When I awoke, it was to a sussurus of Chevachèchen hissing in my ear like the tide. I opened my eyes and saw someone leaning over me with a saw.
The next time I awoke, Cutter was saying something. Alive, I thought, slipping back into unconsciousness.
“It’s time for your draught. Sentinel, wake up. You need your medicine.”
Cutter’s voice again. I turned my head and opened my eyes. The young cadet was standing by me. I stared at him, getting my bearings. I was in a hammock. Below decks. My feet were bare, and my clothes ill-fitting; not my warrant officer’s uniform, for certain.
“You —” I coughed and licked my lips. “Are you safe?”
“Yes. We’re on the Steadfast.” He held up a stained leather-and-wood cup. “I need you to drink this, if you please.”
I did my best, but a considerable amount of the liquid spilled over my face. Cutter began wiping it off with a rag and I lifted my hand to do it myself, only to realize with a sickening jolt that it was missing, along with half of my forearm.
I stared in shock at the gruesome absence, flexing my fingers and finding it odd that they weren’t there. Instead, my right arm ended in a glowing seal of bale.
“Your spirit — Nje — says it sealed the wound and that it will heal cleanly.” Cutter finished wiping my face and gave me a solemn look. “I’m sorry you lost your hand, Sentinel. But I don’t think it will get any worse.”
“Nje?” I repeated, still staring at my arm.
I am here, it replied in Empyrian. You will live.
“What did —” I was having a difficult time keeping my mind on the conversation. My hand. What … what was I going to do without a hand?
Cutter looked down, rubbing his fingers on the dirty rag.
“Nje has … communicated with me several times. It has done a great deal to protect you and keep you alive.” He paused. “It refuses to let Captain Lazare near you again.”
I wasn’t paying attention. My arm looked so small and wrong. Bile burned my throat and I closed my eyes.
Dying was one thing. Dying had always been a possible result of signing up with the Navy. I’d considered death. Expected death. Maybe even courted death, a little. So why did mutilation seem so much worse?
At least you’re alive, some part of me scolded. You’re better off than the rest of your family. And you have another hand.
I drew in a shuddering breath.
“Saint-Cloud?”
I opened my eyes again, blinking tears away.
“I’m sorry, Cadet,” I rasped. Manners. Manners were good, I thought. Manners provided structure, safety. A shield behind which you could hide your emotions. “How — how is the rest of the crew?”
“As well as can be expected. Several signed the pirates’ Articles. The rest are locked in the hold.” Cutter turned and put the rag down on a chest. I looked around the room, taking in more details. A red floor, a medicine chest, a rack of saws and knives — the surgeon’s cockpit. “Captain Lazare ordered me to take care of you. He says I’m to be a hostage for your good behavior. And … your spirit’s, although I’m not certain Nje understands that.”
Saint-Clouds *** *** your *** *** kill ****, Nje grumbled, whispering in my ears.
“I apologize,” I whispered. Cutter gave me a solemn look.
“You must take the first opportunity to escape, Sentinel. Don’t worry about me. Once you’re gone, they’ll have no reason to kill me. I’m worth more to them alive, to sell. And once you’re free, you’ll be able to alert the fleet and come rescue us.”
I doubted I could sit up right now, much less escape and find my way to the Austral Fleet alone. I closed my eyes. It was easier to talk with them closed.
“I can’t do that.”
“It’s your duty to escape,” he hissed. “You didn’t give your parole.”
I grunted, too tired to argue. Whatever was in the draught he’d given me was starting to take effect.
“Lt. Guerin?” I asked.
“Wounded. Four or five others are also badly hurt. Dr. Clyve is alive, though, and he’s doing his best to tend to them. The conditions in the hold aren’t good, but Captain Lazare won’t let them out.”
“Did…” I paused. “Did you sign?”
“No.” He sounded affronted. “Never. And you mustn’t, either. It’s a hanging offense.”
“There’s no shame….” I let my voice trail off. In what? Surviving? I was hardly the right person to make that argument. “If you did. They wouldn’t kill you.”
“I shall never agree to become a pirate, Sentinel. And I’m not afraid to die if it will help you get free to rescue us.”
