The Floating Islands (5 page)

Her cousin sat up, laying the book aside. His eyes searched her face … not sure she was really interested, Araenè thought, not confident of kindness from her. Wondering, probably, whether she was trying to purchase his silence with a show of sympathy. She blushed again, ashamed he might think so.

But Trei must have decided she was sincere, because he got up and went to her desk. There was a large book she didn’t recognize lying there, an expensive one, with gold letters on its dark leather binding. Trei took several loose pages from this book—oh, not pages from the actual book, Araenè saw, but sheets of heavy, cream-colored paper, expensive paper, too costly to be used even in a nice book like that one.

Her cousin held these for a moment, looking down at them, facing away from Araenè—she thought he was trying to make sure he’d be composed when he turned around, and didn’t say a word to hurry him.

Coming back to the bed at last, Trei carefully laid one of these papers down on the bedspread so that Araenè could see it. The paper wavered a little as he put it down, but Trei’s expression was calm. The calm broke a little when he said, “This was Marrè.”

The drawing, a deceptively simple ink sketch, showed the upper body and face of a girl, not quite a woman, in quarter profile. The girl was elegant, serene, dignified; her hair was up on the side of her head in a young woman’s figure-eight braid. Her hand rested gracefully on a delicate little table before her; a sheet of paper and a quill lay on the table next to her hand, and you could just see that the paper held the very sketch at which you were actually looking.

But that was not the only echo contained within the sketch: it also showed a mirror that stood beside the girl. In this mirror, you could see her reflected, this time in three-quarters profile. In the mirror, you could see that strands of hair had come loose from the braid to curl around her ear and down the back of her neck. Somehow, there was a different look in her eye in the mirror. Though her expression in the mirror seemed at first glance the same, this angle of view did not give an impression of serenity. In the mirror, there was a hint of mischief in the girl’s eye, a wryness to her mouth, which suggested that her hair would never really be perfect—even that a casual imperfection was something she enjoyed and wanted you to enjoy. That she might be ready to step into womanhood, but not into any staid, demure womanhood. You could imagine this girl dressing up in boys’ clothing and climbing out of windows: it was almost hard to imagine that she never had.

Araenè looked up, shaking her head. “Your sister drew this? This was her? This is amazing—”

Trei’s mouth trembled, then tightened. He said after a moment, “Marrè would never have stayed here. In the Floating Islands, I mean. Or at least not in Canpra. Girls … girls stay at home here, don’t they? Girls don’t study or go out or … or anything. Do they?”

“Girls visit other girls. And then they sit around and gossip about young men and do needlework, and go home and write letters to one another about young men and do more needlework.” Araenè couldn’t help her disdainful tone. “Is it really different in Tolounn?”

Trei offered a diffident shrug. “Marrè studied drawing and things with the best tutors, and she didn’t have to dress up like a boy to do it. Her tutors—” Trei stopped, and then went on in a low voice, “Her tutors said she should do a showing. Mother was going to arrange it for next spring. Father said she should wait until after she got married, so her fame wouldn’t drive her dowry up too high. But really he was so proud. He said once—he said she would be as famous someday as Kekuonn Terataan—” He stopped again.

Araenè said nothing. She had a terrible image in her mind of the girl in this drawing, sitting at the table pictured in this sketch, quill in hand and that mischievous look in her eyes, when the poisonous gas and hot ash poured out of the fire-mountain and came down upon Rounn. She didn’t know what to say.

She was saved from needing to say anything, because at that moment her mother called.

Trei flinched and gathered up the sketch, taking it and the others back to the desk and putting them again into the large book.

Araenè got up and prepared to go down the stairs to Mother. But, lingering, she said to Trei, “May I see the other drawings sometime? Would you … You wouldn’t mind showing them to me?”

Her cousin gave a small nod.

“And maybe you could tell me about her? Sometime? If you, I mean … if you wouldn’t mind?”

“I’d like to,” Trei said in a low voice.

Araenè nodded, and ran out as her mother called once more. The strange detour she’d taken to get home already seemed like a dream, and she refused to think about the glass sphere hidden in the back of her drawer.

