by Jim Butcher
Araris had grown confident and strong again, no longer the broken man he'd become after Septimus's death, and seeing him like that was both immensely gratifying to Isana and more than a little distracting. Her fingertips almost itched with the raw desire to trace those muscles. Instead, she turned back to her sewing, mending one of Kitai's pairs of trousers, where both her eyes and her fingers would have less trouble behaving in an appropriate manner.
"Would you like me to close that for you?" she asked Tavi quietly. "I won't need a tub for something that small."
Tavi glanced at her, and a complex little cloud of emotions drifted around him for a second. Then he shook his head and closed down on them, until Isana could no longer sense anything except for a vague dissatisfaction. "No, thank you. It's not leaking anymore." The words came out with a small, harsh edge. He gave her a guilty little glance, and then a half-forced smile appeared on his face. "Though at the rate I'm going, I might need you to patch up my pride."
Ehren appeared from within the cabin in time to say, waving vaguely at the sea, "I don't think there's enough water available."
Tavi arched an eyebrow. "Why don't you come practice with us and say that again, little man?"
Ehren raised a modest hand. "Thank you, no. I get confused about which end of the sword I should hold. I wouldn't dream of slowing down the advanced class." He turned the gesture into a mocking little fencer's salute and strode off toward the back of the ship, presumably to speak with their captain again.
"Some annoying little person is going to get thrown into the drink someday," Tavi called after him. Then he shook his head, grinning, and turned back to Araris. Isana watched, between stitches. She knew barely enough about sword-play to be able to watch it, but it seemed to her that Tavi was moving more slowly, but also more certainly. She caught a flicker of satisfaction from Araris, as the young man defended against half a dozen swift strokes.
Kitai's voice suddenly rang out from the rigging above. "Sails!" she called. "Dead ahead!"
Men paused in their work. A thrill of apprehension flashed through the air, brushing against Isana like a frozen cobweb. Immediately, Demos's voice began calling out brusque orders, and he swarmed up the ropes into the rigging himself, moving as nimbly as a squirrel through the lines. Isana watched as he gained the crow's nest, where Kitai pointed out something to him. Demos held up his hands in a gesture Isana had often seen used by windcrafters to magnify their view of different objects.
He stared for a moment. Then he came swinging back down through the rigging and dropped the last ten feet to the deck. He shouted more orders, and the ship suddenly pitched sharply to its right. Men scrambled to readjust the sails, while Demos strode back and forth, shouting terms and commands so obscure and confusing to Isana that he might as well have been speaking another language.
Isana rose and walked calmly to Demos's side, once the initial stream of orders trickled off. "Captain," she said. "What's happening?"
Isana took note that Tavi and Ehren had stepped over closer to her, as Demos answered.
"That's the Mactis out there," he said, his tone calm. "Red Gallus's ship." He stared out over the waves at a gleam of white sailcloth in the far distance. "I ordered a change of course. Now we'll see what he does."
"Skipper!" called a man from the ship's wheel. "He's changing course to intercept."
"Bloody crows." Demos sighed. "Lady, I recommend that you and yours get into your cabin and stay there."
"Why?" Isana said. "What's happening?"
"The captain of the Mactis thinks he's a pirate," Demos replied. "The fool means to board us."
Isana felt her eyes grow very wide. "Oh."
"Can he catch us, Captain?" Tavi asked.
Demos nodded once. "Likely. He picked his position pretty well. The wind is taking us into him, he's got a good current, and Gallus knows this part of the business. Give us a few more leagues, and he might turn back."
"Why would he do that?" Ehren asked.
"Because I'm sailing for the Run."
Ehren froze in his tracks and blinked at Demos. "What?"
Tavi frowned, and asked in a completely different tone, "What?"
"The Leviathans' Run," Ehren told Tavi. He licked his lips nervously. "It's a stretch of ocean where, uh…"
"Leviathans," Tavi said. "I get it."
