Responsibility of the Crown

by G Scott Huggins

  “Damn,” he whispered. He gave her fingers a brief, hard, squeeze. “Nothing for it. Everything as we discussed.” Avnai stepped out onto the gently swaying surface as if he were already a king, ignoring the potential fall of two hundred feet to the unyielding surface of the Century Ship’s deck.

  Azriyqam stayed hidden in the shadow of the gondola’s entrance, her heart thudding in her chest. We made plans for this, she told herself. Yet she could not tear her eyes from Haraad’s face. She saw that he was uncertain, as if he almost recognized Avnai. However, Avnai’s uniform and demeanor were not the only things that had changed. His mustache, though thin, was neat and his hair had grown out.

  “Permission to board the Century Ship Ekkaia, whose hull is hewn from the Pillars of the Sky?” Avnai’s voice cut across the whistle of the wind and the flapping of fabric. The men at the platform murmured in surprise at the full, formal request, delivered exactly as Azriyqam had taught him.

  Haraad studied him for a long moment, looked uneasily back at his assembled officers. “Permission granted. Be welcome aboard.”

  Azriyqam exhaled a low breath. Now they were safer. She hoped. Avnai stepped down lightly onto the wide platform. “Well-met on the Endless Ocean, High Captain of the Century Ship Ekkaia. I am Lieutenant Avnai Moshaiu of the Consortium Navy. May my own officers and guests join us in accepting your hospitality?”

  Haraad’s face closed. “How many are they?” That was not polite, but it was within Haraad’s rights as high captain.

  Avnai smiled. “Only four of my complement. The rest will stay aboard.” Which meant Airman Zavat. Azriyqam had worried about that, but Avnai had assured her that her fears were groundless. Trying to crew an airship alone across the Endless Ocean would be suicide.

  Haraad nodded. “They will be welcome.”

  Avnai beckoned, and Azriyqam stepped out. She could not tear her eyes from Haraad’s face, so she saw the moment it changed. The exact moment when his face dissolved from apprehensive curiosity to furious shock. When his gaze fell on her.

  “You!” Haraad roared, pointing at her. “The leather-winged freak-bitch!” His hand went to his throat in an involuntary reflex. “Who freed the pirate!” He turned and gaped at Avnai, recognition dawning.

  Avnai raised his hands. “Captain, as I told you the last time I was aboard your great vessel, I am not a pirate. Not by any laws of the Endless Ocean. I have not set foot on your vessel without permission. Neither did I do so the last time I stood on your deck, having been brought aboard by you yourselves. Then I was only a poor castaway whom you chose to name a pirate. I told you then many things had changed. We of the Near Island kingdoms have been compelled by the Consortium to give up our tribute-collecting ways. Now, I stand here in my full capacity as an officer of that very Consortium, in peace, asking you and the Council of Captains to hear me. Will you do so? Or will you declare yourselves our enemy?”

  Haraad looked as though he would burst with frustrated anger, but the older men on the platform whispered in his ear. Slowly, he fought down the rage and hid the snarl beneath a flat-lipped frown.

  “I am reminded by my loyal officers that I have welcomed you aboard our vessel,” he said stiffly. “We will hear your business with us before you take your leave of us.”

  “We thank you for returning our Responsibility to us,” said one of the older officers.

  Azriyqam forced herself to step forward, onto the deck.

  “Rejoice, then, high captain and officers of the Century Ship Ekkaia, for she is your responsibility no longer. The Princess Azriyqam has been reunited with her family and has come home. You are free of any obligation to protect or care for her. Aside from those you have just offered her as a guest, of course.”

  Wonder warred with disgust on the faces of the Ekkaia’s officers as they realized that two more halfdragons trailed Azriyqam, stepping onto their ship, along with Zhad.

  “Of course, you know Sir Zhad Underholt of your own people,” said Avnai. “May I present Freelord Elazar Gurion, and the Freelady Merav Halevi, who are my aircrew and ally-citizens of the Consortium?”

