Song of the Current

by Sarah Tolcser

  Let it come.

  I screamed back, a roar of defiance to match the drakon’s.

  “Caro!” Kenté jumped in front of me, aiming a pistol at it.

  I seized her arm. “Wait! Don’t.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” she demanded. “That’s a drakon.”

  She struggled with me, but I was stronger. I held her back. “And you’re going to take it on with a pistol?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as the monster kept pace alongside Vix. I couldn’t remember whether or not you were supposed to make eye contact with a drakon. Far astern I could dimly pick out three lumps that looked like islands—the loops of its tail sticking out of the water.

  “It’ll wrap itself around us and sink us.” Kenté’s voice rose. “It wants to eat us.”

  “No,” I said, surprising myself. I didn’t know how I knew. “It’s not bothering us. The last thing we should do is provoke it. If we pay it no mind, maybe it’ll go away.”

  “All right,” she said doubtfully, lowering the pistol.

  The drakon gave a mournful roar, diving headlong into the surf. Its long body swished there under the water, kicking up bubbles. I couldn’t say why I’d stopped Kenté from shooting it, only that it had felt important.

  I had stared a sea drakon in the face and lived. How many people had ever seen a drakon? Not just in a fish story, told by some old wherryman about his brother’s aunt’s cousin. Really seen one. I wondered what it meant—that the drakon had chosen to surface for me. Did such a creature have intelligence, or was it merely a wild animal, like a fish or a snake or some unholy combination thereof?

  “I figure we should take it in turns.” Kenté stared uneasily over the rail. “I’m going to get some sleep now, and then later I’ll come relieve you.” Tearing her gaze away from the sea, she shuddered. “Though I can’t say as I’ll be able to sleep. Not with that thing out here.”

  “I think it’s gone,” I lied.

  After Kenté disappeared belowdecks, the hours blended together. I couldn’t see the drakon anymore, but I sensed it was still there, undulating just under the surface. Its presence was strangely comforting. Almost, it seemed like it was keeping me company. I knew from the constellations which way was north, but it was unnerving to steer blindly into black sky and black sea.

  “Tychon Hypatos,” I whispered through chattering teeth. “Iphis Street. Valonikos.”

  A light appeared, off the port bow. It was a dim yellow pinpoint, flickering on and off. I squinted hard at it. There was nothing there. I was so tired and cold, I was hallucinating a speck of lamplight in the dark of night.

  The light stopped flickering, and then I remembered there was a lightship that sat anchored outside the shoals off Enantios Isle.

  I was not mad. It was a real light, on a real ship, with a real man inside who was probably drinking hot gin beside his stove. The light sparked something deep inside me that was not quite hope. Long after we passed the ship, I kept glancing over my left shoulder at it, a winking reminder that some things in the world were still steadfast.

  Kenté climbed through the hatch, carrying a lantern.

  “I think that’s the Enantios lightship,” I said, sniffling. I rubbed my nose on my sleeve for the hundredth time, the raw skin burning. “I’ll look at a chart to make sure. But we must be a third of the way to Iantiporos.”

  “You need to get some sleep.” She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the pool of light cast by the lantern had doubled in size.

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “It’s not very good.” She cupped her hands around it. “It hasn’t any warmth to it. It’s more like the absence of shadow around the lantern than an actual light. You reach into the dark and you twist, and shove it aside …” She shook her head. “You haven’t any idea what I mean.”

  “No.” I was too tired to say more.

  “Go to bed, Caro.”

  I uncurled my stiff fingers from the tiller, flexing them against the sudden sharp pain. “Have you ever sailed by yourself before?”

  “I grew up in Siscema. Of course I have.” I stared at her until she admitted, “In a dinghy. But there’s no one out here but us, and I daresay I can read a compass as well as you.” She set the lantern down and took the tiller.

  I peered into the dark water. The drakon seemed to have gone. Surely there must be a meaning lurking behind it—a sign of some kind. Of good or ill, I did not know.

  At the top of the ladder, I stopped. “Kenté? Thank you. For everything.”

