She had peppered the Travelers with questions. Why did they want her, where were they going, what was the purpose of all this? On and on, and none of them afforded her an answer to any of them.
On occasion they would speak to each other, but they did so in a language she could not begin to comprehend. It didn’t even sound like a language; it sounded more like winds whispering through trees. It was low and subtle and not meant to be understood by mere humans, or perhaps even mere mortals.
Once they had her on the boat and were heading off toward wherever their destination was, Jepp tried to keep track of how many days passed but lost track. All she knew was that they were heading west.
At one point she thought she spotted a Markene floating not far off. He paced the ship for a brief time, keeping up with ease, and then he submerged and she didn’t see him again. She felt that was a shame. She would have liked to talk with him. She would have liked to talk to anyone.
“Is it all right with you,” she said wistfully to the Traveler standing near her, “if I talk about Karsen some more?” She hadn’t been looking at him, but now she did turn to regard him thoughtfully. “I mean, I know I’ve talked to you about him a lot in the past days. I tend to go on and on and on and on and all you have to do to stop me is tell me that I should be quiet. That’s it. That’s all. Just speak up.”
The Traveler said nothing. She couldn’t even tell if he was looking at her because the hood enveloped the Traveler’s head and face, casting a shadow so encompassing that it almost seemed as if the darkness was alive and aiding him in keeping his features hidden.
“Okay. That didn’t work. I admit it. I was hoping it would, but…”
She shrugged.
A long silence followed, broken only by the lapping of the waves and the rippling of the sails as the stiff wind propelled the ship across the Vastly Waters.
“Do you have any idea,” she said at last, “how afraid everyone is of you? I mean everyone? No one knows why you do what you do. Everyone believes that you would just as soon destroy anyone who even thinks about getting in your way. And everyone is even more afraid of the Overseer. So since you work for the Overseer, that’s double the fear. That’s a lot of fear. More fear than I think anyone should have to live with.”
Still nothing.
“And everyone believes that there is nothing you fear anywhere in the whole Damned World. That must be nice, not to be afraid of anything. I can’t imagine that.” She looked down at her feet. “I’m a human woman. There were times in my life that I felt like I was afraid of everything. I was trained as a Pleasurer, you know. I can bring pleasure to just about every one of the twelve races. But then I bonded with Karsen, and that changed everything. And then—”
Suddenly she lunged toward the Traveler, her face twisted in fury, her fingers outstretched like claws.
The Traveler flinched back, even bringing up his arm to ward her off.
Jepp stopped a foot short of him and slowly lowered her hands. “So you are afraid of something,” she said. “You’re afraid of me. Why is that? What is it about me that you fear?”
The Traveler continued to make no reply. She didn’t know what to make of him. For some reason she suddenly felt a chill. Jepp was wearing far more than she had been when she had been with the Bottom Feeders. During that time she had not been dressed in much more than scraps of cloth, which was typical attire for one such as she whose main reason for existence was to provide pleasure for partners. On the ship, though, she had discovered more clothing, none of which fit her especially well but was more concealing and also warmer. At this point she was wearing a simple white shift that hung to below her knees and a cloak around her her shoulders. Her feet remained bare; she found that she preferred them that way. Now she drew the cloak more tightly around herself.
She squared her shoulders, her spine stiffening. “I am tired,” she said, as much to herself as to the Traveler. “I am tired of being afraid of the world, and uncertain of my place within it. During my time with Karsen, his mother did nothing but berate me, and the rest of the Clan never fully accepted me. They were, at best, indifferent toward me. But for you, they had very strong feelings. All do. All fear the Travelers. And you could have killed me, yet here I am, and you retreat from me. I am important to you. And not in any way related to providing pleasure. You have, in many ways, elevated me. Lifted me up above every other race, every other individual on the Damned World. Some say the Firedraques do not fear you, and perhaps that is true. But everyone else does, and not living in fear of you when so many others do…my gods, it’s more than elevating. It’s liberating.
“These Vastly Waters…they suggest things to me that I never imagined before. Vistas to be explored. Endless possibilities. I have never pondered endless possibilities before because mine were so limited. I looked to the skies but can never touch the stars. But I can touch the water below. I could leap into it, sink below it. That would be the end of me, true, but were I to die, I would die free. There are worse fates, are there not?”
As if to match deed to word, she abruptly put a foot up on the edge of the prow.
Instantly she heard those soft, eerie whispers between the Travelers, and the one closest to her started quickly toward her, noiseless as he moved. But he was not quick enough and suddenly Jepp was straddling the prow. It would have been a simple matter for her to throw herself over the side.
“It’s your own fault,” she said. “You backed up when I approached you. So you placed yourself too far away to stop me from doing this. Return me whence you took me. Return me to Karsen. Return me or I shall throw myself over the side and drown, for I cannot swim, and whatever greater purpose is connected to your desire for me, it will never be fulfilled. Do you fear that prospect too, I wonder? Shall we find out?”
