Tam leaped forward, driving his own forehead into the ulat-kini’s. Its eyes rolled up in its head and its legs crumpled. Tam eased it to the ground.
“Damn it!” Jendara hissed. “Your stupid bells, Zuna.”
Zuna looked ashamed. “I didn’t think—”
Jendara raised a hand, silencing her. “Vorrin’s life is on the line. Glayn’s and Sarni’s, too. You stay here and cover our back trail. Kran, keep an eye on her. Tam, let’s go check out the boats. Boruc, I’m counting on you to let us know if anyone heads our way.”
Jendara shoved the spyglass into Zuna’s chest and turned away, trying to get her anger under control. She should have thought about Zuna’s hair before they’d ever left the Milady. How stupid were they all, sneaking around while forgetting about something as obvious as bells knotted into braids? Jendara’s father wouldn’t have forgotten. Jendara knew that much.
Tam and Jendara crept forward in single file. Where the narrow walkway of the pier joined the big black platform, they split up, sticking to the edges of the ulat-kini’s floating base. Jendara reached the nearest tent and dropped to her belly. If she was going to be spotted, it would be here, where the ulat-kini were most heavily concentrated. She crawled forward, holding her breath.
The tent flap had been rolled up, revealing some messy bedding and a few worn-looking baskets. It was empty.
Relieved, Jendara looked more closely at the structure. It gave off a strong stink of fish slime and dried seaweed. Her nose crinkled. If the stories were right, and there were humans forced to live with these wretched fish-faced folk, there was a chance a human lived here, breathing in this stink and sleeping in that mess. She’d rather throw herself into the sea than live in such squalor.
A clatter of crockery made her stiffen. The sound came from the biggest of the ulat-kini boats, a tar-stained scow Jendara wouldn’t trust to cross a quiet bay, let alone take out on the open sea. Someone had clearly patched up a junked ship, replacing broken bits with whatever they could find and doing a bad job of it. The walls of the cabin leaned awkwardly in several different directions, and the few painted boards all sported different faded colors.
She searched for Tam and saw him peering over the side of one of the other boats. She caught his eye and pointed out the scow. It was the only vessel with a real cabin, and it looked like it might be the only structure sturdy enough to hold a determined prisoner. Jendara drew her handaxe and stepped on board.
She pressed her ear to the wall of the cabin, listening hard. A ceramic clanking sounded again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tam join her on board and slip around the far side of the cabin. Jendara’s mouth felt suddenly dry. She glanced back over her shoulder at the base of the cliff. She couldn’t see Kran or Zuna, but she couldn’t see any ulat-kini approaching, either. Everything was silent except the faint buzz of a fly.
Slowly, she moved around to the front of the cabin. Tam already waited at the corner. He gave a tiny nod, urging Jendara on.
Jendara put her hand on the door, and it swung open.
She raised her axe and charged at the figure in the middle of the dimly lit space. The resident dropped to the ground with a gasp. Jendara froze.
“You’re no ulat-kini.”
The huddled figure on the floor raised a tearful and very human face. “Please don’t hurt me.”
Jendara looked around herself. A filthy wad of bedding lay heaped on the floor, a few dirty dishes beside it. A strong smell of urine permeated the room, as if a chamber pot had spilled and never been wiped up. It had all the earmarks of a prison, including the miasma of despair. But aside from Tam, Jendara, and this pathetic stranger, the cabin was empty. “Are you alone? Why wasn’t the door locked? Are you all right?”
Tam put a hand on Jendara’s shoulder. “Slow down, Jendara. Can’t you see she’s scared?” He squatted down to make eye contact with the captive. “It’s all right. We’re here to help.”
The woman sat up. “Really?”
In this light, it was hard to tell how old she was—her hair could have been light brown or mostly gray; her round face, while not seamed with age, had the chapped skin of someone who spent a great deal of time in the elements. She rubbed at the tears on her cheeks with knobbed, swollen hands.
“Where are the other prisoners?” Jendara asked, keeping her voice soft. “A woman and a man, and a gnome with green hair. Have you seen them?”
