Forever Shores (28 page)

‘The tribes weren't affected—'

‘Captain, it's important we maintain our cover. We must get back to the skypainting, safeguard Waso.'

‘Of course.'

I followed him numbly from under the striated hull, out past the mooring stanchion with its iron stairs leading up to the craft's flight-deck. John resumed his disguise of darting glances and fearsome intensity, and we let ourselves be seen to be chatting, gesturing, indicating things, making it seem as if we had been discussing the kite all along and its role in creating this new skypainting.

About us eddies of smoke from the bale-fires plunged and curled, caught up in the blades of the rotors to the south of the town, spiralling out from the great ferris by the Colios carnival on Black Point. For a moment it seemed like a corner of hell where dust-devils and willy-willies were made and set off on their courses, sent to haunt the emptied cities, sink charvolants and ruin lives.

Like Koronai so far away, Colios now seemed an even bleaker thing, a festival remembering a blasted, tragic time.
Bring out your dead!

John Dance had been right. Not just some interesting re-location of corn-doll surrogates and harvest rituals, but a festival recalling the rest of it: wholesale slaughter, the
burning
of the dead. The more things changed …

‘You! You there!'

We turned to see four tribesmen hurrying towards us, clearly more than festival custodians. They wore djellabas, had tribal sersifans and Japano swords. Two carried ritual woomeras for Unseen Spears.

‘Tom, nothing I do should surprise you,' John said, and with a wink, immediately let his scarred face and dark eyes become wild again. This is how he had played Coyote in Dinetah, how he had gained access to Teny.

‘You are Tom Rynosseros,' the leading tribesman said.

‘I am the Blue Captain. Honour it!' I was tired, so tired of this.

‘You are a pirate. An outcast,' the Ab'O said. He had bands of deep orange painted on his dusky cheeks: proclamation of intent. His hands were on his swords.

‘I am on walkabout and I stand for Blue. Who sent you?'

‘What?' the young warrior demanded.

‘Which group? Who is your sponsor?'

‘I am a custodian here, pirate! It is my official task—'

‘You are about to disgrace your totems and your clans,' I said. ‘Mark the Colour and name yourselves.'

I held him with my eyes, not daring to look away to see what John Coyote did, though I heard him muttering and gibbering at my side, playing the gifted sky-struck idiot.

It bought me seconds.

The young man glared, straightened. ‘This one is Aron Jarr Akita.' The others exchanged quick glances with each other and followed suit, naming themselves in the lee of the Gerias Kite as at some embarkation ritual, John Coyote muttering all the while.

‘We are allowed vendetta,' Akita said. ‘We are—'

‘Mark us!' I cried, looking up at imagined listeners, at the tribal scanners and their watch crews who had to be there, the ultimate reason for these men. ‘You see this bearer of the gun of Ajan Bless Barratin, commander of the Exotic ship
Gyges
. I wear the sigil of Auer Rangan Anoki, murdered Clever Man of the Chitalice. I carry the living sword, Sen, once owned by Mati of the Chialis. In their names, too, I claim the lives of these who now dishonour Blue.' And to the waiting warriors: ‘Be ready!'

In unison, a dazzling, practised flourish, they drew their swords and stood waiting for me to draw, but frowning, frowning now because of what I had said.

Instead of drawing, I reached up, moved Anoki's medallion aside, and opened my jacket, then my shirt, revealed the cross-hatch of scars on my chest from where I had fed my sword.

I met their gazes then, saw the confusion and growing dread in their eyes, and imagined their thoughts.
A living sword! What will be left of our lives for the noösphere, for the Dreamtime, for the ongoing? The living swords take everything.

Then, shocking us all, John howled and went rushing off for the wind-farm at the edge of town. It was an act that might have been misunderstood, might have triggered strike, but the warriors held. It gave more time.

‘You want to keep Teny in Dinetah?' I said, ignoring the fighters and looking up at the unseen listeners. ‘Let anything happen to their divine fool and you'll lose it all. Waso will be withdrawn. Teny ends.'

