Skeen's Return

by Clayton, Jo;

  “Call day, one month.”

  “That’s not negotiable.”

  “You have a low suspicious mind, Pegwai Dih. Usoq’s an honorable man, ask anyone, ask Maggí Solitaire who will tell you the truth if you press her. Forty-five days.”

  “Fifty-five. Not another sooner.”

  “Ouw ouw, how can a man live? So I have a great heart, I won’t be minching. Fifty-five days it is.” He turned to Maggí. “Two hundred gold and it’s a bargain, you don’t know what I’ll be taking my darling into.”

  “A hundred gold would buy ten Pouliloulous, exquisite though she is and sweet to the hand, I’ll grant you that. And you’ll be having some of the best fighters on Mistommerk defending her when my friends come on board.”

  “How can you put a price on heart’s blood, Maggí Solitaire? Sweat and the skin off my hands and years of my life. One ninety.”

  Skeen and Pegwai walked to a window and stood looking out over the harbor. Timka curled up on a windowseat and dozed. Lipitero settled into a chair and watched intently as the bargaining went on. This was for her life. She knew enough to conceal her tension from Usoq, pulled the cowl forward until its shadows hid her face, tucked her betraying hands inside the robe and locked them about the straps of her harness. After a short while, though, she grew fascinated with the complex dance between these two; they knew the steps and trod them with a skill that amazed her. When it was finally over, she had the feeling that each had ended just about where he and she had intended. I could no more do that than Usoq could fly off the roof of this Inn, she thought, for all we Ykx are supposed to be universal negotiators. I’m an anomaly in more ways than I knew.

  “Now that you’ve stripped me of my pride, Maggí Solitaire, now that you have squeezed all the juice out of me, let us talk about how we can accomplish this thing. Scholar, you and the Pass-Through come see.”

  They bent over the map and watched as he talked.

  “This is the south branch of the Rekkah. And this is the Stammarka Morass. Now that’s supposed to be impassable for several reasons. For one, it’s too shallow, your Lumat maps say it, for anything but those rotten reed boats the Nagamar throw together. T’ain’t so, Scholar, no, indeed, though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bother reporting that bit of news. Eh?”

  “Can’t promise that, Captain, what I can promise is to bury the information so deep in dullness, no one will bother with it. That do?”

  “I’d rather not have it mentioned at all; if you’ve got this Lifefire cursed need to report everything, then swear on your mother’s womb, you’ll see it don’t get recorded for another score of years. By that time I’ll either be dead or retired, then who cares who knows what.”

  “Ah. Right. That I can arrange, Scholar’s Seal. My word on it.”

  “Appreciate. You know what I said, the Stammarka Nagamar shutting off the Morass, that’s true enough, but maybe I exaggerated a trifle. It’s touchy, yes, and expensive in this ’n that, and that expense is over and above passage fee, Maggí Solitaire.”

  “You’re pushing damn hard, my friend, I thought we had ourselves a fast deal.”

  “So we do, but I balk here, Maggí. Pay or no play.”

  “How many more of these balking points you going to throw at us? I’m teetering on saying forget the whole thing.”

  “Ow ow, Maggí, Usoq’s an honorable man, you know that. No more, my word on it.”

  “No more now. What about when my friends are committed, when they’re deep in the Morass with you standing alone between them and the mud and a thousand irritated Nagamar? I don’t like the smell of this balking nonsense, Usoq. Seems to me you’ve changed more than I thought.”

  “All right, all right, suck in the smoke, Maggí, though it hurts like a knife in my heart, I’ll swallow the expense. You’re a hard woman, Maggí Solitaire. By the way, that’s the second reason most everyone thinks the South Rekkah is a junk river, no use to anyone. The Nagamar. A real nasty bunch to outsiders, but I’ve managed to do a favor here and there and they let me slide through now and then if I don’t push it. Ahhh, there is this … it’s been a couple of months since I was there last and the Nagamar were starting to act like they forgot what a favor is. That miserable Min woman and her airhead followers—it’s their fault, stirring up the Nagamar, sneaking in where they’ve got no business. Well, well, I hope they like what happened, I know for a fact that a bunch of them left dripping tailfeathers. Might have had a hand in that myself, might not, still, it’s chancy for any outsider going there now. Thing is, Pass-Through, you won’t be where Funor can get their hands on you. And you don’t need to say anything should you want not, but I’m assuming you’re making for the Gate. Well, it’ll only take ’leven days to get you up to Spalit if you’d like getting off there. Now if you compare that with the thirty some it’ll take going up the West Rekkah to Oruda, you’ll see one of the benefits of the route, dangers aside, and you’ll be at least five days closer to the Gate. Now, I don’t want to tell you your business, but there’s a lot of river traffic between Spalit and Dum Besar, should you want to go that way, get you that much closer, and faster than you can make it riding. Well, that’s it. I’m willing. Up to you where I take you.”

