The Tale of the Golden Eagle Read online

  Denali's heart shrank to a cold hard clinker at the center of his chest. He must match the raise, or fold. “I wager my ship.” A man in the crowd gasped audibly.

  Denali's ship, the Crocus, which had been his father's, was nothing but a worthless hull rusting behind his mother's house. The drive and other fittings had gone to a money lender from Gaspara. If he lost, his deception would be exposed and he would be sold into slavery to pay his father's debts.

  “I accept that as a match,” said the duke.

  Denali stared at the back of the top card of the deck. If it was a stave, he won. Else, he lost. The little boy on the card's back design stared back at him. He could not meet that printed gaze, and dropped his eyes.

  His eye lit upon one single counter that had been left by accident on the table before him, and a mad impulse seized him. He placed his index finger upon that counter, slid it across the felt to join the rest.

  “I raise by one."

  Stunned silence from the observers.

  The duke's eyes narrowed. Then widened. Then closed, as he placed his hand across them. He began to chuckle. Then he laughed out loud. He leaned back in his chair, roaring with laughter, and slapped his cards on the table before him. “You fiendish bastard!” he gasped out. “I fold!"

  Pandemonium. Denali Eu and the Duke Vey stood, shook hands, then embraced each other. The duke trembled with laughter; Denali just trembled. Servants appeared to gather the counters and process the transfer of property.

  Denali could not help himself. He turned over the top card.

  It was the five of berries.

  * * * *

  The next morning Denali Eu came to the duke's city house, his bag slung over his shoulder. He found Nerissa waiting in the entry hall, alone except for two guards. “The duke sends his regrets,” said one, “but after last night's entertainment he finds himself indisposed to company."

  Denali and the guards signed papers acknowledging the transfer of Nerissa to his possession, and he turned to leave, gesturing for her to follow. But as the door opened for them, a ray of morning sunlight touched her body and sent shimmering reflections into all the corners of the room. Denali turned back and was startled by her brilliant beauty.

  “You're naked,” he blurted out, and immediately felt foolish.

  “Sir and Master, I am as I was made,” she replied.

  “I myself was born naked, but that does not excuse nudity in polite society. Here.” He removed his cape and placed it over her shoulders. It was sufficient for propriety. Then, unsure of the proper term of address for a machine, he silently proffered his elbow. She took it, and the two of them walked out the door side by side.

  “What shall I call you?” he said as they strolled up toward the docks. Her feet chimed on the hard pathway.

  “My name is Nerissa Zeebnen-Fearsig, Sir and Master."

  “Yes, but have you any title?"

  “No, Sir and Master."

  “Your name is a trifle ... ungainly. I shall address you as M'zelle.” It was a standard term of address for a younger woman, or one of lower status. None of her other owners had ever called her anything of the sort.

  “As you wish, Sir and Master."

  “You may address me simply as Sir,” he said. The repeated use of his full and proper title made Denali uncomfortable, for he was keenly aware of just how close he was to slavery himself. He was all the more discomfited by Nerissa's inhuman beauty and poise. Walking beside her, he felt himself little more than a bag of meat and hair. Worse, he knew that soon he would have to destroy this marvelous machine, though his mind kept trying to escape that fact. “In fact, you need not use the Sir on every statement. M'zelle.” And he inclined his head.

  “Yes, Sir and Ma.... Yes, Sir.... Oh, goodness.” Though her face had only a few movements to it, her confusion and embarrassment were clear from the set of her tourmaline eyebrows and amber lips. “I mean, yes. Just yes."

  “Just so,” he said, and he laughed.

  Nerissa was unsure what to think of this man, whose clothing and bearing indicated great wealth but whose attitude toward her was deferential. She had sometimes seen fear, from unsophisticated or unlettered people, but this was something else. It was as though she held a measure of power over him.

  Then she realized what it was she saw in Denali Eu's eyes. It was something she had never before seen directed toward herself.

  It was respect.

