Fisherman's Children #01 - The Prodigal Mage by Karen Miller

Author:Karen Miller [Miller, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316076401
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2011-06-30T23:03:55+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Arlin. For the love of Barl, must you disgrace me?”

Belly still churning even though he’d just emptied it, Arlin wiped his mouth on his fouled silk sleeve.

“Sorry, sir,” he muttered. “But I can’t help it. I—”

“Hold your tongue,” his father commanded. “And get control of yourself. You can start by letting go of that rail. The weather’s fine yet you’re acting as though we’re sailing through a storm.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and unclamped his fingers from the fishing boat’s side. Made himself stand upright, even as the cramps in his gut demanded he bend himself double and upend his stomach’s lining onto the slimy, fish-scaled deck.

Casting him a last look of disgust his father walked away, rejoining Sarle Baden, Ennet Vail and Ain—Lady Freidin—in the fishing boat’s blunt bow. Barl’s tits, the smack stank of rotten guts. Why wouldn’t he be puking with that stench fouling his nostrils and throat with every breath? And the weather might be stormless but the waves beneath the boat’s hull were rhythmic and relentless, rolling… rolling…

With an anguished moan he threw himself over the railing again, as his retching body tried to turn inside out and his eyeballs strained so hard he thought they’d burst.

“Not to worry,” said a nearby fisherman, coiling a tarred rope. “Ain’t every man as takes to the water, young lord.”

Arlin eased off the rail and glowered at him. “Who asked you? Sail the boat, clod, and mind your own business.”

The Olken blinked, his face smoothing blank. “Aye. Right you are, then. Sorry to interrupt. Sir.”

Ignorant fool. The trouble with Olken was they had no respect. Not any more. Not since they started considering themselves equals. His father was right about one thing, at least: Durm’s stupidity had done more than see the Wall destroyed. It had destroyed a way of life. Destroyed centuries of obedience, of acceptance that the Doranen were naturally superior and always would be—pathetic pretensions to Olken magic notwithstanding.

Lur’s ruined now. Let the Olken have it. Somewhere beyond these shores there’s a land fit for the Doranen. Not our ancestral homeland. Father’s wrong about that, old Dorana is surely long lost to us. But there is somewhere. And once that cursed reef’s broken we’ll quit this Olken-ridden wasteland and find it.

The cramps in his belly had finally eased. Turning his face into the salt-soaked breeze he sucked in a deep breath and waited, but his belly stayed quiet. Perhaps the worst was finally over. Profoundly hoping so, he made his unsteady way forward to his father, who stood in serious, low-voiced conversation with his companions, all three mages close friends and allies in the notion that Lur had nothing to offer the Doranen any more. The Olken mayor stood with them, deluded into thinking he was relevant to the morning’s events. He wasn’t. For all the good his magic would do, he might just as well as spit on Dragonteeth Reef.

But he’s useful, so we tolerate him. His ignorant antipathy towards the Doranen plays neatly into Father’s plans.

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