From Whence You Came

by Gilman, Laura Anne

  “What would you advise?”

  The solitaire considered the question, her moon-round face and soft features saved from appearing placid by the fierce intelligence behind those features. “You have been following migration trails, yes?” They had gone over the maps together, the scholar and the warrior, so she was merely confirming what she already knew. Rini did not bother to answer her, but merely waited.

  “If these creatures are acting out of their nature, then perhaps we should not follow them according to that discarded nature. Go… against what we know them to do?”

  Harini frowned. “But that would take us back south. If I return without something to show for it, my father will never countenance my setting sail again.”

  Unlike Je’heirba, the solitaire had no hesitation in issuing the occasional set-down. “Your father would indulge you to your dying breath. You simply cannot bear to return home without something to show for it.”

  “I am fair found out.” Rini released the railing, flexing her fingers to get feeling back into them. “Perhaps you are right. I am going about this in a logical progression. Perhaps what we need is randomness.”

  It was against her nature as well; perhaps that too was what was needed.

  o0o

  “The sea is not a garden, mistress. One does not merely ‘wander’ it blithely.”

  “Indeed not. One must be purposefully lost.”

  Since the captain had been one of those her father set to feeding his daughter’s endless curiosity, teaching her how to read maps and chart the stars, he could only raise his hands in helpless defeat. He had been the one to tell her the stories of brave sailors who opened new markets simply by dint of becoming lost and found.

  “Your father-” He tried one last route of escape.

  Harini blocked it. “My father pays you – and quite well, I might add – but I am the one who makes the decisions, here.” Her chin lifted, readying herself for an argument, but the captain shook his head at her, and continued.

  “Your father lost a cunning negotiator when you were born a girl.”

  “Were I born a boy, I would have been locked into trade and barter from the time I could walk, never given the chance to learn anything new. Can you imagine that for me?” She gave an inelegant shudder. “No, thank you. Now. We can do this?”

  “As you desire,” he said, and his bow was only half-mocking. She knew the captain and crew, certainly Je’heirba, and possibly the solitaire all thought her insane, but they were passing fond of her, too, she thought. And her father paid them well to humor her whims.

  o0o

  “With Maiar Orsio’s regrets. Our land may border the seas but does not comprise the seas, and while the situation described indeed sounds precarious, we do not see that our men, trained to do battle on land, would be of use.”

  The courien paused, then added “Further, it is our understanding that the maintenance of such situations is traditionally upheld with the use of vine-magic, and therefore would not be appropriate for our interference.”

  Another pause, but this time the courien dropped his gaze, his shoulders softening from the strict pose he had held while reciting the message. That was all that he had been given to say: not even a formal closing to soften the blow.

  “Thank you.” Bradhai handed the man a coin and dismissed him.

  “At least he sent a meme-courien. The last three only replied by messenger-bird.”

  Bradhai couldn’t even work up the energy to glare at the Shipsmaster, who lounged in the single comfortable chair, his feet up on a stool, to all intents and purposes perfectly relaxed – until you looked at the lines around his eyes and mouth, and the bleakness in his eyes.

  “With respect, you’re on your own, they mean.” Bradhai sank into the other chair in the room, a far-less-comfortable horsehair settee, and rested his face in his hands. He had hoped some men of power, lured by the thought of having the Guild obligated to them, would be willing to defend the ships, to send bowmen to fend off attacks, deal with the beasts in a more effective fashion – and remove the onus from magic – and Vinearts.

  “I did warn you,” Hernán said, not unkindly. “They’re landers. They think in terms of horses and swords and things that they can see coming. They simply can’t fathom beasts that swim faster than their ships can sail, and can’t be tracked with dogs.”

  And they would not interfere with things traditionally given over to magic. As the Vinearts were bound by Sin Washer’s Command to abjure all power over men, so were the men of power forbidden to intervene with magic. But in this instance, the Command became an excuse for a thing they did not wish to do.

