by R J Barker
“I have brought the things you wanted, some of them.” Joron did well not to stutter as he held out the bag. The gullaime took a step forward, the masked face tilting first to one side then to the other, the false, painted eyes regarding him as if the creature expected some trick.
“For me?”
“Yes,” he said. “For you.”
“For me,” it said again. Then it made a strange, almost cooing sound, before shrieking, “Give!” and ripping the bag from his hand with its predatory, sharp, curved bill. To Joron’s credit, or maybe simply because the movement was so swift, he did not step back or make any noise that gave away the terror he felt at that beak snapping closed so near his fingers. The gullaime dropped the bag on to the floor and, using the double elbow claws that stuck out from its robes and its feet, the birdmage swiftly untied the knot and opened the bag. “Things,” it said. It sounded almost awed; then the voice changed, suddenly angry again. A furious squawk: “Lies!” Then again: “Lies! Not all things.”
“I could not find everything,” Joron said, words hurrying from his mouth. “Not yet. Cook is saving fishbones for you, or will when we start to fish. For now we eat only dried and the bones are soft.”
“Shiny rocks?”
“We have been nowhere I can get shiny rocks. Not yet.”
“Feathers?”
“There are some feathers in there.”
“Not special ones.”
“How do I know which are—”
“Meas has special feathers.”
“Good luck getting them from her.”
It froze, unnaturally still.
“The feathers are her things.” The gullaime’s head regarded him. If the painted eyes had been able to blink he was sure they would have. “Meas things.” It dipped its head twice and then a third time, and this time its head stayed down as if inspecting the contents of the bag with its blind eyes. It placed a foot in the bag, and once again Joron wondered how he had not noticed that the gullaime’s feet were crowned with claws like scythes, pulsing in and out of their sheathes in time with the creature’s breath. “Needles, cloth. Good, good. What this?” It held up one of the fuzzy balls of dust with one foot, balancing effortlessly on the other.
“Dust. You asked for dust and I have had the cabin boy collect it for you.”
“Not dust.”
“It is dust. It is sweepings from all around the ship.”
“Not good dust, not good for baths.”
“Baths? You need water for baths.”
“Water for drink, fool Joron Twiner. Dust no good. Take.” Then it was picking up the balls of filthy dust and shoving them at Joron, who found himself with no choice but to take them. As suddenly as it had become industrious, it stopped. Became absolutely still. “Oh.” And this was somehow the most human sound Joron had heard the creature make. “Oh,” it said again. The blind head came down, gently picking up the comb from the bottom of the bag with its beak. It transferred the comb from beak to foot and seemed to stare at it, the eyes painted on the leaf mask fixed on the object. “Comb.”
“I remembered you wanted one.”
“Comb,” it said again.
“I am sorry it is broken. I . . .” But the windtalker was not listening. Quick as a girret surfacing to snap at a fly, its head darted forward, snapping off the comb’s teeth. Joron was about to complain about this treatment of his gift when he saw that there was a pattern to the vandalism. It was not taking all the teeth, just a few at regular intervals along the comb, creating larger spaces between the existing teeth.
“Thanking, Joron Twiner.” The gullaime emitted a cooing sound. “Maybe Joron Twiner not fool.”
“I am glad you are happy,” he said, wrongfooted by the sudden gentleness of the creature’s voice.
“Nest father had comb.”
“Oh,” said Joron. The gullaime took another step towards him. Joron felt a sudden sense of panic, the need to get out. He did not want it near him, did not want to hear about the gullaime’s parents, or know that such a beast understood the idea of family. “I must return to the slate,” he said. “We have lost contact with one of the other ships.”
It nodded at his words then stepped back. As he turned for the door it spoke again, softly.
“Are you sad, Joron Twiner?”
“Sad?”
“Smell lonely. Not a good smell.”
“And you would know?”
