by B A Simmons
He paused again and crouched. Voices sounded through the trees. The glint of bronze armor and a flash of white and black shields. Someone else was in the forest, but Pete did not know if they were friend or foe.
* * *
His brothers, his friends and family were across the sea and Tom did not know how to get to them without the Entdecker. He stood at the eastern edge of Hellhound Isle; near where Doctor Morris told Rob about the Ayday star. The sun rising over the sea always pleased Tom. It reminded him that life was never as dark as it often seemed. It reminded him to hope.
Colum appeared in the sky, high over the waves. Tom watched him with an apprehensive captivation. The actel’s grace and efficiency in flying superseded any other winged creature he’d ever seen. Yet, even as Tom marveled at the creature, it folded its wings and dove at the water. Leveling itself less than a yard from the surface, Colum reached its beak into the water and pulled out a squirming fish; a young shark or bollywog. There was no doubt of Colum’s carnivorous lethality. This fact made Tom balk about what he felt he had to do.
A fishing line and hook found in the ruins of the hut allowed him to fish in the lagoon, even though the line had to be spliced in several places. He caught two fish and brought them back up to the clearing where he proceeded to make a fire. The fish were splayed, wrapped with green leaves and set on the hot coals. The smell started Tom’s mouth to watering and he swooned a little in anticipation of hot fish breakfast.
“What are you doing?”
He turned to see Aacarys, her face contorted in horror, looking at the cooking fish.
“I’m… cooking breakfast. Do you not like fish?” Tom answered.
“They were living, Tom. You killed them so that you may… eat them.”
“Ah,” Tom sighed, “I take it you don’t want any then. I thought since… well, Colum… you know… it, eats fish.”
“Colum is a… what was the word— beast! I thought a noble, intelligent life, as you are, understood more well.”
“I’m sorry. Aacarys, I didn’t know… are all Ferlie vegetarians?”
Aacarys appeared taken aback by the question even as she shook her head, “No. Not all of my people believe in the value of life as I do. There are those among us who already view your people as savages; no more valued than the Quillian.”
“I’m certainly glad you are more enlightened.”
“What is ‘enlightened’?”
“Oh, um… it means… um.” Tom stumbled, not knowing how to describe the word’s meaning. He wished Rob were with them.
“It is of no matter, Tom Ayngle-mun. I came to tell you that I will grant you what you desire.”
“What I wish?”
Aacarys cocked her head to one side, “You desired for Colum and myself to help you in bringing in your ship, did you not?”
Tom’s eyes brightened and widened. “Yes! Yes, I did! Thank you.”
He moved toward her with his arms stretched out in joy. The joy was short lived as the movement of his left arm made the wound in his shoulder scream out in pain. He winced and let the arm drop to his side. Aacarys closed the gap between them, moving her hands to attend his wound.
She spoke as she pulled his sailing tunic down to examine the shoulder. “You also desired that Colum take you to another island where you might receive help, yes?”
Tom drew his arm out of the sleeve and allowed Aacarys to remove the tunic altogether. She began unbinding the dressing.
“You mean that you’re willing to take me to Aruth too?” Tom said.
“Colum will take you. Together we are too much for him to bear on so long a journey. He will then return here for me.”
Tom brought up his right hand and held hers in it. “You won’t be here when I return?”
“You will come with more men. I do not desire to meet any of them, even if they are men as good as…”
She stopped and her eyes stared into his. After a long pause, she pulled her hand free of his and began her work on his shoulder again.
“Aacarys, I promise you that I will do everything in my power to keep this island safe from bad men. If I can, I will keep it safe from any other men.”
She said nothing in reply to this but avoided his gaze as she applied new medicine to the wound and rewrapped it. Her touch lingered on Tom’s arm when she began to walk away.
“Thank you,” he said.
She paused, her head turned as if to say something, but decided against it. Tom pulled his tunic back on and ate one of the fish. The other he brought down to the beach where he figured to find Colum. The actel was indeed there, with Aacarys already astride him. Tom dangled the fish as he approached the fearsome beast and called out to it.
