The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (43 page)

Zenna tilted her head back, her eyes half closed, thinking. Rowan found the pose so familiar from their Academy days that she could not help but smile. “Have I mentioned,” she said, “how very good it is to see you again?”

Zenna’s mouth twitched. “Be quiet, I’m thinking.”

“About anything in particular?”

“Edith.” She came out of her thinking posture. “Do you remember what she said about the senses?”

“I remember that she had a conjecture, which we discussed endlessly, to no conclusion whatsoever. She suggested that all senses might ultimately translate into touch.”

Zenna explained for Steffie’s benefit. “Your skin touches an object, and you feel it. Light bounces off everything around you, enters your eye through your pupils, touches the back of your eye, and you see. Sound vibrations travel through the air, enter your ears, touch certain small structures inside, makes them vibrate, and you hear.”

Steffie almost visibly floundered in a sea of new concepts, then got his head above water. “How about when you’re smelling things?”

“Well, Edith suggested that tiny pieces of objects, so small you can’t see them, break off and float, like smoke. You breathe them in, and they touch the inside of your nose.”

“The critical point,” Rowan said, “is that, other than touch itself, all the other senses require something to actually enter your body to be perceived.”

Steffie fingered the bridge of his nose, looking mildly affronted. “Sort of cheeky, that, getting right inside you and all.”

“Edith’s conjecture is only a conjecture,” Rowan said.

“Hm. But for sight and hearing, there still have to be specialized structures.” Rowan sat considering; then she emitted a noise of frustration. Zenna gave a weary sigh, and they turned back to the relevant page.

“The fluid pockets are the only things that come close. All the other unidentifiable structures are deep inside the body,” Rowan said.

“Touch is attached to the skin; smell must be attached to the respiratory system. Taste would have to be in its mouth. That leaves only sight and hearing.”

“Got to be just one or the other, you mean?” Steffie asked.

“If it sees, it can’t hear; if it hears, it can’t see.”

“Huh. Deaf as a post or blind as a bat.”

The steerswomen spoke simultaneously, reflexively. “Bats aren’t blind.”

Perhaps the precision of their performance took Steffie aback; it was a moment before he spoke in a perplexed tone. “They’re not?”

But Rowan and Zenna were regarding each other in utter astonishment. Then Rowan made a small noise, and then a huge grin. Zenna threw back her arms. “That’s it!”

“Yes, yes, it’s perfect!” Rowan laughed out loud.

Steffie was watching them as if they were mad. In a sudden excess of glee, Rowan pulled him out of his chair. “Come here.”

“What?”

“Stand up, stand up.” She brought him to the center of the room. “Right here. Close your eyes.”

“Um.”

“Go on.” She put her hand over his eyes until he complied. “Now, listen.” She clapped her hands: a hollow sound in the big open area.

“Er, right, but— ”

“Now come here.” She half dragged him down an inner aisle of books. “There. Shut your eyes. Listen.” A clap: close, smaller, more intimate. “Can you hear the difference?”

“Well, yes . . . yes, I can.”

“You can tell what sort of space you’re in from nothing but the sound. You can tell a lot from sound alone.” She abandoned him, hurried back to the table. “And, in answer to your question,” she called back, “bats can see, although their eyesight is poor— ”

“But,” Zenna said, “they hear very, very well.”

“They emit noises— ”

“Very high— ”

“And they listen to the echoes— ”

“And they can steer themselves in perfect darkness.”

Steffie emerged from the aisle and approached, rather cautiously. “Echoes?” He adjusted his blanket.

“Yes. If you block a bat’s ears— and we know this, because it’s been done— they can’t navigate in the dark.”

“Exactly, exactly. Zenna, look.” Rowan remained standing, too excited to sit. She jabbed at the page. “Sound touches the skin, the skin is in contact with the fluid— ”

“And vibrations travel much better in fluid than in air—

“And these strings from the back of the pockets: they’re nerves, they have to be. Dozens of them from each pocket.”

