Water Witch

by Connie Willis

  He yelped and grabbed her around the waist, pinioning her arms. She kicked out at him unsuccessfully through her thick skirts and succeeded in unbalancing them both. She skidded off the rock onto the sandy floor with him on top of her. He snatched at both wrists and held them firmly to her sides, then grinned down at her. “You’re lucky because I’m such a good swimmer,” he mimicked. “Maybe I’m lucky, too.”

  “Shut up,” she said again. “And let me go.” There, she thought, satisfied. That should take his mind off my talking to my father, and I won’t do it again.

  “Not until I get the truth from you. What are you doing here? And no sultry peasant girls and no orphans.”

  “I am an orphan. My father and I had a hovercraft crash six days ago.”

  “Where were you coming from?”

  “One of the foreigner’s compounds. We… I worked there.” She did not try to wriggle free. She lay still under his weight and tried to look truthful.

  “Why didn’t you signal for help?”

  “I…” She wondered briefly if he’d believe she hadn’t known how to work the transmitter, decided he wouldn’t. “We had to leave in a hurry. There was a… we left in a hurry.”

  “Either you stole that mbuzi or you seduced the young man of the house.”

  “No!” Well, she hadn’t. It was in the best interests of the con that she never quite seduce anyone, and as a result, she was far more innocent than this young man would believe, but in this case the truth was not nearly as good as a lie. “Yes, and he was going to marry me, too, only my father wouldn’t… so here I sit, in this stupid village, where all they eat is worms.”

  He laughed. “And when I came along I looked like a good bet to get you to another compound where you could work your wiles.”

  “Yes. I’ve told you the truth. Now, get off of me!”

  He laughed again. “Why don’t you seduce me instead? I mean, we’re already here, so to speak, and your father isn’t. I’d even promise to marry you, just like your foreign boyfriend. Besides, it’s a shame,” he freed one wrist and fingered the drawstring of her blouse, “to let all that careful preparation go to waste.”

  That does it, Deza thought, and shoved with all her weight behind her free hand. She scrambled up and snatched at a good sized rock. When he stood up, still grinning, she had the rock poised to smash his face in.

  “No wonder they threw you out of the compound,” he said.

  “They did not. I left of my own accord. Now I have a few questions I’d like to ask you,” she said, waving the rock threateningly.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Who are you, and where are you going?”

  “And will we take you with us?”

  “Yes,” Deza said. He seemed at ease now, even amused, which infuriated Deza.

  “My name is Radi and I’m a… humble priest. I travel as you do, from compound to compound, plying my trade, though perhaps not quite as dramatically. Because of my selfless devotions to the water of the world, I have been assigned…”

  “You are not…” she started to say.

  —Let it go,—her father said.

  “You are not a rich man? You are a priest?” she said instead.

  “I’m afraid so. But as for taking you to the nearest settlement, I can manage that as well as a rich man. The Tycoon’s compound is only a few miles.”

  “I… oh, I didn’t know that.” She shouldn’t have said that.

  “Oh,” Radi said, “and was it the Tycoon or his young son who got you into trouble?”

  “There wasn’t any trouble. My father was trying to protect me, but there wasn’t any need.” She was still trying to take in the fact that the Tycoon’s compound was so close. She had been too angry with her father to pay any attention to where they were going, and when the hovercraft had crashed, she had been totally disoriented. She lowered the rock.

