by Wil McCarthy
This must be a matter for gods, because it was all out of scale with the world of human beings. And now the sky was changing, too, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Repent? Sacrifice? Reveal the secrets of his king?
He didn’t trust this changing harbor. Even though it was deeper, even though it was wider and should be safer, he felt exposed and vulnerable. Once they were past the mouth he ordered the sail lowered, and they completed the final kos of the journey with paddles. At the docks, by the time his men had dropped the wooden side bumpers and tied the bow and stern to the mooring pylons, word of his arrival had already spread, and before he reached dry land he was met by the merchants who were buying his cargo. Absently, he exchanged pleasantries with them while their laborers carried off the jars of olives and wine. Five minutes later he couldn’t have told you what was said; his mind was racing on other matters, not least the impending invasion during which these men might lose their lives or their homes or their sons, or the virtue of their wives and daughters, and would certainly lose their autonomy. Unless they somehow managed to defeat Sraddah’s army, which seemed unlikely.
Why wouldn’t the gods of Surapp Great Town be angry about something like that? Perhaps even the gods of Kingdom would be displeased, to see so much effort being spent somewhere else.
The men asked for shore leave, but he refused them. He wanted to get out of here as quickly as he could. He wanted to get home and consult with Adrah; if anyone knew what was going on—if anyone could know—then surely it was the Cleric Astrologers.
Manuah had to go hunting for the byssa cloth merchants, and when he found them they didn’t have a whole bale of the cloth after all.
“Our president purchased several yards of it,” they apologized. “We could have refused her, could have explained that you had priority, but we desire her favor. Surely you understand.”
“It’s fine,” he told them.
“Is it? Really?”
“It is, really,” he answered, because the whole matter suddenly seemed quite trivial. Of course, he did need to caulk his new boat. In a world of rising waters and angry gods, a boat was perhaps a better investment than a house or an army! But he couldn’t quite bring himself to care about the economics of it. He now owed a debt to the cloth merchants, but the wine and olive merchants owed a debt to him, and the whole thing had been calculated to balance out so that they would owe a debt to one another, and Manuah would be out of it entirely. But now there was an imbalance that he was probably going to have to eat, or at least split with the cloth merchants, unless he wanted to be back here every week for a month sorting the whole thing out. And he worried—he feared—that that would not be the best use of his time.
He wanted to say, “My cousin will invade this place before the next new moon. Soon, if you’re smart, you’ll be paying tribute to a king you’ve never met, and it’ll be more expensive than this. And if you’re not smart, then this will be the last time we ever speak.”
He wanted to say, “We were followed by a greatfish, that spouted pure light into the sky.”
He wanted to say, “The water keeps rising, and I don’t know when it will stop, or if it will stop, and I sometimes wonder if the whole world is going to drown.”
And most of all, he wanted to say, “If all of this is happening at the same time, can it really be a coincidence? Is it even possible to make the gods less angry?”
But what he did say was, “I need to get out of here by midday or the tides will be murder. Have your man load the bale, and we’ll sort this out some other time. And may the next month be kind.”
1.5
Kingdom was ruled over by three gods, represented by stone figurines at the Temple of the Hill of Stars. Manuah, who tried to stay out of religion in the same way he tried to stay out of politics, thought of them privately as The One With The Arms, the One With The Hair, and The One With The Big Dick. Such sacrilege had never bothered him before, but now he wondered if it were part of why the gods were so crapped off. Not because of him personally, but because religion did not play as big a part in the affairs of Kingdom—and particularly the affairs of The City—as it had in times past, and the gods were widely scorned.
But which god would be angry? The One With The Big Dick seemed least likely. What would a fertility god want with a drowning world? It must be one of the other two, or perhaps some god Manuah had never thought of. Some powerful, vengeful god? The people of Surapp worshipped a god like that; a single god who would allow no others, and who was somehow his own mother and his own daughter, and was also the sun itself. That was some god! And it made a kind of crazy sense, because if the sun were conscious, it could certainly melt snow if it wanted to.
