The Bone Ships

by R J Barker

  “That is true,” said Meas, “and any ship would be hard pressed to catch us without killing his gullaime. Our real danger is from anyone who already knows what we are about and hunts us for it.”

  “I thought none knew,” said Joron.

  “A secret cannot be kept for ever,” Meas said quietly. “Hag’s Hunter went north before we did.”

  “Ships are sent north all the time,” said Dinyl. “That does not mean—”

  “And Tide Child was searched the night before we left.”

  “For Cahanny’s cargo,” said Dinyl.

  “You think it was that?” Meas raised an eyebrow. “Do not forget what else we should have had on board when they came looking.”

  “You mean the bolts to poison the arakeesian,” said Joron.

  “I am glad you are not asleep, Joron,” said Meas.

  “Karrad would not betray us,” said Dinyl more forcefully. “He understands duty, as do I.”

  “He had a you put on a black ship,” said Joron.

  “For duty,” said Dinyl. “To end the trade in bones.”

  “You think that?” said Joron. “Are you sure you had not simply displeased him? For that is why I am here.”

  “Kept Karrad would not—”

  “Karrad had me condemned for killing his son in a duel.”

  “I am sure it was not that simple. I heard that—”

  “It was a fair duel,” said Joron, heat rising to his face, “and legal by all the Hag’s laws.”

  “In court, it was said the boy was drugged,” said Dinyl.

  Joron stood, his chair screeching on the white deck. “He was drunk!” he shouted.

  Dinyl stood as well.

  “Stop!” said Meas. “What is past is past and Karrad’s reasons do not matter. And besides, Dinyl is right: Karrad would not betray us in this. Peace matters to him, but at the same time little goes on in the Hundred Isles without my mother hearing whispers.”

  “You think the Thirteenbern knows what we are about?”

  Meas tapped the desk with her bone knife, then shook her head.

  “No. If she knew, the entire fleet would have been on us from the moment we set out. But the search – sending Hag’s Hunter north . . . Since we set off I have wondered if she suspects something and guards her rear. We will have to watch our horizons closely.” She looked up. “Carry on, Aelerin.”

  “Thank you, Shipwife,” said the courser. “Up here, after we touch the Northstorm, we keep on until here” – they tapped the map – “where the only deep water is on the Gaunt Islanders’ side, so we must cross the Spine.”

  “Here is where we will have trouble,” said Meas. “There are towers. They are little more than watchtowers and do not have great bows, but they will alert any ships in the area.”

  “And how many will that be?”

  “Minimum? I imagine two, maybe three two-ribbers, but it would not surprise me if there was something bigger in the area. The Gaunt Islanders are not fools.” She tapped the gap in Skearith’s Spine with her knife. “Make no mistake about it, we will be in a fight about here.”

  “Further up we will pass back through the Spine to Hundred Isles waters.” Aelerin moved their hand, and again Joron had the dizzying sensation of flying at speed over the water. “More watchtowers here,” said the courser.

  “I am less worried about those,” said Meas. “The cold north is rarely patrolled now. The ice is too dangerous and ships too precious to risk on its spines.” The courser nodded. “Thank you, Aelerin, you may leave us now.” They waited until the courser was out of the cabin.

  It was Dinyl who broke the silence:

  “A long journey.”

  Joron ignored him.

  “So, when we reach here, Shipwife” – he touched the map – “all we need do is pass through the icefields and kill the arakeesian.”

  She smiled at him. “You make it sound simple, Joron.”

  “Killing the arakeesian should be,” said Dinyl. “Indyl Karrad has supplied the weapon for that. One poisoned bolt in the eye of the beast and it is done.” Quiet fell upon the cabin. “That is what you want, right?” said Dinyl. “An end to the risk the dragon’s bones pose?”

  “Of course,” said Meas. “Dinyl, if you would go to the hold and check the condition of the cold weather clothes.”

  Dinyl hesitated, and Joron saw something akin to pain cross his face at the dismissal, then he he nodded and left.

