5- Anis

Azur painfully opened her eyes to find herself face to face with Jawaad. By the time her mind emerged from the fog and she recognized him, she gave a start. Her master now bore no resemblance whatsoever to the proud, nonchalant nobility he usually displayed. In fact, at that moment he would have been more reminiscent of some image of a morrow—a nightmarish spectre made of blood and guts. But morrows were the ghosts of demons fallen from the heavens. Azur was sure they had no sense of smell. Jawaad, on the other hand, reeked of sweat, soot, and war.

The master merchant was holding Azur on his lap. He himself was slumped on a few cushions in a corner of his utterly ravaged office, which only heightened the psyké’s impression that she was living a particularly realistic and bloody bad dream. But the dreamlike quality faded somewhat as Azur’s gaze cleared and, immediately afterwards, grew anxious.

“Calm down,” Jawaad’s voice was peaceful, though hoarse. Between the shouting and the smoke he’d breathed in during the battle, he’d remain hoarse for quite some time. With her head resting against his chest, Azur could hear his heart pounding and his breath coming too fast.

“My master?…” she stammered. “What happened? Are you all right? And my little sister, is she all right? Where is she?”

So many questions at once; she knew Jawaad didn’t like that. The master merchant decided, however, to answer in order, as laconically as was his custom.

“We are sailing towards Mélisaren. I’m fine, and…”

Jawaad turned his head to gesture towards his bed, where Lisa lay, watched over by Sonia. There was an instant silence. Azur couldn’t hide her pout of annoyance at seeing Priscius’s tutor right there, a figure who aroused obvious hostility in her.

Sonia turned her head towards the master merchant and his slave. Even with her back to her, the psyké’s gaze had something so piercing and hostile about it that she sensed it immediately. She responded with an ambiguous smile that only served to fuel Azur’s animosity towards the San’eshe even further.

But seeing Lisa wounded, Azur swallowed hard and fixed her gaze on the young red-haired woman, shuddering at the sight of the piece of wood lodged in her shoulder.

“What happened, my master?”

“She exposed herself.” Jawaad gently pulled Azur closer to him, reclining a little further back on the cushions. Every movement was painful for him. In addition to the numerous cuts and various bruises he’d sustained in the battle, his right arm was completely numb: he had a deep gash running the length of his bicep. He added, “To protect me. Now, sleep.”

Azur protested for form’s sake, receiving a light tap on the head in response. Jawaad had already closed his eyes and exhaustion did the rest, leaving Lisa in Sonia’s care, who watched the master merchant from time to time, lost in thought. She had learned what had happened and how the young Earthwoman had been wounded. What had interested her most was what she had accomplished just before.

So she hadn’t been mistaken. It was universally reputed, among all Lossyans, that there is no way of knowing who is a Singer of Loss until they Sing for the first time. Sonia belonged to the San’eshe people; she had been raised among them since childhood, destined to become a shaman, and was consequently one of the few people who knew how certain subtle signs made it possible to recognize Singers in advance with a degree of accuracy. An advantage that shamans had carefully concealed for a millennium whilst attempting to survive the Church’s inquisition, which was hunting them all down. Sonia had also realized that Jawaad himself possessed another effective means of recognizing a Singer of Loss. She already had a very good idea of how valuable Lisa might be to the master merchant, but now that she had Sung for the first time—and apparently with a rare power—that value was plain to see. And Sonia’s interest in the young woman grew all the more.

But for all this to make sense and serve her purposes, Lisa would have to survive. And for the moment, Sonia had her doubts that the young woman would remain alive for much longer. Which aroused within her a sort of bitterness, a sorrow tinged with contempt for the stupidity of putting herself in danger, whether deliberate or not. In Sonia’s eyes, Lisa was her creation, her work, and in a way, her last hope. And she had just acted recklessly.

Sonia vowed to remind her of this mercilessly and make her pay the price. If she ever survived.

***

The first light of day fell upon the churning sea, illuminating the desolation reigning on the deck of the Callianis. A quarter of her rigging was in a sorry state and, despite the crew’s efforts to clear up some of the battle’s ravages, traces of the damage sustained to the hull, the decks, and the ship’s structures were visible everywhere.

