A Respite From Storms Read online

  “Where are we going?” Alixa asked.

  “To the hold.”

  The word “mizzenmast” popped suddenly into Jasen’s head, unbidden. He frowned, then discarded it—certainly not the name he had been looking for.

  “The hold,” said Alixa. “Right.” She took a breath. “Where your cages are?”

  Scourgey whined, as if she understood.

  Looked like everyone’s cognition was just coming back to life now.

  “Nothing to fear from ‘em,” said Kuura. “The people we keep in ‘em won’t mind a spot of c’mpany.”

  Alixa’s eyes widened to great, pearly orbs. Her eyebrows shot so far up her forehead that they threatened to disappear into the matted remnants of her fringe, straggly and sticking out to either side of her face where she’d wiped it out of her eyes, and water had held it in position.

  Kuura burst into a belly laugh again. He clutched his stomach, and leaned back.

  “Hoo! You should’ve seen your face, girl.” He slapped a knee, and grinned. “We’ve no people in our cages. Just animals. Come on, you’ll see for yourself.” And down he went, without waiting for them to follow.

  Alixa exchanged a look with Jasen, eyes still as wide as they could go.

  Her mouth moved to form words, but her throat would not offer any.

  Jasen just nodded in understanding.

  Burund had been right: this Kuura was mad.

  “Keep up!” Kuura called from a floor below.

  Alixa and Jasen followed, Jasen taking up the rear, behind Scourgey, who went unhappily. Alixa’s feet fumbled on the steps, but she figured them out by the middle landing. Scourgey, on the other hand, never seemed to figure the things out. Possibly that came down in part to her nerves; probably, Jasen figured, it was her awkward body shape, not apparently designed to have finesse in any area at all, with that unnaturally curved spine.

  Twelve steps in all led down to the next deck. The ceiling was low—but the space itself was wide open. Only beams carved it. Otherwise, the full floor could be walked. Metal contraptions, bulky things with long, cylindrical extrusions laid horizontal across the top, were placed at even intervals ahead of portholes to either side of the ship, presently closed. Racks were affixed to the walls in between the contraptions. Dark balls, also apparently metal, rested upon the lower shelves.

  Jasen and Alixa peered at them curiously. But Kuura was already waving them for the next staircase down, descending it with scarcely a look at this open, almost cavernous chamber.

  Jasen followed after Alixa and Scourgey. He paused for a moment before descending, eyeing the room one last time. Did it run the full length of the ship? And what was the burnt smell, just at the edges of his senses?

  The next floor was fourteen steps down. The ceiling was higher here. Not open this time, the staircase terminated in a four-way junction: steps leading up and down, then a corridor moving straight ahead, and another, shorter one to the left. Quarters were a bit tighter here, after the steps; the hallways were just wider than a single person. Anyone passing in opposite directions would need to turn side on to slip by each other.

  “Down again,” said Kuura, and already his head was disappearing into the next hole. “Last flight, I promise.”

  Alixa shared an uneasy glance with Jasen. Yet she followed, gently coaxing Scourgey along. Softly whining, the scourge obeyed, claws skittering against the wooden steps.

  Down Jasen went too.

  The hold must be right at the bottom of the ship, because no further stairs led down at the bottom, at least as far as he could see. It was a dimly lit place; the lanterns were fewer, spread more widely.

  A smell of manure and ammonia—piss—wafted to Jasen.

  Outside of a clean halo, sodden straw was trodden throughout the walking space cut between cages. Most of them were small, and a full half empty. Farther back, though, Jasen glimpsed cages the size of a cow—estimated by the fact that he did, indeed, see a cow grazing upon a mound of dried grass in one, flicking its ears distractedly.

  Alixa screwed up her face, plugged her nose. “This is awful.”

  “Be kind, now,” said Kuura. “They might think the same of your stink, now you’re down here.” He threw his head back and hooted.

  Jasen stared.

  When he’d calmed sufficiently, Kuura said, “This way, please, this way.” And he went off down a central aisle between the cages, not appearing to care remotely about the scat and urine that met the soles of his boots.

