Sunmaster, page 19
Desimi did, palm out, close to the funnel, and nodded. "Like a water spout."
"Right, so put some water into it. Just a little, so it turns into a water spout but not so much that it collapses."
Droplets rose from all around them, glimmering in the sun before they landed lightly in the funnel. The air's speed spun them out, stretching them into an isolated whirlpool in Rasim's hands. Anybody could see it now, the water giving weight and shape to what had been empty, if hurried, air, and Rasim nodded. "So they're a lot alike, right? They work almost the same. But I'm spinning it, right? You just put the water in. Can you feel it spinning?"
"The water? Sure."
Rasim nodded again. "Close your eyes and just try to keep feeling the spin."
"Sunburn, I can spin water in my sleep."
"Just do it, Desimi!"
"Ugh, fine!" Desimi closed his eyes but left his hand extended toward the little whirlpool. Rasim, drop by drop, began to take the water away, until Desimi's eyebrows furled in a tight frown. "It's getting lighter."
"Just concentrate on the spin. Keep it going and ignore what I'm doing." He immediately felt Desimi take over the water, whirling it at speed, which wasn't exactly what Rasim had hoped would happen, but he kept stealing droplets, whisking them out of their whirlpool. Desimi said, "It's getting lighter," through his teeth, like he trusted neither Rasim nor the witchery, but he kept it going, frowning so hard it looked like he'd give himself a headache.
There was almost no water left in the funnel by then. As slowly as he'd taken the water away, Rasim tried to let the sky witchery go, muttering, "Keep it spinning," with as much concentration as Desimi used. It felt like forever before he was pretty sure he wasn't using skymastery anymore, and took the last few drops out of the funnel.
"It's too light." Desimi's voice rose in alarm. "It's too light, water weighs more than that. It's too quick, it's too—" His eyes popped open and the funnel wobbled dramatically as he saw Rasim sitting on his own hands, a grin spread across his face. "Is that—am I doing that?"
Rasim whispered, "What's it feel like?"
"Light. Quick. Like water but—delicate." The little funnel fell apart, but a huge grin crawled across Desimi's face, too. "Did I do that?"
"Wreck my funnel? Yeah, you did."
"Yaargh!" Desimi flung himself on Rasim, knocking him over, and the two of them rolled across the deck, pounding on each other and howling with outrage and delight. They didn't come to a stop until they crashed into someone's shins and found the captain glowering down at them.
"I thought you were past this kind of fighting," Nasira snapped. "I don't have time for this on—"
Rasim yelled, "Desi's a sky witch, Captain! He did it! He used skymastery!" and punched Desimi in the shoulder again. "We've been doing it wrong! The masters have been trying to teach us like we're first-year apprentices, but we're too set in some of our ways already. It might work for the little ones, but for journeymen we need to find what's familiar, what's similar from one witchery to another, and glide into it! It'll work, Captain. It'll work!"
Sunmaster Endat hurried up, catching the end of that and saying, "Of course, of course, I should have realized. Rasim, I want you to do whatever you just did to teach Desimi skymastery and try to bring a flame into i—"
Nasira roared, "Not on the ship!" and no one dared mention sunmastery again for the rest of the voyage.
The next morning, the Waifia passed through the Eastern Straits that separated the Northern Sea from the broader ocean. Nasira called out orders, and instead of turning south, they carried on eastward toward the scattered archipelago that made up the island nations. The crew sailed with an air of almost vicious anticipation, as if even the prospect of a fleet to defend Ilyara with brought out the warriors in them.
The nearer they came to the Islands, the more nervous Rasim became. It had seemed like a good plan—or at least a necessary one, likely to succeed—when he'd proposed it to Nasira, but as the days slipped away he became increasingly convinced that he'd lost his mind. Maybe Donnin owed him, maybe she'd promised her fleet was his if necessary, but the idea that he was going to ask her people to join a possibly continent-wide war lay heavily on him.
"Cheer up," Desimi told him the morning the outlying islands came into view. "At least there weren't any serpents this time."
Rasim gave him a hard look. "You're not helping. What if I get people killed with this?"
