Farisa’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the tunnel and she could see by Claes’s lantern as the man ducked an overhead beam. Ouragan ran ahead, scouting, as she had over the past seven miles.
Mazie stopped. “Is something wrong, Farisa?”
It was May 20; Farisa had taken four days to recover in House 263 from the Battle of Exmore. They had eaten breakfast just before dawn and were now on the long tunnel out of the city.
Farisa said, “It’s.... It’s a good thing. We’re actually doing this, aren’t we?”
Mazie laughed. “Don’t call an egg a dragon till it burns your face.”
“We are,” Claes said. “The Fifth Continent awaits us.”
The tunnel’s floor was smooth, although it had been built into a natural cave with stalactites overhead, and it would be easy to get lost without Claes to check and lead the way. The last quarter mile joined an abandoned mine in which their path rose gently at first, then met to a staircase that rose into the blue daylight.
“That’s eight miles done,” Claes said as they exited. “Three hundred left. I’d like to make it in three days.”
Farisa’s legs were sore already. She and Mazie looked at each other.
Mazie said, “A ’undred miles per day?”
“The Vehu have pony stations every fifteen miles. We’ll switch mounts at each one.”
“Who’s paying for this?”
“On this side of the ocean, money’s no problem for us. We have something more valuable.”
“Oh yeah?” Mazie scratched her inner arm. “What’s that?”
“Friends,” Claes said.
Mazie looked at Farisa and smirked. “Ye’re gonna lecture me on ‘the power of—’?”
“Let’s just say I’ve spent a lot of time in these parts.”
The rest of the day, they rode, changing ponies every hour and a half as Claes had said. The air was hot and still, but their brisk riding pace made enough wind, and the overcast sky blocked enough sun, to leave them tolerably cool, although summer was clearly coming on, as indicated by the muted color of the wildflowers as well as the late sunset. They stopped at a waystation about 130 miles east-by-south of Exmore and had a quick dinner—nuts, dried berries, and corn flour biscuits.
Farisa asked Mazie, “Where’d you learn how to ride?”
“Would you judge me if I said I’ve stolen a ’orse or few?”
“In no new way.”
Claes looked at Farisa, then said, “We’re closer to the ocean. Can you feel it?”
“I think so,” Farisa said. When the wind came from the south, she could smell a faint saltiness.
The station had four cots but only one bedroom. Claes snored, which he usually didn’t, but the day’s riding had left Farisa so exhausted she had no trouble getting to sleep. She woke early, though, due to the room’s eastern exposure.
“There’s a lot of sun here,” Mazie said. “It gets you up bright.”
“Speak for yourself,” Farisa said as she rubbed her eyes.
She looked at the watch Merrick had given her. Five forty-seven was, as far as she was concerned, the middle of the night. The birds were all in on the prank, though.
Claes stood in the doorway with a handled glass jug. “Oh, good. You're both up. Help me pump water for the day’s riding.”
As the day before, they headed east, sore from riding and tired of having to adjust to new mounts. This time, a relentless sun shone, except in the late afternoon, when they crested Savin Ridge, at which point continental westerlies collided with humid sea winds, producing misty rain.
Mazie pointed to a sign. “Grunwind, fifty miles.”
“Grun-vind,” Farisa said, correcting Mazie.
“Then why is it spelled…?”
“It’s an old word. Means ‘village.’ As in my name, La’ewind.”
“Right. And shouldn’t that be Lakewind?”
Farisa laughed. “Excellent question.”
“In Grunwind,” Claes said, “You’ll be Fay. No last name at all.”
“Is Grunwind dangerous?”
“No more than Exmore was.”
Mazie brushed a fly off her elbow. “I like the name Fay.”
Farisa scoffed. “It has a long history.”
“The name Farisa is too... it’s too princess.”
Farisa flung a peanut at Mazie, leaving a red mark on her cheek. “Shut up.”
“It is!”
“Name one princess named Farisa.”
“I’m riding with her.” Mazie stuck out her tongue.
“I’m not a—”
“Her history means nothing where we’re going,” Claes said.
Of course it means nothing there. That’s why we’re going there. At least, it’s why I am. She couldn’t be sure why Mazie had invited herself along. Had she run out of mischief to cause in Exmore?
After an hour of rain, the sky cleared and the sun returned. The smells of wet foliage subsided in favor of a sweet odor, one of feral citrus, as they rode through old lemon plantations, long gone to seed. They camped at a red hardwood cabin where they ate dinner on a rocky hill. When the air was still, Farisa could hear the ocean to the south.
The next day, although they had made excellent time thus far and could have afforded a leisurely morning, their “road legs” had set in and they had an itching need to make their miles early. By seven, they were back on the trail. The waystations, as they approached Grunwind, were increasingly threadbare, the last of them no more than a small hut surrounded by tree ferns and cycads. A single ranger, a grizzled man with sun-darkened skin, took their ponies’ reins.
“We’ll have to take the last twelve miles by foot,” said Claes.
“Let me see your map,” the ranger said. When Claes handed it over, the ranger drew a crossed circle on it. “You don’t have the look of brigands, so avoid that road.” He drew a W with a line under it. “That’s the best place to get water. Comes clean, straight from an underground lake. It’s seven miles away, though, so fill up here if you’re light.”
“Thank you,” Claes said.
The ranger’s suggested path was quiet and felt safe, but offered little shade. Farisa’s shoulders stung from the sun, and Mazie’s neck was covered in sweat, but aside from the heat, the walk was easy: a flat gravel path through a white-flowered savanna. On the last mile to Grunwind, grand palms—transplanted at an expense this locale could no longer afford—towered over them.
Broken limes dotted the way, and the scent made Farisa hope for a glass of lemonade, icebox fresh, awaiting them in Grunwind. As the city came into view, though, she realized she’d be lucky to get clean water. The buildings were squat and most of them lacked proper roofs, using rusted metal sheets to stop rain.
Claes spotted a stone path between two houses, which he led them down until they reached a brown hut overlooking the ocean. “It doesn’t look like much, but this is Grunwind’s best and oldest restaurant.”
A waiter, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a frilly but faded shirt, directed them to a table.
“Also newest and worst,” Claes added once the man was gone, “as it’s the only one.”
