by Scott Lynch
“It’s like this, Ravelle,” said Zamira. “I didn’t know I’d be arguing for your plan until I found myself doing so.”
“So you’re taking us—”
“Back to Tal Verrar. Yes.” She poured herself another tumbler of wine and took a more conservative sip. “I’ve convinced the council not to panic if stories come down from the north concerning the mischief we’re about to work.”
“Thank you, Captain. I—”
“Don’t thank me with words, Ravelle.” Zamira sipped her wine again and set the tumbler down. “Thank me by keeping your side of the bargain. Find a way to kill Maxilan Stragos.”
“Yes.”
“Let me make something else clear.” Zamira carefully turned Cosetta in her arms so that the little girl was looking out across the table, straight at Kosta. “Everyone aboard this ship will be risking their life to give you your chance at this scheme. Every single person.”
“I … I understand.”
“If time passes, and we can’t find a solution for what Stragos has done to you … well, your access to him can’t last forever. I’ll do everything in my power to help you before it comes to that. But if there’s no other alternative, if time runs out and the only way you can take him down is to sacrifice yourself—I won’t expect to see you again, do you understand?”
“If it comes to that,” said Kosta, “I’ll drag him to the judgment of the gods with my bare hands. We’ll go together.”
“Gods,” said Cosetta. “Bare hands!”
“Piss!” shouted Kosta, hoisting his tumbler toward Cosetta, who nearly came apart at the joints with the resulting fit of giggles.
“Thank you, Ravelle, for this gift of a daughter who will now be up all night repeating that word …”
“Sorry, Captain. So, when do we leave?”
“Half the crew goes ashore tonight, and the other half tomorrow. We’ll be scraping them up in heaps the day after, those that want to stay with us.
Hopefully we can be rid of our swag tomorrow. So … two days. Two and a half, maybe. Then we’ll see how the Orchid flies.”
“Thanks, Captain.”
“And that’s all,” Zamira said. “My children are up too late, and I intend to claim the privilege of snoring as loudly as I wish once you’re all out of my cabin.”
Kosta was the first to take the hint, draining his glass and leaping to his feet. De Ferra followed, and was about to leave when Ezri spoke in a quiet voice. “Jerome. May I see you in my cabin? Just for a few minutes?”
“A few minutes?” Jerome grinned. “Tsk, Ezri, when did you become such a pessimist?”
“Now,” she said, wiping the smile from his face. Chagrined, he helped her to her feet.
A moment later, the door to her cabin clicked shut, leaving Zamira alone with her family in one of the quiet interludes that were so damnably rare. For a few brief moments every night, she could imagine that her ship was traveling neither to nor from danger, and she could imagine herself more mother than captain, alone with the ordinary concerns of her children—
“Mommy,” said Paolo without any warning, “I want to learn how to fight with a sword.”
Zamira couldn’t help herself; she stared at him for several seconds, and then cracked up laughing. Ordinary? Gods, how could any child born to this life be anything resembling ordinary?
“Sword,” hollered Cosetta, possible future king of the Seven Marrows. “Sword! Sword!”
4
“EZRI, I—”
He saw the slap coming, but it never occurred to him for an instant to try to prevent the blow from landing. She put all of her muscle into it, which was saying something, and tears blurred Jean’s vision.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you—”
She was sobbing now, but her next punch landed on his right arm with undiminished force.
“Ow,” he said. “What? What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
It was almost a shout; he spread his hands to catch her fists. A punch from her to the ribs or solar plexus and he’d feel it for hours.
“Ezri, please. Tell you what?” He knelt on the narrow floor of her compartment, kissing her fingertips while she tried to yank her hands back. At last he let her, and knelt before her, arms lowered.
“Ezri, if you need to hit me, then by the gods hit me. If that’s what you need, I won’t fight you for a second. Not ever. Just … tell me what you want.” She balled her fists, and Jean braced himself for another swing, but she sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her tears were hot on his cheeks.
