The Larion Senators

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  ‘What do you want?’ Steven asked, coughing up a bit of phlegm. ‘A dog biscuit? A bone or something? Why don’t you drop back a stretch so my horny roommate can check out your tuckus?’ The dog ignored him. ‘Nah,’ Steven said, waving a hand dismissively at the animal, ‘you’re not his type.’ He passed two runners, chatting about something he couldn’t hear, then three singletons, and finally a husband and wife couple wearing matching gear. All the while, the dog kept pace.

  ‘You see that woman up there?’ he said. ‘She’s the one in the hat with the tan legs? No, of course you don’t. Well, regardless, I’m trying to catch her, but I can’t seem to do it. She’s running too hard, and I’m just not up for it today. So why don’t you run up there and get her to slow down a bit. Bite her leg for me, will you? Go on. Head up there and look all cute, and maybe she’ll stop to pet you. What do you think?’

  The dog cocked an eye at him, then turned back to the downhill course.

  Mile twelve.

  ‘All right, time to kick,’ Steven muttered. ‘You ready? Although I don’t know how much kick I have left.’ He scoped out a path to Hannah, a spot about a quarter-mile along where he would overtake her. He could sprint that far; he knew it. Once there, he would rely on whatever reserves of strength he had to finish the race. ‘I’ll take her hand and she can drag me to the line,’ he told the wolfhound. He wiped his blinded eyes on the tail of his T-shirt, nodded to the dog and said, ‘Let’s go.’

  Running a quarter-mile fartlek this far into a half-marathon was like squeezing orange juice out of week-old peel, but to Steven’s pleasant surprise, it was working. He knew he would pay at the finish line, for his legs, lungs and lower back were operating on some kind of biological overdraft programme. The moment he stopped running, he would collapse, roll over in that puddle of blood staining the deck and maybe pass out. There were paramedics at the finish line, however. They’ll get an IV in me, hydrate me and make sure I don’t die. I can’t die, not today, he thought; he was running too hard to speak. If I die, they’ll take the blanket off. They’ll see us. All of them. I can’t die.

  He caught up to her, slowing to appreciate the narrow pear shape of her bottom, tucked just above the stitched hem of the tiny running shorts he hoped she had chosen just to drive him mad. Steven inhaled several times before coming alongside.

  ‘Hi—’ All he could manage on the shot-glass of breath he had sucked in; anything polysyllabic would have taken his legs out from under him.

  In black and white now, an old photo, Hannah smiled. She wasn’t panting, or sweating; she wasn’t about to collapse or to require medical attention. She wasn’t even wearing sunglasses, but she didn’t seem to mind the harsh morning light. Instead, as she ran along, less than a half mile from the finish line, she said, ‘You have to wake up, Steven!’

  The spider-beetle crawled from her ear and skittered on jointed, hairy legs across her cheek. It paused against the perfect tan backdrop of her face, pale grey in the photograph, then crawled with surprising speed over her lip and into her mouth.

  Steven stumbled and fell, tumbling over the macadam. He felt his knees and elbows tear open and start bleeding. His chin struck the pavement, scraping itself bare, as did one shoulder and a hip.

  Hannah ran on, oblivious.

  Steven felt blood seeping from the back of his hand and his neck, not from his cuts and grazes. It pooled in a black puddle around him and he mopped the street with his T-shirt. He looked as though he had been doused with a bucket of heavy syrup.

  Too hot, too tired, too dehydrated and too battered to get up, Steven lay in the street, the legions of runners he had passed stepping over or around him as they made for the finish line, most of them awkward, moving in jerky stops like figures in a silent movie. The dog stayed with him, sitting on its haunches, until it finally padded across the road and bit him on the wrist.

  Light and colour returned. ‘Ow, fucking shit! What did you do that for, you bastard? he shouted.

  The voice rang in his head. Unlike Nerak’s, which had boomed from everywhere at once, this was small, plaintive. Wake up, Steven.

  Things went runny, gelled and shifted, some fading while others shone stark and bold; runners drifted across Stanley Avenue towards Clear Creek. Steven was lying beneath a pair of oak trees that had grown beside the road. They blocked the sun, allowing only flickers of dappled yellow to reach him. Blinking, he sat up and surveyed the damage to his wrist. It wasn’t bad. Everything hurts, though. My arms, legs, lungs, back, knees, chin; fuck, even my eyes hurt, for Christ’s sake.

