Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Like flying,” said Crash sadly. “And going from one place to another one, zip, just like that. And shapeshifting, like Grandma. Like she was before she got froze, I mean.”

  Crumpet interrupted. “She didn’t get froze. She got petrified!”

  Silkhands went on: “Yes, all those talents were gone, so the tower had to be rebuilt just just with muscle and determination. But it was done, and now . . . Lom feels better . . .”

  Jinian said, “And now, just as we told you both, Lom has been asked for help from the world our ­people came from, so your mother and I have temporarily been given back our talents and asked to go very far away to save some creatures there.”

  “Why can’t those ­people on urth save their own selfs?” demanded Crash.

  “Earth ­people have already found a way to save most of them, but there’s some kind of problem . . . It’s all mixed up with which ones have bow and which ones should be saved . . .”

  “Do we got bow?” demanded Crash.

  “Some of us do, Crash. But I guess a lot of Earth ­people don’t, and creation has decided they’ve had their very last chance!”

  “Creation has decided? The whole universe, Jinian?” asked Silkhands, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Well, the galaxy, anyhow. There’s a galactic officer involved. That must be fairly high up in importance.”

  “What’s a glactic ossifer?” Crash demanded.

  “It’s a . . .” She stopped, then leaned forward, whispering, “If you’ll look to your left, Crash. No, your left, across the pool! See the person standing in the arch over there, looking this way . . . ?”

  Abasio looked where Crash was looking. There was indeed a . . . something standing there. It was not unfamiliar. It had shown up in several dreams. He might not have called it a person, for it had six . . . he counted again, twice. Yes. It had six legs, all the same length, and six arms of differing lengths. It had something that might be a face: it definitely included eyes—­eyes that were looking straight at him, at Abasio. Now it lifted a hand . . . or whatever it was at the end of its arms and saluted him. HIM. Abasio. Looking straight at him. Smiling. Very definitely an . . . actually friendly smile. Abasio felt his face replying, smiling back.

  Jinian went on, lowering her voice. “That’s the galactic officer. Its name is Balytaniwassinot, only it says we can call it Fixit. Fixit is a person responsible for . . . well, fixing things, like . . . oh, just . . . fixing things. I think that’s what it said.”

  “Oh,” said Crash offhandedly. “It’s really funny-­lookin’—­”

  He was interrupted by a Dervish who came spinning in through one of the arches. Crash and Crumpet immediately stood up, very respectfully. The Dervish approached the pool, slowed down, stopped, its layers of fringes settling around it. “Good morning, Silkhands. Good morning, daughter. Good morning, children.”

  “Good morning, Grandma,” they said in unison, with excruciating politeness. Evidently, Abasio thought, Dervishes were held in considerable awe. She left them and came to the pool, scooping up one of the thin, glinting crystals that lay in the shallow edge of it.

  “Morning, Abasio,” she said cheerfully, putting the crystal into her mouth and beginning to twirl once more. She spun her way out through the arch and away down the road, making a sonorous humming sound.

  The children did not sit down until she had gone, then Crash said, “Silkhands, c’n I ast a question?”

  Silkhands reluctantly withdrew her eyes from the six-­armed person. “Crash, you always do ask questions.”

  “Who’s that man hanging out there in the middle of the pool. The man Grandma called ’Basio. He keeps looking at me.”

  “What man?” asked the women in unison. “What man?”

  “Me, for heaven’s sake,” shouts Abasio in his dream. “The Dervish can see me, the children can see me, even that weird . . . galactic officer [!] can see me! Why the hell can’t you?”

  And with that shout, Abasio’s eyes opened.

  He looked up, past the horses’ heads, to see a shop with a sign declaring:

  BERTRAM THE TAILOR

  Quality Clothing for All: Fine Clothing for Those Who Have Time!

  Abasio got down from the wagon. Yawning and stretching, he loosed the horses from the wagon. “We’ll leave the harness on until we decide where the wagon can be parked. If the tailor is amenable, we may take a day or two for rest.” Abasio had seen what Xulai had not. There was a smokestack in back of the shop that, ­coupled with the stream that flowed from that direction into this pool, indicated the possibility of a bathhouse.

