The Nature of a Pirate Read online

  The second pool contained a circling fish—bluefish, Sophie thought. A forty-pounder, at least.

  Sollo arrived in the hammock-chair, still hefted by the strapping sailor. “Are we set?”

  Everyone nodded.

  She bent to take the child’s hands. “What do we say?”

  “Endure the dark.” The kid was calm, almost disturbingly placid. “Questi ordeale, and dawn again wondrous.”

  Ordeale, Sophie thought. Annela had been fasting for an ordeal.

  “Pearl?”

  One of the spellscribes handed Sollo a pearl, dime-size in diameter. She shined it with a soft rag, showing it to the child, who examined it solemnly before nodding. Then the big guy carried Sollo over to Sophie’s corner.

  “Let us begin.” Sollo tossed the pearl into the tank with the fish.

  A splash. The scribe chipped letters into the stone tablet. The kid rolled off the couch.

  He’s paraplegic, Sophie realized as the blanket fell away. He began to drag his withered legs, using arm strength, to the pool containing the fish and the pearl.

  “It can be hard to watch,” Sollo said. Sophie’s face must have showed her reaction; maybe she’d made a noise. “We’re young when we change. It makes the intention easier to bear. But to watch a child do this…”

  Record and observe.

  She swallowed. “Was he born paralyzed?”

  “Yes. On Ualtar. Many nations expose their imperfect young, but children with this particular trouble are welcomed aboard Vaddle at birth. Not me, though. I was injured in an accident at age two. I had to apply.”

  “There must be other birth defects, then, that have … magical uses?”

  “Oh, yes. There are intentions one can work on a deaf baby, or one with not much mind.”

  “No choice offered to them, I suppose.”

  Sollo shrugged. “Magic fashions the otherwise unfit.”

  Unfit. She had disabled friends, at home, who’d have plenty to say about that attitude.

  Her doubts must have shown on her face, because Sollo added, “I’d rather have had my life asea than none at all. Or to have spent years being hauled about, as I am now, like a sack of salt.”

  By now the boy had crawled to the edge of the pool. With a practiced move, he rolled his lower body into the water.

  The bluefish struck, rising out of the tank, glomming on to the boy’s barely submerged feet, driving itself up his legs, gulping.

  Sophie cried out. The child’s eyes were swimming with tears, but he clenched his jaw—Brave little guy!—and actually pushed himself into the water, shoving himself farther down the fish’s gullet.

  The bluefish was distended now, stretched. Sophie could see the shape of the child’s legs, the fish sleeved over them, more a rubber suit, less a living thing. With a final thrash, it struggled to reach the boy’s waist and bit—really bit—down. Curls of blood swirled in the water, and Sophie thought of the wounded ship Kitesharp.

  The weight of the fish tipped the boy off the edge of the pool. He treaded water for all he was worth.

  The merman in the adjacent pool uncoiled, catching the boy’s hands.

  Dust and chips of stone flew in every direction, clattering on the deck, as the scribes carved text into the shale.

  The merman checked the edge of the bluefish’s lips—the punctures left by the teeth. He had a look to see that the boy’s navel remained exposed, then folded the fish’s flesh upward at the boy’s pelvis. He bandaged the join with something that looked like seaweed.

  Sophie was reminded of her mother straightening Sophie’s dress on school picture day.

  But Mo-o-om, I want to wear my soccer uniform.

  They murmured together, man and boy, checking everything. The boy was pale, but Sophie was struck again by his courage.

  When they seemed to agree that the fit of the fish was correct, the merman looked at the scribe.

  “Ready?”

  “Proceed.”

  Using a curved stone knife, the merman cut into the bluefish’s head, scooping out its brain.

  “Big breath,” he said, and the kid sucked air. Then, turning awkwardly in the water, his paralyzed legs weighted with forty-odd pounds of dying fish, the boy dove, making for the pearl at the bottom of the tank.

  He didn’t come up.

  “Here is where our nerve most commonly breaks,” Sollo said. “To wait, until breath fails, to take the mouth of the sea…”

  “He’s gonna drown?” Freaking out, Bram, she thought. Five out of five freaking—

  “If he tries to rise before the spines join and the gills move up…” Sollo drew her fingers over her own throat, then Sophie’s. “Sittler will hold him under.”

