Ship of Magic

Kyle Haven lay on Gantry's bare bunk, facing the bulkhead. All that the ransacking slaves had left of the mate's possessions were scattered on the floor. There was not much. Wintrow stepped over a carved wooden chain and a single discarded sock. All else that had been Gantry's—his books, his clothes, his carving tools—had been taken or left in fragments, either by the slaves in their first rush of plundering, or by the pirates in their far more organized gathering of loot.

“It's Wintrow, Father,” he told him as he shut the door behind him. It would not latch anymore; during the uprising, someone had kicked it open rather than simply trying the knob. But the door stayed shut, and the two map-faces that Sa'Adar had posted as sentries did not try to open it again.

The man on the bed did not stir.

Wintrow set the basin of water and the rags he'd salvaged down on the cracked remains of Gantry's desk and turned to the man in the bed. He hastily set his fingers to the pulsepoint in his throat, and felt his father jolt back to consciousness at his touch. The man shuddered away from him with an incoherent sound, then sat up hastily.

“It's all right,” Wintrow said comfortingly. “It's only me.”

His father showed his teeth in a mockery of a smile. “It's only you,” he conceded. “But I'll damn well bet it isn't all right.”

He looked terrible, worse than he had when the slaves were trying to feed him to the serpent. Old, Wintrow thought to himself. He looks suddenly old. Stubble stood on his cheeks and blood from his head wound was smeared through it. He had come in here intending to clean his father's wounds and bind them. Now he felt himself strangely reluctant to touch the man. It was not dismay at the blood, nor was he too proud to do such tasks. His time in the hold tending the slaves had eroded those things away long ago. This was a reluctance to touch because the man was his father. Touch might affirm that link.

Wintrow faced what he felt squarely. He wished with all his heart he had no bond to this man.

“I brought some wash water,” he told him. “Not much. Fresh water supplies are very low just now. Are you hungry? Shall I try to get some hard-tack for you? It's about all that is left.”

“I'm fine,” his father said flatly, not answering his question. “Don't trouble yourself on my account. You've more important friends to pander to just now.”

He ignored his father's choice of words. “Kennit's sleeping. If I'm to have any chance of healing him, he'll need all the rest he can get to strengthen him.”

“So. You'll truly do it. You'll heal the man who's taken your ship from you.”

“To keep you alive, yes.”

His father snorted. “Bilge. You'd do it anyway, even if they'd fed me to that snake. It's what you do. Cower before whoever has the power.”

Wintrow tried to consider it impartially. “You're probably right. But not because he has power. It would have nothing to do with who he is. It's life, father. Sa is life. While life exists, there is always the possibility of improvement. So, as a priest, I have a duty to preserve life. Even his.”

His father gave a sour laugh. “Even mine, you mean.”

Wintrow gave a single nod.

He turned the gashed side of his head toward his son. “May as well get to it, then, priest. As it's all you're good for.”

He would not be baited. “Let's check your ribs first.”

“As you will.” Moving stiffly, his father drew off what remained of his shirt. The left side of his chest was black and blue. Wintrow winced at the clear imprint of a boot in his flesh. It had obviously been done after his father was already down. The rags and the water were the only supplies he had; the ship's medicine chest had completely disappeared. Doggedly, he set out to at least bind the ribs enough to give them some support. His father gasped at his touch, but did not jerk away. When Wintrow had tied the final knot, Kyle Haven spoke.

“You hate me, don't you, boy?”

“I don't know.” Wintrow dipped a rag and started to dab blood from his face.

“I do,” his father said after a moment. “It's in your face. You can scarcely stand to be in this room with me, let alone touch me.”

“You did try to kill me,” Wintrow heard himself say calmly.

“Yes. I did. I did at that.” His father gave a baffled laugh, then gasped with the pain of it. “Damn me if I know why. But it certainly seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Wintrow sensed he would get no more explanation than that. Perhaps he didn't want one. He was tired of trying to understand his father. He didn't want to hate him. He didn't want to feel anything for him at all. He found himself wishing his father had not existed in his life. “Why did it have to be this way?” he wondered aloud.

“You chose it,” Kyle Haven asserted. “It didn't have to be this way. If you had just tried it my way . . . just done as you were told, without question, we'd all be fine. Couldn't you have, just once, trusted that someone else knew what was good for you?”