“Excellent,” said the Captain. “Let’s take her.”
’Rekhe licked his lips. He could feel the sweat beading up on his forehead, and wished he’d thought to tie a band of cloth around his head before putting on the hardmask, as some of the more experienced boarders had done. More trickles of sweat ran down his spine underneath the coarse fabric of the heavy boarding-tunic.
He glanced over at Elaeli. Her face was a blur behind the clear black plastic of her hardmask, and he couldn’t tell if she was nervous or not.
Ribbon-of-Starlight shivered a bit as the guardship’s lateral jets nudged her into a position closer to Path-Lined-with-Flowers. ’Rekhe tried to stand without fidgeting, and without shifting his grip on his pike, as the minutes passed and the ships converged.
This part of the chase, as the two ships maneuvered for position in hard vacuum, was the most delicate and ticklish of all. The Path would be racing to make her entry point without changing course—a missed point would mean a fouled transit, and a chance of emerging from the void in uncharted space, or dangerously close to planetary gravity or the heart of a star. Ribbon-of-Starlight, at the same time, was trying to match velocities and achieve linkage with an unwilling target. Any misjudgment or failure in shiphandling could result in crippling damage to either vessel, or to both.
“Let go the grapnels,” the Captain said.
“Grapnels away.”
’Rekhe felt a vibration in the deck as the Ribbon’s electromagnetic grapnels came online. Immediately afterward came the grapnel operator’s rapid patter: “Contact—energizing—positive lock. Request permission to begin reeling.”
Syn-Avran gave a curt, decisive nod. “Reel.”
’Rekhe braced himself. The two ships married with a solid, deck-shuddering impact. He wavered slightly, but kept his balance.
“Locks engaged.”
“Very well,” said Captain syn-Avran. “Away boarders.”
6:
Year 1116 E. R.
SPACE: SUS-PELEDAEN SHIP RIBBON-OF-STARLIGHT
ERAASI: WESTERN FISHING GROUND
The Ribbon’s boarding party stepped up to the lock. The hatch swung open easily under the hand of the boarding-chief—positive link-up on both ends, thought ’Rekhe, that’s good—at the same time as Path-Lined-with-Flowers opened up its lock to meet them.
For a moment ’Rekhe struggled with disorientation. The Path’s local gravity was 180 degrees out from the Ribbon’s, so that he looked up, not across, at three ranks of troopers in the sus-Dariv house colors of green and gold, drawn up in ranks with their boarding pikes and spears, seemingly hanging by their boots from the overhead. Their chief, large and rugged in his battle armor, carried a pair of attack swords, one in each hand. He raised and crossed them in salute.
The sus-Peledaen boarding-chief raised his pike in honor to his opponent, then leapt forward into the other’s boarding bay. Halfway across, the gravity altered on him, so that he appeared to be falling upward. He twisted in mid-leap, landed on his feet and rolled, coming up into a guard position directly in front of the sus-Dariv swordsman.
“Oh, that was pretty,” someone up on the Ribbon’s fighting bridge exclaimed.
The swordsman struck out, high and low, looking for a quick kill. The boarding-chief jumped clear and struck the swordsman in the chest with the butt of his pike. The butt wasn’t sharpened, so no decompression occurred, but the blow staggered the swordsman and knocked him backward. The boarding-chief followed that up with an over-the-shoulder swing of the pike blade toward his opponent’s left clavicle.
The sus-Dariv blocked up and out with his left sword and lunged with his right. The boarding-chief swung his pike around to take the swordsman’s right wrist with his pikestaff and knock the sword away. The blade landed, clanging, on the deck, and the sus-Dariv gripped his remaining sword in both hands.
The two fighters paused for a moment, taking each other’s measure. Then the swordsman advanced, swinging his blade in a horizontal figure-eight ahead of him. The sus-Peledaen boarding-chief blocked, stepped back, and blocked again. But he had the rhythm now. At the next swing, he dove in under the arcing blade and swung his pike out parallel to the deck. The juncture of blade and shaft took the swordsman behind the ankles like a hook and pulled his feet from under him.
