The Wandering Sea

 

She sailed in and out of days, following the setting sun into the west.  The deep sea rolled slow beneath her, the waters a bottomless blue, and she fell into the rhythm as though she were remembering it from another life.  Jaya had absorbed the stories of sailing and voyaging from her mother, now long dead, and she remembered what she had been told to do.  At night she reefed her sail in close and rode the hollow waves, in the morning she cast her net and fished, and then when the winds rose she raised sail and let the canoe run as fast as it wanted.

Alone, she could only sleep in little breaths when the wind slackened, day or night.  She had to watch the weather and the waves.  A real storm here in the deeps would be dangerous, could drive her little craft far off its course, but then her course was not set very closely.  She knew to go west and north, but nothing else.  She had seen a map, once, sketched on the inside of supple bark, but her father had destroyed all that still remained.  To him, the outside world was dead, and yet it had still come to kill him.

Night was the strangest time.  On the sea, the sky was bright and terrible to look on, the high vault set with a thousand stars like jewels, all clustered in loops and coils and the great trail that stretched from one horizon to the other.  The moon was waning, and so only a sliver rose and set like a hook cast into the black sea to hunt for prey.

Sometimes, the sea glowed in the dark, threads of green or blue or pink coursing over the waves, wending deep down out of sight.  Jaya heard whales rise in the dark not far from her, heard their great, gasping breaths and felt her canoe shift as they slid by, close.  Sometimes, in the dusk, she saw the fins of sharks cutting the water like knives, but she did not fear them.  Sharks did not hunt men unless there was blood poured in the water, and she drank the blood of the fish she caught to save what little water she carried.

Three days.  Six days.  Nine.  On the ninth night the wind was restless, and she sat up as the sky came alive with stars and the moon cut the horizon.  The waves were shallow and uneasy, the wind shifting from quarter to quarter.  Jaya had to keep her sail close and adjust it so she would not be blown in circles.  She watched the moon and steered by it, keeping her heading.

The moan came from beneath her, and at first she thought it was a whale singing in the dark, as they sometimes did, but it was deeper than a whale, and it seemed to shudder through the skin of her canoe.  She braced against the rail and gripped the ropes, but she looked to where her father’s sword hung from the mast.  If some sea-demon set upon her, she would be alone in the emptiness, with no one to aid her.  Perhaps it was the will of the gods that she survive, but none could know it.  Jaya did not believe the gods would aid her if she were so foolish as to expect it.

The stars reflected on the sea in a mirror of light, shimmering on the waves, and then she saw a light from below.  Something shone blue down in the deeps, and then brighter, and she made her rope tight and crawled to the mast and took down her sword as the water heaved under her.  Her canoe lifted and then turned, caught the wind and slid down the slope of the wave as the glow came again, seemingly from everywhere beneath her.

Jaya’s heart was beating fast as she clung to the side of the boat and then twisted to look over the side, feeling dread wash inside her like swallowed poison.  The sea was dark for long breaths, and then it all lit up beneath her like another sky.  She saw something massive and writhing.  Glowing blue flesh striated with skeins of red and violet.  Tentacles moved like sweeping trees, and then she saw an eye vast as a shield, the black pupil hooked and empty.  It moaned then, a sound that shook the canoe and vibrated against her skin, set her teeth edge to edge against each other.

The glow became brighter, so she had to squint her eyes against it, and then the water around her churned and the colossal beast slid away from her under the water, the glow of it moving under the waves like a deep sun.  It moaned again, like a word so drawn out and low it was impossible to understand, and then it vanished like a ghost into the depths.

Jaya lay motionless for a long time, breathing quick and tight, feeling as though she were paralyzed.  The waves lifted and pushed her little boat, and as the wind picked up she had to rise and trim her sail so she would not be blown off course.  The waves were rolling higher now, and she felt the wet, sullen edge of approaching rain.  She steered into the dark, mouth dry and her hands shaking with the terror of what had come so close, and what might yet lie as close to her as her own skin.

o0o

The sun rose and shone through mist, and Jaya rode the slight breeze over waves that rolled slow and shallow.  The color was different, and the sea was colder, and she knew she was entering some other region, a place she had never been.  She heard a cry overhead and looked up, saw the shadows of birds and smiled.  Birds meant land was close.  She sniffed the wind, questing, and she caught what might have been the scent of flowers, slight and haunted.

