“Oh,” Kalina said. And then she was off on a different topic as something else caught her attention. “What a strange house.”
Ivrian grinned at Mirian across from him, but she was lost in her own thoughts. He noted that she’d taken more time with her hair, and even applied light rouge to her rich dark skin and brightened her lips.
As pretty a picture as she made, for some reason she sat hunched, her arms crossed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her. “You look darling.”
Mirian’s eyes flicked up like dagger points. Her voice, though, was calm as she uncrossed her arms. “Thank you, Ivrian.”
He leaned forward. “I’ve made some preliminary notes about your adventure, but I’ve a few questions.”
Mirian cut him off, sharply. “I don’t want you writing this one.”
He gaped. “You’re joking. You and Jekka single-handedly took on a band of bloodthirsty pirates. It’ll be a shorter pamphlet, of course, but it will sell like—”
“They weren’t actually bloodthirsty,” Mirian corrected. “I’m the one who left them under the sea with the monster.”
At Ivrian’s disbelieving stare she explained further.
“I keep thinking back to their captain, and how he was ready to shake on the deal.”
“You would have been foolish to trust him,” Jekka said.
Mirian shook her head. “If we’d stayed to dive there, we would have needed a guard, just like I told him. And who better to guard us from pirates but another pirate?”
“You regret the ending of them?” Jekka asked.
“It doesn’t feel right. I think I might have been able to work with Ensara.”
“Even after he’d threatened to sell your ship and crew?” Ivrian asked.
“You should have seen that wreck, Ivrian.” Mirian sounded almost breathless. “It was the find of a lifetime. I’ve half a mind to seek it out again.”
“Why don’t we?” Kalina asked. She pushed back from the window and blinked large eyes at them as she settled into the seat beside Ivrian.
“There’s no telling where it stopped.” Mirian shook her head. “It probably went straight off the ridge and into the depths. I should have tried to work with them. When that devilfish attacked, I took advantage of the situation. But if I’d stayed—”
“You might have been killed, my sister,” Jekka said. “And it would have been complicated when you returned with Ensara and he found I had finished his sentries.”
Mirian nodded. There was no missing the sense of Jekka’s statement. The pirate captain might have killed every sailor on the Daughter once he realized his own crew members had been slain.
And if Mirian could be convinced of the sense of this observation, it might be Ivrian could gradually bring her around. It really was too good of a story to keep silent about. The first short book, Daughter of the Mist, was in its fourth printing after just two months and was garnering a great deal of attention, not to mention a steady supply of money. It had transformed them all into minor celebrities in Eleder. A second tale, however short, could only improve matters.
But he could see he’d have to wait before he pressed that argument again. Maybe, though, this was a good time to raise another matter. “If you had a larger ship, you would have been harder to attack.”
She didn’t like that topic either. Mirian seemed especially cross this morning. “And what will we pay a bigger crew with? I know you’ve got money, but won’t you just be throwing it down a hole? The Daughter’s paid off and we know how to earn enough to keep her afloat. In good years, I mean.”
Why wouldn’t she listen to him about that? “I’ve told you I can build a bigger ship, whatever you need. And the way things are going, I might be able to finance it with my account of our adventures.” He couldn’t help himself. “And the more new adventures people have to read, the better they’ll all sell.”
“Not going to happen,” Mirian said.
He couldn’t tell if she was reacting to the ship or story idea, and kicked himself a little for pressing the latter. He’d known he should wait. Aware that Kalina was staring at him intently, he decided to focus on what he thought to be the simpler argument. Probably the lizard woman would later pepper him with questions about human social customs.
“What about this price someone’s put out on the Daughter? We’re bound to be attacked again. We need to be able to defend ourselves.”
“Ensara might have been lying.” Mirian didn’t sound like she believed the idea herself. She was arguing for the sake of argument now. “There might be no bounty.”
