by Del Law
Even there, in the wild, miles away from any civilization, she’d felt safer than she had in many years.
If she was honest with herself, she’d probably been more than a little in love with him before that ride.
After that ride, there was no turning back.
Not that it seemed to matter now.
The older mage crouches over Blackwell’s body, touches his neck, turns his head and studies his face. He nods to himself. Then he stands and gestures. The mages lift Blackwell’s body onto an elaborate palanquin that’s been brought up from the docks.
As they do, Kjat sees something she doesn’t believe.
As they lower his body into the palanquin, Blackwell’s arm moves across his chest, reaching unconsciously at the empty knife sheath there. She sees his burned hand grasping weakly, unsuccessfully for a knife. Then it falls back to his side.
Her breath catches in her throat, and she feels her pulse racing.
Other men lift the palanquin to their shoulders. The Akarii mage climbs into a seat in the front of it, and points them toward the waterfront. They make their way through the crowd of marines, who move aside only reluctantly to let them pass.
The wood of the warehouse roof is starting to steam and pop under her now—it was probably catching fire, too. Kjat suspects that the whole row of warehouses will be on fire soon if someone doesn’t do something about it.
She should leave now, she thinks.
She could blend into the crowd down at the docks and let the Akarii round her up and play dumb, just another waitress or merchant. She could find a place on a ship eventually and work her way back to Tamaranth and find another mage, someone else to help her deal with these things inside her. These things that are her.
But even as she thinks it, she knows she won’t.
She knows she's heading for the docks. Somehow, she’s getting on that warship.
18.
It’s actually even easier than she thinks. She doesn’t need to steal a boat—there’s one waiting at the dock for her.
Kjat pulls her coat tighter around her and approaches the steward who stands in the fog beneath a gas light. “Work, missy?” he says, as she gets closer. “Come aboard the flagship of the fleet! Easy work, and it’ll get you out of this dump for free. No offense. That it’s a dump, I mean.” Though when she steps into the circle of light she sees the blood drain from his face, and he takes an involuntary step backwards. He puts a hand to a club that hangs from his belt. He’s young, she sees—probably a few years younger than her. The sideburns and facial hair he’s trying to cultivate in the Akarii fashion are still not quite taking hold yet.
“Shouldn’t you be recruiting up at the Framarc buildings? I think the soldiers put most of the people in there,” she says.
He blushes and looks down at his feet, and he kicks angrily at one of the metal spikes driven into the wood of the dock. “They kicked me out,” he says. “Chief Steward Eeg says we need some more help and that I was to find some, but the sergeant wasn’t hearing any of that and says that anyone she’s rounded up is going to stay rounded. She says I can go out and stand here and make my own luck. Well, I’ve been standing out here for two hours now, and all I’m getting is this fog up under my wraps.”
“I’m here,” Kjat says.
“That you are.” He looks up at her again. The hair on his head is closely shaven, and he wears a brown bowler hat with a single brown pip on the brim that might be his rank or might be some sort of decoration. His wraps are dull brown, stained and worn down around his wrists and forearms, and the flapping overcoat he wears looks threadbare and shiny in places. His Karandelh accent sounds a little archaic.
In the light of the lamp, his eyes are a pale amber flecked through with gold, and when they meet hers she sees his fear again. He’s just a kid, really.
He says “But you’re a little, well…” His eyes linger on the empty scabbard across her chest. He considers for a moment and then decides to let it out. “A little scary, miss. No offense.”
Kjat rubs at a cheek and her hand comes away covered with soot. She looks down at her clothes, which are scorched and blackened and bloody. She reeks of damp ash and seawater, her cut palm pulses with pain, and her cloak is so full of burn holes it looks like a type of spiced cheese made high up in the mountains of the Akarii Reserves.
She laughs. “I guess I am,” she says, trying to lighten her voice so it sounds more girlish. She thinks quickly. “My master’s summer apartment was on fire. One of those fireballs hit the house next door, and he kept making us run back in for more and more of the table silver while it started to burn.” She makes her voice all nasal and whiny and says “‘Get to it girls—that silver’s come all the way from Xu, and I’ll be damned if one little fire is going to ruin it all.’ Last time I came out with a fork in my hand they were gone, the whole family of them, probably sailing out right now. And here I am, stuck in this place.”
