by Martin Frowd
“Aye, ye had a close call or twain, ye and Himself, eh lassie?”
“Yes, the Master and I were too late a couple of times earlier this month, Rathgar,” Anjali winced. “Otherwise Zonna wouldn’t be the only girl in this year’s crop of Gifted. As it was, we only barely made it out without being detected.”
“Aye. Here’s hoping Himself dinnae hae strife wi’ yon Druid lads this time, lassie, on account o’ ye nae being by his side, eh?”
“You know I wish he’d taken me with him,” Anjali sighed and exhaled a jet of smoke. “I was by his side on all the other pickups this year – Farouk and I both were. But this last one? He insisted it was too far inland for a there-and-back trip in one day, and I needed to be here, to keep the ship and all of us veiled. Despite this one being the most important pickup, too!”
“Yer’ve been further inland before,” Jelek the second mate objected. “Yer Master had me map it fer ‘im. Though he said something about portals, and mebbe not needing my maps, he still wanted ‘em just in case?”
“That’s right, Jelek,” Anjali nodded. “The Master discovered the portals many years ago. They connect several different spots on this continent, far apart as the crow – or the hookbeak – flies, so a single step can save a journey of hundreds or thousands of miles. But of course, there are still huge stretches of land that aren’t near any of the portals, so Furiosa still has a big part to play – and your maps are still very useful.”
“Ach, I recall when Himself found yon portals,” Rathgar poured himself another shot of whisky. “It were long afore ye were birthed, lassie – and nae long after ye were birthed either, Jelek lad. Himself hadnae long started these voyages tae seek out Gifted bairns overseas – wasnae earliest such, but nigh on. Reckoned yon portals were a right old find, see – crafted by t’ancients, like as not, them as left these lands long afore yer folk first came along. Himself took a wee while in experimenting wi’ yon portals afore he were happy wi’ using them, fer sure. Made his task more’n a wee bit easier, aye? Just a crying shame Himself cannae make more, aye?”
“The old portal masters of the Forerunners are long gone,” Farouk deigned to join in the discussion, as it pertained to magic. “The navigators of today have only a fraction of their power. No man, since the time of those who brought our ancestors to this world, has wielded the power to establish new permanent portals. If any among the elves still can, they do not show it openly. Even temporary gates require an enormous expenditure of power, far beyond the reach of most mages. And if the portals that the Master discovered here are truly the work of the Ancients, those who were before men – before even the elves – then they are far older still. Certainly, they did not look to be of human handiwork.”
“That was my guess too,” Anjali agreed. “They looked like nothing else I’ve ever seen before. Maybe one day we’ll get a chance for more study.”
“Well, speaking for myself, I’m certainly glad you stayed here with the ship this time,” Marag steepled his pudgy fingers around his whisky glass. “It’s so much harder to cook a decent meal, or take a proper inventory, while we’re under attack!” the quartermaster mock-shuddered. Captain Maarek guffawed loudly, and the rest of the men joined in. Even Farouk managed a snort. Anjali’s tinkling laugh, and Kitithraza’s amused hiss, played counterpoint to the deeper tones of their male companions.
“Speaking of inventory…” Captain Maarek looked to the quartermaster.
“Tell us, yer royalness,” Jelek grinned across the table at Marag, raising his shot glass in salute. “How much is left in yer princely coffers?”
Farouk immediately scowled again at the second mate’s flippancy. Marag simply beamed at the second mate.
“If I were the sultan, young Jelek, I’d order those coffers opened to give you all the rum you could possibly drink,” the quartermaster smiled benignly at the second mate. “And then if you were still the impertinent sod you’ve always been, I’d have you drowned in it too,” he chortled with a wink. “But on a more serious note,” he straightened his leather apron and pulled out a sheaf of paper, “as of today’s inventory, we should be provisioned for another forty days. More, if the men can carry on with a spot of fishing and bringing down birds. Our stock of alchemical purification tablets is still good so fresh water is no problem. We’ve rice, pickled vegetables, flour, rum and other staples enough to see us back home to Maraport, if–” he turned to look directly at Anjali – “Master Vordakan gets back to us and we can cast off in the next seven days. Eight at the most. Failing that, Captain,” he looked to gold-toothed Maarek at the head of the table, “I’d recommend we sail south along the Blirian coast for another resupply stop with the rebel tribes in the Bay of Strife, before we turn southwest and out into the open ocean.”