  I stumbled to the cabin, pausing to reassure myself that Daria was all right. Curled up sleeping in one of the bunks, she looked heartbreakingly tiny. I shed my wet clothes and found a blanket to wrap around myself. It was scratchy and smelled like rank male sweat, but it was warm.

  Too numb to sleep, I stared at nothing, waiting for the tears to come. But they did not. Perhaps they were all used up.

  In spite of everything, warm brown spots crowded the edges of my vision. My head nodded to my chin. I fell sideways into the nearest bunk and surrendered to sleep.

  When I woke, the first thing I saw was a man squatting on the opposite bench, watching me.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  I shrieked, scrambling for my knife.

  The man sat at the galley table, picking dirt from under his fingernails with a blade. His hair was whitened either by sun or age—sun, I thought, for his skin had no wrinkles except around his eyes—and he wore it twisted into locks and tied with a red-striped head wrap. Tanned golden brown all over, his cheeks were blotched with sunspots and freckles. He wore a vest with no shirt underneath, displaying hairy muscular arms covered in tattoos.

  “Good morning, Captain.” He grinned, showing a missing tooth.

  “Xanto’s balls!” I clutched the blanket to my chest. “Who are you?”

  “I am Nereus.” He raised the hand with the blade. “Please sit. I have fried you an egg and made coffee.”

  I could smell the food. I was sorely tempted. “Where did you come from?” From the movement and the waves slapping the hull, we were still on the ocean. I dug in the blankets, finally locating my dagger in its sheath. “How did you get on this ship?”

  The man who called himself Nereus looked disappointed. “Oh, come now. Is this how you treat every man who makes you breakfast? Let’s not go pulling knives.”

  “You have a knife.” I bundled the loose end of the blanket, throwing it over my shoulder like an old-fashioned toga. “And strange men aren’t in the habit of making me breakfast.”

  He flipped his knife in the air, caught it with a flourish, and put it away. “Now. Why do you not eat? The little one eats.”

  Startled, I leaned out of the bunk. Daria sat cross-legged on a bench, casting shy glances at the mysterious sailor as she sliced up an omelet with a fork.

  “Daria,” I said, “don’t eat that. I’ll make you breakfast.” I turned to the man. “You weren’t here last night,” I insisted, brandishing my dagger. “Where did you come from?”

  The other hatch on deck led to the cargo hold. Perhaps he had hidden there, but why hadn’t he shown himself yesterday? If he was a Black Dog, he could have easily overpowered us during the storm.

  “Ah.” As he sipped from his mug, I glimpsed an obscene mermaid tattoo on his forearm. “The coffee grows cold. Eat up, little one.” He winked at Daria. “There is nothing like hot food to convince us that all may not be lost, ayah?”

  He certainly wasn’t treating us like prisoners, but the whole thing stunk of something fishy. Or maybe that was his trousers, which—I wasn’t imagining it, was I?—had a clump of dried seaweed stuck to one leg.

  “I’ll eat and drink when you answer my questions,” I said. “Where’s Kenté?”

  He shrugged. “Who do you think is sailing?”

  Keeping the knife between Nereus and me, I slid out of the bunk. My own clothes were still damp, so I found a bulky sweater in
the locker and rolled up the cuffs. It reeked of smoke. Placing my Akhaian dagger beside my plate, I took a seat on the bench. The stranger gestured encouragingly.

  I picked up a fork. “Are you a Black Dog? Do you mean to stop me getting to Valonikos?”

  He tsk-ed with his tongue against his front teeth. “So untrusting.”

  “You look like a pirate. The last pirates I met tried to kill me.”

  He smiled. “Ayah, and didn’t she send me to help you, Caroline Oresteia?”

  An eerie feeling crawled down my neck. How did he know my name?

  “Who sent you?” I said around a mouthful of omelet. Pepper and herbs were mixed in with the egg. It was delicious, or maybe I was just starved. “My mother? Do you work for the Bollards?”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt foolish. My mother was a member of a powerful house, but even she could not spirit a man onto a moving ship in the middle of the ocean. Was it possible he’d been following us the whole way from Siscema? Maybe the Bollards had an informant stationed among the Black Dogs. Something like that would be very typical of them.

