The Search for Aveline

by Stephanie Rabig

  "Tazu," she said clearly, pointing at her newest subject.

  Content that this strange hairless pig meant their nephew/son no harm, Coti and Malicky turned and disappeared into the palm trees.

  The remaining lizard ducked his head in what was clearly a nod and made a chirrup sound. Wil obediently mimicked it, and Tazu's mouth gaped open in a strange, lipless smile. "Wil," she said, pointing at herself, grinning at the corresponding sound Tazu readily supplied.

  "Guess I'll just leave you to it," Kai said with a chuckle, reclaiming his lump of seaglass and slipping away to a quieter spot.

  For a woman who had already mastered five languages, the Tongue of the Clan, as Wil decided to call it, wasn't as impossible as it may seem to others. It involved complex, harsh tones that the Romance languages disdained, yes, and having air sacs in the jaws and an echo cavity behind the nostrils was no doubt helpful. But a determined human could still manage it as long as they kept their throat well-lubricated and didn't mind coughing up the odd bit of phlegm.

  "Very smart," Tazu complimented her with pride. "Very clever hairless pig."

  "Tazu very good teacher," she replied, making him swell even bigger.

  As the lessons progressed, Wil realized that Tazu might not be able to speak English—but he certainly understood it. This puzzled her somewhat. Perhaps Kai, in his long period of isolation, had talked to the Clan in a variety of languages, so as not to become rusty.

  "How know you my tongue?" she managed to ask finally.

  "The Clan knows many things," Tazu said. "Sun Goddess taught us."

  He went on to tell her one of the oldest stories in the Clan's history through a series of short phrases and evocative pictograms he drew across the sand of the beach with his claws and tail. The Sun Goddess had created everything and was mother to all. This was undeniable fact. Didn't the sun bring them warmth to keep them alive and give them strength? Didn't the sun help the eggs to hatch after they were laid? The sun itself was like an egg, fat and round, and rolled across the sky each day to be replaced by her sister, the moon, who controlled the ocean's waves. The Sun Goddess created them, and then the Moon Goddess brought them to this place on the tides.

  It seemed The Clan of the Black Rocks had once lived somewhere else, far away, but they'd had to leave because of some terrible upheaval. A war? A natural disaster? The history was murky. So they dove into the ocean and swam and, just when their strength was at its end and they had resigned themselves to drowning, they found this place. The Moon drew them here on a gentle tide on a bright night, which they remembered every year in a great celebration.

  Wil was enthralled. An entirely new civilization, with its own creation mythology—and a matriarchal one at that! She asked Tazu about his family and how one became a Chief of the Clan.

  "You must do a great deed," he said. "My father became Chief when he stopped a rock from crushing the nesting ground. He saw that it was loose, that it would fall, and he built a wall around it. And then he used his great claws to push it away, so that it fell another way. That is when he got his True Name."

  She asked him if he had his True Name yet.

  "Not yet," Tazu said with his equivalent of a shrug: a slow and lazy blink of his second eyelids. "I am called Three Tones, because that is all I can manage now." And he demonstrated, shifting from his usual mottled green, which was perfect for hiding in the ferny undergrowth, to a sandy yellow that would blend in well on the long stretch of beach. Then he became the startling purple of a ringed octopus; that would no doubt frighten any hungry predator. Throughout the shifting, his frill remained bright red. "In a few monsoons, I will be able to do more. I will get better," he promised.

  "How old is Tazu?" Wil asked.

  "I have forty-two monsoons," he said.

  "Tazu is older than Wil."

  "No!" he said, tail slapping the ground with surprise. "How many has Wil?"

  "Thirty-one."

  "Wil is very smart for a hatchling," Tazu said. Everything under the age of forty was apparently a hatchling in the eyes of the Clan, where one wasn't considered an elder until they had reached two hundred.

  While Tazu sunned himself on a flat slab of hot obsidian, Wil sat in a collapsible chair beside it and sketched him in minute detail. "What I wouldn't give for a daguerreotype camera," she lamented to herself, but carting such a delicate instrument on a long voyage, onto an uncharted island, and then expecting successful results with extremely volatile chemicals, was on par with relying only on prayer as a cure for a terrible disease.

