Scimitar Moon

by Chris A. Jackson

  If she could pull down the pillars, and then somehow the main stair, the house would be cut in half. The north half would burn, but the south half would be saved. Her hopes dwindled, however, when she mounted the stair and dashed down the hall to her grandmother’s room, for flames had already spread into the hall. She put one bucket down and splashed the other as well as she could at the worst part of the fire, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. The second bucket didn’t do much more, so she ran back down the stairs to get more.

  Her buckets clattered to the ground and a convulsive screech of hope escaped her throat when she reached the front steps. A buckboard with a team of four stout horses was rounding the drive at a gallop.

  “Koybur!” she shouted, waving her arms unnecessarily as he brought the team up short right in front of her. “Koybur, we need to pull the foyer down! The north wing is a loss! Please tell me this is the shipwright’s wagon!” She vaulted into the bed of the wagon and shouted a yip of triumph at the coils of wrist-thick rope that lay beneath her bare feet.

  “I’ll take one end!” she shouted to him, snatching up the eye that was spliced into the end of the line and flinging an arm through it before jumping down. “Tie the other end to the harness!”

  “Hang on, Cyn!” His shout stopped her for a moment. “Where’s yer gram?”

  “Just tie the other end!” she screamed, shaking her head in the haze of smoke and ash that was blowing down from her burning home. “It’s too late for anything else!”

  He stared at her in shock for a moment, then set the brake and swung around into the bed of the wagon. In a moment the other end of the heavy line was in his good right hand and he was threading it under the seat and lashing it to the harness brace.

  Cynthia dashed up the steps and into the smoke-filled entry hall. Above her, ghostly gray-orange tendrils of flame crawled and quested along the alabaster ceiling, hungry tongues searching for something to devour. The entire front of the house rested upon the two central pillars, the back was an open patio behind the stair. She flung one end of the rope around the left hand pillar and flipped a quick bowline into it. The last thing she wanted now was a knot she couldn’t untie. She jerked twice to seat the knot, forgetting about the blisters on her palm. Blood slicked the line and tears welled once again in her eyes, but it wasn’t important. The house, her home, was the only thing that mattered now. It was the only thing she had left.

  She dropped the rope and stared at the pillar for a moment. She had no idea how deeply it was seated into the flagstones. Perhaps it just sat on top and could be jerked out from under the ceiling like a weak table leg. If it was set into a foot of rock, they might as well try to pull down the tower. She whispered a quick oath to Odea, wondering if the goddess would listen to someone who’d only been to sea once in her life, and raced back out the front door.

  Brolen was hitching the two bays in front of Koybur’s team, and the sight of the six stout horses sent a thrill of hope up Cynthia’s spine. A team like that should be able to pull the whole damned house down! She rushed up to the men and clapped Koybur on the shoulder.

  “I tied it around the northern main pillar! It might take out the porch, too, if you pull at the right angle!”

  “Cyn, wait! Are you sure you want to—”

  “The whole damn thing will burn if we don’t!” She glanced at Brolen as he stepped away from the hastily rigged team. The heavy rope was tied directly into their harnesses, and the horses stamped and pawed nervously as embers drifted down on the wind and smoke filled the air. “Drive, Koybur!”

  He nodded once and pulled himself up into the driver’s seat. Brolen had threaded additional reins from the front pair; Koybur wrapped one side around his maimed left hand and took the other in his right. He looked back at the lay of the coiled line leading into the burning house and eased the team forward. When only about two feet of slack remained, he lashed the reins hard and shouted at the skittish team.

  Cynthia’s eyes were locked onto the house. Through the open front door she could see the rope strain against the pillar’s base. She saw the ornate molding splinter, watched the marble facing crack and buckle up like a rug beneath a chair leg. The reins lashed against the horses’ flanks, Koybur shouted again, and the thick rope strained.

  The pillar gave way.

  The horses lunged forward as the massive wooden support flipped outward and smashed through the foyer. White painted splinters flew in all directions as the smaller pillar of the porch was shattered and flung aside. The rope tightened again as the pillar fell flat and half the roof chased it on its descent, but then the sturdy team jerked the massive thing right out the front of the house, dragging roof, wall, and all, along with it.

