“Why, hey there! Domo Spectrox! You’re not nearly as tall as Shursta made you out to be.”

  Laric straightened his shoulders. “Am I not?”

  “Nope. The way he writes it, I thought to mistake you for a milknut tree. Shursta, you said skinny. It’s probably all muscle, right? Wiry, right? Like me?” Sharrar flexed her free arm for him. Laric shivered a wink at Shursta and gravely admired her bicep. “Anyway, you’re not too proud to bend down, are you?”

  “I’m not!”

  “Good! I have a secret I must tell you.”

  When Laric brought his face to her level, she seized him by both big ears and planted an enormous kiss on his mouth. Menami and Orssi Blodestone, who stood nearby, started whooping. Dumwei sidled close.

  “Don’t I get one? It’s my birthday, you know.”

  Sharrar gave him a sleepy-eyed look that made Shursta want to hide under the table. “Just you wait till after dinner, Dumwei my darling. I have a special surprise for you.” She shooed him along and bent all her attention back to Laric.

  “You,” she said.

  He pointed to his chest a bit nervously. “Me?”

  “You, Laric Spectrox. You are going to be my friend for the rest of my life. I decided that ages ago, so I’m very glad we finally got to meet. No arguments.”

  Laric’s shining black face broke into a radiance of dimple creases and crooked white teeth. “Do you see me arguing? I’m not arguing.”

  “I’m Sharrar, by the way. Sit beside me tonight and let me whisper into your ear.”

  When Laric glanced at Shursta, Shursta shrugged. “She’s going to try and talk you into doing something you won’t want to do. I don’t know what. Just keep saying no and refilling her plate.”

  “Does that really work?”

  Shursta gave him a pained glance and did not answer.

  Hyrryai came late to the feast and took a silent seat beside Shursta. He filled a plate and shoved it at her, as if she had been Sharrar, but when she only picked at it, he shrugged and went back to listening to Laric and Orssi arguing.

  Orssi said, “The Nine Islands drowned and the Nine Cities with them. There are no other islands. There is no other land. We are alone on this world, and we must do our part to repeople it.”

  “No, no, see–” Laric gestured with the remnants of a lobster claw, “that lacks imagination. That lacks gumption. What do we know for sure? We know that something terrible happened in our great-great grandparents’ day. What was it really? How can we know? We weren’t born then. All we have are stories, stories the grayheads tell us in the Hall of Ages. I value these stories, but I will not build my life on them, as a house upon sand. We call ourselves the Glennemgarra, the Unchosen. Unchosen by what? By death? By the wave? By the magic of the gods that protected the Nine Holy Cities even as they drowned, so that they live still, at the bottom of the sea? Let there be a hundred cities beneath the waves. What do we care? We can’t go there.”

  Laric glanced around at the few people who still listened to him.

  “Do you know where we can go, though? Everywhere else. Anywhere. There is no law binding us to Droon–or to Sif–“ he nodded at Sharrar, whose face was rapt with attention, “or anywhere on this wretched oasis. We know the wind. We know the stars. We have our boats and our nets and our water casks. There is no reason not to set out in search of something better.”

  “Well, cousin,” said Orssi. “No one could accuse you of lacking imagination.”

  “Yes, Spectrox,” cried Arishoz, “and how is your big boat project coming along?”

  Laric’s round eyes narrowed. “It would go more quickly if I had more hands to help me.”

  The Blodestone brothers laughed, though not ill-naturedly. “Find a wife, cousin,” Lochlin advised him. “Breed her well. People the world with tiny Spectroxes–as if the world needed more Spectroxes, eh? Convince them to build your boat. What else are children for?”

  Laric threw up his hands. He was smiling too, but all the creases in his forehead bespoke a sadness. “Don’t you see? When my boat is finished I will sail away from words like that and thoughts like yours. As if women were only good for wives, and children were only made for labor.”

  Hyrryai raised her glass to him. Shursta reached over to fill it from the pitcher and watched as she drank deeply.

