Lies of Light

16

9 Kythorn, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR) Aboard Jie Zud, in Innarlith Harbor

The air was so warm she didn’t mind being wet, even so late at night. The thin material of her undergarments clung to her, and Phyrea was reminded of her leathers, which she hadn’t worn in a very long time.

You have as much right to it as she does, the old woman with the terrible burn scars on her face and neck whispered, maybe more so. It should be yours.

Phyrea shook her head and looked at the woman. She stood only a few paces down the rail from her, though “stood” might not have been the right word. Her feet didn’t quite touch the deck. Phyrea could easily make out the outlines of the sterncastle through her incorporeal form, and when she spoke her lips didn’t move.

“No,” Phyrea answered aloud, shaking her head.

You could have killed that man, the little boy said from behind her. Phyrea didn’t turn to look but she could feel him there. No one will do anything to you if you do it. You won’t get in trouble. They’re not from here. They’re not like us.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Phyrea said. “Not these people.”

She looked out over the still water to the lights of the city. The moon was bright in the clear, star-speckled sky, trailing her glittering tears behind her. Phyrea felt a sudden urge to offer a prayer to Selunea prayer of forgiveness, perhaps.

You have nothing to be ashamed of, the voice of the man murmured in her head. He sounded bored, old, and tired. Except for relinquishing the sword.

Yes, said the old woman, you should be ashamed of giving away that sword.

“No,” Phyrea sighed.

Yes, the woman repeated as she drifted closer. The Thayan will destroy you and everything you’ve ever loved with that sword.

And it was meant for you, the man said.

And we want it back, said the boy.

“You’re wrong,” Phyrea said, not looking at the ghosts. She ran a finger along the cool, smooth tiles on the railing. The glazed ceramic shone in the moonlight. “No, you’re lying. He can’t destroy everything I’ve ever loved, because I’ve never loved anything, except”

“Who are you?” a strange, heavily-accented voice interrupted. Phyrea dismissed it as another ghost, until she heard a footstep. “Answer me, woman, or your head and your body will go separately into the next world.”

Phyrea turned her head. The woman that had been there before, the one that had taken up residence in Phyrea’s head, was gone. The silhouette of a woman stood at the hatch to the sterncastle. Phyrea couldn’t see her face, but the straight-bladed long sword she held in her right hand reflected Selune’s brilliance. “Speak,” the woman demanded.

Phyrea sighed, and made a point to leave both her hands on the railing in front of her where they could be clearly seen.

Another hatch opened, and a man’s voice rattled through a sentence’s worth of words in some incomprehensible tongue. He was answered by a single word from the woman.

“I am master of this vessel,” the woman said, “and I command you to explain yourself.”

“I just wanted to see it,” Phyrea said, her voice quiet and small, weak even, but carrying well enough in the still night air. “No… I mean, I wanted to touch it. I wanted to feel it.”

The woman and the man kept quiet and still while Phyrea fought back tears.

“My man,” the womanRan Ai Yusaid, “did you kill him?”

Phyrea shook her head.

The woman stepped closer, and Phyrea could feel her eyes on her. Phyrea was unarmed. She was practically naked. There were more footsteps, more men, more of Ran Ai Yu’s crew.

“I might have hurt him,” Phyrea said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “You are the daughter of the master builder.”

She wants him too, you know, the old woman’s voice whispered inside her.

“Why wouldn’t she?” Phyrea answered aloud. Ran Ai Yu stepped closer still.

“Are you drunk?” the Shou woman asked. “Are you mad?”

Phyrea laughed and sobbed at the same time.

“He built this,” Phyrea said. “He made it with his own hands, but more than that, he formed it in his mind from nothing. He conjured it, you know, but not the way a wizard would. It was an act of pure creation, the invention of something from nothing.”

“Ivar Devorast,” Ran Ai Yu said, “yes.”

Phyrea cringed, almost seized when the woman of purple light shrieked, You see?

“Stop it,” Phyrea demanded of the ghost. “You don’t know.”

“I do,” the Shou answered.

Phyrea shook her head, her tears mingling with the harbor water that still dampened her face.

“What haunts you, girl?” Ran Ai Yu asked.

Phyrea looked up into the black sky, purposefully turning her head away from dazzling Selune, and said, “Him, more than anything.”

We are your blood, Phyrea, the voice of the little girl who walked through walls sighed, and we love you. We love you more than he ever will, no matter how much you smile at him, or whatever presents you bring.

“You lie,” Phyrea whispered.

“You must find someone to help you,” Ran Ai Yu said. “But not here. You are not welcome here.”

One of the men spoke to his mistress in their native tongue, and again Ran Ai Yu answered with but a single word.

Then in Common she said, “No, I can not let her swim back at night. There will be tonrongs. I will have my men lower a boat and row you back to the city. I hope you will never again be so foolish as to do this, and if my man here is dead, or dies as a result of your attack upon him, there will be a debt owed.”

Phyrea couldn’t move, even just to shrug, nod, or hake her head. Her hands warmed the tiles on the railing, and her feet caressed the deck. Her heart seemed to swell in her chest and she stood there, her hair beginning to dry and swirl in a sudden breeze, while they lowered a boat.

Before she climbed down into it, she looked at the Shou sailor sprawled on the deck, and in the quiet she could hear him breathing.

You should have killed that slant-eyed foreign bastard, the little boy told her.

Phyrea saw him standing there, the outline of Ran Ai Yu visible through the violet luminescence, and she was all but overcome with sadness.

“Perhaps,” the Shou woman said, “if you too had something of his…”

Not wanting her to continue, Phyrea turned and followed a wary sailor into the waiting boat.