Heroes Adrift (16 page)

He rolled his eyes, not the least bit fooled, but he picked up my hand and kissed the back of it, and the pain I really was feeling on the soles of my feet eased. “Subtle you ain't, Lee.”

“And don't you forget it.”

But we did walk a bit. My feet could bear it, and I really wasn't all that anxious to return to the suffocating heat of our tent. We wandered about the market, looking at wares, most of which I didn't recognize the use of. There were toys, and an awful lot of those tokens the others hung from their tents. For luck, a merchant told us. The jewelry was nice, delicate with a simplicity of line that made the thick heavy metal and flashy stones of Northern jewelry seem blunt and graceless.

They all tried to solicit our custom, which I had to admit was a novel experience for me. Most merchants had no interest in luring Shields or Sources into their shops.

It was then that I felt a light tugging at my belt. My hand shot out and grabbed the wrist of the person trying to steal my purse. “Hey!” was my intelligent accusation.

The owner of the wrist stared up at me. She was a child, perhaps around eleven, but she was only a couple of inches shorter than me. Her long black hair was matted and rough. She had the same black eyes as everyone around me, but her dirty skin was several shades lighter than the other islanders. She was far too skinny, her cheekbones sharp in her face, her wrist boney. My impression of her clothing was that it was too tight for her.

And she was trying to steal from me. I couldn't believe someone had tried to steal from me. I was a Shield, damn it. Irritation snapped down my spine.

She stared at me, stunned, then her foot shot out and hooked my knee. I let her go as my leg buckled, and she took off.

“Lee!” Taro caught my arm. “Are you all right?”

“She tried to steal our money!” I exclaimed.

“Did she get anything?”

“No, but…” Damn it, she'd tried to steal from me! No one had ever tried to steal from me.

Of course, on Flatwell that didn't mean anything. On Flatwell, there weren't regulars and Triple S members. There were only people. There were all sorts of ways being only a person was just unpleasant. I couldn't wait to go home.

All right, relax. You're shopping. Shopping was supposed to be fun. I swung my foot to ease the pain in my knee. Monstrous brat.

“Sir, madam!” crowed one merchant, and his accent instantly drew my attention. Very very light, it seemed to me, almost like he had arrived from somewhere else a long time ago and had taken on a bit of the accent, rather than someone who had had the accent and lost it. I looked at him closely. He appeared like everyone else, the same dark hair, eyes and skin, the same lean form.

“You are in the greatest luck, for I was to pack and move any moment.”

I thought his voice might be good for the stage, it was so strong and strident. Not so good to listen to while standing right in front of the man. It felt like he was yelling at us. And there were no signs of packing up that I could perceive. “We're not interested, thank you,” I said.

“Oh, but you can't fly this op without hearing!” he protested, leaping in front of us to halt our progress. “You're strangers here. You don't know of the healing waters and plants that are found only here.”

Here where? On the island? In this village? “We have no need for healing,” I told him, and Karish and I tried to ease around him.

Who would have thought such a slender man could be such a big obstacle? “Of course you need healing, madam. I can see you're in pain. I have an ointment—”

“
I
have an ointment.”

“Not like mine.”

“True. I know mine works. I have no such knowledge of yours.”

He was undeterred. “Do you know the dangers of breaking your leg?” he demanded.

“Pain,” I answered, then cursed myself. Why was I encouraging him?

“Blood clots!” he announced with twisted triumph.

“Oh.” Never would have thought of that.

“A broken leg can cause blood clots. Blood clots can kill you.”

“How?”

“They grow bigger and bigger in the leg until they stop all blood flow, and then you die.”

“Oh.” Nasty, if it were true.

“A daily dose of this”—the bottle he picked up that time was rose colored—“will prevent blood clots. No one else sells this. You should stock.”

No one else sold it? So who made it? Someone who had probably never had a day of healer training in his life? “You expect us to buy and take medicine daily in case we break a leg which
may
cause blood clots that
might
kill us?” How stupid did he think we were?

“Prevention is the best medicine, madam.”

“And using your head is the best form of prevention, you repulsive little fear monger.”

He drew himself up stiffly. “There's no need to be slacking me.”

“There's every need. Get out of our way.”

This time he made no move to stop us as we strode around him.

Karish followed me, snickering. “Not your most diplomatic moment.”

“He didn't deserve diplomacy. Imagine trying to create a fear of some unlikely ailment just to try to sell us something. How disgusting.” And it must work, or he wouldn't do it. Was this the sort of thing the regulars had to put up with all the time?

No wonder merchants were despised. I hoped my family was nothing like that creature. If they were, I didn't want to know about it.

The success of my first night was surpassed by my second, and equaled by my third. The arrival of the promised bench helped, mostly by sparing my feet. The other acts of the troupe also seemed to enjoy unusual popularity. Despite this, on the fourth day we moved on, due to the demands of the curse.

