Ship of Magic

Brashen left the man's office, shutting the door firmly behind him. Once outside, he walked briskly down the street, a man with a purpose. He was relieved to find that his sea-bag was still in a straw pile behind the livery stable where he had slept last night. Now if that had been stolen, he would have been in a real fix. He opened it and glanced through it quickly, to be sure that nothing had been filched from it. Not that he had much of value in there, but what was his was his. He poked through the bag. His cindin supply was still there. It was dwindling, but it would be enough. He wouldn't be using it while he was on duty, anyway. He never used cindin on duty. Like as not, he'd set it aside and not even use it while he was aboard. After all, for the years he had been on board the Vivacia, he hadn't used it at all, not even when he had liberty on shore.

Thinking of the Vivacia woke a dull pang in him. When he'd lost his place on her, he'd lost a lot. He tried to imagine how things could have been if Ephron Vestrit hadn't sickened. He knew he'd still be sailing aboard her. Althea, too. The thought of her jabbed him. He didn't even know where she was in this dirty town. Stupid and stubborn, that was him. There had been no reason, really, to stalk off like that on that night. So she'd said they didn't even know one another. That was just words, he knew better, she knew better.

She knew him so well she had wanted nothing further to do with him.

He stopped on the street, lowered his sea-bag and took out the remaining cindin. He broke a small piece off the stick and tucked it into his cheek. Not much, just enough to help him look lively until he had a proper meal aboard. Odd, how a couple nights of a near-empty belly could make even hard-tack and salt beef sound good. For a moment the cindin stung, then he shoved it into a better position with his tongue and it was fine. He took a deep breath past the bitterness in his mouth and felt all the world come into a sharper focus. He tossed his sea-bag to his shoulder again and headed towards the docks.

It would be good to have a definite place in the world again. And the Springeve promised to be an interesting ship. As often as he'd been up and down the Inside Passage on the Vivacia, they hadn't done much stopping. Captain Vestrit had done most of his buying to the south of Jamaillia. Brashen had been to a hundred exotic little ports in that part of the world. Now it would be interesting to reacquaint himself with the Pirate Isles. He wondered if anyone would remember him there.

Midday had come and gone, as near as Wintrow could tell. At least, that was what his stomach told him. He touched his face again, then looked at his fingertips. The ooze from the new tattoo felt tacky. He wondered what it looked like. He could see the same green sigil on the faces of the others in the pen with him, but somehow he couldn't imagine it on his own visage. They were slaves, it was somehow not shocking to see them tattooed. But he was not a slave. It was a mistake. His father was supposed to have come and rescued him. Like a bubble popping, he saw the complete illogic of this. Yesterday, their faces had been as clean as his own. Like him, they were newly come to this status. But somehow he could not yet think of himself as a slave. It was all a great mistake.

For some time, he had been hearing sounds, the murmur of a crowd, voices raised to speak above the din. But no one had come to see them, save a solitary guard making his rounds lethargically.

He cleared his throat. No one turned to look at him. He spoke anyway. “Why aren't there any buyers? At the other pens, there were buyers walking up and down, taking slaves.”

The dirty boy spoke wearily. “Then you musta been by map-face pens. They take whatever offer they can get for them, almost. Skilled slaves get bought up by companies that rent them out. They get auctioned so the companies will bid against each other. New slaves,” he suddenly paused, then cleared his own throat. He was a bit husky as he went on. “New slaves like us get auctioned, too. It's called the mercy law. Sometimes your family or friends will buy you, and then give you your freedom back. I used to think it was pretty funny. Me and my friends used to come down to the auctions, and bid on new slaves. Just to run the money up, watch their brothers or fathers break a sweat.” He cleared his throat again abruptly and turned back to the corner of the pen. “Never thought I'd be here.”

“Maybe your friends will buy you,” Wintrow suggested quietly.