The Waters Rising (39 page)

Xulai found this to be true when Abasio put the strange helmet on her head and she entered the library, where she met Ollie. Ollie was “the Orphan,” who had been—no, who
was
—Abasio’s love. Xulai spent so much time in the helmet with Ollie, walking and talking and drinking tea—all of which seemed completely real—that she came to regard Ollie as a close, loved friend, someone she could tell everything and anything to, how she felt, how she didn’t feel, how angry she became at some things without knowing why. Ollie understood them all. Ollie had felt many of the same emotions for the same reasons. Ollie was glad Xulai had met Abasio. She hoped they would be friends, even lovers if they liked. In the world of the helmet, she said, jealousy just wasn’t interesting enough to bother with. Living people had short lives and didn’t have time to love many people—nor love them well—but when one was immortal, as the people in the helmet were, one could love one or a dozen or a hundred others. Immortals had time to love everyone they found compatible. There were many people in the helmet besides the Orphan, all of them living very genuine and consequential lives in their strangely wonderful, inconsequential world.

That evening, she sat in Abasio’s wagon, telling him of all this, his arm around her as it often was, his cheek against hers. She said the word “love,” and his arm tightened. She turned toward him and met his lips. She thought dazedly that it was her first kiss; Oldwife Gancer had told her about first kisses, waxing romantic for such a practical person. It wasn’t a surprise, was a surprise, was a fantastic, wonderful surprise—especially that she did not have to decide anything at all. What happened after the kiss was a silent clap of thunder, something that should have shaken the sky so that everyone heard it, though later it seemed no one had either heard it or seen the lightning that preceded it, the luminous, effulgent air that seemed to burn without heat, the fiery air that held them at the center of a great crowd. She had felt them, the people, felt their eyes, calm and studious and concerned, and yet they two had been quiet and private as though they had hidden themselves in the depths of a forest while it all happened, and after a while, happened again. They did not even speak of it. They did not need to speak of it. They knew what had occurred and how it had been witnessed; they were sure of that, though not sure why. The whole thing was simply too much for a why.

“Do I need to tell anyone?” she whispered. They were lying on his bed, covered by a feather quilt.

He was lying dazed beside her, conscious of the immensity that had come to surround them from some strange, evanescent, utterly unidentifiable source. He summoned consciousness with some difficulty and made a slightly shrugging motion with the shoulder her head was lying on. “Do you feel you should tell someone?”

“No,” she said. Though she might tell Precious Wind. Sometime. If it mattered. If, for example, she found herself—pregnant. Well and well, so, if she were, they would decide what to do on their way to Tingawa. She had sworn to get there; this would not interfere.

Later that evening she returned the librarian’s book. “Did you find what you needed?” he asked her, aware of her eyes for the first time. They had a depth to them he could not quite—“perceive” wasn’t the right word. What was the right word for something one knew was there that one could not sense in any normal way? All he could do was repeat himself: “Did you find what you needed?”

“I’m sure I did, Elder Wordswell. I’m sure when I find out what it was, the answer will be there.”

“You’ve copied the book?” he asked, astonished.

“Oh, the book. Yes. Someone is remembering it for me,” she said, astounding him yet further.

Virtually overnight, the drifts melted down; Abasio took Blue out onto the fields south of the abbey and rode him a bit, asking him please to fancy it up so they wouldn’t look like idiots. Blue said fancying it up would make them look more like idiots, but he did it anyhow. Blue had met fancy horses; he knew what horses could be trained to do. If the man wanted prancing, very well, prancing he would get, and dancing with this foot, then that foot, so that any observer would get a very false idea about what kind of horse Abasio was riding. Such horses had been trained out of having any minds of their own. Blue had no time for such horses, though he had plenty of time to notice that during their riding sessions no men in armor went into the anytime dining room.

“When are you going to dye the horses?” Xulai asked that evening.

“You don’t have school tomorrow or the next morning, right?”

“It’s a holiday they have here, a kind of feast day.”

