Enigma (emperor's edge) Read online

  He pointed to a ceiling beam at the end of the row. “You can string up your beds here. Hammocks are in that cabinet. Stow your gear there. Don’t leave anything loose. Sea can be rough along the coast.”

  “Much pirate activity?” Tikaya asked.

  “Along the empire’s coast? Never. The imperial warships and fortresses keep these waters free of trouble.” The captain lowered his voice to mutter something else, and Tikaya thought she caught a “…what I’m hoping” in the jumble. “You-” the captain jabbed a finger at Rias, “-be on deck in five minutes. We’ll need all hands to depart.”

  “Understood,” Rias said.

  The captain waited a moment, as if he expected a “sir” to be tacked onto the end. Rias gazed blandly at him from where he hunched, forced into an awkward posture by the low ceiling. He hadn’t tugged down his fur hood yet, and Tikaya wondered if anyone would recognize him when he did. Most of the crew wasn’t Turgonian, and the captain, though he might have originated in the empire, had a muddled accent that hinted of many years spent in other lands.

  When he didn’t get any more from Rias, the captain stalked out. With the departure imminent, nobody else was down in the hold, and they soon had two hammocks strung from the beams. Tikaya eyed the short, narrow dimensions of the dubious “beds.” Sharing one would be out of the question, not that she’d want to try in a bay full of sailors. This was only for three days, she reminded herself, and far less of a hardship than she’d suffered in the last few weeks.

  “Stay safe.” Rias kissed her and headed up the stairs.

  For lack of anything else to do, Tikaya sat in her hammock. “Might as well relax.”

  That lasted for two or three minutes before she started drumming her fingers on her thigh. She thought of taking out her pack and studying one of the artifacts they’d retrieved, but the last thing she wanted was someone from this crew spotting her with valuable relics.

  Shouts echoed from the deck above. A few bumps and scrapes emanated through the wooden hull. The schooner was pulling away from the dock.

  The dark bay lacked portholes, so Tikaya could only listen as the Fin drifted out of the calm harbor and navigated into the rougher waters beyond. She imagined them turning south to hug the Turgonian west coast as they sailed into the approaching night.

  At some point, a pale-skinned boy of fifteen or sixteen came down, dragging a bucket. He gave her no more than a curious glance before kneeling to scrub the floorboards. Tikaya wondered if his chore included keeping an eye on her.

  Soon after, a second boy, the Nurian youth she’d noticed watching the merchant ship earlier, came down as well. He flopped into a hammock opposite from Tikaya’s and draped an arm over his eyes.

  “No, no, don’t help me or nothing,” the scrubbing boy said.

  The Nurian youth didn’t respond.

  “I know you understand me, you lazy snot sucker.”

  With his arm still flung over his eyes, the Nurian’s face was hard to read, especially in the poor lighting, but Tikaya thought he might have clenched his jaw. Several bandages wrapped his fingers, and he possessed the rag-doll weariness of someone driven hard. She wondered if he might be a slave or indentured servant, perhaps someone who wouldn’t mind divulging his master’s secrets if a friendly ally who spoke his tongue appeared…

  “Are you all right?” Tikaya asked in Nurian.

  The scrubbing boy kept working, but he watched the exchange as his bristles rasped on the wet wood. The Nurian youth lowered his arm. Without sitting up in his hammock, he looked toward the other boy before focusing on Tikaya.

  “Yes.”

  When he didn’t offer anything else, Tikaya wobbled. Preferring research to interactions with people, she’d never been the sort to initiate conversations with strangers. By luck-or the Polytechnic president’s wisdom-her position had rarely involved teaching.

  “My name is Tikaya,” she finally said. “What’s yours?”

  “Garchee.”

  “How did you come to be here?” Tikaya waved to encompass the ship.

  “I am the cabin boy.”

  Hm, that wasn’t the answer to the question she’d asked. Though he hadn’t offered much of a sample, she tried to place his dialect. The eastern Chiefdom maybe. There was a formal touch to his words. Some educated merchant’s son whose family had fallen on rough times, forcing the youth to take to the sea?

