The Lord of the Plains

Chapter 33

  Vann preferred to keep things simple.

  He told the girls right from the start what they could and could not expect from him. He stayed away from the female relatives of his friends and he didn’t date girls in the military.

  It was for this reason he was standing outside a pretty girl’s house debating whether or not to go in.

  With his back to her house he had an amazing view of Coastside. The honey coloured stone of the buildings leant a warm glow to the city. With the sun setting, the stone seemed lit from within, as though it were alive. The ocean breeze stopped the city getting too hot in summer and too cool in winter. Right now, the clear, clean blue waves looked like they were dancing with the orange light of the setting sun. Further out past the bay was the wide expanse of the ocean. He spotted the slight rise, the dark bump above the waves that was Arling Island. Further out, though he couldn’t see it, was Reezel Island.

  He turned back to the house. Watching the ocean had calmed him. It usually did.

  He’d told Teila he’d come. Nothing had changed between then and now. So, he would go in. He needed a better reason than the rising feeling of I-don’t-want-to-be-here to back out now.

  It was a three story house. Teila lived with four other girls, which was fairly common. The house had a small, fenced off garden, and a tiled roof. A small window was set into the door.

  Stop stalling, he told himself firmly.

  If anyone had been looking at him they would have seen his mouth set in a grim, determined line.

  In fact, someone was watching him.

  From within the house came a loud, feminine cry, ‘VANN’S HERE!’

  Vann’s head snapped up at the sound and he saw a shadow dart away from the window. The whole block probably knew he was here now.

  He looked back at the door. Someone was on the other side and by the sound of it, having a hard time opening it. Probably too excited or nervous to do it properly, judging by how long it was taking.

  The door was flung open and a girl who was not Teila stood there beaming at him, her cheeks flushed.

  ‘She’ll be just a minute, would you like to come in?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ll wait out here.’

  ‘Oooh! You two make such a cute couple! I’m so glad you’re back together!’

  Vann closed his eyes. He didn’t say anything. It was obvious, now, there was no point.

  ‘Oh, Diann, no, darling, we’re not a couple.’

  Vann’s eyes snapped open.

  Teila, as lovely as ever in a new dress and with a large, red jewel hanging from her neck just so, moved towards Diann whilst making hushing motions with her hands.

  Vann gave her a suspicious look, ignoring where that jewel was hanging with a great deal of dignity. Diann looked from him to Teila and back.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Diann smiled brightly again. ‘Silly me. Well, have fun.’ and she darted back inside.

  Teila smiled tentatively and stepped outside, closing the door behind her. ‘D-do I look alright?’

  Looking at Teila was often enough to make a man forgive her for whatever she’d done. Vann managed to retain a residue of suspicion and kept his eyes on her blue ones. There was a reason, a good reason, he had stopped seeing her. A reason she had stubbornly refused to acknowledge.

  As he held out his hand to her he thought, she’s as bad as Azra.

  ‘You look fine.’ He said somewhat absently as she took his hand.

  He was here. There was no point in coming if he wasn’t willing to give her another chance.

  Teila, rather obviously, was a bit unsettled by that remark.

  Vann liked women and he had enough experience with them to be able to give a better response to ‘do I look alright’ than ‘you look fine’. He found women calming, though not like the ocean. After a turn on the subs, or even on a ship, he, like most of the submariners of Coastside, spent his shore time in the company of various beautiful women. But at least he was always very clear right at the beginning there would be various other women and the relationship would be casual. So there was no call for Teila to behave how she had. He wasn’t even unusual, Coastside was full of submariners, and not all of them were men, but they pretty much all did the same thing when they got home.

  Teila recovered quickly and clasped her hand around his arm as they began strolling towards the theatre.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Vann.’

  He bit his tongue to keep from saying something like, ‘I’m not sure if it’s good to see you, Teila.’ and instead just nodded.

  ‘It’s a new dress, I was sure you’d notice.’ unsaid was, you usually notice.