“Both mornings I’ll go out where I’ve been exercising Blue, you’ll come along on Flaxen, and I’ll pretend to be giving you some pointers on riding. That’s to get people used to your being out there. The second night, I’ll hitch up Blue and drive the wagon away south. I’ve found a place to hide the wagon where it’ll be safe, an old half-fallen-in building, maybe a cabin or barn, in a small hidden canyon with a little stream in it. The wagon will fit inside. I’ve already cut some trees to hide it. I’ll change Blue’s appearance that night and pack the things we’ll need for the trip. I rode on south the day before the storm; there’s a farmer southerly a few miles who had a mule for sale. I bought it and told him I’d pick it up in a few days.

“The morning after I go, you take Flaxen out to the field, just as we’ll have been doing. There’s a corner of the field where you can’t be seen from the parapets. You’ll move in and out of that area several times, then from that area move into the trees. Circle the fields, stay inside the trees, and go on farther south, parallel to the road. When you can’t see any part of the abbey anymore, not even the tower, you can get onto the road, but keep watch and get off of it if anyone’s coming. I’ll meet you along the way.

“I’ve bought some boy’s clothes, ostensibly for my nephew. You’ll need a name. Think of one that pleases you. The clothes are already in the wagon. Anything else you need to take, you’ll need to smuggle down to me over the next couple of days.”

“The mule will carry what we can’t?”

“Yes, but we should still keep our belongings light. You won’t be a girl, remember, and we both should look a bit scruffy and travel worn—decently clean, but not polished. I’ve found a cap that’ll cover your hair if you can braid it up.”

“I’ve been practicing.”

“Now, one final thing: It’s been my experience that no matter how good a plan is, things can go wrong, so one should always have another plan in place, just in case. If anything happens to delay you, I’ll wait with the wagon! One day, two, seven, whatever, I’ll wait with the wagon. If you need me or need to let me know something, can you send your friend?”

“If I knew where you were, certainly,” said the fisher, sticking his head out of Xulai’s jacket pocket, which was deep and wide enough to hide him completely, though he had grown some in the last few days.

Abasio nodded. “You heard what I told Xulai. Follow the road until you’re well out of sight of the abbey. Look for a long straight stretch with outcroppings of red rock on the right-hand side. It’s the first red rock you’ll see. Directly across from the third outcropping, on the other side of the road, you’ll see three big pine trees in a straight line. Right now there’s a pile of brush I cut and stacked between the leftmost and middle tree. I’ll spread it around to hide the wagon tracks when I take the wagon in. Behind the brush, follow the tracks.

“Now, that’s if you’re delayed. If I’m in the wagon and everything is all right, there’ll be a straight line of flat stones between the first and second tree, where the brush is now. I figure if anyone takes me out of there, I’ll have a chance to scatter those stones with my feet, or Blue will. If the stones are scattered, go away.”

“Or hide and watch, or creep around and see what’s happened,” said Xulai.

He looked at her face for a long moment before he nodded. “You’ve been taught.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’ve been taught. I didn’t realize how much I’d been taught. Some of it I must have practiced alone, in the woods, without realizing what I was doing. At school they were quite surprised. In the personal attack class I was entered as a women’s level seven. Most students, of course, start as a one.”

“How many levels are there?”

“Nine. Bear is a nine. Men’s nine. Men are simply bigger and stronger than women, so women have to be quicker and cleverer than men. When I thought I was a child, I wasn’t nearly that good. About a three or four. Well, it wouldn’t have been appropriate for a seven-year-old to be any better than that, would it?”

The following morning she woke before dawn, not out of anticipation or excitement but because she was in discomfort. Perhaps she had the cramping feeling Precious Wind had told her to expect as part of this whole woman thing. If what they had told her was correct, she would have to do something about the resultant messiness also, but that idea was driven out of her head by a moment of really horrible, very intimate pain. She started to cry out to Oldwife, who snored gently in the other bed, but as suddenly as it had come, the pain passed, all the tension let go, and she relaxed, very peacefully, feeling as though she’d had several glasses of wine or some gentle, lovely euphoric.

