by Paula Guran
What passed between them was too deep for words, and he was glad to be towed and not swimming, for he couldn’t have swum and wept at the same time.
And as the sun itself appeared on the horizon, it seemed that the Leapers were not going to have to take him to shore after all, for there were boats coming to meet them—and although Vedalia could not have fit in them, Sted was in the prow of the foremost, his white uniform shining in the early light.
The Leapers—he saw now that they looked like fish, but with sleek, brown hides, merry eyes, and mouths frozen into a perpetual grin—now made good their name, for all those who surrounded the two who towed him flung themselves into the air in graceful arcs. From the distant boats a cheer arose, made faint by distance—and by the water in his ears, perhaps.
He grayed-out for a moment—it was a good thing that his caretakers were competent and kept him from drowning—for when he came to himself, there were two bright-eyed heads holding him up, with his arms across what might have been their necks if they’d had such a thing. And the foremost boat was coming alongside. Many hands reached down to haul him aboard, which was a good thing, because now that he was safe, the last of his energy ran out, and he felt as weak as a newborn kitten.
But he was not so exhausted that he didn’t notice the fishermen bowing to the Bright Leapers, and calling out their thanks as he was hauled aboard. “You know these creatures?” he said, surprised.
“They are the Wave-Wise,” said one of the fishermen, wrapping a rough woolen blanket about his shoulders. “Some say they are the spirits of those of us who drowned and never came home to be buried on land. We never molest them, and if one should be tangled in a net, we cut the net to let him free. Better to lose a catch than drown a brother.”
:Deep-Speaker!: one called, bobbing with its head above the water, making a chattering sound and nodding as it MindSpoke. :Tell your friends that we know where the Netted Ones are, and we will guide them there!:
The Netted Ones? The kidnapped women?
:Yes! Yes! And now the Deep One feeds, there are none to keep them netted!:
“Dear gods—” he grabbed the fisherman by the collar. “Listen—your Wave-Wise are wiser than you guess! They say they know where the women and children are that were stolen away, and will guide you there!”
Pandemonium broke out among the boats, as the Bright Leapers cavorted and word passed from vessel to vessel. All wanted to go, but the crew of the boat that held Sted and Alain reluctantly agreed to turn back with them.
Then, and only then, did Alain lie back, his shivering easing, a flask of some herb cordial that Sted had pressed into his hand, sheer exhaustion flattening him against the support of rope and blankets that Sted had rigged for him.
Sted, who spoke but seldom, had been babbling ever since he was brought aboard out of sheer relief. Since most of what he was saying had been variations on “Thank the gods you’re safe!” Alain hadn’t paid a lot of attention.
Now, though—“Vedalia said you were rescued by those fish—or whatever they are,” Sted was saying.
“Not fish—I s’ppose they must be something like a Pelagiris-creature, a kyree or whatever,” Alain replied, hoping he sounded as exhausted as he felt. “They said the only reason they could hear me, and I could hear them, was my Gift.”
“But how did you get away?” Sted asked.
Alain tried to laugh and coughed instead, taking a sip of the cordial. “I didn’t. The bastards only kept me long enough to be sure you weren’t chasing them with boats full of Guards. Then they tossed me overboard. But I’d been yelling like a scared baby, and the—they call themselves Bright Leapers—the Bright Leapers heard me.” He held out his wrists so Sted could see the cuts from their teeth. “Got the ropes off, then towed me back. I suppose I was rescued for the novelty of listening to me talk while I was brought back as much as anything else. I got the impression that these water-creatures, the intelligent ones, spend a lot of their time just—playing, learning, being curious. So much for the honor and glory of being a Herald! My real value seems to have been that I could tell a good story!”
He might be exhausted, but he was choosing his words very carefully. He was telling the exact truth, just not all of it . . . and as long as he stuck to the exact truth, Sted was not likely to wonder what he was trying to hide.
Sted chuckled, and so did the fisherman nearest them, the man at the tiller. “We’ve always honored the Wave-Wise, but if they bring us to the captives, they’ll be getting a share of our catches from now on,” the fisherman said. “As for stories, I expect you’ll be tired of telling this one long before anyone gets tired of hearing it. There’ve been other tales of the Wave-Wise rescuing fisherfolk, but never like this one.”
