CAPTAIN CROW SOON EMERGED from her cabin, leaving Laggart to strut across to the bow while she climbed up to the quarterdeck. Tress went down to refill her bucket and left Huck to forage for some more food. Returning to the upper deck gave her an excuse to reset her location, so she moved to the quarterdeck, near where the captain stood next to Salay—the helmswoman who had traded Fort those earrings earlier.
Tress didn’t want to act suspicious, so she didn’t execute her plan at first. She scrubbed, feeling the boat rock upon the spores. Listening to the Dougs calling to each other and the planks creaking. There’s a certain freedom to the sounds of a ship at sea. The feeling of motion, of going somewhere. On an ocean—even a spore ocean, so long as the seethe holds up—it’s hard to sit still. You’re either bending the waves and wind to your will, or you’re being bent to theirs. Usually it’s a careful grapple between the two.
As Tress stood up to stretch, she gazed across the vibrant green sea. It was odd because the moon was in the wrong place—always before it had been almost overhead, but they’d sailed far enough that it was several degrees lower.
She couldn’t help but remark upon the sea’s beauty. Spores, vibrant in the sunlight, shimmered as they seethed. An endless expanse of lush death, waiting to explode with life. Like with the zephyr spores earlier, this beauty transfixed her. Our minds want dangerous things to be ugly, yet Tress found those rolling waves inviting. In the moment, she imagined those rippling spores upon her skin, but rather than cringing, she was curious.
Danger doesn’t make a thing less beautiful—in fact, there’s a magnifying influence. Like how a candle seems brightest on the darkest night. Deadly beauty is the starkest variety. And you will never find a murderess more intoxicating, more entrancing, than the sea.
“North,” the captain said, holding up a compass. “North, Salay. Toward the Seven Straits.”
“Into the shipping lanes?” Salay asked.
“Best place to find our next target,” the captain said, tucking away her compass.
Tress sensed her opportunity. She settled down, scrubbing hard, then muttered, “You’ll kill more, will you?”
She heard the captain shift behind her. Tress kept her head lowered. After a moment though, she muttered, “They were good people you killed. Poor Kaplan. And Marple. And Mallory. Fed to the spores.”
The deck creaked as Captain Crow stepped over. This was a dangerous ploy, but…well, Tress was surrounded by pirates sailing the spore sea. She hadn’t grown up knowing danger, but they were quickly becoming acquainted.
“You muttering something, girl?” Crow asked. “Ungrateful, maybe, for the kindness this here crew showed you?”
Tress froze as if frightened, and dropped her brush as she looked up. “Captain! I didn’t know you… I mean…”
“Are you ungrateful?” Crow asked.
“I appreciate my life,” Tress whispered, her eyes down.
“But?”
“But that ship carried my family, Captain. I loved them.”
“You’re a royal inspector. Why were you traveling with your family?”
“That?” Tress scoffed. “An inspector left this coat at a tavern we stopped by, and I started wearing it because it made my family laugh. And now…now they’re all dead…”
She let it linger. Then she glanced up and saw thoughtfulness on the captain’s expression. Understanding.
No, you didn’t kill everyone on the Oot’s Dream, Tress thought. You left one alive. And if she were to escape, then tell everyone how the Crow’s Song killed her family…
The captain turned toward Salay and unscrewed her canteen. According to what Tress had overheard from the crew, it was common water, which explained why the woman wasn’t drunk all the time.
“Changed my mind, Helmswoman,” Crow said, then took a drink. “Take us east, toward Shimmerbay. We should restock on water.”
“If you say so, Captain,” Salay said. “I thought we had enough though.”
“Never can have enough water,” the captain said. “Can’t let my canteen go dry, can we? Besides, we’ve got rats on board. Need to pick up a ship’s cat.”
Quick as that, Salay called orders to the crew in the rigging and spun the ship’s wheel, and they turned toward freedom. Tress felt a surge of excitement.
