The Farthest Shore (Eden Series Book 3) (15 page)

“He told us.”

“Where’s Captain Terlow?” Vinsen said, grasping for the only familiarity that came to mind. He’d met Terlow in Triton Harbor, had escorted him from his ship and eaten with him. Dagrans valued courtesy, so surely that counted for something. Terlow might listen to him.

“He’s meeting with the sailing master in his quarters.”

“These are his quarters.”

“In his bedroom,” the Turean said, pointing at a door just behind him. Then he studied his cards before playing a wizard and ten suns, though no one else seemed to be still in the game.

In his bedroom?
And no one was laughing, so the Turean must have been telling the truth, which only deepened the unreality of the situation. Dagrans had strange customs about women—such as them being bad luck on board a ship—but surely that didn’t mean the captain would consort with one of his officers. During the day. With everyone, including a filthy Turean, being aware of it?

Before he could think twice, Vinsen pushed away from the wall and strode on still-unsteady feet towards the door. The officer made a sharp exclamation—he didn’t hear the words, only the sound—and darted around the table to try to stop him. The deckhands rose too, but the only person close enough was the Turean, and if the man had tried to lay a hand on him, Vinsen would have killed him, or at least tried to. He pulled the door open.

If the officer had been telling the truth, he would have expected the Dagrans to be studying maps and charts. Instead, Terlow and another man—both clothed, thankfully—sat at opposite sides of a small table, and since they had straightened up as the door was opened, Vinsen saw what lay on the table.

It was a large rectangular piece of dark metal overlaid with a sheet of glass in perhaps three-quarters of its area. Wires, fine as hairs, crisscrossed the glass, dividing it into a grid made up of hundreds of tiny squares. Two of those squares glowed red, one was a fleck of yellow fire, and the rest were clear.

What on Eden was that? Vinsen stepped forward for a better view, and a sharp point jabbed him in the small of the back.

Terlow released the hilt of his longsword as if peeling one finger at a time away from it, and sweat trickled down the back of Vinsen’s neck. If the Dagrans wanted to imprison or kill him to cover up their actions, they could do so with perfect impunity and no one would ever know about it.

“Come in, Peter,” Terlow said. The bedroom was not a large one, so he sat on a bunk while the sailing master had the only chair. “You too, Captain Solarcis.”

“Sir.” The blade was gone, Vinsen was propelled in with some force and the door was shut. Before he could think of anything to say, a tiny red square on the iron board went dark. Beside it, another square now lit up like a ruby. And there was something odd about the quarter of the board that had no glass or wires. That was plain iron wrought in an odd undulating shape that reminded him of—

“The coastline,” he said. “That’s a map.” And there were two red points, just as there were two Denalait ships left.

“You underhanded bastard,” he said.

The officer took a step forward as if to hit him, but Terlow only grinned. “It’s hardly against the rules to observe your competitors, Captain Solarcis,” he said. “You do the same with sharks, do you not? Besides, if I were you, I wouldn’t keep gifts of any kind from my rivals.”

Seething so much he didn’t feel pain and exhaustion any longer, Vinsen moved closer to the observation board. It was marked off so he could calculate how far from
Enlightenment
the other two ships were. He wondered if he could smash the damned thing before any of the Dagrans stopped him, but from the looks of it, it was heavy. He was outnumbered, and they could not only stop him, they could hand him over to the Tureans.

“Please sit down, Captain,” Terlow said, and the sailing master got up to offer him the chair.

“I’ll stand.” Vinsen kept his back to the door.

“As you wish. You’ve met my first mate, Peter Corojal? And Roderick Aewin is the sailing master. Would you like something to drink?”

Vinsen could tell Terlow was taking back the initiative, so he shook his head. Aewin started making some sort of condolences on the loss of
Mistral
, and Vinsen gave him a look that made him fall silent.

Terlow had been watching, of course. “Did the kraken take down your ship?”

