Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight (8 page)

Arousal at the pain in her face surged through me like a crashing wave. It would have been easy to give in. But I’m not a prince.

I pushed her away with a sudden shove and she fell backwards, still looking at me. Then she stood.

“
Where are you going?” I said with a flash of panic. My thoughts boiled. Maybe I could take her home after all. No. No.

She ran down the riverbank and didn’t look back, discarding clothing as she went. First the shirt then the skirt, followed by the wisps of underwear. The rust-red shoes were still on her feet. I followed, slipping and foundering in the mud. I don’t know why. Half of me had changed my mind, half of me was pursuing her.

She arched and leapt into the water of the swirling brown river in a single motion. And then there was only foam, dirty foam like polluted soapsuds, and my heart was still safe.

“
Heart in a Box” was the story I workshopped my first week at Clarion West. I had arrived at the idea of doing something with the Little Mermaid that summer and had brought the first couple of paragraphs, the opening scene by the river, with me in my idea file. I set the story in Phuket, Thailand, where I had spent a Thanksgiving with some friends several years earlier.

The story is partially about feminism and the idea of sacrifice that sometimes gets woven into love stories, but it’s also about guilt and being complicit in a system that consumes such sacrifices. It also expresses a certain irritation with the roles for women available in fairy tales. It appeared in
Strange Horizons
in 2006 under the title “Foam on the Water,” since the editors were concerned about the similarity of the original title to
Saturday Night Live’s
“Thing in a Box” skit, which had recently appeared.

In the Lesser Southern Isles

It was one of those Tabatian evenings when the sky is dark, pulsing blue. The shadows swelled and the sunlight, darkening to orange, took on an expectant, waiting look.

Lucy had been admiring new silks down on Thimble Street. One had been the same cobalt as the sky. She’d never get the silk—the youngest of four got second and third-me-downs. But she could dream a blue dress piped with black lace bands as much as she wanted to.

She heard the footsteps behind her as she turned into Stumble Lane but didn’t take much notice.

A few blocks ahead, a lamplighter’s distant golden flicker moved from pole to pole. The shuttered houses here were set close together in precise, two-storied arrays. Only a few lights gleamed, scattered in arched lower windows. To the left loomed the high iron fence surrounding Piskie Wood, caging tree trunks damp with the same rain that slick-misted the cobblestones underfoot. She slowed to look upward, arrested by the contrast of black leaves against the sunset’s last efforts.

The footsteps approached in a rush and two men grabbed her from both sides, each taking an upper arm and rushing her along, continuing her movement down the street. They had no trouble lifting her. Even for a fifteen year old, she was small.

“
Not a word, you, if you know what’s good for yeh,” one growled, his voice husky with tobacco and spirits. He shifted his grip and something sharp prodded her ribs.

“
Hey!” a voice shouted behind them.

“
Egga’s wounds!” the other man said. “Didntcha have a lookout earlier?”

They were running. She half-lurched, half-flew, gasping for breath whenever her feet touched the ground. As they passed a house, curtains twitched aside and a woman looked out. For one horrified moment, their eyes met before Lucy was dragged on. Their pursuer was still running after them, yelling.

“
In here!” She was pulled into an alleyway, pushed into one man’s arms while his partner turned to meet the chaser, raising his arm and the club it held.

She would have paid more attention to his actions if it hadn’t been for her own problems. With expert quickness, the other man thrust a wadded rag into her mouth despite her struggles. He tied it in place before dropping a sack, smelling of burlap and horse manure, over her and hoisting her over his shoulder.

“
Got her.”

“
Yeah, what should I do with this ‘un?”

“
Grab it, Cap’s always wanting more canaries.”

A house alarm’s vigorous clang came from somewhere and a woman shouted, “Guards, guards!”

“
Frith’s fingerlashings! Come on, this way.”

She couldn’t free her arms, bound painfully to her sides, so tightly she could hardly breathe. She jounced on her captor’s bony shoulder, trying to work her jaws free.

The shouting quieted behind them.

She was thrown onto something. Helpless, impotent, she kicked out, colliding with a wooden wall. Straw itch overtook her and she sneezed despite the gag, half-retching as she fought the cloth in her mouth. There was a jolt as something else was thrown in beside her and the world rumbled into action.

The ride was uncomfortable but brief. She could tell they were heading downhill towards the docks. Inside the musty sack, she could see nothing, but when the cart rattled to a stop and she was pulled out, the cold breeze through the burlap confirmed her deduction.

“
Please,” she tried to shout despite the gag but to no avail. Hands grabbed and spun her. She was hoisted again on a shoulder, this time broader and more padded. It stepped forward and she felt the giddy sway underfoot.

A boat, she thought, we’re on a boat.

She strained her ears but the bag’s material muffled sound. There was clumping, and then she was out of the colder air and someplace warmer.

Her legs almost buckled as she was set on her feet and the bag pulled away with a rasp of rough cloth. A knife flashed and the gag fell away. She licked her dry lips and swallowed.

She found herself in a small cabin lit by guttering gilt lanterns set in pairs beside the doorway and reflected in the rounded mirrors on the opposite wall. The plushy carpet’s color was peacock feather brilliant.

