Walking on Water

by Matthew J. Metzger

  And severed heads, usually.

  The sickroom was, in truth, a suite of rooms. The large bedroom was little distinguishable from any other, but it was the adjoining room that disturbed the peaceable image. There, Hauser had created a strange laboratory of sorts, full of foul potions, stinking corpses, and jars. Jars of brains, feet, and odd squishy things Janez was sure ought to stay inside one’s body, not be floating in jars in a doctor’s rooms.

  “What was that idiot soldier barking about, and that—” Hauser extended a stubby finger towards Janez’s load “—can suffice with one of the harbour-side butchers.”

  “Be nice, Doktor,” Janez said, depositing the man carefully on the bed. He curled into the loose overcoat, his gaze roaming the room only briefly before it came back to rest on Janez’s face. The stare was becoming unnerving. “This is the man who saved me.”

  Hauser harrumphed, but set down his instruments and stalked from his room of horrors into the land of the living. The man cringed back from him, and Janez could not blame him for it. Though Hauser was trusted and beloved by the royal family, it wasn’t for his kindly demeanour or elegant looks. In fact, he was a short, balding man, with very pale eyes the colour of dirty water. They stared, unblinking, and there was a certain terrifying chill about them. Reptilian, almost. He would fix his gaze upon a patient, and the patient knew they were a breathing corpse, nothing more, and that this doctor would gain equal pleasure from saving a life as from boiling the brains out of a still-warm skull.

  His fascination with dissection and study had made him a phenomenal doctor and surgeon, and his service was unswervingly loyal, but it came at the price of enduring the coldest stare any living man was capable of giving.

  “Hmph,” Hauser said, peeling back the man’s eyelids, and leaning in to sniff at his breath. He ripped the overcoat open, easily batting off the hands attempting to close it, and then let go to stalk back into his rooms. “Cold. And dehydrated. Get him into some woollens. In the drawers. Those drawers, you incompetent fool…”

  Janez grinned at the insult, and found the woollens (in a wardrobe, not drawers at all) and offered them to the man. When he stared blankly, Janez had to help him place his arms into a shirt. Fingers tried to clasp his own. He shook them off, but was grateful when he’d done only two buttons before the sailor seemed to catch up and buttoned the rest on his own. He curled his legs back under the overcoat, using it like a blanket, and Janez opted to let him. He could get a servant to come and dress the man properly if need be.

  “Is he in shock, Doktor?” he asked as Hauser returned with a steaming cup of…something.

  “Probably. What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t spoken.”

  Hauser handed the sailor the cup; when the man did nothing but stare blankly at it, Hauser said, “Well, drink it, then.”

  No response.

  “Foreign?”

  “I think so.”

  “Drink,” Hauser said again, loudly, and moved the man’s wrist up until the cup pressed against his lips. “Drink,” Hauser repeated, tipping it. The man drank, wrinkling his nose at the taste, and the doctor didn’t let go until the cup was empty.

  “What was that?”

  “A sleeping aid. It will warm him and knock him out. He can remain here for the night, or in the servants’ quarters.”

  “What’s your name?” Janez asked, but the sailor apparently didn’t even understand that. “Name?”

  Nothing.

  Janez tapped his chest. “Janez,” he said and then pointed to the doctor. “Doktor.” He pointed back at the sailor, and—

  Nothing.

  “He could be simple,” Hauser opined.

  “He’s not,” Janez said. “The way he looks at me…”

  “Yes, fixatedly and unblinking. Simple,” the doctor said. He snapped his fingers, causing those great pale eyes to be turned on him. “You stay here,” he said as he gestured at the carpet. “Stay here.”

  Janez rolled his eyes before turning to the little laboratory. Steadfastly ignoring the jars of disgusting things that should not be outside living bodies, he found parchment and a piece of dirty charcoal. He returned and carefully wrote his name in large block letters before presenting it to the sailor. It was a long shot. Most of the hands were illiterate, but if he was a midshipman or higher, he might have been educated in his home country. He looked young, perhaps twenty. It was possible.