“How could you not tell me?” she whispered.
“Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you now, just—”
“The poison, Jean.”
“Oh,” he moaned, slumping sideways against the rear wall of the cabin. She slid with him. “Oh, shit.”
“You selfish bastard, how could you not—”
“Drakasha told the council of captains our story,” Jean said numbly. “You were there to hear it.”
“From her, not you! How could you do that to me?”
“Ezri, please, it’s—”
“You are the only thing,” she whispered through the iron grip of her embrace, “the only thing on this whole fucking ocean that’s mine, Jean Tannen. I don’t own this ship. Hell, I don’t own this cabin. I don’t have a buried fucking treasure. I have no family and no title, not anymore. And then I finally got to take something in return—”
“And it turns out I have … one significant flaw.”
“We can do something,” she said. “We can find someone. Physikers, alchemists—”
“Tried, Ezri. Alchemists and poisoners. We need the antidote from Stragos, or an actual sample of his poison from which to create one.”
“And didn’t I deserve to know? What if you’d—”
“Dropped dead in here one night? Ezri, what if a Redeemer had put his sword through my skull, or the crew had just murdered me on the day we met?”
“That’s not you,” she said. “That’s not how someone like you dies. I know, I just know—”
“Ezri, you’ve seen every one of my scars. You know I’m not—”
“This is different,” she said. “This is something you can’t just fight.”
“Ezri, I am fighting it. I have been fighting it, every single day since the archon put the fucking thing in me. Leocanto and I count the days, do you understand? I would lie awake at night the first few weeks, and I was sure I could feel it, doing something in me.” He gulped, and felt his own tears pouring down his face. “Look, when I’m in here it doesn’t exist, understand? When I’m with you I can’t feel it. I don’t care about it. This is … it’s like a different world. How could I tell you? How could I ruin that?”
“I would kill him,” she whispered. “Stragos. Gods, if he was here right now I’d cut his fucking throat—”
“I’d help. Believe me—”
She released her arms from around his neck and they knelt there in the semidarkness, staring at each other.
“I love you, Jean,” she whispered at last.
“I love you, Ezri.” Saying it was like allowing some sudden release of pressure behind his heart; it felt like breathing in at last after ages spent underwater. “You’re like no one else I’ve ever met.”
“I can’t let you die,” she said.
“It’s not you.… You cant—”
“I can do what I damn well please,” she said. “I can get you to Tal Verrar. I can buy you time to get what you need from Stragos. I can help you kick his ass.”
“Ezri,” said Jean, “Drakasha’s right. If I can’t get what I need from him … taking Stragos down is more important—”
“Don’t say it.”
“I’ll do it,” he said. “It only makes sense. Gods, I don’t want to, but if I have no choice I’ll trade myself for him.”
“Damn you,” she whispered, and faster than he could re
act she leapt to her feet, seized him by the front of his tunic, and slammed him against the starboard bulkhead. “You will not! Not if we beat him, Jean Tannen. Not if we win.”
“But if I have no choice—”
“Make a new choice, you son of a bitch.” She pinned him to the bulkhead with a kiss that was pure alchemy, and his hands found their way down her tunic, down to her breeches, where he unhitched her weapons belt with as much gratuitous fondling of the areas not covered by it as he could manage.
She took the belt from his hands and flung it against one of the stiffened canvas walls, where it struck with a clattering racket and slid to the floor. “If there is no way, make a way, Jean Tannen. Losers don’t fuck in this particular cabin.”
He picked her up, making a seat for her from his crossed arms, and whirled her around so that her back was against the bulkhead and her feet were dangling. He kissed her breasts through her tunic, grinning at her reaction. He stopped to put his head against her chest; felt the rapid flutter of her heart beneath his left cheek.
“I would have told you,” he whispered. “Somehow.”
