Come With Me #2
Oliver followed her gesture. Seven people had left the loading area entirely. "They heard you," Marin said. "They didn't all choose the same thing."
Kelm glanced at her. "So?"
"So we record what happened. We don't improve the evidence."
Oliver looked at Marin. There were reasons he loved her that had nothing to do with kindness. A sailor below shouted.
"CAPTAIN! LINE BOAT READY!"
Kelm leaned over the parapet. "Mark the wreckage before you cross!"
The sailor waved. Oliver looked down into the Cut. "I can help with that."
Marin's eyes narrowed. "How?"
"The launch follows me."
Kelm laughed once. "No."
"I know where the current is breaking around the gate."
"You feel where it is."
"An important distinction if one dislikes wonder."
"I dislike drowning more."
"So do I."
Kelm stared at him. Oliver looked toward the small pilot skiff tied beneath the platform. One boat. Shallow draft. Oars. No engine to foul itself on debris. Entirely ordinary equipment. He smiled. Kelm's expression became pained.
"Every time you smile at a boat, paperwork follows."
"I'll write my own report."
"You lie beautifully in reports."
"Then imagine the quality."
Marin was already folding the chart. Oliver looked at her. "You are not coming."
She raised one eyebrow. He reconsidered.
"The launch needs someone here who can tell forty-six frightened people whether the route I find remains where I found it."
"Better."
"You frighten me."
"Move."
They went down. The pilot skiff had room for three people and approximately half of Oliver's dignity once Kelm assigned a customs boatman named Senn to handle the stern oar. Oliver took the bow. Senn looked at his wrapped right hand.
"You row?"
"Badly today."
"Then don't."
Oliver approved of him. They pushed off. The Cut changed the moment the wall stopped protecting them. Current caught the skiff sideways. Senn corrected. Oliver leaned over the bow far enough that the boatman swore.
"Stay inside the boat."
"I am inside most of it."
"All of you."
"Demanding profession."
"Sit down."
Oliver did. For several yards they followed the remains of the lock wall. Then the submerged gate began. Oliver felt the water divide around it.
"Left."
Senn took them left. A black timber surfaced beside the hull. "Right," Oliver said.
The skiff turned. Something scraped underneath. Both men froze. No water entered. Oliver breathed again. "That sounded expensive."
"It'll sound expensive when I put you overboard."
They continued. On the signal platform, Marin raised a blue flag.
Route confirmed. Oliver could barely make out her face.
He knew the way she stood when counting variables anyway.
Halfway across the channel, the current split.
One branch curled toward the broken gate.
Another bent west, then south through water that looked too shallow to trust.
Oliver closed his eyes. Senn made a distressed sound. "Open those."
"I find your confidence moving."
"Hawkins."
Oliver listened through his body. Water pressed differently against the port side. A deeper run passed beneath them, probably the old maintenance cut beside the gate foundation. The shallower route ahead was choked with timber.
He opened his eyes.
"South."
Senn looked. "That's toward the wall."
"For thirty feet."
"There's no channel."
"There is."
"How certain?"
Oliver considered lying. "Enough to become embarrassing if I'm wrong."
Senn swore and turned south. The skiff crossed what appeared to be dead water beside the shattered gate. Depth opened beneath them. No scrape. No sudden pull. Senn stared at him.
"Don't become impressed. It encourages me."
They reached the western quay. People crowded the steps.
Their faces existed now. That changed the character of the problem immediately.
A woman held an infant beneath her coat.
An elderly clerk had tied several files together with cord and apparently intended to evacuate records before common sense.
One of the convalescents wore a fever blanket over his nightclothes and looked personally offended by daylight.
The man who had remained with his arms folded stood near the quay edge. He was perhaps fifty, broad through the shoulders, with a split brow and a workman's coat soaked to the elbows.
"You Hawkins?"
Oliver climbed from the skiff. "Regrettably."
The man studied him.
"You tell us to board the navy?"
"I told you there was a naval boat."
"Same thing."
"No."
The man jerked his chin toward the broken lock.
"Navy blew that."
"Yes."
"Now navy says get on navy boat."
"Also yes."
"And you expect people to hear your pretty voice and forget which happened first?"
Several people nearby were listening. Oliver looked at the broken gate. "No."
The answer interrupted whatever the man had expected.
"If you don't want their lighter, Kelm's launch will use this channel. Or you stay upstairs until something better opens."
The man's mouth tightened.
"My sister's still in the fever store."
One of Marin's white signals. "Can she walk?" Oliver asked.
"Not far."
"Then we get her."
"I'll get her."
Oliver looked at him. "Name?"
"Cal Vey."
