Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (42 page)

He looked confused, and I realized I’d spoken in English.

“I am not interested in you in that way,” I said in Baasha.

He still looked lost. Maybe “in that way” didn’t translate. I tried again. “I am not interested in you romantically. Do not touch me again.”

That he got. His expression darkened. He glanced quickly around at the people on deck, then walked away.

I felt like a heel, but in this case, Williams was right — it was better to be clear. Serhan needed to direct his attentions at someone else. Ideally, someone closer to his own age.

I turned back to the rail and tried to put the encounter out of my mind by focusing on my surroundings.

Here too the sun was setting. All around us, the water was a deep blue. The sea was calm. Everything was surprisingly quiet — no birds, very little wind. It was hot, but not as humid as it had been in Gold Rush. The ship seemed to be moving quite slowly.

Rykthas and the other water-worker were leaning over the ship’s prow, watching the sea’s surface.

After about ten minutes, a man in the rigging called out. He was pointing off to the left. The ship shuddered and began turning in that direction. The sea churned against the starboard hull — probably a water-working, pushing the ship in the desired direction. Slowly, we swung around almost completely. The working diminished until it was just nudging us sideways. The stillness of anticipation settled over everyone for a few moments. Then the ship lurched forward, and we all staggered. A cheer went up from the crew.

“We’ve entered a current,” Kevin said from behind me. “It should get smoother, now.”

“Really? What current?”

He opened his mouth, and an alarmingly juicy burp came out.

I took an involuntary step back.

Looking mortified, he turned and hurried toward the stern.

Poor Kevin. The suave heart-throb I’d met in Free was a shadow of his former self.

I looked over the side. We barely seemed to be moving, but I guess that’s what it looks like if all the water around you is moving too.

After a few minutes, Ida came and leaned against the rail next to me.

I looked down at the older woman’s hands as they gripped the broad wooden rail. Her skin was a little dry from all the cooking and washing up she’d been doing, but all in all, they were nice hands — strong, with long fingers and short, clean nails. They looked like the hands of someone who knew how to do things and didn’t tolerate being messed with.

She took a deep breath of the fresh air and smiled. “How you doing, hon?”

“I’m okay.”

She hiked up her eyebrows.

I shrugged. “I’m under the thumb of a man I can’t stand, traveling to the land of fanged, horned walking carpets, where I’ll spend the rest of my youth. I’m peachy.”

She chuckled.

“Do you have any advice for me?”

“What, I’m a middle-aged black woman, so I have wisdom to impart?”

She took the sting out of her words with a smile.

I looked down at my own hands, embarrassed. “You’re a mom. Moms know stuff. Mine always did.”

I saw my use of the past tense wasn’t lost on Ida. She studied my face, then looked down at her hands silently for a long while. She actually looked like she was tearing up a little.

Finally, she sighed and shook her head. “You should find the people you can count on, but be really sure of them first.”

I held it together for a few seconds, then started laughing. It was hard to stop.

Ida waited, poised between humor and offense.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes. “It’s just that your advice is the absolute opposite of what Williams told me to do a few days ago.”

The older woman frowned. “What did he say?”

“That I was a fool for trying to hang on to who I was before. That I wasn’t facing up to reality. That I was sentimental and soft for, you know — being people-oriented.”

She shook her head. “Don’t listen to him. I’m not saying you should throw your trust at every Tom, Dick, and Harry, but don’t try to go it alone. Look for those few people, the ones you can count on.”

“What about Mizzy? Is she one of those people?”

Again, Ida waited a long moment before answering. “I’ve known Mizzy all my life. She helped raise me after my mother passed.”

“And?”

“She’s never let me down.”

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question.”

Ida didn’t argue. She looked a bit sad.

I groped around for a change of topic. “This current — is it going to take us where we need to go?”

“Sure will,” Terry said from behind us.

Ida and I both started, and he grinned. “Crew says we’re going to ride a whole series of currents west and then north. The ligature to Demesnes is off the west coast of the northern continent, about a hundred miles off shore.”

I nodded, wishing I could hang out with the sailors like Terry did. It filled his time, and he was probably finding out all kinds of cool stuff. But I knew Williams wouldn’t tolerate it. They were too informal and familiar with one another. Touching was too much of a possibility.

Something shrieked like a rusty hinge. I turned and saw a pterosaur sweeping low over the water, quite close to the ship. It wasn’t a terribly big one — wing span of three or four feet, maybe — but it was fearsome looking. Its head was disproportionately large, with long, up-curved jaws full of forward-slanting teeth. It had a long tail with a triangular tag on the end. Its body and neck were covered in pale fur. As we watched, it dipped its head into a wave and jerked up a fish.

“Wow,” I said.

Terry shrugged. “We have them in Gold Rush too, but only the really big ones. Hey, gotta go — I’m going to spar with one of the crewmen on the poop. He knows Kalaripayattu.”