  The animals in the cages were a mix of the mundane and the peculiar. Three short cages in a row housed pigs, the third a sow who lay on her side while piglets suckled. But then, separated by a single empty cage, Jasen locked eyes with a strange creature whose face and body were both decidedly humanlike. Covered in downy fur, it was a small thing, maybe eighteen inches tall. Its limbs appeared too long for it. It had been reaching through a gap in its cage toward the nursing pig, unsuccessfully—it would need a longer arm by a good twelve inches at least for that—but as Kuura walked by, it stopped, and stared. Its eyes were small, very dark. They shifted toward Alixa, and Jasen; then they landed on Scourgey. It cocked its head, then bared stubby little fangs and hissed … and then decided there was no threat after all, and resumed trying to reach for the pig.

  A pair of colorful birds occupied a cage hanging from a crossbeam. Kuura ducked underneath it. Alixa hesitated; the birds, asleep now, had covered the passageway in a half-crusted spatter of droppings.

  Kuura looked back at her. His lips parted, showing that wide grin again, with too many teeth. “Yeh’ll have worse’n that on your shoes before long. It won’t harm you, so come on.”

  “It’s disgusting,” said Alixa. “Haven’t you got any fresh straw? You’re supposed to clean animals out every d—”

  Kuura bellowed a chuckle. “And how d’you suppose we do that?” Turning serious: “We’re at sea, Alixa. Everythin’ we carry’s gotta fit inside these walls. A month’s supply of daily straw’d be a whole other vessel. Do you see?”

  Alixa harrumphed.

  Kuura waved a hand, turning and resuming. “It’s just a bit farther. Step wide if yeh have to.”

  Begrudgingly, Alixa followed. She did as Kuura suggested, stretching her legs out as far as possible to avoid the birds’ droppings. Scourgey minded less, traipsing through it. And Jasen, figuring that his boots were coated now with a film of urine and feces and decaying hay anyway, gave the pile only a slight berth as he passed.

  “Here,” said Kuura. He stopped right near the end of the aisle, where it turned a right angle and ran alongside more boxy cages. He patted one that came to chest height, separated from its occupied neighbors—a bull on the left, and what Jasen could only describe as a ball of spikes on short stubby legs on the right—by more empties.

  Alixa turned her nose up at it. “There’s barely enough room in there for Scourgey to turn. And there’s no straw!”

  “Never been on a ship before, have you? Space is a luxury, one we don’t have a lot of. Anyway: a big wave hits us, you want your … thing there to have all the room in the world to walk about? Cages built to fit, the animal can travel a foot, two at the most, before it’s stopped—no splat.” Kuura clapped his hands together for emphasis. “Now coax it in there, and I’ll bolt the door.”

  Alixa looked sad. Bowing to Scourgey, she said, “I need you to go into this cage, okay? It’s not for long …”

  Scourgey whimpered.

  A door was open at the front of the cage, with a bolting lock on. Alixa pointed into it, looking at Scourgey with her best kind face. It didn’t quite hit the mark: Jasen thought she looked closer to heartbroken.

  Scourgey obeyed. She walked inside slowly, claws clicking on wood. Fully inside, she turned around in a small circle—a very small one; she really didn’t have a lot of room to move, at least to left and right—and then looked sadly back out at them. Her mouth hung open. Her black tongue lolled.

  She whined one last little
whine, and went silent.

  Kuura snapped the cage door closed. He bolted it. Then he slipped a thicker lock around it, clicking it closed. A curved bar of metal prevented the bolt from being undone.

  “Someone’ll be by to refresh the straw in the morning,” said Kuura. “Though, if you want that pet of yours to have any, you might want to do it yourself. Hold doesn’t smell very fresh at the best of times, but that thing kicks up a real nasty stink. I dread to imagine the smell when it farts.” And he hooted again. The birds jerked at the disturbance and rearranged their wings. “Say your goodbye, but be quick. I’ll be waitin’ on the stairs to take you to your room.”

  “Surprised they’re not giving us a cage to sleep in,” Alixa grumbled under her breath.

  “Alixa,” Jasen warned.

