The Waters Rising (62 page)

Justinian asked, “Is this believable in a machine?”

Precious Wind smiled ruefully. “So we wondered, as well. But the creature was made from a human being, and such reasoning might not be beyond its capability so long as the end result is
more killing,
for killing is what it was designed to do. All its satisfactions, all of what one might think of as its
comforts,
are supplied during its maintenance, but it can have maintenance
only
after it has killed.”

“It earns pleasure by killing?” murmured Xulai.

“So we believe. In this case, the Old Dark Man has allowed some of the work to be done by its creations, its Miramis and Alicias and the many others before them that we know nothing about.”

“Just a minute,” said Abasio. “If its satisfactions come from killing, how do killings done by others satisfy it?”

Precious Wind said, “All the ones we found and destroyed were in maintenance cocoons. They had been there for many centuries. It is possible that this last slaughterer, realizing it would be dormant for a long time, created others to kill
while
he could not kill. Others’ killings were not instead of his own, they were merely supplementary. Perhaps he even intended to create others who would go on killing after he, it, eventually died.”

Xulai remarked, “And, if the women are its creation, they hate Tingawa without needing a reason. If one or both of the women are still alive, will they come after us?”

Precious Wind shook her head. “Their immediate ambitions were for Norland . . .”

“No,” said Xulai, contradicting her. “Alicia had larger ambitions than that. I heard the duchess, remember. There in the forest, that night, she talked about finding something for the Sea King, and how he would give her machines, and how much power she would have.”

“Are you sure you remember that correctly?” Justinian asked.

Abasio said, “I was there. The duchess and Jenger talked about finding Huold’s talisman or whatever Xulai’s mother had hidden in the forest. In return for either of those things, the Sea King was going to reward her with machines, but it was the Sea King’s
ambassador
who promised, not the Sea King himself.”

Precious Wind said, “The few ancient machines left in Tingawa are guarded, protected, kept from doing damage. They will not be used to reward anyone.”

“You told me about one at the embassy,” said Justinian.

Precious Wind nodded. “It could not harm anyone. We call it a far-talker. It dates from far back in the Before Time, to an innocent age, long, long before the slaughterers. It is so simple that we can actually make more of them quite easily. It allows messages to be sent through the air, but it needs both a sender and a receiver. The priests allowed the ambassador to take one of each of these to the embassy so our people could summon a ship if they needed to go home. When Lok-i-xan returned to the islands, he left it with the emissary, for the same reason.”

“Is this something they can carry with them?”

“Yes. It’s a small thing, no trouble to carry in a wagon or cart. Its power can be provided by someone cranking it. I know the emissary has wearied of talking to King Gahls and plans to leave for Merhaven. Once they know this ship is gone from Merhaven, they will use the far-talker to ask for another ship. Since the embassy also communicated with Merhaven by pigeon, our captain may already have asked for a ship for them.”

“Is there one of the devices on this ship?” asked Abasio.

She nodded.

“Can you talk to the embassy and find out what’s happening?” Abasio asked. “It might be helpful to know. If this creature is as you’ve described, it might follow us by sea, and that has me bothered. I dealt with similar but totally separate critters years ago, near the Place of Power, and the death toll was very great.”

Precious Wind sighed deeply. “We believe the creature cannot travel under the sea. It was built to ape humankind. It breathes air.”

“So do human beings,” said Xulai in a strange, faraway voice. “Humans can’t travel underwater either. So they build ships.”

“And we have prevented ships from crossing the sea.”

“How were the other monsters destroyed?” asked Justinian.

“They were inside their maintenance containers. We used explosives and both creature and maintainer were blown to bits, then the bits were raked up and molded into concrete, and the concrete was taken and dropped into the depths of the deepest parts of the sea. The Old Dark Man’s maintenance device will probably have been destroyed by now. The monster itself can also be blown to bits, if we can find it! We need to know where it will be at a given time.”

Precious Wind sighed and turned toward Xulai. “Among the things this master can do is to transport you, very quickly, away from danger. It can, therefore, be used to escape from peril.”

Xulai first nodded, then shook her head. “Our lives are complicated enough, Precious Wind. You keep the thing master and put it in some place where it cannot send one of us off into the sea by accident. We all need to think of something else for a time, but let us be very careful to tell whatever ship goes to Merhaven that it must not bring back an evil barnacle upon its hull.”

Full of discontent and unwarranted guilt, Precious Wind took the device away. It might be useless so far as Xulai was concerned, but it had been very beneficial for her wolves. And the wolves might well be very beneficial to everyone concerned.

