Infidel’s cheeks flushed. “I, uh... hmm. If you know about the dragons, you also know I can crush men’s skulls like eggshells?”
“There are such rumors.”
“Well, skulls aren’t my favorite part of a man’s anatomy to crush,” she said.
Brand laughed, but it sounded forced to me.
At this point, I heard Sorrow’s limping gait on the gangplank. With the iron brace on her leg, she was anything but stealthy.
“Now you get to finally meet her,” said Infidel pointing toward the approaching witch with her last monkey skewer.
Though my back was to her, I could feel Sorrow growing closer.
Infidel said, “Brand, this is Sorrow. Sorrow –”
Sorrow raised her hand to cut Infidel off. “I know who he is. He’s the captain’s gigolo.”
Both Infidel and Brand looked taken aback by her directness. Sensing she’d broken some unwritten social code, Sorrow tried to explain herself. “I’m sorry if I come across as brusque. I’ve many things on my mind at the moment. I don’t have time for pleasantries.”
“I’m guessing you’re not interested in post-coital conversation either?” asked Infidel.
Sorrow furrowed her brow. “Are you... propositioning me?”
“By the Divine Author, no!” Infidel laughed. “You’re not my type.”
“So what is your type?” asked Brand.
Infidel sighed. “Tall, dark, and deceased.” She tried to grin as she said it, but didn’t quite succeed.
“I’ll be in my cabin. Tell Captain Romer to see me there for her orders.” Sorrow didn’t look at me as she said, “Follow.”
I followed. In desperation I called back to Menagerie, “Do something!”
But Menagerie didn’t even turn his head. He was focused on the third skewer of monkey.
We went below deck, into the voluminous hold. The
Freewind
was small for a clipper, just under two hundred feet long, but the hold seemed especially large because it was especially empty. Most ships that had been in port more than a week would already be filled with cargo. I could only deduce that the bounty placed upon the
Freewind
was bad for business. What reputable merchant would place his cargo on a ship that the world’s most powerful navies had sworn to sink?
Toward the rear of the boat, beneath the poop-deck, was a walled-off section divided by a narrow corridor. I followed Sorrow down this passageway. On each side were cabins filled with bunks. At the end of the hall was an oak door with brass hinges. It opened to reveal a small but tidy room, nearly thirty feet across but only about eight feet deep. I had to crouch to navigate beneath the broad ceiling beams. Sunlight spilled through portholes upon a bed large enough for two, a sturdy looking desk with an oil lantern hanging above it, and a table in the far corner with a large pitcher, a wash basin, and a chamber pot beneath it. The room was spotless, and smelled of furniture polish and fresh linens.
“Place your sea-chest by the desk,” said Sorrow as she closed the door.
I did so.
“Go beside the table and fold yourself as small as you can manage. I’ve no need of you for now.”
I sat by the table, folding my legs up along my barrel chest and hugged them with my driftwood arms. I found my obedience distasteful and humiliating. I hadn’t enjoyed being manipulated by Truthspeakers as a child; I certainly didn’t find the experience any more pleasing as an adult.
Yet, in my misery, there were two tiny flickers of hope.
Flicker one: For better or worse, I was still near Infidel. If Sorrow had decided to remain on the Isle of Fire while my wife sailed north, I would have been inconsolable. Flicker two: She’d said,
your sea-chest.
Had she meant only, “the sea-chest that you carry?” Or had she seen my message on the beach and now knew my true identity?
I waited. My world narrowed to the slight band of gleaming wood floor directly before me. With my head folded down, the rest of the room was blocked by the brim of my hat. I listened. Sorrow busied herself with settling into the room and sorting through the contents of the sea chest. After a time, Captain Romer visited the cabin.
“I understand you wished to see me, madam?” said Gale.
“I want you to tell me everything you can about the Skellings who attacked you,” said Sorrow.