“My new ship will have weapon placements. We can fight off all comers, or outrun them. And won’t we need a larger ship to search for the lost island on that map? We’ll be heading into the deeps instead of seeking near the coast.”
Mirian’s lips turned down. “Let’s not get false hopes raised. These charts are clearly wrong. Jekka knows that.”
Jekka held the cylinder that had arrived via courier from Port Freedom the previous night. He tapped it with two long, green fingers.
“But you said the Pathfinders could help us,” Kalina said. “That there might be an island, just in a different place.”
“Might.” Mirian gentled her tone while speaking to the lizard woman. “Do you know how our maps are made?”
“Ivrian told me,” Kalina said quickly. There was no missing the speculative look Mirian shot him, as if to suggest that she was waiting to see what Ivrian had gotten wrong. She really was in a foul mood today.
Kalina appeared oblivious to the tension. “Intrepid humans sail out and draw careful pictures of what they see while the ship is sailing, and then take those pictures to a mapmaker, who combines them with others, and they turn it into a big map.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Mirian said. “There’s the matter of accounting for navigational fixes to calculate exact distances when you’re constructing the chart, making depth soundings…” Mirian paused, seemed to consider her audience, then started over, speaking more slowly. “You have to remember that not all of the … pictures … are equal. It really depends upon how carefully distances are judged by the individuals making the charts. Not all of the navigators are equally skilled. Sometimes the graybeard in charge combines the most likely features into a finished version and adds a few artistic flourishes.” She paused briefly for effect. “Accurate charts are a lot rarer than you think.”
“Oh, yes.” Kalina’s head bobbed. “That’s what Ivrian said.”
Ivrian thought that might win him a few points, but Mirian didn’t even look at him. “Now that Desperation Bay’s been settled for so long,” she continued, “good, basic charts are easy to come by. That wasn’t the case when that old chart was drawn.”
“But there might be an island,” Jekka said. “Just like this old map shows. Just off a nearby coast. If someone had drawn it wrong in the long ago.”
There was no missing the hope in his voice, or the question there, even if he didn’t phrase it like one.
“Or the island might have sunk,” Ivrian suggested, and instantly regretted it as all three of his friends turned to look at him. He couldn’t see Jekka’s eyes, hidden as they were by the hood, and Kalina’s expression was hard to gauge, but even one of the lizardfolk could have deciphered the message in Mirian’s narrow-eyed glare. These two were hoping against hope that they weren’t the last of their clan, that somewhere out there across the vast blue other members yet lived. They’d risked their lives, and Jekka’s brother—Kalina’s mate—had lost his, searching for information about where others of their kind had traveled. Ivrian’s own mother had perished in the same expedition, along with Mirian’s brother and other friends and allies.
And he’d just casually pointed out to the lizardfolk how unlikely their hopes were to come true. “Even if it’s gone, there’s still that other lead, isn’t there?” he said swiftly. “The city mentioned on the book cones near Port Freedom?”
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Mirian ignored his question and looked pointedly away, turning her head between the lizardfolk. “There are no tales of a sunken island in Desperation Bay. None. If this lost island of Kutnaar had been where this old chart shows, there’d be folk legends all over Desperation Bay. Some old chart maker probably made a mistake and put it in the wrong place. If we look at the collection of charts in the Pathfinder lodge, we might just spot an island off some coastline that looks like this one.” Her finger waggled as she pointed to Jekka’s cylinder.
Now who was raising false hopes? Ivrian wondered. If there really were an island of lizardfolk anywhere nearby, wouldn’t people know about it?
He frowned to himself, supposing the same truth held for the lizardfolk city that the old book cones located near Port Freedom. As much as he wished it otherwise, his friends probably sought in vain.
Looking over at Kalina’s profile, he felt an onrush of pity. “It might be that the island is much smaller than is shown,” he suggested. “Sometimes it’s not just location but scale that the mapmakers got wrong.”
With that suggestion Mirian was finally in agreement, and she nodded slowly. “Don’t give up yet.”