  “That’s awful!”

  “Yes, but necessary. If he fails now, he bleeds to death of his wounds. I had to be held,” Sollo said. “It’s a badge of pride to have the nerve, but…”

  The boy had made it to the bottom and was searching for the pearl amid the bits and pieces of shell.

  Sophie fought the temptation to look away. She had felt like this before, on shoots, when she was recording predators. Witnessing the death of an animal—holding a shot in focus as orcas bumped seals off ice floes, for example—had never been her favorite part of the job.

  It’s truth. You’re capturing an important truth, she told herself. Count to thirty. Hold the shot.

  The boy wrapped his arms around a jutting piece of stone and blew air out of his lungs.

  “Oh, brave! Brave!” Sollo said approvingly.

  Sophie felt her teeth grinding. The boy thrashed once more before transforming, in a single liquid shudder. Nearly invisible gills slashed their way into his throat, pink, fresh, and healthy. The length of fish on his spine writhed, tightened. Movement and vitality extended in both directions until the tip of the tail was a live thing and there was no transition anymore, no difference between boy and fish.

  Indisputably a single creature now, he surfaced, bursting up into the waiting embrace of the merman with a gush of water from his mouth that turned into a triumphant crow as they hugged.

  “Is it done?” Sollo asked.

  “Ten minutes for final notations,” came the word from the writing desk.

  They would finish writing out the intention and then store the tablet somewhere safe. If it was broken, the boy would revert to his earlier state.

  “Belowdecks, they’re doing agility drills,” Sollo said. “If you’re interested, Kir?”

  Sophie took the hint, packing up and leaving them to finish as the boy tore around the tank, reveling in his transformation.

  She observed the agility drills and rescue practice, plus a lecture on hunting. When mers got separated from the Fleet, they could live almost indefinitely by foraging in the wilds of the ocean’s photic zones.

  DO MERMAIDS DESERT THE FLEET? she wrote in her book. WHERE DO THEY GO?

  “Haven’t you guys been involved in the bumboat sinkings?” she asked as she was waiting for a ferry to take her on to the rear.

  “First boat went down before we could deploy. We were on another mission, the second time, and Shepherd had ’er in hand. We thought.”

  “And Kitesharp?”

  “I got two in the water for her. Hard seeing, all that blood and growth coming off her stern…” Sollo spread her arms. “They saw your fright rip itself off the hull. We’ll know what to look for, next time. Ah, there’s your taxi!”

  Sophie climbed aboard, grateful to be on her way back to the residential block at last.

  * * *

  The block was an apartment building at sea, and Sophie’s rented berth within it was a smallish cabin with whitewashed boards, a bunk, and few amenities. The ship had mess halls, reading rooms, a bar, and communal baths. A service brought linens and a jug of fresh water daily, giving the block a faint semblance of a cruise ship. You could pay someone to come in and make the bed, but Sophie had declined to subscribe to a maid service.

  They did bring
mail, though. Her heart thumped as she pounced on an envelope sealed with navy-blue wax.

  It was from Nightjar’s captain, Garland Parrish. It began, ever so formally:

  Gracious Kir Sophie,

  I would generally begin any letter to you with pleasantries about the ship and what we are all doing in your absence, but where we are bound, and why, is no matter for the public post.

  I can tell you the seas are calm, and everyone is well. Our new medic, Watts, is popular with the crew, perhaps especially Kir Sweet.

  “Why you gossipy thing, you,” she murmured.

  The cat and ferret are getting along. The crew misses you.

  I miss you.

  Sophie could hear him saying it, in his serious and too-formal way. The image sent a hum of energy through her. She thought fleetingly of her notes to Bram, the game they’d made of assigning numbers to their feelings: “I miss you … seven. Ten. Fifty.”

  I wish our respective duties had not contrived to separate us so soon after our trip to Issle Morta. We’d barely begun to discover what courting might mean for a pair such as we, and since then I have continued to think about what you’ve told me about outland “dating” (have I the Anglay correct?).

  Perhaps we could go to the outlands and try it there, if either of us could get travel papers for an extended visit to your home.

  “It might be easier to get some alone time in San Francisco,” Sophie muttered. Shipboard living meant being in other people’s pockets constantly.

  I know many things remain unsettled between us: our cultural differences, the question of destiny that bothers you so, and the awkwardness with your sister.

