The Taste of Waterfruit and Other Stories (Story Portals) Read online

  "Let me take that from you, dear thing." The woman waded into the stream and plucked the blouse from Katya's wooden hands.

  "But Sister Annika assigned me this task."

  The old woman winked at her. "Well, if you don't tell her, neither will I." She jerked her head at an old rotten log that had fallen beside the stream. "Sit."

  Katya hesitated. She knew how to deal with beatings, with cruelty. But kindness was new to her.

  The old woman rolled her eyes and pushed her on the arm. "Go sit down, you silly duck."

  Katya swallowed, stepped out of the stream. The brisk mountain air stung her wet feet and hands. She dried them with a rag, and donned her boots and gloves. It helped a little.

  For a long time she watched the old woman do laundry, performing Katya's chore with nimble fingers, pulling a thread and needle out one of her seemingly infinite pockets to sew on a missing frog, or carefully rubbing just the right potion into turnberry stains to make them disappear. She did the same with grass stains and spilled wine. With blood.

  "My name is Marya," said the old woman.

  Katya grunted. She didn't understand any of this. Why is the old woman doing my work? She turned it over and over in her mind, but she couldn't see how it gained the old woman an advantage.

  Katya knew there was a blade hidden here, but she couldn't see its shape—and that scared her very much.

  "You know," said Marya as she studied a dirt stain in the knee of a pair of denim pants, "the followers of Shi'in are not the same as the followers of Malin."

  "I know that," said Katya sharply. She was not simple. The sisters of Shi'in had rescued her from the horrors of Malin. She knew that. She was grateful. How many times did she have to say it?

  Marya stopped what she was doing. That one eye seemed to look right into Katya. "I know you know it here." The old woman tapped her head. "But I do not think you know it here." She patted her chest over her heart.

  "I know it everywhere," said Katya fiercely.

  "Oh, you silly little duck," said Marya sadly.

  She laid the work pants over a rock and settled down beside Katya on the log. The old woman draped a meaty arm across Katya's shoulders. The girl stiffened. Was that what Marya wanted? The pleasure of bodies?

  "Your captivity runs through you like a poison."

  "I am not a captive," Katya snapped.

  Marya shook her head. "We freed your body. But only you can free your heart."

  Katya shook her head. "I-I don't understand."

  "What don't you understand, dear one?"

  "Any of this." It came out as a scream. Katya tried to get to her feet, but the old woman held her fast with the arm around her shoulder.

  "Listen well, then, Katya. Your time in the orbit of the dark god made you hard. Sometimes a person must be hard, but not always. Glass is hard, but easily broken."

  Katya shook her head. "I d-don't—"

  "You have been ill-used in your young life, but the world is not always thus. Malin made your life a horror, but Shi'in will not."

  Katya tried to rise, but the thrice-damned old woman would not let her go.

  "Do you remember the face of your mother?" asked Marya gently.

  Katya's stomach clenched. "Don't," she whispered fiercely. "Please."

  But Marya wouldn't stop. "Your father. What did they do to your father? To your little brother, only a child. Did you see that, Katya? Did you feel the heat rolling off the fires that burned your home? That burned your family?"

  And then something broke in Katya, and she was sobbing, her body shaking, hot tears streaming down her cheeks, and the old woman was holding her, clutching her to her bosom as she lost control of herself.

  "It's all right," the old woman whispered, gently rocking Katya as she sobbed, "let it out, silly duck. Let it out."

  And Katya did. For the first time since Malin's followers had taken her, she cried, weak and trembling, she cried for all she had lost and all the terrible things she'd seen and endured.

  Old one-eyed Marya was a washer-woman, and that morning the stain she'd cleansed had been Malin's blemish on Katya's soul.

  *

  The dream jerked Katya out of her uneasy sleep, and she sat up in the darkness of her room, hair plastered to her head by sweat, heart galloping like a terrified horse, pain stabbing through her chest.

  Pain, because she suddenly remembered that Marya, dear Marya was dead. Katya had been sent away for training when the Temple of Shi'in had been attacked. She had survived, but all her sisters, her home, her new life, all of it had been destroyed.

