Chapter 9 – Katerina IV
When the storms begin they tear the soul,
for the sheltered ports are far away.
Then bows pitch low and hulls will roll,
and Dark has come to stay.
I
Taf was her bright and cheerful self the next morning, and Jorden was hungry. He remembered that he hadn't eaten the night before.
He glanced sleepily toward the aestri as she bounced around the room, humming to herself and tidying her meagre abode, and he recalled the kiss. Jorden hoped that Taf had forgotten the incident. He doubted he would for quite a while. He had been just as surprised by the action of the aestri as he had by that of the kaedith, yet in the case of Taf he should have known better. Never take anything for granted in a nightmare.
At least Taf hadn't been tempted to cut his throat, he thought again, but she was hurt, deeply hurt by the kiss. Jorden couldn't imagine why, and he was sure he would never understand the Domain.
He sighed and rose, wishing he had some clothes to change into. He also wished there was something to eat. “I'm hungry,” he said without thinking. “I was so tired last night that I completely forgot about eating.”
Taf just laughed. It was good to hear her laugh. “I thought you would wake hungry,” she said. “I ate during the night after you went to sleep.” The aestri frowned playfully. “You didn't stay awake for me to read even two small lines.” At least she didn't mention the kiss.
And she forwarded a plate of meat, or more accurately a board of meat, and Jorden accepted it readily. He had first had to deal with the abundant fruit of the kaedith's table, with the odd meal in the village of Tucaar, then the green stew of the ship. Now it was the meat-only diet of the aestri, it seemed. He would have to next see what the captain would provide him now that he was such an important member of crew.
The meat smelled reasonable. It was covered in a dark sauce and garnished with some form of herb, but it remained quite obviously raw. Jorden glanced again to the smiling face of Taf. After the incident of the previous evening, he could hardly refuse her generous breakfast. It was probably food she would have eaten herself.
He dared a bite. It was a tough red meat, and the sauce was somewhat bitter, but it was not a bad meal, although a little much for breakfast, perhaps. It certainly filled a void that had existed. “That wasn't too bad, Taf,” he said truthfully enough as he finished. “I'm not one that usually eats raw meat, so...”
“I know,” Taf shrugged. “You will have to eat with the crew this evening, or perhaps we can have a private meal with Johnathon. Sometimes he eats alone, and he could bring extra for you. Captain lets him do as he pleases.”
Jorden passed the piece of timber back to Taf. “Johnathon?” he echoed.
“The ship's doctor, silly. Didn't I tell you about him before.” She watched the man slowly shake his head. “See! I don't talk too much. If I did then you would know. Johnathon often talks to me. He's the nicest of the men aboard the Katerina. There are a few others, and one dirge that isn't too bad, but Johnathon is best.”
More surprises, Jorden thought, now she was a friend of the Katerina's medical officer. “You'll have to introduce me sometime,” he said casually.
Taf nodded. “Of course I will, but later. First we must climb the rigging to watch the passing of the cliffs of Cape Twellin, and then there may be machines for you to fix...”
Jorden swallowed uneasily.
II
He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. It was a long way down and the deck was very hard and solid. There wouldn't be much to scrape up if he fell.
Jorden clung firmly to what remained of the mainmast. On the deck it was a massive piece of timber, but above the topsail there was not a lot left. And Taf wanted to go higher!
The aestri compromised and sat on a brace just above Jorden's head, one hand casually upon a nearby rope, the wind whipping her hair against her cheek. “I told you it was beautiful,” she said. “The cliffs are so white and tall. I'm glad that it was clear today and not raining.”
Jorden nodded and tried not to look down. He did. The sails were taut beneath, the wind strong, the ropes and timbers creaking noisily. Other sails were hung above. He tried to keep calm, wondering how the aestri had talked him into the climb. He knew it was the guilt from the previous day.
The deck seemed a thousand metres below, but it wasn't, and the Katerina almost seemed small as it sliced through the slight pea-green seas. He concentrated on the cliffs. “Do you come here often,” he said to busy his mind. If he thought too much more about the height he was worried he would pass out.
