Seamaster

by C. E. Murphy

  A second surge rocked the ship more strongly as the combined power of the sea witches gathered water. With the third, the harbor itself dropped, enough water lifted upward to change its level. Desimi cast a panicked glance at Asindo, who put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

  "You've called it up," he said. "Let me guide it into the city, lad. Just keep it coming."

  Strained relief shot across Desimi's face. He clutched the rail harder, sweat beading on his forehead as he worked to call more seawater to his bidding. A sting of envy buried itself beneath the hope in Rasim's heart: he could desalinate water, a necessary talent shipboard, but that was a basic skill, not a promise of great power like Desimi showed.

  But then, almost no one as young as they were had so much raw talent. What really mattered was that Desi had listened to Rasim. What mattered was that he and the others had the power even if Rasim didn't, and that the ships were dropping precipitously as the water wall rose.

  Asindo splashed his hands, palms facing each other, fingers flaring toward the fiery city center. The massive water wall rolled forward, turning pale sea walls gold as it soaked them. A cry went up from nearby ships. Moments later a second water wall rose and rolled after the first, and then a third, as other captains and their crews followed Asindo's lead.

  Under their magic's strength, water cascaded down the streets, using them like a person might instead of crashing through houses and businesses like an ordinary tidal wave. Passers-by not yet aware of the fire shrieked in astonishment as water rushed them. Captain Asindo grunted, then swore, but the wave he commanded bent upward, leaving a tall man's height between its bottom and the street.

  Rasim's jaw dropped as water flew through Ilyara's streets. It looked alive, rolling and reshaping as it hurried forward. Its clarity magnified and shrank building corners. Fish and kelp fell to ground, splattering people and delighting dogs that ran for the unexpected bounty with glee. Enterprising children followed the dogs, snatching fish and edible seaweed from the streets.

  Another captain gave a distant groan of laughter, but met Asindo's challenge: the following waves took to the air too, supported only by the will of sailors. The magic was like light on the water: bright sparks that blinded and caught different shades, green and purple and blue. The air around Rasim shivered with the weight of concentration shared by Asindo's crew. He climbed the mast again, shocked at how high the heavy air reached. It felt like the center of a storm, full of potential danger. From above, Rasim could almost see the shimmer of magic in the air, pressing up from the whole of the harbor. Because every sailor on the water was now engaged in the fire-fighting effort now, every one of them who had the power to shift the sea at all.

  From his vantage on the mast, Rasim saw the first wave, Desimi and Asindo's wave, roll into Ilyara's center and crash down on a raging bonfire. Steam exploded so loudly he heard it from the distance. The oily black smoke fell apart, disrupted by billowing steam. Rasim couldn't see the aftermath, but he imagined sticks and boards scattered across the street, their hot edges blackened and hissing under the onslaught of water. Somewhere there might be a shocked and soaking children looking at the remains of their fire and—hopefully—understanding that they had been saved from being the destruction of their city.

  Elsewhere other fires were crushed by falling sea water as well, until all the threatening smoke had turned to wavering steam and lingering tendrils against the deep blue sky. Desimi moved, catching Rasim's eye. He looked down to see the other boy drop to his knees in exhaustion, still hanging onto the ship's rail. Asindo put a hand on Desimi's shoulder again, silent with pride.

  Then the captain turned to examine Rasim where he sat, high in the crow's nest. Rasim knotted his hands around the railing there, heart fast and sick in his chest for no reason he understood. He felt as if he was being judged somehow, weighed in the balance, and he dared not, could not, move. For a long moment they met each other's eyes, captain and apprentice. Finally Asindo nodded, just once, but it released Rasim from paralyzation. He dropped to his knees just like Desimi had done, pressing his forehead against the crow's nest railing.

  Below him, visible through the nest's floor slats, sailors cheered and slapped each other on the back, shook hands and grinned, and gesticulated toward the city. Their voices carried to Rasim: they told each other what they had done, as if they hadn't all been part of it. Desimi was pulled to his feet, then lifted to shoulders, congratulations ringing in the air. Another pang of envy twisted Rasim's heart, though he smiled a little, too.

