Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

“They only want immortality,” Lightning added. “Don’t wed the first one you meet just because she shows interest in you. You should wait for one who loves you for yourself.”

The eldest girl was about twenty and she had a driven look that no makeup could mask. She was hungry for the chance to peel away from her rivals and address Wrenn alone; a social climber eager to find footholds in the flaws of his character. An expert seductress, Eszai-good, if there had been a place in the Circle for seduction. She had started young and become an expert in her teens. Well, that kind of dedication was necessary to win the ultimate prize.

Tern wagged her finger at the Swordsman. “For god’s sake don’t tell them anything. You’ll be reading it in the gossip columns for the next six months.” She smiled and I pulled her closer. She instinctively knows how to flirt with anyone. The problem with having a trophy wife is that you have to keep rewinning the trophy.

“There is Tornado,” Lightning said. “Wrenn, come and let me introduce you to the Circle’s Strongman.” Wrenn found himself shepherded expertly between the dancers, who turned to glimpse him at every step, so he was always the center of a space surrounded with people, all smiles and for the most part slightly taller than him.

“That golden boy is going to get his orange juice spiked if he’s not careful,” I muttered.

Tern giggled and curtsied. “May I have this dance?”

We danced. Her hand draped on my whipcord upper arm. My hand clasped below her shoulder blade on the silk, basquewired like a lampshade. My lace shirt cuffs hid my fingerless gloves. She followed my steps in quick time like a snappy reflection. We had practiced this; we felt good. I felt great, only Tern can keep up with me when I go so swiftly. And underneath all her clothes she’s naked. She was giddy already from the room spinning about us. All those faces. Our bodies together, shoulders apart; my hips rubbed just above her waist. “I’ll lead, you can spin.”

“Easy!” Her skirt twirled; she was laughing.

The music ended; Tern leaned forward, hands on knees, little cleavage in danger of escaping. “Oh, Jant,” she said breathlessly in her carnal voice. I rubbed my cheek on her cheek and kissed her eyelids. I kissed her lips, and deeply her mouth.

We were still snogging when Mist Ata appeared and nodded curtly. She carried a candle in a holder and her forehead was creased with worry. “Jant, come with me.”

“Later, Mist,” I murmured.

“This can’t wait any longer.”

I disentangled myself from Tern and placed a finger on her nose. “Soon,” I promised.

“Soon,” she repeated, as if from a distance.

I followed the Sailor. “You were brave to ask San for leave,” she said. “Mind you, I could tell you needed a holiday.”

“I was improving my flying. And besides, no one else ever goes to Darkling so I bring back news for the Emperor.”

“Yeah, right. Lucky, lucky; I haven’t had any leave for five hundred years.”

At the quiet end of the hall Lightning waited by the camera obscura, leaning against the door with his big arms folded. Mist beckoned us inside.

“Oh, so you found a hiding place to avoid Wrenn’s questions?” I said.

Mist replied, “Jant, you don’t even know the type of reason why you’re here.”

The camera obscura was a tiny, black-painted room with a pinhole in the door that shone a circular image of the hall onto the far wall. The entire party was pictured inverted there-minutely detailed figures crossing the lit screen. I examined it. There was the tiny piano and musicians upside down. Miniature people waltzed past a section of the long trestle table. A blurred servant trudged behind them with a leather blackjack jug. I squinted to see the Emperor below the sun shield in the center. I spotted Tern; she was talking animatedly to someone whose image stepped forward onto the screen. I contorted trying to view them the right way up. It was Tornado, an unmistakable giant of a man. Tern put her hands up to his chest. He bent down; she kissed him lightly on the cheek. His hands embraced her hips, far too closely in my opinion, and together they danced off the edge of the projection.

Oh, no. I wanted to run straight to Tern, but Mist blocked the doorway, setting her candle on the floor. Her shadow hid the screen.

“Can we get this over with?” I said, annoyed. I craned to see the figures now dancing on Mist’s blouse and face. My wife was out there, chasséing with a man who had enough muscle in one bicep to make three warriors.

Lightning said, “At least choose a more comfortable lair for your conspiracies.”

Mist said, “Jant, what would you say if a land existed far out in the sea about which the Empire knows nothing?”

“I’d say that if you want philosophical debate in a stuffy cupboard you can ask another Eszai. It’s not like me to miss a party. Especially important parties.”

Mist delved in her shoulder bag and brought out a thick book with crinkled pages. Her hands were pockmarked from her pre-Castle life as a milkmaid and butcher’s delivery girl on Grass Isle, rowing her skiff every day to deliver cuts of beef to the islanders and cutting remarks to the sailors who wolf-whistled.

She gave me the book. “This is the log of the Stormy Petrel. I have discovered an island, named Tris, reached three months out of Awndyn harbor on an east-southeast bearing.”

I said, “Where? Three months? No, that’s not possible; nothing’s that far away.” I glanced at Lightning. “You’re being very quiet.”

“I’m not going with you, Ata,” he said.

“Going where?” I exclaimed.

Mist said, “The Emperor requests that you and Lightning sail with me to the Island of Tris.”

“No!…Look, slow down, this is a lot to take in. San knows of this island?”

“Yes. I returned from my voyage last month. I kept it very confidential though I wanted to sail in triumph into port. I told San everything and he has ordered a second expedition that you two must join.”

“But…I don’t believe you. My duty’s here; I have lots of work to do in Wrought. You won’t need a messenger on a caravel; yes, I could be of more use working for you here. I-”

“You hate ships, we know. Tough.”

“Ships are fine as long as I don’t have to be aboard them.” I caught a glimpse of the projection, on which numerous Eszai by the long table were asking Wrenn questions, but I couldn’t see Tern. I was sure that I was being made the butt of a practical joke. I tried to give the impression that I was amused but was willing to see how far I could push Mist’s invention. “So what’s it like on this island?”

Mist handed me the notebook. It began with the coordinates of the Awndyn coastline, the edge of the chart off which she had sailed. Her round feminine handwriting encircled a sketch map: “The Island named Tris by its inhabitants,” I read, and: “The town drawn from the harbor. The natives say ‘Capharnaum,’ this must be the town’s name? Another settlement due south, name unknown. Triangulated height of mountain approx. 3000m.”

“Natives?” I said. “You mean the island is populated?”

“Aye.”

“Who by? Plainslanders?”

“Some are human, some are winged people, living together in the town. As far as I could see there is no Insect infestation whatsoever.”

The island was shaped roughly like the head of an Insect, being rounded with short, spiny peninsulae. Mist had recorded the inlets and promontories with customary precision. The land rose up a gentle concave slope, poured off a sizable river, and then soared into a massive peak. No details were marked, and the east coast was just a dotted line. “I didn’t sail that far, it’s only an estimate,” she explained. “I was interested in the natives. I couldn’t understand their language; that’s why I need you, Jant. I wrote some of the words down, see?”