by C. E. Murphy
Kisia sent Rasim an unhappy look as she left with Hassin. Rasim tried to smile reassuringly, but from the worry furrowing Kisia's eyebrows, he'd failed. He was pretty sure she would be mad at him for that, even if it wasn't his fault. Sighing, he followed the others of his group.
Within half an hour it was clear Missio was right: there was nothing to the island but tidal pools and slick rock. Rasim, smaller and more lithe than the other three on his crew, darted up to higher ground as often as he could, searching shoal-ridden slopes for anything that might pass as rope. The shoal made for uncertain footing, even when he paid attention. Rock skittered from beneath his feet and proved that the actual ground lay as much as a palm's depth below the shifting stone. He watched the others from the corner of his eye, when he could see them, and caught glimpses of them slipping and digging their toes in as well, Once in a while someone called up to him to say they hadn't found anything, and he shouted that he hadn't, either, back to them.
Then a passage opened up behind a jut of sharp rock, hardly more than a cut in the stone face. Rasim yelled, and Missio, the next smallest of their team, clambered up the sharply slanted hills behind him, squeezing through the passage to find more of the same beyond it. They explored in silence, Rasim keeping an eye on the sun's position in the sky. Hardly more than an hour took them across half the territory they needed to explore, with no luck.
"You're right," he said over his shoulder to Missio. "There's nothing here."
She curled her lip, accepting his acknowledgment gracelessly.
Rasim tried to smile as he turned away again, not paying enough attention to where he stepped. Shoal scattered beneath his feet and he slipped, landing hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
In an instant, the slippery stone beneath him surged in a little landslide and threw him into a cre-vasse as easily as a waterfall might throw him down a cliff face. Too breathless to cry out, Rasim twisted, scrabbling at the crevasse's lip with his fingertips. He caught, but slipped again as his weight broke more pieces away from the sharp edge. A few inches deeper he caught again, this time on a stronger section of stone. It held, leaving him dangling. Shoal bounced and clattered against the crevasse walls, the sounds seeming endless, as if they were falling forever. Rasim glanced down once, trying to judge how wide, how deep, the chasm below him was.
Even with noon sun pouring from above, he could see no bottom and more than enough width for him to fall much, much farther before becoming stuck in its maw. His fingers went cold, terror suddenly setting in. He hadn't had time to be afraid when he'd fallen, but with the terrible depth beneath him, Rasim's heart beat so hard he thought it would shake him loose from the crevasse wall. He could find no purchase with his toes. His fingers began to sweat, weakening his grip. The first time he tried to shout for help, all that came out was a cough. The second time his voice was thin, but it carried. Within a few seconds, he heard cautious footsteps.
Missio appeared above him. Nervous relief soured Rasim's belly.
He tried for a smile, but it fell apart. "Help."
Missio crouched, hands falling between her knees as she studied Rasim's precarious position. Then she smiled. "No problem. Hold on a minute and let me go get some rope. Oh, wait. "
"You don't need rope. Just lie down and grab my wrist!"
"And risk you pulling me in?"
"I wouldn't—!" But she would, Rasim realized from the glint in Missio's eyes. If she had slipped, if Rasim was above her, offering help, she would pull him in, throw him into the abyss and risk her own life to do it, rather than simply save him. That was how deep her fear and anger ran. "Missio—!"
Missio picked up a large piece of rock and slammed it across Rasim's right hand.
Pain splintered through his fingers. They spasmed open, leaving his weight dangling from just his left hand. Rasim howled and scrabbled his toes against the crevasse wall, desperate to find any kind of purchase. Missio reached down and pried up his pinky finger, then the finger beside it. Rasim lurched, his weight
hanging precariously from two fingers. "Missio, please, no, don't
—!"
She flipped his index finger away from the stone, and the weak middle finger straightened, dropping Rasim into the fissure.