"Not exactly," Demos said. He sounded almost bored. "It's where young males who haven't staked out their own territory tend to congregate."
"Oh," Tavi said. "What do they do there?"
"What every group of young males does," Demos replied. "Fight each other for no good reason. Charge around blindly at full speed just for the crows of it."
"And smash ships to tiny pieces," Ehren added in a very small voice.
Demos grunted agreement and turned to the rail again. "My witchmen are better than his. Let's see if he wants to roll the dice today."
"Captain," Tavi said. "No offense, but have you given thought to… well. Taking him on?"
"No," Demos said. "The Slive is half the size of the Mactis. And Gallus carries extra swordsmen to boot. Three to one odds aren't the kind I like."
"We've got some fairly capable hands ourselves," Tavi said.
Demos looked at him and barked out a short, harsh laugh. "Kid, you're pretty good. But there's a long way between training sessions with a family swordmaster and spilling blood on a rolling deck."
"He's right," Araris said quietly, stepping up to stand behind Tavi. "This fight is better avoided."
Demos looked past Tavi to the older man. "You've fought at sea before?"
"Yes." Araris didn't elaborate.
Demos nodded once. "Listen to your teacher, kid. And get comfortable. It's going to be a couple of hours before we get this sorted out, either way. Excuse me. I need to make sure my witchmen aren't drunk again."
Demos strode off to the stairway down to the hold and descended smoothly.
"That was a joke, right?" Ehren said. "About the watercrafters?"
Isana frowned. She could feel a rising anxiety pouring from the young Cursor. His arms were folded, and one of Ehren's feet drummed nervously on the wooden deck.
Tavi noted Ehren's worry as well. "What's got you so twitchy?" he asked.
"If you'd ever actually seen…" Ehren licked his lips. "I'm going to go rifle the bosun's trunk. Bound to be something to drink in there. You want any?"
Tavi frowned. "No. I'm fine."
Ehren jerked his head in a quick nod and glanced at Araris and Isana. "Sir? Lady?"
They declined, and Ehren scurried away, his face quite pale.
Tavi watched him go, frowning, and then went to the ship's railing. He stood staring out at the ocean for a time and occasionally stepped away to pace up and down the rail. After perhaps half an hour, he stalked over to Isana's side and frowned down at her.
"How can you just sit there, sewing?" he asked.
Isana didn't look up from her work. "Is there something else I should be doing?"
Tavi folded his arms, frowning. "The captain said you should get into the cabin."
"He said we all should," Isana responded. "But I don't see you going there."
Tavi frowned at her. "Well. I should be on deck."
"So that someone can trip over you?" Isana asked. She tried not to smile, she honestly did, but felt it on her mouth despite her efforts. "Or perhaps you think your sword is going to be of use in trimming sails. Or warding leviathans away."
He let out an exasperated breath. "At least as useful as your sewing."
Isana set the sewing down and regarded her son steadily. "It's going to be hours before anything happens, and it's a lovely day. From the level of anxiety I'm sensing from the crew and Ehren, they expect that we might well be crushed by a leviathan and dragged into the depths of the sea. Failing that, we can look forward to a desperate struggle against a band of pirates who outnumber us three to one." She turned back to her task. "In either circumstance, the light would be less
than ideal for sewing. So I think I'll sit here on the deck and enjoy the sunshine while I may, if that's quite all right with you."
Tavi stared at her, and she could feel his complete shock quite clearly.
She spared him a small smile. "I know you're worried about me. And I know how much you've always hated it that so many things were entirely out of your control. This is another such thing. Denying that won't make it less true."
He looked down at her for a moment, frowning, his mood turning from restive impatience to pensive introspection. Isana had always found her son's ability to focus upon whatever he set his mind on to be somewhat intimidating. He could pour tremendous energy of thought and will into any given task. It must be uncomfortable for him, to say the least, to turn that same focus inward.