  I mulled this over as I lifted my mug. The coffee was dark and strong, the way Pa made it. Thinking about him made tears prickle my eyes. I saw Nereus watching me and faked a cough.

  “Too hot,” I rasped, looking at my plate until I had control of myself again.

  Annoyingly, the man who called himself Nereus was right. With hot coffee and eggs in my stomach, I felt almost normal. For the first time, I let myself wonder if Fee might still be alive. She hadn’t resurfaced, but after all, frogmen could breathe underwater. And it would be just like Fee to want to stay behind and protect Cormorant. I felt silly not to have thought of that yesterday.

  “Me, I’m here because I owe a debt,” Nereus said. “And because I missed the taste of rum. Never go three hundred years without rum, girl.” He slapped his knee. “Now is that a piece of advice or what?”

  I folded my arms over my chest, the oversized sleeves of my sweater drooping. “You can’t expect me to believe you’re three hundred years old. Who do you owe a debt?” I demanded. “Tamaré Bollard?”

  “Bollard.” He rolled the name over in his mouth and smiled. “Ayah, you might say I know the Bollards.”

  I squeezed my fist around the fork. If my mother felt the need to assign someone to shadow us, she might have picked a less annoying man. What did he mean, three hundred years without rum? I wasn’t in the mood for fish stories. Didn’t he realize the trouble we were in?

  Ayah, and didn’t she send me to help you?

  Certainly I could stab him with the fork. Or bludgeon him with the frying pan. Or throw him overboard. On the other hand, it was possible he really was on our side. He’d had ample chance to murder me in my sleep, if that was what he wanted. He clearly had a different game.

  I pushed my plate back. “Well, I can’t say as I trust you. I don’t like people who won’t give straight answers.”

  “In my day,” he said, “the girls was less prickly-like.”

  “Bully for them,” I said over my shoulder. Grabbing Daria’s hand, I tugged her up from the bench. Just because I’d decided not to kill him—for now—didn’t mean I was going to leave her alone with him. “Come on.”

  We climbed the ladder to the deck. As the hatch creaked open, the wind whipped my hair into my face. For one disoriented moment, all I saw was ocean. My throat began to close. Never in my whole life had I not been able to see land. Kenté had mistakenly sailed too far. We would be lost at sea.

  Then I spotted the blurry line of Enantios Isle off the starboard side and exhaled in relief. We were sailing north-northwest, on a broad reach with the wind over my right shoulder. The stormy night had given way to a fine, fresh morning. Kenté sat at the tiller, her braids looking fuzzy and windblown.

  “Trouble always does seem to find us.” I jerked my head at Nereus, who wandered down the deck, hands in his pockets. “You didn’t happen to see where he came from?”

  “Just looked up and there he was,” Kenté said. “He offered me a swig off a very filthy rum bottle, which I declined, then said he was looking for you. He’s not a shadowman, if that’s what you were wondering.” Her lip twisted. “He did be scaring the shit out of me when I saw him though,” she added grimly.

  I knew the feeling. “Black Dog, you reckon?” I studied him from afar, fingers drumming on my knife hilt.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what he is.”

  Nereus lifted Daria by the waist and set her on the railing. “There you are, pet.”

  “Don’t do that, she’ll fall!” I snapped, striding over. “Daria, get down from there.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  My heart flipped over, for something about the way she turned her neck just then reminded me of Markos. I glared at Nereus. “She’s the Emparch’s daughter,” I told him. “The last of her line.”

  “No, I’m not.” She refused to look at me. I remembered how Nereus had said all might not be lost, and I realized what had happened. He was putting ideas into her head.

  “Markos is dead,” I said bluntly.

  Nereus squinted at me. “So sure, are you?”

  My voice came out strangled. “The Black Dogs burned eleven wherries because he might have been aboard.” And they’d murdered his parents and brother, but I didn’t want to say that in front of Daria.

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be giving up on a friend so quick.”

