by Holly Lisle
Ossal had found his way to me, and had sought to take me by surprise.
I wondered how I would deal with his next attack, or what I would do to prevent that attack. No one had awakened. No one—not even Redbird—had sensed that anything was wrong. The woman in white had stepped in and saved me. But I should have been ready. I should have been prepared to protect myself.
Aaran
A day passed, with the ship moving slowly southward, safe enough in a deep channel, keeping well away from islands and anything that moved. The windmen worked their shifts, but they were not encouraged to any great feats. The injured aboard the ship were mending; the Moonstones had astonishing skill with magic.
The Taag got a bit of wind, and the raised sails bellied out and the ship began tugging forward. The windmen stood down, resting in reserve against future need.
Aaran set an easy course, running due south across the wind. That would keep the Taag av Sookyn in the center of open water for a while. At their current slow pace, for several days.
He didn’t look forward to running through any of the islands again; he’d tracked out a dozen deep channels back into open sea, but the way home would be long compared to the way in, and he couldn’t know which parts of it would take him past more cannibals, or past horrors none aboard the ship even knew to fear.
He found Hawkspar in the passenger commons, and invited her be at his cabin door at fifth bell, for the dinner she had promised to share with him.
He told his officers to fend for themselves for the evening meal. And then he spent the rest of the time between when he entered his cabin and when the fifth bell rang showering in the gombaar, and dressing himself in his best clothes, and then—realizing that Hawkspar was unlikely to recognize his best clothes—dousing himself with a musk oil that the natives of Firewalk Island got from a species of deer that lived there, and that they declared made a man irresistible to a woman.
He sent Potyr down to the temple to study with Tuua and his protégé for a while.
The bell rang, and she knocked before it had finished the fifth clang. He opened the door, and took a half step back.
She glowed like the sun, dressed in something that resembled the Ossalene garb in cut and form, but was threaded with gold and studded with gemstones—gleaming emeralds and rubies and blue-black stones that matched her hair.
She’d done something with her hair. It was up, which emphasized the slender, graceful length of her neck, the smooth line of her jaw, the sweet curve of her face.
She smiled, and he realized she also had fine white teeth, even and well cared for. Something about the finery and the hair and her stance emphasized to him that she was very young for a woman who commanded such power. Certainly a few years younger than he was. “I dressed,” she said. “You did not say if it was formal, but in the Oracle House, we dressed for the meal. I hope this is appropriate.”
“You look beautiful,” he said, startled by his sincerity. Even with those stone eyes, he discovered, she was beautiful. He tried to imagine what she had looked like before. And then he forced himself to put that thought away. She was who she was. And he needed to get to know her, and understand her—and for many more reasons than that he felt drawn to her.
He led her to the private companionway in his quarters that took them down into the captain’s grand hall. The room was his alone to do with as he pleased. Unlike much of the rest of the ship, he could dine there in silence, alone, or seat himself and all his officers. Food came up through the dropwaiter in the center of the table, and the room itself had its only entrance through the companionway down from the captain’s quarters. Which meant that those in the grand hall were guaranteed privacy.
He led her around the table where he did his navigating, and down the step stairs. She had no trouble getting from place to place.
“How does your head feel?”
“Better,” she said. “That drink you gave me worked wonders. Though it did make the world feel as if it were spinning so quickly I could not even lift my head. The feeling wore off—but I confess I did not find it entirely pleasant.”
Something wicked in him whispered, Let her try Kerfuu wine. That will make her head spin.
He took a deep breath, chasing the wickedness away. “I only gave you a few swallows. Gyriik is a strong drink.”
“It smells a great deal like medicines we use to clean wounds.”
“Well, it would. Alcohol all smells much the same, no matter what you use it for.” He paused. “You’ve never drunk alcohol? Wine? Beer? Mead? Liqueurs? Brandy?”
“Water,” she said, sounding quite certain about that. “Slaves were only permitted water. Penitents, also. The same for acolytes. And the oracles at table had different drinks, but I did not care for the smell, or for the way those women behaved when they had been drinking their drinks. So I stayed with water.”
The wicked voice came back. Never drank anything but water. Think about that, would you? She’d be warm. And supple. It wouldn’t really be taking advantage, would it?
He silenced the voice again. Rang the dropwaiter bell, and in a moment heard the rope creaking. Her face was turned to the center of the table. “How very clever. Ropes and pulleys, and a big box with trays in it, and one boy down there to pull it all up. And thus your food comes to you hot from the kitchen, instead of being run up through the ship, and outside across the deck, and back inside and down. I had wondered how you got your food in here.”
He studied her as the trays came level with the table. He tapped the bell, and the boy down in the kitchen stopped pulling. He could also have trays delivered directly to his quarters if he wanted to eat at his desk; the ropes ran straight through the grand hall to his quarters.
“How did you know how it worked, or how many people it took to get it up here?”
