OUTPOURING: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology

by Dean Francis Alfar

  Freeborn opened his eyes. The Nimble Riddles were gone. Heart pounding, he took a step back, and another, and another, toward Emy’s House of Forever.

  AT THE FATAL well, Freeborn shook free of his footsteps. He could not fathom how he had broken free of the loop so easily, but suspected that Yellowbelly’s influence had somehow failed. Touching the remaining pair of daggers in his armor, he strode past the glistening well and stopped at the black house beside Yellowbelly’s shanty. The beautiful white door was ajar.

  Freeborn stepped through and confirmed his suspicions. There Yellowbelly stood, at the center of the house’s sole room, surrounded on four sides by mirrored walls. He did not register Freeborn’s entrance, captivated as he was by his own reflection, reflected upon itself four times ad infinitum.

  “By the gods of Lago Nihil,” he said, “never have I been so enchanted by infinity. So elegant yet so casual; almost a perfunctory trait of existence. I understand now: eternity resides in the finite self, like a riddle, like precious water, mere light bounding from mirror to mirror in constant, reflexive plurality.”

  Freeborn remained at the doorway. “We would have given you an endless rope and the devotion of a bottomless heart, had you been the coward we thought you were,” he said. “Instead, we leave you here, in the house of our love, until the end of time.”

  Freeborn reached into his chest, drew out Yellowbelly’s waterskin, and placed it by the threshold. “Enjoy your forever, for as long as it lasts,” he said as he closed the door. He brushed away a patch of dirt in front of the house and found Emy’s letter, where she always left it:

  My dearest Freeborn,

  The prophecy has come to pass. The house is no longer mine. I have fled through the gate at the edge of the city, into the lands beyond the country of Logic. Find me in the state of Epiphany, past the borders of Reason, where foresight cannot dwell. There, perhaps, we might finally have our chance.

  Yours,

  Emy

  HEART IN HAND, Freeborn walked toward the triangular gate. The twin mountains which flanked Valle Paradox ended their slopes at its edges. Midnight light fell from the sky in sheer opalescent beams, painting sinuous brushstrokes over the black-silver armor, which lay strewn in pieces among Freeborn’s footprints.

  “Your answer to the Nimble Riddle,” he said to the lump in his grasp, “we shall prove wrong. When the time comes, we will say her name, and she will not disappear.”

  Three skeletal masks hovering on stilts greeted him at the gate. The rules were clear: a thricefold abandon was required in order to cross the borders of Reason. Freeborn was ready.

  “I bring only a heart, a rope, and myself,” he said. “I have cast off my armor, my daggers, and my past. These I now leave behind.”

  A tremulous whisper: “Passser of riddles. Exsssit with permissssion.”

  With singular resolve, Freeborn faded into the waiting triangle, his heart grown heavy with hopeless desire. He carried it, straining, into the wordless unknown beyond.

  Storm Warning

  By Lillian Csernica

  Shai-Lysse sat on a broad flat rock just past the tide line, watching the rise and fall of the breakers while she combed out her long black hair. The sky was bright with the promise of a fresh spring sunrise. The time had come for the Gateway Islands to throw off the damp gray blanket of winter clouds and burst into a thousand colors as every tree, bush, and vine put out flowers. It was a happy time, a time for families to gather together, a time for showing off new loves and new babies.

  No gray lightened Shai-Lysse’s hair. No wrinkles or spots tainted her smooth brown skin. She could still swim and dive and dance as well as any of the girls who wore the virgins’ flowers in their hair. Not that any of the young men would notice, or care. To them she was just the Guardian, the one they never saw, the one their grannies whispered about late at night around the fire. Shai-Lysse hid her face behind her long hair and wept.

  Cannons thundered to the west. Shai-Lysse wound her hair up into a knot and drove the tines of the shell comb through it, then splashed through the surf to the beach. A winding path led to the top of the cliff where she could see what was happening in the harbor. From one of the deep pockets in her long, loose dress of blue homespun, Shai-Lysse withdrew a battered spyglass. Pirates! They attacked two merchant vessels. To Shai-Lysse’s growing horror, she recognized the merchant vessels as ships owned by her older sister’s husband.

