Except her birth mother had tried to tell her: What if you’d found Cly, Beatrice had said, and his title was Lord High Executioner? What if he was the guy who pressed the button on the gas chamber?
“Please,” Sophie said. “Don’t kill him. Please, Cly.”
He opened his hand and let the man fall. “As you wish, daughter. Kir, consider yourself impressed to the Judiciary.”
The man gasped at her feet.
Cly surveyed the scene then, both ships smoldering, four bodies on the deck in spreading pools of blood and a fifth in the water, and the clusters of salt dissolving in the sea. He smiled very slightly.
“You saved us, Sophie.” He put his arm out but she slipped out of reach.
“Don’t.” She was seriously considering whether she might throw up.
“You’re shaken; it’s understandable. We’ll get you back aboard Sawtooth.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Before he could say more, she began a slow circuit of the deck, putting what space she could between them.
It wasn’t much. The ship was small, barely twenty feet long, and quarters were cramped. A sheet of sail hung over an improvised hammock, hinting that there wasn’t room below for even a crew of six to sleep comfortably. There was a pair of shallow bowls beneath a bench, one empty but for a dessicated twist of what looked like sardine, the other with a residual ring of mineral on the bottom. A water dish, but one that had fallen out of use.
The hemisphere of coral at the center of the ship did indeed seem to serve as its wheel: it was mounted on a tilting plate and had two smooth branches that allowed one to steer it to and fro. Within the center of the blood-spattered branches was the ship’s full name, Rettegrad Salla Incannis. Magical lettering was laid down in lines of seeds that had been stuck into place. Sophie remembered kindergarden art projects: writing her name in glue and then scattering glitter overtop.
She scratched off a small sample: they might have been anything, these small dots, but they reminded her of poppy seeds.
She could feel Cly’s eyes on her. She pocketed the sample of coral and seed and moved on.
Near the stern of the ship were two wooden folding chairs, ratty and heavily used but otherwise no different from beach chairs she’d find at home. Next to one of these she found a sack of short, somewhat coarse hair and a spinner. The individual strands were multicolored: gray, brown, white, even apricot. Together they made a muddy gray-brown yarn with the bristly texture of coarse wool.
She fingered the bag, letting herself think about it, letting the process of consideration calm her, as far as that was possible. Her mind offered up random conclusions: cats are rare, the bandit captain hit our prisoner, this whole ship was built to make … salt frights, they called them.
By now Captain Beck had put two boats in the water, crewed by teens who were rowing mightily. Eager to survey the scene of their victory?
Cly, meanwhile, had searched his prisoner—coming up with a jar of poppy seeds and an awl—and bound his hands. “Is this your brainchild, spellscribe? Are you a frightmaker?”
He shook his head violently.
“Your life’s already forfeit, if we prove banditry. There’s no harm in admitting it.”
“No. The ship makes the frights, when properly…” He swallowed. “Primed.”
“With a human heart, mmm?”
“Please,” he said. “I didn’t inscribe the ship.”
“Tell me your name. Are you of Haversham?”
“Nobody, Kir, of no nation whatever.”
“It’s Your Honor, not Kir. Well, someone will claim you.”
Sophie raised the hatch, peering below. The little ship was taking water, though slowly. The crew had come close enough to the islet that the ship was all but resting on the bottom; she could feel the occasional wave raising and shifting them, then the bump as they touched down again. Sunlight shot through the blasted-out hole where the magical cannonfire had struck it. The gap was big enough, possibly, for a small person to escape through.
Had any of them gotten away? If so, there was no sign of them. She wasn’t about to suggest that Cly hunt them down.
The hold—the portion of it that wasn’t underwater—was as small and cramped as she had guessed.
She perched on the ladder and raked her fingers through the rising water, almost catching her extended hand on a fishhook before retrieving a random selection of items: a straw hat, carved wooden utensils, a safety float, and a pair of small crates. There was a long wooden bar with a beaded string affixed to it, but she let that float away.
