What From the Water Rises #11

In which a woman finds herself on a ship to Isle Ezu with no idea why.

Cassennia awoke on the ocean. She knew this before she was oriented to anything else, before her eyes fully opened, recognizing the gentle sway of the waves beneath her as surely as any Mesaanoti would.

It took a moment longer for her to remember how she’d ended up there. Once her vision adjusted to the sunlight glinting off the water, she assessed her surroundings. From the room’s expansive size, furnishings of ornate wood, and the wall of windows stretching wide before her, she concluded she was in the captain’s quarters of a fairly large ship. She ran her hand absently over the carved arm of her chair, judging it all as a bit ostentatious; the furniture was high-quality, certainly, but she knew the captain wasn’t so wealthy that he could’ve refused her bribe.

That thought reminded her, with a jolt, of her intentions. She was traveling to Isle Ezu, where she planned to settle.

Agitated now, she stood to pace circles over the floral-patterned rug, hazy drifts of memory returning to her. She remembered tucking away her letter to Mireht in an envelope adorned with a water-repellant rune; approaching the proprietor of this large fishing schooner with a too-generous pouch of gold; following him to the stern and into the captain’s quarters, where she watched Mesaanot recede on the horizon.

But there was something missing in that series of events, a nagging hole she could not work backwards to reach. She could not recall when or why, exactly, she decided to flee to Isle Ezu in the first place. Still, she desired it, with a conviction so strong it surprised her—but however the idea originated was lost to her now.

She felt almost drunk—or drugged, maybe, disoriented and muddled far beyond the fog of sleep. But she hadn’t taken any substances or accepted anything to eat or drink from anyone aboard the ship, and they would know better than to invite Anvashe’s wrath by harming her, anyway.

Perhaps, she reasoned, this was some curse from Aameja for running away and adopting another patron god. That was absurd, but she could find no other explanation for the way her thoughts swirled and her memory faltered.

And, worst of all, the longer she considered everything, the more she found herself unable to care; she began to regard the fact that something was wrong with a light disinterest, as if this were someone else’s problem she was hearing about and not her present reality. Some distant, quiet part of herself railed against this indifference, her growing numbness—but beyond a hint of frustration at the nagging confusion, she felt nothing.

She turned to approach the window, staring out into the open waters. The faint line of light gray on the horizon might have been the fog that sometimes lingered on the Mesaanoti coast in the afternoons—or it could have just been distant clouds. Without any idea of how long she’d been on the ship, she couldn’t guess how far she’d traveled from her home.

Minutes later, an answer arrived; a short knock came at the door, and the cabin boy cracked it just wide enough to regard her with one eye. He announced that they would arrive on Isle Ezu soon and disappeared before she had the chance to respond.

- - -

Isle Ezu was nothing like she’d imagined. Her mental image was of chaos, desperation, poverty—so when she saw that the wharf was not altogether different from the one she’d left in Mesaanot, bustling with the excited activity of workers, a muted and distant sense of hope rose in her.

The ship’s cabin boy and another young man helped her into a lifeboat and ferried her wordlessly to the nearest dock, turning back the moment she had both feet on solid ground. She was left to fend for herself, but no fear struggled to surface from beneath her numbness; the familiarity of it all, the sharp saltwater smell and the shouts of sailors over the rush of the waves, quieted any uncertainty she felt about being alone in this strange new place.

She knew—as if by intuition—exactly where to find Mireht, a few hours’ walk inland. She only stopped to ask a harried-looking sailor for directions out of the city, then set off.

Beyond the docks, narrow wooden houses stood on stilts; the houses further in were of similar design, all pale wood and palm-thatched roofs, but rested on flat ground. The city grew more dense with buildings and bodies as she approached the center, and then less as she left it and eventually reached its edge.

There she came upon the dirt road the sailor had described to her, a narrow path surrounded by lush and leafy plants, marked with a wooden sign bearing four lines. 

She walked for hours. Through the dense canopy of broad leaves overhead, she noted the light beginning to dim as the sun dropped toward the horizon. Still, guided by little more than determination and a placeless conviction that she would know just where to find Mireht, she pressed on.

Isle Ezu was so quiet. At times she caught the sounds of distant voices or the rustling of animals through the brush, but otherwise, there was no sound but the droning of insects and her own shuffling footsteps. It almost reminded her of the southernmost point of the Mesaanoti coast, with its heat and humidity and profusion of life buzzing in the air and bursting from the soil—but the lack of people and the near-silence gave it an eerie air she could not describe or ignore.

When she reached the point where she knew she would find Mireht, there was no landmark, no sound, no change from the monotony of her surroundings that she took as a signal; the knowledge bloomed in her mind from no discernable source. She marveled at this for a moment—emotion had begun returning to her, and she registered genuine surprise—before pushing through the bushes to discover a lone house on a hillside. Mireht’s.

