Long Days in Paradise - The First Book of the Shards of Heaven

by Amos T. Fairchild

Chapter 8 – Katerina III

  The love of sea, of wind, of sky,

  The love of warm, secure lair.

  Such is love, the love of life,

  The love that others cannot share.

  I

  It was brighter when Jorden woke.

  He had decided on the rat fur bed, and it was luxury after the cage. He even had the room to himself for most of the night. He had heard Taf prowling briefly about the room, then nothing, the call of sleep overpowering after days in the discomfort of the cage. Even the nap of the previous afternoon had been of little help. That was possibly because it wasn't a real nap at all.

  Now he felt somewhat more human: the bed soft beneath, his belly the fullest it had been since the house of the Kaedith. He also found that he was not alone, Taf lying snug against his back, now more scantily dressed than her usual. He cleared his throat and shifted slightly, the aestri moaning to wakefulness and smiling. Jorden rose and glanced about the cluttered room, scanning the shelves and boxes that were filled with Taf's trinkets, all the while wondering which of the multitude would place her in the wrath of the captain.

  “You were warm,” Taf said easily as she sprang to her feet, instantly alert. She was dressed only in loosely fitting wrap around her thighs, her top bare. Jorden looked away, now wishing it was a little darker in the room.

  “I was surprised to find you there,” he said as casually as he could manage. “You seemed to be out most of the night.” He glanced toward her briefly. She definitely looked like a girl.

  Taf nodded. “It was a night of such beauty I could not resist. It's seldom we have such nights this close to the Time of Darkness. The Katerina has left Thagul later than usual, and soon the days will darken. We will have to face high seas before this crossing is over.” She stepped lightly to the makeshift table and filled a small bowl from a large copper jug that resembled a ship's lamp. She drank, then passed the bowl to Jorden.

  He dared a sip. It was water, and not the best he'd tasted. He noticed with some relief that Taf had decided to casually dress herself. She snatched another simple skirt from where it hung, another strip of cloth to serve as a top, then a narrow band around her head. “I wished that I had something clean for you to wear,” she said quietly, “but I haven't even much for myself .”

  “I guess aestri don't need the luxury of clothing,” Jorden said. “Aestri don't seem to deserve much at all.”

  “I don't need much, Jorden. It's too warm in the days of light. I would wear less except that the shipping masters say we would distract the crew – whether we are really women or not.”

  Jorden shook his head. “I don't get this place at all. You...” He paused uncomfortably. “You and the kaedith look like girls to me, and yet you're not supposed to be. Then there are other women that are really women...” He sighed heavily. “You look female to me.” Without a great deal of modesty at that.

  “I am female, silly, but I'm aestri first.” Taf shrugged. “That seems simple enough. You've seen female pigs and horses and cows haven't you.”

  “That's a little different. You don't really look like a cow.”

  Taf shrugged again.

  Jorden gazed to the ceiling, recalling all that he had learned, which was very little. “This world was built by an idiot. You have male races, female races... Must be great for population control. I don't suppose there's such a thing as a male aestri.”

  “Of course there is,” Taf shot back, “or so I'm told. But they only live in the lands beyond the city barriers, and then only come out from their places of hiding during the Time of Darkness... and they have only their first form. There is an aestri in Saljid who claims to have seen one in her youth, but she is very old and her mind wanders. Perhaps it is only a myth.”

  “Damn,” Jorden moaned. “I think I should go see if the captain has any work or something before this conversation kills me.”

  “You asked!” Taf rebuked. “Do you expect aestri to live beyond the city shields just to learn if there are truly males – to forsake the gift of Hura!”

  “In our world we find that males are handy for reproduction. You seem to have conquered that.”

  “That's a problem of common man, not aestri.”

  “Are you coming on deck or not,” Jorden asked again. “There must be more to life than sitting here in the hold arguing.”

