Ashwalk Pilgrim (7 page)
But under the Second Sun, they grew arrogant and turned from the Six. They sought to raise Urum’s fallen monsters and harness their power like a rider breaks a wild horse. It was said even the Six feared them, and so the Six utterly destroyed them.
No one knew much of their fall. From their ruins dotting Urum’s lands nothing had been discovered, and so they became the stuff of myth and legend, tales told to keep children behaved.
Olessa crossed her arms and thought. “Gia, Gia, always so brave when bravery would make you look like a saint, yet here you are standing before me and not on that skiff with your friend.”
The woman wheeled around and backhanded Gia with her bare hand. “Do not presume to tell me what I believe and what I must do. Be careful to remember your place in the world.”
Mara winced as Gia winced. The girl turned to the side, meeting Mara’s eyes.
I tried
, they said.
Madame Olessa reached into her dress pocket with a sigh. She produced a corked vial filled with glittering gold. Uncorking the container, she dipped her pinky in the powder and shoved her powdery nail toward Mara. “Put this under your tongue. Try to remember your wits when the glimmer takes hold. If you tell anyone you took this and they find their way to my house, I will deny I ever knew a moon maiden named Mara. Understood?”
Slowly, Mara nodded. She opened her mouth and leaned toward Olessa. The woman dropped the powder beneath Mara’s raised tongue.
The glimmer tingled against the soft flesh beneath her tongue. It sent dazzling sparks racing down her spine. Colors gained crisp clarity. Her aches and pains ebbed.
Mara straightened. Olessa kicked the skiff with her heel, and the boat slipped away from the House of Sin and Silk.
“The glimmer won’t last all night,” Olessa said. “Best hurry, or you’ll collapse somewhere in an alley and be the plaything of every drunk and scoundrel in the city.”
Mara nodded politely, even as Olessa’s warnings fed another log to the fire of her fear. She turned to her friend and waved. “Goodbye, Gia!”
“You will do this, I know you will!”
“Goodbye, Madame Olessa!”
Her madame turned and strolled casually toward the front of the barge as if nothing had occurred. The woman paused at the bend. She lingered there as if she wished to speak, to call reassuring words to Mara as the distance grew between them.
Olessa stiffened. She darted around the deck and disappeared. Mara sighed and turned away, her eyes set toward the long, crowded docks of Sollan.
The small skiff bobbed like an arrow pointed toward the shore. Tolstes secured the ropes tying the boat to the House of Sin and Silk. The eunuch leapt into the vessel surprisingly lightly, his feet accustomed to balancing on a wavering surface.
Mara blinked. It took longer than usual to open her eyes again. Her knees knocked. Her body ached. She shook her head and forced her eyes wide. Holding her son close to her chest, she stepped from the deck and tumbled into the skiff.
The boat rocked violently. Her knee buckled and hit a rough wooden seat. She winced as a flash of pain coursed through her leg. Mara grabbed the skiff’s lip and bit her own, swallowing the burning slosh of bile lurching into her throat.
She turned to the House of Sin and Silk, the safe haven she’d known all her life, the one place she knew that would soon fade away beneath the stars of Harvest Festival.
Olessa grabbed the thick rope mooring the boat to the barge and tossed it to Mara’s feet. “Goodbye, Mara, and good luck. You will have until sunrise to bring him to the fire. A moment after, and it will be too late for him. Remember that. Do not let the sun rise before you finish the ashwalk.”
Mara’s free hand went to the heavy jewelry clasped around her neck, her fingertips gracing the brass-plated collar staining her skin sickly green. “I’m afraid, Madame Olessa.”
“We all are, but I’ll be less afraid when I can no longer see this skiff darkening the Floatwaif.” Olessa placed her heel upon the rowboat’s stern. “May the Six guide your steps to safety. Fail, and the alp will devour his soul. Then, their eyes turn to
us
.”
“Wait!” Gia grabbed Olessa’s arm.
Their madame’s lips pursed into a single venomous point. “Explain yourself. The girl needs to go.”
Gia realized what she’d done. She released Olessa, recoiling like she’d accidentally thrust her hand into a baker’s oven. Gia quickly fell to a knee, her oily braids cascading down her back glimmering in the starlight. “She’s exhausted. She’s just given birth, and now we send her on this…on this journey. She will never make it in her current state.”