  They reached the docks, a confusion of utilitarian buildings at the top of a hill just outside of town. This was where the shiftspace ships made landfall. “Here we are, M'zelle,” he said, and gestured her into a docking shed like all the rest.

  It was empty.

  “I do not understand, Sir."

  He looked at the floor. His original plan had been to deactivate her at this point. But as they had walked together from town, he had come to understand just how heavy she was. There was no way he could smuggle her to his mother's house unassisted, and nobody other than Nerissa herself who could be trusted to assist.

  He puffed out his cheeks, not raising his head. “The reason this shed is empty is that I have no ship. We will wait here until after dark, and then we will walk to my home, which is not far from here."

  “You have no ship, Sir?"

  “No.” He turned and took her hands in his. They were warm, and hummed faintly. The fingernails were chips of ruby. He still did not meet her eyes. “No, M'zelle, I have no ship. In fact, I am afraid you are my sole possession of any value.” Finally he looked up, his eyes pleading. “I must ask that you keep my secret safe."

  Nerissa's heart went out to him then. “I am honored by your trust, Sir."

  “Thank you, M'zelle.” He led her to a small office, where there was a cot and a chair and a small stasis cupboard. “This is my waiting room. Can I offer you something to drink? Oh."

  His expression of embarrassment was charming. “No, thank you,” she said.

  “But please ... do take a seat."

  “I do not tire, Sir."

  “Please, M'zelle. I insist. I could not bear to see you stand while I sit, and I do tire and must sit eventually."

  “Very well, Sir,” she said. The chair creaked beneath her weight, but held.

  Denali poured himself a glass of cool water from the cupboard, then sat on the edge of the cot. “Usually I pass the time until dark reading, but since I am now the owner of a fine storytelling machine, it would seem impolite not to make use of your services. Would you please tell me a story?"

  “Certainly, Sir. What kind of story would you like to hear?"

  “Tell me a story about ... yourself."

  A thrill went through her then. “Would you like a true story, or a made-up one?"

  “True stories are always more interesting."

  And so Nerissa told him a story about a golden eagle who lived for many years as the brain of a bird ship, then slept for a long time and finally became a storytelling machine. She did not embellish—the story was fantastic enough as it was—and she did not leave out the sad parts or the embarrassing parts.

  When she finished, it was full dark. The glass of water sat, untouched, on the dusty floor beside Denali's cot.

  Unlike the tinker, Denali Eu was an educated man. He knew the history of the bird ships, and he understood just what Nerissa was and what she was capable of. He had inherited his father's notes, his contacts, and his trading expertise along with his debts. He knew in his bones that with a bird ship he could not just repay those debts, but rebuild his family's wealth and reputation.

  It was then that he made the second of the three decisions that set a legend in motion: he would find a way to refurbish the hull of Crocus and refit it as a bird ship.

  But all he said to Nerissa was “Thank you for the story, M'zelle.” He knew his new plan was nearly as cruel as the old, because it would still mean the end of her existence as a gleaming almost-person. But at least she will still be alive, he told himself. You have the right t
o do this. She is your property. You owe it to your mother and to your father's memory.

  Still he felt filthy.

  Denali dressed Nerissa in a spare suit of his traveling clothes, with gloves and a large floppy hat to hide her platinum skin, and they walked to his mother's house by the light of the moons. They talked as they walked, he of his life and she of hers. Both asked questions; both listened attentively to the answers. They learned about each other and they grew closer. If Nerissa sensed Denali was holding something back, she was not unduly concerned; she had already received far more confidences from him than she could ever have expected.

  The house of Leona Eu had been hers before her marriage to Ranson Eu. It was small and patched, but warm and tasteful and genuine. Nerissa had never seen such a place; she loved it immediately.

  Denali introduced Nerissa to his mother and explained that he had won Nerissa at gambling. Later, in private, he told his mother he planned to sell Nerissa on his next trip to Arica, but did not want the storyteller to know this because she would feel unwanted.

