by Steven Poore
She grew aware of a slow, rhythmic drumming from the raised hind deck where Sah Ulma and his officers sat apart. It was a quiet but insistent one-two, one-two-three beat, that made her tap her fingers on the deck in time. When she looked up she saw Sah Ulma stood watching his crew, beating out the rhythm with one foot.
One-two, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three.
Gradually the crew took up the rhythm, slapping the deck with their palms, or drumming against their plates. One or two drew out small flutes and piped competing melodies over the top until all fell into the same tune, almost by accident. The deck was alive with music, and the rhythm had sped up into a bright jig rather than a heavy march.
Cassia realised belatedly that this was her cue. Norrow had always built the rhythm for himself, wandering through markets to draw people along with him. But this was an audience that commanded her performance. They were here, they were ready, they wanted to be entertained. Unlike the people of Hellea, they seemed not to care that she was not a man. This was the greatest opportunity she’d ever had.
She didn’t have the faintest idea what to do.
Her father had told stories to sailors, but that had always been inside taverns, and Cassia had always been outside, minding the bloody mule in the cold and rain. There was nothing in her own stock of tales that suited this audience.
One-two, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three.
She came slowly to her feet and gathered her robe around her. She could delay the moment by walking amongst them, encouraging them and driving the rhythm, but she could only delay for so long. And then . . . there was a yawning gap in her thoughts that she could not fill.
She thought about the rhythms her father used. The kinds of stories that belonged with each one. One-two, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three. That was something she wasn’t familiar with. She couldn’t feed a story into it. But if she could lengthen the phrases . . .
Cassia stepped across the deck to join the loudest of the drumming crewmen. His grin was wide and infectious, and he called up to her in a thick accent she could not penetrate. She raised her hands in reply and clapped out a different beat. A longer, less disjointed phrase, more suited to the way she had learned from her father. For a moment the two rhythms collided in a cacophonous battle before the drummer swung effortlessly over to her side. The men around him followed suit and the rest of the crew picked up the new rhythm within seconds. Now they were playing her tune. But still she did not know the words . . .
Just like Pelicos, she thought.
It was as easy as that. She almost shouted in relief. Pelicos the Illuminated! The hero of Kalakhadze, of Stromondor, of the plains-built fortresses and more besides; the man who left a trail of broken hearts and enraged husbands in his wake. Only a few winters ago, watching sails disappear over the horizon from the clifftops south of Oemonia, she had likened herself to Pelicos – as free as the wind, breezing from town to town, unshackled by the Factor and the Emperor’s laws. It had been a child’s romantic notion, and it lasted only as long as it took for her father to be hounded from the town for the money he owed, but it had haunted the far edges of her thoughts ever since.
Why didn’t I think of this before? What else could so perfectly suit the crew of a ship bound once more for distant shores? The beauty of Pelicos, she realised, as she looked out at the variety of men in her audience, was that he was truly a man of the world. Stromondorians, Helleans, Galliarcans, Northerners and Kebrians alike – they all became the butt of his jests and tricks; he was one with them all, but he belonged to none.
She spread her arms wide and leaned forwards. The musicians played more softly, the flutes descending the scales into low monotones while the drummers seemed to brush the deck with the palms of their hands.
How would her father have begun? A prayer to the gods. But which ones? There was only one prayer she could truthfully make tonight.
“In praise of Ceresel, who favours the brave,” she sang out, “who gives us the heroes whose stories we tell, who walks hand in hand with the fickle winds of fortune, and who slips out of reach of those who depend on her – Ceresel, Ceresel, lend me the gift of a honey-coated tongue and the wits of a hare—”
Shouts of laughter came from the crew, and several pointed up at the basket that swung from the rigging, where the rabbit had been left in relative peace. Cassia skipped a beat to let the noise die away and hoped her embarrassment would not show.
“The wits of a hare,” she repeated, “to best tell the tales of your favourite son!”