The boarding-chief rolled over to kneel astraddle of his fallen foe, produced a small boot knife, and made the ritual nick in the other man’s armor, high up on the left sleeve, that released the over-pressured, moisturized air inside. The air escaped in a tiny plume of condensing vapor—signal of a loss, and of a victory.
The boarding-chief got up, helped his former opponent to his feet, and embraced him. Then they both pulled off their helmets and embraced again, while ’Rekhe and Elaeli and the other members of the sus-Peledaen boarding party pounded their pikes on the deck and cheered.
“Well done,” said Captain syn-Avran. “Have the crew rig a transfer tunnel. I’d like to go aboard and take their surrender.”
At an order from the boarding-chief, the crew members discarded their fighting gear to start rigging the transfer tunnel—a cylindrical lock with a stairway in each side and a railed plank running between them, its knurled surface twisting completely around at the midpoint between the two ships. The captain came down to the lock from the fighting bridge, glancing at ’Rekhe and Elaeli as he passed.
“Inadi, sus-Khalgath—come along and see how the next part’s done.” The two apprentices followed the Captain through the transfer tunnel to the other ship’s boarding bay, and up the metal stairs to the sus-Dariv fighting bridge. The Path’s Captain greeted syn-Avran with a cheerful handshake and a clap on the shoulder.
“Ruje, you old pirate!” He pulled a sheet of folded paper out of his tunic pocket. “Well, here’s the manifest. What would you like?”
Syn-Avran looked at the printout, running his finger down the rows. “How about all of your leind’r?”
“You would pick the lightest, most valuable thing I had … we’ll log it as ‘captured by freebooters.’” The Path’s Captain turned to his Pilot-Principal. “Muster all off-watch hands to number three hold to transfer cargo, and set up the food and drink for the boarders’ after-party.”
Dance-and-Be-Joyful fought against the ongoing storm. The wind howled, and cut the tops of the waves off into flying spray. Narin had lost touch with the passage of time; she didn’t know whether the Amisket Circle had been working for hours, or for only a handful of minutes. The dark sky beyond the stark whiteness of the work lights could have been either midnight or a storm-black noon—she couldn’t tell.
A wave over the Dance’s quarter smashed into Narin and drove her down to her knees.
The wind’s veering. Or we’re coming about. Broad-side to the waves, either way. We can’t last long after that.
Streaks of blood swirled in the water that washed over the deck and eddied around her where she knelt. She forced her eyes, bleared with sweat and salt water, to focus on her surroundings and take stock. It wasn’t good: Kasaly’s body rolled amid the dirty water in the scuppers, her bright red hair floating about her head and her pale eyes staring up at the work lights. Narin didn’t remember killing her … only the flow of energy channeled into the struggle to bring Amisket’s ships and sailors home to port.
This storm is too strong. We should have found a way through it without the need for such a sacrifice.
But Amisket’s fleet would live or die as their Circle worked for them, and Narin could not give up. If the trawler sank, there would be no going home anyway.
Narin struggled to her feet. She hurt all over, and her breath came with difficulty. Kas had fought well in the working, after all. Laros was the only one remaining, and he might be the last of the Circle left alive after her own death.
And what is the fleet to do, she thought, when the one becomes none and no power is left—what besides sink, drown, and be lost?
We are their Circle. We cannot allow it.
Staggering as the ship rolled, she found her footing on the deck. Laros stood beside the deckhouse, his black robe whipped about him by the wind, with one hand on a vang and the other grasping his staff.
“Come to me!” Narin shouted. Her voice rasped in her throat. She could feel the words, but scarcely hear them. The wind tore them away as soon as they left her mouth. “Finish the working! Bring the fleet home!”
“As the universe wills,” Laros said—at least, his mouth moved with what could have been the ritual phrase. The shrieking wind and the Dance’s creaking lines swallowed up all sound, leaving nothing but the motion behind. He stepped forward and raised his staff.
Narin waited. She was all but done in; it could have been her lying in the scuppers and not Kas, if one blow or another had gone differently. She had no energy left for a strong assault.
