The Bird of the River (26 page)

She opened her eyes and looked up at the painted wall, where the Father Smith was depicted as he most commonly appeared: in the long coat and wide hat of an itinerant blacksmith, a looming figure the color of a storm cloud, features indistinct except for the eyes. The eyes were set with glass and had a light behind them, and the forge in front of the Father's figure was a real forge, an anvil beside a dish of coals glowing dim under a gray fur of ash, with a dish of blessing tokens next to it. As Eliss watched, a priest shuffled into the chapel and leaned down to blow on the coals. They flared bright a moment, underlighting his face. He stood patiently by the forge until Krelan and Eliss got to their feet. They went to him and bowed their heads for his blessing.

"The gift of iron," he said, touching an iron token to the coals and presenting it to Eliss. "The gift of iron," he repeated, giving a token to Krelan.

"We thank you for iron," they chorused, and went out. As they crossed together under the great dome, Eliss saw a new chapel going in at one side. The painter was climbing down from his scaffold. Looking past him Eliss could see on the wall the unfinished image of a Yendri woman, draped in white but with one breast bare, standing among white lilies. Krelan, curious, ducked his head to look in.

"The Green Witch," he whispered. "In our pantheon, now. Talk about changing times!"

AS THEY EMERGED FROM THE TEMPLE, Eliss saw the street vendors' carts lined up along the lane in front of the market quarter. She could smell grilling sausages and spiced dumplings. Her mouth watered as she remembered all the times in her childhood in which she had been dragged hurriedly past carts like these, because there was no money to buy anything. Gleefully she realized she had money
now
.

She touched Krelan's arm. "Let's not go to a restaurant. Let's eat from the carts. Doesn't that smell good?"

"If you like," said Krelan in surprise. They wandered along the carts a long while, sampling the sausages grilled with onions and peppers, the little dumplings filled with minced meat and spices, the freshwater prawns fried in batter. Everything was delicious. Krelan stuck a couple of shrimp tails on his fingertips and did a bizarre little dance for her with his fingers, making Eliss laugh until she had to wipe away tears. Full and happy, they walked back down the hill to the harbor arm in arm.

"Whoops," said Krelan, as he spotted the
Bird of the River.
"I was supposed to buy a keg of whiskey."

"There's a shop." Eliss pointed.

"The very thing."

A few moments later they resumed their walk, with Krelan carrying the keg of whiskey on his shoulder. As they came to the gangplank, so did Mr. Riveter, accompanied by a city official. Mr. Riveter's eyes widened as he saw them.

"Excuse me, your honor," he said, bowing to the official, and darted close and grabbed Krelan's arm. "You're only bringing his whiskey
now?
Get it in to him, quick!" he muttered.

"Aye, sir." Krelan hurried aboard after them. Eliss followed, noticing that such of the crew as was on deck had retreated to the far larboard side and were gazing toward the companionway with worried expressions. Mr. Riveter led the official to the
Fire-Swift,
and Krelan and Eliss went down the companionway with the keg.

Eliss felt an impact within her ears the moment her foot touched the deck, pressure like a silent explosion. The air was hot and dense, breathless. The captain's door was visibly vibrating, rattling on its hinges as they watched. Something very big, somewhere, was growling.

Krelan's eyes were perfectly round. He cleared his throat and tapped on the door. "Captain Glass, sir?"

Something struck the other side of the door, hard. Something spoke in a thick roar.
"WHERSSSS IT?"

"Er. I've brought your drink, sir."

Now Eliss could hear breathing like a bellows laboring. When the voice spoke again it was a little clearer, though its fury was still palpable.

"LEAVE IT AND GO! NOW!"

"Aye, sir!" Krelan set the keg down in front of the door and turned. Together he and Eliss ran up the companionway. Looking back, she saw the door open and something greenish--not a tentacle, surely! Surely only a hand looking strange in the funny twilight!--snaking out to pull the keg inside. Mr. Riveter, wringing his hands as the official walked around the
Fire-Swift
making notes on a tablet, glanced over at Eliss and Krelan as they emerged on deck and wiped sweat from his brow.

THEIR SALVAGE CLAIM WAS ACCEPTED, after the official climbed into the wreck and went through all the
Fire-Swift's
lockers. He gave Mr. Riveter a receipt, told him he'd file the notification, and had the wreck removed with a crane to one of the warehouses on the waterfront.

