“No doubt,” he murmured his assent, and again that amusement was there. She began to feel just a tiny bit afraid of him. No. Not afraid. Wary. He seemed to sense it, for when she tried to walk away, he followed her. He actually walked beside her, as if he were escorting her. She was halfway afraid he would follow her right into the Concourse, but he stopped at the door.
“I need something from you, before you go,” he suddenly requested.
“Of course.” She lifted her hands to the scarf. “Your name.”
She stood very still. Had he forgotten she was wearing his scarf with the flame jewel on it? If he had, she wasn't going to remind him. Oh, she wouldn't keep it. Not forever, just long enough to show Delo. “Malta,” she told him. Enough of a name that he could find out who had his scarf when he recalled it. Not so much that he could recover it too quickly.
“Malta…” he let it hang, prompting her. She pretended not to understand. “I see,” he said after a moment. “Malta. Good evening, then, Malta.”
“Good evening.” She turned and hurried through the great doors of the hall. Once within, she hastily removed the scarf and jewel. Whatever the scarf was woven of, it was fine as gossamer. When she bunched it in her hands, it was small enough to fit completely inside the pocket sewn into her cloak. She stowed it there. Then, with a small smile of satisfaction, she returned to the hall. Folk in there were still taking turns at speeches. Covenants, compromises, rebellions, slavery, war, embargoes. She was sick of it all. She just wished they would give up and be quiet so her mother would take her home, where she could admire the flame jewel in the privacy of her own room.
The rest of the tangle did not seem to sense that anything was amiss. Sessurea, perhaps, was a bit uneasy, but the others were content. Food was plentiful and easily obtained, the atmosphere of this Plenty was warm, and the new salts woke exciting colors in the fresh skins that their shedding revealed. They shed frequently, for the feeding was rich and growth was easy. Perhaps, Shreever thought discontentedly, that was all the others had ever sought. Perhaps they thought this indolent life of feeding and shedding was rebirth. She did not.
She knew Maulkin sought far more than this. The rest of the tangle was short-sighted not to perceive Maulkin's anxiety and distress. North he had led them, following the shadow of the provider. Several times he had halted at warm flows of un-briny water, tasting and tasting yet again the strange atmospheres. The others had always wanted to hasten after the provider. Once Sessurea had shocked them by extending his ruff and challenging their passage to halt them in their foolish following. But moments later, Maulkin had closed his jaws in bafflement, and left the warm flow, to once more take his place in the provider's shadow.
Shreever had not been overly distressed when the provider had halted and Maulkin had been content to stay near it. Who was she to question one who had the memories of the ancients? But when the provider had reversed its path to go south, and Maulkin had bid them follow it yet again, she had become anxious. Something, she felt, was not right. Sessurea seemed to share her unease.
They glimpsed other tangles, following other providers. All seemed content and well fed. At such times, Shreever wondered if the fault were in her. Perhaps she had dreamed of too much, perhaps she had taken the holy lore too literally. But then she would mark how distracted Maulkin was, even in the midst of feeding. While the others snapped and gorged, he would abruptly cease feeding and hang motionless, jaws wide, gills pumping as he quested for some elusive scent. And often, when the provider had halted for a time and the others of the tangle were resting, Maulkin would rise, nearly to the Lack, to begin a twining dance with lidded eyes. At such times, Sessurea watched him almost as closely as she did. Over and over again their leader knotted his body and then flowed through the knot, sensitizing the entire length of his skin to all the atmosphere could tell him. He would trumpet lightly and fitfully to himself, snatches of nonsense interspersed with holy lore. Sometimes he would lift his head above the Plenty and into the Lack, and then let himself sink again, muttering of the lights, the lights.
Shreever could endure it no longer. She let him dance until exhaustion began to dim his false-eyes. In a slow wavering of weariness, he began to drift toward the bottom. Ruff slack and unchallenging, she approached his descent and matched it. “Maulkin,” she bugled quietly. “Has your vision failed? Are we lost?”
He unlidded his eyes to stare at her. Almost lazily he looped a loose coil around her, drawing her down to tangle with him in the soft muck. “Not merely a place,” he told her almost dreamily. “It is a time as well. And not just a time and a place, but a tangle. A tangle such as has not been gathered since ancient times. I can almost scent a One Who Remembers.”
Shreever shivered her coils, trying to read his memory. “Maulkin. Are not you One Who Remembers?”
“I?” His eyes were lidding again. “No. Not completely. I can almost remember. I know there is a place, and a time, and a tangle. When I experience them, I will know them without question. We are close, very close, Shreever. We must persevere and not doubt. So often the time has come and gone, and we have missed it. I fear that if we miss it yet again, all our memories of the ancient times will fade, and we will never be as we were.”
“And what were we?” she asked, simply to hear him confirm it.
“We were the masters, moving freely through both the Lack and the Plenty. All that one knew, everyone knew, and all shared the memories of all time, from the beginning. We were powerful and wise, respected and revered by all the lesser creatures of mind.”
“And then what happened?” Shreever asked the rote question.
“The time came to be reshaped. To mingle the essences of our very bodies, and thus to create new beings, partaking of new vitality and new strengths. It was time to perform the ancient cycling of joining and sundering, and growing yet again. It was time to renew our bodies.”
“And what will happen next?” she completed her part of the ritual.
“All will come together at the time and the place of the gathering.
All memory shall be shared again, all that was held safe by one shall be given back to all. The journey to rebirth shall be completed, and we shall rise in triumph once more.”
“So it shall be,” Sessurea confirmed from nearby in the tangle. “So it shall be.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Candletown
Candletown was a lively little trade port on the marrow peninsula. Althea had been here before, with her father. As she stood on the deck of the Reaper and looked around at the busy harbor, it suddenly seemed that if she jumped from the ship and ran down the docks, she must find the Vivacia tied up and her father on board her just as it used to be. He'd be in the captain's salon, receiving merchants from the city. There would be fine brandy and smoked fish and aged cheese set out, and the atmosphere would be one of comradely negotiation as he offered his cargo in exchange for their wares or coin. The room would be both clean and cozy, and Althea's stateroom would be as it once had been, her personal haven.
The sudden ache of longing she felt for the past was a physical pain in her chest. She wondered where her ship was, and how she was faring under Kyle's usage. She hoped Wintrow had become a good companion to her, despite the jealousy that assured her that no one could ever know the Vivacia as well as she did. Soon, she promised both herself and her distant ship. Soon.
“Boy!”
The sharp word came from close behind her, and she jumped before she recognized both Brashen's voice and the teasing snap in the word. Still, “Sir?” she asked, turning hastily.