The woman shook her head. “Haven’t been any other prisoners. Just me. Yerka.” She sniffed. “I’ve been here ten years.”
Jendara and Tam exchanged looks. Ten years? It seemed impossible. The woman didn’t look particularly unhealthy, and even her dress, although worn, was intact and whole. How could anyone live as an ulat-kini prisoner for so long and be so well?
And more importantly, how could she not know about the others? Jendara tried again.
“Have you heard anything strange? Anyone calling for help? Maybe they took the other prisoners on the black ship.”
Yerka shook her head harder. “Nope. Nope. No one but black robes on the black ship. Too many secrets.” Her eyes got bigger. “The black robes left yesterday. Gone, gone. Everyone went with them, except the air-breathers. Only the hybrids stayed here, waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Tam asked.
Jendara raised a hand. “Maybe you can tell us later.” She turned to Tam. “Those guards are going to wake up any minute. If we want to get up that ladder, we’ve got to move.”
He nodded and helped Yerka to her feet. Her plight seemed to touch the big man; he kept an arm around her shoulder as they led her out into the moonlight. The wind ruffled Yerka’s hair and the woman cringed a little. Did they ever let her out of that horrible cabin? Jendara’s left hand curled into a fist.
From one of the other boats, a voice shouted in surprise.
“We’ve got to run for it,” Jendara warned. She broke into a run. Tam picked up his own pace, half-carrying Yerka down the dock toward the cliff.
“Who’s this?” Boruc asked, rising from his hiding spot behind a pile of fishing nets. Zuna and Kran appeared from behind a rock.
“Later,” Jendara gasped. “We’ll never get up that ladder in time!”
“Ladder?” Yerka asked. “Why not just hide in a tunnel?” She pointed at the cliff face, where a dark opening spat a waterfall down into the sea.
“How do we get there?” Zuna snapped. “Even if we swam over there, it’s a good fifteen feet above the water line.
“There’s another ladder,” Jendara realized. “Running behind the waterfall.”
Tam slipped into the water and held out his arms to Yerka. “Can you swim?” he asked her.
Yerka plunged in. “It’s so cold,” she gasped.
“I hate this,” Boruc grumbled as he joined them.
Zuna’s eyes met Jendara’s for a moment, her gaze clearly hostile. Jendara immediately regretted her boorish comment about Kran looking after her. Then Kran pushed between them, he and Fylga diving neatly into the water, and it was time for Zuna and Jendara to follow suit.
The sound of the waterfall drowned out everything as the group paddled toward the hidden ladder. Had the ulat-kini seen them get in the water, or would they assume the humans would take the land route? Jendara tried to peer through the curtain of spray as Tam helped Yerka get a grip on the ladder. But the world beyond was obscured. She could only hurry and follow Zuna up the ladder.
Jendara pulled herself up into the wet tunnel. The little stream gurgled past her, cold and smelling of dank things that had never seen the sun.
“This is much deeper beneath the city than we’ve been before. This could be two or three floors beneath the spot with the pit trap.” Jendara reached for her pack and pulled out her lantern. It didn’t feel too damp, thanks to the pack’s well-oiled leather. Morul had tanned that hide, and Leyla had made the pack. They, and all of Sorind, felt suddenly very far away.
So was Vorrin. If the ulat-kini hadn’t taken h
im, then he could be anywhere. There was no way to know where the fish creatures had made their base—she’d seen them on the surface of the island and down in the purple boulevard. They seemed to know the place already.
Jendara worked her flint striker and managed to get her lamp lit. She needed a new plan, and soon.
Boruc brushed his fingertips against the stony walls. “The craftsmanship is much less detailed,” he pointed out. “It’s rough, with no details around the tunnel mouth. I’d guess this is some kind of sewage tunnel.”
Tam struggled to get his own lamp lit. “Makes sense,” he agreed. He peered down the waterfall. “I think they missed us,” he said, in a pleased tone. “There’s no one in the water or on the ladder.”
