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then the other two shattered into a shower of fiery sparks that blued as they
fell toward the dark waters below.
"Magic and madness are loose out in the night," I said.
"True enough."
"And we're sailing toward it."
"There is that."
Fssssst. Fssssst. Fssssst.
He raised his head. "Where would you rather be?"
"Here's fine, I guess." Some of the best times are when you just sit and talk
and think.
Erol Lyneian was very much a neat freak: the anchor cable, of that strange
Therranji construction that left a brass-and-iron cable as flexible as rope,
had been carefully flemished against the deck, not simply coiled in a heap.
Ahead of us, starlight danced on the water; the water rushed against the
fast-moving boat. Above us in the dark, the jib strained to catch every
whisper of wind, looming above us like a large vague ghost.
One of the crewmen worked his way forward. Vertum Barr, his name was: a short,
bony man well into his fifties, naturally so thin that you could see his ribs
despite the small potbelly, dark and wrinkled like a dried mushroom the sort
of sailor you find working all over the Cirric, from boat to boat. He would
never own more than he could carry in his seabag, but as long as he could work
he would always have a bunk under which he could stow his bag.
"Carrying a bit of weather helm as the wind picks up, eh?" I asked.
His face split in a gap-toothed grin. "How did you know that?"
"Please. I do have an eye for the obvious: she's heeling a bit. Whoever is
back at the tiller keeps having to bear away. Costing us speed."
"Hmmm . . . and what would you be doing about it, were it yours to do?"
I shrugged. "Is this a test? Your center of effort's too far back. Me, I'd
just crank the traveler leeward flatten out the mainsail. Or maybe I'd heave
to and reef the mainsail some. But I'm a lazy man.
A captain who prides himself on every breath of speed is either going to fly
one of those loose-footed sails you're rigged for, or more likely going to put
on a bigger jib."
"He is, is he?"
"And somebody who has gone to the trouble of having the mainmast rigged with
twin forestays isn't going to want to heave to and switch sails the easy
way it'll take at least four men to do the job, and I'll bet you'd like a
couple of assistants to help with that huge mother of a jib."
"I wouldn't bet against you, truth to tell." He smiled. "I could use some
help, at that."
"Sure; we'd be happy to."
Ahira nodded. "I can finish this later." He stowed his axe in its sheath and
then bound it to a rack of belaying pins. "What are you getting us into now?"
"Just a bit of work." I still wanted to ask him how he had survived, and he
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wanted to tell me, but the two of us have always allowed ourselves to be
stubborn over things that don't matter.
His smile was bright in the dark. "That I can handle."
We surprised them. Ahira and I managed to haul the huge bag with the balloon
jib we would have called it a genoa jib on the Other Side all by ourselves,
even though Ahira grunted with the effort as he hauled the sailbag up the
hatch. It must have weighed four hundred pounds, but Ahira can carry weights
like that.
Me, I just steadied the thing. I'm only human, after all.
The rigging was a bit different than I was used to, and they had folded and
packed the sail according to their own idiosyncratic system; I wouldn't have
wanted to try to rig the sail myself, but Vertum Barr and
Tretan Verr knew their jobs, and it wasn't all that long before we had the
balloon jib up on the leeward forestay, and the smaller jib down, folded,
bagged, and stowed.
We returned to our spot on the deck, the huge jib ballooning in the wind above
us, luffing just a bit as the crew worked to get the trim right.
"I don't know what you see in this," Ahira said. Not criticism. Just
observation.
"Guess you have to be born with a taste for it." I smiled. "I had a bit of
experience on the Other Side."
Just a bit. "It's relaxing."
"Hmm."
"You've got something on your mind," I said.
He nodded. "That's a fact. I've been wondering if you're getting too slow,
Walter," Ahira said, considering the edge of his axe, as he resumed his
sharpening. "You all do seem to slow down, as the years go by."
"And not you?" I asked, maybe too harshly. "You missed a step today." If Ahira
hadn't been bowled over the side, we might have won on the first round,
instead of lucking into another shot at the game.
I shuddered. The locals have ways of getting people to talk, and I'm none too
fond of even the idea of red-hot pokers being shoved up my ass. We all have
our peccadilloes, and that's one of mine.
He shook his head. "No. Not me. I'm not aging like you are, not as fast." He
stared at me out of sad eyes. "If I was losing it, bit by bit, I'd admit it.
To myself."
I leaned back against the railing and closed my eyes. Possibly I was getting
too old for this. I'd been saying that for ten years, and maybe it was coming
true.
Damn silly time to be growing old. Magic was loose in the world and we were
sailing toward Ehvenor, toward God-knew-what. The situation called for not
only the wisdom that's supposed to come with age, but the reflexes of youth.
We needed a cross between Alvin York, Natty Bumppo, George Patton, and
Shadowjack, and all we had was me.
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