Carousel Seas – eARC

by Sharon Lee

  I looked down. The quarter sandwich I’d called for mine was pretty mangled. Well. I wasn’t hungry anyway. I had a swallow of ice tea, and shook my head, feeling helpless, and hopeless, and screwed over—familiar feelings from the past, which I didn’t at all appreciate revisiting in this particular present.

  “What else?” Borgan asked. He’d eaten half the sandwich while I was busy glaring and moping. I pointed at the quarter remaining.

  “You’d better have that. I’m not hungry.”

  “I see that,” he said, and picked up the quarter. “But there’s something more than this thing with the park bothering you. Care to tell me?”

  I shook my head.

  “By my calculation, you’ve put up with enough from me tonight. What say I go home and sleep it off, and we’ll try again tomorrow?”

  “Now, see, if I just let you wander off alone, you’ll brood, you won’t sleep, and tomorrow you’ll be tired and miserable, too. Then you’ll start thinking about how you’re not good at relationships and that I deserve better, and that’s just a slope I’d rather not start sliding down.” He gave me a half-smile, his eyes serious.

  “You’re getting good at this,” I said, between amused and irritable, because he was right. Damn him.

  “It’s taking study, but I’m willing to put in the work, if you are.”

  ’Way too good.

  I glared at him. He smiled at me.

  Okay, I know when I’m licked.

  “Well, then,” I said, briskly, “if you really want it, I was wondering how incompetent a Guardian has to be, who can’t stop this crap from happening. I’m Guardian, and here’s people selling the land, and there’s not one damned thing I can do to stop it!”

  Okay, that’d gotten a little heated. I took a deep breath, and met Borgan’s eye.

  “Maybe I can contrive a volcano; scare the developers away.”

  “Be rough on the locals.”

  “I guess. But so will condos, a buncha townies outta work, and nothing to draw the tourists.”

  “Kate, you’re a Guardian, not a god. You can’t dictate what people do. Their lives, their duty, and their magic—that’s nothing to do with you. Your life, your duty, your magic—mindin’ that’s enough, ain’t it?”

  I bit my lip and met his eye.

  “The really tough part is that I’d been starting to think that I—that having a Guardian on the spot had…begun to turn the town around. New businesses coming in; folks getting together to talk about how to build us back up…”

  “So now it looks like the luck crumpled up and blew away—an’ that’s your fault?”

  “Something like.”

  He made a soft noise; something like hmph, and turned his attention to his sandwich. I finished my ice tea, and tried to think happy thoughts. Instead, I found myself wondering what the batwing horse—pardon me, Leynore, the Opal of Dawn, Princess of Daknowyth, the Land of Midnight—was doing just then.

  Honestly, Kate, I thought crankily, if you miss her that much, maybe you should open the World Gate and go pay her a visit.

  Or maybe not.

  “So,” Borgan said, gathering up the sandwich wrappings and stuffing them back into the bag. “You wanna go for a swim?”

  I blinked at him, for an instant entirely at a loss.

  “I’m not such a good swimmer,” I said, when I’d finally parsed the sentence. “Tarva taught me, but I haven’t had much practice lately.”

  “You’ll do fine,” he told me. “’Sides which, you’ll be with an expert. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  Of all the stupid, unenforceable things that can be said in any or all of the Six Worlds, I won’t let anything bad happen to you has got to be among the stupidest and the most unenforceable.

  And yet, it’s so warming…so comforting, to hear it.

  “You’re on,” I said.

  We got up from the table, precariously deposited our trash in a receptacle overflowing with pizza boxes, and walked toward the beach. Borgan extended his hand, and I took it, feeling the frisson of contact, and a ripple of desire.

  There were people on the beach: couples sitting in the sand, cuddling under shared towels; couples walking, like Borgan and me, hand in hand; a few singletons at the wander; and some few boisterous gaggles of teens. We could hear the band playing at Neptune’s with really admirable clarity, shouts and laughter and snatches of conversation. The lights spilling from the Pier cast the nearby beach and the various walkers and snugglers into a sort of twilight, where everything was a silhouette.

