Paragaea

by Chris Roberson

  “Come on,” Balam said, following after her. “The sooner we're away from here, the happier I'll be.”

  Hieronymus glanced back at their former cell, his expression pained. Leena could see that, having come so close to being brought to account for his past misdeeds, there was a part of him that was reluctant again to escape punishment.

  “Go on, Hero,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “There are many others out there in the world who need saving, if you've more atoning to do.”

  Hieronymus looked back at her with a weary smile, and took to his heels, racing down the corridor after the jaguar man.

  “Benu, are you coming?” Leena looked back at the artificial man, who still stood in the opened doorway of the opposite cell, his attention on the figure in damp robes huddled in the corner.

  “Will you not accompany us?” Benu asked the indistinct figure. The figure shrugged, the movement mostly hidden beneath the folds of cloth, and climbed unsteadily to its feet.

  From around the curve of the corridor came shouts of alarm, and the sickening thud of bone hitting flesh.

  “Come on, then,” Leena urged, hurrying towards the tumult. “We've wasted enough time as it is.”

  By the time Leena reached the locker room, Balam was already in the process of strapping on his harnesses and knives, and a pair of guards lay insensate and moaning on the floor.

  “Did I miss the excitement, then?” Leena asked.

  “I suspect there'll be enough to go around in a moment,” Hieronymus answered, strapping on his belt, arranging his sheathed saber on one side and his holstered pistol on the other.

  Balam handed Leena her short sword and Makarov.

  “Where's our new friend?” Leena asked.

  Just then, the woman appeared at the doorway. “The guards must be changing shifts. There don't appear to be any more about. But it won't be long before more arrive.”

  “Then we'd best be on our way, and quickly,” Leena said.

  “Thou!” the woman shouted at Hieronymus, who stood by the weapons locker. She pointed to a short sword, hanging from a peg. “Hand me yon gladius.”

  Hieronymus snatched the sword from the peg, and tossed it end over end across the room. He nodded with satisfaction when the woman snatched it handily out of midair by the hilt. Balam's eyes, too, widened fractionally at the display of martial prowess.

  Benu and the figure in the robes joined them, both moving at a leisurely pace.

  “Why didst thou bring the drunken fish along?” the woman asked, scowling with distaste. “It snores unpleasantly in its sleep, and smells of seaweed, cheap spirits, and week-dead eel.”

  “It made little sense for five detainees to leave a sixth behind,” Benu answered, “who might be punished for their escape.”

  Hieronymus handed Leena his pack, and slung his own onto his back. “What's your name?” he asked the woman, who had slid the gladius into a sheath of leather and brass and fixed it to a baldric slung across her chest.

  “I am Spatha Sekundus,” the woman said.

  “I am Hieronymus Bonaventure,” he answered. “These are my companions, Balam, prince of the Sinaa; Akilina Mikhailovna Chirikova; and Benu.”

  The woman named Spatha Sekundus nodded curtly to each of them in turn.

  “And you, friend?” Hieronymus said to the robed figure, checking the straps of his pack and making for the door.

  “Kakere,” came the slurred, burbling voice from within the robes.

  Whether that was the robed figure's name, or another response in some unknown tongue, Leena was not to learn for some time, as at that moment, shouts echoed down the corridor from the demolished cells.

  “Time to go,” Spatha said, and raced out the doorway, heading towards the exit.

  Balam shrugged, and turned to his companions. “Well, you heard what the lady said. Let's go!”

  The company, now six, made it to the exit of the jailhouse without encountering the guards, but on reaching the street their luck ran out.

  “You!” The captain of the constables, who had arrested them in the restaurant, stood now in the street before them, three guardsmen at his side. They were evidently returning to their headquarters after making their appointed round through the city, and were shocked to see prisoners at their liberty.

  “I knew this was too easy,” Balam growled, drawing a pair of knives and baring his fangs.

  Hieronymus whipped his sword from its sheath, and drew his Mauser.

