Ship of Magic

by Robin Hobb

  “Neither,” Wintrow said. He suddenly felt ashamed. “I'm only a boy with a bucket of water and a rag ”

  “Not a priest of Sa?”

  “Not any longer. ”

  “The road to the priesthood may wander, but once upon it, no man leaves it. ” The slave's voice had taken on a teaching cadence, and Wintrow knew he heard ancient scripture.

  “But I have been taken away from the priesthood. ”

  “No man can be taken away, no man can leave it. All lives lead towards Sa. All are called to a priesthood. ”

  Some moments later, Wintrow realized he was sitting very still in the dark, breathing. The candle had guttered out, and he had not been aware of it. His mind had followed the man's words, questioning, wondering. All men called to a priesthood. Even Torg, even Kyle Haven? Not all calls were heeded, not all doors were opened.

  He did not need to tell the other man he was back. He was aware of him. “Go, priest of Sa,” the man said quietly in the darkness. “Work the small mercies you can, plead for us, beg comfort for us. And when you have the chance to do more, Sa will give you the courage. I know he will. ” Wintrow felt the rag pressed back into his hand.

  “You were a priest, too,” Wintrow asked softly.

  “I am a priest. One who would not sway to false doctrine. No man is born to be a slave. That, I believe, is what Sa would never permit. ” He cleared his throat and asked quietly, “Do you believe that?”

  “Of course. ”

  In a conspiratorial voice, the man observed, “They bring us food and water but once a day. Other than that, and you, no one comes near us. If I had anything metal, I could work at these chains. It need not be a tool that would be missed. Anything metal you could find in any moment you are unwatched. ”

  “But . . . even if you were out of your chains, what could you do? One man against so many?”

  “If I can sever the long chain, many of us could move. ”

  “But what would you do?” Wintrow asked in a sort of horror.

  “I don't know. I'd trust to Sa. He brought you to me, didn't he?” He seemed to hear the boy's hesitation. “Don't think about it. Don't plan it. Don't worry. Sa will put opportunity in your path, and you will see it and act. ” He paused. “I only ask that you beg that Kelo here be allowed to die on deck. If you dare. ”

  “I dare,” Wintrow heard himself reply. Despite the darkness and stench all around him, he felt as if a tiny light had been re-kindled inside him. He would dare. He would ask. What could they do to him for asking? Nothing worse than what they'd already done. His courage, he thought wonderingly. He'd found his courage again.

  He groped for his bucket and rag in the darkness. “I have to go. But I will come back. ”

  “I know you will,” the other man replied quietly.

  “So. You wanted to see me?”

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  “Something's wrong. Something is very wrong. ”

  “What?” Gantry demanded wearily. “Is it the serpents again? I've tried, Vivacia. Sa knows I've tried to drive them off. But throwing rocks at them in the morning does me no good if I have to dump bodies over the side in the afternoon. I can't make them go away. You'll have to just ignore them. ”

  “They whisper to me,” she confided uneasily.

  “The serpents talk to you?”

  “No. Not all of them. But the white one,” she turned to look at him and her eyes were tormented. “Without words, without sound. He whispers to me, and he urges . . . unspeakable things. ”

  Gantry felt a terrible urge to laugh. Unspeakable things uttered without words. He pushed it away from himself. It wasn't funny, not really. Sometimes it seemed to him that nothing had ever really been funny in his whole life.

  “I can't do anything about them,” he said. “I've tried and tried. ”

  “I know. I know. I have to deal with it myself. I can. I shall. But tonight it's not the serpents. It's something else. ”

  “What?” he asked patiently. She was mad. He was almost sure of it. Mad, and he had helped to make her that way. Sometimes he thought he should just ignore her when she spoke, as if she were one of the slaves begging him for simple mercy. At other times he thought he had a duty to listen to her ramblings and groundless fears. Because what he had come to call madness was her inability to ignore the contained misery caged within her holds. He had helped to put that misery there. He had installed the chains, he had brought out the slaves, with his own hands he had fettered men and women in the dark below the decks he trod. He could smell the stench of their entrapment and hear their cries. Perhaps he was the one who was truly mad, for a key hung at his belt and he did nothing.