3

A
s the kajurai auditions approached, Trei felt, to his surprise, almost at home in Canpra. Not like a true Islander. More as though there was a possibility that someday he might be able to feel that he was. He hadn’t expected this. Nor had he expected Araenè to be responsible for the change. He hadn’t guessed that his cousin would be so … so … 
interesting.

Of course his cousin knew all the respectable places to go in the First and Second Cities—Trei had expected that. “It’s wonderful, Father wanting you to be familiar with Canpra,” Araenè assured him, “or I’d never be permitted to explore like this. How splendid you are, cousin!” Her sarcasm didn’t worry Trei; he understood perfectly well it wasn’t directed at
him.

She’d shown him the white towers of the First City and taught him how to walk on the airy bridges and floating stairways that linked them together. The people of Canpra loved to build between sea and sky. One hot afternoon, they’d bought a terribly expensive lunch from a restaurant on a wide balcony that overhung the waves. Araenè muttered comments about the food and tossed tidbits that displeased her over the railing to the gulls swooping below, but Trei spent the afternoon staring longingly out toward the men who soared above the sea on crimson or golden wings.

But the day before the kajurai auditions, when she saw Trei was fretting himself into a dither, Araenè finally insisted on taking him into the Third City and showing him the University. His cousin’s boldness made Trei terribly nervous, but Araenè
would
change her gown and bangles for trousers and shirt and wide bracelets, pin her hair up under a wide-brimmed hat, and become a boy. She made a convincing boy. She even walked like a boy. Almost like a boy.

“Too feminine?” Araenè sounded skeptical when Trei ventured to suggest alterations to her manner. “Not likely! Mother always says I need to walk more softly and slowly. She says men like a woman to walk gracefully, speak gently, and show neither brains nor temper.”

The sarcasm in her tone probably wasn’t very correct for an Island girl, either. Trei grinned. But he also tried to explain, “It was something about how you turned. On your toe or something. Too graceful, you know. Maybe Aunt Edona thinks you’re too boyish when you’re a girl, but you still make a girlish boy. Don’t look at me like that! You do!”

“Huh.” Araenè didn’t seem persuaded. “It’s only because you know, that’s all. Come on! If we hurry, we’ll be right on time for Master Petrei’s lecture. It’s his fifth and last this season, and I’ve only made it to one other.”

Probably she was right, Trei allowed. He gave up the point and said only, “A lecture? What an adventure!”

“
You
can say that.
You’re
allowed to attend whatever lectures you like, go where you like, do anything you want to,” Araenè snapped, and turned on her toe—it
was
a girl’s move, too graceful by half for a boy—but she strode off at a pace that made Trei stretch to match. He didn’t answer her sharp comment, and after a moment his cousin gave him an apologetic glance. “You’re good to escort me.”

“I don’t mind. I want to. I—are you serious? We climb
over
this building?”

“It’s the quickest way. Everybody does it. We can walk around Third City after the lecture, if it doesn’t finish too late,” Araenè offered. “Third City is wonderful—I’ll show you my favorite places.”

Trei shrugged and nodded. He didn’t much care for what little he’d seen of Canpra’s Third City so far. It seemed dangerous: crowded and disorganized and dirty. But Araenè seemed so … so … she seemed more alive, more expansive, even somehow more
herself,
dashing through Third City alleys dressed as a boy.

Later, waiting for the crowd of students to clear out of the lecture hall, he gave Araenè a sidelong look and said, keeping his tone bland, “Well, that was fascinating. No wonder you’re willing to risk, um, to find out all about the subtle differences between rice from eastern Yngul, western Yngul, northern Yngul, northeastern Yngul, the southern half of the western third of some island off the coast of Yngul.…”

Araenè punched him on the shoulder, a good copy of the masculine gesture. But then she gave Trei an uncertain sidelong glance and asked seriously, “Are you scared about tomorrow?”

“No!” But then he met his cousin’s eyes and felt his mouth tug reluctantly into a smile. “Maybe a little.”

“You’re an Islander now,” Araenè assured him. “You’ll do all right.”

They had by this time passed back into the wider, quieter streets of the Second City, and Trei privately thought he’d seen enough of Third City squalor and crowding to last him. He said only, “Of course I will.”

