From Whence You Came (7 page)

“Flags?”

“Can't tell just yet, sahr. It looks to be a merchant vessel, sahr. Out of the Lands Vin, by her lines.”

Harini stood up, even as the Captain headed out the door. Had it been pirates, she would have taken to the inner cabins to wait out the battle. But a merchant ship? They were well outside Varshami waters; every contact could mean an expansion of her family's wealth. Harini might not have interest in that sort of thing, but she knew its value. Her father would never forgive her if she let this chance contact pass by.

“And the serpents?” she asked, because – father or no 
–
 
she could not let it go.

The crewsman bobbed his head, as though apologizing for bringing ill news. “None to be seen, lady.”

She sighed and followed the Captain out the door. A merchantship encounter would have to suffice, for now.

By the time they reached the observancy, the other ship had come clear on the horizon. It looked to be smaller than theirs, but clearly built for cargo, riding low on the waters.

“Iajan, by the colors. And the banner above? Someone with better eyes pick it out for me.”

There was silence, and then one of the younger crew shouted out, “Solid blue, captain!”

“Solid blue, and no design?” Harini was puzzled, but the Captain laughed. “Not one a merchantman's daughter would know, but familiar to me, no fear. They run under the Shipsmaster Guild's banner itself. Whoever's on that ship is worth knowing, for sure.”

“Send a signal, Jak,” he said to his matesman. “Request a passby, that we might give our greetings, out here in this wide, wild sea."

o0o

The flag was raised, a long narrow banner of bright red silk, brighter than the dark red the heirs of Zatim Sin-Washer draped themselves in: the red of flame, not wine. Every ship carried one, as well as the yellow of aid-request, and the white-and-black of plague. 

There was hesitation, then a flurry of activity, and the other ship unfurled a matching banner. But even as the ships began to match speed, the waters between them darkened, as though some great shadow moved underneath.

“There!” Rini left off watching the approaching ship, and ran to the railing, her skirts tangling around her legs as she moved too swiftly for decorum or safety. “A serpent!” Her hair, teased by the wind, escaped from the high-crown braid she'd put it in that morning, and she brushed the strands away from her eyes impatiently. “There it is!”

She could see the long sleek form moving in the waters below, and her breath caught at its magnificence. Far larger than she had thought and moving so fast! No wonder they had not been able to catch up with one; it slid past them and was gone – and then another shadow came at cross-angles, sliding beneath the ship's own shadow, and her breath caught again for a different reason. If the beast should think to rise up, underneath them – would it be enough to damage the hull? Might it capsize them?

The moment passed: of course it would not. It had ignored them until now, and the ship in no way resembled anything the serpent might eat. She resisted the urge to dash to the other side of the ship: by the time she got there, the beast would have moved on. It was best to wait for the creatures to return. Or not. But patience netted her greater results, over time.

There was a shiver through the hull, as though something had brushed up against it, and then the shiver spread to the water off to port. The serpent was rising! She had left her sketchbook on the bench when they had spotted the other ship, and she cursed that fact now, trying to remember every detail of what was happening. When the great head broke through the water, a sleek, wedge-shape covered with scales that glinted and glittered in the morning sunlight, she heard noises and shouting behind her but did not recognize what they meant to do until the ship began to move away.

“No!” she cried, not daring to take her eyes off the beast. “Stay!” But she knew they would not: this was too close for them. She could not order them otherwise; she did not have that authority, and if she insisted, they might well revolt. She would have to be content with observing from that distance, and be thankful for what was given.

Then the ship shuddered again, slanting sharply, but not from any impact of beast. A blast of wind came from nowhere, despite the clouds hanging lazily overhead, and hit them full-on, catching the sails unprepared. The ship groaned like a living thing, twisting underneath them, but the serpent caught the brunt of the blow. Its head reared back and then jutted forward aggressively, as though to attack the air itself.

Another blast came, this time more tightly focused, missing the ship itself to hit the serpent. It reared back, exposing more of its elongated neck and a hint of greater body underneath, and then dove below the surface again.