  The two halfdragons bowed, and High Captain Haraad nodded to them. Zhad, he ignored, but when his eyes returned to Azriyqam, they burned with rage. Still, he remembered himself well enough to make introductions. “My Council of Captains: Garth Elam, Sailing Master; Ram Tairen, Water-Captain; Hal Rymel, Hold-Captain; Jez Mitan, Tree-Captain; and Vad Ghaze, Cloth-Captain.”

  Azriyqam knew them all but was uneasy. Where was Cana? As the garden-captain, he should be here. For that matter, where were the Net-Captain and the Mistress of Birthing? And who was the smaller, thickset man that stood at the edge of the council?

  He wore the ornate, but shabby clothing of a rich merchant that had fallen on hard times. Avnai noticed him, too, Azriyqam saw, but Haraad made no effort to introduce him.

  A Century Ship was too large to know everyone aboard, but small enough to know all who had the high captain’s regard. Azriyqam did not know this man.

  Haraad said, “We will hear your business in the Parlor.”

  He turned away and they followed. It took time for the party to make its way down the narrow staircase. The Parlor. Azriyqam had never been in the Captain’s Parlor in her life, but she knew it was where the high captain did his informal and social business. Haraad wasn’t going to elevate this meeting to a formal affair that would be held in the Masters’ Hall. She didn’t know whether to think that good or bad.

  She looked forward as they descended, trying to see past the forest of sails and rigging that obscured her view. What glimpses she got were strange; many masts bore no canvas, but otherwise showed no damage she could see. The lateen-rigged sails were angled all wrong, impeding the ship. And why was cargo being moved about in the deep ocean, in stacks on the deck? She could see crates and barrels lined up there. Surely, the hold couldn’t be full to overflowing.

  At last, they set foot on the deck. Behind her, Azriyqam heard Merav inhale sharply. The towering center jiggermast, whose stairs they had just descended, stood before the Century Ship’s aftercastle. Ekkaia’s castles stood three decks high and were dressed with stone, each with four crenellated turrets reaching skyward like blunted hands, clawing at the belly of the airship docked above them. A great arch described the entrance to the castle. Above the arch, wooden staircases led to the second deck of the castle with its great, barred windows: the Wheelhouse.

  Haraad led them beneath the arch to Ekkaia’s Parlor.

  It was richly furnished, with deep red carpeting that covered the entire deck. The tables and chairs were carved of wood so dark as to be almost black, and the chairs themselves were upholstered in fabric dyed the same deep red. Brass chandeliers holding electric lamps in glass clear as water provided what light did not stream in through the starboard windows. Small sculptures from a hundred ports of call lined the walls.

  The Parlor was full of riches that would have been beyond imagining to Responsibility, but to Azriyqam, the princess of the Kreyntorm, they were no more impressive than any of a dozen chambers she could have visited at will.

  “Be seated,” said Haraad gruffly and called for wine. He fixed them with a poisonous gaze while a steward filled cups. His eyes rested first on Azriyqam and then on Elazar, who returned it calmly. They lingered on Merav, who looked away.

  “So,” he said at last. “Responsibility really did have people hidden away on some rock. I suppose you’ll find just about anything if you sail far enough. We always thought she was just a freak of nature or sorcery gone wrong.” He took a golden goblet. The servant came to them next and cringed a bit as the halfdragons reached their long wings out for the goblets. Azriyqam swung the glass back under her chin. The aroma of the red wine tingled in her nostrils, the finest drink she had ever been offered in all her years on this vast vessel, but she could not tear her gaze from Haraad’s face, full of mockery and anger.

  “What are they?” he asked.

  Elazar
put his goblet down without drinking. “We are halfdragons, sir. People, in point of fact.”

  “Are you her father?” Haraad asked, jerking his chin at Azriyqam.

  Elazar snorted. “I invite you to consider the term ‘halfdragon,’ Captain. You knew who her mother was, after all. She was the one who asked you to help her infant daughter. Her father was at least as human as you are.”

  Haraad’s mouth half-opened as Elazar’s insult went straight over his head. A couple of the other officers stared. She thought she caught the youngest one mouthing, “How?”

  “Asked for help? Ha! Threatened to burn us from stem to stern if any harm came to her, my father always said, then never returned. Left us with her. I ought to charge you for her upkeep all these years.” He rubbed his throat, wound about with the silk scarf.

