by Chris Bunch
For a moment I lost its fall, then saw the magician fling his hands high, stagger, and go down.
I whispered thanks to Tanis, looked at Svalbard, whose eyes were wide in awe.
But I still think it was not me who made the shot, but Curti.
Soldiers shouted alarm, seeing their master dead on the ground, and the searchers’ careful line broke apart. Men were running here and there, some to the dead wizard, others shouting orders, some firing arrows at who knew what.
“Now,” I said. “Down the hill into that creek and away.”
“No,” Yonge said firmly. “That’s your path. With her. Svalbard, you and I’ll find another way.”
“Don’t be stupid!”
“I’m not, you gods-damned Numantian! You two are more important than we are, and that’s the best route. Don’t think I’m playing hero,” he said. “Two are less visible than four. And I’m not a stumble-witted Numantian nor a spastic Maisirian.”
“But — ”
“Sit on your butt later,” he said. “Now go, before they recover! Come on, Svalbard! Let’s find another place to harry them from, and then we’ll haul ass.”
He was right, and Cymea and I went down the hill without being seen. We slipped into the creek and crept away, past the line of soldiers, and were gone, into the coming night.
And all the while my mind keened the death of two more of the best.
EIGHTEEN
THE RIVER
Renan was a city of flames and fear, light flickering across the tossing waters of the Latane River, smoke swirling in the cold wind. It’d been savaged once by the Maisirians during the war, its ancient beauty and charm violated, its canals polluted, its lakes churned muddy by soldiery.
Afterward, it had begun to rebuild, its fathers trying to recapture the charms of its winding lanes, leaning buildings, and gardens. Now the fire had come again, and Renan was madness. Cymea and I had tried to turn north or east, but the press of the retreating Maisirians had pulled us south with them. We’d been able to cross three or four of their columns, but only by moving west toward Urey’s capital, directly away from the way we wanted to flee.
Soldiers scurried here, there, some intent on their own business of blood and loot, others staying with their columns. We moved with them, no one realizing who we were. Twice drunkards saw Cymea was a woman, thought she was part of my loot, tried to take her.
Once two men died, and two more writhed in their blood; the second time only two went down. Cymea killed one, I cut the guts out of the other, and their fellows lost interest in rape.
I spoke fluent Maisirian, so was able to move through the pack, shouting occasional orders, just another arrogant shamb or shalaka without his troops.
We reached the high stone bridges that looped across the Latane from islet to islet into Renan, and here the press was terrible. It was just short of a panic, and I was afraid of being crushed if we pushed on. I managed to pull Cymea into a niche in one of the low parapets before the bridge, out of the eddy of wagons and men.
If it was madness on this side of the river, it was far worse on the other. I hesitated, wondering what we should do next.
Cymea was half-sitting on the low parapet, and looked over at the dark, chill Latane River, rolling past below.
“Look,” she said, pointing.
I saw a boat, held by the current against the nearest piling. It was fat-bellied, a half-scale navigable version of the famous lake houseboats of Urey. I remembered Jacoba and the passionate affair we’d had on one. This boat was held against the stone by the current, almost broached, and the stone pilings had smashed the solid wooden railing in one spot. At least it wasn’t taking water over the deck that I could see.
“We could jump down to it,” she said. “And if there’s still oars, push it free, and go downriver without worrying about the Maisirians.”
“In this Time of Storms?” I said skeptically, almost having to shout over the chaos. “I’m no boatman.”
“I am,” she said. “When I was a fugitive from your … the army, I spent some time with a river family afloat.”
A bearded, smelly soldier pushed against me.
“Hows ‘bout sharin’ th’ cunt?” he suggested romantically, his breath a reek of garlic, stale wine, and filth. He still carried a quiver of arrows, but no bow, and his scabbard was empty.
I stamped my boot across his arch, he screeched, grabbed for it, which put his head low enough for my knee to slam up into his face, and he collapsed and was trampled into the mire by the pushing, fleeing men around us.
