Читать книгу The Diminished - Kaitlyn Patterson Sage - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

VI

With only hours left until his departure, Sawny and I stayed awake all night, teasing and telling stories and remembering and acting like nothing would change when we were an ocean apart. Even Lily managed to endure my presence in their shared room with a bare minimum of complaints. She had, after all, gotten her way.

We’d planned to leave the temple quietly before first adulations, but the anchorites who’d taken the most responsibility in raising us—Lugine, Bethea and Sula—were waiting for Sawny and Lily in the entrance hall. They wore informal yellow robes and thick wool scarves in golden orange wrapped tight around their shoulders. The color flattered Sula’s and Lugine’s dark brown skin, making them glow. Unfortunately, for a woman committed to a lifetime wearing a very limited palette, yellow turned Bethea’s thin, pale wrinkles sallow and sickly.

“You’ll not sneak away in the night like thieves,” Bethea said grumpily, but she leaned one of her canes against her hip and pulled Lily in for a hug.

I pressed myself into the wall. This was their moment, and I wanted more than anything to become invisible. The anchorites had never hugged me. Not even once. Sawny and Lily and the other twins like them were, in their own way, the children these women would never give birth to themselves, committed as they were to their goddesses. Though we three were all wards of the temple, the fact that I was a dimmy made me a threat.

I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of goodbye I would get when my time came.

Sula slipped a bulging satchel over Sawny’s shoulder and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “We’d extra copies of some cookery books in the library. I thought you might find them useful in your new life.”

Lugine cupped Sawny’s and Lily’s cheeks, one in each hand, a warm smile lighting her face. “Magritte protect you both. Write often, and let us know how you are.”

“And get yourselves to adulations,” Bethea added. “Just because we’re not there to worry you into the haven hall doesn’t mean you can stop showing up.”

Lily burst into tears and flung her arms around Bethea. Sawny, chin trembling, bit his lip and nodded. I sank farther back into the shadows, tears welling in my own eyes. Even though we’d grown up in the same hall, in the same building, raised by these same women, our lives could not have been more different, and it had taken me until that moment to realize it fully. I would never be missed, never be wanted, never be anything but a burden.

We walked in silence through Penby’s quiet streets in the faint glow of the waning moon, only one of its halves fully visible. I laced my arm through Sawny’s, trying to burn him into my memory. He’d been my best friend my whole life, and it didn’t seem possible that when I trudged back up the hill to the temple later, I would be alone.

The city came alive as we got closer to the docks, where the great iron sunships, Alskad’s greatest pride, were moored. Sailors hauled trunks and crates up and down long gangplanks, officers shouted orders from the decks, and vendors pushed carts, hawking the kinds of trinkets a person might not realize they needed until they were on the verge of leaving everything they knew and loved behind. The whole scene was lit by the hazy, flickering light of sunlamps and the first rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon.

“The ship is called the Lucrecia,” Lily said. “I spoke to a woman named Whippleston to arrange our passage.”

We walked down the docks, scanning the names painted large on the backs of the ships.

“There’s still time to back out,” I said quietly to Sawny, fingering the small pouch I’d stuffed into my pocket after supper the night before. “The anchorites would let you stay a bit longer. Work’s sure to open up somewhere in the city. If not, I’ll be sixteen soon. I know there’s work up north we can take.”

But just as I finished speaking, the Lucrecia loomed up out of the darkness at the end of the dock, her name painted in bright white across the stern far above our heads. A brat couldn’t grow up in Alskad without learning a bit about sunships. Even in the cheap cabins set aside for contract workers, Sawny and Lily would experience more luxury in the short trip across the Tethys than we’d ever imagined. There would be endless buffets, libraries and game rooms. They’d sleep on soft beds, and for the first—and only—time in their lives, they’d wake each morning with nothing to do. A part of me wished that I could walk onto the sunship with Lily and Sawny, just to see, but that would never happen. Not for a dimmy. Not for me.

An imposing woman stood at the end of the gangplank, a sheaf of papers in one hand, a pen in the other. The light gray fur of her jacket’s collar set off her high cheekbones and deep, russet-brown skin. She eyed the three of us as we approached.

“Names?” she asked.

I turned to Sawny. “You’re sure?”

“There’s more opportunity there than we could ever hope for here,” Sawny said, his eyes begging me to understand. “It’ll be a better life. An easier life.”

