Ages of Wonder

by Julie E. Czerneda

  With a flick of the wrist, she cast the last and largest piece of resin into the fire.

  With the sound of the frankincense falling into the embers, the Roman started awake, his eyes going wide as he looked from her steady gaze to the fire. He reached blindly, though for sword or myrrh, she did not know—and he was too late. For the smoke had already surrounded him in slow wisps and eddies as he’d slept, and the plume of white that rose from the fire’s core only gave her the strength to tighten her hold on his mind.

  “When you wake,” she told him, her will echoing through the smoke, “you will take us from here. You will leave off the search for my people—I am the last of Irem, the last of this blood, and you will know it to be true. I carry a son, and you will believe him be a product of this night. You will know and love and care for my child as your own, and will let me live to raise him.”

  His eyes were dark in the firelight, his whole body trembling in fear and rage as he struggled fruitlessly against her control. It did not matter if he could not understand her words; the smoke needed no language.

  “You will think me harmless,” she whispered savagely, even as she forced him to close his eyes and drove his struggling mind back down into sleep. “And each night you will burn frankincense to sweeten our home.”

  The Roman collapsed into his blankets as if cut down, his head striking the ground with a loud thump. Drawn at last by the noise and movement, the traitor hurried back to the fire and stared at the Roman’s limp form. “What have you done to him?” he hissed, keeping his distance.

  Nasrah bowed her head, and murmured, “He has . . . tired himself.” A subtle wisp of smoke reinforced the misdirection of her words. The traitor shot her a look of disgust, then turned his back on them both, returning to his sentry.

  At last, Nasrah lay back in her blankets, Irem’s fallen wall at her back and both arms wrapped across her belly. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she stared at the coil of white still rising from the fire’s heart. But for her child’s presence, she felt empty.

  “Is it enough?” she whispered at last. The smoke held no answers, only curled and twisted as it vanished into the dark.

  THE AGE OF SAIL

  By the end of the Middle Ages, when the Renaissance had sparked scientific inquiry and classical thought once more, great sailing vessels crisscrossed the seas, seeking faster routes, delivering the riches and wonders of far distant lands with greater and greater speed. Foreign treasure fueled exploration and wars, but these vessels were limited by one necessity: they relied upon the wind. The race was on to find the best way to harness nature’s tempestuous resource, for to control the seas was to control the world.

  Cloud Above Water

  Natalie Millman

  Cloud pulled at the skin on her arm. She scratched it, bit it, and pulled it again, trying to pull it off. It squeezed her, crushed her spirit. Trapped in its tight prison, she thought she’d go mad.

  The darkness weighed on her too, and the awareness of being underground. Cloud was a creature of light and air, not of earth and stone. But far worse than being surrounded by mud and rock was being caged inside this skin. She tore at it until it bled. If she couldn’t get out soon, she would go mad.

  Sound cut the silence. Cloud froze. The man was coming, and he would be angry. Frantically she dabbed at the welling blood. When he had found her bleeding the first time he had stretched this body’s arms far apart and chained them to the wall. The metal had burned, scorched like fire, though it left no mark. Iron, the man had called it, Cold Iron. He seemed to think it would mean something to her.

  It did not. In fact she didn’t understand most of what the man said to her, though he carried on at great length sometimes. Whether it was the shock of transition and would pass, or whether this was a place the People had not been before, she didn’t know. But she did know the man was becoming more and more frustrated with her lack of response.

  The door scraped open. Cloud caught a fleeting glimpse of light beyond, and though it was only torchlight, she yearned all the more for sun. Waiting while his eyes grew accustomed to her dim cell, the man spoke. “Areyougoingtocooperatetoday?”

  Cloud strained to put meaning to the words. There seemed a threat behind them. The body moved one leg, and the tether attached to its ankle clanked. He had wrapped a piece of soft leather tightly around that leg before fastening the metal to it, a kindness he could easily take back. “Botheringyouisit?” The man fitted his torch into a bracket and pushed the door shut with a dull thud. He crossed the little room in three steps to loom over her. “Icanfixthat,” he said. “Icanremovethe Cold Iron andsetyou free.”

