Enigma

Part IV

Shortly after dawn the next morning, Tikaya stepped onto the deck to look for Rias. If he had slipped into his hammock the night before, it had been a brief visitation. She’d been awake until late, hunched over the flute and scribbling ideas in her journal, trying to dredge tidbits of Nurian history from the dark labyrinthine passages of her brain. She’d hoped Rias would come to bed so she could find a private moment to show him the flute and tell him about the captain’s threat. Most of the seamen had filtered through at some point as they alternately slept and worked on four-hour shifts, but she’d fallen asleep before Rias had come. If he’d come. Perhaps the captain and mate were keeping him busy to pay for his passage.

Low clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, spitting a soft rain. They brought little wind to fill the schooner’s sails. The mate paced above the forecastle and bellowed at men slinging themselves through the rigging, making adjustments. The captain stood beside him, silent and tense as he gazed to the rear.

Rias was in the rigging, working alongside the two cabin boys. Sort of. The Nurian kept throwing him nervous glances and seemed to be trying to keep his distance.

Most of the men aloft were short and wiry, little larger than the youths, so Rias seemed a giant next to them. He maneuvered about deftly, though the narrow perches had to be slick from the rain.

Rias pointed and gestured as he worked with the boys-teaching them Tikaya supposed. Garchee appeared clumsy and out of place up there, but maybe it was just the presence of a hulking Turgonian making him uneasy. Under other circumstances, she might have been happy to stand on the deck and watch Rias at work-and muse about what a lovely father he might make-but she needed to talk to him. She waved, trying to catch his attention.

Someone yelled a command from the forecastle, and Garchee shouted an accented, “Aye, sir,” down. The youth eased toward the mast, then started climbing. He lacked any of the agility that Rias and the other seamen showed. Rias must have asked something, for Garchee shook his head. Turgonian seemed to be the language of the ship, and Tikaya wondered how much the Nurian understood. The boy reached the narrow topsail yard and inched along, crawling toward a flapping rope. He must have been twenty, twenty-five feet in the air. Rias watched from the lower yard.

As Garchee reached for a knot, a gust of wind buffeted the ship. It upset his balance, and he couldn’t recover quickly enough. He lost his grip and plummeted from the yard. Tikaya cried out and ran forward, anticipating a bone-shattering landing, one that might prove fatal, but Rias lunged three steps and caught the boy by the back of his shirt as he fell past. Garchee’s momentum almost tore Rias from his perch as well, but he compensated by dropping to his belly, boots hooked around the yard. Eyes bigger than ancient Ancorian saucers, the boy dangled, mouth open in shock-or terror-as he gaped at the deck below.

Someone called, “Catch of the day!” to Rias as he pulled Garchee up, but most of the men merely went back to work, as if such events were commonplace.

“What’re you doing out here, woman?” came the captain’s voice from behind Tikaya. “And where is-” he glanced about- “the item? You didn’t leave it below, did you?”

She faced the captain, hardly believing he was worried about his item when one of his men had almost endured a horrible accident seconds before. Besides, who did he think would dare steal his already-stolen possession when they were in the middle of the sea? The Turgonian coast wasn’t even visible.

“I bundled it up and hid it out of sight,” Tikaya told him.

“That’s where you should be too. Out of sight. Working.”

“I’m hungry.” Tikaya was beginning to suspect the captain wanted to keep her away from Rias, or vice versa, so figured that’d be better than telling him she wanted to talk to him. “When will breakfast be available?”

The captain had a wad of tobacco in his mouth again, and he worked it from one cheek to the next as he considered her. “Soon. Grits.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Not truly, but after weeks of eating little but dehydrated meat and hardtack-or, as the marines had called the biscuits, “tooth dullers”-something warm might be an improvement.

“It’s not. You make any progress?”

“Some. I’d like to consult… my comrade.” Though Rias was a shortened version of his middle name, and it certainly hadn’t made Tikaya think of Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest when she’d first heard it, she decided not to use it, just in case.

“You can consult with him tonight.” The captain smirked. “If you don’t mind an audience.”

“He’s an engineer and is good at solving problems. He might be able to help me with the puzzle.”

“He’s busy.”

“I see. And will he be un-busy at any point in this three-day journey?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Tell me about the puzzle.”

As Tikaya considered withholding the information or using it to bargain for less work for Rias, she gazed about the deck. For the first time, she noticed that all of the seamen wore pistols and cutlasses on their belts. They hadn’t been armed the day before. The captain, too, bore weapons, and, at Tikaya’s hesitation, he let his hand rest on the grip of his pistol.

“Tell me about the puzzle,” he repeated.

“Very well.” Her acquiescence stirred memories of herself as a pigtailed schoolgirl bowing to the demands of bullies. She thought about lying, but decided to go along until she had her chance to confer with Rias. “Each of the eight segments has six etchings that can be rotated about so different ones are on top. Though you can play the flute at any time, as the finger holes are available no matter what, I’m assuming you have to align the segments up in the right order to create the special tone.”

“Special, yes.” The captain waved away a man lingering within earshot. “Does the music change tune if you get the order right? If so, you could guess until you got it, couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know that the music would sound any different to the human ear, but a practitioner might be able to tell if there was some otherworldly influence to the notes.”

