Then he lay down.
Hot. He felt it now. But though the thick, bitter fluid was unpleasant, he felt it going to work almost as soon as all of it had hit his stomach. Cool waves radiated throughout him, starting very softly—but strengthening.
He opened his eyes. His lids were less heavy than they had been, when those imagined waves in his mind threatened to carry him not off but under.
“What was that?” he asked.
“A salve,” said Burund. “It is to ease your pains.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Alixa asked anxiously.
Burund and Medleigh exchanged words.
“He will heal,” said Burund. “But it will take time.”
“Have I,” Jasen began, but then his voice gave out. He cleared his throat. It was still thick with fluid, congealed to it. “Have I broken any bones?”
“Not that Medleigh believes,” said Burund. “He will take a closer look when you can stand.”
“I can,” said Jasen, believing it—but Alixa set him straight:
“Jasen, you cannot stand. A second ago you could barely keep your eyes open! Just rest, please.”
“Listen to your cousin,” said Burund. “She has a wise head upon her shoulders.”
Alixa held his hand. “I told you,” she said softly.
She was not unkind.
And they were right, both of them. Jasen should have listened.
Now look what he had done to himself. What he had done to all of them.
All of Terreas, destroyed because of him … and now these comrades, who he had led into a battle half of them did not wish to participate in, had been broken in their own ways for his bullheadedness.
On top of it all, he came back again and again to the same thing: he had failed. Not they, but he. His quest to kill Baraghosa was his alone. Yet he’d led a band of people onto the cliffside when he should have stood on his own against the sorcerer.
He’d almost gotten all of them killed.
He closed his eyes.
“Don’t cry,” Alixa whispered. “It’s okay.”
It was not. Not anywhere close. Nor would it be, ever. Atonement would never come.
He could never face his ancestors again.
I’m sorry, he thought to them, at the same time wishing he could cast his face away so they could not see. I am so, so sorry.
All he had ever wanted was to do right by the long chain of them; to see Terreas avenged …
And he’d failed.
Burund had risen. He and Huanatha were speaking. She had drawn eyes when she boarded, the stares of men who knew this woman once had been royalty, even if now she found herself exiled. A crowd had come up from below, and they watched with awe.
Burund must have felt it too. He spoke to her as he would an equal—as he had conversed with Jasen and Alixa in their short time aboard the Lady Vizola. Yet he also stood back, his hands clasped behind his back. Where Kuura had fallen to one knee, totally deferential, Burund spoke to her as an equal.
“… his power cannot be left unchecked,” Huanatha was saying. “I implore you to reconsider.”
“I, too, have seen Baraghosa’s power first-hand,” said Burund. “Just days ago, he rent the sea with a storm like no other.”
“So you know that he must be stopped.”
“Many would agree with you.”
“Not you?”
“I am not the man to stop him. Nor are these children.”
“You have men at your command,” Huanatha said. “They were besieged by this storm too, were they not? All would carry arms and wage a war against Baraghosa if you ordered it.”
“Your days as queen have affected your understanding of men,” said Burund. “A man under your command may go willingly to war if you order it. But I am simply the shipmaster of a cargo ship. We are traders, not warmongers.”
“No?” Huanatha’s nostrils flared. She marched away and encircled Kuura with an arm. “And what of Kuura of Nunahk?” she demanded, thrusting him forward. He winced, not wishing to go. “This man is one of yours. He took up an axe and climbed the Aiger Cliffs at my sides that he might slay Baraghosa! You are telling me the rest of your men are not cut from the same cloth?”
Burund regarded Kuura flatly, lips pursed.
When he spoke, his voice was dangerously low. “He is not cut of the same cloth as my men.”
Jasen’s heart skipped at that. He raised his head, pushing up—
Kuura had stood to one side, near enough that Shipmaster Burund could address or summon him, but far enough from them that he was separated by an invisible barrier. Now he’d been pushed to the fore, he looked pained. There was no hint that a too-wide grin had ever touched his face. He looked only sad and fearful, looking down at the wet deck of the Lady Vizola rather than his shipmaster.
“Tell him,” Huanatha said in Kuura’s ear. “Tell him how the fires filled you as you lifted the axe. Tell him of the honor you felt, walking into battle this night.”
Kuura did not speak.
Huanatha glared at Burund. “You silence him with your face.”
“I do no such thing.”
“He is afraid to speak—”
“He is afraid,” Burund roared suddenly, throwing his arms into the air and jabbing them out at Kuura, “because he has failed!”
Jasen stared, mouth open.
“He is afraid because he had one task only: to care for these children. They were his to watch over, his sacred honor dependent upon it. I sent him to the Aiger Cliffs today with that very purpose. And now he presents himself to me, strung up in a bandage like a man who should be pitied—and the children are hurt. Worse, he marched with them to do battle with a warlock, who could have snapped their necks with but a click of his finger. That is why Kuura of Nunahk—” he said this mockingly, voice rising high, “—is afraid. He knows he has failed his people. He has failed me. And he has failed himself.” He leveled a dark stare at Kuura. “Now he must face the consequences of his failure.”
