by L J Chappell
‘We could sail through the night,’ Vander suggested. ‘That would take a day off our journey. If we drop anchor each night, then we have another three full days before reaching Uvellia. But if we sail on without stopping then we’ll be there the day after tomorrow: just after dark.’
‘Isn’t it dangerous, sailing at night?’
‘There are no natural hazards between Carissola and Tirassa,’ he shook his head. ‘It’s a clear night, and these are populated shores: there are plenty fires and lights to aid navigation.’
‘Do you agree?’ Slorn asked Aruel.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Vander’s right – we could sail through the night if we wanted to. We’d need to arrange shifts, but if two or three people are on deck then there will be more space downstairs for the rest to sleep. Otherwise, by my reckoning, four people have to sleep on the floor.’
‘There isn’t really much of a floor when the berths are unfolded,’ Garran admitted. ‘The extra four would be better trying to sleep up here on deck or in the wheelhouse, whether we’re sailing or not.’ The “wheelhouse” was the rather grand name they gave to the little shelter that kept the sun and rain off the helmsman.
‘A couple of us will be awake through the night anyway, keeping watch,’ Magda said. ‘So that’s less of an issue than you think.’
‘Keeping watch? Even out here?’
‘Normally everywhere, yes,’ she nodded. ‘At least, everywhere that someone could reach us while we’re sleeping.’
‘I don’t we’d be comfortable sailing at night,’ Slorn decided. ‘But there’s still some late evening light now, so we can carry on for a little further. We’ll find an anchorage somewhere and get underway again early in the morning, when everyone’s refreshed.’
They sailed on until after the fifth watch, and then manoeuvred a little closer to the shore and dropped anchor: Bane lit a lantern and hung it out the back of the boat. They were still off the coast of Carissola, probably within fifty miles of Perastia by Lanvik’s reckoning. He knew that the boat was heavily laden and there was not much wind, but their progress towards Uvellia seemed achingly slow.
More practical difficulties arose when they ate that evening. In their packs, they were carrying enough utensils to supplement the eight available plates and forks, but there was only space for eight to sit and eat together. Even with some people standing or eating on deck, the limited cooking facilities meant that they had to prepare the food in shifts as well.
They agreed that they would stagger meals in future.
After everyone had eaten, they relaxed together on deck – there seemed to be much more space when the sails were furled and tied. It felt much colder at night, though, and everyone was wearing at least one or two more layers than earlier in the day.
‘You’re both very accomplished at handling the boat,’ Magda said.
‘That’s just how we grew up,’ Vander told her. ‘We’re no better or worse than thousands of others across the Inner Sea.’
‘As children, you spend your life in and around a hundred different boats,’ Aruel agreed. ‘It’s part of life, whether you’re aristocracy or beach kids.’
‘Do you have Black Rat clan?’ Tremano asked. Vander and Aruel were both Madarinn but in the rest of the Three Lands, it was Black Rat clan Light Elves who were the best sailors.
‘Of course we do,’ Vander said. ‘They sail, naturally – some of the best. But they’re also fine travellers on land, or sailors on the open ocean rather than in these quiet waters. Or they can be navigators.’
‘Most of the ruling families across the Inner Sea are Terevarna,’ Aruel added. ‘And half of those are probably Black Rat.’
‘Do you have other useful skills?’ Thawn asked Vander, practically. ‘Can you fight?’
‘I have some training with a sword,’ Vander said.
‘And you?’ she asked Aruel.
‘I have some training in politics, dancing, embroidery. And I have some skill at negotiation. But I’m sure I can turn my hand to anything else.’
‘Obviously we can now add Perastia and Arrento to the long list of places that the Company can no longer go,’ Bane said. ‘Is there anywhere else that we have to avoid because you’ll be recognised? Or for any other reason?’
‘None,’ Vander shook his head, ‘save in the Azure Palace in Emindur. Otherwise I am not well enough known to be recognised outside Arrento.’
