In the Night Garden

Shroud reached across the table and took it from me—I only resisted a little. He touched it with wonder, as though it was woven light studded with stars. “I am not tired anymore, Eshkol,” he said, his voice hushed as river rushes.

“Oh,” I said, sighing, “then I am happy for you. But I am as tired as an old aspen bent double.”

In the morning he was gone, and I went walking in the dew-and-dim to see Grandfather Yew. I lay next to his roots and stroked them, chased off a few squirrels. I didn’t cry; I couldn’t bear the touch of water on my skin.

I liked him, hummed the Yew. And I’ve thought about it some—it’s all right about the bark.

“I WANDERED FOR A WHILE, OUT OF THE FOREST and away from everything. I didn’t mean to find the sea, but eventually the soil turned to sand and the air became full of fog and seagulls, and there it was. A dockside beg gar told me of a ship which wanted women for a crew, a magic ship with a red hull and a fox for a captain. I signed on faster than a leopard catching a rabbit in her jaws—Tommy was glad to have me. I never understood what he said about the instinct for leaving till I saw this ship, but once I did, there was no telling me I couldn’t have it. The leaving had me, and I went with it, just as my Shroud did. I don’t miss him the way I used to—Satyrs aren’t made for grieving. But once in a while, when the sea is very calm, I dream of skins, endless skins, like the layers of an onion. But here I am—anything that happens belowdecks on the Maidenhead is my territory—and that’s not such a bad story to be in the middle of.”

The ship suddenly lurched to one side and a strange sizzling sound filled the air. Eshkol leapt from the bunk, her hooves sounding heavily on the floorboards.

“The Boiling Sea!” she cried. “Sigrid, you won’t want to miss it! A sight no other crew will ever survive!”

The pair emerged above decks to find a riot of sound and movement. The Arimaspians were leaning over the prow in their eagerness, oblivious to how difficult it was for the sail-riggers to work around them. One of the lesser men leered at a young Djinn, who flicked her fiery fingers at him and ignited his beard. His companions howled in indignation and beat out the f

lames.

Tomomo herself stood calmly at the wheel, guiding her ship through the Boiling Sea, which no longer buffeted the sleek craft with waves, but with violent bubbles and hissing steam. The ocean was alive and furious, sizzling against the flanks of the ship, sending up rolling columns of scalding water that caught more than one woman across the face with its blistering spray. At first, most had been fascinated by the suddenly raging sea, but one by one they learned to stay well away from the rails and give their attention only to the lines and sails. The sound of it was deafening—it was like a scream of wind tearing through a child’s paper house, crumpling the walls and rafters as it blows.

Sigrid hung back near the stern, leaning over the rails and breathing the steam of the sea. She looked into the horizon, wind whipping her dusky hair into her cheeks, and for a moment, just a moment, she could see, on the edge of the water where the calm met the boil, a gray seal’s head bobbing up and down in the surf, barking softly, mournfully, unable to follow.

“Sigrid! Attend me!” Oluwakim hollered from his position at the bow. She turned reluctantly and trotted up to him, standing just behind his group and hoping he would not need her for anything. The King held a long brass spyglass in his fierce black fist, brandishing it like a sword.

“Look! The Hidden Isle! Not very well hidden, of course, but no stupid Griffin hen can hide from the Ocular!” He held out the spyglass to Sigrid with an expression that made it clear he felt he was being extremely generous. She put it to her eye and indeed, a slim line of land was glimmering in the distance, looming larger with each moment that passed. The Maidenhead was cutting through the roiling water with incredible speed, hardly slowed at all. Sigrid hoped in vain that the wind would die, that they would not be able to reach the isle and murder poor Quri. But before she knew it they had moored offshore and filled one of the longboats with eager-faced Arimaspians and Long-Eared Tomomo, and Sigrid herself was reluctantly climbing into the crowded craft.

