Lost Truth

by Dawn Cook

  “Survivor gets the boat,” Hayden said shortly. He took a breath. “For your lives!” he shouted. Together, the men raced across the deck, fear in their eyes.

  Connen-Neute made a puzzled harrumph. Shocked, Alissa screamed, “Wait!”

  Someone set up a ward of sleep. She gasped in relief as the pattern resonated across her tracings, jerking her memory of it into play. Faster than she ever had before, she set her tracings alight. Her sleeping ward dropped the captain two man lengths from Connen-Neute. He fell, sliding across the deck. Her gaze darted to Clen. He was falling as she watched. The boy was brought down by Connen-Neute or Lodesh, or both. It was only Hayden who reached Connen-Neute, and that was by stealth.

  “Above you!” Alissa cried as the man dropped from the rigging.

  Connen-Neute leaned out of the way. Hayden hit the deck in an ungraceful fall. His limbs splayed awkwardly, and he groaned. The dagger rolled from his slack fingers. Alissa took a breath as Beast reminded her to breathe. Her feral consciousness had watched it all with an amusement that baffled Alissa. She took in the blood-splattered deck and the four men sprawled upon it. It was over?

  Connen-Neute picked up Hayden’s dagger with an awkward claw and dropped it over the side. The man’s eyes opened, widening in fear at the raku towering above him. “Gnat,” Connen-Neute thought, raising a foot over him. “That would have hurt.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Alissa cried as she stumbled forward.

  “I’m not going to crush him,” Connen-Neute said at her horrified look. “Just scare him.”

  Alissa blanched as Connen-Neute pinned him under a careful foot, lowering his head to breathe on him. A low growl reverberated up through her feet. Alissa swallowed, imagining his fear, but Connen-Neute’s teeth were bared in what she recognized as a grin. “Come and tame me,” he thought cheerfully. “It’ll make a grand story!”

  “Oh, no,” she said, backing up into Strell. “I couldn’t.”

  Strell took her elbow. “Couldn’t what?” he asked, unable to hear Connen-Neute.

  She winced as Hayden started chanting another of his charms. “He wants me to pretend to tame him.”

  Lodesh snickered, and she spun. “Stop it!” she shouted. “The man is frightened!”

  “Go tame him, then,” Strell said, clearly wondering at her hesitation.

  She took a resolute breath. Lips pressed tight, she stomped to Connen-Neute. “Get off Hayden!” she shouted up with a real anger as she pushed on his foot.

  Connen-Neute roared, gnashing his teeth at the sky. In her mind was his laughter, peeving her all the more.

  “I’m already dead,” Hayden said, his eyes wide and glazed with fear. “The Navigator sent one of his Wolves for me.”

  Alissa blinked. She had never heard rakus referred to like that. “I said, ‘Get off!’ ”

  Connen-Neute took a breath to roar again, hesitating as her eyes narrowed. “Now,” she quietly threatened, and Connen-Neute looked to where Lodesh was leaning against the wheel wiping his eyes. Strell, at least, was taking the situation seriously, searching the sailors and gathering the scattered weapons. Reluctance in every motion, Connen-Neute lifted his foot. “Go on. Give him some space,” she demanded as she extended a hand to help Hayden rise.

  Frightened, Hayden scuttled back to his fallen comrades. His gaze darted from them to her in terror when they didn’t move, felled by nothing he could see. “Mirim save us. Mirim save us,” he panted, for the first time loud enough for Alissa to hear what his charm against evil was.

  She felt a wash of shock at the name. Mirim? That was the name of the Hold’s first transeunt. “They’re all right,” she said, snapping herself out of her surprise. “They’re asleep.”

  “You’re—you’re its master,” he stammered. He sent his gaze high over her head to where Connen-Neute was gnashing his teeth and weaving his head as if chained by unseen ropes.

  “Stop that,” she said into his thoughts. “You look foolish.”

  “I look fierce!” he answered, clearly enjoying himself.

  “Then why is Lodesh laughing?” she said, and he paused, his wings drooping as he saw the Keeper chuckling as he helped Strell with the weapons. Is he a fool? she wondered. They would have been dead had Strell not woken her. “Look,” she said, taking a step forward. Hayden backed up, fear and panic making him look old. She hesitated. “We never meant to hurt you. But you took over the boat.”