  The Waverider was a single-masted sloop, lean and fast and fine for short trading runs between the other islands. Shai-Lysse spotted her sister’s twin sons racing up and down the rigging adjusting sails. Like sharks circling a dolphin, the pirates kept tacking across the Waverider’s bow, cutting its wind. They did the same to the Waverider’s partner ship, the Dancing Dolphin, forcing the sloops toward each other. The sloops had little choice but to cut their own speed even more or risk ramming each other.

  Anger made Shai-Lysse’s blood burn. She knew the rhythms of the Gateway Islands. These pirates were too fast, too strong, too well-favored by the winds and the tides. Someone was tampering with the natural flow of life in her waters. She turned the spyglass on the pirate ships. Aboard the largest she spied a man dressed in a tunic and leggings of dark gray embroidered with fancy silver designs. White blonde hair, no beard, his body slender but sturdy... He stood in the stern of the ship and held up his hands to the skies. Currents of power coiled around him, turning the winds to his bidding and speeding the pirates on while thwarting the efforts of the Waverider and the Dolphin to escape them. So. This silvery man commanded the power of Air.

  Shai-Lysse tucked the spyglass away. Plain old pirates were trouble enough, but pirates who sailed with a wind-talker aboard... She spat first on her right palm, then on her left. Holding her hands apart, she glared down at the pirate ship that carried the wind-talker, concentrating on the churning waters racing along the sides of its hull. She brought her hands together with a harsh clap. Walls of sea water rose up on either side of the pirate ship and crashed down across its decks, swamping it. One wave struck the wind-talker in the chest and threw him sprawling across the deck.

  The heaving waters knocked the two other pirate ships off course. Shai-Lysse guided the currents around them, carrying them even farther away from the sloops. The wind-talker lashed out, hurling winds into the sails of the pirate ships, trying to steady them. Pitching and yawing, one pirate ship slammed into the side of the Waverider. The Waverider’s masts swayed, then sprang back, flinging sailors out of the rigging. Shai-Lysse screamed. Her sister’s boys tumbled downward and vanished beneath the turbulent waters.

  The Dolphin and the Waverider were making their escape, but the damage was done. Shai-Lysse sighted on the wind-talker. He turned and stared straight at her, his smile proud and triumphant and infuriating.

  “You’re mine, Fancy Man!” Shai-Lysse cried. “I’ll boil that white meat off your bones then hang them up for wind chimes!”

  #

  That night Shai-Lysse clung to the dorsal fins of two dolphins as they towed her around the curve of the island, bringing her to the cove where the three pirate ships lay at anchor. She chittered her thanks to the dolphins, then swam through the breakers to the boulders that dotted the beach.

  Two huge bonfires sent shadows dancing and flickering along the sands. These pirates were cocky, shouting and cursing and singing, not bothering to hide themselves at all. Shai-Lysse searched among them for the silvery gleam of the wind-talker’s hair, but wasn’t surprised when she didn’t find him. She’d heard stories about the People of the Air. Too proud to live among common folks, they built themselves cities on clouds. Her gaze followed the line of cliffs that made a half-circle around the cove. On the easternmost cliff, she saw a squarish outline that rippled in the breeze. A large tent, maybe. Some kind of shelter where the wind-talker dwelled closer to the sky.

  Shai-Lysse crept from one boulder to the next, mindful of all the sharp and spiny creatures hiding in the tidepoo
ls. The last thing she needed was a spine from a sea urchin or a sting from a buried ray. She worked her way to the base of the cliff where she found one of the many little waterfalls that spilled down the cliffside. The nests of cliff-dwelling birds gave her plenty of handholds as she climbed upward, keeping the waterfall on her right.

  Shai-Lysse paused just below the edge of the cliff, listening for any sound that would tell her just where the wind-talker might be. The noise from the beach made it impossible to hear anything. She peered over the edge. A fine tent of dark blue cloth had been set up alongside the stream that tumbled over the cliff. A lantern inside the tent showed the tall, lean figure of the wind-talker moving around. Shai-Lysse hoisted herself up onto the cliff and waded through the stream. She hid behind the shimmer of moonlight on the water, taking a seat on the opposite bank not ten feet from the wind-talker’s tent.