For the first time, the Traveler spoke. It was soft, so much so that she could scarcely hear him, especially above the crackling of the sail and the splashing of the water against the ship.
“Don’t,” he said.
The simple word froze Jepp where she was. Her hair blew in her face and she brushed it away. “Why not?”
“You’d be quitting.”
“I’m not quitting. I want you to take me back.”
Although she could not see the movement of his head, the hood that covered his head slowly shook back and forth in the negative.
“So I have no reason,” she said, “not to do this. Not to kill myself.”
“One reason.”
“And that is?”
“Karsen,” said the Traveler, “is not down there.” He spoke with what sounded like weary patience, and perhaps even the slightest touch of sympathy, which she most certainly would not have expected.
The damning thing was that he was right. She knew that what she wanted more than anything was a reunion with Karsen. But Karsen did not wait for her below the waves; only death did. Death was the end of hope, and as long as she was alive, hope remained that she would be reunited with him.
“You’re not going to turn the ship around, are you.” It was not a question.
Again the Traveler slowly shook his unseen head within the hood.
“Aren’t you concerned over what will happen to you if I die and you fail in your mission.”
“No mission.”
This caught her off guard. She tilted her head, studying him, wishing that she could see some hint of expression so that she might get at least a glimmer of what was going through his mind. “No mission? You mean…the Overseer didn’t send you to get me?”
He shook his head.
“Then why? Why did you capture me?”
“Have to.”
“But why?”
“Cannot tell you.”
“Is it a secret?” When she saw him shake his head again, she persisted, “Then why?”
“Do not know.”
And with that, as if she no longer mattered, he turned and walked away from her. His long, encompassing cloak swept noisele
ssly around his feet. The unspoken message he was sending her was clear: It was up to her to do what she wanted. If she was resolved to pitch herself over the side and sink to a briny doom, then it was to be her choice and hers alone. He was not going to hover over her and force her to keep living.
Jepp felt slightly deflated over that, and even a bit embarrassed. She had spoken proudly, defiantly, made a threat that she was fully prepared to carry out. And now she was supposed to…what? Meekly withdraw herself from her precarious perch and go back to staring out at the water? How would the Travelers take her seriously if she backed off from her ultimatum?
On the other hand, if I go through with it, then they’ll take me seriously but I’ll be dead and so will hardly be in a position to appreciate it.
With a sigh, she eased herself back onto the deck and stood there, arms folded. The Traveler who had been walking away from her stopped, turned, and looked back at her.
“I hope you’re happy,” she said.
“Never,” whispered the Traveler and walked away from her, leaving her alone at the prow.
ii.
She dreams of a far off land, and although she has never seen it before, she knows it as well as she knows the shape and feel of her own body. She is having a memory that is not hers, cannot be hers. It is impossible, and yet it is more real than she herself.
Jepp has never seen a city such as this one before. She is walking through it slowly, and the streets are deserted, but the buildings, gods, the buildings are beyond description. They tower so high that it seems their uppermost pinnacles must assuredly be caressing the very sky.
She is naked as she walks down the street. Her nudity does not bother her. It never has in the past, and the unreality of her surroundings only add to the surreal aspects of the experience. Although she wants to think that this place in which she finds herself cannot possibly be real, she nevertheless comes to the realization—even in her dream—that she does not possess this level of imagination. She could not possibly have fabricated this on her own. She was never clever enough by half to conceive of buildings so tall, especially when common sense would seem to indicate that…once a building gets above a certain height…it would most assuredly have to topple over. Structures such as this should not be able to exist. It was physically impossible.
Wasn’t it?
But because of her lack of imagination, how could she have come up with this when left to her own devices?
Then she hears a distant rumbling. It is not coming from the skies, though, as an oncoming storm might prompt. Nor is it originating from the streets around her, as would result from an oncoming army.
It is coming from below the street. Tunnels, perhaps, such as Trulls built, along which high speed cars called Trullers ran. But the sounds being generated are much louder, suggesting that whatever is causing them is proportionately bigger. What, Jepp wonders, could be so big as to cause such noises?
Hot air is blowing up from below, and she sees large rectangular entranceways into the ground. She has seen hard ground like this, not grass or dirt but instead some sort of gray material that is incredibly solid. “Paved” is the word that now comes into her mind, and “sidewalk,” but she has not heard these words before and so does not comprehend how they could be coming to her now. They are things left over from humans, from that race of which Jepp is a part, but about which she knows little and understands less.
There is movement from the entranceways. It is a human. One. He is dressed head to toe in blue cloth with a scrap of fabric hanging from around his throat, pointing downward like an arrow toward his loins. Perhaps it is symbolic, to remind others that he is a man and has a man’s equipment. Or perhaps he is simply addle minded and could not find his equipment unless he had an article of clothing that reminded him of where it is situated.
Then another man emerges, dressed in different colors but in the same general sort of attire, also with a loin pointer. And then more, some dressed similarly, some not, and now women as well, wearing far more clothing than Jepp has ever seen any female human wearing. It seems, oddly, both constraining and yet liberating.