I retied the bit of string at the end of my braid. Lily reached out and squeezed my shoulder, and I started slightly. It was the first time she’d touched me in years.

“We’ll take care of each other, Vi, and we’ll write. All the time.” She turned to the woman at the end of the gangplank. “Lily and Sawny Taylor. I believe I spoke to your sister?”

The woman laughed heartily. “My daughter. Though I’m grateful to you for the mistake. Let’s get your papers sorted, shall we?”

I tugged on Sawny’s arm, drawing him away from the gangplank and the sunlamp’s glow. Once we were in the shadows, I pulled him close to me, like the sweethearts we’d never been. Never thought of becoming. People’s eyes slipped away from sweethearts, cuddled up to say goodbye, and now more than ever, I needed to go unnoticed.

Sawny squirmed. “What’re you about?”

“Shut up and let me hug you, yeah?” I said, loud enough for anyone passing by to hear. I stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “If you’re going to insist on leaving me behind, I have a going away gift for you. But you have to promise me you won’t open it until you’re well away at sea.”

“Vi, you’ve nothing—”

“Don’t be after arguing with me, Sawny. I’ve never had a scrap to give you for birthdays, high holidays, none of it. Let me do this one thing.”

I dug into my pocket and fished out the little pouch, keeping my other arm around Sawny’s shoulders. There were sixteen perfect pearls and a couple of dozen less valuable, slightly blemished ones inside the pouch I’d sewn from a scrap of a too-small pair of trousers. The pearls were some of the best of my collection, and enough to give them a start on their savings. It wasn’t enough to pay off their passage or set them up with a shop of their own, but it was something. It was all I could give them.

A long time ago, when I’d first learned to dive from one of the anchorites’ hirelings, she’d told me how pearls were made. The temple anchorites only had use for natural pearls, the ones that came of a tiny grain of sand or bit of shell irritating the oyster’s delicate tissues. But, the woman had told me, there was beginning to be a market for a new kind of pearl, one that could be farmed on lines strung in the ocean. They weren’t quite as valuable, but when you knew that almost every oyster would make a pearl, a bigger profit could be had.

That bit of information had sparked an idea, and as soon as I’d begun to dive on my own, I’d hung lines and baskets beneath the docks, where none of the other divers ever went. I tended them for four long years, and on my twelfth birthday, I opened the first oyster off my lines and slipped a pearl as big as the nail on my little pinky from its shell. In the three years since, I’d harvested close to two hundred pearls from my lines, more than ten for every one natural pearl I’d found and handed over to the anchorites.

That collection was hidden away beneath a floorboard in my tiny room in the temple. I’d created a small cushion for myself—enough to buy a cottage on one of the northernmost islands in the Alskad Empire, where folks were said to keep to themselves.

When I lost myself to the grief, I’d be far enough away from other folks that I wouldn’t be able to do much harm. I’d be alone. It was selfish of me, wanting to spend whatever time I had left in the company of my only friend, but still I’d thought about offering Sawny and Lily my whole stash—everything I’d ever saved, everything I’d ever created—just so they wouldn’t leave. Wouldn’t leave me alone. But in the end, I couldn’t have lived with the guilt of it. My friendship with Sawny was the only real, honest relationship in my life, and I couldn’t bear the thought of holding them back from the life they’d chosen just because I was so desperate not to be left alone.

Pressing the pouch into Sawny’s hand as stealthily as I could manage, I pulled back from our hug just far enough to fix him with a hard stare. “Don’t say anything.”

Sawny’s dark eyes were wide. “Are these...?”

“Don’t. You know the law. You know the consequences. Sell them when you can. Take your time. Be careful.”

“Vi, this is, far and away, the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Sawny,” Lily called. “It’s time.”

Sawny threw his arms around me and squeezed me tight, and a part of me shattered, knowing it was the last hug I was ever likely to feel.

“I’ll miss you,” he said, and I tucked those words, his voice, deep into my heart.

“I’ll miss you, too.”

I watched as they boarded the Lucrecia and disappeared. As I stood there, the sun crept slowly up behind the ship, lightening the sky from navy to violet to lavender, and a sharp cacophony of pink and yellow and orange. Tears streamed down my cheeks as the sunship was tugged out into the harbor, as the tugboat disconnected and the enormous solar sails unfurled and turned to greet the rising sun.