Farisa asked, “What do they serve?”
Claes sat back. “The options are fish, fish, and... fish. I recommend the fish.”
Farisa and Mazie looked at each other.
“That joke lands better with my kids.”
“Captive audiences do have low standards,” Farisa said.
Mazie chuckled, giving Farisa a laugh she didn’t feel she had earned. Did two half-jokes add up to a whole one?
Claes examined a pewter fork. “If one of ’em actually laughed at one of my jokes, I’d suspect I was doing something wrong.”
When the waiter returned, Farisa said, “What kind of fish is it?”
“Whatever we catch,” he said. “Today, it’s violet sea bass. Served over brown rice with garlic wine sauce. If that’s acceptable to you.”
Farisa, worried she had caused offense, smiled. “Very.”
As they waited for food to arrive, Farisa massaged her back and thighs, sore from days of riding and walking. The distance they had come in only three days seemed hard to comprehend: 316 miles, in two and a half days. Those were sea speeds; it was hard to imagine they had done this on land.
On the matter of sea, she looked out to see waves inching forward as the tide came in. The eastern sky was dimming. A gull flew inland to harass a parakeet.
Farisa ate quickly; she noticed that Mazie had barely taken a bite. “You’re not hungry?”
“It’s bony.”
“You’ll have to get used to that,” Claes said. “Don’t be afraid to spit ’em out.”
Farisa lifted a small bowl that had sat next to her plate. “That’s what this is for.”
Mazie grimaced. “We don’t eat fish where I’m from. The river is too polluted.” She cut a piece of white meat from her filet and ate it. “I’ll admit it’s not bad at all.”
“Not bad?” Claes laughed. “After enough time in the wild, you’ll consider a hot meal like this a luxury.”
The waiter came to serve them a dessert of lemon cake and coffee.
“I’ll admit I’ve never been there,” Claes said. “Bezelia, that is. It’s the one continent I haven’t set foot on, though I’ve seen it from a boat.”
Mazie scratched her shoulder. “What did it look like?”
“Not much. Dry, white, hot.” He laid a five-grot bill on the table. “This should cover meal and tip. I’d like to get to our rooms before dark.”
The two women followed him down an alley between rows of shuttered pawn shops. He pried apart two slats of a tall wooden fence and undid a latch. “Yes, here we are.” He opened the door, exposing a spacious cement courtyard surrounded by a hedge of bamboo plants and put an envelope of money into the mouth of a stone frog.
“I bought this whole place till the twenty-sixth,” he said. “There are four rooms, pick the ones you want. Food and drink included, delivered at seven and seven, though we’ll have to cook it. Don’t leave without a key, and don’t go anywhere alone after dark.”
Farisa checked the rooms; they seemed roughly identical: small, functional, sufficient. Exhaustion was coming on as dusk light waned. Three oil lanterns had been left for them, and Farisa grabbed one.
“Going to bed?” Claes asked.
“I might read for an hour,” Farisa said.
“Keep it to an hour. You’ll be getting up at five.”
“Five in the morning?”
He handed her a revolver with a black rosewood grip. “You need to learn how to use this.”
She bristled. She remembered she had found a weapon like this in Cait Forest, before everything had gone to hell. She didn’t want to touch it.
“I insist.”
“I’m a—”
“Of course, I know what you are,” Claes said, lowering his voice. “Where we’re going, I can’t have you getting spent. We’re likely to be shot at. You’ve got to be able to return fire.”
#
Farisa had fallen asleep quickly, but in the middle of the night, she found herself alert, unable to keep her eyes closed, so she walked outside. Mazie lay under the stars in one of a pair of rope hammocks. Farisa figured Mazie’s company was better than none, so she laid herself down in the other one.
“Can’t sleep?” Mazie said.
“Something like that.” Farisa began winding the watch Merrick had given her.
“Ya ‘ave to wind that thing every day, right?”
“No. Common misconception. As long as there’s some tension in the mainspring, it keeps time the same. It’s built to self-regulate for accuracy. This one can go three or four days.”
Mazie laughed. “Know-it-all.”
“Why, thank you. But you overestimate me. There’s plenty I don’t know.”
“Every day surprises.” Mazie crossed her legs and flexed her bare toes. “Is it midnight yet?”
“Five minutes till.”
“Not a bad place to spend the last five minutes of age twenty-five.”
Farisa said, “You look my age.”
Mazie raised an eyebrow.
“I meant it as a compliment.”
“I’m sure ya did.” Mazie’s forehead wrinkled as she looked up. “The stars don’t shine like this in Exmore. They’re beautiful.”
“Aye.” Farisa had not seen so crisp a night sky since Tevalon, though tonight the stars had a faint greenish cast that she imagined had something to do with Alma. “They are.”
“Is it midnight yet?”
“Exmore time, it’s eleven fifty-eight. By local solar time, however, it’s half past.”
“Then it’s ’alf past. Twenty-five’s over. I survived it.”
“Wasn’t a good year?”
“Not the best. Twenty-six’ll be better.”
Farisa laughed. “You know where we’re going, right?”
“Vikus,” Mazie said. “I knew ’e’d dump me. People of my birth take rejection for granted. It was the suddenness, and the way ’e said it.”
Farisa did what she always did when she didn’t know what to say: change the subject. “How far do you think we’ll get?”
“On the Mountain Road?”
“Yeah. I think there’s a good shot we make it to Portal, and then...?” She shrugged.
Mazie’s finger traced a southern constellation. “All the way.”
“The Antipodes?”
“If anyone can do it, ye’re the one.”
“Don’t be silly,” Farisa said. “I’ll be happy to find out my father’s alive. We don’t even need to meet him. Just to know would be a step.”
“Right.”
“I have to ask you something, Mazie.”
“What?”
“You knew who I was almost immediately. Why do so many people know who I am? What could I possibly be famous for?”
“You ’ave to be joking.”
“I insist I’m not.”
“Ye’re kind of a legend. Has Claes never told you...? Has no one told you?”
“Bits and parts.” She remembered Nadia saying the whole affair had started at a banquet, but her telling of the story had been interrupted and, in the chaos Exmore had come into, never resumed.