Space was at a premium here but every inch had been used. A desktop folded down from the wall on brass chains, its shelf rimmed to prevent objects from rolling off in rough seas and a bookcase had been set into one wall, jammed with worn volumes in motley assemblage beside a map holder whose round holes were filled with paper and parchment rolls. The only excess was the bed, which was wide enough for two and spilled with bead-bright, lozenge-shaped cushions. Like the desk and shelves, it had a railing edging it, presumably to keep the occupants contained during storms.

A carved wooden chair sat in the middle, a man perched on it. He leaned forward to glare at her, arms folded.

“
This,” he said in dubious tones, “is the Pot King’s son, the College of Mages’ prize?”

“
He’s in disguise, we thinks, Cap’n,” one man said. “At the taverns we asked at, they said he likes to disguise hisself.”

Lucy stole a glance over her shoulder. Her captors stood on either side of the door. Movement drew her eye downward: legs in unremarkable gray trousers and worn boots that twitched as though her stare had awakened them lay protruding from another burlap bag.

A cough returned her attention to the man before her.

“
I am Captain Jusef Miryam, of the Emerald Queen,” he said.

He was small in stature, perhaps a shade shorter than Lucy, who was used to having everyone tower over her. His beard and hair were a bristling black, combed and well groomed. His skin was leathery and bronzed and his eyes were a perilous poet’s green. When he flexed his hands impatiently, she noted their well-kept nails and the bright red stone framed in gold on his left hand. His clothes were gaudy although wrinkled and not much washed.

“
Well?”

“
I don’t know why I’m here.”

He frowned. “Let me cut right to the bone, lad. I will not put up with prevarication and the tongue twisting that wizards are known for.” He nodded down at the bundle of burlap and legs. “What’s that then, my fine fellows?”

“
Tried to stop us from nicking her…er, him,” one said. He jerked the sack away and a pale, freckle-faced boy blinked upwards from the floor. “Figgered we always needed canaries.”

There was a knock on the door. “Cap’n, ’at finger-wiggler ya wanted tah speak to is ’ere.”

“
Throw them both in the hold for now,” Captain Miryam said. “Give him a taste of what no cooperation would be like.” He smiled faintly at Lucy. “Not that your present form isn’t charming enough, but you might consider releasing it.”

“
Put them in cold iron chains,” he said to the men. “Keep the candles I gave you burning in there, that’ll keep him woozy enough to cast no spells. Check on them every turn of the glass.”

They were hauled away.

The hold, Lucy found, was deep in the ship’s belly, damp and cold. The timbers creaked and groaned around them and every time a wave slammed into the ship, Lucy felt the blow through the wall to which she had been chained. The older of the two sailors brought out a fat black candle and stooped to set it in a brass holder bolted to the floor. The younger stood staring at Lucy. He was a scrawny, scowling boy, his head shaved to gray-brown fuzz.

The other was old enough to be his grandfather. After setting the wick a-kindle, he took the boy by the shoulder with an admonitory shake and jerked him from the room.

The door slammed behind them and there was a clunk as it was barred. Lucy raised her head to look across at her companion.

He was pale and jug-eared in the flickering candle light, although a thatch of red hair hid part of the mushroom-white flaps set along his head. Freckles splattered across his cheekbones. His eyes were the color of Lucy’s, a watery blue.

In turn, he saw a small, blond girl, dressed in a neatly patched cloak. Her face was narrow and triangular, and her mouth was rosebud prim, though not as pretty as that phrase implies.

“
Well,” he said. “Here we are, I guess.”

“
Who are you?”

“
My name’s Devon.”

“
Lucy.”

“
Pleased to make your acquaintance.” His tone was cordial and she wondered at the power of manners that could somehow provide a script for this dreadful, chaotic situation.

“
What are we doing here?”

“
As far as I can tell,” Devon said. “The pirates thought they were kidnapping someone from the College of Mages and got you instead. I was behind a ways and saw you getting grabbed, so I ran after you and was snatched in turn. I’m here to be a canary, whatever that is. There you have my knowledge’s sum and total.”

“
Why did they think I’m a man, though?”

“
Mages can go about in many disguises,” Devon said. “Some actually change their shapes, while others rely on glamourie, illusion-casting. Lots like to walk around town that way so they’re not spotted as mages. Everyone assumes mages can conjure gold and they jack up the prices like you wouldn’t believe.”

“
How do you know so much about it?”

“
I’m also a student of the College of Mages.”

“
Are you the person they were looking for?”

“
Oh, no,” he said hurriedly. “No, I’m not. But listen, I’m thinking that if they think you’re him, that’s the only thing keeping you from being used as a canary. And while I don’t know what being a canary means, I’m willing to bet that since they have to kidnap people to be them, it’s not a great thing.”

Lucy mulled this over. “You’re probably right.”

“
You can at least find out what they want,” Devon said.

“
What if he asks me to drop the disguise again?”

“
Tell him it was a shape shifting spell that went awry and you were heading back to the College to have a Master Mage remove it. That happens all the time.”

“
It does?”

“
You’d be surprised how often.”

“
I can’t do it,” she said, turning back to the question. “He’ll glare at me and I’ll start crying.”