Sailing the Inland Sea

Her first thought was a question. Why is the floor moving?

Her second thought was also a question. Why am I not dead?

The room was made of wood and smelled sharply of pitch and ocean salt. The room heaved up, tossed Jaida to one side of the bed, then dropped and rolled her to the other. Emil and Leah were laughing. Their quarters were dimly lit by a kind of lamp she didn't recognize. The children were together in a hammock that swung back and forth with the room's irregular motions.

"We're on a boat, in the Neck." Harrence loomed in a dark corner where he sat on a stool, dressed in leather armor, holding a fat orange gem in one hand and bracing a wall with the other. "That's why it's so choppy. It'll get smooth again once we're through."

Jaida felt green with nausea. "Who is sailing this thing?"

"Vivian and Marlowe."

Jaida didn't know Vivian could sail. "Who is Marlowe?"

"My," he braced himself as the ship drop, drop, dropped, punishing his backside with repeated smacks against what felt like the ocean floor instead of water. "Ugh! I'm never sailing again. She's my bulwark."

"Mother, look at us!" Emil held his little sister in his arms as they swung wildly around. They were sewn into the hammock so they couldn't fall out, which made her worry about what would happen if the ship broke apart and they couldn't swim away. How could they think this was fun? Brave, foolish children!

She braced herself as the boat started a sudden climb-and-dip that left her temporarily suspended in the air, and bounced her up as it climbed again. The vessel lurched sideways so hard, she had to grab the hand-holds she found on the raised edges of the bed to keep from getting dumped out.

"It can tip a lot farther than this," he shouted over the noise of water crashing over the deck above them. "Try not to worry!"

Jaida shouted in return. "What's to worry about? A minute ago, I was dead! I assume I'm not dead, since we're talking!"

"Funny story," shouted Harrence, and the boat heaved itself upright and kept on going, until she thought it would capsize in the opposite direction, "the dead don't talk. But sometimes they sign."

They held on for a few more minutes of chaotic tossing that seemed to last forever, and then the ship was free. The boat settled into a gentle rise, crest, and dip motion that wasn't at all unpleasant.

"Mo-o-o-ther. I think Leah's gonna be sick!"

It was a fine day above, clear and cold but not icy, with a steady wind that filled the sails without tossing them around like the churning waters of the Neck. The boat was a single-masted sloop called Tenobre Flowers. She was rigged with one large sail behind the mast and two forward, but only the large mainsail was deployed.

Several other ships were visible, going in and out of the Neck to reach Tyrant's Bay. Two were large merchant vessels going in, while half a dozen pleasure craft like theirs were coming out and scattering in different directions. Some were headed across the Inland Sea toward Hyskos, one was venturing South, while the rest turned north like Tenobre Flowers, sailing for Bodrum or ports in Dace, trying to escape the desert tribes' reprisal.

Jaida drew the borrowed coat tightly around herself. If they spotted a red-furred woman with two children on the deck, and word got around, the Tyrant might come hunting for her.

"They can't see us." Marlowe was at the rudder, reading her apprehension. "Brother Harrence is maintaining an Overlook prayer on the whole ship. Our biggest danger right now is getting in someone else's way. If they can't see you they don't know to turn."

The children were in warm clothes that their rescuers had thoughtfully prepared. They wore rope harnesses, fastened to the mast with leads. Leah was safe in Vivian's arms, staring at the vast horizons with wide eyes and open mouth. The sloop was heeled low to starboard, and Emil was as close to the rail as his leash would allow. One hand holding gripped the rope, and the other pointed down at the water. "Mother look! The fish are flying! They're following us!"

Meter-long streaks of undulating silver bodies paced them along the surface, their tails in the water, blue-green fins extended like wings. As they reached top speed they took flight, and some shot over the deck to dive past the port side. Vivian speared three of them using a small trident, and animal reflexes Jaide had never noticed before. These went into a bucked and down into the cabin, where Harrence would preserve them with the Arts until they could be cleaned properly.

Land passed them on the right, rocky cliffs at first, then a span of lowland running down to sandy, grassy dunes and beaches. They passed a wide bay, far too shallow for the giant merchant ships but just right for sloops and little fishing craft. A town spread itself around the sandy edges of the bay, wooden houses on stilts, and long wooden piers. It made her wonder how such people lived so far away from any kind of commerce or culture.

"The world's a big place, with a lot of different people in it." Marlowe sounded calm, joyous, as if she belonged in new places, meeting strange people. She laughed at Jaida's surprised expression. "I've seen that look before. So many times! Harrence still has it."