Decisions must have been made in seconds, relayed through implants, because the two young men with the woomeras sheathed their swords, turned and hurried after John, who had now reached the rotors and was cavorting among them, arms outstretched.

I faced the remaining two and drew my sword, did it slowly, purposefully. ‘You are both forfeit. You will feed Sen.'

‘Captain, there has been a mistake,' Akita said. ‘We didn't know—'

‘Of course you did. You would have agreed to it eagerly. Let's begin!'

‘Please, we—'

‘The Chialis do this all the time. Surely they are not braver. It's two against one. Begin!'

‘We have been told not to engage,' Akita said. ‘Ordered not to!'

‘You've drawn.'

‘It's a command. We must obey.'

‘You've drawn. Your leaders know the forfeit.'

‘Why are you so determined?' Akita said, which made me ask it of myself.

Because of old anger, old grief and new. Because of rage and frustration. Because Massen was dead and a young woman had been left inside a triga ring, because of Mira Lari and Anoki and
Rynosseros
so casually slain, because some aerotropts had been murdered at Twilight Beach and, once, at far-off Trale, a hybrid life-experiment had reached out and sent a message, a star to match my Star because it found it there in my mind, possibly even recognised a piece of itself. Because. Because.

‘Because sometimes I, too, believe I can win.'

‘What?' Akita said. ‘I don't follow.'

‘Of course you do, Aron Jarr Akita. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.'

‘I don't understand. You are mad! Both of you! You and that outlander!'

And my sword spoke, simple child words, but chilling to hear. ‘Sometimes I am mad too.'

They were its first words in weeks.

The tribesmen stared, and their blades lifted, as much in terror as anything else.

‘Captain, may I take their place?'

I turned to where the sun was westering beyond the colonnades of black smoke, saw a tall tribal woman in sand-robes, standing with two tribesman at her side.

‘Lady Dusein!' Akita said. ‘We were—'

She stopped him with a gesture. ‘Excuse them, Captain. Let me blood your sword instead. Will you allow it?'

‘No, Lady!' Akita cried, but she ignored him.

‘Captain?'

‘How is this your fight, Lady?' I asked.

‘They are mine.'

‘Truly?' I said.

‘Officially. Yes.'

‘Lady—' Akita began.

‘Akita, enough! Officially, superficially, they serve Gerias.'

‘You are from Lostnest?'

She inclined her head. ‘Yes. Will you let them disengage?'

I felt foolish now, foolish again, reacting, overreacting. But Sen deserved it. This was all it knew. It had spoken. What happened now mattered.

‘Of course.'

She spoke in dialect, hard quick words that sent Akita and his companion rushing off towards the rotors to help secure John Coyote. She spoke again and her two bodyguards turned away as well, began walking back to the town.

Then she stepped closer, moved past me and turned so the sunlight lit her face and body, reached up and opened her sand-robes, opened her chemise, exposed her breasts, high and firm, the nipples erect with fear and emotion, perhaps just the cool wind from the ocean.

‘Do it quickly. I am not very brave.'

I laid Sen along her chest, angled between her breasts ever so lightly. The blood came, just enough, in the straightest, thinnest line on her dusky skin.

I sheathed the blade without wiping it.

‘That was kind,' she said, replacing her garments. ‘I gentled you.'

‘You did, Lady.'

‘You were so angry.'

‘You know me?'

‘The Princes talk. Gerias is not so far away.'

I glanced to the north-east. ‘You make the skypaintings.'

‘Sometimes I take the kite aloft. This was a chance.'

‘They're very fine. I'd like such a chance.'

‘To make a skypainting?'

‘To go aloft.'

‘Where would you go?'

‘Anywhere. Take the Line into the sky.'

‘Captain, I am wearing shielding tech. You can say it.'

‘Then back to my ship. Back to where the other Captains are gathering.'

‘But that's what they want. All the Coloured Captains together. You've been called to the Air.'

‘What!' A deep hard weight settled in my heart.

‘It's true. A group claim. The elevation of Anna was too much.'

‘Then I must keep away so that can't happen. They need us all with our ships to make the claim. I would go back to Cape Bedlam then, so I can—'

‘Tartalen is at Azira. At the life-house there.'

