Goddess Tithe Read online

  The old man’s voice tore at Munny’s ear, and his young limbs obeyed automatically. But his eyes, and the eyes of all those on the forecastle deck, were turned from their work and fixed upon that sight which they had all seen in their nightmares, in their most fevered dreams.

  She was crowned in lightning, and lightning flashed from her mouth and her eyes. The ocean was her gown, and it poured from her in dark streams, like flowing hair.

  She was a woman.

  She was a serpent.

  She was the goddess of vengeance, and she gnashed her great teeth.

  Give me what is mine!

  Her voice was like the ocean itself, battering the hull of the ship; like the rain shredding the shoulders and arms of the sailors; like the glass of the unreal sea breaking. Thunder roared with each word, and green fire threatened to set the sails ablaze.

  The men of the Kulap Kanya screamed. Many dropped their tack lines and fell upon their knees, upon their faces, groveling and worshiping in terror that was repugnant to behold. Only the bravest held fast at their posts, and even they found their muscles so numbed with fear that they could scarcely keep the sails reefed, scarcely keep the rudder true.

  But Captain Sunan strode across his heaving deck and put up a hand to ward off the rain and the wind so that he could gaze unblinking at she who towered above him.

  “Risafeth!” he cried. “Return to your deeps! You have nothing to gain here!”

  She sank down and down, and white foam swallowed her great head. But she rose again, nearer now, and the rolling mountains of her tail lashed all too near.

  My tithe! Give me my tithe!

  Munny let go of the line and fell to his knees. But the old man caught him by the back of his shirt and refused to let him fall to his face. With strength unexpected in his aged limbs, he hauled the boy back upright. “Pull!” he shouted. And it was his voice now, not Odi’s, urging the riggers. “Pull! Pull!”

  Risafeth undulated through the water, and her bulk tilted the ship. The masts groaned in agony.

  Captain Sunan, his sword still drawn, shook the blade at her. “You know who I am,” he shouted. “You know what once I was. I do not fear you or any of your kind. Wanton and capricious fey, you will not force your laws upon me!”

  Her head rose again, and this time the long neck stretched even above the highest mast and would have been lost in the darkness above, well beyond the few struggling lanterns of the ship. But her eyes flashed, and fire fell from her mouth and boiled the sea around her.

  Dragon spawn!

  The words fell from the mouth of a woman, but when she gnashed her teeth again, they were the fangs of a serpent.

  I will take what I want, here in my own sea!

  She roared, and her breath was a wind of hurricane force that ripped into the Kulap Kanya without mercy or remorse. Everyone heard the tear, the groan. Then the screams of the main mast riggers, both those who still held their tack line and those who had fallen away. Their voices were too addled, too desperate to be understood through the shriek of the storm, the pound of Risafeth’s voice.

  But Tu Bahurn shouted near to hand, and Munny understood him.

  “The batten parrels! They’re breaking!”

  The sturdy lines that secured the sails to the main mast were tearing apart, their knots giving way. No matter how the brave riggers pulled, the sail flew wild, ripping out of their hold. Only a few parrels held true, and these were scarcely enough to keep the enormous mainsail reefed. If any more gave way, the sail would whip around and receive the full blast of the wind.

  And the Kulap Kanya would surely capsize.

  “Saknu! Chuo-tuk!” Tu Bahurn roared, turning to the boatswain boys. “Get down there and climb aloft! Secure those parrels!”

  But Saknu clung to his tack line as though he held onto the last thread of his own life. And Chuo-tuk sank to his knees, screaming, “I’ll die! I’ll die!”

  “Dragons take you,” Tu Bahurn cursed. “I’ll do it myself!”

  He swung himself down the forecastle stairs, rolling with the pitch of the sea. A wave washed over the deck and nearly knocked him from his feet, but he braced himself and achieved the main mast. The riggers screamed, and even those who had fallen away crawled to retrieve their holds on the tack line. But it was useless with the batten parrels flapping above and the sail tearing under the heavy rain and the shrieking wind.