Sorrow listened intently, but I couldn’t make out any details that Captain Romer added to the story that Infidel hadn’t also covered. True, Infidel hadn’t mentioned the sea-worthiness of the hide boats, and Gale went on about their construction at length, but I sensed that this wasn’t information of interest to Sorrow.
The only follow-up questions Sorrow asked were about the witch.
“And the Skellings said that this witch was searching for the
Freewind?
”
“Not precisely. She’s hunting for a magical artifact.”
“Do you think there’s a chance this ship will come under assault by her forces?” Sorrow asked.
“She might try,” said Gale. “But on the high seas we can evade her. If you’re truly concerned about avoiding her, I do have... options. May we speak in the fullest confidence?”
“Of course.”
“When you hire the
Freewind
, you hire the fastest ship available for travel by sail. But, for an additional fee, there may be shortcuts that would trim our travel time and make us utterly untraceable.”
“I know of these so-called
shortcuts
,” said Sorrow. “I’d rather take my chances with an elderly witch than risk my sanity in the abstract realms.”
“Of course, madam. Quite wise of you.”
I was a little taken aback by the way that Gale was taking such a subservient role with Sorrow. Wanderers are known for their independence and freedom-loving nature. It seemed odd that the captain of a ship should be so obsequious. On the other hand, the one thing that Wanderers loved as much as freedom was money. Sorrow was no-doubt well compensated for building the Black Swan a new body.
If the rest of the world was no longer eager to hire the
Freewind
, I suppose I couldn’t begrudge Captain Romer for bending over backward to make her remaining customers happy, but at the same time it didn’t sit well with me. I’ve never treated a person differently based on the size of their purse. It mattered nothing to me if you were rag-picker or royalty. If you could tell a good joke and were generous enough to laugh at my attempts at wit, you were fit company to share a pint.
Perhaps it comes from having been raised by monks. Their vow of poverty took hold in me, even if their vows of faith, abstinence and chastity did not.
Sorrow concluded the conversation by giving orders about her meals. Captain Romer acknowledged them and left the cabin, thanking Sorrow for her business. Just as I learned a little bit about the captain by overhearing their conversation, I also think I learned a few things about Sorrow. It was easy to believe she’d been the daughter of a wealthy and powerful judge. I’m guessing she’d had a whole complement of cooks, maids, and butlers growing up. Perhaps she’d never been trained to be nice to the hired help.
Above me, I could hear Gale shouting out commands and Rigger responding. I was near the porthole. Perhaps due to my stillness, my wooden ears caught a whispered conversation that ensued as the sails rattled and flapped up the masts.
“I don’t like setting sail with an empty hold.” It was Mako’s deep voice. “You shouldn’t have been so dismissive of Captain Dare’s offer.”
Gale’s answer was much more difficult to hear. “It’s not enough that Levi betrayed us? Now you question my judgment?”
“I’m not Levi,” said Mako. “I’m just saying –”
“I know what you’re saying. But Dare’s splitting hairs. He won’t take a cargo of slaves, but he’ll gladly fill his hold with the shoddy food stocks the slavers purchase in order to feed their human chattel. We’ve sacrificed too much to engage in such compromises.”
“By your logic, any cargo in the world is unacceptable,” Mako said. “Most of the iron ore and the coal used to smelt it comes from mines worked by slaves. Are we never again to accept a load that includes steel? Every golden moon in the Shining Land is stamped with the image of a sovereign who supports the slave trade. Are we to refuse these coins for our future wages and be paid only through barter?”
Gale answered, but her words were lost as the ship groaned. The sails had caught the wind and the ship began to gently roll as she headed from the harbor. I wished I’d been above to see our departure. Clippers sport more sails than any other ship, making an impressive sight when all their canvas is unfurled. Also, I welcome all opportunities to expand my vocabulary, and the sailors I’ve known over the years have filled my head with terms like
spankers, flying jibs
and
mizzen topgallants
. I’d enjoy the opportunity to finally make sense of all the terms and figure out which of the thirty-plus sails was which.