  The women of Coastside often remade and altered their existing clothes as buying a new dress often wasn’t an option. Teila was particularly good at it. In fact, Vann couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in a dress she’d already worn.

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Vann…’

  He sighed. ‘You said you understood.’ he said, his voice getting frostier by the second, ‘I wasn’t kidding. I don’t want a serious relationship with you, and I’m not going to see you exclusively.’

  She swallowed. ‘It’s fine.’ she patted his arm. ‘It’s fine, Vann, please, let’s just have fun tonight.’

  He gave her a hard stare, his grey eyes stormy.

  Teila fluttered her long eyelashes nervously, ‘please, it’s fine, I’m sorry, Vann.’

  Finally he dropped his gaze and looked away. ‘Did you help with the costumes?’ Vann asked, trying to make an effort.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. Me and the girls up at the Square all helped, it’s a lot of fun. Oh, I’ve never invited you but did you want to come help….?’

  She trailed off, her big blue eyes wide as she clasped his arm tightly.

  ‘I don’t think I’d be much help.’ he said dryly.

  ‘Oh, probably best you don’t come then.’ as she patted his arm Vann thought he heard relief in her voice. For the first time that night, he smiled.

  As they settled into the padded seats in the quickly filling theatre Vann asked Teila, ‘what show is this?’

  ’Oh, it’s the continuation of ‘Romance by the Sea’.’ she said excitedly, clasping her hands together.

  ‘Romance by the what?’ he repeated in disbelief, wondering if they could have come up with a worse name.

  ‘Have you seen it? It’s a new serial play they started this summer. Next week is the finale!’ At the shake of his head Teila went into a not very enlightening but excited description of what had happened in the previous plays.

  Vann stopped trying to understand what she was going on about and instead tried to look interested and nod at regular intervals. He stopped her though when he heard the familiar word, ‘gemeng.’

  ‘Wait, there are gemengs in this play?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  Vann couldn’t suppress a sigh. He could spend all night watching an overly sentimental romance serial and make his date feel he’d actually managed to follow and enjoy the plot, even if he’d never seen any other shows in the serial before. But he couldn’t stand it when they included gemengs.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘You know what’s going to happen.’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘no, I don’t, what’s going to happen?’

  ‘The gemeng did it.’ he said as he closed his eyes. Whatever horrible thing ‘it’ was, the gemeng was always responsible.

  ‘Oh no, no! Jann is in love with the good gemeng, Lissel from Reezel!’

  He shook his head. However long they dragged it out, it was always the gemeng who was the bad guy. Something strange came over him when he came to a play now with a gemeng. Maybe it was a fog of disappointment that made it impossible for him to pretend he was enjoying himself. Maybe it was because he already knew the ending and it had been done before. Whatever it was, he couldn’t summon a smile for Teila.

  ‘No, no,’ Teila said, trying to e
xplain, ‘she’s a good gemeng, and she opposed the Evil Queen of Reezel, and was exiled, and Jann rescued her, even though Adeia was in love with him before and they were almost a couple, but then he met Lissel-’

  She would have kept going except that the curtains started drawing back, revealing the stage.

  A hush fell over the audience. She grabbed his arm and got as close to him as possible without actually climbing onto his lap. Her eyes were glued to the stage, an avid expression on her face.

  Vaan opened his eyes, but he didn’t pay much attention. The play wasn’t worth it.

  Standing outside the theatre afterwards was a different kind of hell to being trapped in there watching that uninspired garbage.

  Teila was gossiping with her friends. He heard snatches that made him want to grab the girl and explain in nice simple words that it was exactly the same ending as every other play with a gemeng in it.

  ‘I didn’t see that coming!’

  ‘I know, it was so shocking!’

  ’Vann, Vann!’

  Vann’s eyes snapped open as he heard Teila calling him. She was gesturing sharply for him to come over. He approached the group of well-dressed girls warily.