“Ask Claes.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Why do ya think a man like Claes would travel all over the world to keep ya safe? Ya think that’s something that happens for just any orphan?”
“He was my father’s friend.”
“Yer parents were famous people, and so are you, but don’t lord it over me, because—”
“I know.” Farisa bit her lip. “Because it doesn’t matter where we’re going.”
“No, because the bugs are biting me and I ’ave a short fuse.” Mazie turned to face Farisa and paused. “Yer story gives hope to the poor. Ye’re a symbol.”
“A symbol of what? A girl who has to run and hide?”
“I’m told when ya were a baby, ya vurkt ’Ampus Bell’s only son.”
“I did what?”
“Claes would know, but you ’ad some sort of tantrum. Because of you, the male line is broken.”
“That’s absurd.”
“It may be. I wasn’t there.”
“I suppose it explains....” She became angry. Claes would know every detail of this story, having been so close to Dashi. He had probably been at that banquet. How had he told her nothing of this? “But it doesn’t....” She shook her head. Was this something everyone else knew about her, but that had never been said, like the card on her forehead in a game of blind-bat poker? “It’s impossible. No one, even in the high era of magic, showed signs before the age of four or five.”
“I don’t know,” Mazie said. “I’m only telling you what I ’eard. Ye’re known among my people, and in a good way.”
“That’s an odd thought.”
“I heard Claes say Ya ’ave an early-morning wake up. I should let ya sleep.”
“Right.” Farisa needed two attempts to get herself out of the hammock. “Early, indeed. Did Claes really say five o’clock?” She slid her feet into slippers. “Happy birthday, Mazie.”
Mazie turned her head and smiled. “It is.”
#
Pink clouds hung over the eastern morning sky. Gulls circled overhead and the sea was calm enough that the orange sun's reflection barely shimmered.
Farisa shook her shirt to fan herself. “It’s hot.”
“The North has softened you,” Claes said. “This heat’s nothing compared to where you were born.”
“The Isle of Three Summers.”
“I remember it well,” Claes said as he led her down a gravel road to a makeshift shooting range. Five corkboards had been set up at various distances, the closest twenty yards away.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” Farisa admitted.
“Why not?”
“Guns scare me.” So many mages had died by their own hands. What would happen if she was holding a weapon when the Marquessa arrived?
“They should scare you.” He handed her two wads of cotton, one for each ear. “On the other hand, it’s best to be armed when facing someone else’s.” He pointed across the field. “There’s your target.”
Farisa aimed her weapon and cocked it, finger on the trigger. An explosion startled her—so little time had elapsed between her finger’s movement and the shot, the gun had seemed to anticipate her will, and this was a terrifying thought, because she remembered, as a young mage, finding slips of paper on fire. “Where is—I missed, didn’t I?”
“Your first mistake was to try to shoot one-handed. Always use two if you can.” He aimed his own revolver. “Like this, arms straight.”
She held the grip in both hands. Claes adjusted her arm. “You also don’t need to cock it. It’s double action.”
She fired again, hitting the corkboard but missing the target.
“Better. Watch me.” Claes took stance and fired. A hole erupted at the bullseye.
Farisa, copying his position and grip, fired again. She shook her head.
“Best to get your misses out here, rather than battle. Try again.”
Farisa fired a fourth time, hitting the middle ring.
“You broke a rib. He’s still coming for you.”
Farisa breathed deeply to steady the tiny motions of her extended arms, and put all focus into her aim. She fired again, missing the center by about eighteen inches.
“When were you going to tell me about Rychard Bell?”
Claes, having reloaded his seven-shot chamber, fired until it was empty. “My practice needs touching up, too.” Four shots had hit the bullseye; the other three were within the inner ring. “What about him?”
Farisa aimed and fired, scoring a lucky dead-center hit. “I’m told I met him.” She recounted the story as Mazie had told it. “Is there any truth in that?”
“Some, but today’s not the day for that discussion.”
Farisa fired again at the board. “Today’s the perfect day for it. I am twenty years, seven months, and twenty-two days old. If not today, when?”
“You make a fair point,” Claes said.
He told her about the disastrous banquet, the witch hunts that had followed, the sham trial of an orphan in her stead, her father’s possible murder, and the Battle of Loran, the last of which she had already read about, because it was published history. In this time, she had used up ten or eleven full cylinders and was now hitting the target more often than not. The corkboard had been shot to pieces.
Farisa pointed at a battered scarecrow. “Can I try to hit that?”
“Please do,” Claes said.
She had a harder time hitting the scarecrow than the corkboard. Her first shot missed. “What else haven’t I been told? How’d my mother really die?”
“You were told the true story. She died in a Globbo prison, and I have seen the body.”
Farisa aimed for center mass but hit the elbow, knocking loose a couple straws. “Fucking Globbos, making a woman give birth in prison.” She fired again, destroying the scarecrow’s neck, causing its head to roll to the side, nearly off the body.
“That’s a little high,” Claes said.
“I’ll get him this time.” Farisa planted a bullet in the scarecrow’s chest, causing its ratty shirt to fall off. “Here’s what I don’t get.” She fired a couple more shots, then refilled her revolver. “If I’m such a threat, such a hazard to everything the Global Company stands for, then....” She blew up the scarecrow’s pelvis. “If I’m so goddamn dangerous they had to kill my parents... why haven’t they found me yet?”
Claes holstered his gun. “I’d like to think I’ve done a good job of protecting you. Sometimes I will learn of a two-bit louse who’s after you for the bounty, and then I have to deal with him. When it comes to the Company itself, I think you’re more useful to them alive.”
Farisa’s bullet hit the scarecrow’s head, knocking it clean off.
“I still don’t…”
“The idea of a witch creates the fear that gives them power. If Hampus Bell found you, what could he do?”
Straw flew from the scarecrow’s side as her bullet grazed its shirt. “He could finish the job and kill me.”
“It would do nothing for him. It would remind the world that his work in Loran has been imprecise—that it took so long to find you. .”
Farisa fired again. The scarecrow disintegrated fully, leaving a pile of straw.
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Claes nudged the empty metal bucket with his boot. “Out of bullets. Looks like we’re done for the day.”
Farisa touched the barrel of her gun, hot as a kettle, before holstering it.
He asked, as he started up the gravel road, “Did you enjoy this?”
