by Liz Williams
The kappa said suddenly, “Look!”
Something was floating above the horizon, catching the unseen light like a diamond.
“What is it?”
It was gliding swiftly over the rocks: a teardrop in the sky.
“It’s a wet-ship,” the kappa said.
Lunae began to wave frantically. A forest of shapes was emerging around them, the voices crying out once more, pleading and begging. And now the wet-ship was drifting downward, pulsing gently, to land beside them.
The woman who stepped from the wet-ship was, at first, transparent: Lunae could see the rocks through her body. She wore a long, loose shift colored ruby, like the sail of the junk. Her face was oval, her eyes blue. Russet hair was piled upon her head between a pair of coiled horns.
“Who are you?” Lunae breathed.
As she walked swiftly forward, the woman became more solid. The translucence faded. Her lips were moving, but no sound emerged. Then, her voice suddenly came into phase, a blurring glide of speech that resolved itself into Lunae’s own tongue.
“I am Essa,” the woman said. She glanced at the forms emerging from the soil. “And we must leave. Now, before they assume their whole form. They won’t be able to sustain it for long, but it will be long enough.”
The kappa bustled up behind her, agitated.
“Tersus Rhee,” the horned woman said, turning.
The kappa rocked back. “You know my name?”
“You have a name?” Lunae said, startled.
“Come,” Essa said. Skirting the forms, she took Lunae and the kappa by the hands. Her skin felt cool and smooth, not quite human. Lunae hung back. “Quickly,” Essa said sharply. “It will not take them long.”
The forms were towering now, six feet in height and more. The tortured faces dangled from thin necks and the columns of their bloodshot bodies were starting to grow limbs.
“But what are they?”
“The last remnants of bio-tech. There are not many left. Be thankful.” Swiftly, Essa led them to the wet-ship.
“I’m taking you to a place of safety. Relative safety, at least. Go in. Just touch it.”
Lunae put out a hand. The wet-ship slid up her arm. There was a gasping, drowning moment as the surface slipped across her face, and then she was inside. The kappa and Essa followed. Reaching down, Lunae ran an experimental hand over the floor. Her fingers passed across it, and came away with a wet sheen.
There were no visible controls within the water-pod, only a low curving seat.
“There are no straps? No means of containment?” The kappa was visibly nervous. Lunae could not blame her.
“None are needed. Sit.”
Lunae did so. Again, she touched the side of the pod. Again, her hand was moistened. “How do you get it to hold together?” Lunae asked in fascination. She had heard of such things on Earth, but never seen them.
“It is an old technology. I cannot answer your question, for I do not know,” Essa said, and reached out to stroke a glistening wing. The craft rose, faltered, then dipped over the plain, leaving the half-formed beings far behind.
“Where are we?” the kappa asked.
“Mars. Or what is left of it.”
“Mars?”
Essa stroked the side of the ship and it moved into a steep glide, sliding down the hazy air toward a chasm.
Lunae had a sudden glimpse into the heart of the chasm. A bristling mass like a great sea urchin lay below, nestling between the cliff walls. Shadows wreathed its spines. It moved gently, in and out, as though impelled by breath. A face swam up from the cobwebby depths, mouthing something in fear or anger. Next moment, it was gone, like a ghost in sunlight. Lunae jerked back. Essa showed no sign that anything unusual had occurred. She touched a wing. The craft veered, then sailed out toward the curve of the world and the red range.
CHAPTER 5
Earth
So,” Yskatarina said. “You did not find them. I am sorry.”
“Do not be sorry yet,” Dreams-of-War told her. “For they will be found.”
The creature had been folded up in a huddle of legs and wings in a corner when she had next come to see Yskatarina. Dreams-of-War turned her back on it. She could still feel its presence, like a spider, sticky and itching. She had no desire to be in the same room as the thing for a moment longer than she had to. And she did not feel much happier about Yskatarina.
“Can we talk outside?” she said abruptly to Yskatarina.
Yskatarina bowed her sleek head. “Of course. I have spoken to Sek. The Dragon-King has dived. The storm has gone with it; the air on deck will be fresher.”
