Kalimpura (Green Universe) (11 page)

A few steps away from the dim light of the grate’s shaft, I squatted down and began my ritual. At least this bit of tunnel was not a flowing sewer. Small blessings were where you found them.

I set out my candles, closed my eyes against the flare of the match, then lit the tapers. Fire Below was generally a very bad idea for several quite sensible reasons, but I needed to do this. I placed the flowers before the candles, scattered a few drops of wine, and put the bottle between them. Finally I pricked my finger—for I was afraid to slit my palm with this god-struck blade, lest it rip my hand all the way through unintended—and bled a few drops with the wine.

Libation, among the oldest ceremonies; candles for honor and prayer; and flowers for the women who were protected by Desire and Her daughters.

“Mother Iron,” I said aloud. “You hear me, I am certain.” Such prayers were never wrong, because an inattentive god would know no different, while one who was present would be pleased by the flattery. “I am leaving this place. Leaving you behind, along with all the others who have touched me, or whom I have touched.” I squeezed a few more drops of blood. “Grant whatever protection is yours for the passage ahead, both to me and those who travel with me. Let Laris and the women of the lazaret serve you as best they can, and watch over them and all women here. And finally, I thank you.”

I added a scattering of tears to the offering, then rose on creaking knees with my balance upset to walk back to the ladder.

Before I mounted the slimed metal rungs, I looked back. One of the candles had gone out already. The other guttered in a gust of hot, metal-scented air that reached me like an oven door had been slammed open.

She was close by, then, my tulpa-turned-goddess. I wished her well against the Saffron Tower should they send more agents after the defeated Iso and Osi, and began to climb. Beneath my feet, a great, muscled hand stripped of its flesh touched the lowest rung, visible in the light from above.

So Skinless had been watching over me as well. And through him, the god Blackblood.

I looked down and said, “Farewell, friend. May you find whatever it is you desire most from your god.”

Once above, Wencilla replaced the grate and we hurried back to the ship before she cast off without us. My babies needed me, and I desperately wanted more time to rest, and a cabin to rest in. Kalimpura was two or three weeks’ voyage distant, depending on weather and the seas. I had no illusions that I would be fully prepared for my return there, no matter how long the voyage took.

At Sea, Neither Lost Nor Forgotten

D
ESPITE MY RESOLVE
to rest, I found myself watching from the stern rail as
Prince Enero
sailed from Copper Downs. Kettle ships were not at the mercy of the winds, but wave and current nonetheless pushed her just like any sailing vessel. Still, she could leave the harbor without either the towing or the careful tacking that our own Stone Coast vessels would require. Or, indeed, Selistani. Neither the people of my birth nor my reluctantly adopted home had the trick of building the great steam kettles ourselves. The few such iron-hearted and iron-hulled ships that were flagged out of ports along the Storm Sea had been bought at great cost from the Sunward cities that held such knowledge close to hand. Even then, their masters still required engineers hired from those lands to operate and maintain the vessels.

Prince Enero
was flagged from the place that built her, a city known as Bas Gronegrim. Though I would someday learn much more of the cities of the Sunward Sea, that meant nothing to me then. Besides which, my mind was at that time still much on Copper Downs receding before me.

As our distance increased beneath a trailing cloud of wheeling gulls, my vantage strengthened. The rising land of the city unfolded before me, until I could see the domes and spires of the Temple Quarter, the walls around the old mine shaft where Chowdry was building Endurance’s temple, and even the site where the burnt shell of the Factor’s house still stood, monument to the long imprisonment of my childhood. I was disappointed that the ruins themselves were too low for me to spot from this distance. My attention traced through the city, my mind following familiar streets and their corresponding—and sometimes conflicting—passages below.

The hills beyond were visible, albeit hazy from the smokes of commerce, industry, and cooking that tens of thousands of people living close together will make. Those slopes were in turn the foothills of the more distant mountains that the Petraeans called the High Hills. Through them I could trace a route to Ilona’s abandoned cottage and the graves where Mistress Danae, my last surviving human teacher from the old days, still slept in her endless dreams of madness. Beyond even those High Hills, the Blue Mountains loomed on the purpling horizon. I had never visited that home of the pardines I was unsure I would ever meet again.

