by Shannon Page
“The cliffs should end soon,” she replied. “The island slopes more gently to the south.”
“Are you a sturdy swimmer, my lady?” Pino asked dubiously. “Your dresses …”
“Our silks are light and long,” Arian answered. “Easily tied around our waists or shoulders, if necessary.” She looked inquisitively at Sian, who nodded her agreement. “My husband told me when I came here that I would be spending half my life on boats now, and must learn to swim. I have found it quite an enjoyable activity, actually. Let’s stop looking for a landing and just find an empty patch of shore with any kind of access to the land above.”
“She’s right,” Sian said. “We can’t just sail clear around the island to where we began.”
“Very well, my ladies, but …” He glanced at them uncomfortably. “Won’t you mind … the exposure?”
For the first time that day, Arian was moved, despite herself, to laugh. “Oh, dear boy, you’ve got nothing under there we have not both already seen many times by now.”
“I did not mean … My pants are short,” he sputtered. “I will keep them on, of course. I just meant … I don’t know what the two of you are … wearing under …”
By now both she and Sian were laughing openly. Even in the moonlight, Arian could see Pino blush. What an innocent he was. She wondered how Arouf had ever entertained such ridiculous suspicions — about this boy, anyway.
“Then, let us look for someplace safe to swim to,” Pino said, turning sullenly away.
“I’m sorry,” said Arian. “I should not have teased you. Your concern is very sweet, and were the world still sane, entirely appropriate. This is war, however, in which even unclad bathing may be briefly necessary.”
At this, Sian put a hand to her mouth to hold back further laughter.
Even Pino grinned now, if still in obvious embarrassment.
“Pino?” Sian said a moment later, no longer laughing. “Are you sure we shouldn’t be concerned about those boats?”
Everyone turned to find the three mid-sized ketches, that had been little more than distant lanterns only moments ago, now sailing close enough behind them that Arian could see crew moving — very purposefully — about their decks.
“My ladies … there may be some cause for concern after all. Let’s hope they haven’t seen us yet. Please get back under the tarp.”
With sudden tension in her belly, Arian helped Sian stretch the canvas over them as they lay back against the deck.
“Roll as far to starboard as you can, please,” Pino asked them quietly. “I’m going to take the sails in and see if we can build some extra speed.”
They fumbled awkwardly against each other underneath the tarp until they were as far up the starboard gunwale as they could get and still be covered. Arian felt the small boat heel into the wind, bouncing unpleasantly on the chop again.
Everyone was silent for a while. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, their bouncing lessened slightly as the boat slowed to veer further eastward, around the point, Arian supposed.
“You were right, my lady,” Pino told them a moment later, sounding almost anguished. “I am sorry. They are following. They have far more sail than we do. I doubt I will be able to outrun them too much longer.”
“Can you see if they are flying any colors or insignia?” Arian called softly.
There was a pause, then, “Yes, my lady. Orlon, I think.”
“I fear we are in trouble,” Arian whispered to Sian.
“Do you wish me to keep running?” Pino asked. “Or to pull toward shore? There is some large harbor up ahead of us, I think. Almost completely dark for some reason. Or … wait. No, it’s one of the raft slums.” He paused again. “Not a safe place at any time, but … Orlon’s ships are not far behind, my ladies.”
Arian closed her eyes and groaned. The raft warrens. What predictably perfect luck. … Or poetic justice.
“Arian?” Sian whispered. “What should he do?”
“If I just come to and wait for them,” said Pino, “I could tell them I’m going to help my parents, as we did before. Perhaps if they see no one else aboard, they’ll just —”
He was cut short by a sickeningly familiar boom not far behind them, quickly followed by another.
“Oh, the gods!” Pino just had time to gasp before Arian heard first one, and then a second mighty splash, as cannon balls plunged into water somewhere not too far away.
“How far are we from the warrens?” she shouted.
“Too far to swim, my ladies!” Pino shouted back. “I don’t think they meant to hit us — or their aim is very poor. They probably just want me to stop. But I think they must have seen you back there, or I don’t know why they’d waste their cannons on a little boat like this. Should I come around, or run?”
