Arkwright (36 page)

In keeping with his position as a Guardian, Ramos pretended not to notice either of the women. He waited while everyone buckled on diving belts and attached knife sheaths and woven collection bags. “All right, over you go,” he said once they were ready. “Good hunting. May Gal keep you safe.”

“Thank you.” Raising her fores level with her shoulders, Kaile dove headfirst into the water, disappearing with barely a splash. Sayra followed her a moment later, leaping from the other side of the canoe. Sanjay took a few more breaths to fill his lungs, and then he joined them, although not nearly as gracefully.

The instant he was submerged, he instinctively squinted, forcing shut the watertight nictitating membranes of his eyes that Gal in her wisdom had provided her children. At the same time, the fingers of his fores and the toes of his hinds spread apart, opening the webs between his digits, which allowed his people to be fast and effortless swimmers. Although he wasn't the practiced diver Kaile and Sayra were, he could nonetheless stay underwater for three or four mins at a time, allowing him to descend the twenty rods it took to reach the bottom. Although the sunlight faded, he could still see Kaile clearly, swimming toward the seafern jungle that lay across the bay floor.

It was here that they searched for scavengers, the spidery crustaceans that prowled among the ferns, feeding on the remains of nightjewels, breadfish, and other pelagic species that had died and drifted to the bottom of the sea. Because they tended to blend in to their environment, catching them was easier than finding them. Kaile was much better at this than he was; she'd collected two while he was still searching for one, and shook her head when he picked up a half-grown crustacean and showed it to her:
too small, let it go
.

His lungs were beginning to hurt by then, so he followed her back up to the boat and watched as she tossed her bag over the side and took another one from Ramos. The scavengers died as soon as exposed to the air, of course, but it didn't render the tender flesh beneath their carapaces inedible. Kaile and Sanjay took a min or two to replenish their lungs, and then they went down again. They ignored the fat breadfish that occasionally swam past, leaving them for the long-line anglers in other boats, and they stayed clear of the reefs, which tended to be patrolled by seaknives who'd attack any humans who dared enter their domain.

Over the next couple of hours, they made seven descents, stopping for a few minutes after every second or third dive to float on their backs and rest a little. Sanjay noticed that, while Sayra stayed fairly close to the boat, Kaile was gradually leading him farther away. Apparently, Ramos expected her to do this, because he didn't seem to mind that they'd have to swim quite a few rods to reach the boat again. By late morning, he'd decided to take a little nap, lying back against the stern with an arm across his eyes.

On their last dive, Sanjay caught a full-grown scavenger, but when he held it up for Kaile to see, she surprised him by shaking her head. Instead, she pointed to the surface. Looking up, he saw that the keel of the boat was nowhere to be seen. Understanding what she meant, he dropped the scavenger and then rose with her to the top.

Once they had surfaced, she paddled over to him and, to his delighted surprise, draped her fores across his shoulders and pulled him close. “Kiss me,” she whispered, and he was only too happy to oblige. “Good,” she said once they'd parted. “Now hold me close while we talk. This way, everyone will think we're just making love and leave us alone.”

By then, he'd almost forgotten the reason she'd asked him to go diving with her. “Can't we do both?” he asked, playfully stroking her breasts. Her skin was warm against the cool water; he could feel it pimple beneath his fores.

“Maybe later.” A wry smile quickly vanished as she pushed his fores away. “For now, just listen. I was standing watch last night…”

In furtive tones quietly spoken while she allowed him to caress her, Kaile told Sanjay about her turn in the watchtower the night before. The night was clear, without the clouds that had ruined his own attempt to observe the sky, but she hadn't been making any particular effort to see anything unusual. All the same, it was in the darkest hour of the night, when the sisters were setting to the east and before Calliope had risen to the west, her eye was drawn to a peculiar movement in the zenith.

“A small star, quickly moving from east to west.” As she said this, Kaile glanced up at the sky. “It went straight toward Gal, quickly at first, and then…” She hesitated, looking down at Sanjay again.

“Then what?” he asked.