“To my surprise, yes.”
“Be careful,” Claes said. “You’re shouting.”
Her ears were humming. “I can’t hear otherwise.”
“Who were you picturing, out on the range? Hampus Bell?”
“I remember the face, not the name,” Farisa said. “And no, it wasn’t his.”
#
The next morning, and the one after that, Claes and Farisa rebuilt the targets and scarecrows from the hotel’s supplies before shooting them to pieces.
“You're getting good,” he said. “Keep practicing, but never let yourself pretend it’s easy. When you have to do this for real, it won’t be.”
Claes let Farisa sleep in on May 26—the day they were to leave the continent—but she woke up shortly after sunrise. He wasn’t in his usual morning spot, the patio where they made breakfast; instead, she found him just outside the gate, standing on a rock while looking out over the sea, as if able to see something beyond the horizon no one else could.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” he said. “We should talk about the others.”
“You mean Mazie?”
“No. For some reason, I’m not worried about her.”
“No worse than a second Ouragan,” Farisa said. “Louder, not worse.”
“We’re going to have a whole group. We’ll need six people at least—that’s three nighttime watches of two. The more eyes on the Road, the better. That doesn’t mean we’ll be able to trust everyone. You meet all sorts where we’re going.”
She looked in the direction of Mazie’s room. “We’re at ‘all sorts’ already.”
“You should hear what she says about you.”
Farisa’s cheeks flushed. “What?”
“Nothing. Bad joke.” He smiled. The wind picked up. “Our ship leaves this afternoon. We’re going to meet a man named Garet before we go. I’ve known him forever, and he’s been on the Mountain Road twice before, so he’ll be invaluable. If all goes well for him, he’ll arrive at three. Do you have any business in town?”
“I do,” Farisa said. She had written a letter over the past few nights that had reached a total length of thirty-seven pages.
“Then you should take care of it now. We’d like to be at sea as soon as we can be—a minute after Garet’s arrival, if it’s possible.”
So, she went to her room and gathered the pages. She had written the highlights, to the extent that she could remember them, of her life. There were gaps in her story—she was sure a couple cherished memories were still missing—but she believed she had achieved ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent coverage. Her wrists ached from days of writing, her eyes from lost sleep, and her face from the expressions into which she had put it, trying to pull herself back into one moment or another. She had compiled an account of her life up to about April 20—aside from the Monster, her last few days in Cait Forest were still a blur.
The Shining Star office was only a five-minute walk from where they were staying. The clerk realigned the pages before putting them in the large envelope.
“Are you sure of this address?”
Farisa looked at it again. She remembered that Raqel had left Tevalon. “It’s the municipal address where she’ll be this autumn. She’ll pick it up there.”
“It’s as good as a house address for me, but I’ve never sent a package to the Yatek. It won’t be cheap.”
“I’m sure it won’t.” She paused. “One thing. Could you hand that back to me?”
The man, though he seemed slightly impatient, did so.
Farisa had written on the inner envelope, For Sophya, Open on 3-2-11. She tapped her pen on the desk. Nothing in these pages was explicit, and children were growing up fast. Fourteen would be old enough to know the outlines. She replaced the 11 with 07. “I did the math on postage last night. Standard, from here to the Yatek, would be forty-six.”
The clerk adjusted his glasses. “You can’t apply a per-mile figure to the tundra.”
“It’s taiga, but your point is taken.” Farisa laid some banknotes on the desk. The green bills had Smitz Bell’s mustachioed face eyeing the 25; the blue tens featured a young Hampus, built like a Nuvorian god. “So I doubled that number. That’s ninety-two, plus fifteen more—for you, not your employer—to say you’ve never seen me or this package.”
The clerk smiled. His hand hovered over the money.
“Not so fast, mate.” A current of air returned the bills to Farisa’s hand. “The forty-six, I’ll pay up front. The rest—sixty-one—is contingent. I’ll be storing it in a smallbox at 29 Rose. I’ve instructed the woman who receives this package to send the combination—it’s based on her birthday, so not in the letter itself—back to this office.”
“How do I know—”
“Good question.” Farisa put her fingers together and pressed them against her lips. She’d have no use for paper money on Bezelia, but she couldn’t say she was going there. “How do you know that I’ll make good? Well, you can tell that I’m not from here, right?”
“That, I can figure out.”
“I’m going somewhere dangerous. There’s a good chance I meet my Maker, so to speak. If I do, I’ll need my virtue intact. Cheating you is not worth the risk of consequences on the other side. On the other hand, if I succeed in the dangerous place where I intend to go, the sixty-one grot becomes minuscule. In either case, I do not gain by cheating you.”
“You argue well.” The clerk stamped the outer envelope to indicate full payment. “We have a deal.”
“A deal I’ll keep.” As Farisa left the postal office, she said, “It was a pleasure.”
She did, in spite of the risks inherent to a detour through Grunwind as the town woke up, keep her word—she stored the promised payment at 29 Rose, in a box using the combination specified, then returned to the hotel, gaze mostly downward due to the bright eastern sun.
Mazie wasn't awake yet. Farisa suspected she had been up till two or three reading. She knocked on the black wooden door with the brass numeral 4 on it.
“Are you ready, Miss Naveed?”
No response.
“Soon, we shall ride beyond the eastern sky,” Farisa said. Ba-DA-ba-DA-ba-DA-ba-DaaA-ba-DA—iambic pentameter, the riding rhythm of a civilized journey by horse, even though the horseback component of their journey was already behind them.
Mazie, behind the wooden door, groaned. “It’s too early for this.”
“Adventure sings! It’s time to go, Mazie!” A solid attempt. Pentameter, yes—but the name “Mazie” was too staunchly trochaic for the line to run right.
Mazie opened the door a crack. Farisa could see by her bare shoulder that she had been sleeping shirtless. “Ye’re more annoying than yer cat.”
“Ouragan’s been nothing but good to you.”
“She stole a piece of meat last night.”
“I thought you didn’t like fish,” Farisa said.
Evidently summoned by her name, Ouragan came by and meowed.
“Bad cat,” Farisa said with an ironic smile. “Stop stealing food.” She bent over to pet the animal’s head.