  The sailor brightened and took the things in shaky hands. He began to—draw. Rather than write, he drew: A long curved rectangle. The soft shading of planks. And then a semicircle with a flattened edge. Two sharp lines, meeting at a right angle. Another line, on three legs. And two lines, joined at their bellies by a shorter one.

  Hauser chuckled.

  “Held. He’s from the Held. Good Lord, I thought all hands had been lost.”

  “He must have been picked up by the Ente. She was on patrol that day,” Janez said and beamed. “How apt! We can call him Held until we can figure out his real name.”

  Hauser laughed, and Janez grinned up at him.

  “It’s perfect,” he insisted. “A hero named hero! You hear that?” he asked, turned to the bemused-looking sailor. He tapped himself on the chest. “Janez.” And then reached out and tapped the thin frame under a borrowed woollen shirt. “Held.”

  The man smiled.

  “Held,” he echoed, in a thin, croaking voice. “Held.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE SKYMAN WAS called Janez.

  No matter how clearly they spoke, the words were a jumble of harsh, clattering sounds. But three things became clear. The beautiful man from the cloud was called Janez. The other man, with the fish-like eyes, was called Doktor. And they called Calla, Held.

  Held.

  It meant nothing to—to him. But—

  It fitted, somehow. It was short and blunt, and it fitted better against this body. And this body was…

  It was male. Calla—Held—knew that now. There had been a skymaid who’d dropped her basket when Janez had rescued him. She’d had the flow and form of a female—the breasts, the hips, the soft face and small hands—and this body had none of those things. It had narrow hips and wide shoulders, sharp cheekbones, and a flat, hard chest.

  The chest was the strangest thing of all. Calla kept touching it, expecting fingers to touch flesh long before they did, expecting the roll of breathing to be heavier than it was. Instead, she—he—found hard bone and muscle, tiny nipples, and a soft layer of fine hair.

  It sank in when another man came with armfuls of clothes. He bowed to Janez, bowed his head alone to Doktor, and set about dressing Cal—was her, his name even Calla now, if it didn’t fit and if this body was male?—in a sleeveless jacket over the shirt. This was followed by heavy fabric that swarmed each leg and clutched them and the pieces between them. There were long nets that came up his legs to meet the base of the leg-coverings, and some kind of sleeveless undercoat in a dark brown, and it made no sense at all.

  But what did make sense was there were no skirts. The skymaid had worn a dress, like the Witch had, like mermaids did. But the man brought no dress and wore the same leg-covers. As did Janez and Doktor. These were men’s clothes, and the body was dressed in them, and then Cal—Held?—was stood in front of a looking glass, and a skyman stared back.

  He.

  He looked just like them.

  He looked—not unlike he had, either. The same eyes stared back at him, the same chin and long neck. There was a ghost of the mermaid. It was as though…as though he’d been moulded and reborn, rather than a whole new body formed. As though the differences between mer and sky, between female and male, had been scraped away, and the core remained.

  But the mirror showed a man.

  A sharp jaw. That flat chest. The sleeveless undercoat made his hips seem even narrower and his shoulders wider. There was a muscular line to his frame that maids did not possess. He’d shrunk—to perhaps thirteen hands, fro
m the twenty-three he’d been before—but he stood as tall as Doktor, almost as tall as Janez.

  And the long hair, falling to the floor in a rush of white-gold light, was jarringly out of place, even as the man who had dressed him gathered it up in both hands and looped it round a fist.

  Raised, it exposed neck, ears, face. Exposed the man in the looking glass. Exposed—

  “Held.”

  Nobody replied.

  “Held,” he said again, and it fit around the image. He was—Held. Up here, in the sky, he was Held. And it felt…good. How could it feel good? His body had been ripped apart and remade. His name had been snatched away and replaced by another. How could it feel good? How it could possibly be a good thing?

