With those words, she handed him the key to far Briatha and his desires. He clasped his knapsack close, searching for words. From above, echoing down into the pit, came the barking and howls of dogs and the shouts of the men running the pack. Bevan backed out of the compartment, hauling Ardith on his heels, and closed the hidden panel behind them.
“Bevan Historian! We know you’re down there! We want the contraband!”
Bevan looked back at the golden chariot, its rudder and fins resting on the pebbled shore. Ardith trembled at his side. Their ransom. Bevan toyed with the idea of coaxing their pursuers down and shoving them into the lake, its substance hostile, but he had no stomach for killing men he’d known for years if he could help it.
“I have a proposal for you.” His words undulated upwards. He waited to see if they understood.
“Give up the cargo. There is a bounty on the ashes. We only want what is right and due.”
“It’s not cargo, it’s a child, and she is no more ill than I am.”
He could hear Bartoff yelling at the dogs to shut up and get back. “Impossible. Even you are not addled enough to keep the dead.” He added, “If it lives, let us witness that.”
Bevan straightened his knapsack about. “No, but I have a deal to make. Treasure hunters find treasure.” Dead silence followed. He could imagine the arguments above for he had lived on their charity since his wife left. What could he possibly have?
“What have you found?”
“I’ll send up an item. Look at it. Make your decision. If you’re all agreed it has worth, we’ll discuss our deal. I have a few artifacts here that will make us all wealthy.” He heard a creak and realized someone already moved down the pit. “If you decide to come down after me, like thieves, I have the ladders rigged to give way.”
The creaking halted.
He unshouldered his knapsack and gave it to Ardith. “If they come down, get in the cabin and lock the door.”
“It will seal.”
“Indeed. And I’ll push it back into the lake from which it came.”
She studied his face. “I could die there, if you don’t come back for me.”
“They intend to burn you. If I don’t come back, when the air is gone, you’ll fall asleep and never wake. An easier death.”
Ardith looked steadily at him. He had the sense, for a fleeting moment, of the absolute trust the magician who had put her to sleep must have seen before he condemned her to nothingness. Wordless, she nodded.
He watched as she climbed back in and the doors slammed shut. His throat tightened as he watched the ship sink back into the waters. He spun away and found a rope to haul up a broken fin that he’d never been able to repair, its structure alone worth a fortune, as well as the material constructing it. He climbed halfway up, dragging the offering behind him. Fastening it to the supply hoist, he sent it the rest of the way. He could hear the reactions as it climbed to the rim.
“Have we a deal? Two lives for a fortune?”
A significant pause. They must be arguing among themselves.
“We need ashes.”
“Take a fresh corpse and burn it if you will. They know what they’re looking for.”
“How many more pieces do you offer?”
Bevan considered. He had a second, whole fin. They would know then that he’d found the wreckage of a fantastic airship, royalty among the skies. No. That tempted too much. He had a broken antenna and an oddment or two he’d found in the cargo hold. If he proposed too much, they wouldn’t be able to stand against their temptations, plague or not. “A bit or two more. A few gems to offer for food and ignorance to let me stay to finish my writings, and forget the child.”
“And if you have the sickness?”
“It stays here with our bones and dust.”
More silence. Finally, he recognized Saliat’s voice, as oily as his forked beard. “Deal.”
He hurried back down and gathered the goods he’d promised, hitching them together in a net of rope. Warily, he tracked its progress as it bumped up the side of the gash and disappeared. After a much longer moment, the net came back down, filled with three journey sacks of the rations the hunters had brought along with them on their pursuit.
Bevan smiled as he gathered the sacks up.
He waited until all sign of them faded away, until all he could hear was the wind whistling across the gash. Bevan raced to the lake and hauled the chain up, dragging it back into place so that he could crank the wreck back onto shore. It responded reluctantly. He threw all of the weight he had on his makeshift equipment to no avail. It refused to bob to the surface or come to shore. He’d taken off the one end. Had the other snagged and come free? What trapped Ardith below?
