CHAPTER TWELVE
PORT PRODIGAL
1
THE POISON ORCHID BORE WEST BY SOUTH through muggy air and moderate seas, and the days rolled by for Locke in a rhythm of chores.
He and Jean were placed on the Red watch, which had been put under Lieutenant Delmastro’s direct oversight in Nasreen’s absence. Grand initiation ceremonies did nothing to sate the ship’s appetite for maintenance; the masts still needed to be slushed, the seams checked and rechecked, the decks swept, the rigging adjusted. Locke oiled sabers from the weapons lockers, heaved at the capstan to shift cargo for better trim, served ale at the midevening meals, and pulled rope fragments to oakum until his fingers were red.
Drakasha acknowledged Locke with terse nods, but said nothing, and summoned him to no more private conversations.
As full crew, the ex-Messengers had the right to sleep more or less where they would. Some opted for the main hold, especially those who claimed willing hammock-partners among the old Orchids, but Locke found himself comfortable enough with the now-roomier undercastle. He won a spare tunic in a game of dice and used it as a pillow, a luxury after days of bare deck alone. He slept like a stone statue after finishing each night’s watch just before the red light of dawn.
Jean, of course, slept elsewhere after the night watches.
They had no sightings through the twenty-fifth of the month, when the winds shifted and began to blow strongly from the south. Locke had collapsed into his usual spot against the undercastle’s larboard wall at sunrise, and then snored for several hours in the fashion of the eminently self-satisfied until some sort of commotion awoke him and he found Regal draped across his neck.
“Gah,” he said, and the kitten took this as a signal to perch his forepaws on Locke’s cheeks and begin poking his wet nose directly between Locke’s eyes. Locke seized the kitten, sat up, and blinked. His skull felt full of cobwebs; something had definitely woken him prematurely.
“Was it you?” he muttered, frowning and rubbing the top of Regal’s skull with two fingers. “We have to stop meeting like this, kid. I’m not getting attached to you.”
“Land ho,” came a faint cry from outside the undercastle. “Three points off the larboard bow!” Locke set Regal down, gave him an unambiguous nudge toward some other snoring sleeper, and crawled out into the morning light.
Activity on deck seemed normal; nobody was rushing about, or delivering urgent messages to Drakasha, or even crowding the rail to try to spot the approaching land. Someone slapped Locke on the back and he turned to find himself facing Utgar, who had a coil of rope slung over his shoulder. The Vadran nodded in a friendly fashion.
“You look confused, Red watch.”
“It’s just—I heard the cry. I thought there’d be more excitement. Will that be Port Prodigal?”
“Nah. It’s the Ghostwinds, right, but we’re just fetching the edges. Miserable places. Asp Island, Bastard Rock, the Opal Sands. Nowhere we’d want to touch. Two days yet to Prodigal, and with the winds like this, we’re not getting in the way we’d like, hey?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” Utgar grinned, enjoying some private knowledge. “You’ll see for damn sure. Get your beauty sleep, right? You’re back on the masts in two hours.”
2
THE GHOSTWIND Isles gradually crowded in around the Orchid like a gang of muggers savoring their slow approach to a target. The horizon, once clear, sprouted islands thick with mist-capped jungle. Tall black peaks rumbled intermittently, belching lines of steam or smoke into the heavy gray skies. Rain washed down in sheets, not the merciless storms of the high seas but rather the indifferent sweat of the tropics, blood-warm and barely pushed by the jungle breeze.
The waters lightened with their passage west, from the cobalt of the deeps to sky blue to translucent aquamarine. The place was teeming with life; birds wheeled overhead, fish darted through the shallows in silver clouds, and sinuous shapes larger than men shadowed them. They stalked languidly in the Orchid ’s wake as well: scythe sharks, blue widowers, bad-luck reefmen, daggerfins. Eeriest of all were the local wolf sharks, whose sand-colored backs made them vanish into the pale haze below the ship. It took a keen eye to spot the ghostly incongruities that betrayed their lurking, and they had the disconcerting habit of circling beneath the craplines.
Locke thanked the gods that they weren’t jumpers.
For a day and a half they sailed on, heeling over to dodge the occasional reef or smaller island. Drakasha and Delmastro seemed to know the area by heart and muttered over Drakasha’s charts only at rare intervals. Locke began to glimpse human detritus on the shoals and rocks—here a weathered mast, there the skeletal ribs of an ancient keel on the sandy bottom. On one afternoon watch, he spotted hundreds of crablike things the size of dogs congregating on the overturned bottom of a ship’s hull. As the Orchid passed, the creatures fled from their artificial reef en masse, making the water around it froth white. In moments they had vanished completely.