  The lead constable pointed his scimitar at Hieronymus's chest, his eyes narrowed. “I don't suppose you would just return to your cell, and avoid this unpleasantness, would you?”

  Hieronymus smiled slightly. “And I don't suppose you could just step aside?”

  The constable shook his head.

  “Pity,” Hieronymus said, and lunged forward.

  The constable deflected Hieronymus's thrust with an effective parry, and the two closed with a ringing clatter of steel on steel.

  Leena drew her short sword just in time to swat aside a blow from the largest of the constables. A hulking, powerful brute, he swung his scimitar in a wide arc, treating it more like a club than a blade. Leena's teeth buzzed with the impact of his blow on her sword, but her grip on the sword's hilt didn't falter, and she kept to her feet.

  On the other side of Hieronymus, Balam and Spatha each closed with the remaining constables.

  “We would probably be best served to be on our way,” Benu calmly said, standing in the open doorway. “Reinforcements are sure to arrive quickly.”

  “A fine idea,” Balam said through gritted teeth, his knives cutting red rills on the forearms of his opponent. “Why didn't we think of that?”

  Leena's opponent roared, and swung his scimitar again in a wide arc, with redoubled ferocity. She danced out of the way, spinning to the side, but the tip of the brute's blade nicked her shoulder, blood streaming out in a red ribbon.

  From behind them, voices shouted from within the jailhouse, the guards inside evidently having located them.

  “I'll take care of this,” Benu said.

  Leena chanced a glance over her shoulder as she brought her sword into ready position, and watched as Benu dispassionately knocked the heads of two armed guards together, making a comical noise like coconuts striking one another.

  Leena's opponent, too, had been momentarily distracted by the sight, and his attention was diverted from her for a split second. Leena seized the opportunity, diving forward towards her opponent's unprotected abdomen. Her sword's sharp point pierced his chest just below the sternum, the blade thrusting into him up to the hilt.

  “Urm?” her opponent said, looking down in confusion at the red bloom blossoming on his shirtfront as Leena pulled her blade free. His scimitar slipped from his fingers into the sand, and he tottered for a moment on his feet, unsteadily, before falling backwards lengthwise like a felled tree.

  Leena had not blinked or breathed in long seconds, and now as she caught her breath she turned to see how the rest of the company was faring.

  Balam had made relatively short work of his opponent, who moaned in the dust at his feet, red gashes running in parallel lines across his cheek and arms. The woman Spatha Sekundus stood with one foot resting on the chest of her fallen foe, who now seemed to have fewer fingers on each hand than he'd had a moment before.

  Only the captain of the constables remained on his feet, his lithe form darting back and forth as his blade danced with Hieronymus's saber.

  “You're a fine swordsman,” Hieronymus said admiringly, his breath ragged. “It'd be a shame to kill you. Like spoiling a piece of art.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” the constable replied through a tight smile, thrusting towards Hieronymus's head, his scimitar knocked away by Hieronymus's saber at the final instant. “When you are dead, I will speak fondly of your skill with the blade.”

  Without warning, Balam struck the constable a thunderous blow to the back of his head, and the constable
collapsed in a heap, insensate.

  “Whatever did you do that for?” Hieronymus asked, eyes wide. “I was very nearly about to deliver the final blow.”

  The jaguar man shrugged. “You'd have killed him, he'd have killed you, or the two of you would have settled down in a cottage somewhere and raised a family. I was getting bored with your reciprocal flattery, and, besides, we're in a hurry, remember?”

  “Hey!” came a shouted voice from a short distance away. Another contingent of constables had just rounded the corner, more than half-a-dozen strong. Seeing their fallen comrades, they drew their scimitars and rushed forward.

  The company raced through the streets of Masjid Empor, the scimitar-wielding constables following at their heels.

  “This way!” Spatha shouted, and dove down an alleyway. The rest followed close behind.

  The alley emptied out onto a bazaar crowded with market stalls and thronged with shoppers and vendors raising their voices in a confusing babel of tongues.