  “I thought he was the cabin boy.” Tikaya smiled and pointed to the other youth, who was still scrubbing though also scowling suspiciously at this spew of foreign words.

  “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t a ship this small typically have one cabin boy?”

  Garchee eyed the steps, as if whatever work might find him should he appear topside might be preferable to being questioned by a nosy passenger. He could simply say he was tired and drop his arm back over his eyes, but maybe he wasn’t yet at the age where he thought he could get away with avoiding questions from adults.

  Tikaya lifted a hand to signal that she’d leave him alone, and only said, “If I can help you with anything, let me know.”

  At least she’d initiated contact and let the boy know she spoke his language. Maybe he’d be more talkative if she tried again later.

  Before the Nurian could close his eyes and resume his rest, the captain clomped down the steps. “The mate has work for you two,” he barked.

  The scrubbing boy gathered his brush and bucket and scurried up the steps. Garchee was slower to comply, wincing when his feet hit the deck, but he shambled after the other youth. He kept his head down as he eased around his commander. The captain did not acknowledge his passing. Instead, he stalked toward Tikaya, ducking ceiling beams as he pulled out something long, narrow, and wrapped in black velvet.

  She dropped her legs over the edge of the hammock and sat up. Something intangible, like the whisper of a breeze, stirred gooseflesh on her arms. Though she’d not had the feeling in some weeks, she recognized it instantly: a signal that a tool crafted from the mental sciences was nearby.

  “Got something for you to look at.” The captain glanced toward the stairs-he was being careful to keep his back to them-before unwrapping his parcel.

  Tikaya waited without commenting, though curiosity bubbled up inside. Maybe the captain and the mate wanted her to help with some relic they’d recovered in their adventures. Maybe they weren’t pirates or thieves after all. Of course, they might have stolen their prize and were now running from the owner. That could explain the battle damage they’d been repairing, an oddity on a craft with so few guns of its own.

  Callused fingers peeled back the velvet covering, and Tikaya leaned forward. A wave surged into the schooner at that moment, tilting the floor. Her hammock colluded with the tilting ship to upend her. She tumbled into a heap at the captain’s feet. He hadn’t even taken a step to adjust his balance.

  “I though the Kyattese were experienced sailors,” he said.

  “Oh, I can fall off things on land too.” Tikaya sighed and settled cross-legged on the floor. It was harder to topple a tree already on the ground.

  The captain lowered an ornate ivory flute. More than ornate. It was made of eight segments with intricate pictographic carvings that one would need a magnifying glass to examine in depth. And better lighting. And a ship that wasn’t rocking with each rise and fall of the waves. Despite the less than ideal situation, Tikaya found her gaze riveted.

  “Is that a Nurian Enigma Flute?” It hardly seemed possible-she’d only seen etchings of the instruments in books. The Nurians didn’t let such prizes go lightly, certainly not to random schooner captains plying the Turgonian seas.

  “If it is, is it valuable?” the captain asked.

  Tikaya gaped at him. Did he truly have no idea as to what he had? What kind of pirate accidentally stole a priceless artifact? Or maybe he’d salvaged it from a wreck. But did the Nurians even take such treasures to sea?

  “I know it’s worth at least something,” the captain
said, “on account of the ivory, and it’s real pretty too. Maybe old? I can’t tell. But I need to know if it’s magic before I try to sell it in Turgonia. I don’t need a squad of enforcers chasing after me because some tooter starts glowing in the middle of the transaction.”

  Tooter? The more Turgonians Tikaya met, the more she wondered how Rias could have come from that culture.

  “It’s a problem because magic is illegal there,” the captain said, apparently taking her silence for confusion.

  “Yes, I’ve heard that.” Tikaya held out her hand, hoping he’d give her a closer look.

  The captain hesitated, then laid it on her palm. “Oh, right, your big lover is Turgonian, isn’t he? Looks familiar too, now that I’ve seen him with his hood down. Did he serve in the fleet?”