Desimi leaned on the rail beside Rasim, watching ship fish breach around the prow. "You will. If there's really a war coming, you will. You're going to have to get used to that idea, Rasim."
"How? How can you be so calm about it?"
The bigger boy shrugged. "Probably partly because it's not my idea. But even if it was, it's what happens when you push big ideas around. People don't just change. They fight to keep things the same and they get mad if they find out they have to change anyway. Especially if they're not sure the new way is going to be better for them."
Rasim scowled at him. "When did you get so smart?"
Desimi shrugged, staring at the water. "I dunno. Maybe when Kisia and I got out of the sewers in Hongrunn and found out while we'd been messing around a bunch of our friends had died and even more had been kidnapped. And you weren't there anymore. This whole past year has been…everything's changing. More than I thought it ever would. I mean, we saved King Taishm."
"Mostly you saved him."
"I guess. The point is, we were just apprentices and we got pulled into the middle of all that. That wasn't supposed to happen. That's bigger than I ever planned on."
"What did you plan on? I always thought you would captain the Waifia and become Guildmaster someday."
"Everybody thought that." Well off the ship's side, water danced upward in a graceful show of witchery, spinning itself into replicas of the leaping ship fish, then into vast whales that were chased by a watery serpent. Even now, with power of his own, Rasim couldn't help but be impressed by Desimi's easy, casual skill with seamastery. Other crewmembers paused, watching the display with smiles and, when the water fell back down to become one with the ocean again, applauded or cheered before going back to their work. "Because of that. And I guess I did too, but the more we've been out here, the less I like the idea. I don't think I want a Guildmaster's responsibility. I don't think fast enough. I'm not like you. It's taken me a long time to even figure out what being a captain or a guildmaster is even really about."
Rasim squinched his face, almost afraid that if he asked, Desimi would stop talking. But Desimi stopped anyway, so Rasim, cautiously, said, "What's it about?"
"I thought it was just about power. But it's really about being decent, and learning to take care of other people instead of just yourself." He glanced at Rasim. "You'd have made master, even if Siliaria hadn't kissed you."
Rasim choked on a laugh. "I don't think so."
"Yeah. You would have. Because you care, and you try hard. I really hated that about you. You were terrible but you kept trying, and you'd help even if you were bad at it, and people didn't mind that you were terrible, because you tried. And I was good, but they only put up with me instead of…admiring me, I guess. And I didn't get why."
Rasim's eyebrows shot up and he pressed his lips together, keeping every single thought he had firmly behind them. Apparently he didn't have to mention any of Desimi's unkind behavior out loud, though, because the bigger boy laughed roughly. "Yeah. All of that." He set his jaw and shrugged. "But I guess I was jealous, and that's why I hated you so much. It didn't really have anything to do with the fire and you being part Northern. That was just the easy answer." He sighed, dropped his head, and mumbled, "It's a lot easier to just go with the easy answers."
"I know."
"Do you?" Desimi looked sideways at him. "You never seem to take the easy path."
"I never got the chance." Rasim lifted his chin, watching the water again. "I couldn't, when we were little. I didn't have enough witchery, and I wanted to sail on the Waifia so much. But the last year, I mean, I don't just see the right answers, Desi. I can see how much easier it would be to not…I don't know, start slave rebellions in Moran? Not yell at the crown princess of the Northlands about it being wrong to enslave people? Not nag the captain into sailing for Shenryal?"
"You had help there," Desimi pointed out. "If Bayar hadn't turned out to be a prince, she wouldn't have done that."
"Maybe not, but I can still see that it would have all been a lot easier if I'd just…I don't know. Given up during the sea serpent attack."
"Well, then you'd be dead," Desimi said irritably. "That's not easier, that's just dead."
"The point is there's lots of times I've thought it would be easier to not do the right thing!"
"Yeah, well." Desimi straightened, scowling at the water again. "I wouldn't have learned half as much if you'd done that, so for what it's worth, it was worth something to me."
He stomped away, but when Rasim said, "Desimi," he looked back. "Thanks."
