psychological, cruelly aroused by masters. Women, their master’s properties, find their meaning, and their true self, in bondage. They are content, and whole, only at his feet. Sometimes slaves, before their vending, are starved of a master’s touch for days. They then are desperately needful on the block, piteously supplicatory of purchase. I looked down from the platform and ring, at a particular slave, one I feared I was finding of interest, far below, Alcinoe. Already in her, I thought, even though she might as yet be white silk, there lurked a remarkable sexual latency, doubtless far greater than the naive slave now suspected. Doubtless she would be astonished at the transformation which would, as she was collared, eventually be wrought in her. Perhaps at first she might be terrified, or dismayed, to discover herself become so helpless, the victim and prisoner of needs so fierce and commanding, so uncompromising and uncontrollable, but later, though helpless in their throes, she, as her sisters, would rejoice in the thrashing ecstasies of the choiceless vessel of a master’s pleasure. In her conquest and ravishing she is raised to the stars, if only to be scornfully cast again to earth, he finished with her, to sob her gratitude, and her hope that she might be again, at her master’s pleasure, subjected to the enforced raptures of the conquered slave. Speak to such a woman of freedom? She has known bondage. She would rather die than leave her master.
From the platform and ring I looked down at the slave, in her work. She was not unattractive. How luscious are such nicely curved, worthless, meaningless, degraded objects! How men desire them! How different they are from free women, a thousand times inferior, a thousand times superior.
It is easy to understand how it is that men will kill for them.
Yes, I thought, she would doubtless be astonished at the transformation which she, the former Lady Flavia of Ar, would undergo. She would then find herself other than she had been, now irrecoverably different.
It is often amusing to see a woman who denies that she is sexual, and that she can be made so, and prides herself on her inertness, frigidity, and superiority to desire, put in chains, and, within Ehn, transformed into a begging slave. And that is the merest beginning.
Later, in her cage, she feels the collar on her throat, with both hands. She moves it about. It is well on her. It cannot be slipped. She then grasps the bars, kneeling. She squirms in the small cage, in which she cannot stand, naked, uneasy. She has begun to suspect what it might be, to be a slave. She wonders who will be her master.
I looked down again from the platform and ring on the slave, now, on its dangling, swaying rope, rinsing a wastes pail. I remembered her, at the foot of the second mast. Indeed, I recalled the view of the physicians, from long ago, early in the voyage. I had little doubt that slave fires might soon, when men chose, rage mightily and irresistibly in that lovely little belly. After a few days as a red-silker, I could imagine her crying out publicly, even before free women she had known, on an auction block, even in Ar, in misery and gratitude, at the deft, gentle, demonstrative touch of the auctioneer’s whip. Her slave needs give a master much power over a woman. And it is pleasant, of course, to exercise such power. It is one of the pleasures of the mastery.
The girl, hand by hand, foot by foot, drew up the pail, swirled water within it, and cast the water back to the sea. She then undid its rope, and bent to fasten the second pail, emptied, to the rope, to rinse it, as well.
The other three girls had returned below decks.
The stem castle deck was empty. There was the helmsman, of course, on the helm deck. Two officers were on the stern-castle deck, but, at the distance, I could not identify them. Interestingly fewer officers were now in evidence than some days before, even after the stringing of the storm ropes. This was supposedly by order of the ship’s governing lords, Nishida and Okimoto.
I had fastened the safety rope about my waist, as usual, but this precaution, day after day, seemed ever more unnecessary, if not foolish.
How could the sea be more calm?
Perhaps Thassa slept.
I saw no sign of her awakening.
There was no sign of the fleet of Lord Yamada. It had not followed us.
The sea was calm.
I did see, rather forward, on the starboard side, a dark cloud, far off. I had not noticed it before.
Two or three Ehn passed.
I sensed, suddenly that something was different, though I saw nothing. The girl, too, stopped in her work. I wondered if this strangeness was only felt forward. I saw no change aft, on the helm deck, or the stern-castle deck.
I suddenly cried out, in horror, “Seize the ropes! Seize the ropes!”