“Jelek?” the captain looked to the second mate. Anjali was unsurprised, as part of the man’s role was navigation.
“That’ll add another eight hundred miles, Captain – nigh-on another tenday to sail time, and that’s if we get good winds all the way and Aldrek here can do his magic thing all the way, Stormlady’s mercy allowing,” Jelek replied. “Already plotted, in case it’s needed. Reckon we’d all rather sail straight fer home waters, eh?”
“No argument from me,” Anjali smiled at the man. “Can’t resupply these on this continent anyway,” she noted, holding up her half-smoked cigarette.
“Should have brought more,” suggested Kitithraza, drawing on her own and blowing several perfect smoke rings up to the mess ceiling.
“Or someone should steal fewer of mine?” Anjali rolled her eyes at her lover, but her voice betrayed her amusement. Kitithraza snorted, cupping Anjali’s face in her black-furred hands and kissing her soundly.
“Ach, ye’ve a perfectly guid cabin, ye pair,” Rathgar complained, but the dwarf’s tone was good-natured. As the kiss continued, the other officers cheered and applauded. Finally, Anjali broke off the kiss to come up for air. Farouk’s face was thunderous.
“This…is…unseemly,” the apprentice necromancer grated, his teeth clenched. “Bad enough that you cavort with – with that creature – at all, but in front of us all? I have put up with much, over this voyage. Have you no shame?”
“‘Creature?’” Kitithraza purred. “Am felis, not this ‘creature’. My kind has name, just like yours. Perhaps two-legged puppy too stupid is to remember.”
“‘Cavort?’” Anjali quoted, frowning. “Frankly, Farouk, this is getting more than a little old. You don’t own me. We’re both apprenticed to the Master, and if he has nothing to say about who I choose to take to bed, you certainly don’t!”
“Master Vordakan is not here,” Farouk sneered. “If he will not take a stand against your unseemly ways, then I must! It…is…wrong for a daughter of your father to debase herself with someone not even human!”
“A daughter of my father?” Anjali smirked at him. “You do recall that my entire line has nonhuman blood, Farouk dear? From the very first generation onward? If I were pure human, would I have these lovely violet eyes?”
“That is different,” her fellow apprentice asserted. “The founder of your line, blessings upon his memory, married a lady of the djinn. That is spiritual, pure, even, one might say, holy. He did not besmirch himself with a half-animal!”
Kitithraza snarled low in her throat. Her claws popped from her fingertips before retracting again.
“Careful, lad,” Rathgar said softly. “Dinnae say ought ye’ll regret.”
“Am felis,” Kitithraza reiterated, the fur on her head standing straight up, her ears quivering. “Ancestors came from human kind and cat kind, is so. Not me. Ancestors. Know you what word means, puppy?” she taunted in return.
“My ancestry is unblemished right back to the Sealing of the Hellgate!” the apprentice necromancer declaimed. “My line is as old as your entire race!”
“Am think you must be runt of line, ancestors much sad,” the felis riposted.
“Enough, both of you,” Anjali
sighed. “This peace-making is getting old.”
“Is true. Make pieces, instead?” suggested Kitithraza hopefully.
“Lassie…” Rathgar warned. “Ye cannae be maiming paying passengers, especially noblemen, e’en if they insult ye. We’ve been through this, aye?”
“He not pay.”
“Aye, but he’s prenticed tae Himself, Kitithraza lassie, and Himself paid fer passage, and he’d be put out at losing one o’ his own, aye?”
“Hmph. Am not convinced.”
“Hush, my Kitiyeh,” Anjali placed a gentle finger against her lover’s lips. “Whatever Farouk thinks, he has no say over what we do – what I do, or with whom I choose to do it.”
“I have every say! You gave me that right, when you gave me your promise, and yet now you flaunt your dalliance with that!”
“Promise?” Anjali’s head whipped around, making her long earrings jingle as she stared incredulously at her fellow apprentice. “We have never been promised!”
