The Year's Best SF 13 # 1995

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  She dwelt on Council Heights. There did the Vilkui meet each year for rites and conference. But when the rest of them had dispersed again to carry on their vocation—dream interpreters, scribes, physicians, mediators, vessels of olden lore and learning, teachers of the young—Ilyandi remained. Here she could best search the heavens and seek for the meaning of what she found, on a high place sacred to all Ulonai.

  Up the Spirit Way rumbled Kalava’s chariot. Near the top, the trees that lined it, goldfruit and plume, stood well apart, giving him a clear view. Bushes grew sparse and low on the stony slopes, here the dusty green of vasi, there a shaggy hairleaf, yonder a scarlet fireflower. Scorchwort lent its acrid smell to a wind blowing hot and slow off the Gulf. That water shone, tarnished metal, westward beyond sight, under a silver-gray overcast beneath which scudded rags of darker cloud. A rainstorm stood on the horizon, blurred murk and flutters of lightning light.

  Elsewhere reached the land, bloomgrain ripening yellow, dun paperleaf, verdant pastures for herdlings, violet richen orchards, tall stands of shipwood. Farmhouses and their outbuildings lay widely strewn. The weather having been dry of late, dust whirled up from the roads winding among them to veil wagons and trains of porters. Regally from its sources eastward in Wilderland flowed the Lonna, arms fanning out north and south.

  Sirsu lifted battlemented walls on the right bank of the main stream, tiny in Kalava’s eyes at its distance. Yet he knew it, he could pick out famous works, the Grand Fountain in King’s Newmarket, the frieze-bordered portico of the Flame Temple, the triumphal column in Victory Square, and he knew where the wrights had their workshops, the merchants their bazaars, the innkeepers their houses for a seaman to find a jug and a wench. Brick, sandstone, granite, marble mingled their colors softly together. Ships and boats plied the water or were docked under the walls. On the opposite shore sprawled mansions and gardens of the Helki suburb, their rooftiles fanciful as jewels.

  It was remote from that which he approached.

  Below a great arch, two postulants in blue robes slanted their staffs across the way and called, “In the name of the Mystery, stop, make reverence, and declare yourself!”

  Their young voices rang high, unawed by a sight that had daunted warriors. Kalava was a big man, wide-shouldered and thick-muscled. Weather had darkened his skin to the hue of coal and bleached nearly white the hair that fell in braids halfway down his back. As black were the eyes that gleamed below a shelf of brow, in a face rugged, battered, and scarred. His mustache curved down past the jaw, dyed red. Traveling in peace, he wore simply a knee-length kirtle, green and trimmed with kivi skin, each scale polished, and buskins; but gold coiled around his arms and a sword was belted at his hip. Likewise did a spear stand socketed in the chariot, pennon flapping, while a shield slatted at the rail and an ax hung ready to be thrown. Four matched slaves drew the car. Their line had been bred for generations to be draft creatures—huge, long-legged, spirited, yet trustworthy after the males were gelded. Sweat sheened over Kalava’s brand on the small, bald heads and ran down naked bodies. Nonetheless they breathed easily and the smell of them was rather sweet.

  Their owner roared, “Halt!” For a moment only the wind had sound or motion. Then Kalava touched his brow below the headband and recited the Confession: “What a man knows is little, what he understands is less, therefore let him bow down to wisdom.” Himself, he trusted more in blood sacrifices and still more in his own strength; but he kept a decent respect for the Vilkui.

  “I seek counsel from the skythinker Ilyandi,” he said. That was hardly needful, when no other initiate of her order was present.

  “All may seek who are not attainted of ill-doing,” replied the senior boy as ceremoniously.

  “Ruvio bear witness that any judgments against me stand satisfied.” The Thunderer was the favorite god of most mariners.

  “Enter, then, and we shall convey your request to our lady.”

  The junior boy led Kalava across the outer court. Wheels rattled loud on flagstones. At the guesthouse, he helped stall, feed, and water the slaves, before he showed the newcomer to a room that in the high season slept two-score men. Elsewhere in the building were a bath, a refectory, ready food—dried meat, fruit, and flatbread—with richenberry wine. Kalava also found a book. After refreshment, he sat down on a bench to pass the time with it.

