Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Wynn stood guard a few moments longer and then put her ear to the door.

“Chane?” she said softly, but not a sound came from the locked cabin.

Chane crouched on his bunk, his arms wrapped around his pulled-up knees, and he tried not to claw off his own skin. He could not stop shaking.

The beast chained inside him, that feral nature Welstiel had once warned him of, screamed a last time. It collapsed, still and silent, as if retreating into some inner dormancy.

But not Chane—no such relief came to him.

Wynn’s soft footfalls rose in the outer passage.

He scrambled, falling off the bed as he fumbled with shaking hands to shove the chest against the door. Full fright took hold immediately. The chest was not enough. Wynn might still push the door open and see him ... awake in the daytime. He clenched the door’s inner handle—and it bent in his grip.

He felt Wynn weakly attempt to turn the latch from the outside.

“Chane ... are you all right?” she called softly.

Chane quietly gripped the bent handle with both hands.

He could not hold in the soft whimper, imagining the terror of having to look into her eyes. He realized too late that he was panting, though he did not need to breathe. He tried hard to stop himself, listening to her voice, and then to Ore-Locks’s as Shade growled.

It was all too loud, as if they stood within his cabin, shouting over the wind he heard outside the ship. The notion horrified him, as if Wynn had come upon him while feeding or looked into his face after a kill ... and saw his euphoria.

In Dhredze Seatt’s underside, she had twice forced him into wakefulness during the day. They had been deep inside the mountain, shielded from the rising sun. Even so, he had suffered, hazy and disoriented and unaware of half of what he did.

This was not the same—he was fully awake .

Every nerve tingled with an ache. Every muscle vibrated from within. The cabin’s porthole was covered with nothing but burlap. The sun burned just outside, radiating a dim glow behind that fabric.

Only a curtain and the ship’s thin wall veiled him from daylight.

He had never been so aware of the sun.

It was there, just within reach of him, waiting to burn him. He could not even hide from it, because no matter how he tried, he could not fall dormant.

“Chane?” Wynn whispered through the door.

A part of him wanted to shove the chest aside, open the door, pull her in, cling to her until nightfall. But he could not let her see him like this, see him so weak.

He hung on to the door latch until he heard her walk hesitantly away. Then he crawled to the bunk, its mattress tearing under his fingernails as he climbed up, and curled into the corner at its head. Clutching his knees again, he watched the porthole, its one layer of burlap all that lay between him and the sun.

And no matter how Chane tried, he could not fall dormant.

What had he done to himself?

Thirteen days later, Wynn stood at the starboard rail as the sun nearly touched the ocean’s distant horizon. A sailor suddenly stepped in beside her and pointed to the other side, down the coast.

“Drist ahead, miss. You can’t see the port yet, but there are ships harbored out from it.”

Wynn stepped to the port side, and he followed, trying to stay away from Shade.

“Yes, I see them,” she said. “How long?”

“Shortly after the day’s final bell, so you might as well pack up.” He paused, looking at her. “Watch out for yourself, miss. It’s a pitiless place. Most of us don’t even get off there ... except for exchanging cargo.”

She only nodded her thanks at his warning, and then brushed Shade’s ear with a fingertip.

“Come on, girl. We’re going below.”

The journey from Chathburh had been unpleasant at best. Ore-Locks had stayed in his cabin much of the time—not that Wynn minded his absence. Maybe it was the typical dwarven dislike of the sea. But his self-imposed isolation made the tension even thicker when he came out for meals. They both ate in silence. He often stared straight ahead, his dark eyes focused on nothing, as if he spent much of his time living in a world no one else could see.

And worse, she spent the first six days wondering if Chane suffered from some form of seasickness. He hadn’t come out for two nights. When he did, he looked awful—pale even for him.

He was anxious, twitchy, and distracted, often sharp and short in his replies. He showed no interest in cards or any other pastime. She once bluntly asked him what was wrong. To her surprise, he told her to leave him alone. As he turned to go, he’d had difficulty opening her cabin door. His hand shook visibly.

Over the following nights, he slowly returned to his old self. Wynn never thought she’d be relieved to have him return to the brooding, cold state he’d adopted in his days at the guild. But last night, they’d played two kings nearly till dawn. All seemed back to normal, so to speak.

No, she wasn’t sorry to see this particular voyage end, and she would certainly be choosier about their accommodations next time—if she could afford better. Heading belowdecks, she knocked at Ore-Locks’s door.

“We’re almost to port,” she called. “Get packed. We’ll disembark as soon as Chane wakes.”

Time passed quickly while Wynn readied for what came next. Unable to squelch her curiosity about the notorious free port of Drist, she thought of High-Tower’s fuming shock, if and when he learned she’d ignored his warning. Then someone rapped softly upon the cabin door.

“Wynn?” Chane rasped.

She peeked through the porthole and saw that dusk had come, but the dimming light outside wasn’t completely gone. Somehow he’d come early again. Before this trip, he never roused on his own until full darkness.

“Yes, come in.”

He stuck his head in.

“Grab the chest,” Wynn said. “We’ve made port.”

Not long after night’s first bell, Chane fidgeted anxiously on deck. The harbor was so crowded that the crew had to wait their turn to even dock the ship.

“Ah, dead deities in seven hells,” Wynn muttered under her breath.

Chane frowned at her language, but he could not argue with the sentiment. And he still felt wrong inside. Whatever side effects he suffered from Welstiel’s concoction had faded to lingering, nagging nervousness. At least now that the fluid had been tested, he knew its purpose.

It would keep him from falling dormant.

A fervor of deck activity pulled him from his thoughts. The crew’s demeanor had changed drastically. Half the men strapped on cutlasses, while others began hauling cargo on deck before any signal that the ship could dock. One sailor climbed to the crow’s nest with a large crossbow and a case of quarrels strapped to his back.

Chane grew more uncertain about Wynn’s chosen destination.

By the light of massive pole braziers, six long piers jutted from the port far out into the water. A vessel filled nearly every available space, except for the largest ships, which anchored offshore.

Looking over the piers, Chane could not help his rising trepidation.

Too many people, uncomfortable numbers, filled the port even at nightfall. Dockworkers and sailors clambered everywhere, hauling cargo to and from ships, handling mooring and rigging, and shouting over the general din. A medium-sized schooner pulled away from the nearest dock and finally drifted past, out beyond their ship’s prow.

“Weigh anchor! Gentle to port!” their captain shouted.

Their smaller vessel drifted inward and soon settled in an open slot. Chane, along with his companions, stayed clear as sailors threw mooring lines to dockhands below. Once the ramp was lowered, four armed sailors sprang forward. Two ran down to stand post at the ramp’s bottom, while the other pair took stations at the top, watching all activity below.