The steward boy shakes his head. “No ships are leaving this place for awhile. All ships are going to be boarded and searched. If they’re in the harbor, you might find them,” he says doubtfully.
Kjat makes herself laugh. “A fine mood he’ll be in, too, when you take all his precious Xu silver.”
The boy laughs, too. “Is it really all the way from Xu?”
“Damned if I know. What kind of work do you have?”
“Scullery, laundry, cleaning quarters. Usual stuff. You ever worked around drones?”
Kjat shakes her head, not exactly knowing what he means.
“The quiet’s a little strange. And you think they’re all watching you at first, but they’re not. You get used to it. It’s not bad. Just keep your head down when the birds come downbelow.”
For a minute when he says birds, she thinks he means the featherwolves. How does he know? But then she realized he can’t possibly. She touches the bone at her throat. She’s amazed they’re so quiet now, like there’s a stone wall between them and her. She draws her coat in around her shoulders and shivers anyway. “It’s got to be better than this town. Is there pay?”
The boy laughs again. “You’ll be rich in no time. No time, get it? No time at all? But Chief Steward Eeg, she’s a decent sort, not like the upperdeck birds at all. She’ll work you hard, but she won’t be a skeck about it,” he says. “If you want to come, we might as well get out there and get you settled. Do you have any things?”
She shakes her head, and he doesn’t seem surprised.
He takes off his hat, and made a quick, awkward bow. “I’m Rehdr.”
“Kjat,” she says. “Kjati.”
“Right this way, Miss Kjati.” He holds a small boat close to the dock and lets her climb in—the bow is carved and painted in the shape of a seaswan and she tucks herself into it, as the back of the boat is filled up with a heavy crate. She finds herself staring at the boy’s back as he sets to the oars, which is just as well.
He says something to her as he pulls them away from the dock, but she can’t hear it. He turns, and speaks over his shoulder. “I said, did you hear that great roar awhile back? Sergeant told me they found some magical beast from Tilhtinora. Got loose and killed a marine or something before they took it down. I hope we get a look at it. They might skin it and bring it out on one of the decks, if we’re lucky.”
Kjat doesn’t reply, and after a minute Rehdr turns back to his rowing. The lights of the docks fade away behind them, and they move for a time across the low waves with nothing but the sound of the oars and the surf breaking off against the rocky shore, and the flickering light of the boy’s lantern to keep them company.
Kjat unbuckles the leather belt that runs from her waist over her opposite shoulder, the one that holds her mage’s scabbard, and silently drops it into the water when she doesn’t think Rehdr will notice. It sinks rapidly.
After a little while, the lights of the great ship grow brighter behind her, and when she turns to look at it they are nearly upon it, and she gasps at h
ow large it is.
Is it a ship, or a city?
It was truly immense, larger than any ship she’d ever seen in the Tamaranth lagoons, and that’s only what she can see of it.
It towers over them, blocking out the world.
The bow sweeps up in a great swan’s neck similar to the Rehdr’s dinghy, but it’s a swan of terrible proportions—larger than the close-in walls of the upper Warrens, or the huge seawall at Tamaranth. The sides of the ship are carved into long, graceful feathers, and each of them is unique and gilded with precious metals and larger than a skyscraper.
Its expansive beak glitters in the moonslight. Its great malevolent eyes are lit up with magefire.
Of course, it had to be a bird, she thinks, and sighs. There was no escaping them. The Akarii and their birds—couldn’t it have been any other family? The Ciordoi loved their goats. Why couldn’t it have been a goat ship?
“Yeah, beautiful, isn’t she?” Rehdr says back over his shoulder. And it is in its way—beautiful and awful at the same time. Rehdr ships the oars, and they drift for a few minutes down the length of it, and Kjat wonders how far it stretches on for.
It’s bigger than a city.