  Hand pressed to his shoulder, he mumbled and backed away.

  Alissa sighed, frustrated. “What if we—uh—I wake everyone up?”

  He licked his lips. Fright made his eyes wild.

  Alissa’s stomach was in knots, and her knees felt weak. There had to be a way to calm him down. She took a dramatic pose. “They will wake when I say the proper words,” she said, glancing meaningfully at Lodesh. If they could synchronize their actions, it would look as if she was doing it all. So far, they had done nothing to link rakus to Masters. As she didn’t have the long hands or golden eyes, they wouldn’t even know she was one.

  Alissa hesitated, thinking. Edging from foot to foot, she tugged at her dress and adjusted her stance.

  “What’s the matter?” Connen-Neute asked.

  “I can’t think of anything to say,” she muttered, embarrassed.

  The raku laughed, and Hayden chanted louder at the savage sound. “Ashes, Alissa. Just make something up.”

  She nervously brushed the hair from her eyes. Taking a firm position, she lifted her arms to the sky, feeling like an idiot. “By the power of the sea, awaken before me!” she said loudly.

  “Wolves. No more,” Lodesh said, turning away with his arms clutched around himself.

  “And you thought I looked foolish?” Connen-Neute said.

  Flushed, Alissa almost forgot to break her ward upon the captain. The two men and the boy woke more or less as one, rolling to their feet to gather in a frightened knot. “She’s controlling the raku!” Hayden shouted as he joined them. “It’s her! Her!”

  Alissa shivered at the fear and hate pouring from them, especially the captain. Strell gestured for her to continue. “We’re going on,” she said, glad she kept the shaking from her voice. She wasn’t used to people being afraid of her. “We’re going to find the Rag Islands.”

  “We aren’t doing anything,” the captain said, then spat at her feet. Lodesh’s mirth dropped from him. He stiffened, and Strell gripped his arm to keep him unmoving. Alissa didn’t move, used to being spit at.

  “We’re going on,” she insisted, conscious of Connen-Neute’s shadow about her. “Or my beast will tear your boat apart,” she bluffed.

  The captain’s eyes narrowed. His hands clenched on nothing, clearly wanting his knife back. “We’re already dead,” he said, and Hayden muttered his agreement. “There’s not enough water to get home with the boom broken.”

  She took a breath to fight off the shakes. “There’s enough water now that half the crew is dead,” she said bitterly. “And the Rag Islands must be closer than the coast.”

  The men before her moved uneasily. In response, Connen-Neute rumbled, edging forward until his talons were both to the right and left of her. He towered over her, as substantial as a mountain. “I don’t know, Alissa,” he warned. “Maybe we should just let them have one of the dinghies? They’re going to run the first chance they get. I know how to sail.”

  “They’ll die out here,” she protested. Face pinched in worry, Alissa put a hand upon one of his claws. “We are going on!” she said louder. “Why did you all have to go and ruin everything?” she shouted. “All I wanted was to find them!” Depressed, she watched the four men band together. How could she convince them there was nothing to be afraid of?

  “Maybe if I shift back?” Connen-Neute thought. “They aren’t afraid of me as a human.”

  Alissa looked up at him as she rubbed her wrists. The burn from the rope was gone, thanks to the healing ward, but it still felt as if it marked her. “I don’t know. They
would know rakus are Masters, then. Talo-Toecan said—”

  “They’ll die if they flee,” he interrupted. “They won’t be as afraid if they know it’s me.”

  Still unsure, Alissa nodded.

  The sailors gasped as Connen-Neute vanished in a swirl of pearly white. The boat eerily rose as his weight left it. “The Navigator help us,” Hayden stammered as Connen-Neute reappeared and put a long-fingered hand upon Alissa’s shoulder. “It’s one of them. They’ve come back! He’s one of them!”

  Alissa’s eyes widened. If their fear was strong for the raku, it doubled when seeing Connen-Neute’s long hands and golden eyes. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Connen-Neute said, hiding his long hands in his sleeves and trying to look sage.