By now, the rowboats must have arrived. She heard Cly say, “Return Sophie and the prisoner to Sawtooth.”
She stepped back out onto the deck. He had pried open one of the crates, revealing a bowl of amber pieces and a collection of small speckled eggs, packed in straw.
“Bring back a carpenter. I want the wheel taken aboard,” Cly added. “The Spellscrip Institute will want a look at it. We’ll tow whatever’s left out to open water and scuttle her.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” chorused the kids.
“Are you ready to go, Sophie?”
She nodded and swung a leg over the listing rail, landing easily and then holding up her hands to help maneuver the bound man into the boat. They were going to end up staring at each other all the way back.
Is he glad I saved him from Cly? she wondered. Or would he have rather just died?
“May I help row?” she asked, and one of the sailors handed her an oar and let her shift into position.
“On my count. One, two, pull!”
They rowed. The prisoner, if you could call him that, sat shivering with his head down.
Soon enough she was climbing a rope ladder dropped from Sawtooth’s main deck, taking Beck’s spectral hand and letting her raise her the last few steps.
“You saved us considerable trouble and injury,” Beck said warmly. “Thank you, child.”
“Not a child,” Sophie told her wearily. She headed down to her cabin, taking a seat at the little writing desk. There was a not-a-text from Bram, English words cribbed in a tight, handwritten font, on the writing paper: HOW’S IT GOING WITH THE PATER?
Her eyes filled with tears and she picked up the pen. With a shaking hand, she wrote: I THINK CLY’S A SOCIOPATH.
CHAPTER 10
Bram didn’t answer.
Sophie spent a couple minutes below, crying out the tension from the fight and then taking a stab at meditating. But with the ship damaged and a crew of teens aboard, it didn’t feel right to just hide. Besides, her mind was too full for the confines of her cabin.
Drying her eyes, she headed back topside.
The prisoner was gone, presumably locked up somewhere. The fire caused by the dropped cannonball was long since out and a couple young carpenters were prying out the boards that had been burned.
Across the water, older cadets were crawling over the beached ship, going through the crates and completing the search Sophie had begun.
A thread of doubt assailed her. Perhaps Cly had been enraged by the bandits’ cruelty.
Sociopathy’s pretty rare, she told herself. Everything happened so fast, and the guy had grabbed me.
Instead of obsessing, she found the second mate. “What can I do?”
“We heard you’re a medic.”
“I know a little first aid. I brought … I have pills. Outlander medicine.”
The mate shrugged. “Check in with the doctor on deck three.”
“Aye, aye.” Apparently they didn’t say that here—he looked at her blankly and pointed the way.
The infirmary occupied a large area belowdecks, more or less directly below her laboratory. It was a lavish allocation of space, but it made sense—Sawtooth was, after all, a fighting gym at sea. There was one doctor and three patients down there. The unconscious cannoneer was in a half-seated position, bound to a yoke with his arms behind him. Beside him were two young crew members.
Th
e doctor glanced her way as she came in. He was stitching a long gash in the boy’s leg.
“I’m Sophie,” she said. “They thought you might need help?”
“Sent my nurse home to Tiladene for a rest when His Honor went on leave,” he said. “Kir Waller here, she’s took badly to the bandits’ spell.”
“Okay.” The girl was sitting quietly enough on a bench. Her breath was labored, and when Sophie turned to her, she raised her chin for inspection. Her neck was covered in bright red angry-looking hives … and in scratches.
“The green bubbles hit you here?”
“Yes, Kir.”
“Looks to me like she’s allergic, not that I know anything,” Sophie said to the doctor. “Do you … have that here? Immunology?”
“Told you, she took badly,” he replied, impatient. “Likely the spell uses maddenflur. We’ll have to test.”
“I didn’t bring antihistamines. Oh, wait, that’s not true.…” There was a blister pack of cold and sinus something in her bag, wasn’t there? That might help a bit.