On an instinct, she steered more to the north, just a little, and she watched the waters.  She ate some dried fish and licked her lips.  Her water was running low, and she hoped to reach land soon.  The wind was cool from behind her, and then she saw leaves drifting on the water and she knew she was near to a landing.  As the mist thinned she looked up to see the birds and steered to follow them, curving northward, listening to their cries until the sun came higher and the haze burned away and she saw the shadow of an island before her, long and low with a barren peak at the center, wreathed in white cloud.

She watched for the white line of breakers that would signal a reef, but she saw only a few jutting rocks that flanked a white-sanded cove.  The wind steered her closer, and then she saw something big sprawled on the shore, jutting sharp points and flights of gulls on the long shore around it.  It was a moment before she realized it was a ship like the one the invaders had brought to her land.  It had been cast up on the shore and heeled over on the side, the masts splintered and a great hole torn in the hull.

Jaya sailed in closer, and then she looked desperately for the golden eagle that had marked her quarry, but she saw instead the shape of a woman, chipped and with the paint peeled away so that she looked like a demon with rotting flesh.  It was not the same ship.

She kept her gaze on the trees as she came in closer, and then she was in the shallows and she leaped out of the canoe and let the waves help her drag it up above the ragged line of seaweed that marked the high tide.  The ship loomed over her like a dead whale, casting its shadow.  Flights of seabirds started up and rose in a screaming cloud.

Close, she saw bodies in the sand around the ship, and many of them seemed to be of the race of giants, their skin turning yellow as they rotted, their light hair streaming over the sand.  She saw sockets emptied of plucked eyes and lips chewed away and smelled the fetid reek of death.  The ship had been here for days, perhaps five or six.

Now her boat was clear of the water she took up her sword and slung it over her shoulder, took her spear in hand and picked up her waterskin.  She would have to follow the shore and hope to find a stream; otherwise she would have to venture inland and seek water held in hollow stumps or leaf basins.  Fresh would be better, and she did not want to venture into the jungle.  There could be tigers or cobras.  She remembered stories of spiders as tall as a man and of tree vipers that grew to enormous size and whispered in evil voices.  She did not know which of the tales were true and did not want to find out.

The wreck drew her eye, and she approached it carefully, taking in details she had not had time to note the last time she was close to such a vessel.  It was so big, towering over her, the hull marked here and there by dead barnacles, but otherwise very clean.  She saw how thick the wood was, how the boards were so finely laid edge to edge.  Hesitant, yet curious, she climbed into the hole in the side and stood there, looking in.  She saw the decks like a cross-section, the planks torn away, ropes dangling.

There were hammocks where the men must sleep, and it surprised her how similar they looked to ones she was used to.  She saw the ship was held together by a fortune in iron nails that jutted out of the wood all around, and she tried to mentally estimate how many there must be.  Of course such a vast ship had to be constructed to endure the battering of the seas.

In among the wreck of the hull she saw the hatches that had been cut and the little doors hinged to cover them.  She climbed up higher, peered in the sun that filtered in from outside.  Here was an iron tube longer than a man, set on some kind of cradle.  She touched it and felt the coldness of the metal, a sense of the weight.  She remembered the blast from the ship that had shattered canoes and men alike.  It was a weapon, but not like anything she had ever seen.  She remembered the small club that spat smoke and killed from a distance, that had struck down her father.  Could this be the same only larger?

The smell of death here was heavy, and it sickened her.  She gagged and climbed back out of the hole, dropped to the sand where waves washed over her feet.  She looked up at the hull and now she saw scars on the wood like the trails of claws, and then the round marks that appeared on the skin of whales.  She remembered the glowing sea, the soulless eye of the deep, and she shivered.  Another god of the sea, only this one she could not give a name to.