Locke went off that watch a few hours later, aware of a steadily growing tension in the crew around him. Something had changed. Drakasha paced the quarterdeck ceaselessly, ordered extra lookouts to the mastheads, and held whispered conferences with Delmastro and Mumchance.
“She won’t tell me what’s going on,” said Jean after Locke dropped what he thought was a subtle hint. “She’s all lieutenant and no Ezri at the moment.”
“That in itself tells us something,” said Locke. “Tells us to curb our good cheer.”
Drakasha mustered all hands at the evening watch change. All the Orchids—one vast, sweaty, anxious mass of men and women—fixed their eyes on the quarterdeck rail and waited for the captain’s words. The sun was a disk of burning copper crowning jungle heights dead ahead; the colors of fire were creeping up layer by layer through the clouds, and all around them the islands were falling into shadow.
“Well,” said Drakasha, “here it is, plain. The winds have been steady as hell these past few days, out of the south. We can drop anchor in Prodigal tonight, but we can’t make it through the Trader’s Gate.”
There was a general murmur from the crowd. Lieutenant Delmastro, stepping up beside the captain, placed a hand on her weapons belt and hollered, “Quiet! Perelandro’s piss, most of us have been here before.”
“So we have,” said Drakasha. “Stout hearts, Orchids. We’ll do the usual. Red watch, take some ease. Expect an all-hands call in a few hours. After that, nobody sleeps, nobody drinks, nobody fucks until we’re safe home again. Blue watch, you have the duty. Del, see to the newcomers. Run it all down for them.”
“Run what down?” Locke looked around, asking the question to the air as the crew dispersed.
“Two passages to get to Port Prodigal,” said Jabril. “First, Trader’s Gate, that’s north of the city. Twelve miles long, say. Twists and turns, shoals all over the place. Slow going at the best of times, but with a hard south wind, piss on it. It’ll take us days.”
“So what the hell are we doing?”
“Second way, from the west. Half as long. Still twisty, but ain’t near so bad. Especially with this wind. But it don’t get used if anyone can help it. They call it the Parlor Passage.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s something there,” said Lieutenant Delmastro, pushing her way through the little crowd, ex-Messengers all, that had gathered around Jabril. Locke saw her give Jean’s arm the briefest squeeze, and then she continued. “Something…lives there.”
“Something?” Locke couldn’t keep a hint of irritation out of his voice. “Is the ship in danger?”
“No,” said Delmastro.
“Let me be more specific, then. Are those of us aboard her in danger?”
“I don’t know,” said Delmastro, sharing a glance with Jabril. “Will something come aboard the ship? No. Absolutely not. Might you…feel like leaving the ship? I can’t say. Depends on your temperament.”
“I’m not sure I’d enjoy the close attention of anything swimming in these waters,” said Locke.
“Good. Then you probably don’t have anything to worry about.” Delmastro sighed. “All of you, think on what the captain said. A bit of rest is the thing; you’ll be called up halfway through your usual off-watch, so snatch what you can.” She stepped up beside Jean, and Locke overheard her whisper, “I certainly intend to.”
“I’ll, ah, find you later then, Jerome.” Locke smiled despite himself.
“You going to catch a nap?” asked Jean.
“Bloody hell, no. I expect to twiddle my thumbs and go steadily out of my skull until called for duty. Maybe I can find someone to share a hand of cards—”
“Doubt it,” said Delmastro. “Your reputation…”
“Unjust persecution for my good fortune,” said Locke.
“Yeah, well, maybe you should consider a public streak of bad luck. Word to the wise.” She blew Locke a mocking little kiss. “Or whatever you are, Ravelle.”
“Oh, steal Jerome and go do your worst to him.” Locke folded his arms and grinned; Delmastro’s loosening up toward him had been a welcome change over the previous few days. “I’ll be judging your performance by how pissed Treganne is when we see her next. Hell, that’s how I can amuse myself. I’ll solicit wagers on how riled up you two can get the Scholar—”
“You do anything of the sort,” said Delmastro, “and I’ll chain you to an anchor by your precious bits and have you dragged over a reef.”
“No, this is a good scheme,” said Jean. “We could place our own bets with him, then rig the contest—”
“This ship has two anchors, Valora!”