It won’t matter—the cannon follows close after the siren. If we don’t turn back, they will blow us right out of the water. A cannon will kill me as surely as a ratchet, and at least I would die honest.
* * *
They grow closer! We will both be dead soon, if you don’t let me signal! What did you do, girl, to have all of the High Chapel after you? It must have been something terrible. Murder? Treason? Blasphemy?
* * *
Here! Here! The one you’re looking for is here, I will have no part of it! I am a righteous soul, by the God King! My soul to his mercy, and my body to the waves!
Day 3
(17): Pim, Pav, Pom
5:37 AM
See! See! Not dead! Only wet! Pim told Pav but Pav did not believe Pim!
Liar! It was Pim wished to eat her!
Pav is the liar! Pav is a teller of untruths! Tell him, Pom!
You will drive her back into the water, with all your yelling. Forgive them, mistress.
Forgive us!
Forgive us!
Water, mistress? Sweet water, not skunk water like we prefer.
We would not bring you skunk water.
Though we like it well enough.
Your kind has no taste for water, you will forgive us for saying.
Forgive us!
Forgive us!
Forgive us for saying!
Breed you call Pim. And Pav and Pom.
Or halflings if you are polite.
You are polite, are you not, mistress?
Of course she is! You can see it in her eyes!
A woman of quality.
So halflings it is.
Beachcombers. Kelp farmers.
We stir the dulse.
It must be stirred, or it rots.
It cannot rot. If it rots it is no good for the machines.
If it rots the master beats us.
It must be stirred.
Did you know that the kelp goes into the machines? All of the machines in all of the city, the lights that shine on you in the evenings, and the boats that carry you across skunk water, and everything else also, they are all from the kelp.
It is an important job, to stir the kelp.
You would not have lights, otherwise!
And we stir the kelp, don’t we, Pav?
Yes we do, Pim, yes we do!
More water?
We found you on the sand.
Pav found you!
Liar! Pim found you!
Found you together, mistress.
Dark, very dark. Bright lights, strange sounds. Booms also.
Loud booms.
Very loud booms.
We hid.
From the booms.
The booms were very loud.
But they stopped.
They stopped and we went back to stirring.
The kelp needs to be stirred.
The kelp is very important.
And then we found you, mistress.
On the shore, near the kelp pits.
The kelp must be stirred.
Always, always. All the time.
That is what we do.
It is what we are.
It is what we are and what we do.
We stir the kelp.
Sometimes we clean the tanks.
A bad job.
There are sharp things in the tanks.
They look like teeth.
They are not teeth, though.
The tanks are not alive, but they are hungry.
No one knows any longer how the tanks work, mistress.
Master says he does but he is lying.
Hush your talk!
Pim does not like it when we talk so of master.
But it is true all the same—you have forgotten how the tanks work, mistress. You once knew, but you do not know anymore.
That is why we have to clean them by paw, because the piece to clean it broke and they do not know how to fix it.
Lies! Lies you tell of master! Foul lies from a foolish half-breed! Master told you! The piece has been sent to the mainland to be fixed! The piece will be fixed!
Pel was lost in the tanks. Caught his tail and could not come back up.
We need to breathe, mistress, like your kind.
Though not as often.
Not as often, but still. Sometimes.
Pel was caught beneath the kelp and he could not breathe.
And that is why he died.
All of us are hes, mistress.
Pim and Pav and Pom and Pel, all hes.
Master says there is a place where they have shes also.
Master says that is where we came from, this place with shes.
You need a he and a she to make more of either, mistress. Did you know that?
Master says that if we never forget to stir, and clean the tanks when they need to be cleaned, then one day we can go to the place where the shes are kept.
It is not true, mistress.
It is true! The things master says are true! You will be jealous when Pim is sent to be with the shes and you are left here!
Pim does not really believe it either.
I believe! I believe! I will work hard, I will stir and stir and not stop stirring, and one day I will go to the place with the shes! Master has promised it! Master has promised it!
Yes, Pim, yes you will.
I will! I will!
Of course you will, Pim, of course.
Pim gets very excited.
It is best not to get Pim too excited.
You ought not lie about master! You ought not lie!
Sorry, Pim.
Sorry.
It is all right. But you ought not lie. It is wrong to lie.
It is wrong to lie.
We must stir now, mistress. You are fine, yes? You have enough sweet water?
Leave her, the kelp needs to be stirred.
If we do not stir, the kelp will rot.
And master will beat us.
That much is true for certain.
(18): Captain Baldassare
10:30 AM
Go away, girl. I’m busy.
Do you see the empty bottle? Am I your first inebriate? A tip, then—we resent superfluous interrogation.
Not me. Someone may have called me that, someone may have directed you to me by that title, but it is not mine. Of what would I be a captain? One must have an army to have a rank, and there is only one army in the city, and that army serves the usurper, and I would put my left hand into a thresher before I would wear his colors. Therefore, by process of induction—that is a philosophical term, do not worry if you can’t follow it—I am not a captain.
And now that that’s settled, be so kind as to find someone else to bother.
Every day, though with particular vehemence on the Jubilee. What can I say? It is a gift. If a bottle is full, I will empty it, though that bottle be filled with the press of grape, or fermented wheat, or my personal favorite, the distillation of potato. You will find it a common enough skill here in the Enclave.
A lovely four walls the usurper allows us, don’t you think? On very windy days you cannot smell the reek from the kelp farms, and on very cloudy days the Spire is not visible as a constant reminder of shame. Though windy days generally blow away the clouds, so it is rare to have both at the same time. Still, it’s a comfortable retirement, though there are fewer of us every year, the elders dying off, their children forgetting the obligations. The way of the young, eh? To be foolish, to be ungrateful. Is it a kindness he did in allowing us our dotage, in not having purged us after taking the throne? I never made an enemy suffer more than was needed; if we found a man dying we helped him to his end, we did not put him in a cage as evidence of our mercy.
But then, the ways of men are not the ways of gods, are they?
Yes, congratulations, you have caught me in your rhetorical trap. What cunning genius! That much you may have for free, but nothing more. You wish to leaf through the moldy pages of my memory? It is not a lending library; there is a price to pay for my time. A bottle, so I can stand your presence long enough to hold a conversation, and a second bottle that I might forget it rapidly upon its conclusion.