“Er,” Rushu said, “we were rather thinking of making her seat hover in the air.”
“Oh,” the Lopen said. “That makes way more sense.” He seemed disappointed nonetheless.
Rysn shook her head. “I see why Brightness Navani was hesitant to make any promises. If we were to make a chair hover for me, it wouldn’t do me much good, would it? The chair would have to be attached to a lattice of gemstones, and then if I wanted to move forward, someone would have to move that lattice. So I’d still need porters and carriers.”
“Unfortunately, yes, Brightness,” Rushu said.
Rysn tried not to let disappointment show on her face. The world was becoming a place of wonders—men and women soared in the air, and ships were being built with lightning rods right in the masts. At times, everything felt like it was progressing at an insane pace.
Yet none of it seemed able to help her. The healing was amazing . . . as long as your wound was fresh. The fabrials were incredible . . . as long as you had manpower to operate them. She had let herself begin to dream of a hovering seat she could direct under her own power, without needing to be hauled around like a roll of sailcloth.
Be careful, she thought. Don’t sink back into that lethargy of inaction. Life was better for her now. She’d learned to change her surroundings to suit her needs. She dressed herself every morning with ease, using the hooks. Plus she had her own ship! Well, she owned a ship. At any rate, this was better than sitting in a dull room doing accounts.
“Thank you for the demonstration, Ardent Rushu,” she said. “The technology is fascinating, even if the application doesn’t seem suited to my needs.”
“Well, Brightness Navani did assign me a list of tests to run,” Rushu said. “She gave some thought to how this might help you in your specific situation. Perhaps you’d like to get a view as grand as that of the eel’s nest? We could send you soaring up high. Or perhaps we can fashion a little lift to raise and lower you to and from the quarterdeck? That can be managed with some counterweights and a crank that can be wound periodically by one of the sailors.”
That seemed a pale offering compared to her dreams, but Rysn forced out a smile. “Thank you. I should like to be available for those experiments.”
Rushu deactivated the hoops and returned them to her box, along with some other machinery—including several silvery sheets of metal of varying thickness. “Aluminum,” she explained as Rysn peered inside. “It blocks spanreed communication, something we only recently discovered. Navani wants me to experiment with how thick the aluminum needs to be to function, and then see if it affects—in any way—how paired rubies react, or don’t react, to natural ship movements. I even have some foil, to . . . Oh, I’m getting too technical, aren’t I? Sorry. I have a tendency to do that.”
She looked to Rysn, then to the Lopen, who was sitting and rubbing his chin.
“Wait,” he said. “Back up. I need an explanation.”
“Lopen,” Rushu said, “I hardly think I can—”
“How do fish breathe?” he said.
Rysn smiled at the ardent’s exasperation. Rushu thought it was a joke, but the Lopen seemed genuinely interested as he pestered her for an explanation.
A sudden motion distracted Rysn as Kstled rushed up to the quarterdeck and whispered something to the captain, who had been chatting with the current helmsman. Rysn focused on them, on Kstled’s worried face, and on the captain’s immediate frown.
Would they remember to inform her, whatever it was? The captain gave an order, then started down the steps. Halfway down, she paused to glance at Rysn—and noticed that Rysn was looking directly at her.
So, the captain—seeming annoyed—walked back up and trotted over.
“What?” Rysn asked, anxious. “What is wrong?”
“Dark Soulcasting,” the captain said. “And bad omens. You should probably see it in person, Rebsk.”
6
Cord, the Horneater woman, dug her hand into the barrel, then pulled it out, letting thick grains of lavis dribble between her fingers. This revealed the worms; though they were generally the same color as the grain, they uncurled and writhed on the surface, then buried themselves again.
“All of the barrels?” Rysn asked.
“Each and every one,” Kstled said, nodding for his sailors to open two more barrels.
“I came to get supplies for food,” the Horneater woman said in thickly accented Alethi. “And discovered. They are . . . every one this thing.”
Rysn watched, troubled, as the sailors demonstrated the presence of worms in the other barrels. She kept meaning to find time to chat with Cord, but the woman had been spending her time in the galley, helping feed the crew. That had reinforced Rysn’s initial assumption that she was a servant. The Radiants, however, didn’t treat Cord that way. So who was she, and why was she here?
“The grain has been cursed,” Kstled muttered. “Dark Soulcasting, performed by evil Passions during the storm.”
“Or,” Rysn said, trying to keep a level head, “we simply bought some stock with dormant larvae hiding inside.”
“We checked thoroughly,” Kstled said. “We always check. And look, this first barrel was left over from our original stores, taken on in Thaylen City. This other one was from an early resupply, and this one we picked up only two days ago. All have worms now.”
She caught the other two sailors nodding, muttering about dark Soulcasting. Wormy grain wasn’t the worst thing—many a sailor had eaten such during a long trip. But the sudden appearance of worms so early after restocking, and infesting all their barrels? This would be seen as an omen.
It was an old thing, of Thaylen superstition. The Passions, it was said, changed the world. “Spontaneous genesis has been disproven multiple times, armsman,” Rysn said to Kstled. “This didn’t happen because there’s some kind of dark Soulcaster aboard our ship.”
“Maybe it happened because of our destination,” he replied. “The men dream terrible dreams full of premonitions, and their dread Passion creates omens.” The other sailors nodded again. Storms, with this, and with the death of the ship’s pet the day before setting sail . . . well, Rysn herself almost believed.
She needed to turn this attitude around quickly. “Kstled, how much of the crew knows about this?”
“All of them, Rebsk,” he replied, glancing toward the Horneater woman.
“My sorrows,” Cord replied. “I did not know this thing was . . . he was bad. . . . I asked others. . . .”
“It is done,” Rysn said, turning to Nikli. “To my cabin, quickly.”
The tattooed porter, along with his assistant, quickly carried her up from the hold to the higher decks. Yes . . . Rysn could imagine the convenience of a small lift, working via fabrial.
When she reached her cabin, she found the Lopen waiting for her. “Something wrong, gancha?”
“Corrupted food stores,” Rysn said. Nikli held her chair while his assistant opened the door. “I need to do something about it quickly.”
“I could fly to one of our outposts,” the Lopen said, following into her cabin. “Lash some more grain into the air and bring it to us.”