Burning Bright

Farther up the canal, there were whoops, and then a splash, the sound distinct and chilling even in the uproar. Lioe turned her head sharply, even though it had been too loud to have been a child, saw Roscha’s body a tense shadow against the shore lights. Then, as suddenly, she saw her relax as two drones flung their lights onto the source of the sound. Caught in that double disk of light, a dripping boy hauled himself back onto a fingerling dock, shaking water from the ruined feathers that decorated his mask. He shook his fist at another boy, but a third grabbed his shoulders, and hustled him away. One of the drones followed the group for a moment longer, then turned away, taking the light with it. As the bright circle swung briefly aimless along the buildings that fronted the canal, it hit a doorway where a man and a woman were locked in blind embrace, her skirt rucked up to her waist, and flashed away again. Lioe blinked, not sure if she’d seen the woman reaching not for her partner but for his wallet, but there was nothing she could do about it if she had.

The feeder widened suddenly as it opened onto the Water. Gondas were clustered in flotillas along either bank, filled and overfilled with masked and costumed figures, standing shapes balanced precariously against the chop where the two currents met. The Water itself was black and empty, except for a few speeders that carried the blue lights of the Lockwardens; another Lockwardens’ speeder, throttled back so far that it barely made headway against the chop, moved along the line of gondas, a tall man calling instructions from the pilot’s well.

“Which way?” Gelsomina called from her place in the stern, and Lioe saw Roscha look right and left before she answered.

“It looks clearer down toward the Warden’s Channel.”

“Right.” The boat swung left as Gelsomina answered, pulling out around the mob of smaller boats, and Lioe felt rather than heard the beat of the engine strengthen as they picked up speed.

“Do you see a buoy?” Gelsomina called.

“No, not yet—wait.” Roscha leaned precariously out over the bow, one hand clinging tight to the mast. “Wait, yes, past that seiner there’s a free point.”

Gelsomina did not answer, but Lioe felt the boat surge again, as though she’d opened a throttle. The barge passed two more ships—another barge filled with people costumed from the Game, several Avellars among them, and then a seiner, its nets spread to let a horde of children climb to a better view—and then started to slow. They were almost on top of it before Lioe saw the mooring point. Roscha had had it in view long before, however, and caught it easily with the boatpole’s hooked end. Gelsomina saw the movement, the swoop and jerk of the pole against the shore lights, and reversed the engines. The barge slid neatly up to the orange-painted buoy, coming to an almost perfect stop against its scarred sides. Roscha looped a cable into place, tugged twice to snug it home. Flares blossomed in the distance, toward the entrance to the channel.

“They’re coming,” Roscha called, and Gelsomina pulled herself up out of the steering well, came to sit on the unstepped mast. Lioe seated herself beside the older woman, careful of the masks and the barge’s unpredictable roll, and Roscha joined them a moment later, tucking the boatpole neatly under their feet. A larger Lockwardens’ boat, a slim needle of a ship twice as long as a gonda, slid past down the center of the channel, a tail of spray gleaming behind it.

“In that compartment there,” Gelsomina said, “you’ll find a bottle of raki.”

Roscha grinned, and rummaged in the shallow space until she had found the bottle and three small, unmatching cups. She poured a cup for each of them, and came back to sit beside Lioe. “Health,” she said, and the three touched cups.

They did not have to wait long for the parade to appear. Lioe sipped cautiously at the bitter drink—it tasted of anise, a flavor she didn’t like—and looked south again just as another flare blossomed in the darkness over the Warden’s Channel. A trio of speeders, all with Lockwardens’ lights and markings, swept into view, and another group of three followed more slowly, peeling off to take up stations just inside the line of spectators.

“Soon now,” Gelsomina said, and Roscha said, “Mommy…” She caught a five-year-old’s whine so perfectly that Lioe laughed aloud.

“Five more minutes,” Gelsomina said.

Lioe looked south again, still smiling, toward the light at the point of Mainwarden Island, and saw a dark shape eclipse the light. The parade? she thought, and Roscha whooped beside her.

“There they are!”