The Cartographer's Daughter

7. Red Flags

Alexandria is a hollow city. When we see its modern skyline appear on the horizon, we imagine a bustling city that makes our palms clammy. The buildings are so tall they warrant the name of skyscraper. A highly organized port would be a big problem. In a systemized and orderly port our entrance will attract too much attention; we'll be a nuisance that they'll want to stamp out. It's only when we get close that we can see the skyscraper windows have no glass; they're just empty fortresses catching the wind. Like so many places, Alexandria has been deserted for a city with more promise.

It was only a few generations ago, but long enough that the memories of those who remember have started to falter. The unraveling after the Minesweep didn't happen all at once. First people assumed a network failure and remained calm for a couple of days. But the Electric Magnetic Pulse devices the terrorists used caused the servers to lose everything, all the data ever entered into the system. When it became clear that this included banks and stocks, and all the digital money across the world was gone, that's when the destruction truly started. Unpaid workers quit. Unpaid power companies shut down. Rioters shattered their own neighborhoods out of rage. People scraped by with what they could find or looted what they needed and left town. Refugees were headed to the only place not hit by the EMPs: the Imperial City. Some families like mine stayed and carved out a living in the ruins. Slowly, humble communities were built as the trees grew up through cracks in the roads. Even if there had been anywhere to go, there was no gasoline to power machines to get there, and no money to buy it with.

When we close in on the harbor we can see that Alexandria is not entirely deserted. In fact, there are several huge ships bobbing at the water's edge. And horrifyingly, we recognize one. It's draped in blood-red sails. Bami turns his face to mine, his eyes the size of sealstones.

"So the stories are true," he says.

"Apparently," I say. Pirates. And not just any pirates; the red sails belong to the most powerful of them, the ones on whom the underworld turns. I turn back to the harbor, scanning the coastline for any spot to dock. But the harbor is bordered by long shallow beaches, on which a ship would be clearly visible; and beyond that, the city rises up on the backs of sharp cliffs. I can't see any plan that will bring us safely and surreptitiously to berth.

"It might not be her," I say. "The fleet is huge. There are hundreds of ships that sail the Red Flag."

"It might not be her, but it's someone connected to her," Bami says, eyes counting the ships.

"Do you think they've already seen us?" I ask.

"I imagine so. A pirate port probably draws a bead on any black speck crossing the horizon."

"We can make it," I say, not daring to look him in the eye again. "What could they possibly want with one crazy little boat?"

"They could want us out of the way."

He leaves me with these chilling words.

#

"Chin up," my father said, wrapping a blanket around me. "She would never defy another's gaze."

"I'm freezing."

"The Dragon Lady never shows weakness," he said, winking. But he rubbed my shoulders to warm them.

"Always, she does whatever it takes to intimidate her opponent. I've seen her hide a fleet of nine ships in a cove while she sent two to meet an enemy fleet smaller than hers. Her two scouts fought four ships until the enemy thought he would win, and only then did she unleash the rest of them to take him by surprise. Are you warmer now?"

I said nothing. I turned my chin up to the sky. My father laughed, and he set about sighting one of the stars through his sextant. It was windy and cold on the cliff, and the twilight was making it colder by the minute, but still he had his sleeves rolled up and the skin on his arms didn't bother to prickle. Instead he seemed lit up as he squinted into the sextant and made adjustments on its dials. It was only practice; he had no voyages to sight for anymore. Something about his giddiness put me on my guard, as though I wondered even then if he would leave me for the sea.

"Why would she play the game if she already had the enemy outnumbered?" I asked.

"Because it isn't about winning or losing. It's about the fear she could spark, fear powerful enough to travel before her. She would fill her own boats with straw, light them on fire, and float them in the middle of battle. Terrifying. And legend has it, her crew only ate one thing."

"What was that?"

"The hearts of their foes."

I giggled nervously, unable to tell whether he was pulling my leg.

"They would smear themselves with garlic to protect from bullets. And do you know what they drank?"

I shook my head.

"Wine mixed with gunpowder."

My eyes widened. "They're suicidal."

"She trained them to have nothing to lose."

"Everyone has something to lose. At least their life," I said.

"Ah, but these men valued their free life far above a captured one. And so did she. They say that she started as a prostitute on a flower boat, a woman whose beauty surpassed all others. And a hunchbacked pirate captain, Zheng Yi, docked at these flower boats and rounded up the women to choose one for his bride. When he ordered her untied so he could look at her, she lunged for his throat. She tried to kill him. It was completely unexpected. Had she been like the other flower girls, she would have been crippled with bound feet; but she had escaped that fate and now she threw herself on the captain and attempted to claw his eyes out." My father looked sideways at me from the sextant. "It only made him more smitten with her."

"She wasn't killed?"

My father shook his head, smiling. "She was presented with jewels and silks, a trunk full of treasure, but she would have none of it. If she was to be sold into wedded bliss, it would only be paid for with joint command of his fleet."

"He gave it to her?"

"What choice did he have? She had just shown him she would be the perfect partner--someone who matched his ambition and his tyranny. By all accounts they were very happy until the day he died. He was swept overboard in a storm. Here, practice sighting this one," he said, twisting the dials back to zero and handing me the sextant. I peered through it, looking up at the star, and turned the drum until the star split in two. Quickly I swung the index arm forward to drag the star's mirrored copy down to the horizon, harder to see now in the sputtering light. I made my adjustments and swung the sextant side to side, tracing the mirrored star in an arc that just barely kissed the horizon.

"Forty-one degrees and three point two minutes," I told him.

"Very good." He took the sextant back and reset it, honing in on a different star. "She nearly lost control then, when her husband died. The fleet council wanted to boot her out. But she stormed into their meeting in full regalia, wearing her dead husband's robe and his swords and his battle helmet, and she said 'Do you think I will bow to any other chief?'"

"What do you think she would have done if they'd denied her?"

My father stopped swiveling the sextant and looked back. "I think she would have cut their heads off."

I pulled the blanket tighter as my father bent over his notes, scribbling the sextant readings.

"Who was the enemy in that battle?" I asked.

"Hmm?"

"The one you saw. Where she ambushed the enemy with a larger fleet. Who was the enemy?"

He screwed his eye back to the sextant before answering.

"It was me," he said. And before I could protest, he added, "that's a story for another time."

I lifted my chin, the defiant Dragon Lady, and took his sextant to sight my own star.

It was a story he never finished.

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