Skymaster, page 6
part #3 of The Guildmaster Saga Series
Hassin was already on the way to the door, but that brought him up short. "After what she's done? After all we've lost?"
"Even so." Tears suddenly burned Rasim's eyes. "She lost everything too, Hassin. She lost Trisk when the sea serpent attacked, and it broke her. Don't tell me Captain Nasira can't understand that, but if she can't, if she won't, then I'll sing for Missio, and ask Siliaria to take her back into her arms."
The first mate's throat tightened before he pulled a quick, tense smile of sorrow. "Wait for me before you sing, Rasim. If you can sing for her, I'll join my voice with yours."
Rasim nodded. "Be quick, and pray to Siliaria that we only have five souls to sing into the sea."
Hassin left without answering, which was answer enough. Rasim curled Missio's cold body into his arms and followed after, not meeting anyone's eyes as he walked out of the palace. It wasn't as late in the day as he'd imagined. The early Northern sunset was only just beginning, streaking the sky bitter red and deep purple. The fight that morning seemed like it had been days ago. But he hadn't lost a whole day sitting by Missio's side. Captain Nasira wouldn't have let that happen.
The journey back to the docks seemed much shorter than the one away had been earlier, although wasn't any less tired. Something drove him now, though: fear, or anger, or both. People moved out of his way, and he wondered what his expression was like, or if it was only that he carried a dead woman in his trembling arms. Maybe both, because when he approached the Waifia, even Captain Nasira paused to frown at him like he'd become someone else. Someone more worthy of respect, maybe.
Or maybe just someone who'd lost his mind. "Endat came to tell me you'd found her. Don't you tell me you think she deserves a Seamasters' burial."
"If Siliaria doesn't think so, she can cast her back out onto the shores," Rasim said flatly. The other bodies already lay together under rough canvas at the ship's prow. He made his way there with Missio and laid her with the others, then, lower lip between his teeth, looked to see who they'd lost for certain.
None of them were young: no journeymen, this time. All masters, which was a greater blow to the guild as a whole than Rasim personally. He re-tucked the canvas, then hesitated and took Missio's pouch from her belt, whispering, "You don't need this anymore," before he stood. The bite of cold northern wind felt good against his cheeks. "Is Lorens here? Or Inga?"
"I am." Inga's wheat-blonde hair and pale skin were out of place on an Ilyaran ship, but she climbed out of the hold like a sailor born. "Where's Hassin?"
"Looking for Kisia and Desimi. When he gets back, with or without them, I think the captain wants to sail."
Nasira's mouth pinched, but she nodded. Inga made a soft movement of protest with her hands, but Rasim cut her off. "You need to have a ship ready, Princess. If Sunmaster Endat is going to visit Shenryal, your ships need to launch with ours."
"They're in dry dock—"
"Take some of our witches. They can get a dry ship seaworthy faster than you'd ever be able to do. Just be ready." He was being rude. Possibly disastrously rude, given that Inga was heir to the Northern throne and his own king wanted strong relationships with the North. Rasim felt too hard and cold inside to care. He had an idea. A dark, frightening idea that he couldn't do if he let himself feel anything besides the hardness and the coldness. Nasira looked like a puffer fish, holding back her opinion of his behavior, but Inga only regarded him steadily for a few moments, then nodded.
"Captain? May I have use of some of your crew? I know it puts you in a bad spot, but—"
"I'm no worse off another five crew short than I am now," Nasira said shortly. "But it's not going to matter if Hassin can't find Desimi. What's that about, journeyman?"
"They were playing in the sewers just before the attack and no one's seen them since." Rasim couldn't make that gentle, either.
Nasira's face went slack, then tightened with complicated remorse. "Without Desimi this is all a fool's errand. We've been testing the ice for days, and now we're at barely half strength."
"Just get the ships ready." Rasim turned away from his captain and the Northern princess alike, moving to do his part in just that: preparing the Waifia to sail. It was strangely quiet work, with so few crew members. Those who remained knew their duties, though, and Rasim was grateful he could fall into familiar rhythms that occupied both his body and his mind.
