3 – The Storm

The sky was darkening on the horizon. Damas had been the first to see it, but the helmsman had quickly felt the tension that was beginning to grip the Callianis with the first crosswinds, as the swell gathered strength. Damas cursed. It was to be expected: people avoided navigating during the rainy season precisely for the risk of this kind of squall. He barked his orders across the deck:

“Shorten the sails!”

The navigator held the wheel without too much difficulty yet, but he had grown more vigilant, one eye on the waves, the other on the anemometer:

“We’re going to catch it, right there, even by steering around the clouds. I can’t really see the end of it.”

“Take fifteen degrees starboard. If we can dodge this mass, it won’t be a bad thing. Provided it doesn’t follow us.”

“May the gods hear you, Damas.”

The Jemmaï did not answer, his eyes fixed on the sea. He didn’t believe in the gods, he believed in man. And with no gods to count on, nor heavens and starry firmament to address prayers to, man was going to be put to the test if the huge, dark mass that was beginning to greedily devour the glowing red sky of dusk caught up with the Callianis.

 

***

 

Lisa had managed to serve the tea without mishap; or at least without any other awkwardness than her morbid fear, which Jawaad did not bring up, it would have been useless and she might have spilled her cup, which, then, would have annoyed him. The ship pitched a little more harshly on the swell that grew by the minute, and even Azur had betrayed a little anxiety quite quickly. She did not like the sea, and though she had grown accustomed to traveling this way with her master, as soon as the weather turned capricious, she lost her calm quickly. The Ar’anthia nomads of the Allenys plains are not known for having sea legs, and the young woman was no exception to the rule. She was already beginning to feel a little nauseous and quickly realized that it was the same for the young Earthwoman.

Lisa had traveled no more by boat in her life than she had ridden a horse. The Callianis rolled with the whim of the waves, and it was very difficult to get used to this movement when one was not acclimatized to it. The back-and-forth motion of the tossed ship turned her stomach upside down and was starting to make her sick.

Jawaad snapped his fingers and pointed out a metal basin in a corner of the desk to the young Earthwoman. He was hardly surprised that his new acquisition was subject to seasickness; the contrary would have astonished him. And when she picked up the utensil, he snapped his fingers again and pointed to his feet, where Azur was already installed, her head on his thigh, swallowing hard, nauseous and pale. Once the young woman was at his feet as well, Jawaad returned to the documents he was drafting, commenting with apparent indifference:

“You’ll get used to it.”

Lisa answered with a hiccup. She already had a wan complexion, and the situation was not improving. Jawaad leaned over her, caught the side of her head with one hand, and authoritatively pressed it against his leg:

“Inhale through your nose, breathe deeply. And don’t hold anything back if you have to throw up.”

It did not take very long for the inevitable to happen. Night was beginning to fall, but Jawaad just had time to light his desk lamp before Lisa leaned over the basin, seized by cramps, and vomited violently. On the other side of the merchant, Azur, who until then had only suffered a few nauseous spells, had a dreadful retch of her own at the dismal spectacle.

Jawaad wrinkled his nostrils briefly, but was not otherwise bothered. He had spent enough time at sea in his long life to have stopped counting the times he had seen an entire deck covered in the vomit of sailors discovering the horrors of seasickness. He abandoned his notes and, after a glance at Azur and a brief caress to her cheek to allow her to move away a little and escape the smell of bile, he grabbed his cup of tea, which he had not finished, and slid it under Lisa’s nose as she piteously raised her head, her stomach tortured:

“Drink!”

The young woman awkwardly caught the cup, which she emptied in one gulp. Nearly half of it remained. The nausea persisted and was certainly not going to stop so easily. But the smooth, sweet-and-bitter liquid had the merit of chasing the bitter, dreadful taste from her mouth.

“Tell me what you know about tea?”