The carriage finally rumbled to a stop.
They’d arrived at the Pathfinder lodge. Eager to have the uncomfortable moment over, Ivrian threw open the door to be greeted by a warm breeze bearing the sweet floral scent of mallow flowers. The lodge stood on a hill overlooking the wharves of Eleder’s main harbor. Ivrian turned to offer his hand to the ladies—women, he self-corrected, then corrected himself again, for there was no reason Kalina couldn’t be considered a lady. He spotted two sloops of Sargava’s small navy floating at anchor, their bare masts rising like pruned trees.
Kalina hopped from the carriage, eager as always to get the lay of the land, her scaled, green feet covered in long leather sandals.
Mirian’s brown eyes fixed him with a hard look, the message therein either shut the hell up, or think before you speak. Maybe both. Ivrian sighed a little and bowed his head to her as Jekka followed, his staff in one hand and cylinder in the other. Unlike his cousin, he hadn’t taken to wearing human footgear.
Ivrian told his driver to pull around and see to the animals, then trailed all three of his friends, reminding himself to be more circumspect.
They’d been let out beneath a wide wooden awning that extended over the flagstone driveway, flanked by well-trimmed mallow bushes, bright with brilliant cupped red blossoms. Wide stairs led up to the main entrance. As they climbed, Ivrian saw some men gathered about a large cart being loaded from the door downhill that led into the lodge’s basement level. Amongst the crates and gilt wooden chests was something that resembled a coffin with bronze fittings.
Ivrian couldn’t help staring at the handsome man supervising the loading. He was tall and tanned, and wore his casual travel clothes like royal raiment. Ivrian would have given a lot to know who he was and where he was going, and if Mirian weren’t already irritated with him he would have begged an introduction. He just about had to be another Pathfinder. Maybe he wouldn’t be as interesting as he looked, but Ivrian regretted not being able to find out.
A black-clad doorman, probably half-native Mwangi from the lighter tone of his sepia skin, advanced to ask for identification. Mirian pulled the slim, silvery-blue wayfinder from her belt pouch and showed it to the man. Ivrian had only been allowed a glimpse of it once before, and he barely caught sight of the palm-sized object this time.
The tool’s presentation was really only a formality, for Mirian was well enough known in Sargavan Pathfinder circles. The guard nodded politely, and Mirian repocketed her wayfinder, then followed after the guard. He led them to two towering teak doors and opened one with a bow.
They stepped through the threshold into a high, vaulted room. The wooden floorboards beneath worn but elegant rugs creaked faintly as Mirian headed within. From the right came a burst of laughter and Ivrian turned to find a dark-paneled sitting room with a bar.
Mirian led them past a mixed group of natives and colonials talking about the best route through the Bandu Hills. Ivrian tried to listen in, but the strangers fell silent to stare at Jekka and Kalina. Or possibly, he realized, they stared at Mirian, or even him. It wasn’t as though anyone had ever suggested he wear a sack over his head, after all, and he surely knew how to dress.
Mirian’s course took them beyond several archways and tall, closed doors before she headed left through a columned archway into a huge room with high, narrow windows that looked directly over the blue-green waters of the bay. He caught his breath, not at the magnificent view, but at the great library that surrounded him. The entire south and west walls were taken up with long rows of shelves. Arranged among them were squared-off slots holding scrolls, skulls, and strange bits of architecture. The majority of the space, however, was given over to leather-spined hardback books. Ivrian’s heart leapt the way only a true bibliophile’s could. Here, he knew, were treasures accumulated over lifetimes.
It would probably require a lifetime or more to become familiar with everything stored here. What wonders were hidden behind the tooled leather covers? What mysteries did they speak of, and what secrets were revealed therein? It could be that the lovely shelf of red leather tomes was the autobiography of a pirate queen. And that imposing brown book with gold leaf decoration could be the tale of an expedition into the Mwangi Expanse, handwritten by its lone survivor.
