Goddess Tithe

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  “I think,” the old man said, “that you’d best keep to the Cradle Hitch for now. Until you’re better able to pay heed to my instruction.”

  Munny scowled at the mess in his lap and, when he heard a laugh, scowled still more darkly at the stowaway across from him. But it wasn’t the stowaway who mocked him.

  “Flutter-fingers,” Chuo-tuk said from where he stood just behind the stowaway, watching all with a superior expression. As though he knew anything about knots himself, the stupid Pen-Chan peacock! Munny felt his blood beginning to boil, and he would have liked to fling his ropes in Chuo-tuk’s objectionable face. But to do so would mean a kicking, and the old man would not move to prevent it; not if Munny asked for it so blatantly.

  “Make yourself useful, if you can, and get aloft,” Chuo-tuk said, stepping around the stowaway to stand over Munny. “You’re taking my place in the lookout.”

  “It’s not my turn,” Munny snarled, refusing to meet Chuo-tuk’s gaze. “Do your own watch.”

  He gasped then as Chuo-tuk’s sharp kick connected with his knee, knocking his leg askew. “What did you say to me?” Chuo-tuk demanded. “Eh? Want to say it again?” He drew back his foot for another kick.

  But it never landed. The stowaway caught his ankle.

  “Oi! If you like kicking someone smaller than you, kick me, why don’t you?”

  Startled as much by the foreign stream of talk as by the grab itself, Chuo-tuk unbalanced and landed with a great smash of his dignity upon the deck. The stowaway let go and got to his feet, his fists clenched as though prepared for a fight. Though he was older than Chuo-tuk by several years, he was smaller, wiry-limbed against Chuo-tuk’s sailor’s bulk. But he put up his fists and braced himself. “Come on!” he said. “Kick me!”

  Chuo-tuk looked the stowaway up and down. But he made no move to fight, merely pushed himself up and backed away, his hands defensively out before him. “Debtor! Curse!” he hissed. Then he shot a furious look down at Munny, who sat watching all with his mouth agape. “So you’ll have devils fight your battles for you? That won’t do you much good when Risafeth comes to claim her dues!”

  Munny said nothing. He stared from the stowaway to Chuo-tuk and back again.

  Chuo-tuk rubbed his shoulder where he had struck it in his fall. “Tu Bahurn’s orders, scrub-louse. You’re to take my watch, and you’re to take the devil-man with you. If you want to question Bahurn, be my guest! He’ll make you bleed if he likes and send you aloft afterwards.”

  With that and a last sputtered curse at the stowaway, Chuo-tuk beat a retreat, scurrying to the forecastle and avoiding the looks of the sailors who watched him go.

  “Well,” said the old man, picking up Munny’s rope and quietly beginning to tie it, “a foreigner is never short on surprises, is he?” Then he addressed himself to the stowaway, speaking in uncertain Westerner. “Do not fight boy, erh, his fights. He must fight or give . . . own choice. His honor.”

  His words were confused—his grasp of Westerner had never been strong—but he gazed at the stowaway with his bright black eyes, strangely clear for his age. “Honor,” he repeated.

  The stowaway shrugged. “I don’t like a bully,” he said.

  The old man studied the stowaway’s face, the boyish features as yet unhardened by age or by sea. He saw things there that others could not, and he grunted softly to himself.

  Then he bent over suddenly and pinched Munny’s ear. “You’d best obey Tu Bahurn, or it will be the worse for you.”

  “Must I take the devil-man?” Munny asked. His heart was thudding madly with a wide range of emotions, the primary one being fury. Fury at Chuo-tuk, perhaps, and at the stowaway. And maybe a little at himself.

  “He is called Leonard,” said the old man. “Learn it.” With that, he closed his eyes, signaling the end of his part in the conversation. Even with his eyes closed, he continued to work the knot.

  Munny got to his feet, uncertain whether or not to scowl, quite certain he wanted to cry, and hating himself for the desire. He was not a baby anymore. He could not run home to mother with scrapes and bruises, weeping, “Why do they call me ‘fish-spawn’? Why do they call me ill-born? Why do they throw things at me, Mother?”