  “WHOA!” Koybur shouted, reining in the team and turning them around. Cynthia was already racing to the huge pile of rubble, fighting to untie the rope and yank it free. One glance at the house confirmed that her plan would work if they could do the same with the huge sweeping stair, but flames were already licking greedily at the top.

  “Take the team around back, Koybur!” Cynthia shouted, finally succeeding with the knot. “We’ll pull the stairs out through the patio!” She looked at Brolen apologetically. He had spent a good deal of his life keeping this old house standing, and now they were tearing it in half. “I’m sorry Brolen, but it’s the only way.”

  “Then we’d best get to it, I thinks!” He set his old jaw grimly and strode right into the rubble of the foyer, his long legs picking their way through the splintered wood and bent nails.

  “What’ll I do, Miss Cynthia?”

  She turned and stared at Marta, having forgotten the woman was even there.

  “There’ll be more people coming up from town. Tell them what we’re doing and have them douse the rest of the house with water from the well!”

  She turned and dashed into the ruined house even before Marta replied. Splinters and nails threatened her bare feet at every step, but she pressed on. When she reached the stair, she saw Brolen coming back the other way with a heavy broadaxe. With a sheepish grin, he began hacking a hole in the stair’s side facing. She hadn’t thought about how to attach the rope to the thing, but he obviously had a plan, so she edged past and ran through the hall to the breakfast room and out onto the patio.

  As Koybur pulled up, the long rope trailing out behind, she snatched up the end and headed back into the house. A ragged hole had been hacked in one side of the stair, and she could hear Brolen working on the other. A glance up confirmed that the fire was still confined to the north side of the house, but the smoke was billowing out the huge chasm left by the pillar’s departure, and flames licked the roof’s edge.

  She knelt and peered into the dark recesses under the stair. The space was filled with crates and chests, so she shoved inside and wormed her way through and among them, trying to ignore the dust and filth. She could see a ruddy glow before her where Brolen’s axe was doing its work, and nudged her way past an ancient bronze-strapped strongbox, ignoring the scrapes it left on her shoulder and stomach.

  “Brolen! Here!” The hacking stopped and his face appeared in the irregular hole. She thrust the eye of the rope at him. “Take it! I’ll go back and feed you slack. It has to reach back to the breakfast room!”

  “Yes’m!” he said, taking the loop of heavy rope from her and pulling hard. She yelped as it rasped past her, flinging dust and lint all around as she backed her way out. She was a wreck, covered in dust and a shirt that was in tatters, but it didn’t matter. They had to make this rope reach all the way around, or the plan wouldn’t work.

  She grasped the line and pulled, ignoring the searing pain of her blistered hand. Sparks and soot were starting to fall around her, and she knew time was short. She pulled and screamed for Koybur to give more slack, hoping he could hear her from out back. When the rope finally came taut and would yield no more, she raced through the hall to the breakfast room, only to find Brolen already tying a hasty knot.

 
“I hopes this’ll do, Miss. I figured if we jerked all the supports out from under the thing, it’d fall and we could just drag it out. I don’t know if it’ll fall, but I think it will.”

  “It better, Brolen, or we’re finished.” She cringed at the knot he’d tied, wondering if anything short of a knife would be able to free it after a team of six horses cinched it tight. Koybur had the wagon backed up almost to the patio, and Cynthia hopped in and slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Have at it, Koybur!” she yelled and snatched a handful of seat as the wagon lurched forward.

  The staircase supports were less massive than the pillar, only about the width of her outstretched hand, but there were many more of them. The horses trod forward, churning the soft ground, and the heavy rope tightened. For a moment the supports held, but then they fractured and cracked like kindling and the framework that Brolen had chopped through collapsed in wads of crumpled wood. Furniture, glass and crockery smashed and shattered as the horses pulled the entire bundle of splintered supports through the breakfast room and the patio. When Koybur finally stopped, a hole the size of the wagon itself had been cleared right back to the base of the stairs.