Now, most people would agree that humans are not telepathic. We can’t directly send our thoughts or emotions into the minds of others. Nevertheless, you can hear my story and imagine the things I describe—the same as I picture them in my own mind. What is that, if not a form of telepathy?
Beyond that, there are those among us who have the uncanny ability to read another’s emotions. Not through magic, or mystical Connection, or any such figgldygrak. No, they are simply students of human nature. They can pick up on people’s moods through subtle cues of body language—in the way their eyes move, the way their muscles twitch.
Some of these are doctors interested in healing the mind. Others find their way to the clergy, in search of ways to help the human soul. Then there are the ones like Captain Crow, for whom their ability to read others provides a…different kind of advantage.
That moment on the deck, a part of Crow’s mind picked up that Tress was excited. That Tress was happy the ship had turned toward Shimmerbay. Crow wasn’t conscious of what she knew, or how she knew it, but—like one might feel an oncoming bout of indigestion—she knew that she wasn’t pleased and that Tress was the reason. If you want to ruin Captain Crow’s day, point out that she made someone happy. If you want to ruin her entire week, point out that she did it by accident.
Crow didn’t reconsider her decision to sail for the port. She wasn’t the type to second-guess herself. Instead Crow just pulled her foot back and planted a solid be-booted kick right in Tress’s stomach.
The unexpected blow left Tress groaning, tears leaking from her eyes as she curled up in a puddle of soapy water. Crow sauntered off, whistling casually and screwing closed the top on her canteen. She was, it might be noted, a perfect example of why the word jerk needs so many off-color synonyms. One could exhaust all available options, invent a few apt new ones, and still not be able to completely describe her. Truly an inspiration to the vulgar poet.
Salay now, she was another story. People considered the short helmswoman stern, but she’d been on the business end of a few unearned kicks herself. After barely a moment of thought, she locked the ship’s wheel in place—something she wasn’t supposed to do save for emergencies—and stepped over to check on Tress.
“Hey,” Salay said softly, rolling Tress to her side. “Let me feel at it. If you’ve cracked a rib, we’ll want to take you to visit the ship’s surgeon.”
“No!” Tress said. “He wants to cut pieces of me off!”
“Nonsense. Ulaam wouldn’t hurt a dove.”
“…He wouldn’t?”
“Nope. They don’t have hands he can embalm.” She winked at Tress, who—after a moment—managed a grin despite the pain.
Salay prodded at Tress’s lower ribs and listened to Tress explain what hurt and what didn’t. That persuaded both that the kick hadn’t broken anything other than Tress’s mood, so Salay returned to her post and unlocked the wheel.
She continued to watch Tress sitting in a morose lump on the deck. Eventually Salay called, “You ever worked a ship’s wheel before?”
Tress hesitantly stood and looked over at her, questioningly. Salay stepped back and gestured to the wheel.
Now, I know that on your planet, steering a ship isn’t that big a deal. In many places, they’ll hand the ship’s wheel to any kid with a standard number of fingers and a habit of leaving at least one out of their nose for extended stretches of time. But on the spore seas they treat it differently. Guiding the ship is a privilege, and the helmsperson is an officer tasked with a serious duty.
So even if Tress had often been on ships—as she’d been pretending—it was likely she wouldn’t ever have taken the wheel. Awed, she stepped over, double-checking with Salay before fixing her hands on the wheel in the positions the helmswoman indicated.
“Good,” Salay said. “Now, hold it firm. You feel those vibrations? That’s the seethe shaking the rudder. You need to be careful to not let that shake the entire ship. Hold the wheel firm, and take any movements slowly and smoothly.”
“And if the seethe stops?” Tress asked.
“Turn the wheel to straighten out the rudder, so the spores don’t rip it free. But again, you need to be careful. A sudden motion from the helmswoman can send sailors tumbling from the rigging.”