Taf jumped from the brace above. Jorden jerked in turn, his heart suddenly in his mouth, and he grunted in horror. Yet the aestri landed safely on the boom of the topsail, her hand reaching for a convenient rope. “Damn...Taf,” Jorden groaned.
She chuckled. “I forget you are not a man of the sea. If you have seen enough then we can go down.” Taf wasn't stupid. She had seen many of the crew on the rigging, and she knew fear. She also knew how difficult it would be to get Jorden back to the deck it he panicked and froze.
“In a little while,” Jorden returned. “Wait until I recover from that jump of yours. You scared the shit out of me.”
Taf laughed again. “I come here all the time, and I know the rigging as well as any of the crew. I usually climb to the tresseltree or the boom of the skysail to watch the cliffs.”
“This is high enough,” Jorden said. “We'll get short on air if we climb any higher.”
The aestri snorted as a reply.
III
Jorden Miles enjoyed meeting the ship's doctor much more than Taf's tour of the rigging.
He was a tall quiet man, built much like Jorden himself, his hair already speckled with grey, the stubble of his chin still visible even though it was well shaven. And today he wore a white short sleeved safari suit that would have merged quite well into Jorden's world a few decades past. Jorden later discovered that Johnathon always wore such a suit and had dozens of sets.
Johnathon was also pleasant and well educated, as one would expect of a doctor, and unlike most of the crew he called Taf by name. He also invited the two for lunch within his relatively spacious quarters, which were a series of rooms that adjoined the infirmary, and obviously knew Taf quite well...
“Took you up on the rigging, I'll wager,” the doctor had said not long after the introductions were given. “She tried that with me on my first voyage, but I don't go any higher than the bridge except in the case of risk to life and limb of the crew... Protected by shipping regulations, thank Hura.” He flashed a broad smile.
Taf frowned, prompting Johnathon to laughter. “But she is not a bad thing,” he added when he could, “as long as you keep a careful eye on the stores. She's stolen over five brand new logbooks over the years, but only Hura knows what she does with them.”
The jaw of the aestri dropped in horror, the doctor laughing again. “I just hope you make good use of them. I've told the captain I borrowed them for my own notes.” Jorden chuckled as well.
They sat together in a small sitting room of the doctor, a window looking out from the stern nearby, Jorden comforted to see the ocean was not a mile below and to have a firm floor beneath his feet. It was a well furnished room: the chairs were intricately carved, the table was polished until it glowed, maps and diagrams hung upon the walls, and shelves were filled with books nearby. Books with titles that Jorden could actually read, he had noticed, although the titles remained a little odd. One had read Guide to Pulmonary Atrophy and Nerve Death.
“She writes poetry,” Jorden said to Taf's horror. “Great verse with some interesting local legends mixed in.”
Johnathon shook his head, ignoring Taf's mumbled rage. “You should have told me you little fleabag, I can get you as many books and pieces of paper as you want. I never would have guessed, although I had a feeling there was more to you than met the eye. You'll have to
bring some of your work and show me one day.” The aestri nodded. She was still frowning but she nodded. “All these years and I didn't know you could even read. Have you plenty to write with?”
Taf nodded again. “I borrowed some of your quills, but I'm almost out of ink...”
“Well don't leave without it,” he smiled. Then a sigh. “And you are from the world beyond the line at Thagul I hear,” the doctor directed toward Jorden. “I've only met a few who were not of the Domain. Travel between shards is not all that common these days. There are said to be several Morgonians living in Saljid, and Thorians, of course.” He laughed softly. “I have met a few Thorians, but they don't really count.”
Jorden found that he liked the doctor the moment they had met. It was nice to see someone treat the aestri as a near-human. “Yeah. I'm not sure why I'm here, and it's certainly not what I'm used to.”
“Strange things happen around the transition lines,” Johnathon admitted, “and the planer line, of course. At present it seems that you can simply walk straight into Julis Katari, but unless you're prepared for the change of scale then you're in for a shock.” The doctor calculated mentally. “If you came in around Thagul then...” He paused to think some more. “That would be Tasmania, right?”
