I returned to the Melowne very early next morning and had a wash with sponge and pitcher. I decided to go back to sleep until the call should come from Lightning or Mist to engage me in another day’s frantic business with spice merchants and jewelers, and with the host of fishermen-turned-salesmen. They seemed determined to swap everything they owned for our damask steel or a handful of arrows.
I was woken by loud yells and battering on the cabin door. “Comet! Help! Quickly!”
From the tone of Fulmer’s snappy voice, I knew something terrible had happened. “What? If it’s a mutiny I’m on your side!” I stooped and wound a sheet around my waist like a sarong, then opened the door.
Fulmer stood on the half-deck, wearing only his trousers. Over his shoulder I saw the cloudless sky, the façade of Capharnaum’s white villas, green shutters and balconies, the merchants waiting on the quay in a stunned silence, the lower deck. It appeared to be covered in tar.
Fulmer pointed. The Insect was poised on the gangplank. Between it and the quayside stood Wrenn. The Insect reared and struck, antennae whirling. Wrenn raised his rapier and dagger.
I dived back into the cabin and picked up my ice axe. Then I shoved past Fulmer to the rack of equipment beside my door. I snatched a long boathook and hefted it, at the same time yelling to Fulmer, “Run down the other walkway! Go to Petrel. Wake Lightning and tell him to shoot it! You must knock very loudly. Quick!”
Fulmer slid down the ladder and slipped across the main deck. I saw bodies lying at unnatural angles and tightened my grip on the boathook as I realized the thick, dully reflective slick was congealing blood.
With a cold self-awareness I spread my wings, wiggled my ice axe into the folded top of my impromptu sarong, and found the right words to shout at the thirty or forty Capharnai: “Run away! Go home! It will bite you!”
Holding the boathook shaft across my body like a weightlifter, I vaulted the railings. I plummeted straight down past the blue porthole shutters, reached flying speed and hurtled once around the ship’s hull to build up momentum. I skimmed the figurehead and up over the forecastle deck for a straight run at the Insect. I jinked to miss the foremast, by pulling in my right wing and spinning right.
I swept over the Insect. I reached out with the boathook and put my full strength behind it as I swung.
The Insect’s gold-brown compound eyes wrapped around its head and joined at the top with bristly margins. It could see in all directions. It saw me passing above and bent its six knees to squat down. It flattened its body flush against the gangplank, beaded antennae wavering and brushing the wood.
I missed and struggled to lift the hook as it glided toward Wrenn’s head. I snarled, “Fuck!” I turned downwind, dropping height and holding the pole out to the side, not upward to tangle with my feathers. I flew over the merchants’ heads so low my downdraft ruffled their hair. They all dropped to the ground in a wide swath along my path. A few quick beats, and I veered around the stern of the Petrel, intending to circle the two ships and come in over Melowne for another swoop. There was no sign of Lightning in the frantic commotion on Petrel’s deck.
Wrenn had bare feet. He was naked but for shorts, the drawstring hanging down. The Insect stood higher on the gangplank, claws tightly gripping the edges. Wrenn stopped the route to the land, to its food. It struck at him. He blocked its mandible with his rapier and deflected its head aside. It swept its antennae back into their gutters, bore its weight on its hind limbs and slashed with its front legs.
Its hooked claws stabbed at Wrenn, who batted them aside. Its jaws closed on, then slid off, the rapier blade. Wrenn parried the tarsi feet in a sequence so rapid it was a blur. He had lost none of his skill-he was too focused to feel fear. But he couldn’t predict the Insect’s actions.
He followed the moves of its four claws and mandibles all at once, every cut the Insect scrabbled at him. But his totally inadequate rapier clicked and slid over its cuticle-it wasn’t heavy enough to bite into the shell.
