Though that thought brought her fresh pain, she was beginning to find comfort in the reserved but fierce mothering of Magiere, and of all the unexpected others ... in the company of Chap.
Crouching beside him, she tried to remain resolved, reminding herself again that this little scheme had been her idea.
“When we find the Suman captain, what do I say? What if he does not speak Numanese?”
—He will ... or one of the crew— ... —Or he would ... not ... sail here ... so often—
Chap had become more skilled at raising words quickly in her head in her own tongue. He picked them out of any old memory he had caught in her mind at some time. The words sometimes came from too many different voices out of her past and gave her a small headache if he went on too long. Léshil claimed that the more memories Chap caught in someone, the more smoothly he could use them to speak with that same person, given time. It was a relief to her, for Chap was the one she now talked with most often. Still, sometimes it was unsettling to hear a majay-hì.
—Tell the captain ... you seek ... passage for four ... and ... your dog— ... —Ask what this ... will cost ... and when ... his vessel ... sails—
Wayfarer could not help remembering what had happened to some of the last crew that had given them passage. Chap’s eyes locked with hers, and she frowned, knowing he must have seen that memory and her worries.
—You can ... do this—
“Yes,” she agreed, trying to sound confident.
Those crystalline sky blue eyes were so intense that she wondered what he was thinking. That notion had not passed when he pressed his bound muzzle into her hand, smearing her palm with charcoal dust.
Before recent days, she had been hesitant to even touch him. She pulled her hand away and wiped it on her cloak, which was already filthy. Then she leaned over and, avoiding the soot on his muzzle, touched her cheek to just his nose. It was strange to be so familiar with one like him, after the majay- hì in her homeland had stared at her so often as if to say, You do not belong here.
A vivid image flashed in Wayfarer’s thoughts. It was so strong that the world around her washed out of her senses for that instant. She appeared to be in the cabin of a ship. And there, to the side of a desk, was the captain of the Cloud Queen, sitting on the floor with a stiletto protruding from his shoulder. Suddenly she was rushing across the floor’s planks and straight at the desk’s front, which was somehow taller than she was.
She felt like she was running—charging—too quickly on all fours, and then she leaped up over the desk.
A snarl ripped out of her throat as she charged at a tall anmaglâhk fighting with Léshil. And Léshil swung upward with one of his winged blades, and ...
Wayfarer sucked air in a whimpering squeak, fell on her rump, and quickly scooted backward.
Chap jerked his head up, his eyes wide.
They stared at each other as people dodged around them. But Wayfarer did not catch a single word.
What had just happened?
In the past, when Chap had watched and studied her, there had been a few moments when she had felt ... something. At other times, such as when she had been reading in the little guild annex in Chathburh, she had a sudden sense of not being alone. When she had looked about, there he was in the archway, watching her.
The moment that had flashed in her mind was a mere instant, but Wayfarer was afraid.
—What did ... you do?—
She scooted back again at those words in her head.
“Me?” she whispered back. “What did ... what did you do?”
Not a word rose in her head. Still staring at her, Chap dropped on his haunches.
That moment of movement lingered in Wayfarer’s head, as if she had been in it, and ...
“Did Léshil kill ... one of the caste who was following—?”
—Stop!—
Wayfarer flinched.
Chap was panting rapidly through his nose with his muzzle still strapped closed. He shook in a shudder, and a small cloud of charcoal dust rose from his stiffened hackles.
—We ... will speak of this ... later— ... —Now we must ... gain passage ... on the Suman ship—
Wayfarer hesitated and then nodded slightly, relieved at the dismissal of whatever had just happened, and she was not sure she wanted to talk about it later or at all. She struggled up to her feet under the burden of all the wadded-up clothes that made her look heavy, and she picked up the gnarled old cane that she had dropped. When she reached for the fallen end of the rope around Chap’s neck, she hesitated again.
“Which one is ... is the Suman ship?”
Chap started forward, and she quickly backed out of his way.
—The slender one ... with two masts ... near the end of ... this pier—
Wayfarer followed after him at the full length of the rope. He suddenly paused, and she did, too, staying back when his head swung around toward her.
—Lean over ... and walk ... as you ... were taught—
Chap proceeded up the pier, and Wayfarer tried to regain her stooped shuffle. But all the while she watched his back and not where they were going. That moment in her mind that had flashed and then vanished was still fresh with the feel and sound of it.
It was not any moment that Wayfarer herself had ever lived.
Dänvârfij completed her errand, following the two Shé’ith to determine in which inn they were staying. She then returned to the waterfront and spoke briefly with the harbormaster, from whom she learned that the Cloud Queen had set sail the day before.
Captains stopping at any port large enough to possess a harbormaster’s office were often required to report any passengers who would not reboard. The harbormaster claimed the four passengers had “disembarked” in Soráno.
As she stepped from the office and into the cutway between it and the nearest warehouse, she gained renewed hope. Likely her quarry was still here. Watching the waterfront, she studied every pier in sight and the people moving everywhere.
Dänvârfij did not expect to spot anything worthwhile. Brot’ân’duivé was far too cunning to allow anyone under his protection to wander the docks. Then she crept back to the cutway’s mouth, and her gaze stopped upon a heavyset woman, covered in a cloak and leading an enormous black dog down the fourth pier.
Something about the way the woman shuffled was wrong—too affected, too quick for her age ... too conscious in so much effort.
The dog and then the woman—not the other way around—boarded a slender, two-masted vessel. They remained there for a while as Dänvârfij waited, and when they finally reemerged, it was if the large dog pulled the woman along.
At the end of the pier, the dog turned without waiting for its owner and headed south along the waterfront. Both vanished in the crowds.
Dänvârfij’s first instinct was to follow this odd pair, but there was still too much to accomplish this day. She glanced back at the vessel.
It was much like the Suman ship that had borne her and her team from the Isle of Wrêdelyd all the way to Drist, so it was likely from the south as well. She hesitated at leaving the shadows beside the harbormaster’s office. The traitor might be hiding and watching even now from a rooftop.
Even so, instinct would not leave her be.
Dänvârfij pulled her hood farther forward, stepped out into the sun upon the waterfront, and made her way in, flowing with the crowds toward the fourth pier. After that she strode its length to the slender Suman vessel.