  Teila clasped his arm as soon as he was within reach. ‘Can that really happen, Vann, can they do that?’ she asked as she pulled him into the circle.

  ‘Do what?’ he asked carefully, his grey eyes flicking around the group.

  ‘Can gemengs really use their gemeng powers to make you fall in love!’ one of the other girls said at the same time as Teila said, ‘can they do what Lissel did to Jann? It was so horrible!’

  He sighed, debating whether he should answer. Then, carefully, ‘The ones from Reezel can.’ The submariners patrolled Reezel from a safe distance. Reezel was perhaps full of the most dangerous gemengs around, but they couldn’t afford to let them go unnoticed in case they started heading for the coast.

  Teila gasped in horror, as did most of the others.

  They began talking again. All the while Teila kept an iron grip on his arm.

  Vann waited for perhaps five minutes before he whispered in her ear that he needed to leave. He didn’t try pulling away from Teila. He knew from experience she hung on tighter than a barnacle.

  But he couldn’t stay here, and he was no longer in any mood to spend the night with her.

  She looked up at him, her blue eyes very big and wide.

  Then she looked back at her group of friends and patted his arm reassuringly in a way that reminded him of nothing so much as how some women patted the cute animals they kept as pets. Irritation flashed across his face. But she was saying her goodbyes and so he said nothing.

  Soon enough they were outside the theatre. It was cooler outside than inside. Night had fallen, though it was lit with street lights and strings of lanterns hanging from eaves or strung across the street. In this part of the city some of the lanterns were blue and orange. The night was full of couples and groups of friends leaving the theatre or heading somewhere to eat. There was laughing and talking and good natured jostling when the groups collided. It was a lovely night.

  ‘Teila,’ he said as she headed off towards her place, him in tow.

  ‘Hmm?’ she looked over her shoulder with those big eyes of hers. ‘Yes, Vann?’ she said in her sweet, pretty voice.

  ‘Teila, I need to head back to the Blocks. I’m sorry.’ he held his ground firmly enough that she was forced to either stop walking or release his arm. She chose to stop walking.

  ‘Oh,’ she fluttered her lashes at him rapidly. She was confused.

  ‘I’m saying goodnight.’ he said kindly. He kissed her cheek. ‘I need to head home now, but it was a lovely evening.’

  ‘So we’re not spending the night together.’ her lashes were still fluttering.

  ‘No.’

  Suddenly a great, beaming smile spread across her face and she leapt at him.

  Vann stood, surprised, as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. ‘Oh, Vann, I’m so happy!’

  ‘Um.’ he patted her back awkwardly. Not exactly the reaction he had expected… Not exactly the reaction he wanted either!

  ‘W-why?’ he asked cautiously.

  She leant back, her eyes were glistening with tears. ‘I’m so happy! I knew you’d see it eventually!’

  Suspicion snapped into his eyes and he stepped back as far as he could with Teila still grabbing him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You want to wait. You’re going to be serious with me. We’re going to be a proper couple.’ she said, gazing up at him with a blissful smile on her face.

  ‘No, no that’s not what I meant. I’m tired, that’s all,’ where did this woman get her ideas from? Vann wondered desperately as he tried to explain. It was like they were speaking different languages! ‘Teila, that’s not going to happen, ok, I’m sorr-’

  He stopped dead. While he had been speaking her happy expression had been changing to one of broken-hearted horror. Now though, she had fallen to her knees and was sobbing.

  Getting down on his knees he gently touched her shoulders. People were staring at them as they walked past.

  ‘Teila,’ he tried to say gently, alarmed at her sudden over-reaction, ‘please don’t cry. I’m sorry. Come on, I’ll take you home.’

  Sniffing, she nodded and let him help her to her feet. He put an arm around her shoulders and began what felt like a very very long walk back to her home.

  She didn’t look at him the whole way home.