He’d told her she’d be safe. He hadn’t known for certain. He’d hoped with all that seemed left to him, with strength he’d borrowed from her.
Bevan stood hesitantly. “Hells,” he muttered, kicked off his shoes, and dove in headfirst.
It stung. Hornets biting at him over and over but it didn’t scorch as it had years ago when he’d first gone after the wreck. Now he wrapped the chain about his scalding hand and swam down until he bumped blindly up against the ship. He found the hook where a fin had once been attached, and re-set the chain.
He didn’t trust it to hold. On what little breath he had left, Bevan wrestled the wreck. He pushed and wrenched at it until suddenly, it popped up to the surface, dragging him with it. Fresh air came with a sob. He took it once, twice, and then kicked off to the beach, where, barely standing, he wiped his eyes and worked the turnstile, watching with relief as the ship came to the shore.
He reached up, pounding on the door, and it opened, Ardith popping her head out. She looked him up and down. “You live.”
“Indeed.”
She took his hand to hop out. “And how do I live?”
“Like the rest of us. A day at a time. I’ve struck a bargain.”
She watched him, as she may have watched the magician that fated morning, calm and accepting. He would learn of the Eriadne people and their secrets, if they had magic in their veins, if they had truly lived as others do. She squeezed his fingers. “One day at a time, then. For as long as it takes.”
TAMATORI
Susan Jett
Shizuko was nearly out of breath when she saw Keiko struggling. She swam closer. Keiko’s tenugui kerchief had come unknotted and her loose hair had tangled around the rough coral branches, trapping her. Shizuko darted forward to help, but Keiko was panicking. Almost out of breath, Shizuko pushed hard for the surface, thinking to fetch the abalone knife they’d left floating on their buoy. Keiko clutched at her feet, but Shizuko kicked away. I’ll be back, Keiko.
Gulping air, Shizuko grabbed the knife and dove deep. She could pass the air in her lungs to Keiko while she worked. She descended as quickly as she could, ready to steel herself against Keiko’s flailing arms. But her sister’s arms were limp. Desperately, Shizuko tried to give Keiko a breath, but she was past needing it. Keiko’s eyes opened, red with broken blood vessels and rage. She reached out, dragging Shizuko down one last time—
In her bath five thousand miles away, Shizuko bolted upright, sloshing water across the wooden floor. She was halfway out of her tub before she remembered. Keiko’s death had been a lifetime ago, in a different world, back when Shizuko was a fisherman’s daughter, not a courtesan. Just a nightmare—everyone in San Francisco was plagued by bad dreams lately. This one had been particularly horrific, but it was still just a dream.
Taking a deep breath, Shizuko reclined again in the cooling water. It had been a long night already, and she just wanted to sleep. Preferably alone. But Old Chen had paid extra to be allowed to “surprise” her in her bath. Shizuko didn’t mind too much. If only all my clients were so easy to please…
The door snicked open, and she closed her eyes and put on her habitual half-smile. As long as she hid her thoughts behind a smile, they still belonged to her.
“Tamatori
,” Chen whispered hoarsely. “See what I bring you? You want this?”
Shizuko smelled ocean brine on the old man’s hands; not unusual for spot prawn season. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring down the narrow neck of a ceramic tako-trap. Without another word Chen dropped the jar into her bath. Shrieking in surprise, Shi-zuko scrambled out. A tiny octopus, rosy as a peach and no bigger than her hand, billowed out of the jar.
She stared at Old Chen in disbelief, but he just shook a tattered print in her face. So that’s why he called me Tamatori. The erotic image by Hokusai was well-known in San Francisco’s pleasure houses, though Shizuko had never heard of a client who’d tried to reenact it. Her lip drew up in a grimace, but the octopus Chen had brought was so tiny it was hard not to be amused. Ridiculous and disgusting. Rather like my life.
Grabbing her robe, she stalked away from Chen and his pet. “Hercule,” she called. “I need you up here now!” The huge strongman thudded upstairs. “Get him out of here, Hercule-chan. Please.”