In a heartbeat, it was gone, the waters returning to a normal deep green. And the wind ended as quickly as it began. Rini stared at the water in dismay, then lifted her gaze to the distant ship, and narrowed her eyes in deep suspicion.

o0o

There was a protocol that was to be followed when two ships met at sea. In particular, there was a protocol to follow when two ships of unaligned powers met at sea.

Iaja prided itself on being the Queen of exploration – the Caulians might have sailor-fighters, but they did not go far from known lands. Iajans roamed the sea, and claimed what they found. Varsam, however, was equally proud, a land of fierce sailors and well-built ships, outside the Lands Vin and thus not yoked by Sin Washer's Commands. Customs were different. Laws were different. A simple misunderstanding could cause ripples and waves down the line.

Caution, and prudence, were called for.

Caution and prudence had never met Deshai Harini.

A meeting was arranged on board the larger Varshami ship, a carefully-chosen party of the captain, Shipsmaster, two crewsmen with knowledge of the Varsham tongue, and Bradhai – not at his own request.

The moment the Vineart was introduced, she surged forward, her suspicions confirmed.

“You! You drove the serpent away! Do you know how long we had been searching for it?”

“Searching? Intentionally?” The
ladysong
's
Captain was enough taken-aback that he responded to the girl, rather than ignoring her, while Bradhai was utterly at a loss. From the look of the other ship's Captain, the girl's outburst was a normal enough occasion, and also that he did not feel confident enough to discipline her.

“It is my responsibility to keep this ship and its crew safe,” Bradhai said.

“It wasn't interested in you! It was – argh!” The girl was well-dressed in a long dark blue skirt and blouse, covered by a leather vest similar to what he had seen traders wear, but longer over her hips. Her skin was dark, her eyes darker, and her hair drawn flat in a braid that started at her crown and ran all the way down her back in a triple plait as thick as a fist. On closer observation, Bradhai decided that she was no girl, but a woman, and one more powerful than might be assumed from her attire and appearance on this ship.

“May I introduce our patroness, Deshai Harini, the daughter of Deshai Pravin, Master of the… you would call it the Weaver's Guild of Varsham.”

“Far distance, and wet, for a weaver-girl to come,” the Captain said, speaking not in the common trade-tongue of Ettion, but a dialect of Iajan unlikely to be understood by outsiders. Bradhai winced – even he knew better than to call her a weaver-girl – but Hernán stepped into the breach.

“As Vineart Bradhai said, the serpents have been a threat to ships within these seas for months on end. We reacted in accordance with our orders. That you have seen no damage from them before this is a blessing of the Silent Gods and your own luck, far more than any disinclination of the beasts.”

The woman – Deshai Harini – looked as though she might argue, but her own Captain stepped forward again. “Indeed. We treat the beasts with respect, and attempt to stay out of their way. Such aggression as you describe is rare in our waters, but we are far from home. That you have a means to drive them off is… of interest to us.”

Bradhai felt his lips twitch, and repressed it sternly. The Captain clearly wished to bargain, but in truth they had nothing to offer. The windspell was merely enough to annoy the serpents: had they wanted to attack the ships, he could not stop them. Yet.

o0o

Protocol and curiosity satisfied, the Iajan contingent returned to their own ship in contemplative silence, the sailors more concerned with the possible return of the sea-beasts that what transpired on-board. The argument did not begin until the narrow longboat had brought them safely to their own ship, in relative privacy

“We should not have told her the beasts were following us. Now she will lurk.”

“You find the presence of another ship troublesome?”

“I find her desire to follow – to
study
 – the beasts, troublesome, yes.” The Shipsmaster was clearly disturbed. He sat in his ornate chair in the captain's study, and glanced out the single window, his gaze drawn again to where the Varsam ship rested,

“She's the indulged child of a Varsam trader,” the Captain said. “The sons go into trade; the daughters are given more leeway. Her curiosity is…quite admirable, in its way. If she had been born to Iaja, her father might have given her to the Crafter's Guild.”

