Ship of Magic

Page 306

“Something's wrong. Something is very wrong. ”

“What?” Gantry demanded wearily. “Is it the serpents again? I've tried, Vivacia. Sa knows I've tried to drive them off. But throwing rocks at them in the morning does me no good if I have to dump bodies over the side in the afternoon. I can't make them go away. You'll have to just ignore them. ”

“They whisper to me,” she confided uneasily.

“The serpents talk to you?”

“No. Not all of them. But the white one,” she turned to look at him and her eyes were tormented. “Without words, without sound. He whispers to me, and he urges . . . unspeakable things. ”

Gantry felt a terrible urge to laugh. Unspeakable things uttered without words. He pushed it away from himself. It wasn't funny, not really. Sometimes it seemed to him that nothing had ever really been funny in his whole life.

“I can't do anything about them,” he said. “I've tried and tried. ”

“I know. I know. I have to deal with it myself. I can. I shall. But tonight it's not the serpents. It's something else. ”

“What?” he asked patiently. She was mad. He was almost sure of it. Mad, and he had helped to make her that way. Sometimes he thought he should just ignore her when she spoke, as if she were one of the slaves begging him for simple mercy. At other times he thought he had a duty to listen to her ramblings and groundless fears. Because what he had come to call madness was her inability to ignore the contained misery caged within her holds. He had helped to put that misery there. He had installed the chains, he had brought out the slaves, with his own hands he had fettered men and women in the dark below the decks he trod. He could smell the stench of their entrapment and hear their cries. Perhaps he was the one who was truly mad, for a key hung at his belt and he did nothing.

“I don't know what it is. But it's something, something dangerous. ” She sounded like a child with a high fever, peopling the dark with fearsome creatures. There was an unspoken plea in her words. Make it go away.

“It's just the storm coming. We all feel it, the seas are getting higher. But you'll be fine, you're a fine ship. A bit of weather isn't going to bother you,” he encouraged her.

“No. I'd welcome a storm, to wash some of the stench away. It's not the storm I fear. ”

“I don't know what to do for you. ” He hesitated, and then asked his usual question. “Do you want me to find Wintrow and bring him to you?”

“No. No, leave him where he is. ” She sounded distracted when she spoke of him, as if the topic pained her and she wished to get away from it.

“Well. If you think of anything I can do for you, you let me know. ” He started to turn away from her.

“Gantry!” she called hastily. “Gantry, wait!”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I told you to get on another ship. You remember that, don't you? That I told you to get on another ship. ”

“I remember it,” he assured her unwillingly. “I remember it. ”

Again he turned to go, only to have a slight form step out in front of him suddenly. He startled back, suppressing a cry. A heartbeat later he recognized Wintrow. The night had made him seem insubstantial in his stained rags, almost like a wraith. The boy was gaunt, his face as pale as any slave's save for the tattoo that crawled over his cheek. The smell of the slave hold clung to him, so that Gantry stepped back from him without thinking. He did not like to see Wintrow at any time, let alone in the dark, alone. The boy himself had become an accusation to him, a living reminder of all Gantry chose to ignore. “What do you want?” he demanded gruffly, but he heard in his own voice a sort of cry.

The boy spoke simply. “One of the slaves is dying. I'd like to bring him out on the deck. ”

“What's the point of that, if he's dying anyway?” He spoke harshly, to keep from speaking desperately.

“What's the point of not doing it?” Wintrow asked quietly. “Once he's dead, you've got to bring him up on deck anyway to get rid of his body. Why not do it now, and at least let him die where the air is cool and clean?”

“Clean? Have you no nose left? There's nowhere on this ship that smells clean anymore. ”

“Not to you, perhaps. But he might breathe easier up here. ”

“I can't just drag a slave up here on deck and dump him. I have no one to watch him. ”

“I'll watch him,” Wintrow offered evenly. “He's no threat to anyone. His fever is so high that he's just going to lie there until he dies. ”