The Wall of Storms, page 85
“Know when to do the most interesting thing, is that it?” the emperor asked.
“Exactly.”
Emperor Monadétu gave his sister a last powerful squeeze with his arms before stepping back, his face now impassive. “May the gods speed your journey and bring you success in a new land, Princess of Dara.”
Princess Théra turned around and walked up the gangplank to join Prince Takval, having taken her last step on the soil of Dara. She did not look back lest her tears give the lie to her name.
Back in Pan, the garinafin hatchlings had survived, and now, armed with the knowledge Prince Takval had imparted to them, the people of Dara would embark on a grand adventure to gain the trust of new allies in their war—not unlike the gingerly dance to come between the Agon and their new princess.
IN THE SEA NORTH OF DASU: THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS.
Princess Théra and Prince Takval Aragoz stood on the deck of Dissolver of Sorrows and watched the Wall of Storms.
Nine other ships rode the waves behind Dissolver of Sorrows. The fleet carried Dara craftsmen, soldiers, scholars, books, seeds, tools—whatever Théra had decided would be of use in that distant land to help a people intent on achieving freedom.
“I guess we know we came on the right day,” said Takval, pointing at the silhouette of the Lyucu city-ship bobbing in the distance.
“A welcoming party,” said Théra.
This was the day Luan Zyaji had predicted when the Wall of Storms would open again, and the Lyucu reinforcement fleet was expected to come to Dara. The Lyucu observers on the city-ship likely did not include Pékyu Vadyu, Théra realized. She and Zomi had calculated that the pékyu would be giving birth just about now, and she wondered how Timu—“Emperor Thaké”—was handling the change of becoming a father.
“They’re not coming closer to us,” said Takval.
“As long as we don’t make any moves toward the new fleet, they should respect the peace,” said Théra. “They can’t deny that we have a right to observe here in the open sea.”
They were conversing in a combination of the language of Dara and of the scrublands. Théra was a quick study, and Takval was a patient teacher. As yet, there was no love between them, only the beginning of a tentative friendship that, in time, might dissolve sorrows and enlarge souls.
She was willing to open her heart and let it be filled with the story she wanted to tell about herself, and that was the most interesting thing of all, she decided.
“It’s starting!” she shouted, and pointed.
The cyclones making up the breathtaking curtain began to part. Like a well-trained army going through exercises on the parade grounds, the cyclones drifted to each side, revealing a calm passage in the middle like a valley between towering mountains of water and clouds. Lightning flashed from deep within the cyclones, a fireworks show for a new era.
In the distance, they could see the small silhouettes of city-ships sailing into the passage from the other side of the curtain. Prince Cudyu’s reinforcements had arrived.
“Launch the signal kites!” the princess called out.
Massive kites rose into the air from the decks of the ships in the Dara fleet. Other Dara ships below the horizon to the south would pass the signal on. Than Carucono had dispatched a flotilla of signal ships to be anchored between the Wall of Storms and the Big Island like a string of pearls so that Pan would receive the news as quickly as possible.
PAN: THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS.
Emperor Monadétu, still in mourning over the loss of both his parents within the span of a few months, urged for a secret mission conducted by mechanical crubens against the second Lyucu fleet.
“They might be able to sink one or more of the city-ships at night and leave no evidence for the Lyucu to claim that we broke the treaty,” the emperor insisted.
“No,” Empress Jia said.
“I am the emperor!” shouted Phyro. “Not you.”
“You have the title,” said Jia. “But the Seal of Dara is in my hand. The debate is over.”
As the assembled ministers and generals watched, the young emperor got up from the throne and flipped over the table on which documents were piled. He ran from the Grand Audience Hall.
“Let us continue,” said Empress Jia to the stunned officials in the hall. “The business of governance waits for no one.”
For three days, the emperor locked himself in the mourning hall for Empress Risana and refused to see anyone. Courtiers could hear him cry and mumble inside. Eventually, he emerged and asked to see the empress.
