Beyond the Pool of Stars

by Howard Andrew Jones

  “Thank you.”

  “Death’s harder on the ones left behind,” she said sagely.

  The sailors and salvage crew dispersed in groups, heading home in the horse-drawn carts family and friends had brought for them. Kellic had a carriage waiting for the Galanors. He offered to escort them home himself, but they demurred, and Alderra called out to Mirian that she hoped she’d be in touch soon.

  Kellic stood at the end of the drive, smiling, hand raised in farewell until the carriage and carts rolled away.

  Once again his eyes swept over Mirian. “Couldn’t you at least have borrowed some shoes?”

  “Couldn’t you at least have handed over your cane? The jewels in that would have been a fine gift to the families of those dead sailors.”

  “I have to maintain appearances.” Kellic started up the drive, punching the cane into the ground every other step, as if he actually required its use.

  “Does that include potions to alter your appearance?”

  His stride lagged but didn’t stop. He looked over his shoulder. “Sometimes it does. Some of us have to stay and manage things.”

  His sharp tone was so different from what she remembered. What had happened to him? She held back from asking as she followed.

  A cart came rattling down the road. She turned to see it was pulled by a swayback horse. Two men sat with the driver on the rickety bench.

  “Are you coming?” Kellic called from up the drive.

  The cart drew closer, slowed. The two men on the bench beside the driver were silhouetted by the sky and sea behind them, and appeared to be in conversation.

  Finally the driver reined in his horse, and his head turned her way. “Pardon me, miss. I’m looking for the Raas family estate. Is this it?”

  “It is.”

  “Oh, good.”

  He snapped the reins and brought the horse up the steep drive and on toward the house. Mirian stood in the grass to one side as the cart rolled up. As it came closer, she recognized her sea chest in the back. Both of the passengers stared at her, wide-eyed. “A spirit!” said the nearer. “That’s her! The one who dived over the side!”

  At some other time, Mirian might have had a little fun with them, but she reassured them she was flesh and blood, then tipped them a few coppers. They were still a little wary of her even after she had them carry the chest through the stout oaken door in the manor wall and onto the porch, but they promised to convey her thanks to Captain Akimba.

  Kellic watched the whole thing, arms crossed.

  “You should probably have had them carry it into the house for you, don’t you think?”

  “I can manage.”

  “I’ll do it, then.” Frowning, Kellic handed his cane off to her and bent low. He grunted in surprise as he lifted the chest.

  Mirian pushed the door open and was immediately greeted with a familiar and comforting mix of scents, a blend of old wood and cooking spices and worn leather, a trace of her mother’s perfume and her father’s pipe smoke and a hundred other things.

  “Do you carry this wherever you go?” Kellic’s voice was strained.

  “Not everywhere.”

  He moved ahead of her. “Where’s this salvage drop you’re taking the Galanors?”

  “That’s a secret.”

  “Don’t joke, Mirian.”

  “I’m not joking. It must remain an absolute secret until departure time.”

  “I run the business now, Mirian.” Kellic halted. He turned to face her as they heard the pad of slippered feet in the rooms beyond. A lantern light bobbed as someone approached them down the hallway.

  “Lady Galanor has asked me to lead the expedition, Kellic. And she’s sworn me to secrecy.”

  “I see.” His tone was sharp. “So you’ll simply take over, then?”

  “Just this drop, Kellic. Then it’s yours to run. Into the ground again, if you wish.”

  She wished she’d held back from the last. It had slipped out, and with a lantern suddenly shining on the both of them and the glad cry of two old servants who saw her, there was no chance to apologize. Looking at the hardened expression on her brother’s face, she wasn’t sure it would’ve done any good if she had.

  Old, round-cheeked Venta squealed like a little girl and called out for Mirian’s mother.

  “I’ll just take this back to your room.” Kellic stiffly shouldered past.

  Venta’s husband, stooped with age, was grinning as well. Then Mirian saw her mother.