  “Sheathe your weapons,” Hieronymus ordered before stepping out of the sheltering shadows of the alleyway. He glanced behind and saw that the constables had just rounded the corner into the alley. “If we mix in with the crowds, we'll be harder to find.”

  “Make for the southwestern corner,” Spatha said to Hieronymus, sheathing her gladius in her baldric and slipping into the crowd without another word.

  “Separate, and make for that corner,” Hieronymus relayed to the others in a harsh whisper, and then plunged into the throng.

  Leena nodded, sliding her sword into its scabbard and walking briskly away from the alley's mouth. At her side, Balam, Benu, and the robed figure hurried into the crowd, trying to rush without drawing attention.

  Leena was a few dozen strides into the throng when the constables reached the end of the alley, raising their voices in calls of alarm. But the crowd was too closely packed and noisy for their calls to have much effect, and her heart pounding in her chest, she continued to swim through the masses of men, women, and metamen to the far corner.

  Having regrouped at the market's edge, the company reached the waterfront without incident.

  “There,” Spatha said, pointing to a dhow riding at anchor at the dock. “That's the ship of which I spoke.” She raced across the boardwalk and up the gangplank, vaulting onto the ship's deck.

  The rest of the company followed close behind, with Leena and Hieronymus setting foot on the deck just as the shipmaster came up from the hold.

  “What's the meaning of this?” the man barked. His head was shaved clean, and he had waxed mustaches over his full lips, with a large hoop earring in one ear, the other cropped off at the lobe. He wore silk pantaloons over leather boots, a sash around his ample midriff, and a loose-fitting blouse open to the waist. “Spatha Sekundus! What do you mean by this intrusion? And who is this motley band of reprobates?!”

  “List, Tyrel.” Spatha strode up to the well-fed shipmaster and snapped her fingers under his bulbous nose. “If thou would sail immediately, with me and my companions on board, I will consider thy debt to me repaid in full.”

  The man named Tyrel drew up short, his eyes widening. “Repaid in full?” he repeated, scratching his chin.

  “In full,” Spatha answered with a curt nod.

  “Well, then,” he said amiably, slapping Spatha on the shoulder, an avuncular grin on his wide face. “Why didn't you say so?”

  He turned to the deckhands, who hung back uneasily, eyeing the newcomers.

  “Cast off, you swabs!” he said. “We've cargo to deliver, and paying passengers to transport!” Tyrel turned back to the company. “If you've been embroiled in any…local difficulties, shall we say, it might be best if you went below until we were out of sight of land.”

  The shipmaster gestured with his double chin to the dock, where a trio of scimitar-wielding constables had just skidded into view.

  “A fine idea,” Leena said, hunching low. “Lead the way.”

  “Welcome to the good ship Acoetes Zephyrus, my lady,” Tyrel said with an oily smile, and pointed towards the hatch. “Your cabin awaits.”

  Some time later, the shipmaster joined the company down in the hold, where they sat amongst casks and crates, tending to their wounds.

  “We got clear of the waters of Masjid Empor without coming to the attention of the barques and corvettes of the harbor patrol. We're making for the open sea, so it should be safe for you to come topside now, if you like.”

  “Our thanks for your pains,” Hieronymus said.

  “Oh, I've suffered no pains for your sake yet, and I don't intend to start.” The shipmaster gestured at the hold around them. “My hold was already full of cargo, and I was just waiting for my ne'er-do-well nephew of a first mate, who is no doubt away carousing on the town, to return from shore leave. But I'll pick him up on the return trip, if he should survive that long. It'll break my sister's heart if I have to tell her that her wee lad has come to a bad end, but into every life a little rain must fall, after all. And besides, if he survives it might help to strengthen the boy's character a bit. Of course, come to think of it, I'm now left a bit shorthanded. I don't suppose any of you lot have any sailing experience, do you?”

  Hieronymus smiled broadly. “I spent better than fourteen years before the mast,” he said, “working my way up through the ranks of my nation's navy from the position of midshipman to first lieutenant, and it's been too many years since I felt the roll of the waves beneath my feet.”

