Markan Throne by Nicholas A. Rose
"What have you got to say?" Cloudy spoke gently.
"Kelanus-ya is a good man." The scout spoke forcefully. "Belaika saw what he saw and he knew that he did not see Kelanus. Anyone who really knows him knows he is innocent."
"This does not explain why you are running as far south as you can," said Liffen.
"We suspect who is responsible for the murder," replied Kelanus. "We're not running; we travel to his home to learn what we can of him. He is a secretive man, but there must be many who remember him." He reached into his tunic and pushed a small portrait of General Ranallic across the table. "He can't have changed that much."
"Do you know how long he has been away from home?" asked Cloudy. A blue forefinger touched the portrait, but she didn't even glance at it. "He is not known to us."
Tahena realized Cloudy referred to herself and the ship, not the rest of the officers. Still strange to hear her speak for two entities.
"He joined Branad's army almost ten years ago," replied Kelanus. "As you now know, he forced me out from there as well."
The ship's sylph returned the portrait. "From what has been said, we know that Sallis ti Ath is a good man. If ruthless." She looked around the cabin. "We have nothing to fear from him; only Kelanus has anything to fear from him. And Neptarik says Kelanus is a good man."
Everybody waited as Cloudy paused. "The ship is unconvinced."
A grimace turned Kelanus's face and even Neptarik looked up.
"There is one thing we can do," continued the ship's sylph. She held up a hand, palm facing Kelanus. "If you let the ship join with you."
Neptarik's earpoints came bolt upright. A faint smile creased Tahena's face and Kelanus appeared surprised.
"What sorcery is this?" he demanded. "I thought this only worked with sylphs."
"No sorcery." Liffen's voice was quiet. "It only works with sylphs when we want the ship to communicate with us. It's easy for her to see into you."
Tahena nodded. "Do it," she urged. "It will settle the argument and reassure our friends."
Kelanus looked from Cloudy to Tahena and back again. "All right."
Cloudy rested her palm on Kelanus's forehead. "Don't break the link," she warned. She frowned in concentration.
"What are you doing to me? What... Aah!"
Earpoints suddenly erect, Cloudy took her hand away. "The ship is happy to tell us that Kelanus speaks the truth." She looked surprised. "We will honor our arrangement."
"That hurt," complained Kelanus, rubbing his forehead. "A lot."
A smile fleeted across Cloudy's mouth and her earpoints twitched. "That is partly because you are not a sylph," she explained. "And partly punishment for concealing things from the ship. She does not like that."
"Then the bloody ship is too nosy by half," muttered Kelanus.
Liffen nodded and stood. "We carry on. This meeting is at an end."
"What if Cloudy had said no?" asked Tahena.
Liffen smiled. "We would have turned around and given you to Sallis ti Ath," he replied.
The three remaining passengers returned to their own cabin. "I'm going to lie down for a bit," announced Tahena. "I need to think."
Kelanus and Neptarik went onto the stern walkway, the only completely private part of the ship. Kelanus rested a hand on the sylph's shoulder.
"I trust you're not going to try anything stupid?"
Neptarik shook his head.
"Good. This is as private as you get."
The sylph nodded thanks, leaned back against the ship's planking and slid down until sat on the deck. He wrapped his arms around his knees and lowered his head. His shoulders shook as sobs wracked him. Staring in the direction of Beshar, he began to grieve for his master.
***
Chapter 15
Kytra
She drifted in and out of consciousness. Whorls of color flashed in time with the beating pulse sounding like a gong inside her head. Liquid pounded through her, powered on by an apparently endless pump. Air rattled in her throat as she tried to pull herself awake, aware of incompleteness, that she had lost... someone. A sound she failed to understand reached her from outside. Her senses felt dulled and, when she moved her head, it seemed hours passed before it stilled again. Something stopped her earpoints from moving.
And she hurt. Oh, how she hurt!
The sound came again and she realized she heard two voices. Neither addressed her. Understanding flooded her memory.
