by Chris Bunch
Gareth looked at another area of the map.
“What’s this Freebooter’s Island up here to the north?”
“I asked about it once. Luynes said a place of dreams, wouldn’t tell me more. He was deep and held his secrets, the cap’n did.”
Gareth looked into the bosun’s eyes, decided he wasn’t lying.
He asked about the tiny rolls of paper from Kelch’s pouch, and Nomios shook his head.
“Dunno, sir. Truly I don’t.”
Gareth dismissed Nomios and told him to ask Labala to come up to the cabin. Maybe he could magic some meaning out of the rolls.
Waiting, he brooded. He’d thought, the Linyati being his sworn enemies, that he knew something about them. Now he realized he knew nothing — not their tongue, not their habits, not their culture, not their ways of fighting with ships or swords, nothing.
He glumly thought of the other ignorances he’d been confronted with lately, and wondered why he’d had the arrogance to allow anyone to pick him for captain.
He also wondered why at one moment he was very sure of himself, certain of what to do, and the next seeing nothing but a myriad of choices, all appearing bad and dangerous.
Perhaps, Gareth thought, he needed someone to talk to. Such as? He’d heard of the “loneliness of command” and had thought it no better than self-pity. Now he knew its reality.
About the only person he thought he could talk to about things like this would be Cosyra, and she was thousands of leagues distant. Then Labala banged through the cabin door.
“Afternoon, Gareth. What’s your need?”
Gareth brought himself back from his dark mood. “Since you’re our resident mage, I wondered if maybe you could use your Gift to figure out what these little tubes are that Kelch had. He said he had maps, but these surely aren’t them.”
“Why not? Remember, the part can be the whole, I’ve been told, and the Linyati have clever wizards.”
“But … what kind of spell would you have to say over them to make them full-sized? If there’s one, it must have died with Luynes.”
“Maybe so, maybe no.” Labala picked up a tube, looked at it “Once I saw a wee toy in a shop. A ‘brella, against the rain. Sprinkle water, and whoomp, it was full-size. Maybe you touch this with water …”
Gareth tried. Nothing.
“Sea water?”
Nothing.
“A dark thought comes,” Labala said. “If Luynes was going to have us work a bloody trade …”
Gareth took a pin from the chart table, pricked his thumb, smeared a bit of blood on a tube, and thought for an instant he was wrestling a snake, as the tube grew, twisted, and became a large map. He unrolled it, saw unfamiliar writing and scales, but recognized it as a large-scale projection of the isthmus connecting Linyati and Kashi.
“Thankee, sir,” Labala said. “M’ bill will be sent later. If there’s aught else, you have only to whine,” and thudded out the hatch and down the ladder, laughing boisterously.
• • •
The Steadfast couldn’t stay in this safe isolated harbor forever. Sooner or later a Linyati with a lookout having sharp eyes, or a curious wizard, would sail by and decide to investigate.
Gareth studied Kelch’s charts for long hours, and eventually decided to lie in wait off the city of Batan, which was the first marked settlement north of Noorat, on the continent of Kashi. It wasn’t far distant, and there should be passing ships for the taking.
In addition, there were dotted islands around it, which would give the shallow-drafted Steadfast lurking places.
He hoped.
He told the crew what he’d decided, and they all voted to back his decision. That was pleasing, but he knew that if no prizes were taken or if they took heavy casualties, Gareth Radnor would be just another foremast hand.
• • •
They reached the mainland of Kashi, far enough north of Noorat to keep from being spotted, turned north, passing through islands, when the lookout atop the mainmast shouted he saw a boat.
Those offwatch crowded the foredeck out of curiosity and saw a long canoe, with twin outriggers and a lateen sail made of matting, scudding across the passage between two islands. There was one person aboard.
Tehidy had the watch, and ordered the Steadfast to close on the canoe.
“Maybe he’s got fruit aboard, and we’ll trade him for bread.”
“Or really piss him off,” somebody said, “and give him ship’s biscuit.”
