Voyage of the Basilisk : A Memoir by Lady Trent (9781429956369)

by Marie Brennan

  I could not help looking about. The nearest serpent was up at the surface now, but not facing us; it was thrashing away in an unhappy fashion. I saw the underside of a canoe in the water, some distance from the great shadow that was the Basilisk’s hull, and knew the Keongans were doing something. But I could not spare any thought for what that might be. I had to swim for the surface.

  My lungs were aching. I could no longer tell what was pressure and what was the thirst for air. The surface was still so far away. I tried to exhale again, but there was nothing left in my body. My diaphragm jerked, fighting to draw breath, only my clenched jaw preventing me from inhaling seawater. Suhail’s hand was like iron around my wrist, holding fast against my thrashing.

  Then my mouth opened, against all my will, and I began to drown.

  FOURTEEN

  Return to life—Amowali—Plans for the peak—The lava tube—Statues at the crater—The barren zone—Fire-lizards—Unseen peril—A second near miss

  I came to my senses on the deck of the Basilisk, coughing out what seemed like half the Broken Sea across its boards. My lungs fought between the need to gasp in air, glorious life-giving air, and the need to expel the remaining water. The conflict between those two impulses racked me for an eternity, until at last my airway was clear and I could breathe.

  I lay where I was for quite some time after that, curled on my side, listening distantly to the voices around me. One voice I recognized as Tom’s, murmuring an uncharacteristic prayer of thanksgiving. (There is nothing like the near death of a companion to bring religion out in a man.) Others belonged to the sailors and the islanders, barking orders and arguments I lacked the wit to follow just then.

  One voice I did not hear: Suhail’s.

  As that thought came to me, I rolled over and tried to sit up. I hit someone’s knees, and fell victim to another coughing fit. When it stilled at last, I found the knees belonged to Suhail, who was gazing down at me in wordless relief.

  “Oh, thank God you’re alive,” I said.

  He managed something like a laugh. “Those should be my words. You are the one who nearly drowned.”

  I remembered his hand around my wrist, dragging me toward life. “I have you to thank for my survival, I think.”

  Suhail’s colour suddenly improved. He had been as sickly as it is possible for a sun-browned Akhian to look; now he appeared much healthier, and I realized he was blushing. “I’m afraid I have to beg your forgiveness again,” he said, and edged back a few centimeters, so that I was no longer against his knees.

  I noticed, for the first time, how close to me he knelt. Tom was crouching half a pace away, and although there were a few sailors looking on, they were all standing. And I had heard tell of how the victims of drowning were saved, though never seen it firsthand.

  My own face must have flooded with colour. All at once I was aware of my state: soaking wet, lying full-length on the deck without so much as a blanket to cover me. Undoubtedly there had been no time for such things when Suhail set about reviving me. The water had plastered his curls to his head; they clung to his cheekbones in damp tendrils. He stared at me with the expression of a man who knows he should look away, but has misplaced the ability to do so.

  I do my reputation no favours to admit this, but I stared at him in much the same way. We had just survived a harrowing experience; those among you who have done the same know that it often heightens the senses, giving one a vivid awareness of life and its fragility. I was not so very old yet, and Suhail was naked to the waist, and for a moment I had difficulty thinking of anything else.

  Tom broke the stasis, for which I shall eternally be grateful to him. He moved from his crouch, and Suhail retreated, allowing him to help me to my feet. (It may give you some notion of how strongly my near drowning had affected me that I was almost as self-conscious of my wet clothing with Tom—Tom, who had seen me naked and covered in mud when I fell victim to yellow fever in Mouleen.)

  As usual, I took refuge from embarrassment in my work. “What happened?” I asked, once I was something like steady and had recovered from a new fit of coughing. “Do we know why the serpent attacked?”

  “I have an idea.” That came from Heali’i, who had been at the railing, calling down to the men in the canoes below. For once there was not the slightest hint of amusement in her expression. She beckoned me to her side, and when she could speak quietly in my ear, she said, “I think the serpent is amowali.”

  I shook my head, not understanding the word. Heali’i sighed in annoyance, turned so that others could not see what she did, and shaped a curve in front of her belly with one hand.

  Pregnant. This was enough to drive all thoughts of my recent experience and current state from my mind. I straightened up, looking to the water as if I might see the creature there, but it was gone. A chance—possibly my only chance—to examine a bearing sea-serpent, and I had wasted it.

  “What did the others do?” I asked, remembering the movement above as Suhail and I broke for the surface.

  “A rider,” she said, gesturing to where a naked man was hoisting himself into a canoe. I hastily averted my eyes. “He dove in and seized hold as the serpent broke the surface, then turned it away from you.”

  I was unspeakably grateful to him for it, and told him so as soon as he was clothed once more. He did not seem to mind the risk he had taken on our behalf; his friends were all praising him for his courage and quick thinking, saying he had won great mana by that action. Although I do not attribute spiritual significance to the concept, as they do, I could not dispute the general point, which was that he was indeed a man worthy of respect.

