Salamaine's Curse (11 page)

Tom turned back to find him holding two pewter mugs brimming with a warm, sweet-smelling liquid. He passed one to Tom. “Here.”

The unexpected gesture surprised him. He regarded Porter curiously. Was the offer of a drink an apology for lashing out at him or a sign he meant to start over? Or neither one? The only thing Tom was sure of was that his brother looked as exhausted as he felt.

He lifted the mug but hesitated at the unfamiliar smell. Grog? he wondered. He wasn't exactly sure what that was, but he'd heard pirates drank it aboard ship. All he knew was that at the academy, being caught with anything alcoholic resulted in an automatic suspension, and he was pretty sure Lost would apply that rule to the Five Kingdoms as well. Still, the drink smelled delicious.

“What is it?”

“Slipper.
Sugared milk and spices, mostly.” He shrugged. “The cook sent it down from the galley.”

Tom took a cautious sip.

Rich and foamy, the drink bubbled slightly as though carbonated. It was warm and soothing at the same time, with a sweet caramel aftertaste.

“It's good.”

Porter nodded. “Our mother used to make it for me when I was a boy and couldn't sleep.” He drew up one knee and rested his arm atop it. A faraway expression softened his features, as though he was caught up in some warm, distant memory.

Tom fought back envy. Porter had enjoyed a lifetime with their parents. He had memory after memory to draw upon. Tom had nothing. Just a portrait given to him months ago with their likenesses. But those images were flat, with no voice or flesh to them at all. Impossible to picture what sort of people his parents had been. Sort of like trying to imagine an entire dinosaur when all he'd been given was a prehistoric pinky toe.

He glanced at Porter, watching as he sipped his foamy brew, and allowed his mind to wander. What if they'd been raised together, as brothers? Would there still be the same simmering tension between them? Or would they maybe, just maybe, get along? Would they have spent nights sipping—Tom searched his mind for the word
—slipper
together, staying up late to build forts, tell stories, and all the other stuff brothers did when they were growing up? Would that have changed anything?

Porter's thoughts must have been running in a similar vein, for he gestured to his mug and asked, “Do you have something like this in your world?”

Tom took another sip. It was more than good. It was warm and sweet and strangely comforting. He nodded. “Hot chocolate.”

Porter's pale brows knit together. “Does it taste like this?”

“No. It's …” He searched his mind, groping for a way to describe the taste of hot chocolate to someone who'd never tried it before. “It's sweet and smooth, but kind of darker, with more of an edge to it. And sometimes there are marshmallows on top.”

His words made no sense, but he couldn't come up with any better way to describe the drink. Porter nodded politely and looked away, his expression once again carefully guarded. In that instant, Tom understood they'd both reached the same conclusion. Trying to connect after so many years was futile. The gulf between them was simply too wide.

Porter set down his mug. “You get ‘em all?”

“Yeah.” Tom visualized the scavenger he'd scraped off into sea. An ugly, hideous thing with sunken gray skin, tangled tufts of hair protruding from its skull, and jagged yellow teeth. He couldn't tell if it had been male or female.

“There aren't any scavengers in your world?” Porter asked.

“No.”

Tom thought about mentioning the zombies he'd seen in horror films, but everybody knew those weren't
real.
Not like here. And scavenger hunts? A silly party game where teams ran door-to-door looking for things like tiny paper umbrellas, a pair of dice, or a purple shoelace. Random things like that.

Once again he was struck by how parallel their worlds seemed, only his had been put through a filter of safety, with all the ugliness and danger rubbed away.

Porter stretched back in his hammock, his hands tucked behind his head, staring up at the low ceiling. “Earlier tonight— you don't have to be like that, you know.”

“Like what?”

“Like it's all up to you to be the hero. Rushing in like you're the only one who can save us.”

“That's not what I did.”

His brother let out a sharp breath that indicated, better than any words could have, he didn't agree. Thick silence hung between them. Porter was the first to break it.

“It's too late, anyway. You wasted your time coming here. We've already lost. No map can change that—especially not a cursed one.”

Tom looked at him. “What happened? How did everything get so bad?”

“It just … did.”

“And the scavengers? What are they? Where did they come from?”

Porter continued to stare at the ceiling. Though he didn't say a word, his expression changed, becoming harder, more closed off than usual. He rolled over, presenting his back to Tom.

“It's late,” he said. “You can ask your questions in the morning.”

Tom noted that he didn't say he would answer them, only that he could ask them. A minor distinction, but an important one.

A few moments later he heard Porter's breath change, and knew from the rise and fall of his shoulders he had fallen asleep. Tom wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep at all. He was exhausted physically, but his thoughts were racing. As he set down his mug and stretched out in his hammock, his fingers brushed the folly's rattle he'd stuffed in his pocket. Incredibly, he'd forgotten all about it.