Jorden grunted in surprise. “You know about Tasmania!”
The doctor smiled and shook his head. “Not really. Only that it's somewhere near Thagul. Most entries from your world are made through the Florida Anomaly or the big hole in the Atlantic Line, but only a few of the Florida entries ever live very long. And their ships usually sink,” he added thoughtfully. “Ships like the Katerina, come through on Long Bay from Thoria, of course. Very deliberate and at great expense.
“As for accidental arrivals...” Johnathon shrugged. “Every hundred cycles or so there will be one who will come through the Atlantic hole. A lot of them go mad, they say, and speak in some incomprehensible language. That's if it's even a really a language at all. Hura sends those back that she can.” He paused briefly. “But you don't appear to be going mad, young Jorden.”
“Not yet,” he returned slowly. “But I think I can understand why some do. It's an odd world here compared to where I'm from.”
“You are a bit silly sometimes,” Taf put in. “Perhaps that is the start of going mad?”
IV
Jorden enjoyed lunch, the doctor having access to the best of the ship's stores – bottled fruits, fresh grains, well preserved meats – and all would have been well if it were not for the coming of the first mate.
Drey had obviously come for other reasons. Johnathon had already hinted that several of the crew had picked something up during the recent shore leave, most likely from some of the local professional women. But once Drey saw Jorden Miles he lost confidence and suddenly remembered that several pieces of apparatus were demanding Jorden's attention.
Jorden had been happy before that. It wasn't so much the thought of the work, it was just a fear that it was likely to be another list of trivial items like lamp wicks or something equally as pathetic.
He actually enjoyed most of the jobs once he got started, it was just difficult to get motivated. Taf was actually a big help, a technical assistant to an other-worldly mechanic, and the afternoon went well. Firstly another winch, another geared capstan really, that was used to raised a boom amongst the rigging, a boom that had been left in a fixed position all season. It was another piece of imported machinery that few in the Domain, or at least aboard the Katerina, seemed capable of understanding, much less repairing. Then there was another pump, then a rather odd rowlock on one of the landing-boats, then an strange musical instrument owned by one of the crew.
Jorden couldn't fix the accordion-like instrument. When he finally worked out how to open the case, it came apart all too easily, and a conglomeration of internal organs spilled out onto the surface of the table that Jorden was currently working above. Jorden was briefly worried about that, but then the thing hadn't worked in years and he could hardly be expected to fix everything.
It was later discovered that the owner of the instrument had not been aboard the Katerina for the last two cycles anyway and nobody else had the slightest idea how to play the whatever-it-was-called anyway.
As the end of the day approached, Jorden was again quite weary, but he remembered to eat. It amounted to little more than a couple of bread rolls he snatched from the crew's mess while passing by, but it would be enough after the filling lunch. He could have eaten with Johnathon and the captain and her officers, yet it was not a place where aestri were welcome, and though he liked Johnathon he preferred the company of Taf to the rest of the crew.
The aestri had a few slivers of fish for him in her room when he arrived there, so the meal was not all that meagre in the end.
Then there was a Finesilver recital, the aestri choosing some of her better pieces. There was a lot that Jorden was unsure of, many of the beasts and peoples unknown to him, yet he knew of enough to enjoy her first reading. He was actually quite glad to learn that the Domain was full of familiar animals like the goat and the sheep, and plenty of cattle. Then there were fettles and kabdah. Jorden hoped they were friendly, or at least cute and cuddly.
She paused after three lengthy pieces for a drink and a rest. Jorden was becoming quite relaxed and sleepy by then. It was quiet, the Katerina more behaved than usual, and the lamp was lit. Taf looked at her best in lamp-light, but then the aestri's trim lines seldom looked bad. “I'm sorry about last night,” He eventually said. It had been on his mind all day. He knew it was not great conversation, but it had to be said.
