by Kirby Crow
“I do have my knives,” Scarlet reminded him mildly. “I can defend myself.”
“I know.”
“And I am no child to be minded by you.”
“No.”
“I won’t leave the cabin.”
“Good.”
“And I’m not sleeping in that bunk until I have your promise that you'll stay on your side of it,” he added mischievously.
Liall yawned. “Given,” he said easily, and Scarlet was unwillingly disappointed. He had wanted more of an argument on that point, considering how ardently Liall had pursued him in the beginning. It was not that he objected to waiting, it was just unexpected. After the way his world had turned upside down, Scarlet suddenly felt a keen desire for events he could anticipate.
Liall closed his eyes. In a few minutes, he began to snore softly. Scarlet resisted the temptation to watch him sleep.
The day passed quickly while Liall napped and Scarlet lounged in the cabin, seated on the one large wooden chair, which—unlike the table—was not bolted to the floor. He felt no small measure of unease about the unknown journey ahead, mingled with a thrill of excitement in his heart: new places, new people, new wonders to see! The promise of fresh horizons never failed to fascinate and distract him. This time, it was a little different, not because he was afraid, but because he felt he had not really chosen this journey. He chose Liall, yes, but the rest seemed more like fate than choice. He wished he had not had to kill Cadan and forsake Byzantur. That was useless wishing, though. It was either his neck or Cadan’s, and Scarlet very much wanted to live.
These thoughts occupied Scarlet throughout the day. Liall woke perhaps four hours past noon, yawning and stretching, seeming much recovered from the beating the bravos had given him. They shared a hunk of waybread and some water from the flask Liall carried in his coat. Liall promised to get more from the common barrels stored in the hold, but warned Scarlet that they would have to boil it before drinking.
“It is a ship, Scarlet, not an inn. These men are used to living rough and are somewhat more careless with cleanliness than I would trust my health to. Or yours.”
Scarlet was eager to be out on the deck and watch the shore grow smaller as the ship began to make its way northward through the Channel: a long, open body of water between Byzantur and Khet, so wide that one could not see land from one shore to the other. The Channel ran from the warm southern waters of the Serpent Sea to the frozen ice floes of Norl Ūhn, the great North Sea. Liall assured Scarlet that it was not wise to go out on deck, so Scarlet sat there grumbling until Liall heaved an exasperated sigh and promised to let him go above that evening, so long as he did not go alone.
By late afternoon, though, Scarlet had changed his mind. He had not been very hungry all day and the pitch and roll of the ship was making him queasy. He opened the porthole and stood gazing at the waves and the tiny brown sliver of shoreline. Fresh air made him feel a little better, and he began thinking again, about the way the crew had regarded Liall. All these mariners were fair-haired, but none of them had truly white hair like Liall, nor his manners and bearing, which was like a cocksure lord, certain of his elevated place in the world. All of the crew respected Liall, especially the young mariner with the pale, flowing hair who had served as lookout at the port.
That same young mariner came by an hour before dusk while Scarlet was still at the porthole and Liall was again reclining on the bunk. The mariner was a big, handsome man, perhaps five years or so older than Scarlet, and he looked at Liall with clear worship in his gaze. Scarlet was invisible to him for the most part, which was at least a change from the looks given to him by the others. Even the captain had glared at him in dislike. The mariner exchanged words with Liall and left.
“What was that about?”
“Hm? Oh, nothing. Good wishes from the captain, an invitation to dinner later. He was only being polite.”
“To you.”
“I told you this would not be easy.”
True as rain, he had, and here they were not a day away from land and already he was complaining. I’m the one who decided to come with him, he told himself. It won’t be that bad.
Scarlet had thought he knew what it would be like on board ship, but that was proven false by the end of the first day. His body had never much liked traveling over water, and he had always experienced a faint nausea when sailing from Patra to Lysia, or even rafting down the Skein River to the Sea Road. By the time the sunset was bloodying the sky, he was hanging over the rail and vomiting into the waves, his strong pedlar’s legs turned to rubber beneath him. His weakness was all the more galling because Liall walked sure-footed and without discomfort, while he could only clutch at solid wood and haul his leaden body along. The mariners were surly and unfriendly. The only time Scarlet heard laughter, they were laughing at him: pitiable land dweller, puking his guts out.
