by E. S. Bell
Niven dipped a finger in the dark brown. “Every man wearing the…windpaint, was it? Must they wear both colors?”
“Respect!” Captain Tunney thundered. “To honor the Two-Faced God, a ‘course. It’s bad luck to wear one color; you never know which mood the god be taking: Shadow face, or Shining, as the shape o’ the moon don’t always tell the truth.” He rose from the bench. “Sit tight, me friends, an’ I’ll fetch my team an’ be back afore yer paint is dry.”
Niven frowned and Selena knew the pious young man didn’t like the idea of paying any sort of fealty to the Shadow face of the god. He wiped the brown mud onto his cloak and dipped into the white bucket instead.
While he and Julian painted their faces Selena slipped off her gloves. Her fingers were stiff and trembled. She reached for the white mud and cracked her knuckles on the side of the bucket trying to reach inside.
“Let me,” Julian said.
Selena nodded and whispered a thank you that turned into a gasp when she saw his face. He had painted one side, from brow to chin in white, the other in brown; a perfect line dividing the two that ran straight down the center. He had artfully added small dots of alternating colors to outline the whole. But it was the shadow and light that sent her heart to pounding.
Trickster…Selena thought of An-Lan’s reading, and her hand went to her pocket where the coin of Oshkat lay, forgotten until now. The coin and the seer’s reading were irrevocably linked in her mind.
Julian sat back. “What’s the matter?”
“N-nothing,” Selena said. She released the coin in her pocket. Superstitious foolishness. “It’s nothing,” she said again. “I’m sorry, your design…it just gave me a start. An old memory…nothing more.”
“I see.”
Again, she tried to glean the tiniest idea of what her captain might be thinking and again her attempt yielded nothing. It’s nonsense to put stock into a seer’s words, she told herself. Let it go.
“I’ll do my own paint,” she said. “Probably bad luck not to.”
Julian maintained his stare a heartbeat longer and then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Conscience of her trembling hands, she started to paint. The mud was thick and smelled strongly of soil, but it adhered fast and Selena thought she sensed a bit of relief from the cold wherever it touched her skin. She did her best to cover her face in white and render a crescent moon on her left cheek. “Is it very terrible?” she asked Niven.
Niven inspected Selena’s face. He had smeared a copious amount of white mud over his face and marked only his chin with the smallest smudge of dark brown, giving him a ghostly mien. “It’s fine. Though none of us can hold a candle to Captain Tergus.”
Julian waved a hand and Selena heard him mutter, “Oh, bugger me,” when Captain Tunney appeared at the door of the cask house and whistled between his teeth when he saw Julian’s face. “Now, Cap’n Tergus, I ne’er woulda pegged ye for an artist!”
“It’s nothing,” Julian snapped, rising off the bench. “We still have a long ride, yes?”
Captain Tunney laughed. “Aye, we do. Come, me lady, young adherent, an’ modest cap’n. The library awaits.”
Tunney’s dogs—eight beautiful animals, with thick gray and white fur and piercing blue eyes— barked and struggled against their harnesses when Selena and her companions emerged from the cask house. The four of the climbed onto a long sled made of smooth wood and leather straps. Tunney assured them that the dogs could handle their weight.
“They’re used to hauling blubber,” the captain said. “Us? We be light as a feather.”
Selena doubted that was true but the dogs seemed eager to run. Tunney stood at the year of the sled while Selena, Julian and Niven huddled beneath him. The captain’s whip cracked high above and the sound set the dogs to running. Once they found their momentum, they dragged the sled along the icy path that ran parallel to the beach with ease. The whale skinning and boiling of blubber was still going on in an endless stretch of smoking tryworks, bloody carcasses, and a cloud of stench that made Selena’s stomach clench.
Selena huddled deep into her seal coat and concentrated on what she saw around her, to distract from the biting cold within. On the right, the barrier of icebergs that created the bay around Isle Nanokar’s township looked like the lower jaw of some great beast. To the left, the township was bustling with people, and the smoke was the clean smoke of home fires. Beyond the township, a rise of dark green pine trees covered the landscape, brushed with snow in feathery strokes. Svoz was in there, somewhere, making a meal from the deer and elk Tunney told them inhabited the woods.