And to the men as well: many were wounded, and by morning the toll had been tallied, a figure heavy with meaning: nineteen dead, and perhaps twenty by the end of the day. Among them were Clessar, the ship’s navigator, and Almando, the crew’s elder and surgeon, who had been crushed to death in the holds. And more than a dozen men were incapacitated and would be unable to man their posts for several days, at best.

Jawaad had managed to wash himself roughly and, after having his injured arm firmly bandaged, came to lend a hand to the men still on watch to repair the damage. The Callianis was listing slightly, and despite the sails being replaced, she was labouring along, though that was a rather relative term for such a fast ship. But for the master merchant, she wasn’t going fast enough, given that time was now running out.

“We’ll be able to go at full speed in four hours. The wind is still behind us. But we won’t be able to do much better than that, Jawaad.”

Damas had let go of the helm, from where he’d been directing the manoeuvre—he too was a little refreshed and had been roughly bandaged—and had joined his captain. The latter let out, his voice still hoarse:

“How long until we reach Mélisaren?”

“At our current pace, I’d say about six days. A little less if the wind stays behind us.”

“That’s too long. We need to lighten the ship.”

“I can have the cargo thrown overboard, but it won’t make much difference, even if we empty our holds. It might save us a day.”

“That’s not enough. She won’t last five days.”

Damas turned to Jawaad and stared at him thoughtfully, grabbing his mass of stringy, tangled hair and tying it roughly with a lace. He’d sort out finding a comb later:

“She’s a Singer of Loss; I saw her last night. She saved your life, by the way—I know a thing or two about that. Which leads me to conclude that I now know what you’ve been searching for all these years. I wonder how you could have known she’d be a Singer, but that’s exactly what you wanted to find out, isn’t it? A slave born on Earth, with the knowledge of those people—which is beyond comparison with our own—who wasn’t educated and therefore conditioned by a slave-owner, and who is a Singer of Loss. And she is, with impressive power. She’s worth a fortune, granted. And even more to you, clearly. But precisely, what’s at stake here, Jawaad? What is she to you?”

Jawaad gave Damas an inscrutable look before returning to his task: retying the knots in the sail he’d been working on for half an hour. His reply was an evasion:

“You’ll find out when we get to Mélisaren. If she’s still alive. Until then, it matters little. You say we can’t lighten the load enough?”

“Not with a leak and damaged rigging,” replied Damas, who frowned and made it clear he hadn’t appreciated his friend’s evasion of his question. “We’ll gain a day’s sailing time by emptying the whole hold; but no more than that.”

Jawaad nodded:

“There’s another way.”

Damas winced. He’d understood straight away:

“It’ll make us far less manoeuvrable, you know that. Not to mention the strain on the hull and the Loss-metal consumption. We’ll burn through all our reserves and the engines too; it’ll cost a fortune.”

“You’re right about one thing.”

“Hmm?”

“She’s worth far more than a fortune. I don’t care what we spend; that can be replaced; she can’t. Have the engines run at twenty per cent of their levitation capacity, and make sure they hold out. We must get to Mélisaren as soon as possible. She mustn’t die!”

 

***

 

“She is a Languiren…”

Azur formed a perfect “O” with her mouth in surprise at the confident remark from Jawaad, who had joined the slaves in his cabin and taken care to closely examine Lisa’s wound. Barely conscious, Lisa had flinched at his movements, but she had immediately relaxed, seeming to grow serene once more. The reaction was almost sensual, even though just a moment before she had been weeping with pain despite the remedies.

Jawaad continued:

“And they do say that only a Languiren can create a Languiren. Isn’t that right, Sonia?”

The tutor offered an ambiguous smile at the master merchant’s sagacity.

“Indeed, master. However, she could also have been born one.”

Jawaad cracked a brief smile while staring at the sensual slave who, kneeling at the foot of the bed, was preparing herbs and powders in a bowl meant to bring some relief to the injured woman. A large portion of the ship’s apothecary had been flooded during the battle, leaving only the master merchant’s personal supplies intact. Fortunately, he kept a few medications aside—mostly painkillers, healing agents, and anti-inflammatories—even though no one had ever seen Jawaad ill or simply in pain. He resumed, placing a hand on Lisa’s forehead and caressing it with his thumb. She calmed down instantly, almost magically.

