eyes. “You recovered from the crushed pelvis the very next day.”
“So we’re in hotter water now? How hot? As bad as the jellyfish neodemon or the mosquito goddess?”
Leandra suppressed a shudder. “We got out of those scrapes alive,” she said, though in truth, many in their party had not. “Kai, you’re fretting again. Let me do that. We’re not in trouble now, but we will be if you don’t follow your orders.”
He stared into her eyes a moment longer but turned away. “Hey Peleki, take us in to Keyway Island. I’ll meet you there. You got the shark’s lei.” He tossed the leimako to the lieutenant, who caught the shark toothed oar and nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
With that, Holokai flashed a smile at Leandra and dove off the center deck and into the dark water without a splash.
As Leandra watched her old friend swim away, she held a hand over her belly. The pain from the flare was getting worse. Sometimes her disease would double her over with pain, puff up her face and joints like rising bread. Then she’d have to take the disgusting stress hormone the hydromancers made with their aqueous runes. That would stop the human aspects of her body from attacking her textual aspects, but the drug’s other effects were horrible. She hated her body for its civil wars, her disease.
Leandra wondered again if, in one day’s time, she might kill the human half of herself. That might count as murdering someone she loved. Perhaps the textual half of her would live on. That thought withered her smile. She would hate to become like her mother. And, anyway, to kill only the human half of herself wouldn’t be possible.
Leandra turned her thoughts to other people she might have to kill. Having sent Holokai to search for those just coming into the city, she should also consider those just now coming into her affection.
“Huh,” Leandra said in surprise as she added another name to the list. “Lieutenant, pass the word for Dhrun.”
Lieutenant Peleki sent the command down the ship. While she waited, Leandra considered the white half-moon and its watery reflection amid the standing islands.
When she was six years old, her father had taken her from Lorn to Ixos for the first time. Their first night in Chandralu, looking up from the Floating City, a young Leandra asked her father why all three moons had followed them across the ocean. He laughed and tried to explain about the moons being so far away that they looked the same from anywhere. She hadn’t believed him.
“My lady,” a voice said behind her.
Leandra turned to see that Dhrun had changed her manifestation; the divinity complex was now a tall, fair-skinned, athletic woman. This was the incarnation of a Cloud Culture goddess of victory. She had been known as Nika before fusing with Dhrun, a male Lotus Culture neodemon of wrestling, and his avatar Dhrunarman, the winner of last year’s wrestling tournament. The resulting trinity had taken its most powerful incarnation’s name even though it rarely manifested that incarnation.
In her Nika manifestation, Dhrun wore the same black lungi and scale armor vest that she had on the beach; however, these vestments now covered shapely hips, two small breasts, and four muscular but distinctly feminine arms. Her eyes were wide, long lashed, very dark.
When composing her divinity complex, Dhrun had chosen not to light an aura around her body to announce her divinity; her four arms achieved the same feat without increasing her visibility during more covert activities.
Presently Dhrun bowed her head and pressed her hand to her heart in the custom of the Cloud Culture. Absently, Leandra realized that Holokai’s crew, all of whom were Sea People, would find Dhrun an excellent sailing companion given that she was of all three cultures and could help the ship fulfill the Trinity Mandate, which required all official Ixonian endeavors to involve at least one member of each of the archipelago’s three cultures.
“My friend,” Leandra said while pressing her own hand to her heart, “would you step closer?”
Dhrun did so, curiosity plain on her face.
“You have been in my service for a year now?” Leandra asked.
“A little less.”
“And how do you find it?”
“It suits me well.”
“Is there any reason why you would be dissatisfied?”
Dhrun’s smile never wavered. “I should like a little more time in the wrestling arena. A goddess does like to be worshiped, after all. And I am second in your esteem after Holokai. I should like to be first; given my requisites, I am a bit competitive.”
“I’ve already warned you about baiting Holokai.”
Dhrun smiled. “I thought you hated how much your parents pun.”
“Pun?”
“Baiting Holokai, given his … other incarnation. I thought you were punning.”
“Oh Creator, no, not intentionally. I mean that I can’t have you and Holokai fighting.”
“Why do you doubt my satisfaction in your service?”
Leandra considered the goddess’s face. “You are the only neodemon I’ve ever known who converted herself.”
Dhrun’s smile brightened. “Ah, my conversion. It wasn’t easy, you know, breaking into your bedroom chamber like that.”
“If it were easy, I suppose you wouldn’t have done it.”
“I wouldn’t have,” she agreed before stepping beside Leandra. With her lower arms, Dhrun took Leandra by the elbow and led her to the portside hull, where they could better watch the whitemoon’s reflection. Walking made Leandra’s knees ache, but now they stood together like two friends. It was a comforting feeling.
Just then Leandra realized that many of her future selves felt almost nothing, or bursts of nonsensical emotion. She tensed, wondering what strange catastrophe would happen in the next hour. Some magical attack? Maybe her disease flare would worsen and expand her perception to a maddening degree? Or maybe … Suddenly she laughed.
“What is it, my lady?” Dhrun asked.
“An hour from now, I will likely be asleep and dreaming. I can feel it. It’s a strange sensation.”
The goddess frowned.
Leandra continued in a more serious tone, “We were talking about your conversion, its suspicious nature.”
Dhrun snorted. “You’re suspicious only because, when you finally discovered me in your bedroom, you had to admit that I looked better in your blue Lornish dress than you do.”
“It does look better on you,” Leandra grumbled, enjoying the banter. It was nice having another woman to talk to, even if Dhrun wasn’t always a woman. “Won’t you tell me why you decided to arrange your own conversion? You were a successful neodemon. You could have avoided detection for years.”
Dhrun only smiled. “Didn’t we agree that we would never discuss what came before?”
“Your crimes were that great?”
The goddess’s smile faltered by a degree. “That would be telling.”
Leandra laughed. “I will give you more time in the wrestling arena if you can answer a rather difficult question.”
“You know I can’t resist a challenge.”
“Why would I want to kill you tomorrow morning?”
“Because you realized that the green Spirish dress also looks better on me?”
Leandra smiled but then looked directly into Dhrun’s eyes.
“Oh,” the goddess said, “you are serious?”
“I am.”
Farther aft, the lieutenant called for the sails to be brought