by Mel Odom
As if realizing he’d told too much, the young sailor said, “I was born almost a month premature, on a long voyage in harsh seas. Luckily, I survived it.”
“What about your mother?”
He shook his head, his eyes picking up pale fire from the gibbous moon. “I lost her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Aye.”
“I was raised on a ship myself. My father’s a ship’s mage.”
“So the captain said.”
That irked Sabyna. Her business was her own. As she thought that, she felt a twinge of guilt for trying to pursue the young sailor’s secrets herself.
“Tynnel was being awfully generous with his information,” she said. “That’s not like him.”
The young sailor shrugged. Sabyna noted the dark circles under his eyes and felt bad for keeping him up so late when he’d obviously been worn out by his previous journey. She knew that wasn’t right. He looked healthy, not worn down, so whatever strain he was under was mental, not physical.
Still, she wasn’t ready to part company with him yet. “My mother kept after my three brothers and me to study our lessons,” she told him. “When we were young, we looked on ship’s chores as great fun. It wasn’t until we were older that we learned we were supposed to resent work like that.”
He laughed and she decided she liked the sound of it. His laugh was low and gentle, like it was something he wasn’t used to doing.
“In ports where we traded, some folk made comment that a ship was a small place for children to grow up—dangerous even—but we had the sea, wide and deep and beautiful, filled with wondrous things, and no reason to fear it or anything in it till my brother Dannin was killed in a pirate raid fourteen years ago.”
He nodded, suddenly somber for no reason that she could explain.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
Despite all the years that had passed, Dannin’s death still hurt. Tears brimmed in her eyes, feeling hot against the cool breeze drifting in from the sea. She got angry at herself momentarily for the loss of control, but there was something about the young sailor that reminded her of her lost brother. Dannin had barely been sixteen, younger than either of them now. She remembered and missed her brother’s smile most of all. Dannin was always the most easygoing of her siblings.
The look in Jherek’s pale eyes suggested that he wanted to say more but he didn’t.
Sabyna sensed that whatever stilled his tongue was wrapped up in one of the secrets he kept to himself “Besides scraping barnacles,” she asked him, “what else can you do?”
“I’ve worked for a shipwright and built ships from the ground up, from dry dock to harbor.”
“I’ve got a list of repairs I’d like made over the next few days,” she told him. If he accepted, she knew she’d be seeing more of him, and maybe she’d get a solution to the enigma he presented. At the very least, he made enjoyable company. “Most of them are only cosmetic, but I’d like them completed. We’ve only got a couple men who’re decent carpenters. If you’ve got skill, maybe I can get Tynnel to pay some extra wages.”
“I’d be happy to look at the repairs, and whatever you can pay would be fine.”
He looked like he was about to say something else, but his eyes cut away from hers.
“It could be Tynnel’s offered purse would be so small that I’ll have to supplement your pay with meals.” Part of Sabyna cringed when she was so bold as to say that. She knew her mother wouldn’t have approved at all.
“I’d enjoy that.”
She gazed out at the horizon, where the wine-dark sky descended and touched the flat surface of the Sea of Swords. “So what is it that draws you to the sea?”
“I don’t know, lady,” he answered politely, “but I do know that I’ve felt the pull of it every day of my life.”
“Would you like me to foretell your future?” she asked.
He paused, as if weighing the risk, then said simply, “Aye.”
“Give me your hand.”
Hesitantly, he offered it.
She took his hand in hers and studied it in the pale moonlight. It felt rough and hard, a working man’s hand. A few scars from fish knives, nets, and other sharp instruments crisscrossed the natural lines in his palm, making it confusing in the shadows.
“Wait here. I’ll need more light.”
“If this is going to be trouble for you, I’d rather not.”
“It’s no trouble,” Sabyna said.
He gave her a short nod, but clearly didn’t look happy about the extra effort.