“But then she wouldn’t be so powerfully bound to my scent. So you reshaped her into a Languiren after my first visit.”

The tutor let out another smirk, her gaze burning with pride. Azur huffed in annoyance and decided to stop reading the thoughts on the face of a slave so arrogant before she threw herself at her to gouge her eyes out.

“It is a good thing,” Jawaad continued, leaving the vast array of innuendos his words implied in shadow. “Surprising, however, that Priscius gave her up to me so easily without demanding anything more; he bound to have known that you practiced Languori on her. He must have paid a king’s ransom for the drugs and care required for such training.”

“Indeed, master, but I had no trouble telling him that it had failed, and he believed me, of course.”

“And that suited you, didn’t it? Azur, grab one of my tunics from the dirty laundry to serve as a pillow for my slave.”

Azur obeyed. Like everyone else, she had heard talk of Languori, and like all slaves, she was terrified of it. People spoke of a terrible torture aimed at breaking and then completely reshaping a body and a mind, making it extreme in its sensuality and capable of finding pleasure even in pain. But her knowledge went no further; she only knew that Abba himself disapproved of such things. Since she had trouble reading Lisa’s thoughts on her face, she was forced to conclude that she could never have guessed she was a Languiren. Not to mention that she had imagined them quite differently, closer to Sonia when all was said and done. That the tutor was one hardly surprised her. And it surely explained that glimmer of madness she saw all too often in her eyes.

Jawaad turned to Sonia.

“How long will she hold out?”

“Hard to say, master. Her symbiote is already dying. And I don’t know how to treat it; in any case, you don’t have enough medicines for that. But infection will invade her body in two or three days. It will kill her symbiote, and then she will die a day later, maybe two, at best.”

“And even faster if we remove the piece of wood…”

“Yes, master, she would bleed out almost for certain. It would take an experienced surgeon.”

Jawaad nodded, still leaning over the young red-haired woman who seemed to sleep, yet remained agitated and feverish, even with the man so close whose scent and presence incited her body and senses to languor.

“There is one waiting for us in Mélisaren. Keep her alive until then. At all costs!”

Azur, who was gently placing one of Jawaad’s worn shirts under Lisa’s head, asked:

“But, my master, wasn’t Almando your crew’s healer? He knows how to operate.”

“Not anymore. He is dead. Do everything you can, she must live.”

Jawaad stood up gently after placing Lisa’s head on his shirt. She stirred a little, murmuring words in her native tongue through her fever. The low thrumming of the Loss-metal engines could be heard as a muffled background noise.

“It’s likely to get rough,” Jawaad announced. “Stow everything away and leave nothing loose.”

He left the cabin, where a heavy silence instantly settled between Azur and Sonia. The Callianis was starting to roll as, lightened by the levitation engines, she lost her grip on the water, picking up speed at the same time. On deck, all the sailors were hard at work, but despite their shouts and calls, the anxiety was palpable. Jawaad’s decision and his latest manoeuvre were one more risk that they had trouble understanding or justifying. Damas was aware of this and had talked with them a bit to reassure them, stressing that the sooner the Callianis reached safe harbor, the greater the chances for the most severely wounded to make it through. But he suspected that the men weren’t necessarily convinced, even if they were doing their best to handle the sailing ship and make her run full-winded.

Jawaad rejoined his second at the helm after reviewing the deck and visiting his men, including the wounded. The dead had not yet been committed to the sea, and the ceremony would not take place until evening. As captain, Jawaad would have to preside over it. He had spoken little while visiting his sailors, but he had chosen reassuring and warm words, ordering that the rations of beer and spirits be doubled.

Mug in hand—he had made a detour through the galley to prepare his tea—he leaned against the ravaged bulwark of the quarterdeck near Damas, watching him hold the wheel. From his focused expression, he suspected his second was struggling.

“I’ll relieve you. Can we hold this pace?”