  And he could not seek her comforting caress, her warm arms, and her soft voice saying, “They are foolish and they are young. They don’t know what they do. Pity them, my son, and do not hate them.” Never again would he hear her call him by his true name—not Munny, but the name she had given him at his birth.

  Those days were long past.

  He would not cry anymore.

  Clenching his jaw until it pained him, Munny beckoned to the stowaway, who glanced uncertainly at the old man. The old man, without opening his eyes, motioned with his hand for the stowaway to follow Munny.

  The Kulap Kanya boasted three masts, the tallest in the center. These in turn boasted rigid battened sails spread against the sky like the wings of an enormous bird. On a day like this, when the wind was keen, the Kulap Kanya made great time, and men were constantly set to guard the tack line, running the rigging to keep the ship on course.

  The center mast was crowned at its very top with a lookout’s perch. The first few times Munny had made the climb, he had found it a harrowing journey and had been thankful enough for the securing line to which Tu Pich tied him to keep him safe.

  Now, as he led the stowaway to the mast, Munny could feel the tension mounting in the strange man’s body, emanating off his very spirit. Maybe the devils inside him didn’t care for heights. Were devils bothered by such things as heights or depths?

  The previous lookout was just descending when Munny and the stowaway arrived. The ruddy-faced sailor took one look at the stowaway, ducked his head, and moved on without a word, leaving the securing line dangling. Munny grabbed it and turned to the stowaway, motioning him to come forward.

  “Oh, Lumé love us,” the stowaway muttered. “You are expecting me to climb it. Lumé, Hymlumé, and all the starry host!”

  “Come here, devil—” Munny stopped. The old man had told him to use the devil-man’s name, and Munny never countered one of the old man’s commands. “Come here, Lhe-nad,” he said, uncomfortable with the strange sound of the word. “Come here, and I will secure you.”

  “Um. I don’t know what you’re saying. How about I just stand back and watch, as it were?”

  But Munny caught the devil-man by the arm and began to secure him with a Cradle Hitch. It wasn’t as good as Pich’s Knot, but it would do. It was all Munny himself had had on his first climb to the lookout.

  Up on the forecastle, Tu Bahurn watched them as Chuo-tuk, standing near, gave his report. Munny glanced up at them . . . and suddenly his fingers paused in their work.

  He could see the look on Tu Bahurn’s face.

  Bahurn would never dare to defy the Captain’s express command. It would be treasonous to offer violence to a man the Captain had declared under the Kulap Kanya’s protection.

  But accidents happened at sea. Especially under brisk winds.

  Munny saw the look on Tu Bahurn’s face and knew suddenly what he was expected to do. For a moment he stood frozen, the Cradle Hitch unfinished. The creak of the battens and the murmur of wind in the oiled cloth sails filled his ears.

  Then he set his jaw and finished the knot. He pointed to the lookout perch and saw the stowaway’s eyes cross as they rose up to that awful height and came back down again.

  “Come,” Munny said, and started for the mast. Grasping the climb ropes and placing his toes in the first of the footholds, he began his ascent. But the stowaway caught him by the shirt from behind.

  “Wait! Aren’t you going to tie yourself on? Where is your rope?”

  Munny shook the stowaway’s hand off. “Climb,” he said, mistaking the strange words for yet another protest. Then he set to his own business, concentrating on the ascent before him.

  He did not use the secure line now. He hadn’t for several months, not since surviv
ing his first Big Storm. During the long hours of that dark, endless night, he had feared for his life. But when dawn broke and the rain cleared and the damage was fixable and no hands were lost then Munny had decided something and vowed it with a certainty that he knew he could never break.

  He would survive to reach Lunthea Maly again. It didn’t matter what happened in the months intervening, he would survive. He would return home from this, his first voyage, and he would go to his mother’s side. He would bring her the white peonies.

  He knew now with utmost conviction, as he climbed the central mast and felt the tug of wind on his small frame, that nothing the wild ocean could throw at him would stay him in his course. Indeed, the only one who could stop him now was the goddess herself.

  But she would have her tithe.