They kept their course north, with only the mainsail pulling them along, until the other ships that left Kashmar when around the same time were distant dots. Leah and Emil, worn out by the excitement, went below for a nap. When Jaida put them down, Harrence was still there, rolling a different gemstone in his hands, eyes closed. She told her children not to bother him and went above, taking the bucket of fish with her. Vivian would clean them, but who knew when they'd get to eat?

"Is he all right?"

"He's fine. What he's doing isn't easy." Marlowe pointed at the fishing boats farther out at sea, seemingly stationary craft dragging nets. "None of them know we're here. Sailors look at boats like we look at faces. The Flowers has been up and down this coast openly a few times now, and they'd remember us. If anyone looks for where a certain wealthy freeman and his wife sailed to on their personal sloop, they'll ask around here. The fishermen will say they know Tenobre Flowers but it didn't come this way, at least not in daylight. Any searchers will assume we went across the inland sea. If they know we're enemy agents they'll look to the rocky coves in the south, closer to the Calique desert."

Some of the dream-like quality of being unexpectedly alive had worn off, and Jaida was feeling impatient. It didn't look like anyone was going to volunteer the information if she didn't ask. "What happened?"

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"With the city so restless, we were keeping a close eye on you. When those men showed up, we hurried over to help, even though it was too early." Marlowe checked the wind and shifted her rudder by a few degrees. "We killed the men, grabbed you and your luggage, took their carriage, and we were waiting at the end of the tunnel when Vivian and the kids came through. Since everyone's been trying to get through the gate, nobody cared about a carriage going to the merchants' marina. We waited till dawn and shoved off. Easy."

"What did you do with the carriage? It belongs to Taraneh. She's going to miss it."

"I drove it up to Prince's park, fed and freed the appalon, and left it there."

Vivian checked the lines and joined them at the rudder. "How did he know where the tunnel let out?"

"He knows things. That's what he does."

"How did you learn our identities, months ago? You weren't supposed to know until it was necessary."

Marlowe shook her head. "Nobody leaked any information about you. Harrence was following a line of inquiry that led him to Zaid's concubine. Finding out you were Anisca's source was just a happy accident." Marlowe gave Vivian a meaningful stare. "We still don't know who you are, Vivian, but shifting must come in very handy in your line of work."

"All too often. I don't want to talk about my animal."

"Good. I don't want to talk about Harrence's skills."

Harrence came topside and pointed a new heading, toward land. The ship came around easily, all heads ducking for the boom to swing by. They sailed for the mouth of a river that looked too shallow for them, yet the ship glided up with only the river's current to oppose them. The wind pushed them onward until Harrence signaled they should come about. Marlowe hauled on the rudder while he dropped the mainsail all at once and made it fast against the boom. Just as the river began to catch the sloop, Harrence pulled a long pole from the deck and used it against the bottom of the river, punting them toward the bank. The boat seemed far too big for one man to push around, but a disciple's strength made it possible.

Emil and Leah came above deck just in time to see the riverbank open up into a narrow inlet between two hills, not quite as tall as their mast, giant ferns clinging to the steep sides. Marlowe lashed the rudder and took up another pole. Together, the two of them squeezed the boat along the still water, brushing the ferns as they passed. The inlet halted suddenly in an oval cove, where they ran the craft aground on a sandy bottom.

Getting everyone to shore turned into a production. Marlow dropped into the waist-deep water and hauled the children to shore like giggling sacks of potatoes. Vivian mounted Harrence's shoulders with her crotch against his neck and legs hooked under his arms, quite shameless. When he came back for Jaida, she couldn't bring herself to do the same. Nor did she like any of his offered alternatives.

"I'm standing in cold water here. You need to choose or get your fur wet."

Jaida allowed herself to be hauled across the water in a bridal carry. Marlowe stood guard, while Harrence fetched the poor sacks of possessions that were all her family had left in the world.

With shield and spear in hand, Marlowe asked him, "How does it look?"

"It's clear, except for ravens."

"What's a raven?" Emil wasn't sure if he should be excited or scared.

"A black bird, about that big," Harrence showed him with his hands. "They're smart, and they like to steal your food so hang onto it. They're noisy, too. Don't feed them, or they'll hang around and caw at you all night."

Marlowe took the lead, and Harrence kept them twenty meters or so behind her, padding along on a game trail barely visible in the shaded grasses. His sword was in his hand, but his eyes were half closed. They passed into a skeletal forest hidden between lines of hills.

"Does she always do your fighting for you?" It felt wrong to Jaida to trust her safety to an armed woman.