  He was disappointed. He had never had many chances or much desire to read, so his skill was limited; and the copyist for this codex had used a style of lettering obsolete nowadays. Worse, the text was a chronicle of the emperors of Zhir. That was not just painful to him—oh, Eneio, his son, his last son!—but valueless. True, the Vilkui taught that civilization had come to Ulonai from Zhir. What of it? How many centuries had fled since the desert claimed that realm? What were the descendants of its dwellers but starveling nomads and pestiferous bandits?

  Well, Kalava thought, yes, this could be a timely warning, a reminder to people of how the desert still marched northward. But was what they could see not enough? He had passed by towns not very far south, flourishing in his grandfather’s time, now empty, crumbling houses half buried in dust, glassless windows like the eye sockets in a skull.

  His mouth tightened. He would not meekly abide any doom.

  Day was near an end when an acolyte of Ilyandi came to say that she would receive him. Walking with his guide, he saw purple dusk shade toward night in the east. In the west the storm had ended, leaving that part of heaven clear for a while. The sun was plainly visible, though mists turned it into a red-orange step pyramid. From the horizon it cast a bridge of fire over the Gulf and sent great streamers of light aloft into cloudbanks that glowed sulfurous. A whistlewing passed like a shadow across them. The sound of its flight keened faintly down through air growing less hot. Otherwise a holy silence rested upon the heights.

  Three stories tall, the sanctuaries, libraries, laboratories, and quarters of the Vilkui surrounded the inner court with their cloisters. A garden of flowers and healing herbs, intricately laid out, filled most of it. A lantern had been lighted in one arcade, but all windows were dark and Ilyandi stood out in the open awaiting her visitor.

  She made a slight gesture of dismissal. The acolyte bowed her head and slipped away. Kalava saluted, feeling suddenly awkward but his resolution headlong within him. “Greeting, wise and gracious lady,” he said.

  “Well met, brave captain,” the skythinker replied. She gestured at a pair of confronting stone benches. “Shall we be seated?” It fell short of inviting him to share wine, but it meant she would at least hear him out.

  They lowered themselves and regarded one another through the swiftly deepening twilight. Ilyandi was a slender woman of perhaps forty years, features thin and regular, eyes large and luminous brown, complexion pale—like smoked copper, he thought. Cropped short in token of celibacy, wavy hair made a bronze coif above a plain white robe. A green sprig of tekin, held at her left shoulder by a pin in the emblematic form of interlocked circle and triangle, declared her a Vilku.

  “How can I aid your venture?” she asked.

  He started in surprise. “Huh! What do you know about my plans?” In haste: “My lady knows much, of course.”

  She smiled. “You and your saga have loomed throughout these past decades. And … word reaches us here. You search out your former crewmen or bid them come see you, all privately. You order repairs made to the ship remaining in your possession. You meet with chandlers, no doubt to sound them out about prices. Few if any people have noticed. Such discretion is not your wont. Where are you bound, Kalava, and why so secretively?”

  His grin was rueful. “My lady’s not just wise and learned, she’s clever. Well, then, why not go straight to the business? I’ve a voyage in mind that most would call crazy. Some among them might try to forestall me, holding that it would anger the gods of those parts—seeing that nobody’s ever returned from there, and recalling old tales of monstrous things glimpsed from afar. I don’t believe them myself, o
r I wouldn’t try it.”

  “Oh, I can imagine you setting forth regardless,” said Ilyandi half under her breath. Louder: “But agreed, the fear is likely false. No one had reached the Shining Fields by sea, either, before you did. You asked for no beforehand spells or blessings then. Why have you sought me now?”

  “This is, is different. Not hugging a shoreline. I—well, I’ll need to get and train a new huukin, and that’s no small thing in money or time.” Kalava spread his big hands, almost helplessly. “I had not looked to set forth ever again, you see. Maybe it is madness, an old man with an old crew in a single old ship. I hoped you might counsel me, my lady.”

  “You’re scarcely ready for the balefire, when you propose to cross the Windroad Sea,” she answered.

