Hawkspar

by Holly Lisle

  Almost quickly enough. Almost.

  Something big slashed through the hull well above the waterline. He felt the ship shudder, and he swore. Men below shouted.

  They couldn’t stop to assess the damage. A fleet lay on the other side of the island. To keep everyone alive to face the next day, he and his men needed to put as much distance as they could between the Taag and the war going on behind it.

  16

  Hawkspar

  I would have stayed to thank the captain again, but we were still in grave danger, and he and his men were working to get us out of it. We did not know our way around the ship; we could not offer assistance yet.

  Still, we were out. Away from the monastery, away from Citadel and Ossalenes and bells and ritual.

  We were out, and we had cleared the tunnels of the enemy on our way out. Though I could not be certain that the remaining Obsidians, most of whom stayed behind to fight, had managed to destroy Prince Sheoua and his army, they were winning when we left. Hugely. I held on to that, and prayed Ethebet would be with them. I did not want to abandon anyone to Sheoua.

  But his attack would bind together those who remained. The rats would not feed on children anymore; the oracles would be less willing to offer their visions to anyone who had the wealth they desired. His death would make them stronger; it would remind them that they had once been a warrior rite, and could be again.

  Too long a peace and too much wealth and adulation had made the oracles weak, save only my predecessor Hawkspar, who had kept the Obsidians strong and remembered where she came from, and where her acolyte would one day return.

  We had not left them helpless.

  I comforted myself with this thought as Redbird and I went down into the passenger quarters.

  Below, the little girls clung to each other and wept, terrified. Their memories of shipboard time were very fresh in most cases, and they would have a hard time feeling safe aboard another ship, even when they were in rooms, and not bound by chains.

  The older girls watched me. So, too, did the seru, in their own fashion.

  I removed the oracle cloak with its elaborate hood. I took off my rak-tabi, and tossed my cepa to the floor, where I carefully stood on it.

  “Do as I have done,” I told them. “All of you. Take off badges of rank, take off such portions of your robes as you choose. You will no longer be required to dress as Ossalenes. You will no longer say the litanies or the prayers of your captors. You are free. We are free. Those of us who were born Tonk will find our way to being Tonk. Those of you who were not may reclaim the religion of your people, or any other that suits you. There will be no more rats in cages for us, no fires, no branding, no beatings. If you know your names, say them now. Take them back. If you don’t know them, you will …” I faltered. “You will take new names.” I clenched my hands tight in my sleeves. “Tonk names. You are free,” I said, knowing that for those of us who wore the Eyes, this was not, and would never be, true. Those unmarred by Eyes were free—slaves, penitents, and acolytes. We confirmed Ossalenes could only envy life without the poison of shadows reaching out for us in our sleep and in our waking moments. But we could be happy that we had given freedom to the little ones. They would never wear Eyes.

  We could hold that truth in our hearts as comfort.

  I said, “As soon as we discover how we can be of service on this ship, we will take chores in partial recompense for our rescue. In the meantime, comfort each other. Talk about things you remember from home. Tell stories, tell secrets. You are not penitents or acolytes or slaves anymore. You are children, and we will do what we can to find families for all of you.”

  The seru had put aside one cabin in the passenger hold for my private use. I couldn’t keep it just for myself, protocol be damned. The cabin had six bunks in it, each of which would hold three or four little girls at a time, or two or three big ones. It also had three overhead storage shelves, each of which was exactly the size of a bunk, each of which could be converted into bunks for our purposes. We had few belongings—those we had brought could serve as pillows for our heads. The Ossalenes and I did a quick count. We had one-hundred fifteen unconfirmed girls with us—slaves, penitents, and acolytes. Of the confirmed, we had fifty-seven Obsidian Eyes of Protection, two Granite Eyes of Maintenance, ten Moonstone Eyes of Healing, six Amber Eyes of History, five Beryl Eyes of Growing Things, and ten Rosestone Eyes of Learning. We had neither Bloodstones nor Onyxes. We had me. We had a total, then, of two-hundred six women in a space designed to sleep forty-six. We could expand the sleeping quarters by the simple expedient of using each storage shelf as another bunk. It would be hard wood, but Ossalenes started out sleeping on hard stone, with the thinnest of mats between us and the floor.