“Pelicos!” one man shouted. His neighbour echoed the call.
Cassia pushed her palms flat through the air, and the music subsided, so that she did not have to raise her voice too much. All eyes were upon her and, to her surprise and satisfaction, she could not see a single hostile expression. It was so different from Hellea, from Elbithrar, from all the towns in the North where folk still regarded her and her father with some degree of suspicion.
But tonight had changed all of that for her. For the first time she knew she was doing the right thing, that she was destined to be a storyteller. Like her father.
But better.
“Pelicos the Illuminated,” she said with a broad smile. She twitched her palms upwards, and the rhythm leapt back in.
q
It was a long night. One story was not enough. After she completed her first tale, collapsing exhausted onto one of the mats spread across the deck and gulping long draughts of wine that the sailors pressed upon her – bitter, stronger, and unwatered, she realised – they crowded around her and begged for another. Fuzzed by wine, flushed with adrenaline, she had trouble picking out Hellean phrases and proper names from the jumble of dialects the crew used, but at last she struggled to her feet and managed a slower, more sombre rendition of one of the histories of Gelis, set against the soft, entrancing drones of the flutes. She stumbled over several parts and managed to repeat one speech twice, but nobody seemed to notice. The slow pace of the story helped settle the crew, and by the time she trailed off with the heroine now within sight of safety, many had laid out on their mats, covered by thin blankets.
Cassia’s head felt horribly tight, and she was certain the boat was rocking far more than it should. She found her way back into the prow and wrapped herself in her robe. Her thoughts splintered and scattered, and all she could bring to mind before she fell asleep was that given time she might be able to get used to this life.
q
The storm caught up with them in the early hours of the morning. The first Cassia knew about it was from the man who accidentally kicked her in the ribs as he reached over her to pull one of the lines. She moaned, curling into a tighter ball, only to realise that both the deck and her clothes were soaked through, and the ship was rocking like a baby’s crib. Her stomach lurched in the opposite direction. She crawled out from beneath the prow and narrowly avoided having her fingers stamped on.
“Out the way!” somebody shouted. A spray of water lashed against her side, washing her flat across the deck. Her limbs felt as though they belonged to somebody else, and they would not hold her up.
“Aft anchor’s loose!” The cry came from further down the ship as she swung again and Cassia swallowed a mouthful of bile. This was as bad as any winter night in the mountains, sheltering in vain against the cruel winds and the whiplashing rain. At least up there the ground didn’t move beneath her . . .
One of the sailors shouted in another tongue, and Cassia heard the fear in his voice. Sah Ulma’s booming tones cut through the end of his sentence. “No – no sail! The wind will rip us to shreds! Ship the oars! We have to get out into the current, or we’ll be dashed against that shore!”
More sailors ran past Cassia, several leaping over her body as she huddled on deck. She yelped and squeezed her eyes tightly closed. Somebody picked her up, one arm wrapped effortlessly around her waist, and threw her over his shoulder. She was too startled and nauseous to even think of screaming, ins
tead covering her mouth with her hands in a desperate attempt to keep from vomiting.
The man carrying her did not care how sick she felt. After a few strides he swung her down again and held her as a farmer might a newborn calf. Cassia found herself rolled from his grip onto softness. She blinked, but saw only his back, bare and patterned with tattoos, water streaming down the curves of his shoulders as he hurried out into the storm.
Out. There was a roof over her head. Low, wooden planking. She guessed she was beneath the hind deck, as she could hear the thump of Sah Ulma and his officers.
The booming sound of a man chanting reached her through the boards. It sounded as though Karak was up on the hind deck as well. The chant circled through her mind, soaring like an eagle riding the winds that blew down from the mountains. It made her feel that if she slipped off the pallet she would just keep falling, never hitting the deck. Her skin prickled, a horrible surge that crept along her arms and legs and made her bile rise in her throat. Oh no. No, not now.