  Rage hotter than dragonfire burned through Azriyqam. “Upkeep?” She was standing and she didn’t remember moving, the wine spattering on the fine carpet. “A good word, since I was hardly housed better than any animal in the hold. Beaten and penned in like livestock! And you have the gall to want pay for that?”

  Elazar gripped her wing in his fingers and firmly pulled her back to her seat.

  “I think what the Lady Azriyqam is saying is that while we of the Near Islands feel no need to avenge ourselves upon you for the rather dubious courtesies you showed one of our own, we do not see the need to suffer further insult at your hands,” said Avnai.

  “You’re still a pirate,” Haraad said. “With or without dragons, your kind has been raiding us for hundreds of years. I ought to stick you back in that cage. You and all your freaks. It’s Ship Law.”

  Sailing-Captain Elam, whose dark brown face had grown harder during the exchange, said, “With respect, it is hardly a prudent law to enforce, given the circumstances, Captain. It is also Ship Law that we do not offer violence to those who have been welcomed aboard as guests. This man, whoever he was—whoever his people are—represents the Consortium, a growing power we have heard much of. We should hear them.”

  Haraad’s eyes flicked to the short man he hadn’t introduced. “Very well. We’ll hear this emissary, but Responsibility is ours. She’s our subject according to all custom and law, and she attacked the high captain of this vessel. That’s mutiny. A capital crime on any ship that sails the Endless Ocean.”

  “You would have—” Azriyqam began, but Elazar stopped her with the flick of a wing spar across her chest.

  Haraad’s gaze finally found Zhad, who was sitting in a corner chair, gazing aimlessly over his wine. “You. You were one of ours, too.” His gaze narrowed. “You were her friend. The blind one. How did you get back here? What did you have to do with all of this?”

  “Didn’t you miss me?” Zhad asked brightly. “I had no role at all. I just followed my friend. She seemed to need me more than you ever did.”

  Avnai rose. “Come, High Captain Haraad. The Consortium will be willing to call the whole matter a misunderstanding, despite the fact that you threw one of its officers in a cage to die. Normally, the Consortium takes a very dim view of treating even its citizens—let alone its officers—in such a fashion.”

  Haraad glared at him sullenly. “Then what do you say your Consortium wants?”

  “You must have known that contact with the Consortium was coming, Captain. Even before you met me, you’d heard of us. The Lords of the Consortium wish to bring the Grove and its Century Ships in as an Allied State. This is the highest status that you could enjoy. Your people would retain their rights to make their own laws and conduct their own affairs. There would be certain rules to follow when conducting trade within the Consortium. However, your trading rights would be as extensive as any. You would agree to make no war without the consent of the Consortium, unless you were directly attacked, but the Consortium would come to your aid if you were. Alliance is the foundation of the Consortium.”

  “We have no authority to speak for the Grove and the Captains’ Senate,” said Elam. “Why do you bring this message to us?”

  “Because we knew where you were. The Century Ships have been trading in the opposite direction of the Consortium, or we’d have encountered each other before. Mostly because you wouldn’t sail directly through the Near Islands. All your fleets sail to lightward and spinward of us, but you will be back at the Grove in only a few months. Actually, we thought you would have been making better time.”

  Stony faces greeted this pronouncement, and Haraad flushed.

  “But no matter. You’ll be there, and sooner than any other Century Ship we know of. The Consortium thought it might be better to contact one of the famous Century Ships first. After all, if you were to speak favorably of us to the people of the Grove, they might be more inclined to listen.”

  Rymel, the hold-captain, set his blond-fringed jaw. “Just how much of our profit would the Consortium be taking in exchange for this ‘alliance’?”

  “Member states are expected to contribute a tithe of their trade to support the armed forces of the Consortium, but as allies, your people would not be expected to serve in the navy or the marines except in a War of Concert: a war that threatens the Consortium’s existence.”

  “How often is there a War of Concert?” asked Tree-Captain Mitan.

  “In the early days it was fairly common, but that was a hundred years ago. There hasn’t been such a war in living memory.”

