“I’m not awake. This is a dream.”
“I would not bother pinching myself, Elder. You must go. You know Helion, you know Roval, you know the Shadowmoon and its crew, and you are an experienced sailor. Above all, you can be trusted.”
“The Shadowmoon needs a month in the dockyard before it will be ready for another voyage.”
“The Shadowmoon is currently being hoisted onto the deck of the battle galley Megazoid, where it will be serviced, careened, and refitted on the voyage north. From now on you will even have new, watertight lockers to keep things dry when it submerges, and a depth measure to show how deep you have gone.”
Terikel rubbed her face in her hands. Months of seasickness stretched before her, to be relieved only by brief periods of extreme fright.
“So the entire trip will not be on the Shadowmoon?”
“No, no, of course not. You will be commander of the whole expedition, the Megazoid as well as the Shadowmoon. You can have the Megazoid’s master cabin as your own; you can have whatever luxuries can be carried aboard in the next, er, three hours. You can even have the Megazoid’s galleymaster, if he’s to your fancy.”
“No thank you.”
“Less than half of the voyage need be on the Shadowmoon.”
Terikel flopped into a chair. Her shoulders slumped, and the tower master knew that he had won.
“Commander Terikel, I knew we could count on your sense of duty.”
Chapter Seven
VOYAGE TO SICKLE BAY
Warsovran was careful to create the trappings of a royal court in his makeshift Diomedan palace. The nobles from his fleet were now dressed in rich robes, of a type more impressive to Acreman eyes, and gold featured heavily in the decorations and furnishings. He had already ordered work commenced on a new palace, which was to be sited on a hill commanding panoramic views of the harbor and city. The message was that he was rich, powerful, refined, and here to stay. On this particular day he was recruiting dancing girls for the entertainment of his new court.
A procession of eunuchs began serving as the girls sprawled on huge cushions, and serving maids discreetly moved about with pitchers of honeyed goat’s milk, limewater, chilled caffin with marshmallow foam, and vanilla yogurt.
“Spiced partridge hearts on handwatered lavender rice under young lettuce leaves and cornflower petals,” called the lead eunuch.
“Here,” Grand Admiral Narady said without looking up.
The next eunuch in line stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Young marrows stuffed with candied wild locusts, and spiced, seedless cherry tomatoes in oiled vine leaves.”
Sonmalin, the city governor, waved languidly but did not bother to call out.
“Leek fronds stuffed with curried sea urchin on maidenhair noodles.”
“Mine,” called Admiral Griffa, sitting up on his cushions.
The next eunuch had a look of undisguised distaste on his face. “Plain brown rice and raw celery, with one sardine in olive oil,” he said, as if every word caused him pain.
“For me,” called Admiral Forteron.
A servant poured out a goblet of limewater. Forteron sipped at it, then handed it to Warsovran.
“They will become soft,” Forteron observed quietly to his emperor.
“I want them soft, that way they are easier to mold,” replied Warsovran.
The band changed from background music to a dance tune, and identical-twin Locnarii dancers entered from the doorway at the back of the hall. Warsovran thought at first that he was seeing double as he stared at the approaching girls. Their languorous dance was perfectly coordinated, and even the loops of pearls on their midriffs and their pendant earrings swayed synchronously, and in time to the music. The technical precision of the dance held Warsovran’s attention firmly, like a rat hypnotized by an approaching snake. Time seemed suspended as they danced … then they were bowing and backing away. The music changed tempo, slowing a little.
Standing just out of sight were Sairet, Wensomer, and a muscular eunuch.
“Are you sure you are strong enough to go through with this?” Sairet hissed anxiously. “I mean, a month of nothing but brown rice, raw celery, and rainwater—”
“Shut up and help me tie that veil,” snapped Wensomer.
“Not to mention a daily regimen of three thousand sit-ups, a ten-mile run up and down the beach, a sauna—”
“I lost sixty-one pounds, that is all that matters.”
