Chapter Three - Fluvyn

The next morning saw no difference to Kesser’s life. He baked breakfast with Emil for the family as usual, laying their dwindling supply of sweetrolls on the table beside the cured fish Sidrah had given him, then went to the barn with Kendell after eating. There, the chickens and goats turned their beady eyes to him, and Kendell brought him a bag of grain to feed their waiting mouths with. Cleaning the pens proved no more work than it would any other day, and by noon he had scrubbed them of the worse of their grime.

Work. That work, numbing the mind day after day—nonetheless it gave him much time to think, and always this time his thoughts were set against the whispers of his pendant. Why, then, did it all still feel the same?

After a lunch of goat’s milk he worked on the tractor, then cleaned the wind turbines, and when the overcast sky began to grow dim with a setting sun he at last found an hour to himself.

It was not a long walk to the grove by the docks. There he found the old tree, except that now it was empty, only another tree, without the company of the farmer and fisher who met there so often as if by ritual.

So no ritual today, then.

Kesser wondered if Sidrah was busy with Callum again. He looked to the north, where two leagues away the Duke’s palace sat. Even now he did not understand the trade deal that so bound Sidrah and Callum in arranged marriage. But who was he to intervene? Only, it hurt so much more than it should, the image of Sidrah in gown and Callum in suit, the thought of his old friend taken to the palace where he would never see her again, the possibility that the last thing he ever said to her would be those hurtful words—

He had been walking along the grove, far from the docks now. Something rustled among the tangled ferns just ahead. He stopped.

As did the rustling, before resuming a moment later; for that it must not have been an animal. Animals never often remained in one place like that, at least not any big enough to move the ferns so.

Kesser crept into the grove, stepping aside from twig and leaf and the mud from the day before’s rain, and peeked into the ferns.

“Callum?”

The man on the ground looked up. That hawkish face, that short auburn hair could not have belonged to anyone else, nor could that gold-woven clothing now stained with dirt.

Beside him was a girl, Brem’s older sister by the looks. Dirt and grime streaked her dress, no doubt from shifting about on the ground. She lay there frozen in surprise. For in her place, who would not? Unspoken knowledge in Estale told that she had been the Duke’s mistress for the past year. The Duke always had a mistress in this town nearest his fortress. Eighteen years ago, that habit had produced Sidrah.

Callum scowled, rose to his feet. He stood perhaps half a head taller than Kesser.

“You saw nothing,” he growled.

Kesser stood his ground, hiding his racing heart as best he could.

“Oh, I… I didn’t mean to interrupt. Sorry.”

He turned and left, pushing through the undergrowth.

“You saw nothing!” Callum repeated. “Don’t tell the Duke. For Lord’s sake, don’t tell Sidrah!”

Kesser paused. And then, despite himself, he grinned.

***

“Looking for her?”

Sidrah’s mother did not look up as she spoke. She knelt at the edge of the dock, securing her fishing boat with a length of rope.

Kesser nodded. “I trust I’m not interrupting your work?”

Sidrah’s mother shrugged. “We’re working all the time. You needn’t worry. Sidrah’s in there, I think, if she has not run off again.” She pointed to the boat’s cramped cabin, bobbing up and down along the foaming waves.

Kesser found her inside, working the control panel. Her face betrayed no emotion when she noticed him.

“Hey,” Kesser simply greeted, as she stepped onto the dock.

“Hello,” Sidrah responded, crossing her arms.

“About yesterday.” Kesser looked away from Sidrah’s gaze, then back into her eyes. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, calling you selfish like that. You’re… gods, you are the most selfless person I know.”

Sidrah smiled. “No I’m not. I’m selfish, and the Duke doesn’t give a damn about me. I just don’t like to be reminded of it, yeah?”

“No. I know I hurt you more than that. You were crying, for gods’ sake!”

“Then we’re even.” Sidrah punched his shoulder. “I can’t stay mad at you. Not as the one who caved in your roof and stole your chickens and broke your tractor.”

“I… wait, you did that? Look, Sid.” He took her hand. “I need to know you won’t hate me for saying what I said long after today. You’re shrugging it off, but—”

“But don’t push it. Just forget it, will you?” Sidrah pulled her hand away.

“Fine. But I also have more to tell you.” Kesser glanced at Sidrah’s mother, who regarded him—as always—with a mistrusting squint. “Alone.”

In a moment the two of them were seated inside the fishing boat, rocking with the waves. Kesser hoped he would not be seasick as usual.

“I saw Callum,” he said, “with another girl. Brem’s sister, I think, and somewhere in the north of the grove where we meet.”

Sidrah stared at him.

“He’s supposed to marry me. In two weeks.”

Kesser nodded.

“Brem’s sister is the Duke’s mistress. How could he? I’m almost impressed.”

“I know. That’s not all.” Kesser reached for his pendant. “Did you see a shuttle fall from the sky yesterday?”

“Yes! Gods, no one believed me. What of it?”

“It landed not far from where I was hunting. I went for a look, and—” he took his pendant off “—found this.”

Sidrah took it. The whispering came to a halt. And a sickness washed over Kesser, poison through his veins, the world turned aside.