He bashed against one wall, then the other. His right arm smashed against an outcropping and instantly something felt wrong . Pain took his breath and he tucked his arm against his chest as he bounced from one wall to the other. It seemed like he'd already fallen forever when he finally managed to tuck himself into a ball. Every hit felt worse than the last, bruises upon bruises on his back and shoulders and shins, but at least his limbs weren't flailing and breaking.
Abruptly there was emptiness, no more walls to crash against.
Rasim drew a shocked breath and hit water with an icy slap that flattened him against the surface before he sank. The crack echoed in his ears, blood rushing to his skin so fast that despite the cold, he felt a blast of warmth beneath the water.
His witchery came to life, throwing him to the surface, where he gasped and lay on the cold lapping water, staring blankly into darkness. His right arm and fingers ached too badly to use. Rasim curled them against his chest, holding them with his left arm, and was almost grateful that he couldn't see how badly he was injured.
Not even the crevasse he'd fallen through was visible. He gazed upward, trying to make sense of that, and finally concluded that the crack in the earth angled so the sky couldn't be seen.
Shivers came over him. If the crevasse was the only way out, he would die down here in the darkness, alone and very afraid.
But the water was moving. That meant the tide reached in here, and that meant there was a chance of getting free. Rasim rolled upright, half treading water and half letting his magic support him. The witchery could have done it alone, but he wanted to save what meager power he had, in case he needed it to break out.
Shadows started to break free of the dark, once he was upright.
The sound of surf was louder in one direction, the same direction the faint shadows stretched from. Rasim kicked that way, then cursed as pain made him so dizzy he started to sink. He clutched his right arm again, ground his teeth together, and used witchery to push himself through the water. His hurt arm simply wouldn't let him swim. Better to risk draining his small magic than to simply drown in the darkness. Bits of light glimmered ahead, though, disappearing and reappearing with the shift of waves.
Rasim took a deep, shaking breath, and ducked beneath the water's surface.
The light was easier to see from below water: larger, more diffuse, inviting. A cave mouth of some sort, all but hidden by rising tides. Rasim exhaled noisily, a stream of bubbles bursting
upward. He frowned at them a moment, barely understanding what they meant before dark humor washed through him.
No sea witch went under the water's surface without bringing a bubble of air with him. Even Rasim could do that, but for the first time in his life he hadn't thought to. His arm hurt an awful lot, but he thought he must have taken a hard knock on the head to forget such a basic lesson. If he could find a ledge to drag himself onto, he could dry off. Then he could slip back into the water warmer than he was now, and search for the way out to the Waifia.
Desimi, Rasim thought tiredly, wouldn't even need to get out of the water to do that, but drying off while still in the water sounded too exhausting. And he needed to dry off: now that he was paying attention, he realized he was shivering so hard his teeth were clattering. No wonder he couldn't tell if his head hurt.
Still shivering, Rasim broke the surface again, eyes adjusting enough to pick out shapes in the dim light. There were ledges above the water's surface, and other half-familiar forms making monsters of the shadows. Rasim propelled himself to one of the ledges and forced water to fountain upward, bringing him to ledge's flat surface. Then he collapsed, gasping and trembling, as exhausted from the use of witchery as the cold.
It helped enormously to
strain water from his clothes. He was still too cold, but cold and dry was much better than cold and wet. Rasim pulled his arms inside his tunic, folding his useless right one against his belly and rubbing his chest vigorously with his left. He was bruised everywhere , each rub causing a lance of pain, but at least he began to warm up. When the worst of the tremors had passed he tucked himself into a ball, squinting at the darkness and trying to make sense of the half-familiar shapes. Enormous curves, stretched high and wide like ribs, posts thrust high toward the ceiling—
Rasim laughed. It echoed around the cave, brightening it. He had been knocked on the head, if he couldn't recognize those shapes at a glance.
There was a ship down here. Wrecked, thrown against rocks, but a ship. It had to have been broken even before it found its way into the cave's mouth, because the entrance was too small a whole ship to pass through. But a wreck had passed through it, and he could see that its ruined pieces still carried the ropes that had once held sails and cargo in place. It was the Waifia 's salvation.