None of them are moving at normal speeds. Instead everyone is moving very quickly, so much so that it is becoming nothing but a steady blur. She can no longer distinguish one from the other. She cannot determine if she is moving slower or they are moving faster, or whether time has any meaning at all anymore. All she knows is that there are human beings, hundreds of them, thousands of them, perhaps millions. They are coming up from below, and all around her, moving past her in a steady stream of humanity that causes her eyes to well up with tears.
And other objects are moving past her now. They are vehicles that remind her a little of the jumpcar driven by the Bottom Feeders. But again the number of them is staggering, coming in all colors and varieties and moving far more quickly than the clunky jumpcar could ever hope to go. Jepp remains standing in the middle of the street which in turn is in the middle of the city, and she raises her arms and stands there with them stretched toward the sky, thanking the gods for this vision. And she cries out, Oh gods on high, is this a vision of things that have yet to occur, or things that have been but will never come again, or things that were and can be once more? She waits for the gods to reply and at first there is nothing. No sepulchral voice, no guiding spirit, nothing to explain to her the full parameters of what she is seeing or telling her what to do with this information now that it is being presented to her.
Then she sees something.
It should be impossible for her to perceive it because it is simply too far away. And yet she does. There is a tall building, one of the tallest around if not in fact the tallest. There is a huge spike projecting upright from the top, and wrapped around that spike, holding tightly against a steady wind that threatens to dislodge her if she should ease up on her grip, is a female Mandraque. Jepp has no idea how the Mandraque could have wound up in such a position, but the Mandraque does not appear afraid. If anything, she seems intrigued by the position that she’s in, and genuinely eager to discover what’s going to happen next.
They are separated by an incredible distance, by miles of both geography and altitude, and yet the Mandraque is now looking right at her. Again, it should not be possible, and yet it is, and the Mandraque tilts her head in curiosity, apparently as surprised to see Jepp as Jepp is to see her.
Together, says the Mandraque, together we can accomplish this. And here is how. Ludicrously she leans forward slightly as if that will somehow bring them closer and then—
“Wake up! Now!”
Jepp was jolted from her slumber, sitting up so quickly and in such confusion that she banged her head on the low hanging ceiling. She was completely disoriented, thinking at first she had awoken in the tent of the Greatness, and then the jumpcar of the Bottom Feeders.
A hooded figure was leaning in toward her. That was when she remembered where she was and, more importantly, who she was with.
The Traveler was close to her, very close, his black-gloved hand on her shoulder, prodding her to awaken. There was mostly darkness in her room, and yet she could not resist seizing the opportunity. Had she given it a second’s worth of thought, she never would have done so. But she did not; instead she acted entirely on impulse as she reached up and shoved at his hood.
It fell back for just a second, and in the darkness of the room, in the extended shadows, she should not have been able to see him, just as she should not have been able to see that Mandraque female in her dream.
And yet she was able to, thanks to the Traveler himself. When his hood was knocked away, a glow emanated from the Traveler and filled the cramped room. It happened so quickly that Jepp only had the time to get a brief impression rather than a good look. That impression was of silver. Silver suffused with light. And there was beauty. She hadn’t seen the Traveler’s face clearly, and could not have described any details. All she had was an impression of intense beauty combined with astounding sadness.
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The Traveler yanked away from her, pulling his hood back into place. Jepp rose from her bed, fascinated, her hands reaching toward him as she said, “Let me see…”
His hand whipped around and caught her in the side of the face. Her skull snapped so quickly that her neck would be sore for hours. Jepp let out a startled cry and fell back onto the bed. The Traveler loomed over her and this time when he spoke, there were no whispers, no brevity of sentences. There was just pure anger and it was all directed at her.
“Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “Do you have the slightest idea what I can do to you?”
There was a young woman within Jepp who was cowering, who wanted to shrink away and beg forgiveness and ask if there was anything she could do, anything at all, to assuage the wrath of this formidable creature. But then, as much to her own surprise as the Traveler’s, she got to her feet and said defiantly, “Then do it. Do it, if you dare. I’m tired of your talking and your whispering and your…your ominosity! You made a huge mistake kidnapping me. Because being taken away by the Travelers was the absolute worst thing that could happen to anybody. All the others just shake at the very idea of it. And here I am, and I was taken, and I’m still here, and instead of doing anything to me you’re just being threatening! Well your threats aren’t working anymore! Either do something about it or get the hell out of my room!” And she pointed defiantly toward the door.
He took a step toward her and loomed even more. “You have no idea—”
She waved dismissively. “You keep saying that. Do something, don’t do something, but stop threatening me because it’s tiresome.” His silence and the fact that she was still alive and unharmed emboldened her. “You know what the problem is? I don’t have anything. I never have. I own nothing. I’m not allowed property. I have no home. I have no freedom. My life has always been at the disposal of the Twelve Races, so even my life is not my own. And it took your snatching me away from Karsen’s side for me to come to one simple realization: To have nothing is to fear nothing.”