  "Want to see, want to see," Tazu hissed excitedly when she had finished, climbing up her chair with a scrabble of talon-like claws. "Very good," he approved, throat fluttering and frill flicking. He tilted his head one way, then the next, to see the drawing better. "I am handsome, yes?"

  "Yes, very handsome," Wil agreed with a smile. "Tazu have hatchlings?"

  "No, no, practically hatchling myself," he said quickly. "Not ready yet, plenty of time to find mate later."

  "Tazu doesn't want to grow up and settle down," Wil said knowingly.

  "I do not understand Wil," he said diffidently, turning away. "Wil use strange hairless pig terms. I am going for swim now."

  The Clan were excellent swimmers. Wil enjoyed sitting on the edge of the lagoon and watching them dive into its clear, aquamarine depths, their long tails and back legs streaming behind them. Their cheeks puffed out with air, they would pick up oysters with their able, dexterous front claws and return to the surface with a kick of their legs and a flick of their tail.

  Pearls, apparently, were in high demand in the Clan. The Chief was chosen based upon personal deeds of great valor, but an individual's wealth depended on their abilities as a pearl diver. The most esteemed members of the Clan had the largest, finest pearls in their dens.

  "Do you know what pearls are?" Wil asked Tazu one day, when his dive had resulted in an exciting find: a bright purple pearl. It was only of average size, but the color was unique, and Tazu had been beside himself with glee when the rest of the Clan gathered around to examine it with appreciative hissing.

  "The Moon Goddess' tears," he replied promptly, rolling onto his back and pressing the pearl to his leathery, spotted chest the way a child would hold a beloved teddy bear. "She must have been very sad indeed to cry such a tear. I will polish it every night, so she knows I am thinking of her. Then she won't be so sad."

  And Wil, who had always had a driving need to be factual and exact, who had never before resisted the urge to disprove some superstitious belief with scientific logic, held her tongue for once. Perhaps the Clan thought that if they gathered enough pearls and treated them with enough respect, the Moon Goddess would never cry again. There was something touching in that.

  As belief systems went, there were far worse.

  When she felt she could speak confidently without embarrassing herself too badly, Wil asked Tazu if he could call a meeting of the Clan. She had something she wished to discuss with them.

  "I am Wil One Leg," she said, introducing herself in the formal way. "I am a sage of my Clan." The Clan did not have scientists, but the closest equivalent was a sage, or One Who Knows Things. "Tazu Three Tones has taught me much about you, and I ask for permission to share your stories with my Clan."

  "Do we want hairless pigs knowing our secrets?" Coti asked, grumpy as always.

  "Why does Wil One Leg wish to do this?" an elder demanded, a huge and impressive female called Woi of the Cracked Frill. Her eyes were clouded and her scaly skin had dulled to a uniform gray, but the entire Clan deferred to her decisions. Tazu had told Wil that in order to succeed, she would have to convince Woi.

  "My Clan knows nothing of yours. I have traveled far to find people like you, so that my Clan may know more of the world. As a sage, my dream is to understand all."

  "A mighty dream," said another elder female, Poly of the Hundred Hues. "An impossible dream."

  "But a dream worth having," Wil said firmly.
>
  "Yes," agreed Woi. "I see you, Wil One Leg, though my sight has dimmed. You burn with bright light. The light of a dreamer. Where would we be without dreams? Did not Chief Jupaca of the Old Land dream of this island, and listen to the Moon's song to bring us here?" The others all nodded and hummed, claws clicking against rocks.

  "You may tell your Clan of us, sage. But do not bring death upon us. Good Kaimana has told us your Clan is to be trusted. But we have no wish to see more hairless pigs on our island. So you may tell others of us, and perhaps a hatchling like Tazu may wish to journey with you, to see your distant Clan. But you will not bring more of your people here. Yes?"

  "Yes," Wil said, thinking of how many delicate ecosystems had been destroyed by man's carelessness. The islands full of invasive rats, snakes, and rabbits that devoured rare fauna and wiped out entire species of birds. Huge tracts of land razed for human habitation. The sicknesses that wiped out native populations. "I agree."

