Into Dreams: A Gina Harwood Novel (Gina Harwood Series Book 3) Page 16

  “Really,” responded Morgan, as he didn’t know what else to say. “That’s… interesting.” He had swapped “interesting” for “barbaric” at the last possible moment.

  “They are usually very aged and infirm by then. The men take care of their ill on the ships. My father was a withered husk by the end, and was ready for the waves.”

  “You speak as though you are two different villages. The men, and the women,” observed Morgan, hobbling beside her as they resumed their walk along the shore. Eliah slowed her pace with a sigh, but did not reach out to assist him.

  She shrugged. “It has always been this way, since before the Madness reclaimed our main shores,” she said lightly. “It isn’t strange to us.”

  The morning sun was warm on Morgan’s naked shoulders and he closed his eyes for a moment to savor the feeling of being alive, clothed, and in no immediate danger. More children were lining the shoreline now, and appeared intent on searching for shells in the wet sand. At least a dozen young children - Morgan would guess none of them except Nopah were older than nine years - were canvassing the edge of the shore in a practiced and organized fleet. He spied Eliah’s daughter, Ila, among the searchers. “Are they just searching for shells?” asked Morgan, pausing for a moment to steady his legs and readjust the walking stick. The carvings on it were ornate and detailed, depicting ships sailing waves that spiraled up the wood.

  “Yes. They search for shells in the morning - the men can sell the empty ones at the markets and the ones that aren’t empty make a good breakfast.” Eliah noticed that he had stopped and walked a few steps back to him. “The rest of the day the boys gather berries or tend the gardens, or prepare the food. The younger girls go and check the traps around the island, the older ones hunt with us. There are always things that need done.”

  “Why the girls?”

  Eliah began walking again and Morgan hobbled forward to keep up. “Because only the girls are allowed to kill the animals if they are suffering in the traps. Boys do not kill here. When they are of age, the men teach them to fight on the ships.” She walked a few yards into the jungle and Morgan took his time following her, picking out his steps and clearing his path with the stick. The thick vines opened into a clearing that was overflowing with cultivated crops. “Here we go. You did well." She looked impressed, and her face seemed to fight with the expression, twitching slightly. "I didn’t honestly think you would be strong enough to walk this far yet.”

  “Why can’t the boys learn to fight here?” asked Morgan, curious, and ignoring the fact that Eliah had set him to a task she seemed certain he’d fail.

  “It is our way,” replied Eliah simply. “So, you will help us harvest our manioc roots. They are ready for gathering. Ila!” she turned and yelled toward the ocean, and Morgan blinked at the sudden increase in volume.

  Eliah’s daughter burst through the foliage, breathless and grinning. “Here!” she shouted, her tousled bright hair flying around her as she skidded to a halt next to her mother.

  The older woman’s lips thinned in disapproval. “Grace, Ila. How are you ever going to be a huntress?”

  Ila rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, and Morgan chuckled, gaining him another irritated glare from Eliah. “I’m already a huntress, Nana. I took down a groundchuck last week with my sling, remember?”

  Eliah mumbled under her breath. “Groundchucks don’t have fangs or claws, Ila.” She took a deep breath. “I need you to show the stranger how to harvest the manioc roots.”

  Ila looked like she’d been punched. “That’s BOY’s work, Nana!”

  “My name is Morgan,” reminded Morgan gently.

  “No, it isn’t, Stranger. Not to us,” snapped Eliah, grabbing her daughter roughly by the arm and shoving her forward toward the garden. “You were a stranger when the girl found you, and you’ll be a stranger when you leave. Until then, Ila, make sure he knows how to be useful to us. Do it right, or you won’t be allowed to hunt again until next cycle.” The woman turned on her heel, her blonde braids whipping through the air as she whirled and stormed away. Morgan looked down at his youthful teacher, who was staring after her mother in surprise, her clear blue eyes wide in shock and making her look even younger than she was. He waited in silence as she composed herself and turned to the waxy-leafed plants in the rows nearest to them.