Desimi made a horrible face. "Whatever, Sunburn."
Rasim ducked his head and grinned at the water, so he was looking in the right place to see a bolt of lightning careen across the ocean's surface and crack the Waifia's keel.
CHAPTER 23
There were two sounds: first, the keel cracking like thunder, then, like a long-forgotten afterthought, the lightning's crackle, like it moved so fast the noise of it couldn't keep up.
Between those were shouts of horror, screams that spoke of injury, and a huge surge of witchery from every seamaster on the ship. The ocean below them became a bowl, cradling the broken ship as suddenly-frantic sailors darted over the sides to examine the damage. Rasim stayed on board, staring in bewilderment across the sea.
There were clouds scattered across the sky, softening the horizons and skimming high above them, but none of them had the heavy threat of rain, much less the thunderheads that brought lightning. And lightning didn't skitter across the ocean's surface like a stone skipped across a lake. Even if the distant Islands somehow could produce a charge of lightning and shoot it outward instead of up or down, they were much too far away for it to reach the Waifia. Rasim didn't know how far lightning could travel, exactly, but he was fairly sure it was more than the hundreds of miles they still had to go before they reached the Islands.
"Journeyman!" Nasira's furious voice cut through the rest of the chaos. "Rasim, what by Siliaria's blood is happening? Did you do this?"
"No! I don't know what happened! We're under attack!" Rasim knew it was true as soon as he said it, although he had no idea who was attacking, or from where.
"With what?" Nasira bellowed. "Lightning witchery?"
"I guess?" Rasim finally jolted into motion, but long before he reached the main mast, he saw others were ahead of him, scrambling high to scout the horizons. Someone shouted hoarsely, pointing north, and those who could spun to look just as another arc of lighting shot across the water. It burned bright in Rasim's vision, barely visible before it slammed into the Waifia's hull. Explosive fire erupted around the edges of a suddenly-gaping hole, and more screams shattered the air. Rasim closed his hand and the fire went out, sun witchery responding even if he'd had no practice with it.
Nasira, incandescent with rage, snarled, "Someone find that witch and stop them." Rasim spun again and rushed for the railing, but Desimi got there first, and Hassin, was there before both of them.
"Stay," he snapped in the harshest tone Rasim had ever heard from him. "Keep the ship afloat. I'll deal with this." The first mate dove into the water without waiting to see if he would be obeyed, and the water rippled a moment as he propelled himself through it with witchery, moving faster than anyone Rasim had ever seen. In a heartbeat he was gone, throwing himself toward a distant ship all alone.
A third blast arced toward them, shattering the small aft mast into a shower of splinters and Nasira roared with frustration. "What stops lightning?"
"I don't know," Rasim said helplessly. "Earth?"
"We don't have any earth, Journeyman!"
"Wood!" Rasim said. "Wood, Captain, the aft mast is already broken, if we—Arrat! Skymaster Arrat! We need to lift the aft mast into the air, off the ship, we need to—"
"We can't hold that much weight," Arrat shouted back, neither of them using the sky witchery that would make a conversation over several meters easier. "Not without creating winds that will sink the Waifia."
"We can hold it with water," Desimi yelled, drawing everyone's startled attention. "We can lift it out of the water, we can hold the water separately, argh, Rasim, you know what I mean!"
"Yes, yes, right, like the little fire in Ilyara, but we need metal to draw the lightning—"
Another bolt slammed into the ship. Rasim screamed along with everyone else, and Nasira's face went grim as she took a few seconds to survey the damage. There were two vast holes in the Waifia's hold now, both more or less above the waterline, but precariously close to it. The second fire went out without Rasim's help, although he felt a touch of sunmastery and knew Endat or Pynda had taken care of the situation from below decks. Nasira, sharp with fear, said, "We can't take another hit like that. We'll go down."
"Oh." Rasim spoke in a small stupid voice and closed his eyes. "That's what we need to do, Captain. We need to go down. We need to bring the Waifia deep. I bet they can't hit us if they can't see us."