Enough.  She waded through the waves and back to the sun.  She needed to find water and resupply herself before dark.  She would find a clear part of the shore and hunt for crabs and do some fishing with her spear.  If there was a stream she would make a little camp and she could spend a few days catching and drying fish before she moved on.

More birds erupted from the tree line, but when she looked she saw men there, and her heart sped in her chest.  She turned to face them, both hands on her spear, watching and counting.  Eight, then a dozen.  They were of her race, with dark skins and dark hair.  They looked haggard and thin, and their eyes were haunted.  They carried weapons that looked to have been scavenged from the wreck, and she saw several long, two-edged swords like those the giants used.

They came closer, and then one man came to the front and lifted an open hand.  “I greet you,” he said, his speech accented and strange.  “We do not mean harm, we have been trapped here.  I am called Ujung.  Who are you, and how did you reach this place?”

o0o

Jaya watched them closely, and she glanced side to side just to be certain they were not trying to take her by surprise.  She was very aware that she was the only woman here, and she saw them looking at her in a way she did not like.  Some of them bore iron manacles on wrist or leg.  Staring back, she found some of them dropped their eyes, and some did not.  “I am Jaya, of the Tau’ta,” she said.  “I sailed here.”

She saw the words strike them, and she saw several of them step back, looking at her with something like fear.  Some of them muttered and made small signs, and one turned his head and spat over his shoulder.  Even Ujung looked surprised and shied away.  “I thought the Tau’ta were all gone.  None have seen them for many ages.”

“We are gone,” she said, suddenly wary.  “We sailed beyond the edge of the world, and abandoned it to its fate.  But I come seeking blood.”  It surprised her how the men moved away when she said that, and they clutched their weapons closer.

She turned and jabbed her spear toward the ship.  “A ship like this came and raided my home.  They slew my brother and my father and took captives.  I come following the scent of blood upon the sea.  A tall ship like this one, only with a golden eagle on the prow.  Have you seen such a ship?”

Ujung shook his head.  “I have not, but I have not seen many Mordani ships.  I saw the hold of this one when they took me prisoner.”  He gestured to the others.  “They took us all for slaves, and grim would be our fate save that the slavers ran afoul of a greater evil.”

Jaya glanced out to sea, saw the haze creeping back in as clouds drifted over the sky, casting iron shadows on the deep.  “What happened here?”

“This is a slave ship,” Ujung said.  “The white men sail along the island shores, and if they see fishermen, they take them.  If they see women washing, they take them.  If they see a village, they come ashore and take all they can catch.  They sail until they are filled with slaves, and then they sail to the west to the slave markets.”  He waved a hand to the other men.  “We were all taken, along with many others.  The ship was almost filled, and we all lay chained in the holds, piled one atop the others.”

Jaya had many questions for this, but she did not interrupt him.  She wanted to know what had destroyed the ship and marooned these men.  “Something tore the ship open.”

“These are called the Jahar Islands, and all know they are dangerous.  The people who dwell here are called the Ekwa.  They are. . .”  He hesitated, looking at her.  “They are said to be kindred to the Tau’ta.  The last of that dread race.  They sail these waters and slay any who come here.  The waters are haunted by their god.  Sa-Hantu, the beast of many arms.  The sea-boiler.”

He looked at the wreck.  “It was night, the ship was in deep water, and then great blows fell upon the hull.  We heard something tearing at the wood, like teeth.  We heard a moaning deep below us, as of something alive.  It shook our bones.  The ship was torn open, and water rushed in.  A few of us managed to get free and escape drowning.  Most did not.  The Ekwa came ashore and hunted those that remained, and so we have hidden.  But there is no escape from this island – there is only death.”

Now he looked at her differently.  “How did you come here?”

Jaya pointed.  “My canoe, I rowed for many days.”

Ujung shook his head.  “No, you cannot have crossed very far in so small a raft.  There must be a greater ship, tell me.”  He came a step closer and Jaya raised her spear again, ready in her hands.  “Please,” he said.  “Tell me!”  There was a brittle intensity to him, a shivering.