  Munny heard the stowaway muttering and trying to talk away his fears as he climbed behind. Many times he heard the strange man bite out what could only be a curse. When he looked under his arm, he as often found the stowaway frozen with his arms wrapped around the mast as he found him climbing. Munny showed him how to secure his line on certain hooks in the mast as he climbed. Then he scrambled on ahead and soon pulled himself up into the lookout box.

  He breathed the clearest of all ocean air up here and felt the wild thrill that seagulls must enjoy and albatrosses revel in. The rollicking of the waves felt so much wilder from this vantage, heady and huge and breathtaking. Somehow, though he was now many feet above the water, he felt closer to it than he did when he walked even the lowest decks of the Kulap Kanya’s hold.

  I was born for the sea, Munny thought, and he recalled the cruel gibes of the alley children in the street back home. Fish-spawn, he thought, and smiled. Maybe it was true after all. And maybe it was good.

  Then he thought, Where is she?

  At once he wished he could kill the thought and pretend it had never happened. But it was too late. He turned and, clutching the box rail, looked about, before, aft, to either side. In the great distance to the north, he could just see the hazy mound of the Continent. Gazing east, he could not as yet pretend to see the shores of Noorhitam, no matter how he might wish to.

  To the west, behind them . . . behind them . . . Did she follow?

  “Iubdan’s beard and razor!”

  Munny looked over the railing and found that the stowaway had managed to get himself up as far as the box. He was now attempting to catch hold of the floor and rails in order to hoist himself inside. A difficult feat when his hands shook like flags on a parade day.

  Taking pity on him, Munny knelt and took hold of his wrist. “Come on, Lhe-nad,” he said, pulling.

  The stowaway managed to get one elbow up. His legs were now kicking into the empty void. Whispering what might be prayers, he stretched out his hand and reached for the railing.

  Just as he did so, the ship gave an unexpected dive. It shouldn’t have happened in that sea, under that wind, with the sails angled as they were. It shouldn’t have happened, and yet it did. The whole lookout tilted, and Munny let go his hold on the stowaway to brace himself.

  And the stowaway, with a strangled cry, plunged.

  ____

  The world stopped.

  Even the ship went still, poised for an eternity in that dive.

  Tu Bahurn’s face flashed before Munny’s eyes, and everything his face had said.

  Don’t secure the line.

  Give the goddess what she asks.

  ____

  “Dragon’s teeth, dragon’s teeth, dragon’s teeth!”

  The world moved again. The ship recovered from her dive and leveled once more, progressing smoothly under a steady wind.

  Munny, his heart in his throat, looked over the rail and saw the stowaway hanging a few yards below, swinging close to the mast and trying to catch hold.

  The Cradle Hitch may not be as good as Pich’s Knot. But it held true.

  “You’re alive! You’re alive, devil-man!” Munny cried.

  He realized, much to his astonishment, that he was glad.

  The Stars Who Fell

  “BAD LUCK,” whispered Odi to his fellow rigger, Danung.

  Munny felt the blunt of Odi’s elbow in his shoulder as the big sailor shuffled past.

  “Cramped in here, isn’t it?” said Leonard, rubbing his own shoulder where it had been likewise jostled. Then he shrugged and turned back to his bowl of dried fish, rice, and shriveled peas, tucking in as though it was the finest meal he had ever eaten. “I never thought I’d be so happy just to be able to eat!” he said around a mouthful. “Someday I’ll write a song in honor of this very dish, and I’ll sing it in the courts of kings.”

  Munny, by contrast, found every bite turning to ashes in his mouth. When he dared glance up, he caught Chuo-tuk across the room just turning his face away, his expression dark beneath the swinging lantern hung in the center of the room. Munny looked from him to Saknu, and saw the same turning away. So it was with every face Munny sought out. None of them would look at him or at his companion.

  But Munny thought he could feel their very shadows watching him.

  He had failed. He had been given the chance—however conveniently at Tu Bahurn’s orders—to offer unto Risafeth what she demanded. And he had failed to honor her.

  He had failed to honor the tithe.

  Bad luck . . . .

