14. Fourteen
Chapter 14
“If you don’t leave before midnight, you don’t leave until morning,” warned the oarsman who brought us over. Oraik clambered ungracefully along the gangplank connecting our rowboat to the first in the long row of barges. He bent half-over, his big hands gripping the railings tightly, each step slow and heavy. I followed more gracefully, shaking my head.
The barges were built differently from the fish-craft I was used to. Each was big as a house, long and flat. Large cabins occupied much of each deck, but walkways wrapped all the way around each boat. Standing on the edge of the first deck, I could see down the long line of boats. Each was connected to the next by ropes and planks to create a floating city. More people were arriving, pulling up to different barges and clambering aboard. I didn’t see anyone leaving, except the fleet of oarsmen transporting visitors between the shore and the ships. I supposed the night was too young for anybody to be done with the kick yet.
“Alright then,” Oraik said, with a trembling cheerfulness that seemed meant to disguise nerves. “Should we go in?”
“After you.” I wiped my sweaty hands on my skirt. I had no idea what we’d find inside, only the certainty that I hadn’t drunk nearly enough wine to meet it. Oraik grabbed hold of the cabin doors, and we stepped in.
The large room we entered was dimly lit with red glass lanterns. Dark fabrics draped the walls, and patterned rugs cushioned the floor. People in various stages of undress lounged on furniture, talking and touching. A woman batted her eyes at us. My own gaze went involuntarily to a lean, shirtless man sprawled over an armchair, one leg thrown over the arm, who raked his eyes up and down the two of us. His trousers were half-untied as if to suggest the ease of removing them entirely. A hoop piercing split the middle of his lower lip.
He wasn’t as pretty as Kalcedon. And none of them burned.
“Have they eaten dreamfish, or is this a brothel?” Oraik whispered frantically in my ear. He gripped my arm, and I pursed my lips at him.
“Brothel, I think,” I muttered. “How should I know?”
“Alright. Good. Fine. Alright. So how does it work? We just… pick… and… and then?” His hand tightened on my arm.
“ I don’t know. But I’m not doing that,” I told him. His grip was getting painful; I shrugged it off.
The lean man stood up from the chair and sauntered over. I froze, eyes widening, as he reached out and traced a finger over one of Oraik’s remaining earrings.
“Pretty,” the man said.
“Thank-you-very-much,” Oraik wheezed, and seemed to melt an inch down towards the floor.
“First time? Don’t be shy,” the stranger said with a slow smile.
“I don’t… we, ah, we have to go,” Oraik said. He grabbed me again and dragged me bodily outside, slamming the door shut. Then he leaned against the outside of the cabin, let go of me, and buried his face in his hands.
“We can go back to shore, you know. If you don’t want to be here,” I reminded him. I only half wanted to. If I went to an inn now, I’d be alone with my thoughts. I didn’t want to think at all.
“No. I’m fine,” he squeaked. His face was still in his hands.
“If you told him you don’t like men, I’m sure he would have left you alone. You didn’t need to run.”
“I don’t not like men,” he mumbled into his palms, suddenly seeming younger than his twenty or so years. “I’ve just never—that was—and he was so close to me. He touched me.”
“Yes, well, that sort of seems like the idea,” I said dryly.
Oraik dropped his hands and shook his head.
“Next barge?” I asked.
“Next barge,” he agreed, his voice still a little high. “And you won’t tell anyone about this?”
“I somehow don’t think we know the same people,” I said. He gave me a pleading look. I sighed and lifted my hand. “I promise not to tell anyone that you squeaked and ran away when a shirtless male consort said hello to you.”
“He was very shirtless,” Oraik said quietly.
“Extremely shirtless,” I agreed.
We crossed the gangplank to the next barge. There, we found a group of men playing cards, stacks of argit on the table. On the other side of the cabin was what looked to be a pub. A man in dark clothes served bottles of wine and spirits to customers at a handful of small round tables.
“Drink?” Oraik asked me hopefully.
“Please,” I agreed.
He bought us both little cups of cactus liqueur, which was too syrupy and a touch sweet. Unbidden, the horrible thought came to my mind: would Eudoria be disappointed by me right now, or would she just be relieved I was finally doing something other than obsess over magic?
I finished the drink in one long gulp, wincing. Oraik immediately bought me another. I finished it just as fast.
Don’t think of it. Think of anything but it. Think of anything but home.
“Excuse me,” he said, spinning around in his chair and leaning towards the table next to us. Three women in their forties drank there. They were all well-dressed, with clothes nearly as nice as Oraik’s and jeweled ears. He pointed at the one with dark-rimmed eyes. “What is that? On your eyes?”
“It’s called kohl, darling,” she said, leaning across the table towards him.
“Could you put some on me? Please? I’ll buy you all drinks.”
“Oh, sure.” She laughed and hauled her small bag out from under the table. The woman patted the chair next to her. Oraik looked back at me.
“Do you also want…?” he asked.
“No.” It was bad enough I was here and not hating it. I didn’t have to participate, too.
I tried to make my drink last as she slowly drew thick black lines around his dark eyes. I could hear them happily chatting, Oraik and the whole table. I finally stood up to join them, but as I did Oraik was getting up to leave. He turned and grinned at me.
“Let me just get them a round, and we can see what’s on the next boat.”
The next barge over Oraik bet on fighting scorpions while I drank wine. We could hear the faint sounds of music, and sure enough the next boat after that had dancing and a lemon liqueur so sour it made my mouth pucker. I was feeling unstable on my feet, and glad to leave the noise, by the time we went to the next one, which was again a brothel. Oraik must have been tipsy, too, because he planted a kiss on an androgynous consort’s cheek, flipped them a coin, and sprinted off to the next barge with a laugh. He didn’t even check to see if I was behind him.
