The Red Sea

by Edward W. Robertson

  Dante let out a ragged breath. "Yes, but it's been four hundred years. Surely someone's done a little spring cleaning since then."

  "It might be a long shot," Blays said. "But so what? There are no seeds here. Besides this one, there haven't been any living Star Trees for what, six hundred years? Seems to me this First Basket is the likeliest place to find what we're looking for."

  Dante took another look at the dead husk of the tree. "True enough. Then we'll head to the tower."

  Sando and Aladi led them back to the village. There, Aladi trekked to one of the houses. She returned with a smooth purple stone that fit in the palm of her hand. One side of the stone was etched with a star. One of its five points wasn't quite closed.

  "The Star Tree," she said. "This is what its seeds look like."

  "I will find one," Dante said. "And once it's grown, the Dresh will have the cure, too."

  They continued back to the bridge Dante had summoned from the heat within the earth. From its edge, it looked as though a god had taken a quill to the map of the world and drawn a line connecting Spearpoint to the main island.

  "Stop," Aladi said. "Before you go. You will remove the bridge."

  Dante frowned. "Those two acts would be mutually exclusive."

  "If you die at the tower, we will fall to the Tauren as well. Erase the bridge. You will take a canoe home."

  "How about we cross, and then I get rid of the pathway?"

  "Because I don't trust you."

  "It's possible to sail," Winden said. "We'll be moving with the Currents, not against them."

  "Which means there's only some chance we'll be drowned."

  It was an unnecessary risk. Dante had the information he needed and had every intention of dismantling the bridge once he was across it. He was tempted to walk right on out of Spearpoint.

  It seemed, though, that after centuries of lies, a fragile trust was blooming across the islands. Niles and Winden had shared the secret of the Mallish invaders. The dead woman in the Mists seemed tired of their ancient grudge. Here, the surviving Dresh had given them the key to changing everything. The bloom of trust needed a thoughtful Harvester. Walking out would be safer, but it would stamp the seedling into the dirt.

  "Go get the canoe," Dante said. "And I'm going to need more shaden."

  Erasing the bridge was a much simpler affair than creating it. All he had to do was soften the stone to mud and let the tides take care of the rest. Even so, he didn't eradicate every inch of the passage. Only the upper ten or fifteen feet of it. More than enough to render it impossible to cross by foot. He made a mental note to inform Captain Naran of this change in the local coastline.

  With his work complete, he made his way down to the island's only beach, a strip of sand on the south side of Spearpoint protected from the worst of the Currents. The Dresh's canoe was long and very narrow, with outriggers bracing it to either side.

  "I've always known everyone here," Sando said as they climbed aboard. "This is the first time I've ever met a stranger. Or said goodbye to one."

  Aladi looked down on them. "What you've seen—keep it safe. If you've been to the Mists, you know there's a hell."

  Inside the canoe, Blays stood and bowed to her. "Your secrets will never leave our skulls. Not even if the Tauren crack them open and use them for chowder bowls."

  The Dresh helped push the canoe into the water. The currents swirled crazily, threatening to toss them back ashore; the Dresh extended long poles, their tips padded with cloth, and pushed the canoe away. Dante grabbed a paddle and thrashed at the water. Winden and Blays were both considerably more skilled. They directed the boat away from the rocks. As soon as they were out of the island's lee, the canoe straightened and tore south, borne along by the madness of the Current.

  "Where are we going?" Dante yelled into the wind. "Joladi?"

  Winden gestured along the coast. "This is far faster than our feet. We could be at the High Tower by day's end."

  "Is that remotely safe?"

  "We just booted the Tauren out of the Dreaming Peaks," Blays said. "How safe do you think we'll be if we try to hoof it across their lands?"

  Dante's paddle slushed through the water. "Canoe it is. But if we wreck, I reserve the right to ride your corpse to shore."

  Swells jarred them, rocking the outriggers. Spearpoint shrank behind. Ahead, the jagged green cliffs waited to smash them to bits and feed their remains to the crabs. Dante was clumsy with the paddle, but what he lacked in skill, he made up for in terrified enthusiasm.