Watch over them, Pru.

I waited until the ship was a mere speck, a memory traveling far across the sea. I watched, careless of the time, of the stares I gathered from passersby, of the tongue-lashing Lugine was sure to give me the moment I showed my face in the temple, empty-handed and having skipped my morning dive. I didn’t care. I was alone in a city full of people, and nothing at all mattered anymore.

* * *

Without Sawny around to fill my spare time, I wandered through the temple aimlessly, counting down the days left until my birthday, when I would be free of this place and all the unpleasant memories of my childhood that frosted its walls and stained its floors. Whenever I wasn’t diving or off on some errand for an anchorite, I found myself in the library, revisiting the books I’d read over and over as a child. I’d always been fascinated by the stories about the world before the cataclysm.

It had been so vast and varied, and yet so isolated at the same time. But, as the Suzerain would have us believe, its people had grown too bold, too selfish. Dzallie the Warrior asked Gadrian the Firebound to make her a weapon that would split the moon. As moondust and fire rained down upon the world, Hamil the Seabound washed away the dregs of the corrupt civilizations that had so angered the gods. Rayleane the Builder took the clay given to her by Tueber the Earthbound and reshaped the remnants of humanity, splitting each person into two, so that everyone would go through life with a twin, a counterweight—a living conscience. Those few precious to Magritte the Educator remained whole, becoming the singleborn.

There were dozens of religious texts that told the story of the cataclysm, but I think the thing that drew me back to the library again and again were the stories from before. Stories about a time when losing your twin didn’t mean losing your life, your whole self.

It didn’t take long for one of the anchorites to find Anchorite Sula and tell her I’d been lurking around the stacks, failing to make myself useful. One evening after supper, when I’d found an empty corner of the library where I could read in peace, Sula came bustling up to me, her orange robes fluttering behind her and a pained look of concern plastered onto her face.

“Obedience, child,” she said. “Do you want for tasks that will better allow you to serve your chosen deity?”

I shut the book I’d been reading and uncurled myself from the sagging armchair, already exhausted by a conversation I’d had a thousand times or more over the course of my childhood. Every child was encouraged to choose one of the gods and goddesses on whom they could focus their worship. I’d chosen Dzallie the Warrior, not that it mattered much to me either way. I’d long since given up any pretense of believing in the gods and goddesses. Growing up in the temple had shown me time and again that the Suzerain’s goal wasn’t actually the salvation of the souls of the empire, but rather power over those souls and their wealth. If the gods and goddesses were real, they would have given us leaders immune to corruption.

Much to my chagrin, my lack of faith didn’t stop the anchorites from forcing me to attend adulations and questioning me about my devotion.

“I don’t want for anything, Anchorite,” I said, grating against the fact that she’d called me by my given name. “I only had a bit of time and thought I might read.”

“You’ve been downcast since Sawny’s and Lily’s departure.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you noticed.”

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” Sula said, her voice flat with a familiar, weary warning. “Because you seem to have found yourself with so much free time on your hands, I have notified the Suzerain that you will assist with their equipment and cleaning needs during and after the Shriven initiates’ evening training.”

My fingers tightened around the book in my lap, and I fixed my eyes on the stone floor between our feet. The worn flagstones were dark with age and centuries of boots. Someone had mopped recently, not bothering to move the armchair. There was a ring of dust surrounding it, the line between Sula’s feet and mine; I, fittingly, was on the dirty side of the line. I took a deep breath and tried to force my anger down to a manageable level. If Sula heard even a hint of it in my voice, it’d mean overnight adulations in the haven hall for a week at least, and I didn’t think I could stand the oppressive silence or being left alone with my thoughts for that long.

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” I said, taking the time to choose my words carefully, the lies like barbs on my tongue, “my daily service is in the harbor and canneries under the supervision of Anchorite Lugine. And while I would surely be honored to serve the Suzerain in whatever capacity they desire, I know Lugine can’t afford to be left shorthanded during the warm months when we’re able to dive, and I’m in the midst of training my replacement. My sixteenth birthday is just around the corner.”

Sula sniffed. “Your assignment to aid the Shriven initiates’ training is in addition to your service with Anchorite Lugine. There’s no reason you shouldn’t fill every available hour that remains to you as a ward of the temple by repaying the generosity that has kept you fed, clothed and housed for the first sixteen years of your life.”