  “These are manioc plants,” she said, clearly much subdued, and Morgan had to hobble forward to hear her words. “These two rows here are ready, you can tell by the roots here,” she pointed at the thin white roots breaking through the soil at the plant’s base. “Just pull here,” she instructed, scratching the soil gently away from the plant and deftly twisting the base to extract a thick, wrinkly tuber that looked to Morgan like a cross between a potato and a carrot. “And then snap here,” she continued, snapping the unappetizing plant off at the base. “We re-plant these, so don’t crush ‘em with your big Man-hands,” she added, her small mouth pulled down into a frown that was too old for her age.

  “With you so far,” he said, but his legs were shaking slightly, a fact that didn’t escape his instructor.

  “You should probably sit down,” informed Ila in a bossy tone that sounded like she was echoing her mother. “You can finish one and then scoot to the next.” Morgan sat hard on the ground, his legs thanking him for the relief. “The plants have to be put in a bit of water, I’ll run them to the cold spot with the roots when you’ve done a few since you’re kind of pathetic right now.”

  “Hey, now,” interjected Morgan, grinning.

  “Well, you are,” she retorted, but she was smiling too. “They’d go bad way before you even got there. And it would take all day. Hurry and do one or two so I can make sure you’re not screwing it up.”

  Morgan worked for the rest of the morning digging up the strange-looking tubers and listening to the incessant chatter of his young companion. She talked of her favorite birds and bugs, answered a few simple questions about how life was on the island, but mostly she boasted about her takedown of the groundchuck a few days earlier, telling the story from every conceivable angle. Every few plants he completed, she would gather up the tubers and the plants and run off for a few minutes, picking up her story as soon as she was back within earshot. She always instructed him not to touch anything while she was gone, so he sat in the soft earth and soaked in the bright sun until she returned. This isn’t so bad, he thought to himself after she’d left to deliver the fifth set. It could definitely be worse. The waves were still audible from here, and the sun was very warm on his skin, and Morgan closed his eyes and smiled. Hlanith. Calephais. Kadatheron. King. It was a mantra that ran underneath his every thought.

  “Okay! So, Ejah Riverrunner, she’s my friend, she’s a year older than me, and she once got bit by a groundchuck, so they CAN be dangerous, even if Nana doesn’t think so…” continued the high-voiced chatter as Ila ran back through the clearing. Morgan smiled and shifted his weight to begin excavating the next tuber.

  33

  Ships dotted the horizon through the window, and Gina knew they must be getting close to port. Kyrri lay beneath her hand in a deep sleep, stirring and twitching now and then. She scratched his head lightly and pulled the blankets up to his furry chin. Voices sounded outside, and Kyrri stirred in response.

  “Wha?” he slurred, his eyes caked with sleep.

  “Shh, we’re almost to Calephais,” she cooed, running a washcloth over his eyes to dislodge the gunk.

  “Cale…?” The tabby shook his head as if confused and burrowed further under the blankets. Gina frowned. Kyrri had taken a turn for the worse, not seeming to understand where he was whenever he woke from his longer-and-longer naps.

  “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m just going to see how close we are to getting to the dock.” Gina stood and Kyrri extended a paw in her direction. Gina gathered the tissues from around him, dotted with streaks of dark red, and disposed of them in the bin beneath the desk.

  “Nnn…,” he managed, and
his leg dropped back to the bed, his eyes closing again as he drifted back to sleep. Gina took a moment to replace his paw under the blanket before taking a deep breath and walking out to the deck.

  “Bow dock line secure?” Captain Gage’s voice bellowed out over the organized chaos of the ship’s main deck, with every hand scrambling to complete their tasks. Gina walked forward and stood next to the first mate, who nodded at her in greeting. She nodded back.

  “Aye, Captain!” came the return cry.

  “Stern line ready?” Gage called gruffly, looking quickly at and away from her sudden presence.

  “Aye Captain!” came several voices.

