The captain doubled over, racked by a spell of coughing. Then he straightened again, annoyed by his weakness. “It’s not going to be much of a voyage, this one,” he said hoarsely. “For one thing, it just about killed us. And it would have, but for you.”
“Aye . . . I mean, I did what I could, sir.”
“And for another, Number One blew all our profit on buying a couple of thralls. Thought he’d gone crazy.”
“So did I,” Gathmor growled sourly. “Forty-six imperials! Can’t think what got into me.”
Andor had, of course. Andor could make most people do anything. Rap scanned briefly, but Andor was not aboard. Darad was snoozing on his bunk, facedown. His back was healing.
Then the figure penetrated Rap’s throbbing head. “Forty-six imperials? ”
Gathmor scowled. “For you and your meaty friend. But it was worth it in the end.”
“Er . . . thank you, sir.” Forty-six imperials? Rap had never thought he’d be worth that much money, not to anyone. Even allowing half for Little Chicken . . . twenty-three?
“You like the life, don’t you?”
“Aye, sir,” Rap said politely-and truthfully.
Gathmor forced a thin smile and held out a horny hand to shake.”Welcome to the crew, sailor.”
He seemed to mean well, he hardly squeezed at all.
Then the significance of that little ritual drove a spike of horror into Rap’s conscience. Did the mate think he was promising to stay on, as one of Stormdancer’s hands? What about his quest for Inos? Had he just given his word to the sailor?
And if Rap was forced to settle down as a crewman, living in this Durthing place, then what would Little Chicken say? Or do? What happened to the goblin’s destiny then, and how would he go about kidnapping—
Huh?
Rap scanned the ship again, then stared in shock at Gathmor. “The goblin?”
The mate scowled. “You mean you didn’t know? He went after you.”
Little Chicken? “He did?” Rap felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.
“When I ordered the men to float the ship, your buddy was the first to argue. I almost ran him through. Then he went tearing off, looking for you.”
“Not my buddy,” Rap muttered, and staggered over to slump on the rail beside Gnurr while the world turned cartwheels and his knees almost folded under him. He must have been putting the goblin out of his mind as a man might try to forget a debt or ignore an aching tooth. He hadn’t noticed his absence.
Of course Little Chicken would not have wanted to leave the island without his chosen victim. The sailors insisted that no one ever escaped from the Nogids. Whole fleets could disappear there. Castaways had no chance at all. Rap stared unseeing at the foam-streaked sea rushing past below him.
Misunderstanding, the old captain laid a hand on his shoulder. “Death is a part of life, son,” he said, “and the sea a demanding mistress. Sailors all know what it is to lose friends.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Gathmor said sourly, “he disobeyed orders, also, and he didn’t save the ship. In fact we needed his strength to push off, and he wasn’t there, so even if he’d come back, I wouldn’t have let him on. It was probably him who roused the anthros. Friendship can be carried—”
“He wasn’t my friend!” Rap shouted. He straightened up to face them. “I hope he tasted delicious!”
That shocked the sailors into silence, while he struggled to take in all the implications of Little Chicken’s death. The prophecy had been cheated by a freakish accident of weather and timing. The goblin king was not going to meet his destiny. Witch and warlock both—their foresight had failed them.
And the magic casement had been proved wrong, too! Not only was Rap not going to be tortured by the goblin, but if those prophecies had also been fallible, then he now had no reason to expect to be Inos’s champion against Kalkor, or meet a dragon with Sagorn.
Whatever Rap did now, Inos would not be forced into marrying Little Chicken. Of course the witch might find another goblin prince for her.
But maybe Sagorn had been right—Rap was only a humble churl who did not belong in Inos’s world of kings and imperors and sorcery. He was a faun, the old man had said, so he should be a hostler. But he was a jotunn, too. Jotnar were sailors by instinct.
Gathmor was scowling suspiciously at Rap’s expression. “Sir,” Rap croaked, still clinging to the rail, “I haven’t told you how I got to Faerie.”
“If it’s magic, I don’t want to hear about it. Not now, not ever.”
“But . . . I may bring bad luck, sir.”
“You brought good luck,” Gnurr said, with more authority than had shown so far. “You look beat, lad. Go greet your new partners.”
“P-partners, sir?”
“Yes, partners!” Gathmor was grinning, which was astonishing—so astonishing that Rap could see nothing in the world but that huge grin under the great silver mustache and hardly noticed that he was shaking hands with the frail old captain, whose skin felt even hotter than his own. “They voted you in, sailor, as full partner. It won’t mean much this voyage, because of what you cost, but from now on you get your share. Off with you—and try to stay warm. ”
It didn’t make any sense. His heed was throbbing, and waves of fever were tossing him like a tub in a storm. Moving on rubbery legs with the roll of the ship, Rap staggered away, and at once found himself encased in a mob of wet-smelling, noisy men, all crushing his hand and thumping his back, and half dragging him to his bench, raucously welcoming him and laughing. They’d all known why Gathmor had summoned him. They’d voted him a share. They wanted him as one of themselves. He thought he was going to vomit.
Little Chicken was dead. The casement had been wrong. Rap wasn’t going to be butchered by the goblin. And he wasn’t going to meet any dragons, or Kalkor, or be Inos’s champion. He wasn’t ever going to see Inos. Not even Andor could get him away from Stormdancer now. Andor’s charm had limits—he couldn’t charm this many men all at once. And eighty men had all paid an incredible fortune to buy a seer who could guide their vessel through the dark, and fog, and rocks.
They wanted him, and he felt good about that and couldn’t do anything about the way they kept pumping his hands, both hands, and he couldn’t tell them he didn’t want to be their crewmate and he mustn’t tell them about Inos and he was just babbling nonsense and no one was listening. They must think it was the fever talking, because someone was trying to wrap him in a damp blanket.
He hadn’t been wanted like this for a long time. Or never. But he didn’t want to be wanted. He wanted to go and find Inos. Except that Inos didn’t need him any more. She had a swordsman to protect her, a swordsman who shared her tent.
The sailors wanted him, and needed him. They would keep him.
Escaping from goblins and imps and warlocks had been easy, compared to this. How could he escape from the sailors, when they had bound him with ties of friendship? He really didn’t want all these new friends because he wanted to run away and that would betray their friendship and they’d talked back to Gathmor for his sake.
He had shaken their hands. No use saying he’d been too sick to understand—he’d shaken their hands. He was still shaking hands, trying to protest, and being shouted down in the celebration. He wanted to scream.
Trapped!
He was one of them now. He’d shaken hands. He had given his word.
Take the cash:
Some for the Glories of this World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
— Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (§ 13, 1879)