“I am not ready,” he said to Jia.
“Not yet,” Jia said. “But do not let that fire in you burn out. Learn to govern it.”
She then opened her arms and embraced the young man, who cried inconsolably.
All the ministers and generals whispered amongst themselves that Dara was indeed fortunate to have Jia as the incontestable voice behind the throne.
IN THE SEA NORTH OF DASU: THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS.
The city-ships were now in the middle of the valley between towering cyclones, coming closer by the minute.
“Should we get out of the way?” asked Takval.
Taking a page from the mechanical crubens, the Dara ships were designed to be able to dive underwater for brief periods to conceal themselves. Realizing that they would have to use the same passage through the Wall of Storms as the Lyucu fleet, Dissolver of Sorrows and her sister ships were meant to submerge as the Lyucu approached and to resurface later so that they could continue on their way. The ships weren’t designed to be able to propel themselves underwater, but that wasn’t necessary.
“No,” said Théra. “It’s already closing! Zomi was right.”
Indeed, the cyclones that made up the Wall of Storms were already reversing their course. The mountains of cloud and water on either side of the passage were closing in with the Lyucu ships still trapped between them.
PAN: A MONTH EARLIER.
Zomi Kidosu was very busy. Not only was she in charge of preparing for the princess’s voyage to Ukyu and Gondé, but she also had to evaluate many proposals for new machinery and new policies that Empress Jia declared were within the bailiwick of the Imperial Farsight Secretary.
In truth, Zomi understood that some of these duties were traditionally within the purview of the prime minister. However, Empress Jia preferred to distribute the duties between her and Cogo Yelu. It was either a way to punish Cogo for the way he had zealously prosecuted Otho Krin after the unveiling of the empress’s plot or a way to ensure that Cogo Yelu didn’t grow complacent without someone to challenge his opinions.
“I trust systems,” the empress had said to Zomi, “not individuals. You’re skilled at engineering machinery; I want to see if you’re as skilled at engineering the system of governance. Perhaps we will give your proposals regarding the examination system a try.”
Zomi sighed. The exercise of power was a heavy responsibility. She had to learn to make a home for herself in this new role, to balance her impulses for radical changes with the wisdom of cautious gradualism. On top of it all, Théra had also asked her to remain vigilant and to assist in the shift of power from Théra’s mother to her brother over time.
“Both of them will need and want your loyalty,” said Théra. “You’ll have to be careful.”
“You know I’m no good at politics,” said Zomi. “Never had any talent for it.”
“Let your conscience be your guide,” said Théra. “And trust in your love of the common people—they always come first. On that point, at least, everyone in the House of Dandelion is in agreement.”
As the day for Théra’s departure approached, Zomi tried to spend as much time with Théra as she could. Yet something about Théra’s quoting of Luan Zyaji’s poem gnawed at her. She returned to the poem and read it again.
Weigh the fish, the universe is knowable.
A cruben breaches; the remora detaches.
Mewling child, cooing parent,
Grand-souled companions, brothers,
Wakeful weakness,
Empathy that encompasses the world.
To imagine new machines, to see unknown lands,
To believe the grace of kings belongs to all.
Grateful.
She stared at the poem, nonplussed. She had not paid enough attention to the form of the poem at the time she first read it due to the freshness of her grief, but now, in a calmer frame of mind, the strangeness of the poem struck her.
Her teacher had a genuine love for Classical Ano forms and was an accomplished writer and poet in that ancient language. But this poem followed no Classical Ano form that she knew of. The ancient Ano prized visual symmetry, and poems composed in Classical Ano always followed fixed patterns dictating the number of logograms per line. The poems were meant to be recited aloud as well as silently admired as visual compositions.
But each line of this poem had a different number of logograms: seven, six, four, three, two, five, zero (the blank line), eight, nine, one. Why would her teacher be so careless?