  He soon got into the rhythm of it. The tides pushed them steadily toward the cliffs, but by paddling hard on the same side of the canoe, they kept their distance. Within fifteen minutes, they were rounding the northeast side of the island. There, the Current ran parallel to shore. They pulled in their paddles and rested. The canoe skimmed along. To their right, a massive turtle broke the surface, blinking at them.

  Blays watched it pass. "Are we really going to battle the Tauren?"

  Dante smiled. "We made a promise, didn't we?"

  "Yet for some reason I suspect your other promise carries more weight."

  "Which promise is that?"

  "The one to yourself to never, ever die."

  Dante glanced at Winden. "I'm not sure what we'll do. I know this much: it doesn't make any sense to regrow a Star Tree only to die before we can make use of its fruit."

  Winden wiped spray from her face. "You swore an oath."

  "And before we came back here, I swore an oath to kill a man named Gladdic. If I die here, I won't exactly be able to fulfill that, will I? So which takes precedence?"

  "The one that allows you to leave here and see to your other one."

  Dante reached for his oar, meaning to take out his frustration on the waves. "If all of your people aren't enough to take on the Tauren, what difference will the two of us make?"

  "There's nothing to say we have to destroy them in battle," Blays said. "It seems to me we've got two other approaches. The first is to cut off the head. Specifically, Vordon's."

  "And the second?"

  "To cut off the arms. Without Mallish steel, they can't conquer this place."

  "Ah yes. Defeating the Tauren is too hard, so we'll take on the entire nation of Mallon instead."

  "We don't have to wipe them out, either. Just their interest in the Plagued Islands."

  Dante tapped his nails on the paddle. "Winden, when did the Tauren start dealing with the Mallish? Before or after Vordon came to power?"

  "During," she said. "Their support was what let him kill his enemies and seize the High Tower."

  "If he's dead, do you think his armies will continue to fight?"

  "The Tauren, they're very proud. They may keep warring simply to prove Vordon was right."

  Blays scratched his neck, which had gone stubbly over the last few days of travel. "If they're that proud, surely some of them are less than pleased to be under the thumb of the Mallish."

  "You want to back one of his rivals," Dante said. "Bump off Vordon in exchange for a promise of peace."

  "It would sure beat trying to bump off hundreds of troops in the field."

  "What do you think, Winden? Feasible?"

  "The city of Deladi—this is where the Tauren live—it's ruled by many tolaka."

  Dante crinkled his brow. "War-families?"

  "They squabble just as much as the name suggests. Very rare that they're united. That's why the Tauren don't rule the island already. There will be cracks in their front."

  "Then it's a good thing we're accomplished chisels," Blays said. "I say we go to work on one of these tolaka."

  Something the shape of a giant kite was swimming to the right of the canoe, flapping like a bird. Dante watched it pass. "Pulling off a coup could take weeks. Our first goal is getting the Star Tree seeds. Once we've got those out of Deladi, then we'll go to work on throwing a rod into Vordon's wheel of war."

  "We need to stop in Kandak." Winden looked at them in di
staste. "Your clothes, they're for rixen."

  Hurried along by the Currents, it was less than an hour before they looked on the arm of land embracing the Bay of Peace. They took up their oars and paddled hard, drawing the canoe into the calmer waters of the outer bay, then crossed right over the reef. To Dante's relief, Kandak didn't appear to be on fire or otherwise under siege.

  They put in at the shore, drawing glances from the fishermen and the shell-divers. Winden led them to a wooden house where a man, a woman, and their many children were beating fibers and stretching out cloth. Dante and Blays were soon kitted out in the short pants and simple shirts favored by the islanders, along with long green garments that were more than a cape and less than a cloak. They were lightweight, but the woman went to great lengths demonstrating how well they kept off the rain. For the final piece, they swapped out their boots for rugged, strap-heavy sandals.

  Before they left, Winden asked around about the Dreaming Peaks, but there had been no new developments since their party had struck out for Spearpoint Rock. They returned to the canoe and shoved off, continuing south along the coast. The land ramped up. Waterfalls spilled straight out of the jungle, disintegrating to mist before they reached the sea.

