by K.M. Weiland
Chapter Twenty-Five
After collecting Quinnon, Chris and Allara requisitioned a small windboat from the palace’s private subterranean harbor.
The passenger compartment was comprised of two plush benches facing each other and enclosed in an ornate box in the center of the craft, just behind the mast. Painted a rich yellow with green and brown vines twining the framework, it glistened from a recent waxing.
Chris sat across from Allara on the red cushions. Quinnon stayed outside with the steersman and latched the door behind them.
On the edge of the dock, a horse pulled the windboat into the open lake, and the steersman scrambled to unfurl the semicircular sail to the breeze. Misting rain filtered through the open windows on either side.
“These people don’t live on the island?” Chris asked.
Allara raised the window glass from its recess inside the door. “No, they do. They’re in Trawler’s Waterfront in Belkin, not too far from the Taïs Quarter.”
He tried to remember. “Belkin’s the northern quarter of the city.”
“It’s a working-class neighborhood. The lakefront there is called Belkin Bay. It’s not really a bay, just the shoreline, but it belongs to the fishermen all the way up and down.”
“Why take a boat? We could have just ridden there, right?”
She settled back against the seat. “It’s faster to take a windboat around, rather than fight the traffic overland. Less conspicuous too.”
“You’re telling me this thing isn’t conspicuous?”
“See for yourself.”
Outside, through the gray mizzle, dozens of watercraft surrounded them.
“The white ones are taxis,” she said. “Water travel is popular here, for obvious reasons.”
The traffic was confined to within a mile of the island. Beyond that, the floating mansions Chris had spotted from the skycar bobbed against the waves. The nearest had to be five hundred feet long and rose out of the water three full stories, only to crown itself with two more levels of diminishing sizes, like layers on a wedding cake. The corners of the eaves curved up jovially, and the flash of crimson paint alternated with the glittering windows.
“How many people live in that thing?”
“Just one family.” She tilted her head to see. “That one’s a bit garish. It belongs to a man who struck it rich in the Illise silver mines. This is Floating Taïs, and the people who live in the houseboats here are just as wealthy and distinguished as those who live on the land.”
“Hope they don’t get seasick.”
A faint smile touched her mouth. “I heard our silver miner was quite green during his first month here.”
He rubbed his damp hands against his pants. Allara had asked him if he wanted to meet this supposed family of his, and he’d said yes without thinking. But who knew what he was about to find in Trawler’s Waterfront. A mirror of the broken family he’d left behind in the other world? Or a brigade of strangers for whom he would suddenly and irrevocably be responsible?
“You’re sure we have time for this today?” he asked.
“We’ve several hours before we have to prepare for the dinner. Don’t you think this is better than sitting around working up our nerves?”
“You seem to be doing a pretty good job of that anyway.”
The muscle in her cheek bunched. She turned her head to stare out the window.
He leaned back. “What’s bothering you now?”
“Nothing’s bothering me.” Even slouched, she managed to look stiff and straight.
“C’mon, you’ve been in a state all day. And don’t tell me it’s because your father finally called you home. You’ve been wanting that ever since we arrived at Réon Couteau. So don’t pretend nothing’s wrong.”
That got her to look at him, but it was a glare more than a concession.
He spread his hands. “If you’re angry with me because you think I did something wrong, then just tell me. I’ll take it under advisement and maybe even try to mend my ways.”
The color drained from her face, like it always did when she was upset. “I’m not angry, and it’s not you, so there’s nothing for you to take under advisement.”
“Then what?” He tried to keep his frustration from his face. “Because I thought we were on good terms. Last night everything was fine, wasn’t it? Or am I missing something?”
For a second, he thought she was going to slap his questions right back at him. Then, slowly, the anger faded, and her shoulders slackened. Her eyes held his and sent him coded messages he couldn’t decipher.
“You are missing something,” she said, “but it’s not your fault. And I’m sorry for making you think so. The fact is . . . I can’t afford to be friends with you.”
That was a slap in the face in itself. “What?”
“We’ll work together, because that’s the way it must be. But I hope you’ll understand me when I say I need to maintain my distance so I can keep things in perspective.”
“You can hope all you want. I don’t understand.”
She stared out the window. “Then don’t.”
His gut churned. And why not? Of all the Searchers he could have ended up with, she had to be the most ridiculous, unreasonable, frustrating, inconsistent person he’d ever met. She clung to her belief in her duty with an adamance that was almost a stranglehold. Physically, she was fearless. She even seemed to enjoy putting herself into danger, and she talked of battle with a wistfulness that was almost a yearning. And yet she was riddled with fear and uncertainty. She was positively crumbling with it.