  Yet it was. Something burned bright and happy inside his chest, and when the razor flashed and the bundle of hair was felled, leaving only fine strands to fall to his shoulders, he laughed. The sound bubbled up, loose and free and joyous, and he could have sung. For the first time in his life, he wanted to sing.

  Janez said something, a smile on his face, as the remaining hair was gathered into a dark ribbon. It hung behind his head, loosely tied at the nape of his neck just like Janez’s, and Held loved it at once. His neck and ears were naked to the cool air, and he felt lighter. Free. Floating, as though in water. Could one float, in the sky?

  Held was in the mirror. And for the first time, Calla felt comfortable.

  In this strange world, where they didn’t speak the same tongue.

  He was Held, and he felt good.

  When Janez said something, the new man bowed again and left. And then Janez said, “Held,” again, and a jumble of words that Held couldn’t understand, no matter how intently he stared at Janez’s lips. Still—the clash of noise, all jagged and harsh with sharp stops and spiky points, should have sounded frightening and ugly. Skymen spoke nothing like merfolk—they chattered and choked. Their throats did not release the smooth sounds of the underwater world. But the way Janez’s throat bobbed above his collar, the way his lips twisted and his teeth flashed…

  It sounded—seemed—so utterly beautiful that Held was captivated. He couldn’t begin to pick apart the words; he could barely pull his new name from the mess, and yet, and yet, he would have undergone hours more of that agonising transformation in order to understand every last murmur that dropped from those lips.

  Eventually, though, Janez seemed to tire of repeating the same sounds, and caught Held’s eyes to firmly say a single one.

  “Kommt.”

  It meant nothing to Held, but the intention was clear when Janez grasped his arm and turned him from the mirror to the door. Held stumbled on shaky legs—they didn’t want to obey, nor did he know how to force them to do so—and tottered ahead of Janez’s easy lope with utter gracelessness.

  The going was, therefore, slow. Held had to stop frequently, feeling dizzy on these unstable legs, but Janez was kind. He would simply stop as well, and the perpetual half smile was warming. Others stared. Another maid with another basket lingered with wide eyes, but at a glance from Janez bowed and bustled away. Were they guards, like Father had? But no—the guards had to be the men standing at every door, perfectly straight and unmoving, with swords at their sides, and bright overcoats and hats. They would bow to Janez and open every door without a word. Janez would nod back as though this was commonplace. He must own the great building, Held decided. But as the passageways stretched out forever in every direction, and the sheer number of people there became apparent to him, he began to wonder if Janez was not a king’s son. Or even the king himself. The deference, the quiet way he seemed to assume it would take place…it was like Father and his guards.

  The final door let into what was unmistakeably a kitchen. The smells were rich and alien, but the sounds and activity were familiar. Chopped fish lined boards; a squid hung from a hook over a bowl. A lobster was chittering in a cage. Men and maids wearing aprons rushed about, and then one skymaid—short and plump, with a round red face—squealed.

  “Prinz Janez!” she cried, and performed some odd bow in which her skirts were lifted out on either side of her like wings. A stream of high chatter followed that had Janez laughing and replying in a low, easy drawl.

  “Prince Janez,” Held attempted softly, whispering it to himself so he would not be heard and thought foolish.

  He was led through the cavernous kitchens, and—outside. A tiny garden, floored in marble and ringed by low rocky wall, jutted from the back of the kitchen. A balcony, he realised, when he looked down at the tops of people’s heads in a lush green garden far below.

  The back of his shirt was caught, and he was hauled backwards and sat at a little table in the weak, cool light. Janez said something, and Held smiled at the attention, ignorant of the sentiment.

  “Sie verstehen kein Wort von dem, was ich sage, oder?”

  The lilt said it was a question, but Held had no hope of grasping it. He shook his head and earned himself another pleasant laugh. The light was playing in Janez’s hair, turning the faint hint of red into a brilliant copper, and Held wanted to touch it again. Somehow, he sensed that he ought not to—but he wanted to. It wasn’t as straight, nor as dark as he’d supposed that morning on the shore when it had been wet. It almost floated in the air, short wisps free around his face and ears. The majority was pulled back loosely into that ribbon, but it curled like plant fronds or relaxed fins, rather than hung straight. They looked as though they’d bounce back into their coils if Held were to pull them taut. And his fingers itched to touch—so he pushed them under his legs on the seat and prevented it.

