The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (25 page)

“Shall I catch a fish?” said Edarra, who occasionally spoke now.

“Yes—no—” said Alyx, who held the rudder.

“Well, shall I or shan’t I?” said Edarra tolerantly.

“Yes,” said Alyx, “if you—” and swung the rudder hard. All
morning she had been watching black, wriggling shapes that turned
out to be nothing; now she thought she saw something across the
glittering water.
One thing we shall both get out of this,
she thought,
is a
permanent squint.
The shape moved closer, resolving itself into several
verticals and a horizontal; it danced and streaked maddeningly. Alyx
shaded her eyes.

“Edarra,” she said quietly, “get the swords. Hand me one and the
dagger.”

“What?” said Edarra, dropping a fishing line she had begun to
pick up.

“Three men in a sloop,” said Alyx. “Back up against the mast and
put the blade behind you.”

“But they might not—” said Edarra with unexpected spirit.

“And they might,” said Alyx grimly, “they just might.”

Now in Ourdh there is a common saying that if you have not
strength, there are three things which will serve as well: deceit,
surprise and speed. These are women’s natural weapons. Therefore
when the three rascals—and rascals they were or appearances lied—
reached the boat, the square sail was furled and the two women, like
castaways, were sitting idly against the mast while the boat bobbed in
the oily swell. This was to render the rudder useless and keep the craft
from slewing round at a sudden change in the wind. Alyx saw with joy
that two of the three were fat and all were dirty;
too vain,
she thought,
to keep in trim or take precautions.
She gathered in her right hand the
strands of the fishing net stretched inconspicuously over the deck.

“Who does your laundry?” she said, getting up slowly. She hated
personal uncleanliness. Edarra rose to one side of her.

“You will,” said the midmost. They smiled broadly. When the first
set foot in the net, Alyx jerked it up hard, bringing him to the deck
in a tangle of fishing lines; at the same instant with her left hand—
and the left hand of this daughter of Loh carried all its six fingers—
she threw the dagger (which had previously been used for nothing
bloodier than cleaning fish) and caught the second interloper squarely
in the stomach. He sat down, hard, and was no further trouble. The
first, who had gotten to his feet, closed with her in a ringing of steel
that was loud on that tiny deck; for ninety seconds by the clock he
forced her back towards the opposite rail; then in a burst of speed she
took him under his guard at a pitch of the ship and slashed his sword
wrist, disarming him. But her thrust carried her too far and she fell;
grasping his wounded wrist with his other hand, he launched himself
at her, and Alyx—planting both knees against his chest—helped him
into the sea. He took a piece of the rail with him. By the sound of
it, he could not swim. She stood over the rail, gripping her blade
until he vanished for the last time. It was over that quickly. Then
she perceived Edarra standing over the third man, sword in hand, an
incredulous, pleased expression on her face. Blood holds no terrors
for a child of Ourdh, unfortunately.

“Look what I did!” said the little lady.

“Must you look so pleased?” said Alyx, sharply. The morning’s
washing hung on the opposite rail to dry. So quiet had the sea and sky
been that it had not budged an inch. The gentleman with the dagger
sat against it, staring.

“If you’re so hardy,” said Alyx, “take that out.”

“Do I have to?” said the little girl, uneasily.

“I suppose not,” said Alyx, and she put one foot against the dead
man’s chest, her grip on the knife and her eyes averted; the two parted
company and he went over the side in one motion. Edarra turned a
little red; she hung her head and remarked, “You’re splendid.”

“You’re a savage,” said Alyx.

“But why!” cried Edarra indignantly. “All I said was—”

“Wash up,” said Alyx, “and get rid of the other one; he’s yours.”

“I said you were splendid and I don’t see why that’s—”

“And set the sail,” added the six-fingered pick-lock. She lay down,
closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Now it was Alyx who did not speak and Edarra who did; she said,
“Good morning,” she said, “Why do fish have scales?” she said, “I
like
shrimp; they look funny,” and she said (once), “I like you,” matter-
of-factly, as if she had been thinking about the question and had just
then settled it. One afternoon they were eating fish in the cabin—
“fish” is a cold, unpleasant, slimy word, but sea trout baked in clay
with onion, shrimp and white wine is something else again—when
Edarra said:

“What was it like when you lived in the hills?” She said it right out
of the blue, like that.

“What?” said Alyx.

“Were you happy?” said Edarra.

“I prefer not to discuss it.”