She lay quietly, enjoying the feeling, until the first pale light lit the window. She threw back the covers and got out of bed, turning as she did so to inspect the sheets. They were stainless, white, except for a small spot of moisture on the bottom sheet. At its center lay something very familiar to her. It was spherical, mostly blue. Like a marble or . . . very like the thing her mother had told her to swallow.

“I’ve laid an egg,” she said to herself, fighting her sudden urge to giggle uncontrollably. Or scream, also uncontrollably.

The fisher was on her shoulder, as though he had materialized out of nothing. “Think of it as a . . . jewel. Hide it where it will be completely safe,” he said. “And be sure, wherever you are, you take it with you. Don’t speak of it. Don’t lose it, whatever you do.”

Gritting her teeth, shutting her lips tight together to prevent herself from saying anything, asking anything, she considered the problem. Jacket wouldn’t do. Clothes wouldn’t do; those changed every day and bumps would be noticeable. She could put it in an undershift. She would make a tiny pocket in an undershift. Even boys wore undershifts, though theirs were shorter than the knee-length ones girls wore. All her undershifts had wide hems, to allow for letting down as she grew taller, or so the legend would have had it! She’d put it in the hem, in back, where it would be between her legs when she sat down and wouldn’t make a noticeable bump. And she’d have to make a similar pocket in every undershift, so she could put the . . . jewel in whichever one she was wearing. And she had to do it now, while Oldwife slept.

The mending basket was on the shelf. It had scissors, thread, needles. A slit in the hem took only a moment; the strange little orb slid inside. Then four stitches on each side to hold it there, and the needle, already threaded, was thrust through the underside of her jacket collar with a long length of thread wound into a neat figure eight around it. Just in case she needed to do more sewing or for when she had to hide the thing somewhere else.

The fisher sighed, an almost human sound of relief. “If it happens to you again, hide that one, too. Always. Hide them. Always have them with you.”

“I think it would be considerate of you to tell me what they are,” she said almost angrily.

The fisher fidgeted, making little motions with his head and shoulders, like a bewildered person trying to remember something. “I don’t know,” he whispered in a sad, hurt voice. “I’ve been put here to guide you, when you need guiding, but I don’t know what to say about anything until something happens and then, suddenly, there are words there. I’ve told you all the words that came to me this morning. There isn’t anything else.”

Just as there had been a tiny child in the carriage, on the road. Just as there had been horse biscuits when conditions required them, or horses becoming deer.

“I feel like a chess piece,” she said angrily. “Move here, move there. Whose game are we playing, Fisher?”

He did the shrugging thing again, looking so sad, lost, and bewildered that she took him into her arms, sat on the edge of the bed, and petted him as she would have one of the cats. While he didn’t purr, the warmth of the contact seemed to comfort them both. He did not feel like a mere thing. He was alive, furry and breathing. His nose was leathery and warm. His eyes were bright. However he came to be, he was hers.

She went to find Precious Wind, who was still asleep. Xulai touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Wind?” she murmured.

“I’m here.”

Xulai beckoned, whispering, “I need to tell you something.”

Precious Wind put on a robe and they went out into the little courtyard, where dew hung heavy on the grasses and the dawn birds were complaining sleepily.

“It’s about Princess Xu-i-lok.”

“Your mother.”

“That’s still hard to think about and sometimes I can’t say it.”

“Let it go. What about her?”

“Before she died, she sent me out at night, alone, to get something for her.”

“And you did?” Precious Wind’s eyes were wide, her face eager.

Xulai had thought of telling the whole story and had decided against it. She did not want to mention Abasio or tell anyone just yet what they meant to one another. She wanted people to think of him as they already did: a wanderer, an innocuous stranger, harmless and unsuspected of anything. “Yes. I was afraid. Terribly afraid. It took three tries, but I found it for her. It was a ball of something, like a candy, and when I brought it back, she told me to swallow it. I did, and I think that’s when the changes started, I mean, in me.”