He thrust his blade past the base of one antenna, then drew it back, slicing through the feeler. It severed and fell between the Insect’s feet. A drop of yellow liquid like pus oozed from the hollow cut end and dropped on its eye, running over the curved surface. The Insect recoiled. Wrenn feinted, and its left claw swept the air trying to catch his blade. Wrenn lunged explosively and hit its thorax squarely, under its mandibles. His rapier tip pierced the chitin.
The Insect took a step toward him and the blade slid into its body. Fluid the color and consistency of cream welled up around the blade and trickled down its shell but the Insect did not react. It crawled toward Wrenn, spitting itself on his rapier.
The sword point burst from its back, pushing out a length of cream-streaked steel. It forced itself down the blade until the hilt was flush against its thorax. It stooped to bite Wrenn’s arm. Wrenn shook his hand free of the swept guards and jumped backward, leaving his thin sword embedded through the Insect.
I cleared the height of the foredeck, came in fast.
Wrenn’s face set in a grim expression. He cut with his dagger left to right, scratching the Insect’s eye, but the blade skittered off, only etching a thin line over one hexagonal lens. It struck; he slammed the dagger into its mandible. The dagger blade shattered from tip to ricasso so violently that two long glittering steel splinters spun away from the gangplank in different directions. Wrenn was left holding the grip.
My wings shadowed his head. “Here!” I dangled the pole from its very end. He had enough sense to drop his hilt and jump for the brass hook speeding toward him. I let go and passed it to him.
Our contact caused a drag that slowed me down too much and slewed me to the left. The quayside rushed up; I saw the pavement cracks. Too big, too close! I was going to crash! I leaned right and beat down-my wingtips smacked a crate of oranges. The shock transmitted through my feather shafts and hurt my fingers. I pulled out of my dive; the crate tops scraped my knees and feet. I flapped, stubbing my wings. I banked up steeply, groaning with effort, my feathers rasping the air.
I glanced at Wrenn and saw him teetering, the pole held out for balance. He recovered, pointed the boathook at the Insect. It crouched, lowered its head and pounced at Wrenn, forcing him sideways. He swung the boathook and clubbed it weakly as it pushed past him. The spines fringing its legs lacerated his skin.
Its barreling bulk threw Wrenn off balance. His boathook flourished in the air; he toppled off the gangplank and fell headfirst, spread-eagled. The soles of his feet vanished below the level of the harbor wall, into the strip of deep water. A second later I heard the splash.
I glanced at the crowd; their faces were full of doubt and disbelief. The Insect was real; this was no drama laid on for entertainment. It was coming down the gangplank. About half of them trotted backward, still staring, then turned and fled for the streets. The rest seemed frozen. Those not gaping at the Insect were gawking at me.
“Go!” I yelled. A couple more people responded to the urgency in my voice.
The Insect landed on all six legs on the harbor pavement. At first it moved unevenly, angularly; it leapt and hobbled. It quickly became accustomed to freedom and the sailors’ blood it had lapped up helped the hydraulics of its legs function properly. It ran as smoothly as it had done in the Paperlands and the people scattered before it.
They fled with screams, leaving one woman sitting alone. I recognized Danio instantly; at the water’s edge near Melowne’s hull, in exactly the same place as I had left her last night, her bare legs dangling over the harbor wall. She remained transfixed a second too long, not knowing what to do. She pulled her self to kneel, then sprang up, all the while watching the Insect with a mixture of fascination and fear. She sprinted, arms out stretched, very fleet of foot. But she was too slow.
The Insect bounded after her. Its claws in the small of her back brought her down, face to the paving. She started screaming, high-pitched, struggling to turn around and beat it off.
The Insect dipped, sheared Danio’s leg off at the knee and picked it up with its middle pair of arms. Its external mouthparts stripped the calf muscle from the severed limb. It held the dripping muscle with two sets of palps, which hung down like black sticky fingers. The maxillae behind its jaws guillotined up and down as well as left and right, masticating it into paste. Danio kept screeching until the Insect grabbed her around the hips, mandibles sinking deep, and tossed her into the air. She crashed full-length on the paving. The Insect jumped on her body and decapitated her with one powerful bite.