“Cast your mind back,” Farouk instructed pompously. “You gave me your promise on the harbour wall.”
“On the harbour – I did no such thing!” Anjali shook her head vehemently. “When we boarded this ship and left Maraport, I was speaking to the Master, not to you – you were talking to Aldrek, as I recall.”
“No, princess. Not that time. On the harbour wall, when I,” Farouk’s voice dropped to the faintest of mutters.
“Again, Farouk, I did not hear you?” Anjali stared at him.
“Two-legged puppy say, when he save your kitten,” Kitithraza helpfully explained, her superior hearing clearly having caught every word.
“When you saved my – I was six!” Anjali glared at her fellow apprentice. “You were ten. Maybe I was grateful – alright, yes, I was grateful – but that was nearly ten years ago! Then your father took you up north, and I didn’t see you again until you apprenticed to Master Glaraz, earlier this year!”
“Was it a great act of bravery, highness?” Marag the quartermaster raised an eyebrow at her.
“Oh Marag, don’t you start with the highness this and princess that,” Anjali sighed. “I’d rather be just Anjali, apprentice to Master Glaraz – I earned that. And yes, when I was little I had a kitten, and used to take her everywhere with me. One day, we were out in the harbour – Whisperer alone knows why, now – and she managed to slip out of my grasp, and she fell in the water. Farouk dived into the harbour and rescued her. I’ll admit, I thought he was dashing and heroic, but that was a long time ago. We’re both older people, different people, now.”
“Ach, ye’re all youngsters tae me, lassie,” Rathgar snorted. Marag chuckled at that, but the dwarf grinned at him. “Aye, e’en yerself, Marag lad.” The rest of the officers sniggered at that, since grey-haired Marag had seen his sixtieth year and was the oldest human among them.
“I’ve still never been promised,” Anjali asserted. “Not to you, Farouk, not to anyone. And now I wonder, why did you apprentice to the Master? Was it just because of me? Not because you want to be a necromancer?”
“One day, I will inherit my father’s seat,” Farouk said loftily. “Men of great rank will always inspire envy and rivalry, in Maragash as in any other civilised nation. Thus, it becomes a man of rank to wield power of his own.”
“That explains why you apprenticed to a School and a Master. It doesn’t explain why Master Glaraz in particular, unless it was because of me.”
“Is obvious was for you. Two-legged puppy wear heart on sleeve.”
“Well, he can carry on wearing it, my Kitiyeh,” Anjali smiled at her felis lover as she slid her empty whisky glass across the table to Rathgar. “It will get him nowhere with me.”
“It was provident, that you had apprenticed already,” Farouk admitted. “Yes, I chose the Black Skull for your sake. To be there when you were done with studying, and ready for marriage. I did not expect you to embark upon a new dalliance the moment we set sail for this primitive land!” he glared.
“When I was-” Anjali gaped. “Done with studying, and ready for marriage? And what if the answer to both of those was never? Or at least, never for the kind of marriage you so obviously want? You could have talked to me first, rather than make all these assumptions that you so obviously have!”
“A daughter of your father must make a good marriage,” Farouk insisted. “What better husband could you hope for, what man more eligible, among all the great families of Maragash, than I?”
“Am think one who ask, not tell?” suggested Kitithraza helpfully, making him glare once again.
“A daughter of my father?” Anjali looked incredulously at him again even as Rathgar refilled her whisky glass and slid it back across to her. She bestowed a smile on the dwarf before frowning at her fellow apprentice once more. “Is that all you want? My father has dozens of wives. Hundreds of daughters! If that’s what you really want, when we get home I’ll happily introduce you to some of my more compliant, seemly sisters and you can court one of them! Maybe one of them will be closer to what you actually want than I ever could be. Whisperer knows that it wouldn’t be difficult.”
“You are the one I want, princess.”
“Stop calling me that, Farouk,” Anjali sighed. “Anjali will do just fine.”
“But you are a royal princess,” Farouk objected. “A daughter of His Most Royal Magnificence, the Sultan of Maragash, Heir to the Forerunners, Master of the Sea of Flame, Sovereign of the Eastern Ports!”