“Single-handed?” I paused, then gave a short, bitter laugh, realizing what I’d just said. Cutter was silent a moment.
“You could do it with your spirit’s help,” he said at last. “Nje seems … intelligent.”
Intelligent is good? Nje asked, in my ear.
“You have more faith in us than I do.” I closed my eyes. “Especially right now.”
“But —”
“I — I can’t think about it right now, Cadet. I —” My breath caught and I fell silent until I felt under control again. “I need your assistance, Cadet. I’m tired and … and injured. Give me time.”
The young man was silent a long moment. I opened my eyes to see him studying me. I lifted my stump.
“Give me time,” I repeated, unable to look at my own limb.
Cutter dropped his eyes, cheeks reddening.
“I apologize, Sentinel. I’ve had more time to think about this than you. Of course you need to recover, first. I will do all I can to assist you.”
“Thank you.” I closed my eyes, exhausted. “Don’t let them hurt you. I won’t work for them if they touch you.”
“But you will try to escape? When you’re stronger?”
“As you wish, Cadet. With you.”
The boy will be a ****, Nje hissed in my ears, its words a combination of Empyrian and Chevachèchen. You must *** *** your ***. *** *** duty *** Saint-Cloud.
“Thank you, Saint-Cloud.”
Several days later Cutter and the pirate named Xavier — sporting a number of burns and cuts across his body that Cutter had informed me were Nje’s doing as it had sought to protect me — helped me to the deck. My feet were still bare, but iron fetters had been locked around my ankles, remaining wrist, and neck. I was still weak, and whatever medicine Croaker was giving me made everything feel slightly distant and unreal.
I’d experienced the sensation before, after losing my family, but without a bottle to curl up inside this time, I’d fallen into carrying on long, rambling, bilingual conversations with Nje. The pirates all knew about “the Saint-Cloud’s familiar spirit” after it had attacked Lazare and Xavier on the Chaser, and made signs to ward off evil every time they passed me. For itself, Nje chose to remain in my jacket pocket, tendrils of bale tucked in my ear and wrapped around my throat to allow us to speak softly, and a thicker cord of bale that coiled up my arm to cap my raw stump.
Nje harbored a simmering resentment that it hadn’t been able to kill my attackers, but from what I could glean from it and Cutter, Kimona had posed enough of a deterrent to its anger that it had chosen to focus on keeping me alive, instead. Captain Lazare had cut off my right hand several inches above the wrist; Cutter and the pirate doctor Croaker, I’d learned, had worked hard to convince the furious Nje that a clean amputation would be better for me before it had allowed them to saw off the jutting bone and sew a flap of flesh over the wound.
I hadn’t yet had much chance to talk to Croaker, but I gave him credit for having the stones to argue with an angry, bale-wielding ‘spirit.’ I wondered if growing up in a culture where such interactions were, if not commonplace, at least historically documented might have made a difference.
I still hadn’t adapted to the loss of my primary hand. Sometimes I forgot it was gone, and without fail I felt a fresh jolt of nausea whenever I remembered. Everything had become ten times more difficult … such as steadying myself on a rocking ship. I grabbed the railing, missed, and tried again, resting my stump on the charred wood, my gaze skittering away from it. Perhaps someday I’d get used to the sight. But not yet.
“Here’s my new pet,” a voice said in accented Empyrian. Captain Lazare strode up and reached for me, hand pausing as Nje immediately bristled, bale-bladed tentacles emerging from beneath my coat to interpose. Lazare pulled his hand back and sneered.
“You understand the deal, correct? If you or your spirit do anything I don’t like, I begin killing your crew mates, starting with little Jimmy Cutter.”
My stomach heaved at the sight and smell of the man who’d maimed me. In Cislunar, as an aristocrat and a powerful sentinel, I’d never had any reason to physically fear another person. It was deeply upleasant to realize I feared Lazare with a gut-deep, primal horror, and I was pathetically grateful for Nje’s defiance.
“Do and you die,” I reminded him, swallowing bile.
“Maybe I’ll just carve off a few parts, then.” Lazare laughed, as if he weren’t at all afraid of the creature that had already left freshly healing wounds over his face and arms. “If you’re careful, a person can lose quite a bit of their body before they die.”
