve been doing this, supervising sea-nomad-becoming. Yet lately I seem to get more creaks and pains in my bones every day.”

  “No surprise if you won’t keep wrapped up better. Come back to the cabin and warm up. I’ve got supper prepared.”

  “No, I have to check on the council—make sure everybody’s turned up.

  “That’s taken care of. Lehd has it under control. You’ve got half a tide cycle before you need to be anywhere. Come back to the cabin.”

  Taashou submitted silently. Duu-feen helped her up from the dock.

  * * *

  Because no cabin in town was large enough for the Great Council, the central market had been cleared from the main platform. A brisk sea breeze ruffled the people gathered, each community’s representatives, who were seated on benches under the open sky. While dawn crept pink over one edge of the raft, night grayly retreated off the other. The chill stopped anyone from nodding off so early in the morning.

  They were strange, the land people gathered here, so conscious of the threatening ocean around them. Some, Duu-feen saw, did not look half so sickly as they had the night before, but Gordonor, fat delegate-elect of the Rraawuu city of Solgom, had to be hauled onto the platform on a litter. His normally purple face showed a greenish hue, and his red and gold tunic was flecked with vomit. His skinny assistant was no better. Duu-feen suppressed a giggle as the two men leaned over the same bucket at the same time. Heads cracked. Gordonor swore at his helper, regaining his normal color for a moment. Then the town crested another wave and began to lurch downward again. Both men groaned. It had been unwise to call the meeting at Shah-rraatawuu. It was obvious the land people would be laid low with seasickness their first few days on the ocean.

  Duu-feen saw Taashou come onto the raft. The shahiroh looked around, then went to a seat well upwind of Gordonor and his vomit-speckled group. She looked fiercer than ever. Duu-feen knew her expression was a mask for the real worry she felt at what she had to achieve here.

  “I’m sure you must be laughing, Taashou!” Gordonor looked furious, sitting up on his stretcher, eyes almost popping from his head. “You think it’s a great joke, don’t you? Dragging us all out here onto this raft in the middle of a storm. That isn’t how you’ll get my cooperation for your schemes.”

  She was unruffled: “Not mine, Gordonor—ours. This affects you as much as anyone. But are you serious about a storm? You know, I think you’re right—there could be one on its way.”

  Taashou frowned at the horizon. Gordonor wailed and collapsed back into his pillows. Now the light was bright. Most of the other representatives had arrived, accepting the benches reserved for them. Raa-geh-ur was there, tiny and sprite, leader of the Taagaag-ee, the horse nomads of the southern plains. He and his people seemed less affected by the rolling ocean. Maybe wave movement was not so different from the loping gait of their creatures.

  Raa-geh-ur was greeting Eloh-inderash, the lean, brown shepherd of the Geyg-ee, from the lower slopes of Geh-urbh-Geh-ot, when there was a rushing of air that rose above the ocean’s roar and crash, outdoing the wind’s whistling. People looked around, bewildered, saw nothing. The shepherds were the first to look up, cry out, and dart for cover, unslinging bows, notching arrows on the run.

  “Hold! Relax! These are friends, here for the same reasons we are!” Taashou’s voice carried over the gathering. People froze. She seemed to have grown to twice her normal height. Her presence commanded.

  Then down into the open space in the platform’s center swept three huge, pink and golden bhaanj, skillfully avoiding the mast stays. The wide leathery membranes that served them for wings seemed to stretch the entire width of the raft, while their bloated bodies rippled and floated gently down onto the deck. Flickering golden eyes scanned the crowd, and a yellow scrap of flame curled from the odd snout.

  “Sheen-gaw aleef!” cried a voice. The dragons settled down, calmer despite being hemmed in by so many humans. From between the wings of each beast a rider emerged: booted, dressed in leather, and muffled against the chill of the upper atmosphere. Their leader sprang from her mount’s broad back, surveyed the gathering, then spying the shahiroh, she stepped forward:

  Taashou!

  The old woman smiled. “Kehl-grehnaa. Welcome.”

