The Floating Islands (4 page)

And stopped, so suddenly that a man behind her almost bumped into her and sheered aside with a growled comment about empty-minded boys who couldn’t keep out of the way on public streets.

Araenè stared in confusion at the buildings around her. Where was she? She had turned left from the clothing shop—hadn’t she? Yes, because she had passed Verenkei’s bookshop on the corner. And then hadn’t she turned right and cut through the alley after the cart selling roasted chickens? Or had she? She knew, with a sinking feeling all through her body, that she should have crossed into Second City by now, that she did not recognize the buildings around her, and that she was lost. And that the sun, never minding Araenè’s urgent necessities, was still continuing its inexorable slide toward the west.

A woman at a pastry cart was happy to provide directions, along with a plum tart. The tart’s crust was tough and its filling too sour. Araenè gave the pastry to a little boy in a ragged shirt and turned distractedly down the alley the vendor had indicated. Nothing looked familiar. All she found was more maze-like alleyways between crowded Third City buildings. She hurried down one and then another, but found nothing familiar. It might lack half a bell till dusk now, if that much. Araenè was filled with a growing conviction that she would not make it home before dark and that her parents would be waiting, appalled and worried, when she finally found her way back. Tears prickling at the backs of her eyes, she stopped in a doorway to catch her breath and try to recover her nerve.

“Here, now,” a kind voice said near her. “You do look worried, youngster.”

Araenè looked up, startled.

The speaker, a large, shapeless man of uncertain age, was sitting on the step in the next doorway over. He was holding a pewter mug, which he waved gently toward Araenè. “You know your own trouble best, no doubt, and I’m sure I’m just an interfering old fool, and a drunken fool at that. But I’m old enough to be forgiven for interfering, and so I’ll just say, if you’re in some little trouble, child, and you clearly are, you might ask over there.” He gestured with his mug toward a doorway set in a red brick wall across the alleyway. Liquid sloshed over the edge of the mug and spilled across the stones of the doorstep with the yeasty smell of ale. There was something else mingled with that smell, though: a wilder, greener sort of herby scent that Araenè almost felt she knew, but to which she could not put a name.

Araenè sniffed and rubbed her sleeve across her eyes, but she thought she managed to keep her voice steady. “Who’s over there?”

“Not a ‘who,’ exactly,” the man said, with another vague wave of his mug. “Nor exactly a ‘what.’ You might say, a ‘where.’ But it’s a good place to go if you’ve lost your way—not that I’m saying that’s your trouble, hmm?”

The man
might
be drunk, but then the edges of his words were clear, and Araenè hadn’t seen him drink out of that mug yet. “Who
are
you?” she asked.

“Not a very interesting question,” the shapeless man chided. “You might do better, hmm?” He climbed unsteadily to his feet, gripping the wall for support, and shambled through the door and out of sight.

For a moment, Araenè only stared at the swaying curtain that hung over the doorway through which the man had vanished. Then she got up, took a step toward that doorway, hesitated, turned, and ran across the street toward the door in the red brick wall. From up close, this door proved to be of heavy oak, each quarter of it carved with a different spiraling symbol, none of which Araenè recognized: a surprising door for any Third City shop or dwelling. The door had no clapper.

In fact, the building itself didn’t really seem like a Third City building. The brick in which the door was set was a rich red, except that every now and then a straw-yellow brick was set among the red ones. Araenè got the impression that if she backed up again and really looked, she might find a pattern in the placement of the yellow bricks. But she didn’t back up. She put her hand on the heavy door. It opened under her hand, swinging with well-oiled ease. Within was a dim hallway paneled in rich woods, where shadows fled reluctantly from the late sunlight Araenè had admitted. Down the hall, she just made out a curtained doorway, and she was almost certain she heard voices.

Araenè stepped through the heavy door, leaving it open behind her. But the moment she stepped through the door, it seemed somehow far behind her—not to the eye: when she looked nervously over her shoulder, it was still there, standing ajar to let through a bright beam of sunlight. But somehow, though only a step away, the door gave the impression of being remote. Unreachable. And the light that fell through the doorway seemed attenuated, as though in this hallway it lost all its hot power.