"What happens now?" Krelan asked, watching the dark bulk of the wreck swinging in its cables against the sunset light.

"They store it for us," said Eliss, leaning on the rail beside him. "If it works the same way it works with sea wrecks, they notify the registered owners and ask them if they want to buy it back from us. Either they do or they tell us we can keep it. Either way, we get some money."

"Distasteful." Krelan turned away.

"Would you rather we held a funeral for it? Dress it up nice, hire an orator to say This was a fine boat, and pleased the gods'?"

Krelan smiled. They were both a little uneasy, though, as they walked past the companionway. It was quiet down there now.

THEY BEGAN TAKING THEIR MEALS together even when there wasn't anything to discuss, sitting companionably side by side of an evening as they ate rice and peas or noodles or stew. Mr. Pitspike only prepared about four different dishes for the general crew, and they made a running joke of coming up with fancy names for them, a new one each time the same dish came round in its monotonous cycle.

"Ah! And tonight it's ..." Krelan inhaled the steam rising from his bowl of little rubbery dumplings in broth. "Hmmm. Semolina Delights in the Saleshian Style, with a dense sauce of Imitation Sea-Dragon."

"How do you make Imitation Sea-Dragon sauce?" Eliss wanted to know.

"Duck broth with extra salt and a fish head thrown in and a lot of chopped parsley to make it green." Krelan slurped the broth. "Mmm. Wouldn't hurt to add some wine."

Eliss found herself admiring the way his slender fingers cupped the bowl. She looked aside and tilted her own bowl to drink.
You just miss having someone to take care of,
she told herself.
You're not really falling in love. You looked after Alder and Mama all those years, and Krelan looks so pathetic sometimes you want to take care of him too, and you can't get used to being alone, that's all.
But she liked the way he sat with her as they shared their meals, not too close, not too far away.

"Can I eat with you?" They looked up and saw Wolkin, glowering as he clutched his bowl.

"Have a seat, hero." Krelan patted the deck. Wolkin folded up in a sitting position beside them, his lower lip still stuck out.

"What happened?" asked Eliss.

"Nothing. Except I was just playing a little with this monster I made with a piece of Mama's bread and I just pretended it was climbing on Tulu and she yelled and hit me so I hit her back. But she hit me first. But Daddy made me eat someplace else anyway."

"Can't hit girls, hero." Krelan shook his head.

"But she hit me first."

"But you're stronger than she is. Aren't you?"

"Not when we were babies," said Wolkin. "She used to be bigger than me. Then I got bigger."

"My point exactly. Now you're bigger, and you'll stay that way. Heroes don't hit their sisters, even if their sisters hit them first. And the same for any other girls."

Tell that to Uncle Steelplate
, Eliss thought bitterly,
except that Mama never hit him at all.
Then she chided herself, wondering why she was still thinking about Uncle Steelplate after all these years. "What exactly did the monster do when it was climbing on Tulu, Wolkin?"

"It bit her." Wolkin looked sheepish. "Then it jumped in her bowl and splashed her."

"Would you have liked it if somebody had done that to you?"

"I guess not."

"There you are, then."

"So, hero ..." Krelan looked sidelong at Wolkin. "Why doesn't Captain Glass ever go ashore when we put in at a town?"

"Because he gets drunk." Wolkin picked out a dumpling, ate it, and licked his fingers. His eyes widened. "Oh! And you went and forgot to bring his booze the other night, and he got mad! And everybody could hear him snarling in there, and there was green stuff coming through the walls!"

"There was
what?"

"It's like ..." Wolkin waved his hand and ate another dumpling. "See, he's been a river captain for so long, he's got river water in his blood? And drinks a lot of Yendri brandy too. And maybe the river water in his blood makes river-weeds in there. And when he has to go without his booze for too long, maybe all the ... the green stuff sweats out of his blood. I was sick once and sweated yellow stuff. It was sort of yellow anyhow."

"There was green stuff coming through the walls?"

Wolkin nodded. He slurped his soup and picked out another dumpling with his fingers. "Where's your spoon?" Eliss asked him, but he just shrugged. Krelan set his bowl down and leaned forward.

"Why does the captain get drunk when we put in at a town?"

