A Respite From Storms

by Robert J. Crane

  Longwell broke the silence. “I need a decision,” he said curtly. “If Kuura is to be banished, then so be it. We will leave your ship, and make our own way. If you are willing to reconsider …”

  “You are asking if I will take you upon this vessel,” Burund finished.

  “To the isle where Baraghosa makes his home,” Longwell confirmed with a nod. “Yes.”

  Burund looked agonized. He pressed a hand to his forehead. Index and middle fingers on one temple, thumb on the other, he rubbed in hard circles. Finally, he said: “I will do this thing.”

  Jasen’s heart leapt.

  “I am not happy about it,” said Burund—and he strode around them, to a map upon the wall. Removing it from the nails that held it in place, via hanging loops on each corner, he brought it over to his desk. Laying it out before them, he bowed over it, fingers tracing enormous lands, finding—Chaarland. “But I will take you there.”

  All heads bowed forward, Alixa’s closest of all.

  “I don’t see it,” she said, squinting.

  “I hear tell the isle is not marked on maps,” said Longwell. To Burund: “But you know where it is?”

  “Of course I know where it is,” Burund agreed. He pointed to an apparently empty patch of sea, midway between Chaarland and Coricuanthi. “How else would I know, as all sailors do, to sail around its cursed waters?”

  25

  The journey began the next morning, in the early hours, delayed only to visit Huanatha’s apartment and gather new weapons: another sword for Jasen, with a black and white marbled blade that appeared to be cut and polished stone rather than any metal. It was heavy, and three inches shorter than his last, halfway between both sword and dagger. Alixa’s daggers were also swapped out for a shorter set. Closer to her hands, Huanatha said she would achieve greater dexterity than with the first pair.

  Alixa muttered, “I did not achieve anything with them.” Huanatha reassured her, in her usual fiery way.

  Huanatha considered her collection of spears and lances, wondering if she should bring anything back for Longwell that would fare better than his weapon—“an impressive spear, to be sure, but not hewn of Muratam steel.” In the end she did not select anything: time was wasting, and Longwell had heard her offer of new weaponry but chosen to remain aboard the Lady Vizola. “It would only go unappreciated,” she said, resigned—though for the next few days, she watched Longwell with a sullen expression and tight lips, as if his decision not to select one of her weapons was a personal insult.

  And so, in the early hours of the morning, a long time before dawn came, the Lady Vizola departed the Aiger Cliffs. The winds were light, seeming to have mostly died off in the night. Progress felt terribly slow to Jasen, watching first from the deck and then through the window of his cabin as the city receded, the glimmers of firelight shrinking into a great distance.

  Eventually—long after Alixa had drifted into slumber—Jasen slept too.

  The days accumulated.

  Every one, Jasen asked Burund of their progress.

  “We will not arrive yet for many days,” Burund answered—every time.

  “How long?” asked Jasen.

  Burund said, that second morning on the seas, “It will take us more than a week, but less than two, to reach the isle of Baraghosa.”

  Between eight and thirteen days. Jasen asked for more specificity. Burund either could not, or would not, give it. “A watched pot does not boil,” he said with a crooked smile at Jasen’s impatience one morning, and on another said, “The sea is not a tame thing. Our journey depends upon her temperament.” Fortunately, she had a pleasant enough temperament. There were no storms. The winds were high, as they had been in the Aiger Cliffs, and they filled the Lady Vizola’s sails with salty breath.

  They should be making good time.

  Yet Jasen could not help fearing, day after day, that somehow Baraghosa would be swifter than they. The sorcerer had had a lead of only six or eight hours, and his boat had been small, Stanislaus had said. Lighter in weight—yet it also meant perhaps only one sail, and a small one at that, for the wind to carry it.

  He asked Burund about it: whether Baraghosa could be caught, or if he would only slip farther and farther away. Burund answered diplomatically, “I have not seen his boat, so it is not possible for me to draw conclusions.” Jasen wished to press him for answers—but what use was it? He would only spin himself in circles, and no answer Burund could give would be satisfactory.

  To help keep himself from ruminating, he busied himself.

