Chapter 12 Stations #2
“But the swabs aboard—swabs like me—we’re too scared to hope you might be the answer.”
“How can the Rhi’Ahr find it so easily?” I asked.
“Deep calls to deep,” he said. “They have chimeric now in their boards.”
The blackened chunk of wood from the day the Dawn Watch sank.
My hope began to curdle as quick as it had come. What if I couldn’t find it? What if I wasn’t the answer? Would they still want me for crew? The thought hollowed my chest.
“Echo thinks it might be a cure,” Smoke added, softer now. “If the Cloudgate’s made of chimeric, maybe it can heal you, too.”
I nodded, but my throat felt tight. Maybe this wasn’t just about a war. Maybe it was about saving me. Did I really belong, or was I just a map they’d toss overboard when the route was run?
He grunted. Clouds of gray smoke formed circles above his pipe before being snatched away by the wind.
At some point, a shanty rose from the galley, and I marveled that it was, in fact, “Song of the Dread.” The old song was deep and rhythmic, with harmonies rising and falling like the waves of the sea. It warmed me more than rum or beer.
“How long have you served the Touchstone?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Ten years, more or less,” he said. “I was but a boy. A brat, some would say. A ruffian.”
“Fahr said you lived in a palace?”
“Of course he’d say that.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Don’t trust everything that young salt says. He can spin a tale the way you spin chimeric.”
I realized it was all a game with them. Didn’t matter. I played, too. I made my own rules.
“But yes, my father worked for the king,” he said. “So, I spent most of my youth in the palace.”
“That’s where you got your silver tongue,” I said.
“Where do you think the tongue gets the silver?” He waggled his brows. “From a silver spoon, of course.”
He blew a few more good puffs from the pipe.
“But, as delightful as this has been, what I brought you up here to say is this—the Touchstone is a dangerous post. Don’t let your guard down, and don’t be fooled by the camaraderie aboard.
We’re one swift away from treason, one ship a-lee from outright war.
Cross-tides to everything, and that makes sailing rough. ”
I let his words settle on the night wind, a shiver racing along my skin.
“I still don’t understand what I’ve agreed to,” I said. “But I know I want to find out.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Just remember that, for all his plans and schemes, Thanavar is a man running out of time. That makes him desperate, and desperate men make mistakes.”
How quickly this night had turned.
“Stay cold. Stay detached. It’s the only way to survive in Thanavar’s game.”
“I guess that’s why I’m Navy,” I said.
“Not anymore.” He tugged his earring. “You’re a privateer on the notorious Ship of Spells.”
He crossed the quarterdeck, slapped his hand on the rail.
“Ain’t that right, ol’ girl? You know it’s true.”
I waited for the thunder of canvas or the hiss of the line. Nothing.
He tapped his pipe over the side.
“Well, time to whup me a faun and win his rum,” he said. “G’night, Thom. G’night, Blue. Dream sweet.”
“When the moons meet, sir,” said Thom.
“When the moons meet,” said I.
And with that, he turned and disappeared down the ladder.
I sighed and leaned over the rail, but on my elbows, just in case.
The only way to survive in Thanavar’s game…
I breathed in the salt air, trying to still the racing of my heart.
I felt the sea spray on my cheeks, blessed the rock and sway of the deck under my boots.
The sea was mother to us all, fair and relentless and demanding and hard.
We served her, or we died out here where there was only water and sky in equal measure.
What did it mean to serve the Ship of Spells?
I looked up. At least the hanged harpy was gone, and the night was clear with the Sister Moons shining like jewels.
Luna was the largest tonight, with Lyrik waning and Lore slivered.
They roamed the skies above the equatorus, calling the Dreadwall each night, giving it over to Forge and Ember during the day.
I had to admit that, sometimes, I felt their call.
Forge was nothing, just a big, yellow sun.
Most homani worshipped him, building churches, temples, and entire societies in his name.
Modest Ember was left to the fauns and minotaurs, harpiar, cyclopes, and other less pretentious races of Oversea.
The Sister Moons, however, were left to the witches.
The witches, the mages, and the Rhi’Ahr beneath us.
As for me, I refused to bend my knee to any of them, and yet, here I was on a living ship under a Rhi’Ahr captain with a ring in my ear.
The Navy and all its venerable rules and orderly ways seemed far, far behind.
With a stolen prince, an enemy captain, a living ship, and a traitorous “soul” still aboard, I wondered if I’d made the right choice.
What the hels was I doing on the Ship of Spells?
At some point, the hawk had stopped its mournful cries. The shanty died away, too, and I knew the watch was changing. Without them, the night sounded lost.
I turned toward the hatch but reached out gingerly to pat her rail.
“Good night, Touchstone. Dream sweet.”
Nothing.
I clambered down the steep stair to the galley corner where I’d hung my bunk. I couldn’t wait to wrap myself in canvas and darkness, if only for a short while, when a man stepped out of the shadows.