Vinsen managed a fractional nod.
And I’d drink to it doing the same to yours. I wouldn’t care what happened to me.

“So there really was a sea monster.” Terlow’s tone was conversational. “Your information about a ship was somewhat garbled then.”

“Better than none at all,” Vinsen said icily.

“Of course. Incidentally, Captain, Phane told us there was a kraken, but I wasn’t entirely certain of it until now, so you’ve confirmed his story.”

If Vinsen could have strangled Phane, he would have gladly done so. Though it didn’t surprise him that Terlow had been skeptical of the man—as devious as he was, little wonder he suspected even his allies.

“What other services is he performing for you?” he said, unable to keep an edge of scorn from his voice.

Terlow’s brows lifted. “If you’re implying we had anything to do with your ship’s sinking, you’d be wrong. That was due to either your homeland’s internal disputes or poor seamanship or both.”

“Poor seam—” Vinsen stopped, not out of courtesy or caution. The remark had made him so angry his throat tightened past the point of speech, and it was a moment before he could continue. “There was a storm! We didn’t see the kraken until it was too late, and with
Mistral
pitching as she was, the kraken unbalanced her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it only makes me more certain we need to protect ourselves.”

Protect your worthless hides from what?
Vinsen wondered, but he had the answer at once. Obviously the kraken, because
Enlightenment
was a strong enough ship not to fear anything else on the seas. But what did Phane have to do with the beast? Tureans could and did make monsters, that was certain, but their minds weren’t capable of curbing any of those abominations.

“Who is controlling the kraken?” he said.

Terlow glanced at the closed door. “Why, he is.”

“If he told you so, he’s lying. Tureans can’t master sea creatures.”

“No?” The word was a polite empty sound which told him, only too clearly, that Terlow didn’t believe anything he had just said, and before he could think how to frame a more compelling argument, the first officer spoke up.

“Well, if that’s a skill only Denalaits can possess, then only one explanation is possible,” he said. “A Denalait must be giving the beast its orders. Which again boils down to some internal dispute in your homeland, and leaves us out of it.”

There was no winning with them. The burst of strength Vinsen had gained from sheer fury had drained away by then, and weariness settled over him like a weight of lead across his back. He had never felt more alone in his life.

“I suppose if the kraken destroys the other two ships, you’ll win by default,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.

“I suppose if the Denalait navy sends ships that are unable to defend themselves, that could well happen.” Terlow’s voice was calm, but the look in his eyes suggested very thin ice.

“We can defend ourselves against other ships.” Vinsen knew he was going too far but what else could he do? His ship, his crew, the race and probably any chance of returning to Denalay were gone, so what more did he have left to lose, except for his head? And at that point he no longer cared. “We weren’t as prepared for ambushes from sea monsters, pirates and their pawns.”

“Mind your tongue!” Peter Corojal’s hands curled into fists. “We’re no one’s pawns.”

“Why, did they pay you then?” Vinsen shot back.

It was a strike in the dark, something he said on the spur of the moment to show his contempt, but when no one answered, realization dawned cold. “They did. How much did they—”

“Enough.” Terlow didn’t exactly shout, but he got to his feet and his voice rolled out in a deep boom that silenced Vinsen. “I’ve heard enough. You may be a guest on this ship, Captain Solarcis, but I draw the line at having my privacy invaded and my crew mocked to their faces. Peter, take him to the brig.”

Chapter Six

Red Sky at Night

Enlightenment
’s brig was the smallest place Vinsen had ever been confined in—the root cellar of his stepfather’s house had been roomier—and it was by far the worst. That was something he wouldn’t have thought possible.

Not that the brig had been designed for cruelty. The bunk was covered with a thin straw-stuffed mattress, and it was long enough for him to stretch out, if he felt like lying down. No rats or roaches shared the cell. He’d been there for perhaps a day—difficult to tell the passing of time—but he’d been fed twice and given water. The meals were uninspiring, obviously nothing like what the Turean was enjoying in the stateroom, but he wasn’t likely to starve, and he choked down every mouthful.