  Huanatha spent most of every day upon the Lady Vizola’s top deck. An imposing woman, famed among the Coricuanthians, she forced a wide berth around herself simply by her presence. This, she made use of. From before the sun crested the horizon to past sundown, she drilled over and over with Tanukke. She leapt and lunged and struck and parried invisible targets, repetitive motions she spent hours each day ensuring were perfect in ways Jasen would never discern. Her armor flashed in the sun, iridescent blue plates glinting, a sudden bright flare of light the first indication that she had moved before the brain processed her swiftness.

  First, Jasen watched.

  On the third day, Huanatha said, “You will learn more by doing than you ever will by watching.”

  Jasen hesitated. “Uhm.”

  Huanatha practiced another strike, a forward thrust, as though spearing a man through the shoulder and immediately retracting the blade. She held Tanukke poised in the air afterward, horizontal, as if it had just exited through the wound she had made. Narrowed eyes glared down the length of the blade. She scowled. To Jasen, it appeared perfect; to Huanatha, some error had been made, inexcusable.

  “Gather your sword,” Huanatha told Jasen after a long quiet. “Bring it here.”

  He scrabbled up, rushing for the door into the ship.

  “And your cousin, too,” Huanatha called.

  Alixa was in the hold with Scourgey. Few animals remained. How many had drowned in Baraghosa’s storm versus how many had been sold in Aiger Cliffs, neither she nor Jasen knew. Jasen did not expect she wished to know. Hopefully it was not as many as were missing now though. The hold was practically bare. One of the birds remained in its cage, above a spot mostly cleared of scat since the hold had been half-flooded. It clambered about the metal bars restlessly, chittering to itself madly. The sow remained, but her piglets were gone. One cow remained too. But apart from these and Scourgey, the Lady Vizola was empty of non-human life.

  Alixa was softly speaking to the restless bird. She held out a broken piece of hardtack, almost to the edge of the cage. The bird would need to poke its beak out to grab it. Rattling about its living space, it showed little interest.

  Scourgey saw Jasen before Alixa did. She lumbered up on a paw that she still limped on very slightly, and approached him.

  Alixa looked round. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Huanatha wants for us to practice with our weapons.”

  “Oh. Right. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. Now?”

  “I think so,” said Jasen. “She told me to fetch you.”

  “Okay.” To the bird: “I’ll be back later. You sure you don’t want this?”

  She reached up with the hardtack, pressing it through the bars.

  The bird leapt across and bit her finger hard. Alixa hissed, withdrawing her hand but dropping the hardtack.

  The bird disregarded it immediately, and went back to stalking along the bars, chittering and clanking its beak.

  “Are you okay?” Jasen asked.

  “Stupid bird.” Alixa slunk past.

  Him with his sword, and Alixa with her daggers, they joined Huanatha upon the deck, in the wide space below the mainsail. There they began their lessons. Moving between them with ease, Huanatha showed them how to hold their weapons, how to grip strongly but not too tightly so they could move fluidly.

  They did not get this, at first.

  “But you will not,” Huanatha said when Jasen pointed it
out, perhaps an hour into their first lesson together. “It takes a warrior a lifetime to master it. Why do you think I still practice my strikes?” Once she deemed them competent at holding their weapons, Huanatha instructed them in how to swing and how to strike.

  For two days, they drilled on these. Huanatha continued her drilling too, demonstrating for Jasen and Alixa with Tanukke, giving them time off so they could process it all, so their muscles could rest, and so she too could continue to lunge at invisible foes in preparation for their meeting with Baraghosa.

  On the third day, Huanatha conjured invisible enemies for them. She spoke of their movements, and Jasen and Alixa were to strike out at them using the techniques she had taught them.

  She was not soft on them. Over and over, she informed Jasen and Alixa that they had been killed, run through with an assailant’s sword, gored by the swing of a mace, their heads cleaved from their shoulders.

  Were this training occurring in Terreas, it would have been terribly disheartening.

  Aboard the Lady Vizola, their second clash with Baraghosa nearing by the second, Jasen refused to let defeat drag him down. He returned to his starting position, braced himself, let her words wash over him again—and he tried once more.

