Beneath Ceaseless Skies #92

by Tom Crosshill

  The islands, nothing more than dark smears in the dissipating fog, beckoned to me from the bay. Let the men and women of Keyward navigate their way out there in the dark, past the selkies they’d wronged. I had Warmth Of The Bear to keep me, at least until morning.

  I stole a skiff and two iron-reinforced oars. Fenny Smith’s work was fine indeed, and I thought perhaps I might burn it when I was done with it.

  I rowed straight out to the islands, a row of jagged black silhouettes rising out of a bed of fog. A fine mist obscured the struggling sun, and as I approached, I found the rocks less friendly than I’d imagined. Rain soaked my clothes and hair. I despaired of finding a way to climb ashore without cracking my bones in the angry surf before I discovered a slender crescent of sandy beach. It lay submissively at the feet of the sheer cliffs on the tallest island.

  Selkies eat birds, so I wasn’t surprised when I stepped out of the boat and found a horde of anathema crawling out of crevices in the rocks.

  “Why do you intrude, human?” The anathema’s voice was like the rain on my skin, smooth and cool and shiver-inducing.

  “My conscience,” I said.

  The anathema who had spoken first cocked its head to the side. “I wasn’t aware the thieves of children had such endowments.” Its sibilant speech crashed against my ears like the tide on the rocks.

  “I’ve never stolen a child,” I said. “But tonight, I will steal three.”

  The anathema held still, but its gaze slid over my weapons and mail, over the coins dangling in my hair. “If you speak of our children,” it said, narrowing its eyes, “you must mean eleven.”

  My teeth ground against one another for a brief moment before I regained control of myself. Browan brazenly wore the coins of a warrior or a thief king; he mimicked the men who gambled that their deeds were so fierce, so brave, that if you tried to take their hair you’d regret it.

  Yet the lying wretches of Keyward had taken every golden disk from the sale of the most helpless of all anathema: a creature enslaved to the holder of its pelt.

  “If you go to retrieve our children, we will help. I am Lum.”

  “I am Imuri. I welcome your help.”

  “You and I shall swear on fire,” said Lum. “It burns us both, and the one who breaks their word will suffer its wrath.”

  I nodded. They escorted me inside the largest of their caves. It was damp and smelled of salt and stone. I couldn’t tell if I was a guest or a prisoner, but the plan we discussed was mostly mine, so perhaps I was a general. A general of anathema, Lady forgive me, but when her followers acted as they did, what were right and wrong but simple words?

  In the corner, two human children huddled, terrified of the anathema and not mollified by the woman with a sword who politely sipped cold fish soup while discussing the terms of the children’s ransom and the punishment of their parents.

  Lum was lanky, with rubbery grayish-white flesh and a mostly human face. I recognized that the skull on the pylon outside Keyward wasn’t a man—the sockets were too angular, the breadth of the cheekbones too wide. If there’d been any teeth left, they would have been pointed.

  “You know you cannot stay,” I said. “They’ll find you here, and destroy your home.”

  “If I cannot keep mine,” he replied, “then why should they keep theirs?”

  His wife held out a wide flat clamshell that I could have used as a dinner plate. A coal smoldered in the center.

  After speaking his oath to me, which I accepted, he placed his palm on the coal and allowed his flesh to sizzle for three seconds before lifting hand. The air reeked of charred fish and charcoal.

  My hand hovered over the coal as I spoke mine, and then my toes curled in my boots at the excruciating pain. One. Two. Three. The sickening scent of baked ham scalded my nostrils. I pulled my hand away and allowed his wife to wrap it in cold seaweed.

  It was time to return to Keyward.

  * * *

  The parish keeper answered the knock at his window holding an iron knife and a handful of salt. He didn’t know the difference between selkies and nippers—Browan and Fenny hadn’t shared the book with him.

  He was the reason I couldn’t stop giving away my books. He needed to know that nippers wouldn’t be interested in his salt; the grains were too small, and the shining surfaces would hurt their bulbous eyes. It would be better to distract them with a handful of black rice. It could be my fault if he died, or worse yet, if he taught a child the wrong way to defend herself.

