CHAPTER XXVII

 

When Kaaliya staggered on to the deck, the candle of dawn which had helped conceal her earlier had been replaced by the stark light and harsh shadow of a cloudy day. Even her baggy clothes no longer offered concealment in the chill breeze. The first mate's sidelong glance became a full stare. He blushed and looked away as she approached him and the captain standing near the main mast.

The deck tossed about restlessly. She kept a straight line, though it took concentration. The bulb had dried against her upper gums, and she wet it with her tongue. It seemed to still be working.

"You slept well I take it?" asked Baladeva.

The captain had changed from his formal clothing, indicating he'd been in and out of his cabin at least one more time. She hadn't noticed but apparently, Nanda had. She could tell by the way he kept avoiding her gaze. Most of the other eyes and lenses were already focused beyond the prow.

Further out, roaming ocean hills and valleys lost their definition. The Pamanites soared upward in defiance of the masquerade of flatness, and empty sky lay at their feet. Their peaks overtook the main mast, and their feet rested in clouds several palm lengths above the horizon. The sun crested their heights, diffuse and yellow.

Kaaliya walked toward the bow in awe. Why had they returned?

"See, this is what I have to deal with," declared Nanda behind Kaaliya's back. "Keeping the men busy and their eyes off the skies. Even the bugmen are getting unnerved."

Kaaliya tore herself from the view. "Where do you need me?"

At the sound of her voice, one of the former drunks who was currently busy scrubbing the deck looked up and squinted. Nanda stomped over and planted a foot near the man's face. "All of it. You'll eat off that deck tonight, understand? And you," he said, letting the reprimand carry him into Kaaliya, "you wish to work? I thought–" he clamped his mouth, and his eyes darted to Baladeva, who innocently inspected a line. "I thought you were enjoying our accommodations, lady."

She checked the position of the sun. She'd slept longer than the morning. An entire day, at least, and they weren't quite there yet. Plenty of sailing left to do. "I'll work. Give me a task."

"What can you do?"

"I can climb," she said, almost reluctantly. She'd had sleep, but it hadn't been restful. Still, it was all she had to offer, especially to these two, and she couldn't shake her desire to needle at the uptight first mate.

The captain let loose an appreciative, airy whistle as Nanda broke into a wicked smile. "Good. Get that down." He pointed to the top of the mainsail.

Firetongue occupied the yard, one hand on the mast. A strong breeze arced the sails. The straight lines of the battens tipped with the rolling sea. Normally the sail would have been an easy climb with the boom in reach of the deck and battens running parallel up the sails like an over-sized ladder. Conditions made it challenging.

"Go on, get her down before she tears the sail or gets tangled in the rigging," said Nanda.

The matron held rigid, her hands grasping the mast and her feet sunk into the ballooned sail. It couldn't have been fear of falling. As much as the ship's rocking made Kaaliya's head spin, she knew the Ek'kiru could climb with ease. Something else was wrong.

Kaaliya looked to Baladeva.

He gave his best disinterested shrug. "Maybe one of her own kind could retrieve her?" He knew better than to try and talk her out of it though she could see the concern in his eyes.

"No, they won't get near that one," replied Nanda. So there was more to this, Kaaliya thought. "Well?"

Kaaliya scowled at the first mate and looked away. Keeping her eyes on the mast, she kicked off her boots and charged.

She leapt, her arms hooked and squeezing and feet planted flat on either side. Chest back, she drove her weight downward, never leaving her feet in contact at the same time, palms alternating while she shimmied. A forest monkey's climb. Maybe she didn't need the ropes after all.

But sea spray and a layer of salt had created a slick coating which quickly built up on the soles of her feet and palms. Worn smooth by exposure, the wood had lost all grip.

Her heel slipped. Without the counter, she had nothing but the pincered grip of her forearms holding her. She hung there, in reach of a solid handhold on the boom, unwilling to admit defeat but knowing it couldn't last. Growling, she slid back to the deck.

Nanda gave a derisive hiss. Baladeva began to motion to the upper deck for the other Ek'kiru, but she leveled a finger, daring him. The captain raised his eyebrows and offered the mast to her once again with a sweeping gesture.

A quick appraisal, a map drawn in her mind. If she'd thought it through, taken advantage of the battens and ropes attaching the sails, she could've done it on her first attempt. Nanda's smugness had gotten to her. Normally she wouldn't let that happen. She blamed weird dreams and fatigue.

What was she really doing out here? Being chased by men. Surrounded by men. Jealous, dismissive, angry, smitten…gods, she grew tired of it. She completely understood why Firetongue had sought out her lonely perch.

More eyes watched her. The human sailors stared heavily at her soaked shirt, coming to Nanada's same realization which they'd missed in a haze of sura and little sleep. Several Ek'kiru held motionless, their vast eyes drawing her into their cluster of lenses.

On the upper deck, Talemok looped a rope around the rudder shaft. He slipped under a weave of sheet lines before effortlessly leaping to stand beside her on his spindly, grasshopper legs. Quirking his elongated head, she could see a shadow of the sail reflected in his eyes and Firetongue at the top.

"You should let her be." His mouth moved on all sides as he spoke, a dark void where his face tapered into his jaw.

"Why?"

"She is of the Hive Guard, and they don't often leave Abwoon. Their ways are mysterious, but we know she does not wish to be approached. She is distressed."

Baladeva was at her shoulder again, speaking to Talemok. "You could climb? Leap right up there?"

"Apologies, Captain," the Ek'kiru partially bowed, "but I will not. Your first mate's club scares me less than the Hive Guard on your mast. I will man the rudder, raise and lower the sails, retrieve the anchor, manage your nest of ropes, but I will not approach Firetongue."