The question was incongruous as the pitching accentuated. Jawaad raised his head thoughtfully for a brief moment. If Damas was not calling him to the deck, it was because he was handling the situation perfectly, and the Master Merchant returned his dark gaze to Lisa, who was staring at him with a surprised and somewhat defeated face. Setting her eyes on the Loss-metal lamp and its golden light, she wondered fleetingly how filament bulbs were manufactured here, when on Earth it had taken years of refinement for Thomas Edison, their inventor. As she had only ever seen them at Jawaad’s and solely for his personal use, she suspected they remained rarities. Chasing away these strange digressions that her thoughts were taking, doing their best to make her forget the nausea, she swallowed, somewhat pitiable, and repeated everything Azur had explained and told her about tea and its art. She omitted nothing. She had retained absolutely everything, even if she struggled to be clear in her speech, her stomach tied up in torture. Her explanation was interrupted by another dry heave that ended once more in the basin, and when she drew herself up again, Jawaad was holding out a glass of water to her. He was keeping an eye on Azur, who wasn’t faring much better. But the latter had understood her master’s goal: to distract the young Earthwoman from her ailment by forcing her to focus on something else. She did not hide her surprise, however; Azur had thought Lisa would undoubtedly have retained the main steps of tea preparation, but would have forgotten bits of it. But no, the young Earthwoman had memorized everything on the first try, word for word; there would never be any need to explain it to her a second time.

“Then it is you who will prepare my tea tomorrow.” In doing so, Jawaad made a sign for Azur to return to him, welcoming her by gently catching her chin: “Go quickly get some bananas from the stores. The squall is going to last a while.”

Azur nodded and stood up, a little hesitant on her feet, even if the tossing was still moderate. Though she herself was a little sick, she was far more accustomed to moving about on a pitching ship than Lisa, who wouldn’t have gone very far in her condition.

Bananas were not quite a luxury around Armanth. They were cultivated in the coastal plains, and they formed part of the staple diet of the seaside villages of the Athémaïs. And indeed, it was one of the few effective things not to counter seasickness, but to avoid having to vomit bile on an empty stomach. Azur frequently needed them, and those on board were almost exclusively intended for her. But since everyone enjoyed eating them, the stock was substantial.

On the wet, slippery deck, the sailors were bustling vigorously. Here, everyone went barefoot, or almost; the best shoes in the world would not have gripped the soaked wood, which slipped as easily as if it had been lathered in soap. They had to haul in the sails and tack the ship to steer around the storm. Azur could perfectly see its dark mass streaked with flashes of lightning, silhouetted against the fire-colored horizon. She swallowed nervously; it did not reassure her at all to see this monster of clouds approaching. But around her, the men did not seem to panic about it. They were just very busy and all knew what to do. In their opinion, there was no reason to worry about an upcoming squall that could be largely dodged; and most had already known much worse.

She had almost reached the galley, which opened onto the stores beneath the forward deck, when she heard the lookout bellow:

“Sails on the horizon! Looks like an Imareth galleon!”

Azur froze, and ran into the stores. As with her, there was a brief moment of silence among the men on deck. An Imareth galleon in these parts meant a pirate. If they were lucky, it had plunder to liquidate and would lose interest in the Callianis. If they were unlucky, the ship was hunting for prey. And had just found it.

 

Damas cursed from the gangway near the helm. The Callianis was well armed, certainly, and the men on board were neither green nor soft. But the ship was small. She by no means displayed the firepower of a warship, and in the event of a boarding action, she would be outnumbered. In fact, technically, facing an armed galleon, she stood no chance. The Jemmaï raised his voice to hail the cabin boy nearby:

“Go get Jawaad!”

Then he returned to the pilot:

“Hold the wheel; we’re going to put on sail again, it’s going to shake us up. We have to be sure she isn’t giving chase, and for that, we’re going to gain some distance.”

“At your command. You’re the first mate, Damas. But we’re going to find out fast if this hull is as solid as she is fast.”

“I know. Now is the time to pray to your gods, Clessar.”

Damas left the helmsman there and, descending to the deck, began ordering the maneuver. The sailors moved about in an order that was only apparently chaotic; they all knew their business; no one argued with instructions. It was not necessarily wise to unfurl the sails again with a storm on the horizon, crosswinds, and a growing swell. But faced with the risk of being boarded, they all knew that the wisest decision possible was to outrun the ship that seemed intent on intercepting their course. Until, at least, the squall hit them.

The cabin boy knocked violently on the captain’s cabin door, only to find himself face-to-face with Jawaad, who towered over him with a dark, cold gaze like an unfathomable night. The young man, barely out of adolescence and a good head shorter than his captain, swallowed hard. He had to make an effort not to stammer before the taciturn Master Merchant, who seemed to observe him like one stares at a bothersome fly on an immaculate table.

“Um, Captain, Damas wants you on deck, we’re…”

“I know.” Jawaad pushed the young man aside with a gesture that brooked no argument and headed straight onto the deck toward his second, who was helping with the maneuver amidst the general bustle. Practically the entire crew was at battle stations, and the Master Merchant, even approaching, had to raise his voice, something he hardly liked having to do.

