Heroes Adrift (29 page)

I learned a great many things on the way from Silk Purse to Promise Harbor.

One was that three people moved much faster than thirty. I wouldn't have thought so, because human legs could only travel so fast, and the troupe had never given the impression of dallying. But Aryne looked at me like I was some kind of idiot, and told me the wagon hampered movement more than anything, and thirty could travel only as fast as the slowest individual, which, for the troupe, had included children.

Two, Taro could gamble. He really could. I'd seen evidence of it, but before I could never quite believe it, because I could beat him, and if I could beat him, surely everyone else could. But he was the one who enabled us to eat and find shelter during our hard hike through the jungle. He took small portions from our stash, and played cards every night, and sometimes he lost, but usually he won something.

Three, children needed a scary amount of food. And it was really difficult for me not to say anything when the food disappeared into Aryne's mouth. I was not about to let her go hungry; she'd obviously been underfed most of her life. But it was hard, and there were times when Taro and I didn't eat, to make sure she did.

Four, being hungry made me irritable. And kind of irrational. I'd get angry at the most stupid things, like the laces of my sandals becoming untied while I was walking down the street.

When we finally reached the harbor, I was almost ready to kiss the dirt in relief. It had been hard to believe we would ever get there. I'd really been expecting something to stop us, certain we were going to die on that Zaire-neglected island.

I had little experience with harbors. Just the one on the mainland, from which Taro and I had left. This one was smaller, quieter, less overwhelming. Less of an appalling assault on the senses, especially one's sense of smell. I was delighted to be there, because it meant soon we'd be on our way home. I tried to restrain my excitement, because Taro was stiff with the apprehension of a poor sea traveler, and Aryne was silent in apparent terror.

Crews were loading supplies for their boats. One appeared to be largely Northern, so I approached the person of that crew who appeared to be doing nothing more than watching the others work. I figured she was in charge. I asked where the boat was going, then showed her the clothes I would be wearing on the boat—with the white braid—and the pass I'd managed to hang on to from the Empress. She warned me that the ship, the Wave Crusher, wasn't really suitable for passengers, but I ignored the stomachs of my companions and assured her we didn't care. Her boat was going to the right place. Her name was Ellen Furt, and I was inclined to kiss her feet simply for existing.

I was elated. We were going home. Finally.

“How much money have we got left?” Taro asked.

“Why? What do you need?”

“Nothing.” He grinned. “But you've arranged for passage, yes?”

“Aye.”

“And we're leaving?”

“In a few hours.”

“For a place where we don't need money.”

“Ah.” I was starting to get the point. “I don't want to spend the last of the coin.”

He rolled his eyes. “Lee…”

“Call me paranoid all you like, I'm not going to spend everything we have just because it's our last day. We don't know what might happen. We might somehow be prevented from getting to the boat. The boat itself might sink. The crew might turn unscrupulous once we're on board. Who knows? I'm holding on to what money we've got left.” It wasn't like we had that much, anyway.

“Fine,” he muttered, the word ending in a growl. “Mother.”

“I am nothing like your mother,” I snapped out.

“Thank Zaire.”

“And where the hell is Aryne?” She'd been right there a moment ago.

“Damn. I told her not to disappear.”

I scanned the crowd around us, but all I could see were a lot of backs. Damn it.

“She knows when to be—Hey!” And suddenly, Taro darted off.

I hurried to follow him. “What?” I demanded.

“Border!”

I swore under my breath. “He's got her?”

“I don't know. I can only see him. Hurry!”

It was a nightmare, trying to run through a crowd of people who were carrying bags and dragging boxes. I ended up colliding with more than a couple, and ignoring the curses that were sent my way. Leavy the Flame Dancer, indeed.

And then Taro just kind of bellowed—a sound I'd never heard from him before—and charged ahead. The next time I could see anything relevant, he and the medicine man were on the ground, Taro struggling to dislodge the medicine man from his chest.

Aryne was nowhere in sight.

I shoved my way to them in time to hear Border shout, “Get me the port master! This man is a thief!” He saw me, then, and he pointed as he shouted again, “She is, too! They work together!” And I found my arms gripped by a multitude of hands.

Hell. Wasn't this a total nightmare? I'd really thought that the fact that we hadn't seen Border in all this time meant we were free of him. How did he reach Promise Harbor before us, anyway?

“I can't be a thief, you idiot!” Taro snapped, managing to sound like an affronted aristocrat even while lying in the dirt. “I'm a Source. And she's a Shield.”

Nice try, Karish, but I would wager that half the people surrounding us didn't really know what Sources and Shields were, or what it meant to be one. And aye, we'd stolen Border's stuff. I hadn't felt bad about it at the time. I did right then, though.

Border snorted. “Oh, kai. Believing your own myths, now, are you? Despite what the stories say, I know Sources and Shields are as deviant and as villainous as the next person. Someone get the port master. I want these two arrested.”

“I don't believe the gentleman claimed that he and his Shield weren't deviant or villainous,” a new voice called out. Not an islander, by the accent, and while it took a moment of wriggling for me to get a good view of her, I could see it was the woman who had booked our passage on the Wave Crusher. “He said they couldn't be thieves.”

“Same thing,” Border sneered.

