by Rye Sobo
“Seraplaun!” I swore.
“There’s little we can do tonight,” Captain Azpa said. “Everyone should try to rest. We will start to ration our food now.”
“Water will be a problem, Captain,” Reno said. “Most was tainted or spilled in the squall.”
The furrow that seemed a permanent fixture on the captain’s brow deepened. “We must hope for rain, or we drift past an uncharted island.”
“Are there many uncharted islands on a major shipping lane?” I asked.
“A few, rocky outcroppings a few hundred leagues off the Nivalean coast,” Reno said. “When I was younger, the ship they assigned me to use to make runs to Maropret. I remember the rocky shores covered in sea lions.”
“So, what then?” I asked, “Hunt sea lions and hope for a passing ship?”
“We hope for an island with trees and sheep,” Reno said. His laughter roared in the cabin as he slapped me on the back. “And beautiful native girls! Good night, gentlemen.” With that hulking man headed toward the hatch.
“Captain,” I said, my voice shook as I spoke. “I—I can’t go back into that cabin. The blood—”
Claudio nodded and raised his hand before I could continue. “I understand your reservation all too well. We used the cabin space for cargo to help balance the ship. Majid and Fawz brought your hammock to my cabin. You are welcome to stay with me.”
“In your cabin?”
“It is your ship, after all,” he said.
I let out a deep breath, feeling the burden Claudio had carried. I forced a pained smile on my face, hoping to reassure him, “I can think of no better hands for her to be in, Captain. Thank you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The morning after the storm that killed half our crew, the sky was blue, and the seas were still. If Aequor existed, he seemed content with the tremendous sacrifice we gave him.
Along with my hammock, Majid and Fawz brought the remainder of Cort’s clothes to the Captain’s cabin. I spent half a turn examining the clothes, each stitch that mended a hole, each stain. It was all that was left of a life stripped away. I almost refused the clothing until I realized the shirt I was wearing was his. I spent a mark rinsing the salt water and blood from my hair and beard in the washbasin in the cabin and studying the endless number of new scars that now crossed my face, back, and chest. They reminded me of the faded scars on the arms of Old Herus back at the Rusted Sextant.
“Reminders of old friends,” he used to say.
I ran a finger along the raised scar that ran across my right eye and down my cheek. Old friends.
My stomach twisted with hunger and ripped me from my thoughts. It had been a full day since the last meal. I rushed to put on a fresh linen shirt and a heavy, blue, woolen tunic.
As I stepped through the door of the captain’s cabin into the officers’ mess, Reno was giving the details of the damage.
“… rope and canvas to rig a new sail, but without a mast we will not get very far. Pumping the hold took most of the night, but the hull is watertight again, though damaged.”
The tattooed man paused for a moment. Lack of sleep darkened his eyes. He drew a deep breath and then continued, “Half our food stores are waterlogged or pulled overboard in the storm. Majid says we have twelve days of stores, a month if we go to half rations. Fresh water looks to run out well before that. We have perhaps a span remaining.”
“We have plenty of water,” I said. “Isn’t there a way to pull salt out of seawater, to make it drinkable? You know, through arcane means?”
“None that I know,” Claudio shrugged.
I sighed. “Well, what about the cargo?” I asked as a sat in my chair at the end of the table. Bitar was absent. “Is there anything we can eat out of the cargo? Our lives are more important than the cargo at this point.”
Reno’s eyes shot to the Captain who responded, “Nothing we can eat—farm tools headed for the outer islands. A good thought though. Doctor, how is the crew?”
Tomas wiped the crumbs from his bruised face and cleared his throat. “Of the remaining crew, not a one of us escaped uninjured. Some are more superficial than others. We have missing eyes, lacerations, and broken bones. I am afraid Adira is in the worst shape, broken ribs, a broken arm, multiple deep lacerations. With help, I could have most of the crew back to work in a few days.”
The doctor’s eyes moved from me to the captain.
Claudio nodded as he rubbed his brow. “I agree. Master Alsahar, I would put your talents to use with Doctor Flores. Sergeant Leon, Lurco and Elazaro could use an extra set of hands on repairs.”
“Aye, Captain,” the hulking brute said.
I nodded. I was still in pain, and the opportunity to remain busy would help clear my mind.
“Our first patient of the day will be the Captain,” Tomas said from across the table.
“Nevermind my eye,” Claudio said. He turned his head away from the doctor. “See to the others first.”
“As you wish,” the doctor said with a nod, “but the sooner we begin the process, the sooner you will be back to good health.”
“You have relieved the pain, that is enough for now,” the Captain said.
***
After the meager meal of hardtack and dried meat, Tomas and I headed below deck.
“Can you regrow his eye?” I asked as we descended the ladder below decks. The air stunk of fresh tar and sea water.
“Repair is possible, yes,” the doctor said. “But the longer we take to begin, the more difficult it will be.”
As my eyes adjusted to the dark interior, I could see the crew arranged much of the cargo in the hold to leave an open area where they moved their hammocks.
Forward of the new sleeping area, the crew gathered in the galley.
