Ocean of Dust (12 page)

She grabbed Branda's hand and they pushed
through the throng to the starboard rail. She gasped. The shoreline
was so close she imagined she could reach out and touch it. In the
bright glow of the two largest moons she could make out every rock
and boulder along a narrow, black sand beach. Beyond the beach
stood a dense forest of ugly, leafless, stick-like trees. Despite
the murmur of conversation around her, the sounds of screeching and
hooting from within the trees were unmistakable. It didn't sound
like any forest back home.

"Port in the mornin'," one man said.

"Real ale," another said.

"Real women too."

The men gave a lecherous roar of
approval.

Lissa stared at the passing beaches,
mesmerized, wishing she could stand once more on ground that didn't
move all the time. How long had it been? She remembered her first
glimpse of the enormous ship at anchor in Pelen. It seemed to have
become much smaller. If only she could explore the island, and see
something different, meet new people.

Branda left to talk to the physiker, but
before Lissa could follow, Grad and a grim-faced man stepped out in
front of her. They both sucked noisily on clay pipes.

"Evening, girl," he said, blowing a smoke
ring in her face.

The aroma was harsh, and she coughed. "Hello,
Mister Grad, sir."

"Heh," Grad murmured to his friend. "She
called me 'sir'."

"I've got a question," she continued. "Are
there more of those Zrak things down in the hold?"

"Maybe," he replied, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Why? I thought you didn't like 'im?"

She grimaced. "I don't. I was down there and
heard some strange things. It was very spooky."

"Aye, not a place for a girl to go wandering.
All sorts of nasties waiting to leap out at yer."

She gasped and stepped back, wrapping her
arms about her body.

"Why you want to go scaring her, Grad?" the
other man said in a nasal voice. "There ain't no such things down
there, missy."

"I heard... voices," she said.

Grad shrugged. He blew his smoke ring away
from her.

"Probably someone inspecting the cargo.
Jancid, I'll bet. Always talking to himself, silly old fool." He
leaned forward. "You ain't told no one about the card game?" he
whispered.

"I said I wouldn't."

"Hmph. Do you always play that good?"

"I guess so."

He gave a sly wink. "That's my girl. We're
thinking of setting up another game, see, and you can be our secret
weapon, if you get my meaning."

He patted her hard on one cheek and the men
walked away. She stared after them. What trouble was she going to
get into now?

She joined Branda, catching the tail end of a
story the physiker had been telling about Us-imyan.

"I've never heard of it," Lissa said.

The physiker chuckled. "Really? I was
beginning to think you had the whole world in that tiny head of
yours."

"Please tell me about it." She heaved herself
onto a nearby locker. Branda nestled beside her.

The physiker leaned against the rail.

"Us-imyan lies at the tip of a chain of
islands. We're a long way into the great central ocean, and these
islands are like a barrier, splitting the ocean in two."

"You've been here before?" she asked.

"Several times. It serves as a handy
waypoint, a place for ships to trade, take shore-leave, perform
repairs, that sort of thing."

"How far Valin from here?" Branda asked.

He made a quarter turn. "I'm not the
navigator, but I'd guess Valin is over the stern starb'd quarter, a
half Sunturn travel."

Branda swiveled to face the same direction,
and Lissa imagined her friend's thoughts flying over the island,
and racing far across the dust ocean to her homeland.

Branda sighed. "So far."

Lissa lay her hand on Branda's arm and
squeezed, wondering how she would feel when her home became that
far away. She looked back at the beach and the gnarled,
dead-looking trees, and couldn't wait to leave them behind and get
to the town.

Chapter 11 - Us-imyan

Branda woke Lissa earlier than usual.

"Wake up, we at dock," she said. "Early
breakfast then we go on land."

"Hm?" Lissa murmured, blinking the sticky
detritus from her eyes.

Branda shook her vigorously. "We're going
ashore!"

Lissa bolted upright, mouth agape. "We get to
go ashore? You're playing a joke."

"No. I overhear Cook and crew chief. Hurry."
Branda thrust Lissa's clothes at her.

"That's fantastic," Lissa said to Branda's
back as the little girl skipped from the room.