“Somehow, indeed. ‘Man,’ ” she said, “ ‘What a mouse he is made by conversation—’ ”
“Oh, it’s not enough that I have to take this from you, now I have Lucarno chastising me—”
“Jean,” she interrupted, pressing his head more firmly against her with a hug. “Stay with me.”
“What?”
“This is a good life,” she whispered. “You suit it. We suit it. After we deal with Stragos … stay with me.”
“I like it here,” said Jean. “Sometimes I think I could stay forever. But there are … other places I could show you. Other things we could do.”
“I’m not sure I’d adjust well to life on land—”
“Land has its pirates, same as the sea,” he murmured between kisses. “I’m one of them. You could—”
“Belay this. We don’t have to decide anything now. Just … think on what I said. I didn’t bring you in here for negotiations.”
“What did you bring me here for?”
“Noise,” she whispered, starting to pull his tunic off. “Lots and lots of noise.”
5
JUST BEFORE the midnight change of watches, Gwillem emerged from his new quarters into the narrow corridor between the ship’s four smaller cabins. Scowling, clad only in his breechclout and a hastily thrown-on vest, he stepped across to the door of his old compartment. Bits of flannel rag were stuffed into his ears.
He pounded on the door several times. When no answer was forthcoming, he knocked again and hollered, “Treganne, you bitch, I’ll get you for this!”
6
“ARE HER preparations almost complete, then?”
The two men met in the roofless ruins of a stone cottage, south of the city proper, so close to the edge of the eerie jungle that not even drunks and gazers would crawl out to it for shelter. It was near midnight, and a hard rain was falling, warm as spit.
“Got all our junk sold just this afternoon. Been taking on water and ale like crazy. More than enough food already. Once we scrape up everyone that wants to get scraped up tomorrow, I’m sure we’re gone.”
Jaffrim Rodanov nodded, and for the hundredth time cast his gaze around the broken house and its shadows. Anyone close enough to listen through the noise of the rain would have to be close enough to spot, he reckoned.
“Drakasha said … disturbing things when she called the council. What’s she told you about her plans once she’s back at sea?”
“Nothing,” said the other man. “Peculiar. Usually she gives us a good week to get our skulls busted and our purses sucked dry. She’s got a fire under her ass, and it’s a mystery to the rest of us.”
“Of course,” said Rodanov. “She wouldn’t tell you anything until you were on your way. But she’s said nothing about the archon? About Tal Verrar?”
“No. So what do you think she’s—”
“I know exactly what she’s doing. I’m just not entirely convinced it’s wise.” Rodanov sighed. “She might call down a heap of shit on everyone in the Ghostwinds.”
“So now you—”
“Yeah.” Rodanov passed a purse over, giving it a shake so the coins within could be heard. “Just like we discussed. Keep your eyes open. Note what you see. I’ll want to hear about it after.”
“And the other thing?”
“Got it here,” said Rodanov, hefting an oilcloth satchel with a heavy weight inside. “You’re sure you have a place where this cannot be found—”
“My sea chest. Privilege of rank, right? Got a false bottom.”
“Good enough.” Rodanov passed the satchel over.
“And if I have to … use this thing …”
“Again, like we discussed. Three times what I just paid you, waiting for you once it’s done.”
“I want more than that,” said the man. “I want a place aboard the Sovereign.”
“Of course.” Rodanov extended his hand, and the other man met his grip. They shook in the traditional Vadran fashion, clasping each other’s forearms. “You know I can always use a good man.”
“You’re using him right now, hey? Just want to be sure I got a place to call home when all this is over. One way or another.”
Utgar’s grin was the faintest crescent of white against the shadows.
7
NORTH BY east on the Sea of Brass, with the wet southern wind on the starboard quarter, the Poison Orchid dashed across the waves like a racing mare at last given her head. It was the third day of Aurim.
