by C. E. Murphy
"Turn 'im over," someone said. "Let's see what we fished out."
A kick like the ones Desimi delivered hit Rasim's ribs. More water spewed out, some of it falling back into his throat as he flipped over. He sat up, blind with tears, and leaned forward to cough until the pain in his ribs was from inside, not from the kick.
Through tears, he saw bare feet, ragged knee pants: the usual garb of a sailor. Tanned skin, though, not Ilyaran brown: where the pants ended, the color faded quickly, so as the people around him moved he caught glimpses of paler knees. Northerners were that color, and turned bright red under the Ilyaran sun. Rasim wiped his eyes and lifted them to see who had rescued him. Lifted them not to the sailors surrounding him, but to the flag they flew high above the crow's nest.
For a moment it made no sense. Not Ilyaran blue, but Rasim hadn't expected that. Not any of the other local sailing nations, either, not even one of the far distant trade nations like the Northerners. It was a black flag, a plague flag intended to warn others off, only marked with a grinning skull and crossed swords. Plunderers used that mark, plunderers and—
—and pirates.
Rasim fell back, shock wiping away whatever strength he'd had left. His head hit the deck hard enough to make him see stars, and he coughed again as unfamiliar faces bent to examine him. They were curious, not cruel. Perhaps even pirates couldn't be murderous all the time. And they'd taken him from the water, which was something. A big man with a beard shoved a couple of the others away to frown at Rasim, his face upside-down to Rasim's. "Where the devil did you come from?" He spoke the trader's tongue, the common language every sailor and merchant had at least some familiarity with. Rasim had studied it well, hoping fluency would help to make up for his stunted magic.
The question was a good one. His focus went past the bearded man to the sky. Light blue with morning, no longer sunrise-colored, but also nowhere near night, so he might have some sense of how far he'd come off track by the stars. He wet his lips, tasting salt and dried blood, and tried to find an answer. The truth was preposterous.
There was no lie any less unlikely, though. Rasim tried to speak and coughed instead. The bearded man waited, then lifted his eyebrows—it looked strange, upside-down—and Rasim tried again. "A sea serpent dragged me here."
A smile twitched the man's mouth. "Did it now. From where?"
Rasim waved a hand weakly, judging the direction from the sun's position: from the east. Closer to land than they probably were now.
"And what happened to the serpent?" the man asked genially.
"I killed it."
Guffaws roared up around him. Rasim closed his eyes, waiting for them to fade. Closing his eyes was almost all he could manage anyway. His entire body still trembled with cold and exhaustion. His stomach was sour with sea water and serpent blood, but he could feel hunger prodding at its edges. He hoped his rescuers would feed him, since they'd bothered to save him.
"Try again, Ilyaran," the bearded man said eventually. "Give us a tale to top that one."
Rasim opened his eyes again. The man was not a captain, he thought. First mate, maybe, because there was something of command in his crude joviality, but he lacked the presence Asindo had. He even lacked the presence that Hassin, who would be a captain someday, had. There was intelligence in his light-colored eyes, and although he laughed there was a flatness to it, warning Rasim that the man was dangerous. He reminded Rasim of Desimi, just a little.
Desimi wouldn't much care what Rasim said next. He would have decided already if he was going to beat him up or not, and Rasim's response would only determine how badly. Feeling confident he was in trouble one way or another, Rasim shrugged and spoke as clearly as he could. "Can you think of a more likely reason for one boy to be floating in a pool of blood ten miles from shore, with no other ships to be seen?"
"Mermaids," somebody suggested with a grin.
Rasim squinted at the speaker, a young woman grimy with shipboard work and too little bathing, and tried to think of what Hassin might say. "If it was mermaids, I'm glad they threw me back, because none of them was as pretty as you."
He stumbled at the end of it, his tongue thick with embarrassment at even trying to say such a thing, but the woman turned pink under her tan and everyone else shouted with laughter. Applause scattered through the group looking down at Rasim, and the crewmen to either side of the woman gave her good-natured, teasing shoves that made her blush all the more.
