“You came because you want to help, but don’t think you can. Stay. Tell our story.”
Jones had a beat to cover, leads to follow and ledes to write.
But she had started all this, in the small way a teller starts a tale. And if they died and she didn’t, she could forge of their story a weapon to throw against the wizards in their glass towers. To fight back, as she hadn’t fought twenty years ago.
“I can’t join you. It’s not…” Professional ethics made a hollow sound when struck.
“You could help us build camp,” Claire said. “If that won’t strain your morals.”
“No,” she said. “I can do that much.”
56
The nurse led Dr. Hasim to the room where Umar lay. A pale man slept there too, in a long white bed separated from Umar’s by a blue curtain. “I’m sorry,” the nurse said as they entered. “There weren’t enough beds; we had to fit him somewhere. We’ll move him soon, now most of your group’s awake. But he hasn’t responded since he arrived.”
“Thank you,” Hasim said. “Leave us, please?”
The man left.
Hasim placed a chair by the bed, so soft it made no sound. Umar did not twitch. Even so light a movement would have broken his normal featherweight sleep. Sunrise could wake Umar through blackout curtains. A cat’s padding across the carpet made the big man twist and grumble. Falling temperatures, or rising, or a gust of wind, or the moon in the acacias, snapped him awake and philosophical. Hasim himself slept deeply, and shared these moments only in the half consciousness that ensued when Umar shoved him awake to talk. Fear haunted Umar at night: fear they would be attacked, the city would fall, the Refuge would fail. Many predators preyed on small gods. But he also jostled Hasim awake to debate the reality of shadows, the meaning of prayer, the logic of resurrection, the lives of gods.
Mention these matters to Umar in daylight, and he would laugh. Umar’s god, like him, preferred the strength and speed and blood of living things to scholarship. Hasim enjoyed Umar’s game of anxiety and denial. It was one of many games they played together.
In Alt Coulumb, now, Umar’s hand lay on scratchy sheets, far from the delicate cottons of their bed. Hasim took his hand, felt hard callus ridges. Umar’s palm was heavy with muscle. He squeezed. Umar did not respond.
“We’ll fight,” Hasim said, leaning close to Umar’s cheek. “Aedi cast the deciding vote. If you can believe that.”
He watched for a twitch in the broad chest, a flare of a several-times-broken nose. None came.
“I wish you were here to help us.” His voice caught, and he forced himself to laugh. “I’ll fight, Umar. Me. Life’s road takes strange turns.” No answer. “I thought you would find that funny. I won’t shame you.”
That was how they talked to each other, building trust falls into conversation. You could never shame me, that was Umar’s line. But Umar said nothing.
“I won’t shame you,” he repeated, louder, so wherever he was he could hear.
He kissed him once. His beard was dense and pillowy against Hasim’s cheek.
Hasim left the chair by the bedside. If the nurses did not move the chair back, and Umar woke while he was out, Umar would see Hasim had come to sit with him. Just in case, Hasim left a note. We are well. I love you. Superstition tugged at Hasim as he signed his name, but the hexes he feared were all an ocean away. He doubted many here could even read Talbeg.
He wrote Umar’s public name on the envelope, and added a seal so the letter would burn if opened by anyone but him. He set this on the bedside table before he left.
As the door closed, Umar shifted beneath the sheets.
*
Late late late, and more than a little drunk, Cat wove toward the Bounty. They’d drawn up the gangplank, but with a running leap she cleared the few yards between dock and ship, caught a net slung over the side to dry, and face-planted against wood that smelled of tar and salt. She climbed the side, caught the railing, vaulted over, and was promptly tackled by a skeleton.
The tackle didn’t go well for the skeleton, since skeletons by and large don’t have enough mass for tackling. Cat tossed the skelly across her shoulder to the deck. Poorly linked bones jarred loose as it fell. Two blades glinted in firelight to her left. She grabbed the skeleton’s fallen sword, slipped, and tumbled into a front roll that she hoped looked planned. Upright more or less, she spun sternward to face the blades: a shiny woman—with gills?—and a man whose left arm was some sort of golemetric construct. She raised one hand, palm out, lowered the sword. “Hey. Hey. No trouble. I just want to see your boss.”
“Should have climbed higher,” Raz said from the foredeck. She turned and waved with the sword. Lantern flames added orange to the scab-red of his eyes.
“I was just looking for you!”
“I know.” He landed in front of her, strong enough his weight didn’t cause his legs to bend.
“Show-off.”