  Tall, slim, garbed in an orange wrap belted in brown, she was as elegant as ever. She stared at Mirian from the courtyard archway as if she were looking at a ghost.

  Odonya Raas had been just out of her teens when Leovan married her, and in her early forties she was still a handsome woman, with the slim build typical of Bas’o people. Her dark face was reminiscent of Mirian’s in many ways, though rounder, softer. He full lips opened in wordless wonder, and then she beckoned her daughter into her arms. The women embraced fiercely.

  Venta excused herself, saying that she’d cook something, but her precise words were lost in flood from Mirian’s mother.

  “Let me look at you!” Her mother held her at arm’s length. “By my ancestors! Your hair’s so wet. You’ll ruin it if you keep it wet like that. And what is it you’ve come home in, child?”

  “Rendak’s shirt, Mother.” Then she hastened to explain, lest her mother get the wrong idea about how she came to be wearing it.

  They stood there in the dim entryway, lit only by the lantern Venta left them. Mirian provided an abbreviated version of her homecoming. Kellic returned near the end of the tale and waited beside their astonished mother.

  “Kellic,” Odonya asked. “Have you heard this?”

  “Something of it.”

  “Now, what is with that face? Aren’t you happy to see your sister?”

  “Quite happy,” he said with funereal dignity. “She’s found a new salvage drop for us, since this one went so badly.”

  “Has she?”

  “But she won’t tell me where. She says that she’s sworn to secrecy.”

  “Kellic,” Mirian began.

  “Sworn to whom?” Odonya asked.

  “Lady Galanor. Mirian’s going to manage things for a while.” Kellic took the cane from where it was leaning against the side of the wall. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Where are you going?” Odonya demanded.

  “I have a few errands before a late dinner.”

  “No you don’t.” Odonya’s voice was stern. “You haven’t seen your sister in seven years. You’re sharing a meal with her.”

  “I’ve waited seven years,” Kellic said as he opened the door. “I can wait a little longer.” He slammed it behind him.

  Odonya sighed in disgust. “He’s rushing off to that woman again.”

  “A girlfriend?”

  “One he won’t introduce me to. Well, come on then. It’ll just be the two of us. Have you eaten?”

  “No.” She was famished, and she could already smell sizzling pork.

  “You have something proper to change into?”

  “Ivrian carried my sea chest back to my room.”

  “Get yourself dry then, girl, and we’ll eat.”

  It was strange to join Mother at the long dining room table, and Mirian was all too conscious of the two empty chairs, one at the head where her father should have sat, the other across from her where a younger, smiling Kellic should have been.

  Her mother kept conversation light, asking her further about the attack, and her explorations, and her Bas’o cousins, whom Mirian had seen far more recently.

  Afterward, they retired to the slatted wooden chairs in the courtyard. A low fire burned in the small stone pit at its center, for Odonya Raas felt the evening’s chill.

  Both women fell silent. Mirian was wishing she’d handled Kellic better. What had turned her gracious younger brother into the miserly would-be lordling who’d met her at the docks? She felt her fists ballin
g in anger as she remembered the casual way he’d dismissed assistance to the families of the dead sailors, all while holding his expensive cane.

  She wanted to ask her mother about him, and any number of things, but after the meal it was much simpler to sit in silence with her and admire the stars.

  Mirian found her gaze drifting to the other doors that opened onto the courtyard: the one that led to the room she’d called her own for eighteen years, and where she’d just changed out of Rendak’s shirt and into a yellow dress. The door in the corner led to her father’s office and the second-story watchtower rising above the overgrown acacias and the home’s slanted roof.

  Her mother’s eyes followed the path of Mirian’s gaze. “I used to sit up there every evening, when you were out with Leo.” She had told her the same story a hundred times, but this time the ending was different. “I still watched, most days. But you know, the day he died, I was in the market. I didn’t find out until I walked in and Rendak was waiting on the porch.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mother.”

  Odonya sighed and faced her daughter. “There was no need to keep things secret from Kellic, was there? This is his business.”