“Yes,” said the gullaime, and this was the cry of faraway skeers circling over their nests, the cry that every deckchild associated with lost ships, breakers smashing on to cruelly toothed rocks. It was the sound of loss. “Yes,” it said again. “I know.”
It seemed an age between each turn of the sandglass, and every time he turned it and the sand ran anew Joron hoped to hear, “Ship rising to seaward, ship rising to landward.” But the ship to landward remained stubbornly unrisen.
He questioned his decision to fly on. Was it what she would have done? Not that it mattered now as it was a decision made. To go back would make him look weak in front of the crew, and his conversation with Cwell was a staystone in his mind, weighing him down with feelings of weakness he dared not acknowledge, so he said nothing. He concentrated on pushing down the feeling within that he had done the wrong thing and used up the restless energy of worry pacing the rump. Occasionally he circled the deck, checking with bonewrights, wingwrights, seakeep and topboys that all, apart from the lost ship, was as it should be.
And all was.
It was in the very early morning, when the hint of Skearith’s opening Eye touched the far western horizon with a wash of pink, like newly leafed gion, that Joron’s patience was finally rewarded.
“Ship rising to landward, D’keeper!”
“Can you name it, Topboy?” he shouted up to Farys.
“Not for sure, D’keeper,” she returned. “Two spines, wings rigged triangle like on the fore and square on the rump like Snarltooth.” Once again Joron made his careful way up the swaying rigging of Tide Child to the top of the mainspine, where he raised the nearglass. In the coming day Snarltooth was easy to find and he did not doubt it was the lost ship.
“Have they made any signal, Farys?”
“Maybe, but it is too far for eyes alone. I did think I saw movement, D’keeper, and colour.”
“Take up your flags, Farys, and signal to them, ‘Repeat last sent.’’’
“Ey, D’keeper.” She grabbed red and blue flags from where they were tied against the mainspine and then, without even seeming to think of the danger, climbed the final height of the spine until she stood, her feet finding impossible seeming purchase on the rope that ran twice around the bound varisk stalks. There she held out her arms and became the tallest point on the ship, flags extended, red to seaward, blue to landward, then signalled as Joron had requested. Once finished she sent again, and Joron switched his gaze from the girl and centred the nearglass on Snarltooth. Swiftly the signal came back: “Lost a topstay. All good now. Station resumed.”
“Well,” said Joron, “nothing too dramatic, ey? Keep your eyes on the water, Farys. Nothing would please me more than for one of my crew to be first to spot the wakewyrm.” The girl smiled, puckering the burned skin of her face, and he wondered when he had first started to think of her, Karring and Old Briaret as “his” crew.
“It’s real then, D’keeper?”
“So we are told, Farys.”
She nodded and it was enough for her that he said it. His words made the thing real and she did not question them.
Joron made his careful way down the spine and Farys resumed her watch. When Joron returned to the deck it was to find his body had relaxed slightly and his mind was less weighed down. He hoped that those seeing him, as Skearith’s Eye opened above and the day began to blaze, would think he had stood this way all night, sure in his command and his decisions.
Meas appeared from the underdeck, two-tailed hat and clothes as perfect as if she had just bought them. Behind h
er came Narza and behind her was Anzir, who took up station by Joron.
“I hear we lost a ship in the night,” said Meas.
Joron felt his shoulders tighten once more.
“Ey, Shipwife,” he said, handing over the nearglass.
“It would have been no trouble for you to wake me for such a thing – many would have.” She tucked the nearglass inside her jacket. The wind ruffled her sash of red and blue feathers and Joron waited for a rebuke. “But you did not,” she said, “and your decision was a good one.” He let out the breath he had been holding. “Now get some sleep.”
“Thank you, Shipwife.” He leaned in close to her. “Cahanny smuggles arakeesian bone in the hold.”
She nodded.
“I thought as much.”
“And I am not sure Coughlin and his men can be trusted. They have some bond with Cwell, and she sees an opportunity in the wakewyrm.”
Meas nodded again.
