Aboard the Gazelle
The dawn speeds a man on his journey, and speeds him too in his work.
—Hesiod
That glowing red ball hanging just over the horizon had damn well better be the setting sun, bucko.
—Walter Slovotsky
About the time that Elleport disappeared over the horizon, Jason came up on deck, one pistol seated firmly in his shoulder holster, a thong holding it firmly into place for extra security on the rolling deck. His sword was belted tightly around his waist, along with his Nehera-made bowie.
The real giveaway, though, were the Home-made shirt and button-front blue jeans.
It was a clear afternoon, the sun just beginning its fall toward the horizon, the ship rolling lazily as it quartered the waves. Jason's stomach didn't like the rolling gait, but it wasn't complaining emphatically.
Bren Adahan was stretched out on a blanket on the deck by the rail, sunning himself, wearing only a towel tied sarong-style around his waist.
"We didn't discuss this," he said, raising himself up on an elbow.
He caught himself. It really didn't matter whether they had discussed it or not, not anymore. A group of a half-dozen people traveling to Klimos to exchange trade knives for nacrestones might be well-armed—given that Klimos wasn't entirely civilized, they'd better be—but it was unlikely that they'd have both guns and Home apparel . . .
. . . unless they were from Home.
No longer lolling idly at the tiller, Thivar Anjer's eyes widened. His creased face, walnut brown in the bright sunlight, wrinkled into a scowl as he started to turn toward Bothan Ver, the grizzled old sailor who was the Gazelle's only crew, but stopped himself.
"A time for truth, it seems," Anjer said.
"So it seems," Durine said. He was seated cross-legged at the stern, near the captain. Stripped to the waist, the big man dipped the bathing ladle over the side and into the water, then brought it up and poured the water over his head, giving himself a sketchy sponge-bath. His thick hands rubbed at a hairy torso crisscrossed with pink scars, rivulets of flesh through a forest of hair.
"Durine," Jason called out, sniffing at the cake of soap he'd retrieved from his rucksack. It was real Pandathaway soap, made from Mel copra and who knew what else, smelling of flowers and sunshine. "Catch." He tossed the cake to Durine, who quickly wiped his left palm dry on the deck and reached up to let the soap smack into his palm.
Durine smiled a quick thank you, then began to lather his massive chest and belly.
Kethol was stretched out on the narrow free space at the bow, shaded by the jib, his eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach, apparently asleep. "Makes it easier," he said, his eyes still closed, not moving, "not to have to keep up a disguise."
Which was why Jason had done it. Besides, if he didn't, Tennetty was going to.
Tennetty came up from below, squinting in the daylight, now in her leathers, her hands patting her guns and the hilts of her sword and knife as though for reassurance. Balancing easily on the deck, she eyed the horizon, then reached down to help Jane Slovotsky up through the hatch. "Too bad," Tennetty murmured, "that Ganness wasn't in Elleport."
"Avair Ganness?" Jane Slovotsky raised an eyebrow. She was wearing a white blouse and a tight pair of Home denim shorts; incongruously, she had heavy shoes on her feet. Nice legs, though. Maybe a bit too skinny. But not much.
Another wave broke below the bow, spattering them all, making the metal cooking box hiss. Jane raised a hand to wipe the sea water from her face, the light, golden hairs on her forearm glistening with sun and spray. "Tennetty, you really expect that any time we need transportation by water, Avair Ganness is going to be around?"
"You haven't ridden with Ganness."
"No, but I have heard about him. Cullinanes and their friends seem to keep getting him in trouble, costing him ships."
"They do, at that." Tennetty laughed.
Jason liked that. He hadn't seen her laugh, not much, not since that night on the Mel beach, the night that Father died, or didn't.
The wind caught the peak of another whitecap, spraying them all again.
The rear deck was crowded, and Thivar Anjer didn't like it much. He glared at them while Bothan Ver went forward to where the half dozen needle-nosed rapentfish their nets had scooped up that morning were grilling over the steel cooking box.
"So. We're seeking Karl Cullinane," the captain said, not really a question. "What will happen when we find him?"
Jason opened his mouth to say something about how all the captain would have to do was drop them off at the rendezvous with Ellegon, but Bren Adahan beat him to it.
"You will go your way, and we will go ours," Bren Adahan said. "We'll use his transportation."
"If he and his friends have any," the captain mused. "Very well—I'll go my way with double the money, and all of the trade knives."
"Oh?"
"I used to know an Avair Ganness, captain of the Warthog. He used to talk at some length about how dangerous it is to get involved with Cullinane. I don't mind taking risks, but I won't do it for a few silvers. Nor will I do it without you all swearing on your blades that my ship and I will be released unharmed, and that you won't stop me running in the face of a fight." He gestured around. "I'm no warrior; this is not a warship."