  “Not for much longer, to hear tell of it.”

  Odonya’s eyebrows climbed her forehead. “And who told of it?”

  “Lady Galanor. She’s ready to pull up stakes.”

  “Kellic can’t be blamed if the pickings are slim, any more than your father could. You think you can do better?”

  “A leader leads from the front.”

  “So you’re taking over Kellic’s business.”

  Her mother’s tone clawed at her patience. “I’m saving it. Not taking it over. I’ll run just this one job. Afterward I’ll turn everything back over to him.” She held off commenting about how well she thought him suited for the post. Maybe she wasn’t seeing him at his best.

  Odonya looked at her sidelong. “You must have something very big planned.”

  “It may be,” Mirian said.

  Odonya let out a long sigh, then shook her head. “You want to salvage with the lizardfolk, don’t you?”

  “How did you know?” Mirian asked in astonishment.

  “I know what Lady Galanor wants. Don’t do it.”

  Mirian’s exasperation grew. “Why not? You might have mentioned you’d borrowed money on both the house and the ship in one of your letters. I could have sent money.”

  “It would take a fortune at this point. Have you gone and gotten yourself a diamond mine in the Bandu Hills?”

  Mirian ignored the jibe. “So it’s true?”

  “It’s true.” Her mother’s chin rose defiantly.

  “And how do you expect to survive without a house?”

  Odonya indicated the homestead with a sharp jerk of her arm “None of this is worth your death. Rendak says a sea devil shark killed your father when he was scrounging the Chelish fleet wreck, but Leo knew how to handle them. It wasn’t the sea devils. It was folk who knew he was going to work for Lady Galanor.”

  Mirian stilled. She started to repeat what Rendak had told her, but Odonya pressed on.

  “There’re spies out there who know very well that Lady Galanor’s trying to find funds for Sargava. They don’t care who they kill to stop her. You sign on with ‘Alderra,’ and it’s your death warrant.”

  “I’ve already shaken on it.”

  Her mother’s eyes might have been coals, so bright did they seem to burn. “You stupid child! You let that woman run you!”

  “She didn’t ‘run me’! What choice did I have if I’m to save this place?” Her mother didn’t answer, so Mirian pressed on. “What are you planning to do, Mother? Go back to selling carvings on the beach?”

  Odonya raised her head and looked away. In profile, she looked every inch the Bas’o warrior woman she had never been, for she’d been raised by a Mulaa aunt who recognized her artistic talents at an early age. It was that aunt who’d taken her to the beach the same day Leovan happened by her display of wood carvings. Love at first sight, Father had called it in his oft-repeated rendition of the moment.

  “Mother, look at me.”

  Odonya’s chin rose higher.

  Mirian’s tongue grew sharp to draw her out. “You could dress Kellic up in bright Mulaa robes and have him carry the goods—”

  Odonya bared her teeth. “Do you mock your own blood?”

  “Kellic wouldn’t survive anywhere but here. And neither will you. And you know it!”

  “There’s where you’re wrong. I’m sick of this place and what it’s done to me. What it’s done to Kellic. What it did to your father.” She put a hand up to her face to wipe moisture from the corner of her eyes. Her voice was still fierce. “This city ate him away from the inside, Mirian.”

  “He would have given his life to protect his family’s holdings.”

  “He did. Is that what you mean to do?”

  “I’ll manage things.”

  “No. There’s enough money left for an apartment in the city, at least for a few years. Kellic will have to adjust.”

  “And what about our servants, and our sailors, and Rendak and Gombe and Tokello? What will they do if you give up? This family has a responsibility to them!”

  “They can find other work.”

  “Can they? Who will they salvage for, Mother?”

  She saw her mother’s jaw tightening.

