Dreams of the Compass Rose (6 page)

“
But where is Caelqua? And how—” Nadir was speaking foolishly, words just tumbling out of him like droplets of water.

“
Come along, hurry now!” the old woman interrupted, and began walking with quick strong young strides. “We will go to my House, the House of Ris.”

I
nside the old house, there was no gold at all. And the outer walls too had remained gray stone. It was an untouched island amid the golden desolation.

Nadir recognized the strange sensation of immediate intimacy, the feeling of living rushing water. And now he knew whose spirit was within these walls. The same spirit had pulled at him before, had quickened the living waters within him, his very blood, his sweat, his tears—his truth.

Grandmother sat in the old chair that had belonged to Kharaan, and watched Nadir madly gulp down the water from the large wooden cup she had given him, heedless of his manner.

“
You have grown and learned,” said the old woman, smiling.

“
Oh, yes, Grandmother! I have learned abandon! And that water is more precious than gold!” Nadir gasped between swallows. And when he was done drinking, he again rushed forward to bury his face in her old sunken chest, unashamed of his display of emotion.

“
Good.” Grandmother chuckled, hugging him tight.

“
But—what happened here?” he ventured at last. “What odd blight is this? Why are we and this house the only ones unaffected? And what is the source of this new water? For I’ve seen the well of Livais, and it is dry!”

“
This is Ris’s House, and you are hers also. You prayed to her, and her blessing rests on you. As for the water—come with me and I will show you.”

And then Grandmother winked and motioned with her hand. Nadir wordlessly followed.

They came outside once more, covering their faces from the blaze. As he walked, Nadir wondered that he could no longer feel the agony of his scalded back. As though the very water that he’d drunk had healed him of the last day’s injuries.

They walked through Livais, looking about them at the golden statues, at the townspeople frozen in various aspects. At the house of Lord Rigaeh, they paused. The Lord himself stood at the door, frozen to fiery metal, ready to mount a tall pack-beast that was also now a statue. The packs held great filled water flasks that contained water no longer, but shimmering solid metal.

“
Some day, people will return here and marvel at the riches of this place,” Grandmother said. “Eventually it will all be mined and sacked, and there will be no trace of this town, only a memory. The House of Ris alone will stand, a solitary reminder of Golden Livais.”

At the town gates, Grandmother paused. Nadir noticed their old covered wagon unhitched and abandoned. However, not too far away was their pack-beast, loaded with a bag of supplies, standing idly and looking rather well fed and ready to depart this place. Grandmother led the pack-beast out through the gates, and then handed the reins to him.

“
What are you doing, Grandmother?” Nadir asked with a sudden premonition.

“
Seeing you on your way, of course.” The old one smiled, wrinkles crinkling at the corners of her bright young eyes.

“
But what about Caelqua and you? And what of the water?”

In reply, Grandmother took his hands and held them tight in her wrinkled own. And then, still holding, she pulled him, and they walked fifty paces through the sand to the place where they had lain hopeless the night before.

There, in the very spot where Nadir had dug with his bare hands, was a welling of blackness, a rich surfacing of moisture, a large flat spot. Already, a number of snakes and beetles were seen scuttling around.

Grandmother reached into the folds of her robe and pulled forth the same cup from which he had drunk. She bent forward slowly, and dipped the cup in the sand, and it came away full of bright, slightly muddied liquid. When the liquid settled, they saw water, fine and radiant like crystal, flashing like mirrors of persimmon fire in the sun.

“
This is the new well,” said Grandmother. “And
you,
my children, have caused it to be. They, the people of Livais, tried to make water from gold, but only gold comes from gold. And thus Ris gave them the truth of what they asked. You alone brought water to Livais, for you sacrificed your very own water—sweat, tears, and blood—and quenched my own thirst when I was most in need. I drank of you, and now you will always drink of me, and never lack for water. Now, take this cup and be on your way—don’t be afraid, it will be full for you always. . . .”

“
But what about you, Grandmother, how will you remain here all alone?” Nadir whispered, receiving the cup, while water welled in his eyes, because he already knew the answer.

“
I will remain, my beloved, because this is my House. And yet I will always be with you, especially when you dream. Just as you will always be here with me. And this well—
she
is a part of you. . . .”

“
Then you
are
Ris, the Bringer of Truth and Water!” Nadir exclaimed.

But suddenly he felt a pang of a different agony come to him, as his soul broke asunder, and he understood and cried, “This well! Caelqua! Caelqua my sister, what has become of you?”

In answer, the old woman—or
someone else
—who had been his Grandmother for so long, only smiled. Ris the Wise, the Just, the Trickster, leaned forward then, and kissed the boy on the brow. And where her lips had touched he felt a seal of warmth, then coolness, like a breath of a faraway ocean.

He blinked, and Ris was gone like a mirage. All around him stretched only the incandescent desert, while to the back of him stood ajar the bright gates of the town of dead gold.

Leading the pack-beast, the boy breathed through his mouth, through his tears, and without ever again looking back, started to cross the desert.

M
y name is Lero, and I am insane.

No, do not look askance. For I am quite lucid, and can be charming, if the wind blows from the appropriate direction and billows the sails of my ship.

It is my soul, this ship, the
Eye of Sun.
Together we have sailed around the Compass Rose seven times over, and have been to shores where the volcanic sand is scorched to ebony by the sun, and to others where ice gathers among grand fjords, and glassy shards float upon cold waters.

My men have grown accustomed to obeying a woman captain. They no longer favor me with questioning glances, nor do any presume to hesitate upon my orders. Those newly signed on quickly learn the rumors. For rumor has it that it’s wise to fear the look of my eyes.

