Passages

by Olan Thorensen

  She stared at the clothes. “Do we have time to stop for me to change?”

  “Who said anything about stopping?”

  When she didn’t respond, he shook her gently. “It’ll be okay, but we can’t stop, and you need to be less conspicuous. Hurry and change yourself, or I’ll have to do it for you.”

  She let go of his coat and slightly withdrew from him but took the clothes. She began untying bows on her elaborate dress. He looked partly away, keeping her in the edge of his vision, in case a sudden jolt of the wheels over cobblestones threatened to eject her from the cart.

  A flash of color made him look back at Heather. She had thrown the garish dress onto the street and now wore the plain brown dress Mark had bought. She was putting on the shoes. Both the dress and the shoes looked a couple of sizes too big.

  “Sorry,” said Mark, “you’re smaller than I thought.”

  “Psst!” hissed Gulgit. “A group of mounted militia headed our way.”

  Mark looked to see seven riders galloping toward them: a single lead rider and six more following, two abreast.

  “Look away from them,” he said to Heather, then he did the same, while resting his hands on the grips of his two pistols.

  Haldakit kept the cart’s pace but moved it closer to the buildings lining the street, in order to let the horsemen pass. No one spoke as the hoof beats grew louder. Then the militia passed, going in the opposite direction without pausing.

  “Headed for the plaza and market is my guess,” said Gulgit. “Word’s gotten out that something happened, but the authorities likely don’t know any details. That’ll change in the next few minutes.”

  Gulgit spoke to Haldakit, and the driver urged the horses on.

  Heather crowded up closer to Mark and held onto his arm. “Where are we going? What if they send men after us? I can’t be recaptured.” Her voice had an edge of hysteria. “Halari said if I tried again, he’d cut off both my feet. ‘You don’t need them to sing and play,’” she said, mimicking the slaver’s voice.

  Mark snarled. “You should have killed him. If I’d known he’d threatened that, I’d have killed him myself.”

  “I can’t be taken again,” she said again. “I’d rather die. Promise me.”

  “We’ll be gone before they can organize a thorough search,” said Mark. “There’s a ship waiting for us at the harbor. Once we’re cast off, they’ll never catch us, even if they know we’re on that particular ship.”

  She gripped him tighter. “But if they do. Promise me they won’t take me alive.”

  Now I know I should have killed the slimy motherfucker, thought Mark. Besides the threat to cut off her feet, what else must she have gone through to want to be dead before returning to Halari?

  He put an arm around her and pulled her close. “I promise, Heather,” he whispered in her ear. “You won’t be taken alive.”

  “What’s she saying?” asked Gulgit. “I assume you’re talking with her in your language.”

  “She’s afraid of being recaptured alive,” Mark answered in Suvalu. “I promised her I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  Gulgit nodded grimly, needing no further explanation of the promise’s meaning.

  Twice more they passed armed men in clothing that Mark assumed signified military or the law enforcement equivalent. Neither time did the men pay them any attention.

  “How can they respond so fast to what happened in the plaza?” Mark asked Gulgit.

  “It might not be what you did, but a general alarm that something happened. Do you hear the horns?”

  Mark cocked his head. Now that Gulgit had brought it to his attention, he could hear distant horns. The sounds came primarily from the direction of the main plaza, but other horns blared from other directions and various distances, judging by how loud or faint they were.

  “That’s good news, then. We’ll be gone before they get organized.”

  “Not if some of those signals are for the harbor to stop all ships from departing.”

  “Shit!” said Mark. He hadn’t thought of that possibility. “Maybe we should forget being unobtrusive and race to the ship.”

  “I think I agree,” said Gulgit, who then spoke to Haldakit.

  The driver picked up the slender whip for the first time and snapped it onto the horses’ backs. The cart lurched forward with the sudden acceleration. Mark hung onto Heather to keep from losing her off the back of the cart.

  People on foot scattered out of their way as Haldakit maneuvered around other wheeled conveyances. Curses and shouts followed them, but they paid no attention. A few minutes later, they turned a corner to see ships’ masts two blocks farther down the street they were on.

