The captain took her arm. ‘You’re pale, my lady.’
‘I need to lie down,’ she said, and then the ship heaved over a wave and she couldn’t keep her stomach still any longer.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Memories of another time aboard ship rose and fell with the rolling waves that forced her to cling to the railing and empty her stomach into the brine day after day. That time she’d been locked below deck and forced to lie in the swill of her vomit whereas here she had the freedom to be sick in the open air, much to the amusement of the grinning sailors. The sea was endless motion.
When her mind briefly found focus beyond her stomach’s need to be ill and the rolling dip and rise, she struggled with her anger and her loss—anger at A Ahmud Ki for what he’d done on the wharf and the loss of Cutter and Talemaker who’d never made it to the ship. Images of shadowy figures battling on the wharf that steadily melted into the mist as they rowed across the harbour towards the ghostly dragon ship kept rising whenever she caught peace between journeys to the railing. What were their fates? Did they die? Were they taken prisoner? Would the Seers interrogate them to get to her?
As sick as she was, she refused to let A Ahmud Ki near her. She was doubly angry with him. He’d thrown the knife that struck the Seer and caused the thundermakers to fire. If he’d waited, there might have been another way. He was responsible for what had happened to Cutter and Talemaker. And she was angry because she’d seen what he really was—something not human—something dangerous and sinister. He’d lied to her all along about his cruel imprisonment. He was just like the Seers—wanting the Conduit for himself, for his own power and ambition.
Sometimes she didn’t make it to the railing. Captain Marlin arranged for a bucket in the tiny cabin where she was confined when she wasn’t outside throwing up. The little green bucket and she developed a close companionship. But all she wanted was for the world to stop moving.
A Ahmud Ki had never been on an ocean-going vessel at sea, but he remembered visiting Lady Jasmin on her anchored ship and how unsteady he’d been with his footing on a moving platform. It reminded him of walking along tree boughs in his Aelendyell village, but he was confident in the solidity of the trees—a ship moved with greater treachery. Once they put to open sea after breaking through the Kerwyn cordon and the waves made the dragon ship pitch and roll he retreated to the railing like Meg and was gravely ill for three days.
Captain Marlin gave him the small cabin amidships, used for the occasional passengers the ship carried on its trading runs. As ill as he felt, he was still very conscious of the sailors staring every time he emerged on deck and he knew they were whispering about him, but his normally keen hearing was dulled by his lethargy and queasiness. Stare and talk, he thought, as he staggered out to breathe in the salty air. Let your imaginations run wild. I am everything you imagine me to be.
By the fourth day of the journey, out of sight of land on an endless expanse of aquamarine, his need to vomit dissolved but he was still hampered by a sense of physical disorientation and struggled to keep a steady course when he walked along the deck. ‘Got no sea legs?’ a sailor asked as A Ahmud Ki stumbled into a section of wooden coaming protecting a hatchway.
A Ahmud Ki held the sailor’s grinning gaze until the man turned nervously away and made a sign to his companions with his finger to his head indicating he thought the stranger was batty. You will show me respect, A Ahmud Ki decided silently, glaring at the man’s back.
‘So, at least one passenger’s decided he can stomach the sea!’ Captain Marlin called above the slap and wash of the waves against the hull from the helm.
‘I could grow to love the ocean,’ A Ahmud Ki replied jovially, but within he was desperate to reach land again.
His one amusement early on the voyage was to wake and discover a black rat sitting on his chest. ‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ he said, reaching out to stroke the pristine whiskers, and Whisper allowed him to stroke her for a short while before she curled up on the end of his bunk and went to sleep. ‘She’ll miss you,’ he said to the rat, but Whisper didn’t move.
‘We’re heading for Sukayeh. It’s a trading port and capital of Kala. Sometimes we follow the trade route to Stormshelter on the Jaru coast, but there’s no business there for us this trip and the open sea is insurance against the Kerwyn still wanting to pursue us,’ Captain Marlin explained, before stopping to sip his red wine.
Meg’s gaze strayed to the copper-clad lantern swinging softly on the overhead beam above the captain’s table. Nothing ever stops moving, she bemoaned silently.