  The life of the household returned to something like its usual routine, and Nerissa did her best to contribute. She proved to be a tireless gardener (her delicate finger joints protected from the dirt by leather gloves), and her ability to sit completely motionless for hours made her an impressive hunter. Nerissa was soon accepted as part of the family. This was something she had never experienced before, and she was honored and delighted. In the evenings, they all entertained each other with stories.

  After Leona and Nerissa had gone to bed (for though her body never wearied, Nerissa's brain still required sleep), Denali stayed up late for many nights. He researched the bird ships and hauled out the old plans of Crocus, then drew new plans. The refitted ship would be stronger in the keel and lighter in weight; less luxurious, but with more lifesystem and cargo capacity. He sent both sets of plans to his father's chandler. The reply arrived in a few days: the chandler would do the work, though he said the design seemed insane.

  The price he quoted was high. But the money Denali had won from the Duke would cover the down payment, and the balance was less than Nerissa's empty body would bring on the black market.

  The next week the chandler came by with his delivery dirigible. He hooked chains and cables to Crocus's corroded hull and hauled it away. Denali emptied out his secret personal cache of money and told Leona it was the proceeds of the salvage sale.

  “I thought we had sold every part worth salvaging long ago,” she said. “Surely the expense of the dirigible was more than the hull was worth?"

  “I met the chandler on my last trip to Arica, and persuaded him he owed us a favor."

  Leona still seemed unconvinced, but she accepted the money.

  In the following weeks Nerissa's sense that Denali was hiding something from her increased. He grew haggard, and she found he would not meet her eyes. She wanted to ask him about his troubles, to repay the concern and respect she had been shown. But her years of servitude had ingrained in her a pattern of silent obedience and she said nothing.

  For his part, Denali felt an agony of silence. He could confide neither in his mother, who would berate him for hiring the chandler with money he did not yet have, nor in Nerissa, whose beauty he planned to tear away and sell for his own profit; yet he ached for reassurance. He found himself uninterested in food, and spent long hours of the night staring at his ceiling, unable to sleep.

  On one such restless night, he watched a patch of shimmering moonlight, reflected onto his ceiling from a small pond near the house, as it passed slowly from one side of the room to the other. Suddenly, silently, it flared and danced all over the room, then returned to its previous state. Just as he was about to dismiss the phenomenon as an effect of his tired eyes, it happened again. And a third time.

  He rose from his bed and looked out the window. What he saw then captured his heart. It was Nerissa, dancing naked on the shore of the pond. He had seen the moonlight reflected from her shining metal body.

  Nerissa's dance was a soaring, graceful thing, a poem composed of twirls and leaps and tumbles. The great strength of her legs propelled her high into the air, in defiance of her metallic weight, and brought her to landing as delicately as a faun. Her platinum skin in the moonlight shone silver on silver, black on black; she was a creature of the moonlight, a pirouetting dancing fragment of the night.

  She was even more beautiful than he had thought.

  His heart was torn in two. Part of it wanted to fly, to leap and dance with her in the night. Part of it sank to the acid pit of his stomach, as though trying to hide from the knowledge of the plan he had laid. How could he destroy this beauty and grace for mere money? But how could he sentence himself, his mother, and his father's memory to a continued life of debt and deceit—a life that must eventually end in discovery and shame—for the sake of a machine?

  Perhaps he let out a small sound of despair. Perhaps it was the sight of his white nightshirt in the window. For whatever reason, Nerissa noticed she was being watched. Clumsily she stopped her dance and stared directly at him, her eyes two tiny stars of reflected light.

  He descended the stairs and met her in the doorway. The moonlight shining from her cheek was painfully bright, and in the silence of the night he heard the tiny sounds of her eyes as they shifted in their sockets.

  “I'm sorry I disturbed your sleep, Sir."

  “No, no ... I wasn't asleep. You dance beautifully, M'zelle."

  “Thank you, Sir. I do enjoy it. It is as close as I can come in this body to the joy of flight between the stars."

  The sundered halves of Denali's heart fused together then, for he realized then his plan for Nerissa was exactly what she wanted as well. He would restore her to her former life of sailing the currents of space, which she had described so vividly to him, and at the same time restore his own fortune.