“Then let’s hurry up,” Jendara said, her mind already hurrying on ahead. “I want to know why Vorrin and Glayn and Sarni weren’t in that camp, and I’m hoping our ulat-kini prisoner knows something.”
She strode ahead of the group, holding her lantern high. Light might be dangerous, but seeing felt more important than being observed. Right now she might relish a run-in with a fish-creature. At least it might give her some kind of clue about the things.
Jendara’s head nearly scraped the tunnel roof here, and Tam and Zuna had to hunch to fit. It felt like a sewer tunnel, supporting Boruc’s idea. Luckily, any sewage foulness had long been washed away.
Tam touched her elbow. “Look.” He pointed up ahead, where the tunnel had a kind of stair step in it, forcing the water to run in a foaming white fall. He stooped to look at the shallow bowl that looked to have formed over years of falling water, presumably before the city sank into the sea.
“Find something?” Jendara asked.
He held up a golden shape. “It’s a little gold frog.”
Jendara leaned in to have a closer look. “Looks like a charm from a bracelet or a necklace.”
“Pretty,” Yerka breathed. Her eyes had lit up, and for the first time, Jendara could see a hint of the woman Yerka must have been ten years ago.
Tam smiled at the woman. “You can have it, if you like.” He held it out to her.
As she took it, Jendara realized Yerka’s hand trembled. She looked harder at the woman. “Your teeth are chattering.”
Zuna reached into her pack and found a woolly scarf. “It didn’t get too damp in my pack. Your light clothes aren’t much good wet.”
Yerka brushed her palms down her stained linen skirt. “It’s all I’ve got.”
Jendara had to turn away. She’d never really thought about those stories, had never imagined how sad the stolen women’s lives must be. To be kidnapped and forced to serve the slimy ulat-kini, let alone bearing their half-breed young—by the gods, she was looking forward to interrogating that ulat-kini down in the galley.
“Let’s rope up and keep moving,” she said. Her voice sounded thick. “Anyone have any water in their canteen?”
* * *
Jendara struggled to keep her eyes open, the play of shadow from her lantern and the constant darkness ahead making them heavier than they ought to feel. Her inner sense of time had abandoned her. They had been walking a long time in the twisting folds of the sewer tunnel. It had to be very late.
Her eyes sagged shut. An image of the night sky filled her mind’s eye, the stars shifting wildly against the velvet of the heaven. A shrill keening split the air.
She jolted awake. Kran was shaking her arm. She blinked at him. “You okay?”
He pointed at her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Let me take the lead, Jendara,” Tam said, already reaching for the knot at his waist.
She turned down her lantern and took the place behind him. To ration oil, only the front and rear walkers carried lit lanterns. They barely cast enough light for safety, but there was no way to know how long it would take to find the Milady.
“Hold up,” Boruc called from the rear. “I think I’ve found a ladder.”
He untied and explored for a second, and then they followed him up to the next level. It looked more like a passage than a tiny sewage tunnel, and while they still walked in a roped single file, at least they could all stand up straight. This level smelled different from the floors above, the smell of dead and dying fish less pervasive. The floor and walls were smoother. When the island had lain below the sea, this dark passage had been so far beneath that surface that it could offer the creatures of the sea little beyond shelter. Even kelp and shellfish needed sunlight to produce their food. Now and then, Jendara’s boots crunched on the thin, desiccated arm of some dead sea star or still twitching creature for which she had no name. But despite the presence of these small life forms, in the dim gloom of the lanterns, the hallway was abandoned.
Occasionally the soft murmur of the wind penetrated the walls. There was no apparent source to it, no crack in the wall or adjoining tunnel, just a mysterious breeze. This wind’s tone was different, more like a voice than the constant shriek of the wind in the Milady’s grotto. Since they’d entered this tunnel, her ears had been struggling to tell her companions’ whispers from those of the wind.
“What did you say?” she asked for the fourth or fifth time in last half hour.
Boruc shook his head. “Too tired to talk. And too hungry. Is there any more of that hardtack?”
She passed him another oilcloth-wrapped bundle. She couldn’t imagine eating any of it.
“Did you hear that?” Tam paused. “I think it came from that doorway.”
