What the Water Gave Me (Izdihar and Subira)

[Izdihar]

OOCPlease accept my apologies for the delay. Real life attacked like a shark, a ravenous shark. Six hands to scramble and grab, pitch and haul might have made the treacherous ascent up the so-called docks of Librum easier; but it meant thrice as many wounded appendages once they reached the door. Yet for a pampered daughter of the Westwinds, Izdihar climbed with alacrity and without protest, ignoring the bite and sting of barnacles and mollusks for they seemed so much lesser than the ravenous teeth of the crocodile that had taken Andrick and – her head turned, thick braids heavy with water coming unpinned -- the child. Mutely she accepted the makeshift bandages offered her by Subira and dropped, heavy with water and wasted energy. Strips of Subira’s dress were pulled taut in her hands, blood speckling gilded flesh, drizzling in serpentine currents. The fabric of her trousers had spared her legs by and large, but her hands were ravaged, her stockings all but shredded as her boots had been lost in Laviku’s struggle. In the end she caught the end of a bandage in fine, white teeth, savage and matter of fact as any beast intent on survival. This Painted Face, far from all but one of the other faces, wrinkled her dainty nose and proceeded to wrap up her palms, leaving fingers free. “Subira,” she murmured with perhaps shockingly calm conviction. It might have been born of her shadow profession, the hidden face with nerves of steel required of it; but it could with equal ease have been the vocalization of sheltered nobility, unceasingly certain of the sun’s revolution around her. Regardless, Izdihar’s throat was hoarse with salt and spent wind. “All of Ahnatep will miss us in due time. We but need to survive until they regain their wits.” The smile she turned up to her childhood friend, the matured portrait of a girl she used to know, was revitalizing and fresh. Stiff care and determination had her shoving back up to her feet, balancing for a precarious moment as toes stung and ached and she squinted out across the waters, half of her searching for sight of a boat and the other for the faces of Andrick and the child. “No matter,” she muttered to herself, half under her breath, and turned to tug loose the bright shawl and hand it to Subira. Clear eyes met her’s, tired and wry. “Know anything about picking locks?” How rude! But, of course, they were far from court; and, besides, she plucked and untangled a pair of hair pins from straggling braids, displaying them in their jewel bright glory on a bandaged hand. “I don’t, but I’m damn willing to try.”

[Colombina]

OOCI too met a landshark who impeded my posting. They're more common than you think. The water rose a degree and elsewhere, Subira's family was happily gliding through the estuary or cutting smooth lines in the calm just behind the waves. They were waving to the specks that represented one another, failing to keep count of who still remained. In time they would gather for West Winds beer and begin to wonder if Subira was abandoning festivities to study again. As the women's clever efforts and wild beating against the door began to flag, it finally opened above their heads. Sweet salvation came in the form of a hooded Ano cultist. Though her robes obscured her sex, her hand and voice were that of a young woman. She coolly took in the sopping pair: Subira's bleeding feet and the kohl smeared around Izdihar's barely tamed eyes. Their desperate state didn't move her in the slightest. Cultists were not known for their sentiment. "No visitors today, miladies." The robed cultist began the ponderous task of shutting the door again, but the nobles were on their feet, Izdihar tried to cajole with lies that turned to threats and Subira lunged for the opening with the spite of a tigress. "No no no! We're coming in," the South declared, "I don't give a chupra's dirty sandal…!" The cultist had snatched Subira's outstretched wrist from the air and twisted it painfully. "Impossible." She managed to reply with a polite smile, as if insisting they truly were out of barley today. "An overstatement," the water seemed to answer. In reply, the cultist missed a breath and released Subira's arm. Broad Andrick had risen from the water, pulling himself half over the barnacled ledge. A bit of flotsam drifted behind him, an impromptu raft. His bandages were waterlogged and slipping from their place. As he hoisted his leg, one could see flesh pierced down to the bone. It was ghastly to be reminded of all the macabre pieces skin so politely hid. "Today, none but the veiled can come, brother," the girl tried to protest. "We all enter," he explained with more calm than he should have been capable of. The wrappings thought to hide his scars revealed mottled skin on his arms and wounded leg, but it was a marvelous pattern, intricate as clockwork instead of the puckered pink skin expected. "Counter Measure," the girl tried to counter, "Rezon is here." "I know," he was steady in his insistence, "Let them in." With nervous haste, they were given entry to the perilous stairs of the Librum.

