by Paula Volsky
“Then you owe me one truthful answer.”
“To what, exactly?”
“Here is the question, then.” He halted, obliging her to do the same. Turning to face her, he asked, “Why did you never trouble to answer my letter, six years ago?” She was silent, and he added, “You recall the letter?”
Unwillingly she nodded. She more than recalled the letter. The missive in question still lay in the compartment at the back of her jewelry box, in her lodgings in Sherreen. The heavy stationery was creased and limp from much handling.
“My messenger assured me that he placed the envelope in your hand, the evening prior to your departure for Lakhtikhil Ice Shelf. Yet you left without so much as a word in reply. I have never understood that.”
“It becomes easier to understand when I tell you I left the next morning without reading your letter.”
“I see. You desired no further communication.”
“It wasn’t that, exactly. It was more …” She faltered, then forced herself to continue. She had promised honesty, after all. “I didn’t open your letter the night I received it because I was afraid I’d find something there that would persuade me to change my plans—to postpone my trip, or even to cancel it altogether. I didn’t want to take the chance of that happening, so I didn’t let myself look. That was hard. I still remember the way my fingers itched to tear the envelope open. But I made myself place it at the bottom of my suitcase, then I piled my belongings on top, shut the suitcase, and locked it. And I didn’t open that suitcase again until I was safely at sea and couldn’t possibly turn back.”
“Then did you read it?”
“Then I read it.”
“And still didn’t bother to answer.”
“I couldn’t answer. I should have, I wanted to, but couldn’t find the words. I did try, you know.”
“No. I didn’t know.”
“Many times, but always ended by ripping the paper to shreds. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say, probably because I didn’t really know what that was—I was too agitated, too confused, and too young.” Almost to her own surprise, she heard herself say, “I’m sorry.”
He nodded once. His dark face told her nothing. After a moment he resumed walking, and she kept pace. The silence lengthened, until at last he asked idly, “When you finally read my letter, did the contents confirm your fears?”
“Fears?”
“Was there anything there that might have caused you to alter your plans?”
“I think your victory entitled you to one question only. Now it’s your turn to answer.”
“My turn? Where did that come from? I recall no such obligation.”
“There is no obligation.” She smiled, relieved that the mood was lightening. “Think of it as formerly-Exalted largesse.”
“Formerly-Exalted affectations are passé, as you’ve so often reminded me. What’s the question?”
“Why did you decide to enter the Grand Ellipse? You promised back in Hurba that you’d tell me, aboard ship.”
“I remember suggesting that we talk. The conversational topic remained unspecified.”
“That’s as slippery as those blue worms back there. Quite beneath Your Lordship, I’d have thought.”
“Another illusion shattered.”
“Oh come on, Girays, spill it!”
“Well, since you ask so prettily—”
A familiar grandly garbed, pearl-studded figure rose athwart their path. A familiar voice assaulted their ears.
“Aha—the two Vonahrish contenders, very thick. Should I worry?” inquired a ponderously jovial Porb Jil Liskjil.
“Shouldn’t we all?” Luzelle rejoined gaily, masking her frustration. She had striven for days to extract an explanation from Girays, and he had repeatedly defeated her efforts. Time and again he had deflected her queries, so skillfully that the evasions seemed quite accidental. Today she had managed to lure him to the brink of revelation, only to be thwarted once more by the preternaturally ill-timed intrusion of the Lanthian merchant.
“I think we’re all relatively safe from one another for the duration of this crossing,” Girays reassured her. Amusement lurked in the set of his lips. “Particularly in the blessed absence of the Grewzian element. Speaking of which, Merchant Jil Liskjil, I’m eager to hear how you outwitted our offal-fed friends. I gather the harbor blockade couldn’t contain you.”
“Indeed it could not, sir.” Porb Jil Liskjil swelled visibly. “Indeed it could not. In my own home city of Lanthi Ume, be assured I am not without some few little resources.”
“I would expect no less. Yet the Lanthian resistance, eager to offer assistance to a compatriot, couldn’t find you. Jil Liskjil had vanished into thin air. How was this sorcerous feat accomplished?”
