PM to join [The Docks] A Dialogue Between the Spirit and the Dust

[Philomena]

The night was dark, so that the first vision Minnie had of the City of the Akvatari was by lamplight. It was a disorienting experience - the moon was a thin tongue of yellow rind, and the last leavings of a sirocco wend blew hot and dry from the continent, leaving the air hazy, and so when the lamps first appeared, swinging and twinkling in the wind, they appeared almost like a great, vast city. Growing closer, it became clear that the lamps she thought were on distant hills were actually simply atop the spires quite close to the water's edge. Green harbor lamps swung slow arcs near the dock, in the mucky air, and reminded her of Zeltiva. But then, closer still, the depth of field of the city changed again, for she began to see the shadowy shapes of the spires themselves, and saw that many sat quite far back from teh waterline - but that many were barely lit at all. The city was, indeed, vast in size, but hollow, mostly empty. A city of winding ghosts, like empty conches and denuded trees. It was beautiful in the dark, but beautiful in a way that made Minnie look down to the water, and gasp a little bit.

She was surprised, to feel a hand on her own gloved hand, squeezing it gently, then. She looked to see whose hand it was and saw Raisa smiling back. Seh did not speak but reutrned the smile, and watched, instead of the morunful spires, the broad, familiar sweep of the harbor lamp. A ship swung gently in the deep waters, and from the trim of its high, bowed hull, she recognized the Magpie. Their whaleboat grew closer to it, and Minnie saw other boats gathered round it, with stevedore's rushing back and forth unloading barrels, crates, bundles, all the bits and pieces that Zeltiva brought to the city on the edge of the wastes. A derrick had been put up and was groaning beneath the weight of the granite blocks that Minnie had seen stowed in the hull. She opened her mouth, suddenly acutely aware that her boxes were unattended in all the hubbub, but from the corner of her eye, she saw the Akvatari sculptor, who still wept quietly at his oar, and she stayed silent, as she had promised, waiting.

When they finally reached the shore, she came to her feet slowly, suddenly very aware of the stiffness of a long trip by boat, and of age and late hours. Raisa, by the time she turned, already had stepped on to the wharf, and reached a hand back to take Minnies. The Akvatari, tied teh boat to the pilings. Minnie took the proferred hand and stepped carefulyl to shore.

"Raisa--" she stopped herself, quickly, "Master Wright-Allwave, please forgive me, but my t'ings, they are... they are a-ship, still. They are... very important, I shunny ha' left them unkept so long."

x

[Liminal]

"Don't worry about it," Raisa said. Then, turning to a nearby dockworker, she called out, "Bartholomew! Please have Dr. Lefting's things taken up to an empty room in Hospitality House. Make sure none of her items are opened or disturbed." "Yes, Master Allwave," the man whose name was apparently Bartholomew said. He saluted, then hurried over to the larger ship to execute Raisa's command. "Everything will be in good hands with them," she said, with a bit of a smile. "Bartholomew is someone I trust. Actually, everyone here is pretty good. Mother made sure I was in the best situation possible," she added with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Anyway, you must be exhausted after the trip." The air was that strange mixture of heat and cold that marks the spring in the desert. Soft sounds, unrecognizable in their faintness, but oddly musical, drifted in shifting snatches from the city. "Would you like to join me for a cup of tea? I live above the office, but it's closed at this time of night, so we can have a bit of privacy. I haven't seen you in what feels like ages."

[Philomena]

Minnie smiled, her shoudlers untensing just a touch at the knowledge that her things would be tended to. She watched the girl’s eyes with a soft smile: sad, but a pleasant, well-worn sorrow. By some trick of the blood, Raisa had not her mother’s clever deep-shadowed eyes, but the fine-boned sea-gazer’s eyes of her grandmother (and great aunt if the portraits did her justice).