  “I’m not sure the Tycoon will allow another priest into his compound,” she said. Edvar’s father had dismissed the last priest as if he were a shepherd, unceremoniously and without batting an eyelash. The surrounding community of natives had been shocked, but if the Tycoon had noticed or cared, he hadn’t shown it in his behavior or words. In fact, he seemed interested only in Edvar’s courtship of “the lost princess,” almost as if she, Deza, were more important to him than favorable countenance with the water witches in the City in the Red Cave. Certainly the surface governor, Botvidi, who came to ask after the ousted priest and to whom the Tycoon had made a point of introducing Deza had been annoyed at her being presented as a princess. It had been a tricky moment, for Deza’s father had mysteriously fallen ill and was unable to present himself to Botvidi, and Deza was left on her own to decide on her behavior. She had used the charming and dumb routine, which was lost on Botvidi, who was interested only in talking about water. Deza and her father had left the compound that very night, but not before she’d heard the Tycoon also had stopped water-tithing, and that was yet another affront. She’d be a lot better off alone than in the company of a priest, real or not, if she wanted to get back into the Tycoon’s good graces. She was in a real dilemma, though. She’d been lucky to find the sea after the crash, and the thought of facing the endless barchan dunes once again to return to the compound frightened her. She considered. “I guess I could get you into the Compound.”

  It was Radi’s turn to consider. No doubt that whatever means he’d intended to use to gain entrance into the Tycoon’s compound had been lost with the majini. She was sure he wasn’t a priest a few hours ago. Perhaps the majini had carried a load of contraband gembone, which the foreigners, including the Tycoon, always could be counted on to buy. Whatever it was, it had been lost.

  “All right,” Radi said finally. “We are both lucky this night. I will show you the way to the compound. You will get us inside.” He took a step toward her.

  Deza raised the rock again. “You promise to leave me alone?”

  He stopped. “I promise the next time you find me on top of you it’ll be because you invited me there.”

  “If you wait ‘till then to pray on your beads, you will have forgotten how.” She tossed the rock at his feet.

  The man called Chappa slid in through the niche.

  “Trouble?” Radi asked.

  “No. They’re still down on the beach. They’ve got the boat ashore, though, and they’re looking at it with torches.”

  “I don’t care about the majini so long as Harubiki has the water-message device.”

  “She does.”

  Radi thought a moment. “Deza, what’ll the villagers do when they’re through with the boat? Come after us?”

  “I don’t think so, not unless they think you’ll fight to get your majini back. Did you have any alcohol with you?”

  “Three barrels of wine, one of ale,” Chappa said.

  “Then they won’t come after us, at least till morning. They don’t have any alcohol here. They’ll all get drunk.”

  Chappa nodded, but Radi still looked skeptical.

  “Look,” Deza said, “I’ve only been here six days. I don’t know any more about the natives than you do. I’m only guessing, but my guess is that if we try to get out of here tonight nobody will care.”

  “Can you lead us around the village?”

  “I suppose so. There’s a moon. I don’t really think.…” “Deza will lead us,” he said to Chappa.

  “Straight into the compound? Without…”

  “I’m the priest, and that’s all that’s necessary.”

  Deza noticed Chappa’s shocked look, and she smiled secretly. Even his companions couldn’t see him as a priest. Dutifully, she hoisted the mbuzi to her shoulders. It still shivered in hiccuping spasms, but its mind was quiet.

  “Are you taking that thing?” Radi asked.

  “Yes,” Deza said, her tone daring him to argue. But he merely looked curiously at the young mbuzi’s hooves, and then nodded. She marched past him and slipped through the niche.

 
; Chappa was helping the woman Harubiki up the rocks to the door of the overhang. Radi whispered in Deza’s ear, “Try your tricks on them and we’ll leave you in the desert. Then you can work your cons on the wild mbuzim. Try seeing how you like stealing their gembone while they’re still alive.”

  “I could do it, too,” she hissed back.

  “Of that I have no doubt.”

  The two others joined them silently, their hands once again carelessly close to the concealed knives. Deza thought a moment of what she knew of the terrain, remembered with what ease a path over the rocks had brought her stranded to a razor-sharp edge, and motioned them to follow her in an oblique line down to the edge of the water. When she found the mineral pool, she followed the trickle that flowed through a crack in the sandstone rocks, away from the sea. Beyond the narrow water-cut rocks was a gully that ran nearly to a grove of devil bushes that ringed the villagers’ beach. Her companions froze a moment when they heard a singing snake’s striking song, but Deza paid it little heed. They sneaked along the edge of the grove, being careful not to touch the sticky fronds that bent out seductively. Even so, a few creepers stuck to their boots and got in Deza’s skirts, making her stop to remove them. It was too late for the stopping to do much good. Her skirts clung to her calves thereafter in clumps.

