Emaque had not been called to fight upon land, and he had avoided the escape attempts on the river as well. The first two ships were sunk, and most of the crew on the third and fourth missions did not make it back alive. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be on this trip, but he saw no choice. As a Sailor, his obligation was to the Fey and to the sea.
Imatar, the other Sailor on the voyage, crouched against the rail directly across from him. Together they were to guide the Navigator through the treacherous mouth of the Cardidas River, past the Stone Guardians, and into the sea. Once free, they were to bring Rugar’s message to the Black King.
The rain thrummed on the deck, and the Cardidas raged against the sides of the ship. The ship was rolling just enough to make balance difficult. Most of the crew were at their stations or belowdecks. Emaque could barely see anything through the rain.
The rain was making him reflective. If he had known that he would live on Blue Isle for over a year, he never would have volunteered for this duty. But he had seen the chance for extra bounty, and he had had his eye on one of the Domestics. She wouldn’t have him unless he could buy his own ship. She hadn’t wanted to live the mobile life of a military wife. She had liked Nye and wanted to settle there.
She probably had. She certainly wouldn’t have waited this long.
He sighed and shifted position. They were almost to the mouth. He could smell the salt on the air, as if the rain itself were diluted with it. Excitement built in his chest. It had been too long since he had used his real skills. He was tired of building houses and furniture and working with his hands. It was time to be as the Powers demanded: time to speak to the deep.
He stood, unable to wait any longer. Imatar motioned him down, but Emaque couldn’t crouch anymore. The green trees on the side of the river, the brown mud, the murky grayness of the river itself, were a balm to his eye. Since he had moved to Shadowlands, he’d missed color more than anything.
The river was widening as they reached the mouth. Emaque remembered this from the trip in, the Ze warning him about the sandbars and sudden drop-offs in this part of the river. He had been the first to speak to a Ze that night. Now all the Sailors used Zes when they could.
The Ze were long, eellike fish, with a passion for the slimy weeds that grew on the sides of rocks. For all their willingness to help, the Ze were little more than gossip fish who chose to go from rock to rock and to live their lives through the misfortune of others. On the way in to Blue Isle, Emaque had had to suffer through a steady stream of personal history about each creature that swam by in order to get the bits and pieces he needed about the passageways themselves.
He leaned on the railing and looked at the hull cutting through the water. The spray bit his cheeks, mixing with the soothing touch of the cold rain. The sensation, coming from something other than Fey creations, warmed him and took his mind off the treachery ahead.
“You shouldn’t be standing.” The voice made him start. Emaque turned. Kapad stood behind him, wearing water-protected rain gear. The droplets beaded on the wool, making him shimmer.
“It doesn’t matter,” Emaque said. “We’re almost to the mouth.”
“I know,” Kapad said. “I’m going to set up the link early. I don’t want any mistakes this time.”
Some of the crew of the fourth ship had blamed their failed mission on the Navigator and the Sailors. The crew claimed the Navigator didn’t link with the Sailors early enough, and hence missed the warnings of the Ze.
“Me first?” Emaque asked, hating to link with the Navigator before finding an intelligent creature below the waters that would lead. The Fey-to-Fey link always made him uncomfortable, invaded, a feeling he could avoid only by diving deep into a sea creature’s brain.
“You’re standing,” Kapad said. He held out a hand, wizened and crisscrossed with tiny scars. More than his name, the hand showed him part of the Black King’s generation. When Kapad had started, Navigators could link through any blood vessel on the hand. Now the regulations required that they link through the fingers only.
Emaque sighed and took one more quick glance at the trees, the water, and the rain. In a moment it would no longer be a private joy. He held out his right hand, extending the forefinger, and winced as Kapad pricked it with the small picker each Navigator received at the end of training. Emaque’s blood eased from his body then, dark and red as it mixed with the rain, dripping onto the deck below.
Kapad pricked his own finger, then held the fingers together. For a moment Emaque felt nothing, and then the link, like a small voice inside his head. The link from Fey to Fey was a Navigator skill that Emaque couldn’t replicate if he tried. It had evolved so that the Navigator could listen and respond to the information the Sailor pulled from the deep.
