Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (19 page)

 
          
I
don't—honest. I'm just visiting. But I do have an urgent message for Lordevil,
if Lordevil's who I think it is.

 
          
My
black name's known only to you, Lordevil! Why do you not know it? Are you
’rasing me early, before the pains? Please call me by my black name.

 
          
Sorry,
I don't know what a black name is. How about telling me your, urn, white name?

 
          
Tisn't
my blame they took me!

 
          
Of course not.
They probably wanted lessons in elocution.
Look, let's start again?

 
          
A wave breaks from starboard and
sloshes right through the cage, battering it about. The ropes wrench but they
hold.

 
          
Take
me, Lordevil! Set me free! Or begging your pardon, it shall be too late.
Turmoil's easing.

 
          
You
could have fooled me.

 
          
No!
Tisn 't
even tempest, this.
Sky s
breaking clear.

 
          
She could be right. There's a
definite distinction between sea and sky ahead.

 
          
There's
still the last wave, Lord! Tis skerry moil, this. There shall be the Mountain,
yet.

 
          
If
the storm's easing, your friends might catch us.
They 're
chasing, right?

 
          
They
shall quit at the edge of empty sea! You know that! And if they do
ovei"haul before and these vicars' lice barter me, in their eyes mine's
the blame; though it shan't cost my skin flayed cruel on Soltrey, only my
having to be .. .
but
you know.

 
          
I
keep telling you I don

 
          
You
shall make me tell, still hoping for your help?

 
          
Yes,
tell.

 
          
Why,
I shall be anyone's bugger-butt, shan't I be?

 
          
Sounds disgusting.
Say no more. Er, just how do you expect me
to help? If I'm Lordevil, what form do I take on this planet?

 
          
You
ask that? You can't be my Lord!
You 're
personating!

 
          
I
did just tell you my name s Yaleen, not Lordevil.

 
          
You 're
from the vicars' Godmind!

 
          
I'm
bloody not. I’m from another planet. I'm waging war on the Godmind—and I want
an alliance with your Lordevil!

 
          
Tis coming.

 
          
Lordevil's
coming?

 
          
The
Mountain comes!

 
          
As my hostess stares between the
bars, the boat leans over and slides downhill into a sea-valley. A hill of
water looms. Mountains on this world can't be enormous—not a patch on the Far
Precipices —but the onrushing mass is still noteworthy.

 
          
" 'Ware
!
'
Ware tall water!"

 
          
Sailors in their leathern cloaks
cling tight to any handyhold; but your hostess hurls herself wildly from side
to side, adding impetus to the slitherings of the cage. The mighty wave heaves
the boat up high, askew. The spray-whipped cage slews violently. Tethers wrench
at wooden bars. One bar snaps jaggedly. Rope snakes away. Cage spins, ripping
free of other tethers. It's loose! It skids down the slanting deck; crashes
into a rail. More bars splinter. Rail lurches outward.

 
          
Already the deck is righting itself;
the cage hasn't managed to fall overboard. Your hostess wrestles frantically. Your
shackle is free! You claw and heave, careless of any hurt. You ram your body
through broken bars.

 
          
" 'Ware
,
captive!"

 
          
"Stop
she
!"

 
          
As the boat swings back, the hull
becomes a steep and soaking hillside. Boulders of water pile at the bottom,
crashing and splitting. There's no waiting! You slide headfirst down the
timbers into the avalanching sea.

 
          
And under, and
away.

 
          
You're upside-down.
Twisted about.
Rocks of water crush and pummel. Spew you up,
drag you down. If the whole boat rolled over on you, you'd hardly know the
difference.

 
          
Now and then your head breaks
surface. You grab air. Air and water are so much churned together that hard
knobs of sea bum in your sinuses, lodge in your lungs like stones.

 
          
Amazingly a barrel bobs by. With
hoops of rope attached. Your spray-blind eyes nearly miss it. Blink, blink to
see! Your fingers catch hold. You clutch tight—and wretch liquid fire-stones
from your chest and skull.

 
          
A rope drags across the clashing
waves. A high hull grinds by, darkly. But from which boat does this life-rope
hang? Is it from Bark's, or Soltrey's?

 
          
Abandon barrel. Catch rope. Hang on.

 
          
Papa
’s
                                      
"Hea------- ve---------- ho!"

 
          
Weight
                                      
Slow voice, slurred and blurred.

 
          
Will
soon
                                  
Gradually the crushing weight lessens.

 
          
Abate
                                         Air
can enter.
Light,
and life.

 
          
                                                 
The mountain rolls aside.

 
          
Revealing Shooshi!
And—"Looks
like we're in time!"
—Zelya; hovering over you in the palace of the
time rites. The mountain is, of course, Mardoluc.