“And I fervently hope there never is again,” Alain said emphatically. “I pray that no one ever meets the sort of things I did last night.”
He closed his eyes and Sted’s urging, and felt consciousness rapidly slipping away. But—did he hear the far-off echo of an appreciative—and sated—chuckle at that last?
:No, of course not.:
:Of course not,: he agreed, and slept.
Michael Shea’s (1946–2014) first published novel, A Quest for Simbilis (1974), was an authorized sequel to Jack Vance’s two Dying Earth books. (When Vance’s Cugel’s Saga appeared in 1983, it took the series in a new direction and Shea’s novel was no longer considered part of the canon.) Shea’s Nifft the Lean (1982)—four connected novellas—was influenced by Vance, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, and H. P. Lovecraft. Considered by some to be one of the more important works of modern sword and sorcery, it won the World Fantasy Award for best novel in 1983. Nifft later appeared in The Mines of Behemoth (1997) and in The A’rak (2000). Shea also authored three other non-Nifft novels and over thirty shorter works. “Epistle from Lebanoi,” the final Nifft story, was published in 2012.
Epistle from Lebanoi
Michael Shea
Long hast thou lain in dreams of war—
Lift from the dark your eyeless gaze!
Stand beneath the sky once more,
Where seas of suns spill all ablaze!
—Gothol’s invocation of his long-drowned father, Zan-Kirk
From Lebanoi
Nifft the Lean, traveler and entrepreneur at large,
Salutes Shag Margold, Scholar
I am to ship out to the Ingens Cluster, but it seems the craft I’ve passage on is finding the refitting of a gale-damaged mast slow work. Writing—even to you, old friend—is tedious toil, but since the alternative is the restless fidgets, write I will. And in truth, what’s passed here merits some memorial.
Well then—I disembarked here at Lebanoi from a Lulumean carrack a fortnight ago. I know you are aware that for all the lumber towns along this forested coast, and all the flumes you’ll find in them, Lebanoi’s Great Flume is justly preeminent. Standing at dockside, staring up its mighty sweep to the peaks, I gave this fabled structure its due of honest awe.
Then, bent on some ale, I repaired to a tavern, where I found out right quick about the native fiber of some of these lumbering folk! They can thump a bar, and bray and scowl with the best, these logger-lads! No dainty daisies these, be sure of that, when they come down the mountain for their spree!
I sat with a pint in the Peavey Inn—an under-Flume inn, one of countless grog-dens built high up within the massy piers which prop that mighty channel of water-borne timber. In many of these inns and taverns—clumped up right against the Flume’s underbelly and reached by zigzags of staircases—you can hear just above you, through the ceiling, the soft rumble of rivering timber as you sit imbibing.
And thus sat I, assaying the domestic stout, till a bit of supper should restore my land-legs for the long ascent to Upflume—Lebanoi’s smaller sister city on the higher slopes halfway up the Flume’s length.
But here came trouble, a come-to-blows brewing. For behold, a bare-armed lout, all sinewed and tattooed—axes and buck-saws
inked upon his arms—stood next to me at the bar, and he began booming gibes at me which he thinly guised as jests.
“Your braid’s divine!” he cried. “Do they not call that style a ‘plod’s-tail,’ honest traveler?”
My hair was clubbed in the style of the Jarkeladd nomads. I keep it long to unbind in polite surroundings to mask the stump that’s all that remains of my left ear—lost, as you know Shag, down among the Dead.
Soon, I knew, after initial insults, the lout would mock my ear, for his eye already dwelt on it. I decided that this slur, when it came, would trigger my clouting him.
Beaming in his face, I cried, “Why thank you! Your own dense curls, Sir, merit equal praise! Sawdust and shavings besprinkle your coiffure! How stylish to resemble—as you do—a broom that’s used to scour a saw-mill’s floor!”
He sneered and plucked a phial out of his vest, tapped dust into his cup, and drank it off. Even swamp-despising woodsmen buy swamp spices—this one “whiff,” unless I missed my guess, productive of raw energy, no more.
