Scimitar Sun (2 page)

Sam gripped the wheel’s spokes, gritting her teeth as her arm throbbed in time with her racing heart. A bottle of rum was thrust at her and she took a deep swallow, coughing at the burn but knowing it would ease the pain. She turned the wheel to port at her captain’s orders, and brought the needle on the compass to a course of due south.

Chapter One

Heir

“Shambata Daroo?”

Cynthia stirred, dragging her eyelids open. She stared at the door to the bath chamber, hoping she’d dreamed the voice and willing it to go away.

A light tap on the door and a singsong, “Shambata Daroo?” in Paska’s voice confirmed that she wasn’t dreaming. Mouse perked up from the pile of warm towels upon which he was lounging, emitting a questioning, “Eep?”

The latch turned and she thought about easing underwater, but the sunken marble tub full of warm, lavender-scented water was not the sea; she could not do her tricks here, and would have to surface in less than a minute.

Paska peeked in and smiled. “Ahh, you
are
here. Why you not answer?” She entered, her year-old son, Koybur, balanced on one hip, and a cutlass slapping the other.

Mouse let out a piercing “Beebee!” and streaked over to orbit the infant’s head, drawing delighted squeals from the child.

“I’m taking a bath, Paska,” Cynthia said, water lapping at her chin. “I’m trying to relax.” With Mouse’s and little Koybur’s screeches competing for the honor of rupturing her eardrums, relaxation seemed unlikely.

“You in de wata all day, and you get in de wata to relax?” The dark-skinned woman laughed. “I know how you need to relax! Chula, he relax you! Sometime he relax me so much I can’t help but — ”

“A bath is different from being in the sea, Paska. And I don’t need Chula to help me relax.”
Especially now
, she thought, pushing herself up and watching the water cascade down her bulging belly.

Her pregnancy was well along; with only two months left, she welcomed any excuse to relieve herself of the uncomfortable weight. She accepted Paska’s help getting out of the deep tub, reached for a towel and began the laborious process of drying herself. She had learned quickly that pregnancy made everything a chore. “So, what is it, Paska? Something important enough to interrupt my bath, I hope.”

“Oh, shua! Plenty important! De boat come from Southaven with message for you. Here.” She delved into a small satchel at her belt and handed over a scroll case.

“From Southaven?” She furrowed her eyebrows, donned a robe and took the case. “Probably something from the Keelsons. I should have them address their letters to Cammy.” She broke the seal, pulled out the rolled parchment, and knew immediately that it was not from the shipbuilders. The paper was thick, smooth and expensive. She unrolled it and read the message. Yes, this was important.

“Is the messenger boat still here?” she asked, reading as she strode out the door and down the corridor, Paska following. “I’m going to have a reply.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s still here. He’s got a frien’ here. He won’t be leavin’    ’til mornin’.”

“Good. That’ll give me time to think about this.” She entered her rooms, formerly Bloodwind’s own. They had been completely refurbished to suit her tastes, the walls painted in peaceful blues and greens that emulated the sea itself, the furniture thickly upholstered and comfortable. “Would you please find the messenger and have him come to my chambers in the morning to take a letter back? Oh, and find Cammy for me. I need to speak to her.”

“Shua! You want dinna sent up, too? It save you all de walkin’ up and down de stairs.”

“No thank you, Paska. I’ll have a late dinner. I have to go talk to the mer before I eat, and I probably won’t get back until after dark.”

“Why de rush? What on dat papah got you so riled up?”

“It’s from the old lightkeeper in Southaven. He wants to see me.”

Mouse let out an “Eep” of alarm and abandoned teasing the baby to dart to Cynthia’s shoulder, his tiny features scrinched into a mask of worry.

≈

“The lightkeeper?” Camilla knitted her brow. “Why does he need to see you? And why can’t he come here? Tell him you’re pregnant and can’t travel, and if he wants to see you, he can bloody well — ”

“He says he can’t travel by ship, Cam, and I don’t think he’s lying. He’s a pyromage. You know the old saying about fire and water.”