I flew low over them, frantically looking for a space to land. The Insect paused as my movement caught its attention. Its single elbowed antenna waved; the stub of the other one was covered with a yellow crust. Now all the Capharnai had gone from the harbor but a merchant in a tunic had stopped at a distance to look back at the abandoned goods, his chubby face white and eyes bulging.
Danio! I thought. It’s killed Danio; what have we done? I found a clear gap between the baskets and boxes, but I was moving so fast I was in danger of breaking my legs. I stretched my wings back fully and flared off some speed. Gasping at the strain in my stomach muscles I swung my legs ahead and hit the ground braced, knees bent. I put my hands down and somersaulted over and over, till I crashed into a crate of cinnamon bark.
Winded, I picked my axe from the ground and crawled to my feet. The Insect had reached the entrance to the boulevard. It had slaughtered the corpulent man and was standing on his body with front and middle legs. It ducked its head, its lamellar segmented abdomen high in the air. It closed its jaws until they clicked, cutting across the fat man’s belly. It backed, claws skidding on the blood. It pulled taut a length of blue-green intestine, then ate it all the way back down into the man’s body cavity. His sightless eyes and pale mouth were stretched open, rigid; I could see the inside wall of his ribs.
I thought, I must distract it till Lightning shoots it. Breathing painfully, I dashed across. As I ran, avoiding the discarded cloaks and piles of produce, I curved to approach from behind, thinking that the Insect would take a second to turn around and I could chop at its rear. But the Insect did not wait to be attacked. I don’t know whether it recognized me or understood I was armed, but it crawled swiftly from the fat man’s cadaver and leapt toward the boulevard. I swerved between it and the town and headed it off. I chased it. I lengthened my stride to sprint with Rhydanne instinct as if it was a stag. I closed in on the darting legs and aimed a blow at a hind femur, driving it to change direction.
The Insect slowed as it sensed a group of boatmen who, trapped against a villa’s portico, prepared to use their paddles as maces. I made it switch toward the ships where Lightning should be, but it slashed a mandible at the last man, a thin teenager who fell clutching his thigh.
The Insect still carried Wrenn’s sword through its thorax, the hilt like a silver badge. It had stopped bleeding. Its legs swept repeatedly fore to rear along its body. I aimed between them at a suture line that crossed its back like a joint in armor. I tore the glassy tips of its immovable little wings that projected from the middle segment, pressed close to its glossy shell. I tilted over and hit, but the blow nearly ripped the shaft from my hand, wrecked my running rhythm. I pushed hard at the ground to accelerate, change direction; to control the Insect.
My resounding strikes had more effect than Wrenn’s clearly articulated technique. The Insect limped, but still ran rapidly on the bristly black pads under its slightly raised claws. I swung at the three small round eyes that formed a triangle between its compound eyes. But at this angle the plate of its forehead was too thick to crack.
The slabs cool beneath my bare feet, my ankles ached from the pounding. I panted the air. The Insect put on a burst and reached racehorse speed trying to escape. I sprang forward and kept pace with it although my leg muscles burned. I was exhilarated, keyed up with my own vigor. I sped my swiftest, desperate to snatch one more chance-I’ll hook my ice pick into the copper-striped abdomen and I’ll bring it down.
I forced the Insect’s route nearer to the glittering sea as we raced the length of Capharnaum’s harbor. The last building had a blank stone wall. At its base was a semicircular drain opening as tall as my shoulder, edged with blocks. A shallow stream of dirty water flowed out of it into a channel, then over the side of the harbor wall. It was stained dark green and fuscous with flaking algae. The Insect sheered, rattled down into the sloping conduit and splashed straight into the black archway. I lost sight of it instantly in the darkness. I scrambled to a halt, scraping my heels on the verge.