‘After Sukayeh, we head south towards the Stepping Stones, picking up fresh supplies in Feren-atel on the tip of Ma-Tareshka. Then we island-hop all the way through to Targa and on to Port River where we end the journey.’ Content with his explanation, the captain smiled and took another sip of wine, savouring the rich, fruity flavours.
‘Andrakis,’ A Ahmud Ki murmured.
‘Andrak,’ corrected the captain. ‘It’s more like three provinces—Central Andrak, Western Andrak and Northern Andrak. Foreigners still call it the Lands of the Dragon People because of our history—or more likely the myths about our past.’
‘And who is king now?’ A Ahmud Ki inquired.
Captain Marlin snorted and wiped his lips with the back of his hand as if he was trying to remove the grin from his face. ‘King? There hasn’t been a king for five centuries. We’ve got an elected government, ten representatives from each province voted in every three years.’
A Ahmud Ki looked at Meg, his astonishment reflected in her expression. ‘Like the Ieldran?’ he asked, turning back to the captain.
‘The what?’ Marlin asked.
A Ahmud Ki went to explain, but thought better of it and said, ‘It’s a group of people who ruled in my country.’
‘Who votes?’ Meg asked.
‘Everyone who wants to—which is basically anyone who cares about what happens in the capital.’ Marlin took another sip, licked his lips and added, ‘Which is basically no one. Most of the time the government bickers and argues pointlessly in the People’s Forum, but doesn’t do much. The merchants, bankers and inventors really make the changes and run the country.’ He chuckled as if he’d said something witty, but Meg and A Ahmud Ki stared in bewilderment.
‘What’s an inventor?’ Meg asked, but the motion sickness was returning and what she really wanted to do was find her bucket. Before Marlin could give an explanation, she excused herself and retreated to her cabin.
Gulls hung above the water as if suspended on wire, tiny bird-shaped clouds in a bright blue sky and even though the dragon ship was anchored offshore Meg could hear the fragmented voices from the seaside markets. The docks were awash with vivid reds, purples, yellows and greens standing out against the stark white buildings of Sukayeh, beyond which sparkling white dunes were as high as the hills she remembered surrounded the valley of her home. The sun was high and hot, glaring at the human world with contempt, as the Waverunner’s four longboats crawled across the languid waves towards the dragon ship, laden with fresh supplies for the next leg of the voyage and timber for repairs. The sailors rowed with disciplined rhythm, their heads bobbing and arms sweeping back to pull the boats effortlessly over the water. She was grateful to be in relative calm after almost a cycle at sea, the deck beneath her feet rolling gently and the ship at anchor. She breathed in the warm salty ocean air and relaxed.
Standing beside Marlin on the foredeck, A Ahmud Ki’s attention strayed from the captain’s details about the local Kalaen culture to the red-haired woman. She was still angry with him, but what she didn’t comprehend was that he saved her life by killing the priest in the blue robe. He knew people. He recognised the man’s one intention on the wharf—capture Meg and kill everyone else. The thundermakers were taking aim and the order was already forming on the blue-robed man’s lips. His swift action with the dagger saved her life—and his own. She had to understand that sooner or later.
He sighed. She was stunningly beautiful, even in the rustic men’s garments she had a habit of wearing. Her hair, unkempt and knotted as it was, retained a beautiful reddish hue, and her green eyes, especially when she was angry, were piercingly, agonisingly beautiful. He saw how the sailors all stopped to watch whenever she came on deck and he saw Marlin’s gaze wander over her too and knew he wanted her. But how could he appease her anger?
The constant malaise was horrible. The ocean was flat and windless. Day after day a ball of searing heat rose in the east and climbed slowly to its zenith in a vapid blue sky, roasting the world in every direction of the compass before sinking to the horizon to be extinguished in a crimson haze.