  Any further questions regarding the serpent itself had to wait until I was on land once more and could speak to Heali’i in greater privacy. Tom, Suhail, and I were loaded into a canoe along with her, while the sailors stayed to prepare the ship for its move to shore. The bell, of course, was left on the outward slope of the reef, to be retrieved when the Basilisk was seaworthy once more.

  By the time I reached shore, I was shivering badly. The warmth of the islands, which ordinarily I found pleasant, was no longer enough, and I could not catch my breath. Liluakame was familiar with these symptoms (drowning being a hazard the Keongans face regularly), and bundled me into heavy barkcloth blankets to sit by a fire outside our hut. There, Heali’i and I could talk at last.

  “Do sea-serpents regularly attack when bearing?” I asked. I did not want to leave the shelter of my blankets enough to take notes, and I was not certain what she would think of it if I did. Keongans distrusted writing in those days; they believed strongly in the power of words, and did not like the notion of those words, along with the knowledge they carried, being left sitting about where anybody could pick them up. But I was accustomed to holding on to such things for later recording.

  Heali’i’s answering snort was pragmatic. “Wouldn’t you?”

  I drew the blankets closer about me and forced my thoughts to focus. “Is their breeding seasonal? It must be a very great danger for your people if this could happen any time of year.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what they do when they aren’t here. Maybe they breed at other times. But we know that when the serpents are around, there’s a risk.”

  Tired and worn as I was, it took some time for the implications of this to come clear for me. “You mean—they aren’t always here?”

  “Of course not,” Heali’i said. “They follow the currents and the storms.”

  Migration. I did not know the word in Keongan, and had to flounder my way through twenty or thirty words in its stead, but once Heali’i understood my meaning, she nodded. “Yes, like some of the birds. They come and go.”

  “Do they go as far as the cold?” I asked—this being the only way I could think to refer to the arctic. It necessitated more explanation, this time less successful, for Heali’i had no experience of ice, let alone a region where the sea itself froze solid. (The peak of Aluko’o, which is the highest
in the archipelago, sometimes has snow, but Heali’i had never seen it as more than a distant whiteness.) She expressed great doubt that the serpents went so far, but I could not read too much into that, given her lack of familiarity with the world outside her islands.

  When I grew frustrated with that line of inquiry, I went back to the matter of breeding. “Where do they lay their eggs?” I asked.

  Heali’i shook her head, hands rising as if to ward off the question. “On Rahuahane. That is all I know, and I do not want to know more. For you or I to go there would mean death.”

  I had not forgotten the story she told about the hero Lo’alama’oiri, who turned all the naka’i to stone. Even ordinary Keongans shunned the place. If our spirits were supposed to be those of reborn naka’i, of course returning to the island would be very ill-advised.

  I was, of course, deeply tempted. I doubt anyone reading this memoir imagines that I was not. Reproduction is a vital part of any species’ existence, and we knew precious little about it in most dragon breeds. But I had some experience with the reaction of locals when I trespassed upon a place said to be cursed, and while I did not expect to have a repetition of what happened in Vystrana, I did not want to tempt fate. The islanders might well decide that Liluakame’s influence was not enough to keep my dragon spirit safely in check.

  Besides, there were other islands in the Broken Sea. All serpent reproduction could not happen on a single forbidden landmass—or more likely in the coastal waters of that landmass, as there was no evidence to suggest sea-serpents were amphibious, although they breathed air. Once the Basilisk was afloat once more, I could go in search of other hatching grounds.

  But that did not mean my curiosity would lie still and trouble me no more. “Will you show me which island is Rahuahane?” I asked. “If it is not tapu for us to even look at it.”

  Heali’i did not look pleased at the prospect, but she nodded. “We will climb Homa’apia tomorrow. From there you will see where your soul is from.”

  * * *

  Repairs had begun on the Basilisk almost as soon as she reached shore. With ropes pulling the ship over to starboard, I could see clearly the gash of cracked timbers where the reef had struck. It was a chilling sight; a little more force in the collision and we might have lost the vessel entirely. Some of us would have made it to shore, no doubt—the experienced swimmers, like Suhail—but not all, and those who did would have been stranded.

  We would not be leaving anytime soon. Proper timber had to be obtained, and here tapu reared its head: the sailors could not cut trees on land belonging to the chief, nor could they take certain kinds of trees anywhere on the island during this season. It seemed to be a combination of land rights and husbandry, but whatever the cause, it drove Aekinitos half-mad with frustration. I was just as glad to be going elsewhere for a few days.

  I invited Jake to go with us, but was unsurprised when he chose to stay close to shore. “Some of the other boys are going to teach me se’egalu,” he said, bouncing with excitement.

  I could not help laughing at his enthusiasm. “And what is se’egalu, in Scirling?”

  “There isn’t another word for it. Se’egalu is when you take a wooden board out into the water and stand up on it, and then ride the waves in to shore.”

  We had seen this off the coast of Olo’ea, before the storm blew us to Keonga. I had not known that was the word for it. (Nowadays Scirlings call this “surf-riding.”) Nor did I learn until later that in Keonga it is considered a pastime for those of aristocratic lineages; the boys in question were a son and a nephew of the local chief. It was quite a mark of esteem that they invited my son to join them—especially as they believed him to be Abby’s son instead.

