Carousel Seas (22 page)
Authors: Sharon Lee
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Contemporary, #Dark Fantasy
She stilled, then, her words floating on the deep waters; her words
truly spoken
.
He must have known the truth as she said it; the waters would hold no such secret from him. It seemed to her that the waters were—only a little—less frigid. She dared to meet his eyes; he did not speak.
“Please, forgive me,” she whispered. “Nerazi said that you would not. But I must ask, for it was an error made by ignorance and overzealousness. I did not know that the sea would care so much, when she had
you
—”
“They were firstborn,” he interrupted, his voice harsh. “The sea is diminished—the sea
is damaged
—by their passing.”
Horror shook her. She had expected that the sea would grieve her loss; the goblins were her children, after all, and
this
sea loved her children. But to have visited actual harm upon the waters—that she would no sooner do than she would harm the Borgan. She loved the gentle, sweet sea; despite ingesting the goblin’s enmity, she loved the Borgan. Almost, she pledged herself, then and there, but it would not do. Her unplanned cry had softened him, a little, and an avowal of her regard would surely soften him more. It was her pride, that she held back from that. She would not approach him while she was yet diminished; an object of pity, whose vulnerability excited his instinct to protect.
No. She would have far more from him than pity and protection.
And so she bent in obeisance, her hair surrounding her in a black nimbus.
“Forgive me,” she whispered. “Oh, please, forgive me. I would never knowingly harm this sea, which has been so generous with me. Tell me what I must do to rectify my error.”
Silence met this. The waters warmed no further, but they did not cool. From so little, then, she took courage. Truly, she had no hope of eluding the strike, or surviving it, should the Borgan decide her transgression deserved death. It was a piquant feeling, to know that she might die here. She had died, once, or the girl she had been died, wading into those bitter, storm-lashed seas to calm them, and bring her brothers safely home.
She remembered her death. It had been painful, and she had been frightened, even above the joy of having rescued her beloveds. Terrible, the gasping, and the slow strangulation, as the sea filled her lungs, her belly, her veins—and made her his own.
It was possible that something of that terror made its way through the waters to the Borgan, and it came to her that his black eyes glittered, not with rage, but with pain.
If the goblins’ deaths had wounded the sea, then the Borgan was likewise wounded. And that understanding might be the sum of her punishment, for it near cracked her heart, that he should suffer for the deaths of those who had hated him so cordially, and daily worked for his ruin.
“There’s no mending it,” he said now, “so we’ll endure it. In the meanwhile, you’ll finish out the days we gave you right here. I’ll ask you not to do me any more favors.”
“No, of course not,” she whispered, but the Borgan was already gone.
It was not until she moved to exit the still, potent pool he had brought her to . . . that she realized she was trapped.
Breccia the cat didn’t like Cael the Wolf.
Despite my insistence that he was a friend, she hissed, blew her ridiculous tail up to three times its normal size, arched her back, and in general enacted the super-economy-sized edition of the Cat Is Pissed Off.
“All right, here’s what,” I finally said, kneeling between her and Cael. “He’s staying, for at least tonight. He’ll be sleeping on the couch. If you don’t like it, go upstairs and sleep on the bed. Out of sight, out of mind, am I right?”
It would appear that I was right, because, after issuing one more, don’t-you-try-anything-fast-buddy hiss in Cael’s general direction, she stomped down the hall toward the stairs.
“I have distressed the lady,” Cael said.
“Nothing fatal,” I said. “She’s new here, herself, and she’s an overachiever. You hungry?”
“My lady, I am not. I am very tired. The last . . . days have not been easy, and the lack of an oath to sustain me was . . . exhausting.”
“All right, then, let’s get your bed cleared off.” I headed—again—for the couch. “I’ll just put these books somewhere else . . .”
“That is not necessary,” he said, taking the cat’s blanket up from the corner, and shaking it out. If he found the elephants in the least unsettling, he didn’t let on.
“I will sleep there,” he said pointing to a spot on the floor between the coffee table and the French doors.
“If that’ll be comfortable enough for you, go for it,” I told him. “You want a pillow?”
“No, my lady; truly, I have everything that I need or want.”
Anybody would have supposed that to have been not one-hundred-percent true, but the feedback I got from the land was of a tired, but honorable, man speaking a truth he had never thought to speak again.
“All right then; I’ll say good night. Tomorrow, we’ll have to talk.”
“Yes, my lady. May your dreams be soft and sweet.”
“And yours,” I answered and left him to it.
Breccia was in the middle of the bed in classic chicken pose when I arrived in the bedroom. She glared at me, and then looked, pointedly, away.