Of course, from the sound of things above, I doubt that any of the Romers would have found the time to explain their jargon. A clipper this size normally set to sea with a minimum crew of twenty, and the Romers numbered seven – eight, if you counted Brand. Even with their magical talents, I imagine they had no time for a lubber like me to be wandering around the deck.
Further shouts drifted through the porthole, enough to catch Sorrow’s attention. She went to the small window near me and peered out.
“That didn’t take long,” she mumbled.
From the shouts above, I gathered that the
Freewind
had been ambushed the second it sailed from the harbor onto the open ocean. Out here, the rules that made Commonground a sanctuary no longer applied. I wanted to ask questions about the nature of the assault, the number of ships, how close they were, etc. At the very least, I would have liked to stand and look out the porthole. It was not to be. Instead, all I know is that the winds grew ever stronger. The sunlight through the portal brightened, and above the splashing of waves I heard a thunderous crack, like lightning splitting a tree trunk.
Sorrow chuckled. “Infidel’s not half bad with that hammer.”
There were further cracks. Finally, Sorrow turned away with a shrug. “That’s that,” she mumbled. The shouts from above had a decidedly celebratory tone. I had the feeling we weren’t being chased any more.
Sorrow settled at her desk. She opened a page of a fresh notebook and a new bottle of ink. As I tuned out the noise above deck, I heard the faint scratching rhythm of her quill racing across paper, trapping thoughts into words.
Lulled by this familiar noise, I dropped into memory. Since becoming a ghost, I’d not slept or dreamed. I never grew weary. I had no eyelids to close if I wished to sleep. But now, my wooden body felt, well, wooden. Heavy. It possessed a gravity that weighed down my thoughts. I was lulled by the sound of waves washing against the hull as we swayed across the sea. The muffled shouts of Romers in the rigging sunk into my seedpod ears, sounding not of this moment, but of some long distant past. Murmurs layered beneath whispers lay beneath the pulse of water, like a heartbeat, my heartbeat, so familiar after such a long absence.
Thus, for the first time in death, I found myself perched upon the precipice of sleep...
...then, slowly, I drifted free. My ghost fingers slipped loose of my knot-root hands as if they were oversized gloves. My legs twitched and came loose of their wooden counterparts and it felt good to wiggle my toes freely once more. I craned my neck, pulling free of my coconut mask. I was loose! I rose, my spirit spilling from the boundaries of its wooden cage.
Then I stopped short.
Silver wires still jutted from my phantom flesh.
I grabbed them and tried to yank them free.
Something yanked back, hard and fast, and I was pulled into the wood, into the barrel chest, shrinking ever smaller until I was tiny enough to be fit into the golden cage, then smaller still as I passed into the belly of the silver mosquito.
Though I must have been no larger than a flea to fit in such a compact space, I felt whole. And, indeed, I still looked whole; the curved silver surface of the interior of the mosquito’s belly reflected me perfectly. I looked just as I had when Infidel and I escaped the spirit realm after confronting Greatshadow. I was wearing the black boots and pants Zetetic had conjured for me, as well as the ridiculous red velvet cape, though it was now mostly in tatters. I was bare-chested; in the spirit world, I’d given my shirt to Infidel to replace her own shredded clothing.
I touched a jagged hole in my belly. This was my fatal wound, inflicted by my own knife.
And of course there was the knife.
I reached under the cape to my hip where the bone-handled knife was slipped into my belt. The knife was plain looking, simple, but elegant in its match of form and function. It had been my grandfather’s hunting knife; the blade was eight inches long and sturdy, with a pattern in the metal almost like fingerprints, where the steel had been folded in on itself a dozen times as a skilled blacksmith had worked in carbon to temper the edge. The hilt was a single length of yellowed bone; only after death had I learned this was dragon bone. The natural magical resonance of such beasts had trapped my soul within the weapon.
I was a ghost imprisoned in the belly of a jeweled mosquito. But how many ghosts had knives?