“It’s all part of that seeing but not seeing. I have lost color. I’ve lost surfaces. But I can feel densities and movement and shapes at a distance, even through other objects. People are nearly as clear as water to me. I can see through the sea as if it were a faint haze. Through wood is not so hard. Through stone, harder, but not impossible. Through metal, very difficult.” She shrugged. “I would love to know how the ship looks. But I can see how it works.”
Aaran put her plate in front of her, and rang the bell. The dropwaiter descended, and the round cutout that filled in the hole in the table dropped into place.
She could see through things.
Could see if someone was hiding weapons, certainly.
Could see monsters under the sea—he’d already known that.
Could see through the walls of ships, so that men might have no privacy around her.
Could see … through clothes?
Could tell if a man was … interested in her?
Oh, Ethebet, preserve him from women who saw too well.
She was eating—dainty bites with knife and fork, pauses in between each bite. “This is remarkable,” she said. “What is it?”
“Smoked hawfish. They only run in the spring where I come from. And when they run, they come up the rivers from the sea to spawn. They’re a staple in Hyre, especially in the southernmost regions, where the weather is coldest. They’re deepwater fish the rest of the time—once they’re back in the oceans, no net can reach them.”
“The meat has a bite to it. I like that.”
I have a bite to me, he thought, and felt like he’d been drinking too much of his own gyriik. “So tell me about life in the Citadel.”
“Some of it wasn’t bad. For those of us who showed aptitude, there were classes. Learning languages and history, fighting, etiquette in a hundred different cultures, the strategies and tactics of warfare, a smattering of magic, how to rule. There was a great deal of scrubbing things,” she said. “There were parts I would rather never think on again. Too much of it is not suitable to discuss while digesting. You tell me about you. About life on this ship. About what it looks like, about what you look like. Colors. Give
me lots of colors. I miss them most of anything, I think. Sunrises and sunsets and flowers and leaves. They aren’t the same now.”
“They wouldn’t be, I suppose.” He sighed. “The ship is a beauty. Old, and made in the old fashion, with a big horse head carved on the neck at the fore. Real horsehair for the mane, too, which I thought a nice touch when I first saw it. The ship itself is polished wood, a rich gleaming dark brown that has been varnished and revarnished for more than a century now. But the prow is gilt, and the horse head atop it has a gold nose and gold ear tips, and eyes of faceted garnet.”
“Garnet. A red stone,” she said. “Odd color for the eyes.”
“And after the horse, there are the sails,” he said, immediately changing the subject. Where Ossalenes and odd eye colors were concerned, every single thing he could think to say sounded wrong. “They’re crimson, every one of them, and when the light shines through them, they glow like fire. So gold and crimson and gleaming brown, we cut through the blue water like a jewel. She’s a lovely ship, the Taag av Sookyn. Inside, most of the walls are painted white, because it would be dark in here otherwise. The portholes are small, and there are none on the working deck.”
“That’s the deck below ours, right?”
“The one with the attable.”
“Right,” Hawkspar said. “And the kitchen, and all the marines.”
“A handful of light tubes bring in some light from the top deck to the working deck, and lanterns burn there whenever anyone is there, but it’s still dark.”
“I miss the light,” she said softly.
He sighed. “The best place on the ship, though, is up on the ratlines, or sitting astride the foremast snaparm and clinging to the mast, looking out over the sea, with the deck so far below it looks like a toy. You might as well be flying. Sometimes, you can feel yourself wanting to let go. To leap out over the water and become some great soaring bird.”
The expression on her face was rapt. “It sounds wondrous.”
“As long as you don’t let go, it is.”
“What would it be like to let go, though?” she asked, more to herself, he thought, than to him. “To feel the wind against your skin, to soar, to be a bird?”
“Until you crashed into the water or the deck, I’m sure it would be lovely,” he said. “But water feels like rock if you land on it from high enough up.”
“You know this?”
“I missed a handhold once,” he said. “When I was much younger. And I went over the side. They managed to scoop me back in—good thing they were quick with the catchman and the gaffe, though, because I couldn’t move my arms or legs, couldn’t breathe, and every muscle in my body felt like it had been ripped from the bone. I couldn’t have tread water to save my life. My hide was one big bruise for weeks after.”
“How terrible. And yet you did not leave the sea. I think if something like that had happened to me, I would never have had the courage to step back on a ship.”
“My sister is not yet home. It wasn’t a matter of courage for me. Staying on the sea was a matter of necessity.”
“When you first heard my plea, you thought perhaps that I was her?”
He shook his head. “I knew you weren’t. You shared no common memories with me. And she’s younger than you, by perhaps a year or two.”
“I don’t know how old I am.”
“I’d guess you were twenty. Maybe twenty-one.”
“Which would make her nineteen or twenty now. You’ve been looking so long?”
“She was eight when she was taken. I hope she might be one of your number.”
“Oh, you don’t hope that. You don’t want her to have spent twelve years with the Ossalenes. Not so much as a single day. Horrible things happened to those who displeased the seru and the oracles, and equally horrible things to those who pleased them too much. The best hope of a good life in the Citadel was to be plain-looking, and quiet, and unremarkable. Not too smart, not too talented, not too pretty.”