  When they arrived slowly she turned to look at him. Teila was one of those rare women who could manage to cry and not look blotchy and horrible. Her eyes were still wet as she gazed at him but her back was straight, her head high. She almost looked regal.

  Then she slapped him.

  Shocked, Vann raised a hand to his flaming cheek. The door slammed shut. Teila had already fled back into the house.

  When he reached the military base he flopped down onto his bed, face down.

  ‘Hey, Vann, you’re back early.’ he heard from one of his friends, Gavann.

  He groaned into the pillow. Then he pulled it out and over his head. ‘I’m never seeing Teila again.’ he mumbled.

  ‘Oh, really? Can I see her then?’

  ‘Sure, fair warning though, she doesn’t listen to a word you say.’ and with that he pulled the pillow tightly over his ears.

  At that moment, the subs didn’t seem so bad.

  Vann spent the rest of his shore time with his male friends. He had female friends, he just couldn’t bear female company at the moment. He spent most of his time going over conversations with Teila in his head wondering if he had been unclear. He wasn’t the type of guy who made girls cry. He didn’t want to be that guy.

  Then his week on shore duty was over and it was time for another month on the subs, and he was done with thinking about her. When you were in the subs, you focussed. It was hard to think about women who made no sense when you were too far under the surface of the ocean to swim should a gemeng cut the sub in half. That was how his mother had died. His father had died in a mining accident before he was born. He’d never known either of them, though he wondered. But he could handle fear, otherwise he wouldn’t be a submariner.

  He scarcely thought of Teila in the four weeks on the sub, and when he arrived back in Coastside he was perfectly happy not to get in another sub for a week.

  His first stop back on land was uniforms.

  ‘Hey, Vann.’ The man at the shop greeted him. ‘How’d it go?’ he asked.

  Vann placed his carry sack on the counter and slid it over to Jeris. Before answering he asked, ‘why are you on uniform duty again?’

  Jeris grinned. ‘I electrocuted the Commander accidentally.’

  Vann gaped, his jaw dropping as Jeris grinned inanely.

  ‘How?!’ he demanded finally.

  ‘Well I thought my rod was broken so I was you know,’ he made a shaking motion with his hand, ’shaking it around
when the Commander came ‘round the corner and I whacked him. And what do you know! It worked!’

  Vann needed a few moments to regain control of his voice. ‘And now you’re in the uniform shop.’ he said carefully.

  Jeris nodded. ‘Yup. I don’t think they’re gonna give me my lightning rod back.’ his smile faltered. ‘The Commander said I could just fight the gemengs without it.’

  Vann closed his eyes and tried not to wonder how Jeris had made it through training.

  ‘Anyway, how’d the tour go?’ he asked again and started pulling things out of Vann’s bag. ‘Shit! What happened here?!’

  Jeris held up what had once been Vann’s uniform.

  ‘A longtail slammed us. We sprung a leak in the locker room. Once it was drained we couldn’t dry the clothes properly.’ he shrugged. ‘You’re gonna get a lot of business, Jeri, the only clothes any of us have left are what we were wearing.’

  ‘Damn.’ Jeris’ wide eyes were travelling up and down what looked more like a clump of mould than a uniform. ‘Why didn’t you just throw out the bag? How many do you need?’

  ‘Radann always wants proof.’ Vann said, referring to the man who usually worked here, with occasional help from disgraced submariners. ‘Two sub and one shoreside.’

  ‘Sure.’ he put the thing carefully back in the bag and carried it over to the bin and dropped the whole thing in. ‘Plus a bag.’ Then he disappeared into the back. ‘So what else happened? Did you get just one leak?’

  ‘No, we had one other. It was pretty quiet.’

  ‘Lucky! Davi just got back yesterday. They found the splitter’s nest and ran out of the delay bombs! They had about five of the things on their tail for three days!’

  ‘I know. We ran into them and finished the nest off. The nest wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near there.’

  ‘Ok, here you go.’ Jeris said, returning from the back, ‘New bag. New uniforms. New boots. Now go take a shower, you smell!’