Mara’s heart skipped a beat. Perhaps Gia had seen the insanity of the ashwalk. Perhaps her friend would demand Olessa give her leave to accompany Mara with two armed strong boys.
Olessa cleared her throat, her wrinkled lips melting into a disapproving frown. “And what do you suggest we do? She will not stay. I will not have her tainted womb and cursed child on my most profitable night.”
Gia’s gaze drifted to the deck where it paused for a long moment. Then, it darted up to meet Olessa’s. “Give her something that will at least give her a chance. Give her a dose of glimmer. It will dull the pain and sharpen the senses if it’s only just a little. She’ll run through Sollan in no time with that coursing through her blood.”
The visions of Mara walking through the streets with Gia by her side, and two strong boys cracking knuckles hard as granite vanished. Instead, Kard’s wild eyes appeared, hungry for violence and crazed for flesh.
Would that be me?
Mara wondered.
“Glimmer?” Olessa laughed and turned away. “Mara’s never taken glimmer. It would make her wild and loosen her tongue. I can’t have her flapping that pink slug all over Sollan that Olessa gives her maidens glimmer. I’d have the the king’s soldiers or worse swarming like hornets by morning.”
“Just a small dose, please,” Gia begged. “I know you bow to the Six. I know you want Mara to finish her ashwalk and return home to set things right. Without the glimmer, she will collapse on the shore, and then it won’t be the soldiers swarming, it will be the spirits of the alp circling the House of Sin and Silk. Do you wish that on any of us?”
Mara knew not much of the histories of Urum, but she had learned enough to know the alp were the lords under the Second Sun after the titans fell beneath the First. The alp were a race of power and beauty, able to weave great works of magic and perform feats that rivaled even the titans. They rode the skies on glittering dragons and tamed all the wild beasts.
But under the Second Sun, they grew arrogant and turned from the Six. They sought to raise Urum’s fallen monsters and harness their power like a rider breaks a wild horse. It was said even the Six feared them, and so the Six utterly destroyed them.
No one knew much of their fall. From their ruins dotting Urum’s lands, nothing had been discovered, and so they became the stuff of myth and legend, tales told to make children behave.
Olessa crossed her arms and thought. “Gia, Gia, always so brave when bravery would make you look like a saint, yet here you are standing before me and not on that skiff with your friend.”
The woman wheeled around and backhanded Gia with her bare hand. “Do not presume to tell me what I believe and what I must do. Be careful to remember your place in the world.”
Mara winced as Gia winced. The girl turned to the side, meeting Mara’s eyes.
I tried
, they said.
Madame Olessa reached into her dress pocket with a sigh. She produced a corked vial filled with glittering gold. Uncorking the container, she dipped her pinky in the powder and shoved her powdery nail toward Mara. “Put this under your tongue. Try to remember your wits when the glimmer takes hold. If you tell anyone you took this and they find their way to my house, I will deny I ever knew a moon maiden named Mara. Understood?”
Slowly, Mara nodded. She opened her mouth and leaned toward Olessa. The woman dropped the powder beneath Mara’s raised tongue.
The glimmer tingled against the soft flesh beneath her tongue. It sent dazzling sparks racing down her spine. Colors gained crisp clarity. Her aches and pains ebbed.
Mara straightened. Olessa kicked the skiff with her heel, and the boat slipped away from the House of Sin and Silk.
“The glimmer won’t last all night,” Olessa said. “Best hurry, or you’ll collapse somewhere in an alley and be the plaything of every drunk and scoundrel in the city.”
Mara nodded politely, even as Olessa’s warnings fed another log to the fire of her fear. She turned to her friend and waved. “Goodbye, Gia!”
“You will do this, I know you will!”
“Goodbye, Madame Olessa!”
Her madame turned and strolled casually toward the front of the barge as if nothing had occurred. The woman paused at the bend. She lingered there as if she wished to speak, to call reassuring words to Mara as the distance grew between them.
Olessa stiffened. She darted around the deck and disappeared. Mara sighed and turned away, her eyes set toward the long, crowded docks of Sollan.
The House of Sin and Silk retreated behind the bobbing labyrinth of the Floatwaif. They passed between a line of carved statues of Sollan’s past kings, a barrier that separated the Floatwaif from the docks so larger ships sailing into the city wouldn’t shatter the tangled barges.