He drew it out and held it up, admiring its pinkish-orange glow. It was hot, but not burning, just warm enough to fill his hand with dry heat. He watched it throb in a steady rhythm, somehow matching the cycle of his pulse, beat for beat. Almost as though it was directly connected to his heart.

A wish,
he thought. He could wish for anything …

He blinked heavily. The combined effects of the warm drink and softly swaying hammock were rocking him to sleep. He tucked the rattle away and pulled up the rough wool blanket folded at his feet.

Porter was wrong. It wasn't over yet. Tomorrow, he thought, as he closed his eyes. He'd figure everything out tomorrow.

A
shrill bell pierced the silence. Tom clenched his teeth in irritation and attempted without success to block out the noise.

Just two more minutes,
he thought, burrowing deeper into his bed. He shrugged his blanket over his shoulder and rolled over, only to suddenly realize two strange things: his bed was swaying, and coarse rope rubbed his cheek where his pillow should have been.

For a moment, he could make no sense of where he was. Then it hit him. He wasn't in his dorm room at the academy anymore, but on Umbrey's ship, the
Purgatory.
His eyes flew open and he sat up, shaking off the foggy cloud of sleep that held him in its grip. Next to him, Porter's hammock was empty.

He glanced around the room. The other hammocks were full, but the occupants looked different from the shadowy glimpses he'd had of the men who'd been sleeping last night. A crew shift, he guessed.

He slipped out of his hammock and hunted around until he found the bathroom. The space consisted of a small stool and rough table with soap, a water pitcher, and wash basin. He understood how those items might be used to clean himself, but he didn't understand why that was all there was to the room. He looked around blankly. For a desperate moment, he considered waking one of Umbrey's crewmen to ask him where the toilet was, but the idea was too mortifying to seriously entertain.

The words
The Necessary,
scrawled across a hatched portal in the floor, caught his attention. He cautiously eased open the door and found himself staring, through a small opening perhaps ten inches beneath him, at the ocean. No plumbing or drains to worry about here. Evidently everything was immediately flushed out to sea. Now
that
was definitely something he hadn't read about in any history book.

He finished and soaped up, splashed water on his face, rinsed his mouth, and tugged his fingers through his hair. Once the basics had been taken care of, he realized how hungry he was. He climbed up to the main deck. A mild sun shone directly overhead, making it near noon, he noted with surprise. He couldn't recall the last time he'd slept so late. No wonder he was famished.

Umbrey spied him and waved him over. “'Bout time you got out of bed. I was beginning to think you'd tumbled overboard.”

As there was no reply he could possibly make, Tom ignored the comment, choosing instead to say hello to Willa, Mudge, and Porter, who stood beside Umbrey on the quarterdeck. Their greetings were friendly enough, but Tom couldn't help noticing the quiet tension that ran through the group.

He turned his attention to the surrounding sea. A shroud of heavy mist rose from the surface of the water, giving it a sinister, swamp-like appearance. The horizon was dotted with a series of small, rocky islands, through which the
Purgatory
carefully navigated. Free-floating masses of algae, some of them thick enough to support a man, drifted past. Tom had been in a decent mood when he woke up, but no longer. The creepiness of the place sent a wave of dread through him.

“Is this the Cursed Souls Sea?” he asked.

Umbrey shook his head. “The Straits of Dire.” He rapped a knuckle on the map mounted beside the ship's wheel. “We're here, between northeastern end of Aquat and the Cursed Souls Sea. If we make it through, we'll continue on.”

If
, Tom noted, not when.

Willa rubbed her hands over her arms, as though warding off a chill. “We're passing through the trade route,” she said.

The trade route. Tom mulled over her words, thinking of the vast cargoes of goods that left Asia aboard enormous ships bound for Europe. “You mean, like spices and silks?”

Porter, who'd been scanning the horizon as well, gave a barely imperceptible shake of his head. “Slaves,” he said. “Aquat slavers claim these waters. There's a penalty for traversing them.”

“What sort of penalty?”

“One I'm not willing to pay,” Umbrey answered flatly. He lifted a spyglass to his eye and slowly surveyed the horizon. A long, narrow island jutted out of the sea directly ahead of them, slicing the channel in two. Umbrey lowered his spy glass and glanced from Tom to Porter. “Well, mapmaker's sons? Which is it? The northern route or the southern one?”

“North,” said Porter.

“South,” said Tom.

“Naturally,” said Umbrey, a wry smile curving his lips. He arched a shaggy brow and looked at Mudge. “Well, majesty? It appears a royal verdict is needed.”

Mudge smiled. “We'll go south. Tom's way.”

Tom mussed Mudge's hair. “Excellent choice.” Although he kept his tone light, he didn't miss the way Porter stiffened.

Umbrey conveyed the order to his crew and the
Purgatory
veered to starboard, entering the channel through the southern side. That accomplished, he nodded to a crewman standing just over Tom's shoulder.

“The cannon ready?”

“Aye.”

“Good.” Umbrey nodded. “Tell the men to keep to their stations until we leave these waters.”