  Odi the rigger’s voice rang in his ear. Perhaps he had meant nothing by the comment and it was only chance that his elbow had connected so sharply with both Munny and the stowaway. Space was cramped in the mess room attached to the galley.

  Munny tried another mouthful, rolling it around on his tongue.

  Risafeth knew her rights. She would claim them one way or another.

  But Captain knows, Munny told himself, pushing the mouthful down his dry throat. He will do what is right before it’s too late.

  With that thought, he glanced to his side where Leonard scraped his bowl clean. Leonard caught his gaze and winked cheerfully, oblivious as always. Munny frowned. This voyage was becoming far more complicated than he had ever expected.

  Bad luck . . . .

  But surely it was good luck to honor the Captain’s wishes! Surely it was good luck to save a man’s life!

  “Of course it is,” the old man said half an hour later when he and Munny stood at the port rails, a yard or two upwind of Leonard, who was losing his supper into the waves. “It’s always good luck when your own knot saves a life. Anyone who tells you otherwise is no true man of the sea.”

  “What about the goddess?” whispered Munny. Though he strained his eyes, this late in the evening he could not see the Continent to the north. They were alone on an enormous black ocean stretching forever on all sides. An ocean teeming with power Munny could not begin to comprehend.

  “Today was not her day,” said the old man firmly.

  “She will be angry.”

  “Today was not her day,” the old man repeated, and he lifted his own gaze from the waves to the sky. “How full are the moon’s gardens tonight! The Dara dance overhead. Look at them, boy. Look at them and think upon their song. Risafeth is not the only force to which we are subject. The voice of vengeance is not the only voice to which we must listen.”

  Munny tilted his face heavenward, from the black expanse of ocean to the black expanse of space. The moon herself was not visible, but her children shone all the brighter, as though to make up for her absence. Not a cloud marred his view of the great gardens of the sky, where the Dara moved in their intricate dances, singing as they guided sailors across the waves.

  On such a night, when all was still, Munny could almost believe he heard their songs with his own ears. He wished, very briefly, that he might climb up and take his place in the lookout. There, perhaps, he would be close enough. There, perhaps, he would hear the Dara sing, unimpeded by his own mortality.

  Unimpeded by the retching sounds of the miserable Leonard, who was no longer so delighted with his supper as he had been.


  “What do they sing, Tu Pich?” Munny asked.

  “Many things,” said the old man. “They sing of the past and of the present, which are all the same to them. They sing of the future, for which they long. They sing prophecies of heroes and monsters. And they sing of the promise given their mother.”

  At this Munny turned, surprised. He had heard many stories about the Dara during his voyage, almost as many stories as he had heard about Risafeth herself. But this was one he did not know. “A promise for their mother? What promise was that?”

  “The promise that her lost children would return to her one day,” said the old man, and his small black eyes seemed suddenly full of a hundred stars dancing in their depths. “The stars who did not fall will ever sing for the stars who did. They sing for their return.”

  He said no more but lapsed into a deep, impenetrable silence. Munny lifted his own gaze, which could not hold so many stars, and studied the patterns of the great dance above him.

  A promise to their mother. A promise for the lost children to return.

  Suddenly he felt as though his ears opened, receiving a sound and a song he did not know. The words fell upon him from above, rich and deep and sad.

  “Beyond the Final Water falling,

  The Songs of Spheres recalling,

  When you hear my voice across the changing sea

  Won’t you return to me?”

  Munny, his eyes filled with the first tears he had known since after his first Big Storm, vowed in his heart: I will return. And I will kiss you again. Or I will lay the white peonies upon your grave.

  The singing stopped. Only then did Munny realize that it had been a mortal’s voice he heard and not the voices of the Dara high above. The old man remained as stone, staring out into the night, but Munny whirled about, confused and curious.

  To his surprise, and a little to his horror, he saw the Captain standing above them on the quarterdeck, also leaning on the stern rails, also gazing out at the sky. Munny could not see his face, for there was no moonlight to illuminate it nor any lanterns near enough. But he knew the form of his Captain as he would know the form of any hero stepped suddenly out of myth and into the real world.