"Constable Eldstren, I want you to arrest the accursed man. The filthy, round-eyed northern scum! Look at her, Constable, look at her. There's no excuse for that at any age, but she's no more than a child."
"Madam," interrupted a deeper voice, presumably that of Constable Eldstren, "there is no law in Hejiller against outlanders even if they are round-eyed. And there is no law against chastising slaves, especially if they are sylphs."
"Chas –" The first voice broke off in anger before resuming. "This is hardly chastisement. There's a world of difference between maintaining discipline and beating someone around the head with a lump of metal. She has been assaulted, Constable, not chastised. And he is not her owner."
"She is a ship's sylph. And because the ship belongs to the outlander, so does she. Ship and sylph are his property."
"He nearly killed her!"
"But did not." Constable Eldstren sounded to be tiring of the conversation. "If she dies, let me know and then I can do something about it."
The effort to stir proved too great and she drifted back into comfortable unconsciousness. Something familiar to her, known to her, whispered unintelligibly into her mind. Really a someone who lived inside her. As the memory surfaced, she drifted away again.
***
Her eyes flickered open and she struggled to sit up in the strangely familiar bed. Sunlight streamed through the window and warmed the small room. Reflections from a mug of water dappled one green wall and added brightness. Blue and white paint covered the ceiling, intended to represent sky and clouds, and green walls to give the impression she slept in a forest.
To her, an alien environment.
An open door led to the corridor beyond. Why was she here, instead of aboard her ship? The ship! She remembered that much. Frantically, she tried to reach that part of the ship that usually resided within her.
She called for the ship in her mind.
Nothing.
"I am Kytra," she murmured to herself. "I have eight cycles and belong to the ship Velvet Moon. Lenar Pylo Frist is my owner." She muttered it three times, to convince herself. Something still felt wrong, and she put hands to her head.
The free earpoint twitched with irritated curiosity. Who had wrapped this thing around her head? She glimpsed her reflection in the polished metal mirror, edges painted as if vines grew around it. She wondered what had happened to her and slowly unwound the bandage. She gasped.
Somebody had shaved part of her head. Behind one ear, a neat line of stitches followed an ugly blue gash in her head. Another line of stitching marked where the earpoint had been cut. This one did not follow its twin as normal, but drooped uselessly. She put her hand to it and pushed it upright. The earpoint sagged back.
Tears filled her eyes. She was damaged!
"No," she groaned.
Someone must have overheard, for moments later a short human woman bustled in, dark slanted eyes shining.
"Up at last are we? And you should not have that dressing off." Seconds later, the woman secured the bandage again.
Kytra recognized the woman's voice. "Where am I? Where is my ship?"
"You are in the sylphs' orphanage hospital," said the woman. "Your ship sailed without you." A hint of outrage entered her tone. "Leaving you on the quay, lying in your blood. I'm Matron Ceren; you may call me Matron."
"Yes Matron." Left behind on the quay? She remembered nothing. She had not asked after the wooden ship, but she did not expect the woman to understand. "When can I leave?"
"When you're better."
&nb
Ceren patted the sylph on her back and made a soothing noise. "It will never be quite as active as the left one, I'm afraid, but you should get some movement back."
Kytra's good earpoint wilted. "I must find my ship."
"You must rest." Matron Ceren smiled at the distressed sylph. "Sit down and make yourself comfortable; I gave you a room with a view over the bay."
She allowed herself to be led to a chair, which she felt certain sylphs should not be allowed to use, and Ceren tucked a blanket around her, ensuring she was comfortable.
The window allowed a superb view across the bay. Each with its own watchtower, the headlands looked as though they touched, but Kytra knew twenty fishing boats sailing abreast could pass through the channel. With no risk of grounding: those headlands were sheer. The channel had its own watchtower bang in the middle and Kytra often wondered how humans had managed to build it. This tower also controlled the boom, pulled across the channel for festivals, or if pirates threatened Hejiller.
