by L. Brown
But before she could answer, they heard someone else.
“David!” called Dahkaa, shouting from the bow. Dahkaa couldn’t see them, their ledge was too low, but somehow, the sound of his voice alarmed, sparked the black of her eyes.
“Hurry!” Garth yelled. “She’s here, right here, it’s—!”
Her hand smothered his mouth. No longer semi-conscious, some flounder washed up, Ioso looked electric, a woman just shocked.
“David?” His voice louder, Dahkaa approached. Which should, Garth thought, infuse his beloved with unalloyed joy. But since she continued to cover his mouth, he wondered if she shook from more than just cold, if that spark in her eyes meant something else. Or maybe she was in some state of shock; was she just addled, mentally off-leash? Maybe, but whatever her state, it evaded his grasp just as consciousness now escaped hers; and as her hand fell back, Ioso fainted, collapsed in his lap.
For a moment, some metaphysical wink, every gray wave stopped, just froze like Garth. He groped for answers, for what just happened and what he should do, but perched on a ledge with Dahkaa coming in, he had little choice, so he prepared to shout she’s here! But why had she covered his mouth? Could this whale-riding woman be too scared to speak, did she really fear the man she so recently kissed?
“David!” yelled Dahkaa.
His arrival imminent, Garth had to tell the truth. Yet somehow, it was easier just to shove her tight against the hull — “Here!” Garth yelled — then lurch up.
Dahkaa stopped six feet short. Looking at Garth, he eyed the boy from his flushed face to his knees; but Ioso just below remained out of sight.
“You called?” Garth croaked.
“I did,” said Dahkaa. “You’re cut?”
“Cut?”
“Your face, David. Are you so afraid you’ve been gnawing your mouth?”
Tasting the blood, Garth recalled Ioso, her bloody palm on his lips. So was this it, should he end this farce? Do I even know Ioso, isn’t Dahkaa my friend?
“Fate is with you,” Dahkaa reassured.
“Yeah, well, so is someone else. I mean, my lip isn’t bloody because I’m afraid, it—”
“Good, see? I knew you’d find your strength, now get your blades and come forward, we’re discussing strategy, where to strike the J’kel once you pass this useless test.” Nodding ‘follow,’ he turned to the bow.
“You go ahead.”
Dahkaa paused.
“I mean,” Garth continued, feeling Ioso shiver against his shins, “I’ll just be a minute, I — want to see my cabin, put away my blades.”
Dahkaa tried to read it, the boy’s twitchy smile. But too busy to linger, he snatched a tentacle from the platter of food, then left for the bow with a curt, “Be quick.”
Garth watched, still twitching, and tried to think. Dahkaa had been dodged, but at what cost, an unspoken lie and outright deceit? And what would he do with this woman at his feet, leave her? Throw her back? Loose cannons of his mind boomed volleys of thought, but by the end of it, just one remained. Yet the how of it, the process of smuggling a freezing woman from the Hot side into the fevered interior of the Cold? That question, that twitchy deceit remained.
Quick breaths passed, but no insight came, Garth saw only a crowded deck, warriors drinking or gambling or passed out. The stairwell leading below stayed empty, yet any move he made would turn a few heads. Add Ioso to the equation, a woman in a wetsuit limp in his arms? They’d never make the stairwell, would be lucky to reach the vaalik pen. Which creaked, he now noticed, from their collective strain, the press of heads toward the platter of food.
Left by Dahkaa, those fish bits and worse were just out of reach. Yet inspired or insipid, this seeded an idea that grew, perhaps metastasized, into a scheme. But with the Beast ahead and Ioso beneath, Garth had no choice, so launching his plan with a rash, clumsy lunge, he flipped the platter toward the pen.
Frenzied by the windfall, vaaliks brayed and battled for food, and as warriors turned to the ruckus, Garth exhaled, shrugged my mistake. Then dropping down, he picked up the bits.
Warriors scowled at this, shook their heads at the klutz who would be king. Then they returned to their games and drink, and when every gaze seemed elsewhere, Garth kept to his his hands and knees and dragged Ioso aboard.
Waiting for the shout, some exclamation of rage, Garth heard only their scrape and drag, but every moment seemed made of glass. Yet the noises he did hear, every belch and flatulent curse confirmed they moved undetected, still had a chance. Staying low and dragging fast, he hauled Ioso toward the stairwell, the beautiful descent just six feet ahead.