It felt as if part of Kapad settled right behind Emaque’s eyes. “Imatar next,” Kapad said, and the words created an odd echo effect, resounding first in Emaque’s head, and then repeated in his ears. “Why don’t you start delving for the Ze? The sooner we get help, the better. I’ll send over a crew member.”
Crew members always guarded Sailors, just in case, in their excitement, they tried to plunge overboard themselves. Emaque had never had the urge, but he had never met some of the creatures the older Sailors had.
Kapad crossed the deck, stopping to speak to one of the officers. No matter what Kapad’s orders, Emaque refused to start without a crew member present. During his training he had seen a Sailor dive over to be with a dolphin who had enticed him. The man hadn’t known how to swim and had died before the rescue crew and the dolphin could get him out of the water.
Emaque took a deep breath to calm himself. Almost free. Just through the Stone Guardians, where the mouth of the river dumped into the sea, and he would be away from Blue Isle for the rest of his life.
A young woman came up to him and identified herself as his watch. He looked her over: her body was long and wiry, with muscles corded on her arms. She had enough strength to hold him, if she had to.
“You ever done this before?” he asked. Across the deck Imatar and Kapad touched fingers.
She was staring at him solemnly, her brown eyes wide. “On Nye a few times, and on the way here,” she said. Her voice was soft, barely audible above the pounding of the rain.
“All right,” he said, relieved he didn’t have to go into a full explanation. “The important thing is to hold me no matter what. The last time a ship tried this channel, Islanders shot arrows at it. What you have to remember in a situation like that is that it might seem right for you to let me go and take care of yourself, but if I go, then the Navigator loses his way, and we all die.”
“What about the other one?” she asked, pointing to Imatar. He was standing alone now on the other side of the deck, watching Emaque. “What if you die and he lives?”
“Then we’re half-blind.” Emaque had heard the question before. Crew members often had no magick at all or small magicks like weak Domestic talents: the abilities to make ropes hold, ways to clean the deck and keep the wood from rotting, methods of keeping the food from spoiling. They did not like to be relied on, and hated the job of watching a Sailor. Sometimes Emaque thought that crew members did have magick, but their fear of responsibility kept their talents hidden.
We are only a few miles from the mouth. Kapad’s voice sounded tinny in Emaque’s head. I am at my station. The watch reports ships ahead.
Emaque sent a nonverbal acknowledgment; then he looked over the edge of the ship at the swirling water, his greatest fear clutching at his stomach. He always worried that below there would be no sentient creatures to lead them.
Imatar is gone. Go now, Emaque.
Emaque didn’t have to be told twice. “Now,” he said to the woman, and then leaned over the edge. She placed her hands on his back so that she could feel any shift in his body if he planned to jump.
The spray was sharp and biting there, and the river water had more than its share of debris on the surface. He cursed under
his breath. No matter what happened on this trip, he would get bruised.
He plunged his mind into the deep, searching for a spark of intelligence. He felt nothing, as if he weren’t in his body or any body, as if flesh no longer mattered. All he could see in this state was the spark of intelligence. Different kinds of creatures had different sparks. He searched, seeing tiny pinpricks and faint glows. It took a moment before he saw the kind of fire he was looking for. He slipped in.
Pardon the invasion, cousin, he said, as he always did, the words covering the physical jolt of having his consciousness land in a strange place. Then he felt the automatic cold—no surprise there—and the soft, soothing bulk of the water around his new frame. Buoyancy was a joy, and being able to breathe there, in the depths, made that joy even firmer.
NOT INVITED. NO. NO.
It was a Ze. He could tell by the pattern of speech, and then by the feel of the body.
Peace, cousin. I mean you no harm. I am merely looking for my way.
NOT INVITED. GO, OTHER. GO.
I will leave if you guide me through the mouth, through the channel, past the Stone Guardians.
NOT INVITED. GO NOW. GO.