Jaya stood her ground.  “I came alone, and I will leave alone.  I cannot carry you away.  I cannot free you.”  She watched as they came closer, the line of men beginning to spread out.  She saw desperation in them, and she knew they would kill her if they could and then fall upon each other for the possession of her canoe.

She shrugged off her waterskin and her shawl.  “Do not,” she said, meaning it.  “Do not try.”

They came towards her slowly, but they did not stop.  There were many of them, and if they came all at once, they would drag her down, but if she could frighten them, they would scatter.  She would not strike the first blow, for that would drive them to fight her.  She waited, and watched, backing up so they would have to wade in the sea to flank her.

A man on the left lunged first, a long knife in his hand and a red madness in his eyes.  He slashed at her and she sidestepped, then drove her barbed fishing spear into his thigh, not deep enough to snag it in the meat.  He yelled, and then another one rushed her, screaming, and she turned and met him in the middle with the point of her spear, the iron punching through his ribs and digging in.

She let it go and drew her father’s sword in a flash of sun.  Others came at her and she cut quickly side-to-side, drawing blood from arms and hands, making them flinch back with cries of pain.  She came face to face with Ujung and the long sword in his hand.  It had a hilt like a curled shell that guarded his hand, and it was long and keen.  The others drew back, and he faced her, breathing hard as though readying himself for pain.

“Ekwa!” one of the other men called out, terror in his voice.  “Ekwa!”

She almost turned to look, and Ujung tried to use her moment of distraction to run her through.  She was wary of such a blow, and so she dashed the blade down with her own, and then she caught the guard and pulled his weapon out of the way.  Rather than release it, he braced himself to pull free of her and she struck hard, the sword of her fathers cutting the cords of his neck and sending his head to the sand in a spray of red so dark it was almost black.  She felt it on her face and tasted it in her mouth as his body fell.

Now she did turn to face the sea.  The other escaped slaves were scattering as three outrigged canoes came ashore.  They were much longer than those her people made and were painted with jagged black slashes like stripes.  Each of them carried a dozen men, and she studied them as they dragged their vessels ashore and leaped out.

They were tall, with sallow skins browned by the sun.  They had long faces and long arms and legs, and every inch of their skin and faces was tattooed in intricate patterns.  She saw signs and emblems she recognized, and some she did not.  They had their hair shorn on the sides of their heads and grown long on top so it could be swept back and braided into snakelike strands that were knotted behind them.  The braids were bleached white in spirals and woven with bones and shark teeth.

The Ekwa did not hesitate, but came ravening to pursue the fleeing slaves.  Six of them came for her, each man bearing a long spear and a hooked long knife sheathed on a belt made of knotted leather thongs.  Other than that, they wore only loincloths made of some kind of reptile skin that shimmered in the sun.

Two of them hurled spears at her, and she evaded one and cut the other from the air.  They were long, slender weapons with barbed iron points, made for fish, not men.  Jaya braced herself and gripped her father’s sword in one hand and the invader sword in the other.  It was long, but so well-balanced it felt light in her grasp.

The lead raider was taller than the rest, and he drew out his down-curved blade.  She saw it was almost as long as her sword, though it had a different shape.  It was kin to her own weapon, that was plain.  His face was so tattooed it was hard to make out anything but his eyes, and on his chest she saw the many-armed image of the great squid that haunted the deepest waters.

“Come then!” she shouted to him.  “Come and meet me in the circle of blood!  I have one head today, I will take another before I am finished!”  She looked him up and down and then cast the straight sword away, faced him with only the sword of her ancestors.  “I am Jaya of the Tau’ta.  I do not fear you!”  Her heart was beating quickly inside her, and she breathed quickly.  Ujung had said these people were kin to her own, perhaps they would recognize her.

The leader came closer, and she saw him gesture his companions to stay back.  He was lean and hard as iron, and she saw the sheen of fish oil on his tattooed skin.  It would not be easy to hold him, if it came to that.  He smiled and she saw his teeth had been filed down to points, like the teeth of a shark, and inside her memory stirred half-remembered stories of the Children of Arang – the tribe that had been the guardians of the Kings of the Tau’ta.  Warriors who ate the flesh of their enemies.