  “Let me go!” the boy cried, pushing at the hands that kept him from jumping overboard. “Let me go! Please! He’ll take me!” He was crying, and a cold feeling slipped though her. The raku he would fight. The Master he would run from. What had the Hold done to the coast to warrant this reaction five hundred years later? Connen-Neute mirrored her bewilderment.

  Her eyes widened as the three older seamen gathered themselves, lunging. Frightened, she set a ward upon the closest, freezing him into immobility. Connen-Neute and Lodesh got the other two. The boy collapsed in a huddle, sobbing on the deck.

  “Stop trying to kill Connen-Neute!” she shouted. “We’re going to the Rag Islands, whether you like it or not!”

  She released her ward, purposely turning her back on them, trusting their fear and Lodesh to keep her safe. “Bury the dead and get the sails up!” she demanded, stomping away. Inside she was weeping harder than the boy. Vision swimming, she went to the bow so no one would see her tears. Behind her, the dockmen were invoking the protection of Mirim. Mirim, she thought bitterly. They didn’t even know they were putting their trust in a Master.

  Talon dropped from the mast to her shoulder, and Alissa ran a finger over the claws pinching through her shirt. Despondent, angry, and frustrated, she kept her attention on the horizon as the sound of the men’s funeral whispered up from behind her. The smell of the blood on the deck made her ill. She stood by herself, refusing to take part, not wanting to acknowledge it. How was she going to keep the crew from killing them the first chance they got?

  They left her alone as they raised the jib around her. The smallest mainsail behind the wheel pit was brought tight, and they began to limp forward. Her stomach clenched at the sound of bristles against wood as the boy scrubbed the deck free of the blood of the two men who had died. He was still crying, his tears mingling with the water on the deck.

  She didn’t turn when Lodesh joined her. For a long time he said nothing. “How close are the islands?” he finally asked, his concern obvious.

  “Close enough to fly if I knew exactly where to go,” she said, her voice flat. Close enough to dream of Silla every night, she thought. Close enough to frighten the young woman from sleep every . . . single . . . night. She looked at Lodesh. His eyes held a shared pain.

  “I only wanted to find them,” she whispered, feeling the hot swelling of tears. “Now three men are dead, and the coast will know Masters and rakus are the same.” She wiped her eyes with a corner of her sleeve. “Why am I even doing this?”

  “To make Talo-Toecan happy,” he whispered.

  She nodded, and Lodesh put a steadying arm over her shoulders. There was no sly underlying feeling in his touch, so she leaned her head against his shoulder as he steadied her. To make Useless happy. Yes. But she was sure he wouldn’t be happy with them now.

  13

  Alissa sat at the bow of the boat, dismally waiting for Connen-Neute to return from his morning search for land. Her knees were drawn up to her chin, and her arms were clasped about her legs. Talon was perched on the railing to keep her from being alone. A bright red square of silk fluttered from the back rim of her hat. It had been a gift from Connen-Neute to help keep the sun off her neck, but it didn’t matter. After this many days, her skin was as dark as Strell’s.

  To her right was the gray of the jib stretching tall enough to make her dizzy; to her left was the blue of the water and sky. It was the same sky, the same water, the same boat. But now the joy was gone.

  Connen-Neute’s daily flights had turned up nothing. Mental searches were shouts in the dark. Her dreams of Silla had become fragmented at best as Silla’s fear jolted them both awake whenever they managed to touch thoughts. Alissa had been counting on Silla’s help to pinpoint them exactly, and that wasn’t going to happen.

  The soft sound of conversation rose behind her, but she didn’t turn, recognizing Strell and Lodesh at the wheel pit. Strell’s seasickness had improved dramatically. He was piping an odd tune on his instrument, trying to cheer her up from a distance, as nothing else seemed to work.

  A faint smile curved over her as his music drifted out to mix perfectly with the hazy morning. Slowly her smile faded. Her eyes dropped from the empty horizon to her shoes, salt-stained and beginning to fray at the seams. They had been under water rations ever since Clen and the ship’s boy had absconded with most of the water in the larger of the two rowboats. As she had feared, they had chosen to take their chances with the elements. That had been six days ago. The captain and Hayden had refused to flee. Each wanted the Albatross . Greed, Alissa mused, must be stronger than fear.