Mirian noted his look and smiled at him. She even sounded a little like her usual self. “Thrilling, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. Kalina and Jekka were speaking quietly to one another and he noted the former’s hand sweeping toward the ceiling.
Both lizardfolk were studying an immense, snakelike skeleton hung by wires to the right of three chandeliers dangling over the chamber’s center.
“You have access to all this and you actually leave?” Ivrian asked.
Mirian laughed good-naturedly.
For all its size, only a handful of people were inside the great library. Two sat alone at tables arranged on either side of the main aisle, older men who looked up from their work to stare at the newcomers. The only other occupant apart from themselves was a bent old woman close beside the south wall studying a book she held in the crook of her arm.
Mirian patted one of the empty tables. “You three stay here while I go find what we need.” She strode away.
His first inclination was to amuse himself studying book titles. Jekka, though, had opened the cylinder he carried and was unrolling the map on the table top. Ivrian had brought his carriage around to pick them up that morning, so he’d only heard a description of the map. Curious, he joined his reptilian friends, watching as Jekka placed the cylinder’s closing cap and a leather-bound tome to hold down either end of the map.
Mirian’s brother-in-law Tradan hadn’t sent the original, but a copy.
“Who made this?” he asked. It looked like a slapdash affair. Clearly the mouth of the Oubinga River was in the wrong place, and the Bandu Hills looked more like mountains. There was no sign of Eleder, either, but that made sense, owing to the original map’s antiquity. The city of his birth might not even have existed when the original was drawn.
Strangest of all was the small island just a few leagues east of the squiggle that was probably Smuggler’s Shiv. Under it, in crabbed cursive letters, he could just make out the word “Kutnaar.”
“You see,” Jekka said, tapping the island. “This is it. This is where some of our people went.”
Ivrian nodded. There was no disputing the fact that the map showed an island there. Just as there was no disputing that there was no island there now, as Ivrian was pretty sure he and Gombe had traveled through that space a few months ago with some Ijo sailors.
“Who drew this?” Ivrian asked again. He wondered how many of the map’s inaccuracies were the result of the copying itself.
Jekka bent over the map, as if staring longer at it would clarif
y matters for him. “Some human.”
Clearly the artist wasn’t a topic of any great interest for the lizard man.
Kalina was holding a smaller rectangle of paper that had slipped out of the package. Ivrian stepped closer and immediately recognized it for a letter, at the same time seeing that Kalina held it upside down. The lizard woman couldn’t read Taldane, but like all the lizardfolk Ivrian had met (an admittedly small number), she seemed to have an innate artistic sensibility. She was probably admiring the characters.
“What does that say?” he asked. “Is that from Mirian’s brother-in-law?”
“Yes,” Kalina answered. “I think that’s what he’s called.”
“Do you mind if I look at it?”
“No, not at all,” Kalina answered, but didn’t hand it over. Ivrian reminded himself there were still any number of gaps in their ability to communicate.
“I hoped you could hand it to me so I could read it.”
“Oh, of course.” Kalina gave the paper to him, then swung up her head to consider their surroundings. “These books are not so durable as our own. And human writing is not so pretty. But I like this place.”
Ivrian nodded distractedly and focused on the letter.
Dearest Mirian,
I hope that the years have been good to you. We were, naturally, very sorry to hear of your father’s death. I can’t claim we were on good terms anymore, but do believe me that we are both sorry for your loss. We were even sadder to learn of Kellic and regret, again, that we could not attend the ceremony for his remembrance.
As to the matter of those items, there was indeed a very old map to which I had taken quite a fancy. It is currently framed upon my wall. It’s very fragile, alas, but you can feel free to visit and look at it yourself at any time.
I have had my assistant make a copy of it for you, and I think he made a fair job of getting down all the important bits. I know it doesn’t look like much without the colors, but don’t think badly of it. These old mapmakers just seemed to make things up where they couldn’t find things.
Pathfinder Tales--Through the Gate in the Sea Page 5