Thankfully, pirates were very rare, if any still existed. The festivals rather more common. There were four a year in Hejiller, with free time for all during them. Even the Shograt attended, but as far as she knew, she had never seen him.
From here, she could see the docks. She had plenty of friends down there. Running River's sylph was a littersister, her ship still smelling fresh from the builders. Mountain Grace boasted a particularly irritable sylph, who had a soft spot only for other sylphs and a reputation of trying to bully her ship's officers; she was called Graceless behind her back. The ancient Fire Lake had been trading for more than a century, but her sylph was a fresh faced youngling; the third for this ship. That Fire Lake still traded was a testament to the care and skill of those who had maintained her throughout her long life.
There were fishing boats, small ships akin to her own. Whistler and Hounder; Myna, Isis, and Hapnut, and many smaller fishing smacks, who barely deserved their own sylph. There were also sister ships to her own fisher: Crescent Moon, Full Moon, Silver Moon and Gold Moon. Her own the newest and last of class. She also knew a few of the outlander trading ships, most small and trading from nearby ports. Others traded from as far away as the northern barbarian lands. One of the biggest ships Kytra had ever seen came every year and always caused a stir when she arrived. Usually just before the High Festival, with a cargo of tea that the rich loved to drink.
But of her ship, no sign.
Other ships were out, either trading or fishing. Her own ship was often away for a week at a time. But they had only planned a three-nighter. How long had she been here? And where was the ship?
As before, calling brought no response.
She should not have to call, the ship ought to be there all the time. But the ship's essence had learned to wall herself away from her sylph, often to escape physical pain. And the Father knew the sylph suffered that often enough. Kytra was left to face it alone, while the ship cowered in a recess of her mind.
The northern Captain drove ship and crew hard, but seemed to have second sight when finding fish. Dark nights could prove dangerous to abusive ship captains, but success and wealth had saved Lenar from a quiet splash over the side. Spreading that wealth among his crew helped keep him alive.
He also drank a goodly portion of his money away; so much so that he may as well pour money over the side of the ship instead of pissing it over.
But whatever demons pushed Lenar to drink also drove him to violence. He never accepted the advice of his ship, but instead beat her sylph whenever an excuse presented itself. Kytra's bruises were remarked upon ashore, but the sylph always brushed over the comments, while envious of the ship's ability to seal herself away when the blows fell. For the crew, it meant they had a sulky sylph to reassure more often than not and a sullen, reserved ship.
No good could come of it, but she had no choice.
And now this. The ship sailed without its sylph and guardian.
A shudder ran through her. In that moment, she knew the ship's essence had returned.
Sister, whispered the ship, from her usual place in the sylph's mind.
Ship!
We must flee, bondage sister. We must flee.
***
The ship had retreated to silence. Kytra wondered why she should flee: where could she go? Everything and almost everyone she knew were in Hejiller. What had frightened the ship?
A quick rummage through the locker beside the bed revealed her clothes. She dressed quickly and winced as the rough shirt snagged the bandage covering her wounded ear. She must discover what had panicked the ship so badly. Ready to leave, she pushed her head out of her room and looked both ways along the corridor. Nobody.
She left the room cautiously and turned right. She always turned right out of the sail locker that served as her cabin on the ship. When she reached the docks she would learn what she had missed. Nobody could deny her that. But perhaps those who owned this institution might try to stop her.
Luck was on her side. She found the way to the front of the hospital, seen only by a very small sylph, who stared wide-eyed at her, earpoints bolt upright.
Unaware that the nurse who usually staffed the front desk poked about under it for a dropped pencil, the ship's sylph walked through the front door and into the city's hammering heat.
She put as much distance as she could between herself and the orphanage hospital. Aware of every stare as she walked towards the harbor, she moved quickly but purposefully. And tried not to look as if she had run away.
Expressionless dark eyes regarded her as humans wondered why she walked alone and obviously not on an errand.
