The King studied the Mujar with narrowed eyes. The unman appeared to be harkening to some distant music, his head cocked. Garsh looked over at his soup-gobbling son, his heart growing cold. The lump of hatred that had always been a part of him swelled, fuelled by the aid of this worthless monkey who had made his son's life so cheap.
Chanter tried to make sense of the strange sensation he received, unsure of what it was. It came faintly on Dolana, so slight that it had almost slipped his notice, and he had to concentrate. Anxiety flared, and he bent to place his palms on the floor, letting Dolana seep in. Since he was not standing on the ground, it still came faintly, but now he could almost make it out. A faraway tingle; a whisper; a distant, almost silent clang of warning. He straightened, his brows drawing together. Talsy!
Chanter summoned Ashmar, raising his arms in preparation for flight even before the rush of wind and the beating of wings transformed him. The people cowered as a gust whipped the velvet curtains into a billowing wave of cloth.
The Mujar vanished, and in his place a gull stroked the air with fragile wings, sailing out through the doors. Garsh hurried to the balcony to gaze out and up, catching a glimpse of the white gull as it arrowed towards the moon-silvered sea. Yusan joined him.
'Well, so much for that,' the King muttered. 'Damned Mujar. My father taught me to hate them, and now I know why.'
Yusan nodded as he watched the gull vanish into the night.
Talsy spent the afternoon watching the captain consume several bottles of wine on the deck of the rolling ship. If he was trying to get up the courage to face her knife, she mused, he was not doing himself any favours. A drunken man's reactions were far slower than a sober one's. At sunset, she collected her plate of spicy fish stew and decided to barricade herself in the cabin. On her way down the steep steps, she bumped into a sailor, who apologised and stepped aside.
In the cabin, she dragged the desk across the room and jammed it against the door before she sat down to eat her dinner. A minute later, a banging came at the door, followed by the captain's demands to be let in. She ignored them, spooning the hot stew. The banging continued, and the door rattled under a fierce attack. A short silence fell, then the door was pushed inwards and the desk slid across the floor. Two husky sailors stood aside to admit the swaying captain, who slammed the door behind him.
'Now, slut, I've come to collect the rest of what you owe me.'
Talsy put down her plate. 'I don't owe you anything. You named the price and I paid it.'
'This part goes without saying,' he said, pushing aside the desk.
Talsy reached for her knife and found an empty sheath. Dismayed, she realised that the sailor on the steps had taken it, and a wash of hatred burnt through her. She jumped up and looked around for a weapon. Her bow was unstrung in the bag, useless. The captain lunged at her, and she skipped aside, avoiding his grasping hands. The cramped cabin hampered her, and the captain leered, his eyes bright with triumph. When he came at her again, she kicked him, making him stagger with a grunt.
No weapon offered itself to her desperate eyes as the captain scrambled after her. He laughed as he got hold of her coat, but she twisted out of it and he growled, throwing it down to leap at her. This time he grabbed her arm and hung on, his fingers biting into her flesh. With a yell of pain, she punched him, hurting her hand but making him grunt again. He slapped her, knocking her into the wall. She slid to the floor, stunned, and he threw himself on top of her, his foetid breath making her gag. The cabin spun as she tried to fend him off, her eyes watering from the blow to her head. Where was Chanter?
The captain had her pinned, and the fight had turned into little more than a tussle. Up close, her blows were too puny to have any effect on the drunken man who pulled at her clothes, and she groped for a weapon. Her hand found a heavy wooden paperweight that had fallen from the desk, and she brought it down on his head with all her strength. The captain recoiled with a yell, and she wriggled from his grip. As she struggled to her feet, he grabbed her ankles, bringing her crashing down. Her face hit the boards hard, and blood oozed from her nose. Stars whirled in her eyes as she tried to regain her feet with desperate urgency. The captain laughed and flipped her onto her back, his fingers fumbling with the laces of her shirt.
'Chanter!' she screamed, terror clutching her gut with a cold hand.