After a day lost laboriously navigating the twisting, rock-choked passage called the Trader’s Gate, they had spent two more dodging reefs and islands, until the last jungle-crowned dome and the last volcanic smoke of the Ghostwinds had been sunk beneath the horizon.
“This is the game,” said Drakasha, addressing the group she’d assembled on the quarterdeck. Delmastro, Treganne, Gwillem, Utgar, Nasreen, Oscarl, and all the skilled mates—carpenters, sailmakers, and so forth. Mumchance listened from his place at the wheel, and Locke listened from the quarterdeck stairs, along with Jean and a half dozen off-watch sailors. If they hadn’t exactly been invited to hear the captain’s little speech, neither had they been dissuaded. There was no point, when news would travel across a ship faster than fire.
“We’re bound for Tal Verrar,” said Drakasha. “We’re going to allow our new friends Ravelle and Valora to conduct a bit of sneaky business ashore.”
“Bounty,” said Mumchance.
“He’s right,” said Gwillem. “Begging your pardon, Captain, but if we haul up in sight of Tal Verrar—”
“If the Poison Orchid drops anchor, aye, I’m worth a lot of money. But if we make some adjustments to my pretty ship here and there, alter the sail plan a bit, swap my stern lanterns for something plainer, and paint a false name in huge damn letters at the stern …”
“What shall we call her, Captain?” asked the carpenter.
“I’m partial to Chimera.”
“That’s cheeky,” said Treganne. “But what’s the gain for the rest of us in this ‘sneaky business,’ Drakasha?”
“Nothing I care to discuss before the deed is done,” said Drakasha. “But the gain for all of us will be substantial. You might say we’re going out with the blessing of the whole council of captains.”
“Then why aren’t they out here lending a hand?” asked Nasreen.
“Because there’s only one captain who’s best at what she does.” Drakasha gave an exaggerated curtsy. “Now, back to duties or to slacking, as you were. Spread the word to everyone.”
Locke was slacking a few minutes later, alone with his thoughts at the larboard rail, when Jean took the spot beside him. The sea and sky alike were bronzing around the setting sun, and the warm ocean air was nonetheless refreshing after the sweaty atmosphere of the Ghostwinds.
“You feel anything strange?” asked Jean.
“What, about th
e—oh, you mean the poison. No. Can’t say that I feel any better or worse than I have for a while. But, ah, I’m sure I’ll try to get a message to you if I start vomiting up newts or something. Assuming you could hear anyone knocking at that cabin door—”
“Oh, gods. Not you, too. Ezri nearly tipped Gwillem over the taffrail—”
“Well, let’s be honest, people will notice the sort of racket that generally accompanies an attack upon the ship—”
“And now you are about to have a sudden accident—”
“… by Jeremite Redeemers mounted on cavalry steeds. Where do you find the energy?”
“She makes it easy,” said Jean.
“Ah.”
“She’s asked me to stay,” said Jean, looking down at his hands.
“Aboard the ship? Once all of this is over? Assuming there’s anything left of us?”
Jean nodded. “And by me, I’m sure she meant you as well—”
“Oh, of course she did,” said Locke, not entirely curbing his reflexive tone of sarcasm. “What did you say?”
“I asked her … I thought maybe she could come with us.”
“You love her.” Locke nodded to himself before Jean could answer. “You’re not just marking time while we’re out here. You’ve really fallen off the cliff, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” Jean whispered.
“She’s good,” said Locke. “She’s got wits and fire. She has a real taste for taking things away from people at swordpoint, which is an asset in my book. And at least her you can trust at your back in a fight—”
“I’ve always trusted you—”
“To be at your back in a fight, sure. But her you can trust not to embarrass everyone before it’s over. You two won the day on the Kingfisher, not me. And I saw how she got kicked around—most people would have hugged their hammocks for a few days after that. She’s too damn stubborn to stop moving. You two really are a good match.”
“You make it sound like it’s her or you—”
“Of course it doesn’t have to be. But things will change—”