  “I don't know what it is. But it's something, something dangerous. ” She sounded like a child with a high fever, peopling the dark with fearsome creatures. There was an unspoken plea in her words. Make it go away.

  “It's just the storm coming. We all feel it, the seas are getting higher. But you'll be fine, you're a fine ship. A bit of weather isn't going to bother you,” he encouraged her.

  “No. I'd welcome a storm, to wash some of the stench away. It's not the storm I fear. ”

  “I don't know what to do for you. ” He hesitated, and then asked his usual question. “Do you want me to find Wintrow and bring him to you?”

  “No. No, leave him where he is. ” She sounded distracted when she spoke of him, as if the topic pained her and she wished to get away from it.

  “Well. If you think of anything I can do for you, you let me know. ” He started to turn away from her.

  “Gantry!” she called hastily. “Gantry, wait!”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “I told you to get on another ship. You remember that, don't you? That I told you to get on another ship. ”

  “I remember it,” he assured her unwillingly. “I remember it. ”

  Again he turned to go, only to have a slight form step out in front of him suddenly. He startled back, suppressing a cry. A heartbeat later he recognized Wintrow. The night had made him seem insubstantial in his stained rags, almost like a wraith. The boy was gaunt, his face as pale as any slave's save for the tattoo that crawled over his cheek. The smell of the slave hold clung to him, so that Gantry stepped back from him without thinking. He did not like to see Wintrow at any time, let alone in the dark, alone. The boy himself had become an accusation to him, a living reminder of all Gantry chose to ignore. “What do you want?” he demanded gruffly, but he heard in his own voice a sort of cry.

  The boy spoke simply. “One of the slaves is dying. I'd like to bring him out on the deck. ”

  “What's the point of that, if he's dying anyway?” He spoke harshly, to keep from speaking desperately.

  “What's the point of not doing it?” Wintrow asked quietly. “Once he's dead, you've got to bring him up on deck anyway to get rid of his body. Why not do it now, and at least let him die where the air is cool and clean?”

  “Clean? Have you no nose left? There's nowhere on this ship that smells clean anymore. ”

  “Not to you, perhaps. But he might breathe easier up here. ”

  “I can't just drag a slave up here on deck and dump him. I have no one to watch him. ”

  “I'll watch him,” Wintrow offered evenly. “He's no threat to anyone. His fever is so high that he's just going to lie there until he dies. ”

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  “Fever?” Gantry asked more sharply. “He's one of the map-faces, then?”

  “No. He's in the forward hold. ”

  “How'd he get fever? We've only had fever among the map-faces before this. ” He spoke angrily as if it were Wintrow's fault.

  “A rat bit him. The man chained to him thinks that is what started it. ” Wintrow hesitated. “Perhaps we should remove him from the others, just in case. ”

  Gantry snorted. “You play on my fears, to get me to do what you wan
t. ”

  Wintrow looked at him steadily. “Can you give me a real reason why we should not bring the poor wretch onto the deck to die?”

  “I don't have the men to move him just now. The seas are heavy, a storm is brewing. I want my full watch on deck in case I need them. We've a tricky bit of channel coming up, and when a storm breaks here, a man has to be ready. ”

  “If you give me the key, I'll bring him up on deck myself. ”

  “You can't haul a grown man up from the forward hold by yourself. ”

  “I'll have another slave help me. ”

  “Wintrow . . . ” Gantry began impatiently.

  “Please,” Vivacia interceded softly. “Please. Bring the man up here. ”

  Gantry could not say why he didn't want to give in. A simple bit of mercy he could offer, but he wanted to hold it back. Why? Because if this small act of taking pity on a dying man was the right thing to do, then . . . He pushed the thought away from him. He was mate on this vessel, he had his job, and that was to run the ship as his captain saw fit. It wasn't his place to decide that all of it was wrong. Even if he faced that thought, even if he said aloud, 'this is wrong!' what could one man do about it?

  “You said if there was anything you could do for me, I should let you know,” the ship reminded him.

  He glanced up at the night sky, shrouded in gathering clouds. If Vivacia decided to be obstinate, she could double their work through this storm. He didn't want to cross her just now.