“How much work’s he expect us to do on half rations?” Kane Cloud asked to his shipmates. The large sailmaker sat at a table, his head still wrapped in thick bandages.
“There is little work to be done,” said Elazaro, the one-eyed carpenter. “And if we are on half rations, it means the Captain thinks we are far off course.”
Tomas cleared his throat, and the group gathered around the table turned to look at him. “I will check on the Lieutenant. Master Alsahar will tend to some of your wounds.”
The single eye of the carpenter widened as he remembered my last attempt to heal his foot. He opened his mouth to object, but Tomas turned and walked off before he could utter a word.
“Well,” I said as I surveyed my patients. “Who’s first?”
Elazaro shook his head and pushed away from the table. He made his way deeper into the galley to help Majid organize the stores.
“Kane, how about you?” I said as I climbed atop a crate to get eye level with the sailmaker.
He helped remove the bandages from around his head, red and wet closer to his skull. I inspected the wound. He had a deep, bloody gash within his hair.
“Doc said he was out of magic yesterday,” Kane said as I continued my examination. “Best he could do was wrap me up.”
I closed my eyes and searched for the sailmaker’s yili. A faint yellow spark glinted in the darkness. I drew a deep breath and connected to his energy. I set my sebi on the gash, focused on drawing the energy of the small spark to the wound. As the energy pulled to the top of his head, I uttered the incantation I had learned in the Medela.
The large man gave a sharp inhale as his wound closed. Sensing the procedure complete, I opened my eyes to see the fresh scar on the top of his head.
“There you are,” I said. “It’ll hurt for a few days, but you didn’t break bones—just a deep cut.”
Kane ran a finger along the scar, his fingers crimson from the blood in his hair. He looked up at me and smiled. “That might have been better than the Doc!” He stood up—his head almost reaching timbers in the overhead—gathered up his bloody bandages, and headed to a pile of canvas sails further forward.
“So, who’s next?” I asked as the re
maining crew studied me. “Tredway?”
The fair-haired lookout was almost to the ladder up to the main deck when he stopped short. “These?” he asked motioning to the rope burns on his arms. “Not worth your time, sir. I’ve had worse climbing the rigging.” Before I could respond he was up the ladder.
“Fawz? How’s your leg?” I turned my attention to the Drakkan steward. The doctor had bandaged his left leg, and he moved with a deliberate limp.
I motioned for him to take a seat, and climbed off the crate. Once seated, I helped unwrap the injuries. As the bandages came off, I could smell the sour scent of infection in the wound. My brow furrowed and the steward could sense my concern.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I need my book.”
“It’s just a wound, just like Kane,” he said. “Can’t you do the same thing?”
I grabbed the bandages and pressed them back on to the wound. “Hold this here and don’t move.”
“What’s wrong? It’s just a simple wound, right?”
I left the galley and headed toward the doctor’s chamber where I had left the copy of Medela. As I passed Lieutenant Bitar’s cabin there was a loud pop, followed by a muffled scream as Tomas set a bone. Not wanting to interrupt, I continued down the corridor. I froze motionless at the hatch to my cabin. I stared at the closed door. The thought of the cabin filled my mind. The lifeless blue eyes of Cort staring at me. I could feel the bile rise in my throat.
I used the burning sensation as a distraction and pushed into the doctor’s cabin and found the medical text. Taking a deep breath, I ran back to the crew’s mess to continue treatment.
Fawz was still panicked when I returned and placed the book on the table beside him. I thumbed through pages until I found the section on infections and skimmed it. The steward attempted to look over my shoulder at the text.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“How to heal your leg,” I said with a smile. “Ready?”
He furrowed his brow, his eyes wide.
“No.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. His yili was not the bright, pulsing energy I had seen just a span before. Like Kane, Fawz’s yili was now dim. This wound was killing him. If he had waited another day, it may cost him his leg or his life. I set my sebi on the gouge in his leg and whispered the incantation to close the wound. The faint yili drew close to wound but was not strong enough reach.
With a sharp breath I let my consciousness sink into an almost trance-like state. The ship bobbed back and forth on the gentle seas. The waves broke against the battered hull.
This is a bad idea. It could kill him. If I didn’t do it, he could be dead by morning.
I pulled the yili from the crashing waves inside me, then channeled that energy into Fawz.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear people talking. Deep in my meditative state it only sounded like hushed muttering. I could see his dim yili grow brighter as the energy flowed into him. I tied my sebi to his wound and forced the warm energy into closing his wound. With the incantation the wound closed, and I focused on the infection. It looked like thick, dark spots on the threads of the Fabric. The infection was spreading through his body. I uttered the incantation to revert infection. The bright yili reached out in many directions, touched each of the dark spots and banished them.
A heavy hand clasped my shoulder as I released the trance.
“Master Alsahar, a word in my chamber please?” the doctor said behind me.
As I opened my eyes, the crew all stared at me. Fawz sat still with tears running down his cheeks.
“Now,” the doctor said.
I stood and followed the rotund doctor back toward his cabin, my attention on the sweat stain on the back of his tunic to keep the thoughts of Cort’s body from my mind. He slammed the door shut as I stepped into the room.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
I raised an eyebrow at the objection. “Saving his life. His wounds were infected, and he was slipping away. Another day, and he would have been gone.”