The water was murky at this level. The light that filtered through was dim. He got a sense of rocks at the bottom, which probably interested the Ze, and other fish swimming by. Two bottom feeders were nibbling at the refuse along the sand between the rocks. Ahead he saw a bigger shape, probably a creature he didn’t know.
The last time I spoke with one of you, he told me all about the fish around him, as well as guiding me through the Stone Guardians.
ZE DIE. GO, OTHER. GO NOW.
Ze have died? Because of what? Because of us?
Emaque! Kapad’s voice sent an urgency. We haven’t time. Find something else.
ZE TAKE OTHER THROUGH FLOW. THEN DARK FALLS. BODIES. BREAK SURFACE. LEAK DARK. BRING EER. Ze DIE.
Eer. He cast back in his memory to the conversation he had had with the first Ze. He had seen one Eer. It was four times the size of the Ze, with a wide mouth filled with jagged teeth, puny eyes, and razor-sharp scales. Drawn, according to that Ze, to any destruction of life, the Eer would continue that destruction, killing and eating everything in its path.
He could say nothing. The Ze’s fear was legitimate.
Find something else, then! Kapad commanded, voice as firm as before.
What about Imatar?
Imatar is not your concern.
Emaque felt the urgency then. He didn’t know how he felt it: before, he had always been separate from the creature, his consciousness, and himself. But if Kapad wasn’t answering questions about Imatar, then Imatar had found nothing either.
He knew the Ze couldn’t hear Kapad, and he wasn’t sure the Ze felt the same urgency he did.
GO NOW. NOW.
Wait. Emaque directed his thoughts to the Ze. Even if I leave you, we will be in these waters. Without your help, we will be in them longer. Chances are there will be more bodies to attract the Eer without your help.
BEFORE NO EER. TOO MANY. NOW. GO.
That’s not true, Emaque said. There were Eer before. Your people knew what Eer were. There just weren’t as many chances for an Eer to go crazy. Whether you help me or not, the Eer will go crazy in this area soon. You’re better in the sea. Take me with you. Escape the Eer and help me at the same time.
The Ze swam in small confused circles for a moment, then stopped and nibbled some weed off a rock. Then it pointed itself toward the mouth of the river.
QUICK, THEN. BEFORE EER.
The Ze jutted forward, its tail flapping, its small body straining. It kept to the bottom, maneuvering around the rocks as if searching for food. It took Emaque a minute to realize the Ze was keeping close to find a hiding place.
How are the currents up top? he asked, knowing that while the Ze was giving them a path, it wasn’t completely helping the ship.
SEA STRONG. This Ze wasn’t as talkative as the first Ze had been, and if other Sailors hadn’t had the same experiences with Zes, Emaque would have thought his first experience odd.
This Ze was terrified. The carnage in the area must have been horrible.
And when do we get to the Stone Guardians?
CIRCLES. MUCH DANGER. EVEN ZE DIE IN CIRCLE WATERS.
Great, Kapad sent to him. We pick a day with currents so strong, they kill fish.
Emaque ignored him. Is there any way around the Stone Guardians that is safe?
SOMETIMES. DURING SPAWNING.
When do Ze spawn? Kapad asked.
How the hell should I know? Emaque sent back to him. He watched out of the fish’s eyes and saw other Ze flanking them like a protective force. They knew so little about Zes. Did they have their own version of telepathic powers? He worked so hard at discovering routes, he didn’t know the rest. The lack of knowledge made him uneasy. He occupied the mind of the creature without welcome and didn’t even know what the creature was.
The rocks grew darker. Smaller fish darted among them. The weeds waved in the current as if pointing the way for them. Emaque wished that the Ze would look up; he wanted to see the position of the ship’s hull above them. The bottom curved downward, and the water took on a life of its own, tumbling in an underwater fall. Even though Emaque could not see the Stone Guardians, he figured the Ze had taken him to the mouth of the river.
Ships, Kapad warned. Emaque thought he could hear fear in Kapad’s mental voice.
We need to go as quickly as we can. There will be fighting on the surface, and maybe dark waters and more bodies.