The big man laughed too, then glanced up as someone else on board called, "The gulls, Markus. Are we going that way or not? We could use a net of fish."
The bearded man—Markus, definitely not the captain if they called him by name instead of rank—twirled a finger and pointed south, command clear in the action. The crew fell into action, wrenching the ship against the wind and sailing it south more through luck than skill, Rasim thought. Even the Northmen with their big square single sails were better at guiding their ships. Markus caught Rasim's arm and hauled him to his feet, then thrust him toward the rail. "Pretty words to Carley won't keep you alive, Ilyaran. Give us a better story."
Rasim's knees gave out, not from fear, but weariness. The crushing pressure of the sea had been more debilitating than he could have imagined, and the cold still sat deep in his bones. He watched the sails buckle with wind, then turned a tired gaze toward a vast cloud of gulls, not far away from where he'd been taken from the water. He looked back the way they'd come, at the puddle of blood still staining the ocean, and shrugged again. "It's the best story I have. Give me a better one yourself."
"There's sharks," Carley reported. "Lots of sharks, Markus. We're going to fight for our supper if we want it."
"It's not fish." Rasim sank down beside the rail, not caring that Markus tried to haul him up again. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to eat, too, and he wanted to not be thrown overboard to drown again. But mostly he wanted to sleep, and his fear of a pirate ship and its first mate was nothing in the face of such weariness.
Markus grunted curiously. Rasim shrugged again. "It's not fish. It's the serpent. A deep current must have carried it back to the surface. That's why there are so many sharks, for the carrion. If you're going to throw me to them, at least hit me on the head first."
The bearded man gave him a peculiar look, then ignored him as the ship slid into the outer edge of the screaming, circling gulls. Eager birds dove at the ship and wheeled away again, disappointed with the pickings. No one spoke beneath their shrieks, only maneuvered the ship deeper into their circle. The water turned darker, purpling with blood. Rasim shuddered and dragged in a breath deep enough to make him cough again, just to be certain he could still breathe. He could, but the scent of blood rose even over the smell of salt and fish, and stuck in the back of his throat. He slouched further, folded his elbow over his mouth, and tried not to breathe.
He still knew when Markus saw he'd been telling the truth. Knew the moment the serpent's remains became obvious, because the big man finally spoke, his voice deep and very serious: "Get the captain."
Chapter 9
The captain was as old as Kisia's mother, weather-worn, sun-bleached, and far, far prettier than any woman Rasim had ever met before. She glanced at Rasim like she was assessing his worth, then stepped over him to lean on the ship's rail and look into the sea. After a minute she reached down and grabbed Rasim's ear, hauling him to his feet.
The serpent drifted on the surface in ugly thick coils, all its grace and beauty gone. It rolled in the low surf, turning one side of its head up, then the other.
One side had clearly been picked over by gulls, sharks, and other meat-eating sea creatures. It was torn apart, bitten, shredded, messy as anything being made a meal of might be. Its eye was eaten out, easy tender flesh there already gone.
The other side was worse. Gulls dove into the destroyed flesh, rooting around in the already-exposed eye socket. Rasim shuddered yet again at the memory of the eyeball sucking at his arm, at the coldness of a living cre
ature so large it seemed like it should have been warm. His own small warmth had been nothing compared to its vast chill, but he had survived and it hadn't. He stared at the dead serpent, wondering why he didn't feel triumphant. Instead he thought there was nothing about the day that hadn't been awful, and that wasn't even including the terrible conversation that had started it.
"You did that," the captain said. Rasim nodded. "You're Ilyaran," she said. "A witch."
He said, "Not much of one," before realizing that imagined power might help keep him alive. But it was too late then, and the captain curled a disbelieving lip anyway.
"Enough of one, if you did that. Feed him," she told Markus. "Dry him. We'll keep him alive tonight, and probably kill him in the morning."