  Meas gave him time to get below before she stood and went over to the great window to gaze out at the arakeesian. Tide Child flew the sea slightly in front of the creature’s head, and it appeared as if Skearith’s Eye, low in the sky, was held between the branches of its horns. Below the horns the keyshan’s many eyes burned, and Joron felt once more he could hear the song of the windspires on the wind.

  “We should not forget,” said Meas quietly, “that Indyl Karrad no doubt has his own agenda, and Dinyl is his agent. At the least he is here to spy on us. Karrad wants what he wants, but why? And I doubt he told me everything.” She turned from the arakeesian. “Well, I have said all I need to. We have a ship to run, Twiner, and you do not appear to be doing that, so I suggest you get on with whatever duties you have.”

  Joron left her cabin and went next door to his. He had been back on board Tide Child two days and had not seen the gullaime since it hopped off the flukeboat and vanished into its cabin. It was not that he avoided it, simply that he had been too tired from the fighting on the island and then too busy working the ship. But he was not scared of the windtalker now; in fact, he wanted to talk to it, to find out about the sound he kept hearing, the constant song. So he would call on the gullaime now. He opened his door to find Dinyl waiting for him in the gloom of the underdeck.

  “Joron.”

  “You should address me as Deckkeeper, Deckholder.”

  “Of course.” He took a step back. “My apologies, Deckkeeper.” He looked at the floor. Dinyl was a smaller man than Joron, though better built, stronger. “What I said in the great cabin, about the duel. I . . .”

  “As Meas said, such things are the past.” Joron did not look him in the eye, only made to go around him, but Dinyl put a hand on his arm, stopped him.

  “Yes, they are. But what I said was not in the past, it was said today. It will be like a cold breeze between us if it is not addressed.”

  “Well, it is best to have some distance between ranks in the fleet,” said Joron, as fleetlike as he could. “I am told this is how it is.” Again he tried to step around Dinyl.

  “Deckkeeper,” Dinyl said, his words soft, “I am trying my utmost to apologise.”

  Joron stopped. Let out a breath.

  “I did not drug Rion Karrad,” he said. “I went to that duel fully expecting it to be my last day under Skearith’s Eye and to spend that night at the Hag’s fire.”

  “I should never have said what I did in the Shipwife’s cabin, Deckkeeper,” said Dinyl. “They were Indyl Karrad’s words coming from my mouth, not mine.”

  “I did not see him in the cabin, Deckholder. Now, if you will let me past I have work to do.”

  “I was Karrad’s man for so long that it became second nature to me, to voice his opinion. I should have thought before I let the wind from my mouth.” Dinyl took off his no-tail hat and scratched at his hair; he wore it short, unlike most men of the Hundred Isles. “I knew Rion,” he said. “Karrad said you had drugged his son, and I heard it so often as he convinced others of it that I even came to believe it myself.”

  “You speak like you knew he was not drugged.” Dinyl looked away. Something dark rose within Joron and he stepped nearer to the deckholder. “You did know,” said Joron, incredulous. “How?”

  “I was his second that day, hanging back in the shadows behind the rest. We were all drunk.”

  “You were there? You were his friend?” There had been a glimmer between them, a ship friendship growing, even. And now?

  “Not his friend,” said Diny
l, he looked miserable. “Never that. His father appointed me his son’s minder though I was not that to Rion. I was the butt of his jokes, his punchbag on occasion, servant on others. That morning he drank. I tried to convince him not to but he would not listen. He did not fear a fisher’s boy. ‘I could kill him drunk and blindfolded, Dinyl.’” He looked away again. “I felt like cheering when you killed him.”

  “But you never told the truth of the matter? You could have saved me from the black ship.” Joron wanted to spit. “You could have told them it was a fair fight.”

  “I was frightened. I thought Karrad would never forgive me for not stopping his son drinking, so I pretended I was not with him that morning, and when the story got about that he had been drugged, it seemed like I was off the hook.”

  “Why tell me this, Dinyl? Why now?”

  Dinyl took a breath. Let it out. Shrugged and stared at the overbones.

  “I am alone on this ship, Deckkeeper. Trusted by none. You are the nearest I have had to a friend and yet even that small friendship I do not deserve.”