The wind took my tears as fast as my eyes could shed them. I was thankful no one stood close enough to mark my face just then. There was nothing for me to mourn there. Only memories to leave behind: lost years, many deaths, and the birth of my children. I returned to Kalimpura to rescue our missing hostages, but in my heart I intended to stay in Selistan’s great city. The brawling, hot chaos of my own people was my place, even if I would never truly be one of them.

My fellow Selistani saw me as a northern slave, who never talked quite right and never quite understood everything. I knew this from my time in the Temple of the Silver Lily. I also knew that I was loved and respected there. Most important, the ghosts around the Duke and the echoes of his power that never ceased to devil me in Copper Downs could not so easily trouble me across the waters of the Storm Sea in distant Kalimpura. Or at least so I’d hoped at that time.

Eventually the city was a rough blur on the horizon. I could see another kettle ship making from the harbor for the open sea, its plume of smoke serving as a banner to mark its passage. My left arm was growing less numb and more painful, and my breasts ached. I went to see to my children, and rest awhile. The group of us could plot our arrival over the weeks to come. Corinthia Anastasia and Samma wanted rescuing, Surali awaited my vengeance, and surely affairs in the Temple of the Silver Lily cried to be set right.

All that beckoned from some point in the future. That day was for departing.

*   *   *

We called at Lost Port three days later. It was the easternmost of the Stone Coast cities, and marked with great, curious ruins both above and beneath the waves that I longed to explore. Instead, I kept to our cabin and waited out the short time at the wharf there. The captain swiftly put
Prince Enero
out to sea again, for this was a place with no profit in tarrying beyond the time required to discharge and take on cargo.

Once bound south by southwest on the open water, we soon found the Storm Sea living up to its name. We were far enough into the spring for the cold cyclones of winter to leave off, but still towering waves rolled across our course.
Prince Enero
was sufficiently powerful to turn into them, and large enough to ride them without much fear of foundering, but the experience was most unpleasant as a passenger. I could only imagine what would happen to a little vessel like Chowdry’s lost
Chittachai
in such conditions.

I told Ilona and Ponce I wanted to go outside and watch the racing water.

“Are you insane?” he demanded, clutching Federo close. Ponce had struggled down the interior passage from his cabin to ours this morning, after it became clear the stewards would not be setting out a morning meal.

Looking at my leathers to wonder how they would fare in a vigorous saltwater wind, I replied absently, “No, just fascinated.”

“The ocean trying to crawl through our little porthole every few minutes is not enough for you?” Ilona sat braced on her own bunk with Marya in her arms. Her complexion was much paler than normal, and she had to swallow several times before she could speak again. I wanted to comfort her. She continued: “You wish to go swimming in it, too.”

“A rage greater than mine fascinates me. The sea rages like a god itself.”

“Oceanus was a titanic.” Ilona moaned, and I wondered if she needed a bucket instead of comforting. Then she added, “I should think you’ve had your fill of such.”

Reluctantly, I put my leathers away. That mysterious economy of women had not provided sufficient rough weather gear for me to be out in this storm with any hope of protection. And they were right about the safety as well.

I was a mother now. I needed to think of such things. That thought in turn irritated me. “Well, at least I can go find something to eat,” I snapped.

Ilona tried to nod, then stopped, still looking more than a bit green herself. “If you don’t break your neck being tossed about in the hallway.” Her tone sounded as if she might consider that option preferable.

“It’s a passageway, not a hall,” I snarled, ashamed of my frustration, and went out looking for ship’s biscuits at least, or failing that, someone to argue with about their absence from our meager board.

*   *   *

Even after the storm had calmed the next day, the seas ran ragged and strange. I was permitted to go on deck without so much chaffer and watched the water foam purple and brown. These struck me as strange colors.

Twice the purser tried to chase me back to my cabin, but obduracy is a great skill of mine and I simply ignored him.