  Between the six of them—two reluctant, three inept, and one who knew what he was doing much to the surprise of all concerned—they managed the boat. It had been Connen-Neute’s idea to put himself and the captain together on night watch. It seemed to be working, as the captain’s mood of mistrust had markedly shifted. Alissa thought it might be from their late-night conversations about star movement. He seemed ready to consider that Connen-Neute was neither going to eat him nor steal his soul. Hayden was reserving judgment, but at least his constant diatribes on the evils of Masters had ceased.

  Despite the rationing and the moisture Strell was collecting from his desert water traps, she was worried. They had been out on the ocean so long. She was starting to wonder if the captain’s loud and daily predictions would hold, and they would indeed perish. Thinking she had led them all to their deaths, she fingered Redal-Stan’s watch on its cord about her neck.

  Strell’s music drifted off into nothing, and she slipped into a hazy drowse, lulled by the heat and the motion of the boat. Connen-Neute’s mental hail struck through her like a whip, jolting her upright and awake. “I’m coming,” came his oddly tense thought as her pulse slowed. “Get the jib down.”

  “Did you find land?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.

  Her eyes widened in anticipation. He hadn’t said no like every other morning. Feeling hope for the first time in days, she rose to her feet. “Get the jib down!” she called as she hastened to the wheel pit. “He’s coming in!”

  Strell ran a slow hand down his neatly trimmed beard as he took in her obvious excitement. “Did he find something?” he asked as he held out a hand to steady her as she hopped into the pit.

  “He didn’t say.” The boat turned into the wind, and there was a sliding crumple as the jib fell to give Connen-Neute room to land. She scanned the horizon. “Do you see him?”

  Hayden had joined them at the mention of land. He stood coiling up the jib line as his eyes roved the sky. Suddenly he stiffened. “There he is,” he said, going uneasy. “Give me the wheel,” he grumbled, dropping the rope and pushing Lodesh out of the way. “You aren’t facing into the wind enough. You want him to swamp us?”

  Lodesh gestured flamboyantly, and Hayden took the wheel. The first time they had tried this, Connen-Neute had nearly torn the small mainsail from its ties from the force of his back-winging. Now they knew they had to have the sails utterly slack to keep everything on an even keel. After so much practice, Hayden’s worry was unfounded.

  The boat’s motion slowed, and the sound of the waves grew louder. Alissa followed the dockman’s gaze to a bright spot of gold. It rapidly grew larger,
and as Hayden made muttered oaths of protection, the young raku awkwardly landed.

  The boat tipped forward for an instant as it took his weight, then Connen-Neute vanished in a swirl of white. He reappeared in his Master’s best, looking distracted and upset.

  Alissa’s anticipation faltered. Her worry grew when Connen-Neute made his hurried way to the fore hatch and vanished belowdecks. Eyes wide, she turned to Strell and Lodesh. “He didn’t say anything!” she said, stating the obvious. “He never even looked at us!”

  Lodesh’s green eyes were pinched as he adjusted his hat.

  “Get the sails up!” Hayden said brusquely, as if the Albatross was his boat when the captain was asleep. “We won’t get anywhere with the canvas on the deck.”

  Lodesh took her elbow and pulled her close. “Let me help Strell get the sails up, and then I’ll go see what’s the matter.”

  “He found land,” Alissa said, her stomach clenching. “I know it.” She glanced at Strell. His motions to raise the sails were slow and dejected.

  Lodesh’s lips pressed together in worry. He suddenly looked tired, his entire tragic history falling upon him in an instant. She had almost forgotten his curse, the guilt of an entire city’s populace upon his soul. The reminder of the pain he carried now shone from him. But under it was the clear indication that he knew something she didn’t.

  The lost Masters are dead, she thought, her stomach clenching and her skin going cold.

  “I’ll ask him what he found,” she said, determined Lodesh wouldn’t shield her from the truth. Lodesh took a breath to argue, and she frowned. “Strell needs your help,” she added, turning on a quick heel. Leaving them without a backward glance, she headed to the galley hatch, backing downward on the ladder as she went belowdecks.

  The sudden absence of wind accentuated the closed-in feeling. Squinting as her eyes adjusted, she found Connen-Neute standing in the galley, a flaccid waterskin in his long hands. He was drinking, his throat moving rapidly as he downed the contents in one go. “Connen-Neute?” she said softly.