“Could you?” the captain asked.

For a moment, Tikaya mused on whether there might be an advantage to pretending she had a practitioner’s skills-would the captain fear her and be less likely to threaten her? — but, given how superstitious Turgonians were about “magic,” she worried he’d simply be in more of a hurry to throw her to the sharks.

“Possibly,” Tikaya said. “I haven’t any skills in that area myself, but I grew up around practitioners and can usually sense it when they’re employing one of the sciences.”

The captain spat. “Why do you call it science? Like it’s geology or hoplology or something real?”

Hoplology? Tikaya almost snorted. The Turgonians were probably the only culture with a word for the academic study of weapons. She wondered if Rias had taken a class in it during his university years.

“What can and cannot be done with the human mind is just as legitimate a science as any you’ve named,” Tikaya said. “Though there is some variation, allowing for a user’s creativity and personal preference, the mental sciences are rigidly defined areas of study with precise laws, rules, and methods that can be repeated by different people as surely as experiments in an alchemy lab.”

“All right, all right, I shouldn’t have asked. Back to the item. If you keep trying different variations, are the odds good that you can get the flute to work in that special way? By-” the captain glanced toward the water behind the ship again, “-tonight would be good.”

“Unlikely,” Tikaya said. “With eight segments and six options on each segment, the odds of striking the right combination are…” She paused to set up the math problem up in her head, but a familiar voice spoke from behind her first.

“One in twenty-thousand one-hundred-and-sixty,” Rias said.

Tikaya smiled and leaned against his shoulder when he stopped beside her. The captain scowled, not impressed by his math skills, or perhaps the fact that he’d left his duties momentarily.

“Morning,” Rias said. Given how little he’d apparently slept, he should have looked weary, but his brown eyes were bright and a smile rode his lips. Being back at sea must agree with him. “Need help with anything?” he asked.

“No,” the captain snapped. “She needs to get back to work, and you-” he pointed at Rias, “-if you’ve finished with the topsails, you’re needed down at the bilge pump.”

Rias arched an eyebrow, but merely said, “As you wish, captain.”

A smug smirk stretched the captain’s lips. Like that of an emperor being fawned over by slaves who had once been soldiers from conquered nations.

With an unperturbed expression, Rias trotted down the stairs. Since the flute happened to lay in the same direction, Tikaya waited until the captain’s attention shifted, then slipped after him. Rias was waiting below.

“All you all right?” Tikaya gripped his arm. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

Rias laid his hand on hers. “Yes, and no.”

“Why is he picking on you? Surely not all passengers must toil so for the price of a ticket. He doesn’t know who you are, does he?” Tikaya asked, though she didn’t think the treatment would make sense if he did. Rias had been a Turgonian hero during the war and a well-respected officer for years before it.

“No, I’ve been evasive as to my current status and why I have no rank-” Rias waved to encompass his uniform, “-but I believe he pegged me for an officer right away.”

“You do have a determined, in-charge appearance even when you’re at your scruffiest.”

“Thank you. I think. Regardless, the gossip is that the captain only lasted three years in the military before receiving a dishonorable discharge. I imagine he’s taking revenge on the officers he believes wronged him. Through me.”

“Such a lovely man.” Tikaya squeezed his arm. “I’ll commiserate with you later, but I think there’s something more important to worry about here.”

Rias nodded. “It’s clear we’re running from pursuit, though I haven’t seen sign of it on the horizon yet.”

Knowing they might not have much time alone, Tikaya rushed through a summary of her discussion with the captain and her thoughts on the flute.

“Perhaps I can help you with it tonight.”

“You can sleep tonight. You need some rest,” Tikaya said, hoping she didn’t sound too motherly. “Besides, I believe a background in Nurian mythology is going to be required to solve the puzzle.”

“Ah, I am aware of basic Nurian history, but mythology isn’t my strong point.”

“The scenes are of animals and people and hunting. I believe they go together in a certain order to tell a story. The problem is that there are a lot of Nurian stories revolving around hunting.”

“Have you talked to the boy?” Rias asked.

“Garchee?”

“Is that his name? He wouldn’t give it to me. He might know something.”

“I doubt any well-known tale is depicted,” Tikaya said.

“Well, unless I miss my guess, he brought it on board, so he might have some knowledge.”

Tikaya stared. “He told you that?”

“He’s told me nothing. He’s been doing his best to avoid me. But it’s clear he hasn’t been here long, and the captain doesn’t strike me as a man with the gumption to steal royal Nurian treasures. I think the boy brought it on board, offered to trade it for his passage, and now perhaps we’re being trailed by the owner.”

Tikaya mulled over the hypothesis. It might be plausible, but… “How would that boy have gotten the flute? Theft? Such treasures would be well-guarded.”

Rias hesitated, then shrugged. “I’m more concerned about who might be coming after it. If it’s magic, could a practitioner track it?”

“Oh, yes,” Tikaya said.

“We better talk to the boy.”

“We’re riding low in the water,” came the captain’s bellow from above. “My new seaman better be at the pumps!”

Rias snorted and gave Tikaya a hug before disappearing into the recesses of the ship.