True, her teacher had written this on his deathbed, and it was possible that he had lost the ability to compose with care for visual appeal. But Zomi knew instinctively that couldn’t be the real explanation.
The poem has ten lines, each line being a different numeral.
Her teacher had always instructed her on the importance of engineering as the art of assembling existing machinery to achieve a new purpose. Was he using the form of the poem to send her a message, a different message than the words of the poem indicated?
Zomi went back to the calculations in Gitré Üthu concerning the opening of passages in the Wall of Storms. There were too many skipped steps in his derivations for her to be able to reconstruct his work fully, but all the steps that she could follow made sense.
Her eyes were drawn to a doodle in the margin of one of the pages: rows of dots arranged in numerical order—blank space, one, two, three, four . . .
And she finally understood what her teacher had intended with the poem: It was a code. The number of logograms in each line indicated the “real number” while the position of the line in the poem was the cipher. Thus, zero mapped to seven, one mapped to six, two mapped to four, and so on.
Luan Zyaji had done what he could to obscure his method of calculation and presented false results to the Lyucu. But he had also left a key to Zomi for deciphering the false results to get at the real numbers. At the time of his death, however, he couldn’t be sure that whatever information he gave to Zomi wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Lyucu, and so he had embedded the key in the poem.
IN THE SEA NORTH OF DASU: THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE REIGN OF SEASON OF STORMS.
As Théra and Takval watched, the Wall of Storms closed in on the city-ships.
The cipher text in Gitré Üthu had predicted a false opening; the real opening, according to Zomi, wouldn’t happen for another ten years. It was a testament to his skill that even the false calculations pointed to a temporary opening in the Wall, completing a trap that must have taken him days to work out.
Théra imagined the terror the thousands aboard those ships must be feeling as towering mountains of water and clouds loomed over them, bolts of lightning flashing within—hopeless, numbing terror, knowing that there was no escape, that death was just seconds away. In a single moment, nature would kill more people than had died at the Battle of Zathin Gulf. Pity overwhelmed her heart, and she turned her face away.
Luan Zyaji would have his vengeance after death.
Pékyu Vadyu’s forces on Rui and Dasu would still be a threat to Dara, but without Cudyu’s reinforcements, there was a much better chance that Phyro and Jia would be able to deal with them.
She shook her head; she had to change the subject of her thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” said Théra to Takval. “Looks like Zomi was right. There will be no path through the Wall of Storms today.”
Takval was distraught. “But we can’t afford to wait! In ten more years, who knows how many more of my people will die in winter storms and summer droughts?”
“We may not have to wait that long,” said a smiling Théra. “Zomi gave us another way just in case this passage didn’t work out.”
As if in response, the sea around them roiled and exploded. Ten crubens, the majestic sovereigns of the sea, surfaced and bobbed next to the ships, dwarfing the vessels with their bulk.
Théra laughed. “Looks like the old friends of the House of Dandelion have decided to help us again.”
The ability of Dissolver of Sorrows and her sister ships to dive beneath the sea wasn’t just a means of concealment; it was a way to bypass the Wall of Storms.
Inspired by the way Prince Takval himself had come to Dara, Zomi had come up with a bold new idea. Since whales were clearly able to swim under the Wall of Storms safely, then it made sense that underwater boats could as well. Although the mechanical crubens were limited to sailing along underwater volcano ranges, a ship that could sail underwater could also take a page from the whalers and be propelled by cetaceans.
Dissolver of Sorrows and the rest of the fleet were equipped with harpoons and strong cables. The idea was to take advantage of migrating whale pods who were headed in the right direction and hitch a ride underwater. The whales would pull the boats under the Wall of Storms, at which point the lines could be disengaged and the boats resurface.
Only now, instead of having to harpoon whales, the crubens were offering to give them a hand.
Strong cables were attached to the tails of the great crubens. The ships were ready to dive.