I bit back the sharp response that threatened to explode from my throat and simply nodded. There was no real use arguing with her. I’d do as they asked and count the days until I could leave, just like I’d always done.

“Go on,” Sula said. “They’re expecting you.”

My head snapped up and I stared at her, bewildered. “Now?”

“Yes, now. Go!”

I managed to keep the string of curses running through my head from making their way out of my mouth until I got into the hall, where I launched into a dead sprint. The last thing I wanted was to be noticed—especially unfavorably noticed—by the Suzerain.

I vaulted down the stairs and tore through the maze of corridors that led to the Shriven’s wing of the temple. I’d made it a point to stay as far away from the Shriven as I possibly could manage over the years, but I’d been sent on errands for them often enough that I knew my way to the large training room.

I paused outside for a moment to catch my breath before easing the door open, hoping to enter unnoticed. But the old hinges squealed, and I winced as every pair of eyes in the room turned to glare at me. There were maybe twenty of the Shriven initiates, all sitting cross-legged and silent. One of them grinned, baring newly sharpened teeth at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Curlin, her face flicking from surprise to a callous sort of amusement as she realized that my being there had nothing at all to do with her. I managed to keep my expression neutral, looking instead to the Suzerain. They stood at the front of the room, their arms crossed over their chests, identically impenetrable looks clouding their faces.

“Obedience,” Castor said, his voice at once familiar and disconcerting. “Anchorite Sula suggested that you might consider joining the ranks of the Shriven and would be well served by observing and assisting with the evening training sessions as we saw fit. In the future, do attempt to arrive in a timely manner so as not to disrupt our proceedings.”

Amler’s head cocked to the side, like a bird trying to decide if the creature in front of it could be eaten. I kept as still as I was able and did my best to fade into the wall. Standing there, with the full weight of their attention fixed on me, made me feel like they could see through to my very core and riffle through every secret I’d ever kept. My mind kept slipping to the loose floorboard beneath my bed and the box hidden there—my collection of pearls, waiting, glowing like so many miniature moons, still unbroken, inside.

“She doesn’t want to join the Shriven, brother. She wants to be rid of the temple as soon as we’ll consent to her leaving.”

“I simply stated Anchorite Sula’s suggestion,” Castor observed. “I didn’t say that she was correct.”

Amler nodded. “A fair point, well made, but we’ve lost two full minutes to this disturbance, and I would not like to divert from our schedule any more than absolutely necessary. Obedience, please remain in the back, out of the way. We’ll let you know when you’re needed.”

I bowed my head and shrank farther into the corner. As the evening passed into night, I found myself strangely fascinated by the Shriven’s training. I’d seen them at work in the city, of course—I somehow always managed to find myself nearby when one of the other dimmys fell into their violent grief, and the Shriven inevitably appeared to put a stop to their violence. But it’d never occurred to me that to become that capable, that deadly, the Shriven would have to work very, very hard.

The Shriven initiates mimicked the Suzerain in an endless series of exercises that inverted, balanced and stretched them in ways that didn’t seem to translate into combat at all. They practiced the same movements again and again, so many times that even I, in the corner of the room, could see their muscles quivering.

Eventually, the initiates separated into pairs, the dimmys in the room silently finding one another, and the twins turning to face their other halves.

“The staves, Obedience,” Castor called, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Bring out the staves.”

I glanced around the room helplessly. Blunt clubs hung in clusters in one corner. Racks of blades—everything from throwing stars to swords almost as long as I was tall—decorated the wall behind the Suzerain, but I saw nothing that remotely resembled the deadly, metal-tipped staves some of the Shriven carried on their prowls through the city.

Finally, rolling her eyes, Curlin peeled off from the group, darted across the room and shouldered me out of the way. She slid open a door that I’d completely overlooked, despite the fact that I’d been standing right in front of it. Blushing, I helped Curlin heave the padded staves out of the closet and distribute them to the rest of the initiates.

The Suzerain exchanged a cryptic glance as I shrank back into my corner, fuming at myself and Curlin in equal parts.

“You’re dismissed, Obedience,” Amler said. “Remember, when you plan your day tomorrow, that to be on time is to be late, and to be late is to be an embarrassment to your faith.”

With no need for an excuse beyond my burning cheeks and the terrifying attention of the Suzerain, I turned on a heel and fled.