  "Good." Woi turned to regard Tazu, who bent his head to her. "Tazu Three Tones is a great teacher," she said, to the surprise of many. "He will be a great sage and elder one day."

  "Such praise!" Tazu said to Wil later, still giddy. "To be so praised by an elder!"

  "She was right. Tazu is a very good teacher."

  "Woi sees all, though she is half blind. She knew I wish to go with Wil."

  "Go with me?"

  "Yes, when you sail to other lands. I would like to see these lands, too."

  "Then Tazu will," she promised with a smile.

  When the others returned, still flush from their latest adventure, it was to find Wil sitting on a rock, her wooden leg lying in the sand, hard at work writing in her journal. A large iguana sat on the rock over her shoulder, hissing and croaking in her ear as she nodded thoughtfully.

  "Being An Examination On The Physiology, Psychology, and Social Hierarchy of The Great Black Rock Iguana," Agnessa read, peeking over her other shoulder. "With Additional Notes On Their History, Language, and Belief Systems. Phew, Wil! Sounds like you're writing an entire book!"

  "Most likely," Wil agreed cheerfully, focus still on her pen. "Nessa, this is Tazu."

  "Hello," Agnessa said politely, bobbing a curtsy that would have brought a tear to her father's eye before she realized she was curtsying to a lizard. "Um..."

  The lizard made an odd burbling noise, and Wil laughed before croaking something at it. "He says you're very pretty for a hairless pig. It's quite a compliment."

  "Yes. Alright. Good," Agnessa said slowly, taking a step back. "You are feeling alright, Wilhelmina?"

  "Very well, thank you for asking. Oh, how did the trip go?"

  "Good. It went... good. Um. I'll just go tell Harry you're over here, shall I?"

  "As you please."

  Agnessa found Harry, Kai, and Katherine in the lagoon washing their hair. "I think we stayed away too long. Wil's finally cracked," she announced. "She's talking to a lizard."

  "Must be one of Malicky's people," Kai said calmly. "I should see if they want to join us for supper, now that Wil is probably an honorary member of the Clan."

  "She is?" Agnessa said, feeling rather lost.

  "I knew they'd take to her," the merman added. "In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the Clan wants to join us."

  "You wouldn't?"

  "With a merman and a siren already on the crew," Harry said complacently, having been forewarned by Kai, "I don't see the problem with a giant lizard or two."

  "I'm just going to ask Hope if she can make some tea, then," Agnessa said faintly, wandering off.

  "Can you help me with the pins, Kai?" Katherine asked, having coiled her wet braid around her head. "It's so much easier to do this with another set of hands."

  Doldrums

  Four days. Four days since even the slightest breeze had touched their sails.

  Harry paced back and forth across the deck, as if glaring out at the water enough would get them moving again. Much more of this and the crew would truly start losing patience; even Jo was starting to look visibly tense.

  They had done everything to keep themselves occupied, and Harry was starting to run low on ideas. The ship had been scrubbed from stem to stern—twice—card games had been played, supplies had been checked and re-checked. Maddie had taken to giving odd future-readings to everyone with a set of oversized cards she'd kept squirreled away in her locker; Harry didn't have the heart to dissuade her anymore.

  Kai was sitting up on deck in the landing craft. He'd been telling them stories off and on for half the day, and was now reclining back in the craft, his eyes closed. Harry caught her eyes lingering a moment too long on his bare chest and quickly turned away, pacing the other direction.

  Junia was leaning against the mast, sharpening one of her knives. Agnessa sat beside her, looking tiny and lost now that she wasn't needed at the helm.

  Zora was also pacing, having long since run out of new baubles to attach to her skirt. She paused long enough to eye Junia's knives consideringly, and Harry shook her head. "I remember what happened the last time we had a knife-throwing contest," she said. "Franky just about lost an eye."

  "It was his suggestion that we put a lemon on his head and try to knock it off," Zora grumbled.

  "Be that as it may," Harry said. "Let's avoid sharp things, hm?"

  "What else are we supposed to do?"

  "I don't know," Harry admitted. "Water's calm; we haven't seen any sign of the more dangerous mers. Suppose we could go for a swim."

  "Mite chilly for that today," Zora said reluctantly.

  "Read all your books?"