“Another thing, fine foreigner,” brayed my lout, “that I adore your doublet, and your hose! Garments so gay they would not shame a damsel!”
This bellicose buffoon would blanch to face such men as wear the Ephesian mode I wore. I grant, the costume does not shun display. The snake-scale appliqué upon my hose, the embroidered dragon coiled upon my codpiece, my doublet harlequinned with beadwork—all my clothes artfully entertained the cultivated eye with rich invention.
Of course, I would straightway don self-effacing garb once I should find an inn, and stroll the town to learn its modes. The seasoned traveler travels to behold, not be beheld. But, until I did so, a bustling port like Lebanoi might sanely be expected to extend sophisticated sufferance to the modes of the far-flung cultures whom her trade invites!
“No doubt,” I said, “your celibate sojourns in the woods make even stumps and knotholes seem to sport a womanly allure. No doubt even alley curs arouse your lust, so be that they have tails to wag, and furry arses.”
Oddly, though his mates looked to be loggers like himself, they seemed in the main unmoved by our exchange, and unconcerned by gibes from me that mocked their trade. Their cool interest set my nerves on edge.
“Where did you hear,” brayed Lout, “we lacked for lasses? You were mis-told, or likelier mis-heard! Yes, half-heard with your half-a-brace of ears! ’Tis very meet that you should mention arses—that puckered hole you sport athwart your head resembles one!”
All knew my blow was coming, yet showed no concern beyond any man’s casual interest in a developing brawl . . .
Well, I clouted him, and brought him down, then backed away a bit, and let my hand hover in the general direction of my sword-hilt. An older, gnarlier woodsman, giving a sardonic eye to my stunned adversary on the floor, addressed me.
“Think nothing of it, stranger! Here now my lads—someone prop him at a table and pour him another flagon.”
“Please!” I interjected. “Permit me to buy his drink—by way of amends!”
This was generally well received. The older man, Kronk, stood me a flagon. “Wabble’s not a bad sort, but he’s dim, and in his cups. He took you for a spice magnate, merely by your costly gear. Too dim to see that your style—no offense—is much too lively even for an Up-flume entrepreneur.”
We talked. I learned that tree-jacks dabbled in spice trade even as Up-flumers did, in the long years since the Witches’ War had damaged Rainbowl Crater, and reduced the output of Lebanoi’s mills.
I took a thankful leave of him, keen to have some daylight left to learn the city a bit more, and to dress myself less noticeably.
Stairs and catwalks threaded the maze of under-Flume construction. I made my way a good half mile farther inland from the dockside, or farther “up-flume” as the saying is here. I mounted a level rooftop, scooted well back into the Flume’s shadow, and disrobed. I stowed my gaudier gear, and donned a leather jerkin and woolen hose. Bound up my hair, and hid it in a Phrygian cap.
I rested and enjoyed the view, the golden sinking of the day. Above me hummed the Flume’s boxed flood, the softly knocking bones of trees that colossal conduit carried down to the wharf-side mills. I looked upwards along its mighty sweep, ascending on its titan legs the skorse-clad mountains . . .
All Lebanoi was bathed in rosy westering light. Her mills and yards and manses and great halls glowed every mellow hue of varnished wood. Her houses thronged the gentler coastal hills. And they were so etched by the slanting sunbeams that I could trace the carven vines and leaves that filigreed the gables of even the more distant buildings.
The rumble of the rivering logs above me, the shriek of saws from the mills, the creak of tackle, the shouts and thumps of cargo from the shipyards—all blended in a pleasing song of energy and enterprise. Despite her wounds from the Witches’ War, the city still prospered.
But I’d just tasted the tensions at work here. Where factions are at odds, outsiders best go lightly. Best to head inland to the town of Up-flume, obtain my spice, and ship out tomorrow. It meant harvesting at night, but by all reports spice-gathering went on in the swamp at all hours.
And so, I mounted from the Flume’s underside to its top. This, of course, forms a wide wooden highway which streams with traffic up-Flume and down, and in the late sun its whole great sweep showed clear. Far up I saw where the Flume’s high terminus lay shattered, just below great Rainbowl Crater’s fractured wall—Lebanoi’s two great wounds, suffered in the Witches’ War . . .