  It was to our benefit that we were well used to close quarters and discomfort.

  I figured the spaces. We had twenty-three top shelves. Each of those could sleep four girls. That would take care of the ninety-two smallest and nimblest girls. We had forty-six regular berths. We could squeeze twenty-three girls into six of those. The remaining forty berths we would divide among the seru and me. Ninety-one women total.

  We could either sleep two and three to a berth as the unconfirmed, or we could sleep in shifts. I favored the idea of sleeping in shifts. We had done that in the monastery to some degree. The Obsidian and Moonstone seru always slept in shifts. The others did as need dictated.

  However we decided to split up our sleeping, we would manage.

  I had the seru divide the girls into groups by size, and I informed the smallest that they could bunk with any three other girls they wanted. When they were grouped in fours, we assigned each a berth, and told them to get some sleep. We then formed groups of the older girls, most of whom were penitents and the rest of whom were acolytes. We assigned each group to a separate cabin. And then the seru and I divided ourselves into pairs and triplets and crowded into the rest. All of us had been awake a very long time. We agreed that whatever sleeping arrangements we might later make, for that night we would crowd in together.

  Redbird and I bunked together, back-to-back.

  “I can’t believe it finally happened,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I wish it could have happened before we had to take Eyes, though,” she said.

  I knew our freedom had come because we had taken Eyes—and so did she. But I knew what she meant. I understood it completely. I wished that I were still one of the acolytes, crowded four to a bunk directly across from us. They whispered and giggled, and I envied them their freedom from knowing the future. I wished I had that same freedom.

  We lay in silence, listening to the foreign sounds outside—water lapping and surging, wind snapping the sails, shouts of men, the drumming of feet on wood. We felt the ship rocking from side to side and front to back. We could hear the water, so close. Could smell it. Could feel it beneath our feet, falling away to vast depths as we moved farther from the Ossalenes.

  We had power, and at some point, these men might find our power useful. They might come to appreciate us for what we could offer them.

  We had our mission to pursue. We had hunters to hunt, destroyers to destroy. A lie to reveal, a truth to tell.

  And all I could think of, in spite of that, was that I was on his ship, that my rescuer had come for me at last. That if I wanted to, I could get out of my bunk, I could walk up on the deck and find him. I could touch him.

  Well, if I didn’t mind climbing over Redbird to do it.

  Aaran

  They ran hard for three full bells, traveling east as straight as they could, weaving back and forth between uncountable islands. He wanted to get out of the islands soon, and drop down into the empty center of the Dragon Sea. Once the Taag pushed south of the equator, the ship would be able to risk the trade lanes. The Sinali would have no doubt claimed the whole of the Kervish Ocean as part of their empire if they could have, but south of the equator and west of the Fallen Suns, navies other than their own
prowled the waters and prevented the bastards from overreaching.

  They got well clear of any ships that might have been pursuing from their adventure at the monastery. Then Aaran pointed them south and handed over control to Ves and the rudders to Baaksa.

  He slept, a dreamless sleep, desperately needed, and woke to music.

  One of his runners was gone, he noted. And Neeran stood with his ear pressed to the door, a wistful expression on his face.

  Aaran sat up. “You look miserable.”

  “They’re dancing,” Neeran said. “Celebrating the rescue.”

  “Ves found us a safe harbor, then.”

  The boy nodded. “Safe anchor, in any case. We’ve found a good deep channel between islands, well enough away that we can see anything coming. And we’ve a clear day. And the cooks have been cooking since before daybreak, and down in the attable, we’ve some of the finest food ever, Potyr says.”

  “And you haven’t had any.”