HIDE. GO NOW, NOT INVITED. HIDE.
The Ze started to head for the rocks. Emaque wished for more than mental power. No! They’ll find you here. Get us out of the Stone Guardians while there’s still time.
HIDE, the Ze said again.
No! We’ll all die!
That stopped the Ze. Emaque was afraid that it would swim in circles again, but it didn’t. It started swimming toward the surface. Above them, and a bit to the back, Emaque saw the hull of the Uehe. Other things blocked the opaque surface light all around, but the Ze’s eyes weren’t that good.
The water had cold pockets as it fed into the Infrin. The current pulled at the Ze’s body, and the little fish swam higher as if to get away from them. The Uehe was following them: did that mean Imatar had not found a spark? or that his spark was even more reluctant than Emaque’s?
Do these circle currents reach the surface?
SOME. FAST. MOVE FAST. ONLY SAFETY.
It took him a moment to understand that. The only safety was in moving fast. He hoped the Uehe was moving as fast as it could.
The other shapes blocking the darkness seemed closer. Below, an Eer played in the swirling waters. The Ze swam even faster, its companions fanning out like a decoy force. Had he hit an important Ze? Or did they all know something was happening? He had never seen fish act this way. If he survived, he promised himself he would learn more about the creatures he invaded.
Muck floated in the water: bits of seaweed and fish dung, plus garbage from the surface, leaves and grass and dead bugs. They were very close to the surface now. Through the fish’s eyes he could see the other shapes more clearly.
Hulls. But not Fey. Small boats.
Islander.
They’re around you! he sent to Kapad.
Keep going, Kapad sent back. Let us handle the surface.
But the boats are small. He knew that small boats sometimes got lost in a crew’s zeal for finding larger ships.
The Stone Guardians are ahead.
Emaque couldn’t see them. The debris in the water continued to churn. The Ze kept looking down, apparently watching for the Eer.
It swam over several small whirlpools. They felt like tugs against its body.
Are we going through the Guardians near the surface? Emaque asked.
BOTTOM SHARP ROCKS. NO SAFETY. ONLY SAFETY NEAR AIR.
No wonder the Zes had been good choices in the pa
st. They had a fear of the current dashing them against the rocks.
Powers! Kapad’s thought was sharp and sudden.
What happened? Emaque asked, but he got no answering response. Kapad! Kapad!
Finally, faintly, Keep swimming. We’re almost free—
And then nothing. But he couldn’t be dead. If one man died while linked, the other died too. Kapad was still alive, but not communicating. Maybe he needed all his effort to filter both Imatar’s and Emaque’s perceptions.
The Stone Guardians loomed, craggy and ominous in the water. They were really one stone with a lot of jagged edges, as well as caves and carvings through the center. One Ze had tried to lead the ships through a cave on the way in: the Sailor had to pull out at the last minute and find another host to prevent disaster.
Weed grew along the rock’s porous surface. Some tendrils were long as hair and just as fine. The Ze barely looked at them in its panic.
DARK! it cried. DARK!
At first Emaque thought it meant the Guardians, and then he understood. The water was turning dark around them, as if the rain on the surface had turned to blood.
Emaque fought the urge to pull up, back into himself. No. They had reached the Guardians. They were almost free of this horrid place. Almost.
The Ze swam even more quickly toward the rocks. It went so near the surface, the spines on its back cleared the water. The air felt as heavy and suffocating as water did when Emaque was in his own body. The Ze headed toward an opening between the Guardians that the Ze on Emaque’s previous trip had warned him against.
EER! EER!
Emaque didn’t see the Eer but knew it had to be wallowing in the blood.
No, Kapad cried. The channel is too narrow. It will sheer the ship.
Is there another way?
NO TIME! EER!
I don’t see the Eer. Please, can we find another way?
OTHER SAFE FAR AWAY. ONLY ESCAPE FROM EER.
Please—Emaque thought.
NO! And the Ze plunged into the space between the Guardians. For a moment Emaque hung on and then realized the futility. He would be too far to return to his own shell.
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (The Fey Series) Page 23