by G. Deyke
~*~
For the first few nights, I sleep in my own bed in the blackness below deck. I share the room with Therrin and Ty and one of the women whose names I don't know at first. Therrin tells her goodnight every time we go to bed, so that at last I cannot help learning that her name is Lin, but I do not speak with her and I spend no more time below deck than I must.
Every night, I dream of things I dare not think of, and I must run to the side of the ship to empty my stomach and await morning without sleep. At last I don't even try to use the bed anymore. I do not move from my place by the side of the ship at all, except at mealtime or when I must use the pot.
I try to stay awake – I try not to sleep, even when night has just fallen and all is still. I must keep the dreams away. But weariness is taking its toll on me, and in the dead of night when no one is there to speak to me and distract me and keep me awake, I slip into sleep against my will. Each time, I awake from nightmares.
So my sleep is meager and it is frightening and horrible and I cannot think of it; and my waking moments are filled with weariness. My blind eye closes without reason and against my will – but my demon-eye has no lid to close, so I am never without my sight. I am glad of this, for I can still think of that which I see so long as I am able to see it, and I cling to that sight in the hope that it may save me from slumber.
At mealtime all the crew – and we guests – gather together at a long table in the kitchen to eat. I eat a few bites each time – I still remember how my mother scolded when I ate too little as a child – but I cannot bring myself to finish a meal. The motion of the ship might spoil my appetite on its own, and the nightly dreams only worsen it. Instead I watch the others eating and listen to their talk.
Even when we are all gathered together to eat, Ty does not speak much with the crew. Nor do they speak to him; they speak easily amongst themselves or with Therrin, but they leave Ty and me alone.
I ask him about this one day, but all he says is: “They know me from the past, and they know that I would rather be alone.” Perhaps they can see that the same is true of me, or perhaps they do not speak to me because I am kretchin. Yet Therrin is nearly one of them already. She spends her time conversing with the crew and helping them with their tasks around the ship, cooking for them and learning to sail. When she is not working she stands at the prow of the ship, surrounded by sea-mist, or she runs up the mast to see far and wide, or she dances lightly across the deck. She takes easily to this life, although she was brought into it suddenly and under fear of death.
She speaks with Ty and me as well, eager to learn more about us – and about herself. She asks me if there is anything more that I know of her parents. I don't like to think about it, and I shake my head.
“I was with Ty,” I say. “I heard everything that he did, and he has told you all he knows.”
“There must be something more you remember.”
I think. Yes, maybe there is. “Only that your mother smiled when she heard of the strange blessing on you.”
“Then she must have hoped that I would free the thing,” Therrin says. “I hope I may succeed, that I do not betray her memory.
“And my father – do you know anything more about him?”
I don't like to think of it. I start to shake my head.
“But you were traveling with his betrothed – surely she told you something!”
I shut my blind eye and look down and away from her and I stop breathing. There is a wall in my mind and she cannot get through it. There is a wall in my mind and it will seal it away. I shake my head, no longer knowing what I am responding to, trying only to make her leave, to make her stop asking, to kill the memories that plague me. Is it not enough that I must dream of this past?! Must she torment me while I am awake as well?
I can taste iron at the back of my throat.
I will not look at her, but I hear her muffled gasp and I see her hand fly up to her face. “I'm sorry, Arrek,” she says, her voice half a whisper. “I didn't know.”
I don't know how she knows now, and I cannot ask, but I am grateful for her apology. I nod and try to put it out of my mind. I do not look back up at her.
She does not ask about her again, nor does she delve too deeply into my past. But she continues to speak with me, and with Ty – perhaps more on account of friendliness, now, than curiosity. She tells me of herself: of the brief childhood she spent thinking she was to be a servant, of her love of climbing and dancing and exploring, of her mother Rillik's beautiful singing, of the things her father taught her. She is so friendly and open with me that it is hard to be uncomfortable in her presence.
She does ask me about Snake, knowing now that she is blessed by him. As a servant-child she has never heard of him. She confesses that she has never had much regard for the gods anyway, and that she has avoided temples. But she listens to my stories of Snake with interest, and she laughs at them and says she is lucky to be blessed by such a god. “It seems he succeeds at everything he attempts,” she says. “Perhaps, with his blessing, I too can succeed at my task.”
“I hope so,” I say, politely. In truth, I cannot begin to fathom the importance of her task, though I have agreed to help her with it. The prophecy means very little to me. All that matters is that I can follow her for a while, that I don't yet need to find a place to belong.