"Most of it," he admitted readily. "She traveled with Ma'Tocha for a long time. You know, the Scourge of Bandits. She's very, very good. I could train for a decade, and not be half as good."

"Aren't you ashamed to let a woman fight for you?" The question came out all wrong, and the disciple gave her an angry response.

"Aren't you ashamed to be married to … " His eyes fell on the children, but especially on Emil, who was paying attention. Harrence didn't complete that thought, but Jaida could finish it for him. A man who murdered his son. A man who killed women and children. A man planning to enslave thousands for his Tyrant. That Zaid's enemy didn't defame her son's father in front of him was unaccountably decent.

"It takes some getting used to," he admitted, "but it's normal among disciples. Bulwarks do most of the fighting, and disciples make them strong. You might not know this, but most of the world isn't so hung up about which sex does which job. Dacians aren't, and neither are the eastern nations. I don't know about Hyskos, but they're slavers. Nobody should be taking moral cues from them."

"What I want to know," Vivian butted in, "is why somebody would have an escape tunnel they couldn't escape through."

The disciple sniggered.

"It came with the house! We found it when we had the floors redone." She sighed. "Zaid hired a miner he trusted to look at it, but he said the best he could do in secret was shore it up. Widening it would be a major production, and there was little chance of hiding it from the neighbors. So we had him shore it up enough to make it safe. We would have told the children about it when they were older, but things didn't work out that way. I assume it was original to the house, and the first owners were small people."

Harrence whistled at Marlowe and signaled a halt. "Emil. Twenty big steps that way, you'll find a bunch of plants that look like this." He drew a picture in a patch of dirt, of a plant with three wilted stems, their wilted flower tops lying on the ground. "Grab the plants at the base and pull up. The roots look like this." He drew a bulb attached to the bottom of the plant. "They're very tasty. We'll have them for dinner if you pick some. No more than fifteen, or whatever you can carry."

He was away before his mother could give permission. Wealthy or not, disciple or not, this man smelled like a farmer to her. She didn't like him sending the boy where she couldn't see him.

"Don't worry. I'm watching him. He's a lively boy. He must be a handful. Just like my Brynn and Yara were." He stood there with his eyes half-closed, using whatever Art let him watch things from a distance. "If you choose to live with the Calique, they'll love him."

"Is that where you're taking us, to the Calique?"

"We're not taking you anywhere. You're tagging along with us because you have nowhere else to go right now. You're free to leave at any time. But you should stick around, because there's opportunities. You're beautiful and intelligent, and you know how to teach. Nexus will want you. Anisca will want you. The gardens will want you. And you won't be forced to marry any scabby princes to get what you want."

"So where are we tagging along to?"

"Shelter. We'll have to wait a few days until His Holiness finishes his business in Enclave. When he comes south again, we'll meet him on the road and join him. We'll ride the rest of the way.

Emil soon returned, sweating under twelve bulb-bearing plants. "There's too many!"

"Look how big these roots are! That's plenty, Emil. I'll take some, and your mother will take some, and you carry the rest." They divided the load, and Harrence signaled they could continue. Minutes later, they were at a long rectangular cabin whose outside looked like it was ready to crumble. On the inside, it was warm, clean, and spacious. The beds were soft, and a fire soon warmed it up enough they could lay aside their coats.

While Vivian and Jaida prepared a dinner of herbed fish and delicate flower bulbs, the two children explored the building, poking into all the corners, Leah holding her brother's hand the whole time. The two of them reappeared at the dinner table with their hands full of gold and silver coins. They started building houses out of stacks of precious metal, while two of the adults looked on in shock.

Marlowe and Harrence laughed at their play. "I see you found my shiny building blocks. Go get me some, and I'll make a tower to go with your house!" Another handful of silver spilled in front of him, and Harrence went to work, interleaving rows of coins.

"Why," whispered Vivian to Marlowe, "do you have a chest full of treasure in the closet?"

"Because people stub their toes on it if you leave it in the middle of the room."

"And where did you get it from?"

"Pirates have hidden out in these hills forever. Harrence finds things."

Emil's ears perked up. "Pirates? My father fights pirates!"

Harrence's eyes sparkled. "Well, this treasure came from Old Goldnut The Greedy, the greediest pirate on the Inland Sea. He was long before your father's time. Do you want to hear about how Old Goldnut lost his treasure, and we happened to find it?"

Emil nodded vigorously. Leah copied him, and they settled in for a story.

Marlowe grabbed Vivian by the elbow and headed for the kitchen. "Let me help you! Things are about to get too silly around here."