Burning Bright

She looked back down the canalside, saw the four men huddled together, staring along the canal in her direction. She froze for a second, new fear shooting through her, and realized that they couldn’t see her after all. The bend in the bank protected her, at least a little bit, and at this distance she would be no more than a dark dot against the dark water. That was reassuring; she tightened her grip on the piling, and began to look for a way out of the water. This was a one-bank canal, with a single pedestrian embankment on the opposite side. Above her stretched blank formestone walls, banded with darker blocks of stone; the nearest window was a good ten meters above her head. The current swept past her, tugging her body away from the piling: not a place to try and swim, she thought, and turned her attention to the wall. The pilings stretched the length of the house row, and there seemed to be a break in the walls beyond that. Maybe if I can work my way down to that break, I can just climb out, Lioe thought, or even just get out of the worst of the current, and swim to the embankment. If it weren’t for the current, I could do it, no problem.

She looked back down the canal, ready to duck out of sight if the would-be kidnappers were looking in her direction, but they were standing close together, one of them with his hand cupped to his head as though he held a portable com-unit. They seemed to be distracted, or as distracted as they were likely to get, looking back toward the stage. Lioe leaned out cautiously into the current, reached for the coat of waterweed that fringed the next piling. There wasn’t much above the water, and she leaned out a little farther, reaching beneath the surface to grope for the matted weeds. She found them, dug her hand into the slimy surface, the individual strands slipping slack between her fingers. They were covered with a gelatinous coating that made her shiver even as she tightened her grip, pulling back as hard as she could. The weeds stayed fast to the piling. She took a deep breath and released her grip on the first piling, reaching for the second, letting the current toss her against it. She tightened her hold, breathing hard, ignored the new pain where her knee had scraped the formestone wall, and reached for the next piling to try again.

She inched her way down the canal wall, groping from piling to piling, her hands slimed and green from clutching the weeds. Their air sacs burst and oozed a sticky ichor, staining her hands despite the running water; her face burned where the salt hit the cuts, and her waterlogged clothes dragged heavy on her limbs. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should finally get rid of her shoes, but she would have to walk once she made the bank, and she was getting close to the open space between the buildings. She started to smile, but winced as the expression jarred her scraped face, and reached for the next piling. She grasped the ring of waterweed—it seemed thinner than the others, but solidly attached—and let go. The waterweed came away in her hand as the current caught her, whirling her away from the bank. She flailed for a moment in panic, then got herself under control. The current was not as strong here on the straight of the canal. She brought herself abreast of it, angled in slowly toward the bank.

The space she had been aiming for turned out to be one of the tiny canalside parks, neatly paved, with low umbrella-shaped trees growing in tubs and a wide strip of open ground filled with extravagant white flowers. There was a gonda landing as well, three steps leading up out of the water, and a mooring ring on the wall, and Lioe clung to that for a moment, grateful to feel solid land under her feet, before she dragged herself up onto the bank.

A woman was sitting under the nearest umbrella-tree, on the edge of the tub, a paper parcel open beside her, the remains of a meat pie strewn on the ground for the local cats. Her head came up sharply as Lioe staggered up onto the bank, and Lioe hastily lifted her hands to show them empty of weapons.

“It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you. Somebody tried to mug me.”

The woman swallowed whatever she was going to say, swept the last crumbs off her lap. She was a big woman, tall and heavyset, dressed in the dark robe that belonged to the Four Judges. Lioe saw the tall headdress and mask of the Prospering Judge set aside on the tub’s edge beside her. “Are you hurt?” the woman asked, and came forward briskly.

Lioe shook her head, was suddenly grateful for the other’s steadying arm. “Not really, just cuts and bruises.” She looked down, saw her knee raw and scraped through the ripped trousers. “I went into the canal, back toward Betani Square.”