"Well, there's a lot of stories," said Wolkin thoughtfully. "Like he was in love with this girl, and they had a baby, only she left him? So he made a vow never to set foot on land again until someday when she comes back to him? Or, like, she died and he swore never to set foot on land because she died on land? But some people say he's under this curse. That if he ever sets foot on shore again, because he's doomed to sail the river forever until he, I forget what, something happens, anyway if he ever sets foot on shore he'll turn to dust. Because he's hundreds and hundreds of years old really."

"Really?"

"Well, he's really old. I heard my daddy tell Mama that he was sailing the
Bird
when he was a boy, my daddy I mean. Was a boy. And Captain Glass was on the river even back then. And he
never looks a day older."
Krelan lowered his voice dramatically. "And
some
people say he offended the holy gods and--oh, wait, that's why he's doomed to sail the river forever."

"Doesn't explain why green stuff came through the walls," said

Krelan, raising one eyebrow. Wolkin made a noncommittal noise as he stuffed dumplings in his mouth.

"Maybe he's just a demon," said Eliss. "They shift shape sometimes."

"And it would certainly explain the drinking."

"Demons drink booze all the time," agreed Wolkin through a full mouth. "My daddy was saying to somebody about the bandits, the Shellback ones, that every place they've attacked, it's always their demons who get killed? And that's because they go straight for the booze or, erm, other things and don't pay enough attention to fighting. And that's why there's so many demon heads on the walls."

"That's undoubtedly true." Krelan rubbed his chin. "But I think that means Captain Glass can't possibly be a demon, then, can he? He'd be drunk
all the time.
A demon wouldn't be able to pay attention to anything long enough to be a ship's captain."

"They aren't all like that," said Eliss. "We lived in a town for a while where there was a sorcerer who had a demon servant. It lived in his house and even wore some clothes. It loved numbers. Maths problems, you know? It kept all the accounts for all the shopkeepers in town. It calculated the Duke's portion taxes at the end of the year too."

"I've heard some of them are like that," Krelan said. "They get obsessed with things."

"It could talk too. Sometimes people would call it a Yendri and it would get mad.
He
would get mad. It was a man demon. He said anyone who was too stupid to know the difference between him and the Yendri deserved to be eaten." Eliss shook her head, remembering the demon. His skin had been yellow as flowers, and his eyes like a pair of faceted emeralds.

"What happened to him?" asked Wolkin, fascinated.

"Nothing happened. He just lived there, and made more money for the sorcerer keeping people's accounts than the sorcerer made selling protections and things."

"And there's the Master of the Mountain, who has a whole demon army that does what he tells it," said Krelan. "So I suppose it's not beyond credibility that our captain is a demon."

"But not the kind who eats children," said Wolkin, looking from Eliss's face to Krelan's to see if they were joking. "Right?"

"Obviously not," said Krelan. "Have any kids ever gone missing on the
Bird?"

"No."

"There you are, then."

Wolkin gave a sigh of relief. Eliss thought:
Most other men would have told him some made-up story to scare him, because they'd have thought it was funny to frighten a little boy. But not Krelan ...

GILDER'S LANDING, Bisonder, Trastarine: the
Bird of the River
crept up on each one, passed its docks or stone wharves with glacial slowness, and finally left it in her wake. At each little town, Eliss went with Krelan to show Lord Encilian's picture at the better shops, at the better inns, discreetly asking questions. Everywhere they went, people were worried about Shellback's band of thieves, or about river pirates, and Gilder's Landing even had masons hard at work building extensions to the city walls and new fortifications on the waterfront. Consequently it was a little hard to pull their attentions to the question of whether or not a handsome young lord and his servant had passed that way, all those months back.

But Krelan was patient, and Eliss was good at finding the right people to ask. So they learned that at Gilder's Landing Encilian had still been alive, because he had ordered the best meal the tavern keeper had, thrown it across the room after tasting it, and laughed when the tavern keeper had presented the bill. They learned he had still been alive at Bisonder, because he had tried to buy a gold chain in the marketplace, but Bisonder was a poor town and had no such merchandise to offer him, -- so he had left in disgust. They learned that people remembered him at Trastarine because he had taken the Patron's mooring slip, and refused to apologize or move his boat. Later he had gone to view the Patron's fossil excavations, and had been heard to declare, and loudly, that it was a wretched place that had no entertainment to offer but a lot of rockbound curiosities.