“Tell me!”

Damas turned to his friend, taking time to join him amidst the sailors going back and forth in every direction. The ship was beginning to pitch significantly more, gaining speed, and the rolling was worsening:

“The lookout confirmed it: a galleon, with Imareth sails, on the horizon. It seems to be crossing our course. So either we’re lucky, or we’re not.”

“Let’s assume we aren’t. Have the armory opened, and deploy the jibs. Action stations. We are going to outrun it.”

Damas agreed without arguing; he had seen his friend’s confident smile, and now was the time to trust him. He turned and roared with a voice surprising in its vigor:

“You heard the captain?! To work, hoist the jibs, and haul it all tight! Action stations!”

The Jemmaï was already heading toward the lower deck to go open the armory, but was still bellowing among the crew:

“And give us light!”

Jawaad watched him move away. Behind him, the cabin boy was still standing, looking frozen and a bit lost, and as Jawaad climbed to the helm, he stared at him for a brief instant before hailing him in a dry voice:

“Return to your station. Tonight is the hour of men.”

 

Azur had heard the shouts and the first orders as she hurried back toward her master’s cabin. And immediately, a cold, serpentine knot had come to coil in her stomach, which did not help her seasickness at all. Barely inside the cabin, she felt that the Callianis was beginning to pitch all the more as she gained speed, and that wasn’t going to improve.

This was moreover not to the liking of Lisa either, who was still unaware that the crew was maneuvering to flee the danger of a pirate. She was prostrated in a corner of the pile of mats, cushions, and soft blankets that served as a bed for the two slaves, at the foot of the Master Merchant’s bed. And, leaning over the basin that she had emptied as best she could through a porthole in the cabin, she was trying in pitiable dry heaves to vomit while her stomach was empty. Azur thought, seeing Lisa so sick, that the coming night would be long, but that seasickness would no longer be, far from it, the thing to fear most for the hours ahead. She leaned over the Earthwoman, passing her arm around the fragile young woman’s shoulders, and held out one of the bananas to her:

“Don’t eat it right away if you can’t manage it. But you mustn’t stay on an empty stomach. Try to drink too, drink all you can.”

Lisa turned a defeated, livid face toward Azur, her features piteously decomposed:

“I didn’t know…. you could be… so… sick.”

The young girl’s comment and unhappy pout made Azur laugh, which raised her spirits: she herself had to fight against nausea that was growing worse. She caught the pitcher of water nearby to gently raise it to Lisa’s lips, who allowed herself to be tended to. She was trembling so much that she would have spilled everything had she held the vessel herself:

“There, drink slowly. Yes, you know, even the sailors often say that when you start getting sick, you fear you’ll die of it… and then after a while, from being sick for so long, you finally fear you won’t die of it.”

Lisa swallowed a few gulps of water before catching her breath. Outside, the shouts and bustle were increasing further. She wiped away as best she could the water trickling down her chin before commenting in a defeated voice:

“I have already… wished for death so much since… since I’ve been in your world. It… it wouldn’t change much for me… to wish for it again.”

Azur offered a sheepish smile, after drinking from the pitcher herself… and holding back several waves of nausea, which were growing stronger and stronger. She had little to answer to her sister-slave’s resigned words. Even she, in the past, had sometimes wished to die after becoming Jawaad’s slave. Even if it was far away, even if with hindsight she could say that those moments of despair had been foolish, she couldn’t really blame Lisa for experiencing them. But for the moment, she had a more immediate and painful concern in mind: she too would need a basin before very long, at this rate. To console herself and think of something else, she gathered Lisa up to hold her, back against her chest, without pressing too hard:

“I’m not going to tell you ‘don’t say that’; I’m going to tell you three things instead. The first is that in your place, everyone would have wished to die, and that even happened to me too. The second is that you are alive, despite everything, which means you are much stronger than that, because others would already be dead in your place. And besides, you want to live because your sister shares your fate, and you want to live for her, to find her again. And…” She let out a smile that could be heard in her tender voice: “…the third is that everyone recovers from seasickness sooner or later, and that by tomorrow, it will be much better.”

Lisa nodded, swallowing hard. Her stomach was churning again, and she didn’t have time to ask the question she had in mind concerning Azur’s painful past, which she had mentioned without dwelling on it. She leaned over to vomit again. It was too much for Azur, who abruptly let go of her to run and fetch the other basin, imitating her sister-slave in their rough and miserable moment.