Markus shrugged assent and dragged Rasim across the ship as the captain gave orders to turn with the wind and sail away from the serpent's corpse. The relieved crew hurried to do so and Rasim stumbled down the hold stairs, keeping upright only with Markus's help.
It was warmer in the hold, though not much. Markus threw a broadcloth and a change of clothes at Rasim and went to fetch a steaming mug of—something—while Rasim dried himself. The mug contained stew, mild but well-seasoned, with some kind of white fish Rasim didn't recognize as the hearty meat. He hunched onto a hammock, slurping the stew eagerly and becoming more tired with every swallow and inch of regained warmth.
"Don't fall asleep," Markus warned. "The captain will want to talk to you."
Rasim nodded, then toppled sideways as he drained the lasts gulp of stew. The captain didn't mean to kill him until morning. Well, she could talk to him then, and save killing him for the afternoon.
#
He woke to half-familiar sights and sounds. The voices were wrong, the colors were wrong, but the smells and the rock of the ship were right. Bleary, hungry again, and filled with a terrible need for the necessary, he lurched from his hammock toward the hold stairs.
"Good of you to join us," a woman said drolly from another hammock. Rasim yelped and spun toward her, then doubled and edged toward the stairs again.
The captain's grin was as droll as her voice. "Full bladder, eh? Go on, Ilyaran. There isn't anywhere for you to run, after all."
Too hurried to be embarrassed, Rasim sprang up the stairs and rushed to the side of the ship to do his business before collapsing against the rail with a relieved sigh. The captain sauntered up beside him a minute later, leaning on the rail with her hands folded together. Rasim stole a glimpse at her. She reminded him of Guildmaster Isidri, except two generations younger and far more beautiful. Her hair was white blonde from sunshine and her eyes bleached pale green, startling in her sun-browned face. Her bones were delicate, but there was nothing delicate about her posture or voice. "How old are you, Ilyaran?"
"Thirteen."
Her eyebrows flicked upward. "You're small." She didn't sound surprised, though: an Ilyaran youth, small or not, would either be a passenger on shipboard or into his journeyman years, and Rasim hadn't been dressed like a passenger. "Tell me what happened with the serpent."
"Our ship was attacked," Rasim said carefully. There was no sense in letting pirates know how much of the Ilyaran fleet had set sail. "A friend of mine was swept overboard by the serpent." His throat closed, sorrow seizing its first opportunity to overtake him. Rasim rolled his jaw and looked away from the pirate ship's captain. "I wanted to avenge her."
"Avenge," the captain said. "Not rescue?"
Disdain rose to replace sorrow, a welcome distraction. Rasim gave the captain a hard look. "You saw the serpent's body. Would you think she needed rescuing or avenging?"
"Mmm." She nodded, then rolled a hand, telling him to continue. Rasim shrugged and told his story as quickly as he could, though in the end the captain looked unconvinced. "And you say you're not much of a witch?"
"I'm not. I can freshen water, keep it from slopping over buckets, not much more." The captain handed him her water canteen, eyes challenging. He opened it, tasted it, and made a face. It tasted of leather, salt and the chemicals non-Ilyaran ships used to make sea water almost drinkable. A touch of magic cleaned it and he handed it back for the captain to try as he finished the litany of his skills. "I can keep water away from my head beneath the surface so I can breathe, but that's the same as keeping it from splashing out of buckets, just backwards."
The captain tasted the water, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. She drank all of it before saying, "And slay sea serpents, too."
"That wasn't witchery. It was just stupid."
The captain's mouth twitched. "Maybe, but romantic too. You'll woo a lot of women with that story."
Rasim's jaw clenched. He didn't want to woo anybody, much less using Kisia's death as the tool. Reckless with sudden anger, he said, "I thought you were going to kill me."
Her expressive eyebrows rose. "Do you want me to?"
"No!"
"Good. Someone who can make our gods-awful water drinkable will be useful. What else can you teach my crew?"