  Gina was only slightly paying attention to the commotion on the ship, her mouth a small circle of astonishment at her first view of the city. Calephais stretched before them, past the sprawling dock complex housing hundreds of boats as large or bigger than the Blackbird. Steam cranes plucked large wooden crates from the ships and flung them through the air with ease and grace, into the waiting hands of dozens of strapping, swarthy men, who transported them easily. Behind the impressive docks rose a sparkling city of alabaster and stone, impressive obelisk pillars marking the streets and reaching toward the sky above a bustling marketplace of stalls and buildings and an impossible number of people. In the distance, she could see a giant turquoise spire that gleamed in the dying sunlight, and beyond that were snow-capped mountains that hung ominously over the city’s edges. Gina set her jaw. Surely in a city this big, someone would be able to nurse Kyrri back to health.

  “Hammer,” she whispered, and the sizeable man turned his kind face toward her. “Where do I go to find a doctor for Kyrri?”

  Hammer leaned in until his lips were almost brushing her ear. “I’ll help you carry him in. Don’t mention it to my brother.”

  “He’s getting worse,” she whispered back urgently.

  The first mate looked appraisingly at their shallow arc toward the closest empty dock space. “Go start getting him ready and gather your things. I’ll come in about ten minutes to get you.”

  Gina nodded and took one last look at the approaching city before ducking back into the cabin. She had already repacked their bags, so there was only the suffering Cat to worry about. She bundled him as tightly as she could without hurting him, and was dismayed that he didn’t wake at all during her manhandling of him. He was burning hot and painfully thin in the face, and his fur looked greasy and malnourished. Gina felt a tug at her heart. This is my fault, she reminded herself. I have to fix him. She affixed the blankets as well as she could and experimentally tried to lift him. Even in his current state, he was a very heavy Cat. She could carry him, but she wouldn’t be able to move very quickly.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a flurry of hoots and joyous hollers from the deck, and Gina surmised that they must have successfully docked. True to his word, Hammer walked briskly through the door and swept up the bundle of Cat as though Kyrri weighed nothing at all. “Let’s go quickly,” he suggested, and there was a high tint of anxiety coloring his voice.

  “Is the captain…?” started Gina, following the burly man out of the cabin at a near-trot with their bags and Kyrri’s armor slapping against her back.

  “He’s having his customary drink with the crew after a safe voyage. We have a minute or two, but no longer. He’ll be back at the wheeldeck to oversee the cargo offload,” explained Hammer, taking the descending stairs two at a time and covering the width of the ship in five running steps. Gina broke into a sprint to keep up.

  “Isn’t he going to notice you’re gone?” she whispered hoarsely, as she leapt down the gangplank.

  “Oh, yes,” replied Hammer, his breath as even as if he were standing still. “Let’s do this fast.” He shortened his paces to under a run, but Gina had to continue running to keep up. They dodged through the workers on the dock, and Gina glanced back at the Blackbird, half-expecting to see a red-faced and furious Gage screaming at them from the ship’s deck, but she couldn’t see the ship at all through the sea of humanity. Hammer continued his brisk walk through the throngs of Men, weaving through them until they neared the marketplace.

  The market reminded Gina of Hlanith, with the colorful stall roofs tinting the fading sunlight in the dusty streets, but it had a very different feel to it. It felt more worldly, less local, and in addition to the dark-tanned, black-eyed Men she’d seen in the West, there were many other types of people here. She caught glimpses of several blond-haired men and women walking through the market, and noticed that they all had light blue eyes. Easterners, she thought to herself, understanding now why everyone assumed she was one as well with her bright green eyes. Her glances were limited, as Hammer was keeping up his breakneck pace even though the crowds had grown much tighter, and Gina rushed to stay on his heels. She noticed Kyrri’s long, striped tail hanging lifelessly out of the blankets, bouncing languidly with Hammer’s steps, and gritted her teeth. “How far is it?” she shouted up to the man.

  “Not far,” he answered evenly, ducking right into a tiny, cramped alleyway that Gina hadn’t been able to see. There were signs above each door here, each carved with symbols that reminded her of runes. She noticed with a start that it was the first time she hadn’t immediately understood writing or language, but her concern over Kyrri edged out her curiosity. “Just up here,” he called back to her, and took a sharp right into an even smaller corridor marked with one of the giant stone obelisks. Now that she was up close, Gina could see that the obelisks were also carved with the same symbols as the signs, with the strange writing spiralling its way from the ground to as far up as she had time to glance before following Hammer into a dark, signless door. She rushed in behind him and slammed into his back just inside the doorway.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Hammer, moving to the right slightly. They were in a tiny, nondescript room with bare stone walls and nothing of interest beyond two dilapidated wooden chairs.