  Know, if it helps, that I believe we can resolve everything, if only we can devote a little time to each other. Words make a poor measure of how badly I wish to begin.

  Verena is bound for Verdanii aboard the great ship Fecund, and Nightjar has set a course for the Fleet. I hope, therefore, to see you soon.

  Yours in bright spirits,

  Garland Parrish

  She read it twice, then turned it over in her hands, treasuring it. Letting the sensation—rough paper on skin—sink into her consciousness.

  The seal of wax, so like something out of a history play, caught her eye.

  She pulled out her samples from Kitesharp, finding the crumb of red and laying it on her desk. It was just a smudge on the splinter of broken deck. Still, the texture was similar.

  Digging in her berth’s tiny writing desk, she found her own stick of sealing wax. She bent to the floor of the room, rubbing it on the deck, then trying to draw the outline of her hand.

  It wasn’t easy, as it would have been if it were actually a crayon, but it worked. The marks had a similar shape—wobbly at the edges, the stroke growing wider as the friction wore down the corner of the stick of wax—and the color seemed identical.

  By the time she had taken pictures and made some notes on what she’d done, Bram had run his messageply through someone’s old-fashioned typewriter.

  YOU SEE THIS, RIGHT?

  YES, she wrote.

  Next was a printer. AND THIS?

  YES, she replied.

  KTHXBAI. It took her a second to remember this meant “Okay. Thanks. ’Bye.”

  Linguistic displacement was happening more and more. She said “Seas!” and “Teeth!” nowadays, in place of English exclamations, which required translation.

  Bram would be deep in yet another think about quantum entanglements and how the messageply worked. She glanced at her other page, which was far less active. No word at all from Verena.

  She had been fighting the urge to pester her sister, rationalizing that Verena needed space, a little time to get over things, lick her wounds. Now Sophie couldn’t hold off anymore:

  GARLAND SAYS YOU’RE NOT ON NIGHTJAR—WHAT’S UP? I KNOW EVERYTHING’S PROBABLY FINE BUT CAN YOU LET ME KNOW?

  Verena was seventeen and the only other daughter of the woman who had given up Sophie at birth. She had spent her short life training to replace their aunt Gale, a seagoing diplomat-spy for the Fleet, and when Gale was murdered—

  Sophie thought of Convenor Brawn again, flashing his long fingernails and offering favors.

  Verena had taken over Gale’s job. She wasn’t especially great at it, not yet, but that hadn’t kept Annela from sending her off on Nightjar to see if she could convince some rigidly protocol-bound aristocrats to recall a convenor who was clearly suffering from severe mental illness.

  Verena was smart, and an amazing swordswoman. She also had a hopeless crush on Nightjar’s captain, Garland Parrish.

  Garland. Sophie burrowed into her blankets, taking up the letter again, running her finger over the signature. The page was like something from a movie: lettered with perfect scoops and swirls.

  “How badly I wish to begin,” she read aloud.

  Rather than do something schoolgirl silly, like kiss the letter, she turned on the small vid screen on her camera. From there she skipped back—past the boy’s transformation to mermaid, past the wood fright chasing her, past stills of her growing collection of coral samples—to her one bit of live footage of Garland.

  He hadn’t known she was recording him.

  Garland Parrish was a stunningly handsome man, with walnut-colored skin, unruly black curls, and a smile that had the tendency to hit Sophie with the mind-stopping intensity of a Taser. In this shot, which she’d viewed so many times she had every frame and hiccup of sound memorized, he was engaged in a deceptively girlish round of jump rope.

  Also, he was shirtless.

  “We learn this as Fleet cadets,” he said, unaware that she’d hit the video setting on her camera and set it on a barrel nearby as he started with just a brisk hop-hop-hop. It was good enough cardio conditioning, a practical form of exercise for the deck of a small ship. “Then, of course, we cross the arms, loop, loop, so…”

  “Boxers do this, at home.” Her own voice, disembodied and distant, emanated from the camera.

  Garland looked past the lens. There was the smile—zap!

  “Up the ramp…”

  The ramp was a board set on a wooden fulcrum—a teeter-totter, basically—and he nimbly skipped, forward and back, from one side to the other, as it tipped back and forth under his weight. “Front, backward, sideways.”