  Kuura had stayed mostly out of the way, during the first week of their journey. Jasen saw him at mealtimes. Otherwise, though, he remained in his cabin.

  Jasen had asked Huanatha if he should seek out Kuura, that he might practice with them.

  “He will not join us,” she said flatly.

  “Why?” Jasen asked.

  Huanatha’s nostrils flared. “He is held in disgrace by a man who he respects. So now he buries his head in the ground, like a lummocbird.”

  Jasen bit his lip. “Maybe if I …”

  “Leave him,” said Huanatha—although she did not sound happy to be doing so. “He will come around on his own, when his shame has eased.”

  For the next hour, she muttered to herself, glowering all the while. Her thrusts were over-strong, and for the first time Jasen saw what he perceived to be a clumsy Huanatha, some of her precision sapped. Her scowl grew steadily darker, until eventually she gave up with a great huff and stalked back into the ship, leaving Jasen and Alixa to train alone.

  Kuura was not the only person Jasen saw little of. Longwell’s appearances were infrequent. Whenever he did show his face, Jasen saw him speaking with Burund intensely. They would retire to Burund’s office.

  “What are they talking about?” Jasen asked.

  “They discuss approach plans,” said Huanatha, distracted by her thrusts and parries.

  “Approach?” asked Alixa. “To the isle of Baraghosa, you mean?”

  Huanatha struck—and nodded.

  “What’s to go over?” Alixa asked. “Surely you just sail right up to it.”

  “The waters are cursed,” said Jasen. “That’s what Burund said.”

  Alixa’s face fell. “Oh.”

  On the eighth day Jasen began to see more of Kuura, Longwell and Burund again. They had seemingly come to some conclusion about the approach to the isle of Baraghosa, and so Longwell too joined them upon the deck, practicing with his lance. His fighting style was different from Huanatha’s. The exiled queen could contort in unbelievable directions, her whole body twisting like a serpent’s. Longwell was bulky, immoveable like a rock, yet when he clasped his lance and swung it, Jasen believed that he and Huanatha could battle for days and neither gain an upper hand. His every stab was precise and powerful—and blindingly fast. If Huanatha could run a man through, Longwell, it seemed, could blast him swiftly from half the world away with a single blow.

  On the ninth day, Kuura appeared at the door into the ship. He had with him the axe he had taken from Huanatha’s apartment before setting off.

  Huanatha lowered Tanukke when she saw him. “Kuura of Nunahk. You have come.”

  He hefted the axe. “I wondered if I might learn with you.”

  Huanatha smiled at that. “I would be most honored if you would.”

  Kuura grinned, that too-wide show of all the teeth he possessed, and fell in with them, following Huanatha’s instructions, practicing swings that she guided him through with much more swiftness than Jasen and Alixa. He had carried a weapon before, and he breezed through the lessons on poise. When not practicing, he talked and joked with them just like normal.

  On the tenth day, the mist rolled in.

  “We are getting nearer,” said Burund to Jasen that morning. Jasen had found him atop the deck, just after dawn’s first light—though, in the murky fog, the sun was barely a pinprick as it lifted above the horizon.

  A wave rocked the Lady Vizola. It was only a gentle one, eliciting only a quiet creaking. Certainly the boat was not threatened by waves like this one.

  Still, between the fog and its strange chill, when the mornings were usually so warm, it was unnerving. Even more so knowing that Baraghosa was not very distant—and that Jasen would have to face him again.

  “Why are you taking us to his isle?” Jasen asked.

  Burund regarded Jasen for a long moment, silent. Then, clasping his hands behind his back and turning out to the sea once more, he said, “I have watched you practicing with your sword upon the deck.”

  Jasen blinked. “You have?” He racked his brains, trying to think of a time when he had been aware of Burund’s eyes upon him.

  “Nothing on the Lady Vizola escapes my attention,” Burund answered, and Jasen realized, stupidly, that of course he had been watching from his office, during his conversations with Longwell; there was a window in the wall. “On other occasions too, though, I have kept an eye on you and Alixa.” He looked sideways at Jasen. “You are determined.”

