Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  “As the Mad Priest sought yours, my darling,” Zariya murmured to me. Her mouth quirked wryly. “Though he merely exhorted them to seize me. Do I pose so little a threat?”

  “With respect, my lady, I do not believe the children of Miasmus convey clear motives,” Jahno said. “Now it is yet a thing as nebulous as a dream. Now they are capable of carrying its message of annihilation and destruction. They are capable of using their hosts to rouse the populace to overturn whatever order exists; and yah, they are capable of recognizing those of us chosen as defenders, and seeking to destroy us.” He looked apologetic. “If you had been seized by this mob and given over to the most savage and base desires incited within them, it would have fed their frenzy to a greater degree than if you had merely been slain.”

  She took a slow breath. “And I should have been no less destroyed by it.”

  He nodded.

  “I would never let that happen!” I said fiercely.

  “No, I should hope you’d kill me yourself first, dearest.” Zariya reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Well, this has been most informative.”

  Despite the talk of prophecy and impending doom, the mood aboard the ship was calm and prosaic. Now that we had left the Granthian fleet far behind, the sea-wyrms slackened their pace and chose their course with more care, and the ship did not jounce so over the waves. I would have been glad to make myself useful, but there was little to do. I checked on the stink-lizard hide curing in its tub of salt water and changed out the tainted water for new.

  At Zariya’s request, I washed my hands and set about undoing her wind-frazzled braids and combing out her hair. Re-creating the elaborate Zarkhoumi braided coiffure was beyond me, but I offered to twine it in a single plait.

  “I’ll try if you like, my lady,” Evene offered in a gruff manner. “I had a name among the other girls at the Inn of Ten Palms for being skilled at braid-work.” I looked at her in surprise, both at the unexpected offer and because her own hair was cropped nearly as short as a Granthian warrior’s.

  Zariya gave me the hand sign for be quiet. “That’s very kind, thank you.”

  I made way for the tattooed woman, who sat behind Zariya and began plaiting her hair with deft fingers. Her face relaxed as she concentrated on the task. I’d guessed her age to be somewhere in her middle forties, but now I saw that she was some ten years younger than I’d reckoned.

  “I’m not familiar with the Inn of Ten Palms,” Zariya remarked.

  “You wouldn’t be,” Evene said shortly. “It’s a boarding house on Arisinia in the Nexus. Cheap, but clean. I served drinks at a tavern down the street.” Her fingers went still. “Don’t suppose you’ve ever mixed with the likes of me before, eh?”

  “I’ve led a very sheltered life,” Zariya said in a light tone. “I’ve never met the likes of any of you. Tell me, if I were able to read Drogalian symbols, would I have seen your profession etched on your skin?”

  “No. Gods, no. I’m not ashamed of it, but I’m not proud of it, either. Anyway, I’m a long way from home.” Evene resumed her work. “You know what the tattoos mean, then?”

  Zariya nodded. “I think so.”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “I told you that Quellin-Who-Is-Everywhere can take any form, yeah?” Evene smiled. “He’s a prankster, an awfully naughty one. In the old days, he would take the form of, say, a boy’s mother, set him a task that would land him in trouble; take the form of a woman’s husband and steal into her marriage bed.”

  It seemed distinctly ungodlike behavior to me, but then, I was beginning to suspect I knew little about the children of heaven as a whole.

  “But the one aspect of another’s appearance that Quellin-Who-Is-Everywhere couldn’t duplicate was the markings, is that not so?” Zariya said.

  “Yeah, that’s how it began.” Evene slapped her left shoulder, bare in a sleeveless jerkin. Both her arms were covered with elaborate whorls and symbols and her throat was circled by something that resembled the noose of a rope. “Folk found if they got tattooed with signs that meant ‘I am Evene, daughter of Edsal and Varia’ they could make sure a person was who they looked to be. Once begun…” She shrugged and extended both arms. “In Drogalia, you know a person’s history at a glance. The entire lineage of my family is written here. Not that it’s anything to boast of, but if you were Drogalian, you would know exactly who I am, who my people were, where we came from, and what we are known for.”

  “But not the whole of your history,” Zariya said quietly.

