9. NINE
NINE
FANKALO
Location: Gembolta
Fankalo leaned against the rail beside her father, awaiting a diagnosis from a ship repairman at Gembolta’s dock. Most of the crew had gone ashore an hour before to spend their recent plunderings.
Fankalo’s father had encouraged her to tag along with Mitek, but the boy’s scowl at the suggestion and a jab along the lines of her “being a good pet” had encouraged her to stay on board.
Fine. She had enjoyed her month at sea far more than the years she’d spent on land.
As clouds sailed the breeze overhead and tarpons circled the cerulean shallows, she felt no urge to leave the Rogue’s Respite, or the captain’s side.
He bumped elbows with her when she’d been quiet for a while.
“It could be worse, lad. Before the foreign trade embargo, I was in Gembolta once a moon cycle. Back then, we wouldn’t have been able to just dock like this without notice.
The pier was so full, we had to register weeks ahead for a space, else we’d have to wait in line—sometimes for days.
Never thought I’d have considered Prime Taranil’s corporatist stance a blessing, but if it weren’t for lack of business we might be sitting on the seabed before getting to a ship repair. ”
She would have never guessed the country was in a recession.
The dock at Gembolta belonged in a picture book—the kind that was bound in real leather and left open on display behind windows to make people outside a shop want to come in.
It was nothing like Kaidech. She’d never seen mosaic arches so tall or so many people from every walk of life, even on the rare occasion her mother had permitted her to leave their shanty.
Ladies in turbans with baskets on their hips.
Men with arms full of thick rope or heavy netting.
Carts filled with melons and trinkets that sparkled, even from so far away.
And children weaving in and out of everyone and everything, the way she and Calver once had.
Her father followed her gaze. “Sure you don’t want to go explore?”
Sour injera and bitter qahwa carried on the wind. Tempting. But not tempting enough.
“Gelhard said something about not wanting people to see me disembark,” she admitted, avoiding tattling on Mitek. “Said it would make you a target.”
“He did, did he?”
Her nose wrinkled, and she tried her tongue at speaking like a raider. “He’s a pain in the ass.”
Her father chortled. “That he is. And Preservation has blessed me with that pain. I can only hope that one day you find a friend who second-guesses you at every turn. It’s the only sure way a man can turn out to be the best version of himself.”
Friend? Gelhard seemed only about as good a friend as that idiot deckhand. “How long has he been your quartermaster?”
“Ten years. But we weren’t much older than you when we first started sailing together.”
“Was he always like this?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. I’ll admit he’s become more resistant as the years have ticked by. But it’s worth mentioning that his resistance has saved my life many times.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s been a real shrat to you, but give him some space. He’ll come around. Always does.”
With a splattering of water along the deck, the ship repair, a spindly man with a beard down to his waist, swung over the rail and removed his submersion mask. He looked like a dog as he shook his head to dislodge water from his ears before making his way to them.
“Shipworms,” he said.
Her father blinked twice. “What in Chaos’s unruly bush do you mean, ‘shipworms’?”
“Yeh’ve got shipworms. Troves of ‘em. Have to have been there at least six months. This ship ent worth repairin’.”
A cringe-worthy smile cracked the line of her father’s mouth. “This is a joke. Who put you on to this? Zeb? I’ll pay you twice anything he has.”
“’Fraid not, captain. Worse news, I’ll be needing to report your vessel to Gembolta’s maritime patrol. They’ll be needin’ you to remove it from port within the hour. Spread like the damn Strikapa, these things.”
Fankalo fidgeted with the hem of her tunic as a peculiar vein bulged at her father’s temple. As much as she was relieved that she had not, in fact, cursed their ship as Gelhard suggested, she was sure he would find a way to pin this on her.
“What am I supposed to do with a ship addled with shipworms?”
“Best maroon it somewhere the things won’t afflict anyone else.” The ship repair paused, tilting one ear towards his shoulder as though waiting for water to drip out. “And then you could always eat ‘em. I hear they taste pretty good. Like clams, eah?”
“Fuck!” her father bellowed, fingers lacing behind his neck.
The ship repair looked indifferent, as though he’d told them about a menu change. “Yeah. Rough go, that. I’ll be needing my diagnostic fee now.” He held out a water-pruned palm.