From the position of the stars, it was after midnight when Hassin finally returned to the Waifia. Everyone hesitated a moment when he came on board, waiting without wanting to ask. Nor did they have to: Hassin met Rasim's eyes and shook his head.
No bodies, then. But no Kisia or Desimi, either. They had been captured.
The captain's curse was loud across the quiet night. The crew stayed silent, absorbing the unspoken bad news. Nasira, though, lifted her gaze sharply and found Rasim's. One of her eyebrows arched in challenge. He turned away, finishing the job he'd been doing—tying off ropes—before speaking to whomever could answer him: "Is the Northern ship ready to sail?"
"It is," Hassin replied. "I stopped on my way here to check."
Rasim, nodding, made his way to the prow. "And are we?"
"Except for a harbor full of ice and a fierce wind in front of us," Nasira snapped.
"Skymaster Arrat or his journeymen can help with the wind," Rasim said quietly. His heartbeat was calm and steady and he had no sweat on his palms, no dry mouth, none of the things that usually told him he was about to do something foolish.
Well, not usually, maybe. He didn't generally think things through far enough in advance to worry about them too much. It was mostly afterward that he recognized he'd been rash, and got cold sweats and sick to his stomach. But he'd been thinking about this for hours without scaring himself silly over it, and that was probably awful in its own way.
The Waifia's figurehead rose high against the horizon. Rasim crawled up behind it, then stood on its struts so he could see the whole of Hongrunn's ice-ridden harbor. With the figurehead vanishing in the lower reaches of his vision, it was almost like standing on air. There were old stories about the most powerful Skymasters being able to do that, but Rasim thought no one really came any closer to it than this.
The ice below was blue with moonlight that cast shadows of deep rich grey. The water beneath was black, hidden from light, and so cold that to touch it, even with sea witchery, sent bumps over Rasim's arms. Sounds carried on the wind: ropes and boards creaking, footsteps on the deck, voices that were little more than murmurs. Normally, casting off was noisy business, with sailors shouting orders and calling farewells to those on shore. Not tonight. Tonight everyone was being quiet, trying to see what Rasim would do, while also attending to their own duties.
No point in drawing out the suspense. Rasim unfolded the bag he'd taken from Missio's belt and spilled its dusty contents into his palm.
It wasn't much to look at, dull and ashy in the moonlight. No sparkle to it, nothing that gave any hint or promise as to what it did. Even he had thought it was dust at first.
Except no sea witch who still carried Siliaria's figurine would ever let it get so dirty. Only something absurdly precious would be kept with Siliaria. Not even coins went into the goddess's carrying pouch, because they could scratch and damage her. The dust had to be important, and once he realized that, he knew what it was.
Rasim took a deep breath and swallowed a palmful of the drug that had killed Missio.
Power came alight within him.
8
It was fire under his skin, making him sensitive to every drop of water in the air, to every pulse and wave of the harbor beneath the ship. He felt beads of moisture hanging along the Waifia's oiled boards, and the steam of breath exhaled from the crew behind him. Some witches, like the healers and Kisia, saw the water in a human body clearly enough to work it. Rasim had never been able to, but now he could. He could stop a heart. He could stop a hundred.
And for the first time, he felt water within the ice. He'd always known it was there. Everyone did. But something changed when it froze, making it nearly impossible for a sea witch to access. Now he could barely imagine what the problem had been. The water was still there. Thinner, maybe; stretched out in a way that unfrozen water wasn't, but it was still only water, and any sea witch could master that.
He extended his hands, barely aware the satchel of drug-dust dangling from his fingers. The ice beyond was what mattered. Thin, hard water: it could be broken with a flex of his will. Or not so thin after all; the ice was many inches thick, but even so. Rasim clenched his extended hands into sudden fists.
A boom shattered the quiet Northern night, and then another, dozens of them piling on top of each other until the air was filled with the sound of thunder. Rasim glanced upward, half expecting the stars themselves to be shaking in the sky, or the moon to be breaking into pieces. Neither happened, but in front of him, ice shattered. Lumpy chunks burst upward and fell back into the black sea. Cracks appeared everywhere, leaping left and right as they found the weakest places in the ice. Rasim stood above it all with a wild grin on his face. His heart throbbed with each explosive snap of ice, but even that wasn't enough.