He headed aft.

I looked at Ida. “What’s Kalaripayattu? And where’s the poop?”

“I have no idea.” She straightened and turned away from the water. “I should head down to the galley. Ellen could probably use some help with dinner.”

I stayed on deck for a bit longer, watching the sea. But pretty soon, most of the light had faded from the sky.

I headed down to my room to get ready for dinner. Passengers ate in the captain’s stateroom, so it was a somewhat formal affair. If I got ready slowly — really slowly — it’d fill the time.

I stirred some sugar into my coffee and set down my spoon. Dinner had been okay. There’s only so much you can do with dried foods. The cooks did a pretty good job, considering.

“I am certainly looking forward to some fresh meat,” said a florid gentleman to my right.

“We should be able to hunt in the morning,” Rykthas said.

“What will you hunt?” I asked the gentleman. “Will you go ashore?”

“No, no. We hunt from the main deck.”

“Perhaps my poor Baasha is to blame, but I would have called that ‘fishing.’”

He laughed uproariously. “So might I, were fish our prey. Reptiles, my dear. We will be hunting reptiles.”

“Will that not put a lot of blood in the water?” I asked, remembering the traders’ experience in Gold Rush.

“Ah, worried about the ribbons, are you? Never fear. This ship’s protections are why so many are willing to pay Nayuspetras Rykthas’s exorbitant prices.”

Ribbons?

“That and my charming personality,” Rykthas said from the head of the table.

People laughed.

“Besides,” the man said, “ribbons do not come into the shallows.” He put on a spooky voice and waggled his eyebrows. “They are creatures of the darkness and the deep.”

The people sitting around us laughed again, but I could hear an edge to it.

I looked down the table at Williams. He was looking down at his coffee, apparently unconcerned.

He seemed to see a threat around every corner. If he wasn’t worried about this, I shouldn’t be. I guess.

Early the next morning, one of the crewmen began chumming from the back of the ship while another kept watch from the rigging.

First came fish, some of which the crew netted.

Then came pterosaurs by the dozens, swooping down on the chum and the fish it attracted.

Then came some of the strangest creatures imaginable — thick bodied reptiles with flippers instead of legs. Some were thick-necked with huge, crocodilian heads. Others had long, slender necks and small heads. The long-necked ones seemed most interested in fish. The big-headed ones preyed on the long-necked ones.

Sharks came too. None were like the monster Mizzy had described in her story, but they were big enough to be scary.

The florid gentleman and several others waited on deck, crossbows in hand. They took no notice of these creatures. I realized they were waiting for something in particular.

There was no mistaking when it showed up — a twenty-five-foot short-necked reptile with a green and blue brindled hide and a short, tapered tail. Its jaws were packed with teeth. Each one looked longer than my hand. It had four huge flippers and moved through the water with surprising grace.

It went right for one of the long-necked animals, seizing it by the head and killing it with a single violent twist that tore its neck apart.

A shout went up from the men on deck. They began shooting harpoon bolts into the huge reptile. The lines were tied to massive iron rings in the deck. The creature thrashed wildly, crashing into the side of the ship. At 250 feet long and 70 feet wide, Rykthas’s ship was massive, but the animal was all muscle. It must’ve weighed tons. I was sure it would crash right through the wood.

But the ship held just fine. Maybe that was the famous barrier at work.

When the animal died, a crewman was lowered in a rope sling to cut large chunks of meat from its back. He also pried out a number of its teeth for souvenirs.

It was terrifying to watch him dangling down there above the churning water. Several reptiles struck at him, and one shark, lifted out of the water by the feeding frenzy, seemed to crash right into him, making him swing around wildly on the end of his line.

“Do not fear for the seaman, young lady,” the florid gentleman said. “He is the ship’s barrier-worker and is highly skilled. He is in no danger.”

I nodded.

“Though come to think of it,” the man continued, “I believe Nayuspetras Rykthas’s last barrier-worker was killed doing this sort of work. But I am sure it was an unusual accident.”

Fortunately, I didn’t witness any disasters that day. The guy was hauled up, along with four huge chunks of meat and a dozen nine-inch teeth. The crew cut the carcass loose, and the ship quickly left the feeding frenzy behind.

We had fresh fish for lunch and reptile steaks for dinner. I’d never tasted anything quite like the reptile — a white meat, mild like a delicate fish but with a texture and fattiness more like beef, and a hint of salt. It was delicious.

Over the next week, the current carried us closer and closer to land. The northern edge of the continent we were skirting snuck above the horizon regularly — a hazy green line. The water was shallow, warm, and full of life.

There was a hunt every morning.

I was glad to have seen the first one. How many people have had an experience like that? But I stayed belowdecks in the mornings after that. In general, hunting didn’t bother me. But these particular hunts were too violent and chaotic for me, and seeing that barrier-worker dangling over the side gave me the heebie-jeebies.