said that a sailor who refuses the oath is certain to drown and fall into the abyss, to float downward into eternity.
Stil-Eret,''At Sail on the Inland Sea;' from Travels at Home and Abroad
small ship struggled across the surface of the Inland Sea, tacking toward the island of Whitemount. In the sky, formless masses of late-autumn clouds moved in pompous procession, now blocking, now revealing the sun.
Silverdun stood in the bow, gripping the railing and trying to remain steady on his feet. He tried to recall the little cantrip he'd learned in prison to subdue nausea; it was a useful thing to know there, given the quality of the food. The syllables faltered on his tongue-best not to say it rather than foul it up, as it would no doubt make the feeling worse.
The ship was called Splintered Driftwood. All ships of the Inland Sea were so named, the captain had told Silverdun, laughing. In the harbor Silverdun had seen a three-master dubbed This Way to Drowning. Gallows humor, he supposed. Hilarious.
There were five crewmen on the ship, not including the captain; they went through their duties without speaking, ignoring Silverdun completely. When a swell came and tilted the deck up to a sincerely alarming angle, the quiet sailors paid it no notice whatsoever.
He gripped the rail tighter.
The railing was of smooth, polished wood, furbished to a rich luster, secured by gleaming brass fixtures. Silverdun clung to it as though it were the only steady thing in the universe. The harder he clutched, however, the more he felt the rolling gait of the ship beneath him. And if Silverdun looked too long at it, the bile began to stir in him again. He followed the advice he'd been given and fixed his gaze on the island toward which they were headed. It helped a little.
'Enjoying your voyage immensely, I can see,' came a smooth voice behind him. Captain Than strolled toward Silverdun, having no trouble crossing the rolling deck. He was of middle age, though it was difficult to tell just how old. As young as forty, maybe as old as sixty. He was trim and broad-shouldered, and had clear green eyes that evoked the surface of the sea.
'I've never enjoyed another more,' Silverdun said, scowling.
Than patted him on the shoulder. 'That's the spirit,' he said. He looked up at the sky. 'Long crossing to Whitemount, but not too bad. We'll be there before nightfall.'
'With all this wind I'd have thought we'd get there faster,' said Silverdun.
'Plenty of wind, yes, but all blowing in the wrong direction, I'm afraid.' One of the crewman brushed by Silverdun, pulled hard on a rope, and tied it back. The dance of canvas and rope was a type of wizardry unto itself, one that Silverdun would never comprehend.
'What if,' said Silverdun, 'I could get the wind blowing in the proper direction? Would that get us there faster?'
'Aye,' said the captain, a curious smile working across his face. 'That it would.'
Silverdun stepped toward the stern of the ship and looked up at the sails. There were two of them, wide and full, canted heavily toward starboard to force the boat across the current of the wind.
Despite his nausea, Silverdun was well rested, full of energy and essence. It would be nice to actually do something. For far too long, he realized, he'd allowed life to simply happen to him. After his long year of military service, Silverdun had been happy to be at play in the court of Queen Titania, wooing every lady-in-waiting he could get his hands on and steadfastly ignoring his duties at Corpus. He'd wanted nothing more than what life handed him.
Unfortunately, Silverdun's uncle, who had been managing his estates of Oarsbridge and Connaugh in his absence, had decided that he'd prefer to be lord himself, and had had Silverdun exiled to the prison of Crere Sulace.
There, he'd been drafted into service by the great Mauritane, and had followed the man on his mission for the queen, barely understanding why he was doing it. They'd landed themselves in the middle of an Unseelie invasion at Sylvan, after Mab had used the Einswrath weapon just to the north, at Selafae. Mauritane had led them into battle, and Silverdun had become a war hero.
But again, Silverdun hadn't become a war hero through much choice of his own; Mauritane had practically led him out of Crere Sulace at knifepoint. Silverdun had allowed Mauritane to drag him across half of Faerie, just as he'd allowed his uncle to steal his inheritance out from under him.
And after Mauritane, then what? He'd wanted nothing to do with life at court any longer; prison and adventuring had faded that particular blossom well and truly. He'd had no interest in returning to his family lands to try to wrest his estate from his uncle. No interest in regaining his roguish reputation at court.
During his travels with Mauritane he'd met the abbot Vestar at the temple Aba-E in Sylvan. There was no disputing that Vestar was a holy man, that he'd found a spiritual peace beyond knowing. Meeting him and spending time among the monks at the temple had revived Silverdun's longing for something, a longing his mother had implanted in him, and which he'd struggled with all his life. Silverdun had always wanted to believe