  “If the seas get any heavier, we'll be taking water over the deck,” he warned them both.

  “I don't think it will matter to him,” Wintrow said.

  “Sar!” Gantry declared with feeling. “I can't give you my keys, boy, nor permission to bring a healthy slave up on deck. Come on. If I have to do this to keep the ship happy, I'll do it myself. But let's be quick about it and get it over. ”

  He raised his voice in a shout. “Comfrey! Keep an eye on things here, I'm going below. Sing out if you need me!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “Lead the way,” he told Wintrow gruffly. “If there's fever in the forward hold, I suppose I'd better see for myself. ”

  Wintrow was silent as he led the way. Having made his request of Gantry, he could think of nothing more to say to the man. He was painfully conscious of the differences between them now. Gantry, his father's right hand and trusted advisor, was as far as could be from Wintrow, the slave and disgraced son. As he made his way into the crowded forward hold, he felt as if he led a stranger into his private nightmare.

  Gantry had given him the lantern to carry. Its brighter light illuminated far more than the candles that Wintrow had become accustomed to. It enlarged the circle of misery, made clearer the extent of the filth and degradation. Wintrow breathed shallowly. It was a skill he had learned. Behind him, he heard Gantry cough from time to time, and once he thought the mate gagged. He did not turn to look back. As first mate, it was likely that Gantry had not had to venture far into the holds lately. He could command other men to do that. Wintrow doubted that his father had been belowdecks at all since they had left Jamaillia.

  As they got closer to the dying man, they had to hunch over. The slaves were packed so tightly it was hard to avoid stepping on them. They shifted restlessly in the lantern light and muttered quietly to one another at the sight of Gantry's lantern. “Here he is,” Wintrow announced needlessly. To the priest beside him, he said, “This is Gantry, the mate. He's letting me take your friend abovedeck. ”

  The priest slave sat up, blinking in Gantry's lantern light. “Sa's mercy upon you,” he greeted him quietly. “I am Sa'Adar. ”

  Gantry said nothing to either the introduction or the slave's claim of priesthood. The mate seemed, Wintrow thought, uncomfortable at the idea of being introduced to a slave. He crouched and gingerly touched the dying slave's hot flesh. “Fever,” he said, as if anyone could have doubted it. “Let's get him out of here before he spreads it. ”

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  Gantry sidled down to reach one of the heavy staples that had been driven into the Vivacia's main timbers. Here was where the running chain was secured. The salt of the sea air and the sweaty humidity of the packed slaves had not favored the lock that fastened the running chain to the staple. Gantry struggled with it for a rime before the key turned stiffly. He tugged at the lock until it opened. The running chain dropped free to the squalid deck. “Unhook him from the others,” he ordered Wintrow brusquely. “Then re-secure them and let's get him up on deck. Quickly, now. I don't like the way the Vivacia is taking these waves. ”

  Wintrow divined quickly that Gantry didn't want to touch the filth-encrusted chain that ran through the rings on each slave's ankle fetters. Human excrement and dried blood no longer bothered Wintrow much. He crawled down the row of slaves, lantern in hand, rattling the running chain through each ring until he reached the dying man. He freed him.

  “One moment, before you take him,” the priest slave begged. He leaned over to touch his friend's brow. “Sa bless you, his instrument. Peace take you. ”

  Then quick as a snake Sa'Adar snatched up the lantern and threw it. His force was savage, his aim unerring. Wintrow clearly saw Gantry's eyes dilate in horror just as the heavy metal lantern struck him full in the brow. The glass chimney broke with the impact and Gantry went down with a groan. The lantern landed beside him, rolling as the ship was rolling now. Oil trailed from it in a crooked track. The flame had not gone out.

  “Get the lantern!” the slave barked at Wintrow as he snatched the chain from his lax grip. “Quickly, now, before there's a fire!”

  Preventing the fire was the most urgent thing to do, of that Wintrow had no doubt. But as he scrabbled towards it, he was aware of slaves stirring all around him. He heard the rattle of metal on metal as the running chain was tugged through ring after ring behind him. He snatched up the lantern, righting it and lifting it away from the spilled oil. He exclaimed as he cut his foot on the broken glass of the lantern, but that cry of pain turned to one of horror as he saw one of the freed slaves casually fasten throttling hands around the unconscious Gantry's neck.

