by C. E. Murphy
SEAMASTER
ISBN-13: 978-1-61317-145-5
Copyright © by 2017 by C.E. Murphy
All Rights Reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author, [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Artist: Aleksandar Sotirovski
for Breic
who asked when I was going to write books for little kids
Chapter 1
Strong hands grabbed Rasim's ankles and hauled him backward. His shirt rucked up, sticking to tar-soaked wood as he scrabbled for a grip. A splinter jabbed under his fingernail. He shouted and let go, blood welling through dirt and tar as he was yanked out from between the ship's ribs to land on its salt-damp deck.
He barely caught himself with his hands, saving his nose from the same bloody fate his fingernail had met. A big foot, bare and topped with rough toenails, caught him in the side. Rasim grunted and flipped sideways, avoiding the brunt of the kick.
Desimi stood above him, of course. Like Rasim, Desimi would be thirteen tomorrow, but he already had shoulders that promised the size of the man he would be. He had an angry man's scowl, too, burned into his face all the time and darker than ever when he laid eyes on Rasim.
Rasim wheezed, "Desi, wait—", remembering too late that with their birthdays coming up, the bigger boy no longer liked that nickname. It was too small for such a large lad, and recalling that half a moment earlier might have saved Rasim from another kick to the ribs. He coughed and used the ship's wall to push himself up, then scrambled away. "I'm not going to fight you, Desimi!"
"Coward." Desimi jumped after him.
Rasim, smaller and more lithe, caught a low-hanging beam and swung himself out of immediate danger. "Don't be stupid, Desi—Desimi—you'll get us both kicked out—"
Desimi grabbed for Rasim's ankle. Rasim scampered away again, slithering over beams and through narrow joists. They'd played keep-away like this as children, learning the ins and outs of the fleet's ships. It had only been recently that their friendship had soured. "Your mother was a Northern hag!" he bellowed after Rasim.
"I'm sure it was my father who was a Northern dog!" Pale Northern merchants had once been common along the Ilialio's banks and in the great city it had spawned, but there had been few indeed since the great fire that had orphaned not just Rasim and Desimi, but hundreds of other children as well. Few indeed, since the king's Northern wife had been unable to command Ilyaran magic and save the city. There was no telling which parent had been responsible for the copper tones to Rasim's skin and hair, or the green scattered through his brown eyes, but if Ilyara could blame Queen Annaken for failing to stop the fire, then Desimi could freely insult Rasim's unknown mother, and too many people would say he had the right of it. Desimi spat another curse as Rasim darted through another tight spot, then crowed triumph as Ras realized he'd wedged himself into a corner. When Desimi's fist flew, Rasim tucked himself down, arms protecting his head, and told himself again why he refused to strike back: "There's no fighting shipboard, lads, or you'll lose everything you've worked for."
A deep voice spoke the very words Rasim thought, making him lift his head in confusion. Desimi was hauled backward as unceremoniously as he'd yanked Rasim moments before, his final blow swinging wide. He kicked, twisted, saw who held him, and whined like a frightened puppy as Hassin dropped him to the deck.
Hassin, second mate on this ship, was ten years Rasim and Desimi's elder and much-admired by his younger crewmates. He was tall for a sailor, his shoulders unbowed by bending and twisting through narrow ship passages. Like all the older crew, he wore his long black hair in a tight-bound queue at his nape. Rasim curled his fingers at the base of his own neck, feeling the short-cropped hair there. Not until he became an official member of a crew could he begin to grow the long tail they wore.
And that would never happen if he was caught fighting with Desimi. Or anyone else, for that matter, but Desi seemed determined to fight whether Rasim would or not.
Even now the bigger boy got to his feet, defiant as he glared up at Hassin. "I've been stuck with this, just like we all have. We didn't work for having lost our parents, and that," he said with a thrust of his finger back toward Rasim, "is the fault of people like him!"