“We can, Jawaad, we can. But there’s going to be breakage before the end. The engines are running hot, and the boat is taking quite a beating.”

“As long as she holds, we push on. At this pace, it will take us three days to arrive. If something threatens to give out, drop the thrust to fifteen percent and reduce the jibs.”

Damas nodded without letting go of the wheel.

“I wouldn’t say no to a tea, actually; it’d be a nice change. Is she holding on?”

“She’s holding on, but it won’t last. And there are two other wounded men who could also really use us getting there fast.”

Jawaad set his mug at the base of the bulwark.

“And you’ve well earned a tea indeed,” he said, heading back toward the galley.

 

***

 

“But why did you turn her into a Languiren?!”

Azur blurted out the question, shattering the silence as she set about tidying the mess in Jawaad’s cabin. She moved awkwardly; the ship was still pitching and listing slightly.

“How is that any of your business?”

Sonia participated in the effort, but strictly at a bare minimum. She considered that her duty of watching over the wounded woman superseded any other order. And in any case, in her eyes, housework had never concerned her.

“It’s my business because she’s my little sister now, since she’s our master’s slave, for goodness’ sake! I struggle to read her feelings and thoughts in detail; fear always seems to cover everything up. If I’d known right away, it would have helped me!”

“You can’t read her? Interesting. You don’t seem to have that problem with me, though, do you? What am I thinking right now, at this very moment?”

Sonia stared at Azur with a broad, mocking grin. Azur opened her eyes wide, indignant and furious.

“Go fuck yourself!”

Sonia replied with a chuckle:

“You see, it’s not the Languori holding you back. Why do you care then if she’s a Languiren? It’s none of your business.”

“Yes it is! Why did you do that to her?! They say half the slaves don’t survive it! It kills them… or drives them insane. Besides, you’re living proof of that!”

Sonia stretched her lips into a sinister smile, a bluish flame flashing for a moment in her venomous gaze.

“You shouldn’t flatter me, you might regret me proving your point. But you’re right, she could indeed have died from it, one way or another. Perhaps it’s already done. I created the unfailing bond that now ties her to your master, and it’s no doubt that bond she obeyed when she put her life on the line. But I’m amazed you haven’t figured it out? You’re stupider than you let me believe.”

Azur drew herself up, nearly hurling the heavy earthenware dish she held in her hand straight at Sonia’s face. What held her back above all was the risk of being punished by Jawaad if she had to explain breaking the crockery.

“I hate you, you’re fake and dangerous! If I could, I’d strangle you on the spot! That girl is fragile, fearful, and sweet as a kitten. She should never have known the fate of slaves; nothing prepared her for it, she’s an Earthwoman. She’s lost here. And as if that wasn’t enough, you tortured her in the most terrible way on top of it all to make her an erotic doll! I want to understand why!”

“Yet it’s obvious, isn’t it? You who read faces and know when people lie, hide, and cheat, psyké.”

Azur paused for a moment, frowning as she stared at Sonia, the dish dangling at her side. Her voice calmed down at once as she deciphered every thought betrayed by the tutor’s face:

“It was… to keep her alive?… You did all that precisely to keep her alive. You’re convinced of it… But was there really no other way?”

“No effective way that served my interests, no. Your master wanted her, he was interested in her, but my owner was too stupid to use that information to gain an advantage with Jawaad. He was obsessed with his desire to buy back his reputation, even if it meant breaking Selyenda and ultimately destroying her.”

Azur kept staring at Sonia, reading from her face what she left unsaid:

“So you manipulated him and led him astray. You used the Languori to forge a force you could use as you saw fit, one that overcomes her fears and trauma, and bound that girl unfailingly to my master. That way, he would have such a hold over her that she could never belong to anyone but him, on the surface. Because she belongs to you too; she can no more resist you than she can resist my master. Finally, you made your master believe that you had failed, that she would never be worth anything; then you went to mine to explain how he could get her for sure. And that way… you ensured you could ask my master for whatever you wanted in exchange?”

“You’re not so stupid after all; you understood almost everything. But one has to push you a bit to get you thinking.”

“And… you knew she was a Singer of Loss?”

