The Drowning City

Izzy turned, tilting his head back to glare at her. “You’d leave the Dog so easily?”

Vienh folded her arms under her breasts. “She saved my daughter’s life, Izzy. What do you want me to do?”

Adam unhooked two gold rings from his ear, untied a leather pouch from his neck. “If you need cash-” Metal glittered as he tossed the rings onto the table. An uncut amethyst followed with a quiet thump.

Izzy snarled, baring a gold tooth; Adam’s gold vanished off the table. “Rot your eyes. One more day.” He turned back to Vienh. “You know how much I value you, but you’ll be first mate of charred boards if we’re not lucky.” He swung down from his chair and left the room as fast as his short legs would carry him.

“I’m sorry,” Isyllt said to Vienh when the door swung shut.

The woman shrugged, though her jaw was still tight. “Not your fault, is it? Sivahra might be a lot better off if no one cared about family or honor. But you’d better do what you can before sunset tomorrow, or I may be rowing you to Selafai on a stolen fishing skiff.”

Before Isyllt could reply, her mirror began to shiver in her pocket, a tingle of magic that raised gooseflesh on her arms. She pulled back the grimy silk wrapping and Zhirin’s splotchy red-eyed face rose in the black glass.

“Are you all right?” Isyllt asked, eyebrows knitting.

The girl rubbed a hand against her nose. “I’m not hurt. I have the ring, and I found out what happened to Vasilios.” She glanced down, jerked her head up again. “I need-I have to do something with a body.”

Isyllt and Adam exchanged a glance. “Wait there. We’ll come as soon as we can.”

She broke the spell and wrapped the mirror. “Corpses before lunch-this will be an interesting day.”

Vienh fell in beside them as they left the bar, and Isyllt arched a curious eyebrow. The smuggler’s grimace might have been meant as a smile. “I’m coming with you. Izzy’s angry with me anyway, and everyone else thinks I’m a traitor to one cause or another-I might as well do something to earn it.”

The swamp was thick with midges, the whining clouds enough to overwhelm the charms they wore. Zhirin waved and slapped, scratched stinging welts on her wrists and face. More insects bothered Adam and Isyllt-she wondered idly if it was just her own eucalyptus perfume keeping the worst away, or if their paler skin was more attractive. A breeze might have cleared the midges away, but too much magic could draw unwelcome attention.

Silty water slopped against her thighs, squelched between her toes. A pity the Dai Tranh didn’t have a convenient city hideout, but Isyllt’s spell had drawn them out of Symir, past the expensive houses and estates on the Southern Bank and into the thick mangrove swamps that lined the bay. Mostly fisherfolk lived here, in houses high on stilts to avoid the grasping tides and houseboats anchored beyond the trees. Such a simple place to hide, but effective-all the news of the rebels centered around the Xians and the Lhuns, northern forest clans. Who paid attention to a few mud-fishers in the south? Zhirin wasn’t even sure whose lands these had been.

Clouds hid the moon and stars and they risked no witchlights, only a shuttered lantern carried by Isyllt’s sailor companion. Zhirin moved carefully, avoiding submerged root-spears and crab-traps. Fish and snakes brushed past her; larger creatures swam lazily in the bay, and she kept one otherwise ear trained on them. The cold and hungry minds of eel-sharks were a welcome distraction from her own bruised thoughts.

“Are we there yet?” Vienh muttered, crawling around a thicket of roots. The sailor took point while Adam trailed behind, the two mages slogging in between.

Isyllt touched Vasilios’s ring where it hung against her chest, and Zhirin clenched her jaw. A white diamond set in gold-it was hers if she wished to claim it. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to keep it in remembrance of her master or toss it into the depths of the bay. At least he’d kept no spirits bound in it.

“Not yet,” Isyllt said, “but the pull is stronger. We’re getting closer.” She held her bandaged hand against her chest, away from the water.

