Jane Carver of Waar (22 page)

Sai tugged on his mask. He was having trouble seeing out the eye holes. “But what do they plan? What of all that talk of loans and construction and provisions?”

“Perhaps Vawa merely builds a hunting lodge for Kedac’s pleasure. Game is the one thing Vawa-Sar’s wasteland is rich in. As for the loan, ’tis not clear from your story who borrowed from whom. Vawa-Sar could be in debt to Kedac-Zir.”

Sai seemed a little disappointed that he hadn’t uncovered some kind of plot. “Well, it sounded mysterious.”

Lhan patted him on the shoulder. “It may well be. We shall investigate once you settle your affairs with Kedac-Zir.”

I couldn’t see Sai’s face through the mask, but he seemed to shrink at the mention of the fight. We went the rest of the way in silence.

***

The good thing about smelling like a diseased buffalo is that people leave you alone. There were navy thugs snooping all over that ship-field for Sai and me, but nobody came near the two filthy priests and their huge “man”servant. The bad thing about it was we almost didn’t get our spot on the merchant ship.

The captain was a tubby, balding guy with a little fringe of hair that made him look like a monk. He sure didn’t act like one. When we came on board he was tearing everybody within earshot a new asshole; the guys in the rigging, the guys lowering cargo into the hold, the guys filling the gas bag with “levitating air.” His skin was a deep purple, but he got so red in the face when he screamed that he looked like a black cherry. We were the last straw. “I care not what your bill of passage says. I take no outlanders on this ship. Especially no maku-sacrificing heathen priests, and particularly no stinking lamlots who don’t know what water and a scraper are for! Now get off my ship before I report you for spreading the pox.”

I balled my fists. I wasn’t in the best of moods. I was still sore from last night’s panty raid, I hadn’t slept, and the Andag armor was hot and heavy and infested with things that bit me in places I only let very good friends bite me in. I started forward, ready to twist baldy’s fat, cherry head off.

Lhan held me back. He bowed and scraped like a bellhop. He put on a funny accent too. “Accept, please, our basest apologies. We understand that our sacred stench is less than pleasant to untutored pagan nostrils. Therefore allow please some small restitution for your trouble in the form of honest Oran gold.”

The captain waved back his muscle boys, who had been closing in during Lhan’s speech. “How much honesty do we speak of?”

Lhan took out his money pouch. “Perhaps half again the original price of passage?”

The captain nearly popped a blood vessel. “Half? Three times the amount would barely repay the misery of my crew. Not to mention the cost of delousing them all at journey’s end.”

Lhan bowed again. “Noble captain, it is against the precepts of our faith to bargain, yet how can I pay more than I have?”

After five minutes of back and forth, we ended up paying double, and had to settle for sleeping on the deck. The captain wouldn’t let us go below decks for any amount of money.

Afterward, there was time to watch the sky-caravan get ready for lift off. The ship-field was a huge grassy meadow, crowded with all kinds of ships: man-o-wars so big they needed two side-by-side gas bags to fly, smaller destroyers with slim balloons and hulls like spearheads, that were mounted all over with giant crossbows that looked like they used telephone poles for ammo. There were fat merchantmen that didn’t look like they could get off the ground and little trading ships like ours, no bigger than a metro bus. They were all packed so close together I couldn’t see the sky. It looked like we were in some huge room with gigantic pillows on the ceiling.

Under that weird marshmallowy roof guys scurried around like ants, loading cargo, food, water, and “levitating air,” which came from huge brass tanks mounted on wagons and pulled by teams of krae. They looked like fire extinguishers the size of eighteen wheelers.

By the military ships, a crane was loading big cages onto the man-o-wars, the same cages I’d seen on the roof of Kedac’s castle. They were filled with giant, scary pterodactyl-things with big leathery wings, heads like woodpeckers, teeth like crocodile’s, and, like all the animals I’d seen here except for the men and the insects, a third set of limbs. On the pterodactyls they looked like some kind of steering system: little arms with flying squirrel skin-folds tucked under the big wings. The craziest part was, they all wore saddles.

“What the hell are those?”

Lhan looked where I was pointing. “Skelsha war birds. Skelsha cavalry ride point, looking for danger, and defend the big ships.”

“Fighter planes.”

Lhan raised an eyebrow. “You wax obscure, mistress Jae-En.”