  “Well, I don't know I have such a dire necessity for a first lieutenant,” Tyrel answered guardedly. “What I really need is help with the more, shall we say, taxing tasks of a deckhand. This is a fairly green crew, most of them come aboard in the last months, and I've always a need for a skilled pair of hands in the rigging, or working the bilge bumps, or even swabbing out the deck.”

  If anything, hearing a list of the onerous tasks of a common sailor only caused the smile on Hieronymus's face to widen. “I'm your man, Captain,” he said with a gleam in his eye.

  By the time Leena and the others came topside once more, they were out of sight of land, the clear blue waters of the Inner Sea stretching out to the horizon in all directions. The sky overhead was clear and bright, with only a few low clouds to the north, hugging the coastline.

  Leena heard a rumbling she initially took to be distant thunder, but which she quickly discovered was the growling of Balam's stomach. She realized that they'd not eaten before they arrived in Masjid Empor, considering that their last attempt to break their fast had been interrupted by their unexpected arrest.

  “Have you anything to eat?” Leena asked the shipmaster as he joined them on the deck.

  “And I wouldn't say no to a drink, myself,” Hieronymus put in, licking his dry lips.

  “Oooooh,” burbled the voice beneath the damp robes. “A dram of spirits would so ease my jangled nerves.”

  “Afraid not, all,” Tyrel said with a shake of his head. “I'm a strict adherent to the doctrine of the Meliorists, and I'll not allow any intoxicants on my ship, no matter how much my crew…or my inadvertent passengers…might grumble.”

  “Wha-at?” said the voice beneath the robes, and a webbed hand appeared from between the folds of cloth, grasping at the shipmaster. “But I'm thirsty!”

  “If you're thirsty, mate,” Tyrel answered, not without compassion, “it's not spirits you'll be needing, now is it?”

  The robed figure gave a howl of disconsolate pain, and slumped off to sulk in the shadow of the wheelhouse.

  “What kind of creature is that?” Leena asked.

  “I thought you knew,” Balam answered.

  “It is an Ichthyandaro,” Spatha said, saying the word like it was a curse.

  Leena glanced at the robed figure, a confused expression on her face.

  “That there, lassie,” Tyrel explained, “is a genuine fish man. Their kind tends to have a weakness for alcoholic spirits, though their bodies tolerate the stuff not at all. Ten
ds to dry them out, you see, which is bad for the gills.”

  “Gills?” Leena looked closer at the sulking figure, and at last understood the need for the dampened robes.

  That night, while the others enjoyed their evening meal under a cloudless sky, Leena spent her time studying the constellations. Many of the arrangements of stars seemed somewhat familiar, similar to those she knew from Earth's night sky, but subtly altered, their positions in the heavens and their relation one to another changed.

  When the others went below, to hang hammocks between the bulkheads and swing off to sleep, Leena stayed topside, her eyes on the heavens. In the strangeness of the past months, it was sometimes easy to forget that she'd so recently slipped the bonds of gravity, and traveled beyond the horizon. That she'd traveled so far beyond the horizon, she now reflected, and found herself on an alien world, however, was a fact she could never escape.

  Perhaps, then, this oracular forest towards which they sailed would hold the answers to the riddle of Paragaea, and the key to her safe return home. If she'd deserved a promotion to senior lieutenant for the successful completion of the Vostok 7 mission, surely she'd merit a commander's star for discovering a whole new world.

  Commander Akilina Mikhailovna Chirikova. It was a long distance to travel from the dirty-faced urchin who'd nearly died in a hail of incendiaries during the Great Patriotic War. A long distance, indeed.

  The next morning, Leena came on deck to find the robed figure huddled in the lee of the wheelhouse. The cloth of its robes had dried out in the night, and the fabric covering its head, chest, and left arm had been shrugged off. Its skin was ashen and gray, and while it appeared to be unconscious, its extremities trembled uncontrollably.

  “You there,” Leena said, turning and pointing to a sailor swabbing the deck with a bucket and mop. “Get me a bucket of water, if you would.”