Page 51 of Fate of the Argosi

‘Come on, sister,’ I said, retrieving my pack in one hand and Conch – who’d managed to sleep through all my emotional turmoil – in the other. I headed for the door, winking at the guards waiting there with scowls on their faces. ‘I’ve a hankering to see what kinds of fish swim in a shadowblack sea.’

29

Thresholds

The most treacherous crossing in any voyage is the one that sees you stepping out your front door. It seems a small thing, and most folks barely mark its passing, but think about it: that single step carries you not only towards your destination and the dangers it surely entails, but away from all that has kept you safe until now. More importantly, once over the threshold, you’re no longer the person you were before. The familiar rhythms of your life, big and small, fade as you leave that version of yourself behind to become one with the path awaiting you.

‘What are they doing?’ Ala’tris asked, bemused by the sight unfolding before us. The deck of the spellship rocked beneath our feet, despite the fact that we were still on dry land right outside the walls of Colfax’s estate. Sar’ephir stood behind us on the foredeck, conjuring that eerie black water that touched nothing around it save for the hull of the ship. Two hundred and eighty-seven Mahdek were filing up the gangway, lugging their meagre belongings with them. They needed no packs or bags, but instead used an art unique to their culture in which a single long length of rope could be ingeniously wound around every item, big and small, holding everything in place and culminating in two equal lengths that served as straps so they could carry all their possessions on their backs. ‘I find something odd about the way your people are boarding the ship,’ Ala’tris remarked. ‘I can’t quite place what it is.’

‘They’re not looking back.’

She came a little closer and watched their slow, patient progress down the orchard path and through the stone archway, with Colfax’s troops and retainers waving goodbye or handing them little gifts for the voyage, finally walking up the gangplank, to find their sea legs on the deck. ‘You’re right. None of them are so much as glancing back at the estate. Do you suppose they weren’t so well treated as we believed?’

‘Colfax treated them fine.’

That fortress had been, for a scant handful of years, the safest and most comfortable home most of the Mahdek had ever known. It wasn’t in their nature to look backwards though. No complaining, no weeping. Not even the kids shed a tear, just kept putting one foot in front of the other, trudging to wherever fate led them to next. That too was a talent of the Mahdek culture.

Supplies were being brought aboard, overseen by Colfax himself. Meats, cheeses, dried fruit, vegetables, sacks of rice and grain both for the voyage and those first dangerous weeks in a new land, where you don’t know what you’re going to find or whether you’ll have to turn tail and scurry back; canvas and wooden poles for tents, tools of all kinds, crates of wool for making clothes and blankets for warmth. Colfax even allowed me bales of hay for Quadlopo. Amidst that cornucopia, it wasn’t hard to slip in a few other, sealed crates that no one except for Stoika seemed to notice.

I left Ala’tris to join the old woman by the railing where she was supervising both the passengers and the loading of supplies, a task she’d made clear would be performed by her council, not the mages offering them passage.

‘You planning on telling our hosts what you and Colfax are sneaking on board?’ I asked.

Stoika’s steely-grey eyes flicked to me, but only for a moment before returning to continue overseeing the loading. ‘You were occupied with your thieving companion when those crates were being packed. Don’t waste your breath trying to goad me into revealing their contents, child.’

Child.Funny how people reveal so much of themselves when they attach labels to others. Didn’t need my arta loquit to hear Stoika’s conviction that my generation was vain, irresponsible and utterly incapable of being entrusted with the future of the Mahdek, any more than I needed my arta precis to tell me what was in those crates.

‘Only one type of cargo you’d bother keeping secret,’ I said, and pointed to another of the sealed wooden boxes being stowed beneath a basket of cucumbers and rhubarb. ‘Six foot long, three feet wide, two foot tall? I’m just making a rough calculation here, but that would be enough room for a dozen fire lances. Third of those same crates you’ve snuck below decks.’ I waved to Colfax, who was on the ground supervising the work from there. ‘Gitabrian fire lances aren’t cheap. Thirty-six of them is a princely gift.’

‘Gift?’ Stoika spat over the side. ‘A gift is given out of love or respect. No Daroman has ever felt either for a Mahdek.’