The following three weeks were hard. We hit a series of small settlements, spending at most two nights, and sometimes only one, in each, as they were too small to support multiple performances. I began to recognize certain people from the other villages. Merchants who wandered from place to place selling their wares. Storytellers. News carriers, which was a new profession to me. People who collected and sold gossip and information. An interesting conceit, especially as no one had the means of testing the accuracy of said news.

I saw the fear-mongering, medicine-selling creature a couple of times. I glared at him. He ignored me. I saw people buying his poison. Fools.

Karish's sunburn faded away and he took entertaining care to make sure he didn't acquire another. I became a little more comfortable about performing and yes, parts of it were even fun. I still hated the costume, but I drew a great many spectators at every performance. Not all of them would pay with money, some instead contributing fruit or vegetables or dried meat. That was fine with us; it expanded our supplies.

Leverett and his lover, Sol, had an explosive argument that everyone found out about. I noticed a strange man lingering around the tents late one night, but no one else had seen him. And Rinis found out she was pregnant, to her very public disgust. It was not the sort of news a professional contortionist wanted. And I could sympathize with that. Zaire knew I would find a pregnancy highly inconvenient.

Karish and I adapted to the routine of things, walking and setting up and performing and collecting and taking down and moving on. The freakishness of my person was an even bigger draw than either Atara or Kahlia had predicted. Karish and I were clearing off our debt with greater speed than anticipated, and the overflow effect enjoyed by the other performers seemed to buy us their appreciation. Which was fine with me. It helped shore up the fragile sense of security I'd managed to construct.

This security had a downside. Once I was no longer so worried about the two of us being tossed out into the jungle to starve, I had plenty of time to wonder how the hell we were going to find these relatives of the Empress. We had ridiculously little to work with. The family name that had been assumed by the Empress's sister. The last known location of the family that had taken her in. A picture of the tattoo. That was all. And seeing as how we were supposed to be discreet about it all, not even speaking of it to anyone unless we were already pretty sure they had useful information, I didn't know where we were going to start.

Karish was no help. He said we'd figure out what to do when the time came. But how were we even going to recognize that time when it did come? We simply lacked adequate information.

Worrying about it didn't accomplish anything, of course, but I couldn't help it. We couldn't go home until we found these people. What if we never did? What if we were stuck on this island forever? It began to prey on my mind. It was the last thing I thought of before I fell asleep, it woke me up at night and niggled at me, it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning.

And because I'd begun thinking about it all the time, an idea came to me. I didn't think it was at all stupid. In fact, I was stupid for missing something that now seemed so obvious.

Then, one day, we woke up to rain. Heavy hard rain. I looked outside and I could see people tying down flaps and collecting children and animals. Fin came by to show us how to prepare. No one was panicking, but everyone was tense. I certainly didn't like the idea of bearing out a bad storm in shelter as flimsy as a tent. We'd weathered rain, of course, but nothing so strong as what I felt was coming this time.

Once we'd done everything we'd been told to do, everything we could to prepare, we sat in the dark, all lights out, and waited. And waited. And waited.

“Do you think Kahlia might be one of the line?” I asked at one point, driven by boredom to reveal one of the weird notions that had been plaguing me.

“What?”

“You know what I mean.” I didn't want to be any more explicit. While I doubted anyone would be lurking outside our tent in this weather, it never hurt to be cautious.

“Kahlia?” he said.

“She doesn't look anything like Atara or Panol. And her eyes and skin are very light. She might have some Northern blood in her.” Not that all Northerners were pale. Karish would know what I meant.

“Why would she be traveling about like this?”

“Why wouldn't she? Contact was lost decades ago.”

“I haven't seen the mark,” he said dubiously. “And she doesn't wear much.”

“With all those tattoos, it might be covered up or obscured.”

“That's true,” he said.

And that was all he said, which I found frustrating. “So how are we going to figure it out?” I prodded him.

“Ask her.”

“What? Ask her if she's the next—” I shut up. My desire to be sarcastic had almost overpowered my good sense.

“Ask her where she was born. Be as blunt as she is and find out where her father's at. And where she's from. You two spend a lot of time together. What do you talk about?”

“Um.” I thought about it for a moment, then admitted, “Me.”

He snickered.

It was true. My dancing. My costume. How strange I was. That was almost all we talked about.

“Time to be a little less self-centered, my dear,” said Taro.

“Why am I the one who has to do it?” I demanded. “It's your task.”

“You're the one she actually likes.”

I sighed. That seemed somewhat true. But it didn't necessarily follow that she was prepared to reveal to me any potentially embarrassing secrets.

And the storm raged on. It was only rain. Not a hurricane or anything like it, which was what I had been fearing. But even rain could do damage, when it lasted three days. And three longer days I had never felt. Trapped in our tiny tent, it was too dangerous to light the lanterns. Sudden gusts of wind would find their way into the tent, making lighting lanterns in turn futile and hazardous. So it was too dark to do anything. It was too hot for sex, even if either of us were in the mood, which we weren't.

The only break in the tedium had been the occasional visits from other members of the troupe, checking up on us, and those visits that we returned. Oh, and that time one corner of our tent had been ripped up by the winds and we'd had to scramble to get everything pinned down again. That had been fun.

