Beneath the Thirteen Moons

by Kathryne Kennedy

  “How?” she wondered aloud.

  Jaja shrugged. Always could, just too afraid. Too easy to go, and he stopped his thought, spun a webbed finger in a circle at the side of his head. Humans not strong always like my people. Must use lots root, and sometimes kill you.

  Mahri thought of her own nearly fatal overdoses and nodded.

  Jaja released her cheeks, fanned out his ears and tail once in happiness and hopped to the bow of the boat. Go back now.

  Mahri ignored him and continued to explore Sea Forest with this new ability. So much had been closed off to her! It was as if she’d been blind and could suddenly see, yet more than that for all of her senses expanded to encompass the brilliance of the forest. She experienced each small life and plant, but still embraced the forest as a whole harmonious throbbing entity. And rather than being overwhelmed and lost in it all, she kept her own identity apart. Even while knowing the smallness of her place in the whole, Mahri retained the enormity of her own being.

  “Jaja, it’s wondrous!” She tried to form words for what she felt, and knew that they couldn’t come close. “This is what the natives wanted, isn’t it? For all humans to feel the oneness of Sea Forest—to respect our dependence on the whole pattern.”

  Jaja turned and gave the equivalent of a mental snicker. Takes long time for all to See. Few, then more. Must all Bond, be equal. Prince of Changes start the chain. You must show him. Go back now?

  Mahri released her awareness and centered on her own self, concentrated on the monk-fish’s words. “Just because I can lower my barrier for you and the forest doesn’t mean that I could for him.”

  You strong enough now, foolish-friend.

  She shook her head in negation. This new sensation was nothing like what she’d felt with Korl. Jaja couldn’t understand the power of the human soul, the risk when two people sought to share minds. Maybe the alienness of Sea Forest and its natural inhabitants allowed that keeping of herself apart, but what she’d felt the few times she and Korl had done such a thing had been the near extinction of her own self.

  I can’t go back, she thought, and Jaja gaped in disbelief. You’re wrong, Jaja. I’m not strong enough to join with Korl in the way your people want. And I’m not strong enough to resist him, so I must get as far away from him as possible.

  Jaja pointed with his webbed finger. Go that way, no come back!

  Mahri picked up the oars that she’d let fall during their conversation and began to row out to the open sea.

  “So be it,” she muttered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to come back from the Beyond, knowing that fear goaded her yet somehow not caring. “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”

  She waited for Jaja’s reply, afraid that he’d take her up on the offer, then breathed a sigh of relief when he threw a small webbed fist forward over the bow in that familiar gesture of “onward.” But he threw one last thought at her, before retreating behind a stubborn wall of silence.

  Silly, silly human.

  Mahri had thought the open sea would be just like her channels, just bigger. She couldn’t have been more wrong. When she Saw into the waves, the strings were broader, stronger, and refused to change into the shapes she strove to form. Chewing more zabba seemed to help a bit but she didn’t know these waters and until she did all the Power in the forest wouldn’t help. Her muscles ached from rowing and she used the zabba to enhance their strength instead.

  The sun lay hot on her shoulders as they crested wave after wave, their goal of tree lines never seeming any closer. Mahri fell into the rhythm of her rowing, wondering if Jaja were right, if this journey would take her on a path she’d never return from. If that were true… she’d refused to think of Korl for so long that she had to fight to bring up the memory of him. Perversely, Mahri felt safe to do so now. Now that he lay beyond her reach.

  His eyes were the easiest to remember, that pale green fire that had always drawn her right into his arms. The soft strands of golden hair, whispering across her fingers. The curve of his mouth and the tilt to his nose, broad shoulders rigid with muscle, skin velvet beneath her palms. Mahri sighed and shifted where she sat.

  Her memories stoked smoldering embers and she told herself that her body had gotten used to being loved again, that was all. The ache to feel his arms around her was a physical response to thoughts of his nearness.

