Ship of Magic

“Come in, then,” Ivro invited him in a deadly soft voice. With a shivering up his back, Kennit knew the small man would give him pain as well as art. Ivro would see that his tiny needles were as painful as he could make them. But there was enough of the artist in him that Kennit knew his tattoo would also be as perfect as Ivro could contrive it. Pain and perfection. It was the only path to redemption he knew. And if ever he needed to make reparation to his luck, it was tonight. Kennit followed the man into his parlor, and unbuttoned his shirt as Ivro lit branch after branch of candles. He folded his shirt carefully and sat down on the low stool with both his shirt and his jacket across his lap. Pain and perfection. He felt a terrible anticipation of release as Ivro moved about the room, setting up candles on tables and pulling supplies closer.

“Where and what?” Ivro demanded. His voice was as callous as Kennit's when he spoke to a whore.

“The nape of my neck,” Kennit said softly. “And an Other.”

“Another what?” Ivro asked testily. He was already drawing up a table beside them. Tiny pots of brilliant inks were arrayed upon it in precise rows. He placed a taller stool behind Kennit's and sat upon it.

“An Other,” Kennit repeated. “Like from the Others' Island. You know what I mean.”

“I do,” Ivro said harshly. “It's a bad-luck tattoo, and I'm more than happy to drill it into you, you son of a bitch.” His fingertips walked lightly over Kennit's skin, measuring. In Jamaillia, an owner could stab his mark into a man's face. Even if a slave won his freedom later, it was forever illegal to deface the marks of his servitude. But in the Pirate Isles, that same man could put whatever art he wanted anywhere he wanted on his body. Some former slaves, like Sorcor, preferred a burn scar. Others had artists like Ivro rework their old slave tattoos into new symbols of their freedom. Ivro's fingers prodded the two scars that already adorned Kennit's back. “Why'd you have them burned off? I worked hours on those tattoos, and you paid well for them. Didn't you like them?” Then, “Drop your head forward. Your shadow's in my way.”

“I liked them fine,” Kennit muttered. He felt the first stab of a needle into his taut flesh. Goose flesh stood up on his arms and he felt his scalp twitch with the pain. More softly, he added to himself, “I liked the burns even better.”

“You're a mad man,” Ivro observed, but his voice was distracted. Kennit was nothing to him anymore, not a man, not an enemy. Only a canvas for his passionate work. The tiny needle drilled in, over and over. His skin twitched with pain. He heard Ivro expel a tiny breath of satisfaction.

It was the only way, he thought to himself. The only way to expunge the bad luck. Going to the Others' Island had been a bad decision, and now he had to pay for it. A thousand jabs of the needle, and the stinging freshness of the new tattoo for a day. Then the cleansing agony of the hot iron to burn the mistake away and make it as if it had never happened. To keep the good luck strong, Kennit told himself as he knotted his hands into fists. Behind him, Ivro was humming to himself, enjoying both his work and his revenge.

Chapter Five Bingtown

Seventeen days. Althea looked out the tiny porthole of her stateroom, and watched bingtown draw nearer. The bared masts of caravels and carracks forested the docks that lined the placid bay. Smaller vessels plied busily between anchored ships and the shore. Home.

She had spent seventeen days within this chamber, leaving only when it was necessary, and then during the watches when Kyle was asleep. The first few days had been spent in seething fury and occasional tears as she railed against the injustice. Childishly, she had vowed to endure the restriction he had put upon her simply so she could complain of it to her father at journey's end. “Look what you made me do!” she said to herself, and smiled minutely. It was the old shout from when she was small and she would quarrel with Keffria. The semi-deliberate breaking of a dish or vase, the dumping of a bucket of water, the tearing of a dress: Look what you made me do! Keffria had screeched it at an annoying small sister as often as Althea had shrieked it up at an older oppressor.