I was drunk by the time we made it to the end of the ships and startled to see dark water instead of another lantern-lit barge. By then we’d played a round of cards, gotten into a debate with a pseudo-philosopher who had strong opinions about capital-e Existence , danced again, and cuddled on a divan as I told Oraik about a man named Kalcedon who was just absolutely beautiful. I didn't mention the bit about him being a heartless half-faerie. Oraik nodded sagely and told me to bring him along next time.
My tongue felt thick and unruly. Oraik threw up over the side of one of the barges, then announced he was feeling ‘much better’ and drank half a cup more wine. He also tried the pipe-smoke, but I pulled him away from the dreamfish and told him repeatedly “you have to walk me back, no, you can’t, you’re walking me back,” until he took my face in both his hands and promised me that yes, he was going to do just that, and would I please calm down, because I was far too small to be making such a fuss.
Never mind I was not small in the slightest. I supposed that to tall, broad, plump Oraik, everyone else was a little small.
Now that we’d reached the end, we turned around and backtracked three barges to find the divan again. We had to open the door to each cabin to check where we were because we’d lost track. After we found it, Oraik bought two cups of juice with his never-ending purse. He was wearing all his rings again, though I couldn’t remember when he’d put them on.
A man came around and announced to everyone that the midnight boats would be leaving soon. I patted Oraik’s shoulder and told him it was time to go.
“Not yet,” he said, and curled up on the divan with his head against the wall.
“He said, that man said, it was midnight or morning. Remember?” My voice slurred.
He waved a hand.
“No, I can pay someone.”
“But he said .”
“Calm down.” He patted my head. “I’ll just pay for someone. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to go back to it.”
“But are you sure?” I thought the room around us was half as full as it had been before, earlier in the night. Oraik nodded.
“Meda? Can I tell you something?”
“Yes, anything.” I leaned up against his chest. He was big and warm and soft, and it felt nice. He hugged me to him.
“I think you’re my first friend. Is that sad?”
“Very sad,” I mumbled. “Mine too. Hello, listen. You should come to Nis-Illous. Alright? You can live with us. Me and Kalcedon. There’s plenty of room now. Tower’s empty.”
“We should see the world together,” he said. “Visit the Thianthi Riddle House, and the Masqued Corridor of Koraica, and swim with the glow fish outside Buis.” Then he giggled. “And then we can all get married.”
“No thank you,” I said.
And then I fell asleep.
I woke up disoriented, with my head at a strange angle, and Oraik snoring. I shook his shoulder.
“I’m going to find a boat,” I told him as he blinked awake. He nodded and lay back down. I pushed myself up, grabbed my bag off the floor, and stumbled outside to the barge’s narrow deck. My mouth tasted like sour grapes and my head throbbed. My neck stung when I tried to hold it straight.
It took me a minute to find a string of smaller boats tied to the barges. A man sat on the deck, his back resting against the cabin.
“Excuse me. I need to get back to the city. Are you the boatman?” I asked.
“Can’t leave until morning,” he said.
“I need to go now.”
“Can’t. The chain’s up.”
“Chain? What chain?”
“Harbor chain. They put it up at midnight. No getting past it, not unless you swim.”
“But I don’t want to spend the night here,” I said as my stomach flipped.
“S’the law. Chancellor didn’t want all the drunks coming back in the small hours.” He shrugged. “You could go ashore on the west hills if you wanted. You can walk from there. It’s an hour to the city limit, though.”
“One hour walk?” I groaned and leaned my head back against the cabin.
“Did you get a boat?” Oraik said behind me. I turned over my shoulder, ready to eviscerate him for making us stay on the barges. His eyes were bloodshot, the kohl smudged.
“There aren’t any boats,” I snapped. “Not until morning.”
“I have to get back,” Oraik said to me. “Just hire a boat. I’ll pay.”
“Do your ears work? There. Aren’t. Boats. The only place we can sail to is an hour walk from the city. There’s a harbor chain. We have to spend the night.”
With each word I said, Oraik looked more awake, and more terrified.
“No. No, no. I can’t stay. Just ask them to take the chain down,” Oraik said. “I can pay whatever it costs.”
The man behind me, the one I’d been talking to, laughed.
“It’s not coming down,” I hissed. “We stay here, or we walk.”
“I’m sorry,” Oraik said. “I have to get back.”
I couldn’t find anyone interested in taking us, but the man leaning against the cabin agreed to sell us his boat for far more than it should have cost. Two argor for a shoddy little tub called Wave Dancer that was one storm from falling apart.
We boarded and rowed back to shore. The boat had sails, but I was just sober enough to know better than to use them in my state. It wasn’t far to the hills, but halfway there my hands were already blistering and my shoulders ached from pulling. Oraik was utterly terrible at it, and I kept having to back paddle to keep the boat straight.
When we were nearly there, a wave hit us wrong and flipped us over. I never would have let it happen if I hadn’t been drunk. Though if it had to happen at all, it was good I was stewed when it did, or else I’d probably have strangled Oraik for letting the boat go sideways again. I choked on a lungful of sea water, came up gasping, and dragged myself out with all the dignity of a drowned cat. Oraik floundered until he realized the sea was only up to his knees. We pulled the Dancer ashore and sat there panting. My bag, thankfully, was around my shoulders instead of loose in the boat when it happened; I lost nothing.
I was too drunk to realize I’d dunked my precious, hard-labored journal full of notes in the Etegen just yet.
“Maybe we should take a little rest,” Oraik said. A yawn cracked his face. I nodded and collapsed. I didn’t mean to close my eyes for more than a few minutes, and I don’t think Oraik did either, but we were both drunk and exhausted and soaked in salt water.
We fell asleep curled up together on the rocks, and that was where, just after dawn, Kalcedon finally found me.