She wrapped her hand around her dress - the wind had begun to dry it, but it still hung damp and heavy on her. She looked after Bartholemew for a moment - she did not recognize him, but that was, after all, no particular surprise. And Raisa spoke, if not with the utter assurance of her mother’s authority, with the alternate clarity of wise humility. Minnie smiled a little bit,listening to her, with the illogical pride of an elder who is rather startled to find that a child has taken up adulthood. She looked back at the whaleboat, for just a glimpse, and swept her eyes up the immaculate line of Raisa’s dress. Raise redirected her eyes to the custom house, and a sadness made Minnie drop her gaze to the stones, though she smiled just the same.

Poor Raisa. A post in a custom’s house must feel like a rat-trap, however much her fellows must envy her it. Even, perhaps, to be a Lady of the Wrights is a burden.

The music of the city wound round Minnie's ears, and made her restless, reminded of the cool water of the sea. She scratched just under the hem of her Qalaya glove - the wet stitching made her wrist itch in a peculiar way where the quicksilver hand met her born flesh. She breathed in, and then out again, and felt her salt-gritted skin against the fabric of her dress. She thought, for just a moment, of simply asking if they might have tea in the morning. But two things stopped her mouth - the feel of her new-hand beneath her scratching fingernail, and the singer’s dress superimposed on the thought of the custom’s house. What was a bit of a salt-rash if Raisa wanted company, and if Mother Qalaya’s work be done by it?

“Tea?” she looked up at Raisa with a bit of the displaced melancholy still about her eyes - clear and sharp now even without the glasses she had worn when last the girl had seen her, “That sounds luffly, if ’tis no trouble. If you can offer, p’haps your arm to an old woman without her stick?” She smiled with just a touch of a blush to her sun-burnt cheeks at this, but raised the arm of her gloved hand, “And if you dunny mind that I canny be but a bit underdressed beside you, Master Wright."

x

[Liminal]

"Of course," Teresa replied. "But...'Master Wright' still sounds odd coming from you, and you're not in the Guild, so just 'Raisa' is fine." She extended her arm to Minnie, and walked up one of the few pedestrian paths in the city. It led to the left of the docks, and very soon, they were in front of a two-story clapboard building, one that looked as unlike everything else in Abura as was possible. It wouldn't have been out of place at the shipyard in Zeltiva, and it was painted a simple white. A large sign in front read, ZELTIVAN SAILORS' GUILD, followed in smaller letters by Branch Office. Raisa turned the knob, and the door swung open. A pair of oil lamps cast a soft yellow glow around the interior. She did not stop, but walked through the room to a set of stairs at the back. "My living space is upstairs," she said, motioning for Minnie to follow her. The stairs led to a sitting room. It too was lit by oil lamps. A large bookcase dominated one wall, and if Minnie could read the spines, she would be able to see that most of the volumes here were music texts and scores. Next to the bookcase was a painting of the Abura skyline, clearly executed by a master's hand. On the other side of the room was a small table, and two stuffed chairs that looked extremely comfortable. "Have a seat here, and I'll go get us some tea," Raisa said. She exited the room through a single door at the back of the room, which she closed behind her. Perhaps ten minutes later, Raisa returned. She had changed clothes, and now wore a simple blue blouse and a pair of cotton breeches. She held a silver tray with a teapot and two cups on it, as well as a small sugar bowl. "How do you take yours?" Raisa asked. As she did so, she poured herself a cup, to which she added a full four lumps of sugar. It was hard to imagine how what was in the cup was still liquid enough to drink, but she raised it to her lips and indeed took a sip. Then, she prepared Minnie's tea according to her instructions and gave it to her. "It's good to see you, Doctor Lefting," she said. "Though I'm a bit surprised. I didn't even know where you were, much less that you were coming here. I'm glad you're here though." There was no sarcasm in her voice here. "I don't see many people that I knew back in Zeltiva." She did not ask the question, but it was nonetheless clear -- why was Minnie here? Raisa did not press, however. If Minnie wanted to give her that information, she would do so in her own time, and in her own way.