“That does not surprise me. Cwell has the tattoo of the dock families, like Cahanny. I will think on this. It may be as well to give Cwell the impression her opportunity will come. Keep quiet about this for now.”
He nodded and headed belowdeck.
When Joron woke the motion of the ship had changed. Tide Child no longer coasted through slack seas; the ship shuddered and bucked. It was not alarming, not like the Northstorm had bared its teeth, more like when a cart moved over a rutted path. But the motion, a chill in the air and a freshness in the underdeck was enough to tell him the weather had changed in the hours he had spent unconscious, and it had not changed for the better.
On deck it was not as warm nor as clement as it had been. He emerged from the underdeck to see Cwell, followed by Hasrin and Sprackin, dragging a rope between them, heading for the mainspine. A chill ran through him as the wind attempted to rip the one-tailed hat from his head, and he had to make a swift grab for it, pulling it tighter over his wiry hair. The ship tilted as wind filled the mainwings, heeling Tide Child to seaward. Above the sound of the wind as it whistled through the rigging he made out a chorus of human misery, retching and moaning. The seaward rail was crowded with Cahanny’s men once more.
The ocean beyond them, the ever-changing mirror of water, had taken on some of the Hag’s temper. No longer the blue-green, smoothly swelling landscape that had gently chivvied Tide Child along, now it was grey, and its smoothness had been replaced by angular waves that bit and sniped, crossing and recrossing one another. The forespine of Tide Child, which stuck out well over the beak, carved spirals in the air as Joron stared along it. All this was nothing to him, for he was a fisher’s boy and of the sea, and its many moods and movements were like sithers and brothers to him – he knew them intimately. Meas stood on the rump of the ship, looking out over the ashen sea towards where, far over the horizon, Skearith’s Spine rose stark and black from the water.
“Good aftan, Deckkeeper,” she said as he approached. She did not need to look round; she recognised him through his tread.
“Aftan, Shipwife.” He followed her gaze. Though the sky above was blue, the first hint of cloud gathered in the distance.
“Cloud from the east, Twiner, and I like it not. When the Northstorm kisses the Eaststorm, its children always bring rain.”
“A deckchild is often lost on a slippy deck,” he said. “Seakeep!” Fogle, came running, bent at the waist due to some deformation of her spine.
“Ey, D’keeper?”
“Rain is in the offing. Bring up sand for the decks; we’ll have no one slip overboard.”
“Ey, D’keeper,” she said, and under her breath, “As it was my intentions anyways.”
Joron let the woman go, pretending he had not heard her speak. He had come to respect Meas’s choice of seakeep. All aboard said that although Fogle was very odd indeed, she knew the running of a boneship like few others. There had been no sign of the drunkenness that had worried Meas either.
“You let her get away with that?” said Meas under her breath.
“What was it you said of Coxward, Shipwife? That you allow a skilled man some slack?”
“Only a little mind.” He thought he heard the hint of a smile in her voice as she gazed out over the water.
“Ey, only that.”
“I worry about more than losing crew overboard, Joron. A little rain will cut our visibility by a third, heavier rain by half. Any more than that, and we will have to lay up at seastay and wait it out or risk missing the wakewyrm altogether.’
“Turning the glass!” came the call from behind them.
“Tell of the sea, Topboy!” shouted Meas into the rigging.
“Ship rising to seaward, ship rising to landward, Shipwife. All else is clear.”
Meas nodded.
Joron was staring up.
“Was that Farys?”
“Ey, Deckkeeper, it was.”
“Has she been up there all night?”
“Says you expect her to sight the arakeesian first, and will not come down.”
“I did not mean—”
“An officer must be careful about what they say to those who respect them, Joron.”
He did not know how to answer that, for none had ever respected him before.
Sand slid through the glass.
“Her eyes must be tired, Shipwife. You could order her down.”