  Cold Iron. Free. Three words she understood. Three words. But how to put them together? Free he had shown her. On his last visit he had conjured a vision—a bird flying—and had told her, free. Cold Iron he had named when he fastened it onto this prison of a body. Panic gripped her as the man leaned closer. “What’s this?” He had said that before too. Cloud tried to hide the bloody arm, but he caught it in his big fist, looked at it, and shook his head. “No!” he said. He rattled one of the chains he had used earlier. “MustIusethisagain?” His voice was so loud it hurt her. She flinched and cowered as far away as she could with one ankle held fast. Dropping the hated metal links, the man put his finger to the ragged red furrows her nails had carved in the smooth brown skin. “No!” he repeated, and she learned another word.

  So it went. With no sight of sun or moon, Cloud had no way to tell how long she lay imprisoned underground or how often the man came. She began to know this body she wore, to understand the difference between the rolling of its gut and the pumping of blood through arteries and veins, between the cramping of muscles held too long in one place and the grinding of sinew and bone when she tried to move. There were scores of such sensations. They were not pain, but they were hideous.

  “Food,” said the man on one visit, and threw something to the floor beside her. She looked at it without comprehension, but the body responded with a lurch of its innards. “Food,” said the man again, pointing. “Eat.” The body told Cloud what to do. Arms reached of their own accord toward what the man had brought, bringing handfuls of it to the mouth. The mouth chewed and swallowed. Cloud was horrified, but understood. This body needed sustenance other than wind and sun. This body needed what the man brought, it needed food. Perhaps that was a good thing since there was no sun or wind in this dark, still, and soundless place.

  The People didn’t sleep, not exactly, but sometimes when the body was quiet Cloud dreamed. In her dreams she soared on the wind, riding the air currents clothed in nothing but sunlight. She breathed in the joyous perfumes of multicolored flowers and played among their petals. She drank sweet rainwater and sipped at nectar, though light and air were nourishment enough.

  It was while dreaming that she first felt the presence of the other. High in the sky she flew, looking down on forests and mountains and gently rolling oceans, when suddenly she felt the scream. Not heard it, felt it, for the scream had no true voice, but the terror in it was plain. It shook Cloud out of her flight and she plunged back into the dark, unnatural world of the cell, into the tight confines of skin and the not-quite-pain of constantly pulsing organs. “Hello?” she thought into the silence when she got her bearings. “Who screamed?” It was a silly question, and she did not expect an answer. She was alone; she had known that from the beginning, completely, unbearably alone.

  Yet answer someone did, softly, timidly. “Me. I screamed. You scared me with your flying.”

  “Who are you?” thought Cloud, then, “Where are you?”

  There was a long pause, as if the owner of that small voice was wondering how to answer. But just as Cloud decided it must have been only a part of her dream, the whisper returned, tiny and tentative. “I am Jata. Please, can I have my body back?”

  “I don’t understand,” thought Cloud. “This is yours, this skin I am wearing?”

  Fear radiated from somewhere deep ins
ide, perhaps the place to which this Jata had been banished. “You are not the wizard?” asked the thought-voice in despair.

  “I am Cloud Above Water,” Cloud told the voice, “I am of the People. I do not know how I got here, or how I am kept here. If I could, I would leave.”

  “You cannot give my body back to me?” the voice asked softly.

  “I am sorry,” Cloud tried to cushion the thought with good will.

  The voice considered this. “Then we are both lost,” it said with infinite sadness.

  Something in the resignation of that statement stirred Cloud’s soul. “No,” she thought firmly. “We are not lost. We will find a way.”

  After that the body began to feel less alien, more as if it belonged to her. At first that frightened Cloud more than when she’d first awakened to find herself entrapped, but Jata whispered to calm her. She helped Cloud learn to move the limbs to her will, and to use spoken language. The man gave commands: stand up, turn around, smile. When she obeyed he rewarded her with food, or with a torch left in the bracket on the wall until it burned out. When she refused, he punished her with Cold Iron.

