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

by Marie Brennan

  He turned and saw me watching him. The grin that spread across his face filled me with both excitement and foreboding. “Mrs. Camherst,” he said. “Have you ever wanted to ride a dragon?”

  My thoughts were full of fire-lizards, who are much too small to ride. I sputtered something less than entirely coherent, not seeing his true meaning.

  “The Keongans do it,” he said, when it was clear I did not understand. “They have been telling me about it. The sea-serpents, Mrs. Camherst.”

  Now I recalled. One of the islanders had leapt aboard a serpent to steer it away from us when Suhail and I escaped the diving bell. According to the boys who kept watch for the beasts, it was a thing the younger and, I thought, more brainless island fellows often did.

  Unfortunately Suhail asked this question in front of my son, who was quite young and in certain respects entirely brainless. (I do not say this as condemnation. All of us are in certain respects brainless when we are children: witness some of the things I did as a young girl.) Jake had been amusing himself with his collection of marine objects, which had grown to truly stupendous proportions since our arrival on Keonga. Now he leapt to his feet with a whoop. “Oh please! Can we?”

  “You most certainly cannot,” I said. Suhail’s eyes had popped at the mere notion; no Keongan who is less than fully grown would ever dream of trying to undertake such a challenge.

  My refusal, of course, set off an argument. By the time I was done convincing Jake that he had no business anywhere near sea-serpents, we had gathered Abby and Tom as an audience … and Jake had found a new goal to pursue.

  “You have to, Mama,” he said. “It’s research! Right? You can’t pass it up when it’s a dragon! It’ll be just like when I rode the dragon turtle, but better.”

  There was much more, all in the same vein; if I did not know it for a physical impossibility, I would have said he did not pause for breath anywhere in the next five minutes. Suhail soon gave up on waiting for Jake to wind down and just spoke over him. “You cannot be certain when the serpents will migrate onward. The opportunity to try this may be passing fast.”

  “The opportunity to get myself killed, you mean,” I said, my voice tart. “I seem to find those often enough on my own.”

  Suhail laughed. “But always in pursuit of your work, yes? Your talkative son is right about one thing; it is research.”

  “What could I possibly learn about a sea-serpent while dangling from one of its tendrils that I could not learn by watching it from a more sensible vantage point?”

  “What it is to be one,” he said. “The sensation of racing through the water, the movement of its muscles beneath you. Could you understand a horse merely by watching it run?”

  I silently damned him for the comparison. In all our wide-ranging conversations, I had said nothing of my girlhood love of horses, which had for a time been my substitute obsession when dragons were forbidden to me. He had lighted upon it by chance. Suhail was right; although I had learned a great deal by observing horses, drawing them, talking to those who knew them, and so forth, there were insights that only came from close contact.

  And fundamentally, the answer to his question was yes: I wanted to ride a dragon.

  Tom shook his head the instant I looked at him. He did not enjoy being in the water, no matter how enthusiastically Jake expounded upon its pleasures. I liked it well enough, but— “I am not that strong of a swimmer,” I reminded Suhail.

  I was weakening, and he knew it. Had I truly dismissed the notion, I would not have raised so pragmatic an objection. Suhail’s grin grew wider. “Your son says you are much better. And I will help you—they tell me it’s safer when two go together.”

  “Help me!” I said. “I seem to recall prohibitions against contact between us.”

  The wry twist of Suhail’s mouth said he had been considering that very question, and had found a questionable way to answer it. “I am told you are neither male or female, but ke’anaka’i. I know of no prohibitions against contact with such.”

  It was a semantic game … but one for which I had no good rejoinder. To deny my status as ke’anaka’i would be unwise; and I could hardly claim to be a man, or a close relative of his by blood or marriage.

  Suhail waited until I met his gaze, then said quietly, “I will not let you drown.”

  My breath caught in my throat. It was only with effort that I managed to say, “When it comes to being eaten by a sea-serpent, however—then, I suppose, I am on my own.”