[Subira]

Forgetting the pain in her wrist where the cultist had twisted it, Subira let out a gasp of astonishment and her jaw dropped as she watched what seemed to be an apparition rising from the sea. She had to stop herself from trying to reach out and pluck at Andrick's torn and bloodied shoulder or arm to assure herself that he wasn't a ghost borne out of imagination or guilt. She'd given him up for dead back there, thinking she'd never see him again, yet somehow he had wrested himself free of the jaws of the sea and the shark alike to stand here before them. The sight of the ghastly wound gaping along his leg, showing ragged flesh, oozing blood, and the faintest hint of pale bone made her shudder and tremble in horror. Feeling almost faint, Subira hastily averted her eyes from his wound, lifting her gaze to the improbable serenity of his familiar, rough-featured face. Only a hero of legend could have saved Izdihar from drowning so selflessly and then fought off the shark that ripped apart their boat, she thought, dizzy with admiration and disbelief. Subira had heard stories about how Andrick saved Lord Bahhet's life as a cabin boy on a burning ship. Now she could believe it. The realization that Andrick was alive was shock enough, but when the female Ano Cultist greeted the bulky, bloodied human as "brother," Subira's world began spinning uncontrollably around her ears. He responded with such calm authority that she knew he had to be one of them. Subira's legs almost gave way beneath her, and only the fierce self-reminder that she was a Souths woman, not some wilting West Winds flower or decorative East Winds jewel, kept her from falling over. Andrick, an Ano Cultist? Andrick, a Counterweight? How was it possible? How could he have worked for years as a kitchen servant, with no one the wiser? Now Subira remembered the other whispered stories about Andrick, the ones that claimed the human man was a liar and a sham. No one had ever heard of this miraculous cabin boy until the day he showed up on the Souths' doorstep, after all. The whisperers had guessed that Andrick had some kind of hold over Lord Bahhet, but Subira knew no one could have imagined the truth. Andrick was one of the highest-ranking members in the whole Ano Cult. Following his curt instructions, the girls were ushered into the Librum behind him and the female Ano Cultist. Subira gasped in relief as her bare feet touched the smooth marble of the floor, cool against her bleeding soles and comforting compared to the rough stone of the Librum docks. Too anxious and tired to appreciate her surroundings, her mind only took in a vague impression of white walls and a narrow staircase. "We made it, Izzy," she whispered to the fair West Winds girl, her voice heavy with relief and wonder. "We're out of the water." Now that the numbness of surprise had passed, the pain in her wrist returned, and Subira winced as she turned her forearm this way and that. For people who tried to feel nothing, they certainly knew how to make others feel far too much! The numerous scars on Andrick's formerly bandaged flesh suggested as much, forming surprisingly symmetrical and methodical patterns like the facets of a finely cut gemstone. Did Lord Bahhet know what he really was? she wondered. Was he advising the Souths, merely observing them, or, the gods forbid, leading them astray? Why had he allowed them to enter the Librum, when the female Ano Cultist had been about to close the door in their faces? "Andrick," she said, raising her voice slightly to the human. "Who are you? Why did you let us in?"

[Izdihar]

Izdihar's breath drew sharp at the sight of Subira's captured wrist. Two hands came up, fingers spreading wide, to catch her friend's hip and pull her back a step. It was in the same moment that the water spoke and Subira was released, leaving the Westwinder staring over the tense rise of her shoulder. Lips parted and a drop of salt water trembled off the line of her jaw as it dropped. "Andrick?" Counterweight? "You're alive!" Izdihar bounced up to her toes while battered fingers gripped Subira's wrist, squeezing out a mixture of excitement and relief that flooded too furious for the presence of Ano Cultists. The female cultist who had coldly denied them entrance was delivered a look worthy of the Pressorah herself. Impossible, was it? And Izidhar made haste to follow Andrick and Subira within, casting a final glance back at the waters before peering ahead, abruptly fascinated, to learn what all was going to wash up next. "Are you alright?" She wanted to know, some of the life the wind had whipped into her earlier eddying color back to her cheeks even as it had stripped off so much of her distant polish. "Did you kill the shark? Did you use my knife? However did you manage it?" All the while she kept a grip on Subira's wrist, maybe as an anchor, better yet a tether as her eyes swept from ceiling to floor and then to her childhood friend with an expression that said quite clearly: oh my. "Who is Rezon? And why would leave us out there with the tide rising? Did you intend to come here, when offering to assist with the ship? Andrick?" At least it could not be said her chatter was empty.

[Colombina]