Hassin's long face grew longer. "The tide's washed that sand smooth, Desimi. The Ilialio saved you from the fire and brought you to the Seamasters' guild. You're barely a day from becoming crew, and you have worked for that, whether you'd have chosen this life or not. Don't destroy it now. Rasim," he said in nearly the same tone.
Rasim startled guiltily and pushed his knuckles against his mouth. Insisting he hadn't been fighting would do him no good. There would be a chance to explain, if he didn't blunder by trying to make Desimi look worse and himself look innocent.
"The captain wants to see you." Hassin looked Rasim over and sighed. "Immediately, but if you turn up in his cabin covered in tar and stick to any of his papers, he'll take them out of my own skin. Hot water, as hot as you can stand, to get that muck off you, and then to the captain's cabin as quick as you can."
"Yes, Hassin." Rasim slid from his perch and hit the boards below with a thud that matched the nervous thump of his heart. The day before new crew members were selected was not a time anybody wanted to be called before the captain. He ran from below decks, trying to think of any recent guild transgressions he'd committed. Up the steep-pitched stairs to the upper deck, not touching the smooth banisters with his sticky hands. Across the deck with his feet smacking hollowly on good solid teak, then distance-eating strides over the ridged walkway that held ship to shore across a depth of dark blue harbor water.
Ilyara was at its best at the waterfront, where the sea was so clear that anchor chains could be seen to thirty feet. The scent of fish was heavy in the air, but no offal from the fishmongers stained the yellow stone sea walls.
That was the work of water witches. Rasim had heard that other port cities lacked enough sea witches to keep the harbor waters and sea walls clear. In Ilyara the job was done by those whose water weaving skills weren't strong enough to do shipboard duties.
Barely a day from becoming crew, Hassin had said to Desimi. Everyone knew it was true: Desimi, bully or not, could already command the brute force of waves. He would become a cabin boy tomorrow, and, in time, a captain able to steer his ship through the most dangerous waters and the worst storms.
Rasim's place was less certain. His witchery skills were modest at best, though he loved the feeling of salt water coming to life under his fingertips, responding to the cool magic in his mind.
Not that any of it would matter if he didn't get clean and get back to the captain as quick as he could. The bathing rooms were staffed by sea and sun witches, their magic working together to turn water to steam. It softened the tar on Rasim's skin, and he scrubbed it off with rough cloth before daring to jump in a bath to rinse the last scraps away. Masira, a good-natured witch whose preference, rather than lack of skill, had settled her on land instead of a ship, grumbled at him for leaving flecks of black goo in the water. He offered his most winning smile and she laughed, scooping the tar remnants from the water with her magic while he dried and scrambled into the soft-woven linen pants and loose shirt that were his guild's usual ship-board garb.
The sun hadn't traveled a hand-span in the sky by the time he skidded back on deck. No longer sticky, he slid down the steep banisters to below-decks. A whisper of wisdom caught him, and he took a m
oment to rake his hands through wet hair and catch his breath before knocking politely on the captain's door.
"Aye," said the man within, and Rasim pushed it open a few inches.
"You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Aye." Captain Asindo leaned over a table covered in maps, his broad hands holding curled corners flat. He was short, barely taller than Rasim himself, but he had to turn sideways to fit his wide shoulders through the narrow shipboard doors. A lack of height didn't mean a lack of presence, which gave Rasim some comfort. Maybe he would grow up that way, too. The captain lifted a fingertip from his maps, invitation to enter his quarters. "You were fighting Desimi again," Asindo said neutrally as the door shut.
Offense rose in Rasim's chest as he let the door close behind him. "No, sir."
Asindo's eyebrows twitched upward and a small gesture invited Rasim to speak. The captain rarely spoke when a motion would do, which made his crew watch him carefully. It made them watch themselves carefully, too: they were a quieter and better-behaved crew than many with more blusterous commanders. Rasim would remember that, if he ever became a captain himself.
Which he would never do if he couldn't explain the fighting. "Desimi was fighting me, sir. I was running away." He winced as he said it. Running away sounded cowardly, even if it had been smart.