She approached the front door, but paused to wipe the sweat from her brow on the neck of her shirt and brush the dirt from her pants. It opened before she had the chance to knock, anyway, and Mireht peered out to frown at her.

The woman’s face was unfamiliar. She was about a decade Cassennia’s senior, her lined face stern and severe, dark hair shaved to a dense prickle running over her scalp. Cassennia froze, searching the stranger’s narrowed eyes for any sign of recognition, anything to trigger the memory of this person she had once known—but Mireht stepped back and swung the door open before she found anything.

“Come in,” Mireht said, sounding already resigned.

Cassennia stammered out her gratitude before following her into the house. It was a modest little home, a single room that seemed to be half kitchen, with a bedroll in the corner partially hidden behind a curtain. Mireht motioned for her to sit in a wooden chair before the stove with a sharp gesture, and Cassennia sat obediently.

“Do you need anything?” Mireht asked. “Food? Water?”

Her first impulse was to refuse politely, but she had just walked for hours without sustenance and felt the weariness settling in now that she was still. “Both, please.”

Mireht gave a curt nod and turned toward a wooden shelf behind her to gather up ingredients. Cassennia stared into the dancing flames; as hungry and painfully exhausted as she was, it was a comfort to just sit somewhere warm and pleasantly quiet but for the crackling fire and steady rhythm of Mireht’s chopping. Within a few moments of sitting, her eyes began to drift shut, and her breathing slowed—

She was about to fall into a deep sleep when the sound of Mireht’s approaching footsteps roused her, and she opened her eyes to find the woman extending a large bowl and a clay mug toward her.

With a sincere offer of thanks, Cassennia set the bowl in her lap so she could desperately gulp down the entire cup of water. Mireht refilled the empty cup while Cassennia started on the food. It was fruit, mostly—something unfamiliar, sticky and almost too sweet, chopped up and mixed with seeds and nuts and herbs. Odd though it was, Cassennia ate ravenously.

When she returned with the cup, Mireht asked, “Was there something you needed to bring me?”

Cassennia swallowed her mouthful of sticky fruit and wiped the corner of her lips. “Right,” she said, reaching into the inner pocket of her coat. She pulled out the envelope with the red-inked rune stamped on its back and passed it over before resuming her meal.

After she opened it, Mireht sat in silence for a long time, the letter gripped in her hands. Cassennia finished eating and drank the second cup of water, eyeing the stranger nervously. The letter was only one page, and she should have finished it by now, but still her eyes darted back and forth over the words.

Finally—unaware, it seemed, of Cassennia’s unabashed staring—she spun around and crossed the room to a small, rough wooden table near the foot of the bed. There she picked up a leather-bound notebook, pen, and inkwell before stalking back toward Cassennia and drawing up another wooden chair next to hers. Once settled, she opened the notebook and inked the pen to scrawl something across the page, then shoved it into Cassennia’s hands.

Say nothing of this aloud. I am a Mesaanoti spy, as are you.

Cassennia frowned down at the book, then at Mireht. That wasn’t right at all. “No,” she began, “I think—”

But Mireht silenced her with a violent motion of her hand and claimed the notebook once more; she wrote for a moment before showing Cassennia the words. Aameja hid some of your memories. They shielded the knowledge of your mission here even from you to keep them from Anvashe. If you speak, he might listen. Be careful.

Then she took Cassennia’s letter from her pocket and passed it back to her. Cassennia held it with trembling hands, unsure whether she dared to believe any of this. A creeping dread was beginning to overtake the strange numbness that had captivated her all day, coloring the emptiness with uncertainty. Still, she forced herself to read.

Mireht—As a representative of Aameja and agent of the Mesaanoti Empire, I am here in pursuit of Azarion, the Prince of Sehmera. Because he has been missing for some time and proven impossible to find by magical means from either Mesaanot or Sehmera, and because of Ezu-anvashe’s rivalry with Sehmera’s patron, Aameja believes Isle Ezu to be a promising start. Thank you for your service in orienting me to the island so I can swiftly begin my work. Cassennia.

Just as Mireht had, Cassennia held the letter for a long time, eyes moving over the words until they jumbled together to the point of incoherence. It all made sense, bridging the gap in her memories too neatly to deny; this clarity burned away the edges of her numbness even further, and she felt her anxieties echoing through her body, making her heart hammer and her stomach churn.

She reached out a still-shaking hand to ask for the pen and flipped over the letter, writing clumsily against the arm of the chair. Why alter my memories?

Mireht gave her a strange look, like she had expected another question, but she nodded and began to write back. 