“He actually seems to be a pretty nice guy,” I told her, sitting down on the edge of the bed and bending over to untie my sneakers. “And he’s not a replacement for Borgan, if that’s what’s on your mind.” I dropped one sneaker on the floor and gave a sharp laugh.
“Good God, one boyfriend’s all the tightrope walking I can handle! Not to say that I’m handling it all that—”
My cell phone gave tongue. I fished it out of my pocket, saw Borgan’s number, and a knot that I hadn’t known was tied tight in the middle of my chest suddenly loosened.
“Hey,” I said into the phone, trying to sound cheerful, if not perky.
“Are you all right?” His voice was strained, and the knot in my chest tightened again.
“I’m all right, but—”
“I thought I heard the Gate open, but sea business had me, and—”
“I know; it’s okay. You had an emergency; you didn’t walk out on me. But it wasn’t the Gate opening.”
“What was it, then?” Still too short and too terse. I bit my lip, wondering if he was going to find the truth soothing.
Well, I wasn’t going to lie to the man, not when he’d heard the arrival, plain as plain.
“One of the Wise paid a call,” I said, keeping my voice as even as possible. “She was annoyed that the Gate was opened to let Gran bring my mother home, those weeks ago, and we’re currently under threat of being cut off from the other Five Worlds, if one more funny thing happens here that disturbs the Wise’s peace.”
Silence.
“I figure we’ve got ’til Labor Day before the Varothi’s little bon voyage party catches their attention. How was
your
evening?”
He sighed, deeply.
“Turns out the lady the sea gave asylum to the other day figured she owed me.” A heavy pause, and another sigh, this one sounding . . . pained.
“She killed the
ronstibles
.”
I opened my mouth—and closed it again, fast, before anything like
Yay!
escaped it.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
There was another longish pause—and getting worrisomely longer.
“Borgan?”
“Sorry. I’m—I took a hit, there,” he said slowly, and then, more quickly, “nothing that won’t heal. But I’m—Finn’s fishing for me tomorrow. What say I come find you when I wake up. We can get a cup of coffee and list out all the ways we’re doomed. Make up an odds sheet and post it in Bob’s.”
I grinned, worriedly.
“Sounds great,” I said, and made a conscious decision not to mention Cael. Time for that tomorrow.
“You get some sleep. And if there
is
anything I can do . . .”
“Just—stay safe, Kate. I—I’ll see you tomorrow. ’Bye.”
“’Bye,” I answered, but he’d already hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MONDAY, JULY 10
HIGH TIDE 11:13
A.M.
EDT
SUNRISE, 5:10
A.M.
“My lady, you should not cook for me,” Cael the Wolf objected.
I glanced at him over my shoulder. He’d made use of the shower, and re-dressed in his red-and-gold garments. It seemed to me that those were somewhat less grubby than they had been last night, but they still weren’t anything like beachwear. Have to do something about that. Later.
For now, there was breakfast to get ready, and talking to do.
“You want to cook?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes, apparently considering the question.
“I am not familiar with the process, but I can learn, if my lady has no others to serve her.”
Right. I was supposed to have servants to do menial things, so my brain and my powers could be freed to do important work. Like protecting the House and preserving the lives of all my oath-sworn.
“The customs here are different,” I said, turning the burner on under the frying pan, and glancing at the clock. Eight-thirty.
“For instance,” I said to Cael, “I’m not royalty, here. I guard the land, and keep it safe, and assist the
trenvay
.”
“Felsic obeyed your word,” he pointed out, coming into the kitchen on bare feet.
“Felsic obeyed my word because it suited Felsic to help me out,” I said, cracking eggs into the mixing bowl. “She’s not bound to do what I say.”
“Is that so, my lady? I saw deference, and loyalty, there. Power, too, but bound to your own.”
Fork in one hand, bowl in the other, I blinked.
“You saw that?”
“My lady, I did. It is plain that you do not . . . require the level of fealty your grandfather felt necessary to secure the House.”
“It’s more of a co-op than a monarchy,” I agreed, and remembered to use the fork to whip the eggs.
“Cutlery is in the drawer to the left of the sink,” I said over my shoulder, as I poured the eggs into the pan. “Coffee mugs are in the cabinet over the coffeemaker. The coffeemaker is the thing the pot filled with dark liquid sits in—it’s all hot, so be careful. Plates are up with the mugs, and it’d be a big help if you brought two over here, please.”
He moved silently, which wasn’t particularly creepy since the land was doing a good job of providing eyes in the back of my head. I watched him pull two mugs out of the cabinet and place them carefully beside the coffeemaker before going back to slide two plates out of the stack, and carry them to my side.
“On the counter, please,” I said, scrambling for all I was worth. “You like scrambled eggs?”