“It slowed down and … Sanjay, it merged with Gal.” Her mouth trembled as she said this, her eyes wide. “It was as if the two became one. For just a few secs they became brighter, and then Gal went back to normal.”

Losing interest in her body, he let his fores fall to his sides, moving back and forth to keep himself afloat. “How could—”

“That's not all. I kept watching, and it was almost first light when something else happened. The little star parted from Gal again and went back in the direction it had come, but this time, instead of vanishing beyond the horizon, it started going faster and getting brighter, until it formed a tail. I heard thunder, like a storm was coming in, but there were no clouds. Then…”

Again, Kaile looked away, but this time not at the sky but to the west. “It came down over there,” she said softly, and when Sanjay followed her gaze, he saw that she was staring at the distant gray line that marked the shores of Cape Exile.

“Purgatory?” He could scarcely believe her. “Are you sure?”

Kaile glared at him. “Of course I'm sure!” she snapped, her voice rising a little as she swam back from him. “I'm telling you, I saw what I—”

She stopped herself. Like Sanjay, she remembered that this was exactly what Aara had said when she'd defended herself before the deacons. And Sanjay had spent enough time in the tower himself to know that the view of Cape Exile from up there was excellent. Save for the high cliffs of Stone Bluff to the north and the summits of Mount Lookout and Mount Roundtop in the island's forest interior, there was no higher vantage point on Providence. Indeed, it was whispered among islanders that, from these places on clear nights, one could see faint, glimmering lights on the mainland, a sign that at least some of those who'd been banished there still lived, struggling to survive in the terrible place from which Gal had rescued her most devout followers.

“I believe you,” he said quietly, paddling closer to her again. “It sounds like you saw the same thing my mother did. Something like it, at least.”

“No. That was
more
than what Aara saw.” Glancing past him, she returned her fores to his shoulders once more. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Ramos is watching.”

Again, their mouths came together. This time, though, Sanjay took little pleasure from it. He was thinking about something else. “Have you told anyone?” he said softly, his face against her wet hair.

“No.” She sighed, and despite the warmth of the water, Sanjay felt her tremble. “After what happened to Aara, how could I?”

“No, of course not.” As obedient to Gal as Kaile was, it would have been mad to repeat Aara's mistake. Deacon R'beca wouldn't have given any more credence to a second act of blasphemy than she had the first. He found himself wondering whether anyone else who'd recently stood watch might have seen the same thing Kaile did but had likewise remained silent about it, for fear of following Aara Arkwright into exile. But if there had been any similar sightings, they would never know, unless …

“There's only one way we'll ever know,” he said quietly, thinking aloud.

Kaile looked him straight in the eye. “How?” Then she realized what he meant, and her mouth fell open. “No … no, you can't be serious.”

She was right. Even as the notion entered his mind, Sanjay thrust it away. None but those whom the deacons cast out of Providence ever made the dangerous crossing of the Western Channel. In fact, no one was allowed to leave the island except fishermen and those who used sailboats to travel from one coastal village to another. All that was known of the rest of Eos came from ancient maps belonging to the First Children that had been handed down through the generations. They depicted great continents separated from one another by vast seas, with Providence the largest island of a small equatorial archipelago just off the coast of the landform known as Terra Minor. Gal had forbidden any exploration of these distant lands, though, so her children knew almost next to nothing about the rest of the world. Even the maps were closely held by the Council of Deacons, rarely seen by anyone else.

“No, you're right.” He shook his head. “We can't do that. We'd—”

A shrill whistle from their boat, and then Ramos's voice came to them from across the water. “All right, you two, enough of that! Back to work!”

Then Sayra called to them, as well. “Yes, enough!” she yelled, childishly scolding them. “Save it for your bed, Sanjay, if she'll let you take her to it!”

Kaile forced a smile and raised a fore, but Sanjay wasn't about to let her go quite yet. “It's not a bad suggestion,” he said. “I've missed you very much. Will you—”

She laughed, this time with genuine amusement, and pushed herself away from him. “Help me gather a few more scavengers,” she said, “and I'll think about it.”