  Tomorrow, Desimi would become a cabin boy on Asindo's ship for certain. Rasim, who had done nothing in the fight against the fire, was less certain of his own fate. But the flames had been drowned, the city was safe, and tomorrow was another day.

  Tonight, though, there would be a party.

  Chapter 3

  The sun had long since set, leaving hard bright stars in a cold clear sky. That hadn't stopped Rasim—or half the Seamasters' Guild—from staggering through the streets to the city center. Well, others staggered: Rasim nursed a cup of watered wine, knowing from experience that he had no head for alcohol. Desimi had been less cautious. Instead of joining the sea witches who spilled into Ilyara to tell the tale of saving it, Desimi already lay snoring in a corner of the bath houses. Rasim smiled at the image, and half-heartedly wished a sore head on the bigger boy, come morning.

  A surprising number of people touched fingertips to foreheads, a sign of respect, as the sea witches passed. Others, still sweeping water from their homes, muttered, but with little heat. Thirteen years earlier no one had thought to use sea witches against fire, and many people still remembered the destruction clearly enough to not begrudge a few inches of salt water across the floors.

  Most of the bonfire wood had already been cleared away from the corners and squares. Rasim had seen children and adults alike carrying scraps of blackened kindling or nailing a length of burned plank above their doors. Warding off future disaster, perhaps, but also reminding others how quickly everything could be lost. Rasim broke away to find the crossroads where Desimi and Asindo's wave had been dropped.

  It was familiar to him, only a handful of paces away from a bakery that accepted that guild apprentices would always try to barter, and sold day-old treats at a bargain, so long as everyone behaved. Every apprentice in the city knew the bakery, and a schedule had long-since been established. The Seamasters had the second morning after rest day, and on the fifth and sixth mornings it was a matter of who arrived first. Desimi had been known not to go to bed until he'd gotten a share of fifth-morning's baked goods, but Rasim had been more subtle.

  The bakery door opened and a girl about Rasim's own age stepped out. She was taller than he and wore her dark hair long, sure sign she belonged to a trade and not a guild. Her clothes were finer, too: green woven pants and a belted shirt, though both were mostly hidden under the baker's apron she wore. Like many people that day, she had soot streaked across her face, a smear pushed into her hairline, as if she'd rubbed it up with her forearm while working.

  There was almost no heat coming from the bakery, though. The ovens had been left to bank low after the day's excitement, and if no one built them higher, there would be no fresh bread in the morning.

  Now, though, there were cold pasties and that morning's bread, unrolled from a towel beneath Keesha's arm. She sat down at the street side, pressing her spine against the stone walls, and silently offered Rasim a chunk of bread. He accepted it and sat down as well, then put his cup of watered wine between them so the mealy bread could be dipped in it. They ate silently, looking at the soot-scarred mark at the street corner. Most of the bread was gone before Keesha whispered, "It wasn't an accident, Ras."

  The bread turned to a stone in Rasim's stomach. "Of course it was. How could it not be? How do you know?"

  "I was right here. I got up early, half an hour before the bread went in to the ovens, because I wanted to watch them build the bonfires. They built them here when
I was seven and ten, so I thought there might be one on this corner again."

  Rasim blinked from her to the sooty street. "Were they there when you were four? Didn't anybody else notice they'd been here every three years?"

  "Nobody listens," Keesha repeated. "I don't remember, when I was four. But I saw the heart of the fire when I got up. I thought it was just a big ball of pitch so it would burn well. It got covered fast, all the students coming by as quick as they could with a bit of wood to put on."

  Both of them glanced toward the Ilyaran university, high on a hill but still blocked from their street-level view. Most of the memorialists were students, some of whom really did want to raise a flame in memory and in warning. More seemed to be interested in the pyrotechnics, and the ever-changing student body made it more difficult for the guards to lay hands on the troublemakers.

  "The strange thing was when they came to light the fire," Keesha whispered. "They didn't reach into its heart to the pitch ball. They just lit the kindling around the edges and bottom. It caught, but just like an ordinary fire. It didn't go out of control. We were watching," she added with a note of severity. "We keep water for the ovens, in case one catches on fire."