“It will pass,” Liall said kindly as he helped Scarlet off the main deck. Scarlet struggled against the assistance, mumbling that he could do it himself. Liall ignored his protests and steered the little Hilurin forcibly into the cabin, which had looked comfortable at first but now seemed close and stifling.
“The crew,” he moaned, but Liall shrugged.
“A merchant crew of illiterate thugs. Why should you care what they think?”
“Right,” he agreed, heaving. There was a bucket near the bunk, and Liall held a cup of water to his lips.
“Rinse out your mouth and spit.”
He did and the retching eased. “I think I hate boats.”
Liall uncorked a small, brown flask. “It is not a boat, but a ship.”
“What’s the word for it in your language?”
“Undi’rrla.”
Scarlet repeated it and cursed them all, and Liall smiled. “Well, your wit is unshaken if not your legs. It is a good sign. Now; I need you to drink this remedy. It will not taste pleasant, but you must keep it down.”
He was not joking. The red syrup from the flask Liall had produced tasted worse than anything Scarlet had ever known, and if Liall had not held a cup of water to his lips immediately after, it would have come right back up.
Liall gave him a warning glance. “I would not,” he advised. “You will only have to swallow it again.”
Scarlet tried, swallowing repeatedly and drinking more water, but after a few moments, his stomach rebelled and he hung over the side of the bunk. He looked at the flask Liall held with something like horror.
Liall sighed and shook his head. “No, we will not try it again immediately. In a little while. Next time, hold your nose when you swallow.”
Scarlet lay miserably on his side while Liall carried out the bucket to empty. A clean one soon appeared and he held on to the edge of the bunk, trying to lie still. Liall tossed a thick, padded blanket on the floor for himself and left the bunk to serve as a sickbed. Wise of him, Scarlet though blearily. He managed to sleep, chased by unpleasant dreams. Morning brought no relief, either. He started the day off by staggering out of the cabin for a piss, his vision blurry and his head feeling like it was stuffed with wool. He also could not hear very well over the high whine in his ears. The mariners on deck smirked at him as he made his way back, and Liall was awake in the cabin, waiting with the horrible syrup. He did manage to keep it down, but was so miserable afterwards that Liall stayed beside him, wiping his face with a wet cloth.
“You must try to eat something.”
He shook his head weakly. “I can’t.”
“You must,” Liall insisted, and pressed a hard chunk of waybread into his hand.
Scarlet sighed. There was sense in that. The oily bread was flat and tasteless, as always. He nibbled at it.
Liall nodded approvingly. “And you must drink, too, or else you really will be ill. If the water disagrees with you, we will try che.”
Cold water made him feel worse. “Che,” he said weakly.
Liall wiped his face again. “Che it is,” he said, then felt Scarlet’s fore
head with the back of his hand. He frowned. “Odd. You should not have a fever. You should not be ill this long, either.” He rose from the bunk and rummaged in his pack until he found a packet of green che scented with rose. “I will return shortly.”
Scarlet nodded and closed his eyes, for even the dim light in the cabin seemed to spear his pupils like shards of ice. To his surprise, he slept again and woke to Liall sliding an arm beneath his shoulders.
His stomach had settled and there was no more of that kind of sickness, though the fever persisted and so did the blurriness of vision and the weak feeling in his legs, so he sipped at the hot che that Liall brought and closed his eyes. The ship rode the waves, lulling him to sleep, but he woke in the middle of the night drenched in sweat clear through to the mattress.
Liall was alarmed and offered him water, forcing him to drink it when he refused, but the water did not make him feel any better, and he sweated out at least as much as he was made to drink. Still, Liall refused to spare him.
Scarlet was not sure when the second day passed into the third; the fever made it hard to remember. Between terrible fever dreams where Cadan cut off his limbs one by one, and the sinister, ponderous sound of the waves crashing against the hull, it was one long nightmare.