  Vann smiled. ‘Thanks, Jeri. I wanted to get here before the rush. Good luck.’

  Vann left just as a group of five of his submates entered, smelling just as bad as he did.

  Vann had a few days to himself before his shore duty started and he intended to spend them alone. The usual routine for a submariner was a few weeks of sub time followed by a few free days and perhaps half the amount of time spent on a sub on shore duty. That meant either patrolling the bay and surrounding islands, or getting on one of the ships the subs protected. Vann preferred to take a month of sub duty followed by a week of shore time.

  Vann didn’t mind the company of others, if he did he would have gone crazy, spending his entire life living in small dorms stuffed with other boys in the military blocks or on cramped, suffocating submarines.

  But he enjoyed his own company too.

  Cleaned and thoroughly showered, Vann strolled along the side beach, a pleasant breeze ruffling his ash blonde hair.

  The bay beach was safer than the side beach, but it was always crowded. The waters around Coastside had always been kept clear and clean so the bay beach was now popular for swimming. It was not for swimming that the bay had been kept clean though. It was hard enough fighting gemengs under water, it wasn’t going to get any easier if the water was too dirty to see in. The bay was mostly clear of gemengs now, though the submariners patrolled there during shoretime and also trained there. Still, the Commander had told Vann when he was young, people didn’t swim in the waters and the few men who fished in the bay were considered crazy.

  These days a lot of people swam at the beach and the bay was full of enough fishing boats that cave mould was rarely seen in Coastside anymore.

  The top scientist in Coastside, Dr Ralis, even had his own beach side villa and private section of the beach. He paid the submariners to keep it patrolled and gemeng free. Privately, Vann thought he was wasting his money. The submariners protected Coastside. The fact that Dr Ralis wouldn’t let anyone else swim on his beach didn’t mean they wouldn’t protect it. Gemengs moved around after all. It’s not as if they would take any notice of Dr Ralis’ boundaries. Gemengs near his side of the beach posed a danger to all of Coastside, not just his little section.

  But Vann wasn’t by the bay. He was on the side beach, out past the city limits. He stayed a safe distance from the water and had his lightning rod with him.

  The lightning rod was a dusky gold rod about the length of a grown man’s forearm. The last hand width of it was a rubber handle. When you squeezed the handle electricity was released. On the handle there was also a dial to change the settings. The energy source, which was recharged back at the base, was inserted at the base of the handle. More advanced settings were located inside.

  Like most submariners, Vann had ambivalent feelings towards the lightning rod. Whoever had invented it had probably thought, as gemengs lived in the water, it would be a good idea to stick it in the water and electrocute everything. However the effect of the lightning rod declined very fast in a short distance in the water, so it wasn’t actually very effective if used that way. Further, just discharging it by squeezing the handle often sent electricity off in the opposite direction you wanted it to go. The submariners wore rubber boots and gloves, but during training they didn’t. Vann had been shocked more than once by the guy standing next to him during training. Though come to think of it, he was probably lucky he hadn’t been next to Jeris.

  Vann had seen the mistakes the others made and had not made them himself.

  So he had never accidentally shocked his future sub mates.

  He felt the lightening rod was most reliable and effective if you hit someone with it. Then the energy went directly into whatever you were hitting.

  Despite the fickle nature of the lightning rod, it was a part of the submariners’ image. So they still trained with them and still carried them everywhere.

  Vann held the rod loosely in his hand as he walked along the beach. He’d met a leaper (so called because they leapt out of the water to attack) here more than once.

  Even though the ocean posed a real danger, he found his walk relaxing. By the time he was heading back to the Blocks, he felt refreshed and lively.

  That night the crew from Vann’s sub, the Bad Luck, celebrated at their favourite restaurant, The Porpoise. It was named after the big, friendly, fish shaped animals that were sometimes seen out in the ocean.