[Philomena]

The city was beautiful, but with the level of exhaustion Minnie felt, and the weight of the late night shadow, the limed clapboard and sun-faded shake shingles held the seductive beauty of familiarity. Minnie followed Raisa, running a hand across a zinc drain-pipe with almost a caress. The tallow-oil carried a earth that made Minnie want to curl into a wool blanket, even with the desert heat.

She had not, however, realized how stiff her knees were after being hunched on a boat bench for so long. In the asylum, she had had little chance to walk, and even standing for too long was tiring, with the weight of her shackles. As she took the stairs, she leaned hard on Raisa’s arm, then, her knees crackling softly underneath her skirts as she climbed. However, arriving at the top of the stairs the sight of the bookshelves fully recompensed her. She hardly noticed the tendency of her feet toward them. She half heard Raisa as she left the room, but not so clearly that she sat. She stroked her fingers down the spines, then stopped herself so as not to leave her oil on the leather. She mouthed titles, slowly, her head tilted.

“The Maidenhead Suite!” her voice was aloud at this, and she smiled kindly. At that moment Raisa entered, and Minnie blushed, and stumbled, “Just.. the Maidenhead Suite. The last… time we spoke…” she trailed away and moved back into one of the overstuffed chairs, “No… nothing, I drink it black…” She washed not with disgust, but a sort of wonder at a woman who could spend sugar so generously. She watched the tea go up to the woman’s lip and back, then took a sip of her own. She started, but only just barely: her nose was distracted, and had noticed the distinctive lack of kelp-scent in it. Real tea! Her mind reeled a bit, and she sipped again.

“Where I’ve been, I’ve…”

She stopped, realizing her voice had responded without her mind being involved, and frankly, she did not have an answer appropriate for polite company. She looked at her knees.

You don’t belong here.

“I’ve been…”

You gutterslut. Tell her the truth and go.

Time began to collapse upon her, reasonable thought devoured by fear, and by a long pattern. The strong scent of real tea, the sugar, the long cases of well-bound books — this was not her place. She had pretended, perhaps, that she mattered more than she did.

“I’ve been in--” she cleared her throat, set the teacup down, and sat up straight, staring at the opposite wall, “I’ve been in the Scholar’s Asylum, ma’am.” Her voice was clipped and nasal, now, a precisely pronounced version of a high Zeltivan accent.

“I am sorry for my presumption, I had thought, madame, that you knew this. Your mother, I thought… it was an arrogant thought, I’m... I can… can leave, I am sorry to have brought shame—“

She stopped, her voice wavering, and pushed shakily to her feet, avoiding Raisa’s eyes. In another day, she would have felt fear, even perhaps a little resentment. But now her face just showed exhaustion.

x

[Liminal]

In one fluid motion, Raisa set her cup down on the table, stood up, and stepped to Minnie, touching her gently on the shoulder. "Sit back down, Doctor Lefting. You're among friends here." Raisa sat back down, and a heavy sigh escaped her body as she did so. She rubbed her temple with her left hand, and then shook her head with a rueful laugh. "Everything got crazy in Zeltiva there for a while. I'm not the politician that my mother is, or that my grandmother was, and I didn't know a lot about what was going on. Basically, mother arranged for this post for me, made me a full member, and then shipped me out as quickly as possible. She didn't tell me much at all about anything other than the mechanics of the Abura dockyard, and I didn't ask. If you ended up in the Scholars' Asylum..." Here, Raisa paused, concern in her eyes. "Then I'm just glad you made it out. Nothing else." Now she took up her teacup again. "Abura is a good place. It's safe here, and mother more or less stacked the deck for me, making sure I had the best people possible working here. No one's bringing shame on anyone, least of all you on me. If you were...were in there, then all the more reason to have a cup of tea and relax a bit." Another sip of the crystallized sludge in her cup. "At least for tonight, insofar as the gods ever deign to grant us peace, everything is quiet. It's just two friends having tea, talking about the Maidenhead Suite." Raisa nodded towards a corner where her lute rested in a stand. "I've been working on the lute part on and off. It's awfully tricky, but I've got most of the first half of it down, in the time I get away from my desk."

[Philomena]

Minnie felt the hand on her shoulder, and stopped, tense for a moment.

