No Present Like Time

by Steph Swainston

  Vendace cut me short: “We are not interested. The Senate must consider for no less than three days, and you cannot influence our debate because you are not an inhabitant of Tris.”

  I ran a hand over my hair in exasperation.

  From the corner of my eye I saw Wrenn scuttle out under the archway, holding a shiny object in both hands. He dashed rudely over to me and tapped me on the wing, “Jant!”

  I could stand no more. “That’s Comet to you! Can’t you be quiet? This is a crucial moment, our first meeting with the Senate and you interrupt me! What do you think you’re…? Oh, what are you carrying?”

  For a second I thought it was a Tine artifact and my reality slipped; I felt dizzy and disconnected. Wrenn held a chamber pot. It was identical to every other chamber pot in the Fourlands, except that it was shining metal: gold. It must have been very heavy.

  Wrenn showed me. “All the fittings in their privies are gold!”

  “Bring it here,” I said. But the senators’ stunned silence was breaking into embarrassed or inquisitive chuckles. Wrenn looked around at them and pointed to it, “Have you any idea what this is worth?” he said in Awian, loudly and slowly.

  The Senate may have worried that we were dangerous, or that we expected to be treated with obeisance. Instead, they saw we were amazed by a simple chamber pot brought for some reason out of their bathroom. They thought we looked ridiculous. All the senators started laughing, and the tension in the air completely lifted. The ladies in cotton smocks or robes put aside their paper fans. The gentlemen unclasped their cloaks and craned forward to see us. Genial hilarity echoed around the spacious auditorium.

  Wrenn thrust it at me, “I can’t believe it. Can you believe it? It’s worth a caravel and it’s a piss-pot of all things!”

  “Put it down!” I said. “Bringing the privy into the governors’ hall! You’re making us look really stupid!”

  “Why are you interested in that?” said Danio.

  I said coolly, “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ve seen pots before. We have them in our culture too. We are civilized, not simple…Oh, god.” I tapped it, and wisely understated, “But we like this metal; we can use it. We would quite like to buy more.”

  “Well,” Danio said. “Jant, tell your delegation: if you love this…object so much, if you want this base material, please take it. It can be a gift from Tris, our first offering of goodwill.” Applause broke out from the senators on the stepped benches; appreciative exclamations supported her words. Danio laughed and offered the chamber pot to Wrenn.

  “They’re giving it to you as a present,” I explained.

  Wrenn took it gratefully and said in awe, “Shouldn’t I give something in return? Oh, obviously.” He unbuckled the fyrd-issue broadsword and scabbard from his belt. He held it flat in both hands and presented it to Danio.

  “Thank you,” she said. She accepted the sword and pulled the scabbard to bare a little of the blade, which she examined closely.

  “Please be careful,” I said. “It’s extremely sharp.”

  She gazed minutely at me again and asked the inevitable question, “What are you, anyway?”

  I shuffled one wing out of my shirt and opened it. Duck you suckers was painted in red on the inside but, shrewd as she was, Danio couldn’t transliterate. “I’m winged, see, just like you, well nearly.” I pointed to my face and took a sheaf of thick hair in the other hand. “My mother was Rhydanne; they’re a mountain people who look like this. I know that’s new and strange but please don’t worry-I’m not dangerous. My long limbs are from my Rhydanne side too. My good looks, I get from both sides.”

  All fifteen senators accompanied us to the harbor with a surprising lack of pomp and ceremony. They walked without any attendants and just chatted to each other, waved at the townspeople with a familiarity that was nothing like Fourlands governors. The senators were dressed as plainly as the folk in the piazza and tea shops; they did not seem to be very far removed from them.

  The Sailor conducted the senators onto the Melowne. I held the hatchway open and helped the ladies descend to the hold. I didn’t see their expressions, but I heard their shrieks, and from Danio I learned a whole ream of Trisian words that I won’t be putting in any guidebook.