  Taf shook her head. “I don't have the chance to argue very often, especially not with a man, even a young one like you.” She moved toward the gap in the ceiling. “I'll show you the easy way up though, if that is what you want to do, but it would be best for you to be seen on deck alone. The crew might tease you if they see me come with you, but they won't think it strange if we meet later, perhaps.”

  II

  Jorden attempted to memorize the twisting journey through the superstructure, while Taf warned him to keep the way secret. It was a crawl of several dozen paces along the hull, then a climb to a higher deck, then another narrow opening. He was going to find it very easy to keep secret.

  It soon became quite bright, the two standing in the shadows of a narrow platform. “If you climb to that walk,” Taf whispered, “then go aft to the stair at its end, you'll be on deck. Captain's quarters are three levels up at the stern, near the wheelhouse. You'll have to find Crew to take you there.” She held briefly to his hand, and smiled. “I will find you later in the day, and remember that you have my bed to sleep in.”

  “I can hardly forget that.” The first decent night's sleep in days.

  Taf turned then and slipped quietly into the shadows, Jorden moving on as he had been instructed.

  The open deck was somewhat bright after the hold of the Katerina, and it was some time before Jorden realized that the day was actually quite overcast, the flare-sun barely visible amongst the cloud. The salty wind stung his squinting eyes as he attempted to look out over the rolling horizon. But the sea was calm and the sails billowed lazily in the moderate breeze, and the crew moved slowly, apparently with little to keep them very busy. Many looked toward the slice of land that lay in haze to starboard, one of the last glimpses they would get before Saljid, unless they sailed near the Castle Isles. Tomorrow they might see the cliffs of Cape Twellin.

  It was at this point in time that Jorden realized how bad the ship really looked. His first few glimpses from the cage were hardly preparation. It was a real pile of junk, a mass of timber strung together, then, as an afterthought, used as a vessel of the sea. The all but open decks above him seem to simply sit there awaiting something better, ready to jump overboard if the chance arose. And the outrigger he could see had to be a late addition. It looked like another smaller ship that had dared sail to close and was snared within the web of the Katerina, destined to sail with her until her final voyage.

  That was probably the one he was on now.

  Jorden crossed the decking to the outer rail and looked over the irregular conglomeration of rope and timber that held the outrigger in place, his home suddenly more distant than it had ever been. “This is just great,” he murmured, and hung his head.

  It was some time before Jorden was approached by one of the crew, a tall man that was well endowed with a grey stubble to match his fading hair. At least this one seemed brighter than the only other member of the crew that Jorden had met so far, and he stood his ground and tried not to look nervous. He was essentially an escaped prisoner after all. “Been wondering when you might turn up,” the seaman said. “We had a quick look round for you at first light, then gave it in. Figured you'd either show when you were ready or that you'd swam for shore.” He chuckled.

  “I don't swim that well,” Jorden tried a smile as he glanced to the distant shoreline, a few hilltops that had to be several kilometres to the... He paused and attempted to find his bearings. The flare-sun was now climbing in the white skies to starboard of the Katerina and would set to port – that made it east, he assumed.

  “You'd soon be dragon-fodder, or wo
rse,” the seaman laughed. “Anyways captain wants to see you now. She might well let you stay out if you're lucky, and work for your keep.” That would mean fresh green stew rather than day-old green stew, Jorden assumed.

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  III

  She didn't have a parrot or a hook on her left arm.

  That was Jorden's first reaction to the captain, Sarisan Orani, otherwise she was just as about what he would have expected. If it was a pirate ship, perhaps.

  She didn't really have a patch over one eye either, but the dark cloth she wore around her head came very close, and the scar on her cheek helped to fulfil the illusion.

  There were four in the cluttered quarters of the sarisan captain, the two members of crew undoubtedly there to ensure Jorden did nothing he might regret. Such things were further from his mind than anything right then, he was already in enough trouble. In any case, Jorden was more interested in the artefacts and curious people that surrounded him.

