Passages

by Olan Thorensen

  “Same song,” whispered Gulgit. Mark nodded, keeping his eyes on the woman.

  Whatever lyrics she used were well known, and by the third verse, the audience was humming or singing quietly along. When she finished with a crescendo of chords and a loud final word, the listeners erupted in appreciation. She stood still until the noise abated, then began strumming again.

  “A nice voice,” Gulgit said in Mark’s ear. “My wife used to sing before she died. I think this Huthor’s voice is better for smaller rooms, and she’s trying to be loud for this big one.”

  Huthor was only on the second bar of the next song when Mark recognized it. He began humming loudly until he noticed nearby patrons looking at him—some frowning and some in puzzlement. He stopped before Gulgit gripped his arm.

  “I don’t think the others have heard this one before, Mark. Don’t draw attention to us.”

  Mark cursed silently. Keep your wits about you, dummy! Do nothing to draw attention.

  A refrain reoccurred every line or two, and by the twentieth time, the crowd began joining in. This allowed Mark to participate, in English, without neighbors hearing him.

  “Swing low, sweet chariot,

  Coming for to carry me home.”

  “What are the words in your language?” asked Gulgit.

  “It’s originally related to religious worship, but the part that keeps repeating, in my language, is about coming home. It’s got to be a message to us, especially if you’re right and the others here have never heard it before. She must be signaling she wants out of here and wants to go home.”

  Well, there’s nothing I can do about getting her back to Earth, thought Mark, and I’ll have to see if I can do anything to get her out of Sulako.

  She continued with another song. This one Mark thought he recognized but couldn’t place; then another he drew a blank on. By the time the manager or impresario or whatever he was rose to speak, Mark estimated thirty minutes had passed. He thought he recognized the melodies to more than half of the songs or instrumentals.

  Huthor gave a small bow to acknowledge the cheers and sat down.

  “Is this the end of her performance?” asked Gulgit.

  “I think not. Notice Halari and she aren’t leaving, and they haven’t brought on another performer. I’ll guess it’s a pause and will resume after a time.”

  Heather leaned the foralong against the wall by her chair.

  “I’ll go talk with some potential customers of our service,” said Halari. “Do your scribblings and be ready to perform again in about an hour. Lamalonee won’t call on you again until he sees I’m back.”

  She watched Halari exit through the small balcony’s door, leaving the two guards staring impassively forward. Only then did she allow herself to sag, clutching herself and trembling.

  I think he wants to help me escape. At least, I hope he does, and I’m not reading into all this. I also think he wants me to somehow give him ideas on how and where to do it, but what do I do?

  Five minutes went by. The crowd below milled as they stretched their legs, talked to other patrons, left the room to relieve themselves in the outdoor voiding spaces, and ordered new drinks.

  “All right, I can write a message, but how to get it to him?” she said aloud now that Halari was gone.

  No one spoke English. She didn’t fear the guards noticing, but she had learned that Halari would demand to know what she said if he heard her speaking a foreign language. He also had the habit of querying her more than once on one of her foreign utterances and would punish her if the accounts didn’t match.

  “I can’t deliver it to him, so I’ll have to drop it someplace where he can see and retrieve it. Wait . . . drop it. Maybe that’s it. I can write something and drop it over the railing onto the floor below. No one reads English, so it’s just what Halari calls it—scribblings.”

  She checked the paper sheets. Six of them. She hadn’t seen Halari count the sheets, but he’d expect her to have used several of them.

  “I’ll chance he doesn’t notice if I only have three sheets of writing. That means I have three pages to try to say . . . what? I’d like to start by asking if he’s really from Earth, and can he try to get me out of here? But it’ll be hard enough to get a single message to him. What’ll I write? It has to be simple to look like scribblings. Maybe adding some music staffs.”

  She stared at the top sheet for several minutes, then wrote in large letters:

  Always 2+ guards

  Will kill to keep me

  More guards home

  Carriage main plaza

  Every other day noon

  2 guards

  As a final touch, she randomly wrote music notes around the words.

  Looking at the paper, she chewed her lower lip and prayed silently.

  “Please, God. Let this find him and make sense. Let him find a way to get me out of this hell. I just want to go home.”

  Images of her family flashed through her mind, along with a yearning to feel her mother’s embrace.

  She next speed-wrote a page of words and crude music notations on a second page. The guards needed to see her doing what she’d told Halari. When finished, she took both sheets, let out what she hoped was a disgusted-sounding series of Sulakoan curses, wadded both pages into balls, and threw them over the railing.

  CHAPTER 39

  SO MUCH FOR CAREFUL PLANNING

  “Mark!” Gulgit whispered urgently. He jabbed his companion with a sharp elbow. “She’s thrown two things off the balcony. They fluttered down as if they don’t weigh much. If you’re right about her getting paper and ink, I’ll bet they’re wads of paper. Maybe she’s trying to—”

  The Rustalian hadn’t finished his suggestion before Mark was on his feet and weaving through the crowd. He rushed as much as he could without drawing attention.

