Jala's Mask (35 page)

Marjani shook her head. “They can't keep an eye on me forever. Sooner or later they'll look away, and I'll jump off and find my way back. I won't leave you here.”

The sailors weren't waiting. They pushed off the shore with long sticks the Hashon had brought and turned the grayships toward home.

“Let me stay with you,” Marjani whispered. “You'll always be Jala to me. Always. You're my oldest friend, and I won't abandon you.” Her voice grew small and scared. “Please. Don't make me leave you alone here. I couldn't bear it.”

“You'll be alone here,” Jala said.

“I'll still have you. Whatever's left of you,” Marjani said.

Jala made herself speak in spite of Lord Water's words filling her mouth and mind. “It doesn't matter. Let her stay if she wants,” she said. “Find her a room. Bring her food, water, whatever she needs.” The grayships began to move. Jala returned to the palace without looking back.

Behind her, she could just make out Marjani's whisper. “I'll find a way to save you. I will. And if I don't, at least you won't be alone.”

What is time to a river? The storm season comes, and the river swells with rainwater. Is this a heartbeat? A breath? A whispered word? Then the rains are gone, and the river ebbs again. The lives of fish are seconds, the lives of men and women days.

To a river, time is the rocks on the shore made smooth. Time is the slow erosion of a bank.

Yet there are times when the river notices the minute as keenly as a human or a fish. When the land shifts and the river bends. When the riverbank breaks and the river cuts a new path to its destination. When the water running beneath the mountain finally breaks free, and a tiny spring burbles as it begins to reach out across the land as if in search of something.

So the time passed for Jala. While she wore the mask, she was Lord Water, and the words she spoke and the things she did seemed like a dream. She floated on the surface of her thoughts and feelings and memories, and felt them only distantly.

But though her mind was free, her body wasn't, and after many years—or was it merely hours?—she was forced to take off the mask.

Without it, the world seemed gray and empty. The seconds dragged across her mind like stone scraping against stone. She ate without tasting. She slept, if the fitful tossing and the nightmarish visions could be called sleep.

“You're getting that faraway look again,” Marjani said. “And you've stopped eating. You promised me you'd eat today.”

Jala started. She'd forgotten Marjani was there. She looked around. They were in a small, round chamber deep in the palace. There were no windows, only candles on the walls and a small table with two stools. There was food laid out in front of them.

Nearby, the sound of rushing water filled her ears, and she wondered how long before she could wear the mask again.

Azi stood at the bow of the ship and watched the Constant City draw near. He'd been raiding many times but had never been to the Constant City itself. In the past, some kings had made sure their sons went trading in the Constant City instead of raiding, but his father hadn't been that way. He imagined Jala standing on her ship watching the city just as he was now.

Where are you?
Azi wondered, just as he had every day since he'd left. He'd been impatient to reach the mainland then. Now, a part of him didn't want to know. What if she was dead? What if it had all been for nothing?

But what if she wasn't? What if he could help her? His mother would tell him he was being a fool, that like all men he thought the winds only blew if he was there to help them. Well, maybe he was a fool, but he'd rather be a fool than live the rest of his life wondering if he could have made a difference.

“Captain! There are grayships in the harbor,” called one of the sailors.

Azi's heart rose as he squinted in the direction the spotter pointed. “Can you tell whose ships they are? Is one of them a Bardo ship?”

“One of them looks like the Bardo grew it,” the sailor said. “The others look like Gana ships to me.”

Azi sighed and sank down to his knees. He laughed. It
had
all been for nothing. She hadn't needed rescuing after all. He was a fool, just like his mother said, and he didn't care.

“Go to them. Call out to them,” Azi said. “I have to see her.”

The sailor glanced at the captain. She nodded, and the sailor called directions to the navigator. Slowly, far too slowly for Azi, the ship turned. They were spotted long before they were close enough to be heard. Azi could see the sailors on the deck pointing.

“Peace and good wind,” one of the sailors on the Gana ship called when they'd drawn close.

Azi didn't wait for the
Whaleshark
's crew to shout back a greeting of their own. “Where's Jala?” he shouted across the shrinking gap between the ships. “Where's the queen?”

The sailors glanced at each other, but none of them spoke. Azi's chest felt hollow. “What happened to her?” he demanded, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

By now the
Whaleshark
had drawn up beside the Bardo grayship. On each ship, four sailors pulled out oars and held them out for someone on the opposing ship to grab, as much to keep them from colliding as to keep them together. The ship lurched from the sudden shift in momentum, but Azi was ready for it after years aboard ships. That wasn't what made his legs unsteady.

“What happened to Jala?”

“They left her behind, my king,” said an old man sitting on one of the benches nailed into the shipwood for rowing. “Not that she gave them any choice.”

“Left her? Where? Why?” Azi didn't wait for them to answer. He placed one foot on the bulwark and jumped. He cleared the gap and landed heavily on the Bardo ship's deck. The ship rocked from the impact.

“She wasn't herself anymore,” one of the sailors said.

“She put the mask on and it's like she was gone,” said another.

“They would have killed us all.”

