10

Rasim remembered, hazily, the ice-cold ocean bath he'd taken as his witchery failed him. He remembered, vaguely, that Hassin had gotten him aboard the Waifia. He remembered more clearly that Sesin sat at his side a long time after that, soothing Rasim with a magic he both coveted and, in the moment, feared. He wanted more of Missio's drug so he could feel the immense bliss of incredible power. At the same time, he was terrified of any magic, afraid it could somehow overwhelm him all by itself. Still, he huddled as near to Sesin's gentleness as he could, even when he was certain it would burn him.

Clarity returned slowly. His head ached, but not with the craving for power. He was thirsty, that was all, and drained a water skin that lay close to hand. Then there were other necessary functions to attend to. He staggered onto the deck, gasping at the strength and chill of fresh-blown air. It carried the scent and sounds of land: distant earthy dryness and the cries of gulls and other near-shore sea birds. Someone offered him smoked whitefish and more water. Rasim took both gratefully and mumbled thanks around greedy mouthfuls.

Hassin stood beside him when he'd finished eating. Rasim squinted up at the first mate, then sank back against the ship's hull, weak despite the food. "Where are we?" His voice sounded funny, as if it had gone unused for days.

"Half a day from the Morrin river mouth."

"The Morrin." Rasim leaned heavily on the rail, trying to call continental maps to mind. The Morrin River ran through Moran, the city it was named for. "That's an almost four-day sail from Hongrunn. I've been sleeping that long?"

Hassin nodded. "Are the cravings gone?"

"The cravings." Rasim shuddered, then nodded.

Hassin, satisfied, echoed the motion. "Sesin wishes she had some of the drug left to study, or to save for Master Usia. I've seen witches taken with addiction before, Rasim. For some of them, a single taste is all it takes. I wouldn't have put you among them. Not after what you've done."

"What I've done? What have I done?"

Hassin snorted. "Heroics are as addicting as anything else, lad. You keep finding yourself in the midst of them, but you're not seeking them out for the thrill. If you were born to be an addict, I think you would be. So Sesin is curious about that drug, and I admit, so am I. It must have something in it to enhance the need for it."

"Maybe. Everything else—the serpent, the snake, Siliaria, all of it, that was all exciting, but a lot of it was awful, too. More of it was awful. People were dying, or in danger of dying. Breaking up the ice with all that magic was just...it felt wonderful. I wanted to be able to do it forever. It felt like I could. And then when that feeling was gone it was...I just wanted it to come back. Poor Missio."

"You've got a kind heart, Rasim," Hassin said after a moment. "Can I ask you something?"

Rasim waved a hand in agreement, then put it back on the railing, still dizzier than he thought he should be. Hassin nodded, but gathered himself before speaking. "I've never seen anyone use that much witchery. Maybe Guildmaster Isidri, at the harbor. But you've been studying with the Sunmasters. Do you think... now that you know you can use all that magic, do you think you can do as the king hopes? Can you work sun witchery now, do you think?"

Rasim's heart stuttered. He could already work stone witchery along with his native-born seamastery, but no one knew that. No one but Sesin, anyway, and Kisia, who suspected. Neither of them were going to tell. He trusted Hassin as deeply as he trusted anyone, but Hassin was first mate on Nasira's ship, and Nasira had already thrown Rasim overboard once for suspected use of sunwitchery. A shudder went over him. "No. I don't think so. All the drug did was make me be able to use an awful lot of seamastery."

And if it had somehow awakened the ability to use even more magics, Rasim would never say so. Or at least not to anyone but King Taishm, who had set Rasim on this voyage. He should be the first to know, so that no one could ever try to use Rasim against him.

"Probably just as well. The captain wouldn't like it." Hassin grinned at Rasim's nonplussed stare, then waved him off. "Go get some more food into yourself, journeyman. I think the captain wants to dress you down for being unconscious for three days."

"We didn't hit rough seas, did we?" Rasim clutched his head, trying to remember if any of the pitching had been the ship and not his stomach.