  Xulai murmured to him, “The fact that we’ve encountered a tailor is blessed fate. Or maybe Precious Wind has been casting spells for me. The children have outgrown every garment we had for them, including the ones we bought large so they could grow into them!”

  “Would Precious Wind suggest tailored clothes? For babies?”

  “One gives thanks for what one is given, even the unexpected,” she answered piously. “Besides, we’ve been given funds for the unexpected. Father said he was sure it was the one thing we would encounter.”

  Leaving Blue and Rags to test the quality of the grass, they each took a child and went up the steps to the porch of the shop. As they opened the door, a bell rang and a stout, cheerful-­looking man came bustling from the back to stand behind the counter.

  “Yes, ma’am, sir. What may I do for you?” he burbled. “Summer coming, you’ll need something lighter, perhaps. I note you’re dressed for cold.”

  “We don’t need clothing,” said Xulai. “But the children do.” She unwrapped Gailai, rubbed noses with the giggling baby, and placed her on the tailor’s counter.

  “Madam,” he said. “It is really not my custom to dress fish!”

  Across from him, Xulai drew herself to her full height and ­coupled a blazing stare with a suddenly icy tongue: “If you do not better school your tongue, sir, you may find yourself without any custom at all.”

  Chapter 3

  Traveling Garments

  THE STOCKY YOUNG MAN’S SAD, DARK EYES WIDENED in the sudden panic, as though he had unexpectedly stepped off a cliff. He gulped, “I did not mean to offend.” The walnut gleam of his skin hid his flush of embarrassment, but his shaking hands betrayed him as he ran them over his black, tightly curled hair.

  “What did you mean to do? Didn’t I hear you refer to my children as fish?” She turned from him, ebony hair swirling, dusty, no-­colored traveling robe lashing around slender ankles—­ankles, deplorably, that were as dusty as the hair, as the soiled robe. The wearisome roads, wet or dry, were dirty. Even her hands and face were covered with a gray film. She looked at her wrists in fury. She could plant grass in the creases of her skin. A little sweat and they’d grow! Or tears. Tears would do it. She turned her face away. The rain of tears was imminent.

  “Children? Madam . . .” The tailor was beginning to sweat. He gripped the lapels of his impeccably fitted coat, one he had put on only when he had heard their wagon arrive at his shop. The woman was furiously angry. He was not so frozen in embarrassment that he failed to appreciate her beauty, her perfect features, her hair . . . Well—­it was luxuriant and—­if washed—­it would no doubt gleam with blue lights. Beneath the travel dirt her skin was an unblemished olive. Her manner, on the other hand, was . . . well, it might be aristocratic, possibly regal. But could she be the mother of those . . . ? It simply wasn’t believable!

  The woman’s companion stepped between tailor and fury. With obvious effort to overcome great weariness, he forced his lips into a smile. “Let us begin again.”

  The tailor turned toward him helplessly, starting to speak and then stopping himself. He had not really noted the lined face, the drooping shoulders, the exhaustion in those eyes. If this man were left alone for five minutes, he would be deeply asleep, and he moved
as men do who have already been tried past endurance.

  And yet . . . yet, he managed a conciliatory smile as he laid his hand on the lady’s shoulder, stroking it, calming it. He was as travel-­stained as she, but he carried both the road dust and the weariness like an accustomed garment, fully aware of its condition, knowing that it needed mending, laundering, or even better, replacing with something more comfortable, yet not resentful of what it said of . . . negligence? No. Haste? The tailor thought not. Neither time nor effort had been spared, everything else had simply been . . . well, secondary . . . to whatever it was the man needed to do. Just now he needed to move his tired eyes first to the tailor’s, to lock there, then to tug the tailor’s eyes toward the lady as though to say, “Look, really look here, my friend. See.”