  “I will help you, Laric Specrox!” Sharrar declared, banging her fists on the table. “I am good with my hands. I never went to sea with the men of Sif, but I can swim like a seal–and I’d trade my good leg for an adventure. Tell me all about your big boat.”

  He turned to her and smiled, rue twining with gratitude and defiance. “It is the biggest boat ever built. Or it will be.”

  “And what will you name her?”

  “The Grimgramal. After the wave that changed the world.”

  Sharrar nodded, as if this were the most natural thing. Then she swung her legs off the bench, took up her cane, and pushed herself to her feet. Leaning against the table for support, she used her cane to pound the floor. When this did not noticably diminish the noise in the hall, she set her forefinger and pinkie to her lips and whistled. Everyone, from the crone’s table where the elders were wine-deep in gossip and politics, to the children’s table where little cakes were being served, hushed.

  Sharrar smiled at them. Shursta held his breath. But she merely invoked the Sing, bracing against a bench for support, then raising both fists above her head to indicate the audience should respond to her call.

  “Grimgramal the Endless was the wave that changed the world.”

  Obediantly, the hall repeated, “Grimgramal the Endless was the wave that changed the world.”

  Sharrar began the litany that preceded all stories. Shursta relaxed again, smiling to himself to see Hyrryai absently chewing a piece of flatbread as she listened. His sister’s tales, unlike Grimgramal, were not endless; they were mainly intended to please greyheads, who fell asleep after fifteen minutes or so. Sharrar’s habit had been to practice her stories on her brother when he came in from a day out at sea and was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. When he asked why she could not wait until morning when he could pay proper attention, she had replied that his exhaustion in the evening best simulated her average audience member in the Hall of Ages.

  But Shursta had never yet fallen asleep while Sharrar told a story.

  “The first city was Hanah and it fell beneath the sea

  "The second city was Lahatiel, and it fell beneath the sea

  "The third city was Ekesh, and it fell beneath the sea

  "The fourth city was Var, and it fell beneath the sea

  "The fifth city was Thungol, and it fell beneath the sea

  "The sixth city was Yassam, and it fell beneath the sea

  "The seventh city was Saheer, and it fell beneath the sea

  "The eighth city was Gelph, and it fell beneath the sea

  "The ninth city was Niniam, and it fell beneath the sea…”

  Sharrar ended the litany with a sweep of her hands, like a wave washing everything away. “But one city,” she said, “did not fall beneath the sea.” Again, her fists lifted. “That city was Droon!”

  “That city was Droon!” the room agreed.

  “That city was Droon, capital of the Last Isle. Now, on this island, there are many villages, though none that match the great city Droon. In one of these villages–in Sif, my own village–was born the hero of this tale. A young man, like the young men gathered here tonight. Like Dumwei whom we celebrate.”

  She did not need to coax a response this time. Cups and bowls and pitchers clashed.

  “Dumwei whom we celebrate!”

  “If our hero stood before you in this hall, humble as a Man of Sif might be before the Men of Droon, you would not say to your neighbor, your brother, your cousin, ‘That young man is a hero.’ But a hero he was born, a hero he became, a hero he’ll remain, and I will tell you how, here and now.”

  Sharrar took her cane, moving it through the air like a paddle through water.

  “The fisherfolk of Sif catch many kinds of fish. Octopus and squid, shrimp and crab. But the largest catch and tastiest, the feast to end all feasts, the catch that feeds a village–this is the bone shark.”

  “The bone shark.”

  “It is the most cunning, the most frightening, the most beautiful of all the sharks. A long shark, a white shark, with a towering dorsal fin and a great jaw glistening with terrible teeth. This is the shark which concerns our hero. This is the shark that brought him fame.”

  “This is the shark that brought him fame.”

  By this time, Sharrar barely needed to twitch a finger to elicit a response. The audience leaned in. All except Shursta, whose shoulders hunched, and Hyrryai, who drew her legs up onto the bench, to wrap her arms around her knees.

  “To catch a shark you must first feed it. You must bloody the waters. You must send a slick of chum as sacrifice. For five days you must do this, until the sharks come tame to your boat. Then noose and net, you must grab it. Noose and net, you must drag it to the shore where it will die upon the sand. This is how you catch a shark.”