Liall became more ruthless on the third day, forcing Scarlet to sit up and drink bitter che while removing the sweat-soaked clothes from him. Scarlet shrank from Liall in embarrassment when the man bathed his bare skin with strong liquor diluted with water, his long hands competent and brisk.
Liall shook his head in annoyance. “You do not have the leisure of modesty at the moment, little one. Come, you must drink,” he said, pouring yet another cup of che. “We must get this fever down, or you will die.”
At that moment, it was an attractive idea. Then Scarlet dimly realized that they must be nearing Morturii by now. “Aren’t you s’posed to be puttin’ me ashore?” he slurred.
Liall gaped at Scarlet in astonishment. “In your condition? Alone with no one to tend you? It would be kinder to throw you overboard.”
Scarlet almost asked Liall if he would, but sleep claimed him and the morning slipped away in a reddish haze until the older mariner named Mautan, who served as first mate and also as curae to his fellows, came in at Liall’s request. The man poked at Scarlet’s skin and pinched his jaw cruelly to make him open his mouth so he could peer in at Scarlet’s tongue, which earned the man a sharp rebuke from Liall. The mariner stepped back, shook his head and spoke long in an incomprehensible language. Liall’s mouth went thin.
“What is it?” Scarlet asked, muzzy with sickness and not really caring. There seemed to be clouds filling the cabin.
“You are very ill,” Liall said, his tone uncommonly gentle. “This fellow is telling me what to do for you.”
Throw me overboard, Scarlet thought and closed his eyes again, for the clouds had begun to take on the shape of ghouls and fanged dragons. When the mariner left, Liall sat beside him on the bunk.
“Can you hear me? Mautan says you are not seasick, but have picked up a fever from that filthy port. Did you eat anything at all there?”
Scarlet shook his head weakly. “Just the waybread and apples and... yes, the water I steeped the che in.”
“Skeg fever,” Liall pronounced grimly. Skegs were a type of large river rat that haunted the Byzantur ports. Liall's big hand sought Scarlet’s, and Scarlet was surprised to feel it trembling, though he supposed he could be imagining that, much like the dragons.
“The water was hot,” Scarlet protested.
“Boiling will not kill this disease. It is not so very dangerous to Rshani, but a little Byzan like you...”
“I’m not little,” he managed to moan, swatting at Liall. “The rest of you are just too fucking big.”
Liall snorted amusement and smoothed Scarlet’s damp hair away from his sweating face. He rinsed out a cool cloth and drew it gently over Scarlet's forehead. “And now you must forgive me, because I intend to make you well again, but it will not be pleasant.”
“Oh, ‘course not.” Scarlet looked up, sweat stinging his eyes so that he viewed Liall through a watery fog. “Tol’... told you I wasn’t going ashore,” he mumbled, his body slipping heavily into an unhealthy sleep.
“So you did,” Liall returned gently.
Scarlet drifted off into a fitful doze, and Liall sat for hours watching over the young man with an expression of worry or grief marking his aquiline features, trying to cool Scarlet’s burning body with alcohol-soaked cloths.
An hour past midnight, Scarlet’s fever reached its peak and he began calling out to Scaja in a pitiful voice, begging him repeatedly to take him out of the fire. Liall rose and opened the single porthole in the cabin, and the hatch as well, letting the cold air blow through the small space. He stripped Scarlet to the skin and forced him to drink che and water every half hour. There was a fixed look of determination on Liall’s face, as if by will alone he could force Scarlet to live.
It occurred to him, sometime in the night when the first ugly, violent convulsion rattled Scarlet’s slight frame, that he would rather die himself than see Scarlet die. At some point, he had begun to think of the pedlar as his touchstone to his own long-buried honor. Scarlet represented everything good he had lost in life until this point.
Liall was not a superstitious man, but if Scarlet died now, on the eve of his long voyage to reclaim his former self, it would be as if a curse had been laid on him.
