Marie Brennan: Voyage of the Basilisk

It even crossed my mind that Jake might go, though of course he might have been refused on the grounds that he was my son, and in any event it would have been at least six or seven years before he was old enough to send to Eriga on his own. By then, the matter was likely to be resolved in one way or another. But as I soon discovered, he seemed unlikely to follow that path regardless.

While Tom and I were lying in wait for wyverns (and occasionally venturing into their dens, which did lead to Tom getting poisoned, wyverns having no extraordinary breath but more than adequate venom to take its place), I had left Jake in the keeping of Abby Carew and Feodor Lukovich Gavrilenko, the guide the tsar had provided. This was, to my way of thinking, a splendid example of the sort of education Jake could receive by travelling the world: Feodor Lukovich was a hardy man, very familiar with the environs of the Olovtun Mountains, and could teach my son a great deal about the environment and the creatures to be found there. After more than a month cooped up aboard the Basilisk, I expected Jake would welcome the opportunity to tear about the countryside.

Upon my return, however, I learned that such was not the case. “It’s cold up here,” Jake complained, huddling inside his coat.

I might not have been closely involved with his early rearing, but it seemed that some things were transmitted in utero . I had, after all, been shivering in Vystrana when he was conceived. “Yes, it is,” I agreed. “But did you not want to go hiking? Feodor Lukovich told me he would show you how his falcon hunts.”

Jake shrugged, in the way that only nine-year-old children can manage—and usually male children at that, girls not being permitted the same kind of insouciance. “It would only kill rabbits and such. I want to go back to the ship.”

Whatever kindred feeling had been engendered by his complaint of cold, it vanished in the face of this inconceivable prospect: that any son of mine might not be interested in something with wings . “At your age, I would have been mad to see a falcon hunt, only no one will take a girl for such outings.”

This did not sway him. He wanted to go back to the ship; Haward, one of the sailors, had promised to teach him knots. “I am sure Feodor Lukovich could teach you some,” I said, whereupon Jake informed me (with no little scorn) that he already knew all of those .

Cruel mother that I am, I forced him to stay there a while longer. Tom and I were not done with our work, and I was not about to send Jake down the Olovtun with nobody but his governess for company. If he would not learn about northern Bulskevo, then he could sit and drill Spureni verbs with Abby.

When I spoke with her privately about his behaviour, she spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “He likes it on board the ship. He’ll settle down once we get back.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said. “If he is this contrary for the entire expedition, there will be no living with him. And I do not want to shackle you to the Basilisk simply because that is where Jake would rather be.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Abby demurred.

This was exceedingly kind of her to say, but I knew it was not true. “Ah, well,” I said with a philosophical sigh. “He is only nine. I imagine he will tire of it soon enough, and long for some variety.”

Which just goes to show how little I understood my son.

From Bulskevo we could have continued down the eastern coast of Anthiope, for there were certainly dragons to be found in places like Zmayet and Uhwase and Akhia. But Tom and I, after assembling the most complete list we could of dragons and draconic cousins, had agreed that it would be better if we focused our efforts elsewhere. For one thing, the existing literature on such creatures was heavily biased toward Anthiopean observations, with much less known about them elsewhere. For another, there was relatively little taxonomic variation to be found in Anthiope, apart from cousins like sparklings, wyverns, and wolf-drakes. To truly question the nature of dragons, I needed to look farther afield.

The Basilisk therefore provisioned herself in Kupelyi, then struck out across the ocean toward the continent of Otholé. On this passage—a journey of nearly two months, during which the cramped conditions ceased to be awkward and started to become intolerable—I began to grasp the truth of what was happening with Jake.

As related in the first volume of my memoirs, a tipping point in my life came early on, when at the age of seven I first learned how to preserve a sparkling and then dissected a dove to study what the wishbone was for. From those two events I formed an obsession with all things winged, which eventually settled more firmly upon dragons (though I still retain a great fondness for birds and some insects).

Jake’s tipping point was the Basilisk . From the moment he set foot on her decks, he knew—though he did not articulate it this way until years later—that he was home. He loved the great and complex array of rigging and sails that brought the ship to life. He loved the clever way the necessities of life were miniaturized and tucked into every available corner. He loved the tang of salt water and the whip of the sea wind and above all, the sheer feeling of freedom that came from being in flight across the waves.

I did not understand this at first. While I enjoyed being at sea, it was not an unmitigated delight. And Tamshire, my childhood home, is a landlocked county, so I had no personal familiarity with the way in which the ocean calls to some hearts. It was inexplicable to me that Jake, who had grown up in the quiet suburb of Pasterway and the busy streets of Falchester, would take so instinctively to the sea. But so it seemed to be; and if indeed it was a passing infatuation, as I had at first assumed, then it was exhibiting a notable failure to pass on schedule.

Of course, Jake being nine, he did not take to shipboard life in anything like a dignified fashion. Despite that early admonition from the captain and his experience with the sea-serpent, he went where he should not, touched things he should not. And one day when we were in the middle of the ocean, with the Basilisk standing almost motionless on a glassy plate, Aekinitos hauled my son before me by the scruff of his neck.

We were then in the region sailors call “the doldrums,” near the equator. Here the winds sometimes fail altogether, leaving sailing ships utterly becalmed. The sky was hot copper above us, the water flat gold below. I was on deck, taking advantage of the stillness to produce more finished drawings of the sea-serpents and wyverns. I did hear the commotion down below, but I disregarded it, as I had learned to disregard many of the noises and activities that periodically roiled the crew.

I did not even look up when a clump of people began moving toward me across the deck. Not until they stopped before me did I pause in my pencil work. Then, to my dismay, I saw Aekinitos standing with one hand clenched around the collar of my son’s shirt, and Jake looking both sullen and guilty. Sweat plastered his hair to the edges of his face in damp swags that could not muster the will to be curls.

“What is going on?” I asked.

Aekinitos gave a quick shake of his hand, making my son twitch. “Mr. Dolin caught him playing with this .”

The first mate handed him an object, which Aekinitos then thrust toward me. A sextant, I saw. “Whose is that?”

“Mine,” the captain rumbled. “Your boy stole it, and was using it as a toy .”

I had no doubt that Jake had borrowed rather than stolen it; what would he do with a sextant of his own? But such a distinction would not mean much to the captain, nor should it. “Jake,” I said, my own voice hardening, “is this true?”