‘I have spent more time on the other nearby islands,’ Aruel said: ‘all the Ducal Families maintain good relations with each other. But I would not be recognised among the general population, except on Arrento.’
‘Even so, if we come back this way it may be as well to avoid all of the Twelve Islands for a year or two, in case they’re still searching for you. And Carissola, for the same reason. Or else we have to disguise you or keep you out of sight: certainly avoid the two of you walking around with each other – if your people put out descriptions and drawings, they are likely to be for both of you together.’
‘Do you play an instrument?’ Lisamel asked.
‘I play a piccolo flute,’ Aruel told her, ‘tolerably.’
‘I don’t play anything,’ Vander shook his head. ‘But people have told me that I sing well.’
‘Promising seeds,’ Tremano said. ‘We shall see what grows when we nourish them.’
‘So do you have questions for us?’ Ubrik asked them. ‘Anything you don’t already know?’
‘Is that our interrogation over?’
‘Probably. At least for now.’
‘Who are you all?’ Aruel asked. ‘And why are you together? Why do you do this?’
‘Some of us are simply travelling for adventure, others for money,’ Kiergard Slorn said. ‘Most of us are running away from something – something that’s been done to them, or something that they’ve done that they shouldn’t have. Everyone has their own reasons, and they might share their stories with you if you’re interested. Or they might not. That’s up to them. The Company has a few rules, though …’
‘There are rules?’ Lanvik protested. ‘Nobody told me there were rules.’ The others laughed.
‘We thought you were a mage, so we were all a little afraid of you,’ Magda told him, unconvincingly.
‘You wouldn’t have been afraid of me even if I had been a mage.’
‘The rules …,’ Slorn repeated, a little louder, ‘are simply that we are all equal. We will all stand up for each other, fight for each other, and if necessary die for each other. We resolve our problems in private and without violence, and we don’t judge each other. The rules are binding and are not conditional on who anyone might be, on anything they may have said or done, or on how much you like them.
‘Even when there are differences between us I would hope that we all respect and trust each other, even if there are times when we don’t necessarily like each other.’
The others applauded, lazily and not entirely seriously.
‘Well said,’ Bane clapped. ‘Fine words. If you can remember that, we should write it down and put it up on the wall here.’
‘Thank you,’ Slorn smiled.
‘One other thing, on the subject of money …,’ Vorrigan started.
‘Oh, here we go,’ Magda rolled her eyes.
‘Any profits we make during a contract,’ he continued, ‘including profits from the retainer, are shared equally among those who took part in that contract, regardless of their personal contribution. Any funds or personal possessions that you have when you join the Company are yours and yours alone.’ He looked at Aruel, and added: ‘You probably owe the rest of us something for just rescuing the two of you, but we can work that out later.’
‘Sometimes Vorrigan can sound a bit like a contract himself,’ Karuin apologised.
‘You’re one to talk,’ Vorrigan objected.
‘We should turn in,’ Slorn suggested, yawning. ‘It’s been an unexpectedly stressful day, and we want to set sail early tomorrow
: seventh hour.’
‘I’ll take first watch,’ Bane volunteered. They normally divided the nights into four short watches of two hours each.
‘Second,’ Thawn said.
‘Third,’ Ubrik said.
‘And I’ll take fourth,’ Slorn said.
Those four fetched their packs from below to use as pillows. They would all sleep on deck.
Down below, there was barely room to shuffle sideways through the room after they had folded down and made up all the berths. Everyone seemed to be within easy touching distance of at least two or three other people.
‘These next few days will be stupidly cramped, with only twelve berths and one toilet,’ Vrosko Din grumbled. ‘We need a bigger boat.’
‘Or a smaller Company,’ Garran suggested.
The space situation didn’t seem that bad to Lanvik, and he said so: ‘It’s less crowded than that ferry from Sherron, and at least we shouldn’t be making any unexpected stops.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ Vrosko Din agreed. ‘But I’ve got used to grumbling about Magda’s Choice: she’s always seemed a bit cramped, especially on long journeys. Wait until you’ve tried to get some sleep before you decide how comfortable she is.’