“And yet you are pretty, and intelligent, and I imagine talented as well.”
For one long moment she said nothing at all. Then she laced her fingertips together on the table before her, and in a careful tone, said, “And I’ve been beaten so often the scars on my back feel like a washing board. I’ve been fed to starving rats, and it was only some secret magic my mentor summoned that saved me from horrible death. As a reward for being good at languages and studies, and for having the initiative to figure out how to escape from that place, I had the privilege of being offered the opportunity to have my eyes ripped out and these shoved in their place. Now for the rest of my life, I’ll see things I don’t want to see, and know things I don’t want to know. And experience pain worse than any beating I ever got for the honor of being Hawkspar.”
“And you did this because … people you didn’t know were in danger.”
“Family I didn’t know,” she said softly.
“A hidden war, you said. A vast conspiracy. By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tuua—that is, my cousin Tuuanir, who is the ship’s keeper, and who has most of Ethebet’s teachings memorized and who has a fancy for politics, might be able to steer you toward likely candidates. If you care to seek him out.”
“I will. It would make this easier, if I knew which part of the river to search for the future and its cure.”
She had done what she had done with no guarantee that she might succeed. Suffered great loss with full knowledge that she might have suffered in vain. He stared at her. He understood her far too well.
He stood and stepped around the table, and pulled her up, not thinking about what he was doing, or why. He held her close, and after an instant, felt her body melt against his. He stroked her hair, and felt her shiver.
She was warm. Soft in all the right places. Well rounded, giving, firm and curved and enticing.
He ran a finger lightly down the back of her neck, and she sighed. “That makes my knees feel like they’re going to fall out from under me. Do it again.”
He did in again.
“Are you still hungry?” he asked her.
“I don’t think I could eat another bite.”
“Would you … come up to my quarters with me, then?”
She paused for a moment, and he found that he was holding his breath.
“Yes,” she said then, and she sounded certain. Better yet, he knew she was sober.
He put a hand on her back, and followed her up the stairs and into his quarters. He had a wide berth—the only one on the ship that would comfortably fit two adults. He had two comfortable chairs. And his table. And a bench with windows that looked out over the sea. And a loft above, empty for the moment. He locked the door.
And then he turned to her. “Come here,” he said, and she came to him, smiling.
20
Hawkspar
He wanted me. It was all I knew, all I needed to know. Somehow, he had managed to leave his shock at the hideous Hawkspar Eyes behind. Somehow, he had found something in me that spoke to him the way everything about him spoke to me. He was standing before me with his arms spread wide, saying, “Come here,” and it was all I could do not to throw myself at him. I forced myself to walk as though I were a sane person, and not a creature driven mad by the magic of his touch. The back of my neck still tingled from his fingers.
He curved both arms around me and pulled me tight against him, and lowered his head to press his lips against mine. I had never felt such a thing, nor imagined it. I licked his lips, tasting him, and he made a little growling noise in the back of his throat, and bit me lightly.
I could feel his teeth. His tongue. I wanted to feel more, and at the same time, I felt foolish. What was I supposed to do?
I ran a hand over his chest. It was so different from my own. Mine was the only body I’d ever felt, and I’d thought all of them would be much like it. We saw men in the Citadel, but seeing is not touching.
So I reveled in to
uching him. Where I was soft, he was hard. He was so much bigger than me, and his arms around me were thick and roped with muscle. And far stronger than I could have imagined. He picked me up again, and I was no longer so consumed by pain that I could not enjoy the experience. He carried me to his berth, and laid me on the firm mattress, and bent over me, and once more pressed his lips to mine.
I bit him. Lightly. I did not, after all, want to hurt him. But I’d liked the feel of it when he did it to me.
I did not expect the response I got.
He laughed and clambered on top of me, and pushed his tongue through my teeth to lick it against my tongue.
My body seemed to have gone mad. Every part of my skin was covered in chill bumps, hair was standing on end, my breasts tingled, and low in my belly, I felt things tightening and relaxing.
Anything below our waists the Ossalenes had taught us to ignore. Never touch, except for the bleed times, and while washing, and little gods help the girl who spent too much time in the shower washing. The seru would drag her out of the water naked and beat her right there.
But I was shivering with desire, wanting and longing and not even sure what it was that I so desired. My mind didn’t know. But it felt like my body did.
He found the knotted bo-allar at my waist. That flat knot had taken me an age to learn, but he had no problems undoing it.
Well, no—why would he? He was a sailor. They lived in a world of ties and knots and bindings.
After he tossed the bo across the room, he slid the heavy jeweled rak-tabi over my head, and let it drop to the floor. And then his hands were sliding the overblouse off, over my head, and I raised my arms to help its progress, then felt along his chest to the lacings of his shirt. I undid them, and tugged them free from his belt and breeches, and he lifted up from me long enough that he could shed both shirt and jacket.
My hands slid across his chest then, and my fingers were shocked by what they found. Soft hair, curly and short, covered his chest. His shoulders were smooth, as was his back.
