“Thank you,” she said. “I will cherish it always.”
The boy embraced her and then scampered out of the galley as if it were on fire.
“You’ve made a friend,” Ilior said. His skin was pale and he hunched his huge frame under a blanket that hardly covered one shoulder.
“Aye, and it worries me. Saliz is dangerous,” Selena said. “More dangerous than we’ve considered. The waters themselves around the island are fraught with it, to say nothing of the merkind. I’ve been thinking of my quest and not of the others I endanger.”
“Can’t be avoided,” Ilior said, “unless you petition the Alliance for aid.”
“I won’t. They didn’t offer when I departed; there’s no reason they’d do so now. If we need help against the Bazira, there’s only one place I can think to ask for it.”
Ilior raised a brow ridge. “The Isle of Lords?”
“Their armada rivals that of the Alliance.”
“An armada they’ve never launched,” Ilior said bitterly. “The Zak’reth war could have ended before you—”
“Don’t,” Selena said. “A course can’t be altered after its sailed. And now we’re on course for Isle Saliz. Perhaps better to keep to the mission.” She ran her fingertips over the rough engraving that had been painstakingly carved into the whalebone. “Despite the danger.”
“Aye,” Ilior said dryly, “if we can make it there at all.”
Selena bit her lip and hunched closer to Niven’s fire.
The following morning Selena climbed to the main deck to watch the sun haul itself over the horizon, offering light but no heat that she could sense. The wind had died. The ship sat on flat water, as still as a painting.
Selena made her way with agonizing slowness up to the quarterdeck where Julian stood close with Grunt, their heads bent.
“Where are we?” she asked through clenched teeth.
Grunt took a quick step back and tipped his cap to her.
“I believe we’re eighty leagues from the Isle of Lords,” Julian replied. “A two-day venture with a full wind, and then we’ll leave this cold behind.”
Selena shuddered. “Full wind? It’s as if we’ve dropped anchor.”
“The doldrums won’t last but a day or two.”
Selena took in the seas all around them. It stretched out for leagues, like a pane of glass.
Julian muttered an oath. “What do you want me to do about it? We’re bloody becalmed, but it won’t last. It never does in these waters.”
“I didn’t say—” Selena stopped as her stomach roiled. Julian’s face paled and Grunt went green beneath his beard.
“Bloody bones and spit,” Julian whispered, his hands finding his scimitars.
Selena wrapped her stiffened fingers around the hilt of her own sword and unsheathed it just as Whistle loosed a piercing blast. They all turned to where the boy, perched on the masthead, pointed to port.
Selena watched as two arms, bone-thin and the color of old bruises, scrabbled for a hold of the gunwale on the port side of the ship. Everyone onboard stared, unmoving, as a mermaid struggled over the rail of the main deck. She gripped the wood with trembling fingers, and an awful whistling groan pushed out of her as her abdomen crashed onto the rail. Her hair was blackish green, stringy, and falling out in clumps. Selena watched with a pitying horror as some of it caught on the gunwale as she came over. It tore from her scalp with a ripping sound that could be heard from up on the quarterdeck.
The mermaid flopped onto to the deck, her dolphin-like tail slapping the wood. Spit and Cur approached her with drawn cutlasses. Niven and Ilior emerged from below decks.
“Take the wheel,” Julian told Grunt, and started down to the main deck. “Get back! Watch for others!”
“Svoz, to me,” Selena said as she joined the rest of the crew on the main deck.
“Not again,” Svoz bellowed when he saw the creature. “I’ll not be chewed on by the likes of one of these foul fish-things a second time.”
“Just kill it,” Julian said, “before it pollutes my ship.”
“She’s dying,” Niven murmured. “She can hardly move, poor thing.”
Svoz brightened. “Well, in that case…” Today, the weapon he wore between his wings was a spiked staff. He glanced at Selena. “Master?”
“Wait.”
Selena moved forward on stiff limbs, and knelt as close to the mermaid as she dared. Her stomach churned, either from nearness to the mermaid or from the overpowering stench of rot and illness that emanated from the creature like a vapor. Selena peered under the mermaid’s veil of matted hair. It was tangled with bits of flotsam. From between the filthy strands, the mermaid stared with eyes that were at once empty and also filled with a frantic need. They were yellowed and oozed pus, as did her mouth. Blood mingled with the ichor; the mermaid was missing several teeth.
“What happened to you?” Selena whispered.
The mermaid hissed and lunged with a bony hand that scraped on the deck. Selena jumped out of reach and the mermaid’s head thumped back down. It did not rise again. Her tail flapped once and then she was still but for a gurgling sigh. The stench permeated the entire deck, riding on a current of watery effluence that leaked from the mermaid’s mouth and from under her tail.
“A glorious perfume, admittedly,” Svoz commented.
Selena covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Let’s turn her over.”
“Let’s bloody not,” Julian said. “I want it off my ship. Now.”
“This is our best chance at trying to determine what happened to the merkind,” Selena told him. “We have to know what we face.”
He hesitated; Selena could see the thoughts clouding his gray-green eyes. “Just be quick about it,” he said, and peered up at the masthead. “Whistle! You keep your eyes on the water, boy, and nowhere else.”
Svoz rolled the dead mermaid onto her back with his staff, and Niven made another pitying sound. She was emaciated; Selena could count her ribs. Her small breasts seemed deflated and every inch of her skin was the same blue-green color. Not the lively viridian of the seas, but a sickly, rotted green, and blue-tinged with cold.
“This water is too cold for her,” Selena said. “She wouldn’t be here unless compelled. Whatever has made her ill has stolen her will too.”
Niven wrung his hands. “Who or what could do such a thing?”
“Perhaps the Bazira have worked some sort of dark magic on the merkind,” Selena said, “and this is the result.”
Niven frowned. “Their magic is ice. Pain. They can’t sicken anyone.” He looked up at her. “Can they?”