“Bluemage,” he said in a low voice.
“Neale,” I said.
“I’m master’s mate.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Taller than me, he stepped closer, blocking the way to my bunk with his body. Two more seamages slipped in from behind—Dik and Bergy of the gunner’s crew.
“I can’t abide threats,” I growled.
“We ain’t threatening,” he said. “Just reminding you the way of the sea.”
“I don’t want your stations,” I said. “But if I did, I could take ’em. I outrank you all.”
“You play favors on this ship, and you swim with the fishes.”
He leaned in.
“Runechaser.”
I focused my thoughts to my hands and the crackling, gleaming chimeric that lived there.
His eyes flicked to my gloves.
“You can fight magik with magik,” he said. “But that don’t stop a shiv to the ribs.”
“Or a hempen hug under the boom,” said Dik.
“Tonic in your nightly tot,” said Bergy.
“Oy!” called Nanarobbin, the cook. “Knock boots on the gundeck, swabbies! Not in me kitchen!”
“Just welcoming our Blue to the crew!” called Neale, and he backed away.
“New Blue,” said Dik.
“True blue,” said Bergy.
“Black ’n’ blue,” said Neale.
Then they were gone, and I found myself wishing for Kithriit and her fearsome face.
“D’ye want yer second tot?” Nanarobbin called, dipping a curved horn toward the bottle on the counter.
“No, Nan,” I called back, keeping my voice flat and even. “I’m bunk bound.”
He grunted and left it at that.
I strung the hammock between the hooks and climbed in, heart pounding, chest tight.
I rarely let swabs like that disturb me, but a part of it rang true.
I did outrank them, and I could claim apprentice rights for any station.
I was bold and arrogant, and yes, proud because I was good at my craft.
Maybe better now, with these re-formed hands.
So, what did I want on the Ship of Spells?
Runechaser. An insult for mages who thirsted for more, mages who needed the magik to feel alive.
Like tavern rats with rum, runechasers became drunk on the power of their spells, and because of it, a danger to all those around them.
I wasn’t a runechaser, and yet, when I closed my eyes, I felt the chimeric pulsing from fingers to elbows, burning its way up my arms. A part of me yearned to give myself over to it, to surrender to the relentless pattern of the runes and welcome the ashes they’d leave in their wake.
Would I die, or would I become something else?
It was music, a mystical rhythm, arcane and old and free as the wind.
Can you bridle freedom? Thanavar had asked. Can you tame power?
His eyes lost in my magik, adrift in my seas…
What did I want on the Ship of Spells?
A stolen prince, an enemy captain, a living ship, a traitorous soul on board, and now threats from a bitter crew.
Perhaps it would be best for me to run while I could, for there was no way my stony heart would be safe in the cross-tides of everything, one swift away from treason.
This should have been the ship of my dreams, but my dreams didn’t matter.
They never had. I’d learned that long ago and cursed myself for forgetting that simple lesson.
Magik was easy compared to dreams.
I closed my eyes, quieting the racing of my mind and the drumming of my heart.
I rocked myself slowly, trying to remember the night sky and the salt wind, the tang of the pipe and the wail of the hawk.
Sadness and beauty was life on the sea. Life and death, loyalty and strife.
Storms and fair winds, Dreadwall and sky.
Once again, I saw the branches of a snow-covered tree reaching down for me, reaching, reaching…
I opened my eyes. There was a scorpion on my chest.
I didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. It was poised in the defense position—barbed tail held over its head, bobbing.
I couldn’t simply think a spell, not yet.
At my level, spells needed weaving with fingers and casting with hands, but my arms were at my sides, gloved and unhelpful.
Spells needed spoken incants, and I didn’t dare move my lips.
Maybe this creature wasn’t lethal, but then again, after the litany of deaths I’d been cursed with earlier, I doubted this would go down soft.
The creature skittered forward, down the curve of my throat and up the line of my jaw, the barb now a heartbeat from my cheek. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t dare…
Suddenly, there was a flash of motion, and the scorpion was gone. I pushed up in my hammock as Kithriit crunched and crunched again in a jerky, open-mouthed chew. The tiny legs of the creature twitched between her teeth.
“Dangerous for you,” she said and swallowed, licking her beaky lips with a long, prehensile tongue. “One sting, you die.”
“Thank you for saving me, then,” I said. I was certain my voice cracked.
“Maybe not around next time,” she said. “You never know with harpiar.”
She strung up her bunk and flapped into it, chittering to herself in her strange tongue.
I lay for a long time, desperate to convince myself that a scorpion in my berth was mere coincidence.
I couldn’t believe Neale would do such a thing, no way he’d have easy access to that little dart of poison, nor the cold, cold heart to use it.
Maybe it was a bliss, an illusion, a feint.
Some mages could spin the impossible and make you fall for it every time.
Surely, it wasn’t something the Touchstone would do…
I rolled over and hugged my peacoat tightly but didn’t sleep at all for the rest of the night.