“Hey Colum, good Colum. I have a nice fishy for you. You want it? Here you go!”
Tom tossed the fish at Colum’s beak, expecting to see it snatch the morsel out of the air. Instead it bounced off the shiny beak and dropped to the sand. Colum looked at the fish, then at Tom, but otherwise remained motionless.
Aacarys looked at Tom with a blank expression. She pulled her tinted goggles over her eyes and stared out over the lagoon.
“There are hawsers, um, long thick ropes near the bow and stern. We need to tie them at secure points on each end and then stretch them across the lagoon back here,” Tom said.
“You will need to come also. Climb up.”
This time, she did not offer him a hand of assistance, yet with a few grunts and an awkward squawk from Colum, Tom managed to bring himself up behind her again. Colum remained low over the peaceful surface of the lagoon. His wing tips caused ripples larger than any of the waves as they contacted the water.
Colum perched on the upturned port side of the Entdecker. Tom winced, but not because of his shoulder. He felt the hull wobble under the weight and hoped she hadn’t been damaged beyond repair. Aacarys descended without trouble, her agility allowing her to light upon the bow with ease. Tom, on the other hand, needed Colum’s wing to help lower himself to the bow. He couldn’t help but scan the water for tentacles as he did.
Tom was quick to find the stern hawser and attach it with a firm knot. Afterwards, he made his way over debris and coral, past where most of the weapons obtained on Aruth still hung, secured in the hold, to the ship’s bow where Aacarys studied two coils of rope, trying to determine which was the hawser.
“It’s that one,” Tom said, pointing to the coil on her left. He smiled at her and for a moment saw the flash of a smile in return. He took the rope at one end and said, handing her the other, “Take this end up to Colum and wait for me, please.”
She obeyed as he secured his end to the bow. Climbing up again proved even more awkward and difficult the second time. Tom nearly fell and only managed to save himself by clutching Aacarys’s leg with both arms. Forced to help him, she let out a string of complaints in her native tongue and listened to a repetition of apologies from Tom.
They flew back to the beach with the rope ends in hand. Colum listened to Aacarys give commands and Tom marveled again as the actel returned to the ship, gripping the port gunwale with its talons. Aacarys shouted another command and Colum flapped its wings with great effort. Tom and his Ferlie helper pulled on the hawsers with all the strength they could muster.
The Entdecker did not budge… at first. Then with sudden and surprising motion, the entire hull shifted off the reef and began to take on water.
“No!” Tom cried out. “Pull harder Colum!”
Aacarys called out to her winged companion and instead of pulling harder, the actel relaxed its wings and applied more of its weight on the port side. Panic seized Tom until he saw that the ship was righted in the water, and she floated. Her starboard side now visible, Tom saw the damage and dropped his hawser. He instead ran to Aacarys and took hold of the rope in front of her.
Colum lifted itself off the ship altogether and, in a feat that astonished Tom, grasped the bow hawser halfway between the ship and beach. It drew the small ship to
the beach with little assistance from the other two. Before long, the bow of the Entdecker stood, leaning to the port side, ten feet in from the water breaking on the sand.
Not that he needed to, but Tom secured the hawser to a tree hanging over the beach before turning to Aacarys with another Engleman smile. While she did not return the expression, she seemed as pleased as he was with the result of their efforts. Colum landed on the beach and received a caressing nuzzle from its rider as well as a verbal thanks from Tom.
“If you desire to demonstrate your gratitude, you may catch one or two fish for Colum, but do not cook them,” Aacarys said.
Tom nodded and then climbed aboard his ship for a thorough inspection. The damage inflicted by the reef was focused on the starboard hull. The wave caused by the breaching car-dun destroyed the mast, snapping it at the same place it had been broken when Max Claythorne found it. He would need a new steering oar, but once the mast was repaired, he could use the old sails which remained stowed fast under the quarter deck.
