by Martha Wells
Jai ducked under the narrow doorway and went down the short set of steps to the living hold. The common room held the navigator’s table where Flaren sat, comparing the map Hain had given them with one of their own charts. Latal and Shiri had gathered around, worriedly studying the results. Lining the walls were chests for storing the logbooks and records of their trades, Jai’s small collection of books, and their money and valuables. There was also a rack that held the rolled leather tubes protecting their charts and maps. The hold was lit by squares of ilene in its non-crystallized form, tuned to give off light but no heat, another Keres-gedin innovation added to the ship. It was much safer than candles or oil lamps, especially in high winds. Eventually, perhaps by the next turn of the seasons, the energy in their carefully hoarded pieces of ilene would run out, leaving the mineral blocks cracked and dull, and they would have to return to the mountains to purchase more. Jai hoped to have enough funds by then to make the journey easy, and this job would come near to accomplishing that goal, and make them comfortable through the rest of the warm season. It was most of the reason they had decided to take it, the rest being Flaren’s desire to torture himself by proximity to his betraying snake of a father and his horrid family.
Jai stowed the ransom box away in a chest, put the bag of trading disks in the ship’s lockbox, then shouldered her way between Latal and Shiri. By that time Kiev had set their course and followed her down the stairs. Leaning on the table beside Flaren, Jai looked over the map. “Do we know this place we are going to?”
Flaren was frowning, his dark golden brow furrowed. “No. It’s in the shallows, some distance off the Visicae archipelago where the Issilan ship was captured. Our charts don’t show any notations for an island there.”
“The shallows,” Jai repeated. It was difficult for larger sailing ships to navigate through there without running into any of the stone shelves and reefs that lay just below the surface. “I wonder how the pirates managed this. Perhaps they use skiffs.” Though from what she understood, the pirates had taken the ship when it had anchored for the night and towed it away from the shipping lanes. Skiffs would be hard put to tow even a modest Issilan vessel.
“Hopefully skiffs, and not airships,” Kiev muttered. Kiev was a pessimist. “If they come after us, we can’t win a race.”
“We’re faster than any airship,” Latal said, stoutly loyal to their flying bucket. She was the youngest, and most enthusiastic, of their crew. Jai ruffled her hair fondly.
Before Kiev could retort that they were not faster than an airship, Shiri said, “These aren’t just any raiders.” Shiri was of a species native to the Ataran Sea, and was short, with gray-green skin and silvery gray hair, and gnarled wrinkled features that made him look old and wise when he was just as fluff-headed as the rest of them.
“Of course they aren’t,” Jai said. Nothing about this was going to be easy. She would be unsurprised to hear that the ransom demand stipulated that they deliver it naked and with air bladders tied to their heads. “What are they?”
Shiri rolled his narrow shoulders and looked uncomfortable. “The raiders in the shallows don’t raid to sell cargo and ransom crews, like the fishers and traders that can’t make their living and turn pirate. They’re predators.”
He had everyone’s attention now. Predators. The Altanic word meant “people who subsist on other people.” Like Tath, or Ghobin or Setaret, Jai thought. Or Fell, may everything that’s holy curse them and keep them far away from here. She said, “But these raiders asked for ransom, therefore they are not predators.”
Watching Shiri, Flaren asked, “Do you know what they look like?”
Shiri shook his head. “Just that the rumor says they come from an old sea kingdom.”
“Rumor!” Latal made an impatient gesture. “Just because they’re sealings, doesn’t mean they’re predators.” Sealings were any species that lived in the water, and might be anything from the civilized inhabitants of the deep sea kingdoms to the packs of barely sentient predators that preyed on fishing vessels and other sealings.
“That’ll be fun to fight in the water,” Kiev said sourly.
“We’re not going to fight them,” Jai said. Latal was right; appearance was nothing to judge by. Flaren tensed to argue, but subsided when Jai added, “We’ll deliver the ransom and escort the hostages away, as we’ve been asked to. That’s all.”
