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

by Marie Brennan

  She laughed, beckoning for us to follow her. “You have not even seen the lizards here yet. One thing at a time.”

  I closed my notebook and exchanged glances with Tom. That laugh rang false with me, and with him as well, I saw. Heali’i was trying to divert me. Why had the Keongans forbidden us to leave this island? It could not be tapu; they were not shy about telling us when a spiritual prohibition blocked our way. There was some other reason, and it worried me that they were not willing to share it.

  Pressing now did not seem wise, though. Tom extinguished the torch, and then we climbed upward once more, toward the summit some distance above.

  The caldera of Homa’apia was a broad crater, barren of all life. Around it stood a ring of enormous statues like none I had ever seen before: great monoliths several meters in height, most of their bulk devoted to the head, with only a small suggestion of a body below. They were abstract and imposing, their strong-featured faces staring with patient intensity across the width of the crater.

  Suhail would wish to see these too, I thought. They were not at all Draconean; there was no suggestion of a dragon in those features, much less any of the characteristic elements of their aesthetic style. But something in their stony vigil reminded me of Draconean statues.

  “They are the ancestor gods,” Heali’i said, in response to a question from Tom I had not attended to. “They keep watch to warn us if Homa’apia wakes fully.”

  It was a chilling reminder that although the mountain on which we stood was not actively erupting, neither was it quite asleep. “Does the other peak also stir?” I asked, peering toward the other half of Keonga, where the mass of ‘Iosale rose.

  “Not anymore. Do you know the story?” When we shook our heads, Heali’i recounted the tale.

  Homa’apia and ‘Iosale were a pair of gods said to have created the whole archipelago—not as a harmonious effort, but as the result of their strife. The stones they hurled at one another broke the earth beneath the sea, raising island after island in fire and steam. “The chaos did not end until the other gods joined the two of them in marriage,” Heali’i said, gesturing at the valley of rich farmland where the two slopes met.

  “But Homa’apia hasn’t entirely quieted down,” Tom said, amused.

  Heali’i grinned at him. “Not all marriages are peaceful.”

  We had brought offerings with us: wreaths of flowers, slightly wilted after being carried in our packs for the better part of the day. At Heali’i’s instruction, we flung these into the crater, where they made bright spots against the barren earth. She chanted as we did so, and for some time after, lest our activities disturb the volcano’s goddess.

  It was late enough in the day that Tom and I could not do much research. We retreated from the peak to a spot that was more sheltered, more comfortable, and less hedged about with tapu, and there Tom began to lay out our blankets. Heali’i, however, beckoned for me to follow her. “Come. I will show you Rahuahane.”

  She led me around the summit to the leeward side. At lower elevations this is the drier, less fertile side of the island; most of the rain falls to windward, leaving the other half wanting. This high on the mountain, it was a wasteland.

  “Why does nothing grow here?” I asked Heali’i. My voice had sunk to a whisper, for there was something terribly chilling about that lifeless, rocky slope. I had seen rain fall upon the peak; this was no desert, so bereft of water that nothing could grow. And yet I could not see even the slightest hint of green.

  Heali’i answered me quietly. “The rain here is poison. It kills the land where it falls. Look—there is your soul’s home.”

  The long scar of dead ground stretched like an arrow toward a small island very near to Keonga’s leeward shore. With the tale of the naka’i in my mind and this blight before my eyes, I expected Rahuahane to be a blackened rock, advertising its curse to all the world. Instead I saw lush greenery, little different from that which marked the windward side of Keonga. It was perhaps less verdant, owing to its position in Keonga’s shadow, and little of its volcanic peak remained; around the central mass lay a belt of turquoise lagoons and the thick, broken ring of its coral reef, lifted up above the waves—a formation one sees at times on older islands. From above, I thought, it would look almost like an eye.

  But it was merely an island, like a hundred others in the Broken Sea. I said, “Where are the naka’i? The ones that were turned to stone?”

