The wind blew harder. Waves swept high over the deck and there were moments when Anyanwu found even her great strength strained, moments when it would have been so easy to let the half-drowned crewman go. But she had not saved the man’s life only to throw it away. She could see that other crewmen were holding on with fingers and line. She saw no one washed overboard. But still, Isaac stood alone, not even holding on with his hands, and utterly indifferent to wind and waves.
The ship seemed to be moving faster. Anyanwu felt increased pressure from the wind, felt her body lashed so hard by the rain that she tried to curl away from it against the crewman’s body. It seemed that the ship was sailing against the wind, moving like a spirit-thing, raising waves of its own. Terrified, Anyanwu could only hold on.
Then, gradually, the cloud cover broke, and there were stars. There was a full moon reflecting fragmented light off calm waters. The waves had become gentle and lapped harmlessly at the ship, and the wind became no more than a cold breeze against Anyanwu’s wet, nearly naked body.
Anyanwu released the crewman and stood up. Around the ship, people were suddenly shouting, freeing themselves, rushing to Isaac. Anyanwu’s crewman picked himself up slowly, looked at Isaac, then at Anyanwu. Dazed, he looked up at the clear sky, the moon. Then with a hoarse cry and no backward glance at Anyanwu, he rushed toward Isaac.
Anyanwu watched the cheering for a momentknew it to be cheering nowthen stumbled below, and back to her cabin. There, she found water everywhere. It sloshed on the floor and the bed was sodden. She stood in it staring helplessly until Doro came to her, saw the condition of the cabin, and took her away to another somewhat drier one.
“Were you on deck?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“Then you saw.”
She turned to stare at him, uncomprehending. “What did I see?”
“The very best of my sons,” he said proudly. “Isaac doing what he was born to do. He brought us through the stormfaster than any ship was ever intended to move.”
“How?”
“How!” Doro mocked, laughing. “How do you change your shape, woman. How have you lived for three hundred years?”
She blinked, went to lie down on the bed. Finally, she looked around at the cabin he had brought her to. “Whose place is this?”
“The captain’s,” said Doro. “He’ll have to make do with less for a while. You stay here. Rest.”
“Are all your sons so powerful?”
He laughed again. “Your mind is leaping around tonight. But that’s not surprising, I suppose. My other sons do other things. None of them manage their abilities as well as Isaac, though.”
Anyanwu lay down wearily. She was not especially tiredher body was not tired. The strain she had endured was of a kind that should not have bothered her at all once it was over. It was her spirit that was weary. She needed time to sleep. Then she needed to go and find Isaac and look at him and see what she could see beyond the smiling, yellow-haired young man.
She closed her eyes and slept, not knowing whether Doro would lie down beside her or not. It was not until later, when she awoke alone that she realized he had not. Someone was pounding on her door.
She shook off sleep easily and got up to open the door. The moment she did, a very tall, thin crewman thrust a semiconscious Isaac through it into her arms.
She staggered for a moment, more from surprise than from the boy’s weight. She had caught him reflexively. Now she felt the cold waxiness of his skin. He did not seem to know her, or even to see her. His eyes were half open and staring. Without her arms around him, he would have fallen.
She lifted him as though he was a child, laid him on the bed, and covered him with a blanket. Then she looked up and saw that the thin crewman was still there. He was a green-eyed man with a head that was too long and bones that seemed about to break through his splotchy, unshaven brown skin. He was a white man, but the sun had parched him unevenly and he looked diseased. He was one of the ugliest men Anyanwu had ever seen. And he was one of those who had stood beside Doro during the stormanother son. A much lesser son, if looks mattered. This was one of the sons Doro had ordered her to avoid. Well, she would willingly avoid him if he would only leave. He had brought her Isaac. Now, he should go away and let her give the boy what care she could. In the back of her mind, she wondered over and over what could be wrong with a boy who could speed great ships through the water. What had happened? Why had Doro not told her Isaac was sick?
Her thought of Doro repeated itself strangely as a kind of echo within her mind. She could see Doro suddenlyor an image of him. She saw him as a white man, yellow-haired like Isaac, and green-eyed like the ugly crewman. She had never seen Doro as white, had never heard him describe one of his white bodies, but she knew absolutely that she was seeing him as he had appeared in one of them. She saw the image giving Isaac to herplacing the half-conscious boy into her arms. Then abruptly, wrenchingly, she saw herself engaged in wild frantic sexual intercourse, first with Isaac, then with this ugly green-eyed man whose name was Lale. Lale Sachs.
How did she know that?
What was happening!
The green-eyed man laughed, and somehow his grating laughter echoed within her as had the thought of Doro. Somehow, this man was within her very thoughts!
She lunged at him and thrust him back through the door, her push hard enough to move a much heavier man. He flew backward out of control, and she slammed the door shut the instant he was through it. Even so, the terrible link she had with him was not broken. She felt pain as he fell and struck his headstunning pain that dropped her to her knees where she crouched dizzily holding her head.
Then the pain was gone. He was gone from her thoughts. But he was coming through the door again, shouting words that she knew were curses. He seized her by the throat, literally lifted her to her feet by her neck. He was no weak man, but his strength was nothing compared to her own. She struck him randomly, as she broke away, and heard him cry out with pain.
She looked at him, and for an instant, she saw him clearly, the too-long face twisted with pain and anger, its mouth open and gasping, its nose smashed flat and spurting blood. She had hurt him more than she intended, but she did not care. No one had the right to go tampering with the very thoughts in her mind. Then the bloody face was gone.
A thing stood before hera being more terrible than any spirit she could imagine. A great, horned, scaly lizard-thing of vaguely human shape, but with a thick lashing tail and a scaly dog head with huge teeth set in jaws that could surely break a man’s arm.
In terror, Anyanwu transformed herself.
It was painful to change so quickly. It was agonizing. She bore the pain with a whimper that came out as a snarl. She had become a leopard, lithe and strong, fast and razor-clawed. She sprang.
The spirit screamed, collapsed, and became a man again.
Anyanwu hesitated, stood on his chest staring down at him. He was unconscious. He was a vicious, deadly being. Best to kill him now before he could come to and control her thoughts again. It seemed wrong to kill a helpless man, but if this man came to, he might well kill her.
“Anyanwu!”
Doro. She closed her ears to him. With a snarl, she tore out the throat of the being under her feet. In one way, that was a mistake. She tasted blood.
The speed of her change had depleted her as nothing else could. She had to feed soon. Now! She slashed her victim’s shirt out of the way and tore flesh from his breast. She fed desperately, mindlessly until something struck her hard across the face.