Alixa shot Jasen a fearful glance. “Shipmaster, what—”
Burund said only one word to Kuura:
“Leave.”
Kuura flinched, as though Burund had lifted a hand to strike him.
“No,” said Alixa—
Jasen did too: “No!” He pushed himself onto unsteady feet. Wobbled.
“Jasen,” Burund began, lifting a hand to still him—
Scourgey braced Jasen. He lurched forward with her.
“Please, no,” he said—and he threw himself in between the shipmaster and his first mate. “Don’t exile him.”
“He had a simple task—”
“And I dissuaded him from it!” Jasen cried. “Me! I was the person so intent upon finding Baraghosa. All Kuura could do was follow.”
“A man can choose not to follow.”
“I made him,” said Jasen. A note of panic rose in him now. Like bile, it bubbled up through his throat. All these people, broken—and now Kuura was to be cast from the ship? He could not ruin another life—not like this. “Please,” he begged—and he clutched for Burund’s tunic, holding it in limp hands. “Please, reconsider—”
“No,” said Burund with flat finality.
“Please—”
“No,” Alixa moaned.
“Kuura,” said Burund. “You are relieved of your post.”
“You would exile a man who acted honorably, with justice in his heart?” Huanatha hissed. “You are no captain.”
Burund ignored her. Glaring at Kuura, he continued to him only: “Go below decks and collect your belongings. You are banished from my ship.”
“Nooo …” Alixa was crying.
Jasen gripped harder. “Please—”
Burund stepped back. A slight shake, and he was loosed from Jasen’s weak hold.
Kuura still had not looked up.
“Go,” Burund said.
And Kuura went, with only a nod, eyes downcast—through the door, and to his cabin for the fi
nal time. Silence followed in his wake. The men on the deck watched in stunned silence. Even the docks below seemed to have quieted under the setting sun.
“You are a vile captain,” said Huanatha, “with no goodness about you.”
“I am a man of honor,” said Burund.
Huanatha scoffed—
“And I will stand by my duties.”
“Shipmaster—” Alixa began.
“Do not ask me again to reconsider,” he said curtly. “I will not do so.”
Jasen sagged. Another life wrecked—not ended, like those in Terreas, but torn to tatters and thrown into wind.
He had done this.
“We are not done speaking of this,” said Huanatha acidly.
“That is unfortunate,” said Burund. “I was planning to offer you passage to Coricuanthi with us.”
Huanatha’s lips thinned.
“Is that where we’re going now?” Alixa asked.
“We will,” said Burund. “From there, I will see you both have safe passage to your Emerald Fields.”
“Not with you?”
“No. There is another shipmaster I trust. He makes regular journeys there.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You do still wish to travel there, do you not?”
Alixa nodded fiercely. “Yes.” She clasped her hands together as though she were praying. “Please.”
“Has Longwell returned?” Jasen asked, hoping even though he wished not to see him, in case the mere sight of him, his betrayal, broke him in different ways than Baraghosa could have tonight.
“No,” said Burund, and Jasen drooped with disappointment.
So that was that. The Aiger Cliffs had come, as promised. So too had Baraghosa, and Jasen’s clash with him. The battle over almost as soon as it started, Jasen had come not even an inch closer to the vengeance he sought. He had lost, well and truly—lost a sword that was not his, too—and his friends had taken a beating for it. Worse, Kuura was to be cast out from the life he had known, left on strange shores far from home.
It was all Jasen’s fault.
Again, he wondered: if Longwell had not abandoned him, would things be any different?
It did not matter either way. In a short time, they would be on their way to the Emerald Fields … and Baraghosa would be behind him—
Like the people he had doomed to a fiery death in the shadow of the mountain.
23
Jasen watched on the Lady Vizola’s deck, from afar, as Huanatha spoke with Shipmaster Burund. She was animated, all wild gesticulations.
Burund waited respectfully, yet his bearing was stiff. He had not said anything in some time.
Alixa sat at Jasen’s side. She petted Scourgey, who lay slumped morosely over Alixa’s lap.
“The Emerald Fields,” she kept whispering. “We’re really going there.”
Jasen rubbed a knuckle against the deck, hard. It hurt, so much more than it should’ve for all the pain Baraghosa had left him in. But it was only a fraction of what he deserved, though, for failing his ancestors, for failing his friends—and now, on top of it all, for failing Kuura—Kuura, who this very moment was below deck, gathering up all the possessions he had upon this boat he rode to pay the way for a family he loved but so rarely saw, and preparing to be exiled.
“Other Luukessians,” Alixa murmured. “Oh, how I long to see their faces … I wonder if any of them will look familiar? Kin of our kin—”
He could not take her cheer any longer. “Kuura is banished,” said Jasen flatly.
That stirred her.
“Perhaps Shipmaster Burund—”
“He will not reconsider.”
“Huanatha appears to be making her case. Maybe he will—”
“He won’t,” said Jasen.
Alixa quieted.
The bustle of the docks drifted over them. Full darkness was not long from falling. Yet somehow, still there were people milling about, going to and from their ships and into the city—or perhaps up the cliffside pathway, beyond the towering rocks and arches and into towns and cities on the other side—a whole world, waiting just past the cliffs, at the end of the road.