“Ye’re not going away, are ya? Give me a minute to dress.”
Farisa had thought to use their last day on Ettaso to walk along the beach—this section was well-protected from the eyes of town—but by nine o’clock, it was too hot for the women to do more than lay in the rope hammocks. Claes wouldn’t be back for a while, and no one would see them in this enclosure, so Farisa removed her shoes.
Mazie, she noticed, had been reading The Doctor in Winter—hardly light fare, atypical for a hot day near a beach.
“You think you’ll be able to finish that?”
Mazie put a finger between the pages as she closed the book. “Not if ya keep interrupting me. If this place loses a novel, it’ll be yer fault.”
Farisa grabbed an old paperback and tried to read as well, but the sounds of the ocean carried loud today, and she found herself losing focus, lulled into drowsiness. She’d lost so much sleep composing her letter, her last correspondence on the Ettasi continent, that her eyes stung. She closed them for a moment. Even though the hammock’s rope was scratchy, this hotel nondescript and threadbare, she knew that, if she were alive in six months, she’d look back on this very moment as having existed at an unimaginable level of civilization. There was no chilled lemonade here, but the pump gave clean water. The nights were humid, but only four flags. She decided to let herself soak in the moment, the last afternoon on this somewhat familiar land, as she walked a thunderstorm glide over the visible horizon, though it brought nothing worse here than wind. When they were closed, she let her face relax, and then...
“Shit!” She smacked Mazie on the upper arm, leaving red fingerprints.
Mazie, who’d also fallen into a doze, sat up. “What the ’ell?”
“Give me my shoes.”
Mazie grimaced as she contorted herself in the hammock to reach the side table.
“What? I asked you because you’re closer.”
“The Lorani thing?”
“Uh-huh,” Farisa said as she put her shoes on. “What time is it,” she muttered.
“You’re the one with the watch.”
“I was speaking... never mind.” She looked at the time. “Fuck.” They had overslept. It was close to five in the afternoon. “We were supposed to be out of here by three. Something must be wrong.” She got up and walked across the courtyard, nearly colliding with Claes as he entered.
“Garet’s late.”
“Weather? I know there’s been some—”
“No.” Claes’s lip trembled. “Garet’s never late. He’d rather be a month early than a minute tardy. A thunderstorm wouldn't change that.”
She could feel Claes’s worry crawling on her skin. Some atavistic flywheel in her mind spun yarns about the hazards—dangerous animals, lightning, bandits—that had befallen a man she had never met but already knew they needed. She paced.
Mazie, interrupting her chimerical thoughts, grabbed her elbow. “Yer worry won’t get him here earlier.”
“You’re right, but...”
Mazie pointed to the rex board on a stone table at the courtyard’s center. “Shall we play?”
“King moves two?”
“King moves three,” Mazie said. “Who the fuck plays king-moves-two?”
Farisa folded her arms. “That’s how it’s done in civilized society, Mazie.”
“If you say so.”
They played six games. Mazie’s play style, although unstudied and intuitive, often delivered surprising advantages, leading her to two victories. Farisa also won two games for herself; the others were draws. Farisa’s breath grew hot, and her shoulders sweated as she set up pieces for the seventh game. She had to win this; she couldn’t let herself be beaten by a pessima. She took a deep breath as she sized up her opponent’s likely strategy, and...
Claes said, “You had me worried sick, old bastard.”
Two men, not one, had come. Garet, a man of about sixty wearing a wide-brimmed hat, said, “Nothing’s worth getting sick over.”
“Where were you?”
“The answer won’t make you feel better.”
Mazie got up and switched her pointing finger between the two men. “Are you related?”
“No,” Garet said. “But Runar’s been a friend of mine forever.”
“He’s a sheriff,” Runar said to Mazie. He was about thirty and handsome, with brown hair like Claes, not to mention massive—at least six-foot-two, surely over two hundred pounds, but not at all fat. “Got my ass out of trouble more than once.”
“I was a sheriff. That was so long ago, I’d have forgotten if this man hadn’t reminded me.” Garet put a hand on the large man's leather-clad shoulder. “Runar will be a great asset to us. Give him any weapon, and he can hit an apple from five hundred feet.”
Mazie pinned her bare arms back. “So can I.”
“We don’t have time for talk,” Garet said. “Is our boat set to sail?”
Claes looked to the ocean. “I spoke to the captain an hour ago. He doesn’t like the weather. The earliest he’ll do is seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Find him,” Garet said. “Pay him an extra week’s rate to make it seven tonight. We need to get off the mainland—now.”
#
The five of them hurried to the dock. High clouds in the east reflected the evening sun, still yellow but with a tinge of orange. The dock planks bounced underfoot as they ran through tight turns.
Garet asked, “Is ours the clipper with the square sails?”
Claes said, “That’s the one. Let’s see if the captain’s in.”
Runar stepped over a rope crossing the dock. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Mazie.”
“You’re going the same place we are?”
“I ’ave nowhere else to go.”
“Nowhere in the world?”
“Nowhere yet. I ’aven't been many places.”
After they boarded, Claes removed the plank between the vessel and the dock, though the gap between the two was an easy leap.
Garet knocked on the cabin’s door. No one answered. He jiggled the knob. “Hello?” He shook his head. “I guess it’s just us. Do any of you have sailing experience?”
Farisa said, “You’re suggesting we steal it?”
“Not at all,” Garet said. “We’d stay a quarter mile offshore and wait for the captain, but that’s not an option unless we have three capable sailors. I can be one.”
Claes said, “I’ve done it before. I can take direction.”
“Anyone else?”
Mazie and Runar and Farisa all looked at each other. Ouragan stared up the mast at the crow’s nest and meowed.
Garet said, “We should wait, then. Is the captain the one who—”
“He looks like you,” said Claes.
“Oh, good. I know him. He hates to pay hotel fare, and who doesn’t, so he often sleeps on board. If I see him, I’ll point him out, but if anyone else tries to board this ship, be ready to defend yourself and the people next to you.”
He crouched behind the gunwale. The others did likewise. Every few minutes, one of them looked out to town. As evening came on, Grunwind’s shadows lengthened. Contrasts of color faded.
Mazie was the first to spot motion. “Is that our—?”
