"There's nothing going to be here," one of the crew said as soon as they were out of Nasira's earshot.
Hassin glanced at the woman and she subsided, though her sentiment was clearly shared by the others. Rasim muttered, "There has to be," at his hands, and the same woman gave him a look as cold as any Nasira had bestowed on him.
"Captain's right. We should put you off here, no matter what that Northern prince says. He's got no business ordering a Seamaster around, especially after his own people near killed Guildmaster Isidri. First they burned Ilyara, then they half froze it, and now Taishm wants to make treaties? The royal line's more than weak. It's gone soft in the head."
"Shut up, Missio!" Kisia's thighs bunched like she would launch herself at the crewman, but Hassin spoke quietly instead.
"Kisia. Missio." Warning filled both names, though there was far more emphasis on the second. Rasim gave Kisia a faint, appreciative smile, but Missio scowled darkly and left Rasim to shift uncomfortably. He had spent years dealing with Desimi's dislike, but the older guildmembers disdaining him so openly was much worse. A lot of accidents could happen ship-board, if too many of the sailors felt like Missio and Nasira did.
"There's a bit of a harbor yon," said another of the rowboat's crew, and for a little while they were occupied with bringing the boat in safely to shore.
Even Hassin looked dismayed when they leaped to the barren rock, though. Craggy fresh stone rose from the water, with tide pools lying here and there, but the barnacles and crabs in those pools were the only immediately visible life on the island. Hassin looked around grimly, then broke the crew into two groups with a few points of his fingers. "It's not a big island. You four head around it to the right, we'll go to the left. Break into pairs when you reach higher ground that needs exploring, but don't go off alone. Siliaria alone knows what's hidden in this rock."
He hesitated, looking at Missio and Rasim, who were in the same group, but Rasim shook his head. If Missio—or anyone—thought he needed Hassin's protection, then he would become that much more of a target. Hassin nodded, then glanced at the sun. "Move as quickly as you can. Best to be back on the Waifia by nightfall, I think. Be cautious, but be thorough. We need something, or this journey will be a long, tiring one."
Kisia sent Rasim an unhappy look as she left with Hassin. Rasim tried to smile reassuringly, but from the worry furrowing Kisia's eyebrows, he'd failed. He was pretty sure she would be mad at him for that, even if it wasn't his fault. Sighing, he followed the others of his group.
Within half an hour it was clear Missio was right: there was nothing to the island but tidal pools and slick rock. Rasim, smaller and more lithe than the other three on his crew, darted up to higher ground as often as he could, searching shoal-ridden slopes for anything that might pass as rope. The shoal made for uncertain footing, even when he paid attention. Rock skittered from beneath his feet and proved that the actual ground lay as much as a palm's depth below the shifting stone. He watched the others from the corner of his eye, when he could see them, and caught glimpses of them slipping and digging their toes in as well, Once in a while someone called up to him to say they hadn't found anything, and he shouted that he hadn't, either, back to them.
Then a passage opened up behind a jut of sharp rock, hardly more than a cut in the stone face. Rasim yelled, and Missio, the next smallest of their team, clambered up the sharply slanted hills behind him, squeezing through the passage to find more of the same beyond it. They explored in silence, Rasim keeping an eye on the sun's position in the sky. Hardly more than an hour took them across half the territory they needed to explore, with no luck.
"You're right," he said over his shoulder to Missio. "There's nothing here."
She curled her lip, accepting his acknowledgment gracelessly. Rasim tried to smile as he turned away again, not paying enough attention to where he stepped. Shoal scattered beneath his feet and he slipped, landing hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
In an instant, the slippery stone beneath him surged in a little landslide and threw him into a cre-vasse as easily as a waterfall might throw him down a cliff face. Too breathless to cry out, Rasim twisted, scrabbling at the crevasse's lip with his fingertips. He caught, but slipped again as his weight broke more pieces away from the sharp edge. A few inches deeper he caught again, this time on a stronger section of stone. It held, leaving him dangling. Shoal bounced and clattered against the crevasse walls, the sounds seeming endless, as if they were falling forever. Rasim glanced down once, trying to judge how wide, how deep, the chasm below him was.
Even with noon sun pouring from above, he could see no bottom and more than enough width for him to fall much, much farther before becoming stuck in its maw. His fingers went cold, terror suddenly setting in. He hadn't had time to be afraid when he'd fallen, but with the terrible depth beneath him, Rasim's heart beat so hard he thought it would shake him loose from the crevasse wall. He could find no purchase with his toes. His fingers began to sweat, weakening his grip. The first time he tried to shout for help, all that came out was a cough. The second time his voice was thin, but it carried. Within a few seconds, he heard cautious footsteps.
Missio appeared above him. Nervous relief soured Rasim's belly. He tried for a smile, but it fell apart. "Help."
Missio crouched, hands falling between her knees as she studied Rasim's precarious position. Then she smiled. "No problem. Hold on a minute and let me go get some rope. Oh, wait."
"You don't need rope. Just lie down and grab my wrist!"
"And risk you pulling me in?"
"I wouldn't—!" But she would, Rasim realized from the glint in Missio's eyes. If she had slipped, if Rasim was above her, offering help, she would pull him in, throw him into the abyss and risk her own life to do it, rather than simply save him. That was how deep her fear and anger ran. "Missio—!"