They hadn’t opened any doors or entered any of the rooms that stood open. But Tam pressed his ear to the closest one, listening hard.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Boruc said.
“I did,” Yerka blurted. “It almost sounded like her name.” She pointed at Jendara with a knobby finger.
Jendara moved to stand beside the door, her head cocked. Behind the stone slab, the wind’s shriek sounded louder, its tones pitiful. “It’s just the wind.” She touched Tam’s shoulder. “Do you want me to lead?”
Tam shook his head. “No, you deserve the break.” He put his lantern down on the floor and rubbed his eyes. “It gets tense, walking by these doors. Who knows what’s behind them?”
“Don’t think about it,” Jendara advised. “And keep your sword handy.”
“Good idea.” Tam reached for his lantern and stopped in mid-motion. “No, that wasn’t just the wind. Listen!”
Jendara pressed her cheek against the stone.
“Please,” someone called. “Please! Jendara!”
“Oh, ancestors,” she breathed. “That’s Sarni.”
She kicked the door, but it didn’t move. The others just stared at her. “Come on!” she shouted. “It’s Sarni!”
Boruc put his shoulder to the door. The cords of his neck stood out as he pushed against it, harder and harder. He stopped to breathe. “It’s not moving.”
“Maybe the next one.” Jendara pulled them forward to the next door, which wasn’t quite closed. She drove her heel into the door and it ground open a few inches.
Tam leaned around her, holding up his lantern. “You see anything?”
Jendara squinted. “Maybe some old furniture.” She shoved the door with her shoulder and felt it move another inch or two.
“Let me try,” Tam said. He kicked the door, and it opened wide enough for Jendara to fit through.
She untied the rope at her waist. “Sarni!”
“What are you doing?” Boruc asked.
“Going in there.” Jendara gave him a stern look. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, keep moving.”
“Like hell,” he grumbled, but she was already stepping inside the dark room.
“Sarni?” she called out again, but not even the wind answered her.
The lantern’s light flickered over two heaping mounds of detritus that ran in parallel across the room. A gray silt covered everything, obscuring the details of what must have once been shelves full of someone’s things. A metal bowl lay on its
side in the center of the room, its surface showing only a little green patina.
Jendara picked it up. A border of long-legged sea stars ran around the rim, as clearly as if it had been made yesterday. Had any of her own possessions held up as well to the flooding of her home? If anyone looked inside her ruined cottage, what would they think of her, and would they wonder where she had gone?
The bowl was varnished bronze, worth no more than a few copper coins, but she tucked it in her pack anyway.
“Please,” the wind sighed. “Please.”
Her shoulders sagged. There was no one here. Sarni, wherever she was, was gone.
“Jendara!” There was a little pause, and then it repeated: “Jendara!”
“By the gods,” Boruc said, now at Jendara’s back despite her orders, “that’s her.”
Zuna strode past them. Standing at the edge of the circle of light, she laid her palm against the wall. “Here,” she said, finally. “I think there’s a crack funneling the sound to us.”
Jendara played her light over the crack, which ran into the ceiling and disappeared. “The main walls are cut out of the island itself. They could be carrying the sound from anywhere.”
Zuna rapped on the wall with her knuckles. “It’s a thick one. You could be right.”
“She could be anywhere,” Jendara repeated. The words weren’t as depressing as she had expected them to be. “Sarni!” she shouted. “We’re looking for you!”
Zuna raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe my voice will carry up the crack,” Jendara said. “I have to hope, anyway.”
“We’re on our way!” Boruc bellowed. His voice echoed in the little room. He made a rueful face at Jendara. “I’m a little louder than you.”
“We need to keep moving,” Tam said from the doorway. “Wherever Sarni is—wherever Vorrin and Glayn are—they’re not here.”
Jendara crossed to her friend. Even in the shadows, she could see the misery written on his face. Tam was always the first to laugh, the first to find some cheerful notion in a troubled situation. To see him so unhappy caught her like a fist in the belly. “We’ll find Glayn and the others,” she said. “Have faith.”
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