“Then Ilior, you must remain here,” Selena said. “The cold won’t kill me, but it can you,” she told her friend. She gentled her tone. “You can’t protect me from it.”
Vai’Ensai pressed his lips together. “Twice now, you’ve tried to leave me behind.”
Selena took his hand. “For your own health. I don’t want to see you suffer needlessly.”
“And what of your suffering?”
“Accora is a means to its end,” Selena said. “Its final end. I can’t falter now.”
She was relieved when Ilior finally nodded, albeit slowly, stiffly, as if it took everything he had to let her go. He turned to Julian, his eyes hard. “You will go and watch over her.”
Julian snorted a laugh into his wine cup. “As you command.”
“I’ll come too.”
All three glanced up to see Niven, bundled in a fur-lined cloak. He drew himself up. “It is an Aluren matter, after all, and I am a devoted adherent to the Shining face.”
Selena was about to protest but thought better of it. If there is an injury along the way, I may be too weak to heal it.
“Yes, of course. Let’s go.” She paused to lay her hand on Ilior’s arm. “Stay warm.”
He rumbled deep in his throat, like stones rolling down a hill. “Stay safe.”
“I will,” she said, and left him at the fire; the Vai’Ensai’s face dark and grim as he watched them depart.
Behind the White Sail sat the cask house, a large, squat, stone building that reminded Selena of the Guild for its plain, square shape. Inside, the walls were lined with barrels, stacked atop one another and the floor was strewn with pine needles that whispered underfoot. By the light of Captain Tunney’s oil lantern, Selena counted seven or eight long wooden tables with benches. They were shielded from the wind in here but the air was crisp and cold.
“Sometimes, the carousing gets to be a bit much when the merchantmen come to buy and sell,” the captain said, “and the Sail be full to bursting. The overflow comes here.” He set the lantern on the nearest table along with his other burden: two small buckets, one splattered with white mud, the other dark brown. “There be other inns an’ taverns on Nanokar, but Hilka an’ her old man run the best o’ the bunch. Merchants from Isle o’ Lords, especially, prefer her lodgings. They be used to the finer things.” He thumbed his nose and gave Selena a wink.
“Is this where the oil is stored?” Niven asked, looking at the casks.
“No, young sir,” Captain Tunney said. “That treasure be kept elsewheres, far away from flame and hearth fires, and drunken men with their pipes and smokes. And I cain’t be saying where so don’t ask,” he said with a laugh. “These here hold wine and mead. Now then. The trek be long and the wind be biting, as we like to say. Paint up.”
Selena watched as the man dipped his hand into the bucket of white mud and smeared it on the lower half of his face.
“It’s to protect the skin,” Julian told Selena, “from wind and sleet and the like.”
“Aye, how else you think I keeps me youthful looks?” Tunney laughed.
“Does each person wear the same designs?” Selena said, thinking back on the elaborate designs she’d seen some of the sailors wear.
“You can paint yerself however you please, but most men end up choosing something meaningful to them.” He gave them all a stern eye. “An’ you cain’t be asking ‘bout a man’s choosing, neither. T’is bad luck.”
Niven dipped a finger in the dark brown. “Every man wearing the…windpaint, was it? Must they wear both colors?”
“Respect!” Captain Tunney thundered. “To honor the Two-Faced God, a ‘course. It’s bad luck to wear one color; you never know which mood the god be taking: Shadow face, or Shining, as the shape o’ the moon don’t always tell the truth.” He rose from the bench. “Sit tight, me friends, an’ I’ll fetch my team an’ be back afore yer paint is dry.”
Niven frowned and Selena knew the pious young man didn’t like the idea of paying any sort of fealty to the Shadow face of the god. He wiped the brown mud onto his cloak and dipped into the white bucket instead.
While he and Julian painted their faces Selena slipped off her gloves. Her fingers were stiff and trembled. She reached for the white mud and cracked her knuckles on the side of the bucket trying to reach inside.
“Let me,” Julian said.
Selena nodded and whispered a thank you that turned into a gasp when she saw his face. He had painted one side, from brow to chin in white, the other in brown; a perfect line dividing the two that ran straight down the center. He had artfully added small dots of alternating colors to outline the whole. But it was the shadow and light that sent her heart to pounding.
Trickster…Selena thought of An-Lan’s reading, and her hand went to her pocket where the coin of Oshkat lay, forgotten until now. The coin and the seer’s reading were irrevocably linked in her mind.
Julian sat back. “What’s the matter?”
“N-nothing,” Selena said. She released the coin in her pocket. Superstitious foolishness. “It’s nothing,” she said again. “I’m sorry, your design…it just gave me a start. An old memory…nothing more.”
“I see.”
Again, she tried to glean the tiniest idea of what her captain might be thinking and again her attempt yielded nothing. It’s nonsense to put stock into a seer’s words, she told herself. Let it go.
“I’ll do my own paint,” she said. “Probably bad luck not to.”
Julian maintained his stare a heartbeat longer and then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Conscience of her trembling hands, she started to paint. The mud was thick and smelled strongly of soil, but it adhered fast and Selena thought she sensed a bit of relief from the cold wherever it touched her skin. She did her best to cover her face in white and render a crescent moon on her left cheek. “Is it very terrible?” she asked Niven.
Niven inspected Selena’s face. He had smeared a copious amount of white mud over his face and marked only his chin with the smallest smudge of dark brown, giving him a ghostly mien. “It’s fine. Though none of us can hold a candle to Captain Tergus.”
Julian waved a hand and Selena heard him mutter, “Oh, bugger me,” when Captain Tunney appeared at the door of the cask house and whistled between his teeth when he saw Julian’s face. “Now, Cap’n Tergus, I ne’er woulda pegged ye for an artist!”
“It’s nothing,” Julian snapped, rising off the bench. “We still have a long ride, yes?”
Captain Tunney laughed. “Aye, we do. Come, me lady, young adherent, an’ modest cap’n. The library awaits.”
Tunney’s dogs—eight beautiful animals, with thick gray and white fur and piercing blue eyes— barked and struggled against their harnesses when Selena and her companions emerged from the cask house. The four of the climbed onto a long sled made of smooth wood and leather straps. Tunney assured them that the dogs could handle their weight.