Dreams-of-War thought of Yskatarina seducing the creature, or perhaps the one who had been seduced, and shuddered. She was thankful to close the cabin door behind her.
When she stepped onto the deck, she saw that Yskatarina had been correct. The storm had passed; the horizon lay in an untroubled line. The air was warm and humid, covering her armor with a mist of droplets. Sek’s crew worked to repair the fallen sails, which spilled over the deck like blood. Dreams-of-War remembered the swarm and its passenger.
“Your creature,” she began. Yskatarina turned to her, serene and smiling.
“He was of help, I hope?”
“It did its best,” Dreams-of-War informed her sourly. “I am grateful. But the thing that attacked us—what might that have been, do you think? Did you see it?”
Yskatarina was smiling still. “I saw it. But I do not know what it could have been.”
“You are certain? You have no theories?” The Memnos Matriarchy had long ago tried to introduce Dreams-of-War to the concept of subtlety; she would be the first to agree that they had failed to instill it. A pity that such methods could not be installed with the same facility as emotions.
“I assure you, I have none. But there are many strange things in this part of old Earth. Many fragments and remnants of lost cultures and species. Most of them seem to war with one another.”
“Your companion,” Dreams-of-War mused. “Do other families, other clans of Earth, possess beings like this one?”
“Perhaps. I could not say.” Yskatarina turned to face her. Her limbs, which were today fashioned of wrought metal, flashed in the sunlight. “There is a great deal that you do not know about Earth. There is much that we do not yet know. The lunar laboratories were extensive as well as ancient, and there are all manner of rumors regarding their production lines before the stone-plague petrified the folk. They manufactured for every aspect of life in the solar system—pleasure, pain, industry, war.”
Interesting list order, Dreams-of-War thought. And if anywhere could be said to have been the originator of genetic modification lines, it was not the moon, but Mars and Nightshade. “The history of this world is well documented,” she said, taken aback.
“By Martians.”
“Of course. By who else?”
Yskatarina smiled again. “You must understand that the Martian story is not the whole story. There are other accounts, secret histories of how the world came into being, how societies have formed.”
“Naturally,” Dreams-of-War replied. “There will always be myths and legends, stories of origin.”
“That is not quite what I meant.” Yskatarina leaned back upon the rail. “Let me digress. What of your own history, the story of Mars? The history of your own sect?”
“This is well-known,” Dreams-of-War said, pleased to have a chance to boast a little after the discomfiture of her flight. “The manuscripts date back many thousands of years. They tell of a time in our far past, when the cities of the plain were connected by great canals, where the Riders went out to subdue unruly men-remnants. They tell of the distant origins of my own people, the Royal Warriors of the Age of Children and the Lost Epoch.”
“I have heard of the Martian canals,” Yskatarina said. “I have visited Mars, for a short while, and glimpsed the canals only from the air. But I should like to study them more closely.”
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p; “No traces of those ancient cities or their waterways remain,” Dreams-of-War told her. “They were lost in the dust storms that ravaged the planet during the Lost Epoch. What you see on Mars today—the Grand Channel, for example—is a re-creation of those great structures. But these are themselves antique, dating back to the period before the colonization of Earth.”
“What would you say if I told you that there is a legend that it was not you Martians who colonized this world, but the other way around? Men and women of Earth who traveled to Mars in distant antiquity, before the Drowning, and set up settlements? Who, over the course of a millennium, created an atmosphere and terraformed the planet until what had been barren, freezing desert became the lands of seas and plains and cities that you know today? That there were no great canals, only ancient stories, which were later held up as truth?”
Dreams-of-War smiled. “I would say that a conquered people need to recover their pride as best they may, and that a comforting lie is as good a way to accomplish this as any.”
Yskatarina inclined her head. “You are entitled to your opinion. I tell you merely as a matter of curiosity.”
“It is an intriguing myth,” Dreams-of-War conceded, for the sake of courtesy.
“I need to speak with Sek,” Yskatarina said after a pause, “so that my companion may tell her what he has seen.”