  This time he was not altogether taken aback. “May I ask how my lady knows?”

  Ilyandi waved a hand. Catching faint lamplight, the long fingers soared through the dusk like nightswoopers. “You have already been east, and would not need to hide such a journey. South, the trade routes are ancient as far as Zhir. What has it to offer but the plunder of tombs and dead cities, brought in by wretched squatters? What lies beyond but unpeopled desolation until, folk say, one would come to the Burning Lands and perish miserably? Westward we know of a few islands, and then empty ocean. If anything lies on the far side, you could starve and thirst to death before you reached it. But northward—yes, wild waters, but sometimes men come upon driftwood of unknown trees or spy storm-borne flyers of unknown breed—and we have all the legends of the High North, and glimpses of mountains from ships blown off course—” Her voice trailed away.

  “Some of those tales ring true to me,” Kalava said. “More true than stories about uncanny sights. Besides, wild huukini breed offshore, where fish are plentiful. I have not seen enough of them there, in season, to account for as many as I’ve seen in open sea. They must have a second shoreline. Where but the High North?”

  Ilyandi nodded. “Shrewd, Captain. What else do you hope to find?”

  He grinned again. “I’ll tell you after I get back, my lady.”

  Her tone sharpened. “No treasure-laden cities to plunder.”

  He yielded. “Nor to trade with. Would we not have encountered craft of theirs, or, anyhow, wreckage? However … the farther north, the less heat and the more rainfall, no? A country yonder could have a mild clime, forestfuls of timber, fat land for plowing, and nobody to fight.” The words throbbed. “No desert creeping in? Room to begin afresh, my lady.”

  She regarded him steadily through the gloaming. “You’d come home, recruit people, found a colony, and be its king?”

  “Its foremost man, aye, though I expect the kind of folk who’d go will want a republic. But mainly—” His voice went low. He stared beyond her. “Freedom. Honor. A freeborn wife and new sons.”

  They were silent awhile. Full night closed in. It was not as murky as usual, for the clearing in the west had spread rifts up toward the zenith. A breath of coolness soughed in leaves, as if Kalava’s dream whispered a promise.

  “You are determined,” she said at last, slowly. “Why have you come to me?”

  “For whatever counsel you will give, my lady. Facts about the passage may be hoarded in books here.”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it. Unless navigation—yes, that is a real barrier, is it not?”

  “Always,” he sighed.

  “What means of wayfinding have you?”

  “Why, you must know.”

  “I know what is the common knowledge about it. Craftsmen keep their trade secrets, and surely skippers are no different in that regard. If you will tell me how you navigate, it shall not pass these lips, and I may be able to add something.”

  Eagerness took hold of him. “I’ll wager my lady can! We see moon or stars unoften and fitfully. Most days the sun shows no more than a blur of dull light amongst the clouds, if that. But you, skythinkers like you, they’ve watched and measured for hundreds of years, they’ve gathered lore—” Kalava paused. “Is it too sacred to share?”

  “No, no,” she replied. “The Vilkui keep the calendar for everyone, do they not? The reason that sailors rarely get our help is that they could make little or no use of our learning. Speak.”

  “True, it was Vilkui who discovered lodestones.… Well, coasting these waters, I rely mainly on my remembrance of landmarks, or a periplus if they’re less familiar to me. Soundings help, especially if the plumb brings up a sample of the bottom for me to look at and taste. Then in the Shining Fields I got a crystal—you must know about it, for I gave another to the order when I got back—I look through it at the sky and, if the weather be not too thick, I see more closely where the sun is than I can with a bare eye. A logline and hourglass give some idea of speed, a lodestone some idea of direction, when out of sight of land. Sailing for the High North and return, I’d mainly use it, I suppose. But if my lady could tell me of anything else—”

  She sat forward on her bench. He heard a certain intensity. “I think I might, Captain. I’ve studied that sunstone of yours. With it, one can estimate latitude and time of day, if one knows the date and the sun’s heavenly course during the year. Likewise, even glimpses of moon and stars would be valuable to a traveler who knew them well.”

  “That’s not me,” he said wryly. “Could my lady write something down? Maybe this old head won’t be too heavy to puzzle it out.”