“Everything is black or white for you, Wensomer, that is your trouble. There are no shadings or colors. I have been advising you on measured and sensible weight loss ever since you arrived in Diomeda and you just ignored me. Now you—”
“Gorien, bend down, please,” said Wensomer to the eunuch. “Sairet, I appreciate your concern, but for now please help me onto his shoulders.”
The music changed yet again, and the muscular eunuch walked slowly in from one side of the throne room as the twins completed their exit. Wensomer was draped over his shoulders. Gorien was dressed as a windrel snake-charmer, and as he came to a stop in the center of the floor, Wensomer began to slide down and around his body to the flagstones. As the eunuch backed away, she rose to her feet, her head swaying all the while, her tongue flickering over her lips every few seconds. She began by rotating her hips in a tight circle. Gradually the circle grew wider and lower, and soon she was on her knees. Her waist-length hair, dyed a blazingly bright shade of red, streamed out as she gyrated again and again. Without taking a single step she then slithered into an undulating body roll, and worked her way through a series of floor glides and back bends that made her body seem as fluid as a suit of fine chain-mail. Her dance culminated in a shimmying back bend that had Warsovran and Forteron clapping wildly.
The eunuch walked slowly back to where Wensomer was doing another floor glide and stopped just beside her. As he stood there, legs apart and arms folded, Wensomer slithered around his legs, then up and around his torso until she was again draped around his shoulders like a snake. Slowly, steadily, he walked away, as if there was nothing heavier than a small velvet python curled around his neck. They vanished through a door.
“Now, that was something to remember,” said Warsovran, rubbing his chin.
Forteron smiled and nodded. The governor just folded his arms and sat up, as if anticipating that even better was still to come.
Wensomer reappeared, her forearms held horizontally just below her eyes, fingertips touching. Dark blue veils now hung from her arms to the floor.
“She’s swathed in veils, she will spend much of the dance disrobing,” Forteron said knowingly as he winked.
Wensomer took several steps, swaying to the music, but at a sudden quickening in the tempo, swept her arms down to reveal only fringed, sequined breastcups and a tasseled bikini whose belt was covered in coins and silver bells. Her sash was worn low on her hips, and was of translucent blue silk. The month on the SWS training program had removed a third of her body weight and replaced it with a set of abdominal muscles few men in the room could have matched, but the overall effect was definitely lissome—if a little astonishing.
Forteron and Warsovran gasped together and sat back. Wensomer stood perfectly still for some moments, only her eyelids batting, then her torso slowly expanded as she breathed in. Her arms swept upward, drawing up the veils like blue wings. Rhythmically jingling the zills on her fingers, Wensomer began to rotate her hips slowly in a flat circle while holding her upper torso perfectly still. As she began the first of several figures she had been practicing, her movements were so light and serpentine as to make her limbs seem like wisps of smoke. Her balance was such as to make her seem to defy gravity. A glowing green stone was set in her navel, lit from behind with luminous paste extracted from moon-beetles, while makeup based on the same paste gave her face the suggestion of a glow from between her curtains of long hair.
Warsovran stared at Wensomer with his mouth hanging open, mesmerized, not even realizing that he had joined
everyone else in the hall in clapping to the rhythm of the musicians’ playing.
“Is she hired?” laughed Forteron.
Warsovran did not reply; he had not heard him. Wensomer’s eyes were half shut as she began the second figure, suggesting effortless ease rather than exhaustion. Snake arm-rolls, head slides, back-bend shimmies, pivoted hip-swings—all of her movements flowed from one to another with ease yet intensity, and she never seemed to tire. This dance was not actually meant to be spellbinding, it was mere background now, a setting for talk between rulers. Warsovran beckoned for the city governor to join them.
“I would wager you Toreans never had such art as this,” he said offhandedly.
“We Toreans are the greatest sailors in the world,” replied Warsovran, already aware of where the governor was trying to lead him. “We buy and sell artists.”
“So, you have come here to buy the best art in the world?”