Afterward, Araenè couldn’t understand why she didn’t run back through the door into the ordinary Third City afternoon. But she did not run. She walked down the hallway, pulled the thick velvet curtain aside, and went into the room that had been hidden behind the curtain.

The room was large—more than large: looming. Araenè had a sense that the walls were farther away than they seemed to be, even a sense that maybe the room was changing size as she watched. Despite the numerous lamps, it did not seem well lit: the walls, or maybe just the air within the room, seemed to drink up the light. A single massive table took up almost all the available space. The table was cluttered with books and loose papers, spheres of polished stone and glass and metal that ranged from fist-sized to the size of a large melon, tall brass scales and thin copper plates.

Around the table stood five boys, the youngest perhaps Araenè’s age and the oldest several years older. They looked around as she came in, but the man at the head of the table rapped his knuckles on the table and the boys all jumped guiltily and turned back to him.

The man was so dark-skinned that Araenè had at first completely missed him in the shadowed room. His eyes were all she could see clearly, and the shine of his white teeth, especially because he wasn’t wearing the jewel-toned fabrics of the Floating Islands, but a plain dark robe that fell without ornament from shoulder to ankle. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the strange light, she saw him better. Tall, lean rather than broad, with severe hawk features and a stern set to his mouth, this man was like no one Araenè had ever seen before. She had heard all her life of Yngul, but never expected to see a man from that country. Now she found that all her imagination had fallen short, and stood speechless.

“Come here, boy,” the man said to her, brief and decisive. “Take this.” He held out to Araenè a sphere of polished volcanic glass, large enough that he had to hold it with both hands.

Araenè opened her mouth, closed it again, walked forward, and took the sphere. It was heavy and cool, translucent as light slid across it. It tasted of cool anise and smoky cumin, with sparkly undertones of ginger and lemon. Araenè blinked and stared down at the glass sphere, but the tastes didn’t fade or seem to be her imagination: anise and cumin, ginger and lemon. She looked wonderingly up at the face of the Yngulin man.

“Vision is always a useful gift,” the man said to all the boys. His voice was smoky and mysterious as the sphere, his eyes hard to read. “Particularly in these tense times—but I believe you will find that all times are tense.” He turned his attention to Araenè. “So, now, boy—shift the Dannè sphere toward a more open configuration.”

A more open configuration? Araenè stared down at the sphere, turning it over in her hands and wondering what “more open” could possibly mean. The ginger undertone became more prominent, tingling across her fingers as well as her tongue—a strange sensation.

“Good,” said the man, and took back the sphere. “You see,” he said to the boys, holding it up. They returned an appreciative murmur, and he smiled. He said to Araenè, “And what would you expect to see within this particular sphere, given such a shift in orientation?”

Araenè stared at him. Spheres and spicy colors and a strange room that seemed suddenly far smaller, pressing in on her—she took a step back and stammered, “I have to, I—I have to go home—”

“If you must,” said the Yngulin man. “But I shall assuredly see you again.”

The statement had the force of a command, and Araenè found herself nodding.

“Bring this back to me,” the man added, and handed her the sphere again. Araenè took it automatically and tucked it under her arm. She took another step back, then another, and found herself back in the hallway. Without thinking—she did not seem able to keep her mind focused on anything—she turned, walked back to the door, opened it, and stepped through.

She found herself not in the narrow alleyways of the Third City maze but in the infinitely more familiar and welcome alley behind her own home, looking up at her own window. When she turned, bewildered, to stare back the way she had come, there was no carved door behind her: only the other side of her own alley. It was just dusk: though the sun was below sight, faint glimmers of violet and peach still traced the banks of clouds in the west.

Araenè let out a breath she had not been aware of holding. Cimè and Ti might be back, though maybe not, but neither Mother nor Father should have returned. Not quite yet— but soon. She took a step toward the house and then stopped, staring down at the sphere she still carried under her arm. Her brows drew together: the thing seemed even more strange and unsettling now, and her own response to it stranger still. The smoky taste of cumin tickled the back of her throat, and the sharper accents of lemon and ginger. The anise seemed almost missing, just a faint tickle on her tongue and across her palms.