  As they hugged, Duu-feen felt a surge of heat rise through her. She barely had time for surprise that the dragon rider had used mind speech. Who was this woman who was so intimate with Taashou? She was stout, maybe ten years older than Duu-feen’s thirty years. It was almost with relief that she saw another of the dragon riders move up beside Kehl-grehnaa and place a hand on her shoulder in a familiar way. The man was tall and broad, red-brown hair cut to shoulder length. Duu-feen was too far away to hear their conversation, but Kehl-grehnaa seemed to be introducing the man to Taashou.

  Then suddenly Gordonor’s storm arrived. A maelstrom erupted in the center of the dock lagoon. Water boiled. Waves lifted and washed across the docks, even up onto the pontoons, swamping the deck platforms. Wood and cables screeched and wailed as they were wrenched about in the ocean’s turmoil. The three dragons lifted up in fright and swept away, circling far out around the town. Everyone turned toward the center of the lagoon. The entire floating town of Shah-rraatawuu was heaved and shaken. Only the steadiest Shahee kept their feet. That was why they were the first to see it: a rearing, twisting, snakelike body, wide as a bhaanj’s wingspan, its terrible horns, eight or ten of them, sprouting from its ugly face; a necklace of tentacles writhed about the scaly body as it heaved itself from the water, up, up, high into the air, reaching toward the mainmast and higher, higher, finally twice its height. It roared, blowing its fetid, salty breath across the town.

  “Hoh-ee!” shouted Taashou, her voice a mere whisper above the serpent-beast’s pant: “How you love to make an entrance!”

  Wavecrafting, Windcalling

  As soon as Kreh-ursh awoke—mist surrounding him, a silver screen on which gray trunks were projected like stone columns in an ancient temple—he sipped a few drops of his mother’s potion and swallowed some berries to renew his energy. When he checked his snares, he found he had caught two mehrr-koh. He released the younger. The life code allowed him to take just as much as he needed for his own sustenance. While he worked, resetting traps, then killing and plucking the plump bird, the sun shot slender rays through the vapor until it was torn to ragged shreds that fluttered away on the insistent breeze. He worked without pause, trying to keep his mind busy. Yet his thoughts returned to dwell on last night’s dreams, on Kaar-oh. His friend’s presence haunted him here like never before. Zjhuud-geh, this island, played tricks, magnified emotions, twisted them until you could not work out what was real and what was not. He had thought he was getting over the death. Geh-meer had convinced him this would be good for him, to continue with sea-nomad-becoming. It would help him overcome that guilt, that captivity to Kaar-oh’s memory. Now it felt as if he would never be free.

  The sun was high by the time he got to work on his trunk. First he stripped off branches and bark until he was left with a bare, wooden column. Some time after midday, using ax, mallet, and wedges, he began to split this into plank-like sections. Taat-eh wood, though springy and flexible, split easily. By sunset, he had five rough planks of more or less equal thickness and varying width. Still he forced himself on, working beyond the limit he felt himself capable of until the fading light forced him to build a small fire and spit some of the mehrr-koh.

  In his dreams that night, he wandered again through fitful, scrappy memories. Yet early on, it began to rain, awakening him. His bivouac was not perfect at keeping out the wet. In his fight to stay dry, he ended up huddling cross-legged, blanket wrapped close, listening to
the risa-risa-ris of rain attacking the jungle canopy, the toc-tic-cli-clic of heavy droplets falling from vine to leaf to forest floor. In that close, clamorous night, Kaar-oh crowded back into his mind.

  Here he was, here they both were, he and Kaar-oh, arguing with Geh-meer because she would not get involved with their expedition. They were sitting outside Geh-meer’s hut, dry under the roof overhang while rain dripped off the eaves above them and drove in gray sheets across the bay. The overturned canoes down on the beach, pulled up onto the shingle and nesting among kelp and driftwood, looked like sleek, brown kee-leh—the amphibious creatures that lived in colonies on the rocky promontories to the south.

  “You are not going down to Gaa-shuudot—tell me you aren’t. You boys would be dumber than dumb to think about doing that.”

  “It’s only a river. We’re more or less Shahee now. We’ll be able to anyway in a few moons’ time.”

