Ship of Magic

“Crew's gotta do a few things to the cap'n, and the mate. Can't let them get away with always thinking they're gods and we're dung.”

“Then . . . you think they know about stuff like that?”

Mild grinned. “Can't be around the fleet too long and not know it goes on.” He twanged a few more notes, then shrugged elaborately. “They probably just think it never happens to them.”

“Then no one ever tells them,” Wintrow clarified .for himself.

“Of course not. Who'd tell?” A few notes later, Mild stopped abruptly. “You wouldn't, would you? I mean, even if he is your Da and all . . .” His voice trailed off as he realized that he might have been very indiscreet.

“No, I wouldn't tell,” Wintrow heard himself say. He found a foolish grin on his face as he added wickedly, “But mostly because he is my father.”

“Boy? Boy, get your butt down here!” It was Torg's voice, bellowing up from the deck.

Wintrow sighed. “I swear, the man can sense when I'm not miserable, and always takes steps to correct it.”

Wintrow began the long climb down. Mild leaned over slightly to watch his descent and called after him, “You use too many words. Just say he's on your ass like a coat of paint.”

“That, too,” Wintrow agreed.

“Move it, boy!” Torg bellowed again, and Wintrow gave all his attention to scrambling down.

Much later that night, as he meditated in forgiveness of the day, he wondered at himself. Had not he laughed at cruelty, had not his smile condoned the degradation of another human being? Where was Sa in that? Guilt washed over him. He forced it aside; a true priest of Sa had little use for guilt. It but obscured; if something made a man feel bad then he must determine what about it troubled him, and eliminate that. Simply to suffer the discomforts of guilt did not indicate a man had improved himself, only that he suspected he harbored a fault. He lay still in the darkness and pondered what had made him smile and why. And for the first time in many years, he wondered if his conscience was not too tender, if it had not become a barrier between him and his fellows. “That which separates is not of Sa,” he said softly to himself. But he fell asleep before he could remember the source for the quote, or even if it were from scripture at all.

Their first sighting of the Barrens came on a clear cold morning. The voyage northeast had carried them from autumn to winter, from mild blue weather to perpetual drizzle and fog. The Barrens crouched low on the horizon. They were visible not as proper islands, but only as a place where the waves suddenly became white foam and spume. The islands were low and flat, little more than a series of rocky beaches and sand plains that chanced to be above the high tide line. Inland, Althea had heard there was sand and scrubby vegetation and little more than that. Why the sea bears chose to haul out there, to fight and mate and raise their young, she had no idea. Especially as each year at this time, the slaughter boats came to drive and kill hundreds of their kind. She squinted her eyes against the flying salt spray and wondered what kind of deadly instinct brought them back here every year despite their memories of blood and death.

The Reaper came into the lee of the cluster of islands at about noon, only to find that one of their rivals had already claimed the best anchorage. Captain Sichel cursed at that, cursed as if it were somehow the fault of his men and his ship that the Karlay had beaten them here. Anchors were set and the hunters roused from their stupor of inactivity. Althea had heard that they'd quarreled over their gambling a few days ago and all but killed one of their number who they'd suspected of cheating. It was nothing to her; they were foul-mouthed and ill-tempered on the occasions when she'd had to fetch for them in her duties as ship's boy. She was not at all surprised they were turning on one another in their close quarters and idleness. And what they did to one another was no concern to her at all.

Or so she had thought. It was when they were safely anchored and she was looking forward to the first day of comparative quiet that they'd had in weeks that she suddenly discovered that it would affect her. Officially, she was off duty. Most of her watch were sleeping, but she had decided to take advantage of the light and the relatively quiet weather to mend some of her clothes. Doing close work by lantern light had begun to bother her eyes of late, to say nothing of the close air belowdecks. She'd found a quiet corner, in the lee of the house. She was out of the wind and the sun had miraculously found them despite the edge of winter in the air. She had just begun to cut squares of canvas from her worst worn pair of trousers to patch the others when she heard the mate bellow her name.

“Athel!” he roared, and she leapt to her feet.

“Here, sir!” she cried, heedless of the work that had spilled from her lap.

“Get ready to go ashore. You'll be helping the skinners; they're short a man. Lively, now.”