  The traveler reached out and drew her closer with one hand while reaching the other to smooth the frown lines between her perfect brows. He stood back at arm’s length and bowed toward her as he spoke over his shoulder: “May I introduce my wife, sir!? This is Xulai, Princess Royal of Tingawa and daughter of the Duke of Wold. Wold, you probably know of? Tingawa, more remote, less known, is far, far west across the sundering sea. The stains of harsh travel do not betray her royal blood, but when she is extremely weary, her temper becomes fully—­or shall we say perhaps—­exceptionally imperious.” He swept an elegantly executed bow in her direction, his cloak making a practiced and beautiful swirl as it moved and fell.

  The tailor was not so overawed that he failed to notice her fleeting smile, the elegance of that swirled cloak. Even under all that dust it was magnificent. Any tailor worthy of the title knew of Tingawa, and the only fabrics that could be spoken of in the same breath as those in that cloak could be from no other place. Tingawa. The west. Over the sea! The lining had to be Tingawan silk! And the drape of that wool! Heavens! What was it called? It was from some particular animal: kazi something. He had only read of it!

  The traveler raked his dusty hair behind his ears, digging his thumbs into his neck with a grimace. The gray at his temples was not entirely due to dust. Holding the tailor’s eyes, he spoke softly, with humor. “I, sir, on the other hand, am simply Abasio. Sometimes called Abasio the Dyer, sometimes Abasio the Traveler, also sometimes Abasio the Idiot, for marrying, or should one say ‘espousing,’ so far above myself.”

  He reached out to take one of the babies from Xulai’s arms, holding the child where the tailor could get a good look. “The future of our world, sir, depends upon these children of whom you spoke so hastily.” He held up a finger, silencing the tailor’s attempt at apology. “Spoke, may I say, thoughtlessly but only in words, sir! Mere words are of no matter, for Gailai and Bailai are too young to take offense and my wife and I are sufficiently forgiving to ignore them.”

  The princess glared, taking note of the emphatic pledge without agreeing to it in the slightest. As the tailor attempted another confused apology, Abasio cut it off with a raised hand.

  “Let it be forgotten! Our purpose is simple. We have come to find Bertram, the much-­lauded Bertram, ‘Bertram, who makes clothing for ­people from as far away as the eastern prairies to the western sea!’ Bertram, who for some unknown and no doubt imperative reason does his exemplary work on the hill, above the village of Gravysuck, in White Mountain Valley!”

  Abasio turned, thrusting his arm, swordlike, toward the southwest, finger inexorably extended: “There, there is White Mountain, lunging upward, snow-­clad as ever!” The arm dropped, the extended finger pointed down, to the south. “And there below us in the subsidiary valley lies the village of . . . yes, indeed, it IS Gravysuck.” The pointed finger curved, joined its fellows to become a cupped hand, held pleadingly toward him, as though begging. The voice dropped almost to a whisper. “So, here, here, indeed, on this hill indubitably and without contradiction, we find that you must be the paragon: Bertram!”

  The tailor, stunned by the drama, struggled unsuccessfully to find a suitable reply. “Well, yes, but . . .”

  “Your mistake is understandable. And your patronymic, sir?”

  “Pa . . . patro . . . ?”

  “Your father’s name?”

  “Also Bertram.”

  “Then you are Bertram Bertramson, right?”

  “No, sir. Bertram Stitchhand, sir. Of the Volumetarian Stitchhands.” The tailor would have paled, had he not been incapable of doing so from birth. That being impossible, he clapped his hand over his mouth in dismay. What had he said! Why had he said it!

  This time Abasio smiled from honest amusement, though he had no energy left to inquire into either the Stitchhands or the Volumetarians. His body was dirty, every crease filled with the detritus that joins with sweat to form an intimate muck, an invasive slurry that itches and complains, drawing all attention only to itself. He was tired with the weariness that doubts the existence of sleep. Xulai, too, was tired, dirty, hungry, and petulant as a . . . dyspeptic pig! They desperately needed a few days’ rest if this man would only cooperate by giving them an excuse to take such a rest before Xulai committed all three of them and the babies to enmity everlasting!

  Swallowing the exhausted sigh that was threatening to swallow him, Abasio said clearly, uttering each word separately, peering into Bertram’s eyes to make sure the man understood him: “As I had begun to say, many of the children born during the next century or two will resemble the children you see here. They will live in the seas. The temperature of the seas is fairly constant, changing only gradually. However, our young ones are not yet full-­time sea-­children, and they are traveling across areas where there has as yet been no significant inundation.”

