“There’ll be no freein’ of slaves on my ship,” Kester growled.
The crew ignored her and, in trancelike unison, cried, “Hurray for Tyr!”
“Yes, hurray for Tyr!” Tithian shouted. “Help me, and you’ll all become heroes. You’ll live in great palaces and eat the fruit of the faro instead of the needle!”
With a stuporous cheer, the slaves surged forward to free Tithian. Kester leaped to meet them, yelling, “Back to yer poles!” She grabbed the first man in the mob and snapped his neck with a quick twist of her wrists. “I’ll snap the heads off all ye mutineers!”
As the tarek reached for her next victim, Agis drew his sword and cried, “Stop! It’s not their fault!”
The noble brought the pommel of his weapon down on the back of Tithian’s skull, adding another dent to the battered circlet. There was a resounding thud, then the king’s knees buckled, and he slumped to the deck at Agis’s feet.
SIX
MYTILENE
To Agis, the shipfloater’s apprentice looked only slightly healthier than her dead master, who had succumbed to a fever just an hour earlier. Beads of cloudy sweat rolled down her brow in rivulets, a murky yellow film clouded the whites of her eyes, and red, cracked skin surrounded her nostrils and mouth. Even the freckles dotting her keen-boned cheeks had turned from pink to gray, while her breath came in labored wheezes.
Agis snapped his fingers in front of the young woman’s fine-boned face. Her puffy eyelids rose a sliver. She turned her listless eyes on his face, but she did not speak.
“Can you hold on alone, Damras?” he asked.
The apprentice nodded.
“Tithian is doing this to you,” the noble said. “I’m going down to the brig to put an end to it.”
“Hurry,” she wheezed.
Agis climbed out of the chaperon’s seat and started down toward the main deck. He had barely set foot on the ladder before Kester laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“What are ye doing out of the chaperon’s seat?” she demanded. In her hand, the tarek held a king’s eye, for the day was a breezy one, with a dust curtain hanging about half as high as the Shadow Viper’s mainmast.
“Damras is dying-”
“She’s just sick!” snapped Kester, cutting off Agis’s explanation. Without even glancing in the direction of the floater’s dome, she added, “Damras is young. She’ll be fine.”
“Denial won’t keep us afloat,” said Nymos, joining them. “If Damras dies, the Shadow Viper is doomed.”
“I told ye, she’ll be fine!” growled the tarek.
“No, she won’t,” Agis said. “Tithian is killing her.”
“That’s blather,” growled Kester. “If he kills the floaters, he sinks with us. Why would he-”
A pained cry from Damras interrupted the tarek. Followed by Kester and Nymos, Agis rushed to the side of the floater’s pit. Damras’s condition had deteriorated. Her chin lay slumped on her chest, and her cloudy eyes stared into empty space. Her trembling hands had slipped to the edges of the dome and were in danger of dropping off the glassy surface altogether.
Agis climbed into the floater’s seat, at the same time speaking over his shoulder to Kester. “You’d better head for that island.”
The noble pointed to the ship’s starboard, where a craggy, crescent-shaped island rose out of the dust haze. Although it was several miles distant, he could see the zigzagging line of a path traversing its precipitous slopes. The trail crested the ridge near a jumble of blocky white shapes that could only be buildings.
Kester shook her head. “That’s Mytilene, a giant stronghold,” she said. “Ye’ll have to keep Damras awake until we can make a safer island.”
Agis laid his hands on top of the floater’s. Her knuckles felt as hot as sun-baked stones. “Damras will never make it to another island,” he warned, moving the floater’s hands back toward the center of the dome.
“Neither will we, if we land on this one,” replied Kester. “Ye’d know that if ye had ever seen how giants treat strangers.”
Damras focused her jaundiced eyes on the noble’s face. Can’t last, but Kester is right about Mytilene, she said, too weak to speak the words aloud. Help me.
I’ll go after Tithian right now, Agis said.
The floater shook her head. No. The Shadow Viper will be under dust by then. I need you here.
Tell me how, the noble answered, swallowing in apprehension. To Kester and Nymos, he said, “Damras is going to teach me how to float the ship.”
Kester and Nymos both winced, then the jozhal said, “We’ll see to Tithian.”
“No,” said Agis. “The king has obviously recovered from his ordeal, and he’ll attack you with the Way. Neither of you are powerful enough to resist him.”
“I have my magic,” the reptile insisted.
“And Tithian has his,” the noble replied. “You can’t open that brig until I’m there to counter his mental abilities. Otherwise, he’ll take control of the crew again.”
“The brig stays closed,” said Kester. “I’ll not have another mutiny on my ship.” She stepped toward the helm, motioning for the jozhal to follow her.
Once they were gone, Damras placed her hands on top of Agis’s, leaving his palms in direct contact with the obsidian. An eerie chill spread from his fingers and into his wrists as icy tendrils of pain writhed up his arms. They spliced themselves into his bones, drawing the strength from his muscles and the heat from his blood.
Let the dome draw on your life-force. Damras’s thought came to him distant and weak, and he felt her hands slip away. See the ship’s hull in your mind.
Gritting his teeth against the numbing pain in his arms, the noble pictured the weathered planks of the Shadow Viper’s hull. At the same time, he opened a pathway to his nexus, allowing the dome free access to his spiritual energy. A warm stream of life-force rose from deep within himself, coursing through his body and down into his arms. The tendrils in his arms grew warmer as his energy flowed into them, then a golden glimmer flashed beneath his palms and sank into the depths of the dome. Suddenly, it seemed to Agis that the ship had become a part of him.
You must witness the sea as it was.
Inside Agis’s mind, the dust curtain engulfing the ship suddenly lifted, replaced by a sparkling expanse of grayish blue. He heard the lapping of waves, then felt himself rocking back and forth to the gentle sway of the ship. The sky turned the color of sapphires, and a briny, wind-blown spray stung his cheeks. The noble licked a few droplets of the liquid off his lips and tasted water, salty as blood, but water nonetheless.
The sight took Agis’s breath away. In all directions, stretching to every horizon, he saw nothing but water, as endless as the sky and as featureless as the salt flats of the Ivory Triangle. This sea was a stark contrast to the real one, alluring and majestic instead of foreboding and bleak.
When he had finally recovered from his shock, Agis asked. What is this?
The Sea of Silt, long before the sorcerer-kings, Damras explained.
That can’t be, Agis replied. The time before the sorcerer-kings was that of Rajaat. The world was green and covered with trees. I’ve read descriptions-
Your descriptions were wrong, Damras interrupted. But we have no time to argue. The world was covered with water. You must accept that.
Very well.
As the noble spoke the words, a primeval attraction stirred deep within his spirit. He felt a restless longing as painful as it was powerful, and he almost did not notice as the crack of flapping sails sounded inside his mind. An instant later, a floater’s cockpit materialized around him. Agis found himself seated in a chaperon’s seat within his mind as well as that of the Shadow Viper.