“Sorry. Don’t mind me.” My eyes wandered. Far from the warships, I spotted Vawa-Sar and a bunch of guys in hooded capes getting on board a ratty little ship that was being loaded with heavy crates and lumpy bundles. “Hey, Sai. Isn’t that your brother-in-law again?”

Sai and Lhan looked where I was pointing. Sai nodded. “Vawa-Sar. Yes, so it is. You see, Lhan?”

Lhan bobbed around, trying to see through the rigging and people in the way. He turned to Sai. “There may be something in your suspicions after all, Sai. Though they hide ’neath cloaks, I believe I spy among Vawa’s friends Korec-Bar, chief builder of Kedac’s navy, as well as several of his aides.” Lhan nodded to me. “Many thanks, Mistress Jane, for your sharp eyes. This is most interesting.”

Sai looked eager. “Is this a weapon we can use against Kedac?”

Lhan gave him a sharp look. “The only weapon you will use against Kedac-Zir is your sword. Using politics to settle matters of the heart is beneath you, Sai. After your duel with Kedac-Zir, if he lives, then is the time to raise embarrassing questions at court.”

Sai wasn’t listening. He was staring past Lhan.

We turned. A column of marines, four abreast, was marching through the crowd to the biggest, classiest merchant ship. Behind the column came an open carriage. Wen-Jhai sat in the back, ramrod straight, as regal as the Queen of fucking Sheba. Beside her, all in black and purple, was Mai-Mar, Kedac’s creepy cousin, and riding on a krae beside the carriage was Kedac himself, as smug as a Georgia state trooper. He was ruler of all he surveyed and he liked it, a lot.

I wanted to peel that smile off his face with my teeth. I had to physically hold on to the rail to keep from jumping ship and charging him. Not yet.

Sai stood up straight and stuck his jaw out. He turned to Lhan. “Should... I face him now, Lhan?”

Lhan grinned. “Loath though I am to dissuade you while your fire burns hot, I would not advocate it. The purpose of the duel is twofold; to defeat Kedac-Zir and to impress Wen-Jhai. Dressed and smelling as you do now, you would fail utterly in this second objective. Fear not, Sai. There will be plenty of opportunities for honor when we reach Ormolu.”

I felt another sting of guilt. I was going to nip all of Sai’s opportunities for honor in the bud and piss off Lhan to boot. I couldn’t look at them. Instead I kept my eyes on Kedac and the carriage. At the ship Kedac dismounted and walked Wen-Jhai and Mai-Mar up the gang plank. He made his good-byes to his fiancée with a kiss on the cheek as dry as your Aunt Mirna’s.

Lhan and Sai exchanged a glance as Kedac rode with his men back to the big man-o-war.

Lhan smirked. “Quite the romantic, this Kedac-Zir. Traveling separately from his betrothed so that their reunion will be all the more ecstatic.”

Sai surprisingly came to Kedac’s defense. “He merely looks to her comfort. There is little room on a man-o-war, and none of it suitable for an Aldhanshai. Also, he is sensible of propriety. He travels apart from her so that the purity of the Aldhanshai will be unquestioned.”

I could think of some other reasons. “Maybe she never floated his boat in the first place.”

Sai and Lhan shot me a look. Sai looked annoyed. “Do you still harp on what we spoke of last night?”

I shook my head. “No no, you set me straight on that. A guy’s gotta get his kicks. But what if maybe he just plain doesn’t like her.”

Lhan was shocked. “What you say is impossible.”

Sai was horrified. “Then why would he marry her?”

Were they kidding me? “Well, she’s a princess, ain’t she? That’s gotta be a rung up on the social ladder, even for a muckety-muck like Kedac.”

Sai and Lhan turned white. Sai’s voice was cold and hard. “Mistress Jae-En, here in Ora, love is the only reason to marry. Romance is our ideal, our second religion. This is why the Sanfallah is tolerated: because ’tis thought that no boundaries of wealth or clan should stand in the way of true love, and that a true lover is willing to fight and die for his love.”

True love but you got to fuck all the peasants you wanted. Okay, whatever. “But didn’t you tell me that the Sanfallah came down to the strength of your arm, not the strength of your heart?”

Sai looked grim. “There is that flaw. The old ways say that a man’s love will make his arm strong. I... I am proof this is not the case. But that does not impugn Kedac-Zir’s honor, just my lack of skill. Though my rival, I would not suggest that Kedac-Zir does not love Wen-Jhai, only that he cannot love her as I do.”