For an instant he imagined bringing the ropes back all by himself, being the glorious hero of the hour, and immediately burst the fantasy with a derisive snort. Even if his right arm wasn't banged into uselessness, he lacked the magical strength to haul that much rope through the water without it dragging him down. It would take others to untangle the ropes and more still
to pull them out of the cave. And even if he could do it himself, most of the crew thought the rope fire was his fault anyway. At the very most, finding new ropes would redeem him, not make a hero of him.
Besides, he'd had enough of being a hero with the sea serpent.
Others could take the credit here. All he wanted was to be safe on board the Waifia again...
...and to hear what story Missio had told the others.
Chapter Ten
It wasn't often that Rasim submerged himself without getting wet first. Desimi—even Kisia—had the trick of casually pushing water away as they leaped in, so that air surrounded them and closed over their heads as they splashed down, dry as a desert road. But Rasim's witchery rarely responded quickly enough, so he was typically soaked after such a venture. This time, though, he'd dragged himself out of the chilly, choppy water so he could dry off, and by Siliaria's fins, he would not get wet again. So he let himself into the water bit by bit, pushing water away slowly, and after a few careful minutes, was triumphantly dry and encased by a relatively warm air bubble beneath the water's surface.
The passageway out of the cave was larger than he'd thought at first, and more exposed by the falling tide than he'd expected.
He popped his head out of the water to examine it quickly, then dove deep again to swim against the currents. The witchery worked by the Waifia 's crew to keep it in place was a weight in his mind, giving him direction without needing to surface. Swimming, especially with witchery helping him along, was faster than hiking over the island's rough terrain. Rasim thought he might even get back to the Waifia before Hassin's crew did, and shock Missio. Of course, Captain Nasira might have preferred it if Missio had succeeded, but that was another problem.
He came up on the Waifia 's far side, deliberately keeping the ship between himself and shore. Then he let loose a shout, waving as he struggled to keep from being drawn under by the magic holding the ship in place. Two of the sailors caught sight of him and lifted him from the water on a spout. He blurted, "I found rope," the moment his feet touched deck.
Jubilation lit the faces of those who heard him, and one sprinted off to tell the captain. She appeared a minute later, mouth held tight. " You found rope?"
The way she said it sounded like she imagined Rasim had orchestrated the whole thing, from setting the Waifia 's ropes alight to finding new ropes and making himself heroic. "I found a shipwreck in a half-submerged cavern, Captain."
"And you left the others behind to salvage it," Nasira said sarcastically, but her perpetual frown deepened as she looked him over more carefully. "You're injured, Journeyman."
"I fell into a crevasse. It was a long way down, but I found a wreck at the bottom of it, and its ropes look like they're still sound. I couldn't check to be sure." Rasim lifted his damaged right arm in embarrassment. Most of the crew would have been able to lift themselves up to the wreck in a water spigot, even if they'd had broken limbs. "It's about a third of the way around the island to the port side, Captain. If you blast the whistle and call the others back, I think we can salvage the rope by sundown. At least enough to drop anchor so the crew can rest tonight without us drifting."
Nasira snapped, "Do it," and one of the other journeymen swarmed the mast to sound the sharp whistle that warned of danger and woke sailors for the next shift inboard. He'd heard it hundreds of times, but in the middle of the ocean it now made Rasim flinch, as if it might yet again call sea serpents from the depths. Nasira saw his blanch and sneered, though she said nothing. Maybe, Rasim thought, even she hadn't fully recovered from the terror of the serpent's attack. Then she cast a glance at the sky, judging the hour, and eyed Rasim. "How far around the island did you get?"
"We split into two groups, each taking half. My crew was more than a quarter of the way around when I fell." Rasim flexed his hand inside his tunic, feeling again the sharp pain of Missio's rock smashing against his fingers. "It took us a span and a half to get that far, so they won't be back for at least that long."
"All right. Go see Usia." It was as much compassion as Rasim had heard from the captain since he'd come on board. He ducked his head in a nod, and limped below decks to see the ship's healer.