Taf's smile was gone in a flash. She wasn't upset, just not particularly happy. She had obviously hoped the matter would be forgotten. Her eyes turned away. “You don't have to apologize,” she said softly. “I've been silly, I know that. I've been alone for weeks, then suddenly I have a friend. I was almost thinking of you as another aestri. I've been told not to undress in front of men, but I forgot that you were a man. That sounds silly, I know.”
Jorden shook his head. “You're not silly, and that wasn't the problem. You look great in clothes anyway,” he tried to joke. “There's just something about you, Taf. In three days I feel like... Well, I like you a lot, Taf, and that might sound silly too, but it's true.”
She frowned, her gaze intense, her words sharp. “Well that is no way to treat a friend. Next you will want to lay all over me and pant.” She was direct, Jorden thought, if nothing else she was direct. “You just want to hurt me like the rest of them.”
That stumped Jorden. He wasn't exactly sure he knew what she meant. Or wanted to know. “Ah... No. Not really.” What others, he wondered. The eye of the aestri seemed to moisten. “What the hell are you talking about? Who hurt you?”
“Men,” she mumbled, “Crew.” Taf curled into the corner of the bed, her back against the wall. “They miss their women on long voyages, and they are sometimes drunk. An aestri can look a lot like a woman at such times.” An aestri could look like a woman to Jorden any time, he thought to himself.
He remained quiet and listened instead. “It doesn't happen very often, and usually it is just one, and it is often that ugly one called Kavan, and then there are the ones who sometimes throw me overboard. Once they tied my hands and I thought I'd drown...” She was side-tracked as usual, but Jorden kept his mouth shut and waited patiently for her to return to the subject at hand. “They hold me down and... Do things. It's not nice, Jorden. I'm glad that I'm not a woman.”
Jorden found that he was shaking. “Where I come from that sort of thing is against the law. You just show me this Kavan and I'll...”
The aestri looked into the eye of the outsider. Her cheeks were a little moist, yet she seemed calm for one that had put up with who knew what sort of abuse. “I'm only aestri, Jorden, not a woman. Laws protect women against attack but they only protect the lives of aestri. And Kavan is twice as large as you. He would easily kill you, and nothing would be tho
ught of it. You are only a prisoner.”
She should have been a lot more distressed by it all, Jorden knew that. He also knew why she wasn't. In this world it was all probably just part of life. She was only an aestri after all. “This is a hell of a world at times, Taf,” was all he could think to say.
Jorden knew his own world was just as bad in places. But here the aestri seemed overly disadvantaged. This world had everything screwed up. The aestri were given a female form, but no-one had bothered to provide a male of the species, and they were left at the bottom of the social ladder. If all of this was the doing of Hura Ghiana, then the old lady must be more screwed up than her world. But then it was all supposed to be a much less habitable place before the witch-god came along. He wondered how bad that must have been.
“It's not like that, Taf.” Jorden tried to sound positive. “Not between people who care about each other.” She didn't seem overly assured. “Real women wouldn't put up with that sort of thing.” Although he wasn't sure if that was the case in this twisted world.
Taf frowned a moment, yet she gave a little ground. “I know. But men have to be nice to women, that's the law. They don't have to be nice to aestri.”
“Well there won't be any of that stuff going on while I'm here. Not until they kill me, at least.” Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.
V
For the next few days all went quite well for Jorden anyway. He continued to spend a lot of his time in Taf's room, had several meals of the raw red meat, and remained friends. The outsider also sat for meals at the captain's table, but the food was not all that much better. Perhaps he was getting used to raw meat. There were times when Jorden wondered where Taf's seemingly fresh meat came from, and he thought to ask. Some was fish, that much he was sure of, but the rest was too red. Sea-dragon perhaps. He decided not to ask.
And he tried to be extra careful around Taf, with what he said and did. She was happy and he didn't want to do anything to change that, but the happier she was, the more attractive she became.
Of course the day quickly came when something rather horrifying came to the mind of Jorden Miles. It was something that made the nightmare both a little easier and a hell of a lot harder. Before that point there was nothing that could have stopped him from leaving the hell he was stuck in, and even after the point of realization he still had every intention of leaving. Yet for the first time he actually felt it may be difficult to go.