  "I know." Rasim helped haul buckets to the bakery several mornings a week. His small magic was good for that: he could keep water from slopping over a bucket's sides, making sure none was lost in the long walk—or mule ride—up to the bakery.

  Keesha gave him an amused look. She knew as well as he that he'd started helping at the bakery because it had been a more cunning way to get extra bits of bread and pastries, but that had been a long time ago. He helped now because Keesha was his friend, and because it was interesting to do something different from his regular apprentice duties. It wasn't any harder than staying up all night like Desimi did, and it left Rasim awake enough to do his own work afterward.

  "So I was watching," Keesha repeated. "Somebody in the family always watches when the bonfires are near us. But it didn't just go out of control, Ras. It was an ordinary fire, and then it exploded."

  "Fire doesn't explode."

  "I know." Keesha got to her feet and stepped into the street, pointing upward. Rasim twisted, trying to see, then got up to see what she wanted to show him.

  Divots and scores streaked the building walls above them, as if flame had been lodged in holes and left to burn there, but there were no holes. Rasim squinted, then backed up further, trying to see the dark patches more clearly. They would be easier to see in daylight, but even under the moon's dimmer glow, they were obviously nothing normal fire would do. It didn't stick that way.

  "I think it was the pitch ball." Keesha sounded defensive, as if afraid Rasim would doubt her, but he only nodded as she went on. "When it got hot enough it exploded. Baked tubers do that if you don't prick holes in them. And it happened all over the city, Ras. The fires were all set to…erupt."

  "Who would do that? Why? How?"

  "I don't know, but I've been to two of the other bonfire sites and they both have the marks on the walls around them, like something exploded up. Look at how the streaks hit the walls, you can tell they came from below. They're wider where they hit, like they went splat! And then they thin out a bit."

  "Have you told the guards?"

  "My parents won't even listen," Keesha muttered. "They don't want to believe me. The Great Fire was an accident," she stressed, and for a moment Rasim could see her parents' fears in her face. "Wasn't it, Ras? It had to have been."

  "Someone would know," Rasim said, more certainly than he felt. "Someone would have said if it was on purpose. But you're right, Keesh. This looks like someone meant to do it. If the Seamasters' Guild hadn't been able to put the fires out—"

  "That was amazing," Keesha interrupted. "Ras, you should have seen it, the water rolling over our heads and falling like, like a, a, well, like buckets! It wasn't like rain at all, just sploosh! Some of the fire didn't want to go out." She frowned upward again. "Most of it went out like it does when water's thrown on it, but the sticky stuff on the walls, it didn't want to. It only sputtered out when the sand in the water stuck to it."

  "There wasn't that much sand, was there?"

  "More than I thought. I couldn't see it in the water, but it was everywhere when the fires were out. I spent more time sweeping sand this afternoon than fixing water damage."

  "Huh." Even at the sea wall, the harbor dropped deep enough to reach the ocean's sandy bottom rather than the shoals and rocks that shallows often boasted, but Rasim hadn't realized how much sand floated loose in the water. But then, Desimi had pulled deep when he'd lifted the wave. Maybe he'd brought sand with it. Lucky, if the fire was some magical kind that didn't extinguish with water.

  A chill shook Rasim's shoulders. "Magic fire. That can't be an accident, you're right, Keesha. Someone—someone has to know. We have to tell someone."

  "Who? We're a Guild orphan and a baker's daughter. The guard will never listen to us. My parents won't even listen to me."

  "Captain Asindo." Rasim seized Keesha's hand. "The captain will at least listen. But you have to come with me."

  Keesha's eyes widened and she pulled back. "Traders aren't supposed to hassle the guilds!"

  "You're with me, and it's not hassling." Rasim flashed a grin. "Besides, if you bring some of the pastries and fruit breads along..."

  Keesha laughed and squirmed free of Rasim's grip. "My father will kill me. Hold on, I'll be right back." She ran into the bakery, making certain the door didn't close heavily, and came out again a few minutes later with a sack of baked goods. Rasim snaked a hand toward the bag, but Keesha smacked it. Rasim snatched it back, trying to look injured. Keesha said, "Hah. You've eaten your fill already."