I
t was some days later, in the predawn darkness, that a wolf woke Precious Wind and pulled her garment with his teeth, telling her to come. On deck, all the wolves were assembled, staring across the sea. They had heard something, she thought. She could not hear it. The men on watch had heard or seen nothing. She woke the captain, who climbed the mast and turned his glasses in the direction the wolves were facing. “I see a light out there,” he called. “Watch! Run up the signal lights!”

The watchman ran the lights up the mast, and the captain hung them there, one green; one red, above it; one white above that. The sails were shifted so the other light, far ahead of them and to one side, was in the direction of their movement. The captain stayed aloft, after a time returning to say, “They’ve hung answering lights. She’s our sister ship, the
Axan-xin
from Tingawa. The
Night Wind
.”

Precious Wind went to her cabin, where Xulai saw her busily writing something. Everyone else hung across the railing waiting, seemingly interminably. Eventually, along about dawn, when the ships came within sight of one another, Precious Wind joined them. When they were within shouting distance, the captain of the
Axan-xin
shouted that he was coming across.

“I know him,” cried Precious Wind excitedly. “He is the Gull of Caspos, so called for his ability to ride out storms at sea. We were schoolmates once.”

A small boat was lowered and came skimming across the calm water, rowed by six of the men from the
Night Wind
. Indeed, the captain and Precious Wind remembered one another, for there was much hugging and giving of introductions, and bowing to Xulai and Justinian.

“We are three days out of port, and we knew you were on the way,” said the Gull, whose name was Bunjasi-velipe: “Protector of Knowledge.”

“His whole name is Bunjasi-lok-koularka-velipe: ‘Protector of
Ancient Seagoing
Knowledge,’ ” said Precious Wind, as an aside. “Just call him Bunja. It’s easier.”

Bunja had news. “We’re on our way to Merhaven to pick up our people. We received a far-talker summons from the emissary. All the members of the embassy staff, those still living, are assembling in Merhaven. The
place
is destroyed.” He looked a question. “I presume you know which
place
. And, Xu-xin, I am sorry to tell you, but your friend Bear has been killed. The emissary is Xakixa for him. The emissary told me to tell you Bear did not die forsworn. I don’t know why that is important, but the emissary said it was.”

“Ah,” said Precious Wind, grieving. Her grief was echoed by Xulai. Both of them felt both sorrow and a kind of shamed relief. Bear had not been forsworn. His memory would not be soiled to those who had known him.

“How?” they asked in one voice.

“
Ul monga-paf,
the thing we do not mention, killed him. It killed several of the embassy warriors as well.
Ul monga-paf
escaped. It moved like lightning, so quickly it could not be seen.

Xulai looked at Precious Wind, who nodded. The thing had an
ul xaolat.

Cursing silently, Precious Wind asked, “And we are expected?”

“Lok-i-xan knows you are coming. They are in council, debating how
ul monga-paf
is to be killed. Again, it has gone away and we do not know where.”

“Were the women mentioned? The queen, Mirami, and her daughter, Alicia?”

He smiled grimly. “Oh, yes! Cleanse them from memory! Those evil ones are dead! The oldest witch died in the castle in Ghastain of some quick, terrible disease. Her daughter died in the same manner in her cellar at the place. Where her machines were. Where Bear died.”

“The Old Dark House,” said Abasio.

Bunja made a gesture of revulsion. “
Gol mongapaf!
We do not mention that, either. It is no more. It is gone.”

Precious Wind had a very strange expression on her face. “Just a moment! When Alicia died, when her mother died, did anyone describe the illness?”

He nodded, face screwed up in revulsion. “They had a smell, like rotted meat, like one long dead, vomiting of blood, much blood.”

Precious Wind held up her hand as though to say,
Don’t talk, let me think
. “Is it possible
ul mongapaf
got any of that blood on it?”

Bunja considered this. “As the emissary described it, it would have been hard to avoid. He said she spewed blood everywhere . . .”

“Ah,” said Precious Wind. “Then let us get to Tingawa as quickly as we may. That information may give us a way to find the thing!” She took a paper from her pocket, folded and sealed. “Bunja, old friend, I have written here something I need you to take care of for me when you reach Merhaven. Read it when you have time. Justinian’s old friend Genieve lives there in a place called the Watch House. She can help you find someone reliable to do what we need done.” She put it into his hand and folded his hand around it. “It’s important. If you cannot find Genieve, find someone else. And do not forget to have your divers examine your hull before you leave Merhaven. It has been suggested the thing we do not mention might possibly make some kind of oxygen device and attach itself, like a barnacle, to the hull of a ship. If so, tell them not to notice it, not to touch it, to use the far-talker first and talk to me!” She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “We will see you soon in Tingawa, Bunja. Sail safe. Be well.”