‘Pity, then?’

Lips wrinkled as prunes twisted upwards in a self-satisfied smile. Apparently I’d finally revealed my ignorance. ‘If you still believe in such a thing as pity, child, then you truly are pitiable.’ Stoika turned to lean back against the railing, casual as if she’d lived at sea her whole life. ‘Why do you suppose I consented to this voyage?’

I. Notweorthe council. That hadn’t been a slip of the tongue. Stoika wanted me to know that she was in charge. I turned and rested against the railing as she had done, adopting that position so I could see what she did. The deck was rumbling with activity. People, animals and cargo were being shunted this way and that. The process was quick, efficient, yet somehow with a plodding, joyless rhythm. Interwoven between those thumps and bumps and rattles, however, were brief sparks of bustling excitement. Kievan was holding up one of the children to look out over the mystical black river upon which the ship floated as it awaited departure. Most of the adults not busy loading cargo had gone below already, yet I saw Remeny and several other teenagers exploring the deck or pestering Sar’ephir and the other Jan’Tep with questions.

Conch trotted over to me, excitedly wagging his little goat tail. Usually that made me laugh, but now I shooed him away. ‘You don’t believe this island will provide a future for the Mahdek at all, do you, Stoika? You only sanctioned this voyage because you knew Kievan and the others would run away again if you refused. Only this time, more would follow.’

Stoika’s next words were cold and precise, the voice of a woman convinced of the world’s cruelty and unwilling to pretend otherwise. ‘Don’t talk to me of the future, child. The Mahdek have none. We are less than three hundred souls, barely enough to continue as a race even if the Jan’Tep weren’t intent on hunting us to extinction. Yet it is not our enemies who will destroy us in the end. It will be our own children.’

For an instant I wished I could see through Stoika’s eyes, understand what she saw when she looked at Kievan and Remeny. ‘You’re really ready to blame the downfall of the Mahdek on your own kids?’

Stoika’s upper lip curled, like the stupidity of my sentiment had filled her mouth with the foulest taste imaginable. ‘I blame our ancestors who failed to recognise the avarice of the Jan’Tep before it was too late. I blame the generations that followed for turning us into migrant farmworkers and tin-cup beggars. I blame the young for being so reckless, so disloyal and gullible, that they would seek to emulate one who rejected her own people, and in so doing force us to abandon the only safety left to us.’ She pushed herself away from the railing and strode away, but not before saying one last thing to me. ‘Most of all, Ferius Parfax, I blame you.’

The ear-splitting screech of the iron tracks underneath the gangplank being slid aboard preceded Ala’tris shouting for everyone to hang on. She, Gab’rel, Jir’dan and Ba’dari joined Sar’ephir on the foredeck, their tattooed bands gleaming so brightly they practically outshone the sun. That ceased to be an exaggeration when Sar’ephir raised her arms up high and spoke words I barely heard on a breeze that appeared out of nowhere.

The sky disappeared. The shadowblack river widened all around us, becoming an ocean that stretched to the horizon in every direction. There were moans and mutterings from a few of the passengers, and a few cheers from Kievan and the other runaways as the ship lurched forward, pulled along the onyx waves as if a perfect wind were carrying us along.

‘Quite a sight, isn’t it, Conch?’ I asked, looking out over the rail at a world filled with shadow yet whose strange physics allowed us to clearly make out glinting black stars against a black sky arranged in constellations I’d never seen before.

The spire goat propped himself up on his back legs, front hoofs on my thigh as he waited impatiently for me to pick him up. ‘Okay, fella,’ I said, and lifted him onto my shoulder, where he balanced himself confidently and made quiet, inquisitive noises as he stared out at the mysterious vista before us. Me, I was watching Stoika prowl the deck like some spectre looking for someone to haunt. Arissa’s absence was beginning to take on a far more tangible urgency.

I reached up a hand to scratch Conch under his chin. ‘I’m gonna need you to watch my back awhile, okay, fella? Because suddenly I don’t feel so safe on this ship.’

Part 4

Sea of Graves

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