But though it’s a rare Zahlen warrior that cares about a fouled deck, ship captains, good ones, see every crumb. So as he carved fresh ivory, a scrimshaw of women both salty and fresh, Tusk looked again where the clatter just was; and though vaaliks obscured his view, he wondered why anyone, much less that sad sob of a boy, would drag one to the cabins below.
Garth yanked Ioso down the steps. Her head thumped every one, but he couldn’t slow, they had to beat whoever was coming, would use the stairs next. He knew they’d be caught, his luck wouldn’t last, yet one more thump brought them to the lower deck hall.
A dreary dimension lit by Edison’s failures, misshapen bulbs flickered and dim, the hallway also appeared vacant of life. But as Garth discerned the cabins, new dilemmas arrived, a quandry of which is mine and how would I know?
“David?”
Dahkaa’s faint call above shot Garth ahead. Hauling Ioso as fast as he could, he passed the cabins, rooms sealed not by doors, but beads, drapes of pearls and shells. A crest marked each cabin, some rendering of a heroic face or battle that proved Clan talents lay more in the blades and less in the brush. But as for which crest, which cabin was his? Garth could only guess.
“David!” shouted Dahkaa, his voice above catching up. “Where are you, why the delay?”
Dragging Ioso as fast as he could, Garth heard Dahkaa pound down the steps. Three cabins left until the corridor’s end, so he’d have to guess, just pick one, but while the first beaded curtain was crested with a vaalik and the second by a spiral moon, the last was crowned with red X-blades over a ragged black spade.
“Answer me!” yelled Dahkaa from the steps, and with a wrenching turn, Garth crashed through the beads with Ioso in tow.
“I tell you, this is no time for games!” Dahkaa roared, now striding the hall. “Do you not hear?”
“I hear!” Garth yelped through the beads. “I was checking my cabin, guess I dozed off!”
“Dozed, what—? Hours from the Beast and still you can sleep?”
“Uh—”
“Good, you’ll need your strength. But for now, our Generals await!” said Dahkaa, but just as he reached the curtain, Garth leaped out. Inches apart, rattled with pearls and shells, they traded stares while Garth, breathing hard, glistened with sweat.
“Bad dream?” asked Dahkaa.
An easy question, a simple smile would do, but Garth did nothing, just tried not to gulp.
“If it was a dream—” Emerging from the corridor gloom, Logaht approached. “It perhaps involved you, Dahkaa, a treasure close to your heart. This was a gift?” he asked, now hoisting the new X-blades.
“The blades, what—?” Dahkaa glanced at Garth. “Didn’t you say you’d put them away?”
Garth groped for an answer, something clever and quick. “Uh—?”
“I suspect, old friend,” said Logaht, “the boy has much on his mind.”
Feeling the sweat prick every pore, Garth tried to read Logaht’s eye. Did he know?
“No excuse,” Dahkaa declared, turning to Garth. “Lose these blades, you haven’t a chance!”
“Agreed,” said Logaht. “So until we arrive, shall we not secure them, put them away?” Then stepping past Dahkaa, he ducked toward the curtain of beads.
“No!” hollered Garth, blocking his path. “I mean, I’ll do it, just give them to me.”
Logaht could have quickly complied, but instead, he just peered through the beads. “You know,” he finally began, “it must be a comfort, this Retta Dahz suite. It has many pleasures; everything you need?”
Garth’s every thought slid into one, he knows.
“Enough!” snapped Dahkaa, and grabbing the blades, he swept the curtain and entered the room. “We’re wasting time, the Generals await, and starting now—” He tossed the blades onto the bed’s lumpy quilt. “No more sleep, understand? The Son of a King leads on his feet, not from his bed!” Then pushing Garth into Logaht, he drove them back up the hall.
A moan behind stopped Dahkaa cold. Brow furrowed, his good ear cocked, he looked back. But as the hull creaked and keel beams groaned, the moan went missing, was no longer heard.
Officers argued, clustered and crowded the forward deck. But as Garth followed Dahkaa, weaved through their midst, he heard only Ioso, her last haunted moan. Was she okay? Had her hypothermic arrival put her at risk, did she shiver on the edge? Then again, which was worse for a woman of the Tribes, to fight the cold alone in bed or face a hundred Zahlen up on deck?