  An inkling awoke within Joron.

  “Is that why Karrad sent you on here, to join the condemned?”

  “Of course. He is the Thirteenbern’s spymaster. He knew all along that I had let his son drink the day of the duel. He only waited for a time when his vengeance could also be useful to him. But now you know that, you know I am no more favoured than you and am just as committed to our cause as any other. Meas need not send me away, and I will do my duty. I can only regain Karrad’s favour by doing my duty. And I am fleet through and through – duty is my all. Karrad told me it was my duty to support him, he served the fleet. He paid for my education.” Joron did not think he had ever seen a man look as miserable, or as trapped. “What could I do?”

  For a moment Joron thought of striking Dinyl. Of how good it would feel for his fist to meet this man’s flesh. Here, in front of him, was someone he could blame for his fate, for the fact he was one of the condemned. He clenched his fists. Felt his muscles tense, and then a stray thought passed through his mind. Of the cabin boy, Gavith. Of how Meas had said that if the boy did not come with them the Kept would kill him simply because he was inconvenient to them. Could Joron doubt for one moment that, even if he had walked away from the death of Rion Karrad, if the Bern had said it was a just death, that he would have lived for long?

  Of course not.

  One night someone would have found him, started an argument in a tavern or slipped a knife between his ribs on the docks.

  He let his muscles relax a little. Unclenched his fists.

  “It is brave of you to tell me all this, Dinyl,” he said.

  “I had offended you anyway, Deckkeeper. And you, all I had for a friend.”

  Joron let out a sigh.

  Had he not thought to himself only days ago how he was a better man for meeting Meas – how he was born anew? Could he really hate Dinyl for his part in putting him on this path?

  “Call me Joron. At least when no one is in hearing so Meas cannot pull us up on it. What is it she says? That we leave all we were behind when we join the black ship?” He put out his hand. “Let us leave what we were behind.”

  Dinyl looked at the hand as if it were something completely alien to him. Then a wide smile crossed his face and he took it.

  “We can be friends again?”

  “Ey, friends. We may not live long, so let us not be lonely while we still draw breath.”

  “No,” said Dinyl, and his hand was warm in Joron’s.

  “Well, now I must see to the gullaime, and you must see to cold-weather clothes, unless you want Meas to order you corded.”

  “Yes, Deckkeeper,” he said, and grinned at Joron as he let go of his hand.

  Joron watched him walk away and felt a little lighter of step himself.

  He crossed the underdeck and knocked on the gullaime’s door.

  “Come, Joron Twiner,” it squawked, and he passed into its sanctum.

  The room had changed much since the first time he had been here. It was still messy to Joron’s eye, but he felt like there was some sense of order to it now. And the smell – that smell of heated sand and parched desert land, the lifelessness he associated with the heartgrounds: where in days past the huge and glowing hearts of the keyshan were dragged, and all around them sickened and died, where still nothing grew today – it was not gone from the gullaime’s quarters, but transmuted. The cabin still smelled of heat, but not a dead heat, a clean heat. Heat like a summer morning, when the sea lapped against the sand and the wind was kind and you knew the nets you cast that day would come back full. A heat full of promise.

  The gullaime itself looked different. It had feathers now, not just little white spines. The feathers had no colour, looking more like short wiry hair on the creature’s face. The cloak it wore had changed as well: it was no longer dirty, and the tears had been sewn up more carefully. And they had a shared secret. The reason Joron felt like he was being scrutinised whenever the gullaime turned its masked head towards him was because he was: he knew the windtalker was not blind like the rest of its kind. He had seen the shining eyes behind the mask, eyes that should not be there.

  The gullaime opened its beak, showing the cave of spines within, and his name crept from its mouth as two definite, separate syllables: “Jor-on” – the first stressed and said slowly, the second bitten off.

  “I came to thank you,” he said.

  “Thank gullaime? No one thanks gullaime.”

  “Well, Meas said this ship would run differently, and if you had not come to us at the tower we would be dead. You did not have to do that. You could have escaped.”

