The Story Raider

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  “I’m not going to Urian!” she hissed.

  “But you need to meet the queen,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Gareth is no longer king, you know. We have a queen instead, and she will want to meet you. The queen gave Mor his ship.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “Because the queen is our friend. And because we helped”—I searched for words—“do the right thing.”

  It didn’t make sense to say “overthrow her father,” even though that was technically true.

  “Diggy, let’s find somewhere to sit.” I coaxed her toward a bench near the quarterdeck of the Lysian.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she said, even as she let me lead her to the bench.

  “Aye? What’s that?”

  “You’re trying to make friends with me.”

  “Not really. I’m just trying to make sure you feel safe, because you are. And I’m also trying to make sure you don’t jump overboard.”

  “And what if I did? What would it matter to you?”

  “You’re Mor’s sister, and he loves you. That’s enough reason for me to want to keep you safe.” I sat beside her. “But that’s not all. I care about you, and I want to make sure you’re looked after.”

  “You don’t even know me. And I don’t need looking after.”

  “Not on your island, you sure didn’t. But out here, I think you do.”

  She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t understand what’s happening. This morning I was harvesting coconuts and spearing fish. And now this.”

  “Believe me, I understand.” I leaned back. “A few moons ago, I was a story peddler, traveling around with my mentor, selling stories. Trying to work my way to Urian.”

  “Can’t imagine ever wanting to go there.”

  “When you’ve been starving half your life and Urian sounds like a place of plenty, it makes more sense.” I paused a moment. “I was like you in some ways, you know. I had to fend for myself too young.”

  Diggy frowned. “But you had your father.”

  “I didn’t.” And then I told her the tale of Tanwen and Yestin, the daughter and father who had been separated by thirteen years and the stone walls of the palace at Urian.

  As I told my story, strands flowed from my fingertips. Fine brown leather and tiny tendrils of ink for Father. Sparkling seastone-blue for me, and this time a little purple satin found its way in. I smiled. Strands for me always seemed to come out blue because of my eyes, but purple was my favorite color.

  “Why are you smiling?” Diggy asked.

  The ribbons paused. “My strands are reflecting me in different ways these days, and I guess it makes me smile. Maybe I’m growing into who I’m supposed to be.”

  At that, my strands crystallized into solid form—a tiny journal, pages filled with the musings of Yestin Bo-Arthio, and a pen with a fluffy plume of purple and blue. Yestin and his feather-headed daughter. I looked at it fondly.

  “When you talk of your strands, it reminds me of Mor when we were little.”

  “Aye?”

  “He used to tell stories to the crew on Father’s ship. They would all gather around at night and put on dramas, and Mor’s story strands made the whole thing magical. He makes stories that are like . . .” She trailed off like she couldn’t quite think of the word.

  “Tapestries,” I supplied.

  “Yes! Tapestries. When that usurper started cracking down on weavers, Father wouldn’t have it. He said, ‘Mortimyr, don’t you ever be anyone except who you were created to be.’”

  I swiveled on the bench to look at her. “Mortimyr?”

  “He didn’t tell you? That’s his full name.”

  And then we were both laughing. It wasn’t that funny, but we were laughing good and loud. And then we were crying. It was silly, but sometimes things are just too much. So many feelings at once after being in danger so long, suffering so much pain, and you need to let yourself laugh and cry over something silly.

  If anything could shake Mor from his trance and pique his curiosity, it was me and his sister laughing and crying our heads off. He moved from his spot near the mast and approached us. At the same moment, Karlith and Father came up from belowdecks.

  “Gryfelle’s been seen to,” Father said. “For the time being.”

  Our laughing ceased, but the tears lingered. At least for me.

  Karlith looked at Diggy and smiled in her motherly way. “How about some tea, lassie? Commander Jule knows me well enough after all these weeks at sea. He’s seen the Lysian stocked with some lovely teas.”

  “Spike-fruit?” Diggy asked tentatively. “It’s my favorite.”