What kept him tense and sleepless wasn’t the bitter gnawing of failure or even the knowledge of the Dagrans’ betrayal. It was the likelihood of the ship either sinking or being seized. He had no doubt the Tureans would eventually turn on their allies, because Tureans trusted no one but their own kind, and terrifying though it would be to stand on the deck as the kraken’s arms rose to enfold the ship, being trapped and unable to do anything but drown was worse. He didn’t particularly care if he died, but he would have given anything for the chance to send word home. The Admiralty would have dealt with the Dagrans, dealt with the Tureans and maybe named a small island after him.

He sat on the bunk, staring at the barred window. At least the enforced inactivity seemed to have helped him physically, whatever it had done to his mental state; his head no longer ached and he’d kept down all his food.
Splendid. I might even die healthy.

The brig was in a corner of the lowest deck, with only the hull between him and the ocean. That as much as anything else kept him awake. Any time he heard a sound—the creak of timbers, the settling of crossbeams, the rasp of rope on wood—it turned to the kraken’s claws or beak scraping through the hull behind him.

Except for the footfalls echoing hollowly on steps, which were their own sound entirely. He realized the Dagrans were heading to the brig, although it seemed like less than an hour since his last meal.

Last meal.
He straightened up.

A key clicked in the lock and the door swung open. Captain Terlow stood outside, along with his first lieutenant and a deckhand who Vinsen guessed had been ordered to watch the brig.

“Would you come with us, Captain Solarcis?” Terlow said.

He didn’t have much of a choice, so he stepped out. They had taken his sword before locking him up, naturally, and the uniform he’d been so proud of was less than pristine compared to the Dagrans’ garb. His clothes were wrinkled, stiff with salt and stained in places where blood had not washed out completely.

And if it was his crew’s blood, it was all that remained of them, and he wouldn’t be ashamed of how he looked. He raised his head.

“This way.” Terlow started off. Vinsen followed, and the lieutenant fell into step behind him. He hoped he might be taken back to the stateroom so he could confront the Turean, but instead they kept climbing and he realized they were heading topside.

Unease tied his guts into a knot. Punishments were meted out there—keelhauling or the cat’s lick or hanging from a yardarm—but surely those were for men serving aboard
Enlightenment
, rather than for a captain in the Denalait navy. Were they planning to throw him overboard instead? There was something worse than being devoured by the kraken, because being handed over to the Tureans would mean a much more agonizing death.

Whatever they did, he wasn’t going to plead. He reached the deck and stood waiting while the lieutenant climbed out. Both sails and flags hung down limply, though the crew still worked—scrubbing the deck, polishing the brass, inspecting the rigging with absolutely no danger of losing their balance in a gust of wind—and Vinsen’s heart twisted as he remembered
Mistral
.

No one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary about his being on deck, and there were no other ships in sight, let alone Tureans. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing suspiciously at Terlow, but he said nothing.

“Do you see the flags, Captain Solarcis?” Terlow said.

Vinsen looked up. The flags drooped, but their bright colors were quite visible—the red-and-silver of Dagre, the dark blue which meant a ship of war, and…

He drew in his breath. After them were the black-and-yellow checks which meant an underwater hazard and the red-slashed white which said,
You are in danger
.

“Did you really believe we’d throw in our lot with pirates?” Terlow said. “I have no objections to soundly beating your ships in a race, but ambushing them with a kraken is another matter—and I have no doubt the beast will turn on us if Phane suspects anything. Which I would have told you if you had had a moment’s patience, rather than barging in on us and leaping to conclusions.”

Vinsen felt heat creep up his face. “I apologize, Captain Terlow. But you should be aware that whether or not Phane suspects anything, the kraken is likely to turn on you eventually.”

Terlow shrugged. “We have cannons.”