  Wake up, Steven.

  Dogs can’t talk.

  I know that, silly.

  Just let me rest. Leave me alone for a second and let me rest.

  The boat’s going to crash.

  What boat? What …? The blanket. You mean the blanket? The boat under the blanket?

  Wake up, Steven.

  THE INLET

  ‘Come about, Marrin,’ Captain Ford said, calmly, sensibly. Garec had been shouting. ‘Make your course zero-six-zero. You can see it. We have to round that point.’

  Marrin had lashed himself to the helm. He was armed with a battle-axe and a short dagger and waved them wildly when anyone moved towards him. He was lost in the throes of whatever madness had found him on the brig-sloop’s quarterdeck. They were closing fast on the Malakasian trawler now.

  Garec hadn’t lowered his bow, though he had no wish to kill Marrin.

  ‘Wait, Garec, just a moment,’ Captain Ford whispered.

  ‘We don’t have much time, sir.’

  ‘You think I can’t see that?’ He reached for a pin near the base of the mainmast and braced himself as the Morning Star pitched and bumped over the swells, running into the shore. They would run aground; the water was deep enough to round the point, but if they rammed the trawler, Steven’s cloaking spell would be shattered. If they survived the impact, they’d be limping into Pellia, completely exposed.

  ‘Marrin,’ he tried again, ‘if you ram that ship, it’s a tag hanging for all of us. You realise that, don’t you?’

  The first mate stared somewhere beyond the Malakasian shoreline, and mumbled, nothing the others could understand. It didn’t look like he even heard them.

  ‘Let me take him,’ Garec said. ‘I won’t kill him.’

  ‘Not yet. Kellin?’

  ‘I’m here.’ Her voice came from somewhere behind him. He didn’t turn to look.

  ‘Get below; see if you can help Gilmour.’ Warily he moved a few steps closer.

  Marrin mumbled louder and tightened the bit of hemp holding him to the brig-sloop’s wheel.

  Captain Ford stopped. They were close to the trawler; he could hear voices hailing from across the shallows. The breakwater, a few hundred paces offshore, roared a background warning. Grand, Ford thought. Even if we miss the boat, we’ll be caught on the mud. We’ll never make this tack, not now. Without taking his eyes off Marrin, he said, ‘Brexan?’

  ‘Right behind you.’

  ‘Garec?’

  ‘I’m getting impatient, Captain.’

  ‘Pel?’

  No response.

  ‘Pel!’ Captain Ford shouted, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Haven’t seen him, sir,’ Garec said quietly.

  ‘All right, all right, gods rut us all. We’ll do it alone.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You two.’ He took another step. The quarterdeck was only two paces away now. ‘Prepare to come about, wear hard to starboard. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Garec and Brexan answered in unison.

  ‘Pel?’ he tried again, but no one answered. They were out of time. He had to retake the helm. He didn’t want to risk having Garec shoot and possibly kill his first mate, but he also didn’t believe that wounding Marrin would do them any good. Marrin looked as though he could be struck senseless by a lightning bolt and would still never release his grip.

  ‘All right you two … get ready.’


  When a hand reached up to grip the stern rail behind Marrin, Captain Ford gasped. For a moment he thought it was another tanbak, come to avenge the one Steven had dealt with, but when he saw the frayed tunic sleeves, the skinny wrists and the pale skin, Ford knew he had found Pel Wandrell.

  Gods keep him a thousand Twinmoons, he thought. The crazy bastard climbed out my cabin window. Good thinking, Pel! Top marks!

  Pel looked terrified, but he never hesitated. He slipped silently over the rail, making eye contact with his captain: he needed a distraction.

  Captain Ford understood, and started at Marrin, saying, ‘You know we’ll never make this tack, not with only three of us hauling these lines, we’ll never wear in time, not coming about in this wind.’