  Borgan led me on an angle—toward the water line under the Pier, until we stepped from twilight to deep shadow, striped here and there with light escaping from above.

  “We’ll go in here, so’s not to give anybody a start,” Borgan said, walking us straight down to the water between the pilings.

  “If we’re going swimming, I’d better at least leave my shoes on the emergency stairs,” I said, pulling back a little on his hand.

  He kept on walking. “You’ll be fine,” he said. I saw his eyes glint—dark inside the darkness. “Trust me.”

  Well, I did; so I let him lead me to the water and into the surf…

  “Deep breath, now.”

  I obeyed, filling my lungs as Borgan’s hand tightened around mine.

  A wave broke over my head…

  …and I was among the waters.

  * * *

  I’d been in the sea with Borgan twice before.

  The first time, he’d knocked me over the so-called safety rail around Neptune’s on the Pier, and turned himself into a harbor seal so he could give me a ride into the beach. The situation was a little more complicated than that, and I acquit him of malice, though not of having a sense of humor unbefitting a Guardian.

  The second time, I’d just missed dying, was too weak to walk, and Borgan had been in what I later deduced was a towering rage, spending power like it was…well, water.

  That time, he’d wrapped me inside his magic, stalked into the water at the Pier, and stalked out, both of us perfectly dry, onto the beach directly in front of my house. The whole journey took longer to tell than accomplish, just a moment when I was cool, bodiless, and fluid, before returning to the solidity of dry land.

  This time wasn’t like either of those.

  I was fully conscious; I was aware of my body, and of holding Borgan’s hand. I could see, though not well, because of the amount of sand being roiled by the surf. Though I wasn’t swimming, I was moving, and the sensation was exactly of being among the waters, rather than passing through.

  Ribbons of water caressed me, each one distinct—cool, warm, chaste, seductive, dangerous. I thought that I might make sense of them—read them, like I read the land—if I could have a moment of stillness and quiet…

  …but apparently stillness and quiet was not what this outing—this swim—was about.

  Borgan—I assumed that we were traveling via Borgan-power—kept us moving along at a brisk clip. The water was clearer now, which I guessed meant we were beyond the breakers. Sand dollars, kelp leaves, and small fishes went past us—or we, them—and I was abruptly aware of a change in the substance we were passing through; it became warmly curious, even amused.

  It…giggled.

  And suddenly, Borgan and I weren’t alone in our passage through the waters. Other bodies rode the flow with us—beside us, over and under us, surrounding us with goodwill…and song.

  It flowed like the waters, that song, but rather than buoying me, it…informed me. Passing weightless through the waters as I had been, still I felt…lighter, brighter, lighter still—and suddenly we were flying, all of us, the ribbons of water shattering as the wind and the sky received me. I took a deep breath, and fell with the rest of us, joyously reunited with the waters.

  As one, we turned—and then they fell away, peeling off, leaving behind joy, and laughter, and a lingering sense of lightness. Borgan tugged on my hand, guiding me into sandy waters, fr
om which we rose again into the free air, my ears filled with the memory of a wave breaking against the shore.

  * * * * *

  The water moved, rocking her as she dreamed.

  As she remembered.

  She remembered a palace of living coral set within gardens of kelp.

  She remembered her lovers, one ebon, one ivory—demons, enforcers of her will, guardians; and the only creatures she had ever trustred.

  She remembered the taste, the touch, the feel of the sea that had made her a goddess.

  She remembered a…delegation, come to offer sweet lies in a poisoned cup. She’d laughed at them.

  She remembered that it had been a mistake to do so. A very serious mistake.

  She remembered the coral walls as she had last seen them—shattered and dying, and her ebon lover, screaming as he died in the trap meant for her, while the white one howled and spread himself among the waters.

  She remembered her enemies, at whom she had laughed; how their eyes gleamed with appetite; how they defiled her, and stripped her power, painfully, away.