“That might not make him angry,” a sailor said. “P’raps he’s been long without meat, and the worms in the biscuit’ll gladden his heart.”
The canoe’s oarsman was a brown-skinned boy, with very long, very black, very straight hair tied back, wearing only a colorful linen wrap around his thighs. He saw the approaching ship, pulled at his sail’s lines, crying out in a high voice.
“He’s praying, sounds like.”
Then the wind died.
The boy stared at the Steadfast, then stood and dove straight overside.
“What the — ”
“Poor bastard,” Labala said. “Prob’ly thinks we’re Linyati, only big ships he’s heard of, and prefers drowning to bein’ a slave.
“Can’t blame him.”
By this time, Gareth was on deck. Tehidy looked at him wildly, slid out of his pants and top, and dove over the side.
“For the love of the gods,” Nomios said. “And what’s he doing now?”
“Playin’ rescuer?”
The crew rushed to the railing, looked overside. By now, the canoe was almost alongside.
“Drop sail and back the helm,” Gareth ordered. “Bring her back on the canoe.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman shouted, and Nomios looked shamefaced at not having given the command himself.
“Look, there he is … he’s got th’ lad.”
Tehidy surfaced like a blowing whale, holding the struggling boy under one arm.
“The kid didn’t want to … yeowch.”
Boy and Thom disappeared again, and there were bubbles and flurries before Tehidy surfaced, an agonized expression on his face. This time, he had the semiconscious boy by the hair.
“Lousy little bugger,” he managed. “Kicked me in the balls and headed for the bottom again. Should’ve let him drown.”
Amid general laughter, Gareth ordered a cargo net retrieved from the hold and a boom rigged. So, unceremoniously, the boy was hoisted aboard the Steadfast, his canoe tied alongside.
“Now what?” Gareth asked Tehidy, when he’d finished clutching himself.
“Eh,” Froln said. “’E’s not bad-looking. P’raps our mate’s getting lonely, and — ”
He broke off at Thom’s look, and remembered just how strong Tehidy was.
“Damned if I know what we should do with him,” Thom said. “But I wasn’t going to let him drown on my affair.”
“No,” Gareth agreed.
The boy spat a stream of words. No one knew what he was saying.
“Interesting,” Gareth said. “We don’t look like Linyati, but he obviously thinks we’re Slavers. That must mean we’re in waters they’ve not traveled lately.”
“I think I’ve a use for him,” Labala said.
“Now, Lab,” someone shouted. “We’ve agreed … no human sacrifices.”
“How’d you like a good swim with a cannonball about th’ waist?” Labala suggested. “Gareth, I’m not schooled enough to pull a language spell, at least like a real wizard does it. But I’ve thought about how it maybe should go. We could try with this kid, couldn’t we?”
Gareth nodded, and inside a glass-turning, various herbs — thyme, rosemary, juniper berries, chamomile — were gotten from the cook, chalk marked the deck in three triangles, and Labala had a fresh-caught fish gutted in front of him.
“Brain to brain …” he murmured, cutting open the top of the fish’s head, prying out the fingernail-sized organ.
He touched it to the boy’s head, who tr
ied to squirm away. Labala looked at him fiercely, and the boy stopped trying to escape.
“Now you, Gareth,” and Gareth obediently bent his head.
“If it doesn’t work,” somebody said, “or, rather, if it does, the cap’n’s liable to start gaspin’ and dive overside, wrigglin’ hearty.”
“Shut up,” Labala grunted. “Like to like … I’m thinking now.”
He pried the boy’s mouth open, the boy tried to bite him, and he clamped his jaws open, touched a finger to spittle.
“Now you, Gareth.”
Gareth opened his mouth, and Labala did the same. Labala burned the herbs, and began chanting:
“Mind to lips
Lips to words
Words to ears
Ears to mind
Mind to lips
Lips to words …”
Over and over, again touching the fish’s organ to Gareth and the boy.
He stepped back, jabbed the canoeist.
“Say something.”
The boy glowered, and Gareth heard him say: “Do not touch me, you fat demon!”