The Insect had gone; no way was I going to follow it into the drain. In the confined space it would rip my throat out before I could even see it. I waited, on guard, feeling my pulse pounding in my neck. It quickly returned to normal but my temples hurt. I coughed a mouthful of frothy spit into the gray water and watched it flow into the sea.
Insects are at home underground and are not disadvantaged by the dark. When culling them in the Paperlands, the least popular operation is the task of channeling river water into their tunnels in order to collapse the deep, honeycombed structures. Fires are also lit on platforms at the tunnel mouths to draw air out and suffocate them, but Insects between the sizes of men and carthorses still burst forth to attack at full speed. I hated natural caves let alone Insect burrows and slimy sewers. If I went in there I would never come out. With terrible images playing in my mind, I loped back to the Stormy Petrel, past the merchant’s bloated, half-eaten body with its ripped-open smock and Danio, headless, lying in a congealed red spray.
Lightning looked down from the Petrel’s highest deck, the back of the stern castle, an arrow at string, and wearing only trousers. Fulmer clutched the rope rail beside him. Mist’s face peered out of an open window in the array directly beneath his feet.
The surviving sailors on the Melowne clung to her rigging. Wrenn was a tiny figure down at the waterline, steadily climbing a ladder of metal brackets up the rounded hull. His short hair was flattened; water dripped from his bedraggled wings. His feathers were completely tattered, split and peeled back to the shaft. His arse crack and leg hairs showed through his soaked white shorts.
“What happened?” Lightning shouted at me. He leaned over so far that I thought the arrows would slip out of the quiver on his back. “Was that our Insect? Where’s Serein? Damn him, damn you! What were you bloody doing, perforating it?”
Mist yelled, “Did it just get those three Trisians? How many of mine?”
Fulmer gabbled, “Serein woke me up. I saw it massacre the sailors on the orlop. Master Mariner, I’m sorry. Serein said he would hold it off and took his rapier but it’s no good against shell.”
Mist turned away abruptly and hurried out of view. A moment later she strode onto the main deck, staring around at the devastation on the quay. The wounded teenager had stopped crawling; I hoped he was just unconscious, rather than slain. The traders’ goods were abandoned. The quayside was deserted by the living, but three or four faces crowded every open window and behind the bronze palings of all the waterfront houses, watching us with shock and outright terror.
“You didn’t kill it!” Lightning raved.
I retied my sarong. “I should have caught it, but it plunged down a drain. I wounded it and so did Serein, with his rapier. Stupid town swords. Fucking constables’ swords. The idiot didn’t have the right gear. It carried his rapier away! You-We must get archers to the tunnel as soon as possible. I need to know if it’s trapped, so you can shoot it.”
“And if it’s escaped to the town?” Fulmer whispered.
Mist shouted, “Captain, to your ship! Why were all the grids open? I’ll want to know! We can’t discuss this outside,” she added sotto voce to me. “Jant, speak to the Capharnai. Don’t let them carry off their dead without an explanation. As soon as you can, meet us in the Melowne’s hold.”
Typically, I had the most difficult job. While I waited on the corniche to be confronted by furious islanders, the other Eszai disappeared into the hold, and from their exclamations I learned that it was also strewn with carnage. I was very aware how alien I looked, wearing a sheet and with my long wings uncovered.
On the Melowne’s main deck the dismembered remains of six or seven men lay scattered, their limbs snipped at the joints and bodies gutted. The quartermaster’s body drooped through the hatchway. Following Mist’s orders, the sailors carried them to the land and lined them up by the anchor ready for burial because in a few hours’ time the morning heat would be appalling.
Step by step, a group of Capharnai merchants approached me, finding courage in numbers. I spread my hands down in the peace gesture and they seemed to understand. The first one, with an expression of awe and distrust, opened his arms like wings. I explained why I was the only man ever to fly, and told them it was nothing to be superstitious about. I repeated apologies as best I could and instructed them to wait in their homes and keep their children inside. Over the hiss of indrawn breath I continued-they should wait for word from the Senate that the Insect was dead. I asked them to bring down one or two goats for me to tether outside the sewer entrance and tempt the Insect out, but I suspected it was too replete for the trick to work.