  Eventually he gave her a different command. “Summon wind.” It could not be done, of course, not in a hollow under the earth, and in this way the wizard proved his ignorance. Speaking to wind or any other element required that she be in touch with sun and sky. In any case, wind or water, earth or fire, the things of nature, these were not to be ordered about. They would speak with her if they wished, would play with her if that was their mood, but they belonged to themselves, as she did. She told him so, using the body’s voice for the first time. The man’s eyes glittered with a triumph that puzzled her. She expected punishment. Instead, he simply left.

  He returned after a shorter time than was usual, but he was not alone. He was talking to someone; his voice came to Cloud muffled by the thick wood of the cell’s door. “The binding is firm this time, you will see.” There were the familiar scraping sounds of the drop bar being lifted.

  “The goods, Mugi, the goods. I did not pay you for promises.” The new voice was cold. Cloud shrank into herself. She hated this place, she hated the man, but at least she knew what to expect of him.

  “Indeed you did not, sir,” said the man, and the door opened. The man, Mugi—he had a name now—stepped inside and placed his torch in the usual bracket, then reached behind him and produced a second torch. Holding it high, he made a sweeping gesture with his free arm, inviting the owner of the cold voice into Cloud’s cell. “Come, Gitonga, and see what it is you did buy.”

  They crossed the floor and stood looking down at her. Cloud huddled against the wall, too conscious of the tethered ankle that held her to this spot.

  Gitonga wrinkled his nose. “Doesn’t look like much,” he said.

  “No,” Mugi agreed. “But it’s what’s inside that counts. Your Elemental’s in there, Gitonga, well bound and trained to obey.” He turned to Cloud with a warning in his eye. “Stand up.” She hesitated fractionally and the man reached toward a set of iron chains. Cloud leapt to her feet. “Turn around,” he ordered, and she did.

  Cold Voice nodded and they left her standing there while they discussed terms further. “What’s my guarantee that this one will last? The others didn’t.”

  “Ah,” said Mugi triumphantly. “This one is different. It has gained full control of the body. It even speaks.”

  For the first time, Gitonga looked interested. He raised an eyebrow. “Really?” Then with the same grimace of distaste he had worn when he first approached, he leaned down to inspect Cloud more closely. “And just how did you manage that?” he asked.

  Mugi shrugged. “Perhaps it was younger than the others, more adaptable. I cannot say for sure, we don’t understand these things fully. But you came to the right magician for your needs, sir. Not many can trap these creatures, and I have had more success than any other. I think you will find that you get your money’s worth.”

  Gitonga turned his stony face to the man. “If not, wizard, you’d better be far from here when I come looking. Two failures I will forgive, a third . . .” He let the threat hang. With a last snort of disgust in Cloud’s direction, he made for the door, adding, “Very well. Clean her up, she stinks. Dress her appropriately and have her brought to my ship at dawn. Make sure you send irons with her.”

  Mugi bowed, though Gitonga wasn’t looking. “And the final payment, sir?” he dared to ask.

  Gitonga stopped in his tracks, appearing to consider, then spoke to the hallway rather than turn back into the cell. “If your construct performs well and my ship returns laden from a successful voyage, then you will get your final payment.” Without another word, he was gone.

  Mugi looked after the cold-voiced man for a full minute, then turned to regard his captive. He took the chains of Cold Iron and fastened them tightly about her wrists. “To remind you what you are,” he said. Ignoring her cries, he bent to her ankle and pulled the thin strip of leather free, allowing the metal to touch her skin. It burned like fire. “You will perform well for the merchant Gitonga, or suffer the consequences,” he said. He was already halfway out the door, when, as if remembering something, he turned to Cloud again. “When the woman comes to make you presentable, the Cold Iron will come off.” And though she had done nothing wrong, he took away the torch, leaving her in utter darkness.

