Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“Gods below, Captain,” he said, “There was simply nothing off the bow. The water’s clear to eighty feet!”

“No! No!” Rose bellowed. “Damn it, man, didn’t you feel the impact? Whatever it was crossed our keel amidships. We didn’t run over it-it slammed into us!”

More cries from the lookout: “Mastwood in the water! Crosstrees, cable-ends! We struck a drowned ship, Mr. Fiffengurt!”

Rose’s expression said he thought he had misheard. When Fiffengurt repeated the lookout’s words, he adamantly shook his head. “We just rolled forty degrees! I tell you, that blow came from the side!”

Then Rose grew still. His gaze meandered, as though he were listening to the very walls that enclosed him. “Unless… we did. Unless we’re moving sideways. What’s that? What?”

Pazel watched the big man twitch and gape at nothing. He’s finally cracked. He never did have much sanity to spare. And yet Fiffengurt was quite sane, and ran a tight ship. If his bow lookouts claimed that there had been no obstacles ahead “Quartermaster.”

It was Alyash, looking rather stunned. Capping the speaking-tube, he sidled close to Fiffengurt. He spoke quietly, but Pazel watched his lips. It looked like Two inches. When Fiffengurt hissed and said, “Already?” Pazel knew exactly what the men were discussing. Two inches of water taken on. In less than ten minutes. They were leaking, and badly.

Fiffengurt issued a quiet order: six hands to the bilge-pumps. Almost in a dream, Pazel moved to the starboard rail. He stood staring at the land, though he could make out little beyond the mountains.

An ixchel voice piped behind him: a natural ixchel voice, the kind only he could hear. “A collision, perfect, typical. Can you believe it? We can’t trust the giants to operate their own ship. Mother Sky, give me patience.”

“It was the clan who nearly sent the ship into the Vortex.”

That was Ensyl. Pazel smiled a little despite himself.

But the first voice said, “Do not speak of the clan, traitor. You walk free at the indulgence of He-Who-Sees.”

“You mean Taliktrum?”

“Lord Taliktrum, you cur!”

A moment later Ensyl appeared at Pazel’s elbow. “He-Who-Sees,” she said acidly. “I wouldn’t have believed things could get this bad. Soon any freedoms left to us will be at his indulgence. But then again, we may not live that long. Are we really sinking?”

“Yes,” said Pazel.

“Fast?”

Pazel shrugged. “Fast enough to worry about. But the pumps will help.”

Ensyl turned to look back at Taliktrum and his followers. “I am afraid for my people,” she said. “Warriors or not, they are terrified, and it’s fear that has driven them to this sick worship of Taliktrum. He smelled the opportunity, the weakness in the clan. They’re casting about for salvation. They want miracles, and ‘He-Who-Sees’ promises to supply them.” Hesitantly, she touched his arm. “You are not yourself, Pazel. What troubles you?”

Pazel edged his hand away, irritated by her certainty. Only a handful of women on this ship, but they were so hard, so impossible to avoid.

“I can’t talk about it,” he said, “and I doubt you’d understand.”

“I was engaged once.”

“That doesn’t mean you’d understand.”

Ensyl shook her head. “I suppose not.”

Pazel felt churlish, but somehow he could not apologize. Engaged. If that was a matter of what you did with your heart, then he had been, too. A one-sided engagement. He could have laughed aloud.

“The land drops away to the east,” said Ensyl. “How can that be, if we are west of the city?”

“How in Pitfire should I know?” Pazel cried. “Do I look like I come from the South? Why don’t you go talk to Ibjen or Bolutu, and leave me alone?”

Ensyl left him alone. Pazel heard ixchel laughter: Running a bit short on friends, aren’t you, Ensyl? He felt like pounding his head on the rail. Instead he squeezed it until his knuckles turned white, and blinked at the unknown shore. Then a shadow crossed his face, and he turned his head to look.

Fulbreech.

Their eyes met. The Simjan did not smirk; he did not even wear his usual wry smile. But his eyes told Pazel everything he needed to know. Fulbreech had seen Thasha already. He knew where things stood.

“Morning, Pathkendle,” he said. “Hope you slept as well as I did.”

Pazel swung at him, hard. Even in his madness of jealousy he knew the blow was skillful: a straight-on jab at the older youth’s chin, his free arm jerked backward for torque, all the strength of his torso behind it. A blow to make his fighting tutors proud. But the blow never connected. Fulbreech jerked his head sideways, dodging by a finger’s width, and brought his knee up sharp into Pazel’s groin.

Pazel just managed to keep himself from sliding to the deck. He was in searing pain, but he straightened and turned to face the older youth. There was no shouting, no pounding feet. The men on deck had not seen a thing.

Where had Fulbreech learned those reflexes?

Now the older youth did smile, ever so slightly. “Thasha was just telling me what a hothead you are. I’ll have you know that I took your side. I said that losing her could bring out the hothead in anyone.”

“Thasha,” Pazel said between gasps, “doesn’t love you… idiot.”

“Keep thinking that, if it eases the pain. Just don’t lie to yourself about yourself. Once you realize that you’re nothing, maybe you can start to change that fact.”

“You’re using her for something. You planned it all.”

“Planned?” Fulbreech looked amused. “Now you flatter me. Granted, I don’t leave much to chance. Old Chadfallow tells me I’m thorough in the extreme. But I did make one error.” He seized Pazel’s arm in mock concern. “I say, you’re a delicate little blossom, aren’t you? Can you breathe? Do you need to sit down?”

“Go screw yourself.”

Fulbreech raised an eyebrow. “That will be your comfort from now on, Pathkendle. Not mine.”

Pazel lashed out again. This time his fist caught Fulbreech squarely in the eye. The Simjan did not strike back; instead he twisted away, disengaging, so that Pazel’s next blow went wide. Pazel advanced, but before he could strike again someone grabbed him by the hair and jerked him sideways, off-balance. It was Mr. Alyash.

“Fiffengurt!” he cried. “The Ormali’s just put a shiner on our surgeon’s mate! Right unprovoked, too: I watched the whole thing. But I suppose you’ll let it pass. Different rules for favorites of the commander, eh?”

Fiffengurt gaped at Pazel. “You didn’t, lad. Tell me you didn’t.”

Pazel rasped: “Mr. Fiffengurt, it wasn’t like-”

“I am the commander!” piped up Taliktrum, standing on the No. 2 hatch comb. He sprang to the deck and advanced between the men’s legs. “Pathkendle, always Pathkendle! You act as though you were a law unto yourself. What was Fulbreech’s offense, pray? Did he steal your shoelaces?”

“Not exactly,” said Alyash with a smirk.

“We cannot have brawls, Fiffengurt. You know that as well as anyone. I want him in the brig for two days.”

“But Taliktrum-” cried Pazel.

“Three,” snapped the ixchel leader. “And another day for every word that leaves his mouth. See to it, Bosun! And by the Nine Pits, let us return to the matter of the leak.”

Alyash sent for wrist cuffs. Fiffengurt looked on, sorrowful and aghast. Pazel knew he could not intervene, and that Taliktrum’s wishes had little to do with it. Fights on the Chathrand were like sparks in a hayloft: they had to be squelched at once, or the barn would be in flames.

Pazel stood there, skewered by their looks, boiling with rage and shame. Fulbreech touched the spot where Pazel had hit him. The eye would bruise, all right, and everyone would ask who had done it. Thasha would ask. Fulbreech looked at Pazel and gave him the plainest smile yet. “Error corrected,” he said.