  * * *

  Let it never be said that I court my own death without proper planning.

  The young Keongan men who ride sea-serpents are the kind who take great masculine pride in displaying their courage, strength, and endurance. They go into the water naked, as if for an evening swim, and do not complain about the cuts they suffer from the jagged edges of the serpents’ scales.

  I felt no need to display anything about myself, and so I advised Suhail to wear more clothing than he was accustomed to when swimming. “It may weigh our limbs down,” I said, “but we will reap the benefit in keeping our skin something closer to intact. Sharks may not come near the serpents, but I do not want to test that by shedding any more blood than I have to.” We discussed the possibility of gloves as well, but ultimately discarded it: too much would depend upon the security of our grips, which would be compromised by the wet leather.

  The greatest amount of serpent activity had been seen on the leeward side of the island, some distance from ill-omened Rahuahane. (This was not surprising. Presuming that Heali’i was correct, I expected that bearing females had gone there to lay their eggs.) A Keongan wishing to ride one of the beasts will go out with several canoes, whereupon the men in them will commence one of their chants, calling a serpent to the surface.

  “It’s possible that actually works,” Tom said, upon hearing of it. “They place a drum on the bottom of the canoe and beat a rhythm; that would carry through the water. Perhaps the serpents have been trained to respond to it.”

  “Trained how?” I said doubtfully. “They derive no earthly benefit from cooperating; by all accounts, the serpents do not much like being ridden. And I have not heard it said that the Keongans punish them for failing to appear when summoned.”

  Tom shrugged, granting the point. “Then it is just tradition.”

  Once a serpent appears—if one does—then the would-be rider waits at the side of his canoe for it to come near. The Keongans assured us the serpents “rarely” attacked canoes, unless provoked; the vessels are too familiar a sight, and moreover stay on the surface of the water, which is a zone the beasts take little interest in. (Most of their prey is to be found at least a meter or two beneath the surface.) As soon as the serpent draws close, the rider dives in and swims like mad toward the creature, aiming to catch hold of two tendrils.

  “It is very important to catch two,” Suhail told me. “If you hold only one, you will be thrown from side to side as the serpent moves, and have no control. With two, you can keep yourself steady—more or less.”

  I suspected it would be less rather than more, at least in my case, but it was still good advice. The skilled riders, we were told, could even use the tendrils to steer the serpent where they wished it to go—at least in general terms. “Could we not have someone skilled to go with us?” I asked.

  Our guide in these matters was a brawny fellow more than two meters tall. He towered over me as he chuckled. “Every man must prove himself first.”

  “I am not a man,” I said, but this made no impression on him. No one was allowed to take the easy road; Suhail and I must face this on our own.

  We were not a subtle calvacade, making ready for the endeavour. Nearly every man from the Basilisk was there, along with my son and Abby, Heali’i and Liluakame, and a great crowd of Keongans aside. They were eager to see the foreigners test themselves against the serpents of the deep. I thought at first, when I heard the drums and saw the procession wending toward us in the early light of mo
rning, that the chief had come for the same reason.

  But his mien was too forbidding for that. Pa’oarakiki stopped some distance away and said—I paraphrase enormously, Keongan oratory being a long-winded thing—”You may not do this.”

  In suitably polite language, Suhail asked, “Why not?”

  “Because you are foreigners,” the chief said.

  He went on at greater length; it was something to do with lack of respect for the gods, though we had followed all the instructions given to us beforehand, including prayers and a sacrifice of flowers to the sea. Perhaps he knew my heart was not in the ritual. Suhail was questioning him with a barrister’s patient logic, attempting to elicit an explanation of why exactly it was impermissible for us to ride the sea-serpents; but I could soon tell there was no explanation, save that this man did not want us to.

