Chenda and the Airship Brofman (37 page)

“Candice!” she called. “The first batch of seeds. Name them as you throw them into the air.”

“Beans!” Candice shouted from a few hundred yards behind her. “Plant them 12 inches apart, one inch deep, rows two-and-a-half feet apart!” She threw the beans into the air and Chenda caught then with a column of wind. A few seconds later, all the beans were planted.

“Next.” Chenda demanded.

“Pumpkins!” Candice replied. “Three seeds to a hill...”

For the next hour, Chenda followed Candice's instructions, and the entire plateau was planted. With the last of her power, Chenda created a borehole into a deep pocket of water that rose and bubbled through the neat rows of the field.

“Tilled, planted and irrigated in less than two hours. Very impressive.” Candice said.

Chenda sat down hard on a rock. “I'm spent!”

“You take a well deserved rest, dear. I'm just going to pop over to those gentlemen and see if they understand what needs to happen to these plants once we leave here.” Candice shuffled off to stand next to Verdu and Pranav Erato.

Fenimore sat down next to Chenda in the darkness. “That was amazing. My dirtiest joke couldn't stop you from being divine.”

“Thanks, Fen,” she said with a small giggle. “It felt very right. This may sound a little ironic now that I've pulled 30-thousand gallons of water out of the ground, but I really could use something to drink. You got anything?”

He laughed and handed over his canteen. “Feel free to drink it all. I know this really neat girl who can fill it for me later.”

Chenda snorted. “Stop. The water's going to come out my nose and that will cause some catastrophe where a peninsula falls off the continent or something.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. When she started to snore lightly, Fenimore gently laid her across his lap and then sat very still.

“That's it, baby,” he said, looking down at her lips, smiling faintly in the moonlight. “You just rest a minute. You've earned it.”

Verdu stood among the Tugrulian men who witnessed what they were already calling the Miracle of the Sunken Garden. To the assembled there, if any would have cared to take notice of him, they would only have seen the slightly pleased yet unmoving smile pasted on his face. Those around him, so ebullient over the work of the Pramuc, took no notice that the smile never touched his eyes.

Verdu had many reasons to be happy. Through Chenda, change was not only coming for his homeland, it had begun. He held every confidence in her, and also in the Resistance who would now take over the tending of this field. Once the crops took hold, there would be no stopping the Resistance. People know the Empire's lies, and reject them. The cruel leaders would fall. He was sure of it.

But at this very moment, he couldn't enjoy his seed of victory.

Verdu's eyes kept drifting over to Chenda, exhausted from her night's work. She lay cradled across Fenimore's lap, limp as a rag doll. He could see her breathing, slow and even in the moonlight. It annoyed him. At first he thought his peevish feeling came from the indignity of it, the Pramuc napping there like some worn out child at a picnic. She looked ridiculous. But as his eyes drifted to her yet again, just to watch the pale moonlight shine on her cheek, her lips, her chin, he realized that her dignity had nothing to do with his inner turmoil. In an instant, his annoyance shifted to anger and then to self loathing. He was
jealous
. He was jealous of
Fenimore
. He was jealous of Fenimore because of
her
. Worse yet, Verdu felt shame for thinking of Chenda that way. She was the Pramuc after all, a holy person, touched by the gods. He chastised himself for thinking of her soft skin instead of her miracles. He should strive to be worthy of
sitting
at her right hand, not wishing he were holding it.

Pranav Erato danced to a halt next to Verdu. “My, my,” he said. “Such a parade of emotions just crossed your face.”

“So what?” Verdu replied in a whisper. “It's nothing. And I don't need or want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough,” Pranav Erato said, “but allow me one observation. In becoming the Pramuc, Chenda changed, but not so much as your expectation of her did. She is who she is, a whole person. You can't love her in slices.”

“That's three observations, and none are relevant.” Verdu protested. “And I'm not in love with her.”

“Sure you aren't,” Pranav Erato said as he walked away.