  But the stair itself still stood.

  “What the bloody hell’s holding the thing up?” she shouted, vaulting down from the wagon’s bed and starting back to the house. She skirted the pile of broken lumber and peered up at the mysteriously suspended staircase. Only the cross bracing at the top held it up, and the beams on the north side were already burning.

  “We’ve got to—”

  Nails squealed free from their wooden sheaths as two strong hands grasped Cynthia by the shoulders, lifting her right off the stones of the patio. No one heard her cry of alarm over the splintering, crashing demise of the grand staircase and most of the remaining roof. Some of the mess that fell where she had stood burned lazily, but nothing like the inferno that raged through the rest of the northern wing of the house.

  “Sorry ’bout that, Miss,” Brolen apologized, putting her down, “but that there stair was ’bout ready to come down on your head.”

  “Yeah, I... Uh, thanks.” She steadied herself and looked at the result of their mayhem. The fire was effectively isolated to the north half of the house, and would not reach the remnants of the fallen staircase until it worked its way to the lower floor. She turned to tell Koybur to start pulling anything flammable out of the way when shouts and thundering hooves interrupted her.

  The sailors and shopkeepers of Southaven swarmed into the front yard of the estate like an army, wielding buckets, axes, shovels and rope. Men and women poured from the beds of wagons, carts and buggies. They drained the horse trough in a single pass and started flinging its contents on the blazing house. Others drove their wagons around to the back and attacked the well with similar ferocity while still more wrenched and pulled and hacked at the remains of the staircase. By the time Cynthia could find half a dozen faces she knew, a clear path shone from the patio to the front porch.

  “Cynthia!” Rowland shouted above the din, shepherding Marta around the corner of the house. “What in Odea’s name happened, girl?”

  “I don’t know, Rowland,” she confessed as the shock of her ordeal finally took hold. “I woke—No, Mouse woke me!”

  “Mouse? A mouse woke you?” Rowland looked at her as if he thought she’d been drinking.

  “Not a mouse! The seasprite, Mouse! I thought he was gone but—” She looked around frantically. “Gods, I hope he wasn’t caught in the fire! But he woke me! I smelled smoke, and when I went to find Gramma there was nothing in there but fire. I tried to get to her but... And then the fire started to spread, and I... I couldn’t let it all burn!” She felt his long arms enfolding her, and realized she was bawling like a babe.

  She knew she should try to collect herself, try to help the sailors fight the fire or salvage things, but the wracking sobs just wouldn’t stop. She felt Marta’s gentle caress, and heard Koybur’s supportive words, and it was just easier to let the tears come. If only they could wash away the horrible image of the flames consuming her grandmother’s bed.

  CHAPTER Seven

  Among the Ashes

  Cynthia brushed an unruly lock of hair out of her eyes, leaving a streak of soot across her forehead. Ash caked her nails and saturated the bandage on her blistered hand. She felt something flutter against her hair, followed by a tug at her sooty locks, and smiled at Mouse’s attempt to help. He’d shown up when the last of the flames were quenched and hadn’t left her side since.

  She pressed her fists into the small of her back to ease the ache. About a third of the northern wing still remained to be sifted through. They’d been at it for most of the morning, and the heat of the day was beginning to take its toll.

  “Here, Cyn. You need somethin’ in yer stomach.”

  She turned and accepted a cloth-wrapped sandwich from Rowland, smiling weakly. “Thanks, Row.” She nodded toward the long table laden with food and drink that he and Brulo had set up for everyone. “Thanks for everything.” She took a bite, the wonderful flavors of seasoned roast mutton, spicy mustard, tomatoes and crispy lettuce exploding in her mouth. She chewed slowly, eyes closed in bliss.

  “Nothin’ you wouldn’t do fer us if the Starfish burned, I imagine.” He pushed a cool drink into her hand. “That’ll help wash it down.” She nodded and took a healthy swallow of the tangy juice. Mouse landed on the opposite rim of her mug and took a healthy draught, smacking his tiny lips. That the little sprite had come to back to her, and quite literally saved her life, warmed her heart. She had no idea where he had been all these years, but it didn’t matter. They were together again. Just like old times.