  Bradhai rubbed the bridge of his nose and wished, not for the first time, that he was home listening to the whisper of the vines, the air scented with dirt and green rather than salt and sea, not surrounded by the bustle of Vélezsur outside the ostlery’s window.

  Hernánleaned forward, his brief sympathy pushed aside. “The two days I gave you are up, Vineart. We have gathered the items you requested, and they wait in the hull of the ladysong.”

  Two days he had been granted when they returned to shore, smarting from that first encounter with the serpents. Two days to gather the supplies he would need – and the hope of allies who would lift the burden from him.

  “Magic must mend what magic has maintained.” That had been the first curt response, sent by messenger bird. But applying to another Vineart… madness. More, pointless. They would not be so foolish to make the same mistake he had in trusting the Shipsmasters’ consortium, not without the threat of their lies hanging over like a hailstorm waiting to destroy their fields. And even if he tried, they would not trust him…. Vinearts were not forbidden by Command to speak with each other, but it was custom, and custom was as hard to break as law.

  “Harder, even.”

  “What?

  “Nothing.” He glanced at the Shipsmaster. The man had, all things considered, been a kind captor. Bradhai had lacked for nothing in comfort – but he could not return home. He was prisoner, held by a man who was not bound by any of Sin Washer’s Commands and did not fear the Washer’s censure, not in the face of what he feared more, on the open sea.

  Bradhai had thought of summoning a Washer, but he knew it, too, would be pointless; they existed to remind Vinearts that their sole purpose was to serve the magic. And worse, if the Shipsmaster told others what he suspected….

  No. Better to stay, and deal with this himself. But the distance from his yards was like a physical pain, an awareness that the vines were calling for him, looking for him, and he was not there.

  “Vineart?”

  He needed to find the spell that would control these beasts, drive them away from the ships. Then he would be allowed to go home.

  “With the next tide then,” he said, resigned.

  o0o

  “Hai, Vineart.” The sailor who had shown him the leviathan hailed him from the railing. “Come to cure us of our ills?” Bradhai had not slept all night, and not even double-brewed tai could put him in a better mood, but the man’s cheerful greeting was impossible to ignore.

  “Your ills, I suspect, there’s no curing,” Hernán said, coming up behind the Vineart, and the sailor whooped with laughter, as did the men working around him, hauling in ropes and pulling down others. It seemed utterly chaotic to Bradhai, but he thought the careful activity of a Harvest might seem the same to them.

  “How are they so….” Bradhai struggled to find a word, as they walked along the narrow plank that led from dock to deck. “So casual?” he finally said, although that was not the word he had wanted.

  “Casual?”

  “After what they saw. And yet they go on as though nothing happened. I had always heard that sailors were a superstitious crew,” and he stopped, realizing that he had just insulted the Shipsmaster, too. “I mean, I….”

  Hernán laughed and clapped a hand on Bradhai’s shoulder, not seeming to notice when the Vineart flinched from th
e touch. “We are, all and every one of us. But a life on sea is one of danger and uncertainty on the very best of days. What’s a sea beast – or three – added to that, save the further assurance of a watery death?”

  “You’re all mad,” Bradhai said, unable to stop himself.

  “You’re not the first to say so, nor will you be the last. But come, and save us from one uncertainty, and all will be well.”

  They came to the greatcabin, and Hernán paused, his hand on the door, before allowing Bradhai to enter. “Vineart, I know this is not of your choosing. This is forced on us all. But good can come of it. We can be useful friends, to have.”

  “Assuming I survive.”

  “Yes. Well. There is always that.”

  Hernán pointed out the door that led to the captain’s quarters, then they walked down the narrow passageway forward, where an equally narrow door led into a chamber with two cots on either side.

  “It’s not grand, but we won’t spend much time here.”

  There were no windows, no chairs, nothing save the two bunks and a small wooden shelf bolted to the wall between them.