  “No.” Evene touched the nooselike tattoo around her throat with one finger, her face hardening. “This is the last piece of my history from the realm of my birth, when I was sentenced to be hung. All criminals are marked.”

  Essee happened to be passing and laid a long-fingered hand on Evene’s close-cropped head in a brief gesture of sympathy; I was grateful for it, since I had no idea what to say in response to her disclosure.

  “You did well to escape, then,” Zariya offered. “And we must be grateful for it, since it brought you to us.”

  “Yeah, well.” Evene gave a mirthless laugh. “It’s not as though the dungeon could hold me. The guards were another matter. But luckily for me there was one guard…” Something in her expression changed, tinged with realization, apprehension, and dawning awe. “Oh, watery hell!”

  Zariya and I looked at each other and held our tongues.

  “He offered to look away while I made my escape in exchange for … well, the obvious favor,” Evene said, remembering. “He wore sleeves, long sleeves. Now that I think of it, he kept his shirt on throughout. You know, I never put the pieces together. But that guard, he was the one who said to me, ‘If I were you, I’d make for the Nexus.’ And so I did, whoring my way across the seas since I’d no coin left to my name. But he set me on that path. Now that I think of it, I bet it was him.” She shook her head in something like admiration. “Fucking Quellin!”

  “If it is true, his methods seem a bit … unkind,” I said cautiously.

  Evene fixed me with a hard stare. “Oh, and pray tell, shadow, was it kinder of Pahrkun the Scouring Wind to score your face with stinger and fang, to fill your veins with venom, and leave you to live or die in the desert?”

  To that, I had no answer.

  Were the children of heaven kind or cruel or indifferent? Did they care for us or merely their own fates?

  I did not know.

  That evening, while the sun yet hovered above the horizon, the Elehuddin dropped the sea anchors and whistled to the wyrms. They came arrowing across the water, heads held high. At close range, their upraised heads towered above the ship. While they had been about the hard work of towing us, I had forgotten exactly how enormous they were.

  Kooie spoke, gesturing toward Zariya and me.

  “We have not had a chance to make a proper introduction,” Jahno translated. “Eeeio and Aiiiaii, this is Her Highness Princess Zariya of Zarkhoum and Khai of the Fortress of the Winds, Sun-Blessed and Shadow of prophecy.”

  The sea-wyrms dipped their heads in acknowledgment. In the lowering light, their iridescent scales gleamed ruddy and copper. I folded my hands and pressed my thumbs to my brow in salute.

  “Oh!” Zariya’s voice was filled with wonder. “You’re both so very beautiful.”

  Eeeio, the larger of the two wyrms, stroked the underside of his long jaw along the other’s crest of fins, which flattened and rose under his attentions. He lifted his head on his long, sinuous neck and let out an inquiring trill, luminous eyes bright with inhuman curiosity.

  Jahno smiled. “Eeeio and Aiiiaii are a mated couple,” he explained. “He asks if you are also.”

  Zariya glanced at me and smiled. “Perhaps not as they would understand it, I think,” she said. “But yes, Khai is my soul’s twin.”

  Aiiiaii whistled and lowered her head, resting her chin on the ship’s rail.

  “Then you are blessed,” Jahno translated.

  Transferring her ca
nes into her left hand, Zariya flattened her palm against the sea-wyrm’s mighty jaw. “Indeed, my darling,” she murmured to Aiiiaii. “I do believe we are greatly blessed.”

  Some yards away, a winged shark breached the water, its body thrashing in midair as it gulped at a seabird. The wyrms’ already bright eyes brightened further, and Eeeio gave a short, sharp whistle.

  Kooie whistled in reply.

  I watched the sea-wyrms peel away from the ship in pursuit of the winged shark, blood frothing the waters as they made their kill, long necks arching against the sky while they tossed down bite after bite of shark.

  Truly, we had entered a new world. I could only be grateful that Zariya and I had entered it together.

  FORTY-THREE

  We were at sea for a month.

  For all the portents attendant upon our journey, it was an uneventful one. Sometimes we passed island realms in the distance and Jahno would point them out and describe them to us, but we made no stops.