Hard to think that there was a time when Jasen would have done anything for the opportunity to see it, where now he did not wish to see anyplace that was not home.
Harder to think that it had only been a few weeks ago.
How things had changed.
“I am sorry for Kuura,” said Alixa after a time. “I am, truly. But … he is only banished from the Lady Vizola. There’s nothing to say he cannot pay for passage back to his village.”
“And how do you know how banishment works for his people?” Jasen countered. “Huanatha was exiled from her tribe, and left the entire land behind.”
“Why did Shipmaster Burund offer her passage back to Coricuanthi then?”
Now it was Jasen who had no answer.
They were quiet again, for longer this time.
Jasen imagined Kuura now, in his cabin. Jasen had not seen it, but he could paint a picture of it well enough. The same size as the one he and Alixa had shared, Kuura’s would be decked out with the trinkets of a life lived on the sea: talismans from far-off place, perhaps, where he had consulted with a shaman. A tapestry might hang on the wall, or a map, like in Burund’s office. Or perhaps Kuura’s possessions would be homely. Yes, that seemed more accurate. He might have a family tree, sketched out on canvas, linking him and his own ancestors through the generations back in Nunahk. Maybe a thin piece of log cut from a stump, inscribed with a message done in black ink, or burned in. There would be books from his village, stories once handed down by campfires, then committed to text by hand, arduous in process but enduring. Writings, too, from his family: letters from his wife, his children, about how they loved him and missed him and thanked him for all he did, traveling so far away, treasuring the moments they had together.
He saw Kuura collecting up these things, looking them over before he stowed them in a knapsack to sling over his shoulder, one that would hold everything he had in life, or at least everything he had that was not an ocean away. He saw Kuura bite his lip, fighting to keep a tear from trickling down his face, thinking—about how it had been him who failed.
It was an awful kinship that Jasen and Kuura shared.
He wished he could walk down the stairs into the ship now, to apologize … but what good would it do? There was nothing Jasen could do to change things. His words were just that: words. They would not undo the damage Jasen had caused.
He closed his eyes and rested his head on his knees.
“I destroy everything,” he whispered.
“You don’t,” said Alixa.
Jasen didn’t respond. He didn’t believe her. Just words, again.
“This whole thing,” Alixa said, and her words came slow, as if she was picking them with great care, “came about because you wanted to fix something. That was the case with the grain from Wayforth. And it’s why we came here, and found Huanatha, and went up to the clifftops.”
“Both were failures,” Jasen muttered. “What’s your point?”
“The grain …” Alixa shook her head, left the thought unfinished. “What if the ancestors are guiding you, not to fix things, but to—to bring us here?”
Jasen looked around with a skeptical eye. “To a boat docked by the Aiger Cliffs?”
“To bring us to the Emerald Fields—”
Jasen groaned, so Alixa spoke louder:
“—so that we might be with our countrymen.”
“The ancestors are not whispering to me to find grain and look for Baraghosa so I can go live in some long grass with people I have never known. Those were my ideas.”
“But what if the ancestors are guiding them? Guiding both of us?”
“They are not.”
“But they might be,” Alixa insisted. “They look out for us, all of them. Perhaps they knew Baraghosa would tear apart the mountain. And so they sent us to go for grain, that we might be saved.”
“And left the rest of Terreas to die?”
But Alixa had found a kernel of something that she could not drop. “Maybe that is why they sent me too—because they knew that I would hear of Emerald Fields and try to steer us that way.”
“You agreed to come with me,” said Jasen, “not for any reason other than our kinship.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Alixa. “Well, that and helping to save Terreas and heal its rifts. But what if the ancestors were speaking to me without my hearing? What if they sent me out with you, knowing that we would be saved from the mountain burying Terreas in ash, and would find ourselves on the Lady Vizola—and then, in turn, rescue Samwen Longwell, who would tell us of the Emerald Fields …”
“It’s a pretty convoluted plan, is it not?”
“… and then I could convince you that we should go there!”
“You have not convinced me,” said Jasen.
“But the Emerald Fields,” she began, voice rising with exasperation. Then she paused, returning to her previous thread. “I have not convinced you of it, but now that we have lost our home, the Emerald Fields are the only place for us. You have battled Baraghosa—valiantly,” she added quickly, before he could protest that too, “—but we have lost. Without me, you might try to fight again.” To lose again was left unsaid. “But I am here—and so I am guiding you to the Emerald Fields, like our ancestors want!”
She looked victorious at having explained all this. Her eyes glittered with determination, the setting sun and its very last streak of orange reflected in her dark brown eyes.
Jasen shook his head. “You may feel that way, but…I don’t believe it.”
She hardly sagged. “You must, though.” She gripped him by the wrist. “Think of it, Jasen: our countrymen are out there right now, waiting for us. We are not the last of the Luukessians! For all our lives, we believed we had been almost entirely extinguished, save for Terreas. Yet we have learned that our brethren live on. We have to join them, Jasen. We must. It is what the ancestors want!”
“You realize,” said Jasen, “that you can turn all this on its head?”
Alixa frowned. “What do you mean?”
A Respite From Storms Page 21