  Orani stood as they had entered, her face stern. Not unattractive, yet aged and scarred and somewhat weather-worn. The fingers of her right hand fondled a leather whip that was fixed to her metal studded and leather clad hip, her left was placed near to her broad-bladed knife. The sarisan also sported breasts, Jorden noticed, although they were well clad beneath her leather tunic. He wondered if it were a ill omen, the kaedith also had something of a breast whereas the aestri were given next to nothing... Of course it probably meant nothing at all.

  “You are young and you don't look particularly dangerous,” she began, her voice not particularly harsh, “but you are the prisoner of the kaedith, bound for the Council of Saljid. I am not sure I can allow you to wander about the ship as you please.”

  Jorden shrugged. “I can understand that. I'm sure that if you find a lock that the aestri can't pick...” He knew that he was being overly brave, yet in a world of dream it was sometimes difficulty to take things completely serious. And so far the crew and even the captain had seemed nice enough.

  Indeed the captain smiled. “I doubt we have any of those. The aestri are difficult to restrain.” She motioned toward an old, but ornate stool, the legs carved to figures of what looked like angels, the cloth cushion a work of art. “Please sit a moment, and perhaps we may resolve this. We have a journey of several weeks ahead, and I doubt that you would be in any condition to stand before the Council if left to rot in the hold until Saljid.”

  Jorden glanced to the stool and sat, Orani taking her place at her broad desk. “I'm not sure what I can say,” Jorden returned as politely as he could manage, “this is all very new to me. I don't know very much about anything in this world, and I just hope this council of yours understands that. I just want to get home again.” The captain gave a blank stare. “To my world,” he added.

  Orani continued staring. “Then your not of this world?” she moaned, Jorden shaking his head. “And your crime?”

  He glanced to the two crew, noting the upward stare of one. He really didn't want to go there again. “I... I kissed the Kaedith Tsarin. That seems to be something of a major crime here.”

  The captain removed the cloth wrap from around her skull and smoothed her dark locks in thought. “I'm not sure I believe this,” she muttered, then directed herself to the taller of the crew. “Did you know of this, Drey?”

  The seaman, Drey, shook his head. “There was just a cage and coin for fare – and a shipping note that said he were bound for the Council. Though the Port-Master did say he were just Kaedith-bonded and not a murderer or the like.” He shrugged. “He's just a lad, so we thought him unlikely to be dangerous anyways.”

  “Just a bit stupid,” smiled the other of the crew.

  “I'm sure,” Orani droned. “Look...” The captain realized she had no more idea of his name than his origin. “You have a name?”

  A nod. “Jorden Miles.”

  “As far as I am concerned, Jordenmiles, you may have the freedom of my ship while you are within my custody, as long as you don't interfere with the running of it, and there are bunks in the crew's quarters below if you wish for one” She paused and sighed. “But remember that you are Kaedith-bound, and must remain so. You will be turned over to the port authorities upon arrival in Saljid. I am bound to that by law, no matter how insignificant your crime may seem. Indeed even as an outsider you must realize by now that your action could well have led to great hardship.”

  Jorden had heard it all before, and the mention of it angered. He paused momentarily to keep calm, the captain hardly to blame. “Yes, so I've heard, and I'm willing to see this council if I must. It's probably the only chance I have of seeing home again. And I'm willing to work for my keep here, I'll scrub the decks or whatever you want me to do.”

  Orani frowned. “I've been given fair payment for your passage. The books balance and that is all that matters to the shipping masters. There's little work on the Katerina for the unskilled, and I have a good crew. Unless there is something particular you are skilled to perform...” Jorden shook his head. “Then it is settled. Of course if you wish to join in for the raising of sail perhaps...”

  Jorden nodded absently. “I do tinker a little with engines and gearboxes... mechanical sorts of things, though I don't suppose there's much call for that here...”

