The Ship of Tears_The Legend of the Nine_Part One

by T. J. Garrett

  Olivia shrugged. “I don’t see how it can hurt, but you go first. I’ll follow your image with a message.”

  Olivia grabbed Anooni’s hand, then closed her eyes.

  What she saw made her want to be sick. When she pulled the silver curtain aside, a huge writhing creature, like a spider with a hundred human arms and legs, was sitting almost directly in front of her. The creature was a deep green colour. Other than cats, who were yellow inside the Voice vision, Olivia had not known the lights beyond the curtain had colour. Never mind a sickly green.

  Spluttering, Anooni yanked her hand away. “I c-can’t send an image through that thing. That… that head! D-did you see it? A hundred… eyes and a mouth as wide as a…. No, I cannot do it. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

  “Hush,” Olivia said. “I don’t need to look at it to use the Voice. You sit tight, and wake me up if it looks like… I don’t know… if it looks like something is wrong.”

  “I’d rather we just carried on looking for the conduit room,” Anooni said.

  “There’s no time for that. And like you said, if we cannot convince them to leave, finding them will make little difference.”

  “Oh yes, I did say that, didn’t I.”

  Olivia gave her a grin. “But you can still hold my hand. I think I’m going to need to know someone is with me.”

  Anooni returned her grin. “Be careful,” she said.

  “I will. Just you wake me up if you think—”

  “At the first sign of trouble.”

  “Well, not at the first sign,” Olivia said. “But I trust you to know when.”

  Anooni nodded, and once more, Olivia closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Elspeth climbed the last set of stairs before the hole in the hull. The door harmony had mentioned was right there. How could they have missed it? And it was open. Had someone just gone through? Olivia, maybe?

  “Anybody there?” she asked, slowly pushing the door open.

  The door opened onto a raised dais. There were two chairs, a small table, and what looked like an extremely comfortable footstool. Elspeth had no doubt who used that, and she might have thought it of interest, were it not for the thirty women in the room sitting either side of a thick, green conduit.

  The room was round. It seemed this part of the tower was built into the ship. Around the room, thinner conduits wound around the walls and disappeared into the ceiling. The deep, near-jade, green contrasted with the dark wall, giving the room an almost natural look, as if the thin conduits were the roots of a tree and the walls were the dark earth from which they grew. Elspeth had never seen anything like it. How had Zill discovered such a thing? What sort of magic was this?

  The women sat with hands outstretched, touching the thick conduit from which all the others grew. Some were slumped in their chair, others seemed asleep, their heads resting on the backs of their hands. A few women were swaying back and forth, and one, the woman at the end, where the conduit was thickest, was chanting something in a tongue Elspeth did not understand. Worst of all were the sores covering the wet witch’s faces, neck, and arms. Those sores must be so painful, Elspeth thought, but none of the women seemed to pay the lesions any mind.

  Still, painful or not, Elspeth could not help but itch her neck. And when she moved her hand away, there was blood under her fingernails.

  Shocked, she ran a hand over the skin under her jaw. There were bumps. She touched her cheek. There, too, the skin had started to rise.

  It’s this room, she thought, looking around at the peculiar green roots climbing the walls. It must be something in the air.

  Or was it the room? Had she not felt her skin itching in the rowboat when York had taken them through a patch of mist?

  Whatever it was, as soon as they got back to the village, those poor women would need a healer.

  Elspeth stepped off the dais. “Uh, hello?” she said in a loud voice. “Who’s in charge here?”

  Nothing.

  “Hello?”

  Still nothing, not even a curious glance in her direction.

  “Can you hear me? Do you know the ship is on fire? You have to leave.” She pointed toward the door, but again, not a one raised their head to look at her.

  Elspeth stepped forward. She tried to take the first witch’s hand away from the conduit, but she refused to budge.

  Smoke was filling the room, now. It was already hard to see the ceiling through it. Elspeth was sure the fires would not be far behind. And yet, still, the women would not budge. What had Zill done to them?