  “It’s very rare,” Tikaya blurted in a rush to divert the captain’s attention. As far as most of Turgonia knew, Rias had been assassinated-that was the story the emperor had given the populace when he’d exiled his famous admiral to Krychek Island. The loathsome ruler might have another reason to hold a grudge if Rias started popping up along the coast, destroying the credence of that story. “And, yes, the flute was made by a practitioner. If it’s what I think, it would have been a practitioner from the royal line as well. The secret of how to create Enigma Flutes is tightly guarded-the stories suggest the great chiefs have sent assassins out to kill people who thought to sell the secret or steal the artifacts from the palace.” Tikaya arched her eyebrows, inviting an explanation as to how this one had come to be on the Fin.

  “What’s the secret that’s so worth guarding?” the captain asked, ignoring the message coming from her eyebrows. “What can they do?”

  “The Nurians are preeminent mental scientists and, to a lesser extent, warriors. That’s all many foreigners know about them, but they have a rich cultural, artistic, and musical heritage. Singing and dance are a part of all formal gatherings, even the funeral to celebrate the passing of a chief or the ushering in of a new leader.”

  The captain shifted from foot to foot and drummed his fingers on the closest ceiling beam.

  “When the Great Chief calls an assembly of all his regional chiefs, the citizens are allowed to attend, and it’s always a massive gathering. To ensure their continuing rule, the chiefs must keep those citizens happy, so they issue numerous placating speeches, often offering promises of improvements to the chiefdom. Over there, leadership is a hereditary position, but Nurian history is replete with instances of unpopular chiefs being poisoned in their sleep or having other fatal accidents befall them.”

  By now the captain had added eye rolling to his foot-to-foot dance of impatience. “Is there any chance you’ll get to the relevant part of this lecture before we reach Port Malevek?” He squinted at her. “There is a relevant part, isn’t there?”

  At least Tikaya had distracted him from thinking of Rias. “Yes, I’m getting to it.” She lifted the flute. “The assassinations I spoke of have been rare for the last four hundred years, during which the Duk Noo Dynasty has been firmly entrenched. Prior to that, dynasties tended to be short, anywhere from three generations at the long end to half a year at the short end. Due to the frequent changes, poor children studying Nurian history have had to make up long and involved songs to remember the ordering of the dynasties.” She smiled as she recalled memorizing such songs, but the captain was scowling, so she decided she’d best give him the information he sought. It occurred to her to withhold it, but he already looked like a man three seconds from wringing someone’s neck, and she didn’t have any weapons handy with which to defend herself. Even if her longbow were strung and within reach, she doubted she could draw it in the bay’s tight confines. “Here’s what’s applicable to you,” she said. “At these public gatherings-they’re called tek-lee, by the way-”

  “Fascinating,” the captain said with another eye roll.

  “-before, after, and between the speeches, it’s common for the chiefs to have music played. Flute tunes are typical. The tek-lees of the last four hundred years have been oddly peaceful gatherings when compared to those of prior centuries, with the citizens cheering in favor of everything the Great Chief has said. Though there’s no word of it in Nurian texts, visiting diplomats have insinuated that the music of the flutist’s special instruments had some scientifically enhanced qualities, such as might turn a contrary man into an amenable one.”

  The captain’s eyes sharpened, and he stopped shifting about. “Enhanced qualities? You mean magic?”

  “That is a Turgonian word that lacks precision, but essentially yes.”

  “The flute can persuade people to go along with what the chiefs are saying?”

  “That’s the hypothesis. The Nurian rulers deny it of course.”

  “So, if someone learned how to play this flute, that someone could persuade people too? A lot of people?” The captain scratched at stubble on his jaw. “That ought to be worth a great deal to someone.”

  “To someone willing to risk the ire of Nurian spies who might be sent to recoup the stolen piece. It is stolen, isn’t it?” The captain’s focus had turned inward, and Tikaya hoped that, in his distracted state, he might answer her question.

  But his eyes sharpened. “Not by me. I bartered for it. Legitimately.”

  “It’s hard to believe any Nurian would barter this away, especially to a Turgonian. Even though your people are ignorant in terms of the Science, if you recruited someone with knowledge, the flute could possibly have military applications.”