Missio picked up a large piece of rock and slammed it across Rasim's right hand.
Pain splintered through his fingers. They spasmed open, leaving his weight dangling from just his left hand. Rasim howled and scrabbled his toes against the crevasse wall, desperate to find any kind of purchase. Missio reached down and pried up his pinky finger, then the finger beside it. Rasim lurched, his weight hanging precariously from two fingers. "Missio, please, no, don't—!"
She flipped his index finger away from the stone, and the weak middle finger straightened, dropping Rasim into the fissure.
He bashed against one wall, then the other. His right arm smashed against an outcropping and instantly something felt wrong. Pain took his breath and he tucked his arm against his chest as he bounced from one wall to the other. It seemed like he'd already fallen forever when he finally managed to tuck himself into a ball. Every hit felt worse than the last, bruises upon bruises on his back and shoulders and shins, but at least his limbs weren't flailing and breaking.
Abruptly there was emptiness, no more walls to crash against. Rasim drew a shocked breath and hit water with an icy slap that flattened him against the surface before he sank. The crack echoed in his ears, blood rushing to his skin so fast that despite the cold, he felt a blast of warmth beneath the water. His witchery came to life, throwing him to the surface, where he gasped and lay on the cold lapping water, staring blankly into darkness. His right arm and fingers ached too badly to use. Rasim curled them against his chest, holding them with his left arm, and was almost grateful that he couldn't see how badly he was injured.
Not even the crevasse he'd fallen through was visible. He gazed upward, trying to make sense of that, and finally concluded that the crack in the earth angled so the sky couldn't be seen. Shivers came over him. If the crevasse was the only way out, he would die down here in the darkness, alone and very afraid.
But the water was moving. That meant the tide reached in here, and that meant there was a chance of getting free. Rasim rolled upright, half treading water and half letting his magic support him. The witchery could have done it alone, but he wanted to save what meager power he had, in case he needed it to break out.
Shadows started to break free of the dark, once he was upright. The sound of surf was louder in one direction, the same direction the faint shadows stretched from. Rasim kicked that way, then cursed as pain made him so dizzy he started to sink. He clutched his right arm again, ground his teeth together, and used witchery to push himself through the water. His hurt arm simply wouldn't let him swim. Better to risk draining his small magic than to simply drown in the darkness. Bits of light glimmered ahead, though, disappearing and reappearing with the shift of waves. Rasim took a deep, shaking breath, and ducked beneath the water's surface.
The light was easier to see from below water: larger, more diffuse, inviting. A cave mouth of some sort, all but hidden by rising tides. Rasim exhaled noisily, a stream of bubbles bursting upward. He frowned at them a moment, barely understanding what they meant before dark humor washed through him.
No sea witch went under the water's surface without bringing a bubble of air with him. Even Rasim could do that, but for the first time in his life he hadn't thought to. His arm hurt an awful lot, but he thought he must have taken a hard knock on the head to forget such a basic lesson. If he could find a ledge to drag himself onto, he could dry off. Then he could slip back into the water warmer than he was now, and search for the way out to the Waifia.
Desimi, Rasim thought tiredly, wouldn't even need to get out of the water to do that, but drying off while still in the water sounded too exhausting. And he needed to dry off: now that he was paying attention, he realized he was shivering so hard his teeth were clattering. No wonder he couldn't tell if his head hurt. Still shivering, Rasim broke the surface again, eyes adjusting enough to pick out shapes in the dim light. There were ledges above the water's surface, and other half-familiar forms making monsters of the shadows. Rasim propelled himself to one of the ledges and forced water to fountain upward, bringing him to ledge's flat surface. Then he collapsed, gasping and trembling, as exhausted from the use of witchery as the cold.
It helped enormously to strain water from his clothes. He was still too cold, but cold and dry was much better than cold and wet. Rasim pulled his arms inside his tunic, folding his useless right one against his belly and rubbing his chest vigorously with his left. He was bruised everywhere, each rub causing a lance of pain, but at least he began to warm up. When the worst of the tremors had passed he tucked himself into a ball, squinting at the darkness and trying to make sense of the half-familiar shapes. Enormous curves, stretched high and wide like ribs, posts thrust high toward the ceiling—
Rasim laughed. It echoed around the cave, brightening it. He had been knocked on the head, if he couldn't recognize those shapes at a glance.
There was a ship down here. Wrecked, thrown against rocks, but a ship. It had to have been broken even before it found its way into the cave's mouth, because the entrance was too small a whole ship to pass through. But a wreck had passed through it, and he could see that its ruined pieces still carried the ropes that had once held sails and cargo in place. It was the Waifia's salvation.
For an instant he imagined bringing the ropes back all by himself, being the glorious hero of the hour, and immediately burst the fantasy with a derisive snort. Even if his right arm wasn't banged into uselessness, he lacked the magical strength to haul that much rope through the water without it dragging him down. It would take others to untangle the ropes and more still to pull them out of the cave. And even if he could do it himself, most of the crew thought the rope fire was his fault anyway. At the very most, finding new ropes would redeem him, not make a hero of him.
Besides, he'd had enough of being a hero with the sea serpent. Others could take the credit here. All he wanted was to be safe on board the Waifia again...
...and to hear what story Missio had told the others.