  Karlith laughed. “Somehow, I don’t doubt that. Come here, my girl. Let someone look after you for a bit.”

  Before Diggy disappeared belowdecks, she paused and stared at Mor. “Maybe you have changed.”

  His gaze fixed on her, but he didn’t say anything.

  “If that lass—what was her name?”

  “Gryfelle.”

  “Gryfelle. If she thought you were worth dying for, yes, maybe you have changed.”

  Then she disappeared down the stairs, Karlith trailing after her. Father stayed with me and Mor.

  Mor lowered himself heavily onto the bench beside me. Then he dropped his head into his hands. “We were so close to saving her.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She loved you, Mor.” I took a breath. “She loved all of us. Even if she couldn’t remember it all, I think she knew in her heart how much she cared. She wanted to save us.”

  “But we were so near. We had the cure.”

  “Son.” Father laid a hand on Mor’s shoulder. “Gryfelle was too sick. She’s barely been alive for weeks—perhaps only hanging on so you could finish the quest.”

  Mor looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “She knew she was going to die unless there was a miracle. Even the cures of the ancients have limitations. This journey has always been for you. Gryfelle told me so herself.”

  Mor’s chest heaved, and I couldn’t bear to look at his face. “Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why did she let me have hope?”

  “Because you needed it. You needed the hope. You needed to do something. Gryfelle had peace. And then Tannie came aboard, and there really was someone who could be saved. Gryfelle desperately wanted that.”

  A wave of guilt, colder than the sea, washed over me—doused me from my scalp to my toes. “She let us drag her halfway around the world in her final days for me.”

  Father’s voice was gentle. “For you, for Mor, for Dylun, Warmil, and Zel. And Aeron.”

  I suddenly understood something. “Not Karlith, though. Because Karlith knew.”

  “Karlith knew the best way to help Gryfelle was to make her comfortable and to ease her soul into the next world.”

  Karlith’s sad but serene face made sense now. She had been preparing for this day. She had been praying to the Creator for Gryfelle. With Gryfelle. These last weeks had been a sacred time to her.

  “I haven’t used it yet,” I said numbly. “The cure. I suppose I should.”

  “Aye.” Father reached over and took my hand, then looked puzzled as he touched the crystallized story I was clutching. “What is that?”

  “Oh.” I smiled and opened my palm to show him. “Our story.”

  “That’s one of my journals.” He returned my smile.

  “And the blue and purple thing is me, I guess. All fluff and fuss.”

  Mor rose. “I’ll go get the box. Zel secured it somewhere.”

  “Thanks,” I said. And then I was alone with my father.

  He eased onto the bench beside me.

  “Daddy, I don’t want to be a mountainbeast anymore.”

  “Have you been? You hide the fur well.”

  I chuckled. “You’ve been hanging around the salty sailors too long.” And then the thoughts crashed in unbidden.

  Wylie.

  I put my hands to my temples. “No, no, no. I can’t think about him right
now.”

  Father put an understanding arm around me. “Your friend, Bo-Thordwyan.”

  The tears welled in my eyes again. “This must have been what it was like for you when you were a soldier. You must have lost so many friends.”

  “Aye.” He looked down. “Many friends. Many men under my command. And I served mostly in times of peace.”

  “How do you bear it? How do we make it so it doesn’t hurt?”

  “It’s supposed to hurt. Because people matter. And when we lose them, it hurts. They leave a void.”

  “I’m beginning to feel so full of voids, I’m like a piece of holey cheese.”

  Father smiled and guided my head to his shoulder. “But you’re not a mountainbeast.”

  “Sometimes I am,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

  “You are a daughter and I am a father, and we were kept apart a long time.”

  “Aye.” I slid the crystallized journal into his hand. “Let’s never do that again, all right?”

  “Agreed.”

  A moment later, Mor and Dylun traipsed up the stairs, the cure box clutched in Dylun’s hands.