Outside, the mansions of Floating Taïs had given way to serviceable barges topped with plain barn-like houses and fishing schooners with three and even four silver sails open to the wind. A floating marker bore a large white-washed sign announcing the entry to Belkin Bay.
Still without facing him, Allara gathered up the folds of her cloak and slid forward in her seat. “We’re almost there.”
He stopped her with his hand on her arm. “Wait.”
She looked at him, startled.
“You can’t run away from people all your life.” His expression felt hard. Her withdrawal gouged him more than he wanted to admit. “Everybody’s going to hurt you. I’ve hurt you, and I’ll probably do it again. But the person hurting you the most is you. This anger and this fear you keep inside, it’s eating you alive.”
Her dark eyebrows bunched. “You have no room to say these things to me. You told me you used to be apathetic. But tell me, what’s changed? You arrive in a new place, it’s exciting, it’s new, everybody who doesn’t know better thinks you’re a hero. But what have you done so far? What have you even tried to do?” She pulled her arm free. “Apathy is a tide pool that drowns its victims. And you’re not free of it yet. So don’t talk to me about what you think is eating me alive. You have no idea.”
The boat rocked to a stop against a wooden dock, and Quinnon jumped down from the deck to open the door. She gathered her cloak and her skirt, took his hand, and climbed out the passenger box and up onto the dock.
Quinnon glanced from the tightness of her white face to Chris disembarking the boat, and he frowned. He gestured to the buildings on the lakefront. “Any of this familiar?”
Chris looked past Allara as she pulled her cowl over her face. Along the beach, bare-chested men mended fishing nets and scraped barnacles from their upturned hulks. Barefoot children in dirty tunics ran up and down, some of them fetching and carrying for their elders, a few rod fishing at the waterline, most of them just romping.
The dock led all the way across the beach to the street. Tall, narrow buildings were constructed like upside-down ziggurats with each story jutting a little from the one below. Dark beams framed each story and crisscrossed the wide squares of whitewashed planking beside the windows.
On the street, foot traffic and hand-drawn carts bustled across the cobblestones. Vendors with baskets of goods atop their heads and women hurrying home from their shop
ping jostled for room, all of them adding to the raucous bustle.
He shook his head. “Never seen it before.”
The smell, though, that was something different. It tingled in the back of his mind. The deep, organic smell of the water, the rot of piled fish heads, and the tang of wet wood. It all combined, along with the spice of smoke, to be entirely unique and almost familiar.
Quinnon led the way up the dock. He had left his Guard uniform behind in the interest of inconspicuousness and wore, instead, a black jerkin, similar to Chris’s, and a patch over his blind eye.
Allara followed, hands folded under her cloak, head down. They reached the end of the dock and turned up the street.
Two houses from the corner, a tall building boasted a large red sign. Judging from the tables out front, all of them set with a white strip of tablecloth and a big bowl of mixed salt and pepper in the center, the place was a restaurant. Waitresses in brown smocks whirled among the tables with round trays held aloft. A long horizontal window in the ground level of the building revealed the bustle of the kitchen workers. What was probably a menu was chalked on a broad beam next to the window.
He caught a whiff of some kind of battered fish—oil and flour and a hint of sweet. Déjà vu whispered again. He’d seen this place in his dreams, long before he’d crossed. He was sure of it. He’d dreamed about that battered fish.
Beside the long window, a door opened. A woman, her dark hair caught back in a purple kerchief, stepped outside. A wisp of hair fell across her eye, and she swiped it aside with one hand. Her gaze flicked across her customers and landed on Quinnon and Allara.
Chris stayed where he was. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. This woman standing in a cafe in the middle of a world that shouldn’t exist . . . was his mother.
Quinnon and Allara walked up to her.
She stepped out of the doorway, smiling and nodding, and gestured to an empty table. They were all three speaking, but whatever words they used were lost in the rush of his blood.
Memories flashed through his brain like snapshots:
His mother, Sharlee Redston, laughing because she had set off the smoke alarm with yet another failed casserole.
His mother leaving for work at the hospital, arms piled high with flowers and balloons.
His mother lying on snow-wet pavement, choking to death on her own blood.
She had been dead for nineteen years. But here she was, just as strong and straight and beautiful as he remembered her.
She saw him, and a smile burst her face. She darted through the tables and reached for him with one hand. “Talan! What took you so long? We were so afraid you’d gotten caught up in the fight in the Thyra hills.” She reached for him without hesitation and pulled him into her arms. “Thank the God of all you’re safe.”
He didn’t fit in her arms as he once had. Now it was her head that rested against his shoulder, and his arms that encircled her back.