Fingers of water reached up to seize huge floes of ice, dragging them into the depths. They would melt on their own, but not quickly enough. Not when he could force them to fragment into smaller and smaller pieces by driving thin wedges of sea water into fine cracks and widening them until they broke. He let the smaller pieces go again, laughing with delight as they burst back to the surface like breaching ship-fish all over the harbor. Once they were small enough he could even make them melt by pressing the thin-stretched frozen water back against itself. He began to feel stretched thin, like there wasn't enough of him to go around the whole harbor, and that was awful. In the beginning he'd felt unstoppable, and he wanted that to go on. There was an easy way to make it go on, an easy way to be sure he could finish clearing the harbor of ice.
Very dimly, he recognized that he didn't need to clear the whole harbor. He wanted to, because it would be so impressive no one would ever doubt his abilities again. He wanted to because he would look like a hero, and it didn't matter that he'd already decided that being a hero was over-rated. But really all they needed was a clear passage, and that already existed.
He still couldn't stop himself from smashing and melting chunks of ice. It should all be destroyed, to show the slavers the true power of Ilyaran sea witchery. They would know not to steal away his friends and family, if he could clear the harbor entirely. All it would take was another dose of the drug.
Even more faintly, Rasim knew taking a second dose of the drug would be stupid, but he couldn't make himself let it go. Just in case he needed it again before he finished. Just in case. He kept whispering that to himself as the heightened power began to drain away. His legs were oddly weak, like Missio's had been. He swayed, suddenly less confident of his perch on the figurehead. Someone's hands caught his ribs and he was lifted off it, then set on the deck with a grunt. A concerned face peered into his. "Rasim?"
"Help." Rasim, trembling, pressed the bag of Missio's drug into Hassin's hands. "Throw this overboard right now. Now, while I can see you. Make sure it sinks deep. I can't do it myself."
Hassin's eyes were black in the moonlight. He accepted the bag gingerly and took a few quick steps away. Water rose to the Waifia's rail in an elegant spout, tiny shards of ice spinning in it. Hassin shook the pouch over it, emptying it of dust, then dropped the bag as well. The spout folded over itself and dove back into the harbor, streaking away. Rasim felt it dissipate over the distance, spreading the drug into impotency. Only when Hassin released his witchery did Rasim relax at all, and even then he still shook and shivered. "Don't ever let me near that stuff again."
"That good?" Hassin's question was hushed.
"Better. Better than anything I've ever felt. Even better than Siliar—"
Hassin stepped up quickly and laid his fingers across Rasim's lips. Rasim's eyebrows shot up and the first mate's eyes twinkled. "Don't say anything that might offend the goddess, journeyman. We've got a long voyage ahead of us."
"Right." Rasim smiled thinly and looked into the ice-free harbor water, whispering, "I'm glad I never saw that stuff before she kissed me. All that power. I'd have done anything for it. I almost still would."
"But you won't die for it." Nasira stalked up to them, frowning like she was trying not to look impressed. "You've got your friends to live for, so don't be stupid. You've already got more magic than sense."
Both Rasim and Hassin turned skeptical looks on her, and the captain's mouth twitched as she allowed, "All right, you've got an uncommon amount of wit, I'll grant you that. Skymaster Arrat and his journeymen are on board, and the Northern ship is ready to sail. Let's cast off." The last words were spoken loud and clear, and awe-stricken sailors hopped to their duties.
"Captain." Rasim's voice was hoarse and he wondered if he'd been shouting at the ice. He felt like he might have been. Nasira arched an eyebrow at him and he cleared his throat. "Captain, Missio was wrong to go to them, however she found them, whyever she did it, but if they gave her that stuff..." He shook his head.
So did Nasira, wearily. "Have you ever met anything you couldn't forgive, journeyman? You've got us free of the harbor. If you want Missio buried as a Seamaster, she will be. Just don't expect everyone to sing for her." She walked away, attending to her own duties, and after a moment, so did Rasim.