One or two sailors, knowing what she was, if not who, gave her quick nods and friendly grins, but they also noted her bandage. Her free earpoint lashed in irritation. After winding her way through the crowds, she finally reached the harbor.
She stuck her head in at the Quaymaster's office. "Velvet Moon in?" she demanded of the clerk, wearing her usual impish grin.
She and the clerk were good friends. He always gave her a generous ration of choca, an unheard-of treat in the ship.
The clerk's eyes widened in surprise, as if he expected anyone but her. "Kytra. She's overdue by four days. Are... Are you all right? When you were..." He cleared his throat and ground his teeth. How ship owners treated their property was none of his business.
"Overdue? How long since she sailed?" Her hand hovered close to the bandage.
"Eight days."
"Eight?" The sylph's voice squeaked. "There has been bad weather or did they sail south?"
The clerk looked even more miserable. "Not south. Evergreen and Latcher are out looking for her. One's returning now, but we don't know which yet."
Kytra blinked. "Thank you," she whispered. Turning out of the office, she saw her littersister – Lyrran – hurrying toward her.
Lyrran stared and concern mingled with barely concealed fear. As she hugged her sister, a hand gently brushed her bandage.
"Please leave it alone," begged Kytra.
"What has he done to you?"
The injured sylph blinked back tears. "It should get better."
"Should? Where is your ship?"
Kytra knew her littersister referred to the part living within her, not the wooden vessel. "With me." She needed say no more than that.
"Watchtower's signaling!"
The two ship sylphs looked at each other, before dashing across the quay to the Running River. They scrambled easily up the rigging for a better view. Kytra did her best to avoid sympathetic glances thrown her way. They stared at the flags on the watchtower.
"Latcher."
Kytra said nothing, but nodded. In her mind, the ship spoke.
We must flee!
The sylph ignored the ship, but instead stared at the small sail that had just come into sight between the two headlands. She stared until she could not doubt that this was the Latcher, sent in search of her ship. As the ship came closer, a crowd of
Kytra remained silent, but dropped onto the deck of Running River. Followed by Lyrran, she joined the small crowd. Sailors looked down and made way for her and the expectant buzz suddenly muted. Most faces held a strange mixture of sympathy and concern.
As the newcomer came head to wind – almost perfectly alongside – Kytra and the Latcher's sylph looked at each other. Joyana must be smallest adult sylph in the world, and spoiled by her crew. She had an irritating tendency to act the age they believed her to be, but she looked solemn now. No sign of her usual smile and she lowered her head, unable to hide tears.
Kytra stared at the scratched wooden nameboard lying on Latcher's deck. She could not read, but she recognized the shape of every letter on that piece of wreckage. She fell to her knees.
"No!" she screamed.
The ship's voice broke into her mind. I tried to warn you. I told you we must flee. They will blame us, blame you. The ship is gone, little sister, the ship is gone.
***
Hingast listened as the scout reported to General Hanan, while Marshal Janost nodded his head behind.
Large numbers of people from Calcan and Sandester passing into Marka... Raiding parties still reporting successes... Little sign of the rural population moving into Marka in greater numbers than before.
"Our enemies are still unaware of our approach," remarked Dervra, at Hingast's side. "Those from Calcan and Sandester are families of soldiers already in Marka, not reinforcements."
"They know we're coming," growled Hingast.
"We've seen nothing of these sylph scouts allegedly surrounding us."
"You know very well that our sylphs continuously mention strange whistles. This is doubtless how the enemy sylphs communicate with each other and Marka." The sylphs in Hingast's camp belonged to his officers and men. Though most were infertiles, they had nothing wrong with their hearing.
"They've demonized these sylph scouts."
Hingast scowled. They had certainly done that. There were only a small number of sylphs in his camp, and they claimed thousands of enemy sylphs surrounded them. And that they weren't really sylphs at all, but monsters with eyes of fire and ears that lashed like whips. He would strangle whoever had started that rumor, human or sylph.
"Do you think the enemy knows how many carpenters march with us?"