  With each day that passed, Zariya grew a bit more at ease with our unexpected circumstances and our strange new companions, and she proved deadly serious about her goal of climbing the ladder unaided. I knotted a couple lengths of rope around the ship’s railing that she might practice hoisting her own weight. The first days left her sore and aching, for it required the use of an entirely different set of muscles than those she used to support herself on her canes, but that soon passed and by the end of the second week she had developed sufficient strength to climb the ladder unassisted—as well as to use an additional fixed rope to lower and lift herself to and from the privy bucket without my help, a development that may have been even more welcome.

  Zariya’s unalloyed delight in these new measures of personal freedom filled my heart with gladness. She also spent long hours in conversation with Jahno, the Koronian allowing her to pore over the journal in which he had recorded every confirmed scrap of prophecy as well as rumors and folklore relating to it. They were kindred spirits, the two of them, and while I could not help but feel a twinge of jealousy at the rapport they found in studying oblique texts, what mattered most was that Jahno treated her with respect and Zariya was happy.

  Still, I did take the precaution of ensuring that everyone aboard the ship knew that if Zariya was harmed in any way, I would happily chop them into pieces and feed them to the sea-wyrms, a sentiment with which Essee declared a surprisingly emphatic agreement. She may have been a pacifist, but I had learned that she was also a mother who had lost her only child, and Zariya in particular evoked a maternal tenderness in her.

  I began to understand bits and pieces of the Elehuddin tongue, but it was difficult to make progress save when Jahno was available to translate until I hit on the idea of teaching Shahalim hand signs to the Elehuddin. It gave us a common language we could both use to communicate, and the Elehuddin took to it readily, long fingers flickering fluently. Jahno was intrigued, for it was a cultural phenomenon that no one had ever documented, and he pressed me for details.

  Since there seemed no point in concealing my skills from the company, I told them about my training.

  “Think what I could have done with that,” Evene said wistfully.

  “Yah, but we might never have found you if you’d been a better thief,” Jahno reminded her.

  I managed to get the stink-lizard’s hide crudely tanned with salt water and scraped clean to a reasonable measure of pliability. I learned to play the board game clatter-peg and lost innumerable matches to Keeik, who was the youngest of the Elehuddin, an outgoing and lively fellow always ready with a toothy grin.

  The one thing I wished for was a suitable sparring partner, for I worried that my skills would grow rusty for lack of practice. Tarrok indulged me on occasion, for he had been a blacksmith before his exile and knew his way around a blade, but he was far too slow to give me any real challenge. So for the most part, I simply practiced on my own against an imaginary opponent, replaying sparring matches with Vironesh in my memory, flowing through long series of strikes and thrusts and parries.

  The crew gave me a wide berth when I did so, and Evene offered a grudging apology for having called me nothing more than a kid with a pair of swords. If nothing else, at least the ship’s incessant bobbing motion forced me to improve my focus and balance.

  At last we reached the outermost verge of the Nexus.

  Even at first glance, I could see it was vaster than I could have imagined. Jahno informed us that there were over a thousand islands in the entire archipelago, each with its own deity.

  “We will make for Verdant Isle first, to refill our water-casks,” he said, pointing to a distant green island with mountain peaks wreathed in mist. “It lies under the aegis of Ishfahel the Gentle Rain.”

  Once we entered the Nexus, it was apparent that the currents and counter-currents were swift, strong, and complicated. Conventional ships dependent upon sails and oars fought to navigate them, carried this way and that by the unpredictable waterways. I will confess, I felt a certain smug satisfaction as we arrowed our way past them toward the harbor of Verdant Isle, Eeeio and Aiiiaii’s heads held high in triumph, the neck-ridges of their fins proudly fanned.

  Jahno named the islands we passed. “Bottle Isle, so called for the shape of its harbor; Coopers’ Isle, nice strong trees for building casks; Grapevine Isle … that one lies under the aegis of Aardo the Intoxicated.” He smiled at a private memory. “You can have quite a time there, but it’s good fresh water we’re after today, yah?”

  Zariya leaned on her canes, swaying with the ship’s motion. “We’ll reach the Caldera by tomorrow?”