“Yes, from the very beginning. Nobody knows how to look; I do.”

Azur finished tidying away what was left cluttering the room, turning back toward Sonia, who lazily reclined against the bed where Lisa slept, unaffected by the pitching ship, even as it grew more pronounced: the Callianis was charging ahead under full sail, her structures creaking rhythmically under the strain.

“That’s why he watches over her like this. I’ve never seen him so patient with a slave. Not even with me; at least, not in the beginning.”

“It works to my advantage. Unless she dies, in which case I might share the same fate.”

Azur sat on the edge of the bed, running a gentle hand through the wounded girl’s dirty hair. A damp cloth rested on her forehead; the remedies soothed her fever and pain, but the enormous wooden splinter still protruded from the bloodied bandages on her shoulder. The psyké instantly cut off her reading; she was picking up far too precisely the suffering her sister-slave was enduring.

“The thought of dying with her doesn’t seem to scare you.”

Sonia kept her eyes closed and answered with detachment:

“That’s because I’m already dead.”

 

***

 

Night was falling on the second day since the attack of the Brise-Gueule. Jawaad was taking turns at the helm with Damas, refusing to hand over his watch to another sailor, seemingly caring not at all about his hours awake or his exhaustion. When he wasn’t at the wheel, he toured his ship and his men, checking on the condition of each and every one, before returning to his cabin to snatch a few hours of half-sleep.

The Callianis was holding up, despite the grueling pace the master merchant was forcing upon her. But she was growing weary. The men too. Time was pressing, and no one could endure this effort for much longer. The hull was straining, the engines were heating up severely, and they had had to drench them generously to keep them from frying and, worse, starting a fire. That wasn’t what worried Jawaad the most, however. Just before taking his watch, Sonia had informed him, with a detachment that hardly surprised him but didn’t fool him either, that Lisa’s Linci had just died. Her symbiote defeated, the infection would spread unchecked, and the young woman would die in turn within a day or two, at best.

Damas had quickly gone to rest after checking in. He could easily guess Jawaad’s hidden anxiety and muffled anger. But there was little he could do about it; his main concern was ensuring the Callianis reached safe harbor while withstanding the massive strain imposed upon her by water-levitation. He already estimated that a great deal of repairs would be needed once docked before putting back to sea. Assuming no other incident aggravated the situation. As for his question, he wouldn’t forget to ask it again when they arrived… provided, of course, that Jawaad’s slave made it there alive. At night, prudence normally dictated reducing sail to navigate at a restricted speed. But Jawaad had the crew working in shifts as well, with all lanterns lit so as not to slow the ship’s pace. The men were holding on thanks to strong tea and booze, with the added motivation of a promise of triple pay upon arrival.

Azur appeared in the gloom to join Jawaad. She needed air, and above all, she was fleeing Lisa’s agony, which her psyké talents made far too acute for her to bear. She even envied the apparent indifference—even though she knew it was feigned—that Sonia displayed as, with each passing hour, the young Earthwoman’s fate seemed increasingly sealed. She had made a detour to the front of the ship, stopped by the galley, and returned to her master with a cup of tea, which she handed to him in silence. Something else was troubling her more and more. Since the previous day, Jawaad had been hiding his thoughts from her, doing so increasingly poorly, yet without her being able to clearly read them on his face.

But the moment she met Jawaad’s dark, distant gaze as he took the cup, offering her a caress as a reward, she understood. Time stopped abruptly. She couldn’t hold back the tears that began to burn her eyes:

“My master?!”

Jawaad remained silent for a moment. Azur lowered her head, grief-stricken, trying to hide her panic as if the effort could deny what she had just understood. He gently lifted it back up, holding her chin in his hand, studying his slave’s sob-drowned eyes with a gentle look:

“You’ve figured it out?”

Azur’s jaw trembled. Her cheeks were covered in tears, her voice choked and pleading:

“You… you are dying?”

Jawaad nodded slowly, pulling Azur against him:

“I still have some time left, Azur. But I am old. A new symbiote wouldn’t change anything; it will soon decline, and so will I. There is a solution, but for that, Anis must live.”