The sailors were all talking at once now. They fell quiet as he met their gaze, but they didn't look away. It wasn't guilt on their faces but exhaustion and defiance. Whatever had happened, they weren't happy about it—but they would do it again.

“She was Bardo,” one of the sailors said, as if she could hear his thoughts. “We don't leave family behind easily.”

“But she's still alive?” Azi demanded. “Somewhere?”

“She's alive,” the old man said. “But it's a long way to the city of the river people, my king. I can help you find her, though.”

Azi focused on the old man. “Who are you? You're no sailor.”

“Askel, my king. A sorcerer from the fire island, though I hope to make my home on a more hospitable isle after this. She promised me, my king.”

“If you can help me find her, I'll make sure my uncle knows what you've done.”
Though I don't know if he'll thank you for it
, Azi thought.

“Thank you, my king. I ask only that and one other thing . . . a small thing.”

“First I have to find her,” Azi said pointedly.

The sorcerer smiled and reached into his dirty robe. He pulled out a bound rag, then carefully unrolled it. Inside was a shriveled lump of black and red.

Blood. Fingernail. It was a finger—Jala's finger, Azi realized, recognizing it somehow in spite of its hideous state. Before he'd thought anything else, he found himself grabbing hold of the sorcerer's robes and throwing him over the side of the ship. Azi didn't let go of the man but let him hang, bare feet skimming the top of the water, his skin sliced open as he bounced against the sharp sides of the ship.

“What did you do to her?” Azi hissed.

But the sorcerer just laughed. “She did it to herself. She did it all to herself. If you'll set me down, I'll explain it all, and then I'll tell you how you can use this same magic to find your queen again.”

Azi felt a hand on his shoulder. “My king, he's telling the truth,” one of the sailors said. “She cut her own finger off, though it was for this one's magic. Captain Natari was there. He'll tell you.”

One of the other grayships was already pulling up beside the one he stood on, and the sailors greeted their captain across the water.

Azi forced himself to breathe. Carefully, he pulled the sorcerer back into the ship and set him back on the bench.

“I'm sorry,” he said, mostly meaning it. “It's not really you I want to hit. I don't know
who
to hit, in fact. If you can help me find her. . . . I think you and Captain Natari need to tell me everything. Then show me how the magic works.”

He reached out his hand, palm up, and the sorcerer placed Jala's finger on it. Blood oozed, slow as mud, from the dried stump.

Azi closed his fingers around it carefully and listened. The sorcerer, with unasked-for help from the sailors, told Azi what had happened in the city of the Hashon. He told Azi about the masks, about the war between the followers of stone and the followers of water, about the Hashana River that flowed through the lands and the people. He told Azi what Jala had done.

“There might not be anything left of her by now,” Askel whispered. “Only the mask. Only Lord Water. Do you still want to go?” Azi nodded. “The magic works in reverse. Hook your finger around hers, the way two children might when making a promise. Close your eyes and still your mind. Feel the weak pulse in the dying flesh? Feel the way it pulls you in her direction? Just like one of your grayships pulling toward the reef that grew it.”

“I feel it,” Azi whispered, his voice hoarse.

“Then your queen's body still lives, and the magic has not yet faded. As for her mind and spirit, I make no promises.”

When the sorcerer was done, Captain Natari offered Azi the Queen's Earring. “She might need this,” he said. “I hope she does.”

Azi shook his head. “I hope she does as well, but I can't take it with me. I may never come back. Take it to my uncle when you're back on the Five-and-One. If we ever make it back home . . . then we'll see.”

Captain Natari nodded. “Then I hope a strong wind fills your sail, Azi of the Kayet.”

Azi returned to the
Whaleshark
, Jala's missing finger clutched in one hand. “I'll take whatever supplies you can spare and trade for more in the city. I want to leave tomorrow as soon as there's light to walk by.” He glanced around at the sailors who had fought by his side on the Fifth Isle, at Captain Darri, who'd taken Paka's command when the man had died. He'd gotten used to giving orders, he realized.

“You don't have to come with me,” he added. “I'm not your captain, and I don't know if I'll still be king when I return. If I return. I can't command you to go with me. And after what we all saw, what we survived, you deserve better than to have me ask you to risk your lives again when there's only two lives on the line and not an entire island. But I'm asking you anyway. Come with me. Help me bring Jala home.”

“Three lives,” a woman said. “Her friend who went with her, Marjani. She stayed behind too. I heard the Bardo talking about it. So that's three lives.”

“I heard what the queen did,” a man said. “And I see the way you look at her. I'll go.”

“We saw what you did, too,” Captain Darri said. “Even if we could only help one villager, you went with us on the Fifth Isle. Three lives isn't so little. I'll stay by your side, king or no.”

“I get a feeling, sometimes,” an older sailor said. “Like this is the last storm season I'll see aboard a ship. I think I'd like to look at the mainland one more time, just in case I'm right.”

In the end, four sailors stayed behind to watch the ship and sail it back to the First Isle if they didn't return. The rest set out for the mainland for supplies. There were Kayet traders there, just as Azi had expected, and they managed to get enough to start them on their way, though it was less than he'd have liked. They even managed to get hired out as guards on a merchant's caravan. Here Azi's scars seemed to impress them almost as much as their swords.