Sheapshank screamed—I’d never heard my poor boy scream, I protect him so he don’t have to—an awful, keening sound like iron sawing through iron, and suddenly the waves broke over the head, a whale’s head, with a mouth that never ended. It stretched, all smiles, around and around until it seemed it would split the monster’s head, with long, yellow-white curtains of baleen gleaming sickly. Its eye was the color of an old corpse. A stink wafted out, like rancid meat and soiled cabbage. As soon as it broke the salt scrim, Turkshead unlatched one of the thick-handled harpoons hanging on the sides of the ship and hurled it with all his not-inconsiderable strength towards the mouth of the Echeneis.
It glanced off like a hanky thrown at an iron door.
Magadin sighed heavily, as if she expected it. Her sad little ship was losing her battle with the wind, and sliding towards the black blot of the monster. Her face, such a pretty face, really, in spite of everything, settled into a grimace, and though her scaly arms did not loosen on the wheel, I saw her despair.
The Echeneis saw nothing. It only began the long opening of its mouth. Gray water rushed in, a wave crashing with a terrible noise like palaces falling, and the dark of its throat yawned, pulling us in. No matter how Maggie pulled at the wheel to swing us ’round, no matter how trim the lads kept the sails, we spiraled closer to the sloshing stomach of the sea-beast.
“Sheapshank, love!” I cried. “Your mistress is dumb as a team of cows. Bring me the harpoons!”
Always obedient, my Sheap gathered up an armful of spears and tipped them into my tub. “I swear, if my tits weren’t screwed on, I’d have left ’em in a bar ten years ago.” I grinned coyly up at his tattooed face. “Did I ever show you my gland, sweetheart? I don’t show it to just anyone, but times being what they are…”
I lifted one of my heavy breasts and passed the sharp tip of a harpoon across the skin beneath. It parted, and a green ooze dribbled out onto my belly—Magyr, unlike those cretins called mermaids, are not defenseless dolls. We have sacs of poison in our chests, just like squid’s ink. I stuck my hands into the mess of bubbling slime and told the boys and the beast-girl to do the same. Quickly, the four of us dipped the harpoons in my fluids and loaded Turkshead with the sopping sticks. He ran up to the prow, positively white with nausea, and hurled the first directly into the Echeneis’s maw.
It disappeared, useless as a limp sailor.
He tried, again, and again it vanished into the black. Again, the monster didn’t seem to grasp that it had swallowed enough Magyr oil to kill a herd of horses. Sheapshank sunk to the deck of the ship and began to cry.
But Mags, oh, Magadin—captain among captains, that one! She grabbed up the bundle of harpoons and kissed me smash on the forehead.
“See my ship gets home,” she said, and winked at me. “The ship deserves a harbor, whatever happens to her sailors.”
“Wait! If anyone’s to go overboard, it ought to be the lady with the tail, don’t you think?” It’s not that I wanted to leap off into the blue, you understand. But I thought it was proper to offer.
Magadin laughed and thumped her wolf’s tail against the rail.
“Absolutely!” she yelled. And with that, she leapt overboard, her frog’s feet kicking up, bright green in the dull water. She was swept into the monster’s mouth quicker than oil running downhill in summer—and as she passed the wall of baleen, she twisted, rode the swell of sea, and thrust her spears into the roof of its mouth.
The Echeneis roared in rage, and the sound bit at my ears, like rusty knives scraping the drum. It shook and pitched, the shell bulging bladder-full, and all in a rush, the hideous thing vomited, spewing a flood of gold coins onto the ship’s deck, tearing through its wood like cannon-fire. The beast kept up its retching, showering the ocean with gold, and I saw Magadin’s tail lift up soggily once, twice, before she disappeared into the black.
“THE BLOODY SHIP WAS FULL OF HOLES BY THEN, OF course. But full of gold, too! We steered out while the monster went under again—and a good thing we did! When the top of its shell sunk at the last, the sea washed in over it like a flood; we were almost caught. But my tub was at the wheel and the boys were patching holes for all they were worth, and we limped back into Muireann port with full purses! And not just gold, but antiques! Those are worth five times what a plain gold dime is! I’m only sorry I never got to see Tack’s young-sters—and her pies.” Grog looked sad for a moment, but drained her tankard and was all smiles again, her yellow teeth garish and bright. “That’s a tale worth a meal, Evvy, wouldn’t you say?”