Flaren gave her a small smile, relieved and worried all at once. “Are you sure? I mean, I know it’s dangerous—”
“I’m sure.” And she was, really. Not only would they be rescuing people who were badly in need of rescuing, stuck-up Issilan nobles though they were, but the rest of the payment Canon Hain had promised was so large they couldn’t afford to pass it up. “The pirates want their ransom, we want their hostages and our payment for freeing them. If it goes well, everyone gets what they want.”
Everyone nodded, reassured, and Jai felt the tension ease. Then Shiri had to say darkly, “You hope that’s all they want.”
It would take them the rest of the day and the night to make their way over the open sea to the coast of the first Visicae island, and then to navigate along the archipelago until they reached the raiders’ lair. They each took a turn at the steering column, navigating via the compass and their charts. They kept the fansail folded, as the wind was in the wrong direction and would just push them away from the invisible force-current, slowing the little wind-ship’s progress.
The day remained bright and nearly cloudless, the sea sparkling beneath them, and there wasn’t much else to do while they traveled except sleep, read, fret, or talk. So when Jai finished her stint on watch she found herself loitering in the doorway of Flaren’s small cabin, where she could both talk and fret.
Like all their living quarters, it had a narrow shelf for the bed, and cabinets with basket weave doors for the storage of personal belongings. Not that Flaren had many, except a little spare clothing and the few gifts Jai and the others had pressed on him. The wind-ship’s hull creaked beneath her feet, a restful sound, though their conversation was anything but restful.
Flaren put his book down for the third time, sat up and punched his pillow. He said, “I should take the ransom in alone. It’ll be safer.”
They had been making plans and discarding them all evening, but this was the first time he had made this suggestion. Jai gave him a derisive snort. “You want to do that.”
Flaren looked annoyed. “I want to do that slightly less than I want to jump off the Escarpment’s deck without a harness. But we’re doing this for me. I should take the risk.”
“We’re doing it for the money,” Jai reminded him. “You rubbing your father’s face in the fact that you are alive and thriving despite his best efforts is a side benefit.” She hoped that was how Flaren saw the situation.
But he shifted uncomfortably. “I know why you’re doing it.”
Guilt reared its pointed head, but not quite enough that Jai could hold her tongue. “What do you mean?”
Flaren said, “You want to help me go back home.”
Jai fought the urge to bang her head against the wall. By home he meant Issila, back to the city and the family that had rejected him so thoroughly they had set him off in a small boat to die. If the Escarpment had not stumbled across him where his boat had run aground on a reef, he would have been as dead as if Canon Hain had stabbed him in the heart. More sharply than she meant to, she said, “You’re my friend. I want you to make your home here.”
“I can’t.” Flaren’s expression was earnest. “While there’s a chance to return, I have to take it.”
Jai wanted to smack herself in the head. Or better, smack Flaren in the head. She had thought, or at least convinced herself, that he knew any hope of going back was a daydream and a fantasy. But maybe it was her hope that he saw the truth that was a daydream and a fantasy. “You saw the way your father looked at you. Do you truly think there is a chance to return?”
He glared at her, startl
ed, angry, and clearly hurt. “He was testing me.”
“People who love you do not require such tests!”
Flaren’s stubborn jaw set. “I know you left your family because you had to. For you, it was the right thing to do. Not for me.”
It was mildly infuriating that Flaren had characterized the situation that way. He had been exiled because he dared to argue with his father and an elder brother had persuaded Hain that Flaren meant to rebel against him. Jai’s family had made it more than clear that they were disappointed in her personality and many faults, and that they might be indifferent to her continued existence, but they had never tried to kill her. “I left my family because I was bored with selling supplies to miners and wished to find adventure. I was selfish and willful. You did not leave your family, you were put out to die because they didn’t trust you.”
Flaren slammed the book down. “Then you shouldn’t trust me either.”