My own goal lay but half as far—just four miles up, where Lebanoi’s smaller sister-city filled a shallow valley under the Flume’s crossing: Up-Flume, where the spice swamp lay.
I flagged a dwarf-plod shay. “Are spicers ready-found at night?” I asked my teamster, a white-haired woman, as she sped us up-flume. She slant-eyed me, wryly marking an innocent abroad. “Readily found, at double rate, and like to take you roundabout if you don’t watch ’em close.”
I tipped her for the warning.
As we reached Up-Flume, the full moon was just rising as the red sun sank to sea. At Up-flume, one took ramps that zigzagged down through a three- and four-tiered city of dwellings densely built amid the Flume’s pilings, and jutting out an eighth mile to either side on tiered platforms. Down amid the swampwaters themselves could be seen here and there the bow and stern-lights of spicers’ boats out harvesting amid the darkening bogs.
Descending, I was accosted on the stairs by more than a few would-be guides, and courteously deflected all of them. It might behoove me to try them later, but first I meant to try my hand alone.
On the swampside docks, a punt-and-pole was readily rented for a high fee and a hefty deposit, and in this narrow vessel I set off cautiously along the swamp’s meandering shoreline, where my pole—with careful probing—found mucky purchase.
No accident my being here at the full moon’s rising. A full moon is prescribed, both for one’s searching and for the spices’ potency, which is held to peak when bathed in lunar light.
But the density of vegetation here—big shaggy trees all spliced with scaly vines, overarching a boskage of glossy shrubs and dense thickets—provided an eerie matrix for all the furtive movement everywhere about me. The swamp teemed with spicers all hunting discreetly, taut, intent, and sly. On all sides the feculent waters chuckled and tremored with their stealthy investigations. Foliage flustered or twitched or whispered here and there, and you glimpsed the sheen of swift hulls crossing moonlit patches of black water and then ducking quick back into the darkness again.
But soon I knew I could not move so discreetly, however deftly I poled through the shadowy margins. My punt was rented, and the sight of it drew defter boatmen gliding to my gunnels.
“What spice, what spice, Sir? Five lictors in my pocket brings you to it!”
At my outset, I firmly declined their insistence. Before my coming to Lebanoi, costly consultations with two different spice connoisseurs had provi
ded me with sketches of the herbs I sought. These drawings had looked detailed enough on receipt, but proved useless compared to the intricate, moonlit weeds and worts I scanned.
So at length, I named to these solicitors the growths I sought. “Sleight Sap, Spiny Vagary, and Obfusc Root.”
The spice-hustlers showed me knowing smiles at this, and their price rose to twenty or even thirty lictors. What I sought were inducers of trance, confused logic, and ready belief. All these herbal attributes inescapably pointed to thievery as their seeker’s aim.
I resolved to search on solo, and stoutly forbade myself to be discouraged. The full moon neared zenith, which made my sketches easy to scan, but did nothing to improve their correspondence to the jungled growths around me
And then, a new difficulty. I became aware of a furtive follower—that sensation one gets of cautious, incremental movements at one’s back. Now astern of me, now to my right or my left, it seemed that something in the middle distance always moved in concert with me. Thrice I diverged, at ever sharper angles, and each time, soon sensed him once more astern.
At the moon-drenched middle of a large pool, I drove my pole in the muck and, thus anchored, turned my face towards his approach, and waited. At length, he edged out into view. “He” surely, so hugely thewed his arms and shoulders showed, his cask-like torso. Shy though, he seemed—pausing, then gingerly poling forward again, as though doubting his welcome.
But at length he came to rest, his raft rim almost touching my gunnel. His massy shoulders were torqued out of line, his huge arms hung a bit askew, and his gnarled body seemed constantly straining to straighten itself. So thick was his neck his whole head seemed a stump, his ears a ragged lichen, his brows a shaggy shelf. Yet for all the brute strength in the shape of him, his eyes were meek and blinking.
“Friend, you are in danger here.” His voice, an abyssal echo, came eerily distinct from his great chest.