“That they’re good servants but bad masters? Cyn, you are the master, not the servant. If you push yourself too hard, you’re going to have problems with the baby.” Mouse fluttered to Camilla’s shoulder and nodded in agreement.

“I was thinking of the one that goes, ‘Fire is love and water sorrow. One burns, the other quenches, and only one will see the morrow.’”

“How prophetic!” Camilla glared as she paced furiously back and forth. “Does he say what he wants, or just that it’s important?”

“He only says it has to do with magic.” Cynthia smiled as she gazed out over Scimitar Bay. One galleon bobbed at anchor, and the new three-masted schooner,
Peggy’s Dream
, lay tied to the pier in the very berth where
Guillotine
had burned. This was a different place now that the marauding Captain Bloodwind was gone: more peaceful, more productive. “That I became a seamage so late in life has changed his thoughts on the nature of the trials an elementalist must undergo. He wants to discuss it, and he has a task he’d like me to help him with, though he doesn’t say what it is.”

“How
mystical
!”

Camilla’s sarcasm was sharp enough to draw a look from Cynthia. Her friend stood beside the open shutters, staring at one of the pillars that supported the open balcony, her arms folded and hands clenched into fists. Cynthia suddenly felt guilty; she had forgotten how uncomfortable these rooms made Cammy, and her special aversion for the balcony. Best not to think of what that bastard Bloodwind had done to her friend here in all the years she was his captive.

“We can talk about this somewhere else if you — ”

“No!” Camilla’s head snapped up, and Mouse tumbled off her shoulder in surprise. She breathed deeply and her murderous glare faded. Despite her protest, she looked around at the walls as if they were closing in on her. “No, I’m fine, Cyn. I just don’t like this place.”

“Let’s go into the study, then.” She pushed herself up from the papasan chair.

“It’s not just these rooms, Cyn. The whole place is starting to bother me. Too many memories.” She followed Cynthia, visibly relaxing as they entered the smaller room.

Cynthia eased herself into the upholstered chair set before a huge and cluttered roll-top desk. Mouse fluttered along with her and landed on the desk, where he started poking into every cubby. Cynthia fingered a sharkskin scroll and scanned the ancient lettering. It always amazed her how the mer managed to do everything land-based folk did, but with different tools and subtle magic. The scroll’s letters were written with squid ink, but the ink would never have dried or even stained the cured vellum without the spells to make it happen. Mer mages were rare, and highly venerated in their society. She dropped the scroll and sighed, glancing over all the books and scrolls she had yet to read, but she pushed away her worries. She had more urgent issues to deal with right now.

“Maybe you should come with me to Southaven. Take a break.” Camilla didn’t sit and she still looked uneasy, but at least her previous white-knuckled tension had eased.

“And leave no one here to deal with things? Probably not wise, Cyn. Though, when you get back…”

“Fine with me. You deserve a break. You could even run things from Southaven, if you like.”

“You think that would work?” Camilla asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It might be difficult at first, but you already run the shipping business pretty much by yourself. It would probably make the business end of things a little easier, with Fergus’ accounting offices and the Keelsons’ shipyard right there. Ghelfan’s yard here doesn’t need much in the way of oversight from either of us. He’s got Dura for that.” They both chuckled at the thought of the burly dwarf running the half-elf shipwright ragged.

“But what about the lightkeeper?”

“I’ve got to go, Cam. I owe him a lot.”

“Maybe you should stay there until you have the baby. I mean,
Kurian
is there, and you could have a real midwife.”

“And deprive the mer of being present at the birth of my heir?” She shook her head with a wry smile. “Talk about never hearing the end of it!”

“But how can the mer be here for the — ” Camilla’s eyes widened. “Oh, you’re
kidding
me! You plan to have the baby
underwater
?”

Mouse jumped up excitedly at the talk of the impending birth. He flew to Cynthia and perched on her bulging stomach, pressing his ear to listen. He tapped her tummy until he was rewarded with a kick. Cynthia shooed him off.

“Yes, but just in the lagoon.” She laughed at the shock on her friend’s face. “What’s the problem? The little critter’s been bobbing around in water for the last seven months. Being born into a nice warm lagoon will probably be less of a shock than being born into air. Not to mention that it’ll be more comfortable for me.”