Free finally of her seasickness, Meg was confined to her cabin during the day to escape the suffocating heat and humidity, lying naked in a pool of sweat, wondering why the world was always hot where they were sailing. The repaired windwheel gave the dragon ship a breeze to sail across the windless sea and she liked to stand and feel the cooling breeze, but she also knew that in the bowels of the ship men were driving the windwheel with their toil and sweat and she felt for them even as she marvelled at the invention, as Marlin called it.
‘You could drive the ship with magic,’ A Ahmud Ki whispered in passing one morning. She turned her back on him and walked away. Captain Marlin had been suspicious of Meg after the Kerwyn escape, but his curiosity gradually abated as the journey progressed and she did not want to arouse it by interfering with the elements again. Neither did she intend to be A Ahmud Ki’s pawn.
The compensation was the evenings when, though still warm and uncomfortable, she could stroll along the deck and stand at the railing to let the cooling air ease across her damp skin.
‘We’re sailing through the Stepping Stones,’ Captain Marlin informed her over a shared meal of cold beef and dried fruit one evening in the captain’s cabin. ‘It’s always hot here. And when it’s not clear weather like we have now it’s all thunderstorms and endless rain. Strange place. Trees grow five times as big as anywhere else in the world, as do the spiders and scorpions. The people are brown-skinned like the Jaru, if you’ve ever seen the Jaru. Islands are forests growing over mountains and the mountains are almost always volcanoes.’
The Waverunner stopped at four different islands to take on water and supplies, but Meg stayed aboard, using the absence of most of the crew as an opportunity to bathe and refresh her spirits. She was also afraid of stepping onto land to find that she had lost her land legs, or worse that she would lose her newly acquired sea legs. Besides, her children were waiting for her and they weren’t in the Stepping Stones. She continued to avoid A Ahmud Ki, even though he tried relentlessly to talk to her and each time he spoke she walked away. She never answered her cabin door unless the person identified who it was.
‘Why the dislike for your friend?’ Marlin asked one evening as she leaned on a rail and stared at the endless stream of stars.
‘Because he killed my friends,’ she said bluntly. ‘Isn’t that enough reason?’
Marlin nodded. ‘It’s a fair reason then.’ He shook his head and gazed out at the starlit ocean. ‘It’s a shame.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Marlin lightly cleared his throat. ‘Because he’s in love with you.’
Meg was silent. Of all things the captain might have said she had not expected that. The evening was suddenly very awkward. She shifted her feet and walked away towards her cabin.
‘The news is that the Kerwyn ships failed to stop the dragon ship, Your Eminence,’ Onyx explained. ‘The Abomination is sailing to the south and then, according to what we’ve gleaned from her former companions, west to the Lands of the Dragon People.’
‘Why would she want to go there?’ Vision asked rhetorically, his fingers tapping the table.
‘Perhaps she’s leaving for good,’ suggested Emerald.
Vision looked up at him, anger in his eyes. ‘The Abomination has the Conduit we thought we’d lost. She has the key to calling the Demon Horsemen. She can’t be allowed to simply sail away and not return.’
‘Then what do you suggest we do, Your Eminence?’ Onyx asked.
‘Send an assassin. No. Send three assassins. The best you can find. Kerwyn assassins will suit our purposes,’ said Vision.
‘The Kerwyn Warlord was unwilling to let his ships stop the dragon ship,’ Onyx reminded him. ‘He won’t be interested in supplying us with assassins.’
‘Don’t ask him,’ said Vision. ‘Ask his king. Ironfist is a convert to our faith. Go straight to him.’ He raised his eyes to take in the assembly of Seers at the table. ‘We will go on with our experiments as planned. The assassins will work for us and when they return with the Conduit we will use it to open the doors to Paradise. The Abomination’s return is not for us to question except as a marvel of Jarudha’s ways and a reminder that we must be about His business in this mortal world.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Dreams came and went. Most of them were incomplete and forgotten when she woke, but some were clear and permanent, and the familiar dream where she stood on a parapet, as an old woman came and went like an old friend. So, too, did the more recent dream that she was flying above a city, gazing down on the people. And she dreamed that she was travelling towards the rising sun to the east where she knew there was an ancient city with a vast library of books that belonged to her. She had two new dreams as well. In one, she stood on a bluff, high above the ocean, the gulls’ screeching mimicking the pain in her heart at the loss of her children and she hated the dream because it portended an event she did not want to have. It mirrored the fear buried in the deepest recesses of her being that, even sailing to the new land, she would not find her children. She hated the dream. In the second she stood hand in hand with a man. She knew without turning who it was, so she did not turn to gaze at him. Like the first new dream, it saddened her.