“Port and starboard.” Peter Corojal still kept some distance between himself and Vinsen as he pointed out the weapons. The gunwales, Vinsen realized, had been designed to accommodate them, because their muzzles jutted out through gaps, and ropes held them in place. “There’s a sternchaser as well, and a spare in the hold.”

“I don’t particularly want to fight a kraken,” Terlow said, “but we can, if it comes to that. So there’s no harm in keeping Phane on board—one man who’s watched day and night can do little to harm us. Besides, he does tell the most interesting tales about Seawatch.”

Vinsen had never liked Seawatch—few in the navy did—but he resented the Turean spreading lies about any Denalait. “And you got paid.” Why hadn’t he thought of doubling the bribe? Not that he had those kinds of personal funds, and Denalay was not rich in natural resources like Dagre, but Seawatch could dredge up anything valuable in the ocean.

“And we got paid,” Terlow agreed.

“Out of curiosity, what did they give you?”

“Oh, just a few trifles. Whelk shells, mermaid’s tears, a crab or two.” Vinsen glared at him and he looked puzzled. “Don’t you like crabs? There’s no more butter on board, but with a squeeze of lemon…”

Vinsen supposed he deserved that, but the levity wouldn’t help any of the Dagrans when the Tureans ran up their true flags as well, and he said so. Terlow didn’t seem at all fazed. Obviously on his ship, he was confident of where they stood.

“You’ll want to stay out of Phane’s way,” he said, “so you can bunk in the fo’c’sle with the men or sleep in the brig—and we’ll leave the door open this time. As for the Tureans…”

He looked up at the masts over a hundred feet tall and the great sheets of sails, among which the bright flags stood out clearly. The pride in his face was clearer.

“My grandfather was oarmaster on the
Queen Margaret
,” he said, as if to himself. “My father was captain of the
Skylark
and went down with his ship during the Infestation. Have no fear, Captain Solarcis. I can deal with pirates—and their pets.”

Alyster ate his supper alone, because he’d invited his officers for a meal the night before and didn’t want them to think he needed company on a regular basis. Afterwards he tuned his kithar and let his fingers wander over the strings. He’d had a talent for the harpsichord as a child, but he could hardly have lugged the instrument on board a warship. The kithar’s notes did their part to fill the silence, though, and he found himself making words to fit the music.

You’re an ocean in a wineglass, you’re a fortress on the beach.

You’re the scent of liquid silver, you’re a raincloud out of reach.

You’re the stars that fell from heaven down to Eden in the night.

You’re a—

He dashed his hand across the strings, making a jangling end to the song, which was still better than the finale he might have come to. Sometimes he wondered whether Miri’s half-Turean blood mattered as much as her resilience and her quick wits and those brown eyes that could look both steady and sensuous at once.

He set the kithar aside, closing and opening his hands to flex and loosen the fingers, because he couldn’t remember feeling so strung-up. Tuned too tight, and the cabin seemed emptier now that it was quiet, so he went topside. Towards the stern, a group of the deckhands were gathered, talking in low earnest voices. He took a cup of coffee from the galley and went closer to listen.

“At least they’ll never follow us here,” Swyres was saying. “We’re in Dagre now.”

“You think pirates care whose waters we’re in?” Vallit could always be counted on to provide a ray of sunshine. “I don’t remember passing a buoyed signpost that said ‘No Dying After This Point’.”

“The Tureans aren’t going to start a war with Dagre as well,” Arfane said.

“Sure, the Dagrans will sail four thousand miles to the Iron Ocean because one foreign ship gets snatched.” Vallit shook his head. “They’ll feel sorry if pirates chase us into their waters, is all. And our folks will be sorrier.”

He drained his grog and a silence fell. Alyster leaned against the mast and looked over the small gathering until he saw Miri. She sat on a coil of rope a little distance from the deckhands, chin propped on her drawn-up knees. The look in her eyes was distant and far away.