  Or perhaps there was more to it than that, after all. He kept glaring at the men who had been teaching Suhail the art of sea-serpent riding, with a look that promised retribution later. Was it because they were taking us from Keonga’s shores? We would not visit any other islands, but perhaps going onto the water was transgression enough. Only … I had the distinct impression that his prohibition had been issued to prevent us from learning anything of the other islands and what might be on them. Why were sea-serpents now included in his ban?

  I could not follow the conversation well enough to guess; it was flowing too rapidly for me to comprehend. Instead I watched those around us. Liluakame had assumed a deferential posture, out of respect for the chief, but she was frowning at the sand as if she did not understand his objection. Heali’i, on the other hand, was giving me a significant look. Unfortunately, I did not understand what its significance was.

  She widened her eyes at me, eyebrows raised, as if waiting for something. Then she sighed, clearly asking the gods to give her patience. In a crass and unsubtle gesture, she dug one hand into her skirts and took hold of her own groin.

  I had settled into the habit of thinking of Heali’i as a woman, for that was the designation I had first given her, and Scirling is not well-equipped to speak of people who are neither male nor female. With that gesture, she reminded me that she was ke’anaka’i … and that such people occupied a particular role in Keongan society.

  “Pardon me,” I said, stopping the conversation short. The chief looked at me as if his least favourite oar had suddenly spoken up.

  There was no way I could manage the flowery politeness of formal Keongan. I had to make do with what sentences I could cobble together on the spot. “The sea-serpents are the creations of the naka’i,” I said, “and I am ke’anaka’i. It may be so, that it is not allowed for foreigners to try and ride them. But ke’anaka’i do many things that are not allowed: for them, it is meant to be.”

  Had I been the chief’s least favourite oar, he would have broken me across the gunwale or flung me into the sea. But I was a person, and for him to argue with me would create a new host of problems for him. Would he deny the intended purpose of ke’anaka’i? Heali’i stood only a few paces away, ready to challenge him if he did. Would he deny my status as such? Liluakame stood even closer, married to me under Keongan custom, proof that I was not a woman in their eyes. The elite of their society are hedged about with many restrictions; he could not afford to say anything that might show a lack of respect for the ways of his own people.

  Instead he pointed his palm-frond fan at me and spoke in a booming voice. “The gods judge ke’anaka’i as well as men and women. They will pass judgment on you.”

  Which goes to show, I suppose, that the gods have a perverse sense of humour.

  * * *

  Our oarsmen paddled us out of that bay and around the shore of Keonga, heading to leeward. The fresh water spilling out of a stream by the village left an opening in the reef; we pushed our way through the rougher surf there and passed into waters whose deep hue spoke of the rapid descent of the ground below us. I scanned the waves, but saw no hint of serpents.

  The islanders were unperturbed. The canoe in which Suhail and I rode went to what they judged to be a suitable spot, accompanied by two others; the rest had stayed within the reef, their passengers watching us from the lagoon. If I squinted, I could just make out Tom and Abby and Jake, Liluakame and Heali’i. My son gave me a double thumbs-up for encouragement, and despite my nerves, I could not help but smile.

  My smile faltered when the drumming began. Keongan drums are relatively small, and they did not resonate well against the base of the canoes, but that did not prevent the beat from seeming as portentous as the ticking of a clock. Despite the warm air, I shivered. Suhail’s grin was as bright as ever, but for the first time I wondered if that expression was as much shield against fear as evidence of its absence.

  I fortified myself, as always, with my work. I had brought no notebook with me (as it would only be ruined in the water) and had no surety that I would live to set down any observations I might make today, but that was no reason to give up thinking like a naturalist. I kept watch across the waves, thinking about the environment below us, and was therefore the first to see the slick curve of a coil break the surface.

  “There,” I said, and if it came out low with tension, that was preferable to an undignified squeak.

