Skymaster, p.5
Skymaster, page 5
part #3 of The Guildmaster Saga Series
"Full of Northmen," Missio hissed. "Full of traitors."
A chill curled around Rasim's heart. "Traitors? Who? Who are you working with, or who's betrayed you? Where do these people think they were going to take our crewmates?"
Missio spat. "If Nasira still calls you crew, I'm no mate of theirs."
Rasim flinched, wiping spit from his cheek, then stared at the captured journeyman. "What did I do to you, Missio? I know the captain doesn't like me because I'm part Northerner and she blames all of them for the fire, and I know you followed her lead, but...she got over it. Kind of, anyway. What's your problem with me?"
"My brother should have had your place on the Waifia."
That made no sense at all. Guild members were orphans, and rarely had siblings; that was why Kisia leaving her family to join the guild had been unprecedented. Rasim blinked in confusion before a face came to mind: a boy of his own age, quiet, careful, and devoted to Missio. They weren't blood-related, but they'd seemed like family to each other, even more tightly connected than the guild members were in general. And he had died during the sea serpent attack. "You mean Trisk? I—"
He broke off, following Missio's logic through to the end. Trisk had been a far better witch than Rasim, and she was right. Rasim taking a place as one of the Waifia's journeymen meant someone else had been placed elsewhere. Rasim had never thought of it that way. There was no telling if Trisk had really been intended for the Waifia, but Missio clearly thought so...and all of the Waifia's crew had survived the serpent's attack.
Of course, they'd survived because Rasim had been on board, but that didn't stop the sick twist of sorrow that slumped Rasim's shoulders. "You might be right. I never thought of that. I'm sorry, Missio. I'm really sorry. Trisk was nice."
"He was my brother!" Missio howled and flung her torso forward like she could escape her bonds and strike Rasim down. Instead, foam flew from her lips and her teeth started chattering uncontrollably.
Rasim leaped forward, releasing the stone bonds that had pinned her. He felt a prick of regret: he might have talked Sesin into keeping quiet about his second witching gift, but Missio would never stay silent. "We have to get you to the palace."
The Ilyaran journeyman went limp. Dread seized Rasim's throat, but Missio was only unconscious. Rasim bared his teeth, then flopped around until she hung crookedly across his shoulders. Sesin stepped forward to help and went white again as weight settled on her barely-healed shoulder. "No, don't," Rasim muttered. "We'll make do."
"She's taller and weighs more than you..."
"She used to weigh more. I'm not sure she still does." Rasim smiled grimly and worked his way toward the roof's edge. "Sesi, there's no way off this roof except..."
"Everybody already thinks you set the Waifia's ropes on fire," Sesin said with a shrug. "Nobody's going to be surprised if you're a stone witch, too."
Rasim gaped at her in dismay, then drooped and nodded. "Let's move away from the fighting before we come down, at least. Since we can't be of any help to them." He cast a worried glance into the streets as they stumbled along roof edges, moving from one close-fitted building to another.
Soon there were fewer bodies in the streets below them than there had been closer to the harbor. Fewer slavers and fewer Ilyarans, both. The fight had turned again, with sea witches unable to use their magic. Another bolt of terror shot through Rasim. He searched for the Waifia and Nasira, but ship and captain alike were out of sight now. "We should tell them to fight," Rasim whispered, but Sesin gave him another of her too-calm looks.
"We can't afford to get shot down, Rasim. If Missio's really working with them, she's the only one we've got for sure who might be able to tell us something. She might even know what happened to the captain's old crew. Oh!" She slipped, caught herself, and stood at the roof's edge, looking down as she breathed hard. Then her jaw set. "Someone's down there, Rasim. One of us, I can tell by the color of their skin. They're hurt."
Rasim looked over his shoulder, judging the distance they'd traveled away from the roving fight. "Somebody who crawled away, maybe. Go ahead," he said, suddenly decisive. "Try to help them. I'll get Missio to the palace. Sesin?"
She was already climbing down a gutter, mostly one-handed, but she stopped to look up at him.
"Be careful," Rasim said. "If it seems at all funny, run. Don't get caught."