  Tu Bahurn wrapped his arms around the mast and sought for the handholds and footholds. But he was so big, and the grips were so small. Without a securing line, he climbed only a yard before the ship rolled and he fell to the deck. He landed with a crunch and a curse. Another wave scoured the deck, and if not for the quick arms of the nearest riggers, the boatswain would have been carried into the black ocean.

  Munny watched from the forecastle deck.

  “Pull! Pull!” the voice of the old man echoed in his mind.

  Give me my tithe! the voice of Risafeth roared through his heart.

  But he thought suddenly, White peonies.

  The next moment he was springing down from the forecastle himself, slipping and sliding across the rolling deck until he had achieved the main mast. He took hold with his hands and feet and climbed, allowing his small body to sway with the hurtling ship. The wind tore at him, but he gripped hard, making certain of each new hand and foothold before he released the last.

  So he scaled up to the sail and the first of the broken parrels. With one arm wrapped around the mast, he reached out with the other and caught at the flapping rope’s end. He pulled it near, clutching it with fingers and teeth. The first knot he tried, the Knife Lanyard, was not strong enough and slipped free almost immediately.

  Munny reached out, even as the Kulap Kanya tossed on the tormented sea. From the corner of his eye he saw the rising swell of Risafeth’s tail, a mountain of shining scales laced in white foam. The wave of its rising sent the ship groaning nearly to its side. Munny wrapped both arms tight around the mast to keep from being lost into the ocean.

  The sail flapped hard against him, like an enormous slapping hand. One of the battens struck him in the leg, and he thought he felt the bone crack. But he held firm, and when the ship righted itself, he reached once more for the loose parrel. He caught it and this time secured it with a different knot: the Mother’s Arms.

  It held.

  I will not die here, he thought. I must give her the white peonies.

  He climbed on up the mast. The next parrel was easier to catch, and he tied it too with the Mother’s Arms. He climbed again, and the higher he went, the harder the wind blew and the more difficult was his hold.

  Risafeth turned her massive head. Her eyes, full of the deepest white fires of the unreachable ocean floor, fixed upon the boy. She saw what he attempted.

  She laughed.

  The sound shot into Munny like arrows, and he screamed at the pain of it. Only a few more parrels, and the sail would be secure. But he could not climb, could not move. He felt his arms willing to let go, his muscles trembling, ready to fail him. Give it up! Give it up! Risafeth’s laughter seemed to say. Give it up and die!

  “I won’t,” Munny gasped.

  But his hands slipped.

  A fist like granite caught him by the shoulder of his shirt and hauled him back against the mast. Though the ship tossed against the buffeting waves, strong arms held Munny in place. He felt a rope slide around his thin body, a securing line.

  “No fear, my boy,” a voice spoke into his ear. “Pich’s Knot has never given way. Not when tied by Pich himself.”

  Though the rain stung his eyes, Munny turned and looked into the face of the old man beside him. Lightning seared the sky but reflected like gleaming stars in the depths of those dark eyes.

  “Tie the parrels,” the old man said. “Secure the sail.”

  Then he was climbing up above Munny, scrambling to the very top of the mast. Loose ropes lashed him like whips, and the flailing sail slapped at his legs. But he climbed until
he achieved the lookout and pulled himself in.

  There he stood, wrinkled and swaying, clinging to the lookout rail. He shouted, his voice thin and inaudible in the cacophony of the hurricane’s violence.

  But Risafeth turned. Her eyes widened at the sight of him. And she shuddered when she alone heard his words.

  “I’ll be your tithe, Risafeth,” the old man said.

  With that, he leapt from the lookout and plunged down and down, through the tearing rain, and vanished into the raging sea.

  Goddess Fled

  IF THE STORM WAS A NIGHTMARE, more terrible by far was the sudden event of calm. Not the calm of the glassy, unreal sea, but the calm of a brisk day under a cloud-scattered sky, with a crisp but gentle wind filling the torn sails of the Kulap Kanya.

  The ship lurched once then settled with a great splash into the ocean it well knew. A mortal ocean, part of the mortal world, where the water ran liquid, and the salt waves were full of death and birth, and currents mapped by sailors of old carved the paths of the deep.