“Not at all. Sources and Shields are legally incapable of theft, as everything they need is to be provided to them upon request. It is required by law.”

“What law?” one of the men holding my left arm demanded.

For a second, I wondered if it would help at all if I told these people I was Leavy the Flame Dancer.

Then I nearly died of shame.

“The law of the Empress,” Furt answered.

There was a lot of laughter at that, and not the kind of laughter that sounded pleasant to the ear. “The Empress doesn't rule here!” a woman called out with a chuckle.

“True enough,” Furt drawled. “She doesn't send her tax collectors here. She doesn't demand that you house her soldiers. She probably doesn't care if you engage in behaviors that in other people would be deemed treasonous. If fact, you're left completely free to go about your business, without giving the slightest thought to the Empress. As she doesn't give the slightest thought to you. It's almost as though she has forgotten you exist at all.”

There was a bit of a silence in reaction to that. I would have been offended by the suggestion that I was so insignificant, if I were an islander. The silence was broken by a young man claiming, “Never ways what the Empress knows or thinks or remembers. She's got no rights here.”

That, I thought, was really overstating the case.

“Only because she chooses not to exercise them,” said Furt. “If she does remember you all are down here, breaking laws, engaging in trade without paying for it, she might decide it's time to start enforcing her rights. With swords and bows. And she has more soldiers just guarding her palace than you have people on this whole island.”

Was that true?

“Now, I'm under order from the Empress to give these people passage,” Furt continued. “Do you have any idea what kind of mess you all are going to create for yourselves if I have to go to the Empress and tell her I couldn't follow orders because you lot decided to hang a Source and a Shield, something the law strictly forbids, for theft, a crime Sources and Shields are literally incapable of committing? Even when regulars refuse to provide them with the goods they need which is, in itself, a crime?”

That sparked off a lot of muttering. I was impressed, myself. I had no idea sailors were so smart.

“Who knows what kind of people she'll send down here, poking into everything, trying to understand why the Empress's most treasured subjects were shown such an appalling lack of respect? And who knows what sorts of things those people will learn while they're down here?”

I couldn't quite understand what the man to my right was saying, his accent was so thick. It sounded like swearing, though, and he released my arm.

“Believe me, I don't want things down here to change, either. I don't want to have to pay the kinds of duties and licenses and harbor taxes and inspection fees I have to pay just about everywhere else. It means I can sell my goods here at lower prices than I'd usually be able to. It means I can sell your goods at a lower price up north, which makes them more popular and eventually results in more coin in your coffers.”

There was a lot more swearing, and I found myself completely free of restraint.

“Don't listen to her!” Border shouted. “She's an offlander!”

“So are you,” another islander shouted back. Border had assumed his islander accent, but I guessed that only fooled us.

“What do you claim they stole?” Furt asked.

“My steer!”

Furt looked around. “I see no steer here.”

There were herds of steer about. She just meant that none of them appeared to be under our control.

Border almost wriggled in his frustration. “They sold it, you stupid bitch!”

Now that, I thought, had been a spectacularly stupid move. Surely Furt had shipmates who'd jump in to defend her honor.

No one did, but then, she didn't appear to need it. “It is illegal to give a Source or a Shield money in exchange for goods. Who are you accusing of this crime?”

I could almost feel the anger switching to Border's direction. But I wondered if that was true. Why would it be illegal to give a member of the Triple S money in exchange for goods? And did that mean everyone on the island had been breaking the law when they'd been giving me money for dancing? Had Taro been breaking the law when he gambled?

Border could feel the shift in the mood, too. This time, when Taro shoved at his shoulder, he stood up. So did Taro, slapping dust from his clothes and glaring at the medicine man.

“What else are you claiming they stole?” Furt asked.

Border's eyes narrowed before he said, “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You claimed they stole nothing?”

“That's not what I said.”

“You were lying? You caused all this trouble for nothing? What do you think you're doing?”

And Border began to sputter.

“Are you telling me you just came here to cause trouble and get people arrested? Are you trying to distract the port master? Is there something going on that you want to keep everyone's attention directed away from?”

“Will you just shut up a moment, you—”

“Do you have some friends breaking into a hold or something?”

“Of course not!”

“That's enough,” an islander said. He was an older man, and the way every sort stopped and looked at him, he appeared to be someone of authority. “Del, Eppit, take him to the port master. He can explain himself to him.” And two burly young fellows grabbed Border by the arms.

He was shocked, and I didn't blame him. “Have you people all lost your minds? Let me go!” But no one was listening to him. The two men carted him off, the older man following, and everyone else went back to work.

I looked at Furt. “You're a genius,” I told her.

She just glared at me. Clearly she was just delighted with me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don't bother,” she snapped back. “If you weren't already on the books as passengers, I would have let you hang. Your sort have no business in this part of the world, fouling up a perfectly good arrangement for everyone involved.”

Uh, all right.

“Now get back on the ship before you cause me any more problems.”

“I'd love to,” I said. “But we're missing one of our party.”

Furt rolled her eyes. “Don't expect me to be catching your sling again. I have no problem telling anyone who asks that you booked passage and then didn't bother showing up. Sources are known for being unreliable.”

“Unlike sailors,” Taro muttered.

“Let's just go look for Aryne,” I suggested, hoping to avoid another argument.