by E. S. Bell
“Would you care for some? I broke my other glass during a bad storm and now have only one.” He cocked a smile. “But we can share.”
“I don’t drink,” Selena said stiffly.
“Neither do I,” Julian said, taking a sip. “When we’re under sail, I mean. And I prefer to discuss business with the person I am conducting it with. I hope your dragonman takes no offense.”
“The term is Vai’Ensai,” Selena said crossly. “If we’re to sail with you, it’s important that you not insult Ilior with the slur.”
“Very well. I can understand him not appreciating the term, nor its connotations. But why do you care?” Julian asked.
Selena gave a short, confused laugh. “Because he’s my friend?”
“Your friend is waiting for you outside my cabin door, isn’t he? Aye, I’d wager the Storm on it. Your friend won’t let you out of his sight for more than a few moments, as if you were a helpless maid and not a Paladin trained in swordcraft and the gods’ know what other kind of magic. Is he your bodyguard? Does he owe you a life debt?”
Selena sat back in her chair. “I don’t see how it’s of your concern.”
“Everything that happens on my ship is of my concern.” Julian raised an eyebrow. “Are you two…?”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Selena said, a sour taste in her mouth. “He is my friend. That means he cares for my well-being and I for his. I hardly need explain that concept, do I?”
“Dragonmen—pardon, Vai’Ensai—are rarely seen outside the Cloud Isles,” Julian said. “You’re telling me friendship alone keeps him from his homeland? Come to mention it, he didn’t seem too keen on sailing anywhere near the Cloud Isles as we plotted our course.” Julian waved his hand. “It’s strange; you, him, the whole of it.”
“It’s not strange.” Selena said and stopped, wondering if others shared Captain Tergus’s insinuations, perhaps at the Moon Temple. She felt the tingle that meant hot blood rushed to her cheeks. Anger dispelled the shame, and she shook her head. “It is unfortunate our friendship is subject to such base notions.”
“Maybe if you weren’t so secretive about it…”
“I don’t speak of Ilior’s private matters to strangers.”
“In the absence of fact, people fill in their own truth,” the captain said. Another harsh laugh erupted out of him. “Oh, do they ever.” He sipped his wine.
“Very well,” Selena said irritably. “I will tell you only because the merits outweigh the dishonor that rumors would place on him.”
Julian held up his hands. “My crew is mute. It’s just me.”
“Aye, you,” Selena said, “who has the olive coloring and dark hair of the Farendii.”
He said nothing but the smug grin had slipped off his face.
“The Zak’reth were at the height of their power, brutalizing those lands ruthlessly,” Selena said, gentling her tone. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this.”
“No,” Julian said. “You don’t.”
“And I don’t wish to cause you pain, truly. But it’s important you know that Ilior fought bravely for the Farendus Isles and that’s where I found him. On a desolate beach, surrounded by three Zak’reth warriors. I came in time to see them hack off his wing with their burning blades.”
Selena closed her eyes as the memory swamped her with its ugly brutality. When she opened them, Julian was watching her with that absolutely blank expression that masked any hint of emotion.
“I killed the Zak’reth before they could harm him further,” Selena said. “For that, Ilior has pledged his life to me, to protect me, to stay with me always. He was with me at Isle Calinda when I summoned the sea, and after, when the wound’s first agony had me. For ten years he’s remained by my side, loyal to me even in those early years when the torture of it became too much and I…behaved recklessly.”
Julian’s expression remained blank. “And he’s never been back to the Cloud Isles? I had heard that some Vai’Ensai had fought in the war, but then returned at once to their homeland. They’re not exactly welcome elsewhere.”
“The prejudice they face for the actions of their distant ancestors is a farce.”
Julian shrugged, his expression loosening. “The dragons caused the Breaking. That’s not an easy thing to forgive, even three thousand years later.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Selena snapped. “Ilior is no more responsible for the Breaking than I am responsible for my grandfather’s deeds.” She smoothed down the folds of her blue overtunic until she was calmer. “Ilior may not return to the Cloud Isles. He says the loss of his wing makes him a cripple in the eyes of the tribes. He’s considered too weak to retake his place among them to protect the homeland. That’s a disgrace I don’t understand, but nonetheless, I am grateful that he is with me. More than that, I owe him my life. I may have saved him from the Zak’reth once, but he has saved me from the wound countless times.”