“The first snows haven’t come down yet,” the captain shouted from behind them. He stood, whip in hand, guiding the sled. “With good luck, it won’t fall ‘til the trading be done. The packets from the Lords sail in first, and that’s a sight that gladdens our hearts, I can tell you. We trade with all sorts o’ nations, but them’s our best customer and vicey-versy.”
Selena listened intently as Tunney described some of Nanokar’s history, its settlement some eight hundred years ago in the Age of Discovery, and the tight-knit bond of its inhabitants.
“We ain’t got no quarrel with no one,” he said. “The elements, they’s who we must respect and give our energies to. Ain’t no sense in fretting o’er nothing else.”
Niven craned around. “Don’t you worry about attack? It seems whale oil is lucrative. I would think a hostile island would be interested in a share of the spoils. Or pirates?”
Tunney laughed. He gestured to the ‘burning beach’ as Julian had called it.
“No easy business, that! Hunting a whale is a right good way to get yerself kilt. An’ if it don’t, there be the sharks, the cutting o’ the blubber, the boiling oil…Well, you saw yerself what happened to ole Boris. He got lucky on account on yer ladyship being here, but accidents like that happen a dozen times e’ry turn o’ the moon. Who wants that? Not pirates. They be a lazy lot,” he laughed again and then grew serious.
“We make a fine living, that’s true, but we come by it with hard work an’ sacrifice. We ain’t lost no man this season so far—bless the Shining face for its mercy—but that’s a rare season in which we don’t give a good man t’ the sea. E’ry ‘bloon is well-earned, I can assure you.”
“Oh, aye. Yes, absolutely. I believe you,” Niven said. “I just worried over your safety when I saw no signs of armed militia or the like.”
“Nah,” Tunney said. “Anyways, anyone mess with us an’ they be bringing down the wrath o’ the Isle o’ Lords and their mighty powerful armada.”
“They’re loyal friends,” Niven said.
The captain burst out laughing. “O they be loyal all right: to the ‘bloons we spend on foodstuffs an’ mead from their isles. An’ fer our oil a’course. See, we don’t do the distributing. The Lords does that…after a healthy mark-up on prices, you can be sure. We just want enough coin to live comfortable. We’re simple folk.”
“Not simple,” Selena said, her jaw tight with cold. “You have a rich history and you have a library. Only two other isles can boast the latter.”
The township’s buildings and shops tapered away to storage shacks and then gave way altogether to a sheer rock wall of pale stone. The cliff towered over them and extended down the length of the shore until it was lost to sight. Glyphs of rough whorls and letters in faded paint covered the lower portions of the cliff for more than half a league.
“What are these?” Niven asked. “They look very old. Are they historical?”
Tunney laughed. “They look old on account of the wind an’ the cold. These here are the markings of our townships youngin’s, an’ about as historical as last night’s dinner.”
“Oh. It’s…vandalism.”
Selena heard the chagrin in Niven’s voice, but Captain Tunney was a good man. “Iffen you want to see something good ‘an historical, me friend, just you wait.”
Selena hunched deeper into her coat. She hoped Tu
nney meant the library. The windpaint kept the worst of the cold off her face but she was beginning to wish she had bathed in it.
The sled slid along the snow-swept beach for another few minutes when Captain Tunney called a halt at a huge wooden door set into the stone wall. It stood ten spans high and was braced by huge iron hinges that were somehow locked into the cliff.
The dogs slowed to a jog and then lay down, tongues lolling. Steam chugged out of their open mouths as they panted for breath. The captain tossed each dog some dried meat from a satchel at his waist and bade them to remain put. Satisfied that that was enough to keep the dogs from running off with the sled, Tunney turned to the door. Grunting and straining, he managed to lift the latch up—it squealed on the icy hinge—and let it fall to the other side. The crash was deafening and Selena glanced up, sure that snow would come barreling down on them. The sound was torn away by the wind and the door swung open after Tunney gave it a hard tug. A cold, biting wind swirled out of the gap and Tunney jumped back as the gust slammed the heavy iron door open as if it were made of paper. Selena cringed as another thunderous clang resounded.