  Cloud was weeping when a woman entered. She placed a torch in the bracket beside the door and went back outside. Moments later she returned, carrying a basin and cloth; the basin looked heavy. Setting her burdens down, she removed the Irons, but for the cuff around Cloud’s leg, muttering sympathies and clucking her tongue over the cruelties of men. Then, gently, she set about washing away the layers of filth.

  To be outside again was exquisite pleasure. Despite the whimpering of the little voice inside her, Cloud lifted her face to the morning sun, drinking in its soul-restoring rays. She breathed deeply, savoring the scents of growing things, soil, and salt water. Beneath her feet the red earth was soft and warm, and she felt its murmuring life respond to her presence. Welcome, it said, welcome among us. There were trees nearby, narrow-leafed and gray-trunked. Welcome, little one, they told her. A bright yellow bird begged her, fly with me, flowers nodded her along, and best of all the wind caressed her, curling around the borrowed limbs, softly stroking the confining skin. We will play together, it promised.

  Jata was terrified, afraid of the ship. But the idea of a sailing vessel was something Cloud simply could not understand, no matter that Jata had tried to explain it to her. The People did not have ships, they had no need of them. If the People wanted to travel on water, they simply did so, without the aid of wood or sail. Unable to comprehend Jata’s fear, Cloud had no way to comfort her. Nor could she share her delight in being once more under sun and sky.

  The wizard took no chances. He hired guards to help him take Cloud from his lair through the village of round, woven-twig huts to the ship, and he fastened a collar of Cold Iron about her neck. It was linked by a chain to the wrist of one guard, a piece of cloth kept it from touching her skin. Jata wanted her body to run away, but it was not possible. What good would it do anyway, to run away in this body? Cloud went as she was told and tried not to notice the links of Cold Iron that from time to time brushed against her.

  They came at last to the water’s edge, and stopped. The ocean greeted Cloud with quiet joy, reaching to lap gently at her feet. Come to me, sister, it murmured. She wiggled her toes in the mud, longing to be part of the delightful dance of sun, wind, and water. But Jata retreated, frightened into silence.

  After a time Gitonga joined them, having already supervised the loading of his cargo—ivory, precious wood, and gold. Given luck, his vessel would return with fine eastern cloth and spices that he could trade along his own coast and up the Narrow Sea into Kush and Kemet. “I’m surprised to see you here yourself, Mugi,” he told the wizard, then looked at the body Cloud wore, scrubbed clean, hair meticulously
braided in dozens of thin black plaits and decorated with tiny shells that made music when she walked. He nodded his approval. “She cleaned up well,” he said. “I’ll have to tell my captain to curb his men.”

  Mugi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It must not be toyed with, sir, I cannot be held responsible for its behavior if it is treated roughly. That is not a woman there, but a tool to make you rich.”

  “And you, if the tool works well,” Gitonga reminded him. “Is that not so? Isn’t that why you came today, to see your creation begin her work and rub your hands in anticipation of the hefty payment to come?”

  Mugi inclined his head; it was true. He’d never had wealth to spare, and his experiments with Elementals had consumed nearly everything. This was his one chance to live a comfortable old age. But his greater motive was fame. He wanted his name to be whispered with awe in the spice lands on the other side of this ocean, and all the way to the far north, where it was said ice and snow lay unmelting on the ground for half the year. He wanted his memory to live on long after the earth claimed his body.

  Cloud heard the talk with little understanding and less interest. She was enraptured by ocean and air. The wooden ship sitting offshore meant nothing to her, and the outrigger now approaching to take her to it was lost in the dazzle of sun on wave.

  The merchant squinted, gauging the progress of the little craft. “Does she understand her duties, wizard?”

  “I have explained, but it will understand better once it is aboard,” Mugi said. “Tell the captain that if it proves difficult, he need do no more than remove the cloth from around its neck and let the Iron touch its skin. It will mend its ways quickly enough then.”

  They watched in silence for some minutes as the outrigger cut a swift path through the turquoise water, then Mugi asked, “Why do you not simply use oars? Why do you persist in this new way of moving boats when so far it has not proven worthwhile?”