"No, and lucky for you. There's been no sign of a slaver ship, either," Hassin added quietly. "I know they've got a half crew of sea witches aboard, but with our masts and sails, we should have caught them by now."

"We're sailing the main channel? The shortest route to Moran?" Hassin nodded and Rasim shrugged. "The slavers probably aren't. We may get to Moran ahead of them." An angry smile tugged his mouth. "They won't know what hits them. I only wish we wouldn't have to fight our own crew. Because we will. They'll be full of mindkiller, and will fight for the Moranese."

"We'll sail that ship when we find it, Rasim. But first we have to find it. Now go eat," Hassin said again, this time with more severity. "You're pale as a Northerner."

"Aye, Commander." Rasim wobbled belowdecks, where he ate and, to his embarrassment, fell asleep in the galley. Sesin woke him just enough to get him back to his berth, and he slept until hunger awakened him again.

When he made his way onto deck, the shores had closed in: they sailed a river now. A wide and deep river, to be sure, but a river. Nasira stood near the prow, watching the river narrow. Rasim, gnawing on hard bread, went to stand beside her. "I wasn't any use to you after all."

"You will be." The captain didn't look at him, but her tone was certain. "As well that we hit no rough waters sailing in, because they lie ahead of us, sure enough. We are going to war, you understand that, journeyman?"

Rasim's hunger vanished. "Are we?"

"My old ship's crew may well be in that city, or been sold out of it. This ship's crew is there, or will be soon. We have witchery, Rasim, and I intend to use it."

"But, Captain, we..." Rasim felt like the hard bread had made his tongue too dry and thick to manage. "We're Ilyaran," he said after a moment. "We don't...we don't go to war."

"We've never had reason. No one could threaten us. But now they have, and that needs to be dealt with."

"But what if they've learned magic from our witches? Guildmaster Asindo and I talked about that. We know now that witchery can be learned later in life, and there must be witches who left Ilyara of their own accord. There'd be nothing stopping them from teaching others, or standing against us."

"Do you really think we wouldn't know? If there were other cities with as much witchery to command as we have? Do you think the king wouldn't know?"

Rasim swallowed what was left of the bread sticking to his tongue. "I think they'd try hard to keep us from knowing. I think they'd hide it behind Ilyaran slaves. I'm not saying they have magic, Captain, but shouldn't we be careful?"

"You're a strange one to be counseling caution. It's not caution that got you this far."

"It's not recklessness, either! It's just that things keep happening!"

"Oh, aye. Leaping from the Waifia to a sea serpent's head wasn't reckless at all. Nor was teaching an Islander magic, or flooding a Northern mine, or—"

"I had to do something!" Rasim knew the captain was right, but at the same time, so was he. "I had to make choices, and mostly I had to make them fast. Maybe they weren't good ones, but right now we have the time, Captain. Shouldn't we try to be smart instead of sailing in expecting to meet no resistance?"

Nasira's nostrils flared. "Smart how?"

"Well, we haven't seen the slaver ship yet, right? So maybe they're behind us, which means somebody in Moran expects a ship full of Ilyaran slaves to sail in soon. Maybe we should give them that. Maybe we should pretend to be captive."

"We don't have any Moranese for the roles, journeyman."

"We've got Prince Lorens." Rasim's stomach dipped. "The Northerners are known to not care very much about slavery, and if the Moranese think we're all full of mindkiller, they'd know Lorens doesn't need a big crew to control us."

Nasira gave him a hard stare, one that said she didn't like what he was thinking, but that she saw the value in it. After a long, grim moment, she said, "I'll talk to the prince about it. We'd need a name within Moran, someone with the power to oversee the purchase of a ship full of Ilyaran slaves. I don't have that information, and if Lorens doesn't, it's a dead end, Rasim. I'm not putting any free man, Ilyaran or no, off this ship to learn those things. These people will make slaves of anyone they lay hands on. I can't risk it. And you're not to sneak off and seek permission later," Nasira added sharply. "Do it and it's the end of your guild career."

Rasim's eyebrows rose slowly. "That's the second time you've used that threat."