  Past the devil bushes, Deza made straight for the beach again, even though they could still see the villagers’ fires. The rocks, swept clean of sand by the evening wind, made an easy and silent path. She kept them as close to the water as possible, even where the rocks afforded good cover, for fear of getting tangled in a dead end. That was simple. She could feel the nearby water better than she could see it through the dark, sharp-edged shadows.

  “Stop a moment,” Radi whispered when they were dangerously close to the water, standing on slime-covered rocks.

  “Not here,” Deza said, glancing nervously at the lantern-light patterns the villagers’ fires made in the waves.

  Radi ignored her protest and said to Harubiki: “Send the water message to Sindra.”

  “Sindra,” Deza said, startled. “That’s a pirate’s nest these days.”

  Radi frowned her to silence. “Tell them to go south to the compound and meet us there.”

  Harubiki nodded, reluctantly, Deza thought, and then she stepped carefully down the slippery rocks and waded out into the water, pulling her gear off her back as she went. In a few minutes she was back, and Radi indicated that Deza should lead on.

  The others followed so silently that Deza turned once to see if they were still there. Radi had taken up the rear, behind Harubiki. Deza led them over the last of the rocks, wading through knee-deep water in one place where the sandstone jutted unevenly into the water. She hesitated before stepping back onto the sand.

  There was something troubling about the water, not like the tremors of the approaching crash earlier, nothing at all to do with the water and its power over her, but a nagging half-memory she could not quite get hold of. Something about the water. Finally she walked back onto the beach.

  —What a success you were at fooling the young man. He was obviously taken in completely by the helpless orphan girl.—

  —Be quiet, Father,—Deza thought, biting her lip to make sure she didn’t speak again. The six days alone had made her careless, and fingers would not always be so easily available to bite down on and distract the listener.

  —The whole episode was very good for you. I have always said a little honesty is good for the spirit,—her father said.

  —Radi could certainly use a little of it. He’s no more a priest than I am a—

  —Than you are a princess of the City in the Red Cave, and both deceptions are better left unchallenged, I think, at the moment.—

  —At least I’ll be able to get back to the compound. Then maybe…—

  —No. There can be no more swindles there. And definitely no princess. Not with these people around.—

  —Oh, Father.—They were coming to the end of the stretch of beach Deza knew. At the end of it she had climbed to the top level of the rocks and stared out over the blank and colorless desert. I should have come at night before, she realized now, because even on the level of the beach she could see a pinkish reflection on the clouds above that betrayed the foreigners’ well-lighted compound. And so much for my needing a guide. Anybody could find their way to that.

  The others came up beside her as they left the beach and scrambled up the chunky rocks to the plateau. Radi sent Chappa back to reconnoiter, then questioned Deza.

  “Are you certain you can get us into the compound?”

  —Tell him no. Make him leave you here. You don’t need him any longer.—

  “Yes,” she said quickly, giving the mbuzi a warning pinch on its right front fetlock.

  Radi paused to brush sand off his boots, then glanced at the pink sky. The muscles in his neck rippled beneath silken skin. “Why are you helping us now?” he said suspiciously, looking at the beacon in the sky a moment before turning his penetrating gaze back to Deza.

  —Yes, why? You can’t handle it alone, Deza. It’s more than any one person can… no! Deza, you can’t have fallen for that hunk of sinew and flesh. Why, I’ve paraded the highest born boys of a dozen compound’s before you, and you’ve never looked at them the way you’re looking at him.—

  Deza flushed.—Don’t be silly, Father. The only thing I see in Radi is a marvellous opportunity to use him.—

  —How?—her father said suspiciously.