  She glanced at him, then pursed her lips, shook her head. Then, leaning down to Scourgey—not onto her knees, for urine had soaked into these planks underfoot too—she reached through the bars. Fingers gripping each side of Scourgey’s miserable face, she said sadly, “I’m sorry about this. We’ll be back for you soon. I’m so sorry.”

  “Waitin’!” hollered Kuura.

  Alixa swiped a hand across her eyes. They were dry, but going just the slightest bit pink. “I’m coming!” she growled in reply.

  To Scourgey: “We’re not going far, I promise.”

  “It’ll be here tomorrow,” Kuura called. “This ain’t some final farewell you’re giving it. Come on, now; my nose c’n only take this stench for so long.”

  “We’ll be just upstairs …”

  “Alixa,” Jasen started.

  “I promise, not far. And—and I’m s—”

  “Really.” Kuura again, and now he was beginning to sound annoyed. “If you think I like the smell of dung, yeh’re sadly mistaken.”

  “Coming!” Alixa belted. Jasen flinched back—as did Scourgey.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Alixa,” Jasen whispered. He gently pulled at her wrist. “We should go.”

  She looked at him now like she might cry properly. A tremble had taken hold of her bottom lip. But then she clamped down on it and nodded, setting her mouth into a line. She said one last, “See you soon,” to Scourgey, and then set off at a stride back the way they’d come. The downy thing with long arms tried to grab at her as she passed, but she barely looked back at it.

  “Thank you,” said Kuura, “for your swiftness.” He hooted again, grinning like a maniac. “Up.” And he led.

  The floor above the hold was a maze of cabins, not very navigable at all. At least, that was how it seemed to Jasen. Now, he wondered how an outsider might make their way around Terreas. If you didn’t know those pathways and the routes throughout the village, you’d loop back on yourself plenty, getting nowhere, or finding a destination only by chance.

  He’d never thought of it before, because, well, he knew only those roads, same as everyone in the village.

  The same was probably true of the people on this boat.

  Kuura brought them to a small cabin, tucked away to one side. The door was not very wide. He opened it without a key, pushed it open—

  A wave must have broken against the boat’s edge, for the world canted suddenly to one side. Alixa and Kuura held firm, Kuura barely moving whereas Alixa needed to brace against the wall; but Jasen had no such luck. He staggered into the door, which mercifully yawned wide for him under the pull of gravity momentarily coming from the back wall. His shins banged a low bed with a hard frame, and he pitched forward, landing hard in a pile of folded—and terribly thin—bedding.

  Kuura laughed. “Keen one.”

  Alixa was behind him, helping him up. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he mumbled. But there would be bruises, big ones, tomorrow, and walking for the next week was not going to be pleasant.

  Then again, there were no longer very many places to walk to.

  “Yeh’ll have to share, I’m afraid,” said Kuura, nodding at the bed. “Cabin’s only kitted out for the one … don’t have many sharers, of course. Might be different when we pull into port; once or a twice a lady’s wanted to see the inside of a ship, and a hopeful sailor’s brought her back here.” He leaned forward, adding in a conspiratorial tone that was no quieter than a moment ago, “Watch out for Odo. He’ll bring aboard anything he can lay ‘is hands on. Big or small … male, if it’s a dry port.” And he guffawed, showing plenty of teeth. “I’ll see what the captain wants done with yeh. Food, probably, but cook’s shut down for the night, so yeh might be waitin’ a little, maybe till morning.” Pointing to Jasen: “Doctor for you, when he pulls his fingers out.” Another hearty laugh.

  He clutched the door handle and pulled it to. Then he reached in and groped for the bolt running along its rear side.

  “Close this, unless yeh want ol’ Webster tryna mount yeh in the night.”

  Alixa looked frightened.

  “I’m talkin’ to him, not you.”

  He rumbled laughter again, and then pulled the door closed.

  Barely before the sound of bootsteps took him far did Alixa slam the bolt into place.

  “We are not opening this.”

  Jasen nodded. Fine by him.

  Without Kuura here, he could take in the cabin.

  There was not a lot of it to absorb. The bed was low to the ground, on a frame that was much thicker than the thin mattress laid atop it. A porthole looked out to blackness, a greasy film clinging to it.

