Authors: A.E. Marling
13
The Hard Way
Hiresha had lived a respectable life and had never been so near a beach. The sunset blazed across the sea. Water the color of molten copper seared her eyes. The surf roared.
She had a hundred objections. They jammed in her mouth, and one rattled out at random. “People die at sea.”
“Fisherman do,” Emesea said. “They go out every morning. We’ll not be so long.”
“The monstrosities under the waves—”
“Aren’t that big. The sea is. Probably won’t even see one, and then won’t you feel cheated?”
“A single monster could ruin a perfectly good day. Wait!”
Emesea dashed between the driftwood shanties, motioning the enchantress to stay where she was. Hiresha had half a mind to search out the tunnel again amidst the rocks. Before she could decide, she saw him.
Tethiel’s coat was dyed with the sunset. He rode out of the red glare, and the flicking tail of his horse swirled the sky’s hues with violet and blue twilight. His shadow loomed past racks of drying seaweed and gnat swarms, beyond skeletons of boats with their timbers stripped, up the city wall.
A chill peeled away Hiresha’s sleepiness layer by layer. Awake, every nerve tingling, she felt her dresses flowing over her skin, the fabric alive in the sea gusts. It was if she were drowning in silk.
“Lord Tethiel.” Hiresha nodded to the Feaster.
“Enchantress Hiresha.” Hooves clopped toward her. Behind the silhouette of the rider, the sun touched the sea, and the world warped with crimson. “Jaraah is celebrating you.”
The bells sang and screamed.
The city wall was red and hulking with shadows. What might have been a horse was stretched into the outline of a giant lizard with eight legs. The man who rode it lifted an arm that ended not in a hand but a snaggle of teeth.
“You were right to leave,” Tethiel said. “Nothing is more trying than a party, especially one held in your honor.”
The wind tore the shawl from Hiresha’s shoulder. She said, “I assume you heard I was expelled.”
“They can’t expel you. You are the Mindvault Academy. That’d be like a man cutting out his own liver to satisfy his hunger.”
“About as sensible, yes,” Hiresha said. “I find their hospitality involves too much surgery, and I’m leaving to begin anew.”
“That is why I came.” The mounted silhouette reached down to offer a hand. Dragons and crocodiles were emblazoned into his satin glove. Tethiel’s fingers bent at unnatural angles. “Your ties are severed, my heart. We may at last ride together and be gone with the dawn.”
Hiresha’s hand lifted halfway toward his before she realized it. She had imagined this countless times, leaving all obligations aside and riding into the night with Tethiel.
She withdrew her hand, resting it on her thudding chest. Just as often she had thought of telling this Feaster never to meet her again. Being near him was too terrible a delight.
“Tethiel, your favors are what caused my expulsion. I’ll accept no more.”
“Favors freely given are always too costly. But they are still better than favors forced.” He waved to the gatehouses on either side. They were opening. “The city men are afraid of the setting sun, of the sea, but they will come. They’ll escort you back to the party.”
“I intend to find my own way.”
The horse snorted and tried to chomp at Hiresha. Tethiel leaned to force him away, trotting his mount in a circle. The sunset pushed the shadows away from Tethiel’s face. Webs of wrinkles spread outward from eyes that had a ruby glint in the day’s last light. Hiresha thought she saw worry in the downward twitch of his brow.
“My heart, the sea’s an impassable emptiness. Not even that rabid hound you came with thinks otherwise. I can smell her terror from here.”
Hiresha stiffened. “We only mean to go to Oasis City. Doubtless we’ll pull back to shore in a few hours and make the rest of the journey overland.”
“The sea is a beautiful peril, a peaceful violence, and a watery desert,” the Lord of the Feast said. “Were you one of my children, I’d forbid you from going near it.”
“As I’m neither child nor Feaster, the matter is settled.”
Hiresha stepped away from him. The wind had shaken loose her sari, and the silk caught on the rocks. The dress snaked its way off her. Hiresha strode toward the sea in her gown of triumphant purple.
