Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [187]
It is a dream, I thought, in my drugged, restless sleep. A dream, and no more, Blessed Elua forgive me!
'Tis no wonder, then, that I woke not knowing where I was, nor whether I was awake or dreaming. The rocking motion of the ship was as lulling as sleep, and the strangeness of Illyrian voices around me as incomprehensible as words spoken in a dream. The sun was lowering through clouds behind us, and the sky to the west was shot with fire.
And there, coiled atop the mizzenmast toward the stern of the ship, a moving shadow.
I lay curled against the outer wall of the forecastle, staring up at it from beneath the canvas awning. A trick of the light... no. It moved, sinuous and serpent-bodied, spreading veined wings against the darkling sky; a wedge-shaped head lifted, with glittering eyes the color of old blood. Its mouth opened in a silent hiss, and a three-lined tongue emerged, flickering.
I am not ashamed to admit that I let loose a shout of pure terror.
It sent the entire ship into an uproar, sailors running hither and thither, fearing that the Serenissiman navy was upon them. Glaukos hurried to my side, pale with fright. "My lady, my lady!" he cried in breathless Caerdicci. "What is it?”
Only Kazan Atrabiades had not moved, bestriding the deck with feet planted wide, his dark eyes watching me across the length of the ship.
I looked again at the mizzenmast, and saw only the bobbing tip of the mast, the fluttering sail washed in the red light of the setting sun, a loose rope dangling from the yard. "Forgive me," I murmured to Glaukos, passing my hands over my face. "I awoke from a dream and thought I saw ... something."
He turned to the nearest sailor and said something soothing in Illyrian; the sailor relaxed, laughed, and passed it on to a comrade. I heard Glaukos' words passed from mouth to mouth, and presently one of the other ships drew in shouting distance alongside us, and the tale of the D'Angeline hostage's hysteria was bantered back and forth across the waves.
I noted that Kazan Atrabiades smiled grimly, and did not laugh.
"I made the dose too strong," Glaukos said apologetically. "My apologies, my lady; I'm used to dosing full-grown men, you see. Ah, well, you're awake now, and no harm done. We'll be coming soon to harbor, after moonrise ... will you eat? 'Twill do you good, and we've food to spare; lamb and rice wrapped in grape leaves, if it's not gone off."
"Yes," I said, watching Atrabiades. "Thank you, that's very kind. And water, if I may."
Glaukos brought the food and I ate while he fussed over me like a nursemaid. The setting sun dowsed its flames in the west, leaving ruddy streaks to fade across the horizon. As darkness fell, our pace slackened not a whit; these Illyrians navigated by stars where visible, by touch and feel— mayhap even smell—where not. In the prow of each swift ship crouched an agile sailor with a lantern, cunningly wrought, that provided a bright spark of light by which they remained in communication.
Later, I would learn, there was no pirate more feared along the Serenissiman coast than Kazan Atrabiades the Illyrian, for his seamanship, and the speed and maneuverability of his vessels, were legendary. He fought with ferocity and ruthlessness, and his men were trained to a precision a Camaeline drill team would have envied. He struck swiftly and fled swifter, and no one had ever caught him; in part because he sailed like a demon and in part due to the island-riddled coastline of Illyria, that boasted a dozen or more secret harbors. In eight years of pirating, he had lost only three ships.
All of that and more I would discover to be true; then,