The Sound of Seas (14 page)

“I'm ready to make my descent,” Mikel said at last. “For the record—and I hope you're keeping one—there is some kind of humming down there. It sounds almost like cooing of some kind. My companion hears it too.”

“Human?”

“Difficult to say.”

Skett motioned his head at Flora. She followed where he was pointing, saw a tablet on the table. It was the same one Arni had been using when his brain liquefied. She used it to turn on the audio recorder, to open a new file.

“I'm recording now,” Skett said. “I want to know everything.”

“You will,” Mikel replied. “Assuming that even the audio signal can get out.”

There was a low, smooth grinding sound—the winch on the truck, Skett assumed—and Mikel was quiet for another long moment. The Technologist agent noticed Flora's breath quicken slightly. For Mikel, or for what the Technologists might be on the verge of acquiring?

Finally, the voice of the archaeologist came over the phone once more: “Beginning my descent.”

CHAPTER 11

M
other?”

Standor
Qala craned her head to watch as Vilu raised his cheek from her shoulder. The boy tapped both index fingers against his temples. There was a blossoming look of wonder in the child's face, like a baby discovering its toes for the first time.

Beside Qala, Bayarma was looking around with frank confusion. “Where—where is this?” she asked in Galderkhaani.

“Mother?” the young boy said again, in English.

“Vilu, are you all right?” Qala asked.

The boy continued tapping the area in front of his ears and smiling strangely. He was not looking at either woman but rather staring off at nothing in particular.

“Vilu!” Qala said.

The boy looked at the
Standor
. “I can hear you,” he replied in effortless Galderkhaani.

“Then why didn't you answer?”

“I am. I said, ‘I can hear you!' ”

“Where am I and who are you
both
?” Bayarma asked. Her eyes moved to the side of the gondola. A small gasp puffed from between her lips. “I am
aloft
?!”

“You are aboard my airship,” Qala answered, frowning as her eyes
shifted to the woman. “Apparently, high-cloud madness has touched the two of you.
You
claimed to be from another time and place,” she told Bayarma, “and you,” she continued, looking at the boy, “suddenly fell unconscious in the street where Lasha and this woman found you.”

“I don't remember,” the boy responded. Vilu looked at the other woman. His hands moved from near his ears, made little gestures the next time he spoke. He didn't seem to notice what he was doing. “I thought—I thought that you were my mother,” he told Bayarma, then looked around. “But you aren't. Where is she? Where am
I
?” His eyes returned to Qala. “And why are you dressed like that? Halloween was weeks ago.”

Only when he said that one word, “Halloween,” in English, did the boy become frightened.

Vilu began to breathe rapidly, his hands became fists, and he looked around, unsure what to do or say next. He squirmed and pushed against the broad shoulders of the
Standor
. She held him firmly.

“Boy, relax yourself,” Qala told him. “You're onboard the pride of Galderkhaan—”

“I can't, I—I want to be
home
! This . . . this is not a good place.”

“It's a fine place, boy,” the
Standor
insisted. She stood him on the taut wicker floor of the gondola. “Youngster, you are behaving very strangely. We are going to go see the physician.”

Vilu stood there unsteadily on the gently swaying deck. He looked past the officer's legs at the gangplank. “A doctor. My mother is a doctor,” he thought aloud. “I heard her talking about a place, about Galderkhaan.”

“You are there,” Qala said.

Vilu shook his head. “No. I am dreaming.”

“You are quite awake—”

“I can't be here!”
the boy shouted. “Something is supposed to happen.”

“A celebration,” Qala said.

Vilu looked around, as if trying to remember the something. “Why can I hear everything so clearly?” he asked.

“Perhaps you struck your head, but that is past,” Qala said.

“No, no!” Vilu insisted, his voice rising. “I can
hear
! How is that possible? Where are my hearing aids?”

Once again, the
Standor
did not know what the boy was talking about, did not even understand the words. She turned to Bayarma, hoping to get some insight. But the Aankhaan woman seemed equally confused. Around them, great fabric hoses were being uncoiled and carried to the top of the column, to replenish the air volume with the rising heat.

“We're on an
airship
!” Bayarma marveled, looking up at the great envelope. “How did I
get
here?”

“You had a fit in the water courtyard, you came to help look after the boy,” Qala said.