"The main mast is forty meters tall, Journeyman," Nasira said through her teeth. "That's a long way down, and not all of our crew are seamasters." Her voice lifted, though, and she bellowed, "Lower the sails and prepare to sink," although the last word turned to a snarl.
"Dive," Rasim said hopefully. "It's on purpose. We're diving."
"Gnaargh! Get! Go! Pair up anybody who isn't a sea witch with someone who is and if anybody panics I will drown them myself!" Canvas began to fall in huge waves and at incredible speed, the skymasters frantically trying to keep them under control as they came down much faster than they were supposed to. Before they'd touched deck, the bowl of water cradling the Waifia began to deepen, slowly at first, then much more quickly as the crew's witchery harmonized and they became more sure of themselves.
Pynda and Endat appeared on deck. Pynda's eyes were wild with alarm, and even Endat, whom Rasim thought of as unflappable, was visibly tense around the jaw and shoulders as the ship dropped again. A couple of the older crew joined them, muttering promises that things would be all right. Rasim admired that they could even imagine that was true.
"I can keep the water out of below decks, if you want me to, Captain," Desimi said abruptly. "The buoyancy will make it harder to keep the ship deep, though."
"Yes." Nasira hissed the word. "Yes. Do that. Not a bowl, but a sheathe. Do you hear me, Seamasters?" she called. "Let the water close around us and take us down."
The shape of the sea changed around them, surging closer. Desimi's hands spread, his gaze gone dark with concentration as the rising water cloaked the Waifia. Even knowing Desimi's power, watching it rush up to the holes in the hull and then stop there as if glass held it at bay took Rasim's breath away. Air bubbled upward furiously as the ship went deeper, although the deck, and all the witches on it, remained inside Desimi's circle of witchery. Sailors furled the sails at a frantic pace, getting them under control as the ocean closed over their heads and the light changed to the eerie, shimmering blue of shallow water.
Lightning shattered the main mast when it was still well above the water's surface, chunks of wood raining down in rippling splashes. The witchery being worked trembled as panic ran through the crew, but steadied again as Nasira called a reassurance. The ship drifted deeper, light changing from light blue to dark, and a cold trickle of dread threaded its way through Rasim's gut.
The only time he'd been this deep in the ocean, a sea serpent had been pulling him down. The light had all but gone before he managed to kill it, and the swim back up through the darkness had lasted a lifetime.
The last time he'd been deeply submerged at all, it had been in Hongrunn's salt-filled lake, and a third of their crew had died.
He wasn't the only one remembering that. Ilyaran faces went as pale as they could as the Waifia's broken mast sank all the way below the surface, and grim, frightened glances were exchanged. Nasira, softly anyway, but with her voice strangely muted by the hollow of air that Desimi kept carved out so the ship's crew could breathe and work without attending to it themselves, said, "It isn't the same. We're in Siliaria's embrace now, and she will do us no harm. After all." A thread of humor carved its way through the captain's voice. "After all, we carry her beloved with us. Rasim, usually I wouldn't excuse any witch from duty at a time like this, but if your lady comes calling…"
Laughter rippled through the crew and Rasim ducked his head, mortified and relaxing all at the same time. "I'll do my best to worship her, Captain."
Another laugh, much louder this time, rushed through the crew, and someone felt comfortable enough to say, "What now, Captain?"
Nasira pulled a hand over her mouth thoughtfully, studying her crew before gesturing to four journeymen whose skills in the shipyard were well-known. "Go below. Start patching the holes in the Waifia's side. There are some planks, but scavenge anything you need. The galley table should help."
"But dinner!" Dressin, the cook, wailed to the sounds of thin laughter.
"We'll eat on the deck like savages," Nasira promised him, then turned her attention to Desimi. "Can you keep us shielded if we move under our own power instead of just with the current, Journeyman?"
Desimi, through his teeth, said, "I can if it means we'll take out the dogs who broke the Waifia, Captain."
A thin, sharp smile curved Nasira's mouth. "You read my mind, Journeyman. Rasim, you don't seem to be doing much. If it's not too much trouble, perhaps you'd help me turn our ship in Hassin's wake and give those wretches a right surprise when we come up under them?"