  “Are you ready, Tanwen?” Dylun said. “You have been waiting a long time for this.”

  And though my burns still smarted, I rose. “Yes. Let’s see what the ancients were made of.”

  I stood at the forecastle and felt like I might as well be onstage.

  Not everyone had crowded around me. Warmil was belowdecks with Aeron, having his wound tended.

  Diggy was below with Karlith still, and Jule and the men strode about the ship. Yet somehow, I felt like everyone in the world was watching me.

  “What if it doesn’t work?” I stared at the closed box.

  “What if it does?” Dylun put his hand on the latch.

  “I don’t want to let you down if I fail somehow.”

  “Tanwen.” Dylun opened the box and held it out to me. “Whatever happens, you aren’t letting anyone down.”

  My gaze dropped to the cure. The orb was so perfect, so clear, it might as well have been made of air. But that white fire . . .

  “I’m afraid to touch it.”

  “I don’t think it will burn you.”

  I remembered the strands of white light that had blown up my life half a year ago. Master Insegno had said this was of the same power. “I think it already has burned me.”

  But truly, was that fair? Sure, those white light strands had upended an existence I had thought was comfortable. Passable. But in getting uncomfortable, fighting for the truth and chasing after what was right, I had discovered more. And I had found family in more than one sense. More than one wrong of the world had been righted.

  And if this worked, it meant those white light threads that overturned my life had actually saved me.

  “I guess I have to just trust it.”

  “Yes,” Dylun said. And he held the box closer to me.

  After a deep, slow breath, I reached out and took the orb before I could lose my nerve.

  Instantly, the ship vanished. The ocean disappeared. I stood in a dark room. Alone.

  “Hello?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s just us, Tannie.” A candle flamed, and Brac’s grinning face appeared beside me.

  “Brac!” I threw my arms around him. Then I paused, frowning. “You’re not really here, are you?”

  “Dunno. You tell me.”

  I looked around at the blackness. “I think . . . I think we’re in my mind.”

  “Or your heart?”

  “Depends on what you mean by that.”

  For once, this didn’t seem to bother him. Truly, we must be in my imagination somewhere.

  “So, what’re we doing here, Tannie? Got something you want to say?”

  “I’ve got lots of things I want to say. But to real you. Not imaginary you.”

  Brac frowned and looked around. “I don’t think this is your imagination.”

  “No?”

  “No. It’s all dark in here.”

  “Maybe I’ve finally run out of stories.”

  He snorted. “Not likely.” But he still looked puzzled. “Also, I feel something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something real. Something I should tell you.”

  “And if this were my imagination, I would already know.” Somehow, I knew I’d normally feel a sense of dread, but nothing seemed unpleasant here. “What is it?”

  “I think I’m in trouble, Tannie.”

  “What kind of trouble, Brac? Do you need help?”

  “Aye.”

  I touched his shoulder. “I’ll always try to help you.”

  “I know, but . . . something doesn’t feel right.”

  I turned away and looked into the blackness. “Lots of things don’t feel right. Maybe we can sort it out.”

  “I hope so. They might be tricking me somehow.”

  Whatever that meant.

  “Well, well.” Another candle flamed, and Mor stood on my other side. Not pinched, grieving, downtrodden Mor who tried to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Smirky, jesting Mor with his twinkling blue eyes. “I didn’t know if I’d be invited.”

  “Ho, Mortimyr.” I grinned.

  “Oh, great. I’ll kill Diggy.”

  An unexpected voice floated from one pitch-black corner of the room. “Rude,” Diggy said.

  Mor raised an eyebrow. “Diggy, come out of the shadows, will you? However much you might wish it, you’re not a night-flier or a rope-tail.”

  “I’m fine here, thanks.”

  I released Brac’s shoulder and put my hand on Mor’s arm. “Let her be.”

  “She’s probably hanging upside down over there or something . . .”

  “She’s fine.”

  “I suppose.”

  We sat still. Then I said, “What are we supposed to do?”