  Once they were back in the Currents and relieved of the need to paddle, Dante grilled Winden about Deladi and the High Tower. According to her, the city was the largest on the island. Located on the south coast (which was actually the translation of its name), it was in the lee of the wind, rain, and Currents, making it one of the few places on the island where it was possible to sail around freely.

  "During the Dreshi civil wars, Deladi was the capital of the entire island." Winden gazed up at the Dreaming Peaks, which stood so high they looked like they were already a part of the heavens. "That fighting, though, it ruined so much. That must have been when the Star Trees died. The Dresh never recovered. Before that, the Mallish would never have been able to conquer them."

  "I've been to many places," Dante said. "The history's the same everywhere. A people rises to greatness. They overreach and get bogged down in wars, or they're stricken by tragedy. And another people cuts them down. Like that, they're lost."

  "It's a wonder anybody's alive at all," Blays said. "Sometimes I think the hermits have the right idea." He smiled at Winden. "Then again, if the Mallish had never taken this place, you wouldn't be alive, would you?"

  She chuckled uneasily. "I don't think I find that comforting."

  The High Tower, she said, predated the Dreshi wars by a few hundred years. A lighthouse and a fortress, the Basket within it rendered it and the city virtually invulnerable to siege. Some claimed the tower had been built during a wager between Loda and Mora to prove which was stronger: mountain or sea. Loda had attempted to raise a peak to pierce the skies, but Mora sent wave after wave into Loda's work, washing it away. At the end of seven days of fighting, Loda relented, but Mora hadn't been able to destroy all her work. The core of Loda's mountain remained: a pillar of stone that the Dresh later shaped into the High Tower.

  Dante wasn't so sure about that. He was starting to suspect that some branch of the Narashtovik diaspora had found its way to the Plagued Islands and joined the Dresh. Perhaps the sorcerers had been drawn by Arawn's Mill or tales of the shaden. Or perhaps the Dresh had made all these discoveries on their own. He'd never seen anything like harvesting before, either in person or in his years of research.

  The timelines kept matching up, though. It called out to be studied. He wasn't sure when, though. Even if he was able to cure the ronone and topple Vordon, he still had to go take vengeance on Gladdic for the execution of Captain Twill. And after that, he surely needed to return to Narashtovik and catch up on whatever had been happening in his absence.

  But perhaps he could dispatch a team of monks to the islands. Or carve out time to come back himself. Between the wars, the clash of kingdoms, and the fall of empires, so much knowledge was lost. This tragedy was more than a historical notation. The Dresh had once known how to grow the Star Trees. When that knowledge had been torn up and scattered, it had trapped the islanders here for centuries. It was possible there were no more seeds and never would be again. You had to preserve wisdom and history where you found it. Otherwise, the Currents of time and strife would erode it to obscurity.

  And if those forces ever grew stronger than those who preserved what had come before, the entire ship of civilization might slip beneath the sea.

  They passed below the Dreaming Peaks by early afternoon. After that came the highlands, then Iladi Forest, the jungle where the Boat-Growers made their home. With the Current slackening, they paddled as their stamina allowed. With the sun still three hours from the horizon, the canoe slipped past the hills containing the Bloodfalls.

  "When we made this trip overland, it took us a week," Blays said. "And by water, it's less than a day?"

  Winden's cheeks flushed. "We still would have had to walk back. Besides, it's as you guessed. Niles wanted you to see the Tauren's crimes. To grow angry enough to wish to fight against them."

  "Well, he's going to receive a giant bill from my cobbler."

  The coast bent to the right. Following its curve, the canoe was soon headed west. After a bit of jungle, the land cleared out into grasslands of shrubs, with trees clustered around the furrows winding down from the heights. The Current shifted toward the southwest, its speed reduced to a walking pace. Canoes and sailing rigs dotted the blue sea. Villages perched on beaches, the structures a mix of stone and wood.

  None of the locals paid them any mind. The sun drooped to the west, silhouetting a tall tower standing above a thriving town.