“What’s going on, Chen? Augh—!” Hercule’s fluent Cantonese quickly outstripped Shi-zuko’s understanding and she stepped out of his way. Chen’s cheap print fluttered to the ground as Hercule grabbed his arm.
“The tako, too?” Shizuko pleaded.
Holding Chen at arm’s length, Hercule leaned over and scooped the octopus back into its pot with his other hand. Never a handsome man, Hercule’s face looked downright fearsome when it was pinched with disgust. He dragged Chen downstairs and tossed him out the front door. Shizuko heard the sound of breaking stoneware as the tako-pot landed beside him. Then the door slammed shut.
“Thank you, Hercule-chan,” she called as she came down the stairs.
“Do I want to know what that was about?” Instead of explaining, Shizuko handed him the woodcut print of a woman being ravaged by octopuses. Sitting across the little table from him, she poured tea for them both. With any luck, I’ll be able to stay awake until dawn. The nightmares seemed to ease during the daytime, and she didn’t think she could take another encounter with her dead sister.
In the meantime, watching Hercule’s eyebrows climb up his forehead as his eyes opened wide was amusing enough to let her forget her lingering unease. “It’s an old story.” She sipped her tea. “Tamatori was either a princess or a fisherman’s daughter. To help her husband, she stole Kanju and Manju—they were pearls that stopped and started the tides. When the sea dragon pursued her, she hid in a cloud of her own blood, like a tako hides in its ink.”
Hercule seemed rather more interested than the old story warranted. “I’m familiar with the legend,” he said. “But what does that have to do with this?” He brandished the print.
Now Shizuko smiled—a true smile, not the false one she used to hide from clients who didn’t know the difference. Hercule grinned back, and her heart—which ought to be dead after so many men, so much grief—turned over inside her.
“Tamatori knew she could not escape, so she pushed the pearls into her wound and managed to bring them to the surface before she died. The artist thought that maybe the sea dragon’s soldiers followed her. Punished her.”
“That’s a terrible ending! What’s wrong with ‘and she lived happily ever after?’”
Carrying her teacup, Shizuko rose and went to look out at the sunrise. “Maybe it was Tamatori’s best ending,” she said quietly. “She did not fail those who trusted her. There are worse things than dying.”
“Like Chen’s octopus?”
She smiled at his teasing, but said seriously, “Men are badder now—no, worse,” she corrected herself. “It’s the nightmares. Bad dreams give them bad thoughts.”
Hercule nodded sour agreement. “I thought the nightmares meant the devices I told you about were nearby. But I haven’t found them, Shizuko-hime, and I’ve looked everywhere.” Hime meant ‘princess.’ It was their private joke. She called the giant, scarred strongman, ‘Little Hercule,’ and he called her—stranded as she was in a brothel five thousand miles from home—‘Princess.’
He’d arrived two years ago, right after the 1904 plague outbreak ended, and told Madame Stella he’d stay until he found what he was looking for. Shizuko didn’t know what she’d do when he left. He was her closest friend—her brother, since what he sought didn’t seem to be the love of a woman.
She was turning away from the window when two meteorites arced low across the sky, flaring so brightly that Shizuko flinched, dropping her cup and splattering tea over her bare ankles. Shizuko dove under the table, and then the earth lurched sideways.
If she hadn’t already been on her hands and knees she would have fallen like her friend, who now sprawled awkwardly on the floor. Moaning, Shizuko squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the quake to be over. It felt like a lifetime. The shrieks of earth wrenching itself apart pierced her mind like splinters.
And then the world stilled, settling into an uneasy, waiting silence. Shizuko stood carefully and glanced uneasily at the gaslights flickering on the wall. “We need to get out of here.”
“Is it over?” Hercule whispered, keeping his hands on the floor as an aftershock rippled underfoot. The house groaned like a dying thing.