“Go!” and Cymea was on the parapet and dropped down to the tiny, muddy beach. She clambered onto the boat, and it rocked under her. I went over the wall in a roll, almost slid into the water, then she had me by the hand and I was on board.
I saw faces looking over, shouting things I couldn’t make out, paid no mind.
“Here,” Cymea shouted, pulling a long oarlike rudder from a clip at the stern and fitting it over a thole pin near the stern. “I’ll steer … you push it off!”
I put my back against the cabin’s walls, both boots against the piling the boat was jammed against, and pushed hard. The boat rocked, stayed trapped.
There were louder shouts from above, and a javelin thudded into the deck. I pushed again, and Cymea forced the rudder out into the current, and the river caught, spun us, and raced us under the bridge and we were away, turning like a leaf in a whirlpool.
“Help me!” and I hurried to the stern, and both of us levered the steering oar back and forth, and the boat’s prow came around, riding high, and the Latane had us, rushing us away downstream, away from the burning city into the safety of the night and the river.
• • •
Cymea thought we should keep moving until dawn and stay in the middle of the river as best we could. She sent me forward, with a hooked pole she found, and told me to keep a sharp eye for any debris. Twice I fended off logs, once something that could’ve been a smashed boat, half-submerged, rolling over and over as it went. I shuddered at dying like that and kept a doubly close lookout.
Morning came gray and cold. Cymea still held firm at the rudder, but her face was as gray as the day. I offered to spell her, but she shook her head.
“After I show you how to do it. I’m going to try for that little island over there. You go back into the bow and help us come ashore.”
She cleverly let the current take us almost to the island, spotted a small inlet, and steered us into it. Brush overhung this backwater, and I lifted it, and we slid into a tiny cove that might’ve been intended just for our craft. Cymea told me to uncoil the lines that were on the deck, and tie the small boat, fore and aft, to overhanging trees. She tugged at my knots, told me we’d hold firm.
“Now let’s see what we salvaged,” she said.
The boat wasn’t big, no more than twenty-five feet, and the cabin’s roof took up most of the deck. There were curtained portholes, and steps leading down from the cockpit to a glassed double hatchway. A broken mast protruded from the center of the cabin’s roof.
I went down the steps and opened the cabin door. The cabin was tiny, but immaculately laid out. To the left of the stairs was a small kitchen, which Cymea told me later was to be called a galley, with spirit cooker and even a tiny oven, a washbasin with cunning metal and rubber pump, and cupboards. On the right was a table with charts in pigeonholes, a small settee, then a jakes with a chamber pot. The walls were rubber coated, and there was another pump with a hose on it for showering.
The cupboards were full of all sorts of preserved, smoked, and magically preserved food, most likely stocked for escape from Renan.
“It appears this boat has everything,” Cymea said from behind me.
“All except one thing,” I said. “Its owner was obviously Sleepless Sleth.”
“Lift the stairs, fool.”
I found the steps were hinged, and behind them was a bedroom, with a large single bed almost filling the spa
ce. I almost thumped my head on the deck above me, but it was big enough once you’d stepped down into the compartment. The bed was already made up with blankets and sheets, and pillows were stacked against the rear of the compartment.
“All right, it does have everything,” I said, then yawned. I suddenly realized how long it’d been since I’d had more than an hour’s doze … three days? Longer? Exhaustion slammed down.
“Do you want something to eat?”
Hunger came, and the fear and energy that’d kept my body at fever pitch disappeared. I blinked, vision blurring for an instant, sat hastily down on the settee.
“Irisu with a cane but I’m tired,” I said.
“Dead,” she agreed. “Can you make it until I do a pot of soup? We’ll sleep better.”
“Where are you getting all this energy?”
“I’m still young,” Cymea said. “Remember what that was like?”
“If I had the energy, I’d chase you around the deck and throw you overboard for that.”