The Hidden Isle was little more than a scrap of sand in the middle of the angry sea. The surf bubbled up onto the white beach, and the drift-wood scattered along the shore was scalded red as flesh. There might once have been a tower in the center of the patch of earth, but it had crumbled into little more than a jumble of broken rocks. Some of them still stood, one atop the other, so that a piece of a wall could be seen, and the arch of what might have been a window—but no more. The troupe clambered onto solid ground and almost immediately the Arimaspians charged over the dunes with a dreadful cry, having easily sighted the nest of the White Beast on the north end of the strand. Sigrid hung back with her captain.

“You’re wondering why I would take these men aboard, when they are only going to render an entire race extinct,” Tomomo said gently. “You think it is hard and cruel—but that is what piracy is. We are free women, and so we do not obey the rules everyone bows and scrapes to. If the gold they give us will patch our sails and put wine on our table, we will ferry them. If it turns your stomach, I will leave you on this island and you can make your own way off it.”

Sigrid said nothing.

When they arrived at the nest the White Griffin was screeching like a wounded bear and beating her wings against the wave of Arimaspians jabbing their swords and spears at her. She desperately fought to shield her nest, snatching one of the men in her jaws and tearing into his soft belly, hurling another against the jagged ruins—and under her haunches the two women could see three large eggs, blue and white as slabs of sky.

“That’s a very inefficient offensive, Oluwa. I thought you and your tribe were expert hunters! Clearly I was misinformed,” Tommy hollered. The Griffin hissed at her, bright feathers flying. She was white from the tip of her tail to the crown of her head; even the fur of her lion haunches was pale as a glacier. Only her claws and beak were golden, the rest of her entirely blanched of color, pure as the sandy beach. Her eyes flashed, crackling with panic and despair. Oluwakim seemed to consider for a moment, then nonchalantly signaled to his men. They obeyed instantly, backing away from the rabid creature.

“What would you suggest, sea rat? Will you lend us your beast-cannons? A single broadside could have us a fine Griffin supper in a mere moment—and you your payment,” he snapped.

Seeing her opportunity, Sigrid dashed past the adorned hunters and dove into the nest, while the Griffin roared her protests. She spread her skinny body as wide as she could, pitifully trying to block any spear’s flight to the beast or the precious eggs. Of course the Griffin towered over her, entirely vulnerable.

“I won’t let you kill her!” she screamed.

Both monarchs, the one of the sea and the other of the land, looked at her with amused impatience.

“You are a very bad servant, little girl,” Oluwakim observed. He was quite calm—not at all perturbed by the notion of dispatching a child along with a beast.

“Do you really think a creature of that size needs you to shield it?” Tommy asked, grinning mischievously.

“Of course I don’t,” bellowed the Griffin, her voice echoing over the desolate beach like the flight of a single black bird. “But it’s the gesture that counts.” She nuzzled Sigrid roughly, a strange kind of reward for her bravery. “So you’ve come for me, have you, Oluwa? My brother told me you would, one day.”

“Was that before or after he quickened your eggs, you barbaric half-breed? Even dogs don’t deign to mate brother to sister,” he scoffed.

“Don’t try to shame me, ape. I know your nest is empty of roosters; what right have you to mock mine, which is not? We have no law against such things—and where was there another male to give me chicks? Thanks to you he was the last.”

“I did nothing to him,” sneered the Arimaspian. “He was torn into carrion, dumb meat and nothing more.” She flinched and stared at the King with such hatred the rest of his companions stepped slightly away from him, expecting a furious attack. “I saw it, Quri,” he taunted, tapping his golden eye with one dark finger. “I saw them devour your blue brother. They licked their lips and made a feast of him; they threw his bones to their dogs. Why don’t you tell us the tale? We have time—I shall kill you before or after; I have no preference. I listened to the sire prattle on like a wind-up toy; I can extend the same courtesy to the dam. Everyone here loves to hear tales. Tell them how your brother died the day he lent his color to your eggs.”

Quri bent her head in grief, staring at the iridescent colors of her unborn chicks. When she spoke, her voice was thick with anger.

“Not for your pleasure, little king of a little hill, but for the child who put her body between you and my eggs…”