  He nodded. “Or today yet. In time to consult the Oracle the next day, if we’re lucky. If he has any counsel for us.”

  “Kephalos the Wise,” she murmured. “I pray he does.”

  In the harbor of Verdant Isle, we queued in a line of ships seeking to take on fresh water. If a wyrm-raider ship had entered the harbor of Merabaht, folk everywhere would have been gaping in amazement; here, Eeeio and Aiiiaii’s presence merely drew mild interested glances from the folk ashore and envious ones from the other sailors. The sea-wyrms dipped their heads beneath the waves, blowing out fine blasts of misty seawater through their nostrils.

  One by one the ships in line ahead of us refilled their casks, which were raised on platforms and slings by means of a large winch-and-pulley system and filled ashore by a team of men hoisting massive water-skins with spouts, the process overseen by the local dockmaster, who collected payment in advance. At last it was our turn. Intent on watching our empty and near-empty casks being transferred ashore, I did not see what was happening inland.

  Zariya caught my arm. “Oh, Khai! Look!”

  I looked and my skin prickled.

  Ishfahel.

  One does not need to be told when one is in the presence of a god or goddess. Ishfahel descended from the mountain peaks with purpose and grace, trailing rain clouds in her wake. Her appearance was greeted with shouts of delight and the Verdant Islanders offered their own unique salute, lifting up both arms in praise and lowering them, fingers wriggling in a gesture meant to emulate the falling rain. Children followed behind Ishfahel, dancing in the rain showers, faces raised to the sky in joy.

  The dockhands ceased their labors as Ishfahel approached. Like Anamuht and Pahrkun, Ishfahel the Gentle Rain was taller than a rhamanthus tree. Her smooth skin was a pale blue-grey the color of slate, shining rivulets of water running over it. Tendrils of mist cloaked her body and wound around her head. Her face was beautiful and serene, her eyes closed, the curl of her lashes breaking like great waves against her cheeks.

  The rain clouds surrounding the goddess drifted forward as she came to a halt in the harbor, drizzling softly over the ship. It smelled indescribably clean and pure and good, and the sensation of it against my skin was so refreshing, restorative, and uplifting, I wanted to dance like the children in the streets. It felt as though the rain’s touch washed away not only weeks’ worth of gri
me, but every unworthy thought or impulse I’d ever had.

  “Oh!” Zariya gasped, her face turned to the sky. “I feel clean for the first time in ages!”

  I licked my lips, and the taste of the rainwater was sweet, sweeter than honey, making the rivers of blood that ran in my veins leap for joy. “I know.”

  “Seeker,” Ishfahel murmured, and the sound of her voice was as soft and gentle and comforting as the susurrus of the falling rain. Her eyes remained closed, the smooth, graceful curves of them like polished stones. “You and your company face a long and arduous journey.”

  “Yah, my lady.” Jahno’s voice trembled a bit. He stepped forward and offered her a Koronian salute, folded palms spreading open like the pages of a book. “You grace us with your presence. Do you have counsel for us?”

  “I have a blessing.” She beckoned to the dockhands. “Bring forth one of the empty vessels.” They hastened to obey, rolling one of our empty casks in place before the goddess. Ishfahel’s mouth opened impossibly wide, her unhinged jaw lowering, and suddenly the landscape of her face was transformed; no longer did she resemble a beautiful woman, but a smooth-faced mountain, the cavern of a spring opening beneath the dome of her brow and the ridge of her nose. She raised cupped hands to her waist and inclined her head. Silver-bright water spilled forth from the well-spring of her mouth, shining even beneath the clouds. It filled her cupped hands, now like a pool surrounded by crags worn smooth by falling water; spilled in a sparkling stream to fill our empty cask.

  I caught my breath at the sheer beauty of it.

  At length the well ran dry; Ishfahel hinged her jaw and closed her mouth, her features rearranging themselves into something resembling a beautiful woman’s face once more. “Breach the cask only in your time of greatest need,” she said, and it seemed her close-lidded glance touched each and every one of us. “May it sustain you when all else fails.”

  All of us saluted; everyone in the harbor and the neighboring ships offered their version of a salute. The sea-wyrms raised their heads and trilled a note of gratitude in unison.