I left the hotel just past noon, freshly washed — after two months on a ship, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bathe in fresh, heated water — and back in uniform. It was time to learn more about this archipelagic state that had been my great-grandmother’s birthplace.
Adrahan was full of narrow switchback roads and steep flights of stairs, and in an embarrassingly short time I lost my breath. When I finally reached a large public plaza in a wealthier part of town, I sat on a low wall, panting and plucking my shirt collar away from my neck. I’m going to have to start climbing the rigging to get some exercise, I thought with disgust. I’d never felt so out of shape before. I hoped it was simply the result of my newly confined shipboard life instead of middle age.
A church steeple rose over the town plaza, mute testament to the Imperial Reverence’s religious colonialism. I’d grown up in the Reverence’s shadow, and while I had no knowledge whatsoever of the islands’ indigenous beliefs, I felt oddly reassured to see small charms covered the doors and windows, and modest shrines built into walls and tucked under eaves. Apparently Kyrchye’s ponderous, intolerant worship hadn’t yet managed to displace the local observances.
Resolutely shoving away memories of explosions and blood, I walked over to inspect one of the shrines, a small, open-sided clay box embedded in a wall. Flowers and small half-shells filled with mysterious substances had been set inside of it. The shrine’s exterior was inlaid with cowrie shells and painted with bright colors. Some sort of image had been incised into the clay before it had been baked: a horse-headed creature capering on two human legs. I jerked backward, filled with sudden, unaccountable horror, and bumped into someone.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I apologized in my rudimentary Chevachèchen, spinning around. The youth I’d backed into smiled, dark brown eyes twinkling.
“It is quite all right; I am unharmed,” the stranger replied in accented but fluent Empyrian. “Are you?”
“Yes, yes, thank you.” I switched back to my native tongue, not having enough vocabulary to continue in Chevachèchen and grateful to return to Empyrian. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Are you certain? Your face is flushed. You must be careful, walking about in the heat — many northerners fall ill here.”
I waved a hand, embarrassed by my momentary jolt of panic. The image in the shrine wasn’t Cislunar’s Bone Horse. Not this far from home.
“No, no, I’m quite all right, thank you.”
“Good. I am called Chayce Dalcorte,” the youth said, holding out a hand in the Candorian way. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“I’m Mazarin Saint-Cloud,” I said, shaking Chayce’s hand. “The pleasure is —” I broke off as the youth jerked away from me, eyes widening with shock.
“That is a bad joke, friend,” Chayce said, looking upset.
“I …” I trailed off, realizing that I’d instinctively given my real name. “Look … if this is about the labor disputes…”
“Labor disputes?” Chayce’s eyebrows shot up.
“I mean … with the Cloud Trading Company?” My voice trailed off. “Right?”
The youth muttered something in Chevachèchen. I understood ‘Cloud Trading Company,’ but none of the rest of it.
“If there’s really a labor problem with the company, I swear I can fix it while I’m here,” I promised. The conversation had become incredibly awkward. I was going to hate admitting to Caraby that he’d been right and I’d been wrong. “Just … tell me what’s going on. Please.”
“You are really called Mazarin Saint-Cloud?” Chayce scrutinized me, eyes lingering on my silver Vigilance badge.
“Yes…? I don’t know how it’s done here, but in my family in Cislunar, every first-born Saint-Cloud is named Mazarin. Do they do that here? Do you know any other Saint-Clouds? I’m looking for them.”
Chayce said something else in Chevachèchen, taking another step backward.
“No. Go away. Go away, Saint-Cloud. You are not wanted here. You are not welcome here. You will not find others of your kind here.”
“My kind?” I had no idea what Chayce was talking about. The youth reached out, grabbing one of the half-shells inside the horse-man shrine, and threw it at me. Red powder coated my blue warrant coat. I swore, brushing furiously at it.
“You are not wanted here! Go away!” Chayce added something else in Chevachèchen, then turned and ran.