  Risafeth was fled. In her flight, she had expelled the Kulap Kanya from her realm.

  Captain Sunan, standing at the rail with his sword upraised, gazed out across his own sea. But it was another he saw in a distant place that was still all too near. More than once had he traveled to realms beyond his own; and he knew how close they always were, they and all the terrors they held.

  He knew the laws of the fey folk, knew them better than many of the fey themselves.

  Slowly Captain Sunan lowered his sword arm. His face sagged with sorrow, but his eyes remained bright. “So, Risafeth,” he whispered. “So you run in the face of true courage.”

  Down below the main mast, Munny heard the voices of the riggers crying. Some wept in relief, but most babbled in dread, unable to believe their own eyes, convinced they must be dead or dreaming.

  Munny clung to the mast. His face was still upward-tilted, gazing beyond the last few loose parrels to the empty lookout above. The empty lookout where, moments before, the old man had stood.

  Where is he?

  Munny tried to climb. At first he could not make his limbs obey. His leg ached where it had been struck by the batten. When at last his arms moved, they were so weak that he surely would have fallen to the deck below and met his end if not for the secure fastening of Pich’s Knot about his frame. He felt the thrill in his gut of a fall that did not happen. Then he took hold and pulled himself up, tying the next loose parrel with shaking, rain-dripping fingers. Water from the storm poured down his face like tears, but he wiped it away and climbed on to the next parrel.

  Someone below was calling his name. He ignored it. He must tie the parrels. He must obey Tu Pich, for the old man would always check his work.

  Where is he? Where is he?

  “Munny, you have fulfilled your task. Come down.”

  Munny clung to the mast, his forehead pressed against the Mother’s Arms knot he had just secured. The sail was full; wind whistled through its gaping tears, but it was secure once more. The tack line could control it. They were safe.

  But Munny gazed up again to the empty lookout.

  “Where is he?”

  “Come down now.”

  The Captain’s face was suddenly before him. In all the months of his first voyage, Munny had never before seen the Captain scale the mast. But of course the Captain could do anything. The Captain could even save them from the goddess.

  Only he’d not saved them all.

  Munny blinked, his vision strangely blurred. “Where is Tu Pich?” he said.

  “He is gone, Munny,” the Captain said. “He gave himself to protect you. To protect the Kulap Kanya.”

  “Risafeth . . . she took him?”

  The Captain shook his head. “No. She could not take him. Not when he offered himself freely. She can only take a sacrifice of vengeance. The sacrifice Tu Pich offered was too dreadful to her, too awful for her understanding. He paid the tithe, but she did not take him. And she fled from his offering. Vengeance cannot abide the agony of grace.”

  Even as he spoke, the Captain put his hand on Munny’s shoulder and gently urged the boy to descend. The babble of the sailors faded away into silence as they drew near. Munny’s feet found the deck, but his knees gave way, and he sank down hard, unable to rise.

  “Good boy. Brave boy!”

  At first Munny could not recognize the voice that spoke. He sat numb under the glare of the sun even as Tu Bahurn struggled to undo the securing line.

  “You have proven yourself a braver sailor than any of us,” Tu Bahurn said, the words thick upon his tongue. “Munny Stout-heart. Dragons eat it. Can’t make my fingers obey.”

  Indeed, though several tried, none could undo the old man’s work. Pich’s Knot would not give way until at last the Captain stepped forward and cut it loose.

  Munny closed his eyes and felt the breath of sea air upon his cheeks and drying out the rain in his hair. Little pieces of glass fell and landed tinkling upon the deck, but these melted away, unable to hold onto existence here in the mortal world.

  Neither could the memory of what had been seen so short a time ago. The dark image of Risafeth’s face, the white lightning in her eyes, the storm . . . these skulked away into the recesses of each man’s mind, there to lurk. There to wait for those darkest nights when a man must lie awake and face the truth of his heart alone. Then each one of them would recall with utter vividness that storm-tossed sea and his own sobbing cries.

  But for now it faded. The riggers picked themselves up and secured the tack line. Others hastened to climb the masts and see to the damaged sails, while more hurried to check the soundness of the hull.