  She remembered being bound, the bonds burning cold, the passage between the Worlds, and the Wind that had knotted and torn her hair.

  She remembered the woman with her cold face and angry eyes, her power rooted and stern.

  And she remembered the hippocampus.

  Such was her distress and confusion, she had thought it an actual Dragon of the Sea, and cried out to it to aid her.

  She remembered laughter and a punishing shove against the creature’s side; she remembered despair, as she understood that the hippocampus was a dead wooden carving…

  …and nothing more.

  She woke then, weeping, to the gentle rocking of the sea that was not hers. Woke, knowing her true name—and that she was a goddess no longer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Friday, July 7

  High Tide 8:48 P.M.

  Sunset 8:25 P.M.

  Sometime during the night, the skies opened and rain poured out.

  The good thing about a downpour on one of the precious High Season days was Borgan didn’t go out to fish. We took joyous advantage of that, then napped, and woke a second time to make a late breakfast of coffee and toast spread liberally with Mrs. Kristanos’ homemade strawberrry jam, while the rain hammered the deck above us.

  “Good day to curl up in the bunk an’ read,” Borgan said, splitting the dregs of the pot between our two mugs. “Play cards, maybe.”

  I sighed.

  “I’m not against either of those, on principle, but I’m going to be needing to relieve Vassily at the carousel in about forty-five minutes. I only hope he hasn’t expired of boredom.”

  “Not gonna be much business today, up at the park, will there?”

  “In this?” I waggled a hand over my head, meaning to indicate the weather above us. “People’re more likely to drive out to the strip and grab a movie, or stay inside and read. Or play cards.” I sipped coffee. “For which I blame them not at all, even if it does mean a loss on the day.”

  “Marilyn likely to shut down?”

  “She might call an early night, if this keeps up. Since there’s no way of knowing if it will keep up, though, she’ll keep us open a while yet.”

  I finished my coffee and put the mug on the table.

  “Well, at least I can go between or whatever; save getting wet.”

  Borgan gave me a sideways glance. “You figure out how that works, yet?”

  “Near as I can figure, it works that I think of somewhere I want to be—and I’m there.”

  My nerves twittered, and I looked at Borgan harder. “You think it’s a trap?”

  Damn it…

  Borgan reached across the table and put his hand over mine.

  “I think it’s an artifact, and I think you need to figure out how it works, and what it costs, if anything.” He pressed my hand warmly. “I don’t think it’s a trap—not an intentional trap. But—things change here.”

  I took a breath.

  “You been through everything you got from that share?”

  “Every—” I stared at him, feeling slightly sick as his meaning sunk in. “I—Mr. Ignat’ watched while I…while I accessed…Prince Aesgyr’s reasons, and what memories he—his power—left with me.”

  I was feeling more than slightly sick, now.

  “And you’re having memory-dreams.” Borgan wasn’t letting go of my hand, and I was glad of it. “Might be what you want to do, Kate, is have the old gentleman, or somebody else you trust, watch while you go through all of it.”

  Right.

  I took a deep breath, and another one. Suddenly, I wanted the land’s reassuring touch, familiar and loved—to balance…whatever tainted things that had been given me, without my knowledge or consent.

  “You up for it?” I asked. Borgan has twice now held my spirit safe while I did something dangerous, not to say foolish. I trusted him to do it a third time, no muss, no fuss.

  “Sure,” he said. “You wanna pencil that in for tonight? I’ll come by the carousel at closing.”

  “It’s a plan.” Another deep breath, my topmost feeling relief. I could fix this. Borgan would help. Nothing to worry about—well, not much, anyway.

  I smiled, lifted the hand that was over mine and kissed his knuckles.

  “I’d better get moving,” I said.

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “No reason for both of us to get soaked.”

  * * *

  In fact, I arrived at the carousel dry, by reason of the jikinap shield I wrapped myself in—calm—and by reason of a nice commune with the land as I walked, about fifteen minutes before the end of Vassily’s shift.

  As it turned out, my timing was perfect.