Tunney squinted hard against the wind and gestured for them to enter. “Welcome to Dragon’s Breath Canyon.”
They stepped through the door and into the cliff that Selena had thought was made of solid rock. Instead, a canyon spread out before them in long stretches of pathways, around and through immense pillars, caverns, and tunnels of pale stone. A fierce wind howled and whistled like a trapped spirit, swirling around the companions’ feet and stinging their eyes with gritty sand.
“How did the canyon get its name?” Niven asked, shouting to be heard.
Captain Tunney smiled. “I’m certain it’ll come to you, lad.”
Selena walked along the canyon floor and realized the immense bulging stone before her was not rounded by wind, but was carved in the likeness of a dragon’s belly, complete with scales and folded wings. And that the stony boulder she passed was not naturally smooth and then sharpened at the end, but a dragon’s talon.
The canyon was made of dragons.
Selena almost forgot her cold in marveling at the craftsmanship that seemed impossible. She craned her neck to where the rock smoothed into curves of dragons’ necks, then higher, to four huge dragon faces. The stony faces were dulled by time and the elements, but Selena could still see the different aspects to each. One bore an intelligent, gentle bearing. Another wore a ferocious, almost maddened expression of hate. A third’s face was unreadable as its head craned upward, to the sky. The last, at the end of the canyon, was taller than the rest and seemed to glare at the others with an air of superiority. The superior-looking dragon had suffered damage. Half of its body was scored off where part of the cavern had caved in. The floor around its clawed feet was strewn with rubble.
“Who did this?” Selena asked.
Captain Tunney guided them to the superior-looking dragon. The debris from its fallen brethren had obscured a door set beside its remaining clawed foot.
“Too much wind fer talk. Let ole Byric tell it. He don’t get many visitors an’ yet his greatest joy is yapping ‘bout the canyon and the library.” Tunney hauled open the heavy oaken door. “This be his lucky day!”
Selena gave a final glance to the dragons, a strange longing in her heart. Just curiosity, she thought, and then hurried inside, out of the wind that made her eyes stream.
It was pitch black until Tunney, muttering a complaint about letting lanterns burn out, struck flint to tinder over a scrap of oil-soaked rag. This he used to light a lantern that hung just inside the door, and the space around them was infused with a dim yellow glow.
“This is a library?” Niven asked, glancing fearfully upward, and jumping when the door slammed shut behind them.
Selena understood his unease; a tunnel lay before them, like a black mouth where no light lived save what they brought with them. The weight of the entire canyon seemed to hang over their heads.
“Down, down, youngin’,” Tunney said, moving ahead of them to take point. “Down where the wind and snow cain’t distress our little treasure trove.”
Julian followed, and Selena clutched his arm. She gave her other hand to Niven, which he clung to like a piece of driftwood after a shipwreck. The group labored down into the airless black tunnel, the little glow of Tunney’s lantern kept the dark from swallowing them whole.
Selena could hear the breaths of her companions; they sounded sharp as her own. Their shuffling feet were a welcome sound as well for she thought that if they stopped moving, the silence would suffocate her. She could smell the stone; smell its age and its weight, and she held on to both Julian and Niven tighter as they walked. Captain Tunney didn’t seem at ease anymore either but kept up a constant chatter of cursing and grumbling under his breath.
It seemed they had been walking down the winding, downward sloping path for hours but was surely no more than a few minutes. Selena thought she would go mad if Tunney’s lantern gave out and she directed her gaze at its light and nothing else. She wished to weave her own light but Niven held her fast and she was too afraid to let go of Julian, even for a moment.
“Godsdammit,” Julian breathed and when he put his hand on Tunney’s shoulder in front of him, the older captain didn’t complain.