  Something twisted inside of her at the idea of never touching him again, never feeling the strength in his hands as they caressed her shoulders, her breasts, down, past her belly, making her suck in her breath, as they reached for the place that needed his touch the most…

  Mahri swore, her voice bouncing across the waters to be absorbed by the sheer mass of it. How could she be doing everything in her power to put as much distance as possible between the two of them, yet still torture herself by the mere thought of him touching her? Seasons of travel separated them, and soon a large breadth of ocean, and yet she could still feel him in this boat. Still feel that he was a part of her.

  Spirit-friend.

  Mahri looked up, blinked as if coming awake from some dream. “Why do you call me that, anyway?” she thought to ask Jaja.

  We one, too. He shrugged, as if that was the best explanation he could relay to her. Uh, night comes.

  The sun had indeed set with a glow of orange and she realized that they’d only made it halfway to that line of trees. They’d be forced to stay all night on the open sea and as night rain began to fall Mahri hoped that it wouldn’t bring any heavy storms with it. She dropped the oars, her fingers so cramped around the handles of them that it took an agonizing while to force them open. Blisters had popped on her palms and she chewed zabba and healed them, then covered her craft with the narwhal tent to sluice off most of the rain.

  All the while, her thoughts stayed on Korl. She’d been so certain that distance would dull her desire for him and now that it hadn’t she felt even more confused about her feelings. Could it be possible that she’d given her heart to him, as well as her body? Even though she’d tried so desperately not to? Her fingers fumbled with the rope she’d been tying, amazed that she’d allowed herself to even form that idea.

  Thunder cracked overhead and she looked up with a frown. “That’s what I get for hoping.”

  Waves that had formed small troughs before, now grew to create one deep abyss after another. It was like the Royal’s elevator, making her stomach fly up to her throat, then slam back past her knees. Jaja attached himself to her waist by a death-grip on her belt as the storm continued to grow.

  Mahri couldn’t allow herself to crawl beneath the tent and just let the fury of the tempest control her fate. She had to stand beneath the deluge of rain that felt like shells being pelted against her skin and chew more root. She’d thought to go easy on zabba tonight as it always weakened one after the Power was spent, and she needed the strength to row again tomorrow. As she looked far up to the crest of another mammoth wave she knew that without the Power there wouldn’t be a tomorrow for her.

  Mahri shifted her sight and Saw into the rebellious water, knowledgeable enough about the sea now to not even try to Push the whole of it, just manipulate the surface so that her craft skimmed with the curve of the dips. When a wave threatened to break above them and drag the boat down she used the Power to skim beneath and rise up to the next curve.

  It would be a fight to see who could last the longest. The storm or her Power.

  “More root, Jaja,” shouted Mahri over the roar of the sea, afraid to let go of the sides of her craft now, it bucked so alarmingly. Her little pet dug into the pouch and fed her the rest of the bag for the next few hours, sustaining Mahri and allowing the Power to flow. But the tempest continued—if anything it seemed to grow in proportion—and she wondered at the ferocity of it. It seemed that without the shelter of the trees the fury of a storm could grow unabated.

  Spirit-friend.

  Mahri started. It would take some getting used to, this new ability to hear her
pet’s thoughts.

  Jaja, I’m busy.

  No more root, he thought-answered.

  Mahri Twisted and Pushed another wave. Thank-the-moons they’d stumbled onto a tree that grew the zabba vine when they’d traveled through the Unknown. One did not ignore such a find. They’d harvested as much as they could store to supplement the zabba that Korl had provided her with.

  Do you think you can reach the secret compartment?

  Sure, sure, came the confident reply. But Jaja still had a death-grip on her belt against the bucking and rolling of their small craft.

  Mahri felt the Power draining from her too quickly as she fought the rebellious water for control.

  “Sometime soon, Ja!” she shouted, her words lost in the thunder of the sea.