Then she upended herself and, with a kick of her hinds, disappeared beneath the surface. But not before Sanjay caught the coy wink of an eye that told him that she'd already made up her mind.

 

4

Kaile kept her side of the bargain. When Calliope was going down and the boats returned to shore, she came home with Sanjay.

Dayall was already there, working on dinner. He was surprised when Kaile walked in with his son, and it was the first time in weeks that Sanjay saw him smile. As if nothing had ever changed, he put another plate on the table and then pulled some more mockapples and vine melons from the pantry and put them out along with a jug of wine. Sanjay had brought home a scavenger he'd caught, and it wasn't long before it was steamed, shelled, and on the table. They talked about his diving trip while they ate, and for once, Dayall's part of the conversation wasn't limited to monosyllables. The main room had the comfortable aroma of peeled fruit and cooked food, and for just a little while, it was as if everything had gone back to the way it had been before Aara left.

Once the meal was over and the kitchen was cleaned up, Dayall murmured something about how he thought it might be nice to spend the night at Garth's house. Sanjay politely objected, but he knew why his father was going over to his uncle's place. Dayall gathered a bedroll, took another jug from the wine cabinet, and was gone before Kaile could thank him for dinner.

Sanjay lit a fire and took the small wooden box of dreamer's weed down from the mantel. Kaile blew out the candles, and they shared a pipe by firelight, saying little as they gazed into the flames and let the pipe smoke soften their senses. The night was cool, so he closed the window shutters. The fire warmed them, and it wasn't long before their fores wandered to each other's bodies. Soon they were curled up together upon the rug, rediscovering the pleasures they'd been denied all summer.

Kaile considered going home but decided that the hour was late enough already that any excuses she might make for her absence would be transparent. Besides, it was time for her parents to learn that she wasn't going to leave Sanjay no matter what they thought of his family. Sanjay couldn't have agreed more. As the fire began to gutter, he led her through the darkened house to his bedroom. They made love again before exhaustion caught up with them, and wrapped within warm blankets, they fell asleep in each other's arms.

Sanjay had no idea what hour it was when he felt a fore upon his shoulder and heard a voice quietly say his name. Slow to emerge from the depths of sleep, his first thought was that Kaile trying to rouse him for another round of lovemaking, but when the voice repeated itself, he realized that it wasn't her who was speaking to him. Kaile was still asleep beside him, while the person trying to wake him up was crouched next to his bed. He opened his eyes and turned his head, and in the wan amber light of the sisters seeping in through a crack between the closed shutters of his bedroom window, he saw Aara.

He jerked upright in bed, not quite believing what he was seeing. Before he could say anything, though, his mother laid a fore across his mouth.

“Shhh … be quiet!” she hissed, barely more than a whisper. “Don't wake your father.”

“Sanjay?” Kaile twisted beside him, still more asleep than awake. “Sanjay, what's going on?”

Aara's eyes widened, her mouth falling open in dismay. “Is that Kaile?” she asked softly, as if it would be anyone else. Still stunned by his mother's presence, he gave a dumb nod, and she sighed. “Oh no … I wasn't expecting this.”

“Aara?” Kaile woke up as suddenly as Sanjay had and was just as astonished. “Aara, what are you—”

“Hush.” Aara lifted a finger to her mouth. “Keep your voice down. I don't want Dayall to know I'm here.”

Kaile went silent, but Sanjay could feel her trembling beside him. “He's not here,” he whispered. “He's spending the night at Garth's house.”

Aara let out her breath in relief. “Good … that's good. Wait a sec.”

She moved away from the bed, and a moment later, there came the tiny sparks and soft sounds of flints being scratched together. The fish-oil lamp on his clothes chest flickered to life, and now they could see her clearly. Aara wore the same black robe she'd been wearing the last time Sanjay had seen her; although its hood was drawn up over her head, he could see the facial scar left by R'beca's knife, a reminder that she was an exile who could be killed if anyone found her back on Providence.