  Pel sneaked behind Marrin, staying low, and as the captain continued to address the first mate, he leaped on Marrin’s back, wrapping one slim arm around his friend’s throat while grabbing at the dagger with the other. He was tiny in comparison to the muscular first mate, and for a moment he looked like a child getting a piggy-back from an older brother. He hung on grimly as the captain ran up, his filleting knife already drawn, but Marrin managed to shrug Pel off his shoulders and free his dagger hand. He raised the short blade to stab his shipmate—

  ‘No!’ Ford cried, too late. He took two running steps towards the helm, then dived, but he was in midair when what he was seeing finally registered. The first arrow passed clean through Marrin’s wrist, and the dagger had clanked to the deck, useless, just as Pel, expecting to feel the cold blade slicing through his flesh, released his death grip about Marrin’s throat and fell backwards towards the stern rail. A second shaft, fired at an impossibly short interval behind the first, passed through Marrin’s opposite hand, tearing it from the helm, and the possessed or delusional first mate fell back against the ropes holding him up.

  Captain Ford pushed himself to his feet and sliced the ropes, then brought the rudder chain as far as he could to starboard, screaming, ‘Come about, my darling, come about, old girl!’

  Marrin, transfixed by the arrow through his hand, tumbled down beside Pel as Garec and Brexan followed the captain’s orders, hauling in slack lines as fast as they could. Slowly, painstakingly, the Morning Star began to turn.

  ‘Pel,’ Ford shouted, ‘Pel, gods love you, son, but you did it! You did it!’

  The boy rolled from Marrin’s bloody body and sprang to his feet. Mumbling incoherently, and visibly trembling, the young seaman hugged himself as if to be sure he was still intact.

  ‘Pel,’ Ford ordered, wanting to stop shock setting in, ‘get over here and keep us hard to starboard. We’ll miss the trawler, thank all the gods of the Northern Forest, but we’re still in trouble with that mud reef. You see those breakers, Pel? Pel!’

  ‘Captain?’ Pel whispered, still not quite sure what had happened.

  ‘Pel! To me!’ he ordered again.

  ‘What—? Right, yes, sorry, Captain …’ His voice trailed off.

  Captain Ford wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders, pulled him close, steadying him for a moment, then, calmly, he said, ‘All I need you to do, Pel, is keep us on this tack. Just take the helm. I’ve got to haul in the foresheets, or we’re rutting screwed. You understand me?’

  ‘Aye, aye, Captain. I won’t let you down, sir. I can—’

  The spider-beetle crawled up Pel’s cloak and scampered across Captain Ford’s wrist.

  ‘Great whoring rutters, Pel, look out! Get back, son! Get back!’ He shoved the sailor, too hard, sending him tumbling across the quarterdeck until he rolled to a stop against a rain barrel lashed to the port gunwale.

  Letting go the helm, Ford shook his arm frantically, trying to shake the bug loose before it bit him and left him as senseless as Steven. He wasn’t a sorcerer; maybe even one puncture would kill him. He stumbled and tripped over Marrin’s legs, landing hard on his back.

  ‘Where is the gods-rutting thing?’ He was vulnerable, flat on his back like this. ‘Get up,’ he growled, ‘don’t wait for it.’ He yanked off his cloak and pulled his tunic off over his head, then got up on his knees, scanning the deck for the tan-bak’s persistent little sentry. He brushed his hands down his leggings again, then, in a panic, ran his hands through his hair until it was a tousled mess.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Garec shouted. ‘Can’t you feel the keel is righting? Take the rutting helm!’

  He was oblivious to Garec’s warning, concentrating on the deadly little spider-beetle. There it was, skittering across the planks, heading for Pel.

  ‘Watch out!’ Captain Ford cried, leaped towards the insect, stomped down hard, missed and stomped again, until he had to catch his breath. As he stood still, doubled over and panting, he realised what Garec had been screaming, and ran back to the helm.

  ‘What was that?’ Pel was beginning to think his captain had been infected by whatever had taken Marrin. All that for a spider, sir?’ His voice wavered a little still.

  Captain Ford tried to ignore the fact that he was navigating half-naked – in the winter Twinmoon – and less than an aven from Pellia. He peered across the bow, ignoring the shouts and jeers of the Malakasian fisherman – too close – off the port rail and searched for the mud reef. It was impossible for them to clear, not without a miracle wind from the southwest.

  ‘A wind?’ he muttered to himself, then, ‘Pel!’