But if Ioso strained the rope of his mind, Logaht frayed it, teased every thread. Did the G’mach know she was aboard? And if so, why had he held his tongue? Then throw in the Beast, the madness to come, and Garth just staggered, could barely stay up, so when Dahkaa abruptly stopped, Garth kept going, just blundered into the path of an oncoming crush.
“David!” yelled Dahkaa, and with a quick yank, he pulled Garth back from a thousand pounds of unrolling rug. Four-hundred square feet now laid flat, it threw gas on the arguments, inflamed the remarks.
“By Law—” Shouting to Garth, Dahkaa gestured to the rug and tried to be heard. “Only a few may touch the old cloth. Know what this is?”
Garth could have said ‘eyesore,’ for such was the look of this threadbare fray of moldy orange and mildewy blue. But regardless of Dahkaa’s question, his voice reminded of Ioso, of why she came and what she feared, her wild swings between amorous yin and terrified yang. Then again, was her behavior really so odd? Didn’t all romance have a hot side and cold, did this happen when you mixed Tribe and Clan?
“What this is, David,” Dahkaa continued, nodding to the rug, “is our world, or at least as much as we know.” Nudging Garth closer, he explained, in a tumble of words, how the orange on the left depicted the Greater Sand and the blue on the right symbolized the Great Ice. And between them ran a strip of faded green, a buffer between Hot side and Cold known as the Bloodlands, home of the Worms. And once, Garth reflected, of Eylahn as well.
“And though there’s more to our world than ice and sand—” Dahkaa pointed to the edge of the orange, a region stitched to imply mountainous terrain. “Though we still know little of the Mystical Heights, right now, all that matters is this.” And elbowing Garth aside, he made room for two approaching men, Zahlen officers stretching a thin black cord from one side of the rug-map to the next.
“Look familiar?” Dahkaa asked.
“It should,” Logaht answered, now stepping in between. “The boy scrubbed the J’kel like a Worm, no wonder he sought rest in his bed.”
Feeling the heat return to his cheeks, Garth waited for the inevitable, disastrous reveal.
“He made a mistake,” said Dahkaa. “So have you, so have we all.”
“So we have, old friend,” Logaht replied. “And given his destiny, how fate has chosen this son of Kel Vek? Yes, I’m sure his mistakes are behind him, perhaps even below.”
And as Logaht just stood there, let his double entendre tick, Garth battled an urge to clock the G’mach, just grab him by the greatcoat and throw him off.
“Below?” asked Dahkaa, turning to Logaht. “I don’t follow, you can explain what you mean?”
“In truth,” Logaht began, “you’ll have to ask—”
Interrupting with a tantrum, a spewing of words in a goulash of sounds, the Blood General wedged between Dahkaa and Logaht and stepped onto the map.
“He speaks,” Dahkaa mumbled to Garth, “of the J’kel, where he thinks we should attack. Now, what about you, David, have you formed an opinion, the least sort of plan?”
Still reeling from Logaht’s near-reveal, Garth wondered what would happen if — when — Dahkaa discovered Ioso slept just under his boots. Would that disqualify him from Retta Dahz, derail this trip to the Cave of the Beast, could the truth actually help?
“She’s here,” Garth mumbled, his words stuck to his tongue.
“Huh?” said Dahkaa. “You’ve had a few thoughts?”
“Mmm,” Logaht grunted. “Several, I assume.”
“And your riddles, Logaht, remind of wrestling a fog. Now, do you have something to say?”
“I’ve said quite enough, old friend. But since the boy won’t speak, since he lacks the courage to confess his deceit—”
“It wasn’t deceit, what could I do!” Garth blurted, now turning some heads. “I was watching the waves when this thing came up, some kind of whale just swam up beside and—?”
A Z-rifle fired, ripped the air with multiple blasts, and though the boy from Detroit reflexively dropped, everyone else just turned toward the shots.
Sensing calm, Garth stood as well, then turned toward the only one speaking, the General of the Clan of Blood. He spoke with conviction, had the look of someone trying to persuade; and as he paced the large rug, he held the Clan gavel, a hot, smoking gun.
“The Blood General,” murmured Dahkaa, “will now propose his plan, the spot where he wants to strike the J’kel. And if the other Generals agree—”
“Ovaalia!” shouted the General of Blood. And wielding one of his two X-blade swords, he stabbed the rug map in the sea of ice, in a C-shaped island nearly touching the cord.
