Meliu

by L. James Rice

  “Fifty-five, sixty.”

  So damned close. Her shoulders and spine ached, and she swore she might be a finger shorter by the time they made it to the Captain.

  “Seventy. Eighty. We ain’t gonna make it. Ninety, maybe more.”

  Meliu’s thighs burned and her knees quivered.

  The Captain’s voice was higher than the sailors. “You there! The very tall lass. Forward.”

  A gap opened, and she stared straight at the captain and the gangplank.

  Deelee’s knuckle rapped Meliu in the forward. “He means us.”

  Meliu was too exhausted to blush at her foolishness. She took a single step and dropped to her knees, and Deelee bound toward the gangplank.

  The sailor spoke. “They’d make a hundred and two, Cap’n.”

  The captain stepped to block the girl. “Sorry lasses, I said a hundred and meant it. If you’re still here when we return, you’ll be the first aboard.”

  “Please, sir. Our mother…” Meliu realized she was on her knees and it might appear she begged, so she stood. “We were separated from our mother.” Meliu took Deelee’s hand.

  Deelee added, “She’s on the blue-folks’ ship, already set sail for the Watch.” Tears streamed down her dirty face.

  “With the Luxuns, you say?” The Captain’s gaze softened, but after a glance back at a deck stuffed full as a can of snuff, he shook his head. “I am sorry.” He stepped onto the gangplank and stopped to address the people aboard ship, “Before we depart, are there any holy onboard to save a soul?”

  Meliu glanced about, there wasn’t a habit in sight, though there were plenty who might use a healer. Why now? Why at all?

  “A healer I say. Do me this favor and its double rations. Any holy at all?”

  Deelee tensed in Meliu’s grip, and she let go, backhanding the girl’s shoulder. The child glared, but kept her mouth shut when Meliu shook her head. Something didn’t feel right, even as the crowd grew restless behind them.

  Things could get bloody quick, and she didn’t understand how or why the tension grew palpable in the shiver across her shoulders.

  A voice came from midship. “I can heal some.”

  No, don’t, but she couldn’t put word to why.

  The Captain stood on his toes, nodded, pointed to a sailor. “Bring him here.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The sailor lead a man to the Captain. He was maybe thirty and clad in simple trousers and long coat, and it took a good stare to put a name to him through the beard. Simund. He’d left Istinjoln several years past to serve at the Fost. Please don’t recognize me, don’t give me away.

  Simund smiled at the Captain. “Who might I assist?”

  The Captain turned to Meliu and Deelee. “These two young ladies. Way I figure, a godsdamned priest would eat and drink more than two girls.”

  A cutlass split the back of Sigmund’s skull and a sailor shoved him into the bay in front of a silenced mob. The Captain stepped from the gangplank and gestured. “After you, ladies.”

  But Meliu’s feet froze as Deelee stepped forward and tugged for her to follow. The Captain’s eyes were emotionless, cold as a shark’s.

  “Mother will be at the Watch waiting. Come on!”

  The desperate, pleading eyes of the girl’s gaze edged Meliu’s feet forward. If she boarded, if she refused, either way she could be the next chum in the water. “Mother’s waiting,” she mumbled. Her eyes fluttered as she struggled to smile at her new sister, but as she crossed the plank, she couldn’t manage a smile for the Captain.

  She tried to escape him once aboard, but the man followed her until she reached the main mast and turned to face him, sliding Deelee behind her.

  “What?”

  “I’m Captain Lodol.” His bow was curt, and she didn’t return the honor. “A religious girl are you?”

  The conversation’s direction poked her gut from the start. “I always figured I was no more religious than the next, but seems I was wrong.”

  “Istinjoln unleashed this horror—”

  “I fled Ervinhin to find my mother and sister in the Fost, don’t tell me about horrors.”

  The squint to his stare suggested she’d dented his confidence. “Ervinhin. Aye, I’m sorry for that.” He shifted his feet. “Did you see the people behind you? Hear them? Feel them?”

  “They were angry because you killed an innocent man. A holy man.”

  His words came fast and terse. “No! They were angry before I killed a holy man, and no godsdamned holy is innocent.”