To his surprise, Asindo chuckled. "So Hassin said. You'll have a reckoning with Desimi someday, Rasim, but you're wise to not let it be now. He's a lot of trouble to have on board. I'm thinking of recommending against him tomorrow, prodigious wave witchery or no."
"Don't!"
Asindo straightened from his maps and turned slowly to Rasim, incredulity straining his thick features. He looked like a man who had been in—and won—a lot of fights, and he looked like they'd all started when someone gave him an impulsive command like the one Rasim had just blurted out.
Rasim still said, "Don't," again, a little desperately. "Desi's angry at me because he doesn't have anybody else to be angry at. I've got Northern blood and everybody knows it was the Northern queen who couldn't stop the fires when they swept the city, so I'm easy to blame. He says he doesn't care about making cabin boy, but it's not true, Captain. It's the only thing he's got, just like all of us. If you turn him away he'll only be angrier, and in the end it'll make him—"
Rasim ran out of words suddenly, miserable with uncertainty. He had seen men drunk along the docks, bitter and sharp with regrets. It wasn't hard to imagine Desimi, already angry, joining those men, though it was harder to really understand the path that would lead him there. Rasim faltered in trying to explain, instead seizing on what he was certain of. "Desimi could be a good captain someday, sir. He could keep his crew and ship safe in the storms. If you take that away from him now, even for a year, it'll only make him angrier, and he'll blame me. I'm not big but I can take care of myself." His mouth twisted wryly. "At least, I can if you don't make Desi so angry he comes after me with a boat hook."
"Hnf." Asindo sounded amused. "Kind words for an enemy."
Rasim shrugged uncomfortably. "We used to be friends."
"I'll think about it, but it's not why I called you here. I—"
"Captain." The door burst open and Hassin, grim-faced, ducked in. "Captain, the fools have done it. They've lit the memorial fires early, without supervision, and they've gone too high. The city is burning."
Chapter 2
Asindo recoiled, a physical response that matched the cold terror knotting Rasim's stomach. But the captain rebounded, shoving past Rasim and Hassin so swiftly he was out the door before it had even finished closing behind Hassin. The second mate followed on Asindo's heels, and Rasim, uninvited, chased after Hassin. He had been so young when the last blaze ravaged Ilyara that he had no memory or fear of fire. But like everyone else, he had grown up in the flame-scarred city, seen the black stains so deep in golden stone that it had taken years of work to cleanse them. Some of those stains had been left deliberately, a reminder of the city's recent devastating past, and a warning to those who would play with fire. Not enough warning, it seemed.
Asindo stopped on the deck like a landslide crashing into a wall. Hassin, for once looking young and gangly, managed not to slam into the captain, though he pinwheeled his arms to avoid it. Rasim, smaller and more accustomed to keeping out of the way, darted to one side and climbed the first few yards of the ship's mast to better see the burning city.
Greasy dark smoke reached for the sky above the city center, grey coils grasping toward thin distant white clouds. Ilyara was built of stone, but enough wood and straw littered it to burn a fierce heat. It could be only minutes before the whole sky began to blacken with the oily smoke. "Surely," Rasim breathed. Surely there were master sun witches to watch over the firestarters; surely they could bring the flames back under control. But the memorial fires were usually lit at sunset, not mid-afternoon, and if they grew too fast, not even the Sunmasters' Guild could bring them back under control. They'd believed they could end any fire, thirteen years earlier, and Ilyara still bore the scars of that confidence.
It had not—quite—been their fault, thirteen years ago. A bakery oven had overheated, and the flour stores in the silo next door had exploded when the fire reached them. Burning dust had touched down everywhere, lighting straw and cloth and more grain stores, until Ilyara rocked with explosions and roared with flame. The guilds had scrambled, trying to decide how to react: their monarch was meant to be the focal point for all major witchery in Ilyara, but King Laishn had been visiting the Horse Clans far to the west and north. None of the guildmasters had either the authority or the imagination to focus the entire power of a guild through themselves. By the time they thought to try, the city was in ruins.