“Do you wish me to be present?” Dreams-of-War asked.
“There is no need. My companion will tell her everything that must be known.” Yskatarina flicked a finger. The creature emerged on deck, facedown now and bouncing on insect limbs. The tail coiled above its head, flickering and caressing the horns. “Come,” Yskatarina instructed it. She bent, locking the door of the cabin. To Dreams-of-War she added, “We will speak later.”
Dreams-of-War watched as the creature, obedient as a plainshound, followed her along the deck.
Its mistress, indeed, Dreams-of-War thought with revulsion. But Yskatarina interested her. There was something about the woman, a foreign scent, a demeanor different from any that Dreams-of-War had yet encountered. She looked back at Yskatarina’s cabin, then along the deck. The figures of Yskatarina and her companion were moving toward the prow: Yskatarina stalking on elegant metal legs, the creature scuttling behind like a spider’s shadow. Dreams-of-War decided to take her chance. Swiftly, she activated the hand-tools of the armor and picked the lock, then ducked through the doorway into Yskatarina’s cabin.
She did not know what to look for, and what if there was nothing? In the chest she discovered Yskatarina’s spare limbs, stacked neatly in pairs. Some were ornate: gleaming black metal ornamented with pearls, a substance that resembled carved garnet, intricate plastic cages.
Her next investigation proved more fruitful. Within the chest was a narrow box, chased with a lacquered phoenix. It would not open.
“Assist me,” Dreams-of-War commanded her armor. It obliged with a narrow, pointed spire that, when inserted into the keyhole, caused the lid of the box to click up. Inside, neatly packed, were star-charts. “Tell me if you hear someone coming,” Dreams-of-War said to the armor. She fished the first of the charts from the box and unscrolled it.
It was a map of the solar system: familiar, unremarkable. Here was Earth, with the Chain clearly marked in silver etching. Here was Mars—Dreams-of-War suppressed a sudden nostalgic pang—and the made-worlds surrounding Io-Beneath and the Belt. And here, out beyond the ancient boundaries, was the planet of Nightshade, depicted by a black sphere and a golden star. The star was many-pointed, a bristling mass, identical to the symbol on Yskatarina’s shoulder.
Dreams-of-War flicked through the rest of the charts. Planetary maps, trade routes, nothing out of the ordinary. She put them back in the box and closed the lid, then sat back on her heels. If Yskatarina was from Nightshade, then what did this mean?
“Someone comes,” the armor said into her ear. Dreams-of-War thrust the box back into its place and slid out into the passage, locking the door behind her. She could hear footsteps approaching along the deck, an arachnid rustle. Quickly, Dreams-of-War dodged along the passage and around the corner. Yskatarina seemed to be humming to herself, or perhaps it was the creature speaking in some speech of its own.
Dreams-of-War hastened back to her own ruined cabin and sat down with the sea wind whistling around her. Lunae’s absence was palpable. With difficulty, she turned her thoughts back to the matter in hand.
Nightshade. She had heard all the rumors. The planet had been founded long ago by a religious sect, commonly supposed to be mad, who believed in sustaining the creation of male forms and who sought the creation of a perfect being. Dreams-of-War thought of Yskatarina’s creature with distaste. The world was closed to ordinary traffic. The lab clans insisted upon it, and it was a condition of keeping the end of the Chain secure. But secure from what? Dreams-of-War asked herself, as so many had asked before her. Nothing had been known to cross the great chasm of space between the systems, unless one counted the Kami.
Dreams-of-War scowled. If Yskatarina was a member of a Nightshade clan, then what was she doing all the way here on Earth, on the same boat as Lunae? And Yskatarina felt wrong, as if she did not belong here on this world. This was not simply her own instinct, Dreams-of-War realized now, but that of the armor: a sensitivity of semisentient haunt-tech, relying on cues that were unavailable to human senses.
Dreams-of-War’s first inclination was to return to Yskatarina’s cabin and beat the truth out of her, but after a moment of temptation, she dismissed this as a useful course of action. She was not afraid of Yskatarina’s creature, she told herself, but she did not know of what it might be capable. She sat glowering out to sea, until the sun dropped over the horizon and the sea sank into a twilight haze.
