Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

“It’s true!” she said indignantly.

I shrugged.

“Look! It’s true! Watch!” She ducked under and gave out her signature laugh. Bubbles rose from her gaping mouth and burst, releasing her wonderful inflective giggles. “Ha ha ha ha!” the bubbles chuckled. “Ha! ha!”

She listened for a second, then surfaced, blowing out spray. “I called ‘Hi.’ The littoral mirth is passing it on.”

Stinguish began to swim in from all directions. They all looked the same but different sizes. Naked and grinning they wriggled between the market stalls or glided effortlessly above them. Their tadpolelike tails waved in sinuous ripples, their long arms trailed, heads raised, watching the surface tension. Their swimming reminded me of flying; the grace of both belies the strength it takes. I appreciated their sturdiness, but I didn’t envy them the cold water.

The first stinguish thrust his hands against the estuary bed and burst upward, in a shower of spray. He gave a smile so wide I thought he would drink the ocean. “Far-Distant! I haven’t seen you for tides and tides.”

“Way-Farer!” shouted Far-Distant.

He batted her with his tail. “Have you recovered from your latest spending spree?”

“I think so,” she said uncertainly.

“Ho ho! So come back to us! We won’t lose you again, Far-Distant. We’ll surf the warm current over the reefs while fish shoals scatter before us. We’ll echo the sonar laughter rising from the benthic mirth five hundred fathoms down!”

Her mirth all broke surface at once; a hundred rounded backs rolled on the wave. The sea was silver with their bodies; chuckles and gasps wet the air. They surrounded Far-Distant, guffawing and tittering. Their round heads bobbed up, some leapt from the water and somersaulted back, flicking their gleaming tails. The nearest ones beached themselves on the pebbles, propped up on their spindly arms. They pointed at me in my “Club 18-∞” T-shirt and black wings, and collapsed in helpless belly laughter.

Far-Distant looked up at me. “It’s my mirth. Mine! They want me back. Thanks for your help; I’ll always remember. Um? Bye!”

“Wait!” I called. “I want to know about the sea kraits. If they’re extinct, how can Tarragon save them?”

“Tarragon?” cried Way-Farer. “Where? A shark! A shark!” He submersed and laughed an alarm call through the water.

“A shark?”

“Worse-a megalodon! Swim for your lives!”

Their heads bobbed down and their fleshy tails fluked up. Bubbles trickled between them. They whipped the sea into froth which the next wave brought ashore. The tight crowd of stinguish glided toward deep water, vanishing into the gloom. I shouted, “Far-Distant! Come back, you annoying amphibian!” But her mirth had gone, leaving just the occasional giggle swept back on the wind.

Ifelt the unusual warm glow of having done something right. I lingered and observed the aquatic commerce in the soaked souk. Far-Distant was an addict, and I managed to help her; maybe there was some hope for me. I couldn’t tell if her cure was temporary, or what strains drove a carefree stinguish to class-A shopping. For me, it was my past, and now Tern’s infidelity was eating me alive. But every Shift I start to die, and that’s the trip. I wished that someone in the Fourlands would save me the way I have saved Far-Distant. I needed someone strong and forthright to barge in and force me to stop.

The attraction to my body began to drag me back. I concentrated and redoubled the rate at which the vivid marketplace faded to gray. To black.

TO BLACK. t o b l a c k tob l a c k o b l a c o b l a b l a l a a w a s e was f g e was fu n g e was f u l i n g e was f u l l r i n g e was full y r i n g e was full s y r i n g e was full s y r i n g e was full of blood. the syringe was full of blood.

Blood was trickling out of the back of the barrel. It had soaked into the sheet and mattress in a patch around my elbow. The syringe looked like a red glass feather growing out of place on my arm. Fuck it. I sat up and wiped at a warm trickle that had been running out of my nose and horizontally across my cheek. I stared at my hand-it was smeared with red.

Shit, I thought; what time is it? I glanced at the clock-six P.M.! And it’s Thursday! How could I have slept for two days? Oh, by god-Gio’s meeting! I’m late! I pulled myself out of bed, feeling weak and sick, viscid with self-recrimination and resentment. Shira, you stupid bastard; you really can’t leave it alone, you can’t control it. Ninety years in and out of scolopendium; you should have learned by now. I snarled, “You don’t fucking deserve to be an Eszai at all!”

Evening was now invisible through storm clouds clustered over the Castle. The rally starts in three hours; at full speed I might be able to make it in time. Torrential rain had seeped in through a broken shutter and my satchel was lying in a shallow pool. I couldn’t stand the thought of putting my hand in cold water, so I kicked it to a less saturated part of the floor.

I looked for any sign of Tern, but she had spent the day away. Catching myself shaking, I suddenly flooded with anger. Nothing rules me; what the fuck have I become ? My syringe lay on the floor under the bed and just the sight of it overwhelmed me with lust and despair. I picked it up and, holding it like a dagger, I smashed it down onto the slate top of our dressing table until fury deserted me in a wave and I was left looking rather cynically at the bent object. You are really going to regret doing that in a few days, Shira.

Can’t waste the rest, anyhow, I vindicated. I stalked down to the lower room, where I diluted my last vial of cat and decanted the preparation into a little hip flask so I could take sips while traveling. A drift of letters had piled up against my door and when I opened it they fell into the room. I ignored them and pinned up a withered note that read, “I’m not in but you needed the exercise.” I spread my wings, wriggled through a slit window and jumped off bound for Eske.

My wings skirred in the wet air. I flew fast, but the faint trace of Tern’s perfume on my clothes kept distracting me. I pulled the neck of my T-shirt over my nose and sniffed her rich and peppery scent. She smelled the same as she did the first time I saw her. I met Tern when, on a Messenger’s errand, Lightning gave me a missive to deliver to his neighbor, the Governor of Wrought. The letter was a blank piece of paper and Lightning is an accomplished matchmaker, but I didn’t discover that till decades later. I think that Lightning, being a connoisseur of exquisite things, appreciated Tern’s beauty and hoped that I would preserve it forever in the Circle. I sought an audience with Tern in her stateroom. She was untouchable, as self-contained as a cushion cat, small and dark-haired, infinitely more refined than a Rhydanne. Her white dress clung to her body all the way down to the floor. I adored her voice the instant she spoke; it was like being dipped in warm caramel. I wanted to offer her books to read aloud.

In the following year, 1892, Tern decided to marry. She put out word that she would welcome challengers for her hand and organized a series of formal balls and dinners for her suitors, who arrived in droves and began to decant gold into the vaults of Wrought. The competition was much tougher than I had imagined; they all had titles and most of them had manors. I had nothing to offer her except my kiss, which bestowed immortality, but I thought she could not possibly want someone like me.

I had lost my virginity with three girls together in Wellbelove’s petite maison -a whorehouse in Hacilith that I had rented one night for my own use, and I was a drug dealer so I could afford it. I knew never to pick a skinny whore: Rosie Brosia, Titmouse Slow and a girl called Anything Once threw themselves on me and taught me well and good.