  And out of all of it, what she missed most was Marya. Marya who had taught her how to cry.

  In the darkness, Katya hugged her knees to her chest and buried her face.

  Her body shook with sobs.

  *

  As promised, Gao Jin was waiting for her in the storeroom, leaning against a cask and peeling the waterfruit with his small knife. When he saw her a bright smile split his dusky, red face. "Mistress," he said, clearly delighted. "Why'd you change your mind?"

  Katya frowned. For two nights she'd dreamt of Marya. Maybe it was nothing, her heart tricking her mind while it slumbered. But maybe it was her goddess calling to her. And if there was even a chance that Shi'in needed her, Katya would honor that need.

  In the only way she knew how.

  "Business is business," she said.

  He split the waterfruit in two, tossed her half. This one was deep red, crimson, its juice like blood.

  "You have a way to approach a band of pirates that are wary of strangers?" he asked, popping the fruit into his mouth.

  Katya just smiled and took a bite of fruit, her mouth exploding with juice that was somehow both bitter and sweet.

  WEEK OF THE FULL MOON

  Katya dreamt of fish cooked in butter and green onion, the white flesh so tender and juicy that it fell apart at the mere mention of the word fork. Her mouth was watering and she was stirring in her sleep before she realized it wasn't a dream.

  "Mistress, your breakfast."

  Her eyes fluttered open. A guard stood over her, holding pan-seared yellowfinned bluefish on a steaming wooden oven board.

  The guard was young, but big, muscular, and unarmed. Katya would have laid three to one odds that she could have taken him, but he had no weapon to take and a second pirate stood at the open hatch, her blowgun ready in her hand.

  So the Hai Do managed to be careful with their prisoners without being cruel.

  Katya sat up and pushed the fish away. In her best spoiled princess voice she said, "I don't want this—" and then she said a very rude word in Misso. "My stomach is unsettled. Bring me soup."

  The guard straightened, a muscle pulsing in his cheek. "As you wish, mistress."

  He stepped out of the room, the second guard closing the hatch behind him.

  If she was to escape, the Hai Do had left her with few tools to accomplish the task: a blanket, pillows to sleep on, a brass chamber pot. There was only one other object in the room.

  A candle.

  Short and squat, it sat on a waist-high silver stand, a stride away from the hatch. The candle was white, probably beeswax, though she could smell other things in the scent of its smoke: sulfur and garlic and bitterwood.

  Katya had a thought about what the candle might be, a thought she intended to test. She took a step towards the hatch, then a second.

  Then a third.

  The candle's flickering yellow flame suddenly swelled, roaring and popping, its color deepening to a molten orange, its heat scorching her skin even from a half-dozen paces.

  Katya took a quick step backwards and the fire subsided.

  "Serin's Flame," she whispered.

  It was a spell meant to bind a prisoner. The guardian flame would not consume wood or paper, fabric or oil.

  But it would surely devour flesh.

  The hatch opened and the guard returned with a wooden bowl.

  "What?" snapped Katya. "No
spoon?"

  "With sufficient ingenuity a spoon might be shaped into a knife," said the guard.

  "So I should lap my soup like a dog?" said Katya.

  "You may share your complaints with Ship-Chieftain Hu Lin," said the guard tightly. "She wishes to speak with you after breakfast." He bowed and stepped out of the room.

  The soup was a fish stew cooked in a rich cream sauce. It was delicious. Katya tilted the bowl up and drank it down. When she was done she licked it clean in a decidedly unladylike way.

  Then she sat down to think.

  But not before she tucked the bowl under one of the pillows.

  *

  The salty tang of the sea filled Katya's senses, the rolling blue of it, like liquid cobalt. She felt the vessel's gentle rocking as it gave way to the power of the sea, heard the soft creak of its blackwood timbers that was its only complaint, felt the warmth of the sun on her face. It was a beautiful tableaux.

  Only marred by the score of black ships cutting through the blue sea.

  Sometimes when a fish took a hook, its own struggles pierced its flesh, sending black blood threading through the blue sea. When that happened the odor of blood and the thrashing of the dying fish would draw forth the sea's hunters: sleek, cold-eyed killers that moved like shadows in the green band of sunlit water.