  Orani stared back again, then glanced toward a somewhat startled Drey...

  IV

  Taf gazed down amongst the tangle of shaft and gear, and to Jorden as he crouched somewhere within. “You didn't say you knew about machines,” she chattered. “Hardly anyone I know understands machines. The crew patch the anchor windlass as best they can, but they always break again. This one has been broken since we left Saljid in the first day of the time of light. As soon as we passed the Point of...”

  “Shut up, aestri,” the first mate, Drey, said as he lowered himself into the winch-pit and stood on the massive notched pulley around which was looped the anchor chain before it went on further into a pit even further below. “Is this what you mean, lad?”

  Jorden was standing deeper in the pit, perched precariously between sprockets and drive chains and greasy gears that could crush him in an instant if they were so inclined. He at least thought he had figured out how the anchor winch was supposed to work. That was a start. He glanced above to the pseudo-spanner that Drey held, hoping it would do the job. “Maybe,” he said reservedly. “What I really need to do is find out what tools you actually have available here. What you really need to do is drop this bottom shaft out altogether and plate these mountings here.” Drey struggled to gaze below. “If you welded plates here and here...”

  “Aye, that's where it always breaks,” Drey admitted, “but you'd have to weave a mighty heavy firespell to help any of that – and an immigrant thorian machine wizard I'm not.”

  “Spell, shit.” Jorden mumbled to himself as he spread around more of the dark black grease on his forehead. “An arc welder would be a nice start.”

  Taf continued to sit upon the deck above, ever curious. “There's plenty of kadastone on board, and not just in cargo. Ship stores have lots.”

  “Stone, Taf,” Jorden groaned. “Of course, why didn't I think of that. We could just chisel out a couple of new mountings and let them fossilize here for a few million years.”

  “The aestri's right, you know,” Drey added. “And we've got plenty of iron.”

  Jorden gazed aloft in disbelief. “Witchcraft isn't exactly my line.”

  “Even I can work kadastone,” Taf chuckled. “Enough to make fire, anyway. With all that is aboard Katerina, you could forge a dozen anchors. A man of machines should find a few small bars an easy task.” The aestri considered Jorden in a new light. “That would make you Smith Class. You could get a really good job in Saljid. If the Council let you live...”

  “Thanks Taf,” Jorden interrupted. Again. “If this kadastone is so great then why haven't these mountings been fixed before?”

  Drey shrugged. “Well you nee
d a smith and some know-how to make the most of the flame, and to get some thorian to fix it professionally would cost a fair coinage. We use to have a fair smith with us, but he jumped ship in Ponomilo last...”

  “Forget it,” Jorden thumped his head against a shaft. “I'll need a few lumps of timber, and wire if you have it.” He noted Drey's frown. “Rope then. I can patch in wooden bushes well enough to see the life of this tub. And that ratchet up there needs a spring.”

  Jorden was actually a little surprised when Drey gave a little salute and started barking orders for others to collect timber and rope. He couldn't really believe they were taking any notice of him. It was even more unbelievable that they hadn't been able to patch the winch better than the feeble effort he could see. He wondered how they kept the ship sailing at all.

  He was sure he could do better anyway, and indeed it didn't seem all that hard to patch the winch. It didn't even seem to take that long, a couple of hours at most. When he finally climbed from the pit the crew leaned hard on the capstan. Jorden crossed his fingers and watched the windlass turn and drag the remainder of the slack in the anchor chain. The ratchet clicked nicely, even though the spring wasn't exactly what should have been used. It actually worked. He was almost as amazed as Drey and Taf.

  Jorden wondered how long the winch would last. Judging by the condition of the ship he had a feeling that it would outlast the Katerina...

  V

  For the rest of the day, Jorden created a leather seal for a freshwater pump, fixed the ships back-up compass – an imported device that used a small oil flame and a set of clockwork spinning mirrors – and was called to replace several lamp-wicks. By then the flare-sun was falling into the sea in the west. The red flare-moon appeared almost instantly on the opposite horizon.