Lhan spoke up. “To doubt a man’s love is the greatest insult on Ora.”

Well, that showed me. “This goes back to that thing you wear under your belt, right?”

Sai nodded. “The Balurrah. Honor demands that a man wear the colors of his true love whether her family be at war with his, whether she be another man’s wife, an Aldhanshai, servant, slave, or whore. Any man not willing to risk the embarrassment of discovery cannot truly love. His lover would shun him.”

I laughed. “Man, the divorce rate back home would be sky high.”

Sai frowned. “Divorce? I know not this word.”

“It’s
my
homeland’s second religion.”

The man-o-war blew a signal and all the wagons and longshoremen backed away. Time to go.

The ground crews threw off the hawsers and the whole field of sky-ships rose like a school of whales surging toward the surface of a purple and gold sea. It was as beautiful as a movie. I stayed at the rail long after Sai and Lhan split to the upper deck for more fencing practice.

***

For two days that was pretty much the routine: me looking over the rail and watching the skelshas zip from ship to ship, carrying messages and passengers; Lhan and Sai hacking at each other on the top deck, out of the way of the airmen who were constantly climbing up and down the rigging and winching in and out the steering wings.

I wanted to join in the fencing practice, but I was still waiting for my palms to heal from the skinning they got sliding down the rope. Even if I’d been one-hundred percent I couldn’t have played: not if we wanted to stay incognito. Sai and Lhan could strip down to their masks and undies and still be in disguise. But I was busted if I took off even one layer—busted by my bust—and I didn’t feel like sweating into these rags anymore than I had to. I might start some kind of bacteria culture and kill the whole planet.

So I watched the landscape go by. It was worth watching. The shadows of the airships chased each other across the landscape like a flock of ghost sheep. We flew over a red, orange and blue patchwork of fields, dusty khaki areas of dry wilderness, and blue-black forests. Roads wandered through it all like the marks a kid makes dragging a stick through the dirt. The roads would come together now and then in a cluster of houses or a castle or a town, and then split apart again. Twice I saw one of the Seven’s super roads, ruler-straight and running from vanishing point to vanishing point.

I finally saw a lake or two, though they were more like wide places in the rivers, and once, at sunset, way off on the horizon, a silver flash that might have been a sea. So little water. It made me wonder why the whole damn planet wasn’t a desert. How did the plants grow? Did it ever rain?

***

Boy, did it rain. I found that out the hard way the second night out. I woke up to horns blowing and a spatter of raindrops on my face. There were airmen rushing all around, shouting, and horn lanterns swinging on hooks where the torches usually were. A cold wind hummed through the rigging. I was surprised. Even as high up as we were it had been pretty warm both day and night. Now I was shivering.

Sai and Lhan woke up too. Lhan grabbed a passing airman. “What goes on?”

“Storm!”

“But storm season doesn’t start for two quarters.”

“Tell that to the wind.”

The storm had come up fast in the fourth dark when both moons were out of the sky. The airmen hadn’t noticed it until too late. The normal procedure in storms was to drop to the ground and tie off until it blew over. Trouble was, if you started down too late you could get dragged across trees and rocks and smashed into mountains.

That’s what had happened to us. Some ships were halfway down and just now realizing it was too late to go further. All of them were battening hatches and tying off the steering sails, hoping they’d be able to ride out the storm in one piece.

With a roar, the sprinkle of rain turned into a fire hose. Everything went gray. I couldn’t see. It was like a TV station suddenly going to static. The wind kicked up so hard that the downpour was blasting left to right across the deck. The ship tipped like a bike leaning into a turn. Lhan, Sai and I started sliding toward the rail.

Lhan shouted, clutching his pack. “We must go below!”

I grabbed the rest of our stuff and we hunched our way to the nearest hatch, holding on for dear life. A boson stepped in our way. “You don’t go below, remember, priest?”

I grabbed the guy’s harness and picked him off the deck one-handed. “We go below or you go over.”

His eyes bulged out. “Go and be damned, then.”

I dropped him and we went below. Snarling airmen and merchants pushed us out of every cabin and hidey-hole we found, shouting, “Stinking priests, find your own place!” and, “Filthy vermin, no room!” It was just like being a biker.