  “I . . . ah . . .” gargled Bertram, his eyes fixed on the children in question. The two infants, not yet quite yearlings, he judged, were loosely wrapped in knitted shawls and were reclining in their mother’s arms, regarding him with interest. Down to their waists they were appropriately human-­looking; their skin, where it showed in the gaps, was more or less the color of an aged ivory button. Not as light as their father’s, though he was somewhat darkened by the sun. Not the smooth olive of their mother’s. Something in between. Their hair was dark. One little head reflected reddish lights, the other, bluish ones; their little faces were . . . very babyish. Pretty, even. However, their tails. Legs. Their nether appendages, whatever such limbs were called, were unquestionably fishy. Not scaled, no, the olive skin of their faces and upper bodies darkening smoothly below the waist, where tail joined other flesh, becoming dark and slippery, and ending in feet that were . . . webbed. Quite webbed. Extravagantly webbed! The insignificant heels were companioned by very long, almost froggy toes! The babies’ lower halves were dark in color. Blue. Green. Or maybe black. As were their observant little eyes . . .

  Abasio’s voice hardened: “So! Since we must travel where as yet there are no seas, the children are sometimes cold. They require jackets! Coats! Something to keep them warm!”

  The tailor mumbled something.

  “Yes?” asked Abasio with a lethal smile.

  “Why would aquatic creatures be here? You are so far from—­”

  Xulai interrupted, her voice like a well-­honed knife. “They must be both. If you will allow me to explain?”

  Her words were a question; her tone was not. The tailor’s conscious mind finally received the information his subconscious had been trying to get through to him since the little bell above the door had jangled. Forget your oath! Forget the books. Forget defending your life’s primary purpose as a Volumetarian. Shut your mouth and listen. Shut up and smile and listen. Shut up and smile and listen sympathetically, as any decent tailor would! He shut his mouth and nodded, pulling his mouth into what he hoped was an understanding smile though it felt like a gargoyle grin, a desperate disguise hiding his fervent desire to go back in time and lock the door before these ­people had arrived.

  “We are in the age of the waters rising,” Xulai said carefully, slowly
, hoping to sound merely didactic rather than lethally threatening. “About two centuries from now, all our world will be under the waters . . .” She paused for emphasis, but did not begin again, for Bertram had stumbled back, not merely astonished as many were who heard this for the first time, but shocked as though mortally wounded! His dark face was turning gray! All at once!

  He gasped, “You must be . . . surely you are joking, ma’am. I don’t . . .” He put his hand to his head, suddenly dizzy, things becoming blurred . . .

  Abasio stepped around the corner of the counter and helped the man to his chair, shaking his head at Xulai. A tailor dead of shock would do them no waistcoats! Xulai shuddered, comprehension striking her like a slosh of icy water. Ordinarily, she would have realized that water meant more to this man than it did to other ­people. More than to the average villager. If animosity on the part of such villagers had not been so prevalent during their recent journey, she wouldn’t have reacted with such . . . annoyance! She would have allowed for disbelief, yes: the initial response was almost always disbelief. But . . . but ­people had not been fearful. This kind of shock? The man had meant no real animosity, he simply couldn’t believe what she had told him and it meant something dire to him! Something far worse than it meant to most ­people!

  Abasio was patting and murmuring, “Bertram. It will be some time yet before it happens. Breathe. That’s it. Again. In and out. And again. Xulai tells you the truth. We did not mean to frighten you. You hadn’t heard this before?”

  Bertram swallowed, gulped, tried to speak, only gargled. He tried again. “Travelers have said . . . Coastal flooding, of course, yes . . . A few lowlands, perhaps. But . . . not the world. Surely not the world! The books!” His voice became shrill with hysteria: “The books! By whatever Gods take into care, the books! What will I do with . . . ?” He went on babbling, almost wordlessly, face still gray, even his lips so ashen that she might as well have opened his veins and drained him.