4
Lanvik dreamed of sailing that night, sailing a tiny single-masted boat with no cabin, only a covered space around the tiller. He was with the red-headed woman again, and they were laughing. They talked a lot in the dream, but when he woke he couldn’t remember anything that either of them had said and he couldn’t remember where they had been going.
He wondered what it signified, a dream of travelling by boat to an unknown destination. Was it connected with his impatience to see Uvellia?
Perhaps he was actually remembering little moments, rather than dreaming. Was that the way he had travelled from Ceran’Don to Uvellia in the Inner Sea? Was this the start of a chain of recollections that would unravel the black hole in his memories … or at least lead him back along the way that he had come?
Or were these scenes only imagined, perhaps created as a reflection of his journey to Uvellia and his obsession with the memories that it might trigger?
He had no way of knowing.
‘Just eighteen hours ago,’ Vrosko Din remarked over breakfast, ‘we were all relaxing after settling our business with Aruel: celebrating the end of a long and demanding contract. And now everything’s changed.’
‘Again,’ Garran said.
‘Well, I suppose that’s a life of high adventure for you,’ Karuin told him. ‘If you don’t like it, you probably shouldn’t have signed up.’
Those remarks triggered discussions and reminiscences throughout the day about old contracts and adventures they had shared.
In the evening, Aruel asked Lanvik: ‘You’re new as well?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, trying to hide his pride that at first she hadn’t sensed any difference between him and the other members of the Company. ‘Six weeks.’
‘Is it really as bad as it sounds?’
‘No,’ he said. Then he admitted: ‘But I don’t think it sounds that bad. My life before they rescued me was just sitting in the dark and cold, in a prison cell.’ In contrast, he supposed that Aruel had been “rescued” from a life of luxury in a Ducal Palace: she was never going to look at the Company in the same way that some of the others did. ‘It might sound like constant danger and fighting,’ he tried to reassure her, ‘but mostly it’s sitting around waiting for things to happen – on boats, in towns: playing games, practising with weapons and instruments, chatting and telling stories. And then there’s a sudden flurry of action when everything seems to happen at once, and then it’s back to sitting around.’
He wasn’t sure that would sound any better to her.
They moored off and island called Astierta that night.
Lanvik had thought that he might feel more settled as they came closer to Uvellia, now that they were acting on his pressing desire to go there. If anything, though, he felt even more agitated. The same seemed to be true of everyone else onboard as well. There was a tension growing, almost hour by hour, instead of the eager anticipation that he sometimes sensed as they approached a new place – like Sherron, or Perastia. Many of the Company looked less and less comfortable as their journey took them closer to Uvellia.
He mentioned it that afternoon, when most of them were together downstairs.
‘I don’t think anyone’s worried about going to Uvellia,’ Magda said. ‘It’s the idea that, if Uvellia turns out to be somewhere you stopped on the way from Ceran’Don, then our next step might be to retrace your steps.’
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Perhaps.’
‘And the Land of Mists is just … well, it’s not a place that people go.’
‘They must do, of course,’ Vorrigan said. ‘Lots of Humans, of course, and Elven traders. You can buy goods from the Land of Mists all across the Three Lands, so there must be people travelling there all the time. But … well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve never even seen the Land of Mists.’
The others shook their heads.
‘I’ve never known or met anyone who’s ever been there,’ Lisamel said, a little more ominously.
‘No,’ they all agreed to that as well.
‘And nothing about it sounds very welcoming,’ Vrosko Din added. ‘There’s the weather. And the mountains. And it’s full of mages – I mean, it’s where mages come from: you can’t move for magic, and you can’t trust anything or anyone you see or hear.’
‘Most of that probably isn’t true,’ Menska interjected.
‘No,’ Vrosko Din agreed. ‘It probably isn’t, but those stories are enough to make most people uncomfortable with the whole idea of the place.’
