The Derelict

 True to its name, the Wild Fox was a sleek ship whose long, narrow hull and high foredeck gave the impression of being in motion even when lashed to the quay. She was of a different kind than the clumsy barges that typically plied the safer sea lanes. Such ships often made little better than one knot. A sloop like Guozi's could run circles around them with a decent headwind. Men worked among the rigging, making ready to unfurl the sails from her twin masts. She bobbed in the water, drawing the mooring lines taut like a hound straining at the leash. A raven circled overhead.

The passengers' berth was below decks, a trio of hammocks tucked out of the way in accordance with their chief task, which was to not interfere with the crew's work. They watched the launch from the bow, the vessel slipping into open water on the back of a mighty tide. Onward and away from land they coasted, tacking into the trade winds, racing over a gleaming expanse of sapphire sea.

Once the shore vanished over the horizon they proceeded alone beneath a cloudless sky, a mote of humanity suspended between azure above as well as below, the churning white wake behind them their sole referent against the face of the deep. What to others may have been a stark and desolate vision took on a romantic cast in the eyes of the prince, who possessed the sort of imagination that colors whatever space it inhabits and found in the sea a spectacular canvas indeed. To him, the emptiness that intimidated some was instead the source of a freedom he had never before known. Somewhere in that world, rich with the strange and the terrible and the unknown, waited a destiny that was his alone were he bold enough to seize it.

He held a conviction, perhaps childish but born from some noble place within him, that a man is made by deeds and nothing else. There was no title, no education, no promise that could take their place, for words without action were like the night sky without stars.

He had been born in a palace, his father in a country manor, his grandfather in a mud wattle hut. He could trace the line of his blood through warriors, exiles, tribal chieftains, petty nobles and shamans, follow its meandering route into the mists of prehistory and recite stories of their triumphs and tragedies, the daring action that had catapulted them from obscurity to the throne. Never had they been more than a generation from ruin. Like a shark, they didn't have the luxury of staying still. The prince was well formed to such a way of life, being imbued with the energy and impatience of youth. Standing at the bowsprit with the world laid out before him, it was easy to put from his mind the question of what would come next.

Shadows flitted across the deck. Neteth looked up to see two birds, one speeding toward land while the other flew over the stern and turned back to glide over the ship. There seemed to be a purpose in the movements that bothered him. He walked below decks, to where Asphodel lay sleeping, apparently immune to the unending swaying motion that tormented so many others at sea. He knocked on the hull. One of her eyes cracked open just enough to see that it was him, then closed again.

“What?”

“What do you know about familiars?”

“Not much. I'm only an apprentice.”

“Would you know one by sight?” asked Neteth.

“I don't know.” She waved him away lazily. “Leave me alone, would you? If it's a problem, the crew can deal with it.”

He refused to be so easily dismissed.

“I saw two ravens following us.”

“Nobody has more than one.”

“Who would be looking for you?” he asked.

“Probably no one. You're the important one here. Maybe your servants are catching up,” said Asphodel. “Or it could be nothing.”

Her relaxed demeanor told him that her knowledge was far more extensive than such haphazard guesses. He nearly replied that the wizards of his father's court preferred not to use familiars, which was why he'd sought her advice on the matter. Other arguments were threaded together and torn apart in an instant – useless, he thought, if he wanted to get anything important out of her, and he couldn't order her the way he might at home.

“Even an apprentice is better placed to understand this than I am,” he admitted. “Won't you at least take a look?”

She sighed and rolled out of the hammock. There seemed to be a trace of amusement in her expression as she followed him. It faded to nothing once she saw the bird trailing them.

“Now do you see?” he asked.

“I see you've wasted my time. This is nothing.”

“And the other one?”

But Asphodel wouldn't answer. As she began to leave he stepped in front of her, suspicion welling inside him.

“Is that your familiar?”

“I don't have one.”

“Then what are you trying to hide from me?”

“I may not have much knowledge, but that's no excuse to give it away to everyone who wants it. Especially you.” There was something at once tired and disappointed and pitying in how she answered him. It felt to him as if in the past she had been on the other end of such a conversation and enjoyed it no more from this new perspective.

“You're entitled to your secrets. But can you at least tell me if this might affect our safety?”

“A lot of things might.”

“If someone else asked, would you tell him the truth?”

“Why should my answer be any different?” she asked in a tone the prince couldn't quite place. It sounded brittle to him somehow, as if maybe he'd said something to offend her.

“You think me the same as my countrymen. If you gave us a chance, you would see soon enough that we're not so bad as you think.”

“Well,” she said. “Seeing as your people like fables so much, I'll put it in terms you can understand. There was once a rabbit who found a jackal in a trap. This rabbit was very bold and very foolish, so he helped the jackal get out. To repay him, the jackal invited the rabbit to his house for dinner, where he offered up raw carrion for his guest. A meal fit for a king. But the rabbit, who couldn't stomach a single bite, left, feeling deeply offended. The jackal called to him, 'What's the matter? I've treated many guests in this manner.' He didn't know what's kindness to one is cruelty to another.”

A lookout shouted from atop the mast. There was debris in the water ahead, scraps of wood that soon drifted into view of those on deck, a twisted skein of destruction tossed about on the current. Burst barrels and the miscellaneous contents thereof spoke to the nature of the ship whose remnants they had stumbled upon, a merchant vessel like their own, though one evidently much larger. Sailors scanned the horizon for whatever hazard had done this. The sea in that area was well traveled and generally safe, but a daring raider or some other, stranger thing might still show itself, some mad mage or leviathan from the outer ocean where men seldom ventured. They all waited for word from the captain.

“Bring us closer,” he told the helmsman, and a quiet conversation played out between the two, brisk and heated. Then the helmsman nodded his acquiescence and they sailed nearer the hulk in the distance, which was little more than a prow jutting above the water. They watched and waited.