"It's the only thing that holds water with you. Asindo admires you, Rasim, but he likes to play a line out to see where it lands. I don't. Cross me, and I'll do everything I can to stopper your dreams."

"I believe you." Rasim left her without making any promises, but neither was he foolish enough to thwart Nasira openly. It was possible that Guildmaster Asindo might forgive what Captain Nasira forbade, but Rasim could almost believe Nasira would leave him in chains on a Moranese shore if he went against orders. Asindo's forgiveness wouldn't matter much then.

He worked the rest of the day with the crew, feeling his strength return even as his mind worried at the problems ahead. Not until the last whistle of his shift blasted did the captain appear and bark, "My quarters," at him.

Rasim winced and the handful of crew in the galley chuckled with sympathy and malice as he ducked his head and followed the captain to her cabin.

Hassin and Prince Lorens were already in the captain's cabin when they arrived. Rasim, stepping in behind her, felt as if he was in enormous trouble. The small, tidy room was crowded with three adults, although Lorens pressed himself into a corner, trying to make the least of his size. A little to Rasim's surprise, Skymaster Arrat followed him into the room, which somehow made the air easier to breathe. Rasim didn't know if it was Arrat's witchery, but he gave the skymaster a brief, thankful smile.

The smile disappeared as Nasira, sounding furious, said, "The prince is willing to listen to your proposal, journeyman, but I have the final say in whether we try this nonsense."

"Yes, Captain." If he wasn't in trouble now, Rasim was fairly certain he would be when he was finished talking. "You told him about the idea?" At Nasira's sour nod, Rasim took a deep breath and plunged on with what he'd thought about as he worked. "We all know Ilyaran ships aren't going to be casually sailing into Moran, so the way I see it, there are two obvious possibilities. Either somebody's captured the Ilyaran flagship—"

"Hah!" The sound burst from Nasira like she couldn't stop it.

"Well, exactly. So either someone's captured us, in which case the ship would be flying a Moranese banner, or we're coming to get our people back. Those are the obvious possibilities. Or." Rasim took a deep breath. "Or the third possibility is that the captain's turned traitor and intends to sell her crew."

Hassin's mouth fell open. "What?"

"I thought Prince Lorens was supposed to be the traitor here!" Nasira remembered to look apologetic after her outburst, but Lorens waved her off, frowning at Rasim.

"Go on, journeyman. Why the captain and not me? I'm Northern. We're more likely to turn a blind eye to slavery than you Ilyarans are."

"You're the one who put the idea in her head, or who convinced her," Rasim explained. "You're a prince, after all, and the captain's lost a lot. I'm sorry, Captain, but it's true."

Nasira's tight nod told him he was treading dangerous waters, but he'd known that anyway. "So you convinced her to enslave and sell her crew," Rasim went on. "You've promised her a soft life in the North, or something like that, in exchange for the good will it'll buy the North with the Moranese. I think it could work."

Hassin, his voice low, glanced at Nasira as he said, "It has before."

Rasim gaped and Lorens's pale eyebrows drew down curiously as Hassin offered a tight smile in response to Nasira's warning glare. "I was half your age at the time, Rasim. The guild was told that the ship was lost in a storm, but Asindo told me the truth not a year since. Because of all this," he said with a twirl of his fingers. "Because of the fires, the Northern witchery, all of it. He wanted us to be prepared."

Nasira, her nostrils flared with anger, picked up his story. "His name was Matisi. He wanted more than the guilds could give him, and agitated for change. He wanted to earn profits with his witchery, but Guildmaster Isidri wouldn't let him go. So he left, and took his ship with him. They thought he'd been lost at sea until one of his crew escaped Moran the year of the Great Fire. She made her way back to Ilyara and told the Guildmaster what had happened."

"Why didn't we go get them?" Rasim asked, horrified, then closed his eyes. "The year of the fire. Of course." Of all the guilds, the Seamasters had lost the most in the fire: ships and guildhall alike had burned. "Who was it? Is she still with the guild?"

"Masira." Hassin watched in sympathy as blood drained from Rasim's face.

"Masira? The bathkeeper? But she's...how could anyone enslave her? She's so nice."