Not that I do not deserve to be cursed, he thought as he struggled to hold Scarlet down through the worst of the tremors. Scarlet, certainly, did not deserve it. Liall wondered briefly if he should pray, and a harsh bark of laughter escaped his throat. Thereafter, he whispered only small comforts in Bizye, reciting the names of Scarlet’s sister and her newly-wed husband, for in Byzantur such chants were used as charms against sickness.
At dawn, the handsome mariner, Oleksei, peered in the open hatch and saw Liall covering the Hilurin with a thin blanket. Scarlet’s fever had broken at last, and Liall was weary to the bone and nearly sick himself with relief. Liall turned and snarled at Oleksei to leave them, and the young mariner stared with open shock at the marks of tears on Liall’s face before muttering a hasty apology and stumbling away.
“Ap kyning, may I enter?”
“It is your ship, captain.”
“But you are my—”
Liall gave the man a warning glance. “I would not say that here,” he cautioned. “There are no secrets on ships, so they say in Rshan.”
Captain Qixa, commander of the Rshani brigantine Ostre Sul, nodded his agreement and stepped into the cabin, closing the door quietly. “That is best.” Qixa’s pale blue eyes were narrowed, and he rubbed one of his massive hands over the hairless dome of his head in agitation. “I do not know how to begin,” he confessed. “There is a matter we must speak of.”
Liall stared at Qixa for a long moment, and then took a seat in the only chair available in the cabin. Qixa openly deferred to him in public. Now Liall would see how far that deference went. He sprawled in the chair, letting his legs stretch before him comfortably while Qixa stood. “Speak,” he commanded.
Qixa took a breath. “When I took you and your... companion... aboard my ship, I was confident in my crew. I thought you would be safe here, at least until we reached the open sea, where anything may happen and where there are pirates aplenty. But now...” He closed his mouth and shook his head.
“Now?” Liall pressed.
“I believe we were betrayed at Khet, before we ever docked at Volkovoi,” Qixa said uneasily.
There was a time in Liall’s youth when one hard look would have made lesser men tremble for their lives. He let Qixa suffer under that gaze for several moments. “Who?”
“I have no real evidence,” Qixa was quick to say, “but I believe Oleksei knows more of the matter, and he is not stepping forward.”
“Then convince him.”
Qixa chewed his lip. “
There is the problem, ap kyning. I believe Oleksei would have confided his knowledge to me when you came aboard at Volkovoi, knowing who you are and what you stand for. But then you brought the lenilyn with you, and many of my men have taken this very hard. They begin to doubt you. They believe you debase your birthright to suffer this creature in your presence, and worse: they have seen his hand. Four fingers, ap kyning, just as the legends warn. My men believe it is very bad luck. Look at the ill fate that has already befallen the boy.”
Liall made a rude noise. “Luck!” he scorned. “A mariner’s luck is the sea and the waves and the wind, not a sick, beardless boy lying abed. What harm could he possibly do them?”
Qixa glanced at Scarlet, who lay very still under the blankets, his face pale and his features slack. “There is his magic...” he began.
Liall surged to his feet. “Magic!” he growled. “All of my boyhood, I heard tales of the magic of the Hilurin, and I believed in it. And then I went to live among them. Sixty years and three have I dwelt in the Southern Continent, Qixa, and I have never once seen this magic. It does not exist.”
Qixa backed up before Liall’s wrath. “That is what they want us to believe!”
“Nonsense!” Liall’s arm slashed the air, as if clearing away Qixa’s words. For once, he did not try to curb his temper. Scarlet had been hovering near death all evening, and Liall was nearly sick himself with worry. “I will not hear this foolishness any longer,” he shouted. “Are you men or are you children hiding under your beds from the monsters of the night? He is helpless. Can you not see that?”
Unwillingly, Qixa’s eyes went to Scarlet again. He studied the boy, seeing the way his chest rose and fell with a halting rhythm and seeing how pinched and pale he was. Suddenly, Qixa was ashamed. He sighed heavily. “There is truth in what you say,” he conceded. “This child can do me no harm, but my men do not agree.”
“Then it will be your task to you to convince them,” Liall returned. Qixa frowned, and Liall saw that the man understood him. “That is my wish,” he said with finality.