T
he few remaining days of the trip, though they seemed endless, were in fact very swift, for the winds held true. They began to pass little islets that had been, so Precious Wind said, sizeable islands fifty years before. They passed between two mountainous and still sizeable islands that marked the entry to the Tingawan Sea. The capital city of Ushiloma al Koul, Great Mother of the Sea, lay before them. It had obviously been recently moved. As in Merhaven, there were buildings on skids, and the piers were floating. They saw the umbrellas even before they reached the pier, tall, fringed, golden umbrellas.

No, Xulai told herself, they were parasols. Parasols were the symbol of nobility in Tingawa. Precious Wind had told her about them when she was only a child. “Here, in this world of Norland, a crown is put onto the head of a person at a coronation, making that person the king. Both the act and the ownership of the crown can lead crowned heads to the belief that they have some inherent right to rule. In Tingawa, the parasol, a symbolic shield against evil, is held over the head of the leader by representatives selected by the people. The ruler is thus always reminded that power is not inherent but is granted and can be taken away.”

The ship docked. The walkway went down onto the pier. Two parasol bearers came aboard to stand at either side of the walkway. “This honor is for you,” said Precious Wind. “You have to go first, then Abasio, then Justinian. Then the rest of us.”

Xulai went first, suspended in time, suspecting that all this business of honoring was silly, believing at the same time it meant much to those who gave it, thinking that this land could never be home, wondering at the same time whether it might not be more of a home than any she had yet known. Those holding the parasols came with her. Well, her mother had been a princess. Perhaps that was enough reason. She made herself stand up straight and walk gracefully as Precious Wind had taught her. Precious Wind had also told her who the man at the end of the walkway was: her grandfather, Lok-i-xan.

He smiled at her, leaned forward to kiss her gravely upon her cheek, gave her his right hand and Abasio his left. He nodded at Justinian and Precious Wind, then turned and led them down the pier toward the city.

Chapter 9

The Sea King

L
ed by Lok-i-xan with Xulai on one side, Abasio on the other, they proceeded away from the sea on a wide boulevard lined with silent, smiling people. The boulevard ended between two ornamental pillars at the bottom of a broad, conical hill where a slightly narrower road made a gentle turn to the left and began spiraling upward. This road was also lined with people, some Tingawan, many in costumes of other lands that Xulai had heard of or read of, others who looked totally unfamiliar. Lok-i-xan did not let go of her hand for a moment, and she quickly came to understand that this long walk through the city, among the people, was a kind of . . . what could one call it? An adoption. If she read it correctly, the head of Clan Do-Lok was saying that she and Abasio were of his kindred, that Justinian was also of his kindred, and that was that.

“You have questions,” he murmured halfway up the hill. “I can hear your brain sizzling. Are we walking you too quickly? There is yet some way to go, but we can stop to drink tea.”

“That would be . . . very nice,” she agreed. The distance and the climb weren’t wearying her physically, but the entire experience was beginning to overwhelm her. It didn’t seem to bother Abasio, but then, he’d been traveling here, there, and everywhere for years. He was used to being confronted on every side with new sights and sounds. He simply strode along, nodding to the crowds, smiling at anyone who smiled at him.

Lok-i-xan turned his head very slightly toward one of the parasol carriers, who promptly fell back, spoke to someone in the procession, then resumed his place. The person spoken to fell in behind Lok-i-xan, who murmured, “Next tea stall for five, please.”

The runner went forward up the rising road like a sight hound after a rabbit, zipping around the bend. In moments he came back into view at the center of the road, bowing and gesturing to usher them forward to the right.

If there had been people against the hill along that particular stretch of road, they had been moved away. Now there was only a bright awning over a table and five chairs before a stone-lined hollow containing a fiery little stove and shelves laden with pottery. They sat: Xulai, Lok-i-xan, Abasio, Justinian, Precious Wind. The parasol holders moved away and began a slow dance on the road, the parasols twirling, the feet pointing and leaping. A brilliantly robed old woman came from the hollow, her steps timed to coincide with those of the dancers; she bowed and set cups before them, poured tea from a pot shaped like an elegant dragon, and was replaced by two equally brilliantly robed women who also danced as they set bowls of tiny cakes before each of them.

Xulai realized she was hungry. They had come into port early in the morning; no one had bothered to eat. There had been a last-minute complication before they left the pier: the business of seeing that Blue and the wolf pack would be provided for during their absence, which had to be settled before any of them could take part in the procession.

It was this furor that Lok-i-xan referred to when he leaned toward Precious Wind and asked, “Are your animals settled, Xu-xin?”