"It doesn't—" Rasim broke off sharply, thinking of Kisia. In the week she'd been on the Wafiya, she'd mastered freshening water and other minor magics like driving water from wet clothes. Like Rasim, she could keep water in a bucket, though she hadn't yet learned to reverse the trick and push water away from herself. But it went against guild tradition that she'd learned at all. it was commonly held amongst all the guilds that a witch had to begin learning magic before the age of seven to show any skill at all. Kisia was twice that age, and already nearly as broadly talented as Rasim, who had begun studying magic in infancy.
So perhaps the common belief was wrong. Perhaps he could teach these pirates, adults though they were, to work some minor water witchery. Or perhaps someone could. Rasim doubted his skills were up to the task. Even if they were, it was a terrible idea. Ilyara held its position in the world largely due to its preponderance of witches. Other cities in the region had some, but not nearly as many as Ilyara, and the farther from Ilyara they went, the fewer they were. Northern pirates had no magic-users Rasim was aware of, and it would do no one any good if they learned. He finally finished, "It doesn't work that way," but the captain shook her head.
"You hesitated."
Goddess, she noticed everything. Well, so did Asindo, but Rasim had never needed to hide anything from Asindo. "I was trying to think of a way I could do it," he lied. Sort of lied, at least; he had been thinking something like that. "In Ilyara we start studying witchery when we're children. I've never heard of adults learning, even if I knew how to teach."
"You know how you were taught," the captain said. "Start there. Take the youngest of the crew, if you think that matters, but teach them how to freshen water. Earn your keep, Ilyaran, or I'll throw you back overboard." She frowned at him, then jerked a thumb toward the galley. "Go eat something first, though. You look like you're fit to pass out."
Torn between gratitude and fear, Rasim ran to get food.
#
Before he'd finished eating, Carley, the young woman he'd likened to a mermaid, arrived in the galley with suspicious hope in her eyes. Pale eyes like the captain, but blue, not green. Rasim stared at her longer than he'd dared look at the captain. Eyes that were anything but brown were unusual in Ilyara. His own had garnered a lot of looks over the years, and they were only speckled with green.
Carley scowled and shoved her thumbs into the waist of her pants. "You're staring, Ilyaran."
Rasim startled, then ducked his head to pay more attention to his bread and stew. "Sorry. Your eyes are so bright. I'm not used to it."
"Yours aren't as dark as most Ilyarans'." She sat down across from him, eyeing the cheese by his bread.
"I've got Northern blood. You want some?" He broke off a piece of the cheese and offered it to her, betting that usually the best of it went to upper crew members.
She gnawed it hungrily, then stole a sip from his water cup before sitting up straight, grabbing the cup with both hands and draining it.
"That's good. Not brackish. Where'd you get fresh water?"
"I made it."
"You—" Her eyes widened. "Is that why the captain sent me to find you? So you could teach me?"
"I'm supposed to try, anyway. How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
Far older than Kisia, even. Rasim tried not to look dismayed, but his stomach plunged with uncertainty. He got two more cups of water from the barrel, setting them both on the table between himself and Carley. "Taste one. Hold the water in your mouth. Think about its flavor, how it feels against your tongue."
Carley did as she was told, pulling a face with the first sip. She swallowed when Rasim told her to and immediately said, "It's awful. After the fresh water, it's awful."
"That's important. Tell me exactly how it was awful. What was wrong with it?"
"It felt...heavy. There was metal in it, and the salt wasn't all gone. Nowhere near all gone. And it has that flat taste from boiling, like all its personality got boiled away."
Rasim smiled. "You understand the water well. That'll help." He touched a fingertip to the cup she'd sipped from. It wasn't necessary to touch it to make the magic work, but it was easier at first. Desalinating water was so easy, such old habit, that thinking how to do it was more difficult than doing it. Salt hung suspended in the water, so fine it was impossible to see, but the magic could separate one from the other. Rasim closed his eyes, letting himself become aware of nothing but his fingertip touching the water's surface, and of how the water spoke to him.