But he didn’t really believe this. He didn’t sleep well that night, only repeatedly dozed and jerked awake, sometimes with the feeling he was falling. He dreamed he needed desperately to see the wind, but there was no wind, only ash settling endlessly out of an empty sky, and Mount Ghaonnè with the huge jagged hole in its side where the fire had come out.

“You’ll do splendidly, dear,” Aunt Edona assured Trei over an early breakfast. Trei looked steadfastly at the uneaten slice of bread he held in one hand, and nodded.

“You will,” Araenè said, but anxiously.

“You really will,” Uncle Serfei told him one more time as they walked briskly through the Second City, heading for the First City tower where the kajurai auditions were held. It was a long way. They’d had to get up before dawn to make sure they had time for the walk. Uncle Serfei looked tired; he coughed once or twice and smiled apologetically at Trei. “Summer coughs! Let’s hope you don’t catch it, Trei. I’m sure you’ll need proper rest after you pass your audition: apprentices always run hard.”

Trei nodded. He wished that they’d already arrived; more than that, he wished the audition was already over. At the moment, he wished most of all that everyone would stop telling him how well he’d do. He said nothing.

“And if you aren’t approved for kajurai training, you can still aim for the ministry examinations,” his uncle went on. “Oh, I know that’s not what you want, Trei, but plenty of boys have a much less enviable second choice—” Uncle Serfei took a more careful look at Trei’s face and stopped. After a moment, he said gently, “It’s hard to believe they’d be so foolish as to turn down a boy who wants it so badly, though.”

Trei didn’t say that aptitude probably counted for more than longing, or that, as he’d found out, fewer than a fifth of applicants were accepted for training, or that the wingmasters might very well decide, despite Uncle Serfei’s assurances, that a boy with a Tolounnese father wasn’t the best choice for making into a symbol of the Floating Islands.

“I’ll leave you here,” Uncle Serfei said once they’d reached the tower where the audition would take place. He rested a hand on Trei’s shoulder. “Go on in. I know you’ll do your best, Trei.” He paused and then added, “Your mother always loved the dragons of these Islands, you know.”

Trei tried to smile. Then he turned and walked into the tower, along with several other boys he did not know. He felt oddly bereft, even though he’d known Uncle Serfei fewer than fifty days. Or maybe that was just nervousness.

The tower seemed very large and, despite the other half dozen boys who’d just entered, very empty. They all glanced at one another, but nobody spoke. Their footsteps echoed. But the way they were supposed to go was obvious. Other than the door through which they’d entered, there was only one way to leave the room: a wide spiral stairway coiled its way down and down into dim shadows. Trei went down the stairs, neither the first boy nor the last. The treads were wide enough for at least three or four boys to walk down together, but they went down single file.

The stairway turned five times as it descended and then opened up to a large chamber, already occupied by several dozen other boys. Most were clearly from the Second or Third Cities, but one of the boys was clearly a First City noble. His air of assurance made him look older than most of the other boys, but after a careful second glance, Trei guessed he was actually only about fifteen, maybe sixteen. He wore white, with a violet ribbon threaded through his dark hair and a thin gold ring on one thumb.

“A
Feneirè
son,” a thin, intense boy near Trei whispered to a stocky friend, with a glance at the one in white. “The third son, it must be. I don’t suppose the kajuraihi would dare turn down—”

“They’ll take who they take,” the stocky boy murmured back with stolid calm. “Don’t worry about him, Rekei.”

Trei glanced at the Feneirè son—and what was the Feneirè family, that everyone would recognize their third son?—then gazed around the chamber. It was worth a second look, and a third. One whole wall was simply missing. On that side of the chamber, the tiles of the floor simply gave way to empty air. Far out in the sky, a small Island floated, its high, jagged peaks wreathed with streamers of cloud.

The small Island was connected to Milendri by a single bridge. This bridge was nothing like the solid bridges of Tolounnese construction, however. It consisted simply of a pathway of floating stones that rose in a slow arc and eventually descended again as it reached the far side.

“I wonder when we’re going to start?” Rekei wondered out loud.

One of the younger Third City boys gave the other boy a hostile glance. “Impatient, are you?”

“Oh, pardon me—” Rekei began hotly.