  Mark pulled Heather close to speak into her ear.

  “Heather. Listen. This is important. If anyone asks, you’re from a land called Amerika, which is where I’m also from. It’s on this planet, but you can’t say exactly where. You also don’t know how you came to be in Sulako. Never say anything about Earth or anything that would be out of place here. We’ll talk more later when there’s time, but don’t say anything more than what I just said until we talk.”

  Gulgit turned in his seat. “Mark, I told Haldakit to drive right onto the pier and up to the ship. Other crews and maybe some officials will scream at us, but we’ll let you and Heather off. Haldakit and I will leave the cart and go back to Zardoz’s house to grab our horses and packs and be off.” He held out a hand. “Good luck to all of you, Mark. I hope someday we meet again, and you can tell me how the rest of your travel to Caedellium went.”

  Mark gripped the man’s hand tightly. “And good fortune to you, Gulgit. May you get back safely to Rustal and drive the Narthani out of your land.”

  As Gulgit had predicted, when the cart rolled onto the pier, workmen and crews shouted and made what Mark assumed were insulting gestures. Haldakit reined in a few feet from the Buldorian ship’s single gangplank. With a wave, Gulgit and Haldakit jumped off the cart and ran back down the pier.

  CHAPTER 40

  LEAVE NOW!

  Mark rolled his feet over the edge of the cart’s bed and slid to the pier’s wood planking.

  “Come,” he said and lifted Heather in his arms. He started up the gangplank. Only then did he look up at the Wicked Woman. Maghen stood holding Alys at the ship’s rail, palpable relief etched on her face.

  Adalan appeared moments later, wearing a quizzical expression.

  “Captain, we need to GO! NOW!” Mark called out as he rushed up the gangplank. He half-expected the Buldorian captain to start asking questions. Instead, Adalan turned and began shouting orders. As soon as Mark’s feet hit the deck, a half-dozen crewmen raced down the gangplank to pull the ship’s hawsers from around the iron bollards holding the vessel to the pier.

  Mark set Heather down and was immediately embraced by Maghen.

  She kissed him hard, then began rambling. “We started hearing all those horns, and the captain said things to me I didn’t understand since I don’t speak Buldorian or Suvalu, and the crew was running around doing things—oh—I don’t know—”

  “Shh,” he said into her ear. “Everything is fine, and we’re getting out of here.”

  “Hi, Papa,” said Alys, tugging at his beard. “Go water?”

  “Yes, Alys, we’re going to sea again,” said Mark. He laughed at his daughter’s anticipation of the rolling deck she found endlessly amusing and envied how oblivious she was to events.

  “Out of the damn way!” shouted Adalan as he rushed past them. Crewmen pulled the hawsers onto the deck and coiled them. Frenzied activity surrounded the Kaldwel family and Heather.

  “Let’s go to the aftcastle,” Mark said to Maghen in Frangelese, “where we’re out of the way and can watch our departure from Iskadon.” He didn’t express his worry that there was still time for them to be stopped.

  “Come,” he said to Heather in English. “We need to let the crew do their work. We’ll go to where you can see Iskadon disapp
ear in the distance.” She mutely followed.

  The next thirty minutes severely tested Mark’s ability to portray confidence and equanimity. He had no role in getting the ship underway and no options if the Sulakoans stopped the ship. He felt helpless. It flashed through his mind that he’d rather be fighting someone than standing with nothing to do except reassure others.

  As soon as the crewmen released the last hawser, they raced back onto the ship. They pulled the gangplank aboard as the ship drifted slowly away from the pier. Adalan and other officers shouted; crewmen yanked on ropes and climbed the rigging. Mark only understood some of what they were doing.

  At twenty yards from the pier, the first small sail unfurled.

  “We’re lucky,” said Adalan. He paused briefly before climbing onto the aftcastle to man the wheel. “With this offshore breeze, we’ll catch the tide in another ten minutes or so. Otherwise, we’d have had to wait for the harbor tugs—which could have taken hours.”