Laros attacked; she blocked. And so the fight began. She let her awareness leave the physical world of the ship and the storm and go out into the network of silvery lines that wove about her. This would be her last effort to pull them in, her last attempt to still their fierce chaotic lashing. Her energy would go to Laros in the end, and the keeping of the Amisket fleet with it.
The eiran shone with an eerie and uncommon brightness. She had never seen them glowing with such intensity; from what source they were receiving their energy, she could not tell. She let herself go still further from the physical world, into the world of vision and metaphor that was the heart of the working, and saw herself standing alone in a landscape of frozen mountains and bare rock.
A howling filled her ears, and she turned. The path ahead of her was blocked by a mortgaunt out of legend, a looming reptilian creature all claws and fangs and oily leather hide. She had no need to guess at its true nature. The mortgaunt was the storm, the deadly menace that she needed to subdue. And it was Laros, as well—offering up the energy of his life, for Narin to take and work into ship-luck and harbor-luck to save the fishermen of Amisket.
She knew without looking, as if it were a picture in her memory, that they were all behind her, Captain Soba and the others, a long line of sailors on the seaward cliffs over Amisket, with a sheer rock face on one side of them and a deadly abyss on the other. She was in the lead, and the mortgaunt blocked her.
A rumble of rocks in the vision brought her abruptly out to the real world. The rumble was the sound of the Dance’s laboring engine, and the vibration through her boot soles was answered by a humming from the trawler’s rigging. Narin had spent most of her adult life at sea; even in the midst of a working, that sound could draw her attention.
The main yard, the one that provided the high attachment point for the trawler’s nets, was bending, whipping back and forth in the storm blast, and the wire ropes that held it vibrated like plucked strings.
She cried out involuntarily. An instant later, the yard cracked and fell, and the lines running through its blocks fell with it in a tangle. The whole mass crashed downward and swept aft across the working deck, striking Laros and bearing him outboard.
He arched backwards, his mouth open in a scream—his back must be broken, Narin thought—then he, the lines, and the yard vanished together over the side. The Dance’s engines seized as the tangled mass hit the screws.
Narin felt the surge of energy from Laros’s life flow upward, surrounding the ship, filling her.
“Now!” she shouted; and Laros, dying, shouted with her mouth. Then she entered the vision completely, grasping the eiran, pulling them, using the strength of her body and mind to open a pathway through them. She had all of Laros’s energy now, and she used it as recklessly as she did her own, holding nothing back from the desperate effort.
And the eiran began at last to answer to her will. The opening was there, a gap in the web of tangled silver. She turned to the line of sailors on the cliff of her mind and beckoned them through—across the shingle and the fallen rock, toward the glowing lights of home so far away.
Path-Lined-with-Flowers set out the boarders’ after-party in the empty cargo space that had formerly held bales of leind’r. The sus-Dariv crew members put together makeshift tables out of crates and pallets and loaded them down with food and drink—a great deal of drink. Deep bowls of red-wine punch aswim with ice; strong, eye-watering spirits in thick-sided glasses; bottles of cold Eraasian beer and hot Ildaonese guukl. Someone from the Ribbon brought over a stack of music rings and a dataplayer, and someone else from Path-Lined-with-Flowers wired the output into the compartment’s main audio. Music—loud music—bounced off the overhead and filled the space with a buzz of echoes. All the light sources had been covered up with red and blue filters that shifted color randomly as the vibrations hit.
’Rekhe felt young and awkward. He hadn’t gone to parties like this while he was living at home in the house of his brother, and somehow he’d ended up at two of them within the past three days. His mood wasn’t helped by noticing that Elaeli didn’t seem to feel awkward at all. She was dancing with Macse from the Path under one of the spots of changing light, and laughing at something he’d said.
I wish somebody thought I was witty. ’Rekhe thought, and drifted over to the refreshment table. He pulled a bottle of guukl from the warmer and popped the lid.
The hot spicy drink went down as easily as it had before. By the time the warmth had spread to his fingers and toes, he was feeling more cheerful. He finished the guukl and started another one.
“Hey, sus-Peledaen!” It was another of the sus-Dariv crew members who’d given him and Elaeli a ride on Ildaon—Tuob, this time. “Anybody traded with you yet?”