‘And that’s before the stories of the Vampire Brood,’ Magda said, in the pause that followed.
Lanvik didn’t know what she meant, but no-one said anything afterwards so he didn’t want to ask.
‘So, all of these things mean that travelling to the Land of Mists is going to make most of us pretty nervous,’ Vrosko Din summarised.
‘We all want to accompany you there, if that’s where you feel you have to go,’ Karuin confirmed, ‘but you have to understand that it’s not a trivial commitment.’
Later, he mentioned what the others had said to Kiergard Slorn.
‘I’m not surprised. Travelling to the Land of Mists is not something that anyone would undertake lightly. Are you any clearer in your own mind if that’s what you want to do?’
‘Not at all, no,’ Lanvik admitted. ‘That’s going to depend on what happens in Uvellia. If my memories come back, even just a few of them, then that will help me decide. But otherwise … maybe I’ll talk to people there and see if anyone recognises me. I don’t know.’ He wasn’t at all sure what he would do if he discovered nothing in Uvellia. After his conversation with the others, travelling to Ceran’Don without any of his old memories seemed even less appealing than it had done before.
Sensing his ambivalence, Kiergard Slorn told him: ‘Whatever you choose to do now, I’m sure you will decide to go to Ceran’Don at some point in the future. And when you eventually do, then I want to go with you.’
‘I know that. I’d like that too.’ Whatever he might discover there, Kiergard Slorn would be a useful person to have with him … the whole Company, in fact, regardless of their reasons for being there.
Lanvik remembered what Garran had said a few days ago, about him always being chosen to accompany Kiergard Slorn. He briefly wondered whether, as with Vander, that was actually to keep an eye on him: to stop him slipping away, because Kiergard Slorn had a use for him.
But no, that was unfair. He had been free to wander wherever and whenever he chose, certainly since they had left Tremark. He had walked the streets of Sherron, Marsalea and Perastia alone. That sudden paranoid suspicion was just a result of him not thinking straight.
He was finding it increasingly difficult to simply ignore his
ever-present headache and act as if it wasn’t there. He’d lost six straight games of Fugitive against Karuin in the last two days, by a greater and greater margin.
He had talked with Menska, and she had given him a number of different medications to try. She had apparently spent some of their time in Perastia with a Human apothecary, and had acquired a collection of simple medicines to address common complaints – a range of pills, powders and more physical aids specifically for Humans. She also had two or three thin volumes of texts and diagrams addressing more major traumas: how to staunch major wounds, address broken bones, treat various infections and serious diseases and so on.
None of her efforts had managed to successfully treat his headache, though, except to dull the pain slightly for a few hours. She had apologised extensively, admitting: ‘I haven’t really got used to the fact that you’re a Human. Every time I see that thumb of yours, I want to break it and set it straight.’
He thanked her anyway, and assured her that he was quite happy with his thumbs the way they were.
They spent the next night near some little island that wasn’t on Kiergard Slorn’s map, but at least appeared on the boat’s far more detailed navigational charts.
Their three days of travelling had merged into one indistinct sequence of games and stories and cramped meals, all against the backdrop of a headache that wouldn’t go away, no matter what he did. He was beginning to worry that the pain might be a symptom of a more serious condition. If it continued for much longer, he would try and find a Human doctor the next time they spent any time ashore.
They finally reached Uvellia after nightfall on the third day, as Vander had predicted they would: it was about two hours before midnight.
Lanvik stood on deck as Vander and Aruel edged Magda’s Choice slowly into the harbour, inching carefully forwards in the darkness in search of an empty berth. He looked up at the little town around them, small and steep, perched on slopes that tumbled down towards the shore. Low rocky hills lay in all directions, flanking the town as well as rising up behind its perfect little semi-circular bay. The single and double-storey houses were a mix of bare stone, pale brown, and more of the whitewashed buildings that they had seen across the rest of the Inner Sea.