He was falling for the aestri.
It was becoming a friendship he doubted he could live without. He had never had a friend he could speak so freely with. In the last few days he had found himself discussing his most guarded thoughts, thoughts that would have remained hidden from most people. Unfortunately his closest friend lived in a nightmare. She would never survive long in his strange world, indeed from the words of the kaedith he doubted Taf could even exist beyond the line of transition.
But there had to be a way.
Jorden couldn't really say, I love you, Taf. That would complicate matters even more. And he was not even seventeen while Taf was supposed to be at least thirty. That was just too weird. Maybe it was all just because he was alone in a big strange world, a world where he didn't really want to start something that would have to finish all too soon when he had to head for home.
Who was he kidding. That could take forever. He still had the council to face, and if they let him live then he still had to find someone who knew something about green crystals and he still had to make his way back to Thagul. None of that would happen soon. There was the hole in the Atlantic that Johnathon had spoke of, yet it would be even more difficult getting home from the United States, or wherever the other line lead too, than returning to Thagul...
Jorden gave up and thumped his head against a wall.
At the time of him doing this he was again sitting on the bed in the hiding place of the Aestri Finesilver, and she turned from her book of poetry that she had just been adding to. It was a quiet day, now some seven or eight days since their meeting, and Drey had run short of jobs for the Jorden. It was raining on deck as well, and although the flare-sun was high in the overcast sky, it remained quite dim.
The aestri had hung her hammock from the beams above in preparation for the rough weather of the coming few weeks, and now she laid within. “Are you all right, Jorden.” It seemed silly to her for anyone to deliberately bang their head on a solid timber crate. “Going mad after all,” she smiled.
“Something like that,” Jorden returned. “This world is going to drive me mad eventually.”
The aestri seemed to take him seriously. “I hope not,” she said quietly, “for I like you the way you are, Jorden.”
I love you just the way you are too, Taf, he thought, and smiled. Then he spoke aloud. “I like you the way you are, and I don't think I'm going mad just yet. I just wish that things were a little different here.”
Taf cocked her head. “Wish what was different?” She closed her book. It was nicer to talk than write.
The outsider shrugged. “I wish I wasn't trapped in this dream. I wish that I didn't have to face this council.” But they were the least of his current concerns, and he decided to voice the worst of it. “I wish that I could say that I loved you...”
“Jorden!” Taf snapped back angrily. He knew she would, but he was sick of pretending. “You shouldn't say that. Everyone will think you are really mad and you will never get a job in Saljid! A man shouldn't love an aestri, it isn't right, women are for men to love. I don't love you, Jorden,” she then said stiffly. “You are just a friend, a very silly friend.”
Jorden smiled. “Thanks Taf. That is exactly what I need to hear. I'm beginning to think really strange things like: Do I really want to go home and leave this nightmare and How will I survive without the nutty Aestri Finesilver.” He paused and studied the face of his friend and the crease of her brow. “I'll miss you.” It was likely they would be separated soon enough. He really had to accept that. He was certain it would happen, and if not by the Council then by his return home.
Taf was quiet. She stared for some time, her head twitching slightly. It was unlike the aestri to be so quiet. She was rarely at a loss for words and even if she could not say something meaningful she would say something that wasn't. But her words were a long time in coming. “I will miss you too, Jorden,” she said at last, and she sniffed.
Indeed she knew that tears were near. She had rarely left the side of the man in the few days they had known each other. She was happy to help him with whatever duty Drey would give him. It had made her life a lot more interesting. “I will miss you very much,” she went on. “I have never had a friend like you, not a friend that was a man. Johnathon is nice, but...” Taf slid from the hammock and came to the bed, sitting uneasily at Jorden's side, her hand coming lightly upon his cheek. He was warm and kind...
“I have a few friends amongst the aestri and the burgo, but not as many as I would like to think. Midnight says that I will never come of age, that I will always behave like a... like a child. The others listen to her and think that I am a silly aestri.” Then she smiled. “But you like me the way I am, don't you? You don't want me to change?”
