The first and only time she’d seen them retracted had been during a heavy storm, when the water swelled nearly a dozen feet above high tide, the wind whipping violently around. Had the docks remained in the sea, the wind likely would have torn them away. The ships could move into the better-protected bay and the docks could be wheeled to safety. It was a good system, she’d come to realize.
“Do you see any that might be able to take us?” she asked Ley. They passed a line of women and children, each wearing ragged and dirty clothes. No one bothered to meet her eyes.
He jogged along side her, his breaths coming out in steady huffs as they made their way along the shoreline. Only a half-dozen ships were moored today; the rest were out at sea. Most of what remained were fishermen and a trader ship or two. Nothing small enough that could carry them across the sea with any speed.
“I don’t know,” Ley began hesitantly. “I’m not sure that we’ll find anyone here that we can—”
“What about that one?” Elle asked.
She pointed to a sharp-hulled vessel near the end of the line of ships, large sails rolled in. The ship reminded her of the one that she’d seen when looking through Ley’s shaped lens, and she wondered if it might be the same. A large, muscular man worked the thick ropes tossed over the edge as he tied it to the dock. He had tattoos on his arms and the loose clothing of someone from the Xsa Isles.
Ley shook his head. “Xsa traders. They won’t help us.”
“Are you so sure?” she asked. “What if they’re dealing with the same threat? Why wouldn’t they be interested in helping?”
Ley’s nose wrinkled at the idea. “Do you know what they’re like? I know you’ve been away from Doma for a while, but surely you remember the stories of what Xsa traders do. I’m not sure I could even step foot on one of their ships.”
“Even if it meant reaching Ophan to make sure they were safe?”
Ley’s face flipped through a series of emotions before finally landing on resignation. “Fine. But I doubt that they’ll help at all. They don’t mind the Doma trade, but they don’t particularly have any interest in helping.”
“You don’t know until you ask,” Elle said.
She started down the dock until Ley grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “Elle, you don’t know what they’ll require in exchange. Do you think that you’re some kind of Aeta, able to make a trade that will be in your favor?”
Elle smiled at the comment. Most in Doma feared the Aeta traders. They would trade with them, but there was always the concern that they were allowing the Aeta to take advantage of them. Too many trades favored the Aeta, but that was how it had always been. Most of the time, the Aeta had the upper hand simply because of what they had available to trade. The trader with the best goods was in the best position to bargain.
Then she thought about Tan’s friend. She had been one of the Aeta and hadn’t seemed all that frightening; then again, Elle had never seen her attempt to bargain so didn’t know whether she would attempt to deceive. She doubted that was how the Aeta traded, but had never really attempted any trades on her own. That had always been the role of the elders.
“We just have to trust that the Sea Father wants to ensure we reach Ophan,” Elle said.
She pulled free from Ley’s grasp and continued down the dock. She slowed as she approached, studying the Xsa boatman with increased intensity. Up close, the tattoos writhing around his arms looked like some sort of snake. He had a large hoop in one ear, and a spike pierced his lip.
When she stopped in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, he ignored her as he wound the thick rope into wide loops around the anchoring post. Elle refused to go away, and stood until the Xsa man looked up at her. His nostrils flared as he eyed her, then turned his gaze to Ley.
“You would trade your woman?” he asked. “Didn’t think Domans made such bargains.” He had a brusque voice and a thick accent that made his words difficult to understand.
Elle glanced at Ley, wondering what his reaction would be, and found his mouth agape and his eyes turned to the ground. He wouldn’t be much help here. “You think a Doman woman would allow something like that?” she snapped.
The man stood and touched his hand to his cheek as he laughed. “You have spice, Doman. You could fetch a fair price in Xsa with such spice.”
Elle didn’t know whether to feel complimented or offended. “I have no interest in visiting Xsa,” she said. Part of her was curious what she might find if she were to, though. Even within Doma, few sailed there, preferring to stick to the safer trade by reaching Chenir, or even making it all the way around to Vatten within the kingdoms.
“Then why do you bother me, if not for trade?”
“We need to reach Ophan.”
The trader frowned and rubbed his cheek again. Elle realized that he had another tattoo there, though this one was faint and barely darker than his deeply tanned skin. “What is Ophan? You mainlanders have such strange names for places.”
Elle tipped her head toward the distant peninsula. From the docks, she couldn’t see much of anything beyond the sea. Without Ley’s shaping—or her own, were she able to recreate his—she couldn’t even see the smoke rising above the village. What if they were going through all this trouble for nothing? What if Ophan was fine?
“There’s nothing there but a small fishing village,” the Xsa trader said. He turned his attention back to the ropes. “If it burns, then the Sea Father demands a sacrifice.”
Another man, not quite so large but with gray streaks at his temples and a pointed beard woven with metal spikes, appeared atop the ship. He glanced at Elle and then to Ley before turning to the trader. “Calah, we should not remain in port for long. You saw the—”
The man cut off at a sharp look from Calah. “When Jsig returns from moving the silks, we will depart. Finish the preparations,” he snapped.
The other man grunted and disappeared back onto the ship.