  “This is how you catch a shark.”

  “One day, our hero was at sea. Many other men were with him, for the fishermen of Sif do not hunt alone. A man–let us call him Ghoul, for his sense of humor was necrotic–had brought along his young son for the first time. Now, Ghoul, he did not like our hero. Ghoul was a proud man. A strong man. A handsome man too, if you like that sort of man. He thought Sif had room for only one hero and that was Ghoul.”

  “Ghoul!”

  “Ghoul said to his son, ‘Son, why do we waste all this good chum to bait the bone shark? In the next boat over sits a lonesome feast. An unmeshed man whom no one will miss. Let us rock his boat a little, eh? Let us rock his boat and watch him fall in.’

  “Father and son took turns rocking our hero’s boat. Soon the other men of Sif joined in. Not all men are good men. Not all good men are good all the time. Not even in Droon. The waters grew choppy. The wind grew restless. The bone shark grew tired of waiting for his chum.”

  “The bone shark grew tired of waiting–”

  “—Who can say what happened then? A wave too vigorous? The blow of a careless elbow as Ghoul bent to rock our hero’s boat? A nudge from the muzzle of the bone shark? An act of the gods from the depths below? Who can know? But our hero saw the child. He saw Ghoul’s young son fall into the sea. Like Gelph and Saheer, he fell into the sea. Like Ekesh and Var and Niniam he fell into the sea. Like Hanah and Lahatiel, Thungol and Yassam. Like the Nine Islands and all Nine Cities, the child fell.”

  “The child fell.”

  “The bone shark moved as only sharks can move, lightning through the water, opening its maw for the sacrifice. But then our hero was there. There in the sea. Between shark and child. Between death and the child. Our hero was there, treading water. There with his noose and his net. He had jumped from his boat. Jumped–where no man of Sif could push him, however hard they rocked his boat. Jumped to save this child. And he tangled the shark in his net. He lassoed the shark with his noose and lashed himself to that dreadful dorsal fin! Ghoul had just enough time to haul his son back into his boat. The shark began to thrash.”

  “The shark began to thrash.”

  “The shark began to swim.”

  “The shark began to swim.”

  “Our hero clung fast. Our hero held firm. Our hero herded that shark as some men herd horses. He brought that shark to land. He brought that shark onto the sand, where the shark could not breathe, and so it died. Thus our hero slew the bone shark. Thus our hero fed his village. Thus our hero rescued the child. He rescued the child.”

  “He rescued the child.”

  It was barely a whisper. Not an eye in that hall was dry.

  “And that is the end of my tale.”

  Sharrar thumped her cane to the floor again. This time, the noise echoed in a resounding silence. But without giving even the most precipitous a chance to stir, much less erupt into the applause that itched in every sweaty palm present, Sharrar spun on her heel and glared at the table where the Blodestone brothers sat.

  “It was Shursta Sarth slew the bone shark,” she told them, coldly and deliberately. “Your sister wears its teeth around her neck. You are not worthy to call him brother. You are not worthy to sit at that table with him.”

  With that, she spat at their feet and stumped out of the room.

  Shursta followed close behind, stumbling through bodies. Not daring to look up from his feet. Once free of the hall, he took a different corridor than the one Sharrar had stormed through. Had he caught her up, what would he have done to her? Thanked her? Scolded her? Shaken her? Thrown her out a window? He did not know.

  However difficult or humiliating negotiating his new mesh-kin had been, Sharrar the Wise had probably just made it worse.

  And yet…

  And yet, how well she had done it. The Blodestones, greatest of the eight kinlines gathered together in one hall–and Sharrar had had them slavering. They would have eaten out of her hand. And what had she done with that hand? Slapped their faces. All six brothers of his new wife.

  Shursta wanted his room. A blanket over his head. He wanted darkness.

  When his door clicked open several hours later, Shursta jerked fully awake. Even in his half doze, he had expected some kind of retributive challenge from the Blodestone brothers. He wondered if they would try goading him to fight, now that they knew the truth about him. Well–Sharrar’s version of the truth.