  Still Munny remained kneeling, his hands limp in his lap. Captain Sunan stood over him, and they mourned together in silence even as the boatswain and the quartermaster shouted commands to the crew.

  Then the Captain bent and touched Munny’s head. “Come,” he said, “let us fetch our Fool.”

  Munny followed the Captain down the hatch. The Captain took a lantern with him as they descended ladders into the deepest reaches of the ship. There, in the storeroom where the last crumbs of Beauclair blue-crust were wrapped and packed in barrels, they heard a thin voice singing with forced merriment, as though to reassure itself:

  “I am a hearty sailor-ho!

  I sail the mighty seas.

  I reef the sails, I swab and row,

  I feast on withered peas.

  Oh rum-tum-tiddle-dee ho, ho,

  Rum-tum-tiddle-dee—Oh, no.”

  This was followed by the familiar sound of retching.

  The Captain opened the storeroom door and shined his lantern in upon the sickly green face of Leonard the clown. Leonard blinked at the sudden light and wiped his mouth unhappily before he offered something that was likely intended to be a grin.

  “That was . . . some storm, eh? Did we all drown? Because if so, I never guessed that the afterlife would be so . . . so . . . Ugh, I can smell that blue-crust!

  ”

  White Peonies

  THEY PUT INTO PORT FIRST AT AJA, then at Dong Min. They traded and made good profit. Artisans and shipwrights’ lads climbed the rigging and repaired the sails, replacing broken battens and ruined lines. The Kulap Kanya sailed on through calm seas.

  Risafeth did not hinder the vessel’s passage.

  Munny bent his back over the never-ending task of scrubbing the briny deck. Though his head and shoulders were bowed so that none could see, a small smile—so small, it might almost not have been—kept tugging at the corners of his mouth. He remembered what the old man had told him:

  “A true sailor, he can travel the whole world. But as he approaches the seas of his own port, he will smell it. Long before the lookout gives the word, he will smell his home.”

  Munny could smell Lunthea Maly, the City of Fragrant Flowers. He could smell the funk of his own narrow street, the mass of too many bodies pressed into close quarters and living on top of e
ach other in a conglomeration of sickness and frustration and despair. And love. Somehow, in the midst of everything, there was still love. Like a magic thread winding through the trampled mat of life.

  The Kulap Kanya was nearing home at last. He would find out for sure and put his nightmares to rest.

  A shadow fell across the deck where Munny worked. He glared up irritably and found Chuo-tuk standing over him. Munny flinched out of habit but with no real need. For ever since that night—that night of which no one spoke—Chuo-tuk could not look Munny in the eye.

  His gaze fixed nervously upon the scrub brush in Munny’s hand as he spoke. “Captain wants to see Lhe-nad,” he said, struggling, as they all did, with the stowaway’s name. Ever since that unmentioned night, no one called him the devil-man. But they continued to avoid contact with him if possible.

  Munny nodded curtly, and Chuo-tuk hastened away. Leonard worked near to Munny, muttering to himself as he always did. His hair had grown shaggy over the last many weeks, and a beard sprouted in unruly tufts across his cheeks. But he still managed to grin and laugh, most often at himself, Munny suspected.

  “Lhe-nad,” Munny said, and when Leonard glanced his way, he pointed to the Captain’s cabin. “Go,” he said. “Captain Sunan. Go.”

  Leonard looked puzzled for a moment then shrugged and dropped his brush in his bucket. “Thanks, Moo-ney,” he said, and rumpled Munny’s hair as he stepped past, making his way a little unsteadily across the deck. Leonard would never make a true seaman. He could not find his legs.

  Munny returned to his work, but within moments the smile was pulling at his mouth again. He wondered how soon the lookout would give the cry and sound the bells, announcing Lunthea Maly and the end of the long voyage. Any day . . . any minute . . .

  Leonard eventually returned, saying nothing as he grabbed his bucket and continued his work. They did not try to speak, for over the weeks and months each had struggled with the other’s language. So they remained silent but companionable, thinking their own thoughts.