“And
thousands
of them, counted all together. Rowan, this animal hears very well indeed.”

“Demons emit a
lot
of sound. The fundamental tone is the loudest, but there are overtones all the way up the register. So many different kinds of echoes— their perceptions must be fantastically detailed.”

“So, that noise, then. They make it . . . so they can see?” The idea clearly intrigued Steffie.

“Exactly.”

“It’s not line of sight,” Zenna declared. “It’s line of sound.”

“Yes,” Rowan said happily, then laughed. “Amazing.”

Zenna looked up at her. “I see one very pleased steerswoman.”

“Absolutely. I have a parameter.” She held out her hands as if feeling the sounds moving around her with the palms of her hands. “Only one, but it’s real. The demon’s voice can’t pass though a human standing in the way, can’t reach the talisman, can’t echo. The demon then can’t perceive the talisman.” In actual effect, this was little different from line of sight. “It’s not a guess. It’s a fact. It’s something I know, something I can trust. I feel much better about this.”

“Despite that we still have no idea why a demon retreats from the talisman when it does sense it?”

Rowan stopped short. She blinked. She sighed.

She sat.

Zenna set the talisman in the center of the table. The three of them regarded it silently.

“Maybe,” Zenna ventured at last, “it’s really, really ugly.”

They laughed, and they continued laughing, the helpless laughter of persons who had been too long at a difficult job and had spent all they had in them. “Oh, that’s got to be it, then,” Steffie said. “Demon takes one look— or one listen, that is— and thinks, ‘Bloody hell, I’m having I none of that thing!’ and heads for the hills.”

“And,” Rowan said, wiping her eyes, “being so extremely stupid, as soon as something blocks the view”— and she put on an exaggerated Alemeth accent— “it’s ‘Wonder where it’s got to now? Oh, well, think I’ll just have at this fellow waving the sword at me’— ”

Silence. “Oh, dear,” Rowan said stupidly. “Zenna, I’m sorry—

“Never mind. You just bring him back.”

A knock on the door: so unexpected that they were all a moment reacting. Steffie rose, but Rowan motioned him back to his seat and answered it herself.

Barely recognizable in billows of oilcloth and a wide-brimmed hat, Corey stood in the rain. “Ought to get curtains for the windows,” he said, brushing past Rowan, pulling off the hat, leaving a trail of water.

“I was thinking of it,” Zenna said, bemused. “The sun’s not good for those books— ”

“Not them windows”— pointing at the ones in front of the first aisle— “that one”— to the left of the door. “Person outside can see everything going on in here. Good thing no one’s out, night like this. Here.” He arrived at the table, extracted from under the oilcloth a small wicker box. “Hope you can keep quiet about it.”

Rowan shut the door and approached, as Zenna lifted the lid. “Oh, lovely! Thank you, Corey.”

“What is it?” Rowan asked.

Corey shot her a glance. “The steerswoman— Zenna, I mean— she hasn’t got a penny to her name, has she, since that party?”

Rowan was lost. “What party?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Zenna said. “Corey, where did this come from?” The wicker box contained a large number of coins.

“I went around, quiet-like, to a few people. Don’t want everyone in on it. Too many people, and not all of ’em sensible— some might get the idea that it’s asking for trouble, and try to put a stop to it.”

“A stop?” Rowan said.

He looked at her. “Well, you’re going to go chase your sweetheart, aren’t you?”

“He’s not— ”

“Right, right, he’s not your sweetheart. But you’re going, and you’ll need supplies, and the steerswoman can’t help you, and there it is. If I was you, I’d buy it all tomorrow morning while everyone’s at work, and be gone by noon.” He brushed past her again on his way to the door.

“Corey— ” He paused; she searched for adequate words. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. It’s Dan and Maysie put the most in there. None of my money.”

“But they didn’t think of it. You did. Thank you.”

He nodded curtly. “Try to get back in one piece.” And he left.