"I won't." Something in her voice made Rasim believe her. A few weeks ago she'd seemed—not soft, exactly, because no sailor was soft, but gentle. A stream of resolution had grown wide in her, though, and she now seemed like someone who would be difficult to cross. She would make a magnificent master healer someday. Rasim gave her a quick smile, waited until she'd climbed down the gutter, then went on with his burden.
Missio got heavier with every step, and in the end he was thigh-tremblingly grateful that the rooftops he'd chosen eventually sloped downward to meet a cobblestoned road. He was too tired to even think about using magic by then, and hated the idea that he might have to. At least the path to the palace was clear.
Strangely clear, in fact. Rasim faintly remembered children and frail people being hustled aside while the young and strong ran to the docks for the fight. The latter weren't back yet, and maybe the former wouldn't emerge from hiding until they were fetched. A few guards, left behind to protect the palace, nodded at him, but didn't offer to help him with his burden.
Familiar voices rang through the empty halls: Sunmaster Endat, arguing with Prince Lorens. That surprised Rasim. He'd thought Lorens would be out fighting. Maybe the heirs to the throne weren't allowed to do more than supervise, or were expected to stay in the palace for their own safety.
"I don't understand how they could have escaped—"
Lorens's protest was lost beneath Endat's booming voice: "With witchery we do not yet understand, my boy. Witchery unlike anything we know."
"But they disappeared in front of me! And no one can take the harbor now! It's ice-ridden!"
"There are mountain passes, are there not?"
"Impassable at this time of year!"
"By the likes of us," Endat agreed, and on that, they swept into the foyer like ships on a racing tide. Both Sunmaster and prince looked harried. Lorens was splashed with blood, his bright pale hair in disarray, and there was an unfamiliar grimness to Endat's usually-pleasant expression.
His face went slack with surprise, though, as Rasim dumped Missio onto a side table in the empty palace hall. Missio's head lolled. Rasim lifted it, afraid her tongue would roll back in her throat and choke her.
She came awake with a shout of hatred and the weight of magic pouring from her. There was no water nearby: the palace stood high in the city, well above the harbor, and it took someone of Desimi's strength to pull ground water up through bedrock and buildings.
Missio had never displayed anything like that kind of power, but deep beneath their feet Rasim felt the sudden rush of water awakening to witchery's call. He let go of her, focusing on pushing the water back down. Missio rolled to her feet and grabbed Rasim, slamming him against a wall to disrupt his concentration. For a moment they were kicking and biting, elbows and knees flying everywhere, but Missio had a madman's strength, and Rasim was small.
Lorens reached into the tangle of their fighting bodies, caught Missio's shirt in one big fist, and cracked the other across her jaw. Her eyes rolled back and she collapsed, all her weight suspended in Lorens's strong grip. He shook his hitting fist, then turned, still holding Missio, to Rasim. "I see you've found our wayward sailor."
Rasim slid down the wall and pressed his head against it, though Lorens's droll tone almost got a laugh from him. "I guess I did. Something's wrong with her."
"Aside from trying to kill you?" Lorens was obviously trying to lighten the moment, but Rasim was too weary to respond in kind.
"Yes. She's using too much magic, and she's sick. And she knows what's going on, who's behind this." Rasim closed his eyes to admit defeat. "And I didn't save the crew. I mean, some of them, maybe, but...I got Sesin. She's the only one I know for sure escaped. She stopped to heal someone while I brought Missio back. There were Islanders, Northerners, slavers from the continent...it was a coordinated effort, and Missio's the only one who might know the details." He opened his eyes again in time to see Lorens shoot a triumphant, I-told-you-so, look at Endat.
"There are always foreigners in any large city." Endat shrugged. "They could well have been here for weeks or months, even years, and only acting now. They might never have meant any harm to anyone, and might now be being coerced. How they arrived is irrelevant. How they intend to escape is the matter of importance now. Does this girl have that knowledge?" He nodded at Missio, whom Lorens placed gently on the floor.
She all but sank into it, so boneless was she. But even unconscious, she sweated, beads sliding down her temples and disappearing into her hair. Once she trembled, like the seizures of before, but with no resistance from unconscious muscles. "I'm sure she does," Rasim said miserably, "but I don't know what's wrong with her. Seamaster Usia was hurt in the fight on the docks. We need a doctor."