“A woman?” Bradhai was startled by that. 

“Crafters claim that they are born, not made. If the silent gods felt need to put one in the body of a woman, who are we to question? The Guild takes all that qualify.”

It was an odd thought, but not one they had leisure to discuss. Indeed, Bradhai could not bring himself to care about the woman, or her curiosity, or the oddness of life in another land where no vines grew. He had been away from his vines for two weeks, and the urgency to return was growing; the need to perfect the incantation so that he could go home, free of the sword-threat Hernán hung over his neck, all he could focus on.

“I do not like a Varsam ship in these waters,” the Shipsmaster said again, picking up a stylus and playing with it, absently. “They have no reason to be here.”

“To have brought a ship this far….you think she masks some other purpose?”

“I do not know. And that worries me.”

Bradhai stood. “Gentlemen, the politics of who sails where, I leave to your capable hands. Mine are needed elsewhere. If you will excuse me?”

He suspected, in fact, that they were glad to see him go; he had been invited to the discussion out of courtesy for his position, and the fact that anything concerning the serpents of necessity concerned him, but politics and power were beyond his boundaries, and he left them to it, happily.

Po was waiting on the deck, seated with his legs crossed, and a pile of netting on his lap, his clever fingers untangling the weave. A neatly arranged pile to his side told Bradhai that he had been at the chore some while.

When Bradhai climbed the three steps to the deck, the boy looked up, his eyes bright and eager. “They say there's a woman captain on that ship, all the way from Varsham!”

“As usual, ‘they' are wrong. The captain is a man. The woman is a…passenger. An important passenger, but no more. Are you here to watch me explode spells again?”

“No.” Although the look on his face suggested otherwise. “I had a think.”

At this point, Bradhai decided, even a shiprat's thinks were welcome. “And what were you thinking?”

“Spell's liquid, right?”

Bradhai frowned at the boy. “Yes.” In practical terms, the magic was carried within the
vina
, it was not the
vina
itself, but some things outsiders – especially uneducated shiprats – need not know.

“And it's not working, here.”

“No.” He was being as delicate as he could, and yet still the incantation would not stabilize enough to hold the magic intact.

“Maybe it's ‘cause the sea's so salty? Salt water ruins wine, iffin you try to cut with it, they say.”

Bradhai started to scoff, and then stopped, staring at Po long and hard enough that the boy began to shift nervously.

“Too much water,” he said. “Of course.” He was an idiot. Water diluted
vin ordinaire
, made it drinkable. No-one would ever water
vin magica
… but spellwines were sensitive to their environment, in the growing
and
in the making. And here he was, on a vast ocean, working in air saturated with seawater…

“Not more delicate,” he said. “Not more specific. Broader, greater….”

“Po.” He took a flask off the table and handed it to the boy. “Go below deck and fetch me a …” He broke off that thought. “Never mind.” He was treating the boy the way he did his student; a shiprat wouldn't know which cask was which, much less how to handle it. “Stay here. I'll be right back.”

Unlike his cellar at home, the casks had been placed without discernible order, no careful planning. But even in the dim light below deck, Bradhai did not hesitate, moving swiftly to the cask he wanted. With the knife at his belt, he pried out the thick wax plug from the hole at the top of the cask, and used the siphon – a bone tube set at one end with a bladder – to drain off the
vin
he needed.

Returning to the the main deck, he stared at the vials lined up on the table, set in a crudely carved block of driftwood he'd had one of the sailors pull out of the water a few days ago, when he started running his trials. The boy was in his usual spot overhead, dangling from a rope, watching curiously. Normally Bradhai would have run him off, but the boy was no risk, and had already proven himself useful. Not as useful as Yakop would have been, but there was as much use wishing for the First Vine as for for Yakop's presence.

“Aether, earth, and fire.” Flame, to drive the beasts off. Wind, to carry the flame to them. And a growspell, to increase the potency of the overall spell.