“Maybe we’re supposed to just cross the bridge on our own,” said the First City boy. His tone was merely thoughtful, but there was something about the way he turned his shoulder toward the incipient squabble that somehow rebuked both Rekei and the Third City boy.

Rekei’s calm friend asked the Feneirè son, “How long do you think we should wait? I’m Kai Talana. My father is a minister of roadways and stoneworks.”

“Ceirfei Feneirè,” answered the other boy. He didn’t give his father’s name or position. Trei guessed he didn’t have to. “I suppose the trick is to wait long enough, but not too long.” He grinned suddenly, glancing around at the rest of them. “We can toss pebbles; shortest throw has to decide how long is long enough.”

There was a slight pause. Then the oldest of the Third City boys said, “It’s nearly second bell now. At half past, I say that’s long enough.” Although his tone was decisive, his glance at Ceirfei was deferential. Trei understood that the other boy was really asking whether Ceirfei thought that would be all right.

“That seems sensible to me. Kai?” asked Ceirfei, and not just as though he was being polite. As though he really cared about the other boy’s opinion. Trei was impressed that Ceirfei had so smoothly gotten all the nervous boys to settle down and stop snapping at one another.

“Probably if someone is coming, he’ll be here before that,” Kai said, giving the Third City boy an acknowledging nod. It was obvious all the Third City boys were happy to be taken seriously by the others, especially Ceirfei Feneirè.

As though hearing this thought, Ceirfei turned his head suddenly and looked straight into Trei’s face. He was smiling, but the expression in his dark eyes was thoughtful. Yet Trei got no sense that the other boy was faking the smile. Both the friendliness and the restraint seemed real. In a moment, Trei knew, Ceirfei Feneirè was going to ask his name, and he tried to decide whether he should give his father’s name or his uncle’s.

Then, before either of them could speak, the rapid sound of boots on stone rang out, and four kajuraihi came into the chamber. None of them were wearing wings, but they were obviously kajuraihi. Their eyes were strange: what should have been the white part of their eyes glittered like crystal. This made their pupils look blacker than usual. They wore unrelieved black, except for steel studs at wrist and throat and for a single feather braided into each man’s hair. Three of them had red feathers, but the one in front had a feather black as coal; Trei knew that this meant he was a wingmaster.

The men halted and just stood there for a long moment, regarding the boys, who drew together in a tight group in response. Trei noticed, a little amused, that they all gathered around Ceirfei Feneirè—that was even his own impulse.

The wingmaster had a strong, austere face and an air of chilly reserve. Two of his companions were young men in their twenties, probably not long out of the novitiate themselves. But the remaining man was older than the wingmaster, with iron-gray hair and a mouth set in what seemed a permanent expression of stern disapproval. Trei wondered whether it was his imagination that this man seemed to be staring directly at him.

“I’m Taimenai Cenfenisai,” the wingmaster said abruptly. “This is Anerii Pencara, master of novices, and Rei Kensenè and Linai Terinisai, second-ranked kajuraihi. All your names and connections are known to me.” He paused.

The boys gazed back at the wingmaster in uncertain silence.

“You will cross the floating bridge to the island you see,” said the wingmaster, still speaking with that alarmingly brusque manner. “That is Kotipa, the Island of Dragons, which we also call the Island of the Test. No one ever sees it clearly, save kajuraihi. There you will do what you find to do. You will return as novice kajuraihi, or else not. There is some risk in this endeavor: from time to time a boy does not return at all. You accept this risk when you set foot on the first stone of the bridge.” He paused.

None of the boys said anything, not even Rekei or the hot-tempered Third City boy who’d tried to start a fight earlier. Some of them, including Rekei, looked nervous; others seemed more excited, a few eager. Ceirfei Feneirè looked merely politely attentive. Trei tried not to show anything but a bland calm.

Wingmaster Taimenai surveyed them all. His stern mouth curved in a smile more sardonic than encouraging. “You will go one after another, a tenth-bell between you,” he concluded. “Remember: Do what you find to do. I can tell you nothing more specific than that.”

“What if we meet each other over there?” one of the other Second City boys asked nervously.

“If you do, act as you see fit,” answered the wingmaster. His tone was flat. No one else asked any questions. After a moment of silence, the wingmaster said to Ceirfei Feneirè, “You will cross first.”