  “You could’ve fit us both aboard.”

  “Yes.”

  Her fury built. “Yes?”

  He took control of his tone and pace as if explaining to a child. “If I’d taken you aboard, I’d have broken my word of one hundred and the woulda rushed us. Hells, if I left you they mights done the same. I split one son of a bitch’s head and saved a dozen more from arrows and drowning.”

  “It was wrong.”

  “We aren’t arguing about right or wrong, girl, I’m just telling you what is. And I well might’ve saved your hide.” He spun on a heel and bellowed: “Cast off! Man them oars and get us the hells out of here!”

  It pained her to watch the stares from the docks; a flicker before, she was one of them. Oars splashed and the Januel’s Grace put water between ship and tears, but not a soul made a move to jump.

  Captain Lodol might’ve been right, or might’ve been wrong, but either way he was a mean bastard. With the caveat he’d gotten the two of them off Kaludor. Her mind struggled to reconcile her spite and gratitude, dropping roiling anger into the pit of her stomach.

  Oars steered them to open water past the growing bridge of ice, and soon after sailors set to raising sails. Meliu stood with Deelee, staring back at the docks and the hulking Shadow posed as a looming statue.

  Deelee said, “Thank you.”

  Wind struck the sails and they snapped, surging the ship into a rocking lean. It wasn’t long before her anger emptied from her belly into the sea, and Deelee repaid her life saved by patting Meliu’s back.

  Waves surged and the boat rolled for what felt endless hours, and she’d never heard of a prayer to cure this seasick torture. Meliu also considered that a prayer might get her head split open, so she resisted the temptation with the promise from so many that her reeling gut would go away. It didn’t. The roil subsided a touch, but the essential misery of it all stuck to her innards like a bad batch of her pa’s cheese sauce. The one made from mare’s milk.

  The memory damned near drove her to leaning over the rail again, but she sat still with eyes clamped shut.

  A throat cleared, and Deelee nudged her ribs. The Captain stood over her when she dared open her eyes. A steaming cup of something was in his hand.

  “We call this Storm Tea, normally we reserve the drink for rough seas. But seeing as I just saved your life, I figured it rude to let you die on my deck.”

  Meliu took the cup with shaky hands, caring not a wit for the burn on her fingers. “Thank you.”

  The Captain nodded, handing her a ceramic jar. “Honey to help make it go down. Need more tea, just let me know.” He strolled away as she brought the tin cup to her lips and blew steam.

  Storm Tea tasted like mint crossed with chewing on a branch of cedar, but with honey enough to turn it into syrup she quaffed all but a few gooey drops to settle her stomach. The ride after was misery still, but she survived until her sea legs arrived on the second day afloat.

  She avoided speaking to everyone but Deelee the best she could, but the girl had too much fun telling everyone about how her sister from Ervinhin found her after all these years. Trouble was, all Meliu knew of Ervinhin were from fevered days hugging the Codex of Sol while under the watchful gaze of the Wolverine. She set nary a foot outside the inn… except to visit bodies.

  Her hatred of sailing came in handy when folks tried to talk to her. She claimed an unease in her belly, puffed her cheeks with a cough, and anyone nos
ey left her be without testing her knowledge of the village.

  For two more days she drank thick tea, ate what little they offered, and slept beneath the stars on a rolling hardwood bed. She awoke to a joyous call from sailors: “Herald’s Watch!”

  Meliu’s eyes were open, but still Deelee shook her, bursting with an annoying level of child’s excitement. “We’re here, we’re here!”

  “I hear, I hear.” She uncurled from the deck to sit, but couldn’t see a damned thing other than people’s legs, so she stood. And couldn’t see a damned thing other than people’s shoulders. She grabbed her gear (including cup and honey) and squirmed between folks until finding a view. “Unholy hells.”

  Herald’s Watch rose several hundred feet above the waves of Purdonis Bay, with a great tower at its pinnacle, but its majesty didn’t keep her eye; hundreds of vessels, ranging from fishing boats to cogs, surrounded the island, masts swaying as they packed tight throughout and around the tiny harbor. People moved to and fro, tiny from this distance, bringing to mind maggots swarming a crumpled corpse, the tower a dagger in the dead’s back.