  Elspeth was about to call out for Harmony’s sister, when she heard a Voice – Olivia’s Voice.

  Come to the beach. You are needed. Leave your work and come to the beach. You are needed.

  It was the kind of calling Elspeth might use to summon a flock of seagulls, but it seemed to work – if not very quickly.

  One by one, the women turned in the direction of Olivia’s call, then toward the bow of the ship. It took a few moments, but one by one they stood. Then, as if pulled by a rope around the shoulder, they started toward the big door across from the dais.

  Elspeth could not help a grin. “If I’d know we could do that…”

  A young woman, obviously Harmony’s sister, walked in front of Elspeth on her way to the door. She seemed less scared than the others, and was the only one among the group with enough control over herself to look around the room. Elspeth guessed she had not been there as long as the others.

  “Are you Melody?” Elspeth asked.

  Abruptly, the young woman stopped. She stared fixedly at Elspeth. “How did you know my name?”

  “I met your sister. She will be glad to—”

  “Harmony is here? What happened? Where am I?”

  A breath caught in her chest, and Elspeth put her hand to her mouth. “Oh you poor… Don’t you…? Where do you come from?”

  “We are from Beu.”

  Elspeth started. “You are from Beugeddy? But…”

  She was going to say, how did you get here? But then she remembered Arenthenia and the portals and the gates. To someone using one of those Ways, Beugeddy could be as close as if it were in the next room.

  “The woman,” Melody said. She pointed over her shoulder, toward the other door. “She’s in my dreams. Her and the… spider thing. Only it’s not a spider, it is a… I don’t know. They tell us we have to….”

  Suddenly, Melody looked longingly toward the conduit.

  Elspeth took the young woman’s shoulder and turned her around, so they were facing each other. “You do not have to do that anymore,” she said. “I’ll get you back to your sister and you can go home.”

  Melody nodded slowly. “I want to kill her,” she said, voice soft. “The woman in my dream; I want to kill her. The men she sent after us, I think they killed my father. And if mother was home, they would have likely killed her, too. Or brought her here to work on that…” She waved a hand toward the conduit – which, Elspeth was surprised to see, was still an illuminous green colour; she had expected it to stop glowing.

  “We should go,” Elspeth said, suddenly aware of the thickening smoke. “Come, your sister is waiting for us.”

  But instead of following, Melody rushed toward the other door.

  Elspeth stepped in front of her and put her hand on the door jam. “Please, Melody, you should—”

  “I have to kill her.” Melody said. She tried to push Elspeth aside, but she was so weak, her effort barely nudged her arm. “She is in there. She is in the machine. I have to kill her. I can’t let that woman get what she wants, not after all she has done.”

  “Leave that to me. I promise I will stop her. Go to your sister.” Elspeth put a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her away from the door. “Please,” she said. “Go find your sister. I promised her I would get you out of here, and I would hate to break my promise. Tell her Elspeth sent you.”

  Tears welling in her eyes, Melody gave the door another look, then no
dded. “Make me a promise, Elspeth,” she whispered. “Don’t just stop her, kill her.”

  Elspeth nodded. Then, sighing, she said, “I have a feeling she won’t give me a choice.”

  * * *

  “Here they come,” Anooni said. She was smiling and clapping her hands. “It worked, Olivia. It worked.”

  They had found their way back to the beach. Olivia, Anooni, Nini, and half a dozen of York’s men were waiting by the trees. Olivia had wanted to wait closer to the ship, but the smoke was too thick; so thick, she could barely see the fire rolling from the windows of the forecastle. In truth, it was a wonder anyone had managed to find their way out, never mind get themselves safely past those flames.

  “I can see that,” Olivia said.

  The women were climbing down the rocks. Some of Juran’s men were with them, helping, but there were more women than rebels. York barked an order, and the half dozen volunteers went to help. Olivia followed.

  They were in an awful state. Not one among them had a patch of bare skin not covered in angry sores. It was a wonder they could stand. York and Anooni started to usher the witches toward the forest. They had a long walk to the rowboats on the other beach. Olivia wondered if some of those women would make it that far.