“She is young. Her eyes will be good for a while yet, do not worry. And I would not order her down, for if the wakewyrm is spotted by another aboard Tide Child she would feel as if she let you down. Give her ten more turns of the glass, Joron, and then go up and order her to deck, gently mind. Then it is your choice and she cannot let you down.”
“Yes, Shipwife.” he said. Meas walked away from him to continue staring out at the grey, and greying, sky.
The glass continued to turn. The sky continued to grey. The men of the rock continued to vomit. Meas continued to become more and more worried by the sky, and rain spotted the skin of Joron’s face with cold wet dots. He paced up and down the ship, finding endless small jobs for the crew. His father had always told him that keeping a ship afloat was an endless task, and that the Hag had made it so because idle deckchilder found nothing but mischief.
If Hassith the spear thrower had been set to work, then the godbird would still fly, boy, so you mend those nets and stop your complaining.
And if there were snide looks and unpleasant words said under the breath of women and men and sent in Joron’s direction, they were fewer than they had been, and he thought it best to ignore them.
“Ship rising! Ship rising to the north-west!” This brought Meas from a statue on the rump to a figure of action. She was across the deck and climbing the spine.
“Say again, Topboy. I said say again!”
“Ship rising to the north-west.”
“It is not the Cruel Water?”
“No, Shipwife.”
“And not the Snarltooth?”
“No, Shipwife.”
“How many?”
“I count four, Shipwife.” Then Meas was lost among the billowing mass of black wings, no doubt staring through her nearglass, while Narza lounged at the bottom of the spine, idly picking at something in her shoe with a knife. Joron stepped nearer the mainspine to ensure he heard anything shouted down.
“Oarturner! Send us three points of shadow for’ard to the north-west. Joron, brace the ship for action!”
And Joron was turning, repeating the words.
“Oarturner, three points of shadow for’ard to the north-west. Deckholder! clear Tide Child for action.” And Dinyl, just appearing from the underdecks passed the command to Solemn and solemn Muffaz stepped up, bellowing out the words. Behind him Gavith beat the drum.
A bevy of excited deckchilder ran for the gallowbows at the first beat of the drum.
“Not the bows, my girls and boys, not yet!” shouted Joron. In the back of his mind a little voice whispered that he had at some time taken on Meas’s inflections and patterns of speech.
“Not yet. Wait for the shipwife to get down so we know if we run or fight.” He strode forward, raising his voice into the wind. “Clear the underdeck. Stow the hammocks. Stack bolt and shot. Tie everything down that is loose.”
Meas was climbing down the rigging with all the ease of a child skipping along a path. The moment her feet hit the deck she was shouting once more.
“Four flukeboats on the horizon, Deckkeeper. Raiders from the look of them. It’s time for us to put some blood on Tide Child. We’ll need some speed, Twiner.”
He nodded and turned.
“More wings,” shouted Joron. “For’ard jib up, bottom wings up. Hold the flyers in reserve for now.” And as if it were the most natural thing in the world, women and men were scuttling up the spines and loosing swathes of black wingcloth to flap and crack in the wind. Something in the ship let out an alarming creak, and with a shock – like cold water running down his back – Joron worried if he put too much pressure on the damaged keel. The bonemaster, Coxward, ran past without a word, and Joron felt a little calmer at that, for he knew the man was not afraid to speak his mind if he thought the ship in trouble.
Tide Child leaped forward, parting the water with new ferocity. Meas stood by Joron, staring up at the mass of black wing that caught the storm’s gift and pushed the ship on. Joron realised he was grinning, feeling a fierce joy. He had done this. His words had sent the great black ship racing through the sea, and though he knew what he flew towards was sure to be danger – his father ground between the hulls – . He would enjoy this moment – the wind, the smell of the sea, the ship and the crew moving as one unit – and at the end? Well, he would deal with that when it came, though it filled him with a fear and excitement that he barely understood.
“He flies well, does he not, Joron?” said Meas, and she breathed deep, as if the sudden speed of the ship had outrun some terrible fate that haunted her.