I found myself talking over the wails and reproaches of families who had come to claim the Trisian merchant, the fainting teenager and Danio. I repeated that it was an accident and I clasped my hands and knelt, begging them to treat us kindly. When they saw that I couldn’t meet their eyes, they understood my sincerity but they were chary. News spread up the town, causing a commotion and banging on doors, until it reached the Amarot and a deliberative silence descended.
Frightened, I retreated to the Melowne’s hold. “I did my best,” I said.
“We believe you,” said Lightning. “This disaster makes us all feel inadequate; it’s far from the work we’re accustomed to. Please attend to Serein and we’ll consider what to do.”
Lightning had found a young Trisian man lying halfway down the ship, his lower face torn off. He returned to inspecting the victim. Behind us the buckled door of the empty Insect cage creaked as Mist opened and shut it again and again.
Wrenn sat on a packing case that now held cardamom seeds instead of arrows. I cleaned his grazes. I slapped on some comfrey ointment and tied gauze around his shoulder. His crenated wings slipped open like damp fans; his adrenaline high was fading. His shorts stuck to his stocky thighs and blood had dried on his bicep; he was peeling it off in tiny flakes. Grim determination was vicious in his face. “Is this mine?” he said muzzily. “It’s all right. I don’t think it’s mine.”
I said, “Yes, it is, but your scratches are superficial. Keep them clean and go easy for a few days. We can succumb to infection and serious disease as readily as mortals. In fact I can tell you quite a few examples of Eszai who’ve died from dusty wounds.”
“No, thanks.”
“Unfortunately it won’t heal any faster, but the Circle will catch you and stop you being killed outright by little lesions and contusions.”
“Hey-what an advantage for fencing.”
I looked at him sternly. “The only Eszai who survive centuries are those who know they’re not indestructible. Zascai are relying on you not to get cut up.”
Wrenn lowered his gaze. “I know; I was just keeping it at bay.”
“No one can slay Insects with a rapier,” I admonished. “How many years has the Castle spent trying to develop the perfect weapon and now you try to use a dueling foil?”
Wrenn winced. “I managed it once in the amphitheater. My rapier was all I had to hand-Mist’s sold every single broadsword on the ship and I gave mine to Danio. But you didn’t do any better with your skier’s axe. Ouch! Jant, have a care! I know I need experience. It was the biggest, toughest fucking Insect I’ve ever faced. And I failed; I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t catch it,” I said.
Mist slammed the cage door. “Jant, you showed the whole town that you can fly. We agreed to keep it a secret.”
“Did you expect me to let your pet devour Serein?”
“I can defend myself,” said Wrenn sulkily.
Lightning picked up a bronze Trisian trident that was lying next to the youth’s body, and a purse made of soft leather. He approached us gravely. “It seems as if our midshipmen were accepting bribes from curious Capharnai to look at the Insect. See?” He tipped the purse and a knot of fine gold chains snaked out into his palm.
“It must have broken out of its own accord,” Mist concluded. “In response to them goading it. I wish I had commissioned a tougher cage.”
Lightning and I looked at her. She was well aware that we no longer believed a word she said. Lightning gestured at the cage. “The Capharnai just regarded this as a freak show.”
“That’s how they thought of us all,” I said.
Mist snapped at Wrenn suspiciously, “Why were you up at five A.M.?”
He glanced around, admitted, “I’d just got back. I spent the night in town with a local girl.”
“Oh, really?”
“I think she was called Pollan. At any rate, she kept saying ‘Pollan.’ She had world-class tits, I mean; you could get lost in there. Given last night’s performance she could be selected for the national team, but any more mushy stuff and I’ll relegate her to the second division-” Mist cuffed the back of his head. “Ow!”