“But I think it’s going to be hard… very hard!” commented the psyké, coughing and spitting, returning piteously toward the young woman, sweeping her blond hair, now smeared with bile, behind her back.

And there happened, in that moment of painful trial, while the Callianis was shaken by the waves and speeding along through the sea spray, amidst the voices, shouts, and creaking of wood, something that touched Azur to the heart.

Lisa, against all expectations and before Azur’s crestfallen face, while she herself was terribly sick, began to laugh. A nervous laugh, yes; an exhausted laugh, too. But a genuine, sincere laugh nonetheless. When she laughed, one had the impression of hearing the sound of crystal, the same musical beauty as when she had hummed the day before.

Azur burst out laughing with her. But out of emotion and relief at this laugh, the first of Lisa’s she had ever heard, she could almost have wept at that moment.

 

***

 

Two hours had passed. Jawaad stood on the aft deck, spyglass tucked into his belt. To the sea spray had joined the rain, fine at first, but now driving and furious; the wind turned it into a flock of swifts constantly lashing all the men on deck. The only light on the ocean was the nebulous, fleeting illumination of Ortentia, which barely lit the completely overcast night sky with its cerulean blue. The huge cloud mass of the storm was devouring Loss’s great moon, which was disappearing a little more each minute. The only other lighting came from the ship’s lamps, indispensable for the men to have a chance to maneuver. With the corollary that their pursuer could not miss them in the night.

But the other corollary was that the Imareth ship needed light, too. The small, bright, fleeting point that vanished at times behind the waves was drawing closer, following an interception course. Jawaad no longer had any doubt about their pursuer’s intentions. It was hunting its prey.

Damas, who stood at his side taking turns with Clessar, the navigator, at holding the wheel, commented after yet another sweep of his arm to clear the water streaming from his stringy hair over his soaked face:

“You can’t take it away from them, they’re bold! They’re bearing straight down on us, and the wind is with them. But in their place, at night and with a risk of a heavy squall, I would have kept a low profile.”

Jawaad commented in a sullen, heavy voice:

“They don’t know what they’re hunting. They saw a small vessel with several masts and square sails in the colors of Armanth. They must align forty cannons, if not more, and nearly double our crew. Their captain is confident, and appearances prove him right. From afar, we are an ideal, weakly armed little prey, and he is sure we want to dodge the storm. Why then would he fear anything?”

“But on this course, we’ll never be able to outdistance them. I give them… let’s say half a dozen hours, maybe barely more, to board us.”

Jawaad stared at Damas and nodded, with a slight smile at the corner of his lips, his dark eyes resting with intensity upon his friend:

“And what if we changed the rules of the game a little?”

Damas understood right away. And let go of the wheel, whistling for a relief.

“We won’t be able to shake them, but let’s take them into the thick of the fury, to see if they hold the wave like the Callianis.”

“And since they want a fight, let us offer them our flank…” Jawaad sketched yet another satisfied, thoughtful smile. Damas had anticipated the idea and understood the goal of the maneuver, without the Master Merchant even needing to give him the details.

 

Damas bellowed the orders, and the next instant, the Callianis tacked, heading apparently right into the heart of the storm. The sleek vessel fought practically against the wind, but climbed up toward the clouds that had become almost invisible, so thick was the ink of the night. On the water, only the crests of white foam stood out against the abyssal black of the waves, like so many rolling, surging steel blades. In the distance, the Imareth ship also had to correct its course, determined not to lose its prey.

In the time it took to check their pursuer’s maneuver with the spyglass, while the Callianis began to roll on the increasingly strong waves, Jawaad obtained the information he lacked. The captain tracking him was now sure to catch up in less than an hour with his small prey, which, like any merchant vessel, would not be able to resist the power of a galleon armed to the teeth. He would board her well before the storm, sure that the merchant vessel would surrender without a fight, and was undoubtedly convinced that the Callianis‘s change of course was the error of a clumsy or panicked captain.

The trick was almost crude, but it made Jawaad smile. There was often no need for more to deceive an uncultured or overly confident man.

On deck, everyone had understood, and though some had stomachs knotted with anxiety, everyone was bustling about for the inevitable. The sailors were already polishing their impulse-pistols, the gunners were at their posts, and the silhouette of the pirate vessel, though barely discernible by its lights, was growing at top speed on the horizon. Her captain was trying to ensure he took the Callianis broadside, but if he wanted to maneuver without being completely outdistanced, he was forced to hold his course. Jawaad descended to the deck in turn, joining Damas:

“Sea anchors. Start the levitation engines!”