  “Kreh-ursh, Kaar-oh, you’re not allowed! Next you’ll be telling me you’re off to hunt the keen-skur.”

  “Are there keen-skur down there?”

  The look Kaar-oh gave him told Kreh-ursh that his pretended innocence had fallen flat. You couldn’t really fool Geh-meer.

  “It’s a stupid idea, way too dangerous. Even the Shahee leave the keen-skur alone.”

  Kreh-ursh was secretly relieved. Maybe they could forget it now. It gave him a way out. Yet he found himself arguing, defending himself.

  “I could get a fang—I know how. I’ve got a plan.”

  And Kaar-oh backed him up. “I’m in. Not for the fang—it’s just the extra sailing. We need the practice.”

  With Kaar-oh set to go, that was half the battle won.

  “It won’t help you with sea-nomad-becoming. It’s stupid. You’re just looking for trouble. And it’s against the life code: if you don’t need it, you can’t hunt it.”

  “Need is relative. Maybe we do. It’s the challenge.”

  “You don’t need a keen-skur’s fang. No one uses one. People still come back Shahee. A hunt to capture a keen-skur—you might not come back from that.”

  Then a strange thing happened: Geh-meer stopped, staring fixedly at a point—her eyes blank. Suddenly, she returned, but now there was fear and urgency in her voice: “Kaar-oh! Don’t go! You mustn’t! Kreh-ursh, back me up. Tell him! Tell him not to go!”

  Kaar-oh lashed out: “What? Do you think I’m scared? We’re going!”

  How could she have known? When they set off, in the grayness of early dawn, that vivid expectation of adventure they thought they would feel was missing, replaced by a tight fear that they were sneaking away like cowards. They knew that Geh-meer would not say anything to the adults, but the sense of bravado with which they had thought up the plan had somehow faded away like morning mist.

  However, once free of Rrurd lagoon, the sea breeze raised their spirits. It blew away doubt. The excitement of the journey infected them. Both boys were skilled sailors. Though the village canoe they’d borrowed—one of a few communal craft used for training—was not the fastest, they had enough skill, along with vivid imaginations, to give themselves the illusion they were truly flying over the waves.

  After losing Rrurd and the tall cone of Kaa-meer-geh from sight, they put all their efforts into wavecrafting and windcalling, enjoying the dance up and down the mountainous waves and seeing how much they could increase their speed. The wind was southerly, forcing them to tack. If it held, it would mean a fast trip home. In the end, that was what saved Kreh-ursh’s life.

  How obsessed he was getting with reliving that journey! He had to get a grip. The rain had stopped, but the dripping continued. He built a mind-block against the memory, curled up on his damp bed, and tried to sleep.

  Yet Kaar-oh was here! Standing in the mist outside the bivouac. Soaked to the skin. Water dripped from his hair, from his tunic, stained with wide patches of red. Then Kreh-ursh had left the shelter and was running, careering through the trees. He tripped, fell, rolled. Kaar-oh leaned down, offering his hand.

  “No! Away!”

  He was running again, but he knew it was useless. Again he fell, sliding downward in the dark. A night bird screeched. Something thudded against his skull, and he blacked out.

  Approaching Storm

  The serpent-beast, a tower of coils, swayed above Seatown. Duu-feen had fallen, sprawled on the deck, entangled in Shahee arms and Rraawuu legs. Beside her one of Eloh-inderash’s archers was aiming high at the creature’s head. She struck at his arm. The arrow flew wide, sailing above the town and plopping into the lagoon. He turned, angry.

  “Wait! It is a friend.”

  The only person standing was Taashou, legs astride, calm. Tiny as a stick doll before the monster.

  “We’ve been waiting for you! Always the last to arrive, but ever welcome!”

  Slow, ponderous, the serpent from the lightless deep looped its body back downward. Length upon length of its dripping coils slid below the waves until just the tiny head—slightly larger than Duu-feen’s cabin—was hovering a few paces above the deck. Never had Duu-feen seen such an ugly sight: wrinkled skin, seaweed and barnacles growing from its scaly hide; pale eyes set wide on either side of the craggy skull, and a beardlike fringe of tentacles surrounding a cavernous mouth lined with concentric rings of serrated teeth.