I flinched, and Lazare grinned.
“Kimona tells me sentinels don’t need hands to call bale. Or feet. Or tongues. Hell, she suggested I cut everything off and just tie you to the bowsprit like a figurehead. That girl doesn’t like you much, Saint-Cloud.”
Nje hissed and I shoved away the unsettling images the captain’s words had conjured.
“I don’t like any of you,” I replied.
“You don’t have to, as long as you do what I say.” The pirate captain strode off, shouting to Xavier.
Jump in the water, Nje whispered. I will help you escape.
I looked down at the white foam that churned against the hull of the ship. Land was a distant shadow on the horizon, and I only had one hand. And Nje, but how much could it help?
“Not without Cutter,” I murmured. Would Lazare really kill the rest of the prisoners if I escaped? Probably not, I reasoned. It wouldn’t make any sense for him to kill valuable cargo if there were no sentinel around to bully into service. And I didn’t know quite how pirates worked, but I had a feeling his crew had some say in the Chasers’ fates, as well.
The boy is a ***!
“The boy is non-negotiable. I don’t leave unless he’s safe.”
Nje fumed in a mixture of Chevachèchen and Empyrian. Then it began speaking slowly in Empyrian.
Listen, Saint-Cloud. You must survive. Survive is very important. Survive is non-negotiable. You can do nothing if you are dead. Nothing for you. Nothing for boy. Nothing for ship. Survive now is very non-negotiable important one duty. Yes? I will help you survive. After survive now you help boy, you help ship.
“But they’ll kill him if I escape. Even if they wouldn’t kill any of the others, I’m quite sure they’d kill him.”
You are a ***!
“I think the word you want is ‘fool.’” I stared out at the water. “But the boy is more important to my survival than you think.”
***?
“Why? Because — ” Could Nje even understand concepts like regret, or guilt, or displacement? Then I remembered what Sentinel Jaye Borbeau had said about the Saint-Clouds back on Adrahan. “Because he is mine. I protect my own.”
You are a very much fool, Saint-Cloud.
I dropped my eyes to my arm and its glowing cap of bale. I knew what I should say, even though the thought of it scared me. Still. It needed saying.
“You can go if you want, Nje,” I whispered. “I’m not keeping you here. You’ve been — you’ve kept me alive, but if you want to leave, I’m not your owner.”
Nje fell silent, leaving me to my thoughts. They weren’t happy.
The transient’s silence lasted until nighttime, when I lay in my hammock, trying to keep my chains from rattling every time it swayed. The chains had been locked to a ring in the floor beneath the hammock. I hadn’t told Xavier that they were no real deterrent, and I wasn’t certain whether he or anyone else on the ship realized that or not. In theory, I could call a baleblade that would cut through metal easily enough, if I wanted.
In theory. I steeled myself against the disorienting effect of Croaker’s painkilling drugs and concentrated. A spark of balelight ignited, and I cradeled its sickly glow in my intact hand.
Are you *** escape? Nje asked, almost eagerly.
“I just wanted to see if I could still make a call.”
*** you could still make a call. You are not dead. Yet. Fool Saint-Cloud.
I laughed, my spirits lifted by the light in my palm.
“And you’re a stubborn bastard, Nje.”
I was still a sentinel. I could cut through my chains if I wanted. I could set the ship afire, if I wanted. But not yet. If the chains and my acquiescence kept Captain Lazare happy and lulled my captors into a false sense of security, that was only to my benefit.
I let the balelight float over my head. I was going to have to start cutting back on the morning drugs, somehow. Would Croaker reduce the dosage if I asked, or did Lazare want to keep me groggy? And I was going to have to make a plan.
“Why do you stay with me, Nje?”
You are my Saint-Cloud. I ride Saint-Clouds *** ***. Boy is yours, much-obliged is yours … Saint-Clouds is, no, are mine.
Much-obliged? I shook my head, letting it go.
“So, you stay with the Saint-Clouds out of loyalty? Or would some other sentinel do? You could work for that woman, Kimona, instead.”
No.
“Why not?”
I know Saint-Clouds, it repeated. I contemplated that a moment.
“And a known quantity is safer than an unknown quantity?” I ventured.
Yes. Better for survival. Safer.