  Jasen nodded. “Yes.” At Burund’s words, he felt it almost steeling inside him: that sense of duty, solidifying in his chest.

  Burund assessed him. Maybe he saw it on Jasen’s face. “I have children of my own, back at home,” he said. “Two; the age of you and Alixa. You remind me of them.”

  “Oh …?”

  “Not physically,” said Burund. “Their skin is not pale as milk, like yours.” He crooked up one corner of his lips, and Jasen belatedly realized he was making a joke, but by that time the shipmaster had gone on.

  “Perhaps because of that, or perhaps because of other things, I have a fondness for the two of you that stretches beyond my honor. And so, although my honor and fondness says that I must deliver you out of the hands of danger, I know you well enough to know that you will persevere in finding Baraghosa.” He paused. Looking sidelong to Jasen again, he said, “Am I correct in this?”

  Jasen nodded again. “Yes.”

  “Then I wish to see that you are delivered safely. I can entrust many hands in doing this, but none moreso than my own.”

  “So you’re endangering yourself, and everyone on this ship,” Jasen said slowly.

  “To take you to Baraghosa,” Burund finished. “That is correct.”

  Jasen did not know what to say. The best he could manage was, “Thank you.” It sounded poor, coming from his lips.

  “You are most welcome, Jasen.”

  The sea churned. Waters broke against the Lady Vizola’s hull.

  How Burund could navigate in this fog, Jasen did not know. Compasses and sextants and an experienced nose for it, probably.

  He asked, “Are these waters really cursed?”

  “I have heard it said so,” said Burund. He rolled his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Ships stray too close to the shore and never return. Stories, perhaps.”

  Perhaps.

  They would only know by sailing on, deeper into the murk.

  By midday, it was so thick that it was nigh impossible to see one end of the Lady Vizola from the other.

  By the afternoon, the fore and aft decks could not be seen from each other’s respective doors.

  Visibility almost nonexistent, practice had to be cut short. There was no telling who might shamble out of the mists at t
he precise moment Huanatha or Longwell struck.

  Jasen was not sure how to feel about the respite. His body was tiring again. Days of this had built him up. This time, he felt he had acquired information that might actually be useful in stopping Baraghosa. It was imperative he continue to practice—especially as, now the isle drew nearer, his antsiness had started once again to grow. Sitting still was harder than it had ever been.

  He was sweating, though, and so he sat, knees clasped to his chest. His fingers were laced, but he fidgeted.

  Kuura laid his axe down beside him. “I will be glad of the day I do not have to wield this thing again.”

  Huanatha swore in her own language.

  Kuura barked a laugh. “What? I long to be rid of it!”

  “You fight like a warrior,” Huanatha answered. “It is a disservice to your strength that you wish to put down your weapon when you might fight for great justice for the rest of your days.” She stabbed at the heart of an imagined man lunging for her. “That is the highest honor a man or woman can achieve.”

  “I am no warrior,” Kuura chuckled.

  Huanatha leveled her blade at him. “Then why are you here?”

  Kuura’s smile faded. Looking down into the folded fabric of his shirt, he said, “I have been with Shipmaster Burund for a long time—a very long time. He took a chance on me, many decades ago, and I … I failed him. I will not fail him again.”

  Huanatha sneered. “As I thought.” And she went back to her strikes and swings with Tanukke. “Your sense of honor is faulty, Kuura of Nunahk.”

  He did not say anything. In the absence of a reply from him, Alixa said, “Why are you here, Huanatha? To be queen again?”

  “Baraghosa has taken much from me, crown included,” Huanatha spat. “He has sown discord in my country, among the people I love most in this world.” She swiped Tanukke through the air, teeth gritted—this time, her invisible foe was not a generic target, but Baraghosa himself. “My war with Baraghosa is personal. And this time, when we do battle … things will be different.” Another strike.

  “Different how?” Alixa asked.

  “One—” she struck again, in emphasis, “—we are prepared. Two—” another blow with Tanukke, “—I have seen the way he fights, through watching you all do battle with him, and myself.