Liavek 3 by Will Shetterly & Emma Bull

Author:Will Shetterly & Emma Bull [Shetterly, Will & Bull, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CatYelling
Published: 2015-09-12T05:00:00+00:00

"Choice of the Black Goddess" by Gene Wolfe

TEV NOEN LAY in his bunk, listening to Ler Oeuni's screams. Something was wrong, he was under some spell. No, it was Oeuni who was under the spell—the spell cast by the surgeon who was taking away Oeuni's right hand. Oeuni was watching the saw blade, her face calm, her eyes screaming, following the saw back and forth, back and forth. How was it, then, that he could hear her screaming eyes? How was it Oeuni never wept?

The surgeon said, "This might have been saved by a spell of healing; healing of a spell might have saved this," and Oeuni screamed again.

"Too far gone. Can't make something too far gone."

The final word ended with a thump; Noen sat up, habit keeping his head from the deck beams. There was a knock at the door. Ler Oeuni's scream became only the shrieking of the block that hoisted Windsong's mainsail, the surgeon's voice the creaking of a pump and the shuffle of the steward's feet on the steps descending to his cabin under the quarterdeck.

No doubt thinking her first knock had gone unheard, she knocked again. "I'm awake," Noen called. "What's the time?"

"Two bells, sir."

Noen swore and swung his long legs over the side of his bunk. "I told you to call me at the forenoon watch." He thrust them into ragged canvas trousers.

"I did, sir," said his steward from the other side of the door. "You said you were awake, sir." She added meaningfully, "Just like now."

He laughed in spite of his customary resolve to maintain discipline and opened the door. "Well, this time I mean it."

"You were up so late. sir. It don't hurt to sleep a bit extra." She looked at his trousers. "Why don't you wear the ones I've mended, sir?"

There was warm seawater in the wide-bottomed pitcher. He poured some into a bowl and splashed his face. "Because I might need them to go ashore." The shah game he and Oeuni had abandoned when the wind rose was still on the table. Despite their weighted bases, some of the pieces had fallen over. "Put these away," he said.

There was a good breeze, just as he had anticipated from Dinnile's raising the mainsail. Dinnile believed in the slow, implacable heartbeat of the timesman's kettledrums, believed in the sweeps, the enormous oars that could—with the backbreaking labor of four or five sailors at each sweep—send Windsong flying over a calm sea like a skimming gull.

"Mornin', sir." Dinnile said, and touched his forehead.

"Good morning, Lieutenant."

"Leak's no worse, sir. Not since I come on. Oeuni said to look for a place to careen her—we got twenty hands at the pumps—but there hasn't been nothin'. I got the lookout watchin' sharp. And seaward too, sir," Dinnile added hastily, noting the expression on his captain's face.

Noen extended his hand, received Dinnile's telescope. and studied the coast. It was jungle, a jungle that looked as solid as a wall, green-robed trees higher far than Windsong's mainmast marching down to the water's edge.

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