  “No!” he cried, but in that instant the slave had slammed the mate's skull down hard on the staple that had secured the running chain. Something in the way Gantry's skull bounced told Wintrow it was too late. The mate was dead and the slaves were freeing themselves from the running chain as fast as the chain could be dragged through the fetters. “Good work, boy,” one slave congratulated him as Wintrow looked down on the mate's body. He watched the same slave claim the key from Gantry's belt. It was all happening so fast, and he was a part of it happening, and yet he could not say how he fitted in. He wanted no part of Gantry's death to be his.

  “He was not a bad man!” he cried out suddenly. “You should not have killed him!”

  “Quiet!” Sa'Adar said sharply. “You'll alert the others before we are ready. ” He glanced back at Gantry. “You cannot say he was a good man, to countenance what went on aboard this ship. And cruel things have to be done, to undo worse cruelty,” he said quietly. It was no saying of Sa's that Wintrow had ever heard. His eyes came back to Wintrow's. “Think on it,” he bade him. “Would you have refastened the chains that held us? You, with a tattoo of your own down your face?”

  He did not wait for a reply. Wintrow was guiltily relieved at that, for he had no answer to the question. If by refastening the chain he could have saved Gantry's life, would he have done it? If by refastening the chain, he condemned all these men to a life of slavery, would he have done it? There were no answers to the questions. He stared down at Gantry's still face. He suspected the mate had not known the answer to such questions either.

  The priest was moving swiftly through the hold, unlocking other running chains. The mutter of the freed slaves seemed part and parcel of the rising sounds of the storm outside the hull. “Check the bastard's pockets for the key to these fetters as
well,” someone suggested in a hoarse whisper, but Wintrow didn't move. He couldn't move. He watched in stunned detachment as two slaves rifled the mate's clothing. Gantry had carried no fetter key, but his belt knife and other small possessions were quickly appropriated. One slave spat on the body in passing. And still Wintrow stood, lantern in hand, and stared.

  The priest was speaking quietly to those around him. “We're a long way from free, but we can make it if we're wise. No noise, now. Keep still. We need to free as many of ourselves as we can before anyone on deck is the wiser. We outnumber them, but our chains and our bodies are going to tell against us. On the other hand, the storm may be in our favor. It may keep them all occupied until it's too late for them. ”

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  The priest glanced at Wintrow. His smile was a hard one. “Come, boy, and bring the lantern. We've Sa's work to do. ” To the others he said quietly, “We have to leave you now, in the dark, while we go to free the others. Be patient. Be brave. Pray. And remember that if you move too soon, you condemn us all, and this brave boy's work will be for naught. ” To Wintrow he said, “Lead on. Hold by hold, we have to free them all, and then take the crew by surprise. It's the only chance we have. ”

  Numbly, Wintrow led the way. Above him, he heard the first pattering of a hard rain falling on Vivacia's decks. Within and without, the long-brewing storm overtook the ship.

  “I don't care about the weather. I want the ship. ”

  “Aye, sir. ” Sorcor took a breath as if to speak further, but then changed his mind.

  “Let's go after her. ” Kennit went on. He stood in the waist and stared out over the water, clutching the rail with both hands like a landsman. Ahead of them, the silvery hull of the liveship glistened as she cut the rising waves, and seemed to beckon him through the night. He spoke without looking away from her. “I've a feeling about this one. I think she's ours for the taking. ”

  The bow of the Marietta bit deeper into an oncoming wave. Spray flew up suddenly, drenching them all. The blast of icy water almost felt good against his over-heated body, but even that splash was nearly enough to push him off balance. He managed to cling where he was and keep his leg under him. The ship fell off as she crested the wave and Kennit was hard put to keep from falling. His crutch hit the deck and washed away from him as the next wave rushed out through the scuppers. He was barely able to keep his foot under him by clinging tightly to the ship's rail. “Damn it, Sorcor, trim her up!” he roared to cover his shame.