Wrenn ran a hand over his feathers, knitting their barbs together. Missing vanes spoiled his zigzag style. He was quite hirsute with feathers; a couple were growing on his back between his wings, since he had not been near a barber’s in months. The pinfeathers were still wrapped in their transparent covering, like paintbrushes. Where the sheath peeled back and crumbled, the brown brush tip emerged.
Mist called, “Fulmer?”
The dandy’s shocked face appeared in the overhead hatchway. “Yes, Master Mariner?”
“Help Lightning carry this body up to the quayside. We have to return him to his relatives and try to find some way of atoning for this incident. Comet, sally out to the Amarot and request the presence of Vendace, with companions if he wishes. The Senate might have finished their three-day debate about us and we need to know the outcome. Fly there, and tell Vendace to meet us at his convenience, all together in my cabin.”
She looked at Lightning, who was naked from the waist up with disheveled hair; me in a sheet skirt and needle scars; and Wrenn, caked in gore with semitransparent shorts. “Not as you are.”
I flew slowly to the Amarot, taking no pleasure in seeing the citizens staring up. I grieved for Danio; of course I’d only known her for two days but she was the Trisian I had spoken to most, and with untold depths of wit and humanity she had shown the greatest interest in the Fourlands.
I stood alone in front of the Senate and explained everything. I offered our services to catch the Insect but they interrupted me with outraged cries. They seemed to surmise that the Insect was a ploy for us to stay longer at Capharnaum. The Senate agreed that Vendace should accompany me to the Stormy Petrel, to announce their decision to all us travelers at once. I waited as he gathered an escort of townsmen on the mosaic, but as we walked down the boulevard more men joined us from the houses, almost spontaneously, following closely without a word. They were armed with harpoons, their knives in their belts; one or two carried the halberds we had sold them. They were quiet, giving me space, but still I knew they were watching my every move. It was nerve-racking. I acted as amicably as possible, trying to alleviate the atmosphere. When we passed the piazza I saw the man in the tunic working in his restaurant. I smiled openly but he gave me a cold look and pulled the shutters closed.
I reached Petrel with relief, but Mist, after some negotiation, invited all Vendace’s supporters aboard. The caravel’s size daunted them, but twenty or so filed up to the main deck, where Mist and I convinced Senator Vendace to leave them and enter her office alone.
The long shade of the mountain had fallen over the harbor, and Mist’s cabin was so dark she had lit candles. The smell of tallow combined with brass polish, tar and black coffee made Vendace even more uneasy. He surveyed the Sailor’s gloomy office: the waxed paneling fixed between tough, roughly adze-marked timbers, the door with long flamboyant hinges across it, and the cassone in which Ata kept her clothes. The table bore a cafetière and a plate of yesterday’s bread rolls. Its turned legs were bolted to the floor. In the corner was a basket full of Trisian bric-a-brac and wine cups. This ornate room was at odds with the rest of the ship and the sound of uneasy crewmen scrubbing bloodied footprints off the foredeck.
Vendace did not sit down until I begged, and then only reluctantly. Mist pushed a lidded glass of coffee toward him but he did not give it so much as a glance. He watched his companions waiting on the main deck through the small panes surrounding the door. He announced, “The Senate has voted. Tris will reject all contact with the Fourlands’ Empire. We’ve heeded the advice of the constitution of Capharnaum. Everyone voted that you must leave, with the exception of well-loved Professor Danio, who wanted to learn more. We agreed this morning even before your messenger informed us of the tragedy. We do not want you here. The slaughter of Capharnaum citizens, including her, simply reinforced their decision. We know that your boats are restocked. Take them home immediately and never come back.”
I translated for the others. I was leaning against the wall at the back of the cabin, one knee bent and the boot sole against the wood, head bowed, listening. I let them speak directly to each other, facilitating their conversation without interrupting it, whatever words were said. I took no side, simply letting my translation flow from the shadow, echoing their words and rejoinders in the correct languages: Awian to Trisian, Trisian to Low Awian.