“A life debt then, as I said.”
“Will that suffice, Captain? He is owed respect, not…ugly insinuations, or—”
The captain held up his hands in surrender. “I understand. He guards you from bodily harm but is not your bodyguard. Fair enough. May we speak of my fee now?”
Selena fought to keep her irritation from mounting further. There’s no one else, she reminded herself. It’s either this captain, or we return to Lillomet.
“My offer is standard,” she said. “Three hundred gold doubloons; half now, half after I…after I kill Accora. And if we learn where Bacchus is and you take me to him, we shall renegotiate.”
“That’s all very well and good, if you kill Accora. If you get killed, what happens to the other half of my fee?”
“I have a promissory note from the Moon Temple,” Selena said. “Should anything befall me, you can find it among my possessions. Failing that, the Moon Temple has a copy and you may collect from them.” She rose to her feet. “Fear not, Captain, you’ll get your gold.”
“I should hope so,” Julian barked a laugh that faded immediately. “Except that I don’t sail to Lillomet. Or Parish, or Killomede, or Sevren. Not ever, so don’t ask.”
Selena resumed her seat. “I was expecting to return to Isle Lillomet upon completion of my quest.”
“Not my problem. I’ll bring you back here. Or to Isle Kabak, if you prefer desolate poverty to pirates. But that doesn’t solve the problem of my fee in the event of your untimely demise.”
Selena found her unease and frustration mounting the longer she remained in Julian Tergus’s presence. “I’ll make other arrangements. Now, if there’s nothing else…?”
“Nothing,” Julian said, “but to get the ship provisioned up, and quickly. I don’t think we should remain here another day. The pirate you spared has no doubt squealed to his gang about the unfortunate loss of Mallen.”
“Mallen was your doing,” Selena said.
“Killing him was the best thing to do. Your letting the other go free was a mistake. I’m surprised, in fact, you weren’t greeted by a gang of Mallen’s collective this morning.” Julian tossed back the rest of his wine. “We’re running on luck right now and nothing more. I recommend you remain on board and send Svoz to retrieve your belongings from your inn. We’ll sail at first light.”
Selena nodded and rose, her eyes drawn to the blood stains on Julian’s shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want me to heal you?”
Julian smiled dryly. “Does it offend your Aluren sensibilities to leave a wound unhealed?”
Selena felt the color drain from her face, and Julian seemed to realize what he’d said as his smile slipped and his gaze dropped to her chest, to where her wound lay.
“Aye, it offends me more than anything.” Selena said stiffly.
She walked around his desk to stand next to Julian. He leaned back and tensed almost imperceptibly, and she sensed that if she intended to harm him, she’d be dead already. She poured water from the ampulla on her belt, and laid o
ne hand on the bloody swatch of his shoulder. She found the moon with the other. “Illuria.”
An orange light glowed under her hand and from under his linen shirt, and his crude stitches broke. The skin healed. He said nothing at all but she felt his muscle under her hand ease.
She released him and made her way back across the cabin, concealing her weariness with measured steps. At the door she turned.
“I’m not paying three hundred gold for an injured and bloodied captain,” she said. “I need you healthy and hale if you’re to sail me to Saliz. Try to stay that way.” She left his cabin, slamming the door behind her.
Ilior was waiting outside. “What it is it?” he asked, alarmed as she stormed passed him. “What happened?”
Selena went to the rail and looked out over the gray-green waters, inhaling the salty air. Isle Uago rose out of the sea like a festering boil. Tomorrow it would disappear from the horizon and her quest would begin in earnest.
There is no one else to take us there. No one else.
“Selena?”