“Save your strength and read me the instructions on the soup packet.”
I did, and somehow, mutually yawning at each other, we managed to eat. I washed the dishes, then figured out how to drain the basin, refill it, and wash my face with the soap I found.
Cymea sat on the settee, trying to stay awake, owling at me.
“Your turn,” I said. I checked the deck and the river, saw no one through the drifting mists and wind, went below, lifted the stairs, and collected blankets and two pillows.
Cymea finished scrubbing her teeth with a small brush, turned.
“What are you doing?”
“Making up a bed for myself.”
“On that couch?”
“I’ve slept on smaller.”
“Don’t be foolish,” she said. “There’s room enough for half a dozen in there. Half a dozen having an orgy.”
I was too tired to either be noble or argue, put the blankets back, and arranged the bed. I was about to pull my boots off when I became aware of how appallingly filthy I was. I went back out.
“What now?”
“I’m ashamed of myself.” She lifted an eyebrow as I pumped water into the chamberpot, found a towel, took the soap, and opened the hatches to the deck.
“You’re mad.”
“Probably,” I said. “But I’m going to be cleanly mad.”
“Have fun,” she said.
I went on deck, pulled my boots off, wincing at how badly I smelled, stripped off my clothes. I sluiced with river water, washed, rinsed, washed again, and made myself carefully wash my hair. It was terribly tangled, and I noted I was losing more every day. I was impossibly tired, but now I was too cold to nod off, so I rinsed my undergarments. I went down the steps, dried myself, and hung my dripping clothes here and there to dry.
I remember lifting the steps, and seeing that great warm bed spread in front of me, a lump that must’ve been Cymea, stumbled toward it, and the world ended.
• • •
I awoke without an ache, without a twinge, and feeling the world was marvelous. I wondered idly how much time had passed, pulled a curtain away from one of the cunning octagonal portholes, saw gray daylight, with misty rain blowing past, looking as it had when I collapsed.
I was alone in the compartment, looked for a towel to hide my nakedness, and found my clothes neatly piled at the foot of the bed. They were quite dry, and smelt of violets. I dressed, except for socks and boots, and made my way out into the main cabin. Cymea was curled up on the settee, reading a book she must’ve found in the shelves. Her close-cropped hair shone dark and lustrous, and I smelt a perfume, exotic sandalwood and musk.
“Good morrow,” she said. “I thought you’d died.”
“I did,” I said, showing my teeth. “But a magician brought me back from the Wheel. How long did I sleep?”
“Well, I sort of woke up sometime in the night, then went back to sleep. Then I woke up again, not long after dawn, and saw that it was storming too badly for us to chance traveling, so I went back to sleep. Got up an hour ago, made some more soup. There’s some left in that pot.”
“Is soup all we’ve got on board?”
“No … but I’m not a very good cook, and all of the stored foods look like they’d take a lot of work.”
“Nice to know you’ve got some faults,” I said. “I assume magic dried my clothes?”
“In this weather nothing else could’ve.” She looked about the compartment. “When I was a child, it was wonderful being on that riverboat. I guess I forgot how cold and damp a boat really is.”
“Whyn’t you cast some variance of the clothes spell and dry the room out?”
“Oh, for the sake of … I’m a ninny. I never thought of that.”
“Tsk. That’s the failing of youth … stupidity rules. So while you do that, I’m going to go out to bathe.”
“Gods,” Cymea said. “Aren’t you overdoing it?”
“No,” I said. “Any fool can be dirty and uncomfortable.” I grabbed the soap and lowered the stairs. “Don’t peek. I’m bashful.”
“Pah! And by the way, I already made myself beautiful and clean, while you were playing Great Snoring Beast.” Cymea was digging into her pouch for herbs and such, and I went on deck. More awake than before and dry, it was even colder than before, but I stiffened myself, stripped off, and jumped overboard, trying to suppress a yelp as I went into the cold, gray water. I surfaced, and saw a head peering out.