Usia examined his injuries, listening to Rasim's account of his fall while giving the swollen hand a cursory look and tending to everything else first. Rasim had bruises everywhere, and more scrapes than he could count. "Not broken," Usia proclaimed of the right arm, "but bruised so deep it won't color for days. You'll take the herbs I give you, or that bruise will last you two years. Now." He straightened Rasim's puffy fingers, making Rasim gasp and sway. "Who did this?"
Too dizzy with pain to lie, Rasim said, "Missio," then inhaled sharply with surprise. "How did you know somebody did it?"
"You were hanging by your hands. If a stone big enough to do this so evenly had smashed onto your fingers, you'd either be stuck there under it or you'd have a bruise across your face where it bounced off your hand and hit you again. Only way it wouldn't is if somebody was holding it. You told the captain?"
"No."
Usia, who had probably been young once himself, smirked without surprise and wrapped Rasim's fingers. "I'll heal them properly later, but the captain's going to need to see this first."
"I don't want—"
"It'll come out, boy, whether you tell it or not, but don't try to fool me by saying you held your tongue for Missio's sake.
You're just waiting to see what story she tells. Smart," the old healer opined. "She'll drown herself that way, and your hands are..." He glanced at Rasim's fingers and shrugged. "Clean. Go topside, lad, but stay out of the way. You're in no condition to work."
Grateful for the respite, Rasim returned to the deck and tucked himself out of the way among the rowboats. He could see from there, but couldn't be seen, and for the moment that was all he wanted.
Within another span of the sun, Hassin's rowboat rose beside the Waifia in the same manner it had been lowered, through witchery.
This time, though, the first mate had no smiles or delight about him. Kisia was a huddled lump on one of the boat's seats, her face buried in her hands and her body shaking. Rasim's heart twisted. He hadn't wanted to cause her any pain, although it was hardly he who had done it.
"Hassin!" Relief sounded in the captain's voice. "Come along, we've found rope, but your witchery would be of use in fetching it—"
"Captain." Hassin spoke across her orders, his own voice raw and deep with sorrow. Nasira fell silent in astonishment at his tone, and the first mate climbed aboard to make a second, more solemn salute than the one he'd lef
t the ship with. "Captain, Rasim al Ilialio has been lost. Missio saw him go into a crevasse, but she didn't get there quickly enough to save him."
In all his life, Rasim thought he might never see a more befuddled expression than the one on Captain Nasira's face. She took in the distraught gazes on the crew that had gone ashore as they, too, came aboard, and for long moments said nothing at all, just stared at them. Other crew seized the rowboat, hauling it back to the stern where Rasim sat hidden among the others.
Nasira finally spoke, saying, " Rasim? " incredulously. Rasim startled: she had not said his name one single other time on the voyage.
"I know you didn't care for him, Captain, but—"
Nasira's voice changed dramatically, becoming a command. "Rasim!"
Rasim slithered free of the rowboats, ducking under the still-wet one that had carried Hassin and the others to the Waifia. "Here, Captain."
Kisia made a broken sound of relief and threw herself at him.
Rasim caught her, wincing at his bruises, but it wasn't Kisia whose eyes he sought. Missio went ashy, then grim, then struggled for an expression of joy. Hassin, bewildered, said, "Rasim?
Missio? "
Missio blurted, "I saw him fall, I swear it—" as Usia lumbered onto the main deck and growled, "From where, crewman?"
For the space of a blink, Missio looked genuinely confused. "From the crevasse—"
Kisia hissed, " Missio! " and released Rasim so she could claw her hands and surge toward the older crew member. Missio flushed guiltily, but Rasim, feeling strangely calm, caught Kisia's shoulder and shook his head once.
Nasira, watching the interplay, became deadly serious. It was worse, somehow, than even the anger she'd shown to Rasim earlier.
That had at least been passionate. Now Nasira looked to be locking down all her emotions, becoming remote and judgmental, as the captain of a sailing ship sometimes had to be. "Missio?"