  “No, Cap’n.”

  “Go on. And you can stay when you’re done. I could do with some song and dance myself.”

  When he went out on deck, two of the Eastils had set up with narrow sailor’s fiddles, three-stringed instruments designed to take up little space under a hammock but still make a fair amount of noise. The two playing—he recognized one as Ratter, but still didn’t remember the name of the other—were fair hands with strings and bow. Two young girls, their hair cropped so short Aaran could see their scalps, danced, though watching them, Aaran could see the moves of warriors in the steps they took. They spun and stomped and kicked high and low; one would vault over the other, then the second would vault over the first. They were silent as they danced, and the expressions on their faces were of intense concentration.

  Aaran, fascinated, leaned against a rail and watched them.

  “When they get older, they learn to do that with sharpened swords,” a voice said beside him. Aaran turned, and found himself face-to-face with one of the young women they’d rescued the day before. She was dressed in silks and richly embroidered cottons—extravagant fabrics. Her clothes were golds and browns and ambers, and he realized that they matched her eyes. Her stone eyes. Her hair was short and black, slightly wavy, very glossy. He tried to concentrate on that, and on the slender line of her neck, and the sweet curves of her jaw, and the softness of her lips.

  He wanted to keep his mind on all those things, but his gaze kept straying back to those eyes.

  She said, “Out of the Order’s robes, I no doubt look very different. I’m Hawkspar.”

  “I’m … ah … Captain Aaran av Savissha.”

  “I know. One of your men pointed me to you. I came to thank you for coming for us.”

  “Well,” he said, made awkward by not knowing how to look at her. “Well, you don’t owe us thanks. This is what we do. We’re Tonk. We find our own.”

  “Still, you risked great danger to come to us. And will risk more danger getting us away from …” She paused. “ … From all of this,” she said at last, waving an arm in a gesture that seemed to encompass the whole world. “Thank you for listening when I called,” she added, and her voice went soft.

  He stared at her. “You’re the girl who called to me?”

  “Yes.”

  He was quiet for a long, uncomfortable moment. He didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m not what you expected?” she said. Her lips curved in a smile of wry amusement.

  “Not … precisely.”

  “I’m not what I expected, either, if it makes you feel any better. Nor am I the same as I was when you first answered my plea for rescue. I had my own eyes then. Not … these.”

  “What happened? I got to you as quickly as I could. I knew you were afraid, but I had no idea they were going to … torture you. Or blind you.”

  She turned her face to the fiddlers, and to the dancing girls, whom he realized were not a great deal younger than she was. A few years, perhaps. She said, “I wanted nothing more than to find my way to freedom, and to take with me all who dared to escape, before we were forced to choose the Order, and with it, the Eyes. But you were not too late. It was because you answered my call, because rescue was finally on the way, that the Eyes came to me. And that I accepted them.”

  His stomach growled loudly. He winced. “Have you eaten?” he asked her.

  “Not this morning,” she said. “I woke to the sound of music, and came straightway to speak to you. Thanks should not take second place to comfort.”

  “Then would you be my guest for morning meal? While we eat, you can tell me what happened. I’m desperately curious, but desperately hungry as well.”

  She laughed. “As am I.”

  He found himself wanting to ask her all manner of rude questions about those stone eyes, and how she seemed not to be blinded by wearing them. But he held his silence and led her down into the belly of the ship, to the attable, the large open room that took up half of the maagen deck, where at long, narrow, built-in tables and fixed benches, the men ate while the cooks toiled in the galley to the fore.

  Aaran headed for the galley window, where the cooks sent out the trays and bowls. He told Hawkspar, “Let the cook give you his choice. We have masters of pot and kettle with us—you won’t be disappointed.”

  One of those masters, the head cook, heard him speaking and came to the window. “I would have sent yours up through the dropwaiter,” Barwyd said, looking reproachful. “We take care of our captain here.”