  “Was there any trouble getting her . . . Huthor, you said her name was?” asked Maghen.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” replied Mark, “but it worked out. She’s here, and we’re away from Iskadon.”

  He didn’t see a reason to delve into details that might upset Maghen to no purpose. There was time later for a full description.

  “I wonder if we’ll ever see Gulgit again, Mark.”

  “Not likely. I thanked him several times for his help and wished him well in getting back to Rustal and fighting the Narthani.”

  Maghen glanced at Heather, who stood six feet away at the railing. Her eyes roved the docks as if looking for danger.

  “Mark, what’s wrong with her eyes?”

  “Huh?”

  “Her eyes. The eyelids are a little swollen, like from a sting, or is it something she was born with?”

  “Oh . . . uh . . . it’s natural for people from a section of Amerika.”

  “Well, that’s good, then. I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like that.”

  His wife’s comment made Mark realize he hadn’t thought about the ethnic origin of humans transplanted from Earth by the aliens. He didn’t know how long ago it had happened. Were the same ethnic groups on Earth five, ten thousand years ago or whenever the aliens had snatched humans and dumped them here?

  He searched his memory for differences in appearances that might be associated with specific ethnicities. There was less variation in skin tones than in America. The Frangelese were generally lighter-skinned than the Rustalians and the Sulakoans, and the few Harrasedics he’d seen had the darkest tones. However, he’d also noticed skin tone differences within each of the peoples he’d encountered.

  Of course, he thought, I haven’t seen people from everywhere on Anyar. Still, I wonder if the aliens sampled from different places on Earth or just grabbed a convenient bag of humans.

  A flash of white caught Mark’s eyes. Another sail was unfurled. He watched the crewmen in the rigging work with ropes, and he thought he felt a slight tilt to the deck.

  Adalan, twenty feet away at the wheel, shouted in exultation. When Mark turned to look, the captain switched to Suvalu.

  “Wind’s picking up, and the direction’s still in our favor. We’ll clear the Iskadon estuary in another fifteen minutes with the river, tide, and wind all pushing us right where we want to go.”

  Mark translated into Frangelese for Maghen and English for Heather, who didn’t respond.

  Alys wanted to get down from her mother’s arms and run on the deck, but Maghen told her she’d have to wait. The child frowned at her mother and held out her arms to her father.

  “Papa?” Alys pleaded.

  Maghen smiled and handed Alys to Mark. “She didn’t get her way with me, so she’s going to try again with you.”

  “Down, Papa,” said Alys in her sweetest voice. “Go play.”

  “Later, baby. We’re too close to the shore, and there are monsters in these waters. You can play later where the water is safer.”

  Alys looked warily at the water moving past the hull, then cast a questioning eye at her father.

  “That wasn’t what I had in mind when I gave her to you,” said Maghen.

  “Papa pretend?” Alys asked Maghen.

  “Yes, dear, Papa is pretending. There are no monsters in the water. But he’s right that you can play later when we’re farther over the water. Now, you stay with Papa and help him watch that the boat goes in the right direction.

  “Okay.” Moments later she was asleep, head on Mark’s shoulder.

  Twenty minutes from when they’d reached the ship, the Wicked Woman passed the last dock on the opposite side of the estuary. Another five minutes and they cleared the docks on the side they’d started from. Adalan called out, and more canvas unfurled. Mark felt the ship surge again and the deck tilt more.

  Thirty minutes after leaving the dock, Adalan turned the wheel over to a crewman and approached Mark.

  “That’s it. We’re clear. We’re in open water. I won’t ask if anyone might be chasing us, but even if they are, they couldn’t catch us now. The Wicked Woman can outrun and outmaneuver any non-Buldorian ship in these waters.”

  “How long until we get to Tortut?”

  “As always, it’ll depend on weather and anything else that might happen. Most of our cargo is for Bandapara, the old Sulako capital. There’s another port farther west—Pilaminta. It’s smaller but has expanded the last few years. The Sulakoans decided they didn’t want to depend on a single port, in case things got hot with the Narthani.