He sighed and settled down on the deck beside her stool, resting his shoulders against the bulkhead behind them. He lowered his voice. "If I had…"
"The furycraft, yes," she said quietly. "It hasn't solved the First Lord's problems. Even if you had it, you'd merely be faced with a host of different uncontrollable situations."
Tavi was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "But I could protect you."
"Perhaps," she said quietly. "Perhaps not. Life is not notable for its overabundance of certainty."
Tavi grimaced and nodded. "I just thought I'd feel better if you were inside."
She tied off the thread, willed Rill into a fingernail to sharpen it, and cut it neatly. She slipped the needle through thread still wound on the spool and shook her hand gently as the nail returned to normal, stretching her aching fingers. "If you truly think that's best, perhaps you should try leading us there."
He blinked and tilted his head, looking at her.
She laughed. She couldn't help it. She leaned down and kissed his hair. For all that he was grown so tall, and for all that he had learned and become, she could still see the infant, the toddler, the mischievous child, all rolled into the man he was becoming.
"Consider," she said. "Were Gaius in your position-"
"As if he'd ever be without furycraft," Tavi snorted.
"But if he were," Isana pressed, meeting his eyes. "Consider it. How would his retinue react to him, hmmm? If he stood brooding at the rail and paced about like a hungry thanadent, snarling and giving orders that made little sense."
Tavi scowled at her. He began to speak, stopped, then shrugged. "If I was there with him? I'd be worried."
"Quite," Isana said. "Such a display might soothe his own anxiety-but he would be doing so at a cost to others. Is that the kind of person you want to be?"
Tavi tilted his head again, frowning. He said nothing.
"Now consider: If staying locked in the passenger cabin truly was the wisest course of action, would you rush into it if it seemed that Gaius was determined to stay on deck, despite the futility of the gesture?"
"Probably not."
Isana nodded. "That's because Gaius, for all that he is a manipulative old serpent, is also a leader. He acts. Others follow." She glanced around, and said, "They follow you, too."
Tavi's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Those with us," she said. "Even many of the sailors. They recognize intelligence, competence, confidence. They regard you-and your evaluation of our situation-with more respect than they would another."
Tavi chewed on his lower lip, and murmured, I'm frightening them."
Isana saw no need to confirm what Tavi had finally realized. "If Gaius thought his people were all safest in the cabin, what do you think he would do?"
Tavi nodded slowly. "He'd go there. Give them a chance to protest. Save their pride. Help their morale. If he thought that was best."
Isana reached into the garment bag on the deck beside her and drew out one of Ehren's sets of trousers-all of which bore tears and ham-handed repairs that were arguably worse than the rips they'd replaced. "Well, then. It might be wise for you to practice. What do you think is the best thing to do?"
Her son shook his head. "That question has been on my mind a lot, lately."
Here it came. She steeled herself against another reflex-flutter of panic. That wasn't what Tavi needed right now. "Oh?"
"It's a lot," he said.
"Yes."
"It's big."
Isana nodded. "Oh, yes."
He whispered. "I'm scared."
Isana closed her eyes. The man's voice spoke with the child's aching fear, and it hurt to hear it, to feel it.
"The thing is," he said quietly, "that I'm not making this choice just for me. If I'm not killed today, or when we get to the capital, or in the fighting after that, or in the trial after the fighting, then… what I do will affect a lot of people."
"That isn't precisely uncommon, over the past few years," she pointed out.
"But this is different. This is more."
"Is it?"
Tavi looked up at her, searching her eyes with his. They looked brilliantly green against the dark brown wood stain of the ship's timbers. "What if I can't handle it?" he said quietly. "What if I'm not capable of it?"
"Tavi, you've never needed-"
"This isn't about furycraft," he said quietly, firmly. "It's about me." He leaned closer, whispering. "Do you think I could do this? Take… take his place?"