"You'll be free to go. If you don't betray us. Or try to," Tennetty said.
"Agreed. Have we a bargain?"
"Yes, you have a bargain," Bren Adahan said.
"No. Not you." Thivar Anjer turned to Jason. "Young Cullinane, have we a bargain?"
"We do."
"Cullinanes don't break their word, do they?"
"No, we don't," Jason said.
* * *
Jason couldn't sleep. The hold was dank and musty, redolent of rotting fish, decaying wood and a distant, acrid stench that Jason couldn't quite identify. The smells, combined with the constant, albeit gentle rocking of the boat, had him vaguely nauseated.
He dressed and climbed the ladder, clearing his throat as he did so that Kethol would know it was him and not be surprised. That was one of the many things Valeran had taught him: never surprise a guard accidentally.
Bothan Ver was half-asleep next to the bound tiller, only occasionally coming half-awake to take a quick glance at the sky and water, perhaps make a slight, drowsy adjustment to tiller and sheets, and then stretching out again in his steersman's chair.
The night was chilly. Kethol crouched next to the cooking box, warming his hands over the banked coals. Straightening, he handed a waterskin to Jason, who took a quick swig for politeness, then handed it back.
Klimos lay ahead, somewhere off the bow. Just another of the Shattered Islands, a cluster of dirt-poor islands in the Cirric, where the people supported themselves by fishing and farming in good years, by selling off their children in bad years. They'd evolved a complex set of rules as to when and why some children were saleable and others weren't, but it still sucked.
Tennetty, sleeping lightly in her bag belowdecks, had been born on one of these islands, sold into slavery by her parents.
Jason shook his head.
Some problems didn't admit of easy solutions; Home raiders didn't often travel into the Shattered Islands. Being caught at sea by a slaver ship was always a possibility; like the Pandathaway-based Slavers' Guild, the Home raiders hadn't established themselves in the Outer Kingdoms, on the other side of the Cirric.
Besides, what could you do? Kill all parents who would sell a child? And what then? Pull food and money from the air?
He knew what Tennetty's answer was to that. Killing was her answer to everything. But Jason didn't know what his was. Not yet.
"At least I didn't get left behind this time," Kethol said. He knit his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.
"Eh?"
"Your father left the three of us in Ehvenor. The three of us who survived. The trip cost us some good men, sir."
And the trip wouldn't have been necessary if Jason hadn't panicked the first time he'd been around shots fired in anger. He wanted to lash out, but the rebuke was justified.
Kethol looked at him, then shook his head. "Not what I meant. Not what I meant at all. Would have happened eventually. You keep juggling knives, you're going to get cut. We all juggle knives."
Kethol had another swallow of water, and the two of them were silent for a while, watching the dark sky and the sea.
Far off, toward the horizon, a ring of perhaps a dozen faerie lights pulsed excitedly in sequence, blue chasing red around and around, the blue becoming brighter as it closed in on the red, fading when the red took on a tinge of orange and speeded up. And then, without warning, the lights stopped cooperating and spread across the sky, their pulsing color changes becoming random, lethargic.
"Do you think he's alive, Kethol?"
The lanky warrior took a long time answering. "Yes. And no. And maybe it doesn't matter, young sir." Kethol shook his head slowly, blunt fingers toying with his beard. "Yes, because he's what he was. Fastest man with a weapon I ever did see. Didn't matter what weapon—sword, staff, bare hands, anything. There maybe was a better swordsman here or there, and maybe somebody as good with a staff, but your father was a . . . wizard with everything.
"So: yes, he's alive, because of what he was, and because the Empire needs to be held together by somebody who knows what he's doing, and I'm not sure you do, not yet." The way he looked at Jason wasn't either friendly or hostile, just appraising. "No, that's not true. I'm sure that you don't, yet. You don't know when to be hard and when to be soft—which your father did. I don't think you know when to be direct and when to be subtle—which your father didn't. Doubt you've got the strength of will and the strength of body to carry off being direct all the time. Which he had.
"So yes, he's alive. We need him." Kethol leaned forward on his elbows and sighed. "But, no, I don't think he's alive, because nobody could have lived through that explosion that you and Tennetty described. Perhaps it doesn't matter, because perhaps it's all for nothing anyway."
He chuckled, a thin laugh that rattled in his throat like small, dry bones. "Only one thing I'm sure of, young emperor-to-be, and that's that you'd better decide who you are. If you're going to be just one of the fellows, then you'd best not expect us to follow you blindly into combat. If you want to be above us, keep yourself apart."
"And if I don't?"
"Well, then you'd better hope that your father is alive. In either case, you'd best not spend the night asking a simple soldier what we'll find at the end of the trail.
"Go to sleep, Jason."