“Haloooo,” Rehdr calls up, when they come to a hatch halfway up the hull. “It’s Rehdr the Bountiful back from the great beyond.”
“Cut the shit,” says a boy’s voice from above. “And give me one good reason why I should let you back in here. You don’t do a speck of work.”
Rehdr winks at Kjat. “I’ve brought us a maiden fair,” he says. “Rescued from the fire by my own two hands.”
A head appears at the hatch, and looked down at them. “You’re full of paak,” he says. And then he notices Kjat. “He didn’t really rescue you, did he?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
The boy’s eyebrows lift, and he mutters something Kjat can’t make out. He goes back inside, and lowers down a rope ladder that Rehdr says she should climb. When she’s in the hold the boy there extends a kind of winch out of the hatch to raise the boat up. He works a large metal crank that winds a cable through several pulleys and gears, and the boat rises up to the level of the hatch with Rehdr still in it. They swing it inside, and together the two of them strain and shove the boat in line with a number of others just like it.
“I’m Croah,” says the other boy, bowing. “And you are?”
“Back off, lover boy,” says Rehdr. “We’re to see the Chief Steward straight away. Keep an eye on this one, Miss Kjati. To say he’s got a reputation would be an understatement.”
Croah winks at her. He’s about Rehdr’s age, with thick eyebrows, fat sideburns, and greased hair that stands straight up from his head a good six inches. Kjat rolls her eyes, and then turns and follows Rehdr through a maze of low, dark passageways, until they somehow emerge into a large, bright scullery.
The room is a flurry of activity. Along one long wall are a set of deep metal sinks, and people—both human and some Stona, Kjat notes—are bent over them, scrubbing an endless stream of pans and large black kettlepots that stream in through another door and stack up in a pile on the far end. Dishes are lined up in racks and then run through dishwashers that belch out steam. Down another side stretch washbasins, where a similar group tackles a stream of laundry that piles in from another direction. For all of the Akarii skill with technology and aether, it doesn’t look like they’re using any of it here. This could have been any scullery from the last several centuries.
The air is hot and damp, and Kjat feels herself break into a sweat.
Rehdr steers her toward the center of the room, where a tall, stout woman stands clapping her hands, and calling out instructions with a red face. The woman wipes a hand across her forehead, and tucked a stray piece of chestnut hair behind one ear as they approach. “Well, Rehdr, it certainly took you long enough. Where’s everyone else you were going to bring us?”
Rehdr looks a little sheepish. “Yes, mim. I brought you Miss Kjati here, Chief Steward. Everyone else was either in boats trying to get out before we got them, or rounded up already.”
“Kjati, is it? Hmmm.” Chief Steward Eeg turns and studies Kjat closely. Kjat tries to seem a little nervous, like a servant girl might be at being called out, but she’s not doing a good job of it. She gives up and just meets Eeg’s eyes directly and nods. “And what kept you from being penned up with everyone else in the Port?” Eeg asks.
“I don’t know, mim. I guess they just missed me.” Kjat tells her story again about the silverware.
Eeg frowns, and then nods. “All right, then. We can really use the help. I just hope you can swab up a ship better than you swab up yourself.” Her tone is not unkind. “Pay’s a Karandelh penny a week when we leave a port, not when we land mind you and there’s no sense in asking for it sooner. And room and board.”
Eeg looks around her. “Ava? Ava!” A girl dumping a load of soiled wraps into the heaping mound waiting to be washed turns, and Eeg gestures her over. “Ava, you have space in your bunk, don’t you? Take Kjat back and show her where to put her things, and then get the girl a bath. You hungry, Kjat?” Kjat nods. The meal on the docks is feeling like a long time ago. “Get her some food from Cook Targluck, Ara, and tell him I said to, so he doesn’t give you too much grief. And then take her with you in the morning to work the drone pit on two-feather deck.”
Ava nods and smiles at Kjat. She’s a few years younger, about Kjat’s height, pale skinned and willowy, with small, pixie-like features and long hair the color of straw, knotted in back and held up under the pale blue scullery bonnet. A small pink birthmark shaped like a quarter-moon hangs at the corner of her right eye. She exchanges a bashful look with Rehdr, and blushes slightly, and Rehdr’s cheeks also turn a quiet shade of pink. Kjat sees that none of this is lost on the Chief Steward.