Zhirin curled the fingers of her own wounded hand. It only hurt when she thought about it, didn’t even need stitches. She’d cut herself worse on broken shells in the river. But the shells hadn’t been trying to kill her.

How did you grow used to that? When did people become nothing more than threats? The necromancer had offered quiet sympathy but hadn’t tried to hide her relief-one more enemy exposed and dead. Never mind that the enemy had been an old woman whom Zhirin had known for years. She clenched her fist; the scabbed cut cracked and burned.

Vienh paused, waved for silence and checked the lantern shutter. Isyllt and Zhirin moved closer, sloshing as quietly as they could. Ahead, the trees gave way to a narrow finger of water. A house stood on the far side of the inlet, shuttered and dark.

Isyllt touched the diamond and frowned, then turned toward the bay. “What’s out there?” she asked, staring into the dark.

Zhirin squinted but saw only shades of black. She dipped her hand into the water, stretched out better senses. The bay welcomed her in, dark and soothing. Roots and weeds, salt and silt, the soft tickle of fish and crabs, the growing depth and pull of the sea. The sinuous undulations of eel-sharks and sharp, clever thoughts of nakh. And there, not too far from the shore, the weight of a boat, its keel digging into her skin. Delicate shivers rippled through the hull as people walked the decks.

Reluctantly, Zhirin eased out of the water’s embrace, retreating into the stifling solidity of flesh. “A boat. Maybe a houseboat. There are people aboard.”

Isyllt frowned, hand on Vasilios’s ring. “That’s it. They’re there.”

“So we swim?” Adam asked, sounding none too thrilled with the prospect.

“Be careful,” Zhirin said before anyone could move deeper. “There are sharks in the bay. And nakh.” She frowned. “A lot of nakh.”

“Lovely,” muttered Vienh.

“What are they doing here?” she muttered, half to herself. Nakh always swam in the bay, but she’d never heard of so many schooled together. Not since the attack at the festival, at least.

“What should we do?” Isyllt asked. Gratifying, to be asked so seriously, not to be treated as an apprentice, but it meant she had to think of a clever answer.

A solution came to her quickly-it wasn’t exactly clever, but she couldn’t think of anything else.

“I’ll distract them,” she said, before she could think better of it. “Wait a moment, then start swimming.” She unbuttoned her blouse, hung it over a tree branch. The night wasn’t cold, but gooseflesh prickled over her arms.

Isyllt’s eyebrows rose, but all she said was, “All right.”

Zhirin hoped it was confidence in her abilities, not callous disregard for her life.

She tugged off her shoes too, set them dripping beside her shirt. Mother, she prayed, watch over your idiot child. Mud shifted like gritty silk between her toes. A few steps and the water closed around her ribs. Her chest swelled with breath as she slipped under.

She hadn’t thought when she dove into the canal after Isyllt at the festival, only acted. It was much easier that way. She let the fear slip away in bubbles of air.

When she couldn’t touch the bottom or break the surface with an outstretched hand, she called light, the sickly blue-green illumination of fireflies and fish-lures. It spread in tendrils around her, clung to bits of debris. A beacon. Blood seeped from her bandaged hand, dark threads unwinding.

An eel-shark glided past-the light slid across its wedge-shaped head, fringed gills and long, writhing tail. Its eyes flashed in the glare. In the distance, she heard the others begin to swim, clumsy mammal strokes. The shark heard it too.

“Stay,” Zhirin said, filling the word with power. Its air bubble didn’t float away but hung shining by her face. The shark circled, keeping to the edge of the light.

She felt the nakh coming a heartbeat before she saw them. Pale shapes emerged from the murk, triangular faces gleaming amid clouds of hair, tails shining with dark rainbow scales and iridescent fins.

Have you come to play with us? The words shivered through the water, echoed inside Zhirin’s head. Or to feed us?

“What are you doing here?”

We like these mammals. A tail flickered in the direction of the boat. They feed us well.

“They’re murderers.” The ache in her chest grew with every word.