Isana's heart pounded. She set the trousers aside. The fear screamed at her to tell her son no. That he could not possibly enter the insanity that passed for government in Alera and survive. That he would bungle whatever he set his hand to, cause pain and grief to untold thousands.
Instead, she took his hand and held it in both of hers.
"I've had nightmares about this since you were an infant," Isana said quietly. "Every time you did something that… attracted the attention of the Crown, every time you threw yourself into harm's way for another, it felt like someone stabbing me with a knife. I was sure that if you kept it up, your father's enemies would see you. Recognize you. Kill you. That's all I could see."
She looked up at his eyes. "But I didn't see what was right in front of me." She clenched his hand hard, and her voice turned fierce. "You have proven, again and again, that you are his son. His son. Never let anyone tell you differently."
He stared at her with wide eyes. Then he nodded once, and his jawline suddenly firmed. "Thank you."
"Great furies, don't thank me for this," she said quietly. "I hate it. I hate everything about it."
"Will you stand with me?" he asked.
She leaned down and clasped him, hugging him as tightly as she could, and whispered, "Hail, Gaius Octavian."
Chapter 25
Tavi stood in the very bow of the ship, where he would be out of the way of any of the sailors laboring to coax every bit of speed from the Slive. The ship leapt forward through the waves, and salt spray occasionally misted over him. He felt Kitai's presence a breath before he heard her bare feet tread quietly on the deck behind him. She stepped up beside him, casually pressing her side against his, and followed his gaze off to the ship's port side.
There, visible even from the level of the deck now, was the recognizable shape of another ship, its sails gleaming white in the afternoon sun, its course steadily converging on theirs.
"They're going to catch up," Kitai said quietly.
"So it would seem," Tavi said. "The crew's getting anxious. They'll start sharpening their knives before much longer."
Kitai nodded. "I feel it, too." She was silent for a time more, and said, "Do these pirates always attack so far out at sea? It seems to me to be a troublesome way to seek a quarrel. We could have fought on the docks and settled it there. Then we could have enjoyed the voyage in peace."
"That would have been far more reasonable," Tavi agreed. "But I'm afraid they aren't reasonable people."
"No. They're Alerans." She shook her head, and Tavi suddenly noticed the absence of the usual good-humored twinkle in her eye when she made such observations. "Chala, there is something you should see."
Tavi nodded,
and followed her the length of the deck, to a narrow staircase that led down into the dimly lit hold of the ship. Within, the ship looked like any rough wooden building, except for the odd contours of the outer wall and the low ceiling. They went through what looked like a larder, full of boxes and barrels of foodstuffs, and a small workshop where various woodworking tools were stored, along with spare lumber, evidently for repairs. Beyond that, the workshop doors opened into the cargo hold.
It was damp and musty, lit with only a single pair of tiny furylamps. The wooden beams of the ship creaked and groaned around them. Kitai slipped forward, through the mostly empty hold, until they reached the foremost part, just under where Tavi had been standing a few moments before.
There, the flat planks forming the floor of the hold had been left out, exposing the curve of the ship's hull-a space the size of a couple of large bathtubs that was full of what was apparently seawater. A pair of men knelt in the water. Both of them were bare-chested, and both had long hair worn in an odd style of dozens and dozens of tiny braids. Their skin was marked with dark ink formed into abstract swirls and curling patterns. Both men had their eyes closed, their hands spread with fingers wide in the seawater, and they both kept up a constant murmuring under their breath. Their skin had a shriveled look, and they shuddered with the cold.
"The witchmen," Tavi murmured.
"No," Kitai said. "Not them."
Tavi arched an eyebrow at her.
"I asked Demos to show me these witchmen," she said. She walked over to the thick shadows at one side of the hold. "That was when I noticed these."
Tavi followed her, squinting. It was difficult to make out anything in the thick shadows, but his night vision had improved markedly since the bond had formed between him and Kitai. She waited in patient silence for a moment, until his eyes adjusted, and he saw what she had brought him to see.