  Just like it was my fault the villagers had the information that led to the slave trade in selkie pups. Guilt stung me as the thought surfaced again, until Floating-Among-Lilies sagged under the weight of my grief. I had included the most benign of anathema so they might be separated from the more dangerous niskies and sharkums, not so they might be preyed upon.

  I was cleaning up my mess, Lady bless me. I would scour it with fire and steel and if I had to, the most dangerous Tactic: Fight-of-the-Crocodile.

  “What do you here, Prodigal?” The parish keeper spat the words as if they tasted of his own guilt.

  “I found the human children,” I said. “For a small fee and an answer, I’ll tell you where.”

  He didn’t ask me how he’d know I was telling the truth. He could afford to trust me; with such a successful parish, he had plenty of coins to spare. And he cared about those children because at least in that, he was faithful.

  “What answer would you have of me?” he demanded.

  “Why haven’t you told the Order of this town’s sins?”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t see Keyward’s children become orphans because of behavior that can yet be changed. And your criminal insistence on solving problems best left to members of the Order hasn’t helped reinforce their trust in the Lady.”

  I kept my last thought to myself, that he had sworn to uphold the Lady’s dominion over every other concern. Whether he admitted it or not, it wasn’t the Lady’s dogma he was defending but her spirit. I smiled for him then, a real smile. I told him the truth—the children were tethered where I said—but I added a lemon-sour lie.

  “There are twenty-five selkies waiting there,” I said. The words stung my lips like a catscratch. “I would have saved them myself and demanded a bounty, but your townfolk have stolen my belongings—”

  “Do not speak to me of theft,” he snapped. He threw a handful of coins in the dirt and slammed the window shut.

  Floating-Among-Lilies, I stepped into the stream and stood still as a sleeping ghost. The parish keeper didn’t take long rousing the townfolk. Lanterns flickered to life in their hands, like a nest of wasps radiant with rage. The lights flowed away over the hill.

  Only those who couldn’t fight were left behind, with a few able but inexperienced youths to protect them; Watching-As-The-Owl allowed me to see them pass through the darkness. They congregated in the smithy, not the parish. Perhaps they wanted the safety of the iron fittings, or perhaps they knew the Lady wouldn’t shelter them after what they had done.

  I sheltered them in her stead. Their safety was part of the bargain I made. The selkies and I were there to punish, not to torture; we planned to burn wood, not people. The prisons in Keyward would be too easy to use again if we didn’t destroy them.

  I stepped into the inn’s kitchen and whispered for the selkie child who Lum called Izhmir. It was a girl, not a boy, and if I had not been Floating-Among-Lilies, I would have been excited to see her again. She had risked Browan’s iron poker to tell me how many of her sestren were captured. Our names were similar.

  And she wasn’t there.

  * * *

  The smith’s house was empty as well; so was the chandler’s, where the third selkie child was supposed to be trapped.

  I found Lum standing on the bank of the stream. Already, flames flickered on the roofs and walls of the other houses. He stared down the hill at the forge. Yellow light spilled out of the windows, pale and weak compared to the raging flames of t
he smith’s house just a few yards up the hill.

  “They’ve moved the selkie children,” I said.

  He was silent for a moment. “Show me where my daughter was.”

  He followed me to the inn, and when I opened the door, his nostrils flexed, as if it smelled of feces or sickness. He jumped over the doorjamb and forced his feet across the iron-nailed boards.

  Lum stopped where his daughter had slept, a tiny patch free of poison metal. He shredded the sacks with his claws and began wrapping his feet.

  Then he picked up his harpoon, grabbed a piece of firewood in his free hand, and stood between me and the door. Floating-Among-Lilies made this nothing more than a fact. I didn’t fear him. I also didn’t understand.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Our children are hostages in the smithy. The villagers think this makes them safe. No one is safe.”

  Things scraped against the outside of the walls like large insects. The selkies were setting kindling around the inn. They would burn it down, with me inside. I was reminded why I wrote in my book that no one was to treat with anathema. This incomprehensible betrayal strained at my Floating-Among-Lilies. Curiosity weighed heavily on the invisible shelf above my head.

