Wild Magic

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The rest of the morning Reyna crisscrossed the long narrow bay, stopping by every boat he saw, asking if they’d lost a child, if they knew anyone who had, if they’d seen any roasters coming or going, or any sign of trouble. Anything at all.

Nothing. Nothing. More nothing.

Faan was curled in the bottom of the boat, sleeping so heavily she worried him until he felt a warmth flowing across his feet; she was peeing on him in her sleep, marking him like a little dog marking his territory. You’re mine, he whispered to her, by right of rescue. He laughed. “Salvage,” he said aloud. “That’s it.” He almost stopped then and went back to the River, but he could see one more boat ahead, anchored near the mouth of the bay, the Kiymey owned and worked by Vumictin the Silent. He sighed and tacked across to her.

Vumictin had his nets out, his two nethands leaning against the rail taking a bagh-hit.

“Vum, you see a ship going in or coming out, early this morning, maybe just before sunup?”

The long thin man scratched thoughtfully at his arm, stared at the water then at the sky. “What’s up, Rey?”

“Kuh! you’re a worse clam than any you ever dug. I found a child, a baby, might’ve been lost off a ship. Light-skinned, probably slavebom.” He shrugged. “Or a foreigner.”

“An’t seen nothing like that.” One of the netmen cleared his throat and spat. With a sweeping gesture, Vumictin waggled his thumb at his head, then at the spitter. “Dikhan, there, he swears he seen the Bee Mother sailing upriver. Quite a sight, he says, honey-gold in the moonlight. Maybe the kid’s a little accident the god’s dumped on you.” He grinned. “It gets mam and da in one package and Honeymama can go play.”

Reyna snorted. “You’re about as funny as a wetpack, Vum. Seriously though, if you hear anything, let us know, hmm⁹”

Vumictin straightened. “We’ll do that. Now you do us a favor, Rey, and shift youself. You in the middle the nets and we’re gonna start pulling.

It was late afternoon when Reyna broke off the futile search and wearily sailed the boat back up a River alive with traffic: fishermen out for bottom feeders and the spiny buagosta which brought more than all their fish; round-bodied merchant ships moving downRiver stuffed with ingots of copper and iron, bolts of pammacloth dyed into bright patterns and the wide-mouthed jars Bairroa Pill was known for; slimmer, smaller coasters carrying passengers and anything else that brought in cash; slave ships bouncing downRiver empty except for chains and stained benches.

“‘Loooaaah, Reeey!” A pilot’s apprentice swinging a leadline from a net slung under a merchanter’s bowsprit waved at him, then went back to reading the knots.

“‘Loaaaa, Ghedd,” Reyna called back, then gasped and snatched at Faan who’d waked from her long nap and was trying to stand up. “You been a good girl so far, honey, don’t spoil it now. K’lann! I could do with some rope, run a line from you to the mast.”

Faan tilted her head, smiled uncertainly. “Ti kaps?”

“Nothing, honey, just stay still…” He returned the wave of a sailor sitting on a topmast spar, exchanged shouts and whistles with fishermen, with pilots, with traders hanging over shiprails, men he’d danced the double passage with a time or two or more. He said nothing more about Faan, he didn’t exactly know why, except there was no point in it and the danger a stray child faced in the streets of Bairroa Pili was something he didn’t like thinking about.

There were wharves and landings all along the north bank of the River, with barges and boats filling every inch of space, nudging at each other, swinging restlessly against their mooring cables; lines of Naostam laborers and foreigner slaves moved in and out of them like ants, carrying burdens ashore, coming empty back for more. There were whistles and calls from a number of them, waves and the lazy eight, Abeyhamal’s sign.

Faan looked up from where she was crouching beside Reyna’s knee, tugged at the underrobe until she got his attention. “Tis aym?”

“Hush, honey. Distraction’s bad right now, Iron Bridge coming up. I know, I know, I’m talking to them; but I have to, you see. People I know, urn… some of them from times I went with Tai and nursed… Abey damn that wind, why can’t it… dosed with tonic and purgatives… sh, sh, honeygirl, we can make it, see, slip by, slide through, come out the other side… friends and clients and oh you name it… k’lann! you cretin, I’ve got windright… oh potz!” He snatched up a boathook and pushed himself away from the barge, found the sheet he’d dropped and brought the sail around; it filled and the boat stopped gliding backward.

Tense with concentration, he maneuvered through the River traffic, passed under the Iron Bridge, then the Wood Bridge, tacked around the last bend and angled in toward the dilapidated wharf at the edge of the Edge.