  The mattress dipped near his ribs. He held his breath and did not speak. And when Hyrryai’s voice came to him in the darkness, his heartrate skidded and began to hammer in his chest.

  “Are you awake, Shursta?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” A disconsolate exhalation. He eased himself up to a sitting position and propped himself against the carven headboard.

  “Did your hunting go amiss, Hyrryai?”

  It was the first time he’d had the courage to speak her name aloud.

  The sound she made was both hiss and plosive, more resigned than angry. “Oron Onyssix was arrested tonight by the soldiers of the Astrion Council. He will be brought to trial. I don’t know–the crones, I think, got wind of my intentions regarding him. I track rumors; they, it seems, track me. In this case, they made sure to act before I did.” She paused. “In this case, it might have been for the best. I was mistaken.”

  “Is he not guilty? With what, then, is he being charged?”

  “The unsanctioned mentoring of threshold youths. That’s what they’re calling it.”

  She shifted. The mattress dipped again. Beneath the sheets, Shursta brought his hand to his heart and pressed it there, willing it to hush. Hush, Hyrryai is speaking.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means Onyssix is not the man I’m hunting for!”

  “How do you know?” he asked softly.

  “Because…”

  Shursta sensed, in that lack of light, Hyrryai making a gesture that cut the darkness into neat halves.

  “Well, for one: the youths he prefers are not, after all, girls. A few young men came forward to bear witness. All were on the brink of mesh-readiness. Exploring themselves, each other. Coming of age. Usually the Astrion Council will assign such youths an older mentor to usher them into adulthood. One who will make sure the young people know that their duty as adult citizens of the Glennemgarra is to mesh and make children–no matter whom they may favor for pleasure or succor or lifelong companionship. That the privilege of preference is to be earned after meshing. There are rites. There is,” her voice lilted mockingly, “paperwork. Onyssix sidestepped all of this. He will be fined. Watched a little more closely. Nothing else–there is no evidence of abuse. The young men did not speak of him with malice or fear. To them, he was just an older man with experience they wanted. I suppose it was a thrill to sneak around without the crones’ consent. There you have it. Oron Onyssix is a reckless pleasure-seeker who thinks he’s above the law. But hardly a murderer.”

  “I am sorry,” Shursta murmured. “I wish it might have ended tonight.”

  From the way the mattress moved, he knew she had turned to look at him. Her hand was braced against the blankets. He could feel her wrist against his thigh.

  “I wished it too.” Hyrryai’s voice was harsh. “All week I have anticipated… Some conclusion. The closing of this wound. I prepared myself. I was ready. I wanted to look my sister’s killer in the eye and watch him confess. At banquet tonight, I wished it most–when Sharrar told her tale…”

  “The Epic of Shursta Sharkbait? You should not believe all you hear. Especially if Sharrar’s talking.”

  “I’ve heard tell of it before,” she retorted. “Certainly, when the story reached the Astrion Council, it was bare of the devices Sharrar used to hold our attention. But it has not changed in its particulars. It is, in fact, one measure by which the Astrion Council assessed your reputed stupidity. Intelligent men do not go diving in shark-infested waters.”

  The broken knife in his throat was laughter. Shursta choked on it. “No, they don’t. I told you that day we met–I am everything they say.”

  “You did not tell me that story. Strange,” Hyrryai observed, “when you mentioned they called you Sharkbait, you left out the reason why.”

  Shursta pulled the blankets up around his chin. “You didn’t mention it either. Maybe it’s not worth mentioning.”

  “It is why I chose you.”

  All at once, he could not breathe. Hyrryai had leaned over him. One fist was planted on either side of his body, pinning the blankets down. Her forehead touched his. Her breath was on his mouth, sharp and fresh, as though she had been chewing some bitter herb as she stalked Onyssix through the darkness.

  “Not because they said you were stupid, or ugly, or poor. How many men in Droon are the same? No, I chose you because they said you were good to your sister. And because you rescued the child.”

  “I rescued the child,” Shursta repeated in a voice he could barely recognize.

 

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