“All right,
madam,
” and the girl swept up to the deck with her plate
and glass. It isn’t easy climbing a rope ladder with a glass (balanced
on a plate) in one hand, but she did it without thinking, which shows
how accustomed she had become to the ship and how far this tale
has advanced. Alyx sat moodily poking at her dinner (which had
turned back to slime as far as she was concerned) when she smelled
something char and gave a cursory poke into the firebox next to her
with a metal broom they kept for the purpose. This ancient firebox
served them as a stove. Now it may have been age, or the carelessness
of the previous owner, or just the venomous hatred of inanimate
objects for mankind (the religion of Yp stresses this point with great
fervor), but the truth of the matter was that the firebox had begun
to come apart at the back, and a few flaming chips had fallen on
the wooden floor of the cabin. Moreover, while Alyx poked among
the coals in the box, its door hanging open, the left front leg of the
creature crumpled and the box itself sagged forward, the coals inside
sliding dangerously. Alyx exclaimed and hastily shut the door. She
turned and looked for the lock with which to fasten the door more
securely, and thus it was that until she turned back again and stood
up, she did not see what mischief was going on at the other side. The
floor, to the glory of Yp, was smoking in half a dozen places. Stepping
carefully, Alyx picked up the pail of seawater kept always ready in a
corner of the cabin and emptied it onto the smoldering floor, but at
that instant—so diabolical are the souls of machines—the second
front leg of the box followed the first and the brass door burst open,
spewing burning coals the length of the cabin. Ordinarily not even
a heavy sea could scatter the fire, for the door was too far above the
bed on which the wood rested and the monster’s legs were bolted to
the floor. But now the boards caught not in half a dozen but in half
a hundred places. Alyx shouted for water and grabbed a towel, while
a pile of folded blankets against the wall curled and turned black;
the cabin was filled with the odor of burning hair. Alyx beat at the
blankets and the fire found a cupboard next to them, crept under
the door and caught in a sack of sprouting potatoes, which refused
to burn. Flour was packed next to them. “Edarra!” yelled Alyx. She
overturned a rack of wine, smashing it against the floor regardless of
the broken glass; it checked the flames while she beat at the cupboard;
then the fire turned and leapt at the opposite wall. It flamed up for an
instant in a straw mat hung against the wall, creeping upward, eating
down through the planks of the floor, searching out cracks under the
cupboard door, roundabout. The potatoes, dried by the heat, began
to wither sullenly; their canvas sacking crumbled and turned black.
Edarra had just come tumbling into the cabin, horrified, and Alyx was
choking on the smoke of canvas sacking and green, smoking sprouts,
when the fire reached the stored flour. There was a concussive bellow
and a blast of air that sent Alyx staggering into the stove; white
flame billowed from the corner that had held the cupboard. Alyx was
burned on one side from knee to ankle and knocked against the wall;
she fell, full-length.

When she came to herself, she was half lying in dirty seawater and
the fire was gone. Across the cabin Edarra was struggling with a water
demon, stuffing half-burnt blankets and clothes and sacks of potatoes
against an incorrigible waterspout that knocked her about and burst
into the cabin in erratic gouts, making tides in the water that shifted
sluggishly from one side of the floor to the other as the ship rolled.

“Help me!” she cried. Alyx got up. Shakily she staggered across
the cabin and together they leaned their weight on the pile of stuffs
jammed into the hole.

“It’s not big,” gasped the girl, “I made it with a sword. Just under
the waterline.”

“Stay here,” said Alyx. Leaning against the wall, she made her way
to the cold firebox. Two bolts held it to the floor. “No good there,”
she said. With the same exasperating slowness, she hauled herself up
the ladder and stood uncertainly on the deck. She lowered the sail,
cutting her fingers, and dragged it to the stern, pushing all loose gear
on top of it. Dropping down through the hatch again, she shifted
coils of rope and stores of food to the stern; patiently fumbling, she
unbolted the firebox from the floor. The waterspout had lessened.
Finally, when Alyx had pushed the metal box end over end against
the opposite wall of the cabin, the water demon seemed to lose his
exuberance. He drooped and almost died. With a letting-out of
breath, Edarra released the mass pressed against the hole: blankets,
sacks, shoes, potatoes, all slid to the stern. The water stopped. Alyx,
who seemed for the first time to feel a brand against the calf of her left
leg and needles in her hand where she had burnt herself unbolting
the stove, sat leaning against the wall, too weary to move. She saw
the cabin through a milky mist. Ballooning and shrinking above her
hung Edarra’s face, dirty with charred wood and sea slime; the girl
said:

“What shall I do now?”

“Nail boards,” said Alyx slowly.

“Yes, then?” urged the girl.

“Pitch,” said Alyx. “Bail it out.”

“You mean the boat will pitch?” said Edarra, frowning in
puzzlement. In answer Alyx shook her head and raised one hand out
of the water to point to the storage place on deck, but the air drove
the needles deeper into her fingers and distracted her mind. She said,
“Fix,” and leaned back against the wall, but as she was sitting against
it already, her movement only caused her to turn, with a slow, natural
easiness, and slide unconscious into the dirty water that ran tidally
this way and that within the blackened, sour-reeking, littered cabin.

Alyx groaned. Behind her eyelids she was reliving one of the small
contretemps of her life: lying indoors ill and badly hurt, with the sun
rising out of doors, thinking that she was dying and hearing the birds
sing. She opened her eyes. The sun shone, the waves sang, there was
the little girl watching her. The sun was level with the sea and the
first airs of evening stole across the deck.

Alyx tried to say, “What happened?” and managed only to croak.
Edarra sat down, all of a flop.

“You’re
talking!”
she exclaimed with vast relief. Alyx stirred, looking
about her, tried to rise and thought better of it. She discovered lumps
of bandage on her hand and her leg; she picked at them feebly with
her free hand, for they struck her somehow as irrelevant. Then she
stopped.