  That's what Katya saw now: a sea filled with sleek, dark danger.

  The Western Fleet of the Hai Do had assembled for the conclave and the Eastern Fleet, Gao Jin's powerbase, was already on the horizon. Katya would have to act before the next morning, while Darva was still under Hu Lin's protection and her death would cause dishonor to Swift Shark's master.

  "Are you feeling well, Lady Kat?" asked Hu Lin. Her voice was high and sweet like birdsong.

  "Yes, thank you." Katya turned to look at her captor. Hu Lin looked delicate, but Katya had felt steel in the other woman's body when they wrestled in the dark. And Hu Lin's hands bore calluses honestly come by. She might be bird small, but Katya sensed that, under the right conditions, she could be very, very dangerous.

  Katya turned to look out at the sea dotted with Hai Do ships and leaned against the railing. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught a glimpse of the raised quarterdeck to her right. Katya would wager that she'd find Darva's quarters there, perhaps across the captain's cabin.

  "It is most generous of you to bring me up on deck," said Katya. "You have exceptionally good manners—for a pirate."

  A smile quirked Hu Lin's pretty mouth. "Alliances are as fluid as the sea, Lady. Today you are our prisoner, but tomorrow you may be our friend. Besides, I have an ulterior motive for bringing you up here. I wanted you to see that our ships are all 'round."

  Katya raised an eyebrow. "So don't bother trying to escape."

  Hu Lin laughed. "You are a quick study, Lady."

  "You could have gotten your message across with a beating rather than a stroll on the deck."

  Hu Lin smiled. "We are a practical people. Why use a blade when a word will do?"

  "That is most . . . enlightened. The Hai Do are a gracious people."

  The line of Hu Lin's jaw tightened. "Not all of us," she muttered.

  Gao Jin, Katya realized. She's speaking of Gao Jin.

  She glanced up at the quarterdeck in time to see a woman of immense age wrapped in a sari of blue silk hobble to the railing and look out at the sea. Darva, it had to be Darva. Katya risked a closer look and stumbled over her own feet, nearly falling.

  "I-I'm sorry, lady," said Hu Lin, genuine concern in her voice. "It can sometimes be hard for the landborne to adjust to the rhythms of the sea. Let me get you below so you can rest."

  Katya nodded and allowed herself to be led below, but it wasn't fatigue that had caused her to stumble.

  It was shock.

  Because she'd looked upon the face of tribe-chieftain Darva, the woman she'd come here to kill, and she'd seen hair the color of iron and leathery brown skin and a gaping socket where the woman's left eye should be.

  Marya.

  *

  Katya came awake in the deep well of the night; that time between midnight and dawn when human bodies yearn for sleep and a man's reflexes are at their slowest.

  Marya was alive.

  A rage burned deep in Katya, white and incandescent, so hot that it might burn her heart to ash.

  Marya was alive—but she was no assassin. She was a pirate.

  Katya knelt and found the soup bowl, turned it upside down. Her body trembled with fury, but she held the bowl with an assassin's steady hand. Her throw was nearly perfect. The bowl landed over the candle, clattered twice, and then settled on the flat surface of the stand, smothering Serin's Flame.

  Marya was alive—but she had turned her face from her goddess.

  Katya counted twenty of her heartbeats to see if the guard at the door would respond to the small sound of the bowl's clatter. Nothing.

  Silent as a cat, she crept to the door.

  Hu Lin's search of Katya's person had been thorough and unapologetic. But the pirate had assumed she was searching a beautiful woman of leisure from a wealthy family. So she didn't consider the possibility that hair pins could be used to pick a lock or a few small vials of makeup could be combined to produce a paste that could knock a man out. And yes, the sea was filled with Hai Do ships. But it hadn't occurred to Hu Lin that some of those might actually be crewed by Katya's allies.

  Within moments, Katya was free and had secured the guard's knife. She slipped through the darkness, ready to hold Marya to account for her betrayal of Shi'in.

  *

  Unease sat heavily in Katya's stomach even before she went through the hatch. Doors were places for traps and trickery, and yet when she went through the hatch, nothing betrayed her but the soft click of the latch.