“But what if — what if there are problems?”

“The mer have priests if anything goes wrong.”

“Well, Feldrin’s not going to like the idea, I’ll tell you that.”

“Feldrin’s not
here
,” Cynthia said, letting slip a little of her ire, which sent Mouse darting for cover. That Feldrin would not be happy was the one subject she refused to consider right now. She pushed herself up and strode for the door. “Have the crew of
Peggy’s Dream
ready her for sea. I’ll leave the day after tomorrow. Oh, and ask Ghelfan if he wants to come along. I’m sure the Keelsons want to see him, and he had some minor changes to the design he wanted them to implement. I’ll see you tonight. I’ve got to talk to the mer before I leave.”

≈

Cynthia stood on the warm sand of Skull Beach, staring at the lagoon. She’d been standing here for so long, obsessing about the upcoming confrontation, that Mouse had fallen asleep on her shoulder. During the walk over the ridge and down the well-groomed trail to the beach she had considered how to broach the subject, but to no avail. The mer would not be happy with her taking this trip, especially with the arrival of “The Heir” so near, but they were not happy about anything she did that wasn’t their idea.

She didn’t like that term — “The Heir” —  and wondered who among the mer had coined it. Heir to what, she wanted to know. She hadn’t done anything yet that warranted an heir. Their insistence could simply have been to ensure that they would have a sympathetic and powerful voice to argue their desires to the air-breathing world. They had gone without a seamage for fifteen years after Orin Flaxal, Cynthia’s father, had died. Of course, it could also be a power-play with her, personally. Everything the mer did was for their own benefit. She loved them for what they had taught her and for the friendships she had developed, but she knew that they held no love for most landwalkers, as they referred to all the terrestrial races. She often thought that, on the whole, the mer would be happiest if life on land simply ceased to exist.

That thought kept her awake through many lonely nights.

Maybe Camilla was right: maybe it was time she reminded people that
she
was the Seamage of the Shattered Isles. She was going to ask — no, she was going to
tell
them that she was going on a trip for her own benefit. “It’s my decision,” she told herself once again. “They don’t control my life. If I want to take a trip to Southaven, it’s none of their business.”

With new resolve, she propped her snoring sprite into the crook of a nearby tree and strode into the bath-warm water of the lagoon.

As always, being enveloped by the sea was a sensual experience. The barrier between her skin and the water seemed to blur, as if she could spread out in all directions and become the sea itself. It was a sensation she could easily lose herself in if she didn’t concentrate on who she was and what she was doing.

As she submerged completely, the simple incantation she’d learned from her father’s log flushed her skin with blood, creating a thin layer of tissue — a second skin — that provided her with the ability to breathe in water. Well, she didn’t actually breathe, but she didn’t need to. What she needed, the sea gave her; what she did not, the sea took away.

She created a pressure wave and rode it through the gap in the reef. Her surroundings shifted from bright turquoise to deep blue as the bottom plunged toward the depths. She took a moment here to look around and enjoy the view of the looming wall of the outer reef and all its denizens. In a riot of color, an innumerable variety of fish, corals, anemones and other creatures swam and swayed in the surging waves, a symphony of life that overwhelmed her with its complexity and beauty.

Far too easy to be distracted by all this
, she thought as she returned to her task. Concentrating, she sent out a pulse of sound that would call her finned friends. She knew better than to venture into their territory unescorted, seamage or no. One wouldn’t just barge into a friend’s home without an invitation, and the mer were particular about protocol. It was not long before she felt the powerful pulses of sound that told her someone, or something, approached.

Two grey shapes descended toward her from the surface, their long, muscular bodies moving effortlessly through the water faster than even a mer could swim. The dolphins raced around her in circles, teasing her with their superior agility. She smiled at them and made the signal that she was not amused at their joke. One of them nudged her and rolled to rub the length of his underside against her. This, she knew, was another joke, and a rather suggestive one. Dolphins could be aggressive if given any kind of encouragement, so she discouraged him with a firm pulse of sound that she knew would be just short of painful to his sensitive sonar.