The ever-present heat and humidity, the dreams, her lapse into memories of Button and Jon and Emma and Sunfire left her in melancholic mood that clung to her like the sailor’s shirts she’d taken to wearing. Only daily visits from Whisper broke the monotony. The rat would appear from behind a bulkhead in the coxswain’s cabin and settle on Meg’s lap if she was sitting or nuzzle at her ankle if she was standing. ‘Where do you go?’ Meg asked aloud, the first time she could focus her head beyond her nausea when the rat visited. She repeated her question in mind-speak.
Food. Safe, the rat replied in images.
Thereafter, Meg always kept crumbs from her meals to feed Whisper who never seemed hungry or to lose weight. ‘Who else is feeding you?’ she asked on occasion, but the rat didn’t answer. When Whisper heard anyone at Meg’s door she immediately vanished behind the bulkhead, only emerging when she felt it was safe. She came and went without explanation or hindrance, and Meg half-expected to see her preening on deck when she left the cabin—until she saw a sailor carrying two dead rats by their tails and consigning them to the ocean.
‘Filthy mongrels,’ the sailor growled when he saw Meg staring. ‘They bring bad luck to a ship, they do.’ So she understood why Whisper came and went silently and stayed invisible to everyone except her.
She was taken aback one evening when her door opened without invitation as she was lying on her bunk and A Ahmud Ki stepped in. ‘I thought I kept that locked,’ she said, glaring at him and grabbing a shirt to cover herself. ‘And you should knock.’
A Ahmud Ki bowed his head. ‘I apologise. I tried the handle as I passed and it was unlocked.’
‘Then you can try the handle again and leave,’ she told him. ‘I’ll make sure it is locked after you go.’
A Ahmud Ki came forward. ‘Meg, I’ve come to ask your forgiveness,’ he said quietly and looked down at the floor.
‘For what?’ she asked, trying to adjust her shirt for modesty.
He looked up, but the shadows hid her eyes from him. ‘I didn’t mean for your friends to get caught in Westport.’
�
��It’s too late to be sorry for that,’ she snapped. ‘Now go.’
‘I can’t.’
His simple refusal stunned her and she glared angrily. ‘I asked you to go.’
He shook his head and sank to his knees. ‘I need you to forgive me,’ he pleaded gently. ‘I’m not leaving until you do.’ He lowered his gaze again.
She stared at the top of his head. The intricate braids that featured in his silvery hair were dishevelled and his shirt was tattered and worn, borrowed, like her garments, from the sailors. ‘I can’t just forgive you,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
He raised his face slowly so that she could read the sadness etched on it. ‘I can’t go on being hated by you,’ he said quietly, the passion carefully measured in his voice. ‘I owe you my life. Twice. I can never repay that debt. Now I owe you for the lives of two of your friends and I don’t know how to repay that debt. Without your forgiveness I am nothing. I am empty.’
‘You don’t owe me anything for your life. I always thought it was you who enticed me into that strange place from the beginning. How else could I have imagined it?’
‘Your power is more than you can ever imagine,’ he said. ‘I didn’t call you there. Your power led you to me.’
‘But why? Why lead me to you?’
He shrugged and shook his head slowly, saying, ‘I wish I knew.’ Then he met her gaze and said, ‘I only know that if it hadn’t happened I would never have met you. I would never have known…’ He left the sentence unfinished, sighing and lowering his head.
She studied his head, his shoulders, his hands pressed against his knees, the elegant fingers splayed across the ragged grey trouser cloth. ‘I forgive you,’ she said softly. When he didn’t move, she reached out and put her hand on his shoulder.
A Solitary Journey Page 38