I finished brushing off my coat as well as I could, hoping it wouldn’t stain, and touched my fingers to my tongue. The powder tasted like pepper and smoke. I had no idea what it was. I looked around. A few people — Chevachèchens, I thought, judging from their features and clothing — stood in the doorways or at the windows, watching me with blank faces.
Embarrassed, I crouched, picked up the half-shell, which had chipped but not broken on the cobblestones, and placed it back in the shrine.
“I’m sorry,” I said aloud to whoever might be listening — locals or gods. “That was my fault. I was stupid.”
I began walking again, my interest in Adrahan’s neighborhoods diminished. Whatever was going on with Cloud Trading Company clearly required immediate attention. How had I not known our reputation here was so bad? I grimaced, shaking away the question. Of course I hadn’t known. I hadn’t been paying attention to anything these last few months except my own grief.
A few blocks later, the sign for the Admiralty caught my eye, and I stopped. The big building’s weighty façade and Imperial architecture was an awkward contrast to the lower, open-sided wooden buildings around it. I climbed up the stone stairs and entered the building, breathing a sigh of relief at the cooler air inside the high portico.
“Excuse me,” I said in Empyrian, approaching the desk. A middle-aged, round-faced man in clerk’s garb looked up, his expression shifting as his eyes moved from my face to the badge on my coat. “I’m, ah … I’m the Chaser’s sentinel. Is Adrahan’s sentinel available?”
“Yes, he’s been expecting you.” The clerk pursed his lips. “For several hours.”
“I — was I supposed to report earlier?”
“A message was delivered to your ship this morning.”
“Ah.” I rubbed my forehead. Could nothing go right today? “It must have missed me. I left, er, disembarked early.”
“I see. Take a seat, Sentinel.”
I dropped into a well-padded chair, leaning my head against its high back and closing my eyes. I thought about Caraby’s warning and Chayce’s upset, almost frightened expression. The judgmental eyes of the onlookers who’d silently watched as Chayce had shouted and run away. The shrine, with its horse-headed human, Cislunar’s cavorting Bone Horse, the sailors’ dancing “dead horse”…
“Sentinel?”
I started, my eyes flying open, and scrambled to my feet.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my face growing warm. “I’ve been sleeping poorly…”
“Captain Tancrède told me you’d been ill.” The Admiralty sentinel was a grey-haired man in his sixties or seventies, dressed in a Naval uniform and a Vigilance badge. His features were Chevachèchen and his Empyrian as crisp as any Candorian aristocrat’s. “I’m Jaye Borbeau.”
“Very pleased to meet you, Sentinel Borbeau.” We shook hands. “I’m afraid I missed your message.”
“But you made it here, at least.” Borbeau adjusted his glasses, eyeing me with open curiosity. “The Vigilance informed me that you’d been appointed to the Chaser, and I have to admit, your name caused me some concern. I sent a message this morning, as soon as I heard the Chaser was in port.”
“My name?”
“Come, best we discuss this upstairs.”
Borbeau’s office was a large, comfortable suite with broad windows overlooking the street below. A staff member brought up a pitcher of chilled malmsey and two glasses. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until I took the first sip. The cool, sweet wine went down as easily as water and leached the tension out of my shoulders.
“So, how are you finding the Chaser?” Borbeau inquired.
“It seems like a good ship,” I replied, dutifully playing the game of manners despite my impatient curiosity. “Everybody on board seems content.” When my friends heard that I’d signed up, I’d been regaled with horror stories about the Navy — lashings, sexual assaults, drunken brawls, and mutinies. So far, I’d seen no sign of any of that.
“The Chaser has a good reputation. Captain Tancrède is a well-respected officer, capable and blessed with good luck. A religious man, but not an extremist. I don’t believe he has any sympathy for the kind of schismatic violence you experienced in Cislunar.”