  “A priest in the compound who is indebted to me may be of some value,” she said aloud, answering both her father and the suspicious pirate or priest or whatever he was.

  Radi smiled. “I’ll give you a wonderful recommendation to the young man of the house. From personal experience.”

  Deza lifted the mbuzi to her shoulders again and stood up. “I won’t need any recommendations, thank you. And you certainly will not be able to…”

  “Chappa’s coming,” Radi said, cutting her off with a wave of his hand.

  The boy’s head appeared over the edge of the scree slope. He didn’t speak. He motioned the others to follow and set out at an impossible pace across the loose-packed dirt of the desert. Radi fell in behind the two women. Deza walked beside Harubiki, and then fell imperceptibly behind her, as if the mbuzi ‘s weight were slowing her down.

  —We’re being followed and you decide it’s time to dawdle back to exchange insults with your young man.—

  —No.—Deza said, her thoughts distracted.

  —What is it?—

  —Remember when we went into the water?—

  —Yes.—

  —The woman. She didn’t send a message. She told Radi she did. But there was no message in the water. The pulses would still have been there when I stepped into the water.—

  —What does that mean?—

  —It means I’m going to walk just as far away from her and just as close to Radi as I can, and when I get to the compound, I’ll …—She didn’t finish her thought. The pace increased.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Deza had halted the group behind a heap of broken, dirty boulders just in sight of the compound. The sea was not very far away, yet this was desert land broken in this place by massive outcroppings of rock and what had once been a tiny oasis with a muddy spring that trickled or not, as the City in the Red Cave pleased. Now Radi could see the Tycoon’s new dam and reservoir in the rock ravine behind the compound, but Radi knew it held nothing but dust and a few thorny sutino plants in the shaded crannies. He wondered again what the Tycoon would do with all the water the reservoir could hold, and he wondered, too, why Botvidi had not mentioned that the dam was finished.

  “What do we do now?” Radi said. “Go to the gate and beg admission?”

  “Of course not,” Deza said. “They’ve known we were coming for miles now. They’ve got sharp-eyed guards and I think machines from Kalmar that can track people.”

  “Then why are we hiding here?” h
e asked impatiently. Somewhere along the way he had ceased to be the leader of the party and Deza, stepping confidently through rockways and down stretches of sand, keeping them close to the water, had somehow taken over. Now she was making the decisions, too, and Radi didn’t like it.

  “We’re not hiding. I have some preparations to make before we go any farther,” she said stiffly. “Go ahead. Don’t wait for me. I won’t have any trouble getting into the compound alone, but you might.”

  “Oh, we all know how well-beloved you are in the compound. You’ve told us. Several times. But if you’re the darling of the Tycoon that you say you are, why all these elaborate preparations?”

  Deza didn’t answer that.

  She scrambled in behind a large boulder, still carrying the ridiculous mbuzi she refused to part with. Radi waited impatiently, watching the compound. It looked like any other, a huddle of native huts around the high wooden center house of the company representative. Even with the high sandstone cliff backing it, the house perched awkwardly against the desert background, like a feather-fish out of water. The foreigners were really ridiculous. Their attempts to bring their native plant with them were insane. They imported the wood and shingles on expensive freighters, imported workers, too, since the natives dissolved in laughter when they saw the plans and then wandered off to tell the good story to all their friends. The houses had steep-pitched, wood-shingled roofs and tiny windows, thick walls and fireplaces in every room, very sensible houses for Kalmar, where it snowed eleven months of the year. They built their houses and then suffocated in them, driven to all sorts of silly shifts to make them bearable in the heat and dusty dryness. Had they copied the natives’ homes with their latticed roofs and wide low windows they would have liked their exile much more, Radi thought.

  Radi could see activity in the square of the compound, but nothing unusual. People worked in the comfortable shade of their own front doors, women dipped jugs in the wide stone well-pool at the center of the square, then scurried off. They scurried a little too quickly for the heat, Radi thought, and then saw the reason why as the door to the house opened and an entourage came out, heading toward the gate.