He dropped his face into the crook of her neck. She didn’t smell of perfume or shampoo or laundry detergent. But the same musky softness clung to her skin as remained in her clothing back home, hidden beneath the sharpness of cedar balls.
“Mom.” He whispered the word he had not spoken for almost twenty years.
“Darling.” Her arms tightened, then eased him away. “Are you hurt?” Her eyes narrowed. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“You’re alive.” His voice cracked.
What? Her lips formed the word.
He caught himself up short and stepped away from her. How could she know she’d died in the other world?
Quinnon came forward. “I take it we’ve stumbled onto the right family.”
“This is my mother.” He left it at that. She probably wasn’t Sharlee Redston here. It was strange, not knowing his own mother’s name.
She frowned. “What’s going on?”
“We should go inside,” Allara said.
His mother glanced from face to face and ended on his. “All right.”
She led them through the steamy kitchen, where two middle-aged women prepared the food, and up three steps into the back room. Smoked windows dispersed the day’s gray light across a rug worked in a flowered pattern. Chairs and a loom surrounded the fireplace. The walls were hung with the bits and pieces of a fisherman’s life. A length of heavy netting had been tacked up against the wall; each square framed a different seashell.
On the floor, two blonde girls played with hook-nosed puppets.
Chris started. These were his twin nieces, his sister Lisa’s children. He hadn’t seen them in years, not since they were three or four. They must be almost ten by now.
His mother shooed them out. “Miriel, Ireth, leave your play and go along for a few minutes. One of you, find Sirra and tell her to take a break from waiting tables.”
The twins obeyed without question, but when they saw Chris, their faces lit up with recognition. They grinned and waved.
His mother closed the door behind them. She turned to him, both hands rigid in her smock pockets. “Now tell me. What is it?”
Allara pushed back her cowl. “Mistress Bowen, do you know who I am?”
His mother stared, then seemed to draw into herself. “My lady.” She didn’t bow or salute. Her eyes darted back to Chris and widened to something between shock and fear.
“Please prepare yourself.” Allara’s voice softened. “Your son is the Gifted.”
His mother’s lips came together in the beginnings of another what? She stared at him. “Can this be?” She looked again at Allara, then back at Chris. “Can it?”
He just nodded. His chest was too full for his lungs to work. His mother had just come back from the dead. Whatever he had expected in this new family of his, it hadn’t been her. She was dead. She was gone from his life, never to return.
But, then, maybe he should have expected her. Before he had crossed, he had dreamt of her sometimes, and in the dreams, she had always been alive and well.
The door from the kitchen opened and let in the clatter and babble from outside. A young woman in her mid-twenties entered. She wore the same brown smock as her mother, and her dark hair was pinned atop her head.
He only needed one glimpse into her eyes to know who she was. “Jeni—”
A grin split through her freckles. “Talan!” She caught him around the neck with both arms, the force of her tackle swinging him around. “We were beginning to think the Guard was getting greedy of your talents and wasn’t going to discharge you after all.”
He crushed her against him. She had been five years old when she’d died.
She laughed up at him. “Did you run afoul of that Koraudian raid in the Thyra hills? We’re hearing all kinds of stories about a human who fought with the Cherazii before the Guardsmen rescued everyone. Was it you?” Her grin widened. “It was, wasn’t it?”
He stared at her, his little sister all grown up.
She made a face. “What?”
“You’re beautiful.” He looked again at his mother. “Both of you.”
Jenifer glanced at their mother. “What’s wrong?” She looked at Chris, then over at Allara and Quinnon and back again. “What’s going on?”
“Sirra—” Their mother took a deep breath. “Go raise the flag to signal your father in from fishing.”
Jenifer’s—Sirra’s—hands slid from his shoulders. Her brows came together. “Something’s wrong?” She stepped back.
“Just go. I’ll tell you as soon as your father comes.”
With a last glance at Chris, she turned and hurried across the room to a narrow staircase.
The last time he’d seen this little sister of his, she had been inseparable from Boppy the pink teddy bear. Now she was a woman—beautiful, graceful, a stranger.
He faced his mother. “What about Lisa? Is she here?”
“Lisa?” Her frown deepened.
“That’s . . . my other sister’s name.” The thousand swirling pieces of his universe slamme
d themselves into a new order once again. This woman might share his DNA, but she had no idea that in another life he had seen her destroyed. How could she possibly know he hadn’t seen her or Jenifer since a few months after his twelfth birthday and that he hadn’t looked his father in the face since shortly after?
“Do you mean Tielle?” Her arms came up to hold herself, one work-hardened hand around her waist and the other clutching her elbow.
She had a plain enough face; but as a boy he had always thought her the loveliest of women. She still was. The warmth of her huge eyes and the soft roundness of her cheeks painted pictures of her kindness and her gentle strength.