"Slavers don't care about nice, Rasim. You know that. She's strong, is what she is. She survived, she escaped, and she's happy now. That's what's most important."

"Except to the ones who got left behind!"

"It was the fire, journeyman," Nasira said in a cold, precise tone. "A lot got left behind."

Rasim clenched his fists and, for a rarity, wished he had something to hit. That was more of something Desimi would want to do. Maybe he and the bigger journeyman weren't so different after all. "That's part of how it keeps going, though. It has to be. People forget. They have other problems right in front of them and they let the tide wash away the memories, and slavery keeps happening. It's not right. We should be fighting it. All the time, if we have to."

"What do you think we're on our way to do?" The ice hadn't left Nasira's voice.

"Are we?" Rasim thrust his chin at his captain in challenge. "We're going to get our people back right now, sure, but are we going to do anything for everyone else? How many slaves are there in Moran? How many slaves are there across the whole continent? Saving a couple hundred Ilyarans isn't going to do most of them any good at all."

"What would you have us do?" Hassin sounded genuinely curious.

"Change things! Stop the slavers! We're powerful, Hassin! We could do it. Maybe not just half a ship of sea witches, but Ilyarans working together. Why haven't we done something?"

Hassin tilted his head, considering the question. "Even in Ilyara, once people are used to doing something one way, it's hard to make them come around to another. Look how long the Sunmasters have held sway in the palace. I didn't even know it had been different until Guildmaster Isidri spoke of it. Even there, most people just shrug and say that this is how it's always been. How much harder would it be to get rid of slavery, even if it's to the greater good?"

"Harder," Rasim admitted, but muttered, "but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing."

"You're right," Lorens said, surprising Rasim. "It is worth doing. But Hassin is also right. People resist change because they're comfortable with what they know. Slaves do the housework, women bear children, men do business. It's the way of the world. At least, it's the way of the world outside of Ilyara."

"But changing that would be good for everyone! Can you imagine Inga cleaning house all day?"

Lorens laughed. "No, and neither can our servants. Can you imagine yourself doing it?"

"It doesn't take me all day. Witchery cleans the floors fast, and a Skymaster can take the dust away in a blink. They always do, after sandstorms. If everybody could do that..."

"But they can't," Nasira said flatly. "And neither can we. Not with one ship half-crewed, and maybe not with an entire Ilyaran army, which we neither have nor want. Do you really imagine the crew will go along with this, journeyman?"

Rasim stared at her, surprised. "If you tell them to they will. You're the captain, and we're trying to get our crewmates back."

"And you're willing to wear chains and use witchery only at my command? Or Lorens's?"

"If it helps keep us safe, of course I am. We all should be. It might even be best if you actually sell some of us. It'll help make people believe you've turned coat."

Nasira's thin smile appeared. "Are you volunteering?"

Rasim's mouth twisted. "I'm sure you'd be happy to sell me, Captain. But Sesin would be good, too. She was able to clear the mindkiller from her blood once she knew it was there. And it would look good if you sold Hassin, too."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were deliberately weakening my crew with those sales."

"He's right, though," Lorens said reluctantly. "If you've really turned traitor, getting rid of some of your strongest, most potentially rebellious crew members first makes sense. You'd want to hold the rest back, though, until they've proved their worth."

Nasira looked pained. "You two have slave-seller minds."

Lorens looked offended as Rasim's stomach clenched. "It's just like selling camels or bargaining for beads at the market, Captain. Only with people, and that's what makes it wrong."

Nasira shook her head, expression tight, and momentarily turned her attention to Arrat, whose silent presence had all been forgotten. "I think you and your journeymen had better go to shore, Arrat. If nothing else, it'll leave someone to warn Ilyara if this all goes completely wrong."

The tall Skymaster smiled briefly. "We'd be willing to help, Nasira. You know that."

"I do, but it's already madness and I won't bring another guild down with me." She snapped her gaze back to Rasim. "All right, journeyman. I'll go along with this because I'm afraid it's our best choice, but I hope we don't all regret it."