Chapter 20

DUE WEST

Chenda dreamed about pumpkins, which, to her, always felt pretty good. Throughout her childhood, pumpkins had intrigued her. The broad, slightly prickly leaves, the earthy smell, the way their wrinkly orange skin soaked up the sun throughout the hot sunny days and released it back slowly in the evenings, it all felt magical to Chenda. The nuns grew pumpkins in the orphanage garden.  In her dream, she saw the devout ladies in their broad straw hats, bending over the rambling vines, hoeing the weeds and watering the soil.

Chenda enjoyed the aesthetics of pumpkins, but the nuns valued the practicality of them: easy to grow, generous of yield and hearty for storage. A field of pumpkins would feed a dozen poor families through a winter. The pumpkins, as far as the nuns were concerned, were a gift to be shared with those most in need.

In her dream, Chenda sat on the warm ground and she clutched a pumpkin to her. She drummed her fingers on its warm flesh, listening to the hollow thump echoing inside it. Lately, she herself had been feeling a warm hollowness within. She sat there rocking the pumpkin like a baby, dreamy and calm in the sunlight, until the rocking was all around her.

A chorus of voices spoke to her, “Well done, Pramuc. Very clever. You and your companions please us.”

Chenda recognized it as the voices of the gods.
Thank you. It gives the people a fighting chance, I think.

“We will bless these fields, and they will grow strong. It will succeed.”

Chenda made a pleased sigh, but couldn't think of anything she wanted to say. She held her warm pumpkin closer, resting a cheek against its smooth skin.

“Pramuc,” the voices chided, “melancholy does not suit you. If you are lonely, it is because you choose to be so. The world is full; seek your joys in all things around you. We would not burden you with so much if we could not give you great gifts as well.” She heard a few solitary giggles from among the gods.

As the last voice of the gods faded, Chenda heard another voice call to her. “Chenda, you need to wake up and raise a stink.”

“Narf?” she replied, feeling herself gently rocking from side to side. Fenimore was carrying her down the narrow path that zigzagged down the cliff face from the plateau. By the looks of it, they were about halfway down already.

“Come on, Chenda, I know you are exhausted, but Candice says you have to. Just a little woeful odor, and I promise I'll carry you all the way to the sea. Cross my heart.”

“Deal,” she said. “Am I standing yet?”

“Um, no. Do you need to be?” Fenimore asked.

“Let's find out.” Chenda reached out with her mind and located some sulfur pockets deep below the plateau. She released her power and burrowed several narrow tunnels into each pocket, releasing various gasses. Suddenly the air around her was markedly more offensive.

“Bleck!” Candice shouted somewhere up ahead of Chenda. “Yup. Dat will do!” Candice said while pinching her nose.

“Ugh. Maybe we could have waited a little longer before we pulled that particular cork out of the bottle,” Verdu said. “Remind me to be upwind next time.”

Chenda retorted sleepily, her eyes still closed, “Do not mock the great miracles of the Pramuc, or I will turn you into a pumpkin, crush you utterly and plant your seeds in my sunken garden.”

Verdu made a nervous laugh, and said no more. Fenimore leaned closer to Chenda's ear, “Can you really do that? Turn someone into a pumpkin?”

Chenda, too tired to move her lips, pushed her thoughts toward Fenimore.
What do I look like? A fairy godmother? Now, boil his liver, that I could do, but that's no way to treat my saint, is it?

It hardly surprised Chenda, when she woke up several hours later, that she was in Verdu's arms and not Fenimore's. Just about every time she fell asleep next to one of them, she woke up beside the other. By now, she simply chalked it up to one of the many little pranks that kept the gods amused.

She stretched and looked up at Verdu, his dark features highlighted by the first bright orange rays of dawn.
Good morning. I must be heavy to lug around so. You could put me down.

“
Do you want me to put you down?” he asked.

Well,
she thought to him with a bit of giggle in her voice,
It was only a silly promise that Fen made to carry me all the way to the sea. I know you guys are best buds, but you don't have to carry me just because he said.

