Shadowplay by Jo Clayton

Author:Jo Clayton [Clayton, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_action
Published: 1990-04-21T20:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14. Stuck in an eddy (Atehana)

About an hour before midnight the ship dropped anchor in a halfmoon bay carved out of the southern end of a small island.

A thin spray of stars glittered like ice crystals flung across the cloudless black sky, the moons were milky bright, one a hairline crescent near the eastern horizon, just rising, one almost overhead, a flattened half, and a third in the west, nearly full, beginning to drop below the mountainous spine of another, larger island some distance off. The air was chill with wisps of fog drifting across the dark water like the fitful exhalations of hypothalassan monsters.

Standing at the rail, waiting to go overside, Shadith was surprised by the look of the town spread along the horns of the bag, rising up the slope of the mountain behind, street lanterns of translucent shell hung on high poles, shining pale green pale amber on fogwet pavement. It was a larger and more complex settlement than she'd expected, her notions colored by the feudalism of the Main. Atehana, Lipatchin called this place. Atehana on the island Wakisoe.

The Tipli Lipatchin decanted his passengers with obvious relief and upped anchor as if he'd put into a plague port.

A group of locals, mostly men, a small knot of women to one side, waited for the two boats on the central wharf; the Tipli had been on the corn with the island for the past two hours, exchanging cryptic clipped phrases with them, spaced at longish intervals. The aura of wariness and secrecy was thick enough to cut.

As the first longboat nudged against the piles and two of the rowers locked it steady with boathooks, the locals lowered a sling. Rohant and the doctor eased Asteplikota into it and steadied it as the men working the davits drew it up.

The boat Shadith was in swung up against a ladder and two of the rowers hooked it in place while she and Kikun got their gear together and hauled it up the ladder onto the wharf. She thought the cats were going to be a problem, but the moment she and Kikun were clear, Magimeez batted Nagafog out of her way, leaped from the boat, hit the ladder, crouched and sprang, flying onto the wharf; Nagafog landed beside her a moment later. They sat on their haunches grinning at Shadith. She grinned back, then strolled over to watch as a small group of the locals transferred Asteplikota to a stretcher on wheels and went running off with him. She backed up against Rohant. "We need to talk," she muttered.

He touched her hair, his hands were hot and trembling. "I'm at the end of my string, Shadow."

"All right, but I have this, feeling. We wait too long, we're going to be so bogged down we'll never get loose."

A young woman with, fine blonde hair floating like fog about her face and shoulders broke from the small crowd of locals and came across to them, followed by two other women, both of them considerably older than she was.

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