“Well, your harbingers were sea creatures. They’re great whales, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Very old, very big, very vocal. And dolphins, and some other less bony things. And they can tell us things, sing us things we’ve learned to understand.”
“Do you go down, into the sea, to be with them?”
Melanie looked up, brows drawn together. “No, of course not. We lack the equipment that would make that possible. This ocean on Haven . . . it’s huge! And deep. All Earth’s oceans would plop into it without vastly raising the water level.”
“And you’ve never seen a great golden creature, lying like a floating sun within the sea?”
“No,” said Melanie, mystified.
“Ah.” Genevieve laughed, a brittle little laugh, full of self-mockery. “One more question. Who exactly was Tenopia?”
“Nobody knows, exactly! She’s said to have been a confidante of the spirits, a sacred woman. She was the first of her kind, a mystery. Her mother was one of the island women, a tapu woman who claimed she had been made pregnant by a wave from the ocean. The claim was heretical, according to her people, so the claim was put to the proof. When the child Tenopia was born, she was thrown into the sea, far from land. When the sea returned her, alive, to the shore where her mother waited, everyone knew her father was the sea.
“She grew up, she traveled all over Haven, and eventually, she came to live in Galul. She told the people there that when she’d been in Mahahm, that she’d had to escape from the Shah, and she sang a song about it. She bore many daughters in Galul. Some of us who live in Galul are descended from her. She sent several of her descendents, some say most of them, to Haven, and one of them was Stephanie, Tewhani, who became Queen.”
Genevieve frowned wearily. “Stephanie also bore many daughters, who bore many daughters. I can attest to that. I have paid attention. I have heard of the world-spirit, the harbingers in the deep, and some . . . considerable number of women descended from Tenopia. I pray that’s all of it? Please. For tonight?”
Melanie flushed. “I should have let you sleep.”
“Oh, I have slept. I will sleep. Eventually. Go away, Melanie. Let me lie here in the cool. There is a vast knot of confusion in my mind, and something must untangle it.”
Doubtfully, ruefully, Melanie went away.
24: People from the Sea
On the island nearest Mahahm, Aufors Ley had reached a point of no return with the Captain. Though Aufors was supposedly in command of the mission, evidently he could not command that the ship return to Mahahm to drop him off.
“We haven’t enough fuel,” the Captain reiterated, as he had been doing for two days. “We cannot return to Mahahm more than once and still make it back to Haven. Once we have returned to Mahahm-qum, the only movement open to us will be to return to Bliggen straight across the Southern Sea rather than along the arc of islands. If we go to Mahahm, we place ourselves at the mercy of the Mahahmbi. If they ask for you in return for the Prince, and if the Prince demands that you be turned over, I would have no choice but to order the men to deliver you.”
The Captain regarded Aufors almost with desperation. “I’ve winked at evil too long, Colonel. If I’m to live with myself, I can’t do it again. I won’t see any of my men sacrificed by those bloodthirsty fanatics. If I take you back there, I’ll have to leave the men and the provisions here. If I take only you, there’ll be no one to pick off for slaughter but you.”
“And no way to moor the ship.”
“I could drop a message saying they must moor the ship from the ground if they want me to pick up the Prince. The Prince can’t fly this ship, so he’ll need me.”
“And if you were free to choose what to do next?”
“Either go directly to Bliggen or, since we’ve plenty of food, wait here for a Frangian ship to come by, and negotiate a trip to Mahahm with them! Those are the only ways I can think of to stay here without danger to my men or myself.”