"I'm Oliver."
"I heard."
"Apparently."
Cal almost smiled. Then a woman pushed through the crowd. "You're the one who did that."
Oliver turned. She was perhaps thirty-five, dark hair braided tightly beneath a scarf, one sleeve torn from wrist to elbow. A little girl held her hand.
"Did what?"
"Made everyone look at you."
Oliver let the question sit for a moment. "I spoke."
"Don't be clever."
"Occupational hazard."
Her expression stayed hard.
"My daughter stopped crying."
Oliver looked at the girl. She stared back. "Is that bad?" he asked.
The woman bristled. The child answered first.
"No."
Her mother looked down at her. The girl shrugged.
"I could hear him."
Oliver nearly laughed and thought better of it. The woman looked back at him. "Did you make her calm?"
"I don't know."
Fear showed more clearly once anger stopped covering all of it. Oliver wished he had a cleaner answer. He did not invent one.
"I wasn't trying to."
"Can you?"
"I don't know that either."
The people nearest them had gone quiet. Oliver left the silence alone. The woman tightened her grip around the child's hand.
"Then don't do it again."
Another gun sounded beyond the Cut. Oliver glanced toward the signal platform. Marin stood beneath the blue flag. "I may need to make instructions carry if something changes," he said. "I can keep it to directions and choices. I won't address your daughter directly."
The woman studied him.
"Her name is Lessa."
Oliver nodded. "And you?"
"Talia."
"All right, Talia."
She waited another second, perhaps expecting him to argue. He didn't. Cal made a quiet sound. "That it?"
Oliver looked at him. "What else would you like?"
"Most men with magic attached to their teeth have a longer speech."
"I've been criticized for excess."
"Hard to imagine."
A whistle sounded from the main station. Marin raised two blue flags. The south traveler was ready. At the same moment, a white sheet appeared from an upper fever-store window. Cal turned.
"My sister."
"Go."
He hesitated.
"You coming?"
Oliver looked toward the loading quay. The obvious answer was yes. The useful one was no. "I have forty-five other people to annoy."
Cal nodded and ran. Talia took Lessa toward the customs house. She did not approach the skiff. Oliver watched them go until Senn stepped beside him.
"You look pleased someone ignored you."
"Novel experience."
"I doubt that."
"You've met Marin?"
"No."
"You understand me instinctively."
The next gun sounded closer. A plume of water rose beyond the Cut.
People screamed. Movement compressed toward the quay.
A convalescent stumbled. Someone shouted that the navy was leaving.
Another voice shouted that the navy was coming closer.
The distinction dissolved beneath fear as bodies crowded together.
Oliver climbed onto a mooring block. The resonance answered before he consciously reached for it. Easy. He could feel how little effort the wrong sentence would require. Come here. Stand still. Do as I say.
The shape of authority fit too comfortably inside breath. Bhodi gathered dark at the base of the stone. Oliver drew another breath.
"IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, THE SOUTH LINE IS READY."
Faces turned. Again. He kept the next sentence plain.
"THE CUSTOMS LAUNCH IS COMING TOO. THE STONE HOUSE IS STILL OPEN."
The crush slowed enough for people to hear one another again. A man near the front shouted something Oliver could not catch and pointed toward the traveler. Oliver raised one hand.
"IF YOU WANT THE FASTEST ROUTE, FOLLOW THE BLUE FLAGS. WALK. DON'T RUN."
People moved. Some toward the line. Others toward the inner quay. A woman went the wrong direction entirely until a sailor caught her attention. Two men stopped to argue. The elderly clerk stooped to retrieve his bundled files after someone kicked them aside.
Oliver found the disorder reassuring. The first traveler harness crossed from the south mole. Naval crew hauled it hand over hand. A convalescent woman went first. Then the clerk, without his files after three different people threatened him.
The temporary line sagged over the water but held. Another shell sounded. The annex trembled. Stone dust shook from the customs-house wall. The crowd tightened. Oliver raised his voice again.
"THE LINE IS HOLDING. IF YOU CHOOSE IT, WAIT UNTIL THE CREW POINTS TO YOU."
A man shouted, "How long?"
Oliver answered normally before remembering the distance. Nothing. He tried again. "TWELVE MINUTES IF NOTHING ELSE brEAKS."
Cal emerged from the fever store carrying a thin woman on his back. He barked a laugh. "That's your reassurance?"
"I prefer honest disappointment."
Cal reached the front. His sister's eyes were open now, fever-bright but aware. "I don't want the navy."
Oliver pointed toward the inner quay. "Then wait for the launch."
"You said fastest."
"I did."
"She's sick."
"I can see that."