Fankalo’s father’s expression curdled her insides.
Without another word, he plucked the ship repair from the deck like a sack of kelp and threw him over the side.
Fankalo’s mouth dropped open as a splash sounded below, followed shortly thereafter by the ship repair’s bellow.
“Just you wait until I inform the dock magistrate!”
Her father gave her an apologetic smile. “Pretend you didn’t see that.” He whistled up at the crow’s nest, where Zeb remained on first watch.
The old man poked his head over the side in a bedraggled way that implied he might have been sleeping, and her father signaled a series of syllables to him. Zeb nodded and scurried down the ratlines. He twitched in salute.
“Captain Keane?”
“Get the crew. Tell them to be back by highsun or find a new home in Gembolta.”
“Yes, captain!” Zeb gruffed, and he lumbered toward the gangplank.
Captain Keane paced the main deck, the corners of his mouth sunken like stones. A fire burned in Fankalo’s limbs. There had to be a way to fix this mess she’d gotten them into. She closed her eyes, feeling out for her Luck; it was easier the more she practiced.
She felt a pull towards the port where a well-dressed merchant walked with his daughter.
They stopped at a street cart, where he bought the girl a pastry.
Fankalo couldn’t take her eyes off her: adorned in a silken kaftan of one hundred colors, her turban laced with jewels.
She looked stupid like that, like her only purpose was to be looked at and envied and adored.
She had to be Fankalo’s own age, but their lives could not have been more different.
The idea came, riding her Luck on wings, and she turned to face the sails of a ship docked directly in front of the center market.
“Father, we need a new ship?” she called over her shoulder.
“Yes. Yes.” He bobbed his head, biting at his lip in a way that told her he wasn’t quite listening. “We need a new ship.” He looked like he might cry. But no—could a man like him be brought to tears?
“What about that one?” she asked, gesturing to the vessel, similar in size to the Rogue’s Respite, but with the indubitable sheen of newness.
A half-choked laugh escaped his throat. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?” The question held the tone of a man speaking to a child, one he never used on her. But then, without proper context, her question had been childish.
“You read me a story about how Dreiden defeated the Tera’thians at Three Rivers by baiting their fleets into a land attack, only for the Blue Wing to commandeer their ships.”
Her father’s brows lowered, then leapt up as though they had sat on something prickly. He pressed his lips into a line. “Do you remember how Zeb played the part of hostage when Gelhard ‘captured’ him?”
She grinned. “Can you buy me a kaftan like that?” She pointed at the adorned child on the shore. “And something fancy for Mitek too?”
***
Fankalo waited, hands tied behind her with a knot Zeb had taught her to slip, mouth gagged with clean linen, limbs bound to a beam at the center of the mess deck, body swathed in the finery of a dote-worthy child.
Alone.
It was the most alone she’d ever been. At least, since the scourge.
She wasn’t truly alone, of course. The crew hid on ropes, lowered just over the far side of the sinking Rogue’s Respite. Still, she had never before spent so long in a dark space without other warm bodies nearby. Breathing, snoring, humming, working.
There was nothing around her but the gloom of their half-sunken vessel. And ‘nothing’ brought to mind monsters: aether sprites and djinn. With each creak, Fankalo was sure that ‘nothing’ was moments from digging its teeth into her flesh.
She focused on the sounds of the sea crashing against the cove and the hull, waiting. And waiting some more.
When her belly began to gurgle, she fantasized about that pastry the girl in Gembolta had had.
She would have preferred a treat to this silly kaftan.
The garment was comfortable, but the price of Azadonian silk had made her head spin when her father had bartered for it.
Three hundred silver notes—more than she and her brother had seen for as long as she could remember.
And the ruffled turban adorning her head was worth half as much more.
A simple kaftan could be earned from a single day’s hard work, or five-fingered for free from someone who wouldn’t miss it.
A visceral disgust rose in the pit of her stomach.
Before this past month, she’d had frequent visits with hunger, while others touted clothing like this at the market. There was something maddening about it.
The sudden clattering of a gangplank, and footsteps sounded above her. The belly gurgle became a throat gurgle; her body turned to ice.
An unfamiliar voice screamed, “Get the shipwatch!”