“Kess, are you alright? Kess!”

“I’m… seasick…” Kesser lied, leaving the cabin. No, it could not have been the sea.

The pendant. He could not bear another moment without those comforting whispers, hushing his sickness back into oblivion.

He returned to the cabin, wiping bile from his lip, and took the pendant back from Sidrah. She stared at her empty palm for some time, as though she were about to say something. But never did she speak of it.

“Will you forgive me,” she muttered, “if I dream just this once? If I fight fate?”

Kesser thought for a moment. Lest he push her away again, he could not tell Sidrah her plans were foolish. Yet she would be leaving anyways, would she not?

Another memory came, from the days before they had taken Ayild.

“Prove me wrong, then. Show me something incredible.”

Sidrah grinned. “There’s the Kess I know. Have you heard the legend of the Lost Archivist?”

Find the Lost Archivist. Kesser remembered the dead man, his blistered burns and ravaged throat.

“No. Where did you hear it?”

“From two merchants. Years ago, I remember one telling me of it, and another told the same story just a fortnight ago. They both spoke of an Archivist that survived the Alliance’s war with the Dynasty, and went into hiding somewhere in the distant reaches of the Cluster. They say she will bestow great riches on whoever finds her.” Sidrah put her hands on her hips, held her head high. “And I will find her.”

Kesser raised an eyebrow.

“How will you even get off Tal?”

Sidrah looked briefly outside the cabin, then leaned in, a look of mischief about her.

“Callum has more power than you’d think, and he’s desperate for his father’s approval,” she whispered. “I’ll blackmail him into giving me a starship from the Fluvyn port.”

“You’ll know how to fly it?”

“Why, when the enforcers weren’t around, the merchants have always let us tour their starships! Even you used to do it.”

Kesser had no words for that, only a sinking feeling he had pushed down earlier.

“And what about me?”

Sidrah took his shoulders.

“You can come with me. We’ll seek out riches together—me piloting and captaining, you fixing things and scrubbing the decks. I’m sure your family will understand.”

“Scrubbing the decks? You know I can’t. My father’s dying, and I have mouths to feed. There is nothing up in space for me.”

Sidrah looked to her feet.

“There is infinity,” she said softly. “Freedom among the stars. A life for yourself, not for the Duke or the taxers.”

“What of your mother?”

“She’ll be alright on her own, so she’s always told me. Must you wrack me with guilt like this?”

Kesser stared toward the horizon. Somewhere beyond those waters, across the great bay, would be Fluvyn—the grandest spaceport on Tal. He could almost see without seeing those starships streaking into the darkening grey sky, and far, so far beyond.

“If you see your plan through, where and when will we part ways?”

“Here, on this very dock.”

For a time the two of them sat in silence, avoiding each other’s gaze. Atop his pendant’s whispers he could only think of life without Sidrah. Of course his family could always buy fisher’s goods from the market, and it was not as though she had ever helped him on the fields, yet that part of his life would be… gone. There would be no one to talk to the way he talked to her, no one to share flowers and stories with, no one to play by the shores and visit the merchant starships with.

And yet, Kesser was not the person Sidrah had befriended all those years ago, not after they took Ayild. Always since he had known that one day, sooner or later, she would have been gone, if not to the voids than to the growing distance between them.

Then, Sidrah’s mother stood there by the cabin, and Kesser knew he had stayed past his welcome.

He moved to leave, but not before Sidrah took his hand. He looked back.

And in that mournful gaze, that plain face neither fair nor soft, that dull work-dress covered in patches, he wondered whether Sidrah was truly merely his friend.

One by one he let her fingers slip away, and quickly he left before she could see his blush.

***

And so Sidrah blackmailed Callum. Two days later he visited her home as ever he did, first briskly frowning at the cramped wooden walls, then beaming a clean smile as he closed the door on the guards waiting outside.

This time, Sidrah smiled back. And she told him of all she had learned, and slowly her smile grew wider and his turned to a scowl. This time, he would not be complaining about the palace servants or recounting the old battles of the Dynastic Crusade.

It did not take long for Callum to return to his guards. With Sidrah watching, he ordered them to open a channel to the Fluvyn port, whereupon he spoke at length into the communicator.

“This is on behalf of space station authority. I’m ordering you to transfer a starship to our fleet—you must! Either you do as I tell, or my father ends your career. Yes, a passenger shuttle shall do.”

Callum glanced at Sidrah, who nodded with approval. She had seen merchants fly such shuttles fitted to become cargo vessels, and heard too of pirates who hid torpedoes and artillery behind passenger bulkheads.

“Just one passenger shuttle, yes. The crew? Well, that is not my problem! Assign them to hangar duty or another ship. We will command it with our own people. It’s done, then? Good. We shall send a new captain shortly.”

Callum hung up the communicator with a sigh. Moments later a teletype printout sputtered out of the machine, and he gave it to Sidrah. Upon it were directions to the ship’s hangar, alongside several code-glyphs and a brief message.

Ownership of passenger shuttle 20-979 is hereby granted to Sidrah of Estale.