“Run!” Arian replied. “Please, just try to get us to the warrens, Pino! We can leave the boat and swim there if we have to, but if I am captured here, we’ll never see the Factorate until this war is long finished — if even then.”
“I will try, my lady!” Pino cried. The boat heeled further as he pulled the sails recklessly into the wind and veered again. The jarring bounce from wave to wave increased, so whatever he had done must be helping them gain speed, she thought.
For several minutes she heard only water rushing past the gunwales and the bow’s dull thud from trough to trough, Then came a second set of booms — much louder than the first — followed almost instantly by the roar of water shooting skyward near enough to rock the boat.
“I think they meant to hit me that time!” Pino shouted fearfully. “Thank the gods I’m a small target!”
“Stop then, Pino!” Arian called back. “Just come around, and tell them you were simply frightened by their cannons into running!” She could not ask him to die just to keep her out of Orlon’s hands. There might be nothing left for them to do back at the Factorate by now, even if they got there. “Maybe you were right, and they’ll let you go!”
“No, my lady! We’re almost there. Get your dresses off or tied up, please. You will have to leave me very quickly in a minute!”
“What does he mean, leave me?” Sian asked as they squirmed about to gather up their silks and knot them as close and short as they were able to under the tarp.
“Tie your sandals in the silk as well,” Arian told her, remembering what an issue that had been — for both of them.
“Pino!” Sian shouted as she went on tying up her clothes. “What do you mean? You’re coming with us!”
“When I tell you, slip from underneath the tarp and over the port side as low and quiet as you can, my ladies!” Pino told them. “We’ll be leaning away from them, and they may not see you, if you’re quick and careful!”
“What about you?” Sian demanded again.
“Listen for my signal!” Pino called. “Are you ready? We are almost there!” There was a pause, then he hissed, “Damn them!” The boat veered sharply up into the wind, and heeled alarmingly to port, seconds before they heard the roar of cannons once again. The sounds of impact came from water just behind them this time. The sloop swerved again beneath them, its sails snapping back into a reach as they resumed their earlier direction.
“He must have seen them light the punk,” Arian said to Sian, too frightened now to feel fear anymore. So clever for such an innocent boy.
“Now, my ladies!” Pino yelled. “NOW!”
Arian swept away the canvas above her with one hand, and grabbed Sian’s arm with the other, tugging her into motion as they rolled across the deck and up the boat’s port gunwale. Their added weight brought the boat’s leeward side very low to water, so that getting over the edge took very little effort. The shock was bracing as her knotted silks began to drag — but not too badly, and the water wasn’t all that cold. As she surfaced, treading and sputtering, she heard a second splash behind her, a surprising distance off, and turned again, only to find herself alone in the low chop. It took a moment more to find the Coppersmith, already a
t least fifty feet away, up into the wind again and slicing through the water at tremendous speed. She could not find Sian at all, but feared that calling out for her would draw attention from their pursuers. She started swimming toward where she had heard the second splash, and soon spotted Sian’s dark head bobbing in the chop before her.
As she swam closer, Sian lifted one hand from the water to point urgently at something. Arian spun around, feeling the knotted silk brush and bump between her thighs, afraid that she would find one of Orlon’s ketches coming for them. What she saw was just the tops of woven reed-thatch huts and hovels — not that far away. She had not even figured out precisely which way shore might be yet. She started swimming toward the warren — breast stroke, to make them as invisible as possible to anyone who might have seen them splash off of the boat. Sian was quickly swimming at her side.
“What of Pino?” Arian asked, glancing back but seeing no further sign of either Coppersmith or the boats that had been chasing it.
“He’s gone to draw them off, the stupid boy!” Sian hissed angrily. “He should just have tied the tiller down and let the boat go on without him.”
“Perhaps he will,” said Arian. “It was smart of him to take it farther off from us, though.”
In the distance, they heard cannon fire again.