  “Go where, Joron Twiner? Go where?”

  “I do not—”

  “Joron Twiner saved gullaime.”

  “I did?”

  “In the windsick gave blood, gave time. Saved gullaime.” Suddenly it was standing, although not fully. It shuffled forward at half its normal height, body swaying from side to side. “Know why you weep,” it said. “Heard all. Gullaime lost much too.” A shock. He had told it his secret thoughts thinking it dead, or at least asleep, but it had heard.

  After the shock, curiosity.

  “What did you lose?”

  “Nestlings. Nest father. Nest mother. All gone.”

  “I am sorry,” said Joron.

  The gullaime snapped its beak at the air, almost but not quite in his direction.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I am—”

  “Gullaime die, yes? Is what gullaime for. Gullaime speed ships so humans may kill. Gullaime die to do this. Humans die when gullaime do this. All is death and death and death.” It snapped at the air again and settled back into its nest.

  “But the Gaunt Islanders—”

  “Kill guallaime too. Blind gullaime too.”

  “But you are not blind,” said Joron, glad to escape the discomfort the gullaime’s words made him feel about the world he lived in. The world he was part of.

  “No,” it said and raised the mask a little so he could see those magnificent, bright eyes. “First gullaime to witness sea sither in more years than human can dream.” It rearranged some of the torn material which made its nest, apparently finding some comfort in this. “First,” it said quietly.

  “How?” said Joron.

  “With eyes,” said the gullaime. It put its head down, rooted through the objects on the floor with its beak as if suddenly bored with Joron.

  “I did not mean that; I meant how did you keep your eyes?”

  It stopped utterly still then lifted its head to stare through its mask at Joron.

  “Two eggs rare in gullaime,” it said. “Nest father escape lamyard. Hid second egg, buried it in warm near spire. Hatched into dirt. Born fighting. Fighting to breathe. Fighting to surface. Born singing the great song.” It made a sound like a gentle cough, something ineffably sad. “Nest sibling went to train, be blinded. Gullaime stayed hidden. Pretended to be sibl
ing when needed.”

  “And no one noticed?”

  “All gullaime alike to human, yes?” It did not give Joron time to answer, hurrying on with its tale, mouth open, words emerging. “Nest father sent to sea. Never came back. Nest sibling not strong, not strong. Get windsick. Die. This gullaime take place on training.”

  “What of your mother?”

  “Mothers not stay.” It said this offhandedly. “Gullaime train. Learn lots. Train and train. The weak die. Say nest mother weak. Say nest father weak. Say nest sibling weak.” It clacked the air twice again. “Gullaime show them who weak.”

  “How?”

  “Drop rock on bothy.”

  “What?”

  “Drop rock on bothy. Kill trainers.”

  “And that is why they sent you to the black ship?”

  The gullaime let out a deafening squawk. “No! Not know, not know. Think accident. Say accident. All gullaime gathered, expected sad torturers die.” It settled down on the nest.

  “Then how did you end up on Tide Child?”

  “Rude,” it said, and drew the word out like the long sigh of a wave retreating down a beach.

  “You were rude?”

  “Rude like Black Orris rude. Shipwife not liking rude gullaime. Not loving it. Send it away.”

  “And you let them send you away? I have seen what you can do.”

  “Wanted escape. Wanted escape and help all gullaime. But cages and drugs and windsick on fleet ship.”

  “You are not windsick now. You could wreck us, escape.”

  The gullaime stood in that upsetting way it had of simply seeming to levitate from sitting to standing. It stalked across the small cabin to stare out of the bowpeek. Outside the arakeesian glided through the sea, its eyes burning. Joron’s mind filled with the the song of the winds and the sea.

  “Gullaime with the sea sither,” it said quietly. “This is where gullaime is. This is where gullaime should be.” Then it settled down to watch the arakeesian, and Joron had the feeling that he was intruding upon some form of communion. He did not feel threatened by it, only fascinated, but at the same time he did not want to spoil the strange and delicately balanced friendship he seemed to have established with the windtalker. So, very quietly, he left the cabin, his questions about the song forgotten.