Over her shoulder, she said, “Once I’m secure, I hope we may meet as equals.”
“Don’t set your sights so low, my heart. Were you my equal, I would not condescend to appear in your company.”
Tethiel looked ready to say more, but he was interrupted by being cleaved in two by an obsidian sword.
Hiresha’s hands jerked to cover her mouth. The weapon looked like a wooden practice sword serrated with black glass. Tethiel and his horse split down the middle like a piece of torn papyrus. His halves shriveled into fragments of shadow that slithered out of sight.
Emesea lifted the sword overhead, spinning about, glancing to the horizon. “Burn the world! Thought I had him before sundown.”
The horizon was empty. The first star lit.
That was his illusion,
Hiresha realized.
He wasn’t harmed.
Sometimes she thought Tethiel was immune to the obvious, and a bladed stick was an obvious thing indeed.
Hiresha unclamped her hands from her mouth. “I’ll thank you not to chop my acquaintances in half.”
“He was the Lord of the Feast, wasn’t he?”
Hiresha inclined her head. She suspected she had felt the rending cut of Emesea’s club more keenly than had his illusion. A buzzing tension in the air convinced her that Tethiel was still nearby. She hoped he would appear once more—not to help her—only long enough to say farewell until next they met.
Her eyes flicked up to the city gates. The open doors spewed men on camels. The guards would mob Hiresha.
The enchantress took hold of Emesea’s shoulder, was surprised by the hardness of it. Hiresha never thought she would be the one to pull Emesea toward the sea.
The two women jogged through the slums. Timid eyes peeped out of homes. Crawlspace doorways were blocked off with what looked like shields made of driftwood and netting. Two men whittling harpoons from bone looked up with frozen confusion, as if they were seeing spirits running by.
The last homes fell away. Emesea seemed to glide over the grey sand, but it dragged on Hiresha’s feet. She saw a line of men leaning forward on the beach. On second glance they turned out to be posts of brown glass, shaped with human faces in poses of anguish. Their eye-sockets and mouths drooped, melted, twisting. Wind-scoured fingers dug into pitted scalps.
Hiresha felt as if she had eaten a bellyful of slimy sand. She stopped. Once again she imagined herself taking Tethiel’s hand and riding a deadly wave of illusion through the guards.
It would’ve been ever so easy,
she thought.
And easy choices such as that led to my expulsion and the skin-stitcher’s knife.
Emesea knocked the wooden heft of her sword against the leaning totems. “They’re only warnings.”
Hiresha could hear the thump of camels and the shouts of guards.
If there is a way for me, it is forward.
“Warnings for other people.” Emesea propped her obsidian sword in the sand.
She hopped out of her red dress. Only a slip of a skirt remained. Her chest was bare except for a tattoo of a winding serpent. Its scales flashed blue in the dusk, and Hiresha realized that lapis lazuli must have been ground into the ink.
Emesea tapped her neck and the tattoo’s fanged head. “Met a sea dragon as a girl, helped save her hatchlings. She won’t let anything so much as nibble our toes.”
That sounded far-fetched to Hiresha, but the guards also sounded too near. Lamps wove through the fishermen’s houses. She could hear hollering and the snap of breaking wood.
Hiresha marched past the line of warning totems. Their tops had been polished into points. The enchantress could not help but notice that several of the glass stakes had been ripped from the beach and splintered.
14
Harsh Partings
The sand hardened with moisture. Tiny holes dotted the beach, and creatures scurried into them and squirted out water.
Hiresha’s nose wrinkled, and she followed a slaughterhouse stench to two boats. Men crouched around one. They scuttled away from the slicing sweep of Emesea’s sword.
“Leave my boats and keep your limbs.”
The men were stunned, either by Emesea’s aggression or by the tattoo that curved from behind her back to coil between her breasts.