“I know my own father’s titles, Farouk,” Anjali snorted and lit another cigarette. “And at court, I’m just one of hundreds of princesses, lost in the crowd. Whisperer knows, my father doesn’t have enough time for all of us! At the School, I’m simply Anjali, apprentice to Master Glaraz, and I can truly be me.”
“And yet still you wear the purple of royalty,” Farouk observed, gesturing to her silken robe. “Enough of a princess when it suits you, it seems.”
“What I am – what I wear, what I do – is my affair, Farouk. Not yours!”
“And ‘being you’ involves dallying with this creature, far beneath your royal station?” Farouk sneered, jerking his head toward Kitithraza. “This creature, this common sailor? Perhaps she has ensnared you with her bodily ‘charms’, such as they may be, but you could scarcely hold conversation as equals! What could one such know of history, lineage, culture, etiquette? She would step wrongly at every turn, and she would be an embarrassment in any polite society! You could never take her to a banquet, a gala, the opera, the theatre, without ridicule.”
“Farouk, Farouk,” Anjali sighed. “You’re still missing the point. Perhaps I don’t want to spend every day of my life at banquets, galas and operas, when there’s so much for me to learn, to study! It could be years yet before I master my magic. But even when I do go out in society, still I’d rather be with my Kitiyeh, if she’ll have me, than with you. Someone who wants me. Anjali. The person. Not Princess Anjali, the trophy. And as it happens, my conversational needs are very well met, thank you for caring.”
“Your needs are met? Met by this creature?” Farouk scoffed. “I fail to imagine how. Can she even name the second sultan?”
“Can. Easy is. Marag Windmaster, spawn of Great Marag. Is so called because sire was human, and mother was djinn.”
“Well, that’s hardly difficult,” Farouk glowered. “What of the tenth sultan?”
“Farouk Hooknose. Is easy recall that. Is stupid name,” Kitithraza taunted.
“Ye mean Hooknose, aye lassie?” Rathgar tried again to mediate.
“That also,” Kitithraza purred, taking the cigarette from Anjali’s fingers and taking a long drag, blowing silvery-blue smoke in Farouk’s direction as he glared.
“Can she even name all the Gods?” Farouk tried a different line of attack.
“Can. Will not. Is much bad luck, call on Them all at once. But can list. Is thirteen Dark. Ten Light. Eight Grey. Five Elder, Those Who Sleep. Is thirty and six. Or three twelves. Or a quartet o
f nines, or a sixfold of sixes, or a score and four fours. Yes, can do numbers also.”
“Farouk, do give up,” Anjali sighed, reclaiming her cigarette from Kitithraza and inhaling deeply. “This is pointless, and only embarrassing you.”
“On the contrary, princess, I am trying to save you from yourself,” Farouk retorted stiffly, knocking back another glass of whisky and sliding the empty glass over to Rathgar, ignoring the dwarf’s growing frown. He glowered at Kitithraza once more. “Creature. Here is one last test which will prove beyond doubt that you are an unfit partner for the princess. If my father were to host a banquet, and invite a Kyrilian baron, an Elendran duck, a Kerishar lord-commander, a Tanvari highlord and an Elarian bettkessen, how should they be seated in proper order of precedence?” Farouk took care in pronouncing the foreign words, and he looked highly put out when both Anjali and Kitithraza burst out laughing.
“Oh my,” Anjali wiped a tear of laughter from her cheek and took another long, cheek-hollowing drag on her cigarette. “You needn’t answer that silliness, my Kitiyeh. You have nothing to prove to me.”
“Need not,” agreed her lover. “But will, so two-legged puppy shut up.” The felis turned her green-eyed gaze on Farouk, with a contemptuous look.
“Baron is noble, but little noble, lesser than your sire,” she began, “so sit nearest to table foot.” Anjali noted Farouk’s surprised look as the felis continued.
“Duck is western water bird. Plump, is good eating. But am think you mean duke,” the felis smirked as the ship’s officers sniggered. “Duke is big noble, like your sire, higher than baron. So, sit nearer table head.
“Lord-commander is same as duke. Is different name in Keris. But is same rank as duke in Elendros. So, it depend only who longer rule, who senior is. Not higher, but senior in same rank.