  Nerissa saw the smile spreading across his face, and asked what he was thinking.

  “I have just thought of the most delightful surprise for you, M'zelle. A gift for you, to express my appreciation of your dance. But it will take some time to prepare, so I must ask you to be patient.” He bent and kissed the warm metal of her fingers. “Good night, M'zelle."

  “Good night, Sir."

  He returned to his bed and fell immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Three days later the chandler's dirigible returned, the refitted Crocus hanging from its gondola. The ship's gleaming hull wore vivid stripes of red, yellow, and green, the colors of Ranson Eu's former trading company. Denali, Leona, and Nerissa gathered together and watched as the dirigible lowered it gently to the ground. The pilot waved from the gondola as he flew away.

  “This is my surprise to you both,” Denali proclaimed. “Behold: Crocus is reborn!"

  Nerissa stared at the ship in silent rapture, but Leona turned to her son with concern. “I suspected you were hiding something from me. This is a wonderful surprise, to be sure, but I thought we had no secrets from each other."

  “Only this one, Mother. And there was a reason. Nerissa, here is my gift to you: this new Crocus has been built especially for you. In this new bird ship you will fly the stars once more."

  Nerissa's reaction confused and disturbed him. She went rigid, her features drawing together and her eyes widening. “This is ... a bird ship?” she said. “But where did you obtain the shipbrain?"

  “There is no shipbrain, M'zelle. That position has been reserved for your own sweet self."

  Nerissa's metal hands bunched into fists, held tightly against her chin. She seemed to shrink into herself. “No,” she whispered. “No, no ... please, Sir and Master ... I beg you..."

  Denali Eu felt his hands grow cold. “But M'zelle, when I saw you dance in the moonlight ... I thought to fly the stars was your greatest joy."

  “To fly is joy, yes ... but to be cut from this body ... to be severed ... uprooted ... the pain, Sir and Master ... that pain is something I could never endure aga
in.” She crouched, trembling, on the stones of the path. Her eyes were huge. “I would rather die, Sir and Master. I would find a way, Sir and Master. Please, Sir and Master, please ... I know you are my owner, I know I must obey your wishes without question or hesitation, but I beg you ... do not ask me to do this.” And she fell at his feet, her hands raised as though to ward off a blow.

  All the color ran out of Denali Eu's world. He turned from Nerissa and Leona and marched clumsily into the woods behind the house. They did not follow.

  Some time later he found himself seated on a fallen log. The sun was low in the sky and his clothes and skin were torn from thorns and brambles.

  How could he have been so stupid? He had lied to his mother, lied to Nerissa, made unwarranted assumptions, and promised money he did not have. Soon the chandler's bill would arrive and he had nothing with which to pay it.

  He considered his options. He could follow through with his plan—and Nerissa would find some way to end her life, or else would serve in unwilling misery. Even if he were heartless enough to force her to do this, he did not relish the idea of trusting his life to a ship he had betrayed.

  He could break up Nerissa, sell her platinum and precious stones to pay the chandler—and she would be gone completely, and he would have only a worthless hull without a drive.

  He could sell Nerissa in one piece—and it would be the same, only with more money. Nerissa would still be lost to him, and subject to the whim of some other master who might treat her still more cruelly.

  He could repudiate the chandler's bill, declare bankruptcy—and see Nerissa sold off, along with his mother's house, and himself sold into slavery.

  But there was one more option. Denali Eu was an educated man, and he knew the history of the bird ships. He also knew Nerissa's story. And because of this knowledge, and despite this knowledge, he made the final, fateful decision that set a legend in motion.

  He spent a long time sitting on the log, his head in his hands, but he could think of no other alternative. Then he stood and walked back to his mother's house. There, as the sun set, he told Nerissa and Leona of his decision. His mother cried and shouted and beat her hands upon the kitchen table; Nerissa sat upon a chair with her head bowed, but did not speak. Neither of them could change his mind.