  “My sister,” one of the women said. She marched up to Nini. “Are you in charge? The other woman, she told me my sister was out here. Where is she?”

  “Who is your sister?” Nini asked.

  “Harmony.” She put a hand out, indicating height. “A small girl, eight years old, hair like mine, always talking. Where is she?”

  Nini smiled. “Yes, I’ve seen her. She is with our friend. Like as not, she’s already on her way back to Raff.” He turned and pointed toward the trail. “If you follow the others, they’ll be a boat to take you back to the village.”

  The woman made a soft growling noise. “She told me she would be here, on the beach.”

  “We have to keep the beach clear,” Olivia told her. “We haven’t accounted for all the Kel’mau, and the ship could collapse at any minute.”

  The woman nodded. She did not look happy, but she accepted the explanation. Pointing toward the trail, she said, “I go down there, and there’ll be a boat, yes?”

  “Yes,” Nini said.

  The woman nodded once, then headed for the woods.

  “The woman,” Olivia said to her back. “Was she a little taller than me with brown hair and big eyes.”

  The woman turned briefly and nodded. “Elspeth, she said her name was Elspeth.”

  “Where is she now?”

  A crooked smile creased the woman’s lip. “The machine; she’s gone to kill the witch,” she said, then turned back to the forest.

  “Oh, for the…” Nini said. “Of all the stupid… The witch is dead; her ship is collapsing around her ears; why did Elspeth have to…? Stupid.”

  “I’ll have to go back. I can’t leave her in there.”

  “You can’t go back in there,” Nini said. “The tower is minutes from collapse; you would not get halfway to the machine – assuming you can even find it in all that smoke.”

  “I have to try,” Olivia said. She spared a glance for the ship. Nini was right, the tower would not stand much longer.

  “Where is Chrissa? We can find her quickly if we split up.”

  Nini scowled. “Take Chrissa, and that will mean two of you crushed under a ton of burning wood. I will go. I remember the stairs to the machine door, if Elspeth is in there, I will drag her out by her hair.”

  “I doubt that will be necessary.”

  She regarded Nini thoughtfully. “Are you sure you know the way to those stairs?”

  “We walked past them enough times. I could find it with my eyes closed.”

  “You might have to,” Olivia said. “Come on.”

  “Come where? You’re not going—”

  “I don’t have time to argue, Jak. Now hurry. Find Chrissa and meet me by the rocks. We have to get in there before Elspeth is buried under that tower.”

  “Under the tower? But what about the shyma stones? Juran’s lot have been all over that area.”

  “They haven’t used the shyma stones,” Olivia said. “They are for normal folk fighting against those with the Power, and unless Juran has decided to attack the wet witches, which he better not have, the passageways should be clear of dust.”

  “But the rebels won’t know who is a witch and who isn’t. What if they—?”

  “Just find Chrissa. If I go back in there without her, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Nini’s jaw clenched, but he nodded, and Olivia ran toward the rocks, Trapper following.

  “No, boy,” Olivia told the dog. “You can’t go in—”

  But Trapper was halfway up the rocks before Olivia could finish what she was going to say.

  “Oh, for the gods… All right, Trapper, if you insist. But if you get stuck in that hole….”

  * * *

  The green roots were all over the walls outside the machine room. Elspeth had a feeling they had not been there long. Was the machine growing?

  No, it was not a feeling; the door she had come through had been stuck with one of the roots wound about its hinges and along its frame – these roots were new. “But what did this mean? Am I too late? Has Zill already done what she had come to do?”

  She was standing outside the machine room door. Abruptly, she realised she was asking herself all those questions to delay entering the room. There was something evil in there – or if not pure evil, definitely wrong, unnatural. Also, the sores on her neck were bleeding. They had reached her face, and even her scalp was itching. She did not want to think what her back and chest looked like. If the sores were that bad now, what would they be like if she went into that room?