“Are you drowning?”
“No. Freezing. Get back inside.”
I washed twice over, and most of the ground-in filth from the campaigning came away. I got back aboard, toweled and dressed, considered the river. It was almost half a league from shore to shore, with islands dotting the white-capped water. The wind had picked up, and the branches covering our hide whipped back and forth. I shivered and went below.
The compartment was warmer and no longer felt dank. Two tiny braziers were just smoking out.
“There are virtues to magicians,” I grudged, and started digging through the supplies.
About an hour later I had hot-spiced rice, dried fish, various dried vegetables reconstituted, some dough I charitably called bread rising in the oven, and various condiments and jellies on the tiny table. I bowed to Cymea.
“Your repast, m’lady.”
We ate hungrily, not talking much. Cymea was very easy to be around. I didn’t feel I had to entertain her or talk if I felt like being silent, and evidently she felt the same. We finished, and I found a net bag, sluiced the dirty dishes in the river, dried and put them away.
I took out my battered map, compared it with the river charts.
“Cymea,” I said, “I don’t know anything about sailing, but it doesn’t look like a good idea to be traveling until the storm breaks.”
“It isn’t,” she agreed. “Maybe we could, if we had to, if we had a sail. But we’ll just be drifting with the current now. And if something happens to the rudder … it’s a long swim to shore.
“How far north do you want to travel?”
“Just looking at the map, now, I’d like to keep to the water until we get to the Kallian border. Then we can put ashore and do it the hard way from there.”
“Agreed,” Cymea said. “A boat’s a lot softer on my sitter than a saddle. And we’ll travel faster with the river, anyway. So that’s our plan. Now what?”
“We could explore the island.”
Cymea looked disappointed. “It’s a mud wallow. I thought you were going to propose something sensible, like a nap.”
“Hah! I don’t need one,” I said. “You young whippers use up all your energy, and us old fuds know how to husband our strength.”
Cymea yawned, and reflexively I yawned with her. We both laughed.
“They say it’s impossible to store up sleep,” I said. “But I never believed it. Ever since I became a soldier I always thought there was a plot to keep me from getting enough of it.”
&nbs
p; “Try being a conspirator,” she said. “Nobody ever meets anybody except after midnight.”
The reminder of the Tovieti froze me for an instant, but I brushed that away. The past was dead, and all that counted was the present. Perhaps I showed the thought, for she turned away for an instant, then back.
“I’ll send your own orders back to you,” she said. “Don’t speak.”
She lifted the stairs, went into the bed compartment, and I heard creaks and such, then, after a while, “Very well.”
I went in. Cymea was invisible under the blankets. I undressed, leaving my underclothes on, slid under the covers, careful to remain on my side of the bed.
“You once made a suggestion about one of the qualities the man I choose to love should have,” she said, voice muffled.
“I remember … and remember getting my head bitten off for making it.”
“You were being unseemly at the time, sir, and I was concentrating on business. But I will now tell you what one of the virtues must be. He must have warm feet in bed.”
“That’s an excellent quality,” I said. “But doesn’t everyone have warm feet there?”
The response was a pair of icicles pressed against my calves. I yelped.
“Good gods, woman, did you soak those in the river while I was washing up?”
She giggled, slid them down until they were on mine.
“Warm like fresh-baked bread,” she said. “That’s good, very good. But my feet aren’t really that cold.”
“The hells they aren’t! There were icebergs off that gods-damned prison island I was on that were warmer.”
“Sorry, O General of the Armies. But there’s something far colder.”
She slid closer, and very cold, but very silken flesh pressed against my belly, my thighs. Reflexively, I pulled back. Cymea was completely naked.
“Jaen on a tightrope! Your butt’s even more frozen!”
“Jaen, you said?”
“It was a slip,” I said. “I meant Varum.”
“I’ll take the slip as it slipped.” She giggled again. “And is that what you always wear to bed?”
