Not that the Great Karlini had been all that communicative on any other topic for the last few days, either. This morning Karlini was at his accustomed place too, up on the foredeck wedged into the bow. Karlini had spoken vaguely about keeping a watch for icebergs, and indeed he had been spending an inordinate amount of time gazing off into the water ahead of the ship. True, Karlini at the best of times was noticeably absent-minded. At the moment, though, Shaa had observed that Karlini had been taking preoccupation to new levels of intensity. This did not seriously interfere with his value as a deterrent, and was clearly playing a role keeping the sailors at a healthy distance away from his wife and Tildamire. Sailors were a superstitious lot by tradition, and Shaa would not have been surprised to discover that this was codified in their guild rules as well, but it took no superstition for them to treat Karlini with vigilant respect, only powers of observation. They had viewed Karlini’s pyrotechnics earlier in the voyage.
Of course, as far as the issue of deterrence went, there was Svin, too.
As Shaa watched him along the length of the ship, Karlini suddenly stood, brushed himself off, shook one leg clear of the coil of rope that had decided to tangle itself up with him on his getting up off the deck, and began to make his way aft. Some ancient philosophies had claimed that observer and object were linked in a complementary relationship, with an act of observation causing some reciprocal change at the other end, and indeed a certain class of spells were based directly on this principle, not to mention its ramifications throughout the treatment of action-reaction coupled pairs. Outside of the direct application of this philosophy through sorcery, Shaa did not believe its effects could be felt at the level of the macroscopic world. Nevertheless, it was certainly true that the world was full of surprises. Shaa had been watching Karlini, and Karlini had taken that moment to spring into action. Of course, nothing said the world’s surprises had to be any more than inconsequential.
Shaa heard a discreet cough at his elbow. “Excuse me, sir,” said Wroclaw, Karlini’s retainer. “Might I bring you a refill for your tea? And you, sir, captain, a fresh pouch for your pipe?”
Indeed, Captain Luff had just started to fumble beneath his slicker with an increasingly furrowed expression, which Shaa had interpreted to mean that his tobacco had somehow eluded his grasp. As Wroclaw deferentially extended a full pouch of the captain’s blend toward him, it became clear that he had in fact been even better than his word had implied in anticipating the needs of the moment. “Thank you, Mr. Wroclaw,” Captain Luff said, taking the pouch and beginning to prime his pipe. “How do you do that, man?”
For Wroclaw, “man” was a generic honorific, what with his lime-tinted skin and extra-jointed arms, but then you had to allow species terms a certain laxity in modern society in general, unless of course bigotry was your all-too-common philosophy of life. “I’ve always looked on it as more a calling than a job, sir,” said Wroclaw. “And you, Dr. Shaa?”
Shaa had thoroughly inspected Wroclaw as he’d handed over the captain’s pouch; both of Wroclaw’s hands were now free and there were no noticeable bulges around his coat or trousers. “Yes,” said Shaa, “I will thank you for your offer and indeed take a refill, since it is after all for medicinal purposes rather than raw sybaritic pleasure, but only if you can produce it now from about your person.”
Wroclaw cleared his throat again with a genteel “ahem.” Then, when nothing had happened after a few seconds, he stamped lightly on the top step of the companionway up which he had first appeared. “Ahem,” he said more forcefully, aiming it down the steep stairs. An earthenware teapot appeared at the top of the companionway and rose into the air.
“Not beast of burden am, I,” said a crackly voice. His attention now focussed in response to the new speaker, Shaa could perceive that the teapot was not in fact floating on its own in mid-air. Instead, the teapot was clutched in a set of black-cloaked arms that Shaa had lost at first against the similar gloom of the unlighted below-decks passage. Beside him, Shaa felt Captain Luff find something else to observe on the quarterdeck, and edge carefully away. Captain Luff did have his limits.
Shaa had his own limits too, of course, but he made a point of drawing them much more liberally, and on a time-varying basis of relativity. “Thank you, Wroclaw,” he said as Wroclaw poured more brew from the teapot, “and you too, of course, Haddo. That was quite neighborly of you, I must say,” he added judiciously.
“Hmph,” said Haddo. “Low is fate, for teapot the porter I to become. If not on vacation was bird, different would be things. Wroclaw, speak with you would I.”
“Please excuse me, gentlemen,” Wroclaw said. “Is there anything else I might get you?”
“Thank you, Wroclaw, no,” Shaa said. “Off with you now. The path of wisdom is not to keep friend Haddo waiting.”
“Indeed, no, sir,” agreed Wroclaw, followed by another echoy “hmph” from beneath his feet. Wroclaw disappeared down the stairs.
“Quite a crew you are,” commented Captain Luff from his new position behind the helmsman, “and about that there’s no mistaking.” He fingered his nattily short growth of new beard. “Speaking of which, where’s that other young fellow this morning? The one with the cane and his mind in the haze.”
“The Creeping Sword?” said Shaa. “I’m sure he’s skulking about somewhere.” He had not actually told a lie, Shaa reminded himself. He had merely neglected to mention the fact that the “somewhere” to which he had alluded was no longer onboard the boat.
Captain Luff gave a noncommittal grunt and puffed vigorously on his pipe. A cloud of aromatic smoke engulfed his head before shredding away in the breeze. “And our other amenities are adequate, I hope? And our navigation? I trust we are approaching Peridol at a quick enough rate to suit you, Dr. Shaa?”
“‘Alacrity’ is a word that comes to mind,” said Shaa. This was not necessarily an unmixed blessing. The circumstances of his last departure from Peridol had been what they had been, nor were they likely in the interim to have changed. Back then, it had been made clear to Shaa that Peridol was not what he would be able to call a healthy place. Nevertheless, one characteristic of interims was that they did offer an opportunity for situations to evolve. His heart gave a sudden palpitation and broke into a run of rapid beats. Be still, Shaa told it, and took an extra swig of the glycosidic tea for good measure. Surprisingly, his heart did quiet, resuming its regular rate and rhythm. Pharmacologically speaking, the double swallow of brew he had just downed would not have yet had an opportunity to affect things one way or another, but Shaa was never one to devalue the role of a timely placebo, even on himself. For all his crustiness, Shaa knew well just how vulnerable he could be to suggestion.
In the classical texts, suggestibility was tied up with susceptibility to a curse. Learning that there was such a thing as a curse-prone personality had not improved Shaa’s attitude on the subject of curses as a whole. Unfortunately, one’s conscious attitude, whether approving or disapproving, was not a side of the issue that had any impact on the results; one’s receptivity remained. So did Shaa’s track record. To the extent that Shaa’s vulnerability to curses might depend on his suggestibility, Max had tried to browbeat him out of it, and Shaa had also submitted to various arcane therapies from the deepest ranges of science and superstition both, but still the curse remained. Shaa was resigned to it. I am, he thought, really I am.