The enchantress peered into the boat that stank. A maze of entrails gleamed up at her from a disemboweled sheep. Half its fur had darkened and matted, and the sand beneath the boat had turned black. Hiresha noted that the vessel was missing a few planks.
The enchantress asked, “Is this some manner of sacrifice?”
One man shook his hands at the boat with the sheep. “Don’t! You’ll bloody the tide.”
“No boats dare follow you,” another man said.
“That’s the point.” Emesea upended her purse, and coins and rings fell on the sand. “Take the day off.”
A wave crashed, and foam sliced over Hiresha’s slippers. Coldness smacked up her ankles. The men scooped up the valuables then bolted.
“Now, Hiresha.” Emesea rested her sword in the lead boat, the one without the carcass. She smacked her shoulders against the side planking and heaved. Her torso was shaped like a column and looked as sturdy.
Even so, Hiresha could not believe they could move the boat. “It’s too large.”
“Size never frightens me.” Emesea winked.
The enchantress was not certain if she helped or not, but their next push sent the boat sliding into the surf. A wave lifted the vessel and smashed it down on top of her. Hiresha’s mouth filled with bubbles and sand. She beat against the bottom of the planks until she could stand, spluttering.
A hand shoved her rump and tumbled her into the boat. The enchantress righted herself in her waterlogged gown and found a bench.
Emesea pressed an oar into Hiresha’s hand. “Ever rowed before?”
“I have now.” The enchantress found a second oar.
The boat bobbed. Hiresha thought that Emesea must have jumped in with her, but the bare-backed woman had slogged off toward the other watercraft, carrying a rope.
The enchantress could not believe she made any headway rowing against the flow of waves. She strove just to stop sliding back toward the beach and its flickering lamplights.
Emesea dragged the second boat into the water, the rope around its prow. She splashed and swam her way to Hiresha. After tying the cord to the back of their boat, she slung herself inside. She fitted a second pair of oars into notches on the planking. The wooden blades cut into the water, and the boat skipped over a wave.
The rope connecting the two vessels stretched taut and lifted from the water. Emesea’s strokes slid the boat backward. Beyond, on the land, the pinpoints of lamps edged from the slum to the shore.
“The sacrificial boat. It’s impeding us.” Hiresha pulled an uneven stroke on her oars. “Can we leave it?”
“We’ll anchor it soon, with this.” Emesea kicked at a rock in the base of their boat. It rolled over netting and the discarded red dress.
A black wake was spreading from the gore-filled boat.
Hiresha asked, “It’s to prevent pursuit?”
“Any biggin’s nearby will swim to sniff it, and by then we’ll be far….” Emesea dropped the oars and stood. The boat rocked, but the woman kept upright. Her shout had notes of pleading joy. “Inannis?”
“Emesea.” The spluttering answer came from a figure flailing his way through the water. He caught hold of the rope between the boats.
The sight of the thief made Hiresha hope for Fos, but she saw no trace of the spellsword among the waves. She felt unbalanced and not only because the vessel was tilting. She leaned to the other side.
Emesea pointed to the rope. “Pull your stick-bug butt to us. Can’t have you soaking up all the sheep blood.”
As much as the man disgusted Hiresha, the thought of him handing over her diamonds made her spirits surge.
This voyage will feel ever so much safer with a few potent enchantments in my hands.
“No.” Inannis’s croaking shout could only just be heard over the waves. “Eme, this is wrong. Bring your boat back.”
Hiresha froze, her oars still.
“There is no back.” Emesea waved to the lamplights advancing to the shore. “Join us. She’ll make a gem to cure you.”
“Hiresha….” Whatever Inannis called out to the enchantress was lost in the slap and smash of surf.
Emesea slung one leg over the side. “Don’t make me dive in to bring you aboard.”
“Try and I’ll sting you. Eme….” A wave dunked Inannis. One hand slipped from the rope.
Emesea clenched the boat with both hands. Wood creaked.
His head broke the surface. “Come back or everything between us is done.”