“I hear the Admiralty’s having new maps of the islands drawn,” Blaen said.

Vallit asked if the Farflung Provinces had changed shape and Blaen rolled his eyes. “No, but they’ll need to be divided up proper, won’t they, and given decent names? I heard the largest one was going to be called after the first Hand of the Unity.”

Miri raised her head. “But that island’s shaped like the end of a scorpion’s tail. So it’s called Scorpitale.”

“Aye, but that name’s Turean.”

Careful
, Alyster thought, but the shadows were back in Miri’s eyes and her voice sounded distant too. “Yes. And it’ll be easier to forget the Tureans if there’s no evidence they were ever there at all.”

“Right,” Blaen said. “I heard Seawatch will build a new stronghold on one of those islands too. Or maybe even underwater.”

That started more speculation, during which Miri got to her feet and nodded a polite good-night at the few men who glanced in her direction before she left. Alyster retreated to the other side of the mast and crossed the deck, arriving at the hatch at the same time she did.

“Captain.” She stood back to allow him to precede her. He went down the steps, because he didn’t want to talk to her in too public a location, but when she reached the lower deck he was waiting.

“Did it bother you?” he said bluntly. “What they were talking about?”

She didn’t waste time asking whether he had been listening. “Renaming the islands? Yes. It’s one thing to lose a war and die. It’s another thing never to have existed at all, like you’ve been wiped off the maps and off memory.”

Alyster hadn’t brought a lantern with him, and the lower decks were mostly in shadow, but he didn’t need to see her face to know there would be a stubborn set to her jaw. She was careful not to raise her voice, and he had to move a little closer to hear her, although there was nothing soft about either her tone or her words.

“History books are written by the winners,” he said.

“Well, then, this will be the world’s shortest book. Five dozen islands called the Farflung Provinces were colonized without incident and have since remained peaceful and productive under the rule of the Unity. May it be ever so.”

“That would be a better world than the one we’ve got now.” Alyster thought about the people who had died in the war. “Anyway, you’re being much fairer to the pirates than they’d be to us, if our situations were reversed.”

“And if that were the case, I’d be arguing your cause. I think the loss of a culture is a loss to the world, no matter whose culture it is.”

“So you don’t see any difference between our ways and theirs?”

“I know hardly anything about their ways, Captain. Do you?”

He had never felt so frustrated. To anyone else he would have said: there was no point in grieving for what were little more than animals, but Miri could simply retort that then she was partly animal, and if that were the case, why did he bother to talk to her?

“Wouldn’t you find life easier if you didn’t take up such lost causes?” he asked finally, thinking the same might be said of him when it came to this particular woman.

Miri laughed without humor. “Oh, if I wanted my life to be easier, I would never have told you the truth.”

That struck home. Alyster’s relief that she couldn’t see his face faded fast, and he wanted to retaliate in kind. “Is that what you think you’re doing with the Tureans? Telling the truth about them, because only you can see the truth and therefore you’ve got a monopoly on it?”

The pause before she answered told him she hadn’t liked that, though it didn’t make him feel any better. “I think I have fewer prejudices than some people.” Her voice was low and tense. “Not to mention less to lose.”

“Less to lose? What about your life?”

“You think the Unity will order my execution?”

“I was talking about the Tureans, damn it. They’re not likely to thank you for wanting to learn about their history and customs.”

“I’m not doing this for thanks. Anyway, what does it matter to you if I get wiped off the map as well?”

Alyster started to reply that it didn’t, but knew at once that wasn’t the truth—which would make him a hypocrite after what he’d just said to her. He didn’t want her to vanish into either Skybeyond or the Iron Ocean, to be erased like a footmark on the shore after the tide swept over it; she was too unusual for that. He would have understood completely if she had kept her head down and not drawn any attention to herself, but instead she defended her values. And rather than being torn between two different worlds, she behaved like the fulcrum between them, able to look at them both from the same impartial distance.