  "Three times over. We need to pick up some more in port, assuming we ever get moving again."

  "Well, then I don't know what to tell you," Harry said. She was feeling skin-crawlingly restless herself. "Talk to the others, see if they have any ideas. Or go braid Kai's hair. Something."

  To her surprise, Zora's face lit up and she walked over to Kai, sitting down behind him. She spoke a few rapid words, and though Kai raised an eyebrow, he followed it with a nod and a smile. Zora deftly untied a few beads and coins from her skirt, setting them beside her in a tiny pile before she began to braid.

  As she began weaving decorations into his hair, other members of the crew ventured closer, watching. Maddie dropped down next to Zora, staring intently at her fluid motions for a moment before she began to try and weave her own braid.

  Junia shrugged and slid her knife into its scabbard, sitting down on Zora's other side.

  "Been a long time since I've done this," Junia said quietly. "Mother's hands had started to grow shaky by the time I reached my tenth year, so I always braided my little sister's hair of a morning."

  "How are you even managing to put beads in there?" Maddie asked Zora, frowning. "I can't even get the braid down right! Also, Kai, I may have tied your hair into a knot right here. Sorry."

  "Here," Zora said, as Agnessa came over to wedge in beside Maddie. "You do it like this."

  "Just look at you all," Harry said, trying to hide a smile. "Scourge of the seven seas."

  "You can come sit down as well," Kai said. "The ship won't sink if you stop pacing."

  "I'll stick to my pacing, thank you. Besides, it seems quite crowded over there."

  Kai glanced to the side to look at her, drawing an indignant squawk from Maddie as the motion moved the section of hair she was fiddling with. "Still got a free spot, if you want?" he said, grinning as he patted his lap.

  An image flashed into her mind— her sitting chest-to-chest with him, his arms wrapped around her waist as she threaded her fingers through his hair—and she blinked quickly, turning her attention to Maddie when she heard a choked-off noise from her that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "First one of you to snicker, dies," she said.

  "Would howling with laughter fall under that category?" Maddie asked, a wide smile on her face. "Because I'm pretty sure you're blushing and I don't have enough self-control to handle that."

  "Wha
t if we were to just exchange significant glances whilst nudging each other, Cap'n?" Agnessa asked.

  "See?" Harry said. "This is what happens when Captains don't flog their crew enough. Sass."

  "True," Kai said amiably. "But you still haven't answered my question."

  Perhaps it was the challenging smile on his face or the gleeful looks on her crew's faces; perhaps it was the restlessness from the four-day doldrums. But Harry walked forward, brushing away a lock of hair that the wind blew into her face as she started to climb into the landing craft.

  The wind.

  "Agnessa, helm!" she ordered. "Kath, Junia, the sails!"

  She turned away, and though her heart thrilled at the knowledge that soon they would be sailing again, she couldn't deny a twinge of regret.

  Letters and Loss

  Letter received June 7th, sent by Agnessa Gärd of The Sappho to Hugh Dawkins of The Corinthian Curse.

  Hugh,

  How like you to not properly warn me in advance—we all received quite the shock when your new messenger landed on the fore deck this morning. Hope immediately let out a wail as if she had seen her own ghost and rushed to fetch incense to purify the ship. Albatrosses are not good omens for the Chinese, apparently, and half the crew was convinced we were targets of a curse.

  Then Maddie—bless her sharp eyes—saw your missive strapped to the bird's leg and everyone calmed down. I expect you to explain how you (or one of your crewmates) managed to tame and train such a wild bird. Wil is most interested to hear, too. Be grateful that your feathered friend is returning to you of sound body, for Wil's lizard friend Tazu wanted badly to eat him.

  I received the book you left for me with Violet and must confess that I cannot develop a taste for Mr. Dickens, no matter how many times I try him. I will grant you that he has a decided gift for outlandish names, and a few pretty turns of phrase, but too many of his stories boil down to moralistic muck (in my opinion).

  Have you tried the Currer Bell volume yet? The last third is a little trying, but it has a satisfactory conclusion. I am eager to hear your thoughts on it, and how Jane herself struck you. I will refrain from voicing my opinions here, for fear of ruining the narrative for you. I would never wish to color or prejudice your thoughts on such matters.