“I remember none of it!” She looked around. “I've never been so high!”

“Are you frightened?” Qala asked.

“No—not of this ship. I always wondered what it would be like.”

“How did you come to Falkhaan?” Qala asked.

“I left my birth mother and birth daughter and came by river to Dijokhaan, then the rest of the way by foot.”

“And the reason for your journey?

“I was selected by my caste, by lot,” Bayarma said. “I was bringing tokens blessed by Aankhaan Priests and others along the route. I had just left the amulets with the Priest Avat. I was going to say words over one of my ancestors and meet others for the celebration when—I was here.”

Qala looked from Bayarma to Vilu. “Two curious cases,” she announced. “One bit of passing madness—that I've seen. It is the close timing and proximity of these two that has me concerned. The strange words and ideas. And the
violence
. Bayarma, you were fighting with Lasha, the water guardian.”

“Fighting? I have never fought with anyone,
Standor
!”

“That is why you are
both
going to see the physician,” Qala said. “Come.”

Hoisting the boy back on her shoulder, the
Standor
took Bayarma's hand and started along the side of the enclosed cabin toward a door in the back. Despite the unexplained mental state of her two guests, Bayarma's hand felt strong and right in her own. They separated when the space between the central cabin structure and the outer wall of the gondola grew somewhat narrow, so Bayarma had to walk slightly behind.

The large door panel was made of the same fabric as the envelope of the airbag, the skin of the
shavula
, in this case sun-dried and taut. The frame was made of knotted seaweed, also baked in the sun. Like the rest of the structural materials, the door was designed to be as strong but as lightweight as possible.

Qala pressed a palm to the door. It wasn't bolted, meaning there were no patients and the physician was not meditating. The
Standor
entered. As they did, Vilu reached out and rapped the doorjamb, hard, then listened as if awaiting a response. When none came, his fingers clutched the
Stando
r tighter.

The physician was sitting in a low-hanging mesh sling that hung from an overhead beam. Qala had to duck to avoid the beam; the roof was so low she could barely stand upright. The physician was reading a scroll and looked up.

“
Standor
, we need to take on more fish oil for the health of the children in Aankhaan,” the youthful-looking man said. He slapped the scroll with the back of one hand. “This ridiculous manifest is less than half of what I requested.”

“We needed room for the explosive dyes, Zell.”

“Did you hear what you just said,
Standor
?” Zell said. “Entertainment over medicine?”

“It wasn't my decision,” Qala said. “The Great Council commanded.”

“Because the citizenry must have a colorful celebration,” the physician said, gesturing angrily with his free hand. “
That
is more important?”

“Take your complaint to the Council,” Qala said. “I have patients for you.”

With a deft shrug of his wide shoulders, the physician extricated himself from the confines of the sling. The short but powerfully built man wore a blue tunic and skirt with a white sash pulled tightly from left shoulder to right hip, identifying him as a physician. His shoulder-length blond hair hung freely, framing a round face with wide-set eyes. His flesh was ruddy from hours spent in the rigging of the airship, where there were pots that grew medicinal herbs. Behind him were racks of narrow clay containers, over forty in all, that were painted a variety of colors denoting their contents. They were held in place by leathery bands that protected them during turbulence.

The physician contemptuously tossed the scroll to the floor as his eyes focused on the boy and the civilian woman.

“What did you do to them,
Standor
?” Zell asked. “They look quite terrified.”

“This woman is named Bayarma,” Qala said. “She was in a physical struggle with the water guardian and has no memory of that or the time it took to walk from the town—”

“I had just left the company of a Priest and now I'm here!” she exclaimed.

“That will teach you to mingle with Priests,” the physician muttered.

“—and she was talking strangely the entire time,” Qala said.

“About?” Zell asked.

“Being from another time,” she said. “And she occasionally used very odd words.”

Zell seemed intrigued. “Did she speak of the past?”

Qala shook her head. “She told me she is from the future.”

That seemed to take the physician by surprise. “So it's not Candescent Yearning,” he said.

“I don't believe so,” Qala replied.

“What is that?” Bayarma asked.

“The conviction that one is an all-knowing god,” Zell said casually. He looked away from Bayarma and stepped up to the boy. “And what about you?”