  His skin started to shine as he worked up a sweat, but he wasn’t breathless. Jumping on the midpoint of the teeter-totter, perfectly balanced, he looped the rope around his wrists, taking in slack until he was hopping in a tight crouch. From this lowered position, he crabbed sideways down the inclined plane and back across.

  Finally, he flipped in midair, handspringing out of the crouch and letting the rope unspool as he came up. From there, with only one hop to recover his momentum and balance, he leaped up to the narrow rail of the ship.

  The grace of him was breathtaking, but the clip ended there—he’d jumped right out of the frame. Sophie shut off the camera, set it aside, and burrowed into bed, thinking back to Issle Morta, to kissing him.

  “I would very much like to court you,” he had said.

  It hadn’t gone well after that. Verena’s jealousy had interfered, and then Sophie learned that he thought the two of them were fated to be together, which was just so weird she still didn’t know what to do with it, and now that the ship had been dispatched to who knew where …

  Sophie groaned a little, reliving the memory of the kiss again, mentally skimming through the jump rope video, cutting in her memories of him climbing Nightjar’s rigging, and then letting imagination take over—picturing the two of them swimming a shallow reef, warm lagoon, salty water, and nobody around for miles. Perfect water temperature for fooling around. Getting another taste of that lush mouth …

  She let herself chase that thought to its logical conclusion, running the imaginary footage forward, from kissing to a meeting of tongues, and skin, his dexterous, well-formed muscles.

  Hands, she thought, here and here, and then we’ll
…

  Concentration tightened into wordlessness. She focused, imagined, her breath catching, the feeling so intense it was almost like pain …

  Garland … Garland …

  A rise, a crest, and release.

  Burrowing deep under the wool blanket in her bunk, Sophie let the last semblance of coherent thought mumble its way out of her mind, until it quieted. Even the tick-tick-tick clock earworm that had been bothering her all afternoon became silent as she drifted, without even noticing it, into sleep.

  CHAPTER 4

  HI, SOPHIE,

  SORRY YOU WERE WORRIED. I SHOULD’VE REALIZED GARLAND WOULD TELL YOU I TRANSFERRED TO FECUND AND THAT HE WOULDN’T TELL YOU WHY.

  BASICALLY, I ASKED THE FELIACHILD MATRIARCHS IF I COULD VISIT THE CAPITAL FOR SOME VERDANII SPIRITUAL TRAINING. GARLAND SUGGESTED SOMETHING CALLED A DETACHMENT RETREAT. THE IDEA IS I’LL GET OVER BEING IN LOVE WITH HIM AND JEALOUS OF YOU. I DON’T KNOW IF THAT’S POSSIBLE, BUT IT GIVES ME A CHANCE TO GET TO KNOW MY RELATIONS HERE, AND GET THEM USED TO ME HAVING GALE’S POSITION.

  “Detachment retreat,” Sophie mumbled. Verena’s crush on Garland had driven her into a dramatic, almost dangerous outburst when he and Sophie began … well, he’d used the term courting. How typically discreet of him to not say that Verena was going on some kind of spirit quest to deal with her feelings.

  Sophie was rereading the letter on the upper deck of a passenger ferry bound for Constitution, enjoying the weak winter sun as it toasted her legs and overly cool feet. Her boots from home had gone missing, and she was still adjusting to the lighter construction of a locally made version. The messageply had come through during the night. She’d scanned it once, quickly, over a hurried breakfast of leftovers: Bettona’s apricot cookies and a side of goat’s-milk cheese.

  The letter went on:

  I HADN’T THOUGHT THEY’D SEND A SHIP FOR ME. WHAT DO THEY CARE IF I’M HEARTBROKEN, RIGHT? SOMETHING ELSE IS UP—THE VERDANII SEEM UNSETTLED. ANNELA’S DOING THIS RITUAL FAST TO SEE IF SHE’S WORTHY TO TAKE OVER WHEN THE ALLMOTHER DIES. MAYBE THE ALLMOTHER’S SICK. IF SO, NOBODY IS ADMITTING IT.

  THEY’RE ALSO ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT ERAGLIDING, THEY’RE THE SAME ONES YOU’VE BEEN ASKING: WHO TOOK GALE’S MURDERERS TO SAN FRANCISCO?