Wrenn said, “But Tris is part of the Empire too!”
“No, we are not. One man should not rule five lands. The Senate was shocked to find that one man has so much power. You have already tainted Capharnaum.”
Mist said, “Senator, let us-”
Vendace pointed at her. “On the occasion of your arrival last year, the Senate discussed the likelihood of more visits from your island. We gave you the benefit of the doubt but now we accept that we were wrong and the stories were correct. Although I personally have no idea what to do about the Insect, the Senate is making plans.”
The black moniliform antenna lay on Mist’s desk beside her cafetière. Vendace pushed it around with his finger as he spoke. “You say there are thousands of Insects?”
I said, “Hundreds of thousands infest the north of our continent. We’re sorry we lost this one. The tunnel was empty when I returned with bowmen and-um-harpooners.”
Vendace said, “Jant, you can actually fly, and you can run…The merchants reported the speed you were flying!”
“I’m the fastest thing in the world,” I said. “That’s the only evidence I can give to prove that we’re immortal.”
Vendace sighed. “Some of the Senate believe you, but it makes no difference to us. Tris should be left alone by mortals and immortals alike. If you ask me, being able to fly is wonderful pleasure enough without heaping accolade and immortality on you as well.” He toyed with the antenna, asked plaintively, “Why did you set an Insect on us?”
Mist said, “We didn’t. It was an accident and we’re profoundly sorry. Please accept our apologies; mishaps like this will never happen again. The Insect escaped; we should have taken more care.”
“We’ll hunt it down,” Lightning said solidly. His face had a bleak impassive expression. He stood by the door, occasionally checking Vendace’s entourage. “We’re good at that; it’s what we do. I will meet any proposal of compensation. At least allow us to give you advice and recompense for your people.”
“I’ll go after it,” Wrenn volunteered.
“Yes, we know; be quiet,” I said.
Vendace said, “The librarians are looking for charts. They’ve told me that the sewer drains the forum and branches throughout Capharnaum for six hundred meters. So you brought a legendary maneater as an object of wonder, and loosed it into the system under our town. I am astounded.”
“I can’t translate this quickly,” I complained.
Mist asked the senator, “If Tris communicates with the Castle even once again, we need a spokesman; a governor, you see. Tell me what you want.”
“The Senate wants you to leave.”
“No. Tell me what you want.”
Vendace turned pale, controlling his anger. He spread his dry palms like a scarecrow playing an accordion and said, “I have learned some words of Awian: Goodbye.” He pushed his chair back and turned to leave.
Mist said, “No, wait!”
She touched the chair asking him to sit down, though he looked very uncomfortable. She sighed and refilled her coffee glass. Without looking at me, she said, “Comet, give us the benefit of your clever mind.”
“I say we stop insulting them. We should report to San and follow his instructions. I don’t know about this town, but we’re San’s servants. I think he should make the whole Senate the governor; they seem to take decisions with one voice.”
“Don’t interpret this,” Mist said. “Forget the stubborn, overbearing Senate. The common man of Capharnaum will want something. I don’t understand the desire that drives him.” She paced to the stern windows and looked out. “Every people I have met want more than they can supply for themselves. In fact, every single person’s greed is for more than he needs.”
“Not Rhydanne,” I said.
“Aye, a case to prove my point. Rhydanne are never drunk enough.” She nudged me as she paced back and nodded surreptitiously toward the casement. I peered through to see a crowd, mostly men, gathering on the quayside. Tridents glinted in their hands, with nets and the swords we had sold them. They stood in a passive silence that I found incredibly intimidating.
“Lightning, come here and take a look at this.”
Lightning muttered, “They think the Empire is another little island.”