  Mirian swung her legs off the reclined chair and sat on its edge, sandaled feet on the tiles. “It was you who taught me to stand by my obligations. This homestead has been in Raas hands for over two hundred years. We owe it to those who fought and suffered and died to build this place. They’re buried out back of the stables. Would some stranger tend their graves?” She halted for a moment, watching her mother’s expression for signs of change. She saw none, even though she knew her mother’s people placed as much or more importance on gravesites as colonials. “And we have an obligation to the living who depend upon us for their livelihood.”

  Her mother’s response sounded almost petulant. “Says the woman who wandered away for seven years.”

  Mirian spoke quickly, for she sensed her mother readying to interrupt. “Six and a half. I can handle myself in the wilds. I can handle myself below the waves. And I’m the one who stopped that pirate attack.”

  Odonya’s gaze was still stern, but there was a hint of steely pride in the set of her lip.

  “I’m going,” Mirian said.

  Her mother was silent for a long moment. “Stubborn,” she said at last. “Just like your father.”

  “No. Not just like.”

  “No.” Her mother reached slowly out for her hand, squeezed it tight before releasing and climbing to her feet with a sigh. “Come on, then.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I thought you needed to know about the dive. I know damned well your father didn’t tell Lady Galanor about it, or she would have someone else running down those lizardfolk.”

  Mirian stood, watching as her mother stepped into the house and returned with a lit candle. She used it to light a rusty lantern hung on one of the vine-wrapped pillars supporting the courtyard’s overhang.

  “Come, child.”

  Her mother strode across the tiled courtyard to open the weathered teak door to Leovan’s office. She replaced the keychain about her neck and held up the lantern.

  The room was ordered and neat—shipshape, her father would have said. The sweet bouquet of his pipe tobacco still lingered, along with the comforting smell of old paper. Rolls of parchment and charts were organized on long shelves behind glass panels. The bookshelves were liberally sprinkled with knickknacks, many of which Mirian recognized as her mother’s carvings, but there were other odds and ends besides—a framed oil painting of her great-great-grandmother Mellient on the wall across from the desk hung beside a lovingly detailed chart of Desperation Bay. Hand-drawn, she knew, by Mellient and her husband.

  Her father’s heroes. Not just becaus
e they were bold and daring, but, she now understood, because they were rebellious. Her great-great-grandfather was said to have been at least a quarter native, of the seafaring Ijo people. And that, to hear tell, had raised more than a few eyebrows among the neighbors.

  Odonya closed the door behind her and stepped past the old desk, imported all the way from a Chelish port when Mirian’s remote ancestor, a fourth son of a minor noble, departed to claim land for himself. Mirian’s gaze lingered for only a moment on the heavy furniture, recalling childhood days spent pressed up against its cool black side, drawing in her sketchbook while her father scanned charts or consulted family journals.

  There was a treasure trove of information stored in the volumes that lined the bookshelves, provided one could decipher the family code and had the sailing knowledge to make use of it. Mirian used the same code in her Pathfinder journal.

  Mirian gazed up at Mellient’s portrait again, the plain woman with the copper-tinged black locks and the high-bridged nose who’d been so important to her family ancestry. Cracks had long since begun to show in the paint.

  Mirian hadn’t realized how different the painting of Mellient truly was until she’d seen other portraits from the same period. Those early Chelish colonists had been so determined to retain their cultural heritage that they had already ossified into an imitation of dignity. Their grim faces in the Hall of Councils had frightened her as a little girl.

  Great-great-grandmother Mellient had insisted the painter show her smiling, and that she be depicted with the tan most colonists developed rather than the phony lily-white used in painting aristocratic skin tones of the time. As a little girl, Mirian had been disappointed Mellient wasn’t more lovely, but she now recognized a strength of character in her appearance that was its own kind of beauty.

  Odonya had been watching her. “Pay attention, child. You’d think you were half in love with her the way your father was.” Odonya gently pressed a dark finger to the glassed image next to the painting. A long peninsula extended east above Desperation Bay, northwest of all Sargava’s coastal settlements. This was a nautical chart, so the only topographical feature indicated on this portion of the map was the wide mouth of the Oubinga River.