the fox, and so I knew you didn’t want to be interrupted and I came back here to wait.”
She thought a moment, then said, “You know about pirates.”
“Only from things said in the paidika. There were two boys, and they’d been stolen off a boat by pirates, far from Vijnagar, and brought to market there. I know no more than what they said, and so the black boat could have been pirates, couldn’t it?”
“I think it’s something else.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “Something that scared Soter.”
“Pirates would be enough to scare me.”
She replied, “Me, too.”
Stars smeared the sky overhead. The boat sailed on and Soter stayed beside the tillerman, while Diverus and Leodora hunkered down inside the house. Tension and the motion of the boat worked upon them, and they fell asleep against each other.
In the morning the light of dawn woke them, and they walked stiffly onto the deck, to discover that they were docked below an astonishingly high wall. It must have been twice the height of Hyakiyako. Pennants flew from its top. The wall was rough, the stone uneven, and scattered across its surface were small star-shaped objects, like medallions, that glinted in the early light. Farther along, away from the jetty, the wall opened into a dark and uninviting arch that wouldn’t even have accommodated their mast. Any ships wanting to pass to the far side of this spiral would have had to sail on to the next span up or down the line. The rest of the span repeated the pattern of massiveness broken up by low arches. The steps and the jetty appeared to be dead center along its length.
One of the crewmen, red-bearded, came up behind them, carrying a basket on his back. He passed them and, climbing up and over the prow via the step Leodora had used to look into the sea, he walked down the jetty to the wall. A platform attached to ropes lay there, with another of his shipmates standing by, and he set his cargo carefully in the center of it. Then the two of them gave two of the ropes a tug. The ropes snapped tight; the platform lurched slightly, then began to ascend. They steadied it until it slid from their reach. High above them but beneath the top of the wall, beams jutted out, and between the beams was an opening, another arch. The sound of a squeaking pulley echoed distantly down like a bird’s solitary cry.
As the crewman returned, Leodora asked him where Soter had gone.
“Up,” he said, and gestured his head at the wall. “First one of us out, he was.”
She turned, anger infusing her until she saw that the puppet cases were gone, too, already uplifted. Soter had accompanied them. She was chagrined then by her own overhasty judgment. Behind her, Diverus set down his bundle.
“Time to go,” she muttered, then looked around for the snake. He was nowhere to be seen. The mast he’d girdled was empty, the sail drawn down and wrapped in loops of rope.
The bearded crewman and another came lumbering around the house now, carrying one of the larger crates. The platform was still ascending, so they set the crate down and watched it from on deck.
“The snake,” said Leodora. “Where did he go?”
The two men looked at her, then at each other, then at her again. “Snake?” asked the bearded crewman.
“The snake who guards your cargo. He was wrapped around that mast there last night.”
The other one said, “She seen it, too.” They remained facing her, their faces tight with worry as if weighing what to do with her, and she thought that perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything, that the snake was their secret.
Abruptly, the bearded one said, “He weren’t crazy then. He were tellin’ the truth.”
“And we trussed him up for nothing,” said the other. The morning sun glistened off the stubble on his face. “This snake, he speak at you?”
She nodded uncertainly. Behind her, Diverus said, “I saw it, too. Talking to her.” They all looked his way then. “Last night. It was telling her a story.”
Said one to the other, “But why can’t we see it? Why these two an’ not us?”
“Does it matter? It’s real. That’s all, that’s what matters. We have us an avatar on board. We been blessed.”
An avatar. She’d spoken to an avatar before that no one else had seen…and Soter hadn’t seen the snake, either. But Diverus had.
The bearded sailor grabbed her by the shoulders. Close up, he