The ship swung again, and her stomach cramped. This time she could not hold it in. She rolled to the edge of the pallet, saw the bowl half-tucked beneath it, and grabbed it just in time.
Afterwards, she was too exhausted to do more than fall back onto the pallet. The shouts of the crew chased those strange surges, cramps that were not cramps, through visions of soldiers tossed like chaff before sorcerous flames and back down into unquiet sleep.
q
This time it was the thumping headache that woke her. Her mouth felt like she had eaten manure for a whole month. Is this how my father wakes up every morning? That thought revolted her into a groan and she stuck her head over the edge of the pallet to spit into the bowl. Somebody had covered her with a thick, woollen blanket that was not hers. She let her fingers brush against the scarlet weave for a moment, puzzled, but unable to form the right question in her mind.
“I was beginning to think you would sleep through this day and into tomorrow,” Karak said.
Sleep fell away like an avalanche. She lowered the blanket slowly and lifted her head to see the rest of the cabin.
The scholar sat on a stool at a low, slanted table, a scroll of parchment pinned across it. Daylight filtered through an opened slat in the hull behind him, bathing the table in flat shades that spoke of a lull in a storm. The rest of the cabin was dim, shadowed and haunted by the silhouettes of travel chests and rails of hung robes.
“Perhaps you should not have drunk so much,” Karak continued. “Stromondorian wines are famed for their strength, even when watered.”
Cassia winced. No wonder she felt this way. Her father had once bought a cask of what a vendor claimed was a genuine Stromondorian vintage. He swore he would not drink it until he had made his name in the towns of the Empire. But Norrow never left the North – through fear, Cassia understood now. The fear of having to make his reputation again, in lands that might not be so tolerant of his manners.
The cask remained unbroached for close to six days, and Norrow’s temper worsened by the hour, until at last he drove a metal spike through the top and consumed the contents over the course of a single day and night. At long last, just before dawn, he passed out and did not stir for two whole days, pissing and soiling himself, leaving Cassia to fend for herself outside the walls of whichever town they had just left. Those had been the most fearful nights of Cassia’s life up to that point. She thought her father’s deterioration could be marked firmly to that cask. He had been a bully before then, but after that he became worse. His moods veered more violently. He distrusted even his closest friends. He began to plan and mutter to himself, and cast looks at his daughter that made her shudder even now.
“I won’t do it again,” she said, her voice halfway between a croak and a dry rasp.
Karak twitched one shoulder. “Perhaps. The folly of exuberant youth.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, remembering her manners. It dawned on her that there was only one pallet in this cabin. “I did not mean to take your bed.”
Again, the twitch, a shrug which suggested he was not giving his full attention to the conversation. Cassia glanced under the covers to make sure that she was still clothed. Her robe had gone, but she still wore the thin tunic and holed breeches she had used in her disguise at the library. They felt clammy and damp.
“At my age, I find I don’t need as much sleep as I once did,” Karak said. “Little wonder most of the philosophical thought in this world is done by old men, when none of us can sleep through the night. Your sandals are to the left, there. Perhaps I should apologise.”
That threw her. “For what, sir?”
“For disturbing your sleep last night. It was my suggestion to bring you from the deck. Sah Ulma was concerned you would be underfoot while his crew fought the storm.”
It could have been meant in one of two ways, but Karak’s tone gave her no hint as to which. The scholar tapped his stylus against the side of a small glass bottle, then dipped it into the ink and scratched a few lines onto his paper. As he leaned forwards the incoming light illuminated his pale skin. He had not looked so pale in the library. In fact, he looked ill.
“Such storms are uncommon on the Castaria. Winds blowing from the North. Very unseasonal. Almost unnatural.”
Winds from the North. The way he said it sent a shiver up her spine. That was what she had thought herself to be, in one mad moment when everything had been right, back in the hills, on the edges of the Empire. She and Baum and Meredith – a fresh wind to sweep away the ancient tyranny of a terrible warlock.