“My lady, I hope soon to discover that.”
Fair enough.
“You’d better start in with calling me Kate—everybody does. Well. If you hear my grandmother call me Kaederon, you’d best get out of town, because that means she’s hot and ready to blow.”
“I will remember. Will I meet your grandmother soon?”
“Funny; a lot of people have been asking that, lately.” I turned the heat off under the pan. “Including me.”
I divided the eggs and gave him the plates to ferry over to the table.
“Cream in your coffee?” I asked.
“I will have it as you have it,” was the reply—and that wasn’t too bad for a dog-boy. No. A master of hounds.
I thought about that as I poured cream and coffee. Grandfather Aeronymous had kept hounds, of course; a man of his station was required to keep hounds, so that he could mount a hunt for the entertainment of visitors, if nothing else. What he hadn’t kept, in my lifetime, was a master of hounds. A dog-boy had lived in the kennels to care for the dogs; he slept with them, fed them, exercised them, and trained them. What other duties might fall to a master of hounds, I had no idea, though it was obvious, from Cael the Wolf’s demeanor and pattern of speech, that he’d held a court position.
Well, something else to talk about. At this rate, we weren’t going to run out of topics anytime soon.
“Here you go,” I said, bringing the mugs to the table. “Sit, and eat your breakfast.”
“My liege is seated first,” he said. A glance up into his face showed it stern. A blink Sideways showed a man in distress, seeking to hold strangeness at bay with the proper application of manners.
I sat down and put my napkin on my knee.
“Sit, Cael the Wolf,” I said, trying to sound gentle but firm. “The food’s better when it’s hot, and I have questions to put, over the meal.”
He still didn’t like it, but he could scarcely refuse an order from his lady. Which gave him another sort of relief—no matter how strange, he was among civilized folk, if the High still gave orders to those who sat Lower.
“Eat,” I said again, and picked up my fork to address my eggs, so he could see the way of it.
He watched for a moment, then copied me—I should say that the utensils in the Land of the Flowers are roughly analogous to
knife, spoon, fork
, but that there are a lot more of them, and very specific rules about which to use on what. Including the big, sharp knife athwart the top of the main tray at each place at every meal, which was technically
not
for stabbing the person next to you when they got too annoying to bear, but which, so history taught, had from time to time been pressed into such service.
“I like scrambled eggs,” Cael said eventually. “And I like coffee. Thank you, my . . . Kate.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, putting my plate aside. “More coffee?”
“Please, I will serve you.”
“Thank you.”
He took the mugs away and quickly brought them back, filled to their brims with coffee and cream. Mine was settled first, then his, before he sat down, put his plate to one side, as I had done, and leaned back, gingerly, into the chair.
I nodded.
“I need to know why you were bound into the carousel as a high-security prisoner,” I said, watching his face, and bidding the land pay attention and judge the truthfulness of the answers I got.
“I was bound because my lord so decreed.”
I frowned. “
Aeronymous
had you bound?”
Grandfather might’ve been a bastard, but binding prisoners into the carousel was strictly within the honor of the Wise.
“No, my lady. The Wise bound me.”
Okay, I had it now; we were going to play chess.
“For what crime were you bound?” I asked, letting him see that I was being patient.
He raised his hands, showing me empty palms.
“There had been complaint; a scheme to create imbalance between the Worlds had been discovered. The Wise came to Lord Aeronymous and laid claim that one of the saboteurs resided within his court. He protested, but as you are aware, my lady, there is no appeal from the Word of the Wise. Therefore, I was given over to them, and brought to this place to be bound.”
He paused, then added, softly, “Before I was bound, the warden—who I heard last night was your grandmother—the warden created a diversion, and bought me time to flee.”
He shook his head, his face shuttering like a camera, and picked up his mug.
I drank some coffee, too, and waited until he’d put his mug down to ask the next question.
“What happened?”
“I chose the wrong direction in which to run. It went worse with me, then, and in the end, there was the binding, after all.”
“
Were
you trying to sabotage the dance of the Worlds?” I asked softly.
“No!”
And
that
was the truth, said so vehemently that my head rang.
“I think, now, and in the days since I have been given my liberty . . . I think that it was done to make my lord Aeronymous vulnerable. So much of his power was woven into his people—into our oaths. It was in defense of the House, and we all of the House, but . . .”
The front door opened, sweet and silent, and Gran stepped through, Mr. Ignat’ right behind.
“Good morning, Kate,” she said crisply, glancing at the book-cluttered couch and the blue blanket of flying elephants folded neatly on the end—Cael’s doing, not mine—and then at Cael himself.
He rose with alacrity, and bowed low. Gran’s eyebrows rose.
