Lindsay Buroker: Enigma

“That is a Turgonian word that lacks precision, but essentially yes.”

“The flute can persuade people to go along with what the chiefs are saying?”

“That’s the hypothesis. The Nurian rulers deny it of course.”

“So, if someone learned how to play this flute, that someone could persuade people too? A lot of people?” The captain scratched at stubble on his jaw. “That ought to be worth a great deal to someone.”

“To someone willing to risk the ire of Nurian spies who might be sent to recoup the stolen piece. It is stolen, isn’t it?” The captain’s focus had turned inward, and Tikaya hoped that, in his distracted state, he might answer her question.

But his eyes sharpened. “Not by me. I bartered for it. Legitimately.”

“It’s hard to believe any Nurian would barter this away, especially to a Turgonian. Even though your people are ignorant in terms of the Science, if you recruited someone with knowledge, the flute could possibly have military applications.”

“I don’t care what you believe, woman. And-” he stepped closer, raising a finger toward her nose, “-watch who you’re calling ignorant when you’re a guest on my ship.”

“Of course,” Tikaya murmured and bowed her head. There were worse things she might have called him, but it was best not to pick a fight. Not when one was in the middle of a thieves’ den. Who knew what the captain would do to protect his secret? An uneasy tendril of concern wormed its way into her gut at the thought. She shouldn’t have told him how valuable the artifact was or that the Nurians might send people to recover it if word got out about its location. What if he decided that Tikaya couldn’t be trusted to walk free at Port Malevek? Or even make it to Port Malevek? She swallowed.

The captain flicked a finger at the flute. “Figure out how it works.”

“What?” Tikaya blurted. “From what the historical texts say, that’s as much a secret as the manner of making them.”

“If you can’t make it work… “ Though they couldn’t see the sea from the hold, the captain gazed in the direction of the ship’s stern. “If you want to reach Port Malevek, you will figure out how to make it work.”

As he stomped away, Tikaya tried to decide whether he was threatening her personally or suggesting some impending doom was chasing the ship, endangering them all. Rias might be some help with the former, but with the latter…

She stared down at the flute, her thoughts grim.

Shortly after dawn the next morning, Tikaya stepped onto the deck to look for Rias. If he had slipped into his hammock the night before, it had been a brief visitation. She’d been awake until late, hunched over the flute and scribbling ideas in her journal, trying to dredge tidbits of Nurian history from the dark labyrinthine passages of her brain. She’d hoped Rias would come to bed so she could find a private moment to show him the flute and tell him about the captain’s threat. Most of the seamen had filtered through at some point as they alternately slept and worked on four-hour shifts, but she’d fallen asleep before Rias had come. If he’d come. Perhaps the captain and mate were keeping him busy to pay for his passage.

Low clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, spitting a soft rain. They brought little wind to fill the schooner’s sails. The mate paced above the forecastle and bellowed at men slinging themselves through the rigging, making adjustments. The captain stood beside him, silent and tense as he gazed to the rear.

Rias was in the rigging, working alongside the two cabin boys. Sort of. The Nurian kept throwing him nervous glances and seemed to be trying to keep his distance.

Most of the men aloft were short and wiry, little larger than the youths, so Rias seemed a giant next to them. He maneuvered about deftly, though the narrow perches had to be slick from the rain.

Rias pointed and gestured as he worked with the boys-teaching them Tikaya supposed. Garchee appeared clumsy and out of place up there, but maybe it was just the presence of a hulking Turgonian making him uneasy. Under other circumstances, she might have been happy to stand on the deck and watch Rias at work-and muse about what a lovely father he might make-but she needed to talk to him. She waved, trying to catch his attention.

Someone yelled a command from the forecastle, and Garchee shouted an accented, “Aye, sir,” down. The youth eased toward the mast, then started climbing. He lacked any of the agility that Rias and the other seamen showed. Rias must have asked something, for Garchee shook his head. Turgonian seemed to be the language of the ship, and Tikaya wondered how much the Nurian understood. The boy reached the narrow topsail yard and inched along, crawling toward a flapping rope. He must have been twenty, twenty-five feet in the air. Rias watched from the lower yard.

As Garchee reached for a knot, a gust of wind buffeted the ship. It upset his balance, and he couldn’t recover quickly enough. He lost his grip and plummeted from the yard. Tikaya cried out and ran forward, anticipating a bone-shattering landing, one that might prove fatal, but Rias lunged three steps and caught the boy by the back of his shirt as he fell past. Garchee’s momentum almost tore Rias from his perch as well, but he compensated by dropping to his belly, boots hooked around the yard. Eyes bigger than ancient Ancorian saucers, the boy dangled, mouth open in shock-or terror-as he gaped at the deck below.

Someone called, “Catch of the day!” to Rias as he pulled Garchee up, but most of the men merely went back to work, as if such events were commonplace.

“What’re you doing out here, woman?” came the captain’s voice from behind Tikaya. “And where is-” he glanced about- “the item? You didn’t leave it below, did you?”

She faced the captain, hardly believing he was worried about his item when one of his men had almost endured a horrible accident seconds before. Besides, who did he think would dare steal his already-stolen possession when they were in the middle of the sea? The Turgonian coast wasn’t even visible.

“I bundled it up and hid it out of sight,” Tikaya told him.

“That’s where you should be too. Out of sight. Working.”

“I’m hungry.” Tikaya was beginning to suspect the captain wanted to keep her away from Rias, or vice versa, so figured that’d be better than telling him she wanted to talk to him. “When will breakfast be available?”

The captain had a wad of tobacco in his mouth again, and he worked it from one cheek to the next as he considered her. “Soon. Grits.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Not truly, but after weeks of eating little but dehydrated meat and hardtack-or, as the marines had called the biscuits, “tooth dullers”-something warm might be an improvement.

“It’s not. You make any progress?”

“Some. I’d like to consult… my comrade.” Though Rias was a shortened version of his middle name, and it certainly hadn’t made Tikaya think of Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest when she’d first heard it, she decided not to use it, just in case.

“You can consult with him tonight.” The captain smirked. “If you don’t mind an audience.”

“He’s an engineer and is good at solving problems. He might be able to help me with the puzzle.”

“He’s busy.”

“I see. And will he be un-busy at any point in this three-day journey?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Tell me about the puzzle.”

As Tikaya considered withholding the information or using it to bargain for less work for Rias, she gazed about the deck. For the first time, she noticed that all of the seamen wore pistols and cutlasses on their belts. They hadn’t been armed the day before. The captain, too, bore weapons, and, at Tikaya’s hesitation, he let his hand rest on the grip of his pistol.