The herdsman’s chest expanded—and expanded, and swelled, until it seemed certain he would burst. Those members of the crew close enough to see what was happening gawked open-mouthed at the phenomenon of the distending herdsman while Stanager, brave as she was, began to back away from that which she could not explain and did not understand. Hunkapa Aub looked up in dumb fascination while Ahlitah, as usual, slept on, oblivious to what was happening around him.
Just when it seemed that the skin of the herdsman’s chest must surely rupture, exploding his internal organs all over the deck and railing, he exhaled. To say explosively would be to do injustice to the sound that emerged from his chest and mouth. It reverberated like gunpowder, echoing across not only the deck but the sea as well. The force of it blew its perpetrator backwards, lifting Ehomba’s feet off the deck and sending him crashing into the smaller railing that delimited the fore edge of the helm deck. Hunkapa ran over to make sure the herdsman was all right.
As for Simna, he remained at the railing, realizing that Ehomba had expelled more than just air. There had been one other thing in his mouth, and it was not his tongue that had been violently discharged across the water.
In the little boat, the disdainful fisherman was preparing to tap his bottle a second time with the metal marlinspike to demonstrate the qualities of its composition when the ejected diamond struck it squarely in the middle, shattering the glass and sending green-tinted shards flying in all directions. The fisherman had barely an instant to gape at the ruined container, its neck and stopper still clutched tightly in one hand, before the winds it had held burst to freedom.