  Heali’i struck my shoulder in an open-handed slap. I staggered at the blow: she had all the bulk of a Puian man, and meant me to feel the weight of it. “Do not joke about these things. Be glad they are hidden; the sight of them might kill you, too.”

  It occurred to me to wonder whether this legend pointed at a more prosaic truth. I had found dragon bones in the cavern near Drustanev; could it be that the naka’i were some kind of dragon—perhaps sea-serpents; perhaps some other breed now extinct—whose bones yet lingered? Though I was at a loss to explain how that could have happened, unless Keonga’s geology was able to replicate the natural chemical process which was a precursor to our more advanced one.

  The notion seemed far-fetched, but it gained in strength the next day, when Tom and I began our work.

  There were indeed fire-lizards on the heights. They made their nests among the ferns and scrub above the tree line and ranged all through the higher elevations, hunting insects, geckos, rats, and some of the smaller birds. They are unusual among draconic types in that they are highly gregarious; a typical flight will contain at least a dozen members, often more.

  Nor do they have any particular fear. Their sole predator is the eagle, and he will only attack if the fire-lizards appear to threaten a nest. Because of this, the breed has many traits which would be detrimental in any other environment, from their ground-nesting habit to their fiercely coloured hide, which ranges from buttery yellow to ember-red.

  I was particularly keen to observe them because their extraordinary breath is an electrical charge—a stronger cousin to the minute sparks that give sparklings their name. When Aluko’o erupted to a serious degree, Heali’i told me, the fire-lizards could be seen dancing in the ash plume, their sparks creating great bolts of lightning in the murk.

  Alas, I did not witness that sight. (I hope I may be forgiven my “alas.” An eruption on that scale would have meant great destruction and hardship for the inhabitants of Aluko’o, which is not at all a thing to be desired in its own right.) But Heali’i snared a bird from the near edge of the tree line, and I used it as a decoy to entice the fire-lizards into displaying their offensive capabilities. Then she shot one with a poison-tipped dart. “Are they not tapu to kill?” I asked. So many things in the islands were hedged about with prohibitions, I found I had assumed, without ever asking, that to kill a fire-lizard would be a great crime.

  But that was not the case, and so Tom set to work with his knife, dissecting the carcass for us to study. We discovered that the organ which produces the charge is very similar to that which I had previously discovered in sparklings; and so, once again, I found my taxonomical thoughts quite confounded.

  I took a walk to consider this development, while Tom and Heali’i hunted for fire-lizard eggs, which they conceal in volcanic vents—thus explaining why they are only found on active peaks. We were quite close to the edge of the barren zone. Dismissing my sense of foreboding, I set out across the scree.

  The air around me smelled unexpectedly sweet, if a little musky. There were signs that Homa’apia was an active volcano, if less so than Aluko’o; here and there the ground was cracked, as if from an earthquake, and I could see steam or stirrings of ash in the air. I stayed clear of these, casting occasional glances toward the distant Rahuahane, but otherwise keeping my gaze on the treacherous gravel beneath my feet.

  FIRE-LIZARD

  Not all of the gravel was stone. Two years later, after I had returned to Scirland, I spoke to a geologist with a particular interest in volcanoes; he told me Heali’i was right abo
ut the rain in that spot being “poison.” The gas rising from the vents creates mild acids, insufficient to damage human skin, but more than strong enough to render the leeward terrain completely inhospitable to plant life. And, as in the great cavern near Drustanev, these acids serve an unexpected purpose.

  I must have found the chips of bone amid the scree. My pockets were full of them later, and Heali’i confirmed that she had seen such things there before. They are the bones of fire-lizards, imperfectly preserved and broken quite small, but still identifiable as the epiphyses of long bones. No doubt there were other chips from elsewhere in the skeleton, but it seems I failed to pick them out from the surrounding rock.

  I say all of this with speculative caution because I do not remember any of it.