  As for Suhail, he was very nearly as single-minded as Jake, and had no interest in things that lay beyond his purview. “If there are ruins, tell me,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s likely. They didn’t build on mountaintops in this part of the world—too much risk of earthquakes and eruptions.”

  “Thank you for that reminder,” I said dryly. Homa’apia was not a terribly active volcano, not compared to its fellow peak on Aluko’o, which is believed to be the youngest of the Keongan Islands. It still had its share of activity, though, with steam vents and the occasional trickles of lava. We would have to exercise care on our journey.

  So in the end only three of us went: myself, Heali’i, and Tom, whose strength was at last restored. “It’s glad I am to be getting out again,” he said. His Niddey accent had faded over the years, but came back strongly now, a testament to his heartfelt sincerity.

  I hoped he truly was up to the trek. The summit lay a mere fifteen miles or so inland, but it towered over the shore, and the forest concealed in places a treacherously broken terrain. Heali’i said we would be gone for several days at least.

  The first part of our journey was pleasant. Keonga is home to an astounding variety of birds, many of them bright with tropical plumage; I had already made arrangements with local bird-hunters to obtain specimens of several kinds, though the most splendid were reserved for chieftains and the king. Although there are insects aplenty, there are no mosquitos or other unpleasant biters, and poisonous snakes are unknown. Compared with the Green Hell of Mouleen, it truly did seem like the Garden of Paradise.

  Soon the terrain grew steeper, though, and my breath came short in my lungs. My near drowning had left me feeling as if I were recovering from a head cold. I coughed frequently, earning me concerned looks from Tom. I was glad when Heali’i stopped and turned to face us.

  “I should have asked before,” she said. “Do small, dark spaces bother you?”

  She directed this question at Tom. (Heali’i had seen me crawl into a small steel bell and let Suhail lock the door behind me. She knew my answer already.) Tom shook his head, looking puzzled. Heali’i smiled broadly. “Good. Then follow me.”

  Tom and I exchanged mystified looks, but obeyed. Heali’i led us off the path and through an open area that bore touches here and there of maintenance, as if someone wanted it to appear natural, but also to remain uncluttered by too much growth. This brought us to the mouth of what appeared to be a cave.

  I mentioned lava tubes before, when speaking of how the chief took shelter from the storm. These volcanic formations are created during an eruption when the hardening lava roofs over its own channel. In the passage thus created, the molten rock retains its heat for longer, and so goes on flowing in a kind of underground river. Eventually this ends, but the hollow remains: a tube boring through the new rock, sometimes for miles at a stretch.

  Keonga is honeycombed with these, some of which help account for the arduous terrain, as the collapse of their ceilings leaves the ground broken. This one, however, was almost wholly intact—the exception being where the islanders have deliberately opened vents to the world above, so as to allow the circulation of air.

  This, Heali’i said, was our path. It would not take us all the way to the summit; the passage stopped short of that point, near the now-closed vent from which the lava originally issued forth. But it would allow us to bypass the worst of the slope. Quite apart from that practical consideration, this was the route used by the chief and the priests when they journeyed up Homa’apia to perform ceremonies at the top. As such, it was considered the proper way to go.

  I felt as if I were journeying into another world—something out of an ancient myth. The tunnel stretched out in near-total darkness, except where a vent allowed in light and falls of flowering vines. Here and there the ceiling was festooned with narrow stalactites, which we all had to duck carefully beneath. Patient hands had carved the sides of the tunnels, mile upon mile of imagery, half of it visible only when you brought a torch close. “Suhail should see this,” I murmured to Tom, who nodded. It likely wasn’t Draconean, but it would appeal to his archaeological instincts.

  Even travelling by that route, the journey was not easy. In places the tunnel became very steep, which made for difficult climbing when
the stone beneath our feet was so smooth. The darkness and quiet were oppressive after the light and constant sound of the world above; I found myself missing the rise and fall of the waves, the ever-present wind. It was easy to believe we were making no progress at all, or that there was no end. We would be walking through the darkness forever, stopping occasionally to relight a torch, until we died of thirst—for there was no eating or drinking in the tunnel. “Tapu,” Heali’i said, and we had no choice but to comply.

  There was, of course, an end. I am not writing this memoir from the confines of a Puian cave. Light grew ahead of us, and then we emerged into a different world entirely.

  * * *

  Gone was the lush forest that covered the lower slopes. Here we found ourselves amidst ferns and scrubby bushes, which are all that will grow so close to the volcano’s peak. I turned to look back the way we had come, and felt as if I were on top of the world: I could see the ocean stretching out to eternity and the other Keongan islands spreading to either side, with the great bulk of Aluko’o behind my left shoulder and the smaller isles stretching out to my right. From this height I could not see the canoes that plied the waters, except the tiny speck of a sail here and there. A dozen or so of them were passing between Keonga and its neighbour Lahana, in a loose, scattered line.

  “Are fire-lizards only found around active peaks?” Tom asked, recalling me to my work.

  Heali’i nodded. I took out my notebook and began to jot items down. “Which volcanoes in the archipelago have fire-lizards? And is there any chance of us visiting the others? There might be variation between populations.”