But Sigrid’s face had gone black and white at the same time, desire and hope and despair flitting like clouds across it. “You saw the Echeneis? You lost your captain to it?”
“Is this one deaf or feeble, Ev? Hasn’t she heard what I said? Don’t she got her hands full of dead men’s gold?”
“Do you remember where, you soused dog?” Sigrid’s eyes blazed like a fire in midwinter. “Could you find the place again?”
Grog looked at the woman pityingly. She ran her hands through her emerald hair, coifing the ratted heap.
“I know you’re not from these parts, dearie, but you do see the tail, right? You do grasp the concept of a tail? It’s for swimming and all? I may not like to dip my tender parts in it, but no one knows the sea like a Magyr. Of course I could find it again. But I have no mind to—I consider it a gift that I escaped with full pockets, and I’m not about to go skipping about looking for a nice big mouth to jump into. Now fill up my cup, Eyvind, and keep your woman nice and quiet while a body’s having her drink.”
Snow, unseen by all, as always, had crept closer to the wide tub of brine, and pulled a knife from the bar into her thin hands. She leapt like a feral cat onto the lip of the tub, and seized Grog by a tuft of bottle-green hair.
“Take us,” she hissed. “Take us to the monster or I’ll cut your throat.”
“Snow!” Sigrid gasped. “What’s gotten into you? If anyone’s to threaten the sea-cow, it’ll be me.”
“Sigrid,” Snow pleaded, “you know what’s out there. You’ve spent all this time telling me about Saint Sigrid, and you think I’ll let a chance to be in that story, to be part of it, slide by? Didn’t you give eight years to a Tower because a woman told you a story you loved? All I want is a few days at sea! You know it was you in the song—but couldn’t it have been me, too? An orphan will find her! I’m an orphan if you ever knew one. You’ve waited all these years to find the Echeneis and you’re going to let this greasy old thing stop us? Let me come with you, let me help you find her—and let me cut this foul-smelling fish if she won’t help us!” Snow pressed the knife into the rolls of fat around Grog’s neck, and the Magyr squealed helplessly.
“Fanatics!” she screeched. “I tell you, there is nothing so dangerous in the world as fanatics! Sheapshank! Turkshead! Snap this one in half for mistress!”
The great hulks of men leapt forward to pummel the pale child, but Eyvind stopped them with a glance.
“Touch her and I’ll bash mistress’s face in with a bottle of rum,” he growled. Sigrid gave him a grateful nod.
“All right! All right! I’ll take you there, you stinking dogs. You used to run a fair bar, Eyvind, but look at you now! Groveling before some fat wench and her brat!” Snow released the Magyr’s head and climbed nimbly down from the tub rim. Grog glared at her and spat out a hunk of green phlegm, which splattered across Snow’s back. Sigrid smiled wanly and wiped it off.
“Thank you,” Snow said stiffly.
“Mistress,” came a soft, high voice. Turkshead had crept forward and was kneeling at the side of the tub, pawing Grog like a pup. “Not the sea again. Not the boat. Please. My stomach…”
“Not the sea again,” agreed Sheapshank. “We’ve had enough. It’s out there, waiting. We’ll wait here for you—we love you—but we won’t face the monster again.”
Grog rolled her eyes. “Well, who will carry my tub, then? That waste of a girl couldn’t lift a mug
of rum!”
Eyvind coughed, spat, and gave the bar an affectionate swipe with his rag. “I’ll go with you and carry your can of soup, you old sturgeon.”
“Well, ain’t that sweet of you, precious?”
“But I go for Sigrid. Not for you,” he grumbled, and fixed his drooping eyes on the older woman.
“Fine. Everyone is so bloody loyal it stinks. Fanatics give me heartburn. Maggie’s ship is lashed at the dock. Be sure you get a firm grip—I don’t fancy spilling out on the street like a bucket of bluegill.”