  Moments later the wind-talker stepped out, carrying his lantern. He was a handsome man, dressed in a fresh white shirt and black breeches. Pale hair, pale skin.... Both would show the soot and tar and salt that stained every sailor’s life. Lucky for her he’d made camp near water so he could keep himself clean and civilized, so different from the filthy marauders swilling their liquor on the beach below.

  A small table had been laid for one person, complete with a fine porcelain plate and a wine goblet of silver set with milky gemstones. Beside the goblet sat a full bottle still corked. The plate held something that smelled of blood and herbs and charcoal. Roast meat. The wind-talker put the lantern on the table and seated himself, arranged a fine linen napkin across his lap, then filled his goblet full of wine. Just as he took the first sip, Shai-Lysse spoke, using the common tongue of the sea traders.

  “Too good to eat with your pirate friends?”

  The wind-talker choked, spraying wine across the table. He thrust one hand toward the sound of her voice. The slashing wind he threw struck the wall of water that sprang up before her. Both elements fell back.

  “Damn, woman.” The wind-talker mopped at his face and chest with his napkin. “This wine is too good to waste.”

  “Wine matters to you, but you don’t care ‘bout spilling honest blood?”

  “Who are you?” He looked in the direction of her voice, eyes narrowing against the glare of moonlight rippling on the stream.

  “Guardian of the Gateway Islands.”

  “Ah! The local witch woman. How quaint.” The wind-talker took another drink of wine, then set the goblet aside. “I take it this is some kind of courtesy call about trespassing in your domain?”

  “‘Trespassing?’” Shai-Lysse all but choked on her fury. “You killed two of my family today!”

  “A sailor’s life is fraught with peril.” He sat down and started cutting up his meat as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “So nice of you to stop by. Don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you have fish to gut or squid to squeeze or something equally disgusting.”

  Shai-Lysse stood up. “Listen to me, Fancy Man, and you listen good. These islands started out being one island, ‘fore Fire and Earth and Water fought with each other and smashed it up. Water won. Hereabouts, Water always wins.”

  “Is that so?”

  “The blood of my family runs in these waters. The bones of my family are buried here. Thanks to you, my sister’s sons are out there in the water now! They’ll never know the peace of a proper grave!”

  The wind-talker chewed and swallowed, then drank more wine. “Thank you for that little fairy tale. I always enjoy some entertainment with my meal.” He dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “Now I’ll tell you something. I am Maestro Gaetano of House Cielo Mortale. I stay until it suits me to depart. Only then will I go.”

  “Is that so? Well, Mister Windbag, it suits me to send your uppity self back home in a box!”

  “Shut your mouth before your betters, you scruffy puddle-jumping slattern!”

  Mister Windbag sprang up so fast he knocked his chair over. He raised both hands and started chanting. Sudden fierce winds tore at Shai-Lysse, trying to pick her up and fling her backward out of the water. She dropped to her knees to brace herself and duck the main strength of the winds. She held out both hands toward him, feeling for the rhythm of his heart, the pulse of his blood. She curled her fingers into fists, then twisted her fists palm up. Mister Windbag dropped to his knees, gasping.

  “Hurts, don’t it?” she said. “That’s the trouble with fancy magic. Takes too long. Me, I just made your blood turn thick like dumping flour in a stew.”

  He toppled over, fingers scrabbling at the dirt.

  “I could kill you right now, Mister Windbag. What do you think of that?”

  Mister Windbag’s eyes locked with hers. He sucked in a slow, deep, powerful breath. Shai-Lysse choked. She couldn’t breathe. He’d sucked the air right out of her lungs! She clutched at her throat, her concentration broken. Released from her spell, Mister Windbag lay there panting.

  “Next time, Mister Windbag,” Shai-Lysse wheezed. “Next time you’re dead.”

  Shai-Lysse climbed back down the cliffside and found a cave at the shoreline. She gathered up a few armfuls of seaweed and made herself a bed, then stretched out to rest. Her bones ached. Every muscle was sore. Mister Windbag was strong. She’d surprised him twice, but next time he’d be ready for her.