  Then two flaps of heavy skin on its forehead trembled and separated. A puffy white orb was pushed forth—a blind, third eye opening. It plopped out, bouncing onto the deck and was revealed as an inflated fleh-aak-zjhur bladder. Out of the same crease squeezed a man. Climbing down the creature’s face, he jumped free. On his shrill whistle, the huge creature slithered away into the lagoon, its passage sending another huge wash across the raft. The ocean returned to its rolling calm—yet not a sound came from the gathered crowd. Taashou stepped forward.

  “Thank you, Daakohn, for answering my call.”

  Duu-feen had seen this man a few times, but never the creature he called his “boy” before. Always he had appeared from the sea, swimming. Now she knew why she had never spied his canoe. Though older than Taashou, still he stood with a youthful vigor, accentuated by his body-hugging suit of kelp. A flickering smile—he seemed childishly proud of his dramatic entrance—played about his eyes, revealing intelligence, though there was also bitterness carved into his face. He picked up the fleh-aak-zjhur bladder from the deck and methodically squeezed out the air until it was small and compact enough to attach to his belt.

  “Where do you want me?”

  Taashou pointed to a seat at her right hand.

  Little by little people found their voices, and a hostile growl rose among the crowd as Daakohn-bhah-ehl-bhah-her walked to the spot Taashou had indicated. The mood was not pleasant: None of the land people were relaxed, not with three huge bhaanj clinging to the mainmast and a giant sea serpent cruising the depths below.

  Around a hundred people sat in four main groups: Gathered around Taashou were the Shahee, the sea nomads, with Daakohn seated directly on her right; Kehl-grehnaa and her dragon riders were to her left; Gordonor and the other Rraawuu from the city occupied the space directly facing her; and on Taashou’s far left and Gordonor’s right were Raa-geh-ur and his Taagaag-ee, the horse nomads of the plains; opposite them, to Taashou’s right and Gordonor’s left, were Eloh-inderash and his herders from the lower slopes of Geh-urbh-Geh-ot. They stabbed unfriendly looks toward Kehl-grehnaa and her companions. Cattle were one of the favorite meals of wild mountain bhaanj. Taashou stood.

  “I wish to thank you, Taagaag-ee, Geyg-ee, Rraawuu, and Shahee, peoples of the land and sea, for heeding my call and agreeing to a meeting of the Great Council…”

  “A call of spite... to bring us onto such a flimsy raft in this treacherous weather!” grumbled Gordonor.

  She ignored him.

  “I called you because of a problem that is threatening Shah, yet one that will be a danger for the whole world, should we allow it to grow. I’m talking about the rift. It has returned, yet
in an evil configuration. We...”

  “Taashou.” It was Raa-gehd-ur. “I and my tribe are nomads like the Shahee, but nomads of the land. I have heard of this rift only in a fire myth we sing to our children but know nothing about it that I would trust as fact. Explain what you mean.”

  “The rift is a phenomenon that returns at irregular times, maybe once every generation or two. It is years since the last time... and I was young, just a girl… Daakohn, you should explain.”

  The slim, kelp-suited man stood.

  “You know of me, Raa-gehd, but maybe very little. For though, like you, I grew up among the grassy plains and rode with the Taagaag-ee, I have not slept more than a night on land for over sixty years. Your father was a baby when I left, too young to remember his older brother, and the Taagaag-ee now know me simply as the Lost One.”

  “This family reunion is touching,” snapped Gordonor, “but can we get on? I have to be back on land before nightfall. I’ve got a city to run!”

  Daakohn laughed. “For you, Gordonor, I will keep it brief. For several generations we have known that our world and everything it contains—vast though we may see it—is like a simple bubble of sea foam born on the waves compared to the universe that surrounds it. Within this universe are many other worlds, as numerous as bubbles of sea foam…”

  Duu-feen listened to Daakohn speak, but the atmosphere of the council was not the cooperative one which Taashou had hoped for. Soon Gordonor had hijacked the discussion, and was demanding to know how much payment he could expect for helping to save Shah. His mood seemed to influence the other land people.