Tress nodded, wondering if maybe it wasn’t the best idea to entrust such an important duty to her. Salay, however, was a little like Captain Crow—in that she was the opposite of the captain in the way that only someone very similar could be.
Salay also had an instinct for what people were feeling, and she’d noted Tress’s dedication to her scrubbing. A woman who did such a simple duty with exactness…well, in Salay’s experience that sort of thing scaled upward. Same way you would be more likely to lend your best flute to someone who treated their own battered one with respect.
Tress held firmly to the wheel, feeling the chaotic churn of the spores beneath travel up the tiller ropes, through the wood, and into her arms. She felt a deeper connection to the sea when standing there, and—if not a power over it—an ability to ride it. There was strength in being the one who steers. It was a freedom she had never before known, and had never before realized she needed. One of the great tragedies of life is knowing how many people in the world are made to soar, paint, sing, or steer—except they never get the chance to find out.
Whenever one does discover a moment of joy, beauty enters the world. Human beings, we can’t create energy; we can only harness it. We can’t create matter; we can only shape it. We can’t even create life; we can only nurture it.
But we can create light. This is one of the ways. The effervescence of purpose discovered.
Then Tress saw the captain stalking across the deck, and the pain in her stomach—including some not directly caused by the kick—returned. “Won’t the captain be mad if she sees me up here?”
“She might,” Salay said. “She couldn’t do anything about it though. Traditions as old as the seas say the helmsperson decides who steers the ship. Not even Crow would dare imply otherwise. If I wanted, I could keep the wheel from her.”
As if to prove her point, Salay showed Tress the ship’s compass and sky chart, both kept in a cabinet next to the helm. She had Tress correct the ship’s course by a few degrees, taking them to the east of a group of large rocks jutting from the ocean ahead.
“It’s the helmswoman’s job,” Salay said, her expression distant, “to protect the ship. Keep a steady hand, steer clear of danger. Out of storms, away from spore explosions. Keep them safe somehow…”
Tress followed Salay’s gaze. She was staring down at Captain Crow.
“She is pushing the crew,” Tress said, cautiously choosing her words, “to go further than they want.”
“We all decided this together,” Salay said. “We’re responsible for our actions.”
“She’s more reckless than the rest of you,” Tress said. “She…” Tress almost explained what she’d discovered about the captain and Laggart, but thought better of it. Making such an accusation didn’t seem prudent. She barely knew Salay or anyone else on this crew.
“Crow is a harsh one,” Salay said. “That’s true. That might be what this crew needs though. Now that we’re deadrunners.”
Those were Salay’s words, at least. The way she glared at the captain wasn’t so respectful.
“I don’t understand why you’ve all done this,” Tress said softly. “Becoming…what you have.”
“It’s a fair question,” Salay replied. “I guess we all have our own reasons. For me, it was either this or give up sailing. Maybe I should have done that. It’s just…there’s something about standing on a ship, holding the wheel. Something special. Moons, I sound like a lunatic talking like that. I—”
“No,” Tress said. “I understand.”
Salay regarded her, then nodded. “Anyway, I have someone to find out here on these seas. Sooner or later I’ll sail into a port and discover my father is there. I can pay his debts and bring him home. Surely it’s the next port…” She lifted her compass, then stared off toward the horizon.
Tress felt a sudden stab of shame, though she couldn’t place the reason. Yes, she understood something in Salay’s voice—that longing for someone in trouble. That determination to do something about it since no one else would. But there was no reason to feel ashamed of—
The wheel lurched in her hands, and the entire ship began to shake. Tress gripped tight, then—terrified she’d drop the sailors from the rigging—eased the wheel to the right, straightening the rudder. The Crow’s Song stopped quivering, and—as Tress fought the wheel—slowly glided to a halt. The seethe had stilled.
Sweating, gasping, Tress looked to Salay. The helmswoman, ever stoic, merely nodded. “That could have been worse,” she said. Then, noticing how the sudden halt had panicked Tress, she added, “Maybe go take a rest.”