Baladeva clicked his tongue in thought. "I suppose she's not interfering with anything."

Talemok leapt once more to the upper deck, and the captain turned toward the sea while exchanging hushed words with Nanda. Above, Firetongue remained still, swaying slightly when the boat dipped. The seas grew rougher the larger the Pamanites loomed.

Already Kaaliya had let the matron out-climb her—mounting the dome at Chakor's estate had been impossible. She'd caught the Ek'kiru deep in thought there too, and afterward, they'd had a good talk on the way to the palace. From what she could tell, Firetongue was the only other woman on board as well. A few words of shared sympathy might help this distress, regardless of what Talemok said.

Kaaliya took another running start. The balls of her feet slapped against the mast, and she bounded up with the aid of the rigging, reaching the boom in two long strides. With the rigid battens, her climb progressed quickly.

Deck planks grew small. The cracking of the sail in the ocean wind sounded like an axe splitting logs. Shouts began below, but she didn't acknowledge them.

Higher up and the once straight mast seemed to curve. She felt the world pitch with every deepening swell.

Any sort of weakness for heights had been culled by her childhood, but those didn't have the swirling seas below. She wondered if she fell in the water whether they'd come back for her. Or if they even could? Long ago, she'd climbed above an endless blackness without a second thought. Things had changed so much since then.

Baladeva looked up, terrified. Nanda shouted, angry, his frustration clearly focused on the unruly whore who'd caused his captain to worry. Jealousy, embarrassment, and defense of his lover's honor had all driven him, along with a clear desire to stop whatever had placed the worried grimace on Baladeva's face.

She didn't know how that sort of love compared to Chakor's lusty infatuation. Always the coin changed hands, and the relationship ended. She was free.

Not according to the trolls.

Wind blasted her face. Her hair whipped into her eyes. Bitter drool from the medicine trickled down her chin. Tiny amounts found her throat, and she felt her tongue go numb. She spat and watched the bulb take the same impossible curve of the mast and tumble into the sea. Her equilibrium followed.

First one hand missed its hold, then the other. She was running in place, frantic palms finding splinters as she dug them into the wood. She slipped a body length down the mast in the space of a sharp breath. Five more to the deck.

She grabbed hold with everything. Forearms. Thighs. Even trying to hook her neck against the rounded mast. Every part of her body became an anchor. The free fall stopped.

Nanda managed to bellow above the wind. "Get down from there!" His string of curses was lost under the howling winds.

"C'mon," she whispered. She may have shouted. "Do this."

Her toes found purchase, then the edge of her foot. Carefully, she extended along the mast and reset her legs. Eyes on Firetongue, she gritted her teeth and began to make progress, one arm length at a time.

She latched onto the yard and hauled herself up. The billowing sail wouldn't allow her to hook her legs underneath unless she sat as Firetongue, with her back to the Pamanites. No, she wanted, needed to see ahead. She squirmed to wedge herself comfortably in the intersection of wood. As she worked, Firetongue watched from the other side. The Ek'kiru's antennae writhed toward her, fighting the wind.

"Why are you up here?" shouted Kaaliya. Her arm tightened as the prow dipped below the horizon and a wall of water challenged the top of the mast.

"Trying not to kill."

Anyone else, it would've been a joke. Even the matron had delivered a few in her flat tone. But Firetongue's mandibles crossed and ground together when she spoke. Her body bound tightly as though she couldn't trust what her limbs might do.

Kaaliya knew she had a slow descent ahead of Firetongue's powerful jaw and the sure-footedness of a true spider. Maybe she should've listened to Talemok.

"I don't follow," she said, casually searching for the rigging which provided the most direct route.

"The past is unraveling. I feel it." The answer made little sense and said nothing for the Ek'kiru's state of mind. "Without it, we have no meaning. The Hive, no meaning. As is my duty, I must defend it with my life."

"Do the others feel this?" Kaaliya asked, eyeing the deck full of Ek'kiru.

Firetongue shook her head. "They wear their own past, not those of the ones who came before. Their essences are collected at the Hive and martyred to the Child, so in death, we may all know our place in the greater toil."

"You told me this."

"I did?" Firetongue appeared confused about the secrets she revealed. "The Hive Guard are honored. Trusted," she stumbled on the word. "Those surrendered essences bleed onto us. We must know control and must keep from taking what is not yet ours," Her mandibles clacked. "We touch our people's history, like a statue in the dark. There is a shape, and that shape is collapsing."

Trolls had made more sense, though Kaaliya thought she understood at least the basic meaning. Whatever was happening on the horizon meant trouble for not just Stronghold but Abwoon as well.

The boat rose on a swell. Surrounding ocean plunged away. Kaaliya felt herself pulled forward as the deck pitched and men, Ek'kiru, scrambled to brace for the inevitable shift and crash of water.

Ahead, the Pamanites' sharp edges and deep clefts raked the heavens. Kaaliya focused on them, a taste of earthiness on the wind that could only be found when the vast sea had erased all recollection of it.

"Is that what the Pamanites return means? Your past is changing?"

"Meanings are too great for any one Ek'kiru." Firetongue's body relaxed, and her head dipped. "We are not allowed to touch the past until we die. It is forbidden."

Antennae withdrew, the matron's head swiveled to where Kaaliya could no longer see her eyes.

"You broke taboo," Kaaliya said.

"I did. I tried to take the gift of the Hive before death. Before we are allowed."

"So that's what you brought you to Stronghold? On this journey?"

The glassy eye sought her again, turning until a reflection of her astonished look replaced the rolling horizon. "I tasted truth. When I did, I saw darkness consuming Abwoon. I came to prove it wrong." The matron's eye once again reflected the mountains. "I have failed."