  Skeen scowled at the map. “Pegwai Din has to get back to Oruda, not Spalit.”

  “No problem, Pass-Through, better for me if I take the long way back, ’cross the lakes and down the West Rekkah. Got no problem with the Funor, no, and Ferryman at the Fork, he’ll winch the cables down and let me past. All included in the price, so let your hair fall, Maggí Solitaire. Usoq said he’d swallow the expenses and he means it.”

  Timka stood on the deck of the Pouliloulou watching Maggí Solitaire say her farewells to her daughter. Behind her, Skeen was fiddling aimlessly about the piles of gear, her back turned to that scene, deliberately refusing to see Maggí lose the command of herself she’d maintained without break before, on the verge of crying, hugging the girl over and over; holding her by the sleeve of her tunic, talking earnestly to her, loosing the sleeve, hand darting to touch not-hair, cheek, to touch and touch as if she feared she’d never touch her child again. Timka felt her own small pangs of envy, but these were drowned by the pain she felt in Skeen; she was unhappy with knowledge she hadn’t asked for, would rather not have, couldn’t use, too raw and fresh to ignore. She wrinkled her nose, tapped impatiently at the rail, then went to find out from Usoq what they could do with the small mountain of gear they’d acquired in their travels. Pegwai kept adding notebooks to his and samples of anything small and portable he found interesting and thought the Lumat might not have. Lipitero’s share was heavier and more enigmatic. Timka found herself wondering how on Mistommerk they were going to transport all that to the Gate.

  With Usoq directing them but not lifting anything heavier than a finger, Pegwai, Lipitero and Timka carried the gear down and stowed it in holds that were built as finely as a kehlwood chest and better than rooms in many grand houses, and (as they found later) much better than the cramped airless cabin they were supposed to share. Usoq’s interest vividly presented. Passengers were far down on his list of values.

  As the lading of the boat continued, Timka drifted out to stand in the bow watching the tide rise near its ordinary high. Rannah was finally being rowed out to the Pouliloulou and Maggí was pacing back and forth back and forth along the end of the pier, more than ever like a powerful dangerous big cat. She was too far for Timka to make out more than a sketch of her features, but her anxiety and love for her child was graven in every line of her body. Timka sighed. Now that Chulji was leaving them, she felt more alone than she’d ever been, even when she was alone in Dum Besar. When she was living with the Poet she always knew she could go back when she really wanted to. Carema would take her in, defend her, so would a lot of friends she’d made in that house. Now, she couldn’t feel sure of that. She’d come to realize she’d been, away too long, that nothing she thought she knew about her folk might be real, might be de
pended on. Alone. Exile, maybe permanent, exile in a place far more alien than Dum Besar. The closer she got to the Mountains, the more demanding the urge became to go back, to fight Telka and her Holavish. She needed her kind almost as much as Lipitero did hers and if she was finally severed from them it might just open a wound an eon wouldn’t heal. Fight Telka, free the unhappy from her dominance; just thinking about that charged her with energy and drive, like that she felt when she went to cat-weasel, only ten times stronger. Yet even as she thought and felt, she knew with chilling certainty how foolish such a notion was.

  Chulji-eagle broke into her angst with a cawing shriek. He was gliding in taut circles over the boat. Laughter that was almost crying exploded out of her; she stripped and shifted and went winging up to join him in a last air dance, a celebration of their kind-ship and friendship and a promise of sorts to meet again.