And since then, since Queen Annaken and her infant son had died in the fire, since King Laishn had died of grief...since then, Ilyara's political structure had been in upheaval. Taishm, the new king, had been crowned, but few people believed he had the strength to guide a guild's magic, and there were always rumors of pretenders and contenders for the crown.
People were running. Running without purpose, to Rasim's wide-eyed gaze. Some ran toward the fire, others away; some simply ran along the docks, leaping in a panic from one ship's gangway to another. Children followed some of those runners, often failing to make the long jump between one gangway and the next. Their splashes punctuated cries of alarm from adults, and begot more as parents tried to catch them.
"Bonfires," Asindo growled below their squeals of worry and delight. "What fools commemorate a fire with more fires? Come on," he urged sun witches whom he could not see and who could certainly not hear him. "Come on. Stop this before we all go up in flames again."
"They can't." Rasim barely heard himself say the words. He knew, as Asindo did, that the memorial fires weren't sanctioned, because what fool would commemorate fire with fire? But for thirteen years, illegal bonfires had been built within the city walls on the Great Fire's anniversary. Piles of wood appeared almost without warning as stealthy youths scurried to and fro with just one or two small pieces of wood. They added up quickly, and then someone—a sun witch if they were patient and waited until near, or after, sunset—lit one, then another, until the names of the fallen were carried on twists of wood high into the sky. It was beautiful, heartfelt, and all too potentially deadly.
Ilyara's guards tried, year in and year out, to stop them, but the ringleaders changed, new bonfire-builders inspired by years past. "Captain Asindo," Rasim said more loudly, "they can't put them out. We have to do it."
The captain snapped, "Shut up, boy," then glanced at him again with a scowl. "What do you mean? We're water witches, not—"
"And they're not sun witches!" Rasim scrambled a few feet higher on the mast, thrusting a finger toward the fire. "They're just people, Captain. The Sunmasters' guild wouldn't be there to set the fires until sunset! You know that's what they've agreed to, so these are just—they're just people. Even if they have sun witches with them, they'll be you
ng! Young enough to be excited about doing this without being smart, and you've seen the kindling they set, the fires are huge, most young sun witches can only handle a kitchen fire, not something big—" He gave up trying to explain and bellowed, "Desimi!" instead.
Like everyone else, Desimi was on deck already, watching the fire from only a handful of paces away from Rasim's perch, though Ras hadn't seen him. He jolted forward, then glared at Rasim. "What?"
"Make a wave," Ras said desperately. "Bring the water up, Desi."
"From the calm?"
"You can do it." Rasim slid from the mast, all but catching Desimi by the shoulders. "I've seen you make walls of water in the baths, Desi. This is just more."
"It's a harbor! I'll beach the ships!"
Triumph splashed through Rasim. Desimi hadn't said he couldn't do it. "Bring it up between the ships and the sea wall. Captain Asindo, we need—we need—" He let Desimi go and spun helplessly. "Sky witches. We need to push the water all the way to the fires, Captain. We need the wind."
Understanding finally filled Asindo's expression before it turned to a fierce grin. "No, lad, we only need the wave. The city's better wet than burned. Desimi!"
The other boy was already at the ship's rail, looking down into clear water. The ship rocked under Rasim's feet, a more dramatic shift than usual in the calm harbor, and water surged against the sea wall. Asindo said, "Desimi," again, more softly, but the boy lifted an imperious hand, silencing the captain.
Asindo huffed, more amused than Rasim feared he might be, and silently gestured to Hassin and the other senior crew members. Together they joined Desimi at the rail.
The air thickened, became weightier, a tell-tale sign of witchery at work. Desimi's wall-slapping wave grew taller, shaped and shielded by sparks of magic. His magic, Rasim thought: there was something in the wildness of the water's shape that said the boy, not yet even a journeyman, had been given control of this attempt, though Captain Asindo could easily have taken it over himself. But even the captain was following Desimi's lead, adding his own magic to the lifting of water but not wresting control from Rasim's age-mate.