  Lightning cracked and Jaja leaped beneath the tent. Mahri felt a sudden shudder of fatigue sweep through her body, the first sign that her system faltered from lack of root. Another tumbling crash of wave broke over them and this time when she Pushed at the water it responded stubbornly. The deluge caught them halfway out from under it.

  The force of the water slammed across her shoulders and head like a giant wet hand, shoving her to her knees. Mahri heard the timbers in her boat crack before she saw the flying pieces, and then for a moment only muffled sound as she sank beneath the water.

  She fought against the weakness of zabba use and made her trembling muscles kick for the surface, opened her mouth and screamed Jaja’s name. Nothing lay around her but water, no small head bobbed within her sight, not even a piece of wood to be seen from her destroyed craft. But her pet had more chance of surviving than she, for he swam like the fish he was, and could stay submerged for a long time without coming up for air.

  But the supply of zabba went down with her craft and she had barely enough Power in her system to keep herself afloat. Mahri tasted the sourness of true fear, and choked and swore at the way it sapped her of hope.

  She closed her eyes against the salty sting of spray and told herself to think. She had to find Jaja. Maybe he managed to get some root before that wave hit. It could be their one chance. And she opened her mouth to scream his name again when she remembered that they now had another method of communication.

  Jaja? Jaja!

  No answer, and she didn’t know enough about this thought-speech to know how close he needed to be to hear her. Did distance matter, is that why he didn’t answer? Or could he have gotten hurt from the force of the wave, a splinter of wood through his small body? Mahri told herself to stop imagining such things.

  Another heave of water lifted her into the air and for a moment she rode the top of a gargantuan wave. Lightning cracked and lit the stormy night, but nothing lay below her but dark swells. And then the wave threw her back down.

  Jaja!

  Water slammed into her mouth like a fist, forced its way into her lungs. Ach! How it burned! The pain of it made her panic, gave her new strength, so that she kicked for the surface with renewed vigor. But Mahri no longer knew in which direction the surface lay.

  It should take longer than this to die, she thought wildly, and used the dregs of Power left in her to force oxygen into her abused lungs. She wouldn’t give up so quickly!

  Then the water surrounding her calmed and she floated in tranquility. Her vision faded to an inky blackness so she sought the inner one, cursing herself for not using the rest of the Power to See with her mind. But oddly enough she realized that she did See a light, beckoning to her through the black, and she went toward it, sluggishly at first and then with a speed that hurtled her straight into it.

  Mahri blinked, or thought she did, unsure if she had lids to blink with. The Healer’s Tree stood before her and the light that beckoned had been the beacon that Korl had sworn to leave burning for her. She walked— no, floated—into that room and seemed to hover somewhere near the ceiling.

  Vases and pots and baskets of flowers covered the room, so that only a small space of floor from the door to the bed lay bare. But even that small area lay covered in white flower petals, with mounds of them heaped atop the bed.

  She felt choked with some unnamable emotion, some new sensibility created by the thought of Korl spreading freshly plucked petals in the hopes that she’d return to share them. How could she not love him? Cowardly to admit it when she knew she was about to die, but finally admit it she did. And Mahri opened her inner self, like one of those flowers unfolding to seek the warmth of the sun.

  The door opened and he stood there, the light shining in his golden hair, casting shadows along his profile. Korl walked over to the window then back to sit on the bed, his hands clenching into sudden fists, crushing several unfortunate petals.

  Korl?

  His head snapped up and he looked toward the window. “Mahri?”

  Aya. She’d forgotten the sound of his voice, they way it made her shiver. And how the feel of his golden mind inside her head created another warmth that spread like a comforting balm. Yet, there was something else…

  “Where are you?” He strode to the window and looked out.

  I… I think I’m a ghost.

  “A what? What happened?” And he clutched at his head, as if just now realizing that her voice came from within.

  I’ve drowned, I think, in the sea Beyond the Unknown. But Korl, there’s something here…

  His face had turned as white as the petals, then flushed with renewed arrogance. “No,” he commanded. “I do not give you leave to die!” Then he fumbled at a pouch strung at his waist and determinedly began to chew handfuls of zabba. His eyes flashed with the fire of root Power.