Jorden shook his head. “I love you just the way you are,” and he added, “you little fleabag,” for good measure.
She hugged him. It was a firm embrace. “I love you too, Jorden, I really do.”
Well that was different, Jorden thought to himself. Very different. Something wasn't altogether right, but he wasn't sure he wanted to change it either. Life was getting more and more complicated...
VI
Jorden Miles forgot about his plan to throw Kavan to the sea-dragons at least. It was not a plan that would have changed the Domain. It would have made him feel better, though. He decided instead that he would just rarely leave the side of Taf. He had a feeling that Kavan would not wish to be caught with the aestri. If the rest of the crew – those normal men and dirge who were not intereste
d in the ship's aestri – were to find out, then they might well throw him overboard in disgust themselves and therefore save Jorden the risk of severe injury.
There were soon other matters for Jorden to worry over in any case as days past. The Katerina was well over halfway to Saljid and the weather had turned for the worst. Everyone's mind began to turn to matters of survival, and deck duties were performed with such in mind.
And by then Jorden had become very close to Taf.
He spent most of his time when not fixing things on the Katerina in Taf's makeshift quarters. As the weather worsened that was more and more time. He had fixed most of the easy things, and now the crew had other things to worry about. Unless there was some critical failure, Jorden was left to his own devices.
He and Taf also shared the comfort of the rat fur bed most nights. Jorden found her warm and soft and close. Jorden refrained from kissing or anything he thought would upset the aestri for many such nights, but Taf herself was less and less restrained. Until there came a time when Jorden kissed and she responded eagerly, her bare flesh against his own, their limbs entwined.
Something was again very wrong, Jorden knew, or very right. He knew then for certain that this was someone he never wished to be parted from, someone he could indeed spend the rest of his life with. That was both joy and yet it brought with it all too difficult thoughts.
Jorden was too far from home. He tried not to even think of home, for several reasons. He worried too much about the panic his mother must have been going through by now. She had probably given him up for dead. It had been weeks... He wasn't even sure how many weeks.
But then he had to return – had to try. And that would mean leaving Taf, at least for a time until he could sort out life and reality. Again he pushed such thoughts deep into a corner of his mind.
Taf was there and eager. It was their time, their moment. Jorden forgot the difficulties of life and the future and lost himself within the warm embrace and ecstasy of Aestri Finesilver.
VII
Although now very close in private, Jorden and Taf remained careful on deck or elsewhere on the Katerina, the aestri keeping a polite distance from her dearest friend. Someone now who was more than just friend.
Not that Jorden was on deck very often as the Katerina drew closer to the port of Saljid, and for several days he was not in the best of health. Johnathon helped as he could, yet there was little he could do. Jorden would simply need to become accustomed to the rough seas they now plied.
And those seas became steadily more rough with each passing day, and the rain fell heavily. At least to Jorden it was rough. From what he caught of the chat amongst the crew, far worse was yet to come, and most were not pleased that they had been delayed in Thagul for so long. Now had to face the coming of the Time of Darkness while still well out from port. If this is what the Time of Darkness was about, Jorden thought, then he wanted nothing to do with it, and it was certainly something to be feared.
As Saljid drew closer and the sea became more violent. Taf was calm, of course, she was used to such things. She trusted the Katerina like she would a mother... if she had a mother, Jorden wondered. In truth, Taf trusted the Katerina a lot more than her mother, and perhaps loved it more as well. But her unknown mother would probably live longer. Jorden was oblivious to all of that for the moment.
Then, when they were still some seven days out from their destination, the sheltered port of Saljid, Taf also became concerned, the Katerina's life perhaps shorter than she had thought. Taf's concern made Jorden a more than a little worried, although it was difficult to become more worried than he was.
That stormy evening the Katerina began to list badly, and that was not the worst of it by a long way.
The problem was a mechanical one...
Long Days in Paradise - The First Book of the Shards of Heaven Page 10