“Maddenflur thorns,” the doctor said. “The blue pottery jug in that cabinet. No, that one. Take it out.”
He didn’t want her for her first aid skills; he just needed an extra pair of hands. Relieved, Sophie did as he asked. The glaze on the jug was cleverly done and had a symbol in black, a skull not very different from that on a poison warning at home.
“Take out a thorn, just one.”
She fumbled to do it. They were tiny, curved like cats’ claws. “Okay.”
The kid being stitched up cried out a little and the surgeon spoke to him softly, in a language she didn’t recognize. “Did Kir Waller break any of her weals?”
Sophie looked at the scratches on the girl’s forearms. “Oh yeah.”
“Press the point of the thorn against the raw flesh.”
“I’m all right,” the girl protested. “It’s not maddenflur sensitivity.”
“Easy does it.” Sophie did as the doctor instructed. It was an awkward operation, balancing the thread of plant against the scraped spot. The effect wasn’t quite instantaneous, but it was fast enough: within thirty seconds, that part of the girl’s arm had whitened and she was wheezing harder. Also crying.
“I’m making her worse,” Sophie said.
“Hold my thread,” the doctor said.
They switched places, Sophie finding herself going from laying her hand on the girl’s wrist to pinching two strips of gashed flesh together and hanging on to a needle.
“Hold it tight,” he advised.
Any germs the girl had, the boy’s got them now.
The doctor hadn’t washed his hands, either.
He eased the wheezing girl into a reclining position—she was sniffling—and gave her what looked like a smallish lollypop. Then he dug out a thick, greasy-looking salve and spread it on her, covering the entire affected area on her chest and arms, and a good chunk of other real estate besides.
“Thank you,” he said, taking back his stitching. Sophie slipped out her hand sanitizer and scrubbed to her elbows.
“She’ll be okay?”
“Maddenflur sensitivity is serious business,” he murmured. “She’s finished as a duelist. She’ll have to take a job within the bureaucracy.”
“But she’ll live?”
“Yes.” He finished with the boy, went and pried up the cannoneer’s eyelids and thought a bit before going rooting in the cabinets of sealed jars. “Kir Sophie, in the hold aft there are a few of my trunks. I’m looking for a wooden case marked ‘For Skull Fracture.’”
“The text is in Fleet?”
“And Sylvanner. Would you fetch it, please?”
“Sure.”
“Take that lantern.”
She obeyed, headed down the corridor, counting hatches. She bumped against the bulkhead on the way, as the ship made a sharp course correction.
Guess they got the mainsail back up, she thought. And then, with a shudder: If we’re moving, Cly’s aboard again.
She forced herself to focus on clambering down, one-handed, to the hold on a fixed wooden flight of steep and narrow steps.
The storage hold was for more than just doctor stuff: there were about a hundred labeled cabinets containing weapons—swords of various lengths, pikes, clubs. There were a handful of punching bags and practice dummies in neat piles on the floor and a clothing rack of leather armor.
Most of the weapons were made of wood, treated with that iridescent glaze that made them metal-strong and sharp.
Beyond the gym equipment, in a cabinet walled in silk, was a woman.
At first glance, she startled Sophie—it was like coming upon a person lurking in a corner. Then she realized it was a ship’s figurehead, carved from a woody substance she didn’t recognize.
The carving was intricate and lifelike: the woman looked to be thirty-five, with smile lines just starting to set in around her eyes. She was clad in real clothes, a loose, silky dress of the type that looked so good in classical carvings. Her feet didn’t disappear into the post welded to her back. Rather, she dangled, showing a hint of a sandal beneath the hem of the skirt. One of her hands held a serrated blade.
Before Sophie could turn away, she flickered. Light filled her eyes and spread across her face and down her throat. The shape of her breasts and hips glowed through the fabric of the dress.
She looked down at Sophie with an expression of friendly, thorough-going delight. “Who might you be, child?”