“Then how did you end up at the bottom of the ocean?”
A fool stubborn bastard Saint-Cloud did not escape and survive.
That startled a laugh out of me. Nje was picking up Empyrian much faster than I was learning Chevachèchen.
“You’re very single-minded, Nje.”
What are you minded?
“You mean, what do I want?”
What do you want, Saint-Cloud? You do not want escape and survival. What do you want?
I closed my eyes.
“What I really want is everything back the way it was before. My family alive. All of us happy again. A hand. But that’s impossible.”
Yes, impossible. Do new before is impossible. Do new now not impossible. What do you want to do now, Saint-Cloud?
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I wondered if I’d be better off if I could, somehow, adopt Nje’s simple pragmatism.
“I guess I just want Cutter and the rest of the crew to be safe.”
Safe, yes, want to be safe is good. Nje seemed pleased that we had finally found common ground. Survive is safe. Survive is possible *** Saint-Cloud is not stubborn fool.”
“Give me time. I need to recover my strength.”
Good. Yes. Recover is good.
I let the balelight slip back across the Line.
“Good night, Nje.”
Good night, Saint-Cloud. Much obliged.
The next morning, Croaker was examining my stump, the bale temporarily removed by Nje, when shouting arose on deck. A few minutes later, Xavier stepped through the door.
“Wrap it up, Croaker. Captain wants the Saint-Cloud secured.” He me in his dark gaze. “Lazare’s got the boy, says you know what’ll happen if you act up.”
“I understand. What’s happening?”
For a moment I thought the pirate might tell me, but then he lifted a shoulder.
“Make it fast, Croak,” he urged again, before leaving. The medic snorted. He was older than most of the others on the pirate crew, and Cutter had seemed impressed by him.
“Looks good,” he said, releasing my wrist. Nje swiftly rewrapped my stump in bale. “Healing well. You’re lucky, Saint-Cloud. Most shipboard amputations fester. You chose a strong spirit.”
Yes, Nje agreed. I kept my mouth shut, drank the dose of painkiller Croaker offered me, swallowing as little as possible, and then spat out the rest behind a medical chest after he left.
The ship was changing course; by now, I could recognize the sounds and sensations, even below deck.
By afternoon, I told the pirate who was sullenly picking up my chamberpot — a stout fellow called, for some reason, Check — that I intended to burn the ship to a cinder unless Captain Lazare could prove to me that Cutter was still alive and unharmed. Check curled his lip at me, but some time later, Xavier escorted the young cadet down long enough for me to ask a few questions about what he was doing for the crew — working on the rigging, mostly, it seemed.
“We’re heading south,” Cutter added, meaningfully. “With the Shrike.”
I glanced at Xavier.
“To Perdue?” I asked, guessing. The pirate shoved Cutter out of the cell. “Wait!”
“Get back to work,” Xavier snapped. The cadet hesitated, meeting my eyes a second, then hurried off. Instead of leaving with him, Xavier lingered, folding his thickly muscled arms over his chest. Fresh, healing wounds criss-crossed them, as did several pale burns.
“The boy yours?” he demanded.
“I’ve taken responsibility for his well-being,” I replied cautiously. “As your captain understands.”
Xavier grunted.
“He’ll be safe, s’long as you behave,” he said. “Lazare’s got kids of his own, and the Articles are solid. Nobody’s fucks him unless he wants it. Nobody kills him’less he breaks the rules. Well. ’cept the captain. Kill, I mean, not fuck.”
I winced, then nodded.
“Thank you. These Articles … if I signed them, would you let him go?”
“Captain’s call, but I doubt it. Couldn’t trust you without leverage.”
“I see. At least you’re honest.”
He met my eyes.
“Don’t like any of this much. Don’t like killing kids. Don’t trust you. Not sure I want to sign with Lazare again, he keeps you around.”
“Me, either.” I raised my stump. Xavier shrugged.
“Your fault. You tried to be a hero. Didn’t work. Captain taught you a lesson. Got no-one to blame for that but yourself.”
I looked away, sickened. But Xavier was talking to me, and he just might be sympathetic. I needed to keep him talking.
“Do you like being a pirate?” I asked, a little desperately.