Such thoughts plagued him all through the afternoon. He let Hamurma man the sail along with Kop, and he let Letoni steer the boat, while he simply stood around and brooded, gnawing occasionally on a chunk of hard sailor’s bread, wearing away at it bit by bit. To his disquiet, the greatfish reappeared as they rounded the Cape of Thorns, and stayed with them for the rest of the afternoon. Or perhaps it was some other solitary greatfish who liked to follow boats around?
When evening finally came, and sun slipped down into the ocean again, he allowed himself a small breath of relief. At least that god wasn’t watching them now. But it wasn’t long after that, when the celestial spray of the greatfish rose. In the constellation of the hand, at the very opposite end of the sky from the supposed sun god. And what could that mean? That two gods were at play here? That two gods were warring, and human beings were simply caught between them? That starry smudge seemed bigger, too. He knew one thing: he needed to consult with his brother as soon as possible. Adrah knew more about these matters than Manuah could ever hope to. For a priest he was not especially godly; he still sometimes talked like the sailor boy he once had been. But he knew his figures, yes indeed.
Manuah slept fitfully that night, and passed a groggy, surly morning watching rainclouds gather. Not storm clouds per se, but enough to cause them trouble if they were caught out. And the wind was against them again. Finally, Manuah took the steering oar, if only to keep himself busy.
When they finally returned to The City, his son Sharama was at the mouth of the harbor, standing atop one of the sea walls and calling out instructions to the nearby boat under his command. The tidy rectangular block wall had been broadened and heightened into a ridgeline of rubble, but right away Manuah could see what a big job this was going to be. In three days of (presumably) diligent work, the heir to the Harbormaster title had added perhaps two feet of height and ten feet of width to a twenty-foot section of one of the harbor’s four sea walls. At that rate, even if Sharama worked every day at the task, it would take a year or more to complete. Assuming The City’s masons even produced enough rubble! Well, at least the boy was starting in the right place.
“Ho, Sharama!” Hamurma called out. “How goes it?”
“Ho!” Sharama called back. “Just a moment, here. Basri, haul that rope! You’re drifting!” Then, to Manuah, as they made their closest approach: “Hello, Father. We ran out of rocks, so we’re dredging buckets of sand up against the wall.”
“Ah,” said Manuah. “Well, let’s see if it holds.” If it did, it could keep the rubble wall from leaking too much, and improve its ability to break the backs of approaching waves. Not a bad idea. Manuah steered past the lip of the wall, and around into the gap that would lead them into the harbor proper.
As the distance between them started increasing again, Sharama called out, “Will I see you at dinner? I have two matters to discuss.”
“Maybe!” Manuah said over the rising wind. “But I have to meet with Adrah first!”
That turned out to be easier said than done. First he had to guide the boat into dock against an unruly tide and an unruly wind and then, once they’d tied off securely, he had to unwrap the bale of byssa cloth and take a cubit of material from it, then command one of the men to wrap it all up again. Then he did the same f
or the bale of golden fleeces, and gave both the cloth and the fleece to Hamurma, telling him to deliver them back home to his mother. Then he had to track down both the cloth merchant and the fleece merchant who’d agreed to receive these shipments, while the men stayed with the boat and guarded against thievery.
Then, once the merchants had been brought and the bales carried away, the men quite reasonably wanted to be paid for the journey, and so they all had to trek over to the bazaar, where he vouched for each man with the Master of Markets. It was an annoying process, and he wished (not for the first time) that he could simply write a note on a plank of wood and send that instead. But that would have been an insult, even assuming the Master of Markets could read, which Manuah was fairly certain he couldn’t.