  “I don’t care what you believe, woman. And-” he stepped closer, raising a finger toward her nose, “-watch who you’re calling ignorant when you’re a guest on my ship.”

  “Of course,” Tikaya murmured and bowed her head. There were worse things she might have called him, but it was best not to pick a fight. Not when one was in the middle of a thieves’ den. Who knew what the captain would do to protect his secret? An uneasy tendril of concern wormed its way into her gut at the thought. She shouldn’t have told him how valuable the artifact was or that the Nurians might send people to recover it if word got out about its location. What if he decided that Tikaya couldn’t be trusted to walk free at Port Malevek? Or even make it to Port Malevek? She swallowed.

  The captain flicked a finger at the flute. “Figure out how it works.”

  “What?” Tikaya blurted. “From what the historical texts say, that’s as much a secret as the manner of making them.”

  “If you can’t make it work… “ Though they couldn’t see the sea from the hold, the captain gazed in the direction of the ship’s stern. “If you want to reach Port Malevek, you will figure out how to make it work.”

  As he stomped away, Tikaya tried to decide whether he was threatening her personally or suggesting some impending doom was chasing the ship, endangering them all. Rias might be some help with the former, but with the latter…

  She stared down at the flute, her thoughts grim.

  Part IV

  Shortly after dawn the next morning, Tikaya stepped onto the deck to look for Rias. If he had slipped into his hammock the night before, it had been a brief visitation. She’d been awake until late, hunched over the flute and scribbling ideas in her journal, trying to dredge tidbits of Nurian history from the dark labyrinthine passages of her brain. She’d hoped Rias would come to bed so she could find a private moment to show him the flute and tell him about the captain’s threat. Most of the seamen had filtered through at some point as they alternately slept and worked on four-hour shifts, but she’d fallen asleep before Rias had come. If he’d come. Perhaps the captain and mate were keeping him busy to pay for his passage.

  Low clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, spitting a soft rain. They brought little wind to fill the schooner’s sails. The mate paced above the forecastle and bellowed at men slinging themselves through the rigging, making adjustments. The captain stood beside him, silent and tense as he gazed to the rear.

  Rias was in the riggi
ng, working alongside the two cabin boys. Sort of. The Nurian kept throwing him nervous glances and seemed to be trying to keep his distance.

  Most of the men aloft were short and wiry, little larger than the youths, so Rias seemed a giant next to them. He maneuvered about deftly, though the narrow perches had to be slick from the rain.

  Rias pointed and gestured as he worked with the boys-teaching them Tikaya supposed. Garchee appeared clumsy and out of place up there, but maybe it was just the presence of a hulking Turgonian making him uneasy. Under other circumstances, she might have been happy to stand on the deck and watch Rias at work-and muse about what a lovely father he might make-but she needed to talk to him. She waved, trying to catch his attention.

  Someone yelled a command from the forecastle, and Garchee shouted an accented, “Aye, sir,” down. The youth eased toward the mast, then started climbing. He lacked any of the agility that Rias and the other seamen showed. Rias must have asked something, for Garchee shook his head. Turgonian seemed to be the language of the ship, and Tikaya wondered how much the Nurian understood. The boy reached the narrow topsail yard and inched along, crawling toward a flapping rope. He must have been twenty, twenty-five feet in the air. Rias watched from the lower yard.

  As Garchee reached for a knot, a gust of wind buffeted the ship. It upset his balance, and he couldn’t recover quickly enough. He lost his grip and plummeted from the yard. Tikaya cried out and ran forward, anticipating a bone-shattering landing, one that might prove fatal, but Rias lunged three steps and caught the boy by the back of his shirt as he fell past. Garchee’s momentum almost tore Rias from his perch as well, but he compensated by dropping to his belly, boots hooked around the yard. Eyes bigger than ancient Ancorian saucers, the boy dangled, mouth open in shock-or terror-as he gaped at the deck below.

  Someone called, “Catch of the day!” to Rias as he pulled Garchee up, but most of the men merely went back to work, as if such events were commonplace.