I automatically lifted my glass again and realized with a start that I’d drained it. To buy myself time, I reached for the pitcher and refilled it with a shaking hand.
“No… The — the Imperial Reverence isn’t happy about Cislunar’s New Theology,” I croaked.
Religious terrorism sparked by outrage over the New Theology had killed dozens of people I had known, including my brother, sister-in-law, and niece … who hadn’t even been religious enough to care one way or the other. They’d simply been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time when a group of suicidal extremists had detonated two bombs next to the Vigilance Orderhouse.
If Kyrchye really did exist, if Kyrchye were the just god described by the Reverence, then I was the one who should have died that afternoon, not my family. I was the only sentinel in our family, and I was one of the Orderhouse’s first line of defense. But there were no gods, just as the New Theology argued — at least no gods as the Imperial Reverence described them — and therefore no cosmic justice.
“Has it reached Chevachèche yet?” I asked after taking a deep, bracing swallow. “From the number of shrines I passed, it doesn’t look like the Reverence has a strong hold on the island.”
“The Reverence has a presence here, yes; a hold, no. Most of us pay our respects to Kyrchye on the empire’s holy days and consult our own ancestral spirits the rest of the year.” Borbeau’s smile had disappeared, and his gaze had sharpened. “Thus far, the imperial clergy have avoided any discussion of the New Theology. I suspect they’re worried about it how it will be received. Suggesting some sort of hybridization of transients and humans may horrify the faithful up north, but down here in Chevachèche, such things have long been part of our religious beliefs.”
“I saw an image of a man with a horse’s head on one of the street shrines….” I took another sip of wine to cover my discomfort. “Is he one of those spirits?”
“That would have represented a communicant, not a spirit. Such an image isn’t any more literal than a stained-glass window that depicts Kyrchye dressed like an Imperial monarch.”
“I see. Is the image associated with death?”
“No. Why?”
“It’s just … we have a sort of a local death spirit of our own in Cislunar, where I come from. It’s called the Bone Horse, and it … bears a resemblance.”
“Really?” Borbeau studied me. “Is the Bone Horse a transient? Does it have some special meaning to you?”
“It’s not a transient, and no, it has no particular meaning. Just local superstition.” I looked away and set down my empty glass before I could refill it. Borbeau leaned back in his chair, continuing to regard me over the top of his spectacles.
“I’m glad to hear it. And what do you think of the New Theology?”
“I….” I shook my head, swallowing. “I don’t — I try not to think of it at all.”
“Hmm. And how much do you know about your family’s history on these islands?”
The change of subject should have been a relief, but Borbeau’s serious tone made me wary.
“My great-grandmother, the first Mazarin Saint-Cloud in our family, was born in these islands. We name the firstborn child in each generation ‘Mazarin’ in her honor — regardless of gender. Is that a Chevachèchen custom or just a family quirk?”
“A family quirk,” he replied, looking somber.
“Oh.” I hesitated. His expression didn’t bode well for my next question. “So — what has the Cloud Trading Company done here? I was warned not to tell anyone my name, and when I forgot and did … I was told I wasn’t welcome. Vehemently.”
Borbeau frowned.
“The problem isn’t with your trading company; I don’t believe anybody here associates its name with the Chevachèchen Saint-Clouds. I advise you to keep it that way, for the good of your business.”
“But I heard there were labor disputes….”
“None that I know of.”
“Then why can’t I use my name? Are there any other Saint-Clouds here? Are they — are they bad people?”
“The Saint-Clouds were driven out of Chevachèche nearly a hundred years ago. I imagine that’s why your great-grandmother moved to Cislunar.”
“Driven out?” My hopes crashed down around me. “All of them?”
“Driven out or killed, Sentinel. I’m sorry. I’m sure that isn’t pleasant to hear.”
“What did they do? Did they … did they offend someone important?”