  “It could have been a lot worse, I suppose.” That had been Cynthia’s litany all morning. “Koybur saved the house, that’s for sure. If he hadn’t seen the flames and brought that wagon, we’d have lost it all.”

  Rowland chuckled ruefully. “Aye, he said he’d never been so thankful for his insomnia. Couldn’t sleep, so he figured he’d fetch a load of caulking twine from old Woolard, up the valley. He was on his way out of town when he saw the fire in yer gram’s window.”

  “Damn lucky.” She shook her head and finished the last of her sandwich, feeling guilty about calling anything about this catastrophe lucky. Her grandmother had burned to death in her bed. They would never know how the fire got started, not with the whole north wing reduced to ash and charred timbers.

  “Miss Cynthia!”

  She turned toward three men sorting through piles of salvaged junk with Marta. One waved her over. “Guess I better see what they want. Thanks again, Rowland.” She swallowed the rest of her drink and handed the glass to him with a nod.

  Along with the stairway, a number of crates, boxes, bags and chests had been dragged out onto the lawn. Four pitiful heaps of salvaged items lay on the grass. The largest by far was charred and useless junk ready to be carted off to the town refuse heaps. The next contained things that might be of use or could be sold at auction: clothes, jewelry, picture frames, eating utensils and the like.

  Cynthia would go through all this again herself, but doubted Marta would sell anything she might want. The third pile was of things to be kept, refinished, repaired or restored. The last pile consisted only of two long trunks and a smaller metal box.

  “We got the most of it, Miss Cynthia,” Flaven, the sailor in charge of the detail, said with a shrug. “Marta just wanted yer okay on these last three.”

  “What’s in them?” she asked, peering at the two open trunks. “Looks like more clothes to me.”

  “Yes, Miss,” Marta agreed, bending down to finger the hem of a particularly lovely gown. “These are your mother’s old dresses. Some of them might fit you right nicely with a stitch or two. They need to be aired out, of course, but...”

  “You go through them, Marta. Pick out two or three for me. I can’t imagine needing more than that. Keep whatever you want for yourself and put the rest in the auction
pile.” She looked at the other chest, this one full of men’s clothing. “Was this my father’s?”

  “Yes’m. He didn’t have much fancy clothes, but your mum, she’d bought a few things for him.” Marta reached down and fingered the cuff of a shirt of azure silk. “Some nice things, but…”

  “Put the shirts in a pile for me. I’ll go through them later. Auction the rest.” She toed the stout bronze box. “And what about this?” There was a good amount of corrosion on the outside, but it looked sturdy enough to have survived the entire house falling on it. Instead of a simple padlock, the lock was built right into the box. Under the dust of a decade of neglect lay thinly scrawled lines in a pattern that played tricks with her eyes. “I’ve never seen a box like this, and I certainly don’t have a key for it.”

  “We could chisel it open from the hinge side,” Flaven suggested.

  “You’re sure it’s locked?” Cynthia reached for the lid.

  “Oh, it’s locked sure enough. I tried to—”

  Something clicked, and the lid creaked open in Cynthia’s hand. She looked at Flaven dubiously. “So it’s locked sure enough, is it?” Mouse gave a little cackle of laughter almost too high-pitched to hear.

  “Miss Cynthia, I tried everything short of prying that thing open with a riggin’ knife! There ain’t no way it couldn’t a been locked!”

  “Well, it’s open now,” she said, brushing her fingers over the supple suede that wrapped the box’s contents. Beneath lay a number of charts and two leather-bound books. One was bound in red with gold edging, and looked to be a logbook of some kind. The other was black and about four hands tall, three wide, and several fingers thick. As she lifted them out, something slipped from the bundle and clanked into the box: a silver medallion, its crescent shape glittering in the midday sun.

  “Odea’s green garters! Them’s yer father’s books! They gotta be!” Flaven gaped, making a warding sign. Everyone backed a half step away from the box except Cynthia. Mouse gave a little “Eep!” of alarm and ducked behind her neck, peering out at the books in her hands.