Lorens spun toward a nearby wall, taking his dagger's pommel to the stone in a series of short cracks. Rasim made a sound in his throat, wishing he'd known the code for calling healers, then let it go. There was only so much he could learn in a day.
Endat knelt beside Missio as her quiet inhalations turned to a single huge gasp as she awakened. Rasim startled forward, then thought better of it. He was the last person she wanted to see, and maybe she would talk to Endat if she thought Rasim wasn't there. He skittered behind Lorens and peeked around the big prince's fur cloak. Lorens arched an eyebrow, but otherwise ignored him.
Missio lay still a few seconds, staring blindly at the ceiling above, then surged to sitting. Endat caught her as she began to fall back again, and she seemed aware that couldn't have caught herself. Breathing harshly, she gaped at the Sunmaster, then clutched his arm in white-knuckled fear. "What's wrong with me?"
"You're ill. I've sent for Northern doctors. Do you know me, child?"
"Sunmaster Endat." Missio sounded as if she wanted to spit the words but lacked the energy. "Why would you try to help me?"
"Why would I refuse to help anyone in need? Tell me the symptoms of your illness, quickly, so if you fall unconscious again I can relate them to the doctors."
"I didn't fall—" Missio snarled the accusation at Lorens, who took a startled step backward. Rasim stumbled, trying to stay out of sight behind him as Missio visibly lost strength again, looking ever-smaller in Endat's arms.
He held her closer, broad face serious with concern. "Tell me of this illness, Missio."
"He didn't say this would happen." She turned her head against his chest, her eyes closing with the effort. "He said it would make me stronger, and it did." Color flushed her cheeks suddenly, giving her the illusion of health. "I was so strong. I could do things Seamaster Isidri only dreamed of. But then it started hurting. He gave me more, but it got worse and worse."
"More." Endat's conclusions leaped the same place Rasim's did, and Lorens crept closer to hear his questions and Missio's answers. Rasim hung back, trying to stay out of sight while also trying to see Missio as Endat asked, "A drug, Missio? Who gave it to you? Where is he?"
Missio's eyes flew open, her gaze going around the hall wildly. She launched herself from Endat's arms, screaming and clawing as she threw herself against Lorens. Rasim flinched back, afraid she'd seen him and was attacking, but her rage didn't seem to have a focus. Lorens stumbled, catching her, and held her like a flapping fish as her screams redoubled. She kicked and thrashed, not even seeing Lorens as her attention landed on Rasim. He froze as Lorens caught Missio's arms and tucked them against her torso, then sat without dignity and wrapped his legs around hers. She screamed again, turning her teeth on the big Northern prince, but his heavy fur cloak protected him easily.
"Tsha, tsha." He was barely audible above her shouts, but he gathered her close as she convulsed and twisted in his arms. He kept murmuring, reassurances that Rasim couldn't hear clearly, until Missio went suddenly, terribly limp in his grasp. The echoes of her screams lasted forever in the wake of her collapse. Rasim took one jerky step forward with a sick certainty rising in his belly.
It took a long time for Lorens to look up, his blue eyes wet with sorrow as he shook his head and spoke the words Rasim had been afraid of. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Rasim. She's dead."
7
Time passed in a blur. Missio was taken to a cold room to await funeral rites, but Rasim refused to leave her side. Her body looked, all used up, in death. Shrunken and old, for all that she wasn't yet twenty. It didn't matter that she'd tried to hurt him or the guild, not now. She'd had her heart broken, and the least Rasim could do was wait with her a while. He found a scrap of cloth to fold beneath her head, and tidied her clothes. At her belt hung a small pouch. He opened it, fishing around. A small carving of Siliaria, crude but heartfelt, like all apprentices made, met his fingertips, and dust crawled under his nails. He tucked the carving into Missio's hands and re-tied the pouch at her belt.
Doctors finally came to take her cooling blood and taste and sniff at it. With them came Hassin, the Waifia's first mate. His slim, rangy form was battered and bloodied, but otherwise unhurt. He stood for a long time with his hand on Rasim's shoulder and tears streaking his face, only speaking after the doctors left.
"The slavers escaped somehow. A third of the crew has gone missing."