  “I helped you.”

  “You are the only human who has found our caves. The others stole our children from the shore. You must die, and take your knowledge with you.”

  “And you?”

  “See me keep my oath. I appreciate your help, and for this betrayal, I will suffer the wrath of fire.”

  “I am the only one who can get your children out of that building,” I said. It wasn’t a desperate plea; it was the truth. The townfolk would be back soon. I alone, armored and unafraid of iron, could walk into the smithy and disarm the humans who were guarding them.

  “We’ve already said goodbye to them,” Lum said.

  They were going to burn the smithy, with everyone’s children inside.

  Floating-Among-Lilies tore apart, sagging and ripping under the weight of my anger. I choked it back, but it was a flood torrent, filled with sharp pieces of regret and guilt. While the calm of the lilies slipped from my grasp, the darkness beneath became real.

  I drowned my way down to the last of the Tactics, the only one I had never used before.

  Fight-of-the-Crocodile couldn’t be practiced among friends, because every blow that weakened one combatant poured strength into the other. I would have less time in which to win, and less strength to flee the flames.

  * * *

  Lum was paths of blood, branches of a cold tree I needed to chop down. He glowed with an aura of oceanic violet; in contrast, a corona of deep orange-amber throbbed around me. Honey-sticky strands of light stretched between us, shifting with our thoughts, our breathing, and the beat of our hearts.

  I sallied forward with a series of whirling cuts. Heat stung my throat, but I could only think of opening those veins and spilling that violet ichor.

  He jabbed with his harpoon, a powerful thrust that would have punctured my heart if not for my mail overshirt. The bone barbs slid off the metal links. Some orange light sucked into the purple, where it dissipated like blood in water. I sliced his arm before he could draw back, and light swelled around me as he dribbled blood. He was too fast, though, and the cut was shallow.

  Lum asked, “What have you done?”

  I didn’t answer; he’d find out soon enough.

  He advanced, swinging the driftwood to force me away from the door. My sword chopped off splinters. I stumbled back, maddened by the tantalizing purple power just out of my reach.

  I had forgotten that Lum fought sharks with his harpoon, under the weight of water. His muscles were fast and perfect in the light resistance of the air, though his aim was off, and he coughed heavily, his slimy lungs less prepared than mine for the hot smoke.

  I kicked his driftwood and swung my sword, slicing into his arm again, but even though it was a deeper cut, the cost was a harpoon stab in my leg. The aura of his life swelled with my injury. I hobbled backward, my back bumping against the swinging door to the common room.

  If they were burning the inn the way I taught them, the roof was already ablaze. Lum smashed the lantern hanging above the big table, and drops of flaming oil spattered across the furniture and floor. I had taught them this as well, how to quicken the fire with oil.

  All the trophies above the fire remained but one: Izhmir’s pelt. The time I caught Browan’s wife by the fire with the limp thing in her hand, she must have been threatening the child with it. If Izhmir’s relatives were near, attempting vengeance, the pelt was the only way to control anathema who might otherwise risk a leap to freedom, iron doorjamb or no.

  That same twisted scene was probably happening at that very moment, in the confines of the smithy. Three little pelts. Three terrified selkies.

  I stabbed my fury toward Lum, connected, pulled free. Gutblood dribbled down the pale line around his waist where he often wore his pelt. He hadn’t brought it to the fight, of course—if he was captured, it was better to die than become a slave, like his daughter.

  Their nature. It was what I preached, and I knew their weaknesses as well as their strengths. My weakness was the need for my shield. When it was strapped to my arm, it was a part of me. But the townspeople had driven me off without it.

  My mooning got me a harpoon punched into my other leg. Now I had two limps. My orange light shrank down toward me; Lum’s purple glow expanded. Gritting my teeth against the oozing ache of each step, I stumbled back toward the stairs.

  Let him keep me in the house, then. If Browan hadn’t pawed through it yet, I might have an armory upstairs, in the attic. I hoped the smoldering roof would hold out long enough for me to find it.

