practical difference between the two.”
“No? What about the difference of me not going to meet this messenger because I don’t think you’re being honest with me.”
“Well, it’s your message.” As if the great stone shoulders of An-Monal itself shrugged at her. “Suit yourself.”
Quiet gathered, like the cobwebbed shadows in the corners of the room. The map burned in the gloom.
“Look,” she said finally. “That’s a lot of arid wasteland out there. We could spend days searching an area that size.”
“There will be a sign,” said the Helmsman succinctly. “Look to the east for guidance.”
Which, for all it sounded like some faintly mocking parody of revelatory text, was also Manathan’s last word on the matter. Attempts to get clarification were rebutted with the mild admonition not to
waste time, daughter of Flaradnam
. Archeth, who’d seen the Helmsman behave like this before, gave up and slammed her way back out to the courtyard to saddle her horse. It was a fair few hours’ ride down to the harbor, and she wanted to get there before it was fully dark.
But on the road down, jolting tiredly in the saddle, she noticed the feeling in her belly that she’d mistaken for unease, and realized that it was nothing of the sort. Noticed in fact that it had warmed and spread, had become a faint pitter-patter of excitement throughout the web of her veins, and a slowly building, suffocating eagerness in her chest.
She clucked her horse into a trot.
“ERROR OF TRANSLATION OR NOT,” SAID LAL NYANAR. “WE ARE STILL waiting for this signal the Helmsman promised us, and it has not come. That alone ought to give us pause.”
“We
are
paused.” Archeth gestured through the window at the iron quay and the glimmer of campfires built there on the dock. Impatience bubbling up in her now—time to wrap this up. “No one is suggesting we break camp and head upriver right now. Tomorrow morning will be quite soon enough, and that gives us time to lay sensible plans.”
“If—”
“Charts for instance.” Breaking smoothly into Nyanar’s continued objection before it could build any more steam. “I understand perfectly, Captain, if you’re concerned about our ability to navigate safely in the upper river at this time of year. But presumably we have summer charts aboard for just such an eventuality?”
The captain bristled visibly.
“I have no fears about navigation, my lady, but—”
“Excellent. Then we need to focus on available landing points alongthe southern bank in the area Manathan has indicated. Can I leave that in your capable hands?”
She let silence do the rest. Nyanar glanced around the table for support he had no hope of enlisting, then subsided. Even Hald wasn’t going to directly gainsay an officer of the court with her mind so obviously made up.
“I am”—head slowly inclined—“yours to command, my lady.”
“Good. Commander Hald, then. I believe we shou—”
Lightning raged.
Out of the east, flickering, harsh and brilliant, so furious it seemed the broad stern window must shatter inward with its force. It drenched the room, drove out every shadow with silent, blue-white glare. It washed their faces clean of the hesitant, yellowish, document-poring lamplight within. It lit them frozen in place.
And faded.
From outside, she heard the yells of Hald’s men and the crew. Saw figures leap to their feet around the campfires, saw the detail of everything on the quay laid out dim in the wake of the glare. Feet thundered on planking overhead. Babbling confusion as the sudden brilliance inked out and left them all blinking at each other in the gloom.
“The
fuck
?” Hald, courtly manners forgotten for a moment, blown back to more soldierly roots by the shock.
“What
was that
?” asked someone else in a shaking voice.
Archeth didn’t answer. She already knew; she didn’t need to hear it said. So it was left to young Hanesh Galat, displaying an
“No? What about the difference of me not going to meet this messenger because I don’t think you’re being honest with me.”
“Well, it’s your message.” As if the great stone shoulders of An-Monal itself shrugged at her. “Suit yourself.”
Quiet gathered, like the cobwebbed shadows in the corners of the room. The map burned in the gloom.
“Look,” she said finally. “That’s a lot of arid wasteland out there. We could spend days searching an area that size.”
“There will be a sign,” said the Helmsman succinctly. “Look to the east for guidance.”
Which, for all it sounded like some faintly mocking parody of revelatory text, was also Manathan’s last word on the matter. Attempts to get clarification were rebutted with the mild admonition not to
waste time, daughter of Flaradnam
. Archeth, who’d seen the Helmsman behave like this before, gave up and slammed her way back out to the courtyard to saddle her horse. It was a fair few hours’ ride down to the harbor, and she wanted to get there before it was fully dark.
But on the road down, jolting tiredly in the saddle, she noticed the feeling in her belly that she’d mistaken for unease, and realized that it was nothing of the sort. Noticed in fact that it had warmed and spread, had become a faint pitter-patter of excitement throughout the web of her veins, and a slowly building, suffocating eagerness in her chest.
She clucked her horse into a trot.
“ERROR OF TRANSLATION OR NOT,” SAID LAL NYANAR. “WE ARE STILL waiting for this signal the Helmsman promised us, and it has not come. That alone ought to give us pause.”
“We
are
paused.” Archeth gestured through the window at the iron quay and the glimmer of campfires built there on the dock. Impatience bubbling up in her now—time to wrap this up. “No one is suggesting we break camp and head upriver right now. Tomorrow morning will be quite soon enough, and that gives us time to lay sensible plans.”
“If—”
“Charts for instance.” Breaking smoothly into Nyanar’s continued objection before it could build any more steam. “I understand perfectly, Captain, if you’re concerned about our ability to navigate safely in the upper river at this time of year. But presumably we have summer charts aboard for just such an eventuality?”
The captain bristled visibly.
“I have no fears about navigation, my lady, but—”
“Excellent. Then we need to focus on available landing points alongthe southern bank in the area Manathan has indicated. Can I leave that in your capable hands?”
She let silence do the rest. Nyanar glanced around the table for support he had no hope of enlisting, then subsided. Even Hald wasn’t going to directly gainsay an officer of the court with her mind so obviously made up.
“I am”—head slowly inclined—“yours to command, my lady.”
“Good. Commander Hald, then. I believe we shou—”
Lightning raged.
Out of the east, flickering, harsh and brilliant, so furious it seemed the broad stern window must shatter inward with its force. It drenched the room, drove out every shadow with silent, blue-white glare. It washed their faces clean of the hesitant, yellowish, document-poring lamplight within. It lit them frozen in place.
And faded.
From outside, she heard the yells of Hald’s men and the crew. Saw figures leap to their feet around the campfires, saw the detail of everything on the quay laid out dim in the wake of the glare. Feet thundered on planking overhead. Babbling confusion as the sudden brilliance inked out and left them all blinking at each other in the gloom.
“The
fuck
?” Hald, courtly manners forgotten for a moment, blown back to more soldierly roots by the shock.
“What
was that
?” asked someone else in a shaking voice.
Archeth didn’t answer. She already knew; she didn’t need to hear it said. So it was left to young Hanesh Galat, displaying an
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