The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [48]
Myrten was shaking his head as he knelt to get into the other locker.
“Is it all right if we go back on deck?” I asked.
“Of course. Just stay out of the crew’s way.”
So I went back up the ladder.
Whufff…whuff… Through the timbers I could feel the steam engine, as if the ship had come alive. A helmsman stood at the wheel on the bridge, flanked by a silvered and weathered man I took to be the captain, since his entire shirt was yellow.
“Lines aboard!”
“Lines aboard, sir!”
Clang!
“Pressure on the boilers! Stand by for paddles.”
Thwap…splat…thwap… Slowly, ever so slowly, the paddles began to turn as the Eidolon eased off the pier.
I nearly tiptoed to the rail to watch the Eidolon’s departure.
Tamra stood by the same point on the rail as when I had left her. She must have gone below because both her staff and pack were absent, but her posture was the same.
With its black slate roofs, black streets, and black walls lit by the low western sun, and with the grass hidden behind walls, Nylan looked more than ever like a brooding fortress rising from the sea. Nothing reflected the reddish near-setting sun, except the water itself. In a way, the scene reminded me of one I’d seen in one of my father’s history books—the White City of Frven, under the chaos-masters. But Frven had been all white, and it had perished. Nylan endured, its black order stolidly guarding Recluce.
A shimmer of distorted air caught the corner of my eye, and I turned my head to see one of the long and mastless black boats of the Brotherhood trailing the Eidolon. A single narrow turret gun bore on the Nordlan ship, shifting slightly as the Brotherhood ship easily drew up and took station on the Eidolon’s stern.
“You do that so easily.” Tamra’s voice was pitched to me, barely carrying the three cubits between us.
“Do what?”
“See the unseen.”
I shrugged. “I never thought whether it was easy or hard. I just looked. It is a strange-looking ship, though.”
“It’s not really fair, you know.” The redhead’s voice was expressionless, so expressionless that I felt colder than the sea breeze whipping through my tunic should have made me feel. “They don’t care how hard you try. They don’t care how much you learn. They don’t care.”
I edged closer. “The Brotherhood, you mean?”
“They don’t love. You’re the child of one of the high temple masters. You don’t swallow their beliefs, and they throw you out younger than anyone else.”
High temple master—my father?
The Brotherhood ship increased its speed and veered toward the right, pulling up beside the Eidolon. The impression of order and power pounded at me from more than a hundred cubits away.
“You don’t even know, do you? Is that fair?”
“No. But they don’t go by what’s fair, Tamra. It’s already pretty clear to me that they go by what works. If we get in the way…then we go.”
She turned to me, and her face was white. “You agree with that?” Each word was evenly spaced, dropping like a hammer on a forge.
I wanted to step back, but the ship lurched, and, instead, I grabbed the railing. The Eidolon had passed the breakwater, and the waves were higher.
Thwup, thwup, thwup…thwup, thwup, thwup… The paddles churned, dipping into the water with increasing speed, and a heavier and thicker plume of whitish smoke billowed from the stack.
“…foresail…” Sailors were scurrying over the masts as well, releasing and adjusting the canvas of the sails.
“Do you agree with them?” asked Tamra, thrusting her face closer to me.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh…shit…uhhh…arrghhh…”
“Can I do anything?”
“Yes. Just…leave…me…alone…”
As I stood there, she emptied the contents of her guts over the side. I danced away, since I was downwind and didn’t have that much in the way of spare clothes. But Tamra was too busy turning her stomach inside out to demand answers to any more philosophical questions.
So I walked toward the bow and watched the black ship heading north, moving at a speed that seemed unbelievable. No paddles,