  Or rather, I remember something, as if through a great haze. I was pondering taxonomy, with occasional drifts toward the tale of Rahuahane. I remember thinking about Heali’i’s eagerness to divert our attention away from the other islands. What might the Keongans be concealing there? My thoughts were wandering badly, and I could not chivvy them back on course.

  After that, nothing—until I woke up in our camp.

  * * *

  I can fill in some of what is lacking from the reports of my companions.

  Tom had found eggs and gone looking for me, on the assumption that I would want to sketch them in situ before he disturbed anything. He could not find me, and began calling my name; Heali’i soon joined him and they quartered the ground, increasingly concerned that I had fallen and badly hurt myself.

  Fallen I had—but not off a cliff. Tom saw me from a distance, convulsing against the rocky soil. He ran to my side and tried to rouse me from my fit, but was soon distracted by Heali’i, shouting in alarm for him to leave the dead ground. I thank heaven that his strength had indeed returned from his illness; he hoisted me to his shoulder and carried me away, not stopping until he reached camp, where Heali’i pronounced us safe at last.

  Many gases can rise from volcanic terrain; some are more insidious in their threat than others. I had avoided the obvious ones, but walked into one I could not see. Heali’i, upon hearing that I had noticed a sweet odor, chastised me for not walking away at once. The name she gave it means something like “the air of poisoned sleep”; it has strange effects on the mind, and could have killed me if Tom had not carried me clear.

  “You did not tell me there was any such danger!” I said to her—it may have been more of a shout.

  She apologized for this lapse, though with an expression that suggested I should have had the brains to realize that the dead ground was not safe. I was not mollified; the experience had frightened me badly, less for the brush with death than for the blank gap in my memory. It was not like sleep. I had been walking; then I was in camp, and my pockets were full of bones I did not remember collecting. It was as if something else had taken over my body for a time, leaving me none the wiser.

  You, my readers, are well aware that I am not a superstitious or even very religious woman. Yet I must admit that for a time, I found myself wondering uneasily if there was truth to the Keongan belief that I was dragon-spirited, in a more literal sense than I had heretofore accepted. Had Heali’i told me this was a common occurrence for ke’anaka’i, I would have believed her, and possibly even doubted my own rationality. It was in some ways a relief—and in other ways, decidedly not—that she brushed off the question when I asked her. “No, it does not happen to ke’anaka’i,” she said. “Only to fools.”

  I had a number of scrapes and bruises to go with my collection of bone fragments, the latter of which I discovered in my pocket soon after. This led to a discussion in Scirling with Tom wherein I related the tale of Rahuahane, and we speculated as to the possibility of fossilized bones there. “You are certain they would not let you go search?” he asked.

  “To them, it would look like suicide,” I said. “But I imagine the real difficulty would come when I returned, quite visibly not dead. Do you recall how they behaved when they decided I was ke’anaka’i?”

  “Pitchforks and torches. I remember.” Tom sighed. “Well, we might try it when we’re ready to leave; then you can sail off and never face their reaction.”

  On most days it would have been sorely tempting. But I had just experienced in quick succession not one but two near misses with mortality, and was in no mood to contemplate another risk so soon. I would have set out for the lowlands right then if I could have reached the shore before dark. Nightfall would catch me in the lava tube, though, and so I rallied myself enough to go and sketch the fire-lizard nest instead—taking comfort, as I so often do, in my work.

  FIFTEEN

  Spiral in the sand—A talk with my son—One creature—Visitors to Keonga—Hidden concerns—Suhail’s proposition—The chief objects—Riding a dragon

  We made several more excursions to the top of the volcano during the weeks that followed, while Aekinitos and his men labored to repair the Basilisk. I did not mean to neglect the sea-serpents, who were of greater interest to me than the fire-lizards (owing to their possible position in the family tree), but it was difficult to study them from our current position. I disliked the notion of attempting to chase them in one of the ship’s fragile longboats—quite apart from the fact that any move to take one of those out to sea would likely draw the ire of the chieftain, Pa’oarakiki. Nor were the Keongans willing to hunt them, for which I cannot blame them. The serpents here might be smaller, but their blasts of water were perfectly capable of destroying a canoe. The islanders did supply me with scales and teeth, which I studied with great enthusiasm, and on some days I perched myself in a high spot to observe the serpents out in the water. In the meanwhile, I was confined to land, and therefore confined myself to studying those creatures which could be found there.