“Indeed. How much is that last dancer?”
“She is a citizen, for hire only.”
“Then don’t just sit there, hire her!”
All the while, Wensomer continued to dance, showing no signs of fatigue, but she had noted that the men had begun to talk again. She was once more part of the general entertainment, and had no special reason to seek their attention. She danced sinuous, easy moves, enduring rather than impressing. It was twenty minutes before the governor gestured for the remaining dancers to begin, and a troupe of windrel girls took over the entertainment. Wensomer was almost totally drained as she slipped behind the heavy curtains by the archways. The windrels were more overtly sensual in their dancing than Sairet’s dancers had been, Wensomer noted as she watched through a narrow gap. Sairet came up beside her.
“The news is that you are hired,” Sairet announced.
“Ah, wonderful,” panted Wensomer. “And you?”
“I was not available. The time will come soon when the allied army comes marching over the horizon and anyone known to work for Warsovran’s court will view the victory celebrations from the top of a twelve-foot pike while their bodies feature in a special underwater festival for loyal and patriotic Diomedan sharks.”
“By then I shall have what I want, and be severely missing from Diomeda.”
Sairet sighed. “Ah, the eternal question: What do women want?”
“Who said anything about women?” said Wensomer, turning away from the gap. “When this is all done, I swear I shall do nothing but eat for a year! I’ll never complain about your training again, it was like a rest after the SWS program.”
“So, first thing tomorrow morning at your villa?”
“Yes, yes—and this time I might even be awake.”
Laron’s instinct told him that Roval was planning to leave soon. The Scalticarian had said nothing to that effect, but there was something in his manner that worried Laron. A slight distance in his conversation, a reluctance to talk about anything in the future, his readiness to give Laron extra lessons in javat whenever the dance space was available. In order to train, Laron had been missing lectures at the Academy and copying the notes of others, paying for the favor in real silver. Between study, etheric focus meditation, and javat training, he was lucky to get five hours of sleep in a good night. Every second evening he would visit Wensomer, and they would share dinner and a jug of rainwater together while complaining to each other about injuries, aches, and the fact there were not enough hours in the day. Wensomer also hated feeling hungry all the time, and the way her body seemed to put on half a pound if she so much as thought about a honey pastry. Laron specialized in complaints about the difficulty in adding muscle to his body, hair to his face, and the fact that even the smell of roast lamb raised pimples on his cheeks.
“Here I am, eating fish, rice, and plain rolled oats to keep my skin clear, and for what what?” moaned Laron a few nights after Wensomer had been recruited as a palace dancer. “My skin is clear, but I do not have a girl to caress it. Why do I bother?”
“Hah, try my predicament,” muttered Wensomer. “Desired by every man who sees me dance, yet too busy and tired to take any of them to my bed.”
A gong downstairs announced Sairet’s arrival.
“Well, my torturer is here,” Wensomer said as she and Laron stood up.
“Luxury,” replied Laron. “My torturer does not make house calls.”
“He does when he trains me,” retorted Wensomer.
“Well, then, same time, day after tomorrow?”
“See you then.”
After a brief and rather limp embrace, Laron went on his way. The sun was down, but Laron could have cheerfully aimed at a bed, fallen, and not moved until dawn. He was bruised, aching, very tired, and desperate for a meal with a bit of flavor. As he passed the Bargeman’s Pole, the scent of minced lamb patties with herbs wafted out and secured his attention. His foot froze in midstep. He thought about yielding to temptation, thought about Wensomer’s need for moral support, thought about the risk of generating half a dozen pimples, then decided that chivalry had its limits and if he could risk death he could risk pimples as well.
A quarter of an hour later he belched contentedly as he pushed his plate away, then took a sip of grape juice. Being mortal again was quite a strain, but good food was certainly a compensation. The thought of Wensomer suffering through her dance lesson gave him a twinge of guilt, but the thought that she was unlikely to find out about the lamb and kidney pie eased the twinge.