  7

  Ugly Bird’s Tears

  What dance can’t you learn given time?

  Ritual or fun, humility, prophetic, joyous,

  each culture to its every own,

  foot stomp, hand clap, whoop yell and clasp!

  The Dance universal, unlearnable, but which any may perform: Dangle Dead.

  Which cracks first, branch or spine?

  —Tomes of the Touched

  It took a day and a half from dropping anchor for Meliu to reach dry land. She figured the dock was sturdy enough to weather the mightiest storm, but her smile waited until her feet settled on stone. Her body relaxed as if it were the first time she’d breathed in days.

  Then she overheard a nearby sailor: “Aye, we’ll be making sail for Skarmak soon as able, no way this ‘ere tiny rock feeds all these folks long.”

  Meliu grimaced at the prospect of trudging back onto a boat, despite the extra tea and honey she’d stowed in her haver. She hugged Deelee and caught a whiff of the girl. Then she considered it might be her own reek, or maybe the collection of hundreds packed around them. “Now we’re off the boat I can smell again… We need a bath, child.”

  Deelee cocked her head. “Days of whining about water and now you wanna climb into some?”

  “Hot water, with soap. Scented if we can find it.” The girl’s nose and lips curled into a snarling grimace. “You’ve never had a proper bath have you?”

  “Bath houses are for high folks.”

  Meliu leaned in and whispered, “And the holy.” She stood and glanced down the wharf for an inn, but saw nothing. “Steaming water and perfumed oils can change lives, at least for a time. You’re my sis now, time you learn of a few of the finer things.” But where? Skywatch, I’m bound to know someone there.

  Her first-hand knowledge of Herald’s Watch rivaled her first-hand knowledge of most places: a rough a sketch formed from the pages of books, and most of them lacked detailed maps. She knew one useful thing: Skywatch was a domed building built from white marble, she’d didn’t spot it from the boat, but it’d be damned near impossible to miss if she got close.

  This meant marching her stiff, exhausted body uphill, into streets notorious for their climbing and winding nature. She took Deelee by the hand and lead her northwest toward where she thought she spied towers belonging to a gate.

  They were buried in the crowd for a slow and brutal hundred strides before the masses thinned and she could see a gate clear as the sun above. Either something beyond the gate smelled worse than they did, or there was some other reason folks avoided its open portal. It might have something to do with a dozen armored guards with spears and shields.

  She nudged Deelee to smile as they approached, and Meliu greeted the head guardsman, his helm with a horse’s tail dangling down its back. “Good sir, I require passage to the towers.”

  Eyes surveyed her from dark shadows behind his nose-guard. “You’ve a writ?”

  “No, sir. I met Ivin Choerkin in Ervinhin a couple weeks back. He was headed for Istinjoln. He’d be pleased to see me again, I’m sure of it.” She flashed an innocent smile, but one which held a curl of mischief. She hoped maybe the guard would think the Choerkin smitten with her.

  “Kotin Choerkin was murdered, poisoned, and the eldest son may yet die, I doubt he’s much interested in you. Move along.”

  Her brow scrunched; talk about a plan backhanding you. “I’ve just now made dock from Kaludor, pray, what happened?”

  “Ain’t your godsdamned business, is it? Move along.”

  She straightened her spine, set her jaw, and lied through her teeth. “Ivin Choerkin and I are friends, what harm in telling me a truth?”

  “The truth? The truth is a Forge-cursed monk poisoned Kotin Choerkin, Tokodin by name, and his head adorns a pike not far from here. And therefore, not a soul passes without a writ.”

  No. Her shoulders slumped as the air left her lungs. Impossible. Tokodin was never a killer. Never. Her mind raced. She could tell the truth and damned near guarantee passage straight to Ivin: In chains. No way to know from there if the Choerkin would free her hands from those chains, or her head from her body.

  “In that case, you need let me pass. I didn’t want to speak thus in front of so many but… I also met Eredin Choerkin at the Fost, and he gave me this.” She produced Ulrikt’s scroll, and motioned for him to lean in close. “He found this on a priest thought to have some hand in Lovar’s murder.”