 
          
You're sitting up, gasping,
grabbing
air. How can you manage to sit up, or grab
anything? It's far too sudden. Credence is nowhere in sight. "Where is
she? Where's Credence?" Shooshi and Zelya flutter hands in consternation.
(". . .
only
pretending
timestop?" "Impossible, Shoo-shoo!") Everyone else who was in a
trance is still in a trance. Frozen lovers in the cushion pits, kneelers, hunchers.
Peli down on her butt watching time-slowed ecstasy.
Peera-pa just next to you, holding nobody's hands in hers. Not you: You're up.
You're dancing with impatience. Shooshi and Zelya are gabbling and darting
around.

 
          
"Stop it!" you shriek.

 
          
And still you speed up. Not just you
—everything else
as well! This isn't how
it was when Marcialla speeded up. It's the whole world that's racing now. You
can't follow what you're
doing,
you're doing things so
fast. So who's doing them? You can't follow what the monitors are doing. You
can't follow what they're saying, in then- high-pitched squeaky voices. You
can't follow what you're saying, yourself. So who's speaking?

 
          
Oh the wild onward rush of light and
sound and action!

 
          
Weren't you supposed to be dead? Weren't
you meant to be somewhere else? Wasn't there something about cabins in a
ghostly galleon?

 
          
Ghostly is the world. Life is a
fleeting wraith. Shadow and sun, places and people flicker wildly by. . . .

 
          
Worm-
                                                  
It was the boat from your home

 
          
Stranger
                                               
isle of Bark which rescued you.

 
          
Tell
of
                                                   
That's weeks gone by, and now

 
          
Danger
                                                 
you and your hostess know each

 
          
                                                             
other
rather better. . . .

 
          
Her name is Infanta Farsi-podwy-fey,
though you call her Pod for short. That's her "sunshine name", the
name by which she's known to family and acquaintances. Actually the
"farsi" and "fey" bits of her name are titles,
descriptions. Pod sees fleeting glimpses of events happening far away on her
waterworld; that's
farsi
.
She has an instinct for when people
are about to die; that's
fey.
The
"infanta" part means that she's an unwed talent of Bark.

 
          
Pod also possesses a "black
name". A person keeps their black name private, telling no one. The black
name is a talent's powemame: the name which summons their power. If a stranger
learnt it he might gain power over her. Or so they fancy, on Bark! The black
name comes to a talented person in their dreams; and those dreams are sent by
the worm of their world to all talents who inhabit isles in the great
"blackwaters" region—sent by Lordevil.

 
          
Some talents on Bark can envision
far-scenes more vividly than Pod. Some can heal the sick, or sicken the
healthy. Others can pick up lightweight objects with the force of their
minds—or even project convincing illusions of simple objects such as chairs or
vases. Pod's talents aren't outstanding; though at least she has them, which
makes her an infanta.

 
          
Alas, the isle of Bark is right on
the very periphery of Lordevil's influence. His ink stains the waters only
thinly in this region. Five hundred sea-miles further west, in the heart of
LordeviTs Dark, talents are much more powerful and dramatic. You find wizards
and sorcerers.

 
          
It's true that such talents remain a
minority of the total population throughout LordeviTs Dark. But where the seas
are darkest— glossiest with LordeviTs presence—there's more power.
A wizard who sails out from one of the central isles to somewhere
like Bark loses some of his power; though he would still be a more potent
wizard than any of the Barkish.

 
          
Obviously these talents are
genetic—whatever Pod supposes about them being linked to eclipses of the
various suns and moons. Just as obviously it was the urgent screaming need in
her which drew you to share with her mind, rather than with some major
sorceress of the inner Dark; with whom you might have been far better placed to
contact Lordevil.

 
          
So here you are on Bark, instead. The
isle is shaped like the skull of a hound: jaws agape, skerries for teeth,
two
freshwater lakes filling the eye sockets. Here you are
in rocky Bark town, built on the steep brow frowning over the lake called
Stare. (Of
stairs,
carved in rock,
there are enough in this town to trump Verrino twice over in up-and-downness.)

 
          
More specifically, here you are
ensconced in the Infantry of the Duenna; whence Pod slipped away, up and over
the brow and down to the sea-shore on a mischievous cockle picnic—only to be
waylaid and kidnapped by those uncouth pirates of Soltrey.

 
          
Luckily she jumped bravely overboard;
so the Duenna frowns, but she hasn't decreed Pod's public humiliation.
Whether Pod will now be traded westward, deeper into LordeviTs
Dark, well-dowered by Barkish standards and in exchange for a dowerless maid of
stronger talent who can breed Wizz-brats on Bark, remains a moot point.