The Knight

I said no, it was a dog I had been keeping for somebody else. That felt wrong as soon as I said it, and I did not feel right about it until I called Pouk back and said, “You were right, Pouk, he’s really my dog, and I’m pretty sure he’s still on the ship. I won’t tell you to look for him. If they didn’t find him you won’t either. But I want you to put a bucket of fresh water down in the hold where it will be a while before anybody finds it.”

He said he would, and went off to do it.

And that is all about that day, except that I stayed on the ship because I was pretty sure the captain would sail it away if I got off. That day and the next day I learned quite a bit about ships and the work sailors do, mostly by watching and asking Pouk and Kerl questions.

On the second day, a couple of hours after it got dark, we put out like the captain had said we would. Sitting in my cabin I watched the lights of Irringsmouth fade out behind us until there was nothing but dark, greasy-looking sea. Pretty soon I was going to understand it a lot better than I have ever understood people; but I did not know about that then. Then it was only something I loved, something beautiful and dangerous and tricky, like Disiri.

After that, I just sat in my cabin. Maybe I got out Sword Breaker again. I do not remember. I could not have seen it very well, because I kept the cabin dark, waiting for what I thought would be coming.

Finally I thought, well, there is no Mac and no TV and no books or magazines to read. But there are feather pens in the desk, and paper and ink. I could write myself notes or make lists or something.

So I lit one of the lamps and got the stuff out of the drawer and started writing down the most important things that had happened to me, like finding a spiny orange tree in the woods, Parka, and seeing the knight that blew away in that wrecked castle. I wrote up to Disiri leaving and me finding Disira and Ossar. Then I decided to give it up.

Only there was one other thing. When I picked up the list I had been writing, meaning to wad it up and toss it out the window, I looked at it. And all of a sudden I saw it was not the way we wrote at school at all. It was Aelf writing. I had not known I could do it, but I had done it and I could read it.

Chapter 19. The Cable Tier

Here is where I am going to make you mad. I know I am going to do it, and I do not like it, but I am. I am not going to tell you about the fight with the Osterling pirates. It still hurts, and it would hurt a lot worse if I had to write all about it. So I will not. That it happened is the main thing, and you already know that. We were only three days out of port.

The other main thing was that I got stabbed. I had bought a mail shirt and a helmet in Irringsmouth, and I was wearing them. The shirt was not a real hauberk like a knight would wear. It had short sleeves and came down a little bit below my waist; but I was proud of it, and while our crew was putting up the net I pulled it on and put on my helmet. When I got stabbed I thought the blade had come up under it. Only it had not. It had gone right through. I saw that later.

One night down in the cable tier, when they thought I was going to die, I dreamed the whole thing over again and kept looking around for a machine gun I had lost. And the truth is I remember that dream a lot better than the real thing, and maybe some parts are mixed up. I do not know.

We were sailing as fast as we could go, with sticks tied on the yards and extra sails on them and the ship heeling way over and turning a streak of sea to cream, if you know what I mean. But the Osterlings were rowing hard and sailing too, and their ship was really narrow and had four masts, with the one in front raked way forward, and they must have had two hundred men at the oars. In a gale we might have outsailed them; I know that now. But it was pretty calm, just a good breeze, and we did not stand a chance.

I asked Kerl what they wanted, and he said, “They want to cook you and eat you.” That was just in my dream, I am pretty sure, but it is the truth anyway. They wanted all of us. That is the way it works here. What you eat makes you more like it, and the closer it is to you, the more it moves you that way, if you know what I mean. You take Scaur and Sha. They ate a lot of fish, but it did not make them very much like fish, just quick and graceful, and knowing a lot about the sea. They never said their hands were cold either, or tried to warm them in front of the fire. But when they touched you, their hands were as cold as sea-water. Deer are closer, and if you eat a lot you smell things more and your ears get sharper and you can run faster. That is how it works, and sometimes I think it must be mostly in the blood, because when I drank Baki’s blood it healed me a lot in just a day or so, and in certain ways I was more like one of the Aelf. I guess I still am.