  Crossing the Mother of Storms in Terwel Mo’s Meyeberri, warm and reasonably comfortable in a tight, fairly roomy cabin was one thing; crossing it in a boat half that size with a choice between a smelly crowded cabin and a sea-swept deck was something else. Lipitero, Pegwai, Usoq, they refused to let Skeen on deck except in the rare calms; without two hands to grab and hold on, she could too easily be washed overboard and Usoq wouldn’t have his deck cluttered with lifelines. If we have to run, he said, what a mess that would be, my crew’d be tripping over you and poor little Pouliloulou would maybe flounder and miss her reach. No, no and no—no lifelines on my decks. Skeen fumed and fussed and wielded a bitter tongue, but she stayed below; she couldn’t argue with them when she knew quite well they were right. The Pouliloulou rode close to the water, smooth and sweet, slipping through blows that would have battered a larger ship, but that didn’t make her a comfortable ship for those unaccustomed to her complex and sudden shifts and motions. Usoq and his crew—two tough resilient Balayar girls who seemed to have eyes in their toes and fingers and nerve connections to the nerve lines of the boat—played the Pouliloulou like some giant musical instrument; they moved about the ship like slim brown ghosts and a sealman whose golden fur was sleek with damp.

  Twilight. Near calm. Skeen out exercising with obsessive energy near the mast. Pegwai aft talking with Lipitero, stylus busy in the notebook fluttering on his knee. The crew and Usoq below, giggles coming from the hutch he shared with them. Rannah fidgeting near the rail, wanting to go listen to Pegwai’s questions, not yet daring to intrude on them.

  Timka touched Rannah’s arm. “Tell me something.”

  “If I can, Timka ’a.” She smiled shyly; she was a friendly but rather formal child and gratifyingly in awe of the four adults, a polite gentle child who’d never suffered physical hurt, though Timka now and then wondered how she’d dealt with the long absences of her wandering mother. She made Timka feel protective, she had the same effect (perhaps even more intense) on Pegwai and Skeen. How could her mother thrust her into such dangerous business as this?

  “Why did Maggí send you along with us? We could all get killed any day.”

  Rannah’s not-hair wriggled, then smoothed out. “You’ve done pretty well so far at keeping alive.”

  “Domi.”

  Rannah nodded. Her thin face crumpled with sudden sadness, frightened as suddenly. “Mama figures I’ll be safer with you all than with her. She figures if there are more gunja out looking for trouble, they’ll be hunting the Goum Kiskar, rather than this.…” She swept a hand about at the crowded boat. Her face crumpled again, this time with worry. “Mama says she’s going to be careful, she says she’s going to work the Spray for a while and not go out in deep waters, she says the Sea Min don’t come into the shallows. She says with Scholar Dih’s introductions, you know, on the way here, and all that, she should do pretty well, though she has got to get back to her own waters eventually. She says with Skeen and Lipitero and Pegwai Dih and you looking after me, I’m about as safe as anyone can be. She says Usoq might be a worm, but he’s a competent worm and if anybody can get me safe to the Tanul Lumat, he can.”

  Timka patted the girl’s shoulder. “Your Mama’s pretty competent herself. She’ll be fine.” She flicked her fingers toward the stern. “Now, go do what you’re itching to do. Don’t worry, Pegwai won’t mind. Nor Lipitero. If she was saying anything she didn’t want you to hear, she wouldn’t be talking to a Lumat Scholar, she’d be talking to her friend Peg. Scoot.”

  Rannah flushed with embarrassment, then flashed Timka a grin very like her mother’s; not-hair wriggling with her eagerness, she made her way back to the pair and settled close by Pegwai’s knee.

  Timka smiled after her, then watched Skeen some more. That made her nervous, so she stripped, shifted and flew off as a sea eagle to practice her version of exercising to exorcise the demons plaguing her.

  Pouliloulou slipped into the Stammarka Morass three hours after midnight on the ninth day out from Tiya Muka.

  Dark. Secret. Silent. Stinking. Patches of reeds, tall, their frizzled tops reaching halfway up the mast. Patches of brush, tide marks of mud on the lower parts, branches where most of the small teardrop leaves were fallen away leaving a nubbly nudity up to the growing tips. Sand spits dark with algae, sand spits glowing pale through the muddy water, Pouliloulou seemed to gather herself, dust off her metaphorical hands, to hunch down and slip with ease along the wandering channels; her sails (not Lumat silk canvas but not to be despised either) caught the whispering winds and she slipped like a noisy shadow into a world of silence and secrecy.