  Another thought occurred to her. Why did she already have more sores than she had seen on Melody? Was her Power somehow related to how quickly the sores broke out over her skin? It was the only reasonable explanation; she had not been on the ship an hour, and already she looked worse than some of the woman who had been there a month.

  Nini was right, if Zill had recaptured her, she would have likely used Elspeth to fill the machine all the sooner.

  But that’s not what she wanted you for, she reminded herself. And again, she wondered who this Gatekeeper was.

  “You’re doing it again,” she whispered. “Stop asking questions and go in.”

  Holding her breath, she opened the machine room door. She stepped inside, and tripped over a man lying on the floor.

  “Karloth?” she asked, voice soft.

  No answer.

  Was he dead? The knife sticking out of his chest said yes, but he seemed to be breathing.

  “Stop her,” Karloth whispered. “She has lost her mind.”

  Elspeth could hardly hear his words. Kneeling, she brushed matted hair from his face. The knife wound had stopped bleeding, but his shirt was soaked, and there was a wide pool of blood under where he was leaning against the wall. He would be dead soon, if he did not get some help. Even then, Elspeth thought he had lost too much blood.

  She had no sympathy for Karloth – he had chosen his path when he threw his lot in with Zill – but seeing him lying there, she could not help but feel sorry for the man.

  “Lie still,” she said. “Don’t move; you’ll start it bleeding again.”

  “Never mind me,” Karloth said. “She does not know what she’s doing. Stop her.”

  Elspeth tried to make him comfortable, arranging his cloak so it covered the exposed skin on his chest.

  “No, leave me,” he croaked. “You don’t have much time. Hurry.”

  “All right, I’ll go. But you lie still, yes?”

  She left him lying there and moved deeper into the room.

  Here, the roots were all over. Not just growing up the walls; they hung from the ceiling and wound around each other, making a wall of luminescent green. Elspeth guessed most of this growth was new; the roots
had grown so thick they almost blocked the path to the machine.

  Elspeth could see it now. Or rather, she could see the glow it made and hear the pulsing thud.

  She pushed through a gap in the roots and stood in a rectangle of open space. All around, the roots pulsed and throbbed. Thin tendrils led to thicker roots that led to branches that in turn merged into waist-thick conduits. Those conduits made the legs on which a large, round…

  No, she was not sure what the large round thing reminded her of. A seed pod, maybe?

  Were it not for the pulsing light, the whole room might look like a dense forest full of bramble and thicket wound around a circle of trees. The seed pod was like some enormous hive nestling in the branches of those trees. In the space under the seed pod, Zill stood, her hands raised as if praying.

  Even from the side, Elspeth could see the woman was a mass of oozing sores. It was a wonder she could stand. Her green dress was covered in white dust. Her face, turned up toward the seed pod, was streaked with pinkish rivulets where blood had mingled with the dust. Her arms shook with the effort of reaching up to the seed pod. As Elspeth watched, the pod began to open. Green light flooded from the cracked surface. Zill shuddered as if the light had punched her. Then she smiled.

  “Yes, I am ready,” she said.

  Elspeth pulled a dagger from her sheath and stepped into the rectangular gap. “Come away from there!” she shouted.

  She tried to make her voice commanding, but either Zill did not hear, or she chose to ignore the order.

  “Zill, come away from there!” Elspeth shouted.

  Zill flinched, he eyes darting a quick glance at Elspeth. “Join me, gatekeeper,” she said. “Come. Don’t be shy. Together, we shall rule this world.”

  “I’m not your gatekeeper,” Elspeth said. “Now, come away from there before I—”

  “Hurry, child. Come to me. There is room enough for two.”

  “Move… away… from… that… thing,” Elspeth said, making each word clear.

  “Don’t you want to see?” Zill said. “The Balance, Elspeth, I can see the Balance. The gods were wrong, Bausamon was wrong; we can control it, you and I. Come, the tower awaits, the Circle of the Nine is open to us. Don’t you want to see?”