“No sorcery, sir—only a little old-fashioned ingenuity, spiced with a dash of audacity,” Jil Liskjil confided. “I will explain. You recall the disturbance at the wharf, the day we reached Lanthi Ume? Well, even before the Karavise docked, I was preparing to—”
Luzelle suppressed a sigh of boredom. She already knew the tale of Porb Jil Liskjil’s adventures. Disembarking from the Karavise, he had passed easily through Lanthian customs, then headed straight for the worst section of town, haunt of the seediest local smugglers, one of whom had consented, upon promise of gigantic reward, to run the blockade by night. The smuggler’s little bark had passed almost within hailing distance of a Grewzian patrol vessel, to slip unseen from the harbor, thence ferrying its lone passenger north along the coast to Hurba, which Porb Jil Liskjil had reached in time to book passage east aboard the Revenant. By now, several days into the journey, all of Jil Liskjil’s fellow travelers knew all the details, and Girays v’Alisante was no exception. But there he stood, listening with that air of dedicated attentiveness that he knew so well how to assume, and no doubt inwardly laughing.
“… Overcast skies, fog on the water, reduced our visibility, and yet the danger was immeasurable … remember one heart-stopping moment when the moon emerged … captain professed himself astonished by my daring and coolness …” Jil Liskjil’s voice ran on and on.
It was at least the third time she had heard this story, which waxed in self-congratulation with each repetition. Luzelle’s foot began to tap. Carefully she stilled it. When Porb Jil Liskjil paused briefly to draw breath, she seized the opportunity to make her excuses and her escape. Fleeing to the sanctuary of her stateroom, she started in on a new novel, The Curse of the Witch Queen, and remained closeted until dinner.
She did not manage to catch Girays alone again that evening, and retired for the night with her curiosity unsatisfied.
The next morning found her up on deck, ensconced in a comfortable chair. There she sat reading, or pretending to read, as fellow passengers strolled by in the sunshine. She bent her head lower over her book, feigning absorption, as Stesian and Trefian Festinette giggled their way aft. But she looked up with a smile as Mesq’r Zavune drew nigh, and seeing this, he paused to chat, more or less intelligibly.
Zavune, she soon discerned, simmered with excitement at the imminence of the Aennorvi sojourn. He spoke at length of contacting his family, of somehow arranging a short reunion, even at the expense of time that an Ellipsoid could ill afford. Luzelle smiled and nodded as she listened, but inwardly thought, for the hundredth time, That man should be at home.
Mesq’r Zavune moved on. Time passed, salt water and numberless islands flowed by. The Witch Queen eventually tasted her just deserts, but Girays v’Alisante never showed himself. Luzelle did not glimpse him again until noon, when the materialization of the Aennorvi coastline upon the horizon drew all passengers to the deck. And there he was among the others at the railing, hands buried in his pockets, dark hair stirring in the breeze. She might accost him if she chose, but now she no longer cared. Another hour or more would pass before the Revenant reached the port of Aeshno, but her thoughts were already winging ahead to the docks in search of advantage. This time, she resolved, she woul
d definitely be first off the boat, first in line at the customs office—
And maybe she could find out how long ago Karsler Stornzof had passed through.
Frowning, she turned away from the railing, and a pair of identical mauve-clad figures caught her attention. Not far away the Festinette boys stood conferring with the Revenant’s captain. The pretty twin faces were uncharacteristically intent, and Luzelle caught the flash of gold changing hands, a sight to set internal alarm bells clanging.
9
THE REVENANT DOCKED and her engines fell silent. The gangplank was lowered, but the three crewmen stationed before it blocked disembarkation. In response to countless queries regarding the delay, the sailors vaguely cited bureaucratic confusion revolving about the vessel’s collection of international commercial permits. Assorted travelers complained and the crewmen, bored with argument, went mute.
Shortly thereafter the captain, followed by a brace of identically youthful, mauve-clad companions, descended to the wharf and vanished from sight. Luzelle observed the retreat, and her suspicions crystallized to certainty. The slimy little Travornish cheats had bribed the captain. They had managed to trap their rivals on board the Revenant while they continued along the Grand Ellipse, and they were getting away with it. Outrage all but choked her.
