Before she could ask more, Pyrena held her gaze and said, “This is one of the ways, Jinny, that we know we are dreaming.” Without looking, she pointed again to the painting. It now showed a verdant garden with a primeval arch crumbling over a yawning, murky pit.
Pyrena Rose fetched a drying cloth and sendal robe from the closet, and turned away while Jinny dressed. Then she led her behind a folding partition to a gossamer canopy bed. “You sleep here and I have a sofa.” She paused, pulling back the covers. “Until — or if… you should ever like me to join you.”
Jinny felt a warm sensation she was sure she’d not felt before.
“We’ll start your training tomorrow. No telling how long you’ll be here.”
“I’d like to stay, Miss. Miss Pyrena.”
“I’d like you to. There aren’t many women here.”
The fine threads of the bed sheets glowed gently, and Jinny slid deep into their celestial sensation.
She woke in horrendous pain, elsewhere. The skin on her back roared with a deep, itching fire. The air was different, muggy and plant sweet. Mosquitoes whined and bit. Someone touched a damp cloth to her forehead and sang softly of a sweet chariot. And Jinny slipped again. Away.
The tremolo song of seabirds and rhythmic waves against the ship’s keel eased Jinny awake. Sometime before dawn they’d settled back into terrestrial ocean. The gaunt creature huddled under its wings in the morning sun. The captain was absent, so Jinny dressed in the folded clothes and boots laid out for her. She noticed the unrolled maps and sat at the desk, trying to ignore the painting above it showing a stalactite city hanging in an umbral cavern.
She studied the hand-inked papyrus filled with jagged mountain coasts, reclusive islands, boundless deserts, and swirling seas labeled in script with names like Sarnath and Xur, Hatheg Kla and Inganok. The continents and islands remained more or less consistent across the maps, but among all the renderings, one location was not fixed. The land called Leng seemed to move.
The cabin door opened to a panting hooded figure. “The captain is ready for you.” Richard lowered the cowl and huffed.
Out on the deck, crew scurried like insects among the ropes and spars. The captain and two of her officers stood by the center mast below the largest sail.
“Good morning, crewman Jinny.” The captain’s expression was devoid of warmth. “Up the ratlines with you to the main top.”
Jinny did not know what she meant, but followed the captain’s steady glance upward. Her stomach dropped.
She climbed the rigging very slowly, shaking with terror. Once she reached the crossbeam, she looked out in every direction, where an occasional massive shadow moved beneath the cobalt surface. She remained aloft until she could let go of the mast and stand freely on the yardarm, balanced against each wave and gust.
She learned the parts and areas of the frigate, from mizzenmast to bowspirit, from headsail to escutcheon. She learned to reeve a rope, gybe a sail, and lash a trice. She learned, and became less afraid.
When she returned exhausted to the cabin, the captain smiled pleasantly and threw a naked sword at her, point first.
Jinny closed her eyes, flinching from the expected pain, but then she felt the sword handle tight in her hand and opened her eyes.
“Good,” Pyrena said. “I thought you had a thing about you. Few can do this.”
“But how did I…”
“Don’t think on it. Just be as you want, and will events to be. It doesn’t always work. But it can in this place.”
Jinny’s confusion became frustration. “And where is this place?”
“You remember what I said last night?”
“That we’re… dreaming. Tell me, will I ever wake?”
“That may be up to you.”
Jinny gripped the cutlass firmly, swung it to a controlled stop.
Pyrena attacked with her blade. When Jinny parried the slashes and thrusts, Pyrena snuck a solid elbow into her cheek and swept her legs.
“Don’t assume it can be easy, that you’ll wake up whenever you want.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Decades. More than I remember. Probably in a coma hooked up to life support. I have two daughters. Now, stop asking questions.” She nicked her blade edge over Jinny’s forearm. The blood came immediately. “There is real pain here.”
Jinny’s training began in earnest with the wooden bō staff and many bruises. It would finish with the knife.
They followed the Southern Sea trade routes and prowled the Zar coast near the Forest of Parg until the lookout spied black sails in the fog. They doused lamps and slid in fast through the white mist, ramming the Arkham Rose’s rostrum into the black ship’s forecabin.
They boarded in a wedge formation. Jinny watched from the far quarterdeck as Pyrena danced through the swarming ruckus, swung and cut in graceful fury, slashed, ducked and rolled among the fray, delivered knee strikes and headbutts, spun and pierced. The captive Leng servants fought hard, and at each scuffle she stepped back to let them flee or surrender. Those who charged again she cut down, the moon-beasts flowing up malodorously from below.
One of the toadlike creatures felled two of the mercenary crew, oozed over the railing, and advanced on Jinny with an onyx club. Its tentacled face writhed angry red as its form stretched, looming taller. At the last moment Jinny lifted the bardiche axe from behind her and cleaved the gorger from soft skull to softer belly. Her heart thundered.
When the battle was won, they hauled crates from the ship’s putrid hold. Captain Bloodrose pried off one of the lids and they gasped at the many thousand glinting rubies. Then they dumped the crates into the frothing brine.
“Why waste so many jewelstones?” Jinny wondered aloud. “You could buy an armada.”
One of the Leng women, now a boatswain holding a gory spiked war mace, overheard. “Not everyone the moon-beasts take to their bleak satellite become slaves. Each terrible gem is fashioned from the blood and essence of a stolen life.”
After dinner, Jinny searched the ship for the captain, and finally climbed high above the mainsail to find her in the crow’s nest. Wordlessly, she lifted Pyrena’s hand bearing the ruby ring and held it to her own chest. Then she embraced the woman. Annoyed, Emalee flew off. Jinny held Pyrena firmly until the sobbing ceased, and into the night.
As they sailed past Hlanith into the Cerenarian Sea, Jinny gently turned Pyrena’s head, arms reached back around her neck, and their lips sealed together, trembling at first. The warm ocean wind tried to part them, but they pulled closer as their yearning hands and tongues revealed and fed their starved passion.
Barely able to pause their ardor, they descended the rigging. Once behind the locked cabin door, they slowly undressed each other to unwavering eyes. They embraced again in the canopy bed, as excited touch provoked warming skin and roused thrilling breaths. Three times Jinny’s pleasure peaked, and three times she cried out in intractable joy.
She tried eagerly to return the bliss, and with Pyrena’s patient instruction, found success.
Long after the launch of Pyrena’s purring snore, Jinny found herself awake. She untangled their limbs and stood nude by the window in the nocturnal sheen, scowling at the moon. Thinking there would be no answer, she whispered, “You said two daughters, but only wear one ruby.”