Verdu stopped and dropped Chenda's legs to the ground. “Well, if you would rather have Fen, go find him.” He stalked ahead sourly.

Chenda ran a few steps and caught Verdu's hand.
Hey! What is that supposed to mean?

Verdu pulled his hand free from Chenda, turning his body to walk away again, but then he stopped, struggling within himself. His feet decided to stay, and the rest of his body gave in. He put his hands on each of Chenda's shoulders, and let his left thumb stroke her neck a moment before he said softly, “When I carry you, it's no burden. I held you in my arms because you needed it; I've watched you push yourself to the limit.  I also carried you... because it pleased me. When you are close to me, when I can hold you and touch you, I imagine no heaven more divine. I know you think of us as a set, but when I think about you, angel, Fenimore never enters my mind.”

His hands slid down her soft arms as he looked into her surprised face. He squeezed her hands and then let them drop as he took one step backward. Then another. Verdu turned his back to the rising sun and kept walking.

She stood there a moment, thinking to herself.
Oh.... OH!
She bit her lip trying to sort out her feelings about what just happened, and had no success. She looked to the east and the beautiful sunrise, and saw Candice and Fenimore approaching, evidently bringing up the rear of the small party. They were deep in conversation, but as Fenimore glanced at Chenda, she knew he had witnessed her moment with Verdu, and he wasn't thrilled about it. In fact, if Chenda were pressed to name the emotion rolling across his face, she would have said jealousy.

She turned west and started walking again, neither slowing to join step with Candice and Fenimore, or hurrying to catch up to Verdu. She thought it best to just keep to herself for a while, letting the two men whom she now found herself between settle themselves.

She rolled her eyes at the heavens as she walked, sending her thoughts upward.
You all think this is pretty funny, don't you?
Deep in her mind she heard a chorus of snickers from the gods.

Two hours later, the sun began to feel like punishment. Up ahead, Chenda could see Pranav Erato, but she wasn't sure if the bounce of his limbs was an optical illusion caused by the waves of rising heat, or if he was just really excited. Either way, he came to a halt in the shade of a large rock formation. The mystic waited there for the others to catch up to him and Ahy-Me, who seemed to have just returned from scouting ahead. The air, despite being baking hot, moved briskly past them carrying a salty hint of the sea. They were approaching the Kohlian Coast.

As the group gathered together once again, Chenda scanned the area for other people. She found two, almost a mile away, and they were moving fairly quickly. She decided to keep tabs on them as Ahy-Me started to speak.

“I find dees dings you ask for. De Resistance near de port - very helpful. I know some! Old friends. Ve go now to de house of Ma-Took, pickle merchant. Ve stay der today. He give us de tub. It work great to go under dees patrols. Tonight you go. No problem. Come, we have short way to go.”

Ahy-Me handed veils to Chenda and Candice, and wrapped herself as well, and they all stepped out into the sunshine. As they walked, Pranav Erato and Verdu took the lead, and discussed the plan for when they reached the coast.

“What town is this?” Verdu asked.

“Nivarta. It's the smallest port from which one can quickly reach Crider Island. On a fast boat you could be there in a matter of hours. In a pickle tub...” Pranav Erato ended with a shrug.

“We'll be lucky to get there at all,” Verdu sighed. That's going to take a lot of effort for Chenda to push the four of us under water for such a long time. Do you think she is up to it?”

“It hardly matters what I think. It only matters if
she
thinks she can. If she believes it, I know she can do it. She is preparing herself as if she is going to try her best, storing up her power and so on. I would say your chances are fairly good.”

“But not great?" Verdu said.

“No, not great.”

“Did Ahy-Me see many soldiers in Nivarta?”

“Yes, and we may have a spot of luck there; the soldiers seem to be congregated around the perimeter of the city and along the docks. So, at least we have some of their patterns mapped out already, and if we can get into the town, we should have little trouble until we try to get out again.”