Sian looked behind them, then shook her head miserably, and continued swimming shoreward. “Smart comes and goes with him, if you haven’t noticed yet. But I pray you’re right.”
Molian and Eagent scrambled up out of the hatch behind Reikos, looking pale as death, and sat down to brace themselves against the coaming. For several sickening moments, there was nothing else to do but watch the long, low pier rush ever faster toward their bow.
Kyrios dropped as well to brace himself against the binnacle box. “Sorry, Captain, but it wasn’t on the charts.”
“What’s it doing there?” Reikos asked helplessly. “Who builds a pier across a channel?”
“What are we doing here?” Kyrios replied tensely. “That’s the question, Captain. I’m sure whoever put it here was not expecting us.”
“Here it comes!” Reikos shouted, white-knuckled on the wheel. “Hold tight, lads!”
He watched the plank-and-post contraption disappear beneath his bowsprit, and … With a strangely muffled crash, the deck beneath him shuddered, shoving him hard against the wheel. Nearly everyone still standing was thrown violently forward across the decks, along with piles of loose tackle, as the boat hung up and started twisting round to starboard on the following current. The two unsecured lanterns that Dannos had not quite gotten to at the helm skidded across the planking and shattered, trailing burning oil as they went. Well, I knew this was coming, Reikos thought bleakly, still clinging to the wheel. But on a godsforsaken pier?
From beneath their prow came the awful wrench and crackle of splitting timber, which, even now, Reikos prayed was from the pier and not his ship. A second, even louder cavalcade of ghastly grinding sounds was followed by a sudden forward lurch, as the broken structure finally gave way beneath them to scrape horribly along the edge of their long keel.
Looking up, Reikos saw the Phaeros’ little schooner come abreast of them, no more than two or three cables off to port. Well, this would be the time to let us have it, he thought sadly. To his surprise, however, they just trimmed their sails and raced eastward, on ahead of them. Did they fear he’d fire on them, even now? He had no leisure to wonder further as Fair Passage came free at last, trailing splintered beams and planking in its wake to either side.
“Kyrios, take the wheel,” Reikos ordered grimly, as his crew climbed to their feet and raced to stamp down and smother the small oil fires those broken lamps had started. “Molian and Eagent, check down the hatch back there. If all seems well, go have a look into the hold. If we’re taking any water, come tell me immediately.”
Reikos hurried down the poop deck ladder and headed for the forward hatch, where all the real damage ought to be. As others fell in around him, he looked up, realizing that the main topgallant was still where it belonged. He wondered if perhaps Jak had not cut quite far enough through the mast. Fortunate, if so. Never the disaster you’re prepared for, he thought.
Arriving at the hatchway, Reikos peered down and saw lamplight still shining dimly below deck — at least, he hoped that was what it was. Rushing down the ladder, he looked quickly about, but to his relief, all the hanging lanterns seemed intact. No fires to put out here, thank the gods. As others came down behind him, Reikos took one from its hook, and snaked further in to go peer down into the hold. To his astonishment, there was neither sight nor sound of so much as a trickle.
There was a lot of cargo in his way, of course — all tumbled forward, which made it even harder to get much of a look. But other than what might have been a couple hairline fractures in a bit of frame plank here and a length of hawse piece there, nothing seemed amiss. All the structural beams and posts — that he could see, at least — looked sound. All that awful noise must have been coming from the pier after all.
“Well …” he murmured to himself. Or maybe not just to himself, if Sian’s god was listening. He wondered … “Perhaps you do like me just a little.”
He stood up and handed the lantern back to Dannos. “Go down and take a closer look. Move the cargo around. Check the keel. But I think we may just have witnessed yet another miracle.”
He left them staring after him and climbed back up onto deck, where he saw Molian in conversation with Kyrios at the helm. “What’s it look like at the stern?” he called.
Molian grinned down at him. “Dry as a burlap flour sack, Captain! Eagent is still down there searching all the corners, but I’ve just been telling Kyrios, it seems the back end’s still afloat! What news up there?”