  Lum, afraid I’d climb out the window, followed. His coughs slowed him. The smoke was thicker in the stairway. It stung our eyes.

  I could no longer kick and still hold my balance, but as I backed up the stairs, I managed to hook the driftwood with my sword hilt and knock it loose. It thumped down to the ground floor, leaving a flickering shadow that pointed toward us. The flames from the spilled lamp grew, a garden of threatening light.

  When I reached the attic room, I slammed the door behind me and locked it. It was only wood, no iron but the handle and hinges, so he threw himself into it over and over. Thump, thump. Purple glow flared along this side of the door and then melted away each time. My orange light wouldn’t glow through the door; there wasn’t enough left.

  Lum would break the wood but perhaps not before the burning roof collapsed on us. I could win that way, if nothing else. My armor heated up, sweat tickled my skin, and the smoke was suffocating me. I rushed for the window like he expected, to breathe fresh air one last time, even if I couldn’t escape.

  What I saw stopped me.

  They hadn’t burnt the bridges yet. They were standing on them, watching this building, watching their leader’s last brave act. Waiting.

  I would choke to death on smoke or be roasted by flames or get stabbed in the back, but the last thing I did would save the smithy and everyone in it. I knew the nature of fire. I knew the nature of the anathema.

  I held my breath and lunged for my things, in the corner where I’d left them. They’d been pawed through, but my crossbow was still in my saddlebags, and so was the cylindrical leather case where I kept fifteen steel quarrels.

  Coughing, squinting, I elbowed out the glass panes and yanked the iron cross out of the window. It was hot enough to leave a scar on my palm to match the ink on my forehead. I threw it down and grasped the crossbow.

  This was what I was trained for. I didn’t have the strength, I think, as I loaded and loosed quarrel after quarrel. The iron soared through the night like hunting hawks, each finding the hearts and guts of the selkies on the bridges. Only Lum’s life would leak into mine, so my orange light grew thin as I watched the selkies fall and bleed. Their thick blood flowed slowly, too slowly. It might never make it to the water.
>
  Behind me, the door crashed open. I turned in time to knock Lum’s harpoon aside with the crossbow. He drew back, coughing. The air was better on the floor, where I lay, but he didn’t know this. He thought he was winning if he was still standing. His purple was smaller, but my orange was barely visible.

  If I didn’t get out then, I never would.

  I couldn’t stand—my right leg cramped when I tried—but I could swing my sword. Lum was blinded by smoke, jabbing toward me but missing. I swiped as if chopping wood with an axe. When I hit his leg, a long slab of meat peeled off and flopped down. Blood poured out.

  The branching tree inside his body crumpled as he fell to the floor; the purple fluid drained him to a dry husk. And the glow moved into mine, feeding the orange light. It flared, I think, but maybe that was the fire. The flames were orange like my aura. Like the silk sash I had worn long ago. The flames were mine, too.

  I lay beside Lum, my mail shirt scalding my skin where it touched, but I couldn’t do anything but cough. I heard howls ripping through the world, through the flames, but I didn’t know if they were Lum’s, or the other selkies, or the villagers, or wolves who had smelled cooked meat and come to feast. There was a rumbling I thought might be Lum coughing, but I couldn’t force my eyes open anymore.

  In the midst of the choking inferno, just before I passed out, I felt something cold and wet. I knew it couldn’t be real, but I was no longer Floating-Among-Lilies, so I hoped.

  * * *

  When I faded back, the world was different. I coughed, but instead of smoke, I inhaled air like that of the mountain passes: crisp, fresh. It stank of charred thatch and wet pine needles. Rain stung my face, driven by a howling wind, and I wondered if I had fallen out the window after all.

  But the floor beneath my cheek was wood, and warm, and when I cracked my eyes, I saw the broken door, burning just beyond Lum’s motionless body. Even as I watched, the wind forced the door off its hinges. It splashed into a puddle in the center of the floor, extinguishing the flames. The roof had been burned by fire and torn away by wind.

  In my book, it said you must not spill the blood of a selkie in salt water, for it would cause a storm. I had spilled several pints, all carried to the sea by the stream.