Almost, Araenè dropped the sphere in the street and left it for the neighborhood children to find. But in the end she put it down her shirt so she would have her hands free, checked quickly for any unwelcome eyes that might be watching, and made the climb back to her window with extra care that she should not accidentally let the sphere strike the stones of the wall.

She had entirely forgotten that it was not, at the moment, her room.

Her cousin was sitting on her bed, reading some heavy, dull book from, Araenè presumed, one of his library classes. Araenè didn’t see him until she was already halfway through the window, and then it was too late to retreat. Taken thoroughly aback, Trei stared. Since she could hardly pretend that she wasn’t climbing through the window dressed in boys’ clothing, Araenè raised her chin and stared back, daring him to say anything.

Her cousin’s gaze shifted from Araenè’s face to her hands, lingered for a moment on her masculine bracelets, lifted to take in her boy’s hat, and moved back to her face. No fool, he let the book fall and spread his hands placatingly. “It’s not my concern,” he assured her. He asked after a moment, as though unable to help himself, “Do all Island girls, um …?”

Araenè had never considered this question before. For all she knew, dressing up as a boy and slipping out of the confinement of the home was a universal stage through which all girls passed. When you were five, you loved to help the servants in the kitchens; when you were eight, you cried because your father wouldn’t let you have a marmoset; when you were ten, you fretted desperately after some handsome young master of ephemera and thought you would die if he never noticed you; and when you were twelve, you dressed up in boys’ clothing and ventured out into the world. But … “I doubt it,” she concluded. It was impossible to imagine the girls she knew engaging in such a dramatic, dangerous rebellion. Though she wondered now if they would think the same about her, if anybody asked them.

“Umm …” Trei swallowed whatever he’d been about to say, picked up his book again, and pretended to be fascinated by whatever he’d been reading.

Araenè pulled the wardrobe doors open so that they would offer her privacy. Without really paying attention to what she was doing, she put the black sphere behind a false back she’d made to fit one of her drawers, checked to make sure her cousin was still looking at his book, and rapidly changed out of her boys’ things back into a proper dress. A simple one that fastened up the front so she could reach the hooks without help. She asked around the edges of the doors, “Is Cimè back from the market? Ti?” She hesitated after asking after the servants, afraid to extend the query to include Mother and Father: what if they’d come back early?

“The servants were here when I got back from the library. Cimè asked me if I knew where you’d gone. She seemed a little worried,” Trei told her, and added with unexpected perceptiveness, “But your parents are still away.”

Araenè came around the doors and stared at her cousin, wondering what to tell him, how she could persuade him to say nothing about what he’d seen.

“You might have gone up to the attic and fallen asleep,” Trei suggested. “I don’t think Cimè or Ti have gone up there—not since I’ve been home. Maybe before, though,” he added, ducking his head doubtfully.

“It’s a good idea,” Araenè admitted aloud. “It will work no matter what. If Cimè went up to the attic earlier, I’ll pretend I hadn’t gone up yet and she just happened to miss me.” She hesitated. “You won’t—that is, you’d be willing—”

“I won’t contradict you,” Trei promised.

Araenè felt driven to ask, though she was almost afraid of the answer she would get, “Why are you … I mean, why would you …?” And what would he want from her in return?

Her cousin met her eyes, a level, honest look. He said in a low voice, “You’re so … You remind me so much of my … of Marrè. My sister. You aren’t … you aren’t like her, really. But if she’d lived here, I think she might have been like you.”

“Oh.” Araenè had somehow not really thought of what her cousin might feel, losing his sister. His mother and father, yes, she’d been sorry for his loss, although she’d also found herself thinking how amazing it would be to travel all the tremendous distance from northern Tolounn to the Floating Islands by yourself. Though of course that journey wouldn’t seem amazing at all if your whole family had just died.

But, truthfully, she hadn’t spent much effort imagining how Trei actually
felt.
She’d been too busy resenting the disruption he’d brought to
her
family. Araenè felt heat creeping up her face. She crossed the room slowly, settling at the foot of the bed. “Would you tell me about her? Marrè?”