“You never attempt to push yili into a patient. Ever. You could kill him.”
“The infection would have killed him.”
“You could have killed both of you. If he does not have the yili, you treat him the best you can with mundane methods. It is not for us to decide who lives and who dies.”
My eyes widened in realization.
“You know they will die.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“You told them it was you, that you didn’t have the magic to cure them. But this whole time you knew—Kane, Fawz, and how many others? That they would die, and you did nothing to stop it, that’s why you could revive me even after you told them you were depleted. But why would you ask for my help if you knew?”
Tomas’s mouth drew into a tense line, and he studied me before responding. “It is a lesson every biomancer must learn. You are powerful, but you are no match for death.”
He walked behind his bed to the console against the far wall and poured himself a glass of whiskey. “You, boy, are perhaps the most powerful caster I have ever heard of, able to cast in the schools of Illusion, Biomancy, Elementalism, and Arkanus knows what else, as though you were breathing.”
He sat down in his chair and sipped his whiskey. “It was four years before I could harness my own yili. You mastered it in an afternoon. Headmaster Yani’ral of the Laetian Imperial College could cast magic from four schools after eight hundred years of study. And the spoiled boy who falls onto my ship can use three after, what, two spans?” He let out a deep, maniacal laugh.
“You are indeed powerful, Ferrin,” he said, “but you need to learn that you are no god. You need to learn that death does not care how strong you think you are.”
I stared in silence at the corpulent, red-faced doctor sipping his whiskey. The muscles in my jaw tensed as I ground my teeth. Without saying a word I left the cabin and slammed the hatch closed behind me.
I clenched my fists so tight as I climbed the ladder out of the hold my hands dripped blood onto the deck where my fingernails had broken the skin. I felt lightheaded as I reached the door to the officers’ mess.
Reno spotted me from the demolished forecastle, dropped the lumber, and rushed toward me.
“Let it out, boy, or it will kill you!” he shouted.
He struck my back with his massive palm. The jolt sent my head back, and I looked up to the sky. As the last air in my lungs passed my lips, I thought an arcane word, and the sky erupted in flames that stretched to the horizon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Istood on the broken main deck of the Fritzbink and looked out over the waves. Small rocky islands, half the size of the ship appeared on the horizon as the current pulled us along.
“You are supposed to be helping Doctor Flores,” Reno approached the damaged rail.
“I’m holding clinic hours on the deck. The fresh air is good for the—something.”
“It smells foul down there, I will give you that,” he said. “This have to do with that explosion a few days ago?”
It had been almost a span since I even looked in the hatch’s direction to the lower decks. “How can he—If I knew you were sick, would you want to know?”
“Can you heal this sick?”
“Maybe—not how Flores works, but—”
“If nothing can be done about it, why worry?” He handed me a sword belt with a dagger. “You should worry about your parries.”
On the quarterdeck above us, Jabnit held the broken tiller. His dark, sunken eyes searched the horizon for any sign of aid — land or another vessel.
I fastened the leather belt around my waist. Each day the belt seemed to fit looser than the last. On the larger men the days of partial meals and meager fresh water had taken their toll—hollow faces and lean bodies. My ribs showed when I removed my shirt at night.
I moved to the center of the main deck for a sparring session with
the master-at-arms. The dagger felt like an anchor in my hands. I moved through the first set of War Dance forms but had to rest each time I raised the blade above my head.
“That’s about all I can handle right now.” My muscles burned by the time we finished the third set. My movement through the forms was sluggish.
“Can you capture enough yili to raise the wind?” Reno asked when he had seen enough.
A pang in my stomach hit harder than any blow from Jabnit.
“The only think I can thing about is food,” I said.
“Sebi. Yili. Agoti,” the war mage said.
I closed my eyes and focused on the waves.
Nothing.
I could go for a bowl of goat stew. I sat down on the deck next to Reno.
“That is enough for today,” he said.
Neither of us moved.
“How long until supper?”
“It is just now midday.”
“Fuck.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Eleven days after the storm, with an impotent healer at her side, Adira Bitar succumbed to her wounds.
Days later Kane Cloud would tell me she had begged for death, pleaded with anyone who could hear her meek cries for mercy. Not wanting to upset the work of the gods, the good doctor offered her only a glass of whiskey from his private stash and waited until the infection took her.
When they brought her body onto the deck for her funeral, her face still wore the mask of agony she must have experienced in her final days. Her body carried the putrid scent of infection and necrosis.
The captain stood on the deck in his dress uniform. Even with the eyepatch he could not hide his worried, dark eyes and gaunt face. He replaced the insignia on Adira’s collar with the rank of commander before asking once again for mercy and safe passage from the sea god that had no interest in our return home.
Tomas Flores did not attend Bitar’s funeral, perhaps out of guilt for his inaction, perhaps out of the justified fear I would provide a more suitable sacrifice to Aequor. He did not come to the officers’ mess for the evening meal, if you could consider half a hardtack and a swallow of fresh water a meal. And so he was not present when Claudio called a meeting of the ship’s officers during the meal.