  “Ich verdanke Ihnen mein Leben,” Janez murmured, so softly Held was unsure if he was supposed to hear it. But as before, it made no sense, so what did it matter?

  The plump maid bustled out and placed a plate in front of Held, and a cup in front of Janez. And Held—stared. The plate was overflowing with food, some of it recognisable, most not. The fish was dark and shrivelled, yet smelled delicious; plants decorated the edges. A great flat rock sat in the middle, yet when he picked up the offered fork and prodded it, it was soft and gleaming. He poked it again, and looked to Janez questioningly.

  “Pilz.”

  “Pills,” Held echoed, and Janez chuckled.

  “Pilz,” he said, slightly more loudly.

  “Pilz.”

  “Ja.”

  Held blinked, and Janez rolled his eyes but didn’t repeat himself. Was ja ‘yes?’ He poked the fish and raised his eyes again.

  “Fisch.” When Held copied, he received another small smile, and another, “Ja.”

  So ja meant yes. Perhaps their language wasn’t so complicated after all. They had a yes. And different names for different foods. He had heard of a nest across the other side of the Narrow Mouth that called all foods simply food, no matter what type or ingredient.

  He learned the plate–Pilz and Fisch and Speck and the assorted plants, Salat, that tasted foul, like chewing on unripe seaweed. Janez didn’t seem to have a name for the plate itself, or he didn’t understand the question, but the longer they sat together in the cool light, Held memorising all the sharp little words for simple things from the smiling prince, the more he felt—

  At home. In this body and above the sky, with this man’s gentle gaze upon him, he was at home. It made no more sense than Janez’s tongue, or the strange clothes they had dressed Held in, but—it was as true as both all the same.

  And then a guard came crashing through the kitchen, too large and blushing red from the angry shrieks of the skymaids, clumsily raised hand to his forehead, and nearly fell.

  “Prinz Janez.”

  “Prince,” Held echoed to himself in another whisper.

  The guard fumbled out a torrent of words. Held caught none of them, but Janez did, the easy smile slipped from his face.

  “Ah,” he said.

  That was a sound Held understood perfectly.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WHEN THEY FINALLY arrived at the
throne room, Alarik was practically oozing ‘unimpressed.’

  He was alone, yet seated on his throne, and Janez sensed that perhaps a little decorum was called for. So he clicked his heels and saluted, keeping both the smile and the irritation from his face and voice.

  “Your Majesty. You wished to see me?”

  Alarik’s gaze slid right past Janez to Held.

  “Why have half my councillors reported to me that you removed a spy from the cells, dressed him like one of us, and have shown him round half the palace?”

  Janez stiffened.

  “Held is no spy.”

  “Really. He doesn’t speak a word of our language, and he could offer no explanation for his presence here.”

  “Because he can’t talk to offer it,” Janez said. “And any spy would speak our tongue.”

  “I am not arguing with you about this, Janez. Return him to the cells. Do you know how this looks? We are at war. I cannot afford to have questions over—”

  “You question my loyalty?”

  Even to his own ears, Janez’s voice sounded like ice. And he meant it to. Alarik’s eyes narrowed, and his fingers tensed on the arm of the throne.

  “You know I do not. But others…”

  “Half your council are idiots.”

  “You speak out of turn.”

  Janez stiffened, drawing himself up to his full height. “My apologies, Your Majesty. Ought I remove myself and my saviour to the Winter Palace again, for your convenience?”

  “Your what?”

  Janez almost poked at his brother’s sudden apparent deafness, but considered it perhaps unwise, given his mood. “My saviour.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Had you spoken to me before summoning me before the throne like a traitor, I should have told you that Held—”