The captain chuckled as he pulled open her shirt and fumbled with her leggings. She squirmed and pummelled him, kicked and smacked, but to no avail. Remembering a trick her father had taught her, she slapped his ears. The captain howled and clutched his head, allowing her just enough room to wriggle free. In her desperate, muddled state, she could find only one way out of her predicament. She turned and hurled herself at the window. The soft lead frame gave way under her weight, and she fell through in a shower of glass and with a wailing scream.
The cold sea hit her with bruising force, driving the air from her lungs as she sank into its black depths. Thrashing, she strived to reach the surface before her burning lungs forced her to suck in water. Salt stung her nose as she clawed her way upwards, a red haze forming in her eyes. The overpowering urge to breathe almost won before her head broke the surface and she inhaled with a wail. The ship's dark shape sailed away before Chanter's wind, and the captain's shouted insults carried across the hissing waves.
'Now you're fish food, you stupid slut! The sharks will feast tonight!'
Talsy kicked against the hostile, freezing sea, the terror of the black depths beneath her filling her with an insane urge to climb out of the water and stand upon the waves. Foaming breakers slapped her, and she coughed and retched. Where was Chanter? Had the Mujar really abandoned her this time? Her father's words returned to haunt her as she bobbed in the pitiless ocean. Mujar had no feelings. They could not be trusted. They flew away at the first chance. Thrusting the hateful words from her mind, she swam after the ship. She cringed from the dark alien water below, expecting at any moment the rough brush of a shark's skin before it made its attack, the sharp teeth tearing her flesh.
'Chanter!' The weakness of her cry mocked her, lost in the vast cold expanse of the ocean, alone and afraid. The sea toyed with her, tossed her about, waited until she opened her mouth, then slapped her in the face with icy waves.
Real or imagined, something flashed silver in the black depths, and she screamed with uncontrollable terror.
'Chanter! Help me! Chanter!'
Terror squeezed her heart until she thought she would die of it, yet she remained alive, filled with sickening, mind-bending dread. Old stories of monsters and sea dragons brought visions of these beasts into her cringing mind. She imagined that she could see them in the blackness below her, swimming towards her, jaws agape. She should have stayed on the ship and paid the captain's price for passage. Anything but be left alone to die in this cold sea. Already the ship was little more than a dot on the horizon, sailing swiftly away.
Talsy tried to swim after it, but the sea pushed and pummelled her, dragging her back with watery hands. The more she kicked and stroked the dancing ocean, the less headway she seemed to make. As she grew tired, she appeared to become heavier, her waterlogged clothes weighing her down. Soon, it was all she could do to keep her head above the waves and try to breathe air between the wavelets that sprang into her mouth and up her nose. The Mujar had abandoned her. There was no doubt about that now, and nothing for her to do but wait to die. With that resolve came a modicum of calm, banishing the monsters, since it did not matter what killed her, a toothy beast or the freezing sea. She floated, barely swimming, stared up at the stars and tried not to dwell on what might be coming up from below.
The cold soaked into her as time passed. Soon her legs grew numb, and she would not know if something bit them off until the buoyancy they gave vanished. Waves hissed past, and the wind whipped spray into her face with cruel glee. Tiredness seeped through her, making her long to stop swimming and let the water swallow her, drag her down into its dark depths forever. The instinct for survival kept her head above water, as it would until she was too weak to swim.
Chanter beat his wings as hard and fast as he dared, frantic for more speed. His fragile bones bent under the strain, and twinges of pain warned him that he was pushing the limit. In a flash of Ashmar, he changed from a gull to a swift, his scythe-shaped wings whipping the air as he flew faster. With a flick of thought, he commanded Ashmar again, reversing the wind so it blew from behind and speeded him further. Yet still, it would take hours to reach her.
Chanter increased the wind until it howled, whipping the black sea below into a welter of frothing waves. It flashed beneath him, the speed of his flight such that the waves passed in a blur. The urgency of Dolana's faint
