Page 33 of Fate of the Argosi

‘What is, then?’ I asked, though I still couldn’t take my eyes off that galleon half-buried in the soil.

Without warning, Ala’tris hurled herself at me. Her arms wrapped around my whole body and, before I knew it, she was hugging me again. ‘I’m so glad it’s you,’ she whispered, her cheek pressed against mine. ‘All the uncertainty, all the perils, waging battles against my own kind . . . But with you here, Iknowthis is right. It’s fate.’ Louder now, so everyone heard, she declared, ‘The Mahdek no longer need wander the length and breadth of this continent as refugees. They need no longer beg for shelter or charity, or fear those who would hunt them to extinction.’ Tears of hope and pride shone in her eyes. ‘Ferius, we have found the Mahdek people a homeland!’

Part 3

The Ship of Dust

Every disharmony charts a course different from the one we expected to follow, and yet an Argosi must be wary of abandoning their own path. Where the teysan sees contradiction and paradox, the maetri recognises a simple truth: it is not the road to which we must adhere, but the way in which we travel it.

Thus is made clear the danger of your disharmonies: that in seeking to rectify them, you may unwittingly allow them to alter your own spirit, until at last you wander the world as nothing more than the physical manifestation of a wrong that can never be made right.

20

The Spellship

‘Hoist the halyard and trim the mainsail!’

‘Steady to starboard and pull us hard to port, ye scurvy dogs!’

‘Three sheets to the wind and drop the anchor, say I!’

The Argosi aren’t exactly known for their maritime expertise. Neither Durral nor Enna ever explained why, only that the long roads and winding rivers are our homes, not the oceans. No surprise, then, that I wasn’t familiar with the wide range of nautical terms sailors call to each other across the deck of a galleon. In my defence, the crew of theShadow’s Gambledidn’t seem to know either; they just enjoyed the shouting.

Two days after our departure from the tower, I was leaning against the railing near the bow, lost in the impossible sights and sounds of my first voyage aboard a vessel that shouldn’t exist, so filled with awe I barely remembered to breathe. Fields of tall grasses parted before the spellship’s bronze figurehead of a rampant seahorse. The oak keel beneath the ship shuddered and shook as we sailed –sailed!– up wooded hills and over rocky plateaux, hurtling through dense forests and across sandy plains. Trees with trunks as wide as my outstretched arms and branches thicker than my legs that should’ve torn through the hull’s wooden planking nudged us no more than a gentle an ocean swell. I kept expecting to taste the salt of sea air on my tongue, but only got pelted by the occasional pine needle.

‘Well, now,’ I murmured to myself. ‘Might be time to set aside my aversion to magic and get me a spellship of my own.’

‘There are no others,’ Ala’tris said.

I started, my right hand drawing a dozen throwing cards from my waistcoat pocket. It’s not often someone sneaks up on me like that.

‘My apologies,’ she said, seeing the glint of steel in my hand. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. It’s just that you’ve passed every waking hour at the bow, by yourself, and both nights sleeping alone on deck.’

That wasn’t quite true; I’d spent plenty of time below decks tending to Quadlopo, which involved a lot of brushing and profuse apologising for having stuck him inside what he clearly considered to be the belly of a giant wooden demon.

‘I worried your cabin might not be suitable?’ Ala’tris asked tentatively.

So much grace in this girl. Hard to believe she was raised right alongside all those mages who’d tried to kill me more times than I could remember. Now she was concerned over my accommodation, which was funny because my arta precis had discerned from the sideways glances of her fellow mages that Ala’tris had given me her own cabin. I felt a little ungrateful, but how was I to explain that I couldn’t imagine wasting one minute below decks if it cost me a single second of the marvels unfolding before me?

All I’d wanted since finding my Argosi path had been to travel this continent and witness its wonders – to feel the wind on my face and the wild beat of my own heart. Every moment since crossing paths with Chedran and the Mahdek runaways, my feet had been sinking so deep in the mud of my people’s tragedies that I worried I’d never go a-wandering again. Instead, Ala’tris had brought me aboard this incredible vessel, fuelled by incomprehensible spells, gliding across landscapes no other ship could sail.

‘Ferius?’ she asked. She reached out a finger and traced a line down my cheek. ‘You’re crying.’ Stepping closer, her eyes catching mine, I saw the unspoken question on her lips. She leaned in, just a little – just enough to make me wonder if . . . but no.

Stand Ala’tris up on the forecastle next to Arissa, and you’d have the most lopsided beauty pageant in all of history. Both were beautiful in their own way, but one was luminous, graceful and idealistic. The other was a thief whose itchy fingers – even when they were stealing my own stuff – never failed to get me into trouble. One wanted to give me her heart, the other seemed content to steal mine and offer nothing in return.

No contest at all.

I took Ala’tris’s hand and kissed the back of it with the chaste gallantry of a Daroman courtier. I almost made a joke about feeling seasick from the bumpy ride and who the heck was captaining this leaky barge anyway? I stopped myself. Memories can be precious candles full of stolen moonlight to brighten dark days, and this voyage, every minute of it, was something I wanted to cherish. ‘You were saying something about there being no other spellships?’ I asked instead.

Ala’tris didn’t step away, but her withdrawal was unmistakable. She nodded with almost formal courtesy that only increased the distance between us. ‘There are many spells that might harden a hull or propel a vessel along the water, but this . . .’ The galleon was cruising through a narrow canyon barely wider than our sails. Ala’tris stretched her hand up high to where a rocky outcropping extended from the canyon wall right over the bow. The hard stone should’ve taken her arm off but instead passed right through flesh and bone, buffeting her with no more force than a strong breeze. She let that breeze turn her around so that she could point up to the forecastle. Sar’ephir stood with her back to us, the sun glinting on her shaved head, toned bronze arms outstretched to either side. The sigils of the tattooed band for sand magic were shedding golden sparks that winked out of existence almost as quickly as they appeared. ‘Ba’dari holds the hull together with iron magic, Gab’rel uses his breath spells to channel Jir’dan’s ember energies into our propulsion, and my own silk illusions keep the spellship from being seen, but only Sar’ephir can make the ship – and us – slip through solid matter.’ Ala’tris smiled and shook her head in wonder, as if even she hadn’t quite figured it all out. ‘Ferius, we are literally travelling a fraction of a fraction of a second out of step with the world around us.’

‘Incredible.’

‘I know! It’s as if—’

‘No, I meant that literally. What you’ve just described isn’t credible.’

The smile disappeared. ‘Ferius, please don’t ruin—’

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