  Baxter Avenue was deserted, a flash stream running down the middle. The greenie who tended the lobster toss was wearing a yellow slicker with the hood pulled up, and had let down the tarp on the side of the booth facing the Oriental Funhouse in what was probably a futile attempt to stay dry.

  The lights were on at the funhouse, but the giant samurai was silent, looking faintly miserable in the downpour.

  Summer’s Wheel was lit, too, but Brand was nowhere in sight. Probably back in the utility shed, looking at one of the girlie magazines he kept up on a high shelf. His “rainy day fund,” as he called them.

  The window was open at Tony Lee’s but I didn’t see Tony or Anna. Most likely, they were having a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

  In all, the rainy day would have been a nice interlude—a gift from the weather gods to busy people who’d earned a break—except for the part where nobody was in the park, and that’s not the way ride operators and carryouts make money to tide them over the very long rainy day called off-Season.

  The carousel was lit; every light on the sweeps a star, and Vassily had had the native wit to turn on the outside lights. I oughta give that kid a raise, I thought—but that wasn’t possible; greenie compensation was set by the contract the agency had with the Chamber.

  But, I thought suddenly, snapping my jikinap rain shield shut as I came under roof, I might be able to give him a present. That idea had appeal. Of course, I didn’t know if it was feasible.

  Anna would, though.

  The kid in question was not at the operator’s station, for which I couldn’t blame him, and even if I was inclined to be miffed, he hadn’t gone far.

  He was, in fact, sitting astride the knight’s charger, one hand on the powerful armored neck, as if he soothed a living mount, his long, lean legs dangling beyond the stirrups. His head was turned away from me, as if he was contemplating the mural that hid the center pole and generator from public view.

  “Slow day?” I asked, leaning on the safety rail.

  He turned his head easily, not at all like I had startled him.

  “There has been not one person wishing to ride today. It is very sad, but also very peaceful.”

  He frowned then, the faintest of wrinkl
es appearing between high-arching reddish brows.

  “It is stopped raining?” he asked, then shook his head with a glance toward the tin roof on which the rain was playing a drum solo. “I am too easily fooled. Of course, it still rains.”

  I glanced down at myself, more than slightly chagrined. There was no way I could have stayed completely dry in the current downpour, something I had forgotten in my desire not to drown.

  Honestly, Kate; try not to blow your cover.

  The land gave a sharp bark; I spun ’round, and got some distance from the fence—instinct, and wouldn’t Grandfather Aeronymous’ arms master have been proud to observe it—and watched Doris Vannerhoff, the operator of the log flume and the single holdout on the letter we’d sent to Fun Country Management—stomp under the carousel’s roof.

  It was amply obvious that Doris had neither used a magically crafted shield to protect her from the weather, nor provided herself with an umbrella. She was wearing a yellow slicker with the water running off of it in sheets, and she was soaked from the knees down.

  She was mad, too. So mad that she started yelling the second she caught sight of me.

  “So that was a good idea, wasn’t it, Archer? Challenge Management, draw a line in the sand because you people up here’re afraid of a little honest work! Making expensive demands—well, what the bloody hell did you think they were gonna do—you and that fool runs the train set?”

  “Afternoon, Doris,” I said, and tried to send some calm into her through the land. It bounced.

  I was impressed; it’s rare you find somebody who puts so much effort into being pissed off.

  She stopped within grabbing range. I forced myself to stay right where I was, and tucked my hands into my back pockets.

  “If you already talked to Jess, you don’t have to do a replay just for me; she’ll give me the highlights.”

  “The famous Archer wit. Well, I’ll tell you something—I ain’t laughing! As for even trying to talk to Jess Robald about anything sensible, I guess I know better’n that. Woman’s a fool, always been, an’ if there were still state sanitoriums, you’d’ve never had the chance to use her as a cat’s paw! Me, I know where the brains are in this. It’s you, just like it always was! I just come up here to ask you how it feels to single-handedly close this place down around our ears? You feel good about that, Archer?”