Sire Dagon considered this. He said nothing, but he did lower himself back into his seat and pat his pocket to locate his pipe.
CHAPTER
The seas below the southern coast of Talay were blacker and more violent than any the raiders of the Outer Isles had ever seen. Currents converged from two sides of the continent, mixing with the waters chilled from being in the shadow of the earth’s curve. For five days running, mountainous waves lifted and dipped the Ballan. The ship tilted on each rise, crested like a bird taking flight, and then crashed down the other side in a momentary rush toward the depths. Sailors who had never been sick in their lives went weak-kneed, turned yellow, gave up all pretense and swagger. They spit up everything they had eaten. After that, they produced things they could not recognize and still later tried to loosen their internal organs and offer them to the sea as well.
Off to the north the coastline of Talay stretched in featureless desolation, nothing but a distant smudge of sand-duned shore, no trees or mountains or human settlements to break the monotony. Forlorn as it was, Spratling longed to drag himself onto its shores, to sit sodden and snot nosed on his backside and wave the Ballan into the distance. If nothing else, such improbable fantasies helped pass the hours.
They witnessed things they had previously heard only tales of. Lights rippled across the heavens at night, multihued flapping ribbons. Spratling tried to hear the sound of them, sure that such massive contortions of color must tear the air like thunder. The silence of them never seemed right. Once a family of whales performed an aerial ballet off to starboard: leaping one after another into the air, canting to the side, and crashing down in a foam of spray. Another time they sailed past an enormous island of floating ice. The lookout who spotted it cried an alarm in a rising adolescent voice. He later admitted that he feared they had come upon a land of ghosts, a thing people of the Known World should not see, a trespass for which they would be punished. Spratling had tousled the young man’s hair. Inside, however, he tingled with the same thought himself. What a venture they were on! He scarcely believed it was happening, and it still amazed him to recall how easy his crew had actually made it for him.
It had happened just a couple of days after the attack on the platforms. Gathered together on the deck of the Ballan as the sun set, he’d looked up from his tea and said, “I’ve things to say. You may think some of them are mad, but here it goes anyway.”
He began by swearing that he had loved every minute of his time among them. It had been wonderful the way they moved from place to place throughout the Outer Isles, living dangerous and free, by no laws except the ones they held to mutually. He considered each of them his brother or sister, aunt or uncle. He cited individuals by name. He recalled moments shared in the past. They had been a nation unto themselves, hadn’t they? They’d had a true enemy in the League of Vessels, and they’d bested them on more than their fair share of occasions. He was proud of that.
The trouble was, he had said, he could not go on like this forever. He had come from the Inner Sea, from the heart of workings of the Known World. He had fled a great turmoil and tried to forget it. He had tried to put it behind him and to pretend he owned no part of it. It had almost worked. But not quite. He had never really forgotten. He could not pretend not to have to answer to his native country, his blood, and his destiny. The time had come for him to reckon with the fate he had delayed for some years now. So that was what he was going to do.
Almost apologetically, he noted that with Dovian gone the Ballan was his. He would not command anyone who did not want to join him, but he was going to take the ship down around Talay, back up its eastern coastline, and into the Inner Sea. If Leeka Alain was right, a war was brewing. He had reason to hate Hanish Mein, and if it was in his power, he was going to help bring his rule to an end. He hoped at least a few of those listening to him would come with him. But everyone had to make up his own mind. It would be dangerous and the chances of victory were slim and the rewards at the end of it uncertain, but…
“Well, that’s about all I can say about it.”
He had sat a moment in a silence. Truth was, there was more to say. Truth was, the only part of this that was really hard for him was the part still left to say. Dovian had prompted him toward it-made him promise he would do it, actually-and he had come to believe in it himself. He had to say it. He needed to claim his identity.
“Before you make up your minds, there’s something else…”
He hesitated again. A man cannot become a boy again, and yet that was what this felt like, like stepping back into a child’s fearful existence, an act of faith in a world that offered little proof that faith was merited. If he said what he wanted to, he would be admitting to being the child who had been left shivering and tearful and alone in a broken-down hut in the mountains. Powerless. Abandoned. Staring through the cracks at a massive world that didn’t give a damn about him. And who would save him this time?
“Spratling, we’re not inside your head, man,” Nineas said, cantankerous as usual. “Whatever you’re thinking, spit it out so we can hear it.”
“What I’m asking is that you not call me Spratling anymore.” There, he’d said the first part. It wasn’t so bad. The faces watching him did not seem surprised or judgmental or disdainful. He saw no mirth in their eyes. “That was a name for a boy in hiding. I’m thankful for it, but I’m not in hiding anymore. If you call me anything from now on, call me Dariel. Dariel Akaran. That’s who I am.”
He hated the moments of silence this was met with. Where was his confidence? Where the surety he felt when in command of battle? Something about the simple act of being asked to be called by his true name humbled him so completely that he wanted to fold back into himself. But he did not regret it. His leadership of these fighting men and women meant nothing if they did not acknowledge who he was. The battle against Hanish Mein wasn’t theirs to take on if they did not want it, and the least he could do was level with them.
A voice said, “If you are a prince, then all of us around you are members of your court. That right?”
“I always knew I had nobility in my blood,” Geena piped, wrinkling her eyes in what passed for her expression of mirth.
Clytus stood up, smiling, and stepped toward Dariel. “Don’t look so surprised, Prince Dariel Akaran. You’ll get no argument from any of us. Most of us have always known who you were. We always believed it. Dovian made sure of it.”
The mention of Dovian-of Val, now that he was Dariel again-nearly brought him to tears. He hid it by taking on a swagger. He asked which of them, then, had the balls to take war to Hanish Mein. Wren’s was the first voice to answer, followed by many others.
That was how this journey had started, with glib enthusiasm and camaraderie. Dariel was thankful for the memory of it. He did not for one moment take his crew’s loyalty for granted. Nor did he hold himself apart from them. He was their captain, right enough. They all knew that. But this “prince” business did not change a thing between them. He took on no airs, and they offered no new degree of reverence. So things were exactly the way he wished.
Coming around the curve of Talay and finally heading north again, the Ballan passed right by a league trader heading south. The vessel racked its crossbowmen and showed every sign that they would welcome a skirmish. But the raiders had the wind behind them, and they blew past without so much as a nod of acknowledgment. Dariel had the ship’s flag hoisted. Let them know who we are and wonder what we’re up to, he thought.