Garet looked through his spyglass. “No. He’s armed and it looks like he might be a Globbo.” He stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth. “This is not your ship. Turn away at once.”
Runar peered over the gunwale. “He’s still coming.”
“Of course he is.” Garet fired a rifle. “Warning shot. Next one’s for points.”
Runar fired. The running man stopped and took aim. A bullet whizzed overhead and hit the mast.
“Got ’im,” said Mazie after using her own gun.
Claes, using a single-handed telescope, said, “Leg. Hit him again.”
Runar fired. “Done.”
“Are we sure he’s a Globbo?” Farisa said.
Mazie said, “A regular thief wouldn’t rush a group of armed people with cover.”
The veins in Farisa’s neck quivered. Her back was wet with sweat. She remembered Wegen’s death and the unholy speed at which it had happened. She checked her gun’s chamber. Full. She checked again. Still full.
“I see them coming,” Claes said, peering through the telescope. “Several people, thinly undercover, still out of pistol range.”
Garet said, “Make sure they’re all Globbos before we do anything.”
“They’re using the hand signals.”
“That’s not enough.”
“The one behind the lamppost is wearing a brass scorpion, sure as June.”
“Frontier Forces,” Garet said. “The meanest cunts they’ve got.”
Claes paused. “The dock is narrow, so the best place to hit them is... that corner, right there.”
Garet, as he aimed his rifle, said, “Then let’s cost the Company some money.”
#
Bullets flew. Farisa’s heart was beating three times per second. Her arms tingled as they did not during, but after, compression by an ill-considered sleeping position. A glass lantern that had belonged to Claes shattered. Runar’s rifle opened the chest of a gunman, who had otherwise been careful to go with cover, when he reached the exposed corner of the dock. A bullet shot through a sail directly overhead, followed by one that whizzed about two feet overhead.
Farisa looked over the rim and fired twice, then ducked. She looked again; he was still coming. She fired again again, till click-click-click. The man jumped onto the boat. Farisa, stunned by the lethal malice in his face, did not disarm him with an aptly thrown stone, did not tackle the man, but... froze. At least Claes knew what to do—he grabbed a sword and gave a primal shout as he drove it through the boarder’s stomach. The soldat’s mouth opened in shock and blood poured. Claes removed the sword, and Mazie lifted the still-alive man’s legs, causing his head to bang on the deck wall. Garet helped throw him overboard. The Globbo landed in the water with a red splash.
“I can’t swim!” The man, still spitting blood, was trying to tread water, but his motion had no order, as if he were hurrying up an ever-sinking ladder. “Help me! I don’t know how to swim!”
Runar shot him in the head. “Now you don’t have to.”
Farisa opened her gun chamber to refill it. She had failed to score a hit, but she'd get one the next time. I must. I have to do my part.
“Fuck,” said Claes. “Machine gun.”
“Duck. As low as you can go,” Runar said to everyone. They all went prone, except him for a moment as he pulled and threw a pin, which clattered on the wooden deck. A shock wave thumped the ship’s hull. A piece of shrapnel flew overhead.
“Get him?” Garet said.
“No.”
The machine gunner opened fire. Holes erupted on the ship’s hull.
Garet put a finger to his lips. They know we’re here, but they don’t know where we are.
Farisa, suspecting the men were whispering, used the blue. The men were too far away to act upon, but she could enhance her hearing.
“They’re here,” said a distant voice.
“How many?”
“At least three or four.”
“The Fairy?”
“I’d bet my left nut she’s why they’re fighting back.”
“Then what are we waiting—”
An invisible rope of pain squeezed Farisa’s diaphragm. The men were too far away to act upon, in the blue. Deflecting one bullet would be feasible; a full volley, from an automatic weapon firing eight rounds per second, would be impossible. Claes was crawling toward a canvas bag in which they had more powerful firearms, but wouldn’t get to it in time.
Runar peered over the gunwale and took a slightly out-of-range shot at the machine gunner, missing, then rolled so the return fire, though damaging to the ship, would hit nobody. Farisa—I need to do something, I need to be useful—pushed herself further through the blue, so far from her body she was blind, feeling a sudden snap as if a tether had broken, but was able to navigate by the machine gun’s sound. She could do little here, could not destroy the weapon, could not take control of man using it, but could focus heat just enough to deform the barrel, at a spot three inches from the chamber, and she hoped this would suffice...
The machine gun jammed. Mazie’s bullet opened the man’s chest.
Farisa felt heavy, but not in a downward direction so much as in all of them. The heavy sea was now above her; it fell from the sky and crashed upon her, pulling her into a rolling gray fade.
#
Farisa, you saved us.
Claes would never understand the physics (if there were such a thing) of what Farisa had done, but he knew there was a connection between the mage’s sudden loss of consciousness and the machine gunner’s moment of failure, giving Mazie a split-second advantage.
“I’m out,” said Mazie as her pistol clicked.
“Watch her,” said Claes. He put a rifle over the gunwale. “I’ll make sure no one gets to the machine gun.” His weapon split open the torso of a man who crouched to take it. “Like him.”
Garet’s firearm took out two more soldats. Runar’s pistol stopped a would-be boarder.
And then they waited.
“We got lucky,” Garet said. “On land, Frontier Forces know to surround and ambush, and we were outnumbered. The dock was a pinch point, and we had cover here.”
Though fairly sure no one else was coming, they wanted a couple hours before leaving their defensive positions.
“No one should know how close these bastards got,” Garet said as he stepped off the ship with a bucket that he used to wash blood into the ocean.
“I’ll collect their weapons,” said Runar.
“Do. After that, we need to fill their pockets with stones. When they gas up, they’ll be thirty pounds buoyant, and we can’t afford to have them float.”
“Good call,” Claes said as he stepped off the ship.
The three men gathered the weapons and sank the bodies, one by one. Once they were all back on deck, Garet passed around a bottle of rum. “Drink only what you need to soothe your nerves. This is not a celebration.”
Claes tasted it after the others. Rum had never appealed to him, but it wasn’t bad.
Garet said, “Everyone on this ship is now an outlaw.”
Mazie added, “If you weren’t before.”
#
Farisa dreamt of a departure under morning light, watching the dark-green coast of southern Ettaso recede into an indigo smudge where sky met ground.