“Why won’t you remain in port long?” Elle asked.
Calah shook his head. “Domans have no interest in trade.”
Elle knew that wasn’t true. Doma—and Falsheim in particular—were interested in anything found outside of Doma. Not only silks, but the fine ceramics of Xsa, the steel found within the kingdoms, or even some of the exotic clay sculptures out of Incendin were highly valued.
“You just docked and you’re already pushing out again? Don’t you even stay long enough to replenish your stocks?” Elle asked.
The man glanced up at her and then tugged on the rope, giving a satisfied grunt when it didn’t move. “Doman woman has spice, but asks questions she should not.” He looked past Elle and to Ley. “Careful with this one. She’ll lead you into trouble.”
Ley looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or to hide his face, so he clenched his jaw instead. Elle sniffed at him and turned back to the trader.
“When are you leaving?”
Calah started to climb the ladder back into the ship.
“I asked when you were leaving?” she said again. “If you’re going past Ophan, you could take us that far. It’s no more than half a day. We won’t be any bother.”
Calah grunted. “Less than that in this ship, and you’re already a bother.” He reached the top of the ship and paused. “This is Xsa ship. No Domans can board.”
The trader disappeared from view, leaving Elle standing with Ley, feeling as if she had just let him down.
Ley started back down the dock when Elle grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. “We’re going to reach Ophan,” she said.
“You heard him. No Domans can board.”
She placed her fists on her hips and fixed him with an annoyed stare. “Do you really intend to let some Xsa trader keep you from reaching your home? You really mean to give up so easily?”
“Not easily, but he has no intention of helping us, Elle. It’s not like we can sneak onto the ship and ride until they get close enough…” He started shaking his head. �
��No. You can’t be serious. You think you can simply sneak onto a Xsa ship? You know what they’ll do to you if they catch you?”
“No worse than I intend to do when we get close enough to Ophan.”
“It’ll be much worse, Elle. Why do you think he talks so openly about selling you?” When she didn’t answer, Ley shook his head. “The Xsa are slavers, too. If they catch you, the chances are good that they’ll take you all the way to Xsa and force you into… whatever it is they do there.”
“Do you really think I’m going to let them catch me?”
“You said yourself that shaping doesn’t come as easily to you as you’d like it to. Let’s go back to the Lord Commander—”
“Brist has no intention of helping, not while Voldan tells him that the borders are safe. And for all we know, they might be. But what if they’re not? What if there is something to what we saw?” The longer she waited, the more she simply wanted to know, even if Ophan was fine. “We might be the only ones who saw that there was. We might be the only ones able to do anything about it.”
Ley laughed softly. “You really are foolish at times, you know that?”
Elle glared at him.
“You think to sneak aboard a Xsa ship, and then you think to jump from the same ship and swim ashore, just to investigate whether the smoke we saw meant anything. Why are you doing this? You didn’t care for your time in Ophan. You were happy to leave.”
“Feeling happy to leave is not the same as wanting something to happen. And besides, I’m not doing it for me.”
Elle made her way down the dock, stopping at the bow of the ship. A figurehead in the shape of a mermaid, the paint long since faded by the salt of the sea and the wind, was carved into the ship. She noted a small area behind the figurehead, probably not wide enough for her to even crawl into.
“Make some noise,” she told Ley.
“Why?”
“I need a distraction,” she said.
“Elle—”
She dipped a toe into the water. It was cool and pulled at her foot with a swirling sort of current. “Either make some noise or I’m going to jump in,” she said.
Ley watched her for a moment as if trying to decide whether she was telling the truth and then finally deciding that she must be. He started singing loudly, bellowing out an old sailor’s tune, in a richly melodic voice that Elle would never have guessed would come from him.
When a few of the Xsa sailors came to the edge of the deck, Elle climbed into the water. It clutched at her chest with an immediate cold bite and she almost breathed out the breath she’d taken. She focused on her connection to the water. Here, swimming within the water, she sensed the draw of the udilm, but they were a distant sense, something heavy and massive, that pulled on her in a way that she didn’t think that she’d ever fully understand. Mixed with the udilm, there was another sense, the one that she was best connected to, which lingered near the surface of her mind. Within the water, Elle was better able to reach that connection, though she was always able to hear Nimala. Once in the water, she could reach for the power of the elementals and borrow from the strength they could lend.
Elle pushed forward, barely under the surface, reaching toward the hull of the ship. When she grabbed the sharp bow, she pulled herself around to the port side and, with a vigorous kick, she flung herself up and out of the water, surging for the figurehead. When she reached it, she felt for the space behind the mermaid. This close, it was wider than it had seemed from the shore, and she managed to squeeze into it.
She settled back, letting out her breath. Ley might be angry that she’d left him, but she didn’t know of any other way she could have managed to get aboard. Water dripped off her, running down and around the mermaid, and then trailed down the sides of the hull before rejoining the sea.