The Jemmaï paused, surprised, even as he relayed his boss’s orders:

“What?!”

“You heard me right: have the engines ready.”

All the sailors were surprised when Damas relayed the order they did not understand. But one did not argue with the captain, even less so with Jawaad. There was a hesitation, despite everything, especially among the mechanics and sailors who knew Loss-levitation technology well. Loss engines pushed a ship to float in the air by creating a repulsion tearing her from the Earth’s surface. But that meant the vessel then became a sort of wisp of straw. On the waters, she was freely subject to the troughs and crests of the waves, not to mention the gusts. Apart from, and many considered this the realm of legend, the enormous behemoths, nothing built by human hand could withstand such stresses without breaking apart in a handful of minutes. To sum up, levitation was never engaged on the high seas for all these reasons.

But Jawaad had an idea in mind, and except perhaps for the greenest members on board, for even the Callianis had two or three inexperienced cabin boys who had never served under the Master Merchant’s orders, all the sailors remained relatively confident. Doubtful, certainly, and they would gladly have called their captain mad at that moment, but they would not have questioned his tactical choices. He knew what he was doing; they stuck to that.

There was only Damas left wondering what Jawaad could be concocting. He would know soon enough, but the Jemmaï hardly liked failing to anticipate what his friend might be preparing.

In less than fifteen minutes, everyone was on a war footing, and the sea anchors cast into the water a moment earlier were further slowing the Callianis, which seemed nonetheless eager to swoop greedily into the storm. But at the wheel, Jawaad stared into the night through his spyglass, giving precise, dry directives to the navigator. He held a course that was going to cut off the pirate ship’s interception route, but aimed above all to take the storm on its fringe. If his plan worked, it would suffice to break away as soon as the assault ended, once the enemy was sufficiently neutralized, and turn fully into the wind to dodge the monster. If his plan failed… well, he could only hope the Callianis lived up to his expectations.

He leaned over the railing of the aft deck:

“Douse the lights!”

In an instant, the Callianis was practically plunged into darkness. The hour of truth was approaching.

 

***

 

Azur and Lisa had fallen asleep against each other, bundled up in the warm blankets of their shared bed. The young Earthwoman had again vomited all she could while the swell grew, and Azur had been hardly any braver. As for the bananas they had forced themselves to eat, they had not stayed very long in their stomachs. It was at the end of their strength that they had snuggled into each other’s arms, Azur having given up playing the role she improvised of a substitute big sister. The ship was pitching and rolling now on the waves as the storm approached, and the two young women woke regularly at the jolts. But exhaustion saw to striking them down again almost immediately.

Azur barely woke when Jawaad came by to lower the flame of his cabin lamp. He cast a dark, hard look upon her and went out again right away. She had had time to read on his features what he had no need to express: that events were about to accelerate. Sleep abruptly vanished, but she squeezed her young sister-slave a little tighter against her in a reflex to reassure herself. Twice in her life, she had witnessed a boarding action, and had even been slightly wounded the second time. Each time, she held above all the memory of her terror and the chaos of those moments, which bore no comparison to anything else, no tangible logic, as, she supposed, must be the case for all battlefields. Then the second memory she kept in mind, despite herself, was that of the groans and laments of the wounded, the smell of ozone left in the air by impulse-cannons mixed with the sweetish scent of blood and the bitter smell of smoke and fires. Her seasickness faded to give way to another nausea, her chest compressed by anxiety: she was going to relive that, and she knew what to expect, which provided her no comfort whatsoever. Ultimately, she envied Lisa a little, who was still sleeping, overcome with fatigue. She knew nothing of all this. Not yet, at least. And she made sure it lasted, dreading the coming battle and the terror that would then strike the Earthwoman, which she herself would experience too.

Damas, leaning against the gunwale, his face grave and concentrated, stared at the rough sea, which had taken on a hue wavering between verdigris and the blackest ink. The mass of the pirate ship was perfectly visible less than half a mile away, and through the glass he could have seen its crew bustling about, preparing for the first assault.