“Get going, girls,” says Eeg. “There’s not much time before lockdown, and I want you in your bunks well before that. Rehdr, you brought back some supplies, I hope? Make sure you get them unloaded this time."
“Come with me,” Ava says, her eyes watching Rehdr until he's back out the doorway they came in through. “I won’t let Targluck give you any of his fish paste.” She grimaces to illustrate the point.
“Thank you, mim,” Kjat says to Eeg, in a tone she hoped was something like gratitude.
Chief Steward Eeg nods, distractedly. “Thank me by doing a whole lot of work, dear, and not getting yourself into trouble, eh?”
Kjat follows Ava out into the maze of rough, dark hallways again. Halls seem to branch of in every direction. “The halls here in downbelow are marked with slashes at the corners,” Ava says, pointing to simple carved marks at the intersection of two halls. “It’s a little confusing until you get the hang of it?” Ava says. “But it doesn’t take too long. Just remember that the even-numbered ones run across the ship from side to side, and the odd ones mostly run front to back. Bow to stern, I guess I should say. Do you read?”
Kjat nods. “Good,” Ava says. “Most of the halls up above have names? Like city streets? So that’ll help you get around, if you ever have to go up there.” Some of the corridors they go through have sharply sloped sides—Kjat guesses those press up against the external hull.
Ava shows her the bunk room, which is long and narrow and filled up with simple girls’ beds that stand three bunks high. “You can have this middle bunk over me, if you’d like. Ceri sleeps up top, but she’s hardly ever here. Do you have any things?” Kjat shakes her head. “It’s all right. A lot of girls don’t when they first come on.” A few girls are already there, some asleep. The ones that aren’t study Kjat curiously.
The bunk room stands in a dormitory of similar rooms, with one long corridor capped by a large metal door at the end. Ava tells her that there are several more dormitories around the ship like it, separate ones for Stona, Talovian, and Human, and separate ones for each gender. “The human boys are off on the other side of the ship,” Ava whispers to her, conspiratorially. “
At slash seventeen and slash eighty-eight.” She tilts her head and looks at Kjat, and then looks away, deciding not to say whatever it was that she was thinking. “If you need to go up to upperdecks for something, the closest hatch is at slash five, slash-eighty two. But there’s a guard there, so make sure you have a token from Eeg.”
At the far end of the hall is the wardrobe, where Ava gets her a clean set of Akarii wraps, some underclothes and a nightshift. Next door are the toilets and the shared bathing room, which holds a long, open pool lined with simple white tile. Hot, steaming water streams in from one end of the room, and leaves through an opening at the far side. Kjat stares enviously at it for a minute—when was the last time she’d had a bath? But she’s starving, and the dirt won’t kill her for another hour.
So Ava takes her to one of the servant’s kitchens, where after turning down a chunk of bread smeared with grey fish paste from a muttering Talovian wearing a dirty chef’s hat, Kjat gets a bowl of steaming fish stew in a thick bowl made from a loaf of bread that’s surprisingly good. It takes her all of a minute to devour it.
“You’re kind of quiet, Kjat,” Ava says, smiling at her. “But you sure can eat.”
Ava is so good natured, so young, that Kjat can’t help but smile back. The expression feels strange on her face after so long.
“So did Rehdr really rescue you from the fire?”
“Well,” Kjat says, starting in on a second helping. “He did save me from being stuck in that Port. I’m not sure what I would have done. I’m pretty grateful.”
A look of concern crosses Ava’s face.
“But not too grateful, if you know what I mean. He’s not exactly my type.”
Ava looks relieved, and nodded. Kjat hides a grin. Ava reaches across the table and points to one of the glyphs on her hand. “What’s that?”
“The name of a demon.”
Ava’s eyes grow wide, and she pushes backwards on her bench.
“Just kidding,” Kjat lies. “I used to be in the Dancer’s Guild, in Tamaranth.”