Tolstes rowed into the open water. Not a word slipped from his lips, and his eyes kept well away from Mara. She didn’t know if it was his fear or pity that kept him silent. She suspected it might be both.
His oars dipped into the glassy waters. They came out, tossing droplets that rippled the smooth waves the skiff made on its journey to the shore.
“I’m sorry, Tolstes,” she finally said.
His bright, blue eyes flashed toward her. “It’s fine. It really isn’t your fault. Sometimes the gods just spite us. It is the price we pay as their creation.”
“I didn’t mean to bring any of this on you. I just—what’s that?”
Mara’s eyes caught something ahead bobbing on the dark waters. Because Tolstes rowed at the prow, he faced the stern and couldn’t see the silhouette approaching.
Frowning, the strong boy turned and peered over his wide shoulder. “Looks like another skiff. Probably heading to a party on the Floatwaif, maybe even going to Olessa’s. Keep your head down and don’t say a word.”
Mara did as she was told. She cradled her child and took deep, calming breaths as she cowered in the shadow of her burlap hood.
“
Ho
!” Tolstes called. He rested the oars on his knees. “On your way to celebrate another plentiful harvest?”
She heard no reply. Mara held her son tighter against her chest. “Six, keep us safe,” she whispered.
Tolstes cleared his throat. “You’re coming awful close, friend. Mind giving us some room? I’ve got a sick one here, and I’d hate to ruin your festival with a fever.”
Still, not a single voice answered the strong boy’s call. The skiff rocked as Tolstes came to his feet. No strong boy carried a sword because Olessa feared they may accidentally scar her maidens in a tiff. A strong boy’s skill at brawling, however, held no equal in Floatwaif.
Mara risked a glance up. The strange skiff floated close enough to paint its passengers in starlight. Terror jolted Mara’s glimmer-fueled veins. “Tolstes, watch out!”
The eunuch tensed. Silver flashed from the strange skiff. Tolstes’ hands went to his throat. He gagged and coughed and fell into the sea in a splash of fear and foam, leaving Mara and her stillborn child alone in a rocking boat facing the sailor Kard.
The man’s dark eyes focused on Mara. He grinned, bending his serpent of a scar along his cheek. He stepped on the prow of his boat and leaned forward. “Well, well, if it isn’t the moon maiden from the House of Sin and Silk. How fortunate to find a whore so far from her hag’s protection.”
Two other sailors manned the oars of his skiff. Mara saw the starlight glitter on their toothy smiles.
Her gaze darted to the water. Tolstes floated to the surface, eyes wide and dulled. His boyish cheeks paled from the blood draining from his throat, a gift of the dagger sticking from it.
“What do you want, Kard?” Mara asked in a voice much more confident than she thought possible. “I have nothing to give you. I’m on an ashwalk, and…”
She lifted her chin and glared at the man down her nose. “…Unless you’d like to dream with the alp tonight, you’ll let me go.”
His companions laughed. Kard snorted and crossed his arms over his burly chest. “I don’t fear tales told to little shits before their bedtime. I’ve seen the alp’s sunken cities. I know their ruin. Your superstitious madame might get her wig knotted thinkin’ about them, but I’ve sailed the seas and faced what really lives in Urum’s shadows. There’re greater things to fear than ghosts, and those things fear me.”
“What do you want?” she asked again, her voice harder.
Kard picked dirt from his nail and flicked it in the water. “I knew you were special when I saw you. We all know you girls slurp that ebon orchid. It’s a nasty draught, ya’ know. Works like a charm every time. In fact, I’ve never heard of the stuff failing. Not once, and I’ve been to many a pleasure house in my day. So when I saw you, I knew something must be odd with the pregnant maiden at the House of Sin and Silk.”
Mara glanced at their surroundings. Not a single other boat disturbed the waters between the Floatwaif and the docks. For all the people flooding Sollan’s streets and barges, she was more alone than ever.
“Rare things happen, Kard.”
“They do. When they do, people take notice. Important people, if you get my drift.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why Mara, how unfortunate of you to live in Olessa’s silky prison out of earshot of the happenings in the world. You’re a wanted woman. A
very
wanted woman.”