  “What… how is this helpful?” asked Gina, shrugging the heavy bags off of her shoulder and turning to face Hammer.

  “Shh,” he shushed. “I already gave the signal. It’ll just be a minute.”

  “Signal?” started Gina, but she was interrupted by the low-rumbling of one of the stone walls displacing itself. Eyebrows raised in surprise, she watched as the portal opened completely, revealing a well-lit room behind.

  “Enter,” sounded a deep, feminine voice.

  Hammer smiled at Gina. “If anyone can help you, she can.” He walked through the portal, shifting Kyrri carefully to fit the bundle through the door. Gina placed her hand on her knife hilt, wishing it were her gun holster, and followed him inside. This room was significantly more welcoming than the first, its walls draped in colored silks and the large table in the middle of the room covered in a purple velvet material. A diminutive woman stood beside the table, ancient beyond Gina’s reckoning. She seemed to be made of wrinkles and age. Her hair was so white it nearly glowed, and it reached down her back in a thick, simple braid. She wore no jewelry or shoes, Gina noticed, just a simple linen shift dress.

  Hammer placed Kyrri on the table and began unwrapping the blankets from around him. “Gina Harwood, this is Maestra Crow. Maestra, this is a Cat of Ulthar, and he is very, very ill.”

  The old woman’s eyes widened and a smile crept across her face. Her teeth looked perfectly straight and white, and like they belonged in any other mouth than the one they found themselves in. She shifted behind the table and stroked Kyrri’s fur, which was matted to his skin with sweat. “This is your companion?” she asked, and her voice, like her teeth, seemed too young for her, sonorous and clear.

  “He is. His name is Kyrri,” she said, gathering the blankets from Hammer and setting them on the floor.

  “How did he come to be so ill?” she asked in her lilting way, glancing up to meet Gina’s eyes with her clear electric blue ones before returning her attention to the mass of fur before her.

  “He started feeling bad on the ship, sea-sick,�
�� Gina explained, her words falling over each other in their rush to be free. “Then he fell overboard, and got much worse. He’s been feverish and hasn’t been able to eat, and he’s been getting more and more confused when he wakes up.” She paused. “It’s been harder and harder to get him conscious,” she added sadly.

  “He’s very young,” remarked the elderly woman. “How did he fall overboard?” She whirled behind her and pulled aside a layer of the silk, revealing a large double cabinet filled to the brim with stoppered glass bottles of all colors and shapes.

  “He attacked one of our passengers,” informed Hammer with an apologetic look at Gina.

  “Kyrri said it was the yellow-eyed monster,” added Gina adamantly, watching the woman for any reaction. She gave none, continuing about her work of unstoppering several of the bottles she’d laid on the table near Kyrri.

  “You said he was confused, ill,” replied Hammer hopefully. “He might have been having illness visions.”

  “Hallucinating, dear,” advised Maestra Crow. “And you don’t believe that. You believe that he saw what he says he saw.” Her piercing eyes were fixed on Hammer and he winced away from her gaze. She mixed several of the ingredients together and then paused, manually opening one of Kyrri’s eyes and examining them, before plucking two additional bottles off of the shelf. “That makes more sense, thank you,” she glanced up at Gina. “The plunge may have made him more ill, but this sickness is beyond the body.”

  “Can you heal him?” she asked.

  “She can heal anything,” boasted Hammer. “She once brought Gage back to life after that bastard Harlock poisoned him.”

  Maestra Crow smiled. “Your brother wasn’t dead, Hammer, but he would have been soon. I can heal your companion, to a point,” she added hestitantly. “He will probably live, but his mind may not be the same, and his recovery will take…” she paused, as if calculating. “A long time,” she finished, looking up apologetically at Gina.