Jo Clayton - Drinker of Souls

The pilot shoved onto his feet as the ship came up to the two great towers looming over the narrow mouth of the estuary, settled himself and began whipping his signal flags about. When specks of bright color bloomed and swung atop the South tower, he made a last pass, then rolled up his flags, sheathed them, and dumped himself back in the chair, ignoring the crew who took every chance they found to walk up, stare at him and stroll away again. Hairy Jimm kept a minatory eye on them and the heckling didn’t go beyond staring; he’d made it quite clear early on that anyone who laid a hand on the pilot would go overboard there and then. More than one of the crew had deep grudges against the Temuengs and the parade could have disiritegyated into a shivaree with a dead Temueng at the end of it. When they began crowding too close and staying too long, Sammang nudged Hairy Jimma and the big brown bear lumbered forward and stopped the parade.

The ship slid without incident between the towers, began to lose way as the channel widened abruptly and the flow spread out. Hairy Jimm sent Tik-rat and Turrope to raise the jib and ordered the ship into a tack so the wind wouldn’t push them into the Teeth of the Gate. The Girl was a two-masted merchariter with standing lugsails, a configuration that could have been clumsy and often was, but she was Sammang’s dream and he’d watched her rise from bare bones under the hands of his great uncle Kenyara; more than that, he’d built with his own hands model after model, had sat with Kenyara and argued and trimmed the models and made her come to life as much by will as by the work of his hands and the gold he brought back to the Pandaysarradup, the wood he’d searched out and brought back, the fittings he’d gathered from most of the ports he touched in his travels; the eyes on her bow he’d carved and painted himself. She could sail closer to the wind than most her size, could squat down and ride storm waves as well as any petrel. She was an extension of himself and he loved her far more than he would ever love man or woman, loved her with a passion and a delight that would have embarrassed him into stammering if he had to talk about it. Seeing her dulled and dying and quiet at the mooring had been the worst of many bad times during the months of stagnation in Tavisteen. Now he felt her come to life under his feet and hands; he stood smoothing his hand along her rail in a contented secret caress. Young Brann, I owe you. Whatever you want, you and your… He cleared his throat with a sound half a laugh, half a groan. The children scared him and he had no hesitation admitting that to himself. Brann was pleasanter to the mind-child, woman, fighter, with a passion, caring; stubbornness that reminded him very much of a younger Sammang. He thought fondly of a few of his own childhood exploits, as he watched the fireships swinging at anchor, the last line to pass, then they were free. He took a deep breath. The air filled the lungs better out here. He looked at the slouched Temueng half asleep and reeking of the wine they’d fed him. Or it would soon as they got that off the Girl’s deck.

They put the pilot and his minions overside in the trailing dinghy, set and trimmed the sails and left the fireboats in their wake. Sammang stood sniffing at the wind, gave a short shout of freedom and celebration, grinned as he caught the cheerfully obscene salutes from Dereech and his shadow Aksi.

He moved to the wheel, cuped his hands about his mouth, bellowed, “Tik-rat, Turrope, Aski, Leymas, Dereech, Gaoez, Staro, Rudar, Zaj, gather round.”

When they were around him, squatting on the gently heaving deck, Sammang clasped his hands behind his head, grinned at them, still riding high with the effects of breaking the Girl loose and incidentally sneaking past the Temueng clutches the woman they were turning the island upside down to find. “We got a passenger,” he said. He stretched, straining his muscles till his joints popped. “The woman the Temuengs were hunting. One who kicked those sharks where it hurt. We don’t mind that, do we.” He grinned into their grins, grimaced as the wind blew hair into his teeth. Rotting in Tavisteen, he’d let his hair grow long, too despondent to get it cut. “We owe her,” he said. “Still be watching moss grow up the walls without her help. Witch,” he said. “Nice kid but no man’s meat. Not mine, not yours. Ever see what happens if a Silili priest holds onto a rocket too long after its lit? Uh-huh. So keep your hands to yourselves. This old fart talking to you, he wouldn’t like to see what comes down if one of you got her into a snit.”

“Hanh.” Hairy Jimm rubbed a meaty hand across his beard. “I heerd a thing or two about that nakki that makes me leery of her. What keeps her hands off us?”

“Relax, Jimm. She’s a good kid. Treat her like a little sister.” He thought a minute. “Not so little.” He looked round at the crew. “That’s it.”

They went off to busy themselves with the endless tasks that kept a ship healthy, but Hairy Jimm fidgeted where he was. “Turrope’s boor was telling him the Fen pirates are taking everything that moves, be you Temu be you Panay, whatever. How you want to handle that?”

“A good wind and no proa’s going to catch the Girl.”

“Turrope’s hoor has got a busy ear, she say the Djelaan have found them a weatherman.”

Sammang laughed. “If he sticks his head up, I’ll sic the witch on him.” He sobered. “She’s paying us for a quick passage, Jimm. Cutting south would add at least five days. Give your totoom a thump for me and whistle us a steady blow.” He rubbed thumb and forefinger over the finger-pieces of the heavy gold pendant in his left ear, the first thing he’d ransomed with Brann’s gold, tracking down the buyer and leaning on him till he sold. “I’ll talk to her, see what she says.” He watched Jimm walk away, watched him try the tension of backstays, eye the sails for weak spots, look for any problems he’d missed in port, things that would only show when she was moving. With a nod to Uasuf, silent at the wheel, Sammang went to stand in the bow, hands clasped behind him, staring out across the empty blue. Empty now, but how long would it stay that way? For a few breaths he stopped worrying and simply relished the way the Girl was taking the waves and the wind; she was a trier, his sweet Girl, even with her hull fouled with weed and barnacles, she danced over the waves. Preemalau be gentle and send no storms, she had to be careened and cleaned, gone over for dry rot and wood worm, every bit of cordage checked and replaced if necessary. He knew as well as Hairy Jimm how fragile she was right now. He unclasped his hands, touched her stays, feeling the hum in them, touched her wood feeling the life in it, loving her for her beauty and her gallant heart, afraid for her, cursing the Djelaan pirates, cursing all weathermen, cursing the Temuengs who were too busy with conquest to keep their own coasts clean. He watched the dolphins dance in the bow waves a while longer then went below to see how Brann was faring and talk to her about Jimm’s disclosures.

“How soon until we’re in Djelaan waters?” she said.

“Four days,” he said.

“Too far,” she said, “Wear the children out for what could be nothing.”

“You don’t far-see?” he said.

“The Temuengs call me witch,” she said, “their mistake. Don’t you make the same one. I have certain abilities, but they’re useful only in touching-distance.”

“Then we should turn south in two days, go wide around the Djelaan corals,” he said.

“How many days would that add?”

“Four, probably five.”

“Too long,” she said. “I’d be a shade by then and the children would be hungry.”