  What little land there had been in the east, or at the fourth radial by ship's compass, was now well past. Now there was nothing. Jorden lay exhausted on the deck not far from the mainmast, gazing into a dark and starless sky, or what he could see of it amongst the tangle of rope and mast and sail.

  “You look tired,” Taf said brightly as she squashed another cockroach that dared scuttle too close. Jorden groaned in response. “You should go to bed before you fall asleep on deck. Captain will have the best bed on the Katerina ready for you after today. A smith of sorts, and a clever one too. If you can just learn kadastone you could rival the best that Thoria has to offer.”

  “Lamp-wicks,” he grumbled. “I can't believe people on this ship can't fix a stupid lamp wick.” Actually she suspected they could, but it was likely a tedious job they preferred was done by others.

  “You could be lots of things in Saljid...”

  “And I could have fixed that winch ratchet before I could walk.”

  “Really?”

  Jorden shook his head. “I was trying to make a point, Taf.”

  The aestri stared blankly for some time. “On what?” she said at last.

  “Are you really that stupid?” Jorden wondered aloud, “or is it your job in this nightmare to drive me insane.”

  Taf frowned. “You're being mean to me.”

  The outsider propped himself on his elbows and gazed toward the only friend he was sure of at the moment, although Drey seemed pleasant enough. “I get that way when I'm tired, and I've had all I can take when it comes to job opportunities. Back home I probably couldn't get a job no matter what I tried, and here I'll never get a chance to work because this council of witches will probably throw me to the sea-dragons. Even if they don't it will mean that I'll have a selection of jobs that I don't really want because I'd rather just be home again.”

  A nod was returned. “You really miss your home. It must be so hard for you.” Her voice was smooth and soothing, and Jorden knew she was truly concerned.

  “You only really seem to miss it when it's out of reach,” he said thoughtfully. “Home is where the heart is.”

  Then from Taf:

  Home is heart and distant shore,

  where life is lived to full reward.

  And where young purr, and wander blind.

  Far set from tooth and darkness' horde.

  In safe surround, with friend and kin,

  is all the lowly know to need.

  For those of new, the young of here,

  suffer not the thirst of greed.

  Jorden simply stared. “Wow,” was all he could manage to say in return. He hadn't really expected that sort of thing from Taf. Then he reminded himself that he didn't really know her all that well.

  “Home is where you are,” Taf smiled, “but also where you wish to be. I would like to be at the side of Aestri Pandora and Midnight and Hambone, and Burgo Kaeina – and I will be soon. I hope that you can be where you wish again, and I would stand before Hura herself and plea for your passage to the Beyond. I know how loneliness can be; the fretting for your own kind.

  “When I was young it seemed the voyages lasted forever, and there were none but men and dirge, yet now...” She shrugged and breathed deep and cool night air. “Now I can't imagine another life.”

  Jorden wondered if it was suddenly some other Taf sitting nearby. At times she seemed like someone his own age, and actually a lot younger, but then at other times her real age was a lot more obvious. “You really are thirty, aren't you, Taf,” he said at last. “You sound like my mother sometimes. I'm glad that you'll be with your friends, and I'll be with what friends I have.” All one of them. “There aren't many that I get along with back home anyway.” Certainly none that were as close as Taf now seemed.

  “And I never really thought that you read poetry,” Jorden added. “To tell the truth I wasn't even sure you could even read. The way things are here I didn't think aestri would be allowed anything like an education.” Of course it was more likely a memory, a song learned by word and mouth. He had to remember that this was not like his own world.

  Taf shrugged and squashed another cockroach, then surprised him again. “Midnight taught me how to read when I was very young, not long out of... childhood. But books are not easy for aestri to come by, and so I read very little of what others have written.” She shrugged again. “And so I write my own songs. I know that I do not write well, but I tell of what I see and know and hear from others, and the aestri and burgo of Saljid enjoy the tales and rhymes. That's all that matters to me.”