  Katya swallowed hard.

  The old woman slept on a bed only wide enough for one, huddled under a mountain of blankets, the soft rumble of her snoring filling the cabin. A dying candle in a wall sconce near the headboard glowed redly and a book rested on the bedsheets. She must have fallen asleep reading.

  Marya.

  To Katya's right there was a tall wardrobe pushed up against the bulkhead. To the left, a small bureau. Neither smelled of magic.

  No, the magic surrounded the old woman's bed.

  Katya drifted right one step at a time, puzzling out the traps: a snare at the foot of the bed and was that . . . anise, for a brew of three-step poison, and—

  Maybe she heard a tiny sound or felt the stray brush of air, but Katya was whirling around, lightning fast, her blade coming up, meeting the other woman's blade with a clang as she emerged from the pool of shadow by the wardrobe.

  "I almost didn't hear you," said Katya, and there was wonder in her voice.

  "Don't feel bad, child. I was trained by the acolytes of Shi'in." It was Marya's voice.

  "As was I," said Katya from between clenched teeth.

  "You ought to choose your lies with more care," said the old woman sharply. "The followers of Shi'in were all ended, save me."

  "Not all," whispered Katya.

  "What is your name?" There was real anger in the old woman's voice.

  "Katya."

  This was met by a cold, dangerous silence. And then a soft, blue radiance filled the stateroom.

  It was Marya, really her, and Katya felt her heart beating in her throat.

  A liquid sob escaped the old woman. "Oh, my silly duck."

  Katya's vision blurred and she was trembling. Then they were both speaking at the same time, tumbling over each other.

  "But I thought you were—"

  "I was away from the temple when—"

  "I didn't know, if only—"

  For a moment they both stared at each other.

  "Gao Jin sent you," Marya finally said. It wasn't a question. "He will lead the Hai Do down into darkness, Katya. He is a dangerous man."

  "He is a client."

  "You've kept to the old ways," the old w
oman whispered.

  Katya felt a scowl twisting her face. "And you have not."

  Marya shook her head, somehow managing to look puzzled and hurt at the same time. "Surely you understand Shi'in is gone, child No goddess can survive without tribute and Shi'in has no worshippers."

  "She has me," Katya said softly.

  Marya set her blade down, held her hands out. "Katya, I didn't know you survived. I was alone. I had to, had to find another life."

  Katya remembered sobbing while the old woman held her tight in her arms. Held her safe. Marya had touched a foolish and broken girl, had somehow made that girl whole again with her love.

  The memory twisted in Katya's gut like a blade. "Don't you see? If the woman who taught me to worship Shi'in had abandoned her faith then what am I supposed to believe in? What am I supposed to be?" Katya was shocked to find that she was crying, actually crying.

  Marya jerked back as if she'd been slapped. Slowly the old woman straightened her bent back, exposing her throat.

  "Then take my life if your goddess demands it."

  "My goddess?" snapped Katya. She raised her blade, the knife shaking in her hand. She held it to Marya's throat for a moment.

  Then two.

  And then the air rushed out of her chest and she dropped the blade. "I cannot."

  "Don't you see, child? Shi'in requires nothing more of us."

  "Shi'in never required anything from us but our love and our devotion," Katya shot back. "Search your faithless heart, you'll see it's true."

  For a long moment the two women stared at each other.

  And then Katya heard something behind her. The soft click of a latch.

  Hu Lin stood behind her, raising her blowgun to her lips.

  Marya raised her hands. "Hu Lin, stop."

  Hu Lin blinked, but she paused. "Mistress?"

  "This woman is dearer to me than my own life," said Marya. "None may harm her."

  "Mistress Darva—"

  "None may harm her. Now gather together the captains embarked on your ship and bring them to me."

  Hu Lin looked from Marya to Katya and back again, but at last she bowed her head and turned to leave.

  Marya stepped forward and gently brushed Katya's face. "Your goddess demands my death at the hand of one of her servants. And yet you cannot bear to kill me. Oh, my silly little duck, if I knew a way out of this dilemma I'd surely take it."