Emilie & the Hollow World - By Martha Wells Page 0,39
not claws. Emilie distinctly remembered the plant-people from the Sargasso as having claws. The merwoman was wearing silvery bangles around one wrist, and little silver beads were woven into the feathery crest on her head. Emilie realized suddenly that the merwoman, indeed all the merpeople on the boat, were naked except for skimpy wraps of metallic cloth around their waists; she felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She hadn't noticed before because their iridescent skin seemed almost like clothing, or a protective outer covering. They don't have breasts, she thought, still curious despite the awkwardness of looking at naked people. Maybe that means they lay eggs.
The merwoman who seemed to be the leader took something out of the box, something that looked like an elaborately curving shell, the kind that washed up on beaches at Liscae and the other southern ports. She spoke into it, and projected from it, her soft voice said, “Do you understand me?”
It was one more astonishment on top of everything else. Lord Engal moved up beside Kenar, and said, “Yes, we understand you. How can you speak our language? Have you met our people before?”
The merwoman held the shell to her ear, listening to his voice through it.
“The shell is some sort of translation device,” Kenar said softly. “I've heard of such things before, but none that worked this well.”
Keeping his voice low, Dr. Barshion said, “Yes, it must be a spell. A complicated one.”
The merwoman tapped the shell. “This device translates. I am Yesa, I speak for the Queen of the Sealands.” She looked from Kenar to Lord Engal. “You are not hurt?”
Lord Engal replied carefully, “We have three men wounded, but other than that, we're quite well, thanks to your intervention. Can you tell us why we were attacked?” Emilie thought he had picked a delicate way to ask that question.
“They were the Darkward Nomads,” Yesa said. “They attack all shipping in these seas.”
The Darkward Nomads. Emilie remembered Darkward was the Hollow World term for the direction to the west, where the Dark Wanderer came from, so it wasn't quite as intimidating a name as it seemed at first. But still...
Miss Marlende looked at Kenar for information, and he shook his head slightly to show he had never heard the name before. Then Yesa asked, “You are perhaps looking for missing people?”
“Yes, yes, we are!” Miss Marlende called out, then whispered, “Sorry, spoke out of turn,” to Lord Engal.
“Quite all right, but try to contain yourself,” he said to her. He turned back to the merpeople and said to Yesa, “You have news of them, of people like us?”
“Yes. We have heard of them. You will follow us, speak to our Queen?”
Lord Engal exchanged a guarded look with Kenar, and said, “Yes, but can't you tell us what happened to them? Where they are, if they're well?”
“I don't know if they are well.” Yesa hesitated, lifting her elegant webbed hands in a helpless gesture. Emilie got the sudden sense that Yesa didn't know much at all, that she was possibly as nervous about this encounter as they were. If I were her, I'd be nervous too, she thought, sent out in a little boat, to talk to people in a strange big noisy ship, and without the information to answer their questions. Yesa said, “My Queen wants to speak of all this with you herself. If you follow us to our city, all will be explained.”
Lord Engal looked at Kenar and Oswin, turning to glance at Dr. Barshion, “Gentlemen, I don't think we have a choice.”
CHAPTER SIX
The Sovereign, moving at its slowest speed, followed Yesa's boat through the darkness. Emilie watched from the bow with Kenar and Miss Marlende as the boat led them through the island channels. As the Sovereign's spotlight swept back and forth, they began to catch glimpses of white stone structures on the islands or near them, lapped by the waves from their passage. It was hard to tell in the dark, but they all seemed ruined, or empty, with stones tumbling down or lightless windows.
“The Sealands, she called it,” Miss Marlende said thoughtfully. “If their civilization once spread through this entire area, all the way to that ruined city we passed, they must have been very powerful.”
“They might still be.” Kenar was pacing the deck behind them. He had been restless and uneasy for the past hour, and Emilie wasn't certain it was due to the slow pace of the ship. “I'm wondering how they knew we were