I am insane, they say, for I dare sail anywhere and everywhere. Truth is, I alone know that my ship cannot sink. It has been thus, a sense within me of its secret invincibility, since the moment I first stepped on deck as a stripling cabin boy who was not at all a boy. . . . This, so long ago. That first moment of profundity, when I felt the solid old cedar wood and the creaking timbers beneath the soles of my feet.

Or maybe that was indeed but my madness speaking from within, this inevitable sense. A link between myself and this floating wooden entity—

It matters no longer, of course, not now.

Gods know, I have stories to tell, so many stories that I am bursting.

I had once taken my ship on a journey beyond all, where dream meets sea, and delivered a woman as mad as myself to the shores of the isle Amarantea, that does not exist—or obviously exists only for the insane. There I waited for her a full day and night, and then she returned to the ship and the
Eye of Sun
carried her home. Her eyes were different when she came back to us, no longer vacant, but full of music, and she looked at me and recognized me for a woman at last. . . .

And once I granted passage on my ship to a haughty Princess with exotic slanted eyes, dressed in precious silk, and accompanied by a silent stately warrior with skin black as night, and loyal eyes warm with wisdom. Theirs was another story altogether. She called him the “lowest of the low.” And he was sworn to protect her, this goddess with a petulant mouth. And no matter her inconsiderate disdain of his being, I have no doubt he delivered her safely to their destination somewhere in the Eastern desert. . . .

And now, this. Another story unfolds around me even now.

I must take this young, impossible, self-important pup to a place where he will become a man. He’s been entrusted to my care by his noble father, in exchange for a mountain of glittering coin, a priceless cargo of fragrant tea and spices, and goods for my men.

What could I do but comply?

After all, insanity draws me.

And sea salt eats away at cedar wood. Thus, the upper deck of the
Eye of Sun
has long been in need of a fresh coat of paint.

V
arian Erae stood outside the cabin, letting the wind billow about him in its fullness, lift him a hairsbreadth above the deck floor—or was it only his disparate spirit?—and carry his essence like a gull above the ocean.

All around, the horizon blurred in vague silver.

So powerful had the forces grown within him, so discordant, clamoring for release, that Varian’s father, Lord Erae, had no choice but to send his son upon this journey. The young man traveled now to a far place South of the great continent, an unknown shore, where the sages could be found to train him in the proper wielding of the storm within.

Ah, he wanted to fly! To let go and soar. . . .

But he must not. It was forbidden to allow even the tiniest outlet to the forces or he would lose control, the wise ones told him, and he would strike down all, including himself.

But Varian knew he could control it already. He used it, this power, in the little things. Like making that weatherbeaten sailor blink yet again unconsciously, as he pulled the ropes. Or letting the wind gently open the creaking door of
her
cabin to a sliver of darkness and twilight, and thus allowing him a glimpse of her silhouette within, as she stood silently over the map spread out on the table, and the compass needle floating in its bowl.

He was fascinated with Captain Lero from the start. The fact that she was a woman was revealed only later to him—and him alone, he thought—the longer he stared from the corner of his eye at the tall androgynous form, trying to fathom its very ambiguity.

She was flat as a board, this woman. Taller than any he’d ever seen, taller than most men. She wore plain cotton, just like the midshipmen, and a sword linked to her cloth belt. Her hands were large and callused, agile-fingered and once-fair, like dispossessed princes. Her hair, pale as cream ashes, was gathered in a tail, and her skin deeply tanned and weathered.

When she had welcomed him onto the ship and discussed the terms with his Lord father, only once had she truly looked at him. Her eyes had been like the haze upon the horizon, of inexplicable hue, and ageless. And they pierced him with the sense of the unknown.

Since then, he had watched her, would watch her always. He was searching, he told himself, for a flicker of her insanity.

Sailors moved about the ship doing their tasks, swung like monkeys from the webwork of roping around the sails and the three masts.

“
You must promise, Captain, to take my son safely across the ocean,” his father had said to her. “Swear that, no matter what, you will place his life before your own, before all else.”

“
I give my word,” she had replied in an earnest voice, watching the great Lord with a steady gaze.

And Lord Erae knew that was all the reassurance he would get. And yet, knowing her reputation, her impossible sense of honor, he could rest easy. His son was in safe hands, and this ship was, they said, unsinkable as magic.

The
Eye of Sun
was a unique hybrid of a galleon and an antique trireme, multi-tiered with complexities of mast and sail, yet punctuated just above water level by rows of closable portholes designed for long mechanical oars that were extended and withdrawn by clockwork, and used exclusively to steer within shallow waters. Upon its main great sail of white canvas was painted a grand golden sun, and within it a dilated human eye—an all-seeing almond with a pupil of azure and lapis blue.

Varian glanced at the great eye, and often vertigo came upon him, a sense of spinning. . . .

They had been many weeks upon the ocean. The wind had remained steady, pulling them along the surface of the waters like a flying lily.

Captain Lero was everywhere, moving silently along with the crew, calling out directions in a loud voice, sometimes steering the ship, sometimes up in the clouds swinging agile upon the high mast. When evening came and the winds stilled, she’d sit in warm camaraderie with the others, and eat the same dry supplies. Often he caught her grins, and the ivory flash of her teeth. Then he’d hear the laughter of the men at her witty casual comments.

Varian, on the other hand, was given a spacious guest cabin, much roomier than the captain’s own, and richly furnished. The meals he ate alone each night were served on fine plates, and his cutlery was silver.

His bed was soft and piled high with silken pillows. And yet he tossed sleepless every night, among the sounds of gentle creaking wood, the splash of waves, the humming air, and the thought of
her
lying so nearby, on a poor hard bunk, her body stilled in sleep, her pale lashes resting against her hollow tanned cheeks. . . .