Four agonizing hours passed, and the afternoon shadows crept. The frustrated passengers loitered, sipped iced drinks, and grumbled. At length the captain reboarded alone. Minutes later the prisoners were liberated.
Angry and worried, Luzelle made her way down the gangplank and along the wharf as far as the customhouse, above which flew the violet-and-black banner of Aennorve. She had waited on deck for half the day, resisting the lure of the saloon’s conviviality, and her self-denial had yielded reward. She was first off the Revenant and first in line to present her passport to the local officials.
But Aennorvi bureaucrats displayed a curious blend of indifference and exaggerated zeal. Forty minutes at least passed before the importantly preoccupied individual behind the desk deigned to acknowledge her existence. When he finally did, her belongings were subjected to the most rigorous, prolonged examination ever devised. There was no item too humdrum or too intimate to escape microscopic inspection, and when at last her passport received the requisite stamp and her tormentor waved her on toward the exit, Luzelle was inwardly boiling.
She cast a hostile glance back over her shoulder to witness the Aennorvi official subjecting the next traveler in line to exactly the same invasive scrutiny that she herself had endured. Comprehension dawned. The twins, and their damnable money, again. Cheats. At this rate the last of the Revenant passengers wouldn’t be through customs before nightfall.
Not entirely bad. Perhaps one or two of her rivals might be eliminated from the competition here and now. Her eye traveled the queue to light on Girays v’Alisante. No stopping M. the Marquis, but the present delay granted her a slight advantage that she did not mean to waste.
Train station. Ticket. Next stop—Bizaqh. Hurryhurryhurry.
Valise in hand, she exited the customhouse, making her way from the wharf to the nearest street, where she might ordinarily expect to find a squadron of hansom cabs. Today there were none. Puzzled, she cast her eyes up and down the warm, sunlit street. She saw white stuccoed buildings and terra-cotta tiled roofs adorned with elaborate wrought-iron grillwork. She saw fanciful aerial walkways linking the taller structures. She saw hordes of sun-browned pedestrians clad in the light, brightly hued Aennorvi mode that would have appeared so frivolous in chillier climes. She saw pushcart vendors, hand-wagoneers, roller-boarders, a flamboyant unicyclist. But nowhere did she spot a hansom, a private carriage, a donkey cart, or indeed, any serviceable vehicle other than a single slow and old-fashioned miskin-master.
Odd. Aeshno was a thriving port city. Travelers swarmed across these docks every day and they needed transportation, of which there seemed to be none. The twins again? Impossible. Even the Festinette resources were unequal to such a feat.
Luzelle approached the nearest pushcart vendor, a cerise-clad peacock with glossy dark curls, dark eyes, and an extravagant moustache. The avid black eyes lit up as she drew near.
“Where can I find a cab?” she asked in Vonahrish. He stared at her, and she repeated the query. He displayed no sign of comprehension, and she tried Kyrendtish, then Hetzian, and then broken Grewzian. The vendor replied in Aennorvi, which she did not understand. His excited gestures directed her attention to the cheap leather wares filling his cart.
No good. She walked away and tried another vendor, this one a seller of repulsive brass and glass jewelry. The vendor chattered Aennorvi and rattled loathsome trinkets at her. Luzelle retreated, frowning.
Nobody seemed to speak Vonahrish. She might have expected such ignorance of the Bhomiri Islanders, but Aennorve was supposedly civilized. She walked on along the street, and still there were no cabs. An expensive-looking little pumpkin-colored barouche drawn by a pair of matched bays passed at a smart clip, and she caught a brief glimpse of the passenger within; female, oval white face smooth as a polished pebble, opaque shark’s eyes. For a moment she thought of calling out to the white shark, but embarrassment stilled her tongue. Annoyed with herself, she walked on, valise now weighing on her arm. Five minutes later, when she spied a mule-drawn cart heaped with cabbages and carrots, she did not hesitate, but hurried straight to the slow-moving vehicle, waving her arm vigorously.
The driver pulled up and sat gazing down at her in surprise. A stoop-shouldered, lank, and grizzled individual, face seamed and wrinkled beneath a plain workman’s cap. He looked poor and harmless enough, both qualities recommending him to her attention. Now, if only she could communicate with the fellow.