She pushed herself up and walked to the railing to get one of the spare lanterns tucked away there. She lit it from the one already burning a few feet away, and returned. She concentrated on his palm, trying to divine what she could of him and the possible futures that waited on him. The divination she attempted wasn’t part of a spell, but was based on simple teaching about the lines on the palm. At least it was an excuse to speculate and talk about those speculations.
“You have a long life line,” she said, reading the automatic signs, “but there are breaks in it, indicating a change in location or your view of the world.” She felt him try to pull the hand away, but maintained her hold. “The breaks in your heart line show that you’ve had disappointments in your life.”
Without warning, a jolt of electricity sizzled through her mind. Her vision glazed over, suddenly filled with the sight of a great sea battle involving dozens of ships. She stood on a deck, and the vision was so strong that she felt the movement of the ocean. She smelled blood and the salt of the sea, different in some regard from the Sea of Swords.
She looked around in the vision, knowing she was seeing it from the young sailor’s eyes, but not knowing how it came to be since none of her magic would enable her to do this. Whatever the source, it came from outside her and forced her to see. The ship rocked suddenly and she turned in the direction the force had come from in time to see a boarding party swinging aboard the ship.
A tall man with wild black hair and fiery brown eyes dropped onto the deck before her. A short, thrusting goatee and mustache covered his cruelly handsome face. He was dressed in black, tight breeches tucked into buccaneer’s boots and a black shirt with belled sleeves left open to reveal the tattoo of the flaming skull wearing a chain mask that left only the eyes and fanged mouth uncovered. Another tattoo on his left cheek showed a shark-like creature with a black haired mane twisted in mid-strike.
Selûne help her, she recognized the man at once, and she prayed him dead in the same instant.
The man attacked at once, and she wielded her sword to parry the heavy-bladed falchion he swung. Afternoon sunlight glinted from the blades. He drew back immediately, setting himself to swing again.
The vision was rudely interrupted and Sabyna’s senses returned to her own body, to her own time. The young sailor held her, steadying her as another shudder passed through Breezerunner, shaking the whole ship as the dulled thud of impact echoed up through the hold.
“We’ve run aground,” the young sailor said, helping her to her feet in spite of the way the ship jerked and tossed. “We’ll be lucky if we haven’t torn the bottom out of her!”
XX
15 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet
“Impossible,” Sabyna said, pushing her way free of the young sailor. “We’re miles from land.” She had trouble standing as Breezerunner continued rocking while its length cleared the obstruction. Rushing to the railing, she peered down into the dark water, knowing the obstruction had to be underwater or the pilot and lookouts would have seen it.
Jaxx in the crow’s nest sounded general quarters on the conch shell kept there for that purpose. The mournful wail filled the night. Men erupted out onto the ship. Many of them were half-dressed, and the night shift carried lanterns that threw dizzying ellipses across the deck.
“What in the three by three hells’s going on here?” Tynnel yelled. He stood in the open doorway of his cabin under t
he stern castle, a cutlass naked in his fist.
“Hit something, cap’n!” Jaxx called down.
“What?”
“Don’t know, cap’n. Didn’t see anything then, and don’t see anything now.”
“Mornis,” Tynnel shouted.
“Sir,” the first mate called back.
“Get down into that hold and let me know what kind of shape we’re in.” The captain strode across the deck, glancing in all directions suspiciously. He closed on Sabyna. “I thought you kept a spell on this vessel that would warn us in the event of a possible collision.”
“I do,” the ship’s mage said. “I renewed it this afternoon.” She faced the captain with certainty. “Whatever we hit, it’s less than thirty feet in length and underwater.” The spell she’d managed to put on Breezerunner would notify them of anything bigger than that, or any stationary object above the water line. “Probably it’s drifting as well.”
Mornis reappeared at the top of the hold, gasping. He was a man in his middle years, his head shaved bald though he wore a forked gray beard. “We appear to be whole, cap’n, not taking on any water that I could find.”