And then he needed to go back home anyway, to take a healthy shit in private, and by then it was nearly dinnertime. Today dinner had been prepared not by Emzananti, but by Chatrupati, who was Manuah’s aunt and stepmother and the mother of Adrah. And because Chatrupati’s hands and mind were not as deft as they once had been, the dinner consisted mainly of oranges and biscuits, with a single dried sardine for each person seated around the dining rug: Manuah and Emzananti, their three sons Sharama, Hamurma, and Jyaphethti, plus Sharama’s wife Telebabti, and Chatrupati herself. This was Manuah’s entire family; his mother and father were long in the ground, his two daughters had died before the age of five, and Telebabti had yet to bear Sharama any children. Seven people did not make for a very large family, but it did make it easier for them all to fit under one roof, which was something. They even had room for two servants: now a married couple named…Floopy and Poopy Gubgub or something. He was always forgetting.
“Eat and pray,” Chatrupati instructed slowly. “You spend your days busy and your nights asleep, but the body and soul require nourishment.”
“Father’s sea walls require nourishment as well,” Hamurma noted, clearly thinking the comment was funny. No one else seemed to think so, but Hamurma didn’t seem to mind.
Sharama said, “I’d like to buy one of your boats, Father. The one I’ve been using, if that’s all right. It’s your oldest, and one of the smallest.”
“Hmm,” said Manuah. “And how do you propose to pay for it?”
“The crab vendors owe me a considerable debt—twenty baskets. I’ll transfer this to you. In addition, I will share half my profits with you for two years’ time.”
Manuah couldn’t help laughing, because twenty baskets of crabs were in no way worth as much as an operational sailboat with two paddling benches, and also because he was already getting all of the profits from all of his boats, less the small wages he paid to his sons for crewing them. And yet, Emzananti was right: Manuah had owned a boat at the age of nineteen. It was old when he got it, and it had rotted away within just five years, but when he closed his eyes he could still see it, could almost feel the gnarled surface of it where its edges curled up. He’d inherited his second boat when his father died, and had earned all the ones that came after that. But yes, that first one had been given to him by King Sraddah’s father, King Nunuktah, as a wedding gift. Sharama had received no such gift, because he was quite a jerk growing up, and was being particularly jerky the month he and Telebabti had tied the knot. Their gifts had mostly consisted of the forgiveness of small debts.
“It’s not a fair offer,” Manuah said. “The boat’s worth more than that.”
But Sharama was being polite now, and he was the heir to the Harbormaster title, and anyway Manuah wasn’t convinced the whole world wasn’t about to wash away. So he said, “I’ll simply give it to you, on condition that you continue to repair the seawalls. Half your time for the next two years. Does that sound fair?”
“It does, Father. Thank you, Father.” Sharama was uncharacteristically quiet after that, red-faced and sweating with what Manuah supposed must be gratitude.
“What was the other thing?”
“Huh?”
“You said you had two things to talk to me about. What was the second?”
“Oh, uh, Telebabti and I would like to paint the walls of our room.”
“Blue-white,” Telebabti said, “Like the sky at midday. It’s a lucky color, and a soothsayer told me it would bring us children.”
“Huh. What do you think, Emzananti?”
“I think it’s an excellent idea, as long as you pay for it yourselves. Blue-white is a lucky color.”
And then, with dinnertime business settled, the family broke out into song.
* * *
At the Temple of the Hill of Stars, Manuah brushed past the gate attendants with a few mumbled comments, and soon thereafter found Adrah in a contemplation room, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the light of an oyster shell lamp, with a plank of wood in his lap and a charcoal pencil in his hand. He didn’t look up.
“Brother?” Manuah said.
“A moment, please.”
A minute later: “Adrah.”
“Just a…just…” Finally, Adrah sighed and looked up. “Ah, Harbormaster. Back from Surapp already?”
“Yes, I hurried. What are you doing?”
“Attempting to predict the movements of the Evening Planet. Without much enlightenment, I’m sad to say. The venerable Goxgatar is our champion predictor, and I don’t think I’m ever going to replace him. I’m not sure anyone is. Anyway, how is your darling family this evening?”
“They’re well,” Manuah said impatiently. “I just gave Sharama his first boat.”