Mist said, “Vendace, immortality’s the most important offer your people could possibly have. The very opportunity will make you idle Zascai feel alive! Tris is so stagnant I feel smothered. We can tell that it hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. You won’t reject the Empire once you’ve seen its treasures-the sky-worshiping spires of Awia, mills of Hacilith! Everybody wants to be Eszai! Why turn the proposal down? Don’t you wish to excel? Don’t you want to know what the world will be like five centuries from now?”
Vendace was silent for a time, then he murmured something that had the rhythm of a quotation and sounded thoroughly resigned. He shot me an envious glance. “It may be that we will not gain immortality, and we’ll never be able to fly, but we all want to stay equal. We’ll keep peace and our own pace. You have already threatened to upset the balance by coming here.”
“Give us a few more days,” Mist tried. “We can buy another crate of gold. Serein will find the Insect.”
“The Senate’s decision can neither be rescinded nor altered without a seven-day discussion. You must leave today.”
“I need to lay on enough water for the journey,” Mist countered. “We’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Yes, you will.” Vendace pulled his short cloak to his body, stood and left the cabin. Lightning stepped aside to let him go.
Mist gave a little scream and clenched her fists. “Ah! Damn! Jant, I’ve one more chance,” she said in Plainslands. “Follow him.”
“What did you say?” Lightning demanded. “Don’t exclude Wrenn!”
“It’s private,” she spat.
On the main deck, Vendace’s friends surrounded him. He looked reassured as they patted him on the back, and they began to file down the gangplank, Vendace shepherding them in front.
Mist caught the edge of his green-bordered cloak. The ex-fisherman tweaked it away and glared at her. She said, “Jant, tell him this: I can give him eternal life. It doesn’t matter whether we feel affection or not.”
She unnerved me. We must certainly be in trouble if Mist was prepared to play her last card. “Do you mean…?” I said doubtfully.
Her voice cleared of any vagueness, “Aye! I mean marriage! A link through me to the Circle. Time is their currency, so immortality is my most priceless offer to one man.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Tell him, damn you-we don’t have three days to mull it over!”
I repeated her words for Senator Vendace.
He was quiet, studying her for a long moment. His mouth twisted in disgust. “No. How dare you bribe me to breach the Senate’s resolution? To betray them! Just go! And never, ever return!” He strode down the gangplank without a backward glance.
Over the next hour, the Capharnai melted away from the quay leaving an air of animosity. I watched the streets for the Insect through Mist’s telescope, while the ships bustled with preparation to sail home.
“Well,” I said, embarrassed. “You blew that, Ata Dei.”
She muttered, “Next morning we’ll set our backs and rudders to this bloody insular town.”
Nobody was present to watch us leave. As our sails filled and our figureheads pointed toward the open sea, I felt my trepidation mounting. I did not want to go out there again so soon. I contemplated that the Trisians might never raise their sights or be forced into contest by a Challenger or by ambition as unquenchable as Mist’s. Who here cared about the Castle’s self-imposed trials? Half a minute’s difference in racing time in a Challenge could literally be my downfall. A millimeter’s distance on an archery target means life or death to Lightning. The Trisians will never know our accuracy or stamina but then they would never wear themselves out for a cause. By god, I liked them.
I sat at the stern, played a Rhydanne game of cat’s cradle, and watched Tris shrink into the distance. The wind battered the clouds down to a thick bank on the skyline around it. Our caravels trailed a path back to Capharnaum harbor, but the waves distorted then covered our wakes as if the sea was determined to hide the trail we had blazed. I hoped that the spectacular failure of Mist’s diplomacy would pass. I wished that Tris would eventually become a region like Darkling, which is part of the Empire but nobody expects it to get involved. The Rhydanne know vaguely that the Empire exists but really don’t care; unfortunately the island of Tris has more to offer than Darkling.
That night I could see the lights of Capharnaum but not the land, so I became convinced the town was floating on the ocean. The next morning Tris had diminished so much on the horizon that I could put my thumb over it. By supper it was a speck; by the following day it had gone.