“Unlike your family, I am not a fool, or a betrayer, or the kind of foul creature who would discard a half-grown child who displeased me,” Jai said.
They stared at each other. Jai thought, Yes, I should probably have kept that to myself. Flaren shoved to his feet. “You—My father—This is none of your business.”
Jai said, stiffly, “Even I can tell when I have gone too far. I apologize. We will speak of this later.”
Jai turned away from the door, and winced as she heard it slam behind her. She stomped back up on deck, too aware that she owed Flaren a dozen or so more apologies, which he would undoubtedly receive with increasing impatience.
She leaned on the railing. The wind was like warm silk and there were only a few drifts of cloud, the setting sun painting the open water a glittering gold. One of the minor Visicae islands lay in the distance, its tall cliffs overflowing with jungle greenery.
Over the past two turns Flaren had practically grown up before her eyes, turning from a sulky frightened adolescent to a trustworthy adult she called friend. She did not want to lose him, anymore than she wanted to lose Kiev or Shiri or Latal, all of whom she had known longer. Maybe less, she admitted privately. She loved the others like brothers and children, but Flaren had become her confidant, perhaps the closest to her in his habits of thought and sympathies.
Jai said, “Maybe I am being selfish. Maybe I want him to turn his back on these bastards because it will reinforce my own decision.”
Kiev, who was leaning in the doorway of the steering cabin, shrugged. He had undoubtedly heard the argument. The wind-ship was built for lightness and its deck and inner walls were thin, something that became spectacularly obvious whenever anyone tried to have a private conversation, or when Kiev and Shiri had sex. “I think it’s both. You’re being selfish, but it’s true that he’s better off making his own way, with us or without us, than he is with those people.”
“But if he doesn’t believe it, it does no one any good, and he will pine about it until he does something foolish,” Jai said. Dolorous Kiev didn’t even try to argue with her.
The raiders’ lair wasn’t what Jai had been expecting.
She had thought they would find a small island with a fishing village or town, abandoned or with a few inhabitants barely holding on, that had been temporarily taken over by the raiders. But these raiders had no island at all.
Outlined by the waves it created, a round stone ridge stood just below the surface, forming a great flooded cauldron. Jai couldn’t tell if it had been built to stand in the water and had sunk or been flooded as the sea rose, or if it was some natural formation. A shelf stretched across about half the cauldron, forming a platform only a scant pace deep, then dropped away into impenetrably dark water. That had to be a cave entrance, possibly built by the sealings, probably a passage down into whatever structure lay further under the surface. It was an inhabited darkness that made her flesh creep.
And she saw why the Issilans had preferred an air-going craft to deliver the ransom.
The captured Issilan ship lay some distance from the outermost edge of the cauldron, and it was caught inside a giant ball-shaped net. Jai had seen a great many things in her time but nothing like that.
The ship was a sailer with a graceful ironwood hull and three masts, the sails now furled. A metal spine curved up from the water in front of the ship’s prow, arched over it, and disappeared below the surface behind the stern. The mesh of the net attached to it was very fine. It must be impossible to cut or surely the crew would have freed themselves already. Jai saw the trap must have laid flat in the water and been brought into place beneath the ship where it sat at anchor. Then some mechanism had allowed it to spring up and enclose the ship, like a hunter’s trap for a big land predator.
The crew and passengers had come out on deck at the sight of the Escarpment, calling out and waving. Jai saw they were all heavily armed, with tools, clubs, fishing spears, and swords. Several crew members held long metal projectile weapons.
Beside her, Flaren said, “So they trapped the ship in that thing, and then hauled it here. Have you ever heard of anything like that before?”
“Never.” Jai leaned on the railing. The air between she and Flaren had been heavy with the memory of their argument, and they hadn’t spoken this morning. But the sight of the trapped ship had swept all that away for the moment. She wished Canon Hain had seen fit to give them more information, and not sent them off expecting ordinary pirates. “But how did they haul this thing from Visicae to here? I see no ships of any kind.” She shook her head. “Shiri is partly right, as much as I hate to say it. They must be sealings.”