  The frightened sailor steadied himself on the rail. ‘I know, Captain, haul in the foresheets and make it qui—’

  ‘No, forget them; get below and get Gilmour, tell him to get up here right now, and I do mean right this very moment. The survival of this ship – and us – depends up on it. Do you understand?’

  ‘Aye, aye, Captain.’ Pel rushed for the main hatch.

  ‘We need a gale,’ Ford muttered. He looked over at Marrin, who sprawled on the deck, looking deathly pale. His wrist was still bleeding, and Garec’s second arrow still protruded from his left hand. A tiny trickle of blood seeped from his left ear.

  The trawler crew were screaming curses at him. Ford, naked from the waist up and looking like a madman, waved and blew a kiss to the furious Malakasians. ‘Don’t you see I have other problems right now?’ he shouted. ‘I’d love to stay and talk, but I really have to go. I’m running my ship aground, and then I have to get to my hanging; I’d hate to be late. It was lovely to see you, though!’

  ‘He’s going to be screaming about us all the way back to Pellia,’ Garec pointed out. He looped a length of rope around a pin. It was a tangled mess, but it held.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now.’

  ‘I can take them,’ Garec said. ‘I’d rather not, but I can do it. We can’t have them telling the whole city how a rogue sloop nearly sent them to the bottom.’

  ‘We’ll worry about it if we’re still afloat in the next half-aven, but for now, get forward – that foremain is doing us no good. You need to shorten the line and tie it off tight.’

  ‘But there’s no wind—’

  ‘And this bloody wind is running us aground! Don’t argue, Garec, just do it!’

  Gilmour appeared from below, looked at Marrin, still in a heap, bleeding, and asked, ‘What happened up here?’

  ‘The wind,’ Captain Ford cut across him, ‘the one you used to blow that thing off Steven’s neck – can you do that again? I mean right now.’ He pointed at the sails he needed filled.

  Gilmour sized up the situation and started incanting the spell, hurrying between the foremast and the main, blowing the sheets full, while Garec and Brexan manned the lines.

  The Morning Star took her time coming about.

  The captain leaned on the helm, his teeth clenched, and watched the sheets fill, empty and fill again as Gilmour blasted away at them. He listened to the roar of the breakwater just beneath the bow and whispered, ‘Come on, old girl, come on around. You don’t want to bite that mud; you don’t want to leave us out here. Come on, my darling girl …’

  The bri
g-sloop struck, throwing Garec and Brexan to the deck. Gilmour kept his feet, still hurling massive gusts into the sails, determined to bring the Morning Star about…

  Captain Ford cursed like a trooper, but never let go of the rudder. ‘Hit it again,’ he begged, ‘aft just a bit, hit it again, my darling, come on, now old girl…’

  The Morning Star obliged, hauling her backside around and bouncing and glancing off the mud reef. The water was just deep enough for the little ship’s shallow hull to clear the bottom and make the tack, however bumpy. The captain spared a grin for Garec, for every time he tried to stand, the brig-sloop glanced off the reef, sending him rolling for the starboard rail again and again.

  ‘Pel, get below, see if we’re taking on water.’ He turned to the sorcerer and said, ‘Give us a few more gusts, if you can, please – I’d like to overtake that fishing trawler before he has a chance to alert the entire Malakasian navy.’

  Gilmour interrupted his spell-weaving long enough to reply, ‘Aye, aye, Captain!’

  ‘And Gilmour, what news of Steven?’

  ‘He’ll live—’ Gilmour looked nervous, ‘but I’m not certain how long he’ll be out. I’ve drained a great deal of blood, so I imagine he’ll be weak and disoriented for some time when we finally get him back.’

  ‘Are we still…’

  ‘Yes, the spell should keep us well hidden, as long as Steven doesn’t die.’

  Pel appeared from below and reported, ‘One futtock cracked, sir, in the bow, just above the bilge. Probably caused by the initial impact.’

  ‘Then forget it,’ Captain Ford said decisively. ‘We need you up here. If we make it to port alive, we’ll patch it when the tide turns, but right now we’re running empty, and I don’t care if we take on some water – it won’t slow us much more than a bit of extra ballast. We’ve nearly flown up here this Moon. Dragging our backsides will make honest sailors out of us again.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘Now, see to those foresails, on my mark …’