“Sah Ulma was also concerned the storm would run us aground before we could reach the freedom of the open sea,” Karak continued. “It required all his skill, as well as my assistance, to keep the ship from being overpowered by the ferocity of the elements.”
Cassia had a faint suspicion that she should be apologising. But why? It wasn’t as if the storm had anything to do with her. Did it? She struggled to recall the stories she had told. Could either of them have offended one of the gods? Meteon, or Casta? Or perhaps – and her skin grew cold as she thought of the one god who might have most cause to be displeased with her – perhaps Pyraete sought to punish her for her failures.
“As such, we have had to alter our sailing plans. I had no desire to be stranded on the Castaria while the weather attempted to capsize us at every turn. The clouds building beyond Hellea promise to dwarf last night’s storm.”
It took her a moment to understand. “You are putting me off the ship, sir? But, please, I can make myself useful – I promise!”
“Putting you off? Oh no, girl, exactly the opposite.” Karak sighed and shook his head. “I am not used to this,” he said, as though to himself. “Perhaps it was a poor idea. Sah Ulma should make the apology.”
Cassia was now thoroughly unsettled. Following the scholar’s musings was difficult enough when her head did not ring like a bell. “What apology?”
Karak tipped his head to the open slats. “Corba lies a full day behind us. The Meteon carries us into the ocean as we speak. I could not put you ashore even if you wished it. If your friends do still wait for you at Corba, then I am afraid they will have to wait a while longer.”
Cassia sank back down onto the pallet, unable to trust her legs to keep her upright. The drive and determination that had kept her going for so long, against so many obstacles, failed her at last – the solid core of her soul turned to sand and blown away.
“How long?” she forced herself to ask in a voice that sounded frail and hollow.
“A year. Perhaps two. Unless you can purchase your own passage back to Hellea.” Karak’s tone made it clear how unlikely he thought that possibility.
“Where from?” she asked at last. Karak still regarded her from his seat at the low table, his brow creased by something that could have been concern.
“Galliarca, of course,” the scholar said.
She shook her head, wondering why that no longer excited her as it would onc
e have done.
Lost. Like pollen on the winds. Like Pelicos on the Seas of the Damned. It struck Cassia how far from home she was. How far from her old life.
Chapter Fourteen
The ship was smaller than Cassia had first thought. Beyond Karak’s cabin there was no space for a passenger. Despite her best efforts she got underfoot of the crew or the officers, and she lived in fear of Sah Ulma’s scowl. When the captain made his rounds of the ship she retreated to the steps that led to the hind deck, but even that was only a temporary shelter. The cabin itself, Karak told her, was out of bounds unless she was invited. He had been polite but firm on the subject, and Cassia judged that she was in no position to argue.
The nearest thing she had to her own space was the mat laid out behind the prow. There, at least, she had enough room to practise with her staff and try to work herself into the state of mind that Meredith had taught her. The sailors thought her antics hilarious, but their ridicule washed over her like the ocean spray, and affected her just as little. She could fix her sight on the featureless horizon, and block out the catcalls; they were good-natured for the most part, and they soon subsided when the sailors saw how graceful and fluid her movements were.
She spent the remainder of her time making desperate repairs to her clothing, so she looked less like a beggar, and staring out over the rails at the sea. The sheer scale of the ocean awed her more than Hellea had ever done, and she began to understand how the crew of the Rabbit were bound together against it. And if history is an ocean too, then where am I?
The crew had split into shifts, working day and night to keep the ship on course. There was no longer any time for stories, and every hour brought another adjustment, another reading of the sun or the stars, sails to be trimmed or let out. The constant activity was a welcome reminder that she was not on her own.
On the third day, one of the senior officers came to her and pointed down at the deck. Another sailor stood behind him with a brush and a wooden pail. Cassia looked up at them and sighed; the man’s accent was difficult to understand, but his meaning was not. Her stories had paid her way as far as Corba, but only hard work would take her any further. At least it would pass the time.
