"What're you writing?" I frowned. "It ain't magic, is it?"
"Don't be ridiculous. When I said I wanted off this ship I didn't mean I wanted to be thrown into the open sea." Naji handed me one of the sail scraps. It was a story – an old desertlands story about a little boy who gets lost in the desert and has to strike a deal with the scorpions to make it back home.
"Why're you writing this?"
"I need something to do." Naji leaned back in his hammock.
"Nobody writes down stories."
"They do when they're trapped at sea and bored senseless." Naji hunched over his sail scrap and wrote a little swirl of something. "I hear from Marjani you're plotting part of our course each day."
"Getting us to Port Idai as fast as possible." Not that I liked the idea of leaving the Revenge. Any boat crazy enough to take us to the Isles wasn't one I'd want to work on.
Naji stopped writing and looked up at me, all dark hair and dark mask and the little golden strip between them. "I appreciate that." He looked down at his sail scrap. "Although I can't say I'm much looking forward to our second journey north."
"Me, neither."
Naji picked up his quill and began writing again.
"You think it'll work?" I asked him.
"Will what work?"
"Do you think we'll find a cure?"
Naji's hand twitched, but he kept writing, and he didn't look at me. "I don't know."
That was not the answer I wanted to hear. I left him to his stories and stomped back up to deck, where Marjani was waiting for me with the logbook and a quill, and things fell back into their routine, ocean and wind and salt and sails.
It felt like the beginning of the end.
A week later, the weather turned.
I was helping with the rigging, cause the wind had been strong all afternoon, blowing in from the south, hot and dry and tasting like dust and spice. It had everybody in a mood, especially the more superstitious fellows in the lot, and so there were a lot of charms getting tossed around, and certain words getting uttered. And everybody was drinking up the rum, superstitious or not. I'll admit that my hands kept going to my throat that day, rubbing at Naji's charm.
The wind picked up, and it howled through the sails, flattening 'em out and then billowing 'em up. Water sprayed out from the sea, huge glittering drops of it. Not a cloud in the sky, though, the sun hot and bright overhead.
Crewmen were crawling all over the rigging, and Marjani was up at the helm, throwing her whole body into keeping the ship steady. A big green wave splashed over the railing and slammed into me, and I fell across the deck, hitting up against old Chari's worn-out boot. He hardly offered me a glance as he pulled at the rigging, shouting curses and prayers alike. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed hold of the rope to help him out. The whole thing felt like a typhoon if not for the sun and the weird spice scent on the wind. Maybe it was that noble from the Mists, drawing the worlds together like Naji had said…
For a half-second, I caught a whiff of medicine, sharp and mean, like spider mint, and I shot back to Lisirra, to the entrance of the night market. The rope slipped out of my hands.
"The hell's your head, girl!" shouted Chari. "Hold on tight if you don't want to get knocked overboard."
The smell of Naji's magic disappeared. He can't, I thought, scrambling to pick up the rope. It has to be the Mists. He can't be doing this. It'd put me in danger–
And then another wave crashed over the side, and I managed to hold on tight, and all thoughts of Naji's magic washed away with it. I had a ship to keep afloat.
By then somebody was ringing the warning bell, the clang clang clang that meant an attack or a storm or just plain ol' trouble. Seawater showered over us like rain, the salt stinging my eyes and the sores in my hands. Chari turned around and grabbed my wrist and shoved me over to the foremast. "Get up there!" he shouted, jabbing his hand toward the rigging. Water streamed over my face, blurring my vision, but then I saw it: The storm sail had come loose.
"Shit!" I scrambled up the rope, slipping and crawling, my clothes plastered to my skin. The wind threatened to knock me off the rope but I dug my nails into the fibers, clinging with every bit of my strength. The sail flapped back and forth, snapping like a whip, though at least it was dry up here, away from the fury of the waves. I reached out and made a grab for it. Missed. Righted myself. Took a deep breath. Watched the sail and waited for it to snap back toward me. This time I caught the edge and yanked on it one-handed even though the wind had other ideas. My arms shook. My eyes watered. I screamed, trying to gather up the will to do this without dying.
And then I had it. That split-second between wind gusts and I had it. I tied the sail back into place, looping the rope with aching fingers.
The boat jerked, tilted, and I fell, grabbing at one of the riggings before I crashed down on deck. I cried out but the wind swallowed my voice right up and no one down below even noticed me.
I kicked out my feet, swinging up like a monkey. The wind kept on howling. I started crawling back down, my arms hating every second of it. Every part of my body ached.
And then I heard this low creaking groan, and I knew they were shifting the boat so we could run with the wind to safety. Under normal circumstances it ain't nothing I can't handle but with the wind and the hurt in my body it was too much. The movement knocked me loose. I managed to hang on with one hand, swinging out over the deck. What with the seawater and the sunlight, everything down there was covered in rainbows.
Then I lost my grip, and I fell.
I woke up and all I knew was the hurt. Pain vibrated through my body, all the way out to the tips of my fingers and toes. My head throbbed. But I was laid out on something soft, a pile of rope and old sails, and I guess that was why my brains hadn't spilt out all over the deck of the Ayel's Revenge.
She was moving, at least, soft and smooth, and there wasn't any wind or water splashing over the railing. No voices, neither, only the purring ocean, the occasional snap as the sails rippled overhead. I pushed myself up on my elbows, and when that wasn't the bone-breaking trauma I expected I forced myself to sit up halfway, my back aching, my head lolling.