She told me, though, she told me Raisa was here. She wanted me to meet her. It's ok, Minnie, it's ok.

She sat, wearily, but with a nod, her voice falling backward from her nose, and softening, "Thank you. That is... I dunny know what to say, exactly. Thank you."

She sipped the tea again, and smiled a little hearing the woman talk about the Maidenhead Suite, "When I heard it, nigh on... well, longer ago than an old woman cares to admit on, I s'pose! When I heard it, it would o' been... no, I remember! Narland Giocca! He would've... no, you might have heard him when you were still a girlie, I suppose. And oh, he had a hand! You would ha' been broad-eyed to see it. Probably more than I - I dunny know a bit on it, of course, and can't sing but nursery-bits, and that poorly," she laughed a bit drowsily at that.

"But I remember it very clearly, it was a thing talked of. He went into the Allegretto - That's right, isn't it? Just past halfway, in the... yes, I think it must be right, he flew into it like swifts on the wing o'er the mountains in Spring! Then halfway through, there's that... part where it just rings up and down with the... where you pluck the same string over and over. I don't remember the word.. anyway... anyway, one o' the strings starts to split, and he dinny even stop, jus' runs his other han' up and turns the tuning key an' went on. The gallery just hooted applause, we did!"

Minnie smiled and laughed, softly, her eyes a bit distant, "I would love to hear it again someday. Just a little in, the part where it grows slow, and soft, and the alto sings:

I've no business on a shadowed night,
But thee,
I've no work to be done 'neath the moon,
But the work you give to me."

The singing was pitchy - she either remembers the tune somewhat incorrectly, or she was simply truncating the coloratura of the ballad. But she smiles, and the smile is lovely, to one who is a connoisseur of nostalgic contentment.
x

[Liminal]

Raisa's smile was almost as wide as Minnie's own. "I saw Giocca play once. I was just a child, and he an old man, and people who had seen him in his prime said he was only a shadow of what he'd been. But still! There was a magic when he touched the strings, and I wish I could have seen him keep playing even when one broke!" The young woman rose again, this time to retrieve the lute from its stand. She ran her fingers over it gently, stopping to adjust the tuning pegs a bit. Then, when Minnie's voice had completely died away, Raisa sounded a chord -- a chord that Minnie's memory would know well. I've no business on a shadowed night, But thee, I've no work to be done 'neath the moon, But the work you give to me. I've no place that I must go to, But the places I go with thee I've no thoughts that are not entwinèd with thine, Til the sun rises over the sea. Normally, Raisa's voice was as clear as a solitary bell, but after already giving a long and taxing performance that day, it had a certain roughness around the edges. Somehow, it fit the mood of the piece. Her fingers executed a brief arpeggio, and then her voice came in again. When the sun rises over the sea, the sea and it turns the water to glass, and its mirror reflects my face back to me and the fluttering, chittering mass of the flocking gulls whirls past my eyes before vanishing into the blue of the painted sky that will still remain a single thing that's true. Here, the tempo picked up a bit again. Raisa wasn't looking at the strings or the fretboard -- indeed, her eyes were now closed. However, the notes were like individually faceted diamonds -- clear, and pure, and sparkling. When the sun rises over the sea, the sea, the sun rises over the sea, the sea.... A ritardando now, bringing the section to its conclusion. ...the sun rises over the sea, the sea, and the birds, and the shore, and me. She did not dampen the strings, allowing the final chord to ring on and on until it had finally faded from the sitting room. Only then did she open her eyes, her gaze falling softly on Minnie. "Doctor Lefting...why are you here?"

[Philomena]

And the birds, and the shore, and me

She swallowed the words of the song, in gulps, that filled her eyes instead of her belly. Her eyes closed, and she listened to the sun, and a long ago came to her, of Lanie's feet dangling from a booth rail on the cerulean pier in midsummer. It had been insufferably hot, an air that rolled North, she now realized, likely from the very land where she now sat listening to the Maidenhead Suite.