“Byric lives down here?” Niven burst out after a while, his voice sounding high and on the edge of panic. Selena tried to give his hand a reassuring squeeze but she realized she was already holding it as tightly as she could.
“It oft feels so,” Tunney said, his voice flat and low now where outside it had been boisterous. “We believe he’s half mole, he is.”
“He’s half cracked, you mean,” Julian muttered.
“Aye, that too,” Tunney groused. But then another door, also of oak with burnished brass hinges loomed in the darkness. “Aha! Gods be praised.” He pounded on the door three times. “Byric! Ye got guests, ye limey bastard.”
He didn’t wait for an answer but pushed open the door and ushered the others inside, into Isle Nanokar’s library.
The Library
Selena had never thought candlelight could look so beautiful. After the crushing dark of the passage, the candles placed around the library were little oases. She had the impression that the coronas of light were holding back the weight of the mountain around them. She breathed easier and thought Julian and Niven did as well. The adherent released his crushing grip on her hand with a sheepish smile under his ghostly windpaint.
The library was small; hardly more than fifty paces across and just as wide, but tall. Shelves carved from the natural stone rose all around them, twenty spans high, filled with tomes or stacks of scrolls. A rough-shod ladder cobbled of broken planks rested against one wall. The relief-bringing candles burned in neat tins at various places: on high, small tables, in sconces dug into the pale stone, and on wide wooden tables that hewn from the hull of a ship. These tables bore glass jars with strange objects floating in murky liquids. In fact, the library appeared as much a museum or a laboratory in the Guild.
A rough stairway arched to a second floor with a wrought iron railing on the open side. It led to an alcove or loft, and Selena could see more shelves of books there as well. A fire crackled somewhere in the loft; Selena could hear it but feel none of the heat. She guessed this time she wasn’t alone, as the breaths of her companions plumed from their mouths like the smoke of one of Julian’s cigarillos.
“Oi! Byric?” Tunney called, his humor returned. He set the lantern down on the long table between a jar of green liquid that appeared to have a seahorse floating in it, and a bone of some animal clutched on a wooden stand. “You didn’t go an’ croak on us, now did ya?” He winked at Selena.
There came a shuffling sound that, in the stony cavern, seemed to come from everywhere at once. Selena noticed movement, and a portly man of about sixty years, bundled in a fur seal coat and matching hat, emerged on the rocky loft above. He peered down at the visitors a moment,
and then hobbled down, gripping tightly to the railing that creaked under his weight. His face was covered in windpaint, though it was flaking off as if he’d applied it days earlier. His bushy beard was littered with scraps of brown and white.
“There’s no need for bellowing, Tunney. I can hear you plain enough.” At the bottom of the stairs he examined the small assemblage. “So?”
Selena shared a glance with Tunney.
“Now, Byric,” the captain chided. “I been telling me friends here ‘bout yer great hospitality. They got plenty o’ questions fer you; just the sort you like. You aim to make a liar out o’ me do ya?”
Byric crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “My hospitality is offered so long as everyone keeps their bloody hands to themselves until they get my say-so.”
Tunney guffawed. “Gods, man. Twenty years since yer precious book was ripped and yer still sore? Well, wouldn’t you know it, but these here folk are all ‘bout asking after the Bazira who affronted you so terrible.” He turned to Selena. “I’d forgotten to mention yer witch lost her welcome here afore she departed Nanokar, on account of her messing up one o’ Byric’s musty old books.”
Byric snorted. “That musty old book was an illuminated manuscript from the Age of Tranquility. Aye, she ‘messed it’ when she tore out a page as if she meant to wipe her arse with it.” He turned his gaze on Selena and the others. “You want to know about Accora, eh? Who’s asking?”
“I’m Selena Koren, Paladin of the Shining face. This is Niven Mattias, a healer of the same, and Captain Julian Tergus of the Black Storm.”
The man warmed not at all to her introductions but stared at her with dark eyes shrouded in bushy brows that glinted with intelligence.
“Your library is quite unique,” Selena said. “Exceptional. Would you mind showing us some of its treasures?”