She tried Vonahrish, and he stared. Her secondary languages proved equally useless, and at last she resorted to Lanthian, of which she possessed a sorry smattering.
“Carriage? Aeshno-town? Go. Streets. Go. Money.” Feeling like an idiot, she produced a New-rekko note and pantomimed payment, then arched her brows interrogatively.
“Fiacre?” the carter inquired in Lanthian.
She understood him at once, for the word was a Vonahrish cognate, oddly accented but easily recognizable. For a moment she was surprised, then recalled that Lanthian travelers shuttled endlessly between Dalyon and Aennorve, bringing heavy trade along with them. Many Aennorvis inhabiting the coastal port cities spoke some Lanthian.
He repeated the query, and she nodded emphatically.
“Yes. Fiacre,” she agreed, adding for good measure, “Yes. Yes.”
“No,” he told her clearly. “Fiacres gone. All gone.”
“Gone?” she echoed. “All? Where?”
The carter launched a volley of Lanthian sentences, poorly pronounced and largely unintelligible.
“Again, please. Slow, please,” Luzelle requested.
He complied, and this time she caught more of it.
“Hours ago … two—” Word unknown. “From the Hurbanese boat, and”—gabble, gabble, gabble—“brothers … alike … same face, same clothes … money … Travornish—” Phrase unknown, definitely uncomplimentary. “Fiacres at the dock … few there because of the strevvio—” Meaning of strevvio unknown. “Horses scarce … strevvio”—gabble, gabble—“owners … high prices … Travornish brothers pay … fiacres go.…”
“Wait.” Luzelle reviewed Lanthian vocabulary, then inquired laboriously, “Travornish brothers paying all fiacres to go away dock?”
“Yes. All fiacres,” the carter confirmed her latest suspicions.
“That’s the filthiest trick I’ve ever heard of! Those sneaking little twin ferrets ought to be disqualified!” she exclaimed in outraged Vonahrish. Unbelievable. How had they managed it? “They won’t get away with this! I’m going to complain!”
Right. To whom, exactly?
No point in fuming, there were better ways to spend her time. What next? Think. The carter was watching in frank curiosity. Switching back to h
er feeble Lanthian, she suggested, “You move me inside wagon to—” What was the word for train station? She had no idea. Another cognate, perhaps? “Railroad,” she concluded in Vonahrish. Her listener’s face remained blank. “Depot. Railway lines. Tracks. Station house,” she attempted. He shrugged and she tried alternate languages, without success. At last, in desperation, she chugged in locomotive rhythm, climaxing the performance with a discreet double hoot reminiscent of a train whistle.
The carter burst out laughing, and she felt her face go red. But he was welcome to laugh all he liked, provided he understood her.
“Ferignello?” he asked.
She hoped that was Lanthian for train station. “You move me inside wagon,” she urged. “I pay money.”
He did not seem favorably disposed. A spate of negative Lanthian flew at her, and several times she caught the mysterious term strevvio, which seemed to denote some sort of difficulty or obstacle. An individual? Tyrannical bureaucrat? Atmospheric disturbance? Flood? Fog? Whoever or whatever, she was not about to let any strevvio stop her.
“Money. I pay. Money. Money.” She flapped an alluring fistful of New-rekko notes at him.
He seemed to expostulate.
“Money. Money.”
He nodded in resignation, accepted the cash, and she scrambled up onto the seat beside him. “Ferignello?” she asked brightly.
“Ferignello.” He exhorted the mules, and the vehicle moved off.
Success. She had overcome the language barrier and she was on her way. Luzelle congratulated herself. She had doubtless pulled ahead of every fellow Ellipsoid traveling aboard the Revenant, with the exception of those pestilential Festinette boys, who in turn trailed the Grewzian kinsmen.
Karsler Stornzof and his ice-statue uncle. Unjustly favored, and by this time doubtless far ahead along the Grand Ellipse.
She could not afford to let herself think about it. The Grewzians were not going to win. Their luck would run out, and she would surely catch them—one day.