no dissension. With us, it’s share and share alike. Right, boys?”
As a chorus of assent rang out, Lafayette struggled to a sitting position, cracking his head on the tiller just above him. It was unattended, lashed in position, holding the craft on a sharply heeled into-the-wind course, the boom-mounted sail bellying tautly above the frothing waves. O’Leary tugged at his bonds; the ropes cutting into his wrists were as unyielding as cast-iron manacles. The crewmen were laughing merrily at a coarse jape, ogling Swinehild, while one of their number adjusted a row of kippered herring in his hand, his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth with the intensity of his concentration. The object of the lottery stood, her wet garments plastered against her trim figure, her chin high, her lips blue with cold.
O’Leary groaned silently. A fine protector for a girl he’d turned out to be. If he hadn’t pig-headedly insisted on doing things his own way, they’d never have gotten into this spot. And this was one mess from which he was unlikely to emerge alive. Swinehild had warned him the locals would cheerfully feed him to the fish. Probably they were keeping him alive until they could get around to robbing him of everything, including the clothes on his back, and then over he’d go, with or without a knife between the ribs. And Swinehild, poor creature—her dream of making it big in the big town would end right here with this crew of cutthroats. Lafayette twisted savagely at his bonds. If he could get one hand free; if he could just take one of these grinning apes to the bottom with him; if he only had one small remaining flicker of his old power over the psychic energies ...
Lafayette drew a calming breath and forced himself to relax. No point in banging his head on any more stone walls. He couldn’t break half-inch hemp ropes with his bare hands. But if he could, somehow, manage just one little miracle— nothing to compare with shifting himself to Artesia, of course, or summoning up a dragon on order, or even supplying himself with a box of Aunt Hooty’s taffies on demand. He’d settle for just one tiny rearrangement of the situation, something—anything at all to give him a chance.
“That’s all I ask,” he murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. “Just a chance.” But I’ve got to be specific, he reminded himself. Focusing the psychic energies isn’t magic, after all. It’s just a matter of drawing on the entropic energy of the universe to manipulate things into a configuration nearer to my heart’s desire. Like, for example, if the ropes were to be loose ...
“But they aren’t loose,” he told himself sternly. “You can’t change any known element of the situation. At best, you can influence what happens next, that’s all. And probably not even that.”
Well, then—if there was a knife lying here on deck-an old rusty scaling knife, say, just carelessly tossed aside. I could get my hands on it, and—
“Lay down and sleep it off, landlubber,” a voice boomed, accompanying the suggestion with a kick on the ear that produced a shower of small ringed planets whirling in a mad dance. Lafayette blinked them away, snorted a sharp aroma of aged cheese and garlic from his nostrils. Something with the texture of barbed wire was rasping the side of his neck. He twisted away from it, felt something round rolling under him. An apple, he realized as it crunched, releasing a fresh fruity odor. And the cheese and the sausage ...
He held his breath. It was the lunch basket. The pirates had tossed it aboard along with the prisoners. And in the basket there had been a knife.
Lafayette opened one eye and checked the positions of his captors. Four of them stood heads together, intently studying the array of fishheads offered by the fifth. The sixth man lay snoring at their feet. Swinehild was huddled on the deck— knocked there by one of her would-be swains, no doubt.
Cautiously, O’Leary fingered the deck
As a chorus of assent rang out, Lafayette struggled to a sitting position, cracking his head on the tiller just above him. It was unattended, lashed in position, holding the craft on a sharply heeled into-the-wind course, the boom-mounted sail bellying tautly above the frothing waves. O’Leary tugged at his bonds; the ropes cutting into his wrists were as unyielding as cast-iron manacles. The crewmen were laughing merrily at a coarse jape, ogling Swinehild, while one of their number adjusted a row of kippered herring in his hand, his tongue protruding from the corner of his mouth with the intensity of his concentration. The object of the lottery stood, her wet garments plastered against her trim figure, her chin high, her lips blue with cold.
O’Leary groaned silently. A fine protector for a girl he’d turned out to be. If he hadn’t pig-headedly insisted on doing things his own way, they’d never have gotten into this spot. And this was one mess from which he was unlikely to emerge alive. Swinehild had warned him the locals would cheerfully feed him to the fish. Probably they were keeping him alive until they could get around to robbing him of everything, including the clothes on his back, and then over he’d go, with or without a knife between the ribs. And Swinehild, poor creature—her dream of making it big in the big town would end right here with this crew of cutthroats. Lafayette twisted savagely at his bonds. If he could get one hand free; if he could just take one of these grinning apes to the bottom with him; if he only had one small remaining flicker of his old power over the psychic energies ...
Lafayette drew a calming breath and forced himself to relax. No point in banging his head on any more stone walls. He couldn’t break half-inch hemp ropes with his bare hands. But if he could, somehow, manage just one little miracle— nothing to compare with shifting himself to Artesia, of course, or summoning up a dragon on order, or even supplying himself with a box of Aunt Hooty’s taffies on demand. He’d settle for just one tiny rearrangement of the situation, something—anything at all to give him a chance.
“That’s all I ask,” he murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. “Just a chance.” But I’ve got to be specific, he reminded himself. Focusing the psychic energies isn’t magic, after all. It’s just a matter of drawing on the entropic energy of the universe to manipulate things into a configuration nearer to my heart’s desire. Like, for example, if the ropes were to be loose ...
“But they aren’t loose,” he told himself sternly. “You can’t change any known element of the situation. At best, you can influence what happens next, that’s all. And probably not even that.”
Well, then—if there was a knife lying here on deck-an old rusty scaling knife, say, just carelessly tossed aside. I could get my hands on it, and—
“Lay down and sleep it off, landlubber,” a voice boomed, accompanying the suggestion with a kick on the ear that produced a shower of small ringed planets whirling in a mad dance. Lafayette blinked them away, snorted a sharp aroma of aged cheese and garlic from his nostrils. Something with the texture of barbed wire was rasping the side of his neck. He twisted away from it, felt something round rolling under him. An apple, he realized as it crunched, releasing a fresh fruity odor. And the cheese and the sausage ...
He held his breath. It was the lunch basket. The pirates had tossed it aboard along with the prisoners. And in the basket there had been a knife.
Lafayette opened one eye and checked the positions of his captors. Four of them stood heads together, intently studying the array of fishheads offered by the fifth. The sixth man lay snoring at their feet. Swinehild was huddled on the deck— knocked there by one of her would-be swains, no doubt.
Cautiously, O’Leary fingered the deck
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