His spirit lifted, Tom found his fishing net and after an hour untangling it from the cargo, pulled up a dozen lagoon fish for Colum. He did not see Aacarys anywhere near the beach, so with the actel happily swallowing fish, Tom set himself to climb back up the trail.
The Ferlie stood among the ruins of the hut, staring at the door of the Duarve House. She seemed lost in thought and Tom hesitated to disturb her. Her face was illuminated in sunlight; the worry on her face betrayed her youthful features, revealing to Tom that she was likely much older than himself. Still, she was beautiful and Tom felt a pang of despair as he approached.
“I always wondered about the Klaani who lived here. The door was always shut. What life can be had inside the ground?” She said.
“My cousin Rob said there were three Duarve— er, Klaani inside. Two sacrificed themselves so that the third could live.”
“Did it?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I must seem very selfish to you.”
She turned to him with a smile, though her eyes continued to project sadness. “No, it is I who is selfish. I know you have concern for your people. I also have concern that I wished you to have also. I cannot place such concerns on your mind; especially when you have so many others.”
“Aacarys… I hope… I mean—”
“Tom, you may never see me again, but I wish you to have this.” She held the whistle out to him. He stared at it a moment before taking it.
She continued, “Colum- all actels- have superb hearing. If you are ever near the islands held by my people, you may use this to call for me.”
Tom grasped her hand, “Thank you. I owe you my life.”
They walked together without speaking, hand in hand, to the beach. There Tom built up the courage to lay his hand upon Colum’s brow. The actel made no effort to dissuade him, rather it nodded its head to indicate that Tom should rub the pebbly skin between its beak and the top of its head.
“When you want Colum to fly, you must say eiri,” Aacarys said.
“Eiri,” Tom repeated.
“And when you want it to come down to the ground, you must say sheerolach.”
“Shee-row-lack?”
“Yes, but you must have force, authority in your voice. Now, climb up onto its back. I will help you.”
She steadied him as he ascended Colum’s wing. There he found nothing to hold. While the saddle fit his backside, he did not feel secure at all. Sensing his distress, Aacarys found a length of rope on the Entdecker and gave it to Tom.
“Place it around your body and I will tie the ends to these.”
She took one end and tied it to the horn-shaped foot rest at the bottom of the saddle. Tom looped the rope around his waist and let the other end fall against the foot rest on the other side. Once secured in the saddle, he felt more at ease and even smiled at the prospect of flying.
“Farewell, Tom Ayngle-mun. I hope we meet again,” Aacarys said.
Tom shifted his smile to her. “Goodbye, Aacarys. Ayday protect you.”
Aacarys spoke in a soft tone to Colum. The creature responded to her voice as if understanding every word. When she finished, she looked up to Tom and returned the smile as she stepped away. He looked down at the creature he perched on and spoke with the same voice he used to give orders on his ship, “Colum, eiri!”
Colum spread his wings out and began flapping. The sudden movement sent a jolt of fright through Tom. He scrambled to find handholds and before managing to dig his fingers under the saddle. Colum and Tom rose above the lagoon and out over the sea before the actel turned and made a circle of Hellhound Isle. Tom wondered and part of him even hoped Colum would return to the beach where he saw Aacarys watching them. However, the creature veered north and set off over the waves.
It wasn’t until Hellhound Isle had disappeared into the blue behind him that Tom felt safe enough to extract his fingers from under the saddle. Once it reached a soaring height, Colum only flapped his wings on occasion, making for a much smoother ride than Tom expected. The wind forced him to keep his chin tucked in to his chest and he wished he had goggles like Aacarys’s.
Colum flew due northeast for hours until the shape of land formed on the horizon. It grew in size and shape each minute, but Tom could not identify the island until Colum dropped in altitude to where they were no higher above the waves than the mast of a ship. Then the cliffs and rocky shores became familiar to him and Tom recognized Claw Isle.
Colum came to a landing atop one of the cliffs on the southern coast. Here a pond formed as water from a spring pooled up against the rocks before it spilled over to the stony shore below. There the husks of broken barrels lay strewn among the stones, indicating that this spring was known to men.