  She made sure the broken Church seal was visible, and the man’s hand reached for it in a lurch. “I’ll deliver it straightaway.”

  But her hand was quicker than his. “It is my charge, sir, and you’d do well not to mention this to no one.”

  “An escort then.”

  “Too much attention, we’ve already drawn too many eyes.”

  He stared at her, then the Lord Priest’s seal. “Go then. But if I find you played me, it’ll come down hard on you.”

  Meliu bowed, her face stern, then strode through the gate with Deelee in tow. They passed through the tunnel, and once on the other side the girl looked up at her with a smile. “Sure you weren’t bred in the streets?”

  “The tunnels of Istinjoln can be as conniving as any street.”

  Her moment of victory was short lived, her mood overtaken by word of Tokodin’s end. She wouldn’t have believed such nonsense if she hadn’t seen Tokodin on the Entiyu Emoño with Ivin a few days past. Believed he’d been accused of murder and executed, that is; she would never believe his guilt.

  The streets here were quieter than near the docks, and she snagged an elderly passerby with a pitiful glance. “Where’s the head of the bastard who murdered our Lord Choerkin? I wish to curse his soul in person.”

  The grizzled man snarled, “The head,” and pointed northwest. “Follow this road yonder to Longyard Street, due north, you’ll find ‘im.”

  Meliu walked with a snap to her step, half dragging the girl.

  Deelee asked, “Why d’you wanna see a head”

  Meliu snapped back, “Because I knew that head, now shush.”

  They found the decaying trophy of Tokodin’s life impaled high on a wall overlooking a small square where several streets met. The wings of a crow framed the face from behind, the animal flapping to keep its perch in hair, and the head wiggled as the bird pecked at remnants of an ear.

  “That’s your friend?”

  “Yes.” Even staring at his dead face she wanted to believe it wasn’t him, but the scars marking his cheeks made reality undeniable. His eyes were holes and dried blood mimicked tears from his sockets. How could they believe you a murderer?

  “He makes for an ugly bird.”

  Meliu flinched, and she was half a breath from backhanding the urchin before she thought better. If she was more like her father, Deelee would be sprawled on the ground, weeping or unconscious. “What godsdamned righ
t you have to say such a thing?”

  Deelee glanced at her, shrugged. “It’s true.”

  Meliu picked up a couple rocks from the street and was proud as the heavens when one struck the crow’s head on only her second throw. The bird squawked and flailed its wings, but landed no more than five paces from the head to wait for them to leave.

  So much death, so much pain. Tokodin’s end struck her, but not so much as she’d expected. Anger. Confusion. Pain. No tears. A month ago she would’ve blubbered as a child. The Fires of Tezmonu had hardened her soul with the pains of living, before now she’d not known for sure what that’d meant. Survival trumped all other cards life could play.

  “Let’s go, sis.”

  They continued north until finding an open shop. They stepped inside and walked out with a new pack for Meliu, a pouch for Deelee, and directions to Skywatch.

  Priests guarded the doors of Skywatch, and Choerkin warriors stood geared for a fight at every corner around the temple. Choerkin eyes made her nervous, but the priests at the door stood calm and cast polite smiles as she approached. She tilted her haver for a glimpse at her hidden robes and whispered, “Priestess Meliu of Veleen.”

  A priest knocked on the door and it opened on silent hinges.

  Deelee gasped and yanked at Meliu’s dress as they entered, staring at the perfect night sky above. Meliu’d read numerous tomes with descriptions of Skywatch over the years, so she figured herself prepared for what she’d see; she was wrong.

  A million stars, more clear than a dark and cloudless night atop the Tower of Sol shined down upon her. Her mind reeled as it struggled to comprehend eternity. Until a voice broke her stare.

  “By what right do you enter Bontore’s temple?”

  Meliu lowered her eyes to gaze on a priestess with a familiar voice. “Temeru of Himden?”

  Silence, then a smile. “Meliu of Veleen?”

  Meliu left Deelee staring at the stars as she trotted to embrace one of her oldest friends. Their birthdays were only days apart, so their bond as children never broke, despite Temeru’s study in the Way of Bones. “I thought you served in Movan?”