“Touchstone, no…”
My heart is the ocean. Let fly the lines.
Thanavar turned to his crew.
“Let fly the lines, Mr. Buck.”
“Cap’n?”
“You heard me. TheTouchstonesays let fly the lines. For you see, while the sea may be his judge, theTouchstoneis his jury, and I am his Jak Ketch.”
Jak Ketch. Sea slang for hangman.
Buck nodded.
“Let fly the lines!”
And they did, releasing the ropes that had bound Mr. Worley and quitting him to the sea.
My boots could barely hold me. My legs could barely stand.
Thanavar clasped his hands behind his back, his sea-dark hair rising and falling with the wind.
“We now turn our sails to the Cloudgate,” he said. “For we will repair the Dreadwall once and for all, and we will end the war. But no more dangerous journey has been undertaken by any crew. If you live, you will live with riches and glory and accomplishment and renown. If you die, die with courage, and you will be honored in story and legend and song. But if you break oath, if you turn your back on a mate in need, you will discover that there are worse fates than that which befell Mr. Worley. On that, you have my solemn word.”
His gold-shot eyes swept over us all.
“Mr. Oakum,” he said. “Set a course due south.”
“South?” Smoke blinked slowly. “I thought we were searching for the safe way to get to the Island InBetween.”
“Was my order unclear, Mr. Oakum?”
“No, no,” said Smoke. “Not at all. Just clarifying. Clarifying that you wanted to go straight through the Sheets, then the Silence, rather than finding the Channel for a clear, much safer path to the Cloudgate, avoiding near or certain death in the crush of the Dreadwall. Just that clarification. Captain.”
Only the wind and the whipping sails. Only the creak of timber as we rose and fell with the sea.
“Consider it clarified,” said Thanavar.
“To stations!” Smoke shouted to the crew. “To stations, ye tar-smacked, crab-stained sluggards!”
“Stations!” shouted Buck. “Back to stations!”
The captain turned.
“Ensign Renn, are you committed to your post as loblolly?”
My throat burned as I tried to keep the bile in. My fists ached as I kept the chimeric contained.
“I am not committed,” I whispered.
“Surgeon’s mate? Master’s mate?”
Suns. Did this man even have a heart at all?
“No. None of those.”
It didn’t matter. I could not, would not ever let him see mine.