Azur stammered, fighting with all her might against a wave of tears she knew was inevitable:

“A… Anis?”

“Yes. That is the name I am going to give her. If she lives. Otherwise, it won’t really matter anymore.”

Azur burst into sobs. Jawaad set down his cup to wrap his arms around her and hold her tenderly. She cried with all her might, her voice broken, her body trembling with her tears:

“Oh, my master. Please, I don’t want you to die! You can’t die! I love you!”

Sobs drowned her words into undecipherable supplications. But Jawaad knew; she would have taken her own life for a chance to protect the man she had accepted as master with all her soul. She couldn’t even bear the thought of surviving him.

“I know, Azur, I know. Now, everything depends on the wind, on destiny… and on the Callianis. Watch over your chain-sister, keep her alive.”

After a kiss to her lips and then her forehead, Jawaad gently pushed his slave away to pick up his cup of tea and hold the helm with his other hand, his gaze fixed on the darkness:

“Return to her bedside.”

He didn’t add an injunction for his slave to keep secret what she had read. It was unnecessary; she would never have betrayed what she learned from her master, who naturally had practically no secrets from her.

Azur stepped back, still shaken by sobs, and stared at Jawaad for a moment before her gaze fell upon his pendant. The astrolabe never left the master merchant’s neck, but the psyké had never known what it could represent to her master. She raised her drowning, pleading eyes back to him.

He nodded, without a word, before dismissing her with a gesture. It was useless to try to hide the truth from Azur. Her survival depended on the secret of that object, and although she could not understand why or how, that secret seemed, to Jawaad, capable of being pierced only by the wounded young Earthwoman he had decided to rename Anis.

 

***

 

There was a cry, first from the lookout, then passed along from the bow from mouth to mouth, enthusiastic and resounding:

“Land! Land!”

It woke the crew more effectively than the ship’s bell or Damas’s most inventive bellowing. As one man, every resting sailor left the bunks of the lower deck and rushed outside to see what the shouts announced: dry land.

The shouts quickly reached Jawaad’s cabin, waking Sonia instantly despite the little sleep she had allowed herself since she had been tasked with keeping her charge alive. She had fallen asleep barely a handful of hours earlier and remembered being moved by Jawaad upon his return in the middle of the night.

The moment she opened an eye, she noticed the master merchant was not there. Azur was sleeping soundly on the other side of the bed where Lisa lay, her forehead glistening with sweat, her complexion waxy, overcome with fever. Sonia leaned over the young woman to check her condition, wrinkling her nose at seeing—and smelling—the infection festering in her shoulder wound around the wood still lodged inside. She was completely unconscious; the tutor quickly concluded it was likely the onset of a coma. She thought absently that even if they reached land and were taken care of by good doctors, it was far from certain the young woman would ever wake up.

In a few steps, stretching like a cat, she too was on deck, taking a deep breath of the crisp early morning air that revived her. The sailors were hurrying as well, mingling with the men on watch to lean over the bulwark of the forecastle.

Above the horizon, in the humid mist of dawn, a rugged coastline of calanques stood out, seemingly barren, and at the edge of sight, the tall, straight silhouette of a lighthouse rose above the fog banks.

The Callianis had held up. Not without breakage, however, but she had bravely endured. Sonia turned her head and saw Jawaad at the wheel on the quarterdeck, holding the helm with one hand and, like everyone else, staring at the land on the horizon.

Sonia narrowed her eyes. There was something changed about this man, someone she had found intriguing and curious to uncover ever since she had met him a few years prior. He had always been the only male to remain inscrutable and undecipherable to her, the only one not only to resist but to display a total disdain for her flamboyant charms. Which made him, in the tutor’s eyes, a being apart, someone who invited a desire to conquer him. A game that thrilled her and had allowed her to explore a bit of the taciturn and deeply mysterious master merchant.

Most men, having lived so long, she had seen proof of it time and again, were easy to figure out: they wanted power, luxury, pleasure, wealth, and the freedom to wallow blissfully in it all. Decadence and lust were never far from their desires, hidden behind the curtains of their honor and pride; and apart from a few passionate intellectuals seeking the greatest power of all, knowledge, they would all content themselves with the opportunity to indulge in every excess of life without a thought for tomorrow. And to drown themselves in it with complacency. But not Jawaad. Yet, so rich, so powerful, surrounded by luxury, he very well could. But he didn’t. He even clearly despised the pleasure and comfort he could so easily abuse. The power he seemed to seek could not be satisfied by such material artifices.

