Ship of Magic

Throughout the ship, other voices rose in a babel of confusion. Crew members shouted to one another, demanding to know what was going on, while in the holds slaves screamed wordlessly, terrified of anything—fire, shipwreck or storm—that might come upon them while they were chained down in the dark below the waterline. The fear and misery in the ship was suddenly palpable, a thick miasma that smelt of human waste and sweat and left a coppery taste in Kyle's mouth and a greasy sheen of hopelessness on his skin.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Kyle heard himself shouting hoarsely, but was unsure of whom he ordered. He gripped Wintrow by the front of his tattered robe. He shook the unresisting boy, yet it was not the boy he battled.

Gantry was suddenly on the deck, barefoot and shirtless, the pale confusion of interrupted sleep in his face. “What is it?” he demanded, and then at sight of the serpent head that reared up near deck-high, he cried out wordlessly. In as close to panic as Kyle had ever seen the man, he snatched up a polishing stone from the deck. Two-handed he gripped it, and then he reared back and threw it at the serpent with such force that Kyle heard the cracking of his muscles. The serpent evaded it lazily with a gentle sway of its neck, and then slowly sank back down out of sight beneath the water. It was visible only as an unevenness in the pattern of the waves.

As if awakening from a nightmare, all purpose and understanding of what he was doing suddenly left Kyle. He looked at the boy he gripped without any clear idea of what his intent had been. Strength suddenly forsook him. He let Wintrow fall to the deck at his feet.

Chest heaving, Gantry turned to Kyle. “What is it?” he demanded. “What set this off?”

Vivacia was now uttering short panting shrieks, answered by incoherent cries from the slaves in the hold. Wintrow still sprawled where Kyle had dropped him. Gantry took two steps and looked down on the boy, then looked up at Kyle incredulously. “You did this?” he asked. “Why? The boy is knocked senseless.”

Kyle merely stared at him, speechless. Gantry shook his head and then glanced up at the sky as if imploring help from above. “Quiet down!” he snapped at the figurehead. “And I'll see to him. But quiet down, you're upsetting everyone. Mild! Mild, I want the medicine chest. And tell Torg I want the keys to these stupid chains, too. Easy. Easy, my lady, we'll soon have things put as right as I can make them. Please. Calm down. It's gone now, and I'll see to the boy.” To a gaping sailor he shouted, “Evans. Go below, wake my watch. Have them go among the slaves and calm them, tell them there's nothing to fear.”

“I touched it,” Kyle heard Vivacia tell Gantry breathlessly. “I hit it, and when I hit it, it knew me. Only I wasn't me!”

“It's going to be all right,” Gantry repeated doggedly.

The ship lurched again as Vivacia leaned far down to scrub her hands in the sea. She was still making small, frightened sounds.

Kyle forced himself to look down at his son. Wintrow was out cold. He massaged the puffy knuckles of his right hand and abruptly knew how hard he'd hit the boy. Hard enough to loosen teeth at least, possibly enough to break his face. Damn. He'd been going to feed the boy to the serpent. His own son. He knew he'd struck Wintrow, he recalled doing it. What he could not recall was why. What had goaded him into it? “He's all right,” he told Gantry gruffly. “More than likely he's faking it.”

“More than likely,” Gantry agreed sarcastically. He took a breath as if to speak, then suddenly seemed to change his mind. A moment later he said in a low voice, “Sir, we should make some sort of a weapon. A pike or a spear. Something. For that monster.”

“We'd probably just make it mad,” Kyle said uneasily. “Serpents follow slavers all the time. I've never heard of them attacking the ship itself. It will be content with the dead slaves.”

Gantry looked at him as if he hadn't heard him correctly. “What if we don't have any?” he said, speaking very clearly. “What if we're as smart and good as you said we'd be, and we don't kill half of them off on the way? What if it gets hungry? And what if the ship just plain doesn't like it? Shouldn't we try to get rid of it for her?” Belatedly his eyes roved over the idle sailors that were gathering to overhear this exchange. “Get back to your tasks!” he barked at them harshly. “If any man has nothing to do, let me know. I'll find him something.” As the sailors dispersed, he swung his attention back to Wintrow. “I think he's just stunned,” he muttered. “Mild!” he bellowed again, just as the young sailor bounded up with keys in hand and the medicine box under his arm.