When she found herself awake, she knew by the chop they were at sea.
“As soon as I heard what happened,” said an old man with a throaty voice, the captain, “I came on the double.”
Farisa sat up. She recognized the features of the deck and could see waves beyond it in all directions. The sun had risen. “I feel like I’ve been asleep forever.”
“About ten hours,” Claes said.
“You’ve been awake this whole time?”
“We took shifts watching over you.”
She whispered, “Which ones know that I’m a—?”
“I’ve told Garet.” Claes paused. “Runar hasn’t asked.”
Farisa scratched her upper arm. “Did I…?”
“Do the right thing? You did. Not one of us got hit.”
“How many were there?”
“Eight.”
Farisa coughed. “My throat is parched.”
Claes handed her a glass bottle. “That’s my ration and yours.”
“Ration,” Farisa said as she sat upright to drink. “A word I don’t miss.” She took a swig of water. “Remember those Polar Ocean trawlers?”
Claes laughed. “I do.”
She did not feel as if she had slept for long at all, so as soon as her throat was wet enough for her not to cough herself back awake, she went to her bunk and laid down till noon or so. When she came out again, the ocean was blinding with the sun’s reflection. Gulls soared, making circles at three levels until a pair of cormorants flew in, disrupting their formation.
Farisa walked up to introduce herself to the captain. “How fast is this thing?”
“We’re doing fourteen. She’s capable of seventeen.”
“Impressive.”
“Aye, she’s a great boat.”
“I’d love to learn to sail someday.”
The captain chuckled. “Takes more than a day. Takes more time than we have together, I sure hope.”
“I could stand to learn a skill or two. Do you need help with anything?”
“No, relax. It’s a long way to Muster.”
As the days passed and they sailed south, the air grew hotter and hotter. On the first morning in June, the temperature reached six flags before ten o’clock. Sitting in the sun was intolerable, so they used the sail's shade as much as possible. If one could stand the heat, the summer ocean was beautiful. To see no land meant seeing no owned land—a world that was the same for everyone. She would never tire of a notion such as an unpossessed place, a region of the world with no finger-grime upon it.
Claes, on the afternoon of the second, asked the captain for their latitude.
“We’re in the Thirties now.”
Mazie bit a wedge off an orange. “You call it the ’orse latitudes, right?”
Runar said, “Horse latitudes?”
The captain chuckled. “Our forebears didn’t understand tacking. When the wind and current weren’t with them, they’d sit in the ocean, unable to move.”
“What does that have to do with horses?”
“Well, when they got desperate for something to eat…”
Mazie wrinkled her nose.
“We have nothing to worry about.”
“Because we ’ave no ’orses?”
“That.” The captain laughed. “But also, there’s a three-knot current going our way, and it’ll hold like that all summer. In the worst-case scenario where the wind stops, we still have that, so you’ll only have to see my face for sixteen more days.”
“Horses,” Runar said. “Are we going to have those on the Road?”
“We’ll have huskers and untas,” said Garet. “They don’t smell great, but they’ll get the job done.”
“A horse can’t tolerate eight-flag heat,” said Claes.
Farisa tried to imagine what eight flags would feel like. Six—what it was now—was body temperature, plenty hot in shade, and miserable in the sun. What did eight, as close to steam as to ice, even feel like?
The next day, June 3, an easterly wind picked up. Waves seemed to be fighting the ship.
Mazie said, “I still don’t understand ’ow you can use wind if it’s in the wrong direction.”
“The keel wants to go this way.” The captain made a hand-knife motion. “The sail, as it curves, pulls us this way. You can’t go directly into a headwind, but you can zigzag, like we’re doing now. You won’t be as fast as a steamship, but it works.”
The mention of steamships made Farisa uneasy. What if one was after them, catching up? She climbed the ladder to the crow’s nest. At the top, she could see nothing but ocean, as well as a few clouds that stuck to the sky as if they’d painted there forever ago.
The captain put a hand on his brow to block the sun. “What are you doing up there?”
She consciously fought a tremor in her hand. “I’m checking.”
“If you’re worried about Globbies, don’t be.”
“They—”
“I know they’d have reason to be after us, but they have little interest in Bezelia. The gold mines are depleted. There’s some oil, but it’s far from the ocean and it's sour compared to the stuff in the Tvadriyen fens of central Wyo. They run on the principle of profit, and if they can’t find it in a venture, they don’t do it. The eight men they lost would be called—Garet, what is the phrase?”
“Sunk costs.”
Farisa descended the ladder. To change the subject, she asked the captain, “Have you been to Bezelia?”
“Several times. They don’t have much love for the Company down there.”
Garet added, “Their grandparents were promised riches, then dumped in the desert. They don’t take the word of a man in gray to be the law—to them, it’s just a word.”
Farisa noticed that the ocean swells were getting stronger. “I’m more worried about their guns than their words.”
The captain smiled. “As you should be, but the people you’re with... they’re tough.”
#
They continued to sail south. The air was getting so humid and stifling, nights no longer provided respite. Farisa wore a thin white sleeping dress that made her self-conscious, because to her, it seemed almost translucent, and even that layer felt too thick. Her cotton sock had a hole in it, and she couldn’t muster the energy to change it, so she twisted it to put the hole over her ankle.
She would find herself in the mornings unsure whether she had slept; she had no memory of rest. Sweat covered her body. The skies were clear, but the ocean threw rough waves, likely whipped up by hurricanes in the Far South, where no ship could go and come out whole. This boat, though it never came apart, jerked up and down in the chop, sometimes seeming to free fall as a crest gave way to a trough.
The seas were at their worst on the afternoon of June 7. Mazie sat starboard with a miserable look on her face. She leaned over the hull; a liquid mix of whitish meat, scrambled egg, and orange pulp dribbled into the ocean.
Farisa walked toward her. “Feeding the fish?”
“Oh, go away.”
Ignoring the command, Farisa sat beside her.
Mazie grabbed her stomach. “I don’t want ya seeing me like this.”
“I’ve been just as bad. Let me get you some water.”
“I’ve killed my ration.”
“You can have mine.”
“You don’t ’ave to.”
“It’s nothing,” Farisa said. “Let me show you something.”
