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By Root 2171 0

stared into its cracked, smoky depths. He knew that the progression of the disease and the state of his stone were somehow related. He had thought for a long time that the stone was merely a canvas, painted with the events of his life, but now he knew differently. The stone, more and more over the years, was becoming a part of him—little different than his heart, his stomach, his liver. He also knew that the blight was in some way related. Things had grown progressively worse over the past decade, and this phenomenon, he had no doubt, would not have been possible in years past. The world was changing. And Nasim was the key to unlocking that riddle.

On the sixth day, with the sun high but occasionally hidden by passing clouds, Nikandr sat on deck, his back to the gunwale, biting into the hardtack biscuits that were their only provisions besides weak ale. Jahalan had been summoning the winds, coaxing them into the right direction, perhaps attempting to feel for the location of the trailing ship, which had shown itself several hours ago, closer than it had been in the morning. Nikandr realized he could no longer see Ashan’s skiff. He took the telescope from the helm and moved to the bowsprit. He scanned the horizon, but found nothing.

“Jahalan, where is he?”

Jahalan opened his eyes. He was nearly sleeping on his feet. He rushed to the bow and took the telescope from Nikandr. “I don’t know,” he said after sweeping the horizon.

They thought perhaps he was hiding among the clouds, but Ashan had never veered from his straightforward course. Had Nikandr been wrong all along? Had Ashan been toying with them in order to more easily lose them later?

Nyet. That made no sense. Ashan was arqesh; had he wanted to he could have lost them that first night.

Perhaps, then, he had changed his mind. Or perhaps he had finally realized that the Gorovna had been followed and it was too risky to lead Nikandr any further.

“Ship, ho!”

No sooner had the words come from the boatswain than the sound of a cannon broke across the stillness of the afternoon. Nikandr heard the whine of the grapeshot beneath the ship and a tight cluster of audible pops as it punctured one of the seaward sails. A moment later, the ship twisted counterclockwise, the telltale sign that the shot had ripped a sizable hole in the canvas.

Abaft and above, exiting a thick bank of white clouds, was the Vostroman ship. How it had gained on them so much Nikandr didn’t know, but they were in for it now. Their position gave the Vostroman ship many options and the Gorovna few.

Nikandr took over the helm’s controls. Udra was already sitting ahead of the controls, cross-legged, eyes closed and palms flat against the decking.

“Bring us down, Udra. Quickly. Viggen, prepare the cannon. Jahalan...”

“Da,” Jahalan said as he moved to the mainmast. Once there, he opened his arms, and the alabaster gem on his brow glowed brighter. The winds gathered strength as another cannon shot rang out. This one crashed into the hull, a poor shot—they had most likely been told to take the Gorovna intact, along with her crew.

Nikandr tilted the ship downward. With Udra suppressing the windwood’s ability to stay afloat and Jahalan’s winds, they were already picking up considerable speed, but the trailing ship—Nikandr recognized it now as the Kavda, a swift eight-masted caravel—was already closing the distance.

Viggen and the boatswain manned the cannon at the bow. They trained it upward, and it roared to life, but even as Nikandr heard a satisfying crunch as the shot tore into their hull, two more blasts ripped into the Gorovna’s landward mainsail.

“Give them wind, Jahalan!”

“They have two havaqiram.” Jahalan’s voice was calm, but his words were clipped, the muscles along his neck straining.

The wind—heading strong two points off the bow—swirled about the ship.

“I can’t stop them!” Jahalan said, his face becoming red, his hands bunched now into tight fists.

The ship was slowing. The winds were too unpredictable to capture. Soon they would be dead in the wind, helpless to stop the Kavda as they