  We tried to hide the state of the crews from the senators. The sailors had clearly contravened Mist’s orders and discipline on board Petrel and Melowne had started to crumble. They had traded and squirreled away every Trisian commodity they could lay their hands on, especially agate statuettes and the gold beads, chaplets and tiaras that the children wore. Only a few halberds were left unsold and the men had broken open the caskets of broadswords and started trading them. Every single man was completely drunk, some so legless they lolled as they sat dribbling the juice of exotic fruits, sloshing wine into cups or crunching on overcooked sardines. The carpenter retched and farted as Mist’s boatswain sons dragged him down to be locked in the brig. He prattled, “Capharnai might not want us-but their kids have made me rich!”

  A bottle rolled around in the scuppers and bumped against my foot. I picked it up and sniffed it. “Brandy, or something similar. The merchants are selling spirits to our men!”

  “This is dangerous,” Fulmer confided. “I must keep discipline. Lightning and Mist will stow a fortune in Melowne, under the noses of all our deckhands. I doubt I’ll reach home without a mutiny.”

  Throughout the second day, Mist and Lightning employed me to translate their deals with the merchants who waited in long queues. Capharnai carried books in their pockets and either read or stood in groups debating rarefied philosophical points. I yearned to spend the rest of our landfall in the library but the Sailor and Archer kept me hard at work with filthy lucre. My fluency improved, and I made friends with Danio, who taught me many new expressions before she was called away to the Senate, where they discussed us nonstop.

  In return for the broadswords the Capharnai filled the Melowne with bales of cloves, tea leaves, sacks of peppercorns; we bought a cask of ambergris and one of frankincense. Our sister ship became a spice ship-I could smell it on the other side of town.

  “Gold for steel, weight for weight,” Mist said smugly, examining the pale metal chamber pot. “But that last silversmith-manufacturer of children’s toys-kept the location of the mines a secret.”

  Lightning said, “No matter. I have gained a return of seven hundred percent on the initial investment. This tea is too watery for my taste but, seeing as it will inevitably come to the Fourlands, it might as well come with me. And I’ve also discovered some excellent brandy.”

  Wrenn used me to question every islander he met about sword fighting, and although I kept telling him it wasn’t a Trisian tradition he was astounded to find that no one knew anything about the art.

  “It seems to me they fight by talking,” I said.

  Wrenn huffed. “Yeah. But if Capharnaum becomes a manor the Castle will ask for its quota of fyrd for the Front. I’ll be given hundreds of people to train from bloody scratch and I’ve a sneaking feeling they’re not going to like it.” He disappeared into town with a party of midshipmen who were searching for a wine shop. The Senate permitted our men to leave the harbor only in small groups under the charge of Eszai. They didn’t want the boulevard to be swamped with hell-raising sailors.

  By evening I was sick of translating; confused with words swarming around my head until they lost their meanings. I was exhausted, but all in all it had been a fantastic day. As the sun set over the horizon where the Fourlands lay, Trisian canoes paddled in through the strait. After dusk the Capharnai entrepreneurs began to disperse and supper was served on board. The Senate retired and Danio came aboard to make notes and sketch the Insect. She was hypnotized by it, loitering in the hold, flinching every time it threw itself against the bars. When at ten P.M. Mist asked her to leave the ship, she stood on the quayside and stared as if insane at the exterior of the hull.

  I told Mist that I intended to sleep on the mountainside. I walked out o
f sight of dainty Danio, who insisted on keeping vigil till tomorrow when Mist would let her back aboard. I took off and flew up, nap-of-the-earth in the pitch-black night, just a few meters above the mountain’s contour. The lower slopes were olive groves, then dim rocky ground streaked along beneath me. I found a low cliff with an overhang and sheltered under it on the rough bare stone.

  By lamplight, the Stormy Petrel’s crew lowered a spare mainsail and lashed the edges to two poles projecting from the portholes. The sail drooped into the warm water, which filled it, and the men started swimming in it. Men stood on the railing and dived in. I was too far to hear the splashes but I saw spray fly up in the flickering light of the yellow lanterns as Petrel rocked at her mooring.

  Everything was delightful, and I lay alone. I have rarely been so happy. The air was cooler than at sea level; the rock conducted warmth away from my skin. It was a close night, so hot and humid that your balls stick to the inside of your thigh.