She threw on her clothes, hurtled to the
washroom, pulled a brush through the tangles in her hair, and
arrived in the galley panting and wincing from a sore scalp. Even
Alice labored faster than ever before and didn't try anything
against Lissa as they prepared a simple meal of fruit, grains and
curdled oglon milk. The men on the mess-deck above sounded rowdy,
bashing impatiently on the table with their spoons. The very
timbers of the ship seemed to hum with the excitement.

"Oh, so you can all work hard when it suits
you," Cook said.

"Does this mean we get to go ashore, ma'am?"
Alice asked.

Lissa rolled her eyes at Alice’s meek
behavior.

"Please, please?" Branda added.

Cook snorted. "I'm not certain you've earned
it." She paused, and then uttered a short laugh that became a
wheeze. "Oh, look at your long faces. Yes, you can."

The three girls cheered.

"We be good," Branda said.

"You'd better. Don't you dare show me up or
I'll have you on double chores and sweeping animal dung three times
a day. Anjan strike me if I lie. Now pay attention." She leaned
against a table. "The Imyans are a peculiar lot. They have a strong
duty to entertain visitors, and will get insulted if you refuse
their hospitality. So the first rule is don't turn them down."

Lissa and Branda glanced at each other in
surprise.

"The next rule - pay attention, Alice. Always
be polite. Never touch an Imyan. They hate that. There's a pact
between ship captains here, so if you think you can sneak away on
another ship, forget such a silly thought right now, unless you
want to end up before Farq.”

Lissa glanced at Alice, who made no
reaction.

"Finally, and you'll like this one, the men
will eat ashore, so you're all excused from cooking for a few days.
But," and she raised a hand to silence them, "you'll still have
chores."

Alice groaned, but Lissa nodded, grateful and
bursting to get off the ship.

"One other thing," Cook added. "You'll like
as not see some strange folk about the island. Leave 'em be in case
you offend them without knowing it."

She dipped a hand into a pocket and handed
each girl a worn silver coin.

"To keep you out of trouble. Now off with
you."

Alice shoved Branda and elbowed Lissa on the
way to the door. Lissa pushed Alice back but let her leave first,
preferring to have the girl ahead rather than behind her.

"Go on up," Lissa told Branda. "I'll be right
there."

"Where you go?" Branda asked, but Lissa had
already ducked into a storeroom.

She arrived on deck, joining Branda at the
back of a disorderly queue forming at a wooden gangway that
descended to the dock. Eldrar rose over the island and shone right
in her eyes, forcing her to squint.

"Why you take so long?" Branda asked, her
frown creasing the wavy tattoos above her eyes.

Lissa winked. "You'll see."

When they reached the front of the line, she
stepped on to the narrow gangway, peering down to each side of her.
The ship had docked sideways to the wharf, a surprisingly long walk
from the island itself. Wooden pathways ran on stilts above the
grey dust, toward a bustling town that seemed to lie half on top of
the ocean and half on the shore, its buildings raised up on
platforms and ramps. A myriad walkways and staircases circled
around the platforms, and she blinked trying to trace them all. The
whole town ascended away from her up the sides of a single, conical
mountain. It looked more exotic than any tales she remembered from
the inn. She smiled. This was what all her dreams had promised.
Other ships had docked ahead and behind, bobbing gently against the
wharf. Most looked similar to "The Fair Maiden," but two in the
distance were considerably larger and lower to the ocean.

Someone shoved her from behind and she
teetered on the edge of the gangway, grabbing hold of Branda's
arm.

"Don't dawdle, girl," a gruff voice said.

A tanned, muscled arm snaked around her waist
and yanked her into the air. Another arm hoisted Branda, who
squealed. The man bounced down the flexing gangway, grumbling in
their ears, and then plopped them down on the wharf.

Lissa paused to suck in the air, filled with
new and unknown smells but also some that reminded her of home,
like plant sap, and wood smoke. Through the cracks in the boards
underfoot, dust rippled back and forth, but to her it counted as
solid ground. There was the oddest feeling that the wharf was
rolling back and forth below her. She turned to face the side of
the ship, towering above her. If only she never had to go back
onboard ever again.
Thank you, Anjan
. She'd given up hope of
ever walking on land again.