  The fire-lizards reminded me somewhat of the drakeflies I had seen in the Green Hell of Mouleen. They are both small breeds, and lack forelimbs (though drakeflies make up for the absence by having two pairs of wings). Where some individuals have succeeded in caging drakeflies like birds, however, fire-lizards have proven stubbornly intractable in that regard, either pining to death in captivity, or else burning or melting their way free of the cages with a persistent application of sparks.

  I did not attempt to capture one, being content to examine their nests and spy upon their feeding habits. (I took care, of course, not to be ensnared by the volcanic vapors again, having no wish to repeat my previous experience.) Their communication proved to be especially intriguing: they make a variety of clacking noises to one another, which seem to be a method of coordinating their hunts and warning of danger. If anyone reading this memoir has an interest in dragons and a tolerance for carrying finicky equipment around the world and up a volcano, the field of dragon naturalism awaits sound recordings of their calls, which would permit a much more detailed study.

  Even shipwrecked on a tropical island, we could not neglect our other obligations. Fortunately, Keonga’s isolation provided it with a number of bird species unknown to the Ornithological Society, which Tom undertook to collect for Miriam Farnswood. Most of these he stuffed (dead birds being vastly easier to transport than their energetic cousins), but one afternoon he went to negotiate with a bird hunter for live specimens. I did not even notice him returning, despite the fact that the two honeycreepers tied to his stick were whistling madly. When I finally realized he was there, I jumped on my log seat. “What is it?”

  “I am trying to identify the expression on your face,” he said.

  How long had I been sitting there, notebook ignored on the makeshift table before me, pen drying in my hand? I did not know. “It is the expression of a woman who knows there is an idea creeping up on her, but hopes that if she is very assiduous in ignoring it, the idea will go away.”

  Tom dug a hole and planted his stick in it, leaving the birds to settle down, then came to join me. He almost leaned on my table before remembering; he had done that several times, and the table ha
d not borne his weight any of them. Now it was distinctly lopsided. He leaned against a tree instead. “You are not normally the sort to hope an idea will go away. If it is right, why ignore it? And if it is wrong … those, you generally beat to death with a stick.”

  His description turned my sigh into a half laugh. “Why ignore it, indeed. I want to do so because I suspect you were right, Tom. I should not have sent that article to the Journal of Maritime Studies.”

  He frowned. “If it were only a matter of expanding on your previous ideas, you wouldn’t look so troubled.”

  “Just so. The trouble is that I think—no, I am increasingly certain—that my previous ideas were wrong.” I showed him my notebook, open to my diagrams of sea-serpent scales. “All the islanders assure me they migrate. Heali’i says they lay their eggs on Rahuahane, though of course I have not observed that with my own eyes. The nesting grounds of arctic serpents have never been found. The general assumption has been that they lay their eggs in waters too deep for us to find them … but what if they lay them here, instead?”

  “It’s a long way to migrate,” Tom said. “And how do you account for—oh. I see. The difference in size is also a difference in age. We would need a larger sample of scales to confirm that, though.”

  I nodded. “All of this needs more observation before we can be sure of anything. But here is a new theory for you: sea-serpents hatch here in the tropics. They migrate, but not all the way to the arctic; the young are too small to survive such cold. As they age, however, the center of their movement shifts northward.”

  Tom was sketching it in the sandy ground, a looping spiral moving steadily toward the pole. “As they get larger, the tropical waters would be less comfortable for them—they would overheat here. Presumably at some point they become too old to reproduce, or else their home waters are simply too cold for the eggs to be viable.”

  “Which might be why they lose the tendrils. And they cease to expel water as a weapon, again because of the cold. The shock of drawing it in might kill them.”