  A light breeze cut through the cocoon of heat that molded around me. It blew the smells of salt and peppermint into the rock shelter and carried occasional sounds from the town. Lamps were lit in the windows of Capharnaum’s bizarre houses. I loved this scented island. I smiled and snuggled against the stone. I could think clearly now, for the first time in weeks. I no longer worried about the caravels, or Mist who wanted a hold on Tris that she could never be allowed to have.

  I knew every road and air current of the Fourlands; now Tris was mine to explore. I could learn to discover like a mortal again and not a jaded Eszai. My sense of wonder was as strong as the first time I saw Hacilith city, when I was a foundling from Darkling with aching wings. In my first decade of life I had seen a total of just ten people, all Rhydanne. The city pulsed humans around its streets in a stream that terrified me. I could fly no farther so I hid, amazed, among the mayhem for a year.

  I suddenly realized that I hadn’t been thinking about scolopendium. If I was on the ship, my body would be crying out for it by now. I laughed with surprise and relief. If I could spend a few more nights alone on the mountain, in the tranquil rock shelter, I could do withdrawal. If I could spend a few more days in this serene and secure place, I contemplated, my mind would never turn to scolopendium again. No more sliding down the OD ravine. No more cat. No need for coffee, ephedrine or myristica. Or whiskey, papaver, harmine, veronal or datura. Thujone, digitalis or psilocybin; not anymore.

  I breathed the island deeply into myself. I wanted to take it in, inhale it, drink it, the whole island, until it became part of me. I felt organized and in control. Alone on the mountain I lost all sense of self, and the troubles that drove me to use cat went too. The Castle was an ocean away. How brilliant, I was still immortal with none of the risks. I wanted to stay alone on the mountainside forever, until eventually with no self left and no thoughts at all I would merge with the landscape. In my haven there was no need for language or communication. For a few hours I was free from the sickly need to identify, classify and name with words every single thing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I returned to the Melowne very early next morning and had a wash with sponge and pitcher. I decided to go back to sleep until the call should come from Lightning or Mist to engage me in another day’s frantic business with spice merchants and jewelers, and with the host of fishermen-turned-salesmen. They seemed determined to swap everything they owned for our damask steel or a handful of arrows.

  I was woken by loud yells and battering on the cabin door. “Comet! Help! Quickly!”

  From the tone of Fulmer’s snappy voice, I knew something terrible had happened. “What? If it’s a mutiny I’m on your side!” I stooped and wound a sheet around my waist like a sarong, then opened the door.

  Fulmer stood on the half-deck, wearing only his trousers. Over his shoulder I saw the cloudless sky, the façade of Capharnaum’s white villas, green shutters and balconies, the merchants waiting on the quay in a stunned silence, the lower deck. It appeared to be covered in tar.

  Fulmer pointed. The Insect was poised on the gangplank. Between it and the quayside stood Wrenn. The Insect reared and struck, antennae whirling. Wrenn raised his rapier and dagger.

  I dived back into the cabin and picked up my ice axe. Then I shoved past Fulmer to the rack of equipment beside my door. I snatched a long boathook and hefted it, at the same time yelling to Fulmer, “Run down the other walkway! Go to Petrel. Wake Lightning and tell him to shoot it! You must knock very loudly. Quick!”

  Fulmer slid down the ladder and slipped across the main deck. I saw bodies lying at unnatural angles and tightened my grip on the boathook as I realized the thick, dully reflective slick was congealing blood.

  With a cold self-awareness I spread my wings, wiggled my ice axe into the folded top of my impromptu sarong, and found the right words to shout at the thirty or forty Capharnai: “Run away! Go home! It will bite you!”

  Holding the boathook shaft across my body like a weightlifter, I vaulted the railings. I plummeted straight down past the blue porthole shutters, reached flying speed and hurtled once around the ship’s hull to build up momentum. I skimmed the figurehead and up over the forecastle deck for a straight run at the Insect. I jinked to miss the foremast, by pulling in my right wing and spinning right.

  I swept over the Insect. I reached out with the boathook and put my full strength behind it as I swung.

  The Insect’s gold-brown compound eyes wrapped around its head and joined at the top with bristly margins. It could see in all directions. It saw me passing above and bent its six knees to squat down. It flattened its body flush against the gangplank, beaded antennae wavering and brushing the wood.