  It was a two story building, though most of the bottom was open to the night. Lights were strung around the roof of the ground floor and long, wooden trestle tables were set up on the clay coloured tiles.

  The sounds of happy young people drinking filled the night. A few people ate, but most were just drinking. It was cheaper to eat at the Blocks and come here after.

  Vann was surrounded by a group of his friends when he heard someone call out over the noise, ‘hey, Azra, over here!’

  Gavann turned back to find Vann had disappeared. He looked around, the rest of the group were just as surprised.

  Gavann turned around to have another look for Vann and came face to face with Azra.

  ‘Azra, hi,’ he gulped, nearly choking on his beer. ‘How’s it going?’

  Azra was considered something of an exotic beauty in Coastside. Her hair was such a dark brown it could be mistaken for black. She kept it long and pinned it up while working. She had big blue eyes and dark lashes and a face that was riveting even in repose.

  ‘Is Vann here?’ she demanded.

  ‘Uh, I’m not sure where he is.’

  She frowned, her perfectly shaped brows lowering dangerously. ‘If you see him, come tell me where he is.’

  ‘Uh…’

  Her brows narrowed even further.

  He took another gulp of his beer. Then began choking. By the time he looked up Azra had thankfully left.

  Vann had crept out the back way and fled as fast as he could without looking a fool down the street out to the side beach.

  When he arrived he slowed and glanced back. No one
was coming. It was darker out here and the lights of the city felt far away.

  He could hear the crash of unseen waves. White foam caught the light and allowed him to imagine their shape.

  But it was dark and no one knew he was here (hopefully). So he headed back into the city and down to the bay instead.

  He walked past the public beaches, the eateries and throngs of people. Once the area near the bay had been filled only with temporary buildings, the area was destroyed by gemengs so often. Now people swam in the bay waters and ate dinner on the shore in lovely, well- constructed eateries.

  Vann kept going til he came to the piers. It was quieter here. During the day it would be busy, full of fisher folk and submariners and the ships they guarded. At this time of night there were few people about. Further along were the Blocks. On the other side of the Blocks, up at the other end of the bay was Dr Ralis, his private villa and privately hired submariners.

  Vann found a likely pier and wandered along it to the end, where he sat.

  He could see the shapes of ships, big and small. There was the sound of water lapping against the pier and the sides of the boats, the creaking of the sails and ropes of the fishing boats. Further away, a hushed murmur was all that was left of the sounds of the people of Coastside. There was the smell of salt water.

  Vann let the sounds and smells take him away. Here, he wasn’t worried about anything.

  He wondered about this city. And Astar. Over four hundred years ago, they’d come out of the caves and Astar, and later Coastside, had been born. Idly he wondered why that was. Surely it would have been easier to stay in the caves rather than venture out into gemeng infested forests to build a city. What had led those people to abandon the safety of the caves?

  It wasn’t the first time he’d thought this, and it wasn’t a thought he found troubling. He just thought about things. This wasn’t something he’d ever be able to find an answer to anyway.

  But he wondered. Was it the same feeling he got after spending weeks under water in a metal tub that they called a submarine? Had they wanted to see the sun? See the sky above them and count the stars at night? Feel the breeze in their hair and breathe fresh air?

  But then, how could you want these things if you’d never known them? Surely if you and everyone before you had spent all their lives in a cave you wouldn’t want anything else, because how would you know there were such things as a sky and a sun? Perhaps if you had been out there, lived out there, and been forced into the caves…

  Privately, Vann had always wondered if there had been a time before the caves. And then for who knew how long his ancestors had spent in the caves they’d been yearning for the wide open world.

  But if there had been a time before the caves, why had they gone into the caves in the first place? Was there a time when they weren’t fighting the gemengs? Or perhaps there had been no gemengs?

  As he looked out on the waters of the bay he wondered these things.

  But he didn’t let them bother him, he just pondered them, because these were questions he would never find answers to. He just thought about them, from time to time, when he was alone.