Shizuko shook her head. Hercule dragged himself to his feet and they joined the women who stumbled downstairs in various states of undress. One flung open the front door and they all stared, shocked, as their city crumbled. When a warehouse tottered and collapsed, replaced by a plume of dust and smoke, most of the women gasped, a few prayed. One laughed.
Then another shock jarred them all into each other. A loose brick crashed down from the arched doorway onto the abandoned tako-pot, shattering it further. Picking her way around the shards, Shizuko ran barefoot into the street. The moving earth wouldn’t kill anyone, but crumbling walls and shattering window panes would.
Hercule followed her, but most of the women of the house stood dazed, looking around like canaries examining their broken cage. He tugged Shizuko’s arm, and she followed him willingly. Anywhere’s better than here. They stumbled to a stop as another long aftershock stole their balance, then Hercule pulled her into a trot again. Ducking his head, he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it affectionately.
That was surprising enough that she nearly stopped dead in the street; Hercule had never asked favors of any of the women at Madame Stella’s. Shizuko had thought that perhaps he didn’t like women that way. But she’d also been relieved he’d neither presumed upon their friendship, nor given her reason to be jealous. For I would have been, even though I would have thought less of him for the asking.
“We’ve got to get to the bay!”
“No—after an earthquake there are waves. Huge waves!” She shouted to be heard over the screams and tumbling of debris as her adopted city ripped itself apart.
He halted, panting, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. “How did you know it was coming? You were under that table before I felt anything.”
“There were lights. They startled me.” She shook her head, trying harder to remember since he was staring at her so intently. “Bright lights, like little suns. They fell into the bay.”
Now he crouched to look into her eyes. “What do you—? How many? Oh, Princess,” he glanced around at the destruction. “This is what I was afraid of.”
Nearby, a building collapsed with a roar, and Shizuko felt the shock in her legs. The breeze picked up then, swirling her hair like ashes in the wind. Hercule reached for her hand, to tug her down the hill again, but she shook her head. “You’re going the wrong way, Hercule-chan. We need to leave the city.”
“I think you found what I’ve been looking for,” he explained.
“The lights? They’re in the bay now. And we couldn’t find them now anyway—” She gestured at the chaos around them.
“Listen to me, Shizuko. What you saw. When they went in the water they awakened a—a dragon. That’s what has caused all this.”
Insanity followed earthquakes like death followed plagu
es. “Hush, my friend,” she tried to soothe him. “There are no dragons, but if there were, surely that would be another reason to run the other way?” She offered him a falsely bright smile and took a step uphill.
But he would not be diverted. His eyes were bright and clear, nowhere near as mad as his words. “Shizuko-hime, I’m telling this all wrong. But I’m not crazy. It’s not really a dragon. It’s a creature from beyond the stars that’s been sleeping for a millennia, waiting for these devices to return. Once it has them, the invasion will resume and this world will be lost. Everything will be lost.”
Shizuko smelled smoke and tugged frantically at his hand. “We have to go.”
“Please, Princess.” He nodded at the crumbling city around them. “Help me find them.”
Another aftershock churned the earth. Shizuko braced her legs and shouted to be heard over the deep grinding of rock colliding underground. “It’s just a story, Hercule! There are no sea dragons! No pearls! No princesses!”
His big fingers stabbed accusingly at the scars wreathing his bald head. “Please,” he begged. “I’d do it myself, but the dragon marked me years ago. Now when I dive, I can’t breathe. I pass out. But I’m not crazy,” he repeated.
A woman screamed and Shizuko spun frantically. Keiko? Then, remembering, she cringed away from the direction of the sound. We’re all crazy here, she thought wearily. Columns of smoke punctuated the sky like exclamation points. “Why have you never said anything about this before? Dragons in the bay?”
“Would you have believed me?” Her thoughts must have been written on her face, for he sighed, deflating. “I should have, because you’re the only diver I know, and if we can’t get them back on land, we’re all dead.” Fires had begun to spread. Shizuko looked at the ruins of her adopted city, the ruins of another life that had ended without warning. She was tired of running, and no matter where she went, her sister was always waiting for her.
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