  I missed and struggled to lift the hook as it glided toward Wrenn’s head. I snarled, “Fuck!” I turned downwind, dropping height and holding the pole out to the side, not upward to tangle with my feathers. I flew over the merchants’ heads so low my downdraft ruffled their hair. They all dropped to the ground in a wide swath along my path. A few quick beats, and I veered around the stern of the Petrel, intending to circle the two ships and come in over Melowne for another swoop. There was no sign of Lightning in the frantic commotion on Petrel’s deck.

  Wrenn had bare feet. He was naked but for shorts, the drawstring hanging down. The Insect stood higher on the gangplank, claws tightly gripping the edges. Wrenn stopped the route to the land, to its food. It struck at him. He blocked its mandible with his rapier and deflected its head aside. It swept its antennae back into their gutters, bore its weight on its hind limbs and slashed with its front legs.

  Its hooked claws stabbed at Wrenn, who batted them aside. Its jaws closed on, then slid off, the rapier blade. Wrenn parried the tarsi feet in a sequence so rapid it was a blur. He had lost none of his skill-he was too focused to feel fear. But he couldn’t predict the Insect’s actions.

  He followed the moves of its four claws and mandibles all at once, every cut the Insect scrabbled at him. But his totally inadequate rapier clicked and slid over its cuticle-it wasn’t heavy enough to bite into the shell.

  He thrust his blade past the base of one antenna, then drew it back, slicing through the feeler. It severed and fell between the Insect’s feet. A drop of yellow liquid like pus oozed from the hollow cut end and dropped on its eye, running over the curved surface. The Insect recoiled. Wrenn feinted, and its left claw swept the air trying to catch his blade. Wrenn lunged explosively and hit its thorax squarely, under its mandibles. His rapier tip pierced the chitin.

  The Insect took a step toward him and the blade slid into its body. Fluid the color and consistency of cream welled up around the blade and trickled down its shell but the Insect did not react. It crawled toward Wrenn, spitting itself on his rapier.

  The sword point burst from its back, pushing out a length of cream-streaked steel. It forced itself down the blade until the hilt was flush against its thorax. It stooped to bite Wrenn’s arm. Wrenn shook his hand free of the swept guards and jumped backward, leaving his thin sword
embedded through the Insect.

  I cleared the height of the foredeck, came in fast.

  Wrenn’s face set in a grim expression. He cut with his dagger left to right, scratching the Insect’s eye, but the blade skittered off, only etching a thin line over one hexagonal lens. It struck; he slammed the dagger into its mandible. The dagger blade shattered from tip to ricasso so violently that two long glittering steel splinters spun away from the gangplank in different directions. Wrenn was left holding the grip.

  My wings shadowed his head. “Here!” I dangled the pole from its very end. He had enough sense to drop his hilt and jump for the brass hook speeding toward him. I let go and passed it to him.

  Our contact caused a drag that slowed me down too much and slewed me to the left. The quayside rushed up; I saw the pavement cracks. Too big, too close! I was going to crash! I leaned right and beat down-my wingtips smacked a crate of oranges. The shock transmitted through my feather shafts and hurt my fingers. I pulled out of my dive; the crate tops scraped my knees and feet. I flapped, stubbing my wings. I banked up steeply, groaning with effort, my feathers rasping the air.

  I glanced at Wrenn and saw him teetering, the pole held out for balance. He recovered, pointed the boathook at the Insect. It crouched, lowered its head and pounced at Wrenn, forcing him sideways. He swung the boathook and clubbed it weakly as it pushed past him. The spines fringing its legs lacerated his skin.

  Its barreling bulk threw Wrenn off balance. His boathook flourished in the air; he toppled off the gangplank and fell headfirst, spread-eagled. The soles of his feet vanished below the level of the harbor wall, into the strip of deep water. A second later I heard the splash.

  I glanced at the crowd; their faces were full of doubt and disbelief. The Insect was real; this was no drama laid on for entertainment. It was coming down the gangplank. About half of them trotted backward, still staring, then turned and fled for the streets. The rest seemed frozen. Those not gaping at the Insect were gawking at me.