Because he was nervous about being seen eating anything remotely enticing, he had seated himself in a shadowed corner of the room. Thus when Feran entered, followed by Druskarl, they did not notice him as they glanced around, looking a trifle furtive. Laron dropped his face into his hands and watched them through his fingers. If they stayed … But they did not stay. They bought a bag of dried figs and two skins of grape juice, then walked straight out again. Laron hesitated for a moment, then followed as they made their way to the shipwrights’ yards on the bank of the Leir River.
The pair disappeared into a shed, where a guard was posted. Laron debated with himself about whether to try and get a look inside. He noticed that at least one large dog was just as concerned for the shed’s security as the guard. Laron’s dilemma was resolved with the rattle of a chain on the doors facing the river. Even at a distance he easily discerned four men carrying something long, thin, and obviously very light. They waded into the water, and two of them climbed into the lean, frail-looking craft.
“Panyor,” and “ … back before dawn,” floated across to Laron as four oars the length of the Shadowmoon’s sweeps splashed into the water. The craft shot out into the river at a speed that nothing afloat should have been able to achieve, then turned inland. Laron followed for half a mile, but the exertions of the afternoon quickly caught up with him, along with the weight of the pie in his stomach. The thing was traveling upstream at the speed of a horse doing a light canter! Panyor. That was an inland port, a place where the wine barges broke their journey from the inland mountains. The barges took from dawn until dusk to make the trip, yet Feran’s voice had implied the strange boat could make the round trip in perhaps six hours. That was over four times the speed of a barge, assuming they would not stop to rest in Panyor.
All the way back to the Academy Laron thought about what he had seen and heard. If Feran’s boat was to leave the inland mountains at dusk and travel perhaps six times faster than a barge going downstream, he could have wine prices and volumes to Diomeda in half a day, yet a relay of horsemen could do almost as well, and a carrier auton could do it quicker still. What advantage could a very fast boat confer? Then it it hit him like the light of a dazzle-casting. They could bring the small sample jars of new vintages to Diomeda smoothly, without bruising the contents. That was something a rider could never achieve. Vintages could be presold to the masters of the deepwater traders who could taste them directly, rather than them having to pay tasting fees to inland merchants.
Laron keyed into the guard auton at
the Academy’s door and let himself in, then went to the library to study. Sitting in the golden light of the oil lamps he estimated that it would be only one season before all the other merchants commissioned versions of Feran’s boat and recruited strong rowers, but one season with a monopoly on wine prices would be enough to establish Feran as a man of importance in Diomeda. The boatbuilders and mercantile spies had probably come to precisely the same conclusion however, and Laron suspected that there were over a dozen identical racing shells being built in other sheds on the riverside.
Another spy, with quite different masters and interests, continued the wait at the riverside long after Laron had left, however. He looked and smelled like a homeless drunk, but the reports he returned were extremely coherent.
The docks of Panyor were silent as Feran’s racing shell glided out of the desert night. Leaving Druskarl to guard the craft, Feran slowly stretched, straightened, then hobbled off into the silent streets of the river port. He had never visited the house he sought, and was relying on memorized directions in streets lit only by Miral’s light. At last he found a door with lamplight seeping out below it. He knocked.
“Aye?” asked a voice.
“Torean gold,” replied Feran.
Feran was admitted, and the saddlemaker led him to the workshop. In one corner was something like a suit of armor for a hunchback. Iron-shod clogs stood beside it.
“It looks somewhat big for you,” said the artisan.
“That is because it is not for me,” Feran replied as he unbuckled a strap. “Good—plenty of felt padding and a second layer of leather beneath. That improves ventilation, you know. A man can fight under the hottest sun for hours wearing a suit like this. Now, show me how it packs away.”
“Suppose you show me your gold first?” said the artisan.
Feran counted out the fee, and added a bonus. Even packed away, the suit was a large bundle. Feran hefted it.
“What inn are you staying at?” the artisan asked as Feran prepared to leave.
Voyage of the Shadowmoon Page 36