  "I say we do this tonight," Dante said. "Check out the Basket, locate the seeds, and get out of here before Vordon knows we're here."

  Blays laughed. "That sounds idealistic. Besides, if we're going to rouse the rabble against him, it's going to take much longer than an overnight trip."

  "One scheme at a time. Star Tree first."

  "I suppose restoring a sacred tree will bank us a little divine goodwill before we return to commence with our murdering."

  They paddled on. When they tired, Dante refreshed them with the nether. Winden warned them that the city's bay was lit at night. To minimize the attention they'd draw, they beached the canoe three miles east of Deladi, hauling it up into the weeds and continuing on foot.

  By then, it was fully dark. It was even warmer on the south side of the island, though, especially compared to an all-day voyage on a windy sea. On their way to the dirt trail worn into the turf above the beach, Dante spooked a rodent. He dispatched and raised it, sending it up the path to make sure they weren't about to stumble into any hordes of armed men.

  After half an hour of walking, they topped a ridge and looked down on the city less than a mile away. Lanterns burned in intersections and above the doors of larger buildings. Both the city and the fields around it were terraced. Moonlight glinted on watery fields of san. A faint chorus of wooden chimes carried on the breeze.

  A great deal of the buildings were the black island stone, ranging between two and four stories. There were enough to house several thousand people. A river wound through the center of Deladi, dispersed into a great many canals that fed into a bay teeming with small vessels and voluminous orange lights.

  "Candlefruit," Winden explained. "Harvested to massive size. Helps them keep watch on the bay."

  Blays made a skeptical noise. "And impress the neighbors, I'd wager."

  Half a mile up the shoreline from the bay, the High Tower overlooked it all. Its lower levels showed lights in the windows, but its upper floors were completely dark.

  "Let me guess," Blays said. "The upper portion, that's the First Basket?"

  Winden nodded. "Baskets are sacred. Especially this one."

  Dante continued forward. "And it's a good way to keep it out of the hands of the hungry peons."

  "I think it will be less suspicious to cross the edge of the city than to bypass it."<
br />
  "We can stroll right in?"

  She frowned at him. "Your cities, they're built to keep people out?"

  "The larger ones tend to have walls. Does wonders to deal with rampaging barbarians and enemy nations. Along with anyone too poor to buy anything."

  "Here, walls would be stupid. Your enemies would just come by sea."

  They entered the city. The scent of grilled fish and chicken carried on the wind, reminding Dante he'd eaten little but san mush for several days. People walked about freely. Almost everyone carried a club at their waist, women included, and some bore spears or swords.

  Wooden chimes clonked musically, stirred by the wind. Mosquitos whined in his ears. As he neared a set of chimes outside a public house, he saw they were actually the still-growing seed pods of a willowy tree. Harvested, probably, but in this land of bizarre flora, who knew.

  They crossed a wooden bridge arched over a brackish-smelling channel. People paddled canoes, slicing along at jogging speed through the canals, which were as numerous as the streets. Some neighborhoods fronted small lakes. Artificial islands sat in the lakes' centers, claimed by stone temples with steep, triangular roofs. Outside the temples, groups of men and women moved in choreographed unison, barking out noises halfway between a grunt and a chant.

  "What's that?" Blays said. "Some kind of dance?"

  Winden laughed dryly. "Of war, maybe."

  Dante's Taurish was more or less fluent, but his accent lagged, and he spoke as little as possible on their way through the city. Pairs of soldiers patrolled the streets, carrying swords and dressed in mismatched armor.

  "Can we find a public house?" Dante murmured. "I'll explore the tower while the night settles down."

  "You can't just walk inside the High Tower," Winden said.

  "I won't. But I'd like to see them keep out a highly determined moth."

  She homed in a set of chimes, the presence of which seemed to indicate a public structure. The building she brought them to was stone, implying it was pre-Mallish, but its bar, tables, crowd, and performing minstrel could have been shipped straight from Bressel. Which, in a sense, they had. Dante and Blays hung at the back of the common room while Winden secured lodging. They headed upstairs.