  “I’ll spend no time awake, here,” Bradhai said, trying to control his revulsion. “How do you live like this?”

  “Go belowdecks and see how the crew sleeps,” Hernán said, dropping his kit on one bed and sitting on it, looking at Bradhai. The Consortium’s ships were wide-built, but most of the room was clearly given to cargo, not sleeping space. There was enough room for both of them to move around, but only just. Thankfully, the ceiling was surprisingly high above, even for Bradhai, who was taller than most, so he did not feel entirely constrained. “I realize it’s not what you’re used to…”

  “It’s not that.”

  In fact, it was far too much like he had been used to, once. Every Vineart came from the same place: the slave pen. Young boys were taken – or bought – from their families, plucked for the possibility of the Sense by slavers trained to determine such things; taken and sold to Vinearts, to work the yards for the rest of their lives.

  If you had the Sense, it was a better life than any else; the work came simply, and became a satisfaction. But you lived and breathed and slept and worked with others in close proximity, often several to a bed-pad at night. Bradhai could not remember a private moment until his master chose him to train.

  This – the being dragged about, dropped into close quarters – was a memory he’d never thought to revisit.

  Then Bradhai lifted his head as though he’d smelled something, his nostrils flaring even as something within him unfolded, searching.

  “The casks?”

  “You’ve a nose like a hound,” Hernán said. “They’re stored below us, yes. You’ll be sleeping on them, in effect.”

  The casks he had ordered brought from his cellar, along with others he’d had the consortium buy from Vinearts with other specializations. He was at sea, alone… but some part of his vineyard was with him. The thought was enough to console.

  “I’ll need a place to work.”

  “That was trickier,” Hernán said. “But we managed something. Come.”

  o0o

  It was not ideal. In fact, it was almost unworkable. But, as Hernán had said, finding space that was ideal was…tricky.

  “This will suit?”

  Bradhai looked around. They had cleared the forecastle of all cargo and low-hanging ropes, giving him perhaps eight paces in either direction, with a battered wooden table set up at the far end, against the rise. A hatch to the side led, he was told, to where his casks were stored, for easy access. “It will do. And the crewsmen know not to disturb me?”

  “I told them you’d feed them to the sharks if they dared. Try to look fierce when they pass. It will feed the rumor.”

  And with that, Hernán left him to his work.

  Bradhai took a deep breath, tasting the salt in the air. The first thing a Vineart learned in the first days as a student was that it was not merely the sun and soil that formed the fruit of the vines, but the wind and water as well.

  The sailors thought they had brought finished spellwines from his Vintnery. But the liquid inside the casks, if Yakop had chosen properly, was far more precious than that. It was vina magica: the purest form of magic, not yet spellwine proper, not yet incanted with the structure that limited what that magic would – could – do.

  An ordinary man could not use vina magica. If he tried it would be as though using water; if he drank it, it would only make him foolish, and then ill. A Vineart, though, was no ordinary man. They heard the whispers of the magic, and spoke to it in kind.

  With vina magica, he could find the incantation that would drive the sea-beasts away, and bind it into the liquid, making it usable by all who knew how to decant. A simple matter…

  Except that he did not know the incantation. Spellwines were handed down, master to student, held within the vintner as much a trade secret as any the guilds might maintain. They could be adapted to take advantage of a weaker or stronger vintage, or specialized to do one thing better, but creating a new incantation entirely? You needed to consider the nature of the grapes, the average potency of the most basic harvest, the specific demands of the task required

  In his workshop, Bradhai had the calculations and research for the new spell he had been contemplating. A year’s worth of work, and still it was not complete.

  Bradhai had not told Hernán what an impossible task he asked. The Shipsmaster would have neither understood nor cared. He wanted only results.

  “First, consider the need.” His master’s words from years ago, teaching him how to see an incantation within the structure ofa spellwine. “Consider what it does. Let yourself become the need, and the solution. See how they tie together, inevitable once you understand.”