“I’m so glad to hear it. And Emzananti?”
“Wonderful. You really should get a wife of your own.”
This was by no means the first time Manuah had made this recommendation. The priesthood didn’t forbid it, but the life of a priest and the life of a family man were not particularly compatible, so the parents of potential wives were unlikely to make the match. Some women married priests anyway, either for love or for some supposed spiritual benefit, and Adrah could probably do pretty well for himself if he put in the effort. But he’d always seemed weirdly uninterested.
“And how did Hamurma do on his first voyage? Did those twig arms get the job done? I imagine he’s about ready for marriage.”
When Manuah grunted instead of answering, Andrah finally set aside the plank and pencil and said, “All right, all right, you look like you’re going to burst. What can I do for you? Is the water still rising?”
Manuah nodded. “Pook, I saw a greatfish spout all the way up into the stars. It left a mark in the sky. And yes, the water’s still rising. The tide in Surapp was a full hand deeper than I’ve ever seen it.”
“Slow down,” Adrah said. “One thing at a time. You saw a greatfish? You know there’s one in our harbor right now. I saw it from the tower an hour ago, spouting and diving.”
“Oh, gods, it followed me.”
“It did?”
“It followed me all the way to Surapp and back, but if it’s in the harbor, if it’s diving in the harbor, then the water must be deeper than ever. Don’t you see?”
“And this fish spouted a mark onto the sky?”
“It did. I saw it myself.”
“In the constellation of the hand?”
Manuah paused. “Yes.”
Adrah smiled comfortingly. “All right, yes, we’ve seen that as well. It’s called a comet, and it’s nothing to worry about. Or rather, we assume it’s nothing to worry about. Manuah, the sky isn’t a solid object like a curtain; it’s just empty air, all the way up. And the stars are very far away. It’s literally not possible for a whale to spout that high.”
Manuah was surprised to hear this, first of all because he’d seen it with his own eyes, and second because it irked him to think he might be more superstitious than a priest. “You sound awfully certain,” he said.
Adrah smiled again, more genuinely and a bit condescendingly, and Manuah could see how much it pleased him to know something his big brother didn’t. “It’s easier to show you than to explain. Come with
me to the tower, and we’ll do some stargazing.”
Grumbling, Manuah stood with Adrah and followed him out into the corridor, where young acolytes were igniting tallow lamps to combat the growing darkness.
“There’s a pattern to the sky, and a rhythm,” Adrah said over his shoulder as Manuah trailed behind him. “It all clearly means something, but right now we don’t know what. Are the planets our gods? Are they little spherical lamps set into eddying currents of air?”
They came to the interior of the tower’s base, and Adrah mounted the first ladder. “The moon and the sun are the same size in the sky, but they’re not the same distance away. Did you know that? The gods have set it up very carefully, so that it’s possible for the moon to cover the sun exactly. And yet it rarely does, and that has to mean something as well.”
“Which god?” Manuah asked, trying not to look up his brother’s robe as they climbed. “The one with the arms?”
“Well, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?” Adrah said, as though the thought had never occurred to him before. “Lots of arms to hang lots of ornaments. Perhaps to dance and spin and move them around. But it still doesn’t answer why, and without that—without understanding the gods’ intentions—it’s quite difficult to be sure what they really want from us. Or if they even notice us at all.”
Manuah was pretty sure priests weren’t supposed to talk that way, but the Cleric Astrologers were a small group, and held themselves somewhat aloof from the priesthood proper.
“On the other hand,” Adrah continued, “Certain things are very well understood. The solstices, the equinoxes, these predict the coming of the seasons. The lunar calendar is crap, and we should by all means expel it into the nearest chamber pot. Months wander with time; they don’t predict the seasons. They don’t synchronize, as we like to say.”
“We use that word too,” Manuah reminded him with some annoyance. Synchrony was what kept sailors paddling together, for maximum thrust and minimum drag. Adrah had known that long before he’d known any of this celestial nonsense.