“I was just… speaking to the Captain about his fee,” Selena said, “and it…it struck me that this is really happening. That I will soon be battling those Bazira. That my wound will close at last.” She shook her head. “It overwhelmed me for a moment. I’m fine now.” That had shades of the truth and so not entirely a lie.
“You look pale. Frightened, almost.”
“I am frightened, to have to kill in cold blood,” Selena said. “But for the first time I have hope, which is almost as scary.”
“There is nothing wrong with hope.” He put his arm around her. “I’m glad it wasn’t the captain himself who upset you,” Ilior said after a moment. “If he had…well, it’s not too late to find another. I told you, I don’t like him.”
Selena pressed her lips together. Neither do I.
The ship first appeared to them on the morning of their fourth day since departing Isle Uago. It was the first vessel of any kind they’d seen; the Marauders’ Sea was not only tranquil, its horizon was empty.
Captain Tergus didn’t like it.
Their southerly course should have put them flush in the trade routes. Pirates, and the merchant ships they harassed, should have been passing them every hour. The traffic should have been constant and hearty. Instead there was nothing. When the ship appeared in Captain Tergus’s spyglass, he’d looked almost relieved, but still intended to give her a wide berth. They kept an eye on her, and Selena was on the quarterdeck with Helm and Julian when the wiry crewman made a sign with his hand.
“What is he saying?” Selena had asked.
Julian had the glass to his eye. He lowered it and snapped it shut. “Dead ship.”
At twilight, the Black Storm came within half a league of the vessel: a schooner, larger than the Storm by a good forty spans. The sea was no longer calm but wind-tossed; small waves that slapped against the Storm’s hull. The Storm bounced on the choppy waves, yet the schooner sat low and untroubled. Selena watched Julian frown and narrow his eyes. He didn’t like the look of this either and this time Selena couldn’t blame him. There was no movement on deck, no hands, no lights, no lookout on the masthead, no helmsman at the wheel.
“It does look dead,” Selena said. The above-water hull looked sound, though there wasn’t much of it to see. Seven Swords, as proclaimed by the lettering near the prow, looked as though she had taken on cargo, she sat so low. Selena had the impression she looked at a Juskaran sarcophagus in its tomb, instead of a ship at sea. Without having to go aboard, she knew its crew was gone, the ship abandoned.
Ilior was more hopeful. “Perhaps the crew is below deck, playing at cards or dicing.”
“Just letting her drift?” Julian pointed to Seven Swords’s bow. “The anchor’s home.”
Ilior wouldn’t give more than a shrug, but Selena knew Julian was right. The captain turned to Helm. “We sail on.”
“Wait.” Selena grabbed his arm. “Do you hear that?”
The Seven Swords that was now a quarter of a league off and the air had become thick and heavy, promising rain, yet the sky was cloudless. The sound came again, a faint whimpering and muffled words.
“Someone on that ship is calling for help,” Selena said.
“I heard nothing of the kind,” Julian said. “Sounded like a moaning timber. Or a rusted wheel. They squeal like boars if you don’t—”
Again, faintly, and this time words were clear. “Help me, please…”
Julian pressed his lips together.
“Get me aboard,” Selena said.
“Hold up right there,” Julian hissed, and Selena realized they were all speaking in quiet tones and the hair on the back of her neck stood up, as if lightning were about to strike. “It could be an ambush,” he said. “Be smart now.”
The plaintive call for help came again, clearer now that the Storm was almost upon the Seven Swords. The sound cut through the eerie thickness like a hot knife through butter. They all winced at the uncanny loudness of it.
“Keep behind her,” Julian told Helm. “Don’t draw up along broadsides. If it is an ambush, I won’t put the Storm flush with her guns.” He looked to Ilior. “Tell the men to furl the sails.”
Whistle whistled—a low trill—and the captain turned. The boy pointed frantically at the Seven Swords. The schooner was still and the Black Storm came on too fast. Julian swore under his breath.
“Get Svoz and Ilior on the guns. We’re going to broadside her anyway.”
Selena repeated the orders to the sirrak, who complained at the lack of first-hand blood-letting but stomped down to the main deck to man one of the two starboard-side cannons. Ilior took the other.