“Came here as a cadet in the Imperial Engineering Corps.” Xavier smirked at my expression. “Commissioned to build a dam down here for the plantations. Terrible conditions. Fuck the plantations and their rich owners. Much rather be a pirate.”
“You’re from the Empire, but you don’t trust a Saint-Cloud?”
“Nothing to do with superstition. Just — you’re a sentinel.”
“So, it’s a religious objection?”
He scoffed.
“No. But I already fought you and that thing once. You were tired. Don’t feel like a second match. Might not get as lucky.”
“Then by all means, don’t sign on with Lazare again, Mister Xavier. Because sooner or later, he’s going to make a mistake.”
Xavier’s eyes narrowed, and I wondered if the implied threat had been a mistake.
“Last name’s Falliard,” he said. “Xavier Falliard. Most call me X.”
I nodded, slowly.
“Are we going to Perdue, First Mate Falliard?”
“You heard of it?”
“Just the name, and that it’s a haven for pirates. They buy slaves?”
“There’s a flesh market there. Plantation work, mostly.” His lip curled.
“No brothels?” I was surprised. He looked amused at the question.
“Rest of the sex trade don’t like it. Last brothel to buy slaves got burned down. Undercuts the pricing system, see.” He sobered. “What happens on the plantations is something else.”
“But the plantations are owned by the empire, aren’t they?”
Xavier scoffed.
“So? They always need workers. Don’t want to ask too many questions. Might even want tongues removed before they take ownership. The rich like deniability.”
“That’s barbaric.”
“That’s the empire,” he shrugged. I winced, having learned enough about the cruelty of humanity to delude myself into believing he was wrong.
“I would … I would appreciate it if you watched over Cadet Cutter for me, Mister Falliard. I would not like to have him mutilated or killed.”
“Captain Lazare —”
“I know,” I said, nodding. “But protecting him would put me in your debt. I am a third-ranked sentinel, and a Saint-Cloud among people who fear the Saint-Clouds. That could be useful to you, someday.”
Xavier gave me a steady look, then slowly nodded back.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, before leaving and locking the door behind him.
We escape in Perdue, Nje said as soon as Xavier had left. It swiftly added, with a touch of asperity, yes, yes, you and boy.
I sat back down, chains rattling.
“We don’t even know where Perdue is.” I rubbed my face with both hands, startled again when I remembered I was missing one. My brain understood it was gone. My muscle memory was still working on it. “How big is it? Is there someplace we can run to, or is it in the middle of … I don’t know. The jungle? A swamp?”
I *** ***.
To my surprise, Nje spilled out of my pocket and flowed onto the deck, assuming a centipede-like shape of segmented bale with multiple legs and pincer-like jaws. It was the first time I’d seen Nje actually looking like a transient, and the sight was surprisingly disturbing. I glanced at my arm. The bale over my wound had vanished, exposing stitches and healing flesh. I dragged my eyes away.
“Where are you going?” I asked. The insectile creature snapped its pincers and scuttled away, flattening itself to slip beneath the cabin door.
“Huh.” I sat back down. The missing cap told me that Nje couldn’t split the bale of its body into separate pieces. And it had already indicated that it couldn’t make a call, although its ability to transform, compress, and elongate itself suggested that it had some kind of mastery over bale that I didn’t.
We still had a lot to learn about each other. I closed my eyes. But we were getting there. And I was starting to think that between us, we could escape. But the Chasers were still trapped in the hold. I needed to wait until they were offloaded in Perdue before I destroyed the ship. And, somehow, I had to pry Cutter away from Lazare before the boy could be harmed when I made my move.
I must have dozed off, because I awoke again when Nje scuttled up onto the table, its centipedal body shifting into something more arachnid to aid its ascent.
“Can’t you turn into something cute?” I asked groggily as its thin forelegs touched my arm. It melted into flowing bale, sliding up under my clothes. I’d grown accustomed to the slimy sensation and didn’t even shiver. “A cat, or a monkey?”
I *** *** the ship. We are *** ***.
“Did you see a chart? Look at the coast? Do you know where we are?”
No, yes, yes-no. What is yes-no?
“Maybe.”
Maybe. Yes, we can escape good.
“All right… how?”