Ship of Magic

“While you were gone, I could almost recall . . . something else. Like wind in my face, only stronger. Moving so swiftly, of my own free will. I could almost recall being . . . someone . . . who was not a Vestrit at all. Someone separate from all I have known in this life. It was very frightening. But.” She halted, teetering on a thought she didn't want to acknowledge.

After a long silence, she admitted, “I think I liked it. Then. Now . . . I think I had what men would call nightmares . . . if liveships could sleep. But I don't sleep, and so I could not wake from them completely. The serpents in the harbor, Wintrow.” Now she spoke hurriedly in a low voice, trying to make him understand all of it at once. “No one else saw them in the harbor. All now admit of that white one that follows me. But there were others, many of them, in the bottom muck of the harbor. I tried to tell Gantry they were there, but he told me to ignore them. But I could not, because somehow they made the dreams that . . . Wintrow?”

He was dozing off in the warm sun on his skin. No one could blame him after the hardships he'd endured.

It still hurt her. She needed to talk to someone about these things, or she thought she would go mad. But no one was willing to truly listen to her. Even with Wintrow back on board, she still felt isolated. She suspected he was somehow holding himself back from her. Again, she could neither blame him, nor stop the hurt she felt at that. She felt an unfocused anger as well. The Vestrit family had made her what she was, created these needs in her. Yet since she had quickened, she had not had even a single day of ungrudging companionship. Kyle expected her to sail lively and well with a belly full of misery and no companion. It wasn't fair.

The thud of hasty footsteps on her deck broke her thoughts.

“Wintrow,” she pitched urgency into her voice as she warned him, “Your father is headed this way.”

“You're wide of the channel. Can't you hold a course?” Kyle barked at Comfrey.

Comfrey looked up at him, a hooded glance. “No, sir,” he said evenly, as if he were not being insubordinate. “I can't seem to. Every time I correct, the ship goes wide.”

“Don't blame this on the ship. I'm getting sick of every crew-member on board this vessel blaming their incompetency on the ship.”

“No, sir,” Comfrey agreed. He stared straight ahead, and once more turned the wheel in an attempt to correct. The Vivacia answered as sluggishly as if she were towing a sea anchor. As if in response to that thought, Kyle saw a serpent thrash to the surface in her wake. The ugly thing seemed to be looking right at him.

Kyle felt the slow burn of his anger begin to glow. It was too much. It was just too damn much. He was not a weak man; he could face whatever fate threw his way and stand up to it. Unfavorable weather, tricky cargoes, even simple bad luck could not break his calm. But this was different. This was the direct opposition of those he strove to benefit. And he didn't know how much more of it he could take.

Sa knew he had tried with the boy. What more could his son have asked of him? He'd offered him the whole damn ship, if he'd but be a man and step up and take her. But no. The boy had to run off and get himself tattooed as a slave in Jamaillia.

So he'd given up on the boy. He'd brought him back to the ship and put him completely at the ship's disposal. Wasn't that what she'd insisted she'd needed? He'd had the boy taken to the foredeck this morning, as soon as they were well out of the harbor. The ship should have been content. But no. She wallowed through the water, listing first to one side and then to another, constantly drifting out of the best channel. She shamed him with her sloppy gait, just as his own son had shamed him.

It all should have been so simple. Go to Jamaillia, pick up a load of slaves, take them up to Chalced, sell them at a profit. Bring prosperity to his family and pride to his name. He ran the crew well and maintained the ship. By all rights, she should sail splendidly. And Wintrow should have been a strong son to follow after him, a son proud to dream of taking the helm of his own liveship someday. Instead, at fourteen, Wintrow already had two slave tattoos on his face. And the larger one was the result of Kyle's own angry and impulsive reaction to a facetious suggestion from Torg. He wished to Sa that Gantry had been with him instead of Torg that day. Gantry would have talked him out of it. In contrast, Torg had acted immediately, much to Kyle's unspoken regret. If he had it to do over.