  Rasim wasn't sure that was possible, but he caught Keesha's hand and tugged her a few steps toward the docks, then broke into a run. There were revelers still on the streets, coming and going from the pubs and regaling each other with stories of the Fire That Wasn't. It would be as well-known as the Great Fire, at least for a while, and the whole of the Seamasters' Guild would enjoy a brief period of bargains and opportunities in trade and barter. Keesha slowed down more than once, trying to hear the story of what had happened at the harbor more clearly, but Rasim urged her on.

  They arrived at the guild hall breathless and hot from their run. A guard at the vast, closed gates eyed their disheveled states, but recognized Rasim and waved them through the small door within the gates that most traffic used.

  The common area was enormous, a massive stretch of hard-packed earth where ships were built in miniature to learn the principle, where merchants came to commission their ships, and where all the daily work of the guild was done. Beyond them stood the entrance to the guild halls themselves. Keesha dragged her feet until Rasim stopped so she could gape at the buildings rising before them.

  Unlike almost every other building in the city, the Seamasters' Guild halls were wood. They had burned to the ground in the Great Fire, and the sea witches had rebuilt them of the same ancient heartwood that had graced the original halls. Everyone thought they were mad, but ship building and wood were all the Seamasters' Guild knew. Stone masonry was for the Stonemasters' Guild, and they had more than enough to do in restoring the city. The Seamasters' Halls had always been, and always would be, crafted by sea witches. The wooden halls were rebuilt.

  They were reminiscent of a ship's hull, curving upward to tall prow-like points. Six halls radiated off the common area: apprentices and journeymen to the left, shipwrights and shore crew in the middle, captains and guildmasters to the right. Outsiders thought the arching halls were a waste, pointing out the seemingly dead space of each downward-pointing triangle between the tall arches, but outsiders rarely saw them from the other side. Ship-sized sleeping cubbies fit into those spaces, freeing what would otherwise be dorm rooms for more useful ends.

  The vast kitchens to feed hungry crews and shipwrights lay beneath the guild's main halls. That meant sweltering summers, but in
winter's cold grip, the rising heat from the kitchens was welcome throughout the hall.

  Keesha whispered, "You live here?"

  Rasim, amused, took a breath to say, "Sure," then thought of Keesha's own modest, warm three-room home above their bakery. She and her family were able to use two of their rooms for sleeping and the third as a common area, because the bakery served as their kitchen as well. Most families shared a single sleeping room, or their common room doubled as a sleeping room. By comparison, the guild halls were almost inconceivably expansive. Rasim, instead of laughing at Keesha, smiled at himself. "Yeah, but there are hundreds of us. It's not any more room to yourself than you've got."

  "I'm not sure about that," Keesha said dryly, but anything else she might say was drowned beneath the sharp voice of a guildmaster:

  "You, you're Rasim al Ilialio, right?"

  Rasim spun. Keesha's hand wormed into his, and he wasn't sure if it was to reassure herself or him. Guildmaster Isidri, not just a guildmaster but the Guildmaster. The one whose storm summoning was legendary even amongst the captains and commanders. The one who apprentices whispered was over a hundred years old. She had never even looked at Rasim before, never mind given a hint she knew his name. He squeezed Keesha's hand and tried to stand up straight under the weight of Isidri's glower.

  She looked a hundred years old. She looked three hundred years old, with wrinkles gobbling her eyes and her mouth a thin horizontal line through many smaller vertical ones. Her hair, like every sea witch's, was tied tight in a queue, but hers was pure white and as thick as Rasim's wrist. A band of blue was woven through it, the Guildmaster's color, and it swung impatiently as she snapped, "Where have you been, boy? Get in there. You are the one, aren't you? And who's this? Never mind, she can go in too, just step along, both of you. All this trouble," the Guildmaster grumbled, "all this trouble over a boy. It's past the midnight hour, boy, it's Decision Day. Your entire fate rests on the next few minutes, and you're late!"