Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

Wrenn beat my blade aside to the right, parried Lightning, then back to attack over my blade to my shoulder. As his rapier rose, I dodged and sliced across his stomach. He turned his blade down and stopped my cut.

Again with his blade flat he smacked Lightning’s cut away and made a return blow to me. The sailors had no room to attack with Lightning and me working as a pair. We fell into step but I couldn’t preempt Wrenn because he kept cutting away to Lightning on my left.

My speed worried Wrenn. He twisted left, bound and locked Lightning’s blade. He shouted and freed his sword in a motion that left Lightning confused, stepped away and concentrated on me. He blocked my slices with a short economical movement, parried down and outward, jabbed under my guard. I moved reflexively, almost on automatic.

He attacked to my face. I brushed it aside with a weak cut from the wrist. It was a feint. Wrenn pulled the blow, punched past my hilt. I felt a sudden sting on my knuckles. The grip slipped out of my grasp and my broadsword looped pommel over foible, over the ship’s side into the water.

Wrenn breathed through open mouth; his gaze slipped away as he switched his full attention back to Lightning.

Being disarmed and out of the game, I retreated to the steps and watched the fight continue. Wrenn was tiring, but eighty out of the hundred men were down.

Lightning hallooed again: “Hey!”

The last of the crew rushed out of Ata’s cabin. Wrenn made as if to dash back but instead ran to the gunwale. He vaulted Petrel ’s side and landed on the main deck of the Melowne. The audience there drew back with surprised cries.

Wrenn hurtled past them and up the forecastle ladder. Petrel ’s crew followed him, climbing or leaping over the perilous narrow gap and the log fenders between the ships. Wrenn defended the lofty ladder so well he killed ten more before they forced their way to his level.

A sailor made a lunge so long he overbalanced. Lightning ran in on the advantage but Wrenn parried coolly. Dead combatants sat down dotting the little triangular deck. Lightning made a concerted effort but Wrenn with his back to the foremast was invincible. The last two crewmen fell on Lightning’s left and right. Only he remained.

Lightning feinted once, twice, thrust at Wrenn’s sword arm. Wrenn had anticipated it and bound Lightning’s blade. They grated together with a sound like knives sharpened on a steel.

Wrenn angled his blade and thrust down; his rapier point bounced off Lightning’s thigh. Lightning knelt but before he hit the deck the round padded button was under his chin. Lightning spread his arms wide, his sword loose in his right hand.

Wrenn froze. His blue Summerday FC shirt had turned black with sweat; his face was crimson. He looked at Lightning straight and whispered, “You’re dead.”

Bodies in white shirts sprawled all over the ships. A gust buffeted Petrel and Melowne; water sloshed under their bows. There was complete silence.

Lightning brought his hands together in applause. Wrenn saluted him with his rapier on which new scrapes and scratches shone bright.

Everyone began to cheer. The beaten sailors got to their feet, brushing down their clothes, grinning at each other and staring with envy and respect in Wrenn’s direction. The Swordsman concentrated on stretching his back and robust limbs in his customary sequence. His rapier stuck upright between the planks.

I vaulted to the Melowne, climbed to the forecastle and shook his hand. “You’re amazing.”

Wrenn bowed to me, and the audience; drops of sweat fell from his hair to the deck. Lightning shook and flexed his sword arm. It must have felt like lead from the strain and vibration.

Mist clapped her hands briskly; her high voice carried over the ships. “On your feet, crew, and to your stations. Double rations tonight of rum and beer if you drink to the health and genius of Serein Wrenn.”

Wrenn turned to Lightning and said effusively, “Thank you. That was a great idea. Thanks for letting me show the Zascai my flair.”

“Indeed. I admit I’ve never fought on a ship before, but one thousand years ago I saw the then Swordsman take on three hundred men in the Castle’s dining hall. Not just sailors, either; six lamai sections of a Select Fyrd division.”

Wrenn’s smile faded instantly, his pride deflated. However I saw a teasing gleam in Lightning’s eye; I think he was making it up.

Into the second month every sailor and passenger on the Stormy Petrel and Melowne started to become possessive about their property. I knew with detailed intimacy the few items I had brought on board; I mended and cared for them jealously. I put a keen edge on my axe. I polished my mirror. I kept my wings preened and oiled in perfect condition. The ocean yielded nothing so the neatness of my cabin and the conservation of materials took on a great importance. I protected my private space thoroughly; we all became territorial. Lightning acted as if he had condensed his entire palace into a ship’s berth. He spent too much time talking to Wrenn and seemed not to have noticed that I was taking cat again.

As a passenger I felt powerless and incarcerated. There were few chances to be of use but Mist employed me to carry messages between the ships. Every morning I tried to instruct her in Old Morenzian but she wasn’t comfortable with formal study.

Something about the precise figures in Mist’s ledger, her neatly complicated compasses and the vermeil astrolabe fascinated me almost as much as the glassware and herbs in the chemist’s shop where I once worked. She had a quadrant made of incised ivory, a shining brass sextant and a very accurate sea clock in a cushioned casket. For all Mist’s expertise she couldn’t see from the air as I could, so every afternoon I checked the coastlines of her portolan charts. The sheer distance we were sailing frightened me, but there was no way I could bring her to confess the danger we were in.

Every dusk I went below deck to check on the Insect. Immediately it saw me it attacked, crashing into the bars of its cage. I crouched behind my axe, enjoying the adrenaline surge, and watched until it tired itself out. Everybody knows that Insects can’t be trained; if it had been any other wild animal I would have dedicated the voyage to bringing it under control. It didn’t understand my signals. It only sensed me as food. It raged and starved.

One evening I managed to loop a leather strap around the Insect’s foreleg, but it tore off the tether and ate it. It chewed bones and layered them onto the smelly hard white paste spread around the edges of its cage. The concretion grew thicker over days and weeks. When it reached six centimeters high, I realized that the Insect was building a wall. I think it wanted to find other Insects, after all they are animals that work together. Since it found it was inexplicably alone and trapped, it began walling itself into a cell in which it presumably felt more at home.

I hoped that the Insect didn’t have the ability to call others through, from whatever Shift world it hatched in. I imagined thousands of Insects popping into the hold, the ship gradually lowering in the water with their weight. Or our Insect finding a path to vanish back into the Shift, leaving an empty cage. That would raise some questions.

Each night, I stayed inside my cabin with the door bolted. I tried to meditate into the Shift, but every time I was unsuccessful and extremely frustrated. I tried to relax and empty my mind but I couldn’t concentrate for more than a couple of minutes before I started on another line of thought, for example Tern’s infidelity. After a week, I gave up.

I put red and yellow wraps in my hair and threaded fat jade beads onto my dreadlocks. I swigged rum. I masturbated myself sore. I lived immersed in sensation for weeks on end until the scolopendium stashed in my paper wraps ran out. I tried to ration it but that just made the craving worse. Since I’ve been addicted in the past, my body recognizes cat and knows how to use it. I knew I could become quickly hooked again and had to be careful, but it was the only thing that stopped me thinking of Tern.