If Ezu-anvashe had learned your goals while you were on the way, he’d never grant you passage to the island. Aameja had to do it. They needed someone to find the prince here.

Cassennia read those words once, twice—and, still not quite comprehending what her task entailed, looked up to gawk at Mireht. Her lips moved uselessly for a moment before she found the words. “Is he… is he really here?”

Mireht shrugged. If Aameja thinks so, it’s your duty to investigate.

Cassennia thought this over for a moment; there was no denying that she had to try, though she didn’t fully believe it possible. Instead of pushing back, she changed the subject. “Did you say Sehmera has a patron?”

“Of course—even if he’s playing dead, for whatever reason. But no, he’s still active. He’s clashed with Aameja on the border in recent years. I’m surprised they didn’t tell you.”

Cassennia gave a halfhearted shrug. If this was all true—and, though she’d accepted it as a possibility, she still didn’t feel quite lucid enough to come to any rational conclusion—there was much Aameja had taught her that she had since forgotten. “Is this patron working with their royals?”

“Maybe. They have certainly found a way to coexist. Beyond that, we don’t know.”

No more questions came to her. She thought through everything she’d heard while Mireht waited in silence. It was all more than she could process, and she kept stumbling over the sheer implausibility of her task.

The prince of Sehmera—here, in Ezu-anvashe’s territory! It was incomprehensible, even if she assumed his memory had been altered like hers to avoid Anvashe’s prying. The Sehmeri people were warlike, their kings bloodthirsty conquerors, and Ezu-anvashe didn’t even allow gunpowder in his territory. Why would Anvashe allow passage to someone like that—and what would the prince want from this island, where he could conquer nothing?

She thought with disgust how he would have been raised to someday batter against the wards protecting Mesaanot, to covet her people’s land and resources even if it came at the cost of countless lives. And now, what—she was supposed to believe that this monarch, the latest in a long line of ruthless thieves and murderers, was living a peaceful life among the Mesaanotis and the displaced peoples of land his ancestors had already stolen?

Cassennia had total faith in Aameja’s judgment; in all of their wisdom, they had deemed her the right person for the job, and there was no reason to question the great honor of having been chosen. There was a reason why she’d been sent here to stay rather than to drop off the letter and return home. But the task itself struck her as close to impossible. She motioned for the pen and notebook, and once Mireht handed it over, scrawled: How am I supposed to get him to Mesaanot?

Mireht wrote for a long time and spent a few moments rereading her words before letting Cassennia see. That’s the challenge. You cannot tell him directly to leave; you cannot use violence or threats without the risk of Anvashe striking back. Whatever the prince’s actual intentions are, Anvashe must want to keep him here for a reason. You cannot allow him to think you mean to drive him away. You’re authorized to offer him amnesty in Mesaanot. Make him think he’ll be better off there than here.

“Anvashe really can hear us?” she clarified.

“If he chooses to listen—which he might be, now that you’ve invoked his name.” Cassennia opened her mouth to apologize, but Mireht just shook her head and pressed on. “It is impossible to say how often he cares to eavesdrop on the islanders—likely often. He retaliates against and responds to speech with enough frequency to assume he’s monitoring our conversations. But the way he can read emotions, intent, desire—that’s strongest on the open ocean, muted on and near land.”

She tightened her lips and gave Cassennia a look that told her to be wary of letting Anvashe pry into her mind.

It occurred to Cassennia, with a flutter of horror deep in her stomach, that she might never be able to leave this island. If Anvashe would know her as a spy the moment she reached open water, and only Aameja could bury her memories where the god couldn’t find them, there seemed no recourse but to stay on the island forever or face his wrath for her betrayal.

“I’m going to live here for the rest of my life,” she murmured, almost to herself.

“Well, most people who come here do,” Mireht said, as if that were a comfort.

She stood suddenly and yanked out the page in her notebook on which they’d both written, crumbling it up before throwing it along with Cassennia’s letter into the fire. Cassennia watched the pages catch, blackening from the edges until they were consumed.

“I have a guest bedroll. Stay the night.” It sounded more like an order than a suggestion, but Cassennia nodded without argument. She had nowhere else to go, anyway.

Mireht excused herself to set up the bed, and Cassennia returned her attention to the fire, her eyes tracking the dancing flames while she thought.

Convince the prince of Sehmera—some brutal and bloodthirsty little warlord who likely thought of her people as something less than human—to go to Mesaanot, a place the Sehmeri Empire reviled and demonized above all others.

This time, as she stared into the fire, it did not lull her to sleep. The ability to feel, to react, seemed to have returned when she accepted the reason for her presence here. Her thoughts raced with helpless anxiety, and she was wide awake.