“The Saint-Clouds were someone important; powerful, wealthy, and spread across the islands. Children born into the Saint-Cloud line had an affinity for the spirits, who rode them too hard and too long. Eventually your family became unpredictable and dangerous.”
“So…” I ventured, “my ancestors were sentinels who went balemad after too much contact with transients?”
“That’s how the Imperial Vigilance would describe it, yes.” He shrugged. “I belong to the Vigilance, but I am also Chevachèchen. We don’t view transients in quite as … utilitarian a fashion as those in the Empire.”
“They’re what you consider them spirits.”
“Loosely speaking, yes. Some of them, anyway.”
“All right.” I took a deep breath. “So, what exactly did my ancestors do to get themselves driven out of the country?”
“Oppressed their neighbors and feuded with other powerful families. After a few generations of increasingly unhinged atrocities, their enemies banded together to declare war on the family. They burned the Saint-Cloud houses and lands and drove the familyi out.”
“Do you have any idea … where did they all go? As far as I know, my great-grandmother was the only Saint-Cloud to settle in Cislunar.”
“I couldn’t say, but you do see the current problem, don’t you?”
“Yes. I bear the name of an evil dictator.”
“It’s a bit worse than that. In Chevachèche, we still invoke the names of the Saint-Cloud elders to frighten our children: Ambré, Calixte, Severo, Solange … and, I’m very sorry to say, Mazarin.”
“So, some sort of historical bugaboo?”
“You could put it that way. My mother used to tell me that the Saint-Clouds would come out at night to steal wicked children from their beds and drink their blood.” Borbeau sighed. “Which is why I sent a message to your ship. I wanted to speak to you as soon as possible. Calling yourself ‘Mazarin Saint-Cloud’ here in Adrahan is akin to, oh, calling yourself ‘Yzyrchye, Lord of Hell’ in Cislunar. People will be upset by it.”
“There’s a man called ‘Yzrychye’s Hound’ who lives in Cislunar. He used to be one of Yzyrchye’s champions, years ago. He’s retired now.”
“And do people like him?”
“Most consider him a monster.”
“Then you’ll understand why you shouldn’t use your given name in Chevachèche.”
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” I grimaced. Mister Caraby could have just explained the problem from the outset. Or — what about the other Chevachèchen hands on the Chaser? They must have recognized my name. Why hadn’t they said anything?
No wonder they think I can control the wind, I thought with frustration. And now I could guess what Caraby had found hanging on my door: a warning, a threat, a ward against evil — something of that sort, placed there by some superstitious sailor who thought I was a child-stealing fiend.
“I assure you,” I said at last, with a somewhat desperate attempt at humor, “I’ve never once craved a child’s blood.”
“I’m sure you haven’t, but it would be best not to raise old fears and prejudices while your ship is in port.” He caught my gaze. “I also suggest you use caution when touching the Line here you’re in Adrahan. There may be spirits out there who will recognize your name, as well.”
Chilled, I looked away from the old man and out the office window. The sun beat down on the street below, bright and hot, making all this talk of spirits and monsters seem ridiculous. Transients had no memory … well, I amended, most transients had no memory. Everything I’d once believed about transients had been seriously shaken by the discoveries that had sparked the New Theology.
“Very well,” I said at last. “I have no desire to cause you or anyone else any trouble. I signed the hotel log as Rin, and I’ll continue to use that name while I’m here.”
If nothing else, I told myself, the story would make an amusing anecdote for my friends in Cislunar. I’d turn it into a joke, and they’d be relieved to read something light-hearted from me. Even if, right now, my heart didn’t feel light at all.
“Thank you, Sentinel.” We stood and shook hands. “In the meantime, I wish you good luck on the Chaser. The Damme Boy’s been sighted along the coast to the south, and knowing Captain Tancrède’s dislike for unfinished business, I expect you’ll see some warm work soon.”
“The Damme Boy is…”
“The ship that killed the Chaser’s last sentinel. So … do be careful, Sentinel Rin.”