At the rail of the quarterdeck Julian took his flintlock in hand, and hailed the ship. His voice rang out and Selena felt every single person on the Black Storm recoil at the sound by virtue of the eerie quiet of the Seven Swords.
That’s my imagination, Selena thought, but Helm looked stricken and even Julian’s stony face wore a grimace. He did not hail them a second time.
“Was that wise?” Selena asked.
“Undisciplined men, training their pistols or guns on us, would have flinched and let fly,” Julian said.
“I’m here…” came the voice from inside the ship. “Ah, gods, please. I’m here…”
“I’m going over,” Selena said.
“Don’t…”
“There’s no one aboard but the man calling for help,” Selena said. “Can’t you feel it? An emptiness? I’m going aboard.”
“Alone?” Julian asked. “Send your sirrak. No, don’t,” he amended. “I want him on that gun. I’ll go with you, gods be damned.”
The Black Storm’s bow came up alongside port side the Seven Swords. With the agility of a cat, Julian climbed the Storm’s bowsprit and stepped onto the gunwale of the Swords as if he were stepping over a puddle. He reappeared on the main deck and motioned for Selena to come over but the Storm was too fast, drifting past the Seven Swords.
“Selena?” Julian hissed. He was a black shadow at the bow of the other ship. “Smartly now.”
The Storm’s bow was past the Seven Swords’; the two ships were passing each other, side by side, just as Julian had feared they would. For one agonized moment Selena imagined that cannon blasts would roar, tearing into the Black Storm. Ilior and Svoz were crouched low and tense. But there was nothing but eerie silence broken now and then by the plaintive cry for help that now rang out like a clarion in the stillness.
Selena climbed onto the gunwale. She hesitated, looking down at three spans of cold, black water churning below, and then she jumped. Her foot touched the Sword’s rail. She used it to push off, and landed on the dead ship’s main deck, one knee down to brace her fall.
Julian stood above her and offered a hand.
“The Storm’s drifting past,” she said.
He rubbed his lips. “I noticed that. I trust Helm has enough sense to bring her about, but one can’t be too care
ful. This is going to hurt, be warned.”
Julian went to the rail and shouted to his men to bring the Storm about and to send Ilior over with the skiff to get them back. Once again, his voice clanged like a bell in an empty cavern. Selena recoiled.
He returned to her side. “My skin is itching.”
“Mine too,” she said. “Let’s get down below.”
“Wait,” Julian said. “Hear that?”
Selena listened. “I hear nothing.”
“Exactly. Our friend has grown silent when he should be louder, now that he knows we’re here.” Julian retrieved his flintlock and held it ready.
They started for the hatch amidships that would lead below, walking with slow, cautious steps. The ship looked sound, but appeared as if it hadn’t sailed in years. Every coil of rope, every cask looked still and untouched, and the deck was clear but for a few patches of dampness here and there. The wood moaned and the sails drooped eerily above them without catching one puff of wind. A fine layer of dust had settled over all. Selena bent and ran her fingers along the planks. They came up coated with something faintly shiny.
“What…?” She peered at her fingers. Residue in a rainbow of hues, all faded as if by the sun, glazed her skin, shining in the twilight. “Not dust. Scales,” she murmured. “These are scales.”
“Seems to be,” Julian said, his voice low. “And here.” He went to one knee and ran his fingers along faint grooves scratched into the deck. Stains that looked dark in the coppery light of the sunset accompanied the scratches, and then he found a small, bloody object. He held it up. “Is that…?”
“A fingernail,” Selena breathed. Her heart clanged in her chest. Julian made a disgusted face and hurled it away.
“The captain’s quarters first,” he whispered, indicating with his pistol the cabin at the stern. “No surprises.”
Selena nodded, though she was eager to get below. Whoever needed help might be dying or already dead. She shivered and followed Julian across the main deck. He pushed open the door with his flintlock. The cabin had small windows at aft, and the setting sun was fore; the room was full of shadows.