Determined not to waste a single precious
moment, she grabbed Branda's hand and ran down the walkway toward
the town, her shoes thumping on the springy boards. They dodged a
seemingly endless stream of laden oglon carts. A swarm of
brown-skinned boys whisked brooms, industriously knocking dung over
the sides of the walkway. After overtaking the carts, the girls
entered a wide plaza at the edge of the town. They stopped and
stared.

The buildings stood as high as three stories.
Mud had been plastered over a frame and painted with swirling
patterns in every color imaginable. Bright colored flags fluttered
from the roofs, bearing symbols formed from curved lines and dots.
Narrow streets meandered into the heart of the town, most forming
spirals of steep steps as the land rose up toward the mountain.

The entire plaza sat above the dust ocean on
wooden pillars. Around its perimeter was a bewildering array of
stalls, selling all manner of food, drink, trinkets and objects.
Crowds flowed between them, and she gawped at the wide variety of
races. Numerous languages chattered around her and few made any
sense.

Many passers-by wore white robes that trailed
on the ground, decorated like the houses with an explosion of
color. They walked barefoot, their skin and faces reddish brown,
but their hair black. All but the children wore rings on every toe
and finger, and they clinked and rattled as they walked.

"Are those the Us-imyans?" Lissa asked
Branda. "The locals?"

"I think."

She did a double take of a group of men
wearing war-like, blue tattoos on their cheeks, their noses pierced
with animal teeth. She stepped out of their way. Twice, she spotted
the handsome, feline-like faces of Goballians. She exhaled noisily.
It was too much to take in at once.

A nearby stall appeared to sell drinks, its
tables lined with ceramic urns.

"Are you thirsty?" she asked, but Branda had
gone.

Lissa spun around, scanning the crowds. Her
pulse quickened. Had someone snatched Branda? She pushed through
the people and spotted her friend, but after rushing forward she
found only a pair of local girls. Everyone seemed to be laughing
and chatting, enjoying the break from shipboard life. It didn't
look like a dangerous place.

Hoping Branda would come back there, she
joined the line at the drinks stall, standing behind a cluster of
short, stocky people. She looked down on their bald and ridged
heads, and wrinkled her nose at their musky scent. They ordered
from the vendor in a guttural, fast-spoken language.

The white-robed stall owner gave her a toothy
smile.

"Welcome to oor island, yoon woman." His
voice was deep and his accent strong.

The urns looked identical with no markings,
no clue if they were alcoholic or not.

She smiled back and picked one at random.
"That one, please."

"Ah," he said, filling a mug from a small
tap. "This oon I think you eel like."

He touched the mug to his forehead, and then
offered it to her with both hands as if bearing a fantastic
treasure.

She blinked. "How much?"

The man's smile vanished. His eyebrows met.
"You do noot pay. I geeft it to you. Teeke it or leeve here."

She stumbled and her mouth made an O-shape.
Then she remembered Cook's instructions, and accepted it. Her
cheeks burned.

"I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to offend
you."

She fled and hid herself in the crowd. The
drink tasted like a spiced and fruity syrup, heavy but chilled,
soothing her throat.

"Lissa."

"There you are," she greeted Branda, looking
her up and down. "Why did you run off? I was worried. But you’re
safe. Try this, it's so much better than gej-juice."

"You hear about festival tonight?" Branda
said, panting. "Everyone talk about it. At Indar-set. We have
fun."

"I bet we won't be allowed to go. Cook said
we have to sleep on board."

"I talk to physiker." Branda pointed through
a gap in the crowd, to where he stood talking to the crew chief.
The giant man towered above the entire crowd.

"He say we go. It tradition that local people
invite all travelers."

Lissa wasn't convinced that included galley
girls, but was determined to check for herself. The festival
sounded like a lot of fun.

"Shall we eat?" Branda asked.

A shady awning had been erected in the center
of the plaza. Long tables and benches faced a slab of azk-ore into
which was mounted a wide metal bowl-like pan. As they approached,
frying food hissed in the pan. They found a space on one end of a
bench.