Finally one of the mates approached. He was tall, lithe, with skin a pleasant nut brown. One of the Sunwarders, I was sure from the lines of his face and the poise with which he carried himself, rather than some dockside hireling from the margins of the Storm Sea.

“Ma’am, passengers will be much safer out of this weather.” His Petraean was curiously accented, and confirmed my estimate of his origins.

I glanced up at the uneasy sky filled with streaming clouds. “I see no rain,” I said, though I knew that to a sailor, the weather meant the state of the sea as much as it signified anything about the air.

“
I
will be much safer if you are out of this weather.” He grinned, and I liked the shine of his teeth. “Should we lose you, I will be buried in reports for a week. Then there will be a captain’s mast to investigate the loss. Then there will be a funeral. Truly, I would be so much better spared all that unnecessary effort and expense.”

“Have you looked to our stern?” I asked him, though we were at the starboard rail of the main deck right now.

“I believe the rudder is still there,” the mate said politely. “Surely someone would have noticed by now had we lost it.”

“We are being followed. A ship set out from Copper Downs an hour or so after we sailed. It called at Lost Port as well. I have seen it twice today.”

The mate shrugged. “You cannot know this was the same vessel. Even if it was, what matter? Everyone who wishes to pass Cape Purna to the south coast of Bhopura or the islands beyond must set this same course we follow to Kalimpura. A following ship does not signify so much in a sea lane such as this.”

“Hmm.” I did not share his confidence, but then, I did not share his expertise, either. Instead, I gave him a slap on the shoulder with my good arm and returned to my cabin to sulk and sew the day’s bell to my silk, and to Marya’s.

Mother Vajpai and Mother Argai had come visiting. Mother Argai was still weak, but the confusion had left her mind to be replaced by a smoldering resentment at what the Quiet Man had done to her. We had not yet discussed her attacker’s fate in any detail, but she knew I had dispatched him.

“The officers do not like me to be outside,” I announced, shaking off the spume I’d accumulated there.

Mother Vajpai glanced pointedly at the deck, which in this moment was rolling through an angle that would make walking difficult. “I cannot imagine why. Or does the management of kettle ships also figure among your many talents?”

“Sadly, it does not.” I lowered myself to my bunk and braced there with my good arm. Once reclining, I managed my position so my bad arm faced the cabin rather than risk being banged against the wall. Or bulkhead. “So if a sudden plague should take the crew, someone besides me shall have to see to our rescue.”

“You
are
a sudden plague,” Ilona said, almost giggling. That warmed my heart. She laughed so rarely that I ignored the lighthearted insult in favor of the obvious humor and smiled at her. And it was good to see her looking less bilious than the day before.

So we passed an hour, in easy banter and a certain amount of twitting, while fussing over the babies, who did not like the ship at all and seemed to be distracted from their misery only by constant attention.

No one really cared to broach the hard subjects yet. Decidedly including me. The voyage was long, and promised to continue rough. Bread, cheese, and meat had been handed out this morning in lieu of either short commons or a full breakfast from the kitchens.

We ate, we chattered, I fed my restive children again, then passed them around to be held and dandled. Finally, it seemed time to introduce more difficult topics. I slipped my remaining short knife from my right sleeve.

“There is something I need to show you,” I told them, though my eyes went to Mother Vajpai.

I could almost hear the several sarcastic replies forming, but they all realized I was serious. “Watch,” I said, reaching to slice a small notch in the oaken post of my bunk.

It was like slicing butter.

Ponce had no idea of the significance of what I’d done, and Ilona appeared puzzled, but both Mother Argai and Mother Vajpai were astonished. Neither bothered to hide their reaction.

I flipped knife across the cabin to Mother Vajpai, timing the toss to the roll of the ship. She was a Blade, and had no trouble catching it. I nodded. Mother Vajpai put my edge to the iron coaming around our cabin’s hatch. A curl of bright metal shaved off.

She handed the weapon to Mother Argai, asking as she did, “What is this?”