  She did not seem to hear. Her gaze had gone upward. “The aspect of the stars in the High North,” she murmured. “It could tell us whether the world is indeed round. And are our vague auroral shimmers more bright yonder—in the veritable Lodeland—?”

  His look followed hers. Three stars twinkled wan where the clouds were torn. “It’s good of you, my lady,” he said, “that you sit talking with me, when you could be at your quadrant or whatever, snatching this chance.”

  Her eyes met his. “Yours may be a better chance, Captain,” she answered fiercely. “When first I got the rumor of your expedition, I began to think upon it and what it could mean. Yes, I will help you where I can. I may even sail with you.”

  * * *

  The Gray Courser departed Sirsu on a morning tide as early as there was light to steer by. Just the same, people crowded the dock. The majority watched mute. A number made signs against evil. A few, mostly young, sang a defiant paean, but the air seemed to muffle their strains.

  Only lately had Kalava given out what his goal was. He must, to account for the skythinker’s presence, which could not be kept hidden. That sanctification left the authorities no excuse to forbid his venture. However, it took little doubt and fear off those who believed the outer Windroad a haunt of monsters and demons, which might be stirred to plague home waters.

  His crew shrugged the notion off, or laughed at it. At any rate, they said they did. Two-thirds of them were crusty shellbacks who had fared under his command before. For the rest, he had had to take what he could scrape together, impoverished laborers and masterless ruffians. All were, though, very respectful of the Vilku.

  The Gray Courser was a yalka, broad-beamed and shallow-bottomed, with a low forecastle and poop and a deckhouse amidships. The foremast carried two square sails, the mainmast one square and one fore-and-aft; a short bowsprit extended for a jib. A catapult was mounted in the bows. On either side, two boats hung from davits, aft of the harnessing shafts. Her hull was painted according to her name, with red trim. Alongside swam the huukin, its back a sleek blue ridge.

  Kalava had the tiller until she cleared the river mouth and stood out into the Gulf. By then it was full day. A hot wind whipped gray-green water into whitecaps that set the vessel rolling. It whined in the shrouds; timbers creaked. He turned the helm over to a sailor, trod forward on the poop deck, and sounded a trumpet. Men stared. From her cabin below, Ilyandi climbed up to stand beside him. Her white robe fluttered like wings that would fain be asoar. She raised her arms and chanted a spell for the voyage:

  “Burning, turning,r />
  The sun-wheel reels

  Behind the blindness

  Cloud-smoke evokes.

  The old cold moon

  Seldom tells

  Where it lairs

  With stars afar.

  No men’s omens

  Abide to guide

  High in the skies.

  But lodestone for Lodeland

  Strongly longs.”

  While the deckhands hardly knew what she meant, they felt heartened.

  Land dwindled aft, became a thin blue line, vanished into waves and mists. Kalava was cutting straight northwest across the Gulf. He meant to sail through the night, and thus wanted plenty of sea room. Also, he and Ilyandi would practice with her ideas about navigation. Hence after a while the mariners spied no other sails, and the loneliness began to weigh on them.

  However, they worked stoutly enough. Some thought it a good sign, and cheered, when the clouds clove toward evening and they saw a homed moon. Their mates were frightened; was the moon supposed to appear by day? Kalava bullied them out of it.

  Wind stiffened during the dark. By morning it had raised seas in which the ship reeled. It was a westerly, too, forcing her toward land no matter how close-hauled. When he spied, through scud, the crags of Cape Vairka, the skipper realized he could not round it unaided.

  He was a rough man, but he had been raised in those skills that were seemly for a freeman of Clan Samayoki. Though not a poet, he could make an acceptable verse when occasion demanded. He stood in the forepeak and shouted into the storm, the words flung back to his men:

  “Northward now veering,

  Steering from kin-rift,

  Spindrift flung gale-borne,

  Sail-borne is daft.

  Craft will soon flounder,

  Founder, go under—

  Thunder this wit-lack!

  Sit back and call

  All that swim near.

  Steer then to northward.”

  Having thus offered the gods a making, he put the horn to his mouth and blasted forth a summons to his huukin.