Page 34 of Fate of the Argosi

I cut her off. I didn’t want lies between us. ‘Sand magic ain’t so rare that only one woman among all the Jan’Tep could pull this off.’ My gaze went back up to Sar’ephir on the forecastle, scouring for something my eyes weren’t trained to see but I was absolutely sure was there. Hidden from me, maybe from all of us. ‘Sand magic’s not enough, Ala’tris. There’s something else giving this ship its wondrous abilities. Something you’re not telling me.’

She stiffened and a note of plaintiveness crept into her usually dignified tone. ‘It’s not my secret to tell, Ferius. Not yet.’

My arta precis and arta loquit played with her words a moment, the subtle shifts of tempo, the uneasy inflections. Arta loquit helps an Argosi understand what someone’s really trying to say, in this case,‘I’ll tell you when the time is right, but if I do so now, I would be breaking a promise.’

Fair enough, I suppose. Ala’tris had taken plenty of risks for me already. She’d earned a measure of trust.

Arta precis, though, that’s for detecting both what someone’s trying to hide from you and what they’re hiding from themselves. Sometimes it reveals the barest hint of a secret they’re not even aware is being kept from them. There was something about Sar’ephir that Ala’tris was keeping from Chedran, Arissa and me. I was pretty sure she’d also been withholding it from the rest of her coven of ‘restitutionists’. That worried her, because it could mean trouble once the truth came out. But buried in the uncertain, almost discordant notes in her voice was something confounding: a kind of . . . echo. Unspoken words that belonged to someone else, as if, when Ala’tris had been subtly conveying,‘I would be breaking a promise,’she’d been recalling the secret Sar’ephir had told her, and something about that secret hadn’t rung true.

I took my hat off and ran a hand through my unruly mess of red curls before settling it down again. My arta precis was giving me a headache, trying to untangle this spider’s web of other people’s secrets.

Ala’tris turned away. Maybe her silk mage’s brain could tell when someone was poking through her private concerns, even when they didn’t have any magic themselves.

You’re just kicking the ball a few feet ahead at a time, aren’t you, sister?I thought, watching the breeze play with the lustrous strands of her own red-gold hair.You’re betting that somehow, when we get far enough along, everyone’ll have gone so far already that they’ll agree to take that last step to where you’re leading us.

The deck shuddered as the starboard – I’d figured out that meant ‘right’ – side of the ship collided with the ridge of the canyon. An impact like that should’ve smashed it to bits, but the hull showed no sign of a breach.

‘Pay attention, Gab’rel!’ shouted Ba’dari, the iron band on her forearm gleaming. ‘One of us needs to keep this wreck from coming apart, you know?’

Gab’rel didn’t reply, just nodded sheepishly.

A massive whoop erupted from above. Chedran was leaning precariously over the edge of the crow’s nest, laughing like a lunatic as the ship tilted this way and that. His arms waved in the air with the reckless enthusiasm of a kid balancing on shifting rocks while crossing a stream.

‘I won’t pry into whatever it is you’re hiding,’ I told Ala’tris, grinning as I added, ‘especially since I’m pretty sure the spirits of all my ancestors would haunt me something furious if I ruined what is surely the only good mood Chedran’s ever been in.’

Ala’tris smiled with a relief that pained me before throwing her arms around me, squeezing tight, then racing off to make sure Gab’rel and Jir’dan didn’t ram us headlong into a mountain. I watched her go, and felt as if she was taking something precious with her.

‘Now there’s a heartbreak waiting to happen,’ Arissa said, the shock nearly sending me tumbling over the rail.

Why does everybody keep sneaking up on me?

Arissa winked at me so I’d know that she was perfectly aware of how irritated I was at having failed to notice her leaning against the port-side rail not four feet away. ‘Anyone ever warn that girl that if she keeps hugging people all the time they’re apt to get confused about her intentions?’

No way was I taking the bait this time.You want to finally have an honest conversation about what is or isn’t between us, Arissa? You’re going to have to start that conversation yourself – and be prepared for the consequences.

The wind shifted, bringing a stench to my nostrils that made my eyes water. The stem of some sort of reed was dangling from Arissa’s bottom lip, smouldering red at one end. I walked over to get a closer look, only to have her exhale and smother me in a cloud of smoke. ‘What in the name of all that’s unholy is that foul plant?’ I asked between coughs. ‘And what is it doing in your mouth?’

‘Berabesq smoking reed,’ she replied. ‘Kharvir copper blend. Only grows from a single sand dune deep in the southern desert, if you can believe that. Found a stash of them in that horse trader’s stable we raided.’

‘You sure it didn’t grow out of Quadlopo’s poop?’ The pungent aroma was clogging my nostrils. ‘Pretty sure it’s already been digested at least twice.’

Arissa reached a hand into the mottled canvas pack slung across her back and offered me a handful of the four-inch-long dark copper stems. ‘It’s an acquired taste.’

An Argosi’s never supposed to turn down a gift that’s sincerely offered. Reluctantly I took the reeds and slid them into the pocket of my leather waistcoat before Conch could jump up and snatch them in his teeth. ‘Thanks,’ I said, giving her a quick hug. ‘I hope you’ll accept my extensible steel rod in return.’

Arissa chuckled. ‘More of your Way of Water? Cos I wasn’t planning on giving you that rod back anyway.’

‘Really?’ I held up the six-inch cylinder for her to see. ‘I just assumed you returned it out of politeness when I found it back in my pocket where it belongs.’

Arissa swore, spitting out the remains of her smoking reed over the side. ‘An honest thief can’t trust anybody these days.’

Golden autumn leaves on slender branches flitted beside us as we passed through a glade. A patch of dustier land lay ahead and, not far beyond that, a broken road leading to an even more broken-down building.

‘The barracks!’ Chedran called out from overhead. ‘We’ve got back in less than half what it took on horseback!’ He swung himself over the edge of the crow’s nest and started climbing down the rigging.

The ship slowed as Jir’dan let his ember propulsion spell fade. He slumped down on the deck next to Gab’rel, who looked even more exhausted. I wondered how they’d fare on a much longer voyage to wherever this homeland was that Ala’tris was promising for the Mahdek people – and where, in fact, such an unlikely place could possibly exist.

Ba’dari passed me by as she walked up the steps to the forecastle, where she took up a position next to Sar’ephir. The smaller girl’s shoulders tensed, her grey iron band pulsing as the sparks of Sar’ephir’s gold band dimmed. The spellship seemed to stutter, skipping like a stone hurled across the hard ground and setting off an ear-splitting keening from the bottom of the hull as sand magic gave way to iron until, at last, the galleon came to a grinding halt.

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