The Waifia was under sail within minutes, canvas cast to catch wind that Skymaster Arrat bent toward the sails. One of the Skymaster journeymen was on the Northern longship, filling its single vast sail as well. The Northern ships had admirably low drafts, though Rasim thought the Ilyarans' many masts and sails were naturally superior.
Usually, launches meant many people on the docks, waving goodbyes. Tonight, when Rasim thought to look back, there was only one: Inga, standing with clenched fists and leaning into the wind like she might leap onto a ship and sail away herself. Reminded of Kisia's comment, Rasim looked for Hassin, and found him unnaturally still at the stern of the ship, watching the Northern princess recede with the shore. When she was no more than imagination, he turned from the rail and caught Rasim watching him. Rasim's face heated, but Hassin smiled like he was glad to not be entirely alone in that moment, and put his hand over his heart before returning to work.
Through luck, they'd caught the last of the outgoing tide after Rasim's witchery. His attention kept going to the brilliant moonlight reflected on black slopping water littered with chunks, not walls, of ice. He didn't exactly feel drained like he had after raising the sea to empty the mines, though he knew his magic must be limited right now. The lingering effects of the dust-drug just made him feel like if he had a little more, he could do amazing witchery again. He was lucky no big magic needed to be done, and luckier still that Hassin had dumped the remaining drug into the harbor.
They weighed anchor just beyond the harbor's mouth, where the sea became choppy and rough with winter winds. All the crew turned out on deck, and it looked strangely, sadly empty with so many sailors missing. Together they lifted the four who had died fighting the slavers and, just as Hassin had done with the drug, they called flutes of water upward to rest the bodies on. Sesin began to sing, her voice pure and sweet and high. Rasim, still a soprano, joined her, as did one or two other journeymen and many of the women. Nasira, whose singing voice was much warmer than Rasim had expected, brought in the next singers, and so on until the very deepest voices finally joined. From surface clarity to the dark depths of the ocean: that was how Seamasters lamented their dead as they gave them back to Siliaria. Only when magic had brought them all deep did Nasira look to Missio's body, and then to Rasim.
He lifted his chin. He would carry her, and sing for her, even if no one else would. Even if his magic was tired now, he had strength enough for that. He would be sure of it. He knelt at Missio's side and made sure her carving of Siliaria was still in her grip before he slid his arms beneath her body to lift her.
To his astonishment, someone else helped too. Rasim looked up to meet Sesin's tear-filled eyes, then nearly staggered with disbelief as first Hassin, then Nasira, came to carry Missio's head and feet. Their witchery came together, too, four weaving strands of water rising to take Missio gently from Seamaster arms. This time, Rasim began the keening song, and Sesin was the one to join in. Hassin drew breath to sing as he had promised, but Nasira, whom Rasim had never expected to see cry, brought her voice in first, and sang as if her heart was broken. Then Hassin's tenor came in more quietly, gaining strength, and for long moments it seemed like they might be the only four to sing. That was too bad, Rasim thought: without the baritones Missio couldn't go so deep, and Siliaria might cast her onto the shores after all. But then a bass rumbled in, and one by one the crew all joined, until, like the others, Missio was brought to the ocean's floor to rest in Siliaria's arms.
9
The Northern longship was a slice of darkness against the moonlight, waiting at a respectable distance for the Ilyaran funeral rites. Only when sailors began returning to their posts did the longship come up alongside the Waifia so that Skymaster-assisted conversations could fly back and forth between the two ships. Sunmaster Endat and one of the Skymaster journeyman were already aboard the Northern ship, but Rasim had expected that. He searched for another face and found it: Lars, shadowing Endat, and also far more of Lars's men than Rasim had expected.
Prince Lorens was there, too, and Kif, the grumpy elder, who looked as if it was the last thing he wanted. Rasim pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes, trying to shunt weariness away. It didn't help much. He sighed and went to Nasira's side.
She glowered at him. "What now?"
"Permission to leave the Waifia, Captain? I want to check on Lars. He's got too many men with him."