  She knew how to deal with Fire. Out among the islands, Fire bubbled deep down under the Water, boiling up now and then to leave the Earth that made the islands. Fire could always be doused if you used enough Water. Air was everywhere, filling up the whole sky all the way down to where it met Water on the horizon. Air was tricky, changeable, dangerous. Water was slower but stronger, slippery as Air and just as dangerous. Which one was more powerful?

  Shai-Lysse stared upward through the layers of rock and sand, guessing Mr. Windbag had taken to his bed just as she’d done. What would scare this wind-talker, really scare him bad enough to make him want to run away? She settled herself nice and quiet, then let her mind drift upward to that pretty blue tent like a palace on the cliff. In the mist rising from the waterfall, she drew pictures, pictures of nasty clawed hands bursting up from the dirt and sand to grab Mister Windbag in his sleep and drag him down into the dark heart of the Earth.

  Wrapped up in his blankets, Mister Windbag groaned and thrashed.

  Shai-Lysse sent him a happy dream of sailing along on a fluffy white cloud. Just when he was smiling again, she yanked it out from under him. Down he fell, down into the cold black waters of the ocean. No air. No light. Sharp teeth biting into him, cold slimy things wrapped around his arms and legs and throat, pulling him down deeper—

  In the nightmare Mister Windbag blew a giant bubble around himself that shoved back the cold slimy things. He shot to the surface, bobbing on the waves.

  “Witch!” he bellowed. “Just like a woman to attack a man in his sleep!” His bubble lifted him up until his dream self was back in the tent with his body. “If Water is so all-powerful, show yourself!”

  Shai-Lysse brought her mind back down into the cave. Mister Windbag could think fast, no doubt about it. Shai-Lysse called the dolphins to her. If Mister Windbag thought she was alone in this battle, he was in for a few more nasty surprises.

  #

  Just past midnight, the sound of scales scraping on stone roused Shai-Lysse from deep meditation. In the mouth of the cave silhouetted against the moonlight sat three men of the sea folk, their torsos muscled like humans but shimmering with rainbow scales. All three had tails like dolphins. Two of the men looked like twins, with their black hair and eyes like black pearls. The third had a white streak parting his black hair, marking the scar he kept as a reminder of the day Shai-Lysse saved his life.

  “You summoned us, lady?” he asked.

  “Kakono.” Shai-Lysse stood up and hurried forward to clasp his hand between hers. “Good to see you again, my friend.” She turned to the other two sea folk and bowed. “Thank you for the favor of your visit, Children of the Deeps. T
hese islands are in danger from pirates who have a wind-talker aboard.”

  Kakono nodded. “We know of him.”

  “That wind-talker thinks he can come and go here as he pleases. Ordinary sailors got no chance against pirates with magic!”

  The three sea folk murmured together. Kakono turned back to Shai-Lysse.

  “What would you have us do?”

  “Kill the wind-talker.”

  “It is no small task to kill a human who can command one of the Powers.”

  “Where Air goes, Fire follows.” Shai-Lysse paused, watching the sea folk think that over. “The wind-talker could be the start of a whole new war between the Powers! Kill him now, before he can cause any more trouble!”

  “What of his kin?” Kakono asked. “Surely the People of the Air will avenge their own.”

  “He killed my kin!” Shai-Lysse cried. “Two of my sister’s boys got knocked out of the rigging by his fancy magic. I owe him, blood for blood!”

  Again the three sea folk put their heads together.

  “I am sorry, lady,” Kakono said. “A blood feud between Water and Air might lead to the very same war.”

  Shai-Lysse covered her face with shaking hands. She straightened up and tried to keep her voice quiet. “Kakono, have you already forgotten how you got that stripe in your hair?”

  “No, lady. I will never forget your kindness.”

  “Those fishermen wanted to haul you in and keep you like some kind of pet.”

  “Lady, please....”

  “I took you from them, I patched you up again, and I taught you human language.”

  Kakono bowed his head. “Yes, lady. You did all that and more.”

  “Have I ever asked you for anything?”

  “No.”

  Shai-Lysse drew a long, shaky breath. “I’m asking now.”

  “To kill pirates is easy sport and a worthwhile one, but we will not kill a human possessed of the talent to command one of the Powers.”