Rowan shook her head in astonishment. “Imagine that.”

The coins clinked as Zenna sifted through them with one finger. “There’s much more than you need here.”

Steffie tested his shirt by the hearth, found it sufficiently dry, slipped it on. “Well, that’s good,” he said from inside the shirt, “because”— I-and his head emerged— “it’ll take twice as much, won’t it?” He shook out his hair.

“Not quite,” Rowan said. “Janus will only need food for the return trip.”

“Oh, right, Janus. Forgot about him for a minute. Then, I mean two and a half times.” He tucked in the shirt.

“Steffie, I can’t let Zenna come—

“Don’t mean Zenna.” He came and planted himself solidly in front of her. “I mean me. I’m going with you.”

Rowan was beyond words; and when words did come, they were very few. “Oh, Steffie,” she said. “No.”

His stance was stubborn; his face, less so. But he spoke defiantly. “You’ll have to tie me up to keep me from going.”

“I’ll get the rope,” Zenna said.

Rowan took him by the arm, led him to the armchair, made him sit; then found that she was sitting on the floor before him, both his hands in her own. His hands were large and strong and had far fewer calluses than hers did. She remained speechless, unable to combine gratitude, admiration, and unequivocal refusal in one sentence. She wished she did not need to deny so great a spirit.

Zenna spoke. “Changed your mind about Janus?”

He glanced over at her. “Maybe. Sort of. I don’t know. But that’s not the thing.” He looked down at Rowan. “Janus has got two good friends willing to do anything it takes to help him, and one of them going straight ahead and doing it. Maybe that’s more than he deserves, maybe it isn’t. But seems to me that what I’ve got is my own good friend, going straight into bad trouble, and I couldn’t look myself in the eye if I didn’t help her.”

From his face, he knew every one of Rowan’s objections; and that very fact forced her to voice them. “Can you handle a sailboat?”

“Never done it.”

“Use a sword or a bow?”

“You know I can’t.” His hands shifted in hers. “But I’m strong, and I’m steady, and I’ll do any kind of work that’s put in front of me for as long as it takes. I’ve seen enough demons not to freeze up when I spot ’em. I don’t give way, I’m smarter than I look, and I’m good at taking orders.”

“How good?” Zenna asked.

He turned to her, then back to Rowan. “Real good.”

“Complicated orders?”

Something in Zenna’s voice gave him pause. “Well, sure. I can keep a list in my head, I do it all the time.”

Zenna regarded him sternly. “Can you do what you’re told, do it straight away, and save any questions for later? Lift something, push something, haul on a sheet?”

He blinked, sat up straight. “If you tell me to,” he said with enthusiasm, “I’ll pull a pillowcase right over my head and not ask you why until springtime.”

“A sheet is a rope.”

“Well, I’ve seen a rope before.”

“Perfect. Rowan, we’re
all
going.”

“What?” She released Steffie’s hands.

Zenna folded her arms. “My brain,” she said firmly, “and Steffie’s body. Between the two of us, we can sail that boat all the way back to Alemeth, even without you.”

“But— ”

“Shut up, Rowan, it’s settled. Steffie, get over here for your first lesson in seamanship.” He leapt to his feet as Zenna reordered Janus’s charts; Rowan was left sitting on the floor by an empty chair.

“Now,” Zenna said to Steffie with mock seriousness, “this is what we steerswomen like to call a map.”

He played along. “Map. Right. Got it.”

“Here’s Alemeth. And here’s where we think the wizard’s keep is. Now, as you can see, only the first part of the journey is by sea, and the rest is over land— ”

“I guess I know how to walk— ”

“You’ll be walking nowhere!” Rowan climbed to her feet. “You,” she said to Steffie, “will be staying with the boat and with Zenna. You are
never
to leave her on her own.”

He smiled at her. “Right. Sure. Makes sense to me. If I’m the body and Zenna’s the brain, well, you never see your body walking off and leaving your brain behind, do you?”