Her voice was low now, the fear and confusion only half swallowed. “You don’t remember?”
He shook his head. Suddenly, he would have given everything to exchange the memories of this world for those he’d been carrying around for the last twenty years.
He swallowed. “I don’t remember anything from this world. My name is Chris. Christian Benjamin Redston.”
She didn’t move, and he knew it was because if she did move, she would start crying. She had lost a son. Just as he had lost a mother, now she was losing every common bond, every shared memory, with her only son.
She shook her head. “Talan Malchor Bowen. My son.” Two tears slipped down her face side by side. She looked at Allara. “Will he ever remember?”
Allara stood very straight, but her face was compassionate, even sorrowful. “I’m afraid not. But he knew you in the other world. He knows who you are.” She looked at Chris. “And he loves you.”
Sirra bounded back down the stairs. “Papa’s almost here. He’d already anchored the boat. He must have a full haul already. Tielle’s with him.”
Footsteps clomped up the steps from the kitchen. The door opened, and a man and a woman entered.
Here was Lisa—Tielle—blonde, lanky, and angular, the set of her jaw as determined as ever.
And here was his father—strong and straight, his eyes clear, and his face lined by wind not whiskey. He wore baggy pants, a billowing yellow shirt stained almost gray under the arms, and a hat with the brim pinned up in the front.
“Hullo, Lauria,” he said. “I was already halfway up the beach when I saw the flag. What’s the trouble? That piker Silkar run off again without paying for his croutie pie?”
Then he turned to Chris, and his whole face brightened. “You’re home.”
The words bore a weight of care Chris hadn’t heard from that voice since his childhood.
His father shrugged free of his canvas rucksack and reached out to grip Chris’s arm and pull him in. “You’re safe.”
The old reflexes that would have stopped him from embracing his father back home never kicked in. “Dad—I—” His throat cramped around the words. What was there to say anyway?
“Worick,” his mother said. “He’s the Gifted.”
Behind their father, Tielle’s hand darted to her mouth. “What?”
Sirra gaped at Allara. “You’re the Searcher?”
Allara nodded. “Yes, I am.”
His father saluted hastily. “My lady. Are you sure of this?”
“Quite sure. And I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to absorb. Your lives will all change because of this, just as your son’s has. But you’re also to be congratulated. Having a Gifted in a family is a great honor.”
“What does this mean?” His father clamped a hand around Chris’s arm. “If Talan’s the Gifted, what happens to him now?”
“He belongs to Lael now, as much as he does you.” Whatever confusion or fear Allara harbored for herself, she showed no sign of it now. She was all princess. “He’ll be staying at the palace. Tonight, as you may have heard, the king is hosting the official ceremony to welcome him to Lael.”
Tielle clenched her fists. “And then the king leaves for war. Does Talan go with him? He was only just discharged after serving his full term with the Guard on the Illisian frontier. He was on his way home when you took him.”
His mother wrung her hands. “And Mactalde. They say Lord Mactalde’s back now.”
“So he is,” Allara said.
“The people expect the Gifted to vanquish him.”
Allara looked at Chris. Her features were unreadable. “And so he shall.”
Behind her, Quinnon coughed, less than discreetly.
Allara took a step. “I’m sorry we haven’t more time to share with you this afternoon. I know this is all horribly abrupt, and you’ll need time to adjust. But I’m afraid we have to return to the palace and prepare for this evening.”
“The ceremony,” Sirra said. “Can we attend it?”
“I think it would be better if you didn’t.” Allara watched Chris. “He’ll have enough to deal with this evening as it is. And he needs time to accustom himself to his new idea of you as well.”
“I understand.” His father, still holding onto Chris’s arm, nodded. He turned to look Chris in the face. “I hope you know without my saying that all you ever have to do is tell me what you need from me, no matter what it is.” His expression was one of commendation, approval, and respect.
For the space of a heartbeat, that look whitewashed the memories of twenty years.
Worick turned to Allara. “I mean it. And if the lad’s too proud to ask his father’s help, you ask it for him.”
Allara inclined her head. “If he’s proud, I suspect it is because you are too. Your son is a good man.” Chris could hear the restraint in her voice even if the others couldn’t. But she had to mean the words on at least some level, or she never would have said them.
His father turned back to shake his hand. “If this is the path the God of all has chosen, I cannot argue that. May He go with you.”
Sorrow ached in his chest. “Dad, I . . .” Was this the way his father could have been? Would Paul have been the drunk he was today if Chris had tried harder to forgive him and love him?
Wondering what might have been was hard enough. Knowing left him scraped clean inside.