Later, she went to stand at the prow of the junk as it limped through the waves. At last, she thought, they were approaching land. Memories of the desert nagged at her, combined with the guilty, frustrated ache of Lunae’s loss. The emotion had become so all-encompassing that she had almost ceased to notice it.
The islands rose up from the horizon like the humps of a sea-serpent, sharply arched. Dreams-of-War thought of the Dragon-King and grew colder yet.
“This place we’re going to,” she said to Yskatarina, who had come to join her on the deck. “What is it called? We are not heading for Ischa—that is farther north.”
“According to Sek, these are the southernmost points of the Fire Islands,” Yskatarina replied. “We’re putting in to repair the damage to the ship. This harbor is known as Toke’ui. You will see many of the kappa there. I do not know what they call it.”
“I see no smoke,” Dreams-of-War said. Remembering the discrepancies in the navigation charts, she was starting to wonder whether this had not been Sek’s destination all along. But if so, why?
“This part of the archipelago is not volcanic. That is more the nature of the northern islands, which border on the Great Rift. We are too far south to see many volcanoes yet.”
“I will not be traveling north,” Dreams-of-War said. “I shall seek the help of the kappa from Toke’ui.”
Yskatarina glanced at her, askance. “I did not like to say so before, but you realize that in all likelihood your ward and her nurse are dead?”
“I will not believe it.”
“Will not—or are too afraid? What becomes of you, if your mistresses learn that you have let the girl slip from your care?”
Dreams-of-War glared at her, but Yskatarina had spoken neutrally, with no hint of a threat.
“Nothing will ‘become’ of me. I shall hunt down that which attacked us and return to Mars, that is all.”
“Memnos will not punish you?”
“Why should they?” Dreams-of-War braced armored hands on the rail and leaned out into the sea wind. But privately, she was by no means certain. She remembered the honeycomb of cells beneath the Memnos Tower and what they contained. She pictured the Matriarch squatting at the center of those cells like a wasp
queen, exuding poison. The thought reminded her uncomfortably of the Grandmothers. Warriors had disappeared before, never to be seen again, mourned with the full rites and mealy-mouthed sanctimony, when everyone had suspected the truth. But these were the secrets of Memnos and not for the ears of Yskatarina.
“You are fortunate,” Yskatarina murmured. Dreams-of-War looked at her. Yskatarina was gazing blandly out to sea, yet there were undertones, swift currents beneath the placid surface. Dreams-of-War wondered how the clans of Nightshade might deal with those who failed. It crossed her mind that now might be a good moment to challenge Yskatarina, but an unfamiliar caution held her back. The creature stalked behind its mistress, upright now, arms folded in a tight knot.
“Look,” Yskatarina said. “You can see Toke’ui.”
“Where?”
“The black smudge at the edges of the shore. See it?”
“You have good eyesight,” Dreams-of-War remarked.
Yskatarina merely smiled.
They reached the small port as twilight was falling, the gloss of lamps casting out across the still water. Dreams-of-War watched as ripples and wakes made their way out from the long harbor wall, heading for the junk. It was a moment before she recognized the round heads of kappa, perhaps twenty or so, as swift in the water as seals.
“They will bring us in,” Yskatarina informed her.
“You seem to know a lot about the manner in which things are done,” Dreams-of-War remarked. “Have you traveled this way before?”
“Perhaps,” Yskatarina said, but did not amplify.
“You have family in the region, maybe?” Dreams-of-War probed.
“Something like that.” Yskatarina turned away from the rail. “We will dock shortly. I must prepare.”
When she had returned to her cabin, Dreams-of-War went in search of Sek. She found the captain on the bridge, inscribing coordinates into the sail monitor.
“Captain, I need information. How is it best to contact the kappa? Shall I speak to them when they board?”
“There’s an office at the end of the dock. The harbormistress works there. But it is late; she may have gone. In that case, you will have to wait until morning.”