  A lamp hung on the wall, lit but low. A case sat at the foot of the bed. Jasen did not care to open it just yet. He expected, when he did, that he would find it empty anyway.

  And that was all.

  This musty-smelling room, with its claustrophobically close walls, and threadbare, too-small bed—

  This was their home, now.

  Jasen shook the thought loose. Not home. No place would be home again. That had been Terreas, in his house, with his father—and, for a long time, but a long time ago, his mother too.

  Not this ship. Not even if he rode it till the end of his days.

  Alixa settled on the bed, resting against the wall.

  Jasen fell down beside her and leaned back against the opposite one.

  She drew her knees to her chest, held them close. “It’ll be a tight squeeze.”

  Jasen nodded. He hadn’t the strength for words.

  “We’ll top and tail it,” said Alixa, “one pillow each end. That okay?”

  It was fine.

  They were quiet. But the boat was not. People moved, ceaselessly. Snippets of conversation could be overheard, all of it in that foreign language. Waves broke against the hull, and now Jasen and Alixa were holding still, it was difficult to deny the somewhat nauseating sway of the vessel. If a storm was building outside, as Kuura had said, Jasen did not believe it would take long to break; the movements of the boat were growing stronger and increasingly more violent.

  With no light, it was hard to tell how much time passed, but at some point, Alixa started to cry. She did not sob, and her eyes were barely wet, but every few minutes a solitary tear trickled down her cheeks. She rubbed it away with a knuckle.

  “We’re the last of our families.”

  She said it very quietly, her voice low. But it was enough to drag Jasen’s attention to her, for him to meet her gaze head on.

  She was sad—resigned.

  “We are the last of our village. The last of the Syloreans. The last …” She stopped and steeled herself with a heavy breath. “The last of the Luukessians,” she finished. Her voice was somber yet steady.

  “The chain of all our ancestors,” she said softly, “of the entire land … it ends with us.”

  She lapsed into silence then, staring at nothing.

  Eventually, she lay down, silently bundling one of the blankets into the best possible approximation of a pillow.

  The last thing Alixa murmured was, “I shouted at Scourgey.” She shook her head very slightly, just once. Not long afterwa
rds, she fell asleep.

  For all his exhaustion, Jasen could not follow. Despite his fatigue, his brain kept whirring, whirring away at one thought, over and over.

  Alixa was right. They were the last of their people.

  Everything they had ever known, everyone they had ever loved—it had all been wiped out.

  And the cause? The name echoed relentlessly.

  Baraghosa.

  With each reverberation, it grew louder. And the fires burning in Jasen’s heart grew hotter, flames licking higher and higher.

  His hands shook. He clasped his sodden trousers lest their movement wake Alixa, but still the fever consumed him, and grew stronger.

  Baraghosa.

  Jasen’s lips were a pencil-thin line. Low eyebrows drew lines on his forehead above wild eyes, staring blankly into a far-off infinity.

  Baraghosa.

  He had destroyed everything.

  There was only one thing for it, Jasen thought as he curled his hand into a tight fist.

  Jasen would destroy him.

  3

  Jasen was woken by the sound of knocking.

  He opened bleary eyes.

  Alixa sat on the bed, knees tucked in close to her chin. She’d been awake for some time, maybe waiting for him; she looked at him as he lifted his head and raised a frail smile. “Hello.”

  Jasen made a grunting noise.

  “It’s morning,” said Alixa.

  True enough, the view from the porthole was two shades of blue: a deep blue, crested with bars of foam, and the pale color of sky. No cloud marred it, at least in the abridged view that Jasen could see; it appeared to be a nice day, just past dawn, last night’s storm nothing but a memory.

  Then he remembered that Terreas was gone, his father and aunt and uncle and cousins with it, and the possibility of any nice day ever again evaporated.

  “And someone’s at the door,” Alixa added.

  Three distinct knocks. The door rattled. It wasn’t seated properly in the frame.

  “Rise and shine,” called Kuura, lengthening that last word. With his accent, it did not sound particularly natural. “Can’t sleep in all day.”