Latal said, “If they pulled it through the water themselves, there must be a lot of them.”
“Or they are very strong,” Jai said grimly. “Take us over that thing, Kiev.”
“It’s a stand-off,” Flaren said, as Kiev guided them closer to the trapped ship. “The ship can’t escape, but the crew is too well-armed for the pirates to get near it.”
“Yes.” Jai waved a distracted hand at Shiri, who interpreted the gesture and went to get the speaking tube from the steering cabin. “It would be nice if we could throw down a hook and haul it away, but we can’t possibly pull it through the water.” The Escarpment might be able to drag the sailer, but not the weight of the large mechanism that held it. And she would bet Shiri’s share of the pay that the net device was securely anchored from below. Shiri brought the speaking tube, and Jai used it to call to the figures below, “Are you well?”
“For now!” One of the men below shouted up to her. “Were you sent to help us?”
“Yes, we have a ransom for you, sent from Issila! Have you tried to cut through that mesh?”
“We’ve tried! It’s some sort of metal.”
That was that. “Be patient! We will get you free!” Jai handed the tube back to Shiri and told Kiev. “Go to the cauldron.”
The deck angled beneath their feet as Kiev turned the ship back toward the cauldron. Jai tapped her nails on the railing, thinking. This was going to be tricky.
“I still think I should deliver the ransom alone,” Flaren said, his jaw set in a stubborn line.
“I still don’t care what you think,” Jai told him, and added to Latal, “Get two harness lines ready, just in case.”
Latal lifted her brows. “Just in case?”
“I’m hoping we can do this the easy way.” They were over the cauldron now, about a hundred paces above the surface. There wasn’t much wind today, so it was fairly easy for Kiev to keep them in place. Jai took the speaking tube and leaned over the railing. She felt like a fool, talking to a bare circle of water, but there was nothing else to talk to. “We have come from Issila with your ransom. Let the captive ship leave, and we will lower it down to you.”
She stood back to see all the others staring at her. She shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
“No one’s coming,” Latal observed after a moment. “Maybe they can’t hear you from under the water.”
Flaren muttered, “They’r
e probably laughing too hard.”
Jai took the high road and ignored that. Time stretched on, and she tapped her fingers impatiently on the railing. She was supremely reluctant to simply drop the ransom box into the sea, with no idea whether the hostage ship would be released or not. Or if the pirates had grown tired of waiting, abandoned their captives aboard the trapped ship to starve to death, and left the area to look for easier prey.
“There,” Flaren breathed, and a moment later Jai spotted movement in the water below. She leaned forward, staring.
Water churned in the center of the cauldron. Then a figure climbed up out of the foam onto the shelf that was just below the surface, standing knee-deep in the water.
It was a tall thin man with gray skin. Kiev nudged Jai’s arm, handing her their distance glass. She took it, focusing the lenses on the figure. With the glass, she could see the man had scales, long tangled hair like green sea wrack, and clawed hands. He wore no clothing except for metal armbands. A sealing, obviously. “He doesn’t look that frightening,” Jai said aloud, not quite sure she believed it. There was something about the figure that gave her an uneasy feeling.
“From a distance,” Shiri pointed out nervously.
The figure looked up at the Escarpment, and began to make motions with his hands.
After a belated moment, Jai realized what he was doing. “Shiri, what is he saying?”
Shiri leaned over the railing. The sign language was an old one, used by the myriad inhabitants of the Ataran coast and islands when common language failed them. Jai had never mastered more than the rudiments but fortunately Shiri was expert.
After a moment, Shiri reported, “He says we’re to bring the ransom down to him, and he will release the ship.”
It was as ridiculous as Jai’s initial offer. She shook her head. “Tell him to release the ship, and we will give him the ransom.”