“Introduce me to your friend,” she said.
“Gran, this is Cael the Wolf, liegeman of Aeronymous, once master of hounds.”
She nodded, face calm, eyes narrowed.
“Cael, this is my grandmother, Ebony Pepperidge, of whom we were just speaking.”
“Lady, my thanks, long behind, for producing a moment when I might have saved myself.”
“No thanks required, Cael the Wolf. It was a slim chance—what we call here ‘a long shot.’ That you saw it and took it—that was brave. It has long grieved me, what came after.”
She moved a hand and Mr. Ignat’ came forward to stand at her side. He was smiling gently, and looking at Cael as if he was a particularly toothsome sweet.
“I make known to you, Cael the Wolf, my consort, the Ozali Belignatious, out of Sempeki. Bel, I’m sure you’ll want a word with a countryman while Kate and I have a chat.”
A chat, was it? Dammit, the woman was hardly out of her tree and already I was in hot water!
“It will be a pleasure to speak with Cael,” Mr. Ignat’ said promptly. His smile grew wider. “Have you seen the view over the sands to the ocean?” he asked. “You really must.” He raised his hand, beckoning.
Cael cast me a questioning look; I nodded and he allowed Mr. Ignat’ to lead him across the living room and out onto the summer parlor.
I took a breath and stood.
“Hi, Gran; it’s good to see you. People have been asking after you.”
Her time inside her tree had healed her, I saw. She had been observably frail when she had decided to take the cure. Now, she stood straight, her eye was firm, and her voice strong. There were changes, though. The band of white at the front of her dark hair remained, and she seemed to . . . fill up less of the room than formerly.
“You’ll have to tell me who,” Gran said, “so that I may pay my social dues. Is there any more coffee?”
“Coming right up.”
I rose, cleared the table, except for my coffee, and put the dishes in the sink, before opening the cabinet for a clean mug.
Gran drank her coffee black, straight from the pot. I poured it and brought it, putting it down on the table by her hand before resuming my own seat.
“Sorry ’bout the noise last night,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. It was tepid, but I didn’t get up to warm the cup.
“I imagine so. One of the Wise, I assume?”
“Isiborg, I guess her name is. You want the long form or the short form?”
“The short form will do.”
So I gave her the big outline while she sipped her coffee and watched my face, and didn’t interrupt.
“We have a few weeks until the next atrocity reaches their attention,” I said, “but that one’s a doozy.”
“So I heard from Bel. I’m sorry for those who died in Prince Aesgyr’s attempt. Is Cael the only one who remained?”
“No, Borgan’s got a woman of Cheobaug guesting in Saco Bay. He gave her twenty days to build her strength because, so she says, there are enemies at home.”
“I expect that there are. It was generous of Borgan to grant her time. And of you, to give Cael shelter. When will he be returning to Sempeki?”
“He did return, but he found things, as he told me the story,
changed
—the House broken, the Gate useless, the grounds deserted except for a gardener and a guard. You were there; does that jibe with what you found?”
Gran nodded.
“Right. Conditions being what they were, then, he came back here because he needed to swear to Aeronymous or die, and he didn’t feel quite like dying.”
Gran looked at me over the rim of her mug.
“You took his oath.”
“I appear to be the closest thing to Aeronymous left. Yes, I took his oath.”
I waited to be told that I’d made a very bad, or at least desperately foolish, decision, but Gran only finished with her coffee and put the mug down.
“Henry,” I said, changing the subject by main force, “was particularly asking after you.” I paused, then decided not to tell her he was getting old. Gran has outlived generations of humanfolk; she’s well aware that they get old, and, eventually, die.
She nodded. “I’ll try to see him today.”
“Nerazi also has an interest.”
Gran half-smiled.
“I’ll have some explaining to do there, I don’t doubt.”
That was . . . interesting. I’d never actually seen Gran give an account of her actions or defend her reasons to anybody. Of course, if there was anybody on the Beach who came close to deserving such an accommodation, aside from Mr. Ignat’, it was Nerazi. Her and Gran go ’way, ’way back.
“You know Mother and Andy—” I began.
“Yes,” she said briefly.
Okay, then. I picked up my mug of what would now be stone-cold coffee, and put it back down, without sipping.
“Point of information,” I said.
“Yes?”
“When will you be moving back?” I waved my hand at the mess in the living room. “I ought to clean up at least. Also—I have a cat.”
“Do you? What’s her name?”
“Breccia. She’s only been here a couple days. One of the Dummy Cats; comes with Old Mister’s personal recommendation.”
“You can hardly do better than that,” Gran said. “How is Frenchy? I haven’t seen her in . . . a very long time.”