  When he reached the area of tables below the balcony, he slowed and pretended to be looking for someone. Men and a few women brushed against him. His size made it difficult for him to squeeze between some of the tables, and he drew more attention than he wanted, but there was no help for it.

  If the paper wads had fallen on a table or on customers, people likely would have thrown them on the floor before or after opening them. Mark scanned the floor as unobtrusively as he could. He was about to give up when he caught a movement on the floor in the corner of his eye. It was a wad of paper being kicked unconsciously by foot after foot. He changed direction to follow the wad. Every time he was close, someone would kick it, and he’d have to locate it again. The chase was on.

  Finally, it was kicked against the wall under the balcony. Mark hurried to stand directly over it and glanced slowly around. No one seemed to notice him more than any other detail on the main floor. He picked up the wad and again surveyed his surroundings. He then walked along the wall halfway around the room before turning to the wall and undoing the wad.

  “Shit!”

  On it were written lyrics to songs, two of which Mark was familiar with, plus crude music staffs and notes. He was about to drop it in disgust but stopped.

  Maybe it’s some code or allusion she thinks I can figure out, he thought. For several minutes he stared at the page, oblivious that someone seeing him face the wall might wonder whether he was urinating.

  When he gave up, he folded the page and put it in a pants pocket to check again later. He turned and immediately spotted a second wad—under a chair at a table of six men. He stood there thinking of ruses for reaching under the chair. Nothing elegant came to mind, so he went with the tried and true.

  Approaching the table, he pretended to trip and fell face-forward, hitting the floor and bumping into the chair. Expletives erupted from the occupant, who jumped to his feet. Mark grabbed the wad as he rose to his full height, which was six inches taller than the annoyed patron. Mark glared down at the man and turned to walk away, tensely waiting for a response. None came.

  He worried that his act had drawn attention, but glancing
around indicated he was just another of the milling bodies in the crowded room.

  “Did you get anything?” asked Gulgit when Mark sat down.

  “I don’t know.” He leaned toward Gulgit. “I’ll wait a minute before finding out.”

  Two minutes later, he didn’t think people were paying him more attention than to anyone else. When he looked at Huthor, only once did her gaze pass over their table, without stopping. Halari had returned and seemed to be talking to her.

  Mark unclenched his hand in his lap and slowly unwadded the paper, his eyes never looking down. After smoothing the paper on his thigh, he read the words quickly. He looked up and turned to Gulgit, while he folded the paper and stuck it in the top of his boot.

  “Time to go,” he said and draped the cloak over an arm. Then he rested both hands on the table top, momentarily forming a double thumbs-up signal after Huthor’s eyes caught his movements.

  “Go—? Ah . . . you got something.” Gulgit rose from his chair the same time as Mark, and they maneuvered around people, chairs, and tables. A third of the way to the main door, a bell rang to indicate performances were about to resume. They fought against the counterflow of people returning to their chairs or pushing for better positions. Mark’s size worked for them, and Gulgit followed closely as Mark kept moving.

  He resisted the temptation to look back at Huthor.

  Be strong, he thought, as if hoping to project into her mind. I don’t promise, but I’ll see if there’s any way to grab you without getting both of us killed—especially me. I’ve got Maghen and Alys to think about. If I can’t do anything, please understand and forgive me.

  Outside, Mark and Gulgit gratefully inhaled a breeze off the ocean, clearing their lungs from the odors of crowded humanity. The street was empty, a stark and refreshing contrast to the building’s inside.

  “What is it?” asked Gulgit, curious at what made Mark leave so abruptly.

  “Let’s walk away a bit, and I’ll tell you.”

  Two streets later, Mark pulled Gulgit into an alleyway and watched for followers.

  “All right. I just wanted to be sure. Let’s get on back to Zardoz’s house. It was a message from her—at least, the second paper. The first one had words to songs and music markings. The second paper had a short message. If I’m reading it right, she said Halari’s house has too many guards to try anything there, but every other day or so, he takes her in a carriage ride that goes by the main plaza. Two guards accompany them, I assume the same two we saw tonight.”

  Mark left out Huthor’s warning that the guards would kill.

  “You’re going to try to grab her, aren’t you?”

  “If I can, yes, but only if it seems like a reasonable risk.”

  “I think I know you well enough by now that I can’t argue you into changing your mind. I’m also afraid I can’t help you in this. Haldakit and I are already fixed on leaving, as I told you. Even if we weren’t, this is a step too far beyond any friendship or obligation to you.”

  “I appreciate that, Gulgit. I’ll admit I’d like to have your help, but I understand and don’t hold it against you. You’ve already done more than I could ever reasonably have expected.”

  The Rustalian shook his head. “Any idea how you’re going to do it alone? I’d suggest we could see if Haldakit could find some local criminal types to help, but you’d never be able to trust them not to turn you in to authorities or cut your throat.”

  “No, I’ll do this alone. Exactly how is something I need to think over. We’ll be passing near the main plaza on the way back. I’ll want to walk around it a couple of times to study it.”