Even with Lumas and Mimas on either horizon, the waves crashed. Each lash of the retreating tide brought foaming mist high into the air, soaking the dock with a dark spray, wetting the parasols Callum’s guards carried for him as he left.

As Sidrah watched him leave, she felt a twist of guilt in her gut. Was he not as much consigned to fate as her? Certainly it was no fault of his that the Duke and his father had arranged their union. And certainly too he did not wish for it, not with where he had been just two days before.

“Wait!” She called. “Callum!”

Callum turned back, still scowling to himself.

“It’s nothing personal,” she said, hoping he could hear. “I don’t really hate you, and I’m not doing this for want of hurting you. I’m sorry. And thank you.”

By degrees his scowl faded, and he continued on his way. Perhaps he understood, then.

Sidrah reached into her pocket. There it was, real as ever—the crescent-moon earring. What of the pillar, then? That had felt so much a dream, and even now she had told no one of it. Even Kesser, whose pendant had seemed so similar to the earring.

A catalyst of freedom.

Her mother joined her by the dock. Sidrah nodded to her. It was done. They would be leaving for Fluvyn soon.

***

At last the evening sun shone through the clouds and rain after an overcast week, but its golden rays cast themselves upon a world that seemed so much duller to Kesser.

Where the docks ended and water began, he stood before Sidrah, tongue tied. For what could he say? That he wanted her to stay? That she meant so much more to him than she thought? That—

“Oh. Ow.”

She pulled him into a crushing hug. He returned the gesture, and silently they held on until Kesser began to gasp for breath.

There was no hiding the colour that rose to his face this time. Neither could he convince himself it was the sunlight. And damn that, the sun, for it would seem so much more fitting for the rains to fall now and drown everything.

“Take care of yourself for me,” Sidrah said.

“No, you take care. If anything happens to you out there…”

She gave him a light shove. “I’ll be fine, Kess. And I’ll be back, I promise, with riches beyond belief.”

“Then I’ll wait for you. Always. I’ll wait, no matter how long it takes.”

Sidrah gave him a sad sort of smile. The kind of smile that brought words of confession welling in his throat, and yet in the end he could not muster the courage to speak. How could he tell her now, even as she prepared to leave, that in his heart he held more than simple friendship for her?

“I forgive you, no matter what.”

She joined her mother on the fishing boat. And then, with unfurled sails and electric engines, they left for Fluvyn.

Kesser watched Sidrah grow ever distant, until her boat was mere flotsam atop the waves, until her sails fell beneath the wavering horizon.

Silence. Wind. Waves, and screeching gulls far above. Feeling empty, he began a long walk back home, as the sunlight faded beneath dark clouds.

That night, as the sky cleared once more and revealed Tal under the piercing gaze of the Silver River, he sat atop the roof of his home, watching starships take off from Fluvyn. Like shooting stars they fell into the sky, those distant lights each so bright and so… lonely. Never would two take to the stars at once. And only when one joined the stars, would the next flare as if a burning match, burning to oblivion in the wake of the last.

One of them must be Sidrah.

A cold autumn breeze rushed by. Something rustled. Kesser turned to find Emil already laying on the roof, hands behind her head, meeting the sky’s gaze.

“You should do this more often,” she said. “Helps clear the mind, make you a little less sad. I’m sorry Sidrah’s gone.”

“Thank you. Um, how often do you come up here?”

“I know every tile on my path to this spot, Kesser. I’m sure you didn’t hear me until just now.”

“Every night, then.”

Emil smiled.

“Help clear the mind,” she repeated. “And makes you wonder. They tell us the Sovereign-Lord watches and protects us, but how can he do that from his throne room in Skaude?”

More rustling.

“Yes, it’s light-years away!” Came Kendell’s voice. He sat at the edge of the roof, swinging his legs over the edge. “That’s very far, isn’t it?”

“You too?” Kesser said, incredulous.

Emil chuckled. “You think I’m up here alone every time? Besides, Kendell has trouble sleeping anyways.”

“I do not,” Kendell mumbled. “I just don’t want to sleep.”

“Sure. Hey, Kesser, can you find the all the Fourteen Systems?”

Kesser laid down, so that the Silver River showed him all its splendour.

“Sidrah’s tried to teach me.” He searched the sky for those familiar constellations, nebulae and clusters abound. “That’s Ain, the Frozen Jewel, the bright one east of the Great Arch. And… there, Jhedd. The Stardust Hub. Just above the southern horizon, see, there? Oh, and Messier’s near the trees there to the west. It’s rather bright, too. That’s why they call it the Autumn Polestar.”

Emil yawned. “Hmm. You certainly know your stars.”

“Where’s Skaude, then?” Kendell asked.

Kesser squinted. There he found it right overhead, dim yet unmistakable.

“Just north-east of Jhedd. Skaude. The Golden Capital.”

As he said it, the whispers from his pendant seemed to crash onto him as if a rising tide. But in a moment it was all over, and he only wondered if he should have been sleeping.

“Maybe she’s somewhere up there,” Kendell said.

Kesser sighed, breath fogging in the cold night air.

“She is.”

Both of them are.