  Fair or not, Timka left Skeen to simmer in her confinement and sought the slightly wider spaces of the deck. Don’t go shifting, Usoq said to her when the coast was a low dark line showing against high-piled moon-silvered clouds. The Nagamar aren’t Skirrik; they won’t know what you are if you don’t shake your hips in their faces. All bets are off if they learn I’ve sneaked a Min into the Morass. Even Maggí Solitaire wouldn’t blame me for dumping you. I don’t care how itchy you get, no shifting. She settled herself in the bow and gulped in a few experimental breaths of the hot heavy air; not much better than ordinary breathing. Three hours after midnight and the fringes of the Morass were warmer than Tiya Muka at noon. She sighed, regretting Usoq’s strictures; a bird could fly in cleaner, cooler air. So I live like Nemin for the moment. She wrinkled her nose. Poor limited things, stuck with one shape all their lives.

  For nearly an hour the Pouliloulou twisted and turned through the reeds, until she reached the transition areas where the trees began, tall furry things, dripping with fungus; she nosed into a broader channel, water that shone a greenish silver in the moonlight. Under the trees on either side glints where the moon reached the water, silver spangles on a silken gown, slipped out and away from them as they moved farther and farther into the Morass. Timka heard splashes, rustles, a few eerie cries from bird, beast or reptile, she couldn’t tell which, strange minor ululations that held within their brief existence all she’d ever felt of sorrow, loneliness, wanting, need. Small sounds that only served to make the night’s heavy silence yet more intense. Trees and water, even the cloud-broken sky had an ominous feel, as if the Morass was waiting for them, mouth open, and they were sliding willy-nilly into that mouth. Usoq’s a worm, Rannah had said, quoting her mother, but a competent worm. Lifefire grant that was true and he knew what he was doing.

  She’d felt something like this before when she slipped into Tod’s House, a combination of apprehension and excitement that was disturbing but … ah, it could become addicting, she thought. She frowned at the water hissing past the bow. A passenger. Passive. Constrained. She’d waked out of passivity not so gradually as she traveled with Skeen, shaken out of it as much by Skeen’s defects as her virtues. Perhaps more. Because Skeen wouldn’t, Timka had to assume responsibility for herself. In emergencies she could count on the Pass-Through, but day to day, Skeen just wasn’t there; she slid through the fingers like mercury. At first this was frightening and annoying, but Timka nodded at the water, acknowledging that she liked being respon
sible for herself. She liked it so much she found it very hard to lie back now and let Usoq do all the work. She didn’t trust him that much, only to the extent his self-interest merged with theirs. She thought a lot about Skeen and the world on the far side of the Gate, trying to get a better grasp of it from the chaotic chunk of Skeen’s memories settling into her own head. Very little made any kind of coherent sense. She had few points of reference to help her; what she did get was a better understanding of why Skeen was the way she was. She’d been broken repeatedly as a child and badly mended. She functioned well enough as long as she limited the complexity of her life, kept to a minimum the connections she had with others. Underneath her surface friendliness and that impressive competence, there was a pool of fear and self-loathing that frightened Timka when she caught glimpses of it—frightened her and gave her a queasy relief. Lifefire’s blessing, this isn’t me.

  In the middle of these musings one of the crew girls came to the bow, waited politely until Timka moved out of her way. The girl crawled out along the stubby bowsprit, hooked her feet in the ropes and began chanting enigmatic syllables, not numbers, no language Timka knew, a soft but carrying sound that slipped back to Usoq at the wheel. Pouliloulou fled on up the channel, water glinting out and out under the trees, the glints smaller and smaller as the moon dropped into and through the clouds, the darkness thicker and heavier, the air thicker, harder to breath. As if the Pouliloulou plowed through gel instead of air, doing this with the delicate grace she used cutting through the water.

  On and on, noisy shadow slicing through the water. On and on into that deadly silence. Timka got tired of the tension and began thinking about going below. She drowsed by the rail wondering vaguely how broad the belt of wetlands was, how long they were going to be stuck in the steam and stink and the purported danger. Usoq, she thought, running up his price with claims of jeopardy. The rise and fall of Vohdi’s soft chant merged with the boat’s song, the chorus of small creaks and groans. Timka dropped deeper into her drowse.