  “You write your own?” Jorden blurted, the aestri quick to hush him.

  “Don't yell,” Taf rebuked. “The seaman will hear you. If they knew that I did such things, then...” She paused to think. “I do not want them to know.” Then she sprang to her feet. “Come, I'll show you.”

  VI

  It was dark in Taf's hideaway after the deck, the red glow of the flare-moon barely making the journey through the ducts and passages. Jorden could only guess what the aestri was doing as she dragged the book from beneath her bed.

  “That's nice Taf,” Jorden said as the aestri proudly displayed her work. “It is a shame I can't even see it.”

  Taf hissed a breath and slammed the book. “I wonder sometimes why men were given eyes at all. They work only in the brightest of light and the rest of the time they are blind.”

  Jorden felt suddenly very inadequate. He had always prided himself on having quite reasonable night vision. “I'm sorry Taf. I'd really love to see... If we had a lamp perhaps...”

  He had no idea where Taf had stolen the lamp from, but it certainly brightened the tiny room of the aestri and it had not taken her long to acquire it. The room suddenly had a much more wholesome and homely feel. “That's better,” Jorden said, and his companion agreed. If her friend was happy then so was she.

  The book was displayed again. The cover read: Log of the Gordon Masters ship, the Katerina, but within was the verse and tales of Aestri Finesilver. The aestri caught the gaze of her new friend as he looked at the cover.

  “They have more copies of the ship's log than they can use,” she said in her defence. �
��Nothing of importance ever happens on the Katerina. I doubt that they ever notice that a few have gone missing from stores.”

  “But not the sort of thing you'd like the captain to see, I suppose,” Jorden returned. Taf shook her head.

  He scanned the many pages of the huge volume and was impressed the small elegant script that crammed each page. It was even in a language he understood. He hadn't really thought about such things very much, but of course the people of the Domain spoke the same language as he did, so it all made sense. He looked back to the page. The aestri's writing hand put his own to shame, and he dared not think how many words of text were set down in the thick log. There were also undoubtedly other such volumes.

  There were perhaps ten short pieces of verse on the page he now read, and though some were not altogether memorable, there were some that were quite good. Good in Jorden's mind at least, and that meant that he enjoyed reading them. Whether they had any literary merit didn't mean all that much to Jorden if he couldn't understand it. Then there was a tale of the Katerina's voyage to the lands of the distant north, a risky passage that took the crew near to the edge of the Domain.

  Edge, Jorden wondered. In such worlds of fantasy the edge could quite easily be a literal one, as in something the Katerina could fall off of. He thought to ask the aestri, then reconsidered. Jorden was not all that sure he wanted to know.

  Then he came upon another, and he read it aloud...

  In dimmer days before the Law

  Of Common Man indeed I saw,

  A time of legend vast and strange;

  A time of wonder, peace, yet change.

  For then the aestri ruled the land

  With flocks of burgo close at hand.

  The Empress ruled from emerald throne,

  No evil thought would she condone,

  For she was truth and lived it well

  From misty height to deepest dell.

  And life was free and filled with ease,

  No bloody war, no foul disease.

  Then Common Man was close at hand

  And dirge approached from distant Land,

  And they sought power over those of old:

  The aestri wise and burgo bold.

  Then Kaedith rose to split the land

  To days of light and dark so bland.

  In such time fell the kin of old

  As many tales have surely told.

  And now the lands are as you see,

  For that's the way of destiny.

  Yet still one day such things may change,

  The law of land again...

  The last word was difficult to read. To Jorden it looked as if Taf had first written rearranged, then crossed it out. There were several other words scrawled nearby.

  He looked to the smiling aestri in awe. “Is this true?” he said in a hushed voice. He had always thought the Domain of Hura Ghiana was a little odd.