Tom remained astride Colum as it drank; he dared not get off lest the animal take off again without him. He drank a gulp from his own canteen and looked back over the sea. As frightening as flying was, it was also exhilarating and enlightening. The world seemed different from that height, more peaceful. Tom realized how much the toss and pitch of the sea, though he hardly noticed it while sailing, affected his mindset. Traveling above the waves was smoother, calmer.
His calm was broken again by Colum’s sudden movement. In a moment the actel leaped upon the rocks guarding the edge of the cliffs and in the next, dropped down toward the sea. A high-pitched sound echoed off the cliffs and it wasn’t until Colum leveled off and began to ascend again that Tom realized it was the sound of his own screaming voice.
The actel returned to its soaring altitude and turned due north. The fact that it knew the way to Aruth without any guidance from Tom seemed an impossible feat. It struck Tom that not only was Colum more intelligent than he’d have ever thought an animal could be, but that other animals might also have such intellect, if given the chance to demonstrate it. Colum provided him with a new respect for the creatures of the world. As a passenger aboard a self-guided, living vessel, he had plenty of time to think about such things. Yet, as the sun dropped low toward the western horizon, Tom found his thoughts dwelling more and more on the fair face of the Ferlie woman who stood upon his favorite island, waiting for her actel to return. He even found himself wishing it was him she waited for.
12
Merchants of the Falcon Empire
T he Anna Louisa arrived at King’s Isle in the evening after eighteen days of hard sailing. Proud of their sailing accomplishment but exhausted, the entire crew slept until late morning. They awoke to find Porto Profundo wrapped in the dreariness of a summer rain storm. The city’s mood reflected the sky. Merchants failed to smile at their patrons. Patrons carried the feeling home, where their children picked up the melancholy humor and spread it among themselves.
Edwin felt it as he visited his favorite inn and came out with a hot scone. After stuffing his mouth, he continued ambling down the street, studying the discontented expressions of the street vendors and attempting to surmise if the cause of their woe was the weather or something else. H
e concluded that he needed to learn Iyty, for expression and tone weren’t enough to determine anything else.
Edwin flashed his paperwork to the guards who manned the gates between Alien Town and the rest of Porto Profundo. He walked with confidence, for he had a cargo hold full of elixir to sell and a buyer waiting for him in the city. Despite their gloom, the Falcons were about to receive their hearts desire.
Yet as he passed by the center of the city, Edwin caught sight of trouble. A group of young people, most of them dressed in bright, well-trimmed clothing, were arguing with each other on the steps of the university. The shouts and exclamations were nonsense to his ears, yet Edwin was fascinated by them. What was it that had them in such a heated debate?
A punch was thrown. Someone shoved another and soon the entire crowd was as a cloud of sticky bugs meeting a crew of drunken fishermen. The streets erupted into screams and chaos as the violence spread from the university down every adjacent avenue. Edwin sought refuge near a group of beggars sitting at the edge of the street. Yet as he dodged the flailing body of one brawler, someone else pushed him from behind.
“Hoy, watch it!” he said as he stumbled over the beggars, trying to avoid stepping on their filthy bare legs. “I beg your pardon!”
“Alieno!” one of them shouted, pointing at Edwin. “Alieno aggressore!”
This caught the attention of everyone within range of the beggar’s voice. A dozen sets of angry eyes turned on Edwin. The Engle merchant put his hands in the air and spoke one of the few Iyty phrases he knew.
“Chiedo scusa,” he said in as wretched a voice as possible. It was impossible to hide his Engle accent and the expressions on their faces told him his ruse was a failure. He was unarmed before the mob. More of them spoke to him; their tones told him all he needed to know about their intentions. He balled up his fists, ready for the assault to begin.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and his instinct was to knock it away with one arm while bringing the other to land a blow on the perpetrator. Yet as he turned to ensure his aim, he stopped his fist before it landed. Patrizia flinched at the coming blow, but instead of his fist, she felt Edwin cradle her face in his hands.