Resounding repetitions caused her to wince. "Brod!" she cried. "It's all right! I'm just above—" Her calls and his overlapped, drowning all sense in a flood of echoes. Brod's overjoyed response would have been more gratifying if he didn't stammer on so, offering thankful benedictions to both Stratos Mother and his patriarchal thunder deity.
"I'm above you," she repeated, once the rumbling resonances died down. "Can you tell how high the water is?"
There were splashing sounds. "It's already got me cornered on a spit of sand, Maia. I'll try backing up … Ouch!" Brod's exclamation announced his discovery of the wall of shells.
"Can you stand?" she asked. If so, it might save her having to climb down after him.
"I'm … a bit woozy. Can't hear so good, either. Lemme try." There were sounds of grunting effort. "Yeah, I'm up. Sort of. Can I assume . . . everything's black 'cause we're underground? Or am I blind?"
"If you're blind, so'm I. Now if you can walk, please face the wall and try working your way to the right. Watch your step and follow my voice till you're right below me. I'll try to rig something to help you up here. First priority is to get above the high-water line."
Maia kept talking to offer Brod a bearing, and meanwhile leaned over to tie one end of her rope around the metal grommet. It must have been put there long ago to moor boats in this tiny cave, though why, Maia could not imagine. It seemed a horrid place to use as an anchorage. Far worse than Inanna's tunnel hideaway on Grimke Island.
"Here I am," Brod announced just below her. "Frost! These bitchie barckles are sharp. I can't find your rope, Maia."
"I'll swing it back and forth. Feel it now?"
"Nope."
"It must be too short. Wait a minute." With a sigh, she pulled in the cord. Judging from Brod's ragged-sounding voice, he wouldn't be a good bet to make the same climb she had, unassisted. There was no choice, then. Fumbling at the catches with her bruised fingers, she unbuttoned her trousers and slid them off, over her deck shoes. Tying one leg to the rope with two half-hitches, she also knotted a loop at the far end of the other leg, then dropped everything over the side again. There was a gratifying muffled sound of fabric striking someone's head.
"Ow. Thanks," Brod responded.
"You're welcome. Can you slip one arm through the loop, up to your shoulder?"
He grunted. "Barely. Now what?"
"Make sure it's snug. Here goes." Carefully, step by step, Maia instructed Brod where to find the first foothold. She heard him hiss in pain, and recalled that his cord sandals had been in worse shape than her shoes, unfit for tackling knife-edge barnacles. He didn't complain, though. Maia braced herself and hauled on the rope — not so much to lift the youth as steady him. To lend stability and confidence as he moved shakily from foothold to handhold, one at a time.
It seemed to last far longer than her own laborious ascent. Maia's abused muscles quivered worse than ever by the time his huffing gasps came near. Somehow, drawing on reserves, she kept tension in the rope until Brod finally surged over the ledge in one gasping heave, landing halfway on top of her. In exhaustion they lay that way for some time, heartbeats pounding chest to chest, each breathing the other's ragged exhalations, each tasting a salty patch of the other's skin.
We must stop meeting like this, thought a distant, wry part of her. Still, it's more than most women get out of a man, this time of year. To Maia's surprise, his weight felt pleasant, in a strange, unanticipated way.
"Uh . . . sorry," Brod said as he rolled off. "And thanks for saving my life."
"It's no more'n you did for us on the ketch, this morning," she replied, covering embarrassment. "Though I guess by now that was yesterday."
"Yesterday." He paused to ponder, then abruptly shouted. "Hey, look at that!"
Maia sat up, puzzled. Since she couldn't see Brod well enough to make out where he pointed, she began scanning on her own, and eventually found something amid the awful gloom. Opposite their ledge, about forty degrees higher toward the zenith, she made out a delicate glitter of — she counted — five beautiful stars.
I believe it's part of the Hearth. . . .
Abruptly reminded, Maia grasped along her left arm and sighed in relief when she found her forgotten sextant, still encased within the scratched but intact leather cover. It's probably ruined. But it's mine. The only thing that's mine.
"So, Madam Navigator," Brod asked. "Can you tell from those stars just where we are?"
Maia shook her head seriously. "Too little data. Besides, we know where we are. If there were more to see, I might be able to tell the time—"
She cut short, tensing as Brod laughed aloud. Then, noting only affection in his gentle teasing, Maia relaxed. She laughed, too, letting go as the fact sank in that they would live awhile longer, to struggle on. The reavers hadn't won, not yet. And Renna was nearby.