Gee, that’s not a complicated question. “I’m Sophie.”
“Sailor or duelist?”
“Videographer. Scientist. Who are you?”
“I am Eugenia Merrin Sawtooth, face and spirit of this vessel.” She held out the hand not holding a weapon. “You resemble Clydon! Can it be he has some kin at last?”
“Uh, yes. His daughter.”
Eugenia’s smile brightened. “I’d no idea.”
“Neither did he.”
The figurehead did a complicated wriggle with her shoulder blades and dropped off the beam of wood supporting her. She put one cool hand on Sophie’s shoulder. “What brings you to the hold?”
“Skull fracture.” She explained about the cannoneer.
“Surgical supplies are here.” Eugenia made her way to the back of the hold and opened a pair of trunks.
“I have so much I want to ask you,” Sophie said. “What are you doing in the hold, for one thing, and what are you?” And was she happy and how did the glow work and, most of all, what did she know about Cly?
“Return to your patient,” the woman said, stretching. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A talking figurehead who seemed to know at least something of Cly’s history. Feeling pleased, Sophie brought the skull fracture box back to the medical officer. It was itself a skull, broken into pieces and wired together again so that the spaces between each piece left room enough for the medical officer to slide it over the injured canonneer’s head, like a cap. The calvaria and eye sockets lay over his face in a piece. The doctor tucked a leech underneath the forehead before covering the patient with a blanket.
“When the skull is struck hard, there can be blood,” he explained, “in and around the brain.”
“I think we call that a subdural hematoma.”
“Fancy language won’t heal a bruised brain, Kir. The cap aligns the broken bones and the leech draws out the bleeding. It—the skull—was the head of a healer who set such injuries.”
Sophie nodded. “I’ve seen another magic skull, actually—a lantern. And there’s a lawsuit brewing over a musician’s bones.”
“Relic craft,” he said. He was monitoring his patient’s pulse now. “Very common.”
“I don’t know the term.”
“One uses the remains of someone who has died to preserve and exploit the magical intentions laid upon them in life. You’ve been inscribed so you speak Fleet, yes?”
“Yes.”
“After your death, your ton
gue might be used to translate your native language to Fleet.”
“Just what I always wanted—an afterlife as a disembodied tongue.”
“You should make specific mention of it in your will. It’s how many magical objects are fashioned: our boarding trampolines are made from acrobats’ sinews.” He surveyed the infirmary, then rummaged in a drawer, coming up with a sack containing about six lemons. “If you’ll watch over the patients for twenty minutes or so, I have business elsewhere.”
“No problem.”
She took out her camera as soon as he was gone, taking shots of the medical lab and in particular the labels on all his concoctions. She lingered over the locked cabinet with the maddenflur products, then leafed through an anatomy text. Next to that was a treatise on common fighting injuries and a stack of pamphlets about treating scribed people with other than human characteristics—bird bones, lizard skin, you name it.
The problem with being somewhere where everything is unknown and cool is you can never narrow down your field of inquiry enough to learn anything in depth, she thought. Getting to understand Stormwrack would take years. Possibly decades.
The question returned: Was she ready to spend that much time here?
Having no answer, she contented herself with gathering information, taking photo after photo of the pamphlets about magical alterations.
After the doctor returned and dismissed her, she checked in again with the second mate. “You may resume being a guest, Kir,” he said. “The crew is grateful for your assistance.”
“What’s Cly up to?”
“Reporting the action, I believe. His Honor is hoping we can rendezvous with someone who will take Kir Lidman back to Fleet.”
“Kir who?”
“Your prisoner.”
“Mine, is he?” She returned to her cabin to check the messageply—no answer from Bram yet—and then poked her nose in the lab. Krispos had apparently been there the whole time, engrossed in a book titled Intersections of Aura and Temperament.
“You read those lawsuits Cly mentioned, didn’t you?”
A Daughter of No Nation Page 12