  Taf gazed toward him, still smiling, and raised her eyebrow. Then she shook her head. “Of course not silly, can you imagine the aestri as rulers of the land? All of my friends liked it though, and we laughed when I first read it last dark. But you read it better than I do.”

  The aestri sat close to Jorden on the bed as he continued to hold the book, his eye returned to the page, the small lamp swinging slowly above. “There are legends of the time before Hura,” she went on, “but there are few who believe all of them. They tell of dark days that are not like the land we know, and I think there was a lot of death and fighting... And there were no ships then. I would not have liked to live in a time when there were no ships,” Taf said quietly, “or second forms.”

  “Hmm?” Jorden murmured questioningly as he read more.

  Taf thought a moment and sniffed. “Nothing. I just love the Katerina and would hate to be without her...”

  Jorden nodded as he listened to the sweet tones of her voice. He read on for some time, gaining an insight into the mind of the aestri. It all seemed difficult to believe, as difficult as the magic of the kaedith itself. He had met a young girl dressed in rags the day before, a girl who seemed to have to work hard to simply survive, and now...

  Jorden closed the book and put it aside, he was too tired for any sustained reading tonight, and turned to the aestri who crouched at his side. Her tiny face glowed in the light of the lamp, her soft smile barely creasing her smooth cheeks. He had only known the aestri for two days, yet already he felt she was a close friend. There was something between them, something too insubstantial for words, yet it was there.

  He smiled wearily in return. He really needed some sleep.

  It was simply friendship, Jorden told himself. He liked Taf a lot and she liked him. But he had only met her the day before. He had made a near-fatal error once before in the Domain – not a mistake he should make twice.

  He made the mistake anyway.

  Her moist cherry lips were close and smiling sweetly. He approached slowly and kissed, regretting it immediately. Like the kaedith he had kissed earlier in the dream, the aestri remained unmoved as their lips touched, and like the kaedith she turned away a moment later. Unlike the kaedith, however, Taf didn't throw him to the floor and put a knife to his throat, she just sat with her eyes lowered, her smile vanquished.

  Jorden rebuked himself within, and backed to his original position. He was not doing well in the Domain on a social level.

  Then Taf gazed into his eye. She was no longer happy, indeed a small tear trickled upon her cheek. The tear surprised Jorden and he frowned. “I thought you liked me Jorden,” she said quietly. “I really did.”

  He continued to frown. “Well I do,” he said, and he did. Then he had difficulty in thinking of anything else he could possibly say. “I like you a lot, Taf. I'm just tired and not thinking straight.” The aestri simply stared. “I shouldn't have kissed you.” He felt terrible. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Taf. After the kaedith he really should have known better. This world just wasn't like home.

  “Just be my friend, Jorden,” she said a little less quietly. “A man should not need to do that sort of thing, not even those who are drunk and have not seen a woman in many weeks. I thought we were friends, and thought that you could share my room, but...”

  “I'm sorry Taf,” Jorden interrupted, “I really am. I'm just really tired. It's been a long day. It won't happen again, ever. I can promise you that.” Twice bitten, Jorden thought. “If you want me to sleep elsewhere then I'll understand, I wouldn't want me here either...”

  Jorden was indeed tired. He stood up and thought to return to his cage, wondering if the crew had perhaps thrown the stinking monstrosity to the sea-dragons. It would be hard to go back after the night in Taf's bed.

  But Taf found a little of her smile. “You can still sleep here, silly,” she said. “And you are a man and can do as you wish. I was... I shouldn't have...”

  “I just need some sleep,” Jorden promised. “And I should have learned not to do stupid things like that by now. Especially after the kaedith. I just can't do anything right, not even in this nutty world.” Her smile was a touch brighter. “Why don't you read me some of your poetry while I drift off to sleep.” He relaxed back the rat pelt quilt, hopeful that it was the end of it all.

  And Taf quietly reached for the ship's log book...