  Mor shrugged. “Wait, I guess?”

  “I wonder what’s happening to my body,” I said. “Don’t let me hit my head, all right?”

  “Yeah,” Brac said, “drop her on her face instead. Might improve the look of things.”

  I punched him. “I didn’t know this was a place where we returned to all the jokes we thought were hilarious when we were twelve.”

  He laughed, but I’d been struck with an idea.

  I gasped. “Maybe this is a place like that.”

  Mor’s eyebrows rose. “Where we tell childish jokes because we can’t express ourselves plainly?”

  I shot him a glare. “Look who’s talking. No, a place for memories. When I had my episodes, this is what it was like. A black room like this. And things would fly by me. Like silvery strands of memory. Sometimes there would be pictures. It’s a bit fuzzy.”

  “So we’re looking for those memories?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Look on the floor, Tannie girl.” Another candle, and there was my father. “You never did like to pick up your things off the floor.”

  I really wanted to argue with that, but he wasn’t wrong. And even worse, I looked down and saw a silver strand of memory sitting right at my feet. As though I’d tossed it there like a piece of dirty clothing.

  I bent to snatch it up. “Fine.” I made a face at Father. “What do I do? Shove it back into my head?”

  “I’d wager not.” Father didn’t offer anything else, but he didn’t need to.

  The next moment, the strand seemed to wake up. It rippled, then snapped to attention and wrapped itself around my arm. A second passed, and my skin absorbed the strand.

  I held up my arm and turned it this way and that in amazement.

  Suddenly, strands appeared everywhere, like silver snake hatchlings. Had I really forgotten so much? That’s the strange thing about losing your mind. You can’t remember what you’ve forgotten.

  I scooped up strand after strand, and each snapped to attention, wrapped itself around some part of me, and melted into my skin.

  “You’ve got them all now,” Mor said. “I�
��m pretty sure.”

  “I don’t see any others,” Father confirmed. “Though I did find the Digwyn lass in the corner.”

  “Brac?”

  He stopped scanning the floor for escaped strands and looked up at me. “Aye, Tannie?”

  “Remember that time when I was six and we chased a white fluff-hopper? The newborn one that was trying to eat your puppy?”

  “Aye.”

  I grinned. “Me too.”

  He returned my grin at first, but after only a moment, it fell. “Tannie?”

  “Yes, Brac?”

  “Promise you won’t forget that day.”

  “I just told you. I got it back. I won’t let it go again.”

  “I mean don’t forget it, even if you might want to.”

  Now my expression fell. I took a step back. “Brac . . . what’s happened?”

  “Promise you’ll remember all those good times from when we were children.”

  “I will, but—”

  He disappeared before I could finish. I turned, and it was only Mor and Father in the black space with me. And Diggy, shrouded in a corner somewhere.

  “Well, I guess that’s it,” I said. “Time to go back to the—oh.” And I held a hand to my heart, because even in this place where nothing seemed quite as troublesome as it did in the real world, the sight before me just about shredded my soul.

  A shimmering form of Gryfelle stood on one side of Father. And a shimmering wisp of Wylie on the other.

  “Oh, my friends.” Tears didn’t come. Maybe they didn’t exist here. But I felt them in my heart. “My friends, I’m so sorry.”

  They didn’t seem to hear me. Or anything at all.

  Gryfelle, looking whole and very young, wore a dress like the ladies at court wore, and I realized this was what I imagined Gryfelle looked like before she was banished. Wylie had rope in his hands. His mouth moved. He was teaching me at knots and laughing over how my supposedly gifted fingers couldn’t manage a task sailors learned as cabin boys.

  “It’s not really them,” I said. “These are just my thoughts. My memories and my imaginings of them.”

  “Yes.” Father ran a hand through the arm of the Gryfelle figure. “They’ve moved on, Tannie.”

  Mor took my hand. “Time for us to move on. Back to the Lysian.”

  “We’re still there on the deck. I think. This place is strange.”