Xulai noted that he spoke Norlandish, well-sprinkled with Tingawan words, and, of course, he used Precious Wind’s Tingawan name.

Precious Wind swallowed before answering. “The wolves weren’t happy at being left alone. That’s what all the howling was about. Neither was Blue at being left with them. That’s what all the kicking and whinnying was about. He says herbivores don’t take kindly to carnivores in bunches. So, we have Blue stabled in a building by the pier and the wolves will stay aboard until I am there to take them to the place we’ll prepare for them. A couple of the sailors have become friends with them, and they’ll stay, too, until we get the other arrangements completed.”

Lok-i-xan cocked his head, smiling the least possible smile. “Wolves, Xu-xin? A whole pack of them?”

She flushed. “I foresaw a need, Your Wisdom.”

He cocked his head at her. “Ah, well, we have learned to respect your foreseeing. I am surprised at the horse! I didn’t know any of our technology was available on that continent.”

Abasio said, “It may be a survival, Your Wisdom.” He had been told this was the polite form of address. “When I was younger, I sometimes passed among walled areas surrounding the old cities. The places were called Edges
.
Precious Wind—that is, Xu-xin—likens them to the abbeys and monasteries that served as repositories of old knowledge elsewhere. My native area was generally a barbarian state . . . no, one can’t call it a state. Perhaps ‘a loosely federated group of tribes’ would describe it better. Still, I believe your technical people and the people in the Edges would likely speak the same language.”

“Xu-xin has mentioned your regard for the people south of you.”

“Yes. The people of Artemisia . . . They lived very simply but I had the feeling they knew a great many things they didn’t share with or even mention to others.”

“Perhaps I will have the opportunity to meet some of them,” the older man said musingly. “Artemisia. Ah.”

“They would greatly treasure that opportunity,” Abasio said sincerely. The people of Artemisia would treasure it, and Abasio wanted to witness the meeting.

Xulai swallowed her sixth cake. She had counted them, not wanting to seem greedy, for though they were delicious, they were very small. It had taken all six to make her feel more like herself. Across the road, the people stood quietly looking at her, at the dancing feet and twirling parasols, at one another. The audience did not point or murmur. Even the children were quiet, simply standing there, looking at one of the tea drinkers, then another, then another, and so on, as though they were memorizing every feature, every color, every garment.

There was little more talk. Seeing that Xulai’s fingers had stopped conveying cakes from dish to mouth and that the others seemed satisfied, Lok-i-xan reached for her hand. “Shall we go on to the citadel now?”

They went on as before, around the back of the hill, up toward the front again, and so, having made one complete upward-spiraling circuit, they came to the gate of the citadel, directly in line with the boulevard below. From where they stood, a long, steep, and completely empty flight of stairs descended all the way to the bottom, where the people still stood, still smiling, still silent. Lok-i-xan turned, raised his arms, and bowed. Every person in the far-flung crowd returned the bow, still silent as ghosts.

Lok-i-xan called out something Xulai couldn’t quite catch the meaning of. With myriad voices but one phrase, the crowd replied. While some of them stayed where they were, others broke away into little groups and wandered off, talking among themselves, laughing, a cheerful babble rising from people who had enjoyed the whole experience.

“What did you say to them?” she asked.

“I told them you said thank you for the welcome. They said, ‘Be one of us.’ Here, we feel silence is the best greeting. Any bird or monkey can chatter, any wagon can make a noise upon a street, but to stand silent, to observe, to remember, that is recognition, don’t you think so? Of course, with children, concentration takes some teaching. Children too young to be quiet stay at home on these occasions.”

“Quiet makes fewer demands on the ones they’re looking at,” she agreed, suddenly thankful that the crowd had not cheered and waved things at them. “It allowed us to see them, really see them, more easily than if everyone had been shouting. I will remember the tea ladies’ robes. They were beautiful. I will remember the cakes, and the children, the young man who ran to the tea kiosk, the dancers. Everything was . . . elegant.”

“We admire and revere elegance,” said her grandfather. “Even in simple things.”

They turned and went inside to more elegance. Abasio noted both the lack of ostentation and the very high level of craftsmanship. He also saw, with some surprise and considerable interest, that the doors seemed to sink into sockets that would very probably make them waterproof. The four of them were escorted to rooms at the end of a corridor where sliding doors could shut off the corridor itself to make the area completely private. Their baggage had already been brought from the ship by some quicker way, unpacked, and put away. Lok-i-xan left them in their common room to get settled.