‘You know this?'

‘Gerias is not so far away. I sometimes hear of Tartalen. I know Teny in Dinetah.'

‘What has that—?' I stopped. ‘You know Teny?'

‘Of course. All the old stories of the Dineh. How coyote was struck by lightning. Twice. And new stories of the tribes, now being made. How no Gerias Kite could cross the continent without being struck from the sky. Unless …' She hesitated, looking over at the town.

‘Lady?'

‘Let me show you the town.'

‘Lady, I know the town. I've been here before. Please finish what you were saying.'

‘It will be different this time, I promise. Let me show you.'

It was strange to do, to go walking across the sand towards the chain of bale-fires with this Ab'O noble, towards the crusting of whitewashed buildings beyond the pillars of black smoke. To our left, the wind-farm rotors turned about themselves like great white birds never settling—whoop whoop whoop. Ahead, the black ferris pinwheeled against the golden sky like a stately old clock. On Pudding Hill coloured flags snapped in the wind on their tall poles. The pall of black smoke streamed into the sky above us, tipping over the land to the east, the black hand closing. And all the while the Ab'O townsfolk and Nationals came with their sand-dolls, feeding the fires.

‘We shouldn't go too far,' I said. ‘Especially now.'

‘Here will do. Captain, do you know the old Arabic word moumia?'

‘Moumia? Should I?'

‘It means pitch. The tribal dolls are covered with pitch.'

It was like resuming my conversation with John Coyote from twenty, thirty minutes before. It made me look for him among the rotors, but he was nowhere to be seen. No, there he was!—racing towards the carnival on Black Point, to the great ferris there, still pursued by the four tribal custodians.

‘He's a diversion.'

‘He is. We're building an alibi.'

‘An alibi? And the other Dineh?'

‘Are in on it too. Peripherally. They don't know everything yet.'

‘So, the tribal dolls are covered with pitch. To help them burn.'

Again I waited. Again I let her guide me through this her way.

The Lady Dusein had brought us to within twenty metres of one of the fires. We stood watching as a family of Nationals: a mother, father and their two children, laid a daub, rag and wattle sand-doll on the pyre, obviously soaked with something highly flammable because the doll flared and stood almost erect before falling back into ruin. The family then stood aside to let an Ab'O family approach with their contribution. Two men carried a long black doll between them, did a three-count together and heaved it onto the flames.

Dusein waited until it was done. ‘Did you know that there was a time in Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when finding burial pits was so commonplace that mummies were used to fuel locomotives running along the Nile? Wood and coal were scarce, and pitch had been used in the embalming, so they burned like bundles of dried sticks.'

‘What's this got—?' But I grasped it in an instant. ‘These dolls? These dolls are corpses?'

‘Many of them. Most of them. From the old cryo crypts, Captain. The old failed forever crypts where so many Nationals went to escape the epidemics. The Cold People from when the arcologies were closed or abandoned. The spoiled ones.'

‘I knew there were crypts close by—'

‘At least nine on this section of coast. Seven of them failed decades ago.'

‘Then Colios—?'

‘Like so many renewal celebrations in history. Purging. Dealing with loss.'

‘But there were thousands of people! Hundreds of thousands!'

‘Millions, ultimately,' Dusein said.

We turned away from the fire, began walking back towards the Gerias Kite, not speaking until we were beside the mooring stanchion and the iron steps again.

‘Thank you for revealing this,' I said. ‘You are very brave to do it.'

She gave a fleeting smile, humourless, grim, then cocked her head, listening to a data-feed. ‘They're bringing your friend. Are you serious about taking the Line into the sky?'

‘Tartalen is at Azira, you said.'

‘Would you? Take it aloft? Fly to Azira?'

‘How can I? It's like you began to say. No Gerias Kite could hope to cross the continent.'

‘Unless an abducted consort were aboard.'

I scarcely believed what I was hearing. ‘You would risk it?'

‘I risked your sword. That terrified me.'

‘You knew better.'

‘Hoped. You were very angry, very tired. You cared for your sword.'

I had to smile. ‘Tell me the rest.'