What was she thinking? She had no way of knowing how long it would be before the Xsa ship even left, and once it did, whether it would return directly to the Xsa Isles. If it didn’t, Elle would be heading the wrong way. And then there was the most foolhardy part of her plan. She might be a reasonable swimmer, but what she intended required the elemental help, or at least her ability to shape her way back into shore.
Then what? If there was an attack, what did she think that she could do? She’d been lucky the last time. The connection to masyn had aided her, but it had as much to do with the fact that the elementals didn’t want Falsheim attacked as it did with Elle’s shaping. Could she use the elementals again?
She had to think that she could.
A splash in the water to the starboard side caught her attention. Elle held her breath, waiting, but there was no other sound. Maybe it was simply one of the small sunfish that swam around the docks. They could leap and jump out of the water.
She heard another splash. This time, Elle knew that it was something other than a fish. Shaping followed it, though without much strength, and then a hand reached through the mermaid.
Elle resisted the urge to scream and sucked in a breath. It still sounded loud in her ears.
“Quiet,” Ley hissed.
“Leyand, what do you think that you’re doing?” she demanded in a whisper.
Ley crawled around the edge of the mermaid, clinging to the tail and squeezing behind the figurehead with more difficulty than she had managed. “I thought that we were going to do this together, and then you go and try something like this?” He rested against her shoulder and took a few shallow breaths. “Besides, if you wash ashore in Ophan a second time, there are going to be some serious stories about what you did to anger the Sea Father that he made you a sea bride again. Aunt Vina might really have something to say then.”
If she had had more room, she would have turned to glare at him. Instead, she had to content herself with elbowing him in the ribs. He grunted softly. “You know that I could push you out of here,” she said to him.
Ley coughed. “I doubt it. It’s pretty tight. I think you might have to shape this mermaid off for me to even have a chance of getting free.”
Elle laughed. As she did, the ship groaned and then began to push out from the dock, moving with a steady sweep of oars. The Xsa sailors were as renowned as those of Doma, and the ship moved quickly out and away from Falsheim. Elle began to have second thoughts, realizing that she hadn’t really thought this plan out well enough.
If they didn’t make it safely to Ophan, and if her connection to the elementals failed for some reason, she could be stranded out at sea, and then they’d have to call up to the Xsa traders for help. Would they help or would they leave them? And if they did, would they force her into slavery like Ley feared? Elle thought that her ability to shape and to speak to the elementals protected her, but what if the Xsa had some way of forcing even shapers to do what they wanted?
“Thanks for doing this, Elle,” Ley said softly.
She sighed. The ship smelled of the sea and of the thick tar used to seal the hull. Spray began to wash off the figurehead, leaving swirls of color in the air. Elle sensed Nimala more prominently and prayed that she could reach the elemental if needed.
“Doma needs to know if there’s been another attack,” she said.
“You’re only doing this for Doma?”
She felt the warmth of Ley’s arm next to her and heard the shallow, steady breaths he took. “Not only for Doma,” she said. “If it were only for Doma, we’d have the fleet with us.”
15
Elle clung to the mermaid figurehead as the water splashed around them, sending salty spray up and into her face. Trapped as she was, she couldn’t even reach a hand up to wipe it away, so that after nearly an hour, time that she felt each strong pull from the oars as they dragged the ship away from Falsheim, water ran down her face like tears. Around her, the ship creaked, the heavy hull swaying beneath the waves, and she began to wonder whether she could reach for masyn if she were to need help.
“How much longer?” Ley asked.
Elle couldn’t tell. The ship moved quickly, more
so now that the massive sails had been deployed and the strong winds blowing out of the east caught them, sending the Xsa ship sluicing through the waves with a new vigor, but she couldn’t really make out where they were.
“I figured it would be half a day,” she said, “maybe more, but now I’m not sure. We’re moving faster than I expected.”
Ley laughed. “Do you really think that we can spend half a day like this?”
“Is there another choice?”
Ley continued laughing. “Maybe it would have been better to try to sneak aboard the ship. That Calah couldn’t have been all that bad, could he?”
Elle tried to look over at him, but the mermaid constricted her. “You said they were slavers!”
“And we’re shapers. That has to count for something.”
Elle fell silent. The ship rode up and down massive swells. Time passed, and she became aware of the sun falling in the sky, though it never really poked free of the clouds. She focused on her connection to the water, straining to listen to the way the waves swelled beneath them. The connection was tenuous and slow, and Elle didn’t recognize anything at first. She shifted her attention to the spray coming off the ship, and the elemental that she’d bonded, and took steady breaths. There, as she focused, she could sense the way that water extended from her.
How far are we to Ophan? Elle asked, sending an image of the village through the connection to the elemental.
There is much water between you and the shore.
Elle felt a moment of relief that the elemental had answered. Her connection to Nimala was difficult. It was there, but at times, Nimala was silent. Elle wondered if she needed to do something different to solidify the connection, or whether that was the way that it would be all the time. Maybe bonding to masyn would never make her a strong shaper, but then, she hadn’t really been able to shape at all before she had bonded.
But how far?
Nimala seemed amused at the question. You would like to know how many waves before you reach the shore?
That might help.
Shaper of Water: The Cloud Warrior Saga Page 10