Around him, all the men were ready. Most armed with impulse-pistols, they waited in a palpable tension. They were grouped by twos or threes, manning the cannons trained on their target, which grew larger with every minute. As much as possible, one of the crew held near him a tall sheet of thick armor, of the same craft as the bonded fabric layers of Ordinatorii guards’ linotorci. At short range, these light, manageable shields would effectively stop bullets and shrapnel.

On the aft deck, Jawaad stood beside the navigator at the wheel. Clessar was not on his first maneuver for a boarding action, and he had served for years under the Master Merchant’s command. He held the wheel, and thereby the stability and course of the Callianis, with a master’s hand, and was not a little proud of it. But at this hour, he would nevertheless have vastly wished to be elsewhere. Grumbling into his salt-and-pepper beard, he took good care, however, not to curse against the nonchalant, almost lymphatic calm displayed by his captain. Jawaad was observing the sea as well, holding onto the gunwale with a solid grip, but seemed to take interest in the scene as though it were a spectacle he admired without feeling concerned by it. Even though in a few minutes, every life on this ship, his own included, would be put on the line.

The only exception to his apparent and annoying detachment was that Jawaad held in his free hand a pair of titanium sangtis, defensive weapons akin to sai, invented by Jemmaï martial artists. Impassive, lashed by rain and sea spray, he stared at the Imareth ship, whose deck lights illuminated it enough to now distinguish the numerous silhouettes of its crew, ready for battle.

The lookout bellowed from his post:

“Ram! They have a ram!”

Damas turned his head immediately toward Jawaad, the two men staring at each other for an instant before the Master Merchant gave a slight, confident nod.

The Jemmaï understood right away and roared, his order relayed all the way to the engine rooms:

“Levitation engines, ready for full power!”

On the ship tossed by the waves and whipped by the rain, which the wind made ever more biting, not everyone understood right away. There were even sailors who exclaimed that it was madness, that the sea and the Gods would devour them on the spot, if the pirate ship didn’t see to it first. But the most cultured, or the most experienced, had just grasped their captain’s plan immediately after Damas.

And for a surprise, it would be a surprise, which heartened them all at once.

Azur could no longer sleep. The shouts and calls on deck provided her with a troubling, clear glimpse of the situation, though she couldn’t have said precisely what was happening. But in any case, anxiety was knotting her guts a little more every second, and she could only wait, squeezing Lisa against her, who had barely woken and had apparently not realized what was happening before falling asleep again right away.

The psyké felt a relief from it, fleeting indeed, but pleasant. At least the young Earthwoman would not share her anxiety during the wait that had been going on for what now seemed an eternity. In the dim light, she could only listen to the orders shouted on deck, largely muffled by the creaking and groaning of the Callianis‘s hull, tossed by the squall that was growing more violent and harsh, and by the rain beating around them. The only thing missing was hearing the rumble of thunder, but so far it had only thundered muffled and distant, a sign that her master had likely been able to avoid the storm.

Suddenly, she heard other shouts, without being sure of recognizing Damas’s voice, drowned among the orders of the men on board, and the next instant, the low hum of the Loss-metal engines, which covered practically all the other sounds of the Callianis in an instant. She remained speechless.

Levitation was never engaged on the open sea!

The next second, she was sure she heard detonations, those muffled rumbles of thunder in the distance. But they thundered in bursts. She recognized, almost without realizing it, the sound of a broadside of impulse-cannons. And in the time it took to understand, she heard the first whistles tearing through the air, felt the entire Callianis tremble and groan through all her wood as if she were alive, prepared for the worst, dreading the dreadful noise of impacts on the deck and hull. She realized just the next second, almost with astonishment, that there had been no shock. Not a single shot had landed, then.

The battle was barely beginning, however, and she knew what to expect. But she had no time to be afraid of it.

The ship seemed violently lifted, as if a brutal hand were tearing her from the waters. Gravity crushed Azur hard against the floorboard, tearing a shrill cry from her. Lisa woke abruptly, screaming with surprise and fear, compressed to the floor by Azur’s body, who stared at her, panicked and completely disoriented, before catching her in her arms again. The ship was listing more and more, and everything that was not lashed down or put away in the office began to fall, tumbling noisily down the violent tilt of the hull. Azur flattened herself on the floorboards without letting go of Lisa, who was screaming with fear now, understanding nothing of what was happening:

“Hold on!”

She lowered her head while narrowly avoiding the carafe that was flying toward her with the other improvised projectiles from the brutal movement imparted to the entire vessel, protecting her young sister-slave with her body.

The Callianis was rising into the air and beginning to levitate!