  “So you say,” growled Haraad. “What do you take us for? We are the Century Ships. We need no man’s leave to ply the Endless Ocean. It belongs to no man, but if it did, it would belong to us.”

  “I don’t know,” said Water-Captain Tairen. “We’ve been in pirate waters for eight months now and this is the only one we’ve seen. If the Consortium has ended that threat, then ten percent might be a fair price to pay.”

  Haraad sneered at him. “Are you a ship’s officer, or are you a maggot? A balloon full of pretty boys in uniforms gloms onto our masts like a remora, and you want to roll over and surrender?”

  Tairen’s pale face flushed red. “With respect, Captain, it didn’t sound to me like we were discussing surrender. I thought we were discussing trade.”

  “This isn’t the time to be trading,” said Hold-Captain Rymel, “when we don’t know our partners and our holds are full and our people anxious for home and peace. That’s how you make bad bargains.”

  “Too true, Rymel,” said Haraad.

  “It sounds as though you’ve already made up your mind what reply to give, Captain,” said Master Elam.

  Rymel’s backing Haraad. Is Elam against him, or not? thought Azriyqam.

  “I wonder that you troubled to include us in this meeting at all,” the sailing master continued. “Do you intend to decide for the Captains’ Council as well, or let them hear this overture?”

  “You’re out of line, Elam!” said Haraad. He fixed his eyes on Avnai. “And it doesn’t matter. Because you’re a liar.”

  Avnai’s lips thinned. “That’s an unbecoming accusation, sir. To both of us. I have told no lie, though this is the second time I’ve been aboard your ship, and you have accused me of falsehood both times without cause. I am offering you friendship, not threatening you.”

  Azriyqam kept her face carefully blank. She had to admire Avnai’s skill at sounding that offended at an accusation of lying when he actually was lying.

  “We don’t threaten either, when we can’t,” said Rymel. “Maybe the Consortium is trading a bit on its reputation, hey? Maybe it can’t threaten at all, except for scare-stories.”

  “I assure you, that’s not the case. The rumors are nothing compared to its true power. You saw our skyship. It’s smaller than yours, but faster. The Consortium has even smaller aircraft that could tear it apart in minutes. They don’t really freeze dragons and ride them, as you’ve heard, but they do build flying machines that can bring down dragons in short order.”

  Avnai continued. “A Consortium battleship could sink this entire vessel in two shots, and from f
arther away than you could see. When your losses forced you to parley, you would no longer be offered alliance. You would be client states, or outright conquests. I can tell you from experience that vassal states have much less freedom of action and more trade restrictions, because that’s what happened to most of the rest of the Near Islands. Only we of Evenmarch managed to hold out for alliance, because we have dragons, and it still cost us dear. It is why you’ve been so untroubled, as Master Tairen surmised. In point of fact, this is why I have come to tell you this. As the crown prince of Evenmarch, I can tell you exactly what happened when we tried to stand against the Consortium. We’d much rather be independent than an Allied State, but even that is better than being one of its vassals.”

  From his corner, the short man in the rich clothing said, “The—what did you call them—Lords of the Consortium? Would force membership? Isn’t that a bit intransigent?”

  Sailing Master Elam frowned at the interjection. “Captain, with respect, why is this man here? I had thought that this was a matter for the Ship’s Officers to discuss with the Consortium’s emissaries. I do not see why we would open our most serious deliberations to outsiders.”

  “He’s here because I want him here, Elam!” snarled Haraad. “You don’t question my judgment and expect me to look the other way because you hang ‘with respect’ on every insubordination that comes out of your mouth!”

  “It’s insubordination to give advice, now?” asked Tairen.

  “It’s a time for unity,” said Rymel through gritted teeth. “We don’t need to quarrel in front of strangers.”

  “Then perhaps there should be fewer strangers,” shot back Tairen. “He’s a paying passenger, not an officer, staked or hired!”

  “Silence!” roared Haraad. “Am I high captain of the Ship or not? I will conduct this council and I will have order!” He turned back to the man with an ugly gleam in his eye. “Now, Mr. Ulzhe, you had a question for our guests?”

  “I merely asked whether the Consortium wasn’t being a bit intransigent?”