“Quiet thy lips,” Gareth said, in a tongue he didn’t know he spoke. “Be not insulting to the wizard, or he’ll change thee into a turtle!”
The boy’s eyes went wide.
“You speak the Speech?”
“Of course,” Gareth said. “That was what the spell was about.”
“I thought he was going to turn me into a fish.” The boy looked stubborn. “Thee might as well, for I won’t be thy slave, not ever, and I’ll get away and be able to drown myself as soon as thee turns thy back.”
“No one is going to make you into a slave!”
The boy laughed harshly. “All men with boats like thine do nothing else. I’ve been taught that again and again by my chiefs.”
“Would we have saved you and your boat if we were slavers?”
“No man knows what a demon thinks.”
“We’ll take you back to your village.”
“I’ll not show it to thee, for I know thee wants to enslave all of my people. Ah-hah. Now I have thy vile plan. That was why thou saved me,” the boy said excitedly. “So I would be thine fish trap, and lead my people into thine nets.”
“You’re an impossible sort,” Gareth said. “I hope you are the son of a chief.”
“No. My father is noble, but not a chief, and I see thine cleverness, trying to get me to talk more about my village. I shall say no more.”
Gareth shook his head in dismay and turned away.
“And I thought I was pigheaded when I was his age. Obviously, Labala, your spell worked. When we capture a Linyati, we’ll use the same spell on him.”
“But that still leaves the question of what we’re going to do with this boy? Pop him back in his canoe?” Knoll N’b’ry asked.
“Pretty much.”
An hour later, the canoe and boy were released, the boat piled high with bread, smoked meats and fish, knives, and two of the chopping knives from the cargo. Gareth found a cutlass, dropped it on top, said, “Now, when you’re grown, thou will have something to kill Slavers with.”
As the Steadfast sailed away, the boy stood in his canoe, dropped his wrap, and waved his buttocks at the ship.
“Guess he didn’t believe us,” N’b’ry said, choking back laughter.
“Guess not,” Gareth said. “Forget him.
“It’s time for us to go a-pirating.”
Nine
The Linyati ship was fairly small, twin-masted, with a pair of small falconets on the quarterdeck. The crew was only ten men, six Linyati, four slaves.
The slave at the helm looked longingly to port, where the dark jungle beckoned. If the Linyati on watch would go below, or nod off, he might have time to put the wheel over and strike for shore, get close enough in to chance the breakers and the sharks.
But the Linyati never seemed to relax that much. The slave wondered gloomily, as he had before, if the bastards were even real men. He preferred to think not, that they were demons, sentenced to this world for sins. But then he thought again: he’d rather be held by men than demons, although what he’d seen the Linyati do to some of his fellows who dared speak rebellion or freedom …
He shuddered, checked his heading. The Linyati was looking his way, a cold stare that perhaps read his thoughts.
Then something loomed at them out of blackness. It was another ship. The slave spun the wheel, had a moment to realize the other, larger ship would comb his ship’s side to port, and two cannon blasted, shooting high, shooting chainshot, and the foremast cracked and drooped.
The slave let go of the wheel, seeing the mast sway and circle above him, dove for the shelter of the main mast’s coat just as the Steadfast’s swivel guns on its foredeck fired, and grapeshot cut down the Linyati on watch, splintering the wheel.
Grapnels went across, and the raider was alongside the Linyati ship. Men with cutlasses, whooping, screeching like wild animals, clambered aboard as the five befuddled Linyati in the crew came stumbling up from below cabin in various stages of undress. Two had swords, two pistols. The pistoleers aimed and fired, and muskets flamed. The Linyati staggered, cried out, died.
The slave, peering cautiously around the mast, saw a slender man with a straight sword cut down one of the Linyati, a huge man with a long, studded truncheon crush the skull of another. The tall man was shouting something, and the big man dropped his club and jumped on the survivor.
Other men came up the ladder to the quarterdeck. A man with a cutlass saw the slave was still alive, drew back for a killing blow, was stopped by another.