  “Stupid bird,” he muttered between mouthfuls. “Should’ve kept you caged, instead of letting you go off to die in some Unknown place.”

  A dark speck that had crept inside Mahri’s mind when she’d opened herself to Korl began to expand into a filthy cloud.

  Through the open door strode another figure, a monk-fish perched on each black clad shoulder.

  Behind you! Mahri thought-screamed. The blackrobe!

  Korl reacted with the speed of a warrior, pulling the ceremonial sword from the scabbard at his hip and whirling to face the shadow behind him. But then he froze, held in thrall by the Power of the two monk-fish.

  The fog in Mahri’s mind expanded, tendrils of inky slime beginning to trace a path along the green pathways of her Power. The blackrobe tried to use his pets to force a Bond with her!

  “No!” bellowed Korl, knowing what the man attempted to do, his own link with Mahri keeping open the door that allowed it to happen.

  From you to me, thought Mahri. Jaja said I’d have no protection in the Unknown. Break the link, let me go, or he just might succeed.

  “You finally seek me out and I have to let you go?” Korl vibrated with frustration. “I want to keep you inside of me always!”

  The contrast between the prince’s golden presence and the foulness of the blackrobe was balanced only by the monk-fish. However they’d been forced to participate in this Bonding it wasn’t willingly and they did what they could to stop the advance of the evil one. But what Mahri had always feared would happen with Korl began to overcome her in that blackness. She began to lose herself.

  Korl felt her fade, renewed his struggle against the Power binding him, and swung his bone sword in a wide arc, straight for the throat of the blackrobe. “I’m always allowing you to leave me!”

  A scream of pure agony rent the air as Korl’s sword swept the blackrobe’s head from his body, the two monk-fish barely avoiding that flash of blade.

  At the same instant, Mahri felt both of them leave her mind, allowing her to be blissfully alone again. And she felt a pull on her that became a brutal yank as the room faded in her Sight to be replaced by a glowing brilliance of green fire.

  Power! Korl fed her discarded body Power that swept through her system and brought her soul slamming back into it. Mahri felt the pain again, of lungs drowned and unmoving, and wondered what he’d gained her. Perhaps s
ome more time only, for how could she reach the surface, still not knowing in which direction it lay? But even more, if she managed even that feat, without her boat she had no chance of ever crossing that large expanse of sea into the shelter of the trees.

  Through almost numb skin she felt the touch of her monk-fish. Jaja?

  Bump head. Back now. See big fins?

  Mahri’s head spun. Big fins? What did he mean? She couldn’t See anything, with the Power or otherwise… and then she remembered that new ability, and quested with her thoughts. Yes, a school of narwhal swam far beneath the fury of the stormy sea. Big fins, indeed.

  Jaja’s thoughts broke through her own. You speak. No listen to little me. My mind like gnat-fish on such big back.

  Mahri shuddered. To touch the thoughts with a creature as old as the sea—they knew things her mind couldn’t encompass. But what choice had she? She sent out a plea, tentative at first, then stronger as she met no resistance. Down to the depths spiraled her thought-quest, and she sensed one, two, three of the beasts. They ignored her as slightly more of a nuisance than a gnat-fish.

  Again, demanded Jaja.

  So she held strong, sending until she touched a youngling, who answered her out of sheer curiosity.

  Who are you?

  One who needs help.

  Aaah. A long, thoughtful pause followed. You’re one of the aliens, yes?

  Mahri had always thought of the natives as the aliens, not her own kind. But the creature was right. Aya.

  You break my peace.

  Mahri waited. Evidently peace was the order of their universe and his thoughts radiated her disruption of their placidity. Would his youth be in her favor, that he’d seek a little diversion? That he’d answered her at all seemed a miracle.

  I like your mind, responded. New, different ways of thought. And there is another strong one, who calls to you. Can you not hear?