The boy buried the lower half of his face in Qala's shoulder. He did not speak.

“Vilu fainted shortly after Bayarma and the guardian fought,” Qala said. “And now the woman seems all right but the boy is speaking oddly. He claims he was unable to hear, and now he can.”

“I can,” the boy raised his mouth and pouted. “And . . . my name is not Vilu.”

“Oh?” said the physician. “What is it?”

“Jacob,” the boy said. “Jacob O'Hara.”

“Jay-cup-oh-ha-rayaah,” the
Standor
said thoughtfully. “Oh-ha-rayaah was part of the woman's name as well.”

“A shared delusion or something you overheard?” Zell wondered. “What was the rest of the other name?”

“The first part of it was Caty-laahn? Cayta-laahn? That's how it sounded.”

“Caitlin,” Jacob said easily. “Caitlin O'Hara.”

“Yes,” Qala said at once. “That's exactly it. Very impressive, Vilu.”

“I am
not
Vilu. Caitlin O'Hara,
Dr.
Caitlin O'Hara—she's my mother,” the boy replied, his eyes shifting to Bayarma.

“Dahk-tar?” Zell said.

“
Doctor
, like they say you are, but she helps people with mental illness,” the boy said.

“These occurrences were in the same location?” Zell asked.

“At a pool. But Lasha, the water guardian, was unaffected. So were others who gathered around. So was I, for that matter.”

“My mother
was
here,” the boy insisted. He pointed a slender finger at Bayarma. “She was her.”

“But she isn't now,” Zell said.

The boy shook his head once.

“Are
you
from the future?” Zell asked the boy.

“I am from New York,” he replied. “Not from Galderkhaan. I was reading about Nemo and a ship like this . . . then I slept . . . I think I am still asleep.”

Zell regarded Bayarma. “And you are
not
his mother.”

“No. As I said, my allotted birth child, Bayarmii, is with her grandmother in Aankhaan.”

Zell motioned for Qala to put the boy down in a hammock that hung high in the middle of the room. The
Standor
obliged. Vilu fought for a moment then dropped of his own weight when the
Standor
bent. The boy quickly gathered himself in a ball in the center.

“Did you two happen to eat from the same barrel of fish, drink from the same cistern?” the physician asked.

“You sound like the water guardian Lasha,” Qala said.

“There is truth in folk wisdom,” the physician said. He raised his brows inquisitively. “Well, Bayarma?”

“I had fish and cake this morning, but how am I to know?” Bayarma said. “I never saw the boy before now.”

Zell ran the side of his thumb absently along his sash. “Boy, you say your name is Jay-cupo-oh-ha-rah-ah. I have never heard such a name, and I have been many places in Galderkhaan.”

“Have you been to New York?”

“I have not heard of such a place,” Zell admitted.

“He kept touching around his ears,” the
Standor
said. “Here.” She touched her temples to indicate the spot. “Could that account for the strange words?”

“I did that because I could hear!” the boy said, trying to sit up in the swaying hammock. “I couldn't before. Are you people even
listening
to me?”

“Cayta-laahn had a similar streak of disrespect,” Qala observed.

The boy threw himself back down on the mesh in frustration. Zell selected a bottle from the shelf. He shook it, unscrewed the top, and
stepped over to the hammock. He moved the coral plug back and forth under the boy's nostrils.

“Oh!” the youngster said and immediately opened his eyes wide.

Zell bent over him and leaned close to his ear. “I would like to speak with the core voice.”

The boy hesitated. Zell gave him a second whiff of the contents of the jar. The boy's brows shot up and he stared ahead. For a time, only the creaking of the gondola and the breathing of the two observers could be heard. Bayarma grabbed the
Standor
's arm. That too felt good.

“Who are you?” Zell asked.

“Vilu of Falkhaan,” the boy replied.

“Who is with you, Vilu?”

“A . . . a spirit.”

Bayarma held Qala's arm tighter; whatever had happened to the boy, was inside the boy, most likely had affected her as well.

“Who is this spirit?” Zell asked, moving his hands carefully to repeat what the boy had said. Just asking the question sent a chill through the cabin. The word Vilu had used was not
mazh
, an ascended soul. He had said
jatma
, a noncorporeal being. The term was derived from
maat
, a Candescent.