Two walls of the common room opened into bedrooms, two on each side. Each had an adjoining bath with a small, gently steaming tub and all the other accoutrements Xulai had come to think of as being essentially Tingawan. The third wall, across from the door to the corridor, held floor-to-ceiling windows that separated them from a walled garden. Xulai leaned against the window to look out at the gnarled tree at the garden’s center. It looked old enough to have lived a few thousand years. A bird’s nest rested on an ancient, twisted bough. Old and new. Water flowed into a pool rimmed with sparkling sand. Wet and dry. The rock at the roots of the tree was covered with thick, green moss. Hard and soft. There were probably a dozen other oppositions brought into harmony in the garden; she would no doubt find all of them in time, and she would be told the garden had the word “harmony” in its name. The Garden of Harmonious Waters. Something like that. Very Tingawan. She returned to her bedroom, hers by virtue of her own belongings having been hung in the beautifully carved wooden wardrobe or folded into drawers or otherwise appropriately distributed.

Her room adjoined the next one, and as she stared accusingly at the adjoining door, Abasio opened it from the other side. “You’re . . . peeved?” he asked, looking from her to the door and back.

“It just seems that everyone assumes . . .”

“I don’t think so. The two rooms on each side simply have joining doors. I can ask Precious Wind to trade with me.”

“I don’t want you to have another room, I just think . . . everyone knows everything about me, you, us.”

“They probably do,” he said cheerfully.

She moved fretfully away from him. “It’s . . . I feel I don’t have any private things, not even my thoughts!”

He took a deep breath and sat down on the bed, bouncing a little. Very comfortable. After a moment’s consideration, he said, “Let’s see. We’ve talked about many things on this journey, but we never talked religion. Do you believe in a deity?”

“One who fiddles with people, you mean? One who saves this one while condemning a thousand others to painful death? That kind of deity?”

“I was supposing a much more benign one. My question really is: if you
did
believe in a deity, would you be annoyed at the deity knowing you?”

“Presumably the deity would have created me, so it would know me. There’d be no point in my being upset about it.”

“Exactly.” He put his arms around her rigid form and held her lightly until the steel framework she had summoned relaxed and she felt rather like flesh again. “Exactly,” he repeated when she leaned into him, breathing against his throat.

“You mean the ones who know all about me did make me?”

“Not quite from scratch, but I think it very likely they had a part in your design. I also think they’ve had a very large part in bringing me into your life, and I absolutely refuse to be even slightly upset about that. It would be the basest sort of ingratitude.”

“I have to go back to the port,” Precious Wind announced vehemently from the open common room door behind them. “I can’t bring the wolves here, and I have to talk with the people who are finding them a place with someone they trust. I had a forester in mind and they’re locating him for me. He has a . . . I suppose you’d call it a royal preserve. Clan Do-Lok doesn’t pretend to royalty, but they make very sure certain places are kept in their original state as long as possible. Then I have a meeting with the ministers, to talk about the creature that killed Bear. None of us slept well last night. I suggest the rest of you take a nap, if you can. This afternoon, Lok-i-xan is taking you to meet the Sea King . . .” She stopped, aware they had not been listening. “Abasio! Xulai!” she cried. “Did you hear me?”

He turned, taking Xulai around with him so he didn’t have to release her. “One could not fail to hear you, Precious Wind, but you are correct in supposing we are not listening. You may have said you were very busy and were going back to the port. We accept that, just as we would accept anything you propose. Did you not create us? Have a good time. Pet the wolves for us.”

She glared at him before realizing he was making fun of her. “You’re tired. Sorry. Have a nap.” She made a “what’s the difference” gesture as she departed.

Xulai giggled. “She’s the deity that created us?”

“Not all by herself. I get the impression that you were the result of a very long, difficult group effort, into which I have fallen as a more or less accidental but, one hopes, welcome inclusion. Some bit of the pattern they needed but had overlooked to begin with.”

“Did she imply we should take a nap?” she asked innocently. “It has been a long morning.”

“Does a nap appeal to you?”

She shut the doors, rejoicing to find there was a formidable latch on the inside.

W
hen Precious Wind returned from the ship, she brought with her the captain of the
Falsa-xin
and the forester she had spoken of. All of them took a meal together in their common room, where the wall of windows had been moved aside to join the room and the garden. The table was set with a variety of foods, some hot, some cold. There were various things to drink as well, some familiar, some strange. Precious Wind identified certain dishes and argued amiably with the captain and Justinian about where they had originated. She and Justinian decided that Blue should have a stall in the citadel stables. It would still leave him and Abasio farther apart then they had been accustomed to being; on the other hand, the forester had spoken with the stable master, who thought Blue might enjoy meeting some of the talking mares treasured by Clan Do-Lok.