“Incoming!” one of the lookouts shouted.
In the distance, the Wall of Storms was almost completely closed. As the city-ships of the Lyucu foundered, a single garinafin had taken off without a pilot in an attempt to escape the doomed fleet. It saw the Dara fleet and winged its way directly at them.
Observers on the city-ship sent by Pékyu Vadyu, after suffering the shock of witnessing the destruction of the Lyucu fleet, now also steered their ship toward the Dara fleet.
“Dive! Dive!”
Théra and Takval and the rest of the crew scrambled belowdecks. Hatches were closed and oar ports closed and sealed. The ballast tanks began to fill with water. The ships began to slowly sink under the waves.
“We forgot to cast off the signaling kites!” Théra said. She gazed through the underwater portholes at the turbulent water in the wake of the massive cruben flukes. “And we never got a chance to let Pan know that the second Lyucu fleet is destroyed.”
“Too late to worry about that now,” said Takval. “They’ll figure out what happened soon enough.”
Above them, the garinafin circled. The cyclones of the Wall of Storms had destroyed the city-ships, depriving it of a place to land. The garinafin—riderless, terrified, and enraged—ignored the safe haven of the approaching Lyucu city-ship, despite the bone trumpets blaring from its deck. The beast would have its vengeance on these barbarian ships.
“We have to do something,” Théra said. “It takes time for the ships to dive, and the crubens are vulnerable as long as they are near the surface.”
Théra and Takval climbed back up onto the deck of Dissolver of Sorrows.
The garinafin dove at the cruben hauling their ship. Both of them more than a hundred feet in length, the king of flying beasts was going to challenge the sovereign of the seas.
The garinafin opened its maw wide, and just as it passed above the cruben, it snapped its jaws shut and opened them again to shoot out a scorching tongue of flames.
The cruben opened its blowhole and a spray of water shot into the air, meeting the tongue of fire halfway. Fire and water contended in midair and hissing steam drifted over the sea.
The cruben escaped unscathed. The garinafin swerved away, circling around for another strafing run.
The other Dara ships were almost all underwater. But if the garinafin avoided the blowhole, it could still severely injure the cruben before Dissolver of Sorrows was underwater.
“We have to distract it,” Théra said. “Come with me!”
How she wished they had silkmotic arrows or lances.
She and Takval took up positions next to the winch for the signaling kite. “Battle kites are from an older time, but sometimes you have to fight with whatever is at hand.”
Grabbing onto the cable, they directed the kite to swerve at the garinafin. It was just like in the old sagas, where heroes vaulted into the heavens on battle kites to duel, and their loyal retainers directed the kites to dive, swerve, and chase, creating intricate patterns in the sky as though writing in air.
The kite line cut into Théra’s and Takval’s palms. They gritted their teeth and held on even as blood coated the line and made it even harder to grab on. Théra tore strips from her dress so that she and Takval could wrap them around their palms and continue the fight.
The pilotless garinafin snarled at the kite and rushed at it.
Théra and Takval just barely managed to direct the kite to dive out of the way.
The enraged garinafin hovered in air and opened its maw to breath fire, the fleet below it having been forgotten.
All the other ships had disappeared safely beneath the seas.
Théra and Takval jerked the line hard, and the fire tongue from the garinafin missed the kite by inches.
Finally realizing its error, the hovering garinafin now stared at the two humans on the deck of the ship responsible for the nettlesome kite and opened its maw.
“Pull hard!” Théra screamed. And she and Takval winched the kite line hard and dragged it toward them.
The jaws of the garinafin snapped shut. When they opened again, a tongue of fire would shoot out at Théra and Takval, incinerating them where they stood.
The kite dove at the garinafin and the line caught the thin, serpentine neck as the kite made a loud buzzing noise and zoomed rapidly in tightening circles around the head of the garinafin, finally entangling itself in the antlers after tying the mouth of the garinafin shut with the trailing cable.
