He was frowning at the water ahead. Abruptly, he leaned over the rail and spoke to his son. “Aja ‘tu, i’klak? Meta’ istan.” He pointed to a line and some dots on the water around a half mile or more ahead of them, a long, dark thing with several stubby outthrusts that was rapidly coming to meet them. “Angch t’tant.” He waved his hand at the horn. “Lekaleka!”
“Eeya, ahpa.” The boy steadied himself, eyed the object for a few beats until he was sure he know its course, then he put the horn to his lips and blew a pattern of staccato notes.
Karoumang swung around, hurried to the rail, his eyes moving swiftly about the ship, following his crew as they went to work with a minimum of effort and a maximum of effect while the echoes of the horn notes still hung in the air; he watched the sail panels change conformation, watched the helmsmen on the overhang shift the tiller the proper number of marks to take them from the path of the snag. He relaxed, came back to Korimenei, smiling. “A good crew; they save me sweating.” He leaned over the rail. “Baik, i’klak.”
The boy laughed. “Babaik, ahpa.”
“He’s a clever boy,” Korimenei said. “Reminds me of my brother. How old is he?”
“Nine. The only one of the bunch with a call to the water.” He took her hand, spread it on his palm. “What small hands you have for such a tall girl.”
“Not so small, it’s as long as yours almost.”
“But narrow. Bird bones, light as air.” He turned the hand over, drew his forefinger across her palm. “Do you read these lines?”
Her breath turned treacherous on her again. She called on the discipline the Shahntien had hammered into her and when she spoke her voice was light, laughing. “I play at it. It’s only a game.”
“What other games do you play?” He stroked her palm absently, as if he’d forgot what he was doing.
“Girl’s games,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him, “but not many of those. There wasn’t time. The Shahntien kept us at it.”
“And now?”
“And now I follow my own inclinations.”
“And what are those?”
“What do you want them to be?”
“What shall I say?”
“That I’ll be a student again, a day, a week, to Yuntipek, perhaps.”
“You think I could teach you?”
“I think you are an expert on a subject I know little about. I think you enjoy such teaching and I like that. When the teacher enjoys, it’s likely the student will.”
“Sometimes there are consequences to this exchange.”
“Not for a fledgling sorceror from the Waymeri Manawha who has urgent claims on her time and energy.” She chuckled. “Though distant ones.” She was pleased with herself, enjoying the suggestive obliquities.
He laughed, placed a kiss on her palm. “Shall we begin the lessons after supper tonight?”
A tiny gasp escaped before she could swallow it.
He squeezed her hand. “Would you like to stay here or go below?” A glance at the bank gave him time and place. “We’ll make a call in a couple hours. We have cargo to unload, probably pick some up, so we’ll be there a while. You can go ashore, if you want to walk around. I wouldn’t advise it. It’s a chern village, you might see things you won’t like. These country chernlords are an ugly bunch. Even a fledgling sorceror should watch what she says and does around them.”
“Karoumang teacher, it’s not lectures I need from you,” she smoothed her fingers across the back of his hand, “… but demonstrations.”
“You need a whole skin to appreciate them, ketji. Stay on board at Muldurida. The next call up the river is a freetown and friendlier. Saffron Moru. We’ll tie up for the night there.”
think I’d like to go below for a while. Do you mind my being a bit afraid?”
He threw back his head and laughed, a big booming sound that came from his toes. “N0000,” he said. He took a handful of her jacket. “Let’s hit the wind, ketji.”
3
Korimenei stepped from her trousers and kicked them across the narrow cabin; she sat on the bunk and began working a boot off her foot; the boots fit close to her legs and took some maneuvering to put on and take off. “Aili my Liki, I’ve got myself into something and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.” She dropped that boot, started on the other. “Consequences, he said. He meant pregnant, but there’s a lot more to think about, isn’t there, Lili. Every act has consequences and most of them surprise the hell out of you. Back at school they kept hammering that into us: Be careful what you do; the more powerful the act, the more unpredictable the outcome. Don’t do what you can’t live with. Undo is a word without real meaning. They didn’t have to tell me any of that, I knew it already, especially the last. Look at Maksim, look at where he is now, look where I am. Tre and I summoned the Drinker of Souls because we thought we could get the soldiers out of the Vales and things would go back the way they were before Amortis got greedy; we thought she’d cancel what Maksim was doing to us. Undo it. They’re right, they’re right, they’re right, you can’t undo anything.” She dropped the second boot, dug under the blankets for the pillow and tossed it against the headwall. “I want to do this, Lill. My body screams do it.” She swung her feet up and half sat, half lay, staring at the scraped and oiled calfhide stretched across the porthole. “What if I don’t want to stop when I get to Yuntipek? Gods, the minute I saw him, I wanted him. He’s got kids, a wife. A life he likes, no, loves. I’m a kind of trophy, aren’t I, Lili. No, maybe not. But he does like power. Probably never had a sorceror before.” She giggled, snapped her fingers. Ailiki jumped from the seat beside the porthole and landed on her stomach, driving a grunt out of her. Stroking her hand down and down and again down the mahsar’s small firm body, she went on talking to herself. “Most of them are men, you know. I wonder if you do know, I wonder what you are, my Aili, my Liki. No men for our Karoumang. He’s single-minded that way, you can smell it on him. I lay with a god of sorts and got you out of it, Lili. I’ve never been with a man. I wonder if I’m spoiled for mortal sex. I’ll know by tomorrow morning, won’t I. Oh Gods.”
Ailiki purred like the cat she wasn’t, her body vibrating and warm.
“Words. All words. No illusions and scared to my toenails, but I’m going to do it.” She lifted Ailiki, held her so the mahsar’s body dangled and they were looking eye to eye. “Lili my love, you watch my back, hmm?” She laughed, set the mahsar on her stomach and lay stroking her and watching the light change.
Night followed day and day followed night; the world turned on the spindle of time. It was a curious time for Korimenei, a happy time. A respite.
Nights she spent in the Captain’s bed. Days she sat on the forehang and watched the land flow past, the little villages with their mud walls carved and decorated with the local totems, their wharves and storetowers; she watched horses run in clover fields, cattle and sheep graze in sun-yellowed pastures; she watched serfs and small farmers finish up the fall harvest and line up at flour mills and slaughter grounds; she watched the creaking wheels that were set thicker than trees on both banks send water and power to the fields and the two and three family manufacturies in the villages. She watched the day passengers going from village to village, carrying things they wanted to sell, or visiting relatives; one time a wedding party came on board and celebrated the whole distance with music and wine and dancing; one time a band of acrobats came on board and earned their way with leaps and ladders. These sights were endlessly interesting, partly because it was a place she hadn’t seen before, a people she didn’t know; partly because it reminded her of the life she’d left behind when Maksim discovered her Talent and flung her two thousand miles away from everything she knew.