After three days, when Fin poked his head in, we were both grateful for the interruption, even knowing it was going to be brief.

Until, that is, he opened his mouth. “Get your kit together,” he ordered. “We're moving out.”

I stared at him.

“In this?” Karish demanded. “Are you insane?”

“You know of the curse,” Fin said impatiently. “We're past time.”

The curse? They wanted us to start slogging through that mess because of some stupid fear over a curse? “That's ridiculous.”

Fin shrugged. “We're going. You want to stay, you stay alone. And we're taking the tent.” And he disappeared.

I had my hand on a sandal, all ready to throw it at the memory of Fin's head, before my brain caught up and realized what I was about to do. I unclenched my fingers. Of all the stupid, superstitious, dangerous…

“Lee,” Karish whispered. “Let's try it.”

“Try what?” Staying behind on our own? Without a tent? Much as I would love to provide an example of sanity to these crazy people, I didn't think we would really survive the process.

“You try to fix the weather. So we don't have to walk out in this.”

We had tried to fix the weather the summer before, when it had been so crazy in High Scape. I'd been able to affect the weather, but not control it. The results had been, at times, disastrous.

This again? “This is a completely different place and climate. I'll probably call up a blizzard instead.”

“Just take a look. What could that hurt?”

Of course, looking never hurt anything. It was just that looking too often led to trying, and trying could hurt a whole hell of a lot. I really didn't want to be out there walking through a hail storm.

But I didn't want to be out there walking through the rain, either. It wasn't light, poetic rain. It was eyeball piercing rain that made it hard to breathe and churned up mud that ate your sandals.

Stupid curse. I couldn't believe these people would drag their children out into such dangerous weather over something so brainless. How could such a large group of people engage in identical insanity?

“All right.” Maybe I could do something. Maybe a small island would be easier to manage than one small part of a huge continent. Aye, that made sense. Really. I could convince myself the forces were organized in discrete chunks rather than a whole continuous flow. If I thought about it hard enough. “We don't have much time, though.” I didn't want to get left behind in that mess out there.

I felt Karish lower his internal shields, and I erected mine. It felt like it had been ages since we'd done this. I spent a moment wondering if I should worry about getting out of practice. Especially if, gods forbid, we did end up on this island for two years or more.

Karish was not channeling. He was merely allowing himself to become a conduit through which I could access the forces, something tradition claimed neither of us could do. Karish could channel the forces, allow them to flow through his body and direct them out again, out somewhere safe. That was what was needed to stop natural disasters. I couldn't do that. Manipulating the weather, the normal kind of weather like simple rain and fog and whatnot, required a much gentler touch, the finer adjustments of the smaller details. Karish seemed unable to perceive those smaller elements. Perhaps they were lost to him in the more powerful forces. I could feel them, though, and change their flow.

So, potentially, I could make adjustments to the weather. I had before. Only to date, I hadn't been very good at it. The results of past experiments had been unpredictable, and usually negative. It wasn't something I could really afford to practice. Besides, I didn't know if playing with the weather, ordinary weather, was really a good idea. Something told me that all weather everywhere might be connected somehow, and for all I knew, stopping the rain where I was could cause a flood—or a drought—somewhere up north or wherever.

But no one could tell me for sure, and someone was going to break a bone trying to sludge through all that mud and rain. I was certain of it. And besides, I was just going to take a look, to see if there was anything I could do. Really.

One thing I had learned from my previous experiments was that there was supposed to be a sort of constant base to the weather upon which all permutations were based. The base in High Scape had been a rich warm green. And as I looked through Karish at the curls and swirls moving imperceptibly around us, I easily found the green again.

Hm. To me that implied the rain was perfectly healthy and natural. And, of course, it was. There were no Reanists sacrificing aristocrats to nonexistent gods.

“Can you feel that?” Karish asked.

“Going to have to be more specific than that, Taro.”

“The other Pair is trying to work on this, too.”

I couldn't sense anything like that. “Are they accomplishing anything?”

“No. They're very weak. And…there is something strange about the way they feel.”

“Strange how?”

“Very much in tune, more than I would have thought possible. Their minds work as one.”

“Yet they are weak?”

“It feels so.”

“Hm.” Intriguing, but not something I was going to think about too much right then.

“How are you doing?”

I had found the base, but it would take time to study the other colors and movements in order to understand them well enough to even attempt any manipulation. “I can't do anything right now.” And I felt unaccountably ashamed for my inability.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. Everything's too different here.” It was the wisest decision. I wouldn't even want to try it in High Scape, where I was more familiar with the courses of the weather. It would really be stupid to try it on Flatwell. Really. But the inability rankled. Karish always seemed to be able to do everything he put his hand to, and to do it well. It was irritating that I couldn't do the same.

Karish swore and raised his shields. “Trudging through that mess out there is going to be a nightmare. These people make me crazy.”

“I'm worried about that other Pair knowing about manipulating the weather. The council must have told them.” Though I didn't know how the Triple S council would know of the potential for manipulating the weather. We hadn't told them of it.