  “To drive them away… I need to know what they fear.”

  Bradhai turned and paced to the far end of the cleared deck, staring out over a racked pile of cargo, at the watery horizon. That morning, the water sparkled under the sunlight, making it almost impossible to watch directly. He thought he preferred its more somber moments, with the deep blues and greens.

  “What does a serpent fear?”

  He thought of the size of the beasts, and the massive teeth and claws, and shuddered. A single serpent was enough to make sailors wary. At this size, two or more?

  “What would such a creature fear?”

  “Same thing we all do,” a high, fluting voice came down from overhead. “Fire.”

  Bradhai looked up, and discovered he was practically nose-to-nose with another face, this one hanging upside down, a felted, brimless cap obscuring the face above that nose.

  “Fire,” he repeated.

  The newcomer nodded, still upside down. “First thing you learn, no open flame nowhere. Not even in dock. Speshully not when in dock, ‘cause it could spread.”

  Bradhai nodded himself, seeing the logic. He used coldfire because it was convenient for him; for those on the sea, housed by wood and cloth, it would be a necessity. No doubt they spent as much or more on firespells as they did on his windspells.

  They did not demand their firespell Vineart to save them he thought bitterly.They value them more?

  “Or none were so fool as to fall for their ploy,” he said. “No, unfair. They thought it was my spells as failed. They did not know.”

  Didn’t they?

  Impossible to know, and pointless to ponder. He looked back up at the boy, who was waiting patiently still upside down, as though hearing someone talking to themselves were perfectly normal. Perhaps, for him, it was.

  “I am Bradhai,” he said.

  “Po.”

  Bradhai reached up to pull the cap away, and was rewarded by a pair of round black eyes set in a rounded face, perhaps eight years old, if that. Bradhai had known slaves with that same look, from the tradelands far to the east. Finding one here, on an Iajan ship, was unexpected – sailors did not take slaves. They did, however, travel widely. Perhaps
the boy was a leavestaking from some voyage or another, whose mother did not wish to keep him.

  “You’re giving me a headache, hanging there,” he said. “Come down.”

  The boy shrugged, and he slipped down from the rope he had been hanging from, landing softly on the decking below as though he’d simply stepped down.

  “You’re part of the crew.”

  The boy puffed out his thin chest. “Iyam.”

  “And you’ve seen serpents before?”

  “Lots.” Po reconsidered. “A couple.”

  “Including the ones we saw three days past?”

  “I seen them. And one other.”

  Still. That was one more than he had seen. And the boy knew how the ship worked. He could be useful.

  “What else scares the beasts away? Noise?”

  “Nah. They ain’ts got ears.” Po looked at Bradhai as though he should have known that.

  “Ah. Smell? Is there a smell they dislike?”

  The boy’s own nose wrinkled as he considered the question. “Don’t know. They like fish, though. Graver says you gotta be careful of ‘em, when you pull in a big haul. They come looking to take it away from you.”

  Bradhai began to pace again, aware that the boy trotted alongside like a goat, looking for a treat.

  “Fish – how many fish? Not when you’re simply catching enough for a meal?”

  “Nah.”

  As swiftly as Bradhai could think of something, Po answered, the two of them making a slow circuit around the space until a chime sounded, and the boy startled like a deer. “Watch change,” he said, and bounced once on his heels and then sprang into the air to catch at the nearest rope, pulling himself upward to where, Bradhai supposed, he would report for duty.

  It made sense: a young boy would be able to move higher, more easily, and their eyesight would be better than an older sailor - plus, they did not have the strength needed for most jobs on board. But it still made Bradhai’s chest clench a little, watching him climb ever-higher.

  But thanks to the boy, he had a place to start now.

  “I have firespells,” he said to himself. “But no firevine vina. And merely throwing flame at them would be pointless. Anything that burned them badly enough to end an attack would also put the ship itself at risk. Which would be why they don’t use firespells to begin with, you idiot.”