Kage Baker - The Anvil of the World

Without warning she turned and looked directly at Lady Svnae, who had been edging gradually back in the direction of the landing.

“Are you so eager to go, daughter?”

Lady Svnae flushed and strode forward, muttering. She towered over her mother, but somehow looked like a gauche adolescent standing before her.

“Well, you didn’t have anything to say to me,” she said.

“I have a great deal to say to you,” the lady replied. “But you must take poor Smith home to his family first. You owe him that; if you hadn’t pried into matters that didn’t concern you, he might still have both his hands.”

“No, that was fated to happen, whatever I did,” said Lady Svnae stubbornly. “And the death of a whole people did concern me. And I’ve said I was sorry. What more can I do to atone?”

The lady smiled at her. “You can use the strength of your great heart, child. You can help your brother build the city. The library, especially.”

Lady Svnae brightened at that. Her mother surveyed her scarlet-and-purple silks, her serpent jewelry, her bare arms, and she sighed.

“But please buy yourself some sensible clothing in Salesh, before you return.”

Lord Ermenwyr sidled over to his sister.

“Cheer up!” he said. “Think of the fun we’ll have shopping.” He looked sidelong at his mother. “I’m going to spend an awful lot of your money on this. I ought to have some compensation for being a good boy.”

“You have always been a good boy,” his mother said serenely, “whatever you pretend to yourself.”

Lord Ermenwyr gnashed his teeth.

One day’s journey out upon the sea, they spied bright-striped sails on the horizon, traveling steadily though they hung slack in the motionless air.

“That’s another slaveless galley,” said Smith, waving away the butterflies that danced before him. “Maybe we should hail them for news.”

Within an hour they were close enough to distinguish the clanking oars of the other vessel, louder even than their own, and in yet another hour they saw the revelers dancing and waving to them from the other vessel’s deck.

“Ai—aiiiii!” shouted a fat man, pushing back the wreath of roses that had slipped over one eye. “What ship is that? Where d’you hail from?”

“The Kingfisher’s Nest out of Salesh, from the Rethestlin!” bawled Smith. “What ship’s that?”

“The Lazy Days out of Port Blackrock! Have you heard the news, my friend?”

“What news? Is the war over?”

“Duke Skalkin choked on a fish bone!” the man cried gleefully. “His son signed the peace treaty the next day!”

“A little death can be useful now and then,” muttered Lord Ermenwyr.

“The blockade’s gone?”

“All sailed home!” the man assured them, accepting a cup of wine from a nubile girl. He tilted his head back to drink, then pointed at the Kingfisher’s Nest, shouting with laughter. “You’ve got butterflies too!”

“They flew down the river with us,” Smith said, turning his head to look up at the ranks of white wings perched all along the yards. He looked back at the Lazy Days. “You’ve got a couple, yourself. Where’d they come from?”

“Nobody knows! They’ve been floating along in swarms!” The man peered closer. “Say, what the hell kind of crew have you got?”

“We’ve just come from a costume party,” Lord Ermenwyr told him.

“So, we can go straight home along the coast, then?” Smith asked hurriedly.

“It’s clear sailing all the way!” The man made an expansive gesture, slopping his wine.

And so it proved to be, over a sea smooth as a mirror, under a sky of pearly cloud. If not for the unbroken line of the coast that paced them, they might have been sailing in the heart of an infinite opal. Warm rain fell now and then, big scattered drops, and the sea steamed. They passed through clouds of white butterflies making their way along over open water, seemingly bound on the same journey.

Many settled on the spars and rigging, despite Lord Ermenwyr’s best efforts to bid them begone.

“Oh, what’ve you got against the poor little things?” said Lady Svnae crossly, as she spooned poppy-petal jam on a cracker for Smith.

“They stink of the miraculous,” growled her brother, pacing up the deck with his fists locked together under his coattails.

They rounded Cape Gore without incident, and by dawn of the next day spotted the high mile-castles of Salesh, with its streets sloping down to the sea and the white domes of the Glittering Mile bright along the seafront. So calm the water was, so glassy, that they were obliged to keep the boiler full the whole way, and never ran up a stitch of canvas.

But as they rounded the breakwater and came into the harbor, Smith gave the order to cut power and come in on the tide alone. Willowspear threw open the stopcock, and steam escaped with a shriek that echoed off the waterfront. The thrashing oars shuddered to a halt; but when the echoes died an unearthly silence fell, and they might have been a ghost ship gliding in.

“Oh, my,” said Lady Svnae, shading her eyes with her hand.

White butterflies, everywhere, dancing in clouds through the sky, flickering on the branches of trees like unseasonable snow. They were thick on the rigging of every ship in the harbor. They lighted on the heads and arms of the citizens of Salesh, who were standing about like people in a dream, watching them. Nobody paid much attention to the Kingfisher’s Nest or her outlandish crew as they moored and came ashore.

“This is a portent of something tremendous,” said Willowspear, striding up Front Street.

“It’s the heat wave this summer,” said Lord Ermenwyr, glaring about him at the fluttering wings clouding the sky above the marketplace. “Unusual numbers of the nasty things hatched, that’s all. Wait up, damn you!”

“He does have a wife to get back to, you know,” Lady Svnae chided him.

“We will carry you, Master,” Cutt offered.

“Yes, perhaps that’s best,” said Lord Ermenwyr, and when Cutt bent obligingly he vaulted up to his shoulder and perched there, sneering at the butterflies that swirled about his head. “On, Cutt!”

“Do you often get butterfly migrations at this time of the year?” Lady Svnae inquired of Smith.

“Never that I remember,” he replied breathlessly. “How long has this been going on?” he inquired of a shopkeeper, who stood staring at the white wings clustered upon his hanging sign.

“They came in the night,” he replied. “The watchman saw them flying in from the sea. He said it looked like the stars were leaving Heaven and coming here!”

“It’s a sign from the gods!” cried a city runner, swinging her brazen trumpet to dislodge butterflies.

“ ‘Sign from the gods’! Poppycock,” said Lord Ermenwyr, and then “Aaargh!” as Cutt bore him through a particularly thick cloud of floating wings.

“At least I don’t see any signs of riots,” said Smith.

“No,” Lord Ermenwyr replied, twisting on Cutt’s shoulder to peer up the hill. “I note Greenietown’s all hung with mourning over Hlinjerith, however.”

“I just hope they know it wasn’t us,” said Smith.

“Oh, they know who did it,” said Lady Svnae grimly. “Mother’s people don’t have runners, but you’d be amazed how fast news travels through the bowers. It’s a good thing you—”

They had turned up the last curve that led to the Grand-view, and there the butterflies were thickest of all, drifting and sailing between the buildings, whitening the gardens. At the Grandview itself they beat against every window, patiently walking up the glass, seeking a way in.

“They’d better not be infesting my suite,” Lord Ermenwyr said.