I crept into the shade of the booth, but not Lanie. Lanie scrabbled onto the high rail, sitting on top of a the sign hawking "Sugar-Gingers and Limers" in great bossed letters, and stared out at the ocean, singing a song, a ridiculous one about a sailor coming in to find her husband cuckolding her with a fisherman. Mother Qalaya but we were young then! And her legs beat against the air in time with the song, and me in the shadow, and it seemed like she would beat them hard enough that they would catch on the air, and carry her up, up, up...

Minnie sighed softly, as the lute rung to its close. Her tea sat forgotten in her hand. When Raisa's eyes opened, she met them with a gentle level gaze, much bolder than she normally would have given. When Raisa spoke she sighed again, and her gaze broke, looking instead back to the bookshelves. She was silent for a moment, then opened her mouth, and her voice was low and soft, and filled with a vibrating energy. She carried a lilt that was less speech than incantation to it, still perhaps in the musicality of the song.

"I've a deed for doing, Raisa-child, a deed that must nae be ignored." she laughed, but the laugh was faint and distant, and it did not carry into her facial features, "I will tell you and perhaps you'll think it well they locked me up: I've come at errantry in my old age."

She paused a moment, and then spoke again, her voice falling a bit.

"How much, when you were young did your mother and grandmother teach you about Bethany Edgetower? Did you know she sang, like you? Your mother... I will not say ill, but I will say I do not agree that your singing is an aberration, some sort of freak of the line of your blood. The Wrights need the word and the song, just as the bard needs a doer of deeds to sing about, and they always have, I think. And... maybe, now, you are here because you... well because you should be. You have not had your great work yet, Raisa, and I know, I know, before you interject, you may think you are a little smaller than your family. You are not a circumnavigator, you are not the master of the Guild that your Mother was, or your grandmother I suspect - I don't think you want to be. But now, there is a work that you can do, a work, of... a work of Qalaya's."

And with this, Minnie quietly slid the glove from her hand and moved the fingers slowly. The metal glimmered in the soft light of the oil lamp, and the Q traced out with a clarity not quite of the earth.

"Our gods are kin, I think, you and I, Raisa-girl. Rhaus and Qalaya, they both tell stories, you know, in their way."

And now, with her hand bare and vulnerable, she turned her eyes back upwards, and met Raisa's.

x

[Liminal]

Raisa seemed lost in thought for a moment, and there was a noticeable silence between the end of Minnie's speech and the beginning of hers. She met the doctor's gaze, however, with her own soft eyes. "Qalaya and Rhaus. A deed that you must do. It makes more sense now, your being here. I know Zeltiva is your home, and for something to take you far away from it, that thing must be important indeed." She saw the mark on Minnie's hand -- how could she not? Raisa said nothing about it, however, simply offering a quiet nod of acceptance. "Bethany Edgetower." A soft laugh. "That name means everything and nothing at the same time. She's a critically important part of the Account, of course -- when I've read it, I always thought of her as maybe the most important character, maybe even more of a presence in the book than my great-aunt herself. But I don't know anything about her. Nobody does." When the laugh followed this statement, it carried a tinge of self-consciousness. "Or maybe you do. The gods know you know my family history even better than my family does. But there's so little to know. I'm not sure my grandmother even met Bethany -- if she did, it would have been in passing, and when she was very young. I don't think great-aunt Kena talked about her much when she came back. Maybe you've had better luck, but it's not like I've ever been able to see anything Bethany ever did other than the Vani and Denvali books. She's the emptiness at the center of the family saga. One of the emptinesses." Teresa idly played a single chord on the lute -- a major seventh, aching for a resolution that she did not provide. "You're right, I don't know what my work is, or even if there is one. Other than to stay out of the way down here and try not to embarrass myself or the family name." This sentence carried a bit of bitterness with it -- perhaps she was quoting what someone else had said. "But I love to sing, and I love to play, and if someday that becomes a useful thing, I'll be ready." She tilted her head a tick to the left. "But you said something about you needing something from me? Or Qalaya? What can I do to help?"