  The drumming changed its beat. Suhail rose from his bench, balancing easily against the canoe’s slight rocking. “Yes, I see it. Now if it will just oblige us by coming nearer…”

  I rose as well, for we would have to move quickly when our moment came. The beast was properly visible now, a sinuous shadow against the blue of the water. Its seemingly aimless wanderings were reassuring to me; I had seen for myself how an angry sea-serpent moves, and knew this one was curious rather than hostile. That, however, would soon change.

  It broached the surface just beyond one of our accompanying canoes, its head appearing briefly before diving below again. I saw the tendrils we must grasp. “Be ready,” Suhail said—quite unnecessarily, but the exhortation was as much for himself as for me.

  The serpent dove, circled away, came back. I found I was holding my breath: a foolish impulse. The other two canoes had moved apart, their drummers falling silent. We were the only ones remaining. And as it drew close—

  “Now!” Suhail and I cried as one, and dove in.

  It was a mad dash through the water. In some ways, this is the hardest part of riding a sea-serpent; you must anticipate when its head will rise high enough for you to seize hold, and then launch yourself for it early enough to intercept. Suhail was soon far ahead of me, but I thundered on, arms windmilling through the waves. I saw the serpent’s head—a giant eye, staring at me with what I fancy was utter bafflement—and then it was going past, a quick slide of scales, and there was nothing for me to grab—

  There! The very end of a tendril brushed across my fingers. I seized it with both hands, then found myself dragged briefly under the surface as the serpent towed me along. I needed a second hold, but there was none nearby. I began to haul myself up the tendril as if climbing a rope. I had drawn heads like this one; I knew the spacing of those extremities, and would have a better chance of seizing a second one closer to the root.

  The serpent broke the surface again as I neared my goal; the fresh air came as a relief. My unwilling mount did not like the tug that resulted when my body dragged through the water, and preferred the lesser resistance of air. I slipped against the scales, rolling to the side; then I had another tendril in my left hand, and could plant my knees against the serpent’s body and take stock at last of my situation.

  I was alone on the serpent’s back. The canoes had drawn off; a splashing to one side was Suhail. He had missed his hold, but was gamely trying for another pass.

  The tendrils in my hands were fat and slick, and I could not forget that they were parts of a living creature’s body, but apart from that, they were not much different from reins. The serpent was not trained as a horse was to respond to the simple laying of the reins along his
neck, but I could steer him as an inexperienced rider might: by pulling very hard on one side.

  This was not quite as effective as I might have hoped. I felt like a child again, astride a horse much too large for me, who took little notice of my weak efforts. But it was not wholly useless, either. Little by little, the serpent turned toward Suhail.

  He got hold of one tendril as we passed. The rest, however, were beneath him in the water. Suhail began a grab for one of these, but aborted it; I found out later that he had made the same calculation as I, which was that for him to take hold that far from my own position would encourage the serpent to roll, toppling me from my perch.

  At this point I made a gamble. I dropped my left rein, transferring that hand to the other tendril, and then reached my right hand out to Suhail.

  It very nearly landed us both back in the sea. I am not exceptionally strong, and I lacked good traction against the serpent’s hide; its scales cut the knees of my trousers to ribbons, and some of my skin beneath. Suhail’s weight almost dragged me down. But the serpent inadvertently assisted us, rolling to its left, which brought Suhail upward; and when our scrambling about was done, we held three tendrils between us, sharing the one in the middle.

  Whereupon I realized that we were, indeed, riding a dragon.

  I cannot honestly recommend the practice to my readers. Apart from the number of Keongans who have been killed attempting this very feat, it is not very comfortable. The ragged cuts on my knees and elbows stung unmercifully. Every time the serpent dove, I was buffeted by the water until it realized the error of its ways and surfaced once more. Again and again it drew in water and expelled it in a blast, for that was its defense against what troubled it, and the beast’s mind could not encompass the fact that this annoyance could not be disposed of in such fashion; but it came near to working regardless, for the shuddering of the serpent’s body whenever this happened threatened to dislodge us. There was no moment of the entire experience that was not a precarious struggle to stay aboard.