Authors: Emily Foster
The Drowning Eyes (9 page)
“Madam, please, I am just reading the letter.” The clerk looked up at her with wide eyes and a weak smile. “Do you want me to go on?”
“Sure.” Tazir sighed. She rested her face in her hands, her elbows on the counter.
The clerk adjusted his spectacles. “I expect you to be angry,” he said, “but I also think that this is best for all of us. Please try to understand why we are doing this, and please take care of yourself until we return.” He cleared his throat. “I hope that when we meet again, we can talk this out and come up with a contract on the boat that is fair to both of us. Yours in business and in friendship, Kodin N’jakama.”
Tazir shut her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Son of a bitch,” she hissed.
“He—he left you with a significant sum,” the clerk pointed out, pushing a bulging leather purse toward her. “And he paid your board and laundry in full for the next month.” His eyes flickered to the shelf of ceramic cat figurines on the wall beside him. “I—I urge you to please be peaceful with a humble messenger, ma’am.”
Tazir nodded, pressing her mouth flat. “Yeah,” she said, turning around with a jerk. “I don’t beat on old men.”
* * *
She sat at the empty slip for hours, her trousers hiked up to her knees and her legs dangling in the water. Little fish had begun to investigate, tickling her ankles and darting away when she moved her toes.
The jug of rum was almost empty, and the heat of the day had made it sickeningly warm. Tazir drank it anyway. It went well with the lonely, hollow bitterness that already filled her gut.
“You told me, once, that you were afraid he’d leave you like this,” said a familiar voice behind her.
“Yeah?” Tazir kept staring out to sea, trying to guess which one of the bright painted sails in the distance belonged to the
Laughing Dancer
. “Guess I was right,” she said.
Chaqal’s bare feet made quiet sticky sounds on the dock as she stepped closer to Tazir. “Sorry about last night,” she said.
Tazir took a sip of the rum. “No, you’re not.”
Chaqal grunted. “I get sick of it,” she said. “People coming to—to stare.”
“Yeah?” Tazir said. “Maybe you shouldn’t work at a storm temple.”
Chaqal made an irritated noise in the back of her throat. “Doesn’t it get exhausting?” she asked. “Being personally responsible for everything that happens to you?”
“That’s life, sweetheart,” Tazir said. She took a long swig on the rum jug and winced as she choked it down. It wasn’t that long until she could go back to bed and feel like a reasonable person. “We set our own courses, and we don’t get to bitch about them when they turn out to be shitty.”
“If you say so,” Chaqal said. She leaned down for a moment; Tazir turned to see what she had set down on the dock next to her. It was a walking stick. A nice walking stick, yeah, carved out of dark-stained wood with carved fish swimming in a spiral up its length, but still—
“What the fuck is this?” Tazir said.
“It’s a gift,” Chaqal said. “People give them to each other all the time and barely ever die.”
“Well, fuck your gift,” Tazir said.
“Shina warned me you wouldn’t like it,” Chaqal said. She snorted. “Whatever,” she said. “You’re gonna go moon-eye crazy after a couple months sitting around on pension.”
“So?”
“So, I’ll ease up on dusting the shrine until then,” Chaqal said. “Gotta leave some work for you to do.”
Tazir snorted and drained her rum. When the last drop had burned down her throat, she smashed the jug against the dock.
Chaqal said nothing—and indeed, by the time Tazir was curious enough to turn around, she saw her old lover trudging down the dock with her head hung low.
“Dammit,” Tazir grumbled, watching the blue-and-yellow figure grow smaller and less distinct. A memory crossed her mind—Shina, all those years ago, curled up on her mat on the deck and muttering.
The last one,
she used to whine in her sleep.
I’m the last one.
“Dammit,” she said again. Her hip protested as loud as it could as she tried to stand up.
“Dammit!” she yelled, thumping her fist on the dock. She glared at the walking stick as she picked it up. “Dammit, dammit,
dammit,
” she growled.
As she jerked herself to her feet, she could see that Chaqal had stopped and turned around to watch her.
“Hey!” Tazir yelled as she limped down the dock. She didn’t want to admit how much faster she was, leaning on that damned stick. “The kid doesn’t hear a fucking word about this. You hear me?”
Chaqal nodded at Tazir and went walking back toward town, her robes trailing in the dust behind her.
Emily Foster graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in English. She has written and published a variety of work ranging from abstract poetry to Supreme Court briefs. However, her real passion is for fantasy fiction inspired by the unforgiving landscapes of her home in rural Colorado and the rugged people who live there. She is concerned that if she lists any pets or family members in her biography, it will somehow cause more of them to appear in her home.
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
the drowning eyes
Copyright © 2016 by Emily Foster
Map copyright © 2015 by Tim Paul
Cover art by Cynthia Sheppard
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
All rights reserved.
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ISBN
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ISBN
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First Edition: January 2016
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