"A third." Rasim's voice cracked. "With the people we lost at the lake, that's half our crew, Hassin. Can the Waifia even sail at half crew?"
"It can. It must." Hassin sounded grim. "We've found four dead."
"Sesin? Usia?" Rasim hated to ask.
Hassin shook his head once. "Usia's missing. Sesin is with the captain and the dead, at the docks. Nasira will not leave the water again, I think. We'll sail for Moran as soon as we break free of the ice."
"How did they escape?" Rasim remembered Lorens's protest even as he asked: slavers had disappeared in front of him, he'd said, vanishing without a trace. Unknown witchery, Sunmaster Endat had replied. Certainly Missio had managed unknown witchery, or at least witchery far beyond what she used to be able to do. Maybe the slavers were all drugged in some way, letting them use extraordinary magic.
Or maybe, Rasim thought in a flash, maybe Lorens had been drugged, too. Losing moments of time to hallucinations made more sense to him than people vanishing into the air.
He stared at Missio's thin hands, their skin grey with death. Siliaria was curled in her fingers, and the dusty leather pouch the goddess icon had been in looked limp and wan without its little carving. Nothing shipboard ever got dusty. It was always too damp.
"No one knows yet. The captain didn't see how they escaped. All we know is it wasn't by sea, because she'd have felt that. She's asking for you and Desimi, Rasim," Hassin said. "You should come. There's nothing we can do here."
Cold drained through Rasim, worse than anything he'd felt all day. He looked up at Hassin: tall, handsome, his neatly braided hair falling over one shoulder. It was easy to forget Hassin was a master, that he was nearly thirty, because he was so easy and familiar with the younger crew. But that was his strength as a mate, and why he'd gone from second to first in a year. He'd have a ship of his own when they got back to Ilyara. If they ever got back to Ilyara. Rasim focused on each of those things with sea-crisp clarity, because somehow he had not thought once of Kisia and Desimi since the attack had come at the docks. "They're not here?"
The words cracked again, though he spoke in no more than a whisper. Hassin tilted his head, eyebrows furling. "Who's not here?"
"Kisia. Desimi. They..." Rasim put his hand over his mouth, afraid to speak. Afraid to think. Hassin, frowning, turned Rasim to face him and put both hands on his shoulders in silent encouragement. Rasim moved his hand enough to wet his lips, but spoke through the muffling comfort of his fingers. "They went into the sewers just before the attack. They were going to see if they could find their way to Gontor's chamber faster than I had. They...hasn't anybody seen them?"
"No."
The simple answer carried all the cold depths of the ocean into Rasim's bones. It drowned every emotion he might have; that was the only way he could borrow Hassin's belt knife and step to the wall so calmly. He tapped out the only message he knew: Quiet. Listen. Friends below? and waited. Someone picked it up, their tapping response audible to him, but the next moments lasted forever, until a new series of taps came back.
No friends below. The message ended, then, like an afterthought, another series of beats echoed through the walls: No enemies below. He sank to his knees, one palm against the cold wall, and couldn't make himself speak.
"Rasim?" Hassin crouched beside him, worry creasing deep lines around his mouth and eyes. "Rasim, what did they say?"
"Kisia and Desimi never came out of the sewers."
"Maybe they're hiding."
Rasim gave Hassin a look of pure disgust, so potent that the first mate's mouth twisted. "Remind me not to try offering you false hope again, journeyman."
"With the amount of sea witchery going on, there's no way Desimi could have missed it. He would have come out fighting if he could, and Kisia never met a fight she was willing to run from. They either got captured or they're dead, Hassin. We need to sweep the sewers."
"I'll do it myself," Hassin offered quietly. "They're vast, but nothing's as quick as witchery to find trouble in the waters."
"I'll help."
Hassin said, "No," and it sounded like an order. Rasim lifted his eyes to find Hassin's face set in resolute lines. The first mate said, "No," again more gently, and this time, Rasim knew why. Hassin didn't want him to be the one who found Kisia and Desimi's bodies, if there were bodies to be found.
His courage failed him and he nodded gratefully. "Then I'll go to the captain." Resolution tightened his stomach, better than the emptiness of fear, and he turned to Missio's body. "I'm bringing her with me. I want her to have a Seamaster's burial."