"How could I leave you there?" Andrick bowed his head under Subira's direct question, embarrassed. He was not so wooden as the young woman, allowing emotions to move him without overwhelming him. A Countermeasure knew the goal was not to remove feeling, but to balance it against higher things. "I am a competent butcher and a very poor baker." The true answer was given after the words: an almost helpless gesture as he subtly showed his arms with their subcutaneous patterns. It recalled more an apology than an explanation. A man more accustomed to words might have been able to console Subira better, but Andrick knew he was more weapon than scholar. For not the first time, it pained him. Izdihar's disarmingly girlish effusion removed a link of the spectral chain hevnow wore. His mouth's corners might have dared upwards. At the base of the precarious stairs, he ceremoniously presented Izdihar's knife to her flat across his palms. "I thank you and the goddess gift, lady." Both the knife and his dense bone had been useful, despite the weight the latter added to his frame in water. "The rest will come in its best time." The staircase was another dreadful test for the weary and waterlogged. It had no guiding rails and was a tight spiral to an uncertain surface. Andrick situated himself between the nobles, moving with an ease unexpected from his wounds. Each step was only wide enough to bear one. His hands were quick to clasp either hand or elbow in the disorienting ascent. Whoever he was, he was being very careful with the noblewomen. The uncovered surface that greeted them was pure rock: slick and pocked by centuries of rain and wind. The lady cultist tucked her robes closer about her, so they did not twist with the onshore winds. It was an unkind terrain intended for cultists to test their mettle against. Progress was careful, hastening only when they were near enough a dark tower. Andrick pushed the doors inward, and here the younger cultist went no further. She bowed and turned to slowly pick her way across the rock. What met them was a foyer perfectly bare and tiled in glossy black stone. One of the veiled emerged to meet them, her long fingered hands were wrinkled and feminine. She paused once in her approach to absorb all that could be discerned of them through sight. "Come brother," her hands were extended, "Let us see to you." Andrick waited for more, unwillingly to go where the women could not follow. "To all of you," she added with some warmth. Beyond the foyer was an almost identical room with benches and slats where sunlight pressed through. In moments blankets were on the women's shoulders and herbal tonics and teas were served on trays. Nothing presented to them was sumptuous, but there was a calm beauty in the simplicity of even the cups offered. Andrick was given a box of tools and had begun to see to his own wounds, going so far as to begin the process of quietly sewing the flesh of his leg back together with catgut. While the "servant" took care of immediate concerns the veiled one spoke gently to the women. The motherly comfort of her voice was girded with the gravity of an oath. "Countermeasure Andrick has brought you into rare places. Do you accept his invitation and the protection it implies, or do you wish to continue under your own banners?" It was an odd question, but the women could feel the ceremony of it. The rule of the Librum was apart from the city. It had its own wards and oaths, and there was something precarious about it all.

[Subira]

Subira felt an inexplicable desire to hug Andrick when he gave his simple answers to her half-wondering, half-accusatory questions, just as she had wanted to hug him every time he had shown her sympathy or given her aid when she was young. He had always been singularly kind to her, even when no one else was; perhaps that, and Izdihar's beauty and charm, had persuaded him to give them shelter when the younger Ano Cultist would have slammed the Librum's door in their faces. The sight of his old scars and fresh wounds moved her to regret and gratitude. She should be thanking him, not suspecting him. But if it would not do for a young noblewoman to hug a kitchen servant, it would do even less for her to embrace a Countermeasure of the Ano Cult. After he had returned Izdihar's knife to its bright-cheeked owner, Subira settled for simply flashing him a smile as full of warmth and appreciation as she could make it. What Andrick was doing among the Souths was a question for another time; for now, all she knew for sure was that she and Izdihar owed him their lives. For all of Izdihar's courage in facing the sea despite not knowing how to swim, and for all of her resolve in not letting it defeat her, Subira could see clearly that Andrick was the true hero of the day. She smiled gratefully at him again as he helped both women climb the narrow, spiraling stairs, which were near as precarious as a ship's rigging. What marvelous sailors these Cultists would make, she couldn't help thinking, if they ever turned their attention to more than cutting on themselves! The slick rock that awaited them outside demanded the same care as walking across a storm-pounded deck. Only her two decades' worth of training helped the weary Subira keep her balance, and she made sure that Izzy kept her tight hold on her wrist to keep the other woman on her feet as well. At last, they reached a tower, and care and healing was offered to them within in the form of hot tea, herbal tonics, and blankets. Subira's sigh of relief, however, was soon followed with one of exasperation as the veiled matron addressed her strange, solemn question to them. Her voice was so grave, but her words at first made no sense at all to the South woman's tired mind. "Confound it all, why can't any of you speak plainly?" she exclaimed, her gaze sweeping from the veiled woman to the servant. "Why must you always mumble in codes and riddles instead of just saying what you mean?" Subira's eyes fell on Andrick, who was stoically sewing his own flesh shut. He glanced up once, as though sensing her gaze, and despite his mild expression she thought she saw a look of mild reproof flash across his face. Brief though it was, it quelled her outburst. His look had made her feel like a new initiate might after being reprimanded for an unseemingly show of emotion. "I guess you can't help it," she mumbled, lowering her eyes. "Besides, I guess you've earned the right to ask the questions. Fine, fine, I accept Andrick's invitation and the protection it implies." She shrugged and gave a low chuckle. "I could think about it, hem and haw, maybe even try to figure out your riddle, but that's just not my way. I'm a navigator, even if I am a few years out of practice. Never let it be said that I sailed into unknown waters and turned away from the chance to chart the path to new shores."