And so Sigrid, Snow, and Eyvind wrapped themselves in wool and readied themselves to go to sea. Sheapshank and Turkshead were given the back room to sleep in and the other customers gently shooed to the door.
“Bring a barrel of rum!” screeched the green-haired Magyr. “We’ll want it, mark my words!”
In the Garden
“IF YOU’RE A SMART GIRL, YOU’LL GET OUT NOW,” CAME THE BLACK-SMITH’S voice like a hot iron through the silk night.
The girl jumped up immediately, accustomed to quick escapes, darting away from the blacksmith’s shadow. She hardly looked at the boy as she dodged horses’ legs and tin buckets, nimbly bounding out of the stable doors as the first drops of light seeped out of the East.
But though she found him safe and sleeping where she left him, Dinarzad kept the boy by her throughout the day, a torture worse than any she had yet devised, as he was made to copy her every action, and his fingers grew red and swollen from pinpricks, then black from inkstains, then blue with costly dyes. He could not do any of it properly, and so he was made to burn with shame under the disapproving stares of so many women. By evening, no matter how much he might wish to escape to the Garden, he was as exhausted as a deer which has stayed ahead of the hounds by the smallest of steps. Dinarzad insisted he sleep near her as well, and for once he did not protest, but fell onto the bed, sore and ashamed.
Past midnight, the boy woke to a pair of dark eyes peering through the stone arch, which was hung with soft violet gauze, thin as secrets. Dinarzad lay still on her bed, covered in white furs, and the boy thought, not for the first time, that when she did not speak or move, she was beautiful. Her smoky black hair spread over the bed like a river of shadow, and her skin caught the moonlight just so. Her slim, elegant hands curled over the bronze keys which unlocked the bedchamber’s proper door, and her breathing was slow and sweet as a flute.
The boy lay on a smaller spare bed, his own dark hair tangled, as though he had run his hands through it many times in anger. His eyes were wide and open, staring at the low window, and the girl’s deer-poised form. He crept silently, a spider in a well, until he reached the windowsill and drew aside the lavender veils. Dinarzad’s breathing continued, slow and rhythmic as a dance.
“You came!” he whispered. “How do you always find me?”
The girl smiled. “Magic,” she whispered. “After all, I am a demon.”
“You always come to the window, you come to find me and carry me away—that is not what girls are supposed to do. It is what the Princes do in all the stories.”
“This is not that kind of story.”
The boy tried not to look as glad as he was, a rabbit who knows that he will be caught, but cannot help devouring the carrot. He wished, fervently, that he could find her, and carry her off, like a proper Prince. But she was like air streaming through silk, and he could not touch her at all. They stood for a moment, separated by the low stone sill.
“I will be very quiet,” she murmured, “so as not to wake your sister.” She settled outside the window onto the deep, dewy grass, and closed her eyes.
“When the beast-maiden’s ship had been bounding through the waves like a lioness through the grass for three days with Grog at the wheel, since no one would move her tub from that post, Eyvind found himself belowdecks with Sigrid, sharing a meager supper of seal fat and hard bread. They did not see Snow creep in behind them, as eager to hear their talks as a child who spies upon her parents…”
“WE’VE GOT A FARMER’S BUSHEL OF TIME, NOW, Sigrid,” Eyvind said, settling into a chair with a grunt and a sigh. He sliced off the heels of a loaf for himself and spread it with the salted grease. “And it’s been near ten years you’ve been making eyes at me and drinking my beer at the Arm, near enough to ten years that you’ve been looking like there were something you wanted to say to me—ten years that you haven’t been saying it.” He leaned in, his sandy hair flopping over his brow like a tuft of fur. “I’m thinking it’s long past time you tell me whatever it is you’ve been keeping locked up tight behind those teeth.”
She sighed, and stared at the grain of the table wood, unable to look the tavern-keeper in the eye.
“Eyvind,” she began, her voice cracking like a frozen broom, “I’m not sure I should. There was a time, I think, when I first came to Muireann, when I might have told you, and it might have been the right thing. But now—so much time has passed, so many things happened, I think perhaps it is best that this stay dead, closed into a chest between us, fastened with locks.”