“I see you, girl!” he said, and his speech was lean and slanted, quick across his tongue.  “There are no Tautai any longer.  That race is dead, that line is dead, and you will die skinned alive for profaning it!”  He spun his blade in his hand, and then he came for her with blinding speed.

He was fast, his arms weaving a complex pattern to distract her and make an opening.  Jaya matched him, and their blades rang together.  He had the reach on her and slapped her arm down, his blade cutting in to disembowel her, but she jumped back, sucking in her belly so he only drew a single thin line of blood across her skin.

He brought the blade back but she closed on him too quickly and cut at his arm.  The cut would have crippled him if he had not twisted away from it and then brought his other arm up around her from behind, tried to hook her neck in a choke.  He pulled her back and she spun the other way, grunted as his finger snagged in her hair, and then she slammed her elbow into his ribs.

It staggered him, and then she hurled herself against him and took them both to the sand.  She knew she had to work quickly, or he would overwhelm her with his strength.  So she did the unexpected and dropped her sword to the sand and quickly twisted to lock his sword-arm between her thighs, caught his wrist and bent his arm across her thigh until he cried out.

She struck his hand with her palm and knocked his blade away, and then they were both unarmed.  Jaya reached for his weapon but he caught her and dragged her away from it, tried to pin her down, but she slide sideways and twisted his arm behind him until the joint almost gave way.

He clawed for his blade but she saw her sword and was faster, caught it up and put the edge against the back of his neck.  She shook her hair back, and she heard hissing and whispers.  A glance showed the other Ekwa staring at her back and pointing.  Her hair had fallen aside, and beneath it were the marks of her lineage, the chain of her ancestors back to Kashyan the Three-Hearted.  The tattoos that had been put there when she was only a child, to mark her as one of the line of kings.

“Enough,” she said.  She released his arm and he twisted free, got to his feet with his blade in hand and sand stuck to his skin.  Jaya watched him as she had learned as a girl to watch a cobra, wary of the slightest motion.  “Enough of this.  I do not come seeking war, or death.  I come seeking revenge upon the giants, the white-faced killers who came to my home.  I did not come to kill such as you.”

“She bears the marks,” one of the Ekwa said.  “She has the sign of the Tautai.  The mark of the kings.”

The man she had fought caught his breath, and then he looked at his men, and then at her.  “Show me,” he said.

Jaya hesitated, but then she turned to show him her back, swept her hair aside so he might see what was there.  She could almost feel his gaze on her back, the heat of it, and when she turned back to face him, she saw he was shaken.  He would not quite meet her eyes.

“I do not profane my own lineage,” she said.  “I am the daughter of kings, the heir to the line of rulers stretching back into dark ages.”  She held up her sword.  “Here is the sword of kings, handed down by my fathers.”  She took a step and picked up the head of Ujung, dangling it by the hair.  Blood dripped from the neck onto the sand, making red spirals as it swung.  “I have taken three heads, and now this is the fourth.”  She cast it at the warrior’s feet.  “Will you be the fifth?”

He had recovered some of his equanimity, and he did not flinch.  “You may be of the bloodline, or you may not.  It is not for me to say, nor for you.”  He pointed his blade at her.  “You fight well, but you cannot overcome us all.  You will come to our stronghold, and there you will be tested.  There are ways to know if you speak the truth.”  He smiled, but it was cold.  “If you lie, then you will be slain, and your bones will feed the sea-gods.  But if you speak truth, then I, Dhatun, will be the first to swear to you by this blade.”  He held up his weapon, and then he sheathed it with a shove.

Jaya looked at him, and then at the others.  The rest were returning from the forest, some of them bearing freshly taken heads.  They were fierce, and deadly, and they had reverence for her bloodline.  She could have use for such men, and so she would go with them and see what awaited her.  “As it will be,” she said, in the old way, and then she crouched down and cleaned her sword with a fistful of white sand.  She ground the blood away and wiped the steel clean.  The sun caught the edge and shone like a blade of fire.