Tynnel waved him off, glancing briefly at the young sailor standing beside Sabyna, then back at the ship’s mage. “I want to know what kind of shape my ship’s in,” he told her in a harsh voice.
Sabyna felt a momentary flicker of fire at the tone in his voice, but she pushed it out of her mind, clearing her thoughts so she could work her spells. She wasn’t going to forget the treatment, and they would talk about it later. Just because she was occupying herself with company didn’t mean she was letting down on the job.
She also didn’t blame Tynnel for his gruffness; his ship was his life and his freedom. Without it, he’d be land-bound or working for someone else. Even independent ship owners relied on investors to a degree, and bringing a cargo in late or not at all risked financial disaster.
Pushing out her breath to further relax, she headed for the hold. The spell came easily to her lips and she took a one inch unflawed steel disk from her belt pouch that she kept with her. She rubbed it between thumb and forefinger as she descended into the hold.
“May I accompany you?” Jherek asked.
Glancing to her side, Sabyna saw the young sailor stepping in to match her pace. She looked past him, further down the stairs leading into the hold and saw Tynnel’s face lit by the lantern he carried. The captain didn’t look happy about what he saw there.
“Yes,” she said. “That’ll be fine.”
A little bit of score settling now wouldn’t hurt, she thought. She’d been doing her job and Tynnel would have to admit that. She seized the lantern one of Mornis’s men held, then walked the prow through the narrow corridor formed between the crates and huge wine flasks they intended to trade and sell along their route.
The air inside the hold was damp and fetid. It always was this time of year and so near the Shining Sea. Moisture clung to the oaken beams in places, gleaming under the lantern light.
At the prow she passed the young sailor her lantern, then spoke her spell. At the end of it, she tossed the steel disk into the air. Instantly, it burst into bright, hot flame and charred to nothing. Even before it finished burning away, her mage’s senses had increased. She could feel the striations and pressures within the ship’s structure like it was a second skin over her own bones. Even the cool of the sea lapped at her, and the wind sweeping Breezerunner’s deck prickled along her skin.
She walked the length of the ship. When she reached the other end, her spell-enhanced senses died away. Perspiration trickled down her cheeks and her head hurt from the stress and strain. “The ship’s fine,” she announced.
Tynnel didn’t look any happier. “What did we hit?”
“We could go back and look,” Sabyna suggested. She was curious herself, and she hated not at least making the effort to find out.
The captain led the way back to the main deck and shouted out the order to change the sails and bring Breezerunner around. “Can you pinpoint the area?” he asked her.
“I can give you my best guess,” Sabyna answered.
Slowly, the ship came around, working with the wind. After only twenty minutes’ searching, one of the sailors called out, “Found it, cap’n! Sunken ship by the looks of it!”
Sabyna felt a chill shoot through her stomach. A ship sunk this far out from Amn, there’d be no chance for any survivors that hadn’t made the lifeboats or a rescue ship. It was too far to swim and the ocean was filled with savage creatures. She followed Tynnel to the starboard side and gazed out at the water as Breezerunner slowed from a crawl to a gentle bob fully stopped on the ocean’s surface.
Three men handled lanterns in the prow, lowering them over the side by ropes. As clear and as clean as the sea was, even the lantern light at full night was enough to reveal the outlines of the small cog listing nearly upside down in the water. The stern area wasn’t visible at all.
Tynnel gave orders to lower a rowboat with Mornis in charge. Shrill squeals whined around the deck as the block and tackles were used. The first mate quickly picked his people.
“Probably a damned waste of time,” the captain said angrily as he peered at the stricken ship, “but we’ve got to investigate and see if there’s any potential salvage value.”
“She’s not resting on the bottom,” Sabyna said. “She’s drifting. That’s why we passed over her instead of her ripping our bottom out. There won’t be any salvage. I’ve never seen a cog less than thirty feet long, and if it was longer than that, my alarm would have sounded. What we’re seeing out there is part of a ship. Something broke it in half.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’d like to go with the rowboat crew,” she said.