“What are you talking about, woman? I’ve left my tavern for you; you might stop your shy-maid act—I know better than to think you’re just a net-mender. You talk to that albino girl like she’s your confessor, and you won’t tell me why you watch me like I’m likely to grow a tail and start howling at the moon?”
Sigrid’s face sagged, and she lifted her faded eyes to him, full of pity. She looked like nothing so much as a mother welcoming home a child who has gone far astray and become a stranger to her.
“Understand, please, understand that I never wanted to hurt you…”
WHEN I FIRST BECAME A WOMAN, THE LIMBS WERE as strange to me as the first taste of wine. For all my days until that one, I had been a bear.
I loved my mother and my Stars, and I loved a young bear with dark eyes, even after he left me. I was never strange, never different from my sisters.
The bear I loved disappeared, and the snow fell, the snow froze, the glaciers broke and re-formed without him. We knew nothing of where he had gone, and after a full turn of seasons without his tracking across our ice, mates were taken again, cubs were nursed. And life went on.
But one evening, when the blue lights of the heavens streamed through the prisms of the Temple, tracing shadows of cobalt and aquamarine across my thick fur, a vision came to me, glimmering on the ice altar with all the weight and depth of flesh. Laakea, the Harpoon-Star, stood before me, with his diamond spear slung over one shoulder, his skin whiter than light itself. His hair flowed over the altar like a frozen waterfall, and I trembled in his presence, terrified and exalted. I was a humble bear, not so very far past my cubhood, and the golden eyes of the Far-Flying Hunter were fixed on me. The honor was beyond bearing.
He told me, Eyvind. He told me that you had been made into a man, that you had sought to avenge the Snake-Star and been changed to keep you from it. It was not your vengeance to take, he said. But he also told me that you would never be bear again—or that it would be so long and at such cost that if you managed it, it would be worth less than ash. He told me, in a voice like snow, that I would never see you again, that you would never return.
And I wept, my love. I wept at his feet like an infant, and I could not raise my eyes to his beauty.
Laakea put his hands on my shoulders—the ecstasy of it!—and lifted me to his side. He said that if I wished, I could be made a woman myself, so that I could seek you out, find you again, find some happiness. Of course, I wished it! He drew for me a map in the ice, a map through the floes to a great wood at the othermost North of the world, where, he said, roamed a creature who knew something of trading skins.
And he told me nothing else. Not how to find you, or how to stand still while something unstitched my fur and lashed skin in its place.
Yet still, I loved you, and I believed you would want me to come to you. I could not stand the thought of you in misery, separated from your kind. So I went, into the
far northern wilds, and I floated across seas so blue they chilled my bones, and frozen trees encased in sheaths of frost. And I came to a wood more vast than any I had ever heard tale of, darker than caverns in its paleness, and deeper, white with snow and terrible in its cold.
I wandered in it, I became lost in it. Perhaps it was an hour, perhaps it was a year. Perhaps it was ten. In the white, time is nothing, and I knew nothing but the winter, the scent of it, tracking it to its source. I followed the smell of ice over pine, over holly berries, of snowshoes slushing through drifts. I followed until I came upon a hunched figure in a frostbitten vulture cloak, whose feathers were gone to crystal and frost. I lumbered up to its silvery form.
“You came looking for Ghassan,” the hunchback said. “But I’m not him. I’m Ghassan’s girl, Umayma.”
I frowned as best a bear can frown. “You don’t look like a girl.” And indeed, she seemed a wolfish, feral young boy with a cowl carved from a vulture’s head, and leathery black legs with talons like a raven’s. She stamped them in the snow and ground her pearly teeth, one against the other.
“The wonder of skins is that one need never wear one’s own face. You must be weary of yours, or you would not have come looking for Ghassan and found me.”
“Not weary, no, but I need another one.”
“What sort?”
“A… a human girl.”
Umayma pursed her lips. “That’s a hard one to come by. Girls guard their skins very well. But I do have one.” She pulled a bundle the color of good honey out of a fat leather satchel and held it up thoughtfully.
“Where did it come from?” I asked fearfully. “I wouldn’t want to wear a murdered girl’s body like a dress.”