  Feeling my control slipping away, I stormed off. He didn’t know anything about what I’d been through. How dare he say that to me? I yanked open the hatch to the cargo hold. Down in the belly of the cutter, away from their eyes, I finally felt like I could breathe. For several minutes I stood swallowing, fists clenched, until the burning in my eyes subsided.

  Dusty light streamed through the portholes. I wrinkled my nose. Belowdecks, this whole cutter smelled like feet. Captain Diric Melanos had kept a spotless ship, but I was not inclined to think much of his crew’s personal hygiene. The cargo hold was unlocked, the key dangling from a hook nearby.

  I peeked inside.

  And grinned for the first time in what felt like years. All manner of items overflowed the shelves, stuffed in higgledy-piggledy with seemingly no regard to their value. A stack of broken china rested beside a pouch, from which foreign gold coins spilled. There were jeweled necklaces and rolled-up carpets, pistols and paintings. One box was crammed entirely with silver talents. A locker in the back corner contained rows of muskets, many more than we’d been smuggling for Lord Peregrine.

  I supposed everything in that hold was mine now. And it wasn’t even like I’d stolen it. It was mine legally, by order of the Margravina, thanks to my letter of marque.

  Opening the lid of an ornate carved chest, I lifted out bolt after bolt of lavish brocade. Underneath were fancy clothes, folded in paper. None of them were cut to fit a lady. I didn’t care—they were better than the smelly garments I’d found in Vix’s lockers.

  I buttoned the smallest waistcoat over a shirt of fine linen. Over this I wound a red-flecked scarf, tucking it down the shirt like a cravat. I set a three-cornered hat on my head, and buckled a tooled leather belt around my waist.

  For the first time, I felt like the master of a privateering ship. So this was how it felt to be Thisbe Brixton, walking the decks of her wherry. Like a woman who knew who she was.

  Like a captain.

  On the belt I hung my matched pistols. Sliding one out, I turned it over and over. Light sparked off the handle as I admired the mountain lion whose tail curled around the underside. A master metalworker must have made those pistols. They were much too expensive for the likes of me.

  Of course they were. They had been meant for an Emparch.

  The corners of my eyes stung, but I refused to let the tears come back. I let the lid of the chest slam shut and secured the door to the hold, pocketing the key. Climbing on deck, I opened my mouth to take in deep gulp
s of the fresh salt air.

  Nereus, leaning on the rail, saw me emerge, but wisely chose to leave me alone. Daria jumped up to tag along after me. Her eyes seizing on my tricorn hat, she stuck out her bottom lip. “I want a pirate hat!”

  “Stop that. Ladies don’t pout.”

  “What would you know about it?” She pouted some more.

  “Privateers don’t pout either. That’s what we are. We’re privateers.” I slid the flattened dog-eared scroll out from the inner pocket of my waistcoat. “This letter says we can take a prize. And so we have.”

  “So a privateer is a pirate with a letter?” She didn’t look impressed.

  Since she was more or less correct, I didn’t have anything to say to that.

  Daria’s eyes widened at the sight of my matched pistols. “Where’d you get those?” She reached out to touch the cat’s gemstone eyes, and her face grew wistful. “That’s the mark of the mountain lion.”

  “Markos said it was the symbol of Akhaia.”

  “Sort of. It’s the crest of the royal family. The Emparchy.”

  An uneasy feeling fluttered through me. “What?”

  “Only a member of the family may wear the mountain lion. Or a highly placed warrior. Like a bodyguard or a general. Someone the Emparch wants to honor.”

  I traced the lion’s lean body. “He never ought to have given them to me.”

  “He knew what he was about. My brother likes you.” She followed me up the deck. “I saw you kissing.”

  “Daria. Your brother …” I swallowed. Saying his name would have felt too real. “Your brother is almost certainly dead.”

  “Markos promised we’d be together in Valonikos.” She lifted her chin. “He always keeps his promises. Nereus said—”

  “Nereus is an exceedingly suspicious character who hasn’t even told us who he is.” I glared at him. “Don’t listen to him. He wasn’t there.”

  Nereus rested one hand casually on the rail. “Tell me, girl who knows so much, why haven’t you hoisted the topsail?”