’Rekhe shook his head. So far the guukl was only making it spin a little. “Nobody’s asked me.”
“Who needs to ask? Y‘just come up to them like this”—Tuob gave ’Rekhe a clap on the shoulder that nearly felled him—“and y’say, ‘Hey, got anything?’ Go ahead—try it.”
’Rekhe took a swallow of guukl and tapped at Tuob’s upper arm with his fist. “Hey,” he said. “Got anything?”
“Sure do. Take a look at this.” Tuob reached into his shirt pocket and took out a folding knife. Red and blue light shifted and reflected off the polished metal case, which had the words “sus-Dariv’s Path-Lined-withFlowers” engraved on it in flowing script. He pressed it into ’Rekhe’s hand. “Family special. Name on it and all. ’S yours.”
“It’s too good—I can’t—”
“Too late,” said Tuob. “You got it now. Trade me something back—’s how it’s done.”
’Rekhe pondered for a moment, his thoughts somewhat hampered by guukl-induced fuzziness, then pulled off his quilted red and blue ship-jacket and held it up. “It’s got my name on the pocket. Is that all right?”
“It’s fantastic,” Tuob assured him. “I’ll show it to my girl back home, and she’ll know I had some real excitement on this run. You got a girl?”
“Ah … no.”
“What about th’ curlyhair you had with you back in port? She isn’t your girl?”
’Rekhe shook his head. “Last time I saw Elaeli she was dancing with Macse.”
“Macse’s already got a girl,” said Tuob. “Got a couple of girls, in fact. You want to dance with th’ curlyhair, you go find her and ask.”
“You think she would?”
“Sure she would. Saw her kiss you, back on Ildaon. Some places, girls don’t kiss you like that ’til you’re married.”
’Rekhe finished his guukl at one draught. “If you’ll excuse me …” He made his way through the press of bodies in the Path’s cargo bay to the cleared space that served as a dance floor. The music changed, and it took him a minute to spot Elaeli standing with Macse at the edge of the crowd. Quickly, before his nerve could give way, he went up to her.
“Do you want to—I mean, may I have the next dance?”
Her smile was even warmer and more dizzying than the guukl had been. “Of course.”
Taking hands, they stepped into the dance. Elaeli was soft and g
raceful, and her hair smelled like flowers. ’Rekhe could have danced with her forever, and felt a stab of disappointment when the music ended.
“Let’s go back to the Ribbon,” she said.
“Now?” He tried to think of some excuse to keep her at the party so he could ask her to dance again. “Have you done any trading yet?”
“Macse gave me a sus-Dariv bracelet,” she said. “So I gave him my Ribbon-of-Starlight keyholder with the thumbprint lock. I think he wanted something else instead, but I didn’t feel like giving it to him.”
She smiled at ’Rekhe again, and his head spun. “I’d rather go back to prentice berthing and give it to you.”
7:
Year 1117 E. R.
ERAASI: DEMAIZEN OLD HALL
ARVEDAN HOUSE
HANILAT STARPORT
When the fleet steamed back into Amisket, Narin Iyal discovered that she was a hero. The Storm of 1116, product of a massive weather system raised by the Circles of the drought-stricken antipodes, had raged up and down the length of the Veredden Archipelago for three days. The townspeople of Amisket had feared that the fishing ships were lost, taking their families and the town’s livelihood with them. The people were grateful—exceedingly grateful. For weeks afterward Narin couldn’t pay cash money for as much as a shoelace, and half a dozen children were named after her in the first month alone.
She wanted nothing to do with any of it. Halfway through the second month, she told the town council of Amisket that they would have to find a new Mage to head their Circle for them. Then she took passage to the mainland on the packet-boat that brought the weekly mail, and walked inland from the coast.
She had no clear idea of where she was going—except away from Veredde—and she wandered the by-roads for almost half a year. The Circles she came across would give her hospitality, and invariably wished her well, but none of them offered her a place. Always, after a day or two, or at most a week, she would thank them politely and move on.
The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds Page 6