  Heather saw the two men leave. She wasn’t sure, but the big man might have been reading one of her pages in his lap. Either that, or she hoped that’s what he was doing.

  She sang and played another set before they returned to Halari’s house. It occupied an entire block and included stables for his horses and two carriages. His slave-trading business had made him wealthy well before he bought her from the elahew of a fishing village near where she had been found naked on a beach. The elahew was the mayor, the village chief, or whatever other title she associated with him, and he was the official authority put in place by the district capital through whatever system Sulako used, which she didn’t understand.

  Her recollection of those first days was sketchy, her memory in patches as if she had been only semiconscious. She remembered being carried somewhere and lying on a floor mat with two or more women tending her. Men talking and arguing. Hands touching her. Moments of thinking the men were going to do more than touch. Being clothed and sitting in a wagon.

  When she reconstructed her memories and learned some of the language, she discovered that the village elahew had thought her appearance exotic enough to interest the slave markets in the city of Iskadon, fifty miles from the village whose name she never knew. Once she was in Halari’s compound, her connection to the outside world, limited though it had been, ended. The excursions in Halari’s carriage and trips to performances were the only times she left the compound.

  When she wrote the message to the man who must be a fellow castaway, she conveyed the only piece of information she knew about the city—that Halari ensured the carriage made several passes around the main plaza on every trip, even though the rest of the route varied.

  That night, she lay on her mat for hours before falling asleep. Hope that she had long thought exhausted warred with fear that the man would disappear or fail in whatever he might try and that her despair would be unbearable.

  Maghen sighed. “I understand your wanting to find someone from your homeland, Mark. And if you’re right, and she is from Amerika, where there is no slavery, then I’d want to free her, too. But I have to be honest. For me and Alys, it would be better for us to just leave. However, if we did that, I know you’d forever regret leaving Huthor . . . that’s her name? Promise me one thing, Mark. If you do try to grab her, promise it will only be when you’re sure you can do it without getting killed.”

  “Dearest, my first priority is always you and Alys. You know I can’t give an absolute promise because things may happen that are beyond my control. However, I promise you I’ll be cautious and do my best not to leave you here alone in a strange land.”

  “I got a final cargo contract late yesterday,” said Adalan the next morning when Mark checked with the Buldorian captain. “We’re loading now, and it will give me a full cargo. We could sail with the afternoon tide.”

  Shit! thought Mark. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, but not this soon. What if Halari doesn’t take Huthor for the carriage ride this mid-day?

  “Is that certain, Captain, or could you possibly delay sailing until tomorrow? There’s important business I might not be able to finish before this afternoon.”

  “What kind of business? You’re a stranger to Sulako.”

  “I told you there might be an additional person besides my family coming with us. It’s not certain they’ll be able to leave on such short notice.”

  The Buldorian stared hard at Mark. “Just how important is it that this person come with you? Important enough for you to pay the coin I said it would take for me to leave with only a three-quarter cargo?”

  Bastard’s going to try to hold me up, fumed Mark.

  “It’s important, but now you have a full cargo, so you won’t have lost much by leaving a day later. I think a quarter of the coin you asked for would be fair.”

  “I’m a ship’s captain, Kaldwel, not a priest, saint, or whatever. It’s not my responsibility to be fair. However, I want to be reasonable, so I’ll agree to three-quarters of the coin you implied you had. And no, before you come back with another offer, this is not a bargaining session. Three-quarters is my final offer.”

  Well, it won’t leave us coinless, thought Mark, but we’ll almost certainly have to find work the rest of the way to Caedellium. Hell, maybe with Huthor along, she can help if her music is as well liked elsewhere as it se
ems to be in Iskadon.

  “Agreed,” said Mark. “My family will be here, ready to sail this afternoon. Either I or my companion, Gulgit, will come to tell you if I want to delay sailing until tomorrow. However, if either today or tomorrow Gulgit tells you I won’t be coming—ever—then I’ll ask you to take my family with you to Buldor.”

  Adalan made no effort to hide his surprise. “Without you? I can only assume this business has considerable risk. And what would your family do in Buldor without you?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” said Mark. “My wife will have enough coin to live on for some time. She’s strong enough to find a place in your society. However, I need to ask you something that may offend you. I hope you’ll appreciate why I’m asking.” Mark paused, gathering his words.

  The Buldorian raised an eyebrow and folded his arms, waiting for Mark to continue.

  “Can you give me your word that if I don’t come back, you’ll honor our agreement and care for my family as much as you can?”

  Adalan laughed—not the response Mark was expecting.

  “Kaldwel . . . are you calling on my code of honor?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Surely, you’ve heard of my people and have spoken to others here in Iskadon about their opinions of us. You’re not a stupid man.”

  “They say you’re pirates, slavers, and assassins for hire, in addition to being unscrupulous and never to be trusted. However, a few told me that after you get past those characteristics, your code of honor requires you to fulfill an obligation once you swear to it, an obligation you don’t give easily.”