  “When we dock at Bandapara, you and the women need to stay on board and out of sight. I don’t know what you got into in Iskadon. It’s not likely word of whatever happened gets to Bandapara before we do, but I don’t want to take the chance of running into problems. We won’t be stopping after Bandapara and will only take on new cargo meant for Tortut.”

  Adalan saw something he didn’t like and strode off to shout at crewmen aloft. Moments later, he shouted even more, and a frenzy of activity commenced, setting a full spread of sail. By the time the crew finished, the ship was racing over the water, bow spray drenching the forward quarter of the main deck. Mark estimated a ten-degree tilt west to the deck.

  “Adalan says we’re clear of the harbor, and he’s sure no other ship can catch us,” Mark said to Maghen.”

  “I think you should tell Huthor the same thing. She’s hardly taken her eyes off the shore since we left. Another few minutes and we’ll lose sight of land completely, so reassure her.”

  “Heather,” said Mark in English when he stepped next to her. “We’re safe now. No ship can catch us. You’re free.”

  “Free?” she said, turning her head to look up at him, her hands still fixed on the gunwale. “You’re not lying? Halari really can’t catch us?”

  “Halari? No. Neither he nor anyone else in Iskadon can catch us.”

  Mark later said to Maghen that the best he way could describe it was that Heather crumpled. She sat on the planking as if in slow motion and broke into deep sobs, holding her bent knees with her face pressed to her thighs.

  “What did you say to her?” demanded Maghen, her expression accusatory.

  “Just that she was safe. Nothing that would make her break down.”

  “Men!” said Maghen. She knelt by the small strange-looking woman and enveloped her in a hug. She rocked back and forth, saying, “There, there . . . you can’t understand me, but you’ll be all right . . . there, there.”

  Alys woke and looked at the women. “Mama kissing an owie?”

  “No,” said Mark. “Our new friend is crying, and Mama is helping her.”

  “I can hug her,” offered Alys.

  “That’s okay, baby. Mama will help her.”

  After a few minutes, the sobbing subsided, and Maghen looked up. “I think it’s the relief of finally believing she’s free of whatever happened to her. I’ll take her to our cabin and put her in one of the hammocks. The cabin boy, Allyr, helped me set t
hem up. I suspect Huthor didn’t sleep much last night, if at all.”

  “Heather. Her name is Heather. Huthor is probably how they heard her name when she first gave it, and it stuck with her.”

  When the crying stopped, Maghen helped Heather to her feet, then guided her down the stairs to the main deck and the ladder to below deck. It appeared to Mark like an adult helping a child—Maghen was a foot taller and nearly twice Heather’s weight.

  He stayed on the aftcastle, talking with Alys, enjoying the sea air, and strangely relishing the washed-out feeling after hours of adrenaline.

  When Maghen returned, the sun had set below the western horizon.

  “She’s sleeping. I think the poor little thing was simply overcome by the idea that she might be free.”

  “I hope I did right by putting her in danger,” said Mark. “Although she was a slave, it was a life where she knew what came next. She’s now leaping into the unknown by coming with us.”

  “Pooh!” said Maghen. “I didn’t get the impression she resisted coming. You said her message and gestures showed she wanted out of Iskadon. Now that it worked out, I think you did the right thing, though I’d have thought differently if anything had happened to you.”

  Alys decided it was Mama’s turn to hold her, and they stood together another half hour before going to their cabin. Mark was relieved that the room was slightly larger and much less damp than their cabin in the crossing from Rumpas to Rustal. Their baggage sat next to the three walls that didn’t have a door. Five hammocks crisscrossed the space, and although the little porthole’s covering was wooden, it could be opened to let air in. A small lantern hung from the ceiling, giving enough light for Maghen to pull bread and cheese from a bag.

  “Allyr is going to be a godsend,” said Maghen. “Wherever he came from, the language is close enough to Frangelese that we understood each other. Oh . . . words for some things are completely different, and some of the same words are not pronounced the same, but they’re so close, we had no problem working through any misunderstandings.