“Enough farting excuses. You’re going with us.” Emesea thumped back onto the bench and hauled on the oars. She rowed out to sea.
Hiresha peered around the mast to watch the figure clinging to the rope. After three of Emesea’s mighty strokes, Inannis let go. He dragged his way through the surf toward the shore.
An oar of Emesea’s bludgeoned the water, spraying eye-stinging droplets. “That maggot-eating blood spittle!”
“My diamonds.” Hiresha bowed forward, feeling the full clammy weight of her soaked dress. “I presume he didn’t approve of the backup plan.”
Emesea rowed, her spine a series of knobs on her slick skin.
“Might we still meet him at Oasis City? Him and Fos?”
She rowed, heat wafting off her. Steam rose from her shoulders.
Hiresha did not ask the questions she most feared.
Does Fos even know to meet us? Is he still alive?
The icy possibility dug into her, that Inannis and Emesea had murdered him, left him under some floorboards the night they had escaped together.
Emesea rowed, her hair flicking to the side.
The enchantress consoled herself that she would not have to work with the jewel duper. If not for her diamonds, she would have been relieved that he disapproved of their plan.
And just what is the extent of this scheme?
Hiresha eyed the muscles shifting along the back of Emesea’s arms and shoulders. The boat lifted higher in the water each time she hefted the oars. The sword club rested against her bench. Hiresha wondered if she had let herself be kidnapped.
I am no child.
Hiresha took comfort in knowing that she could attempt to draw Emesea into the dream laboratory and overpower her there. The enchantress could also Lighten herself and float away, though she feared to try with guards patrolling the shore.
Hiresha remembered she had not bid farewell to Tethiel. The thought did not sadden her as much as she expected. She felt as if she might meet him again any moment, as unlikely as that seemed at sea.
I must be content to be rid of him.
The breeze swirled, chilling her face. The folded sail fluttered on the boat’s mast.
The wind is changing directions
Hiresha looked over her shoulder. She gasped. The sea was alight.
Stars shimmered on the black-mirror surface. Beneath the rippling reflections, schools of green ghostlight flitted. Jellyfish shone like red wax lanterns at festivals, and some of the crystalline creatures ignored gravity, puffing their way into the air, trailing tendrils.
A sense of fresh purpose filled Hiresha’s chest. Feelings of peace and rightness settled in her stomach.
I am where I need to be.
She took pleasure in pulling on the oars even though the wood scraped her hands.
No one died today. I made the right choices.
A billowing orange lit the distance. Hiresha stared at the glow. Her heart raced as she watched its colors shift to teal then magenta. She thought it some luminescent monstrosity with a humping back that stretched across the sea. She was about to ask Emesea if this could be her dragon, when the enchantress remembered one lecture in her Studies of Astrological Phenomenon.
“An essence tempest, a dream storm.”
Her class in the Academy had debated their existence. Hiresha had been of the opinion that the sea’s namesake had nothing to do with human dreams, if the storms were real. She had never thought to verify them firsthand.
A reek of gore hit Hiresha straight in the gag reflex. The changing wind blew the stench of the dead sheep out to sea.
“Shouldn’t you have anchored the sacrificial boat?” Hiresha asked.
Emesea panted through her clenched teeth. She did not seem to hear.
Hiresha shivered, at once feeling too wet and too exposed in the boat. She found herself glancing around.
The waves had grown gentler this far from the shore. One caught her eye. This wave was narrower, and it changed directions. The crest swayed to the right then rose again to the left. When Hiresha noticed that it moved faster than any other wave, she clutched the oar butts against her chest.
The wave sped past. The boat surged upward and listed to the side. Hiresha had the skin-tearing sensation of something massive beneath her.
Her next three words were blurted out as fast as one. “What-was-that?”
Emesea cut the rope and pointed her obsidian knife toward a frothing stretch of water. A fin broke the surface, then another and another in a winding procession. Only when the sea sluiced aside did Hiresha realize they were not individual fins but ridges on the back of one giant.