Before us, the sea had opened, and, before the ship, with steep sides, there appeared a valley, water pouring down its sides, as into a vast hole. “Seize the ropes!” I cried.
The bow of the ship paused, teetering, as though at the edge of a cliff, and then, suddenly, it plunged downward, and slid to the side of that steep, pouring, liquid valley, and went over to her side, and continents of water poured over her, and then engulfed her, and she spun about, for all her size, like a child’s toy, and we were under water, turning, and I was swept from the platform and ring, and flung to the end of the safety rope. Then the great ship rotated, buffeted, in the sea, and was washed upward, and she righted herself, and her bow, like a breaching leviathan, the northern whale, broke the surface and I fell back against the mast, gasping for air. The great ship pitched and turned as might a straw in a maelstrom. The waters churned about her, and she was smote as with discordant, hurtling rivers in the sea, and I feared her timbers, though of mighty Tur wood, might be stove in. The ship leapt forward, as waves rose behind her, and then her bow again went under the water, and I clung to the mast, and saw the sea not feet below me. The ship rose from the water, water pouring from her, as from the back of an emerging sea tharlarion. I saw, far below, the small figure of the slave, on a storm rope, both arms fastened about it. Behind us I saw steam rising from the sea, and the water began to boil. The helm deck and stern-castle deck were empty. I feared the calking might be melted from the timbers. The bit of canvas we had flown was soaked, and heavy, and could barely move in the breeze which, but moments ago, had gentled us our course. The ship rocked, and, I feared, was turning back, toward the steaming sea. I saw a figure clamber to the helm deck, a hatch quickly sealed behind it. It was Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman, who threw his weight, as that of two men, against the helm pole. The ship, the breeze shaking in the soaked canvas, turned west. I saw another mighty trough before us, and tried to cry out, but no sound came from my throat, and I clung again to the mast. Twice more was the great ship submerged, and twice more, turned and buffeted, she rose to the surface. Steam rose from about us. Water churned, and the sea was as a cauldron, hissing and bubbling. And Cabot, struggling at the helm pole, held the course west, steadily. The sea, three times, had fallen away beneath us. It was as though the floor of the sea itself had shuddered and cracked, opening a world into which water had poured. But this was not what was most frightening, and I saw what many men know of, but few men have seen. Mighty Thassa would give berth. I saw rising, on either side, and before, mountains rising from the sea, mountains of fire, bursting alive, mountains moving, rising, run with molten streams of rock, some loose like flaming water, some patient and thick, dully red, and from these strange mountains, cast into the air were clouds of flaming rock, cinders, and ash. The air fumed and stung with particles, and I fought to breathe, and yet feared to do so. Ash clung about my face and mouth. My eyes stung. How could one live in such air? Surely one would suffocate, or strangle, and collapse, dying in such a fog of cinders and gas. The cracking noises of the angry, burning mountains, too, like thunder at one’s ear, almost deafened one. A gigantic rock fell into the sea, hissing, to port. The sails, I feared, in the falling, flaming debris, would have been ignited, had they been dry. Cinders and ash rained on the deck. Cabot was screaming on the helm deck, for men to emerge, to see to the ship. There was fire on the stern-castle deck, and the bulwarks to starboard were aflame.
Coughing, eyes stinging, burned by cinders, I regained the platform and ring. I looked down to the deck.
Cabot had now been joined by Pertinax and Tajima, and a number of Pani and armsmen were emerging from the lower decks, forward. I saw Lord Nishida among them, gesturing, crying out. Men ran to smother flames. Buckets were cast, and heated water drawn aboard, to be splashed on the flames. Many men had put cloths about their faces.
I muchly desired to free myself of the safety rope, descend the ratlines, and aid in the protection of the ship, but I knew I would not do so. It was not that I feared to leave my post, or feared to be flogged, or killed, for doing so. Rather, it was my watch, and I was of the ship.
The deck was black, and pitted.
The heated air had dried the sails, and they now billowed, as the wind had risen. The course, now held by mariners, continued west, then west by southwest, taking its way amidst new-risen, flaming, towering