  Aaran said, “I am so well taken care of, you’ll make me fat before long.” He watched as the cook filled his tray personally. “Barwyd, man, you’re not to try to make me fat in this one meal.”

  And the cook grinned. “We’re celebrating today, Cap’n. Eat wide and deep. We have good treasure, captives rescued, dangers evaded, and home our next port. You’ve earned the day, and a full belly with it.”

  Aaran laughed. “Well, thanks. Those are things worth celebrating, though home remains a long way off.”

  The cook shrugged, handed him his tray, and began to fill one for Hawkspar. “Then celebrate the day, for we never know which will be our last.”

  Hawkspar took her tray from the cook, and said, “My thanks, master chef.” She bowed slightly.

  Barwyd grinned. “I’m honored.”

  They took seats, squeezing in between sailors and marines and little girls and women with stone eyes, and Aaran dug into some of the best food Barwyd had ever put together. He’d done magic with dried fish and dried pork and dried vegetables and Ethebet alone might guess which spices and other sundries.

  For a short while, Aaran satisfied himself with his food, for Hawkspar seemed intent on her own. At last, though, she sat back and put her knife down, and he said, “You were going to tell me about … what happened to you.”

  “Only a bit of it,” she said. “Most will wait for a time when we can speak in private. Here, I’ll say that I was not the first slave taken into the Ossalene Citadel who plotted escape, nor was I the first to plan to take others with me. The Oracle Hawkspar who preceded me was another such—though she did her scheming after she inherited the Hawkspar Eyes.”

  Aaran wanted to ask her about those, but he held his tongue, hoping she’d go into detail.

  “When it became clear to her that the war she planned to end lay far in her future, she began watching for other Tonk girls who showed promise. I was one of her choices—I was defiant, yet cautious; I won the allegiance of others of my station; I had a plan and I put it into action without getting caught.” Hawkspar sighed. “Though part of my not getting caught was, I think, because Hawkspar intervened with magic, and hid my worst actions from those who had reason and duty to stop me.”

  “Friends in high places are a good thing,” Aaran agreed. “Though only if they stay friends.” He couldn’t help but think of Haakvar, his mentor, his friend, his champion—who had become his enemy over this very girl.

  “There is that,” Hawkspar said. “In any
case, Hawkspar presented to me a story that I could not ignore, and offered me her protection to get me and those Tonk who would come with me out of the Citadel. But to accept her protection, I had also to accept the pain and the responsibility of the Hawkspar Eyes.”

  And that seemed to Aaran a good enough opening. “You both shared the same name as the stone eyes you wear?”

  “In my predecessor’s case, that would be ‘wore.’ There’s only one pair of Hawkspar Eyes—when she died, they came to me.”

  He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “Oh.” He wished he had not asked. She wore the eyes of a dead woman. That was at least as awful as being captain of a drowner ship.

  “The Eyes let me see possible futures and how to reach them,” she said. “At some point, I’ll tell you the futures I see for the Tonk. It is because of these futures that I accepted the Eyes; I did not want them, or the burden that goes with them. But I am Tonk, and there are things I must do.”

  Aaran was intrigued. People talked about seeing into the future, but as far as he knew, no one had actually done it—at least not with any accuracy. Hawkspar talked about futures, though, instead of a single future, so perhaps she had no real power, either.

  It didn’t matter, he decided at last. He’d listen to her tale, and take her back to the Tonk lands, and then he would say good-bye, because that was what he always did. Unless, of course, his sister was already on the Taag, and safe and well, still disguised as one of the Ossalene women aboard. After the celebration, he would ask Hawkspar if she knew anyone who bore his sister’s name.

  Later, though. There was time, and he wanted his guests to enjoy the celebration of their freedom.

  He watched Potyr teaching one of the shaven-headed girls a Tonk dance out in the crew commons. He went through the steps slowly once, and she danced the steps back at him, flawlessly. A little flustered, he nodded to the piper who played for them to pick up the pace, and he danced at speed. And the girl danced right along with him.