He glanced at her with a sour expression. “I’d feel better if you stayed aboard Breezerunner.”
“My magic will allow me more salvaging time and ability than anyone else you could send,” she pointed out. “In these currents, that ship could be gone in moments, taken completely to the bottom.”
Tynnel gave a short nod. “First sign of trouble, I want you back here.”
Sabyna joined the rowboat crew, scrambling down the rope ladder that had been thrown over Breezerunner’s side. Her feet reached the rowboat and Mornis guided her to secure footing.
“Lady.”
She looked up at the young sailor who lied about his true name. “What?”
He held a lantern and the illumination turned the bronze of his face to smooth butter. “I’ve some experience in salvage work,” Jherek said. “If I could be of assistance?”
“We don’t need some wetnose along on something that could be a dangerous bit of business,” Mornis stated gruffly. “Assuming there’s nothing nasty waiting in that ship’s carcass, if it goes down, there could be a hell of an undertow.”
“He’s worked as a shipwright,” Sabyna said. “He could be of help.” She glanced to the right and saw Tynnel standing there. “Captain?”
“Let him go,” Tynnel said. “It’s Sabyna’s call.”
Sabyna knew he was giving her back some of the authority and respect he’d stripped from her earlier. She kept the smile from her face and nodded to the young sailor.
Jherek joined them in the rowboat, hardly causing any rocking. Seating himself, he took up an oar and shoved it into an oarlock, then awaited commands.
Sabyna deliberately distanced herself from him and watched him as she sat in the middle of the rowboat. The slat felt hard and unyielding.
Mornis bawled out orders, getting the rowing groups into action. The rowboat came about smartly in the water, cutting through the gentle waves to the area marked from above by the lanterns.
Reaching into the bag of holding at her waist, Sabyna seized the hunk of ivory and off-white cloth inside and unfurled it into the air before her. All of the rowboat’s crew except the young sailor drew back.
The cloth resembled a patchwork quilt without the stitching. W
hen Sabyna released the cloth, the scraps fluttered and flew, twisting as if caught in a gentle hurricane. Then they bunched into a serpentine figure that wafted gently in the breeze six feet above the boat and the cowering sailors.
“Guard,” Sabyna ordered.
The serpentine shape stretched out and flattened, riding the winds just above and in front of the rowboat.
“What is that?” Jherek asked.
Sabyna looked at him, searching for any reproach in his gaze. She didn’t find it and guessed that he’d never heard of the creature. “That’s a raggamoffyn,” she told him. “My familiar.”
“Some say those are creatures of evil,” Jherek said, and several of the sailors quietly agreed with him.
Sabyna watched the raggamoffyn change its shape as if luxuriating in the freedom. Since it wasn’t well received aboard Breezerunner, she didn’t often let it out of the bag of holding except in her cabin.
“Some are evil, I suppose,” she agreed. “Some are only pranksters and don’t know anything of accountability. Pretty much, they’re whatever they want to be. The raggamoffyns known as shrapnel are evil to the core. There are those who say that they’re a race of creatures unto themselves, and still others who say they are the minions of a faceless wizard with a black heart. I don’t know what to believe about all that, but this raggamoffyn does what I ask it to.”
“I see.”
The rhythmic sweep of the oars through the water provided an undercurrent to their conversation. Sabyna held her lantern aloft, searching the water ahead of the rowboat. The raggamoffyn involuntarily flinched away from the flame, creating a momentary bow in its present linear shape. “Its name is Skeins. I created it when it came time for me to take a familiar. The cloth it’s made of is the shroud that covered my brother Dannin for his funeral service. I was ten when he died and I saved it, knowing exactly what I was going to do with it. When it was time, I sought out another raggamoffyn and made it perform the rites necessary to give life to Skeins.”