The slave was on his feet, hands raised high, babbling he was not an enemy, he gave up, and have mercy, please have mercy.
• • •
The four slaves cowered next to the stern cabin, waiting for inevitable death. The surviving Linyati was firmly tied to the ladder, and glared hate at anyone who met his eye. Five lanterns illuminated the maindeck.
“Yer orders, sir?” Galf, the quartermaster, said.
“Cut away the mast,” Gareth ordered. “Try to jury-rig some canvas off the stub. Set the sprits’l full, and see how much of the spanker she’ll bear before she starts shearing off. I want to beat away from the land. We’re too close as it is.”
“Sir.” And Galf shouted orders, and the men aboard the ship set to.
“Nomios, Tehidy, get a hatch off,” Gareth ordered. “Let’s see what we’ve got for our work. But be careful. I don’t know what the Linyati might keep below as a surprise.”
Tehidy found a mallet, drove wedges from under the hatch cover, while Nomios cut away lashings.
“What about the bodies?” N’b’ry asked.
“Put them overside,” Gareth ordered. “I don’t remember anyone giving any of ours time for a priest or ceremonies.”
A few sailors laughed harshly, and moments later five bodies went spinning out into the night, splashing down into phosphorescence. A moment later, Gareth heard the terrible grunt as a shark slashed into one of the corpses.
“What about him?” a sailor asked, thumbing toward the surviving Linyati.
“Labala! Get your language spell ready,” Gareth shouted.
• • •
The first time the spell didn’t take, and Gareth wondered if the Linyati were impervious. But the second time, after the Linyati had almost bitten Labala’s thumb off, and spat rage, Gareth snarled back, “Silence! Or you’re dead!”
“You’ll kill me anyway,” the Linyati said. “There is nothing but war between your kind and mine.”
“You aren’t the same as I am?”
“Of course not,” the Linyati snarled. “There are but two races permitted, those who rule, and those who are ruled.”
Gareth pointed at the slaves.
“Like them?”
“Just so.”
“Then what does this do?” He turned to the slaves. “How many of you speak this tongue?”
One man nodded, then the othe
r three muttered they did as well.
“If you were slaves once, I now declare you free,” Gareth said.
Utter silence, then a babble of joy from the men. One fell to his knees, and a sailor dragged him back to his feet.
“We kneel for nobody here.”
“What do you say to that?” Gareth asked the Linyati.
“It has no meaning,” the man said. “You have not the right to name them not-slaves, so slaves they will be again.”
“No!” one of the brown men snarled. “Never again, Great man,” he said to Gareth. “Will you give us this creature?”
“For what?” Gareth asked.
“To be our slave for a moment, so see how it feels,” the man said. “Then to die slowly.”
“No,” Gareth said. “We probably should kill him, but I’ll let no man make another his slave.”
He considered for a moment.
“Galf!”
“Sir!”
“Belay my sailing orders for a while.”
There were two small boats lashed to the main deck.
“You, you, and you,” he said to sailors. “Get both of these boats ready to launch. Enough food and water for, oh, a week in the second one.”
He looked at the Linyati, changed languages.
“We’ll put you in one now … and at dawn let these four men go free. They have information I need, and that’ll give you a bit of a start. If they choose to pursue you, or if you’ve not been able to make shore by then … such is your fate.”
“Do not expect me to show you mercy if ever we cross paths,” the Linyati said. “If I were in your place, I would not do as you are doing.”
“I have no such expectations,” Gareth said. “I’m not a fool.”
“Sir, let’s just go shark fishing with his ass,” a man said.
“No,” Gareth said, a bit reluctantly, then he heard a loud “Shit!” from the open cargo hatch, and then a roar of laughter.
Sailors gathered around the hatch as a disgusted Nomios clambered out, followed by a grinning Thom Tehidy.
“Congratulations, my captain,” Tehidy said. “You now have five shares of the best dried fruit I’ve ever seen.”
There were moans, groans, and someone said, “For that we could’ve gotten killed?”