“Dahkaa, please,” whispered Garth. “There’s something you have to know, I—”
“No!” yelled Dahkaa to the General of Blood. “Strike there, we’ll lose all surprise, Ovaalia’s what they expect!”
Heads turned and stares went cold. Interrupted again, Garth knew Dahkaa had, once more, breeched Zahlen protocol; but by the ice in the air, this breech was worse.
“And what I expect—” His tone as grim as his mask, the Blood General reloaded his Z-rifle. “Is respect. You wish to continue this contempt?”
Dahkaa drew a long breath. “Forgive me, General, I was wrong.”
Blood’s mask hid his reaction, but his grip on the gun seemed to relax.
“Wrong to interrupt,” Dahkaa continued, “but not about the plan. I may speak?”
“You’ve spoken already, you speak too much!” shouted Blood, now cocking the gun.
“He may speak,” declared the General of the Clan of the Blade, now stepping onto the rug. “I grant time to our brother Zahlen, a man who knows the G’mach so well, he even calls one ‘friend.’ Now, you have something to say, Dahkaa? Words hopefully brief?”
“In the briefest of words, Generals—” Dahkaa eyed the Generals, then the officers and men. “We face the end!” He jumped onto the rug-map. “One attack, one last chance — and if we fail, it’s not a war we’ll lose, not even our world, no — it’s who we are and always have been, the Clans of the Ice unafraid! But though we’ve fought nature, though we’ve beat man—” He pointed to the cord stretched across the map. “To slay this serpent before it wakes in its trench, we’ll need every advantage, we must have surprise!”
“Surprise will come,” answered the General of Ice, “when you actually say something new. Now, do you have an idea, Dahkaa? Something not yet discussed?”
Dahkaa hesitated, then paced the rug. “If we want surprise, we must plan without precedent, strike in a way never recorded or seen. Which means, simply — we attack with the Tribes.”
But if Dahkaa was aiming for shock, Garth sensed he hit closer to stumped, for along with the warriors, even the vaaliks looked perplexed.
“Attack — the Tribes?” asked an old Zahlen, his left ear straining and
his right ear gone.
“With the Tribes,” Dahkaa corrected. “And granted, this might sound odd, but—”
“The Tribes?” Bengal interrupted, now moving in. “You waste our time — with a joke?”
“I haven’t joked in years, brother, I no longer can. But given our small number, how the plague decimated our Clans—”
“Treason!” someone shouted.
“Throw him off!” yelled another.
“And given our lack of time,” Dahkaa continued, “we either join the Tribes of the Sand—”
“They’re devils, they see without eyes!”
“They see the end as well as us,” Dahkaa retorted. “We need their help!”
The bald-faced truth finally sprung, officers and men flew into a rage. Indecipherable curses flew, Generals stomped their thousand-year rug, and as Garth wondered how it would end, how much longer Dahkaa could absorb the spittle, screeds, and wagging of blades, another Z-rifle barked. But these shots came from behind, from the General of the Dead on the flagship’s bridge. A spot, Garth noted, now absent of Tusk.
“What we need, Dahkaa,” rasped the General of the Dead, “is the help of our gods.”
“Yes, General, of course,” said Dahkaa. “But if the Tribes can help, would our gods not approve? Would we not be greater, stronger, can we even imagine an army of Tribe and Clan?”
Gales of no! and kek! flew back.
“Then neither will Atta Ra!” Dahkaa declared. “And that’s exactly why this could work, for together, fighting as one, we’ll stop the G’mach and kill their J’kel!”
Garth waited for the roar, the spontaneous pivot to reason and sense, but he heard only thought, minds struggling to lift too great a load.
“The Tribes, Dahkaa.” The General of Moons stepped up. “You know their strength?”
“Whatever it is, General, it will only add to ours. But given their nature, their talent to hide and deceive? I believe they still have Phantoms, perhaps a thousand or more. Now, would that be enough?”
Warriors mumbled, flashed expressions from incredulous to scoff.
“If true,” mused the General of the Clan of the Blade, “if the Tribes could muster such a force — then ask him, Dahkaa. Ask your G’mach — if we attacked the J’kel with the radiance of the Clans and the Phantoms of the Tribes, would we actually have — a chance?”