“Seems fit as well, amazingly.” He started up the ladder to join them. “And how’s she steering, Kyrios?”
“I haven’t put her through anything too stressful, Captain, ’til I got the word about what’s happened down below, but from what little I have tried, she still seems responsive.”
Reikos shook his head in disbelief. They’d even regained some speed since he’d gone down to check things out. They were already more than halfway to the ruined pillar which was supposed to have marked the spot where things got dicey. “And what of our little schooner?” He glanced around the moonlit bay, but saw no sign of any craft at all.
“Just up and gone, it seems,” Kyrios confirmed.
“Run back to Phaero, do you think?”
“Who can say? They disappeared around that point there on Viel. That’s all I know.”
“Well, if you still think there might be some way to get us out of here too, it seems a shame to wreck such a sturdy ship now, doesn’t it? Molian, would you bring us a new lantern? Then come take the wheel while Kyrios and I have another look at those charts, and see what dicey really means, exactly.” He and Kyrios exchanged a grin.
“Aye, Captain.”
As Molian left them, Kyrios handed the wheel back to Reikos and took up his chart again. “Once we reach that pillar, sir, we’ll need a man out on the bowsprit to sound for us the rest of the way. Eagent maybe, if we’ve no further need of cannon for a while.”
“Here’s hoping,” Reikos said, gazing out at the still empty bay around them.
“It’ll be very slow going,” Kyrios said, bringing the parchment up to point at things hardly visible in the guttering light of the binnacle’s all but failed lantern. “A cable or two this side of the pillar, there’s this bowl-shaped depression in the bottom. While the tide stays high, we may just be able to squeak across it to this long divot over here.”
Reikos glanced down to where he pointed at the chart. “That … takes us back this way almost, doesn’t it?”
“Aye, sir. But it connects right here with another underwater valley of sorts that, if we’re careful with our sounding, may get us most of the way to this zig-zagging rut of water over here. For that, we ma
y need two men sounding out on planks to either side.” He looked and shrugged at Reikos. “This is only going to happen if we aren’t chased again. There’ll be no racing through this, sir. And we’ve at most three hours of flood tide left to keep us off the bottom.”
Molian arrived with their new lanterns, hanging one up each side of the binnacle box, then gave Reikos a nod as he took the wheel in turn.
“Let’s hope we’ve fallen out of everybody’s interest, then.” Reikos took the chart from Kyrios and held it up to the new lamps. “So if we make it through this zig-zag … we just have Viel’s three bridges to get past,” he sighed.
“If the tide’s still high enough to see us through to Cutter’s,” Kyrios reiterated.
“Guess I’d better go up and take a look at Jak’s saw-through, then,” said Reikos. “And have him shave the upper mizzen now as well. Let’s take the canvas down up there, and whatever boom and tackle we can lose as well. No point in making the fall worse.”
“Then we’d best get them to it, sir.”
Reikos nodded. “We have, what, fifteen minutes still, until we reach the pillar? Why don’t you go slip out of that dress?” he grinned. “It’ll be easier to swim without it, if we need to.”
“I thought you’d never ask, sir.” Kyrios wasted no time heading down to his bunk.
As soon as he was gone, Reikos retrieved the wheel from Molian and sent him down to gather up the other crew. When their orders regarding the masts and higher rigging had been issued, there was nothing left for him to do but hold a straight line across the empty, moonlit water. The night seemed almost preternaturally peaceful now. Hard to believe that just around the point behind them, war still raged on Home.
Kyrios soon returned, in normal clothing with his pale hair bound back as usual, just in time to call Eagent down off of the mizzenmast and send him to the prow to start sounding bottom. Minutes later, they came ninety degrees to port, and let the sails spill wind until they’d slowed to a crawl — almost literally, as the bottom wasn’t even a fathom below their keel half the time now. From there on, everyone except for Eagent went about their work in silence — all listening as the soundings were called out, fearful of the scrape and shudder that would mean a long hard swim to shore.