Yet at this moment, staring at the horizon and maneuvering alongside Damas, who, having also joined the deck, added his voice to the boatswains’ to bring the Callianis about, Jawaad showed a different face. A face she had caught a glimpse of over the last few days whenever he stared with a distant look at the wounded girl whose life depended on their speed in reaching Mélisaren. The face of a man whose own life was hanging in the balance.

Sonia’s reflections were interrupted by the shouts and orders thrown across the deck. The entire crew was now on war footing, and within fifteen minutes, the Callianis had veered west to follow the coast toward the lighthouse as the sun chased away the morning fog. The tutor looked for a spot to take in the spectacle, making her way up the deck, not without teasing the working sailors with her fickle sways and burning glances, and climbed all the way to the tip of the bowsprit.

From there, she could peacefully take in the waves sliced open by the stem raised high by the Callianis‘s engines, and the horizon where the coastline of the Eteocles Plains was outlined. The calanques fell straight into menacing reefs in rough waters, which the ship avoided by rounding the approaches to the lighthouse. From afar, it resembled a thick, conical finger of old white stone beaten by the winds, standing tall on its solitary, desolate peak. The fog dispelled by the morning sun then revealed, almost dramatically, what might have been taken an instant before for a hidden cove behind a rocky cape, but which the cleared sky unveiled as the shores of a deep gulf. It cut into an increasingly verdant landscape, where meadows and fields could be glimpsed on the hillsides, capped by thickets of maquis and rows of wind-twisted trees, and shod in hamlets and villages with white plaster and red roofs.

Then the first triangular sails of fishing boats stood out against the gulf illuminated by daylight, followed by the aquatic pattern of the lines of the Eteocles River estuary, endlessly tracing, almost to the northern horizon, the chiaroscuro marbling of fresh and salt waters still refusing to mix. The gulf was vast and deep. From the eastern shore to the western one, it opened up over nearly forty miles before narrowing as it cut into the land for over seventy miles.

Mélisaren was built not far from the river mouth, situated on a broad rocky plateau. But the port city was still too far for Sonia to see, even if she had already witnessed this landscape and known this route, which her long life had led her to take before. She remembered that navigation was risky here for anyone unfamiliar with the gulf and the traps of its shoals. She then heard Damas ordering to slow the pace. They wouldn’t be at port before midday at best.

Sonia left the comfort of her perch above the waves with regret, but she had a task to accomplish. Her charge had to hold on a little longer, and she didn’t know what else she could attempt to achieve that. When a host’s symbiote died, the infection usually became uncontrollable and finished the patient in a very short time. Paradoxically, what allowed Lisa to endure was that she hadn’t worn her Linci for very long; it hadn’t had time to supplant her immune system, and her body was resisting the symbiote’s death far better than a Lossyan’s would have in the same situation. But she was weak and, as Sonia knew all too well, fragile. The Educator was fully aware that she was now powerless. It was no longer a matter of days, but of hours.

Returning to the quarterdeck where Jawaad’s cabin lay, she felt the weight of a dark, harsh stare fall upon her. At the helm, the master merchant hadn’t moved, directing the maneuver. Had he even slept since yesterday?

Yet looking up at him before rejoining her charge, whom Azur was surely already watching over, Sonia offered an indefinable smile. Before that dark gaze observing her without betraying a single thought, her tortured mind suddenly arrived at something that intrigued and incongruously delighted her.

At this moment, three lives were bound, as unfailingly as she had bound the little Earthwoman to the master merchant and to herself. She amused herself by thanking the twists of fate that had just woven this strange fatality, the outcome of which remained unknown to her. Before the end of the day, she would know what the ancient gods—hers, those of the distant San’eshe jungles, even if she had forgotten their very names so lost was the memory in the insane mazes of her mind—had decided as a resolution.