She grabbed a jar of seawater she had collected earlier today. This spell wouldn’t cost much. She put her finger on the bottom; the salt collected there.
“The top half is fresh water.” She poured it into a glass. “Drink.”
Mazie took a swig. “Ye’re not supposed to be doing that, are you?”
“Don’t tell Claes.” Farisa smiled. “Look, we’re going to need a lot of salt to keep our food fresh. I’m told everything’s expensive on Bezelia. This is going to be much cheaper than buying it. How’s the water?”
“No salt,” Mazie said. “Impressive. If only ya knew ’ow to make it colder.”
“I still haven’t figured that one out,” Farisa admitted. Any mage could make fire; spells for cold and ice, on the other hand, had been sought forever, but seemed to exist only in storybooks.
Mazie took another drink. “I feel a lot better.”
“Let’s go to the bow. The boat’ll be more stable there. Less of the side-to-side sway.”
The two women walked forward, Mazie in front. The ship moved underneath them like an animal trying to buck a rider, so they bumped into each other once.
Farisa kicked off her shoes. “You watch port. I’ll watch starboard.”
“Even on a boat, you take that seriously, huh.”
“I’m Lorani.”
“Ye’re a pain in the ass.” Mazie knocked one of her wavy locks off her forehead. “Ye’re telling me ya come from a place where adult men ’ave never seen a woman’s foot?”
“Of course not. Plenty of poverty, plenty of shoeless people. The rules only apply to highborn women.”
Mazie rolled her eyes. “You’re so weird. You consider yourself ’ighborn but you don’t even ’ave—”
“What, Mazie?”
“Nothing.”
“Marriages have been called off over footprints in the sand.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’s true!”
“I believe you. I just mean that it’s...”
“Our civil war, according to legend, started when a painter, who had depicted a woman barefoot, claimed his model was a dlayoet.”
“That’s absurd.” Mazie laid her head against the wheelhouse wall and smiled. “I do... I do feel better, by the way.”
“In truth, the war had more to do with the spice trade—and caste relations. Still, fathers tell daughters the other story, a fable to which a number of our books allude.” She sighed. “You’ve probably figured out that I’ve learned my whole culture from reading about it.”
Mazie brushed away an insect that had landed on her knee. “I make mine up as I go.”
#
Shortly after noon on June 10, a breeze came from the east, and although the air was still hot, the lack of oppressive humidity made it feel almost autumnal in comparison to what they had been through. The water was so clear, Farisa could see the coral reef below them. A pelican dove to catch a fish. The bird’s bluish shadow shrunk, but did not vanish, on its way down.
Mazie and Claes were recounting the fate of Mayor Munt, the disgraced mayor of Exmore. They had both heard slightly different accounts of his fate. He had been nailed to a tree in Edgar’s Terrace downtown—on that, there were no discrepancies—but one version had his corpse eaten by crows, while in the other, he had been consumed by orcs while still alive.
“Orcs.” The captain laughed. “This is why I stick to the sea, my friends.”
Garet said, “I heard it was Globbos who got him.”
Runar said, “Oh?”
Mazie said, “Wasn’t he working for them?”
“He was,” Garet said. “They wanted him to find something, and he failed.”
“I wonder what they were looking for,” said Farisa, although she had a good guess.
“There’s land,” said Claes as he pointed.
The summit of a mountain resolved into a jagged edge; craggy points came together as a razor outline, which thickened until it was a landmass similar to Tevalon, but in reverse—here, the valleys were barren, but the highlands were green, with mostly grass but a few short palms.
“A beautiful day for a new land,” said the captain.
“We’ll have to be careful in Muster,” Claes said. “Bezelians don’t like the Company, but they distrust foreigners of all kinds.”
“Duly noted,” Farisa said, slightly insulted. Being a lifelong foreigner, she didn’t need to be told about that distrust—she knew it well.
Garet added, “They’re likely as not to think we are Company. It is harder than one might think to prove that one is not.”
“Where’s the city?” Runar asked.
The captain pointed to a rocky brown mountain. “It isn’t much of one, but it’s just around that hill.”
Flecks of windblown sand hit Farisa’s face. She had seen a number of ocean shores, but never one so stark. There was no beach here—instead, only a narrow strip of arid mangroves separated the mountains from the metallic hot ocean. The town of Muster, through a pair of binoculars they all shared, was a flat spot that could have been overlooked until they were nearly upon it. Driftwood buildings lay strewn across the flat desert floor. There were no roads, nor did there seem to be rules for what would be placed where. Instead, houses had been placed at right angles to nothing, with no need for efficient use of space. She found this charming: on this edge of a new world, there was no place for the comforts or demands of the old one. The air was seven flags hot and, excluding the ocean, there was no water in sight... but life persevered; it had found a way.
She imagined jumping into the water and swimming the last half mile to land—to be adrift in the ocean’s waves, to flow with its tides, to kick her way to land and truly earn this leg of the journey. She rejected this fantasy upon testing the water’s temperature with a hand; it was not only hot, but slippery for its salt content. She also did not think the tiny blue-green jellyfish, nearly impossible to see at first, but everywhere once one learned their shape, would enjoy her company.
The boat settled into place on the dock. Muster did not strive to be beautiful, so the houses had not been painted, for they would surely fade in the intense sun, but when a five-petaled pink flower caught her eye, it struck her almost breathless. Even the sky seemed fifty miles deeper.
“It has been great to sail with you,” said the captain.
“It has,” said Farisa as she stepped onto solid ground.
To her surprise, she had become so used to sea sway that, for the first evening, her body missed it. The five of them took lodging at Muster’s only inn; over a fire pit, they cooked their dinner of market-fresh fish, lightly seasoned. The others might have stayed up and talked, but Farisa went to bed shortly after dark, and when she closed her eyes, she felt movement, as if she were still out on the water, and a part of her had come to crave that feeling—that knowing that outside herself was a world of wind and motion—but, in the morning, she woke early and felt ready to exert herself against solid land.
She walked out into the blue-and-yellow desert air, in spite of the heat already building, with poise and a sense of purpose. No one else saw her; she did not need the moment to be seen; it still counted. For the first time in a long while, she wanted to be nowhere but where she was: out on the Mountain Road.