The Black Prism
Page 46

“Let’s go,” Kip said, shrinking back lest Ironfist tap one of his namesakes on his shoulder again and leave a smoking ruin.
Ironfist’s eyebrows twitched up in a momentary expression of relief.
“Almost as bad as dealing with a woman, huh?” Kip said.
Ironfist stopped cold. “How’d…” he trailed off. “You are a Guile, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Kip asked.
“Let’s go,” Ironfist said in a tone that brooked no argument. Kip didn’t hesitate. He didn’t know what precisely Ironfist would do to him if he didn’t obey, but knowing was a logical process. Fear was faster.
Outside, he saw that they’d rigged up another boat on the ramp. He rubbed his clammy arms and stared at the sea. The tide was halfway in and getting worse, and the waves crashed powerfully over the rocks of Cannon Island. This boat was a small sailing dinghy. It didn’t look even as stable as the dory. And it was smaller. Kip’s stomach turned.
“Commander?” one of the men said. “You sure? I wouldn’t want to go out on this even with experienced sailors. Especially if you’re going the long way.”
Kip didn’t see the look that passed between the men, but he heard the soldier say, “Yes, sir,” quickly afterward.
Cannon Island was in the middle of the current that flowed between Little Jasper and Big Jasper. Little Jasper Bay was calm, protected by a seawall, but Kip and Ironfist were headed the opposite direction, to circle three-quarters of Big Jasper in order to get to its bay.
“Aren’t we going to the Chromeria?” Kip asked. He could see the tops of colored towers, only partially visible above the rocky body of Cannon Island. “Why can’t we go to their bay? It’s closer.”
“Because we’re not going straight there,” Ironfist said. He gestured for Kip to get in and handed him an oar.
The men pushed them off and Ironfist began rowing hard. Kip did his best to keep up with the big man, but almost immediately they began turning toward Kip’s side. Ironfist said nothing; he just switched sides and rowed hard a few times on Kip’s side until they were straight, then returned to his own side. The commander aimed them so they quartered the waves. Kip’s heart was constantly in his throat. The three- and four-foot-tall waves yielded to five- and six-foot-tall waves.
And then Ironfist raised their little sail a third of the way. “Keep us straight,” he barked, working the lines. Kip felt like a headless chicken, flopping awkwardly from one side of the boat to the other, keeping them headed slowly forward, going up each wave with a lurch and swooping down the opposite side.
“Down! Get down!” Ironfist shouted. Kip dropped just as the wind shifted and the sail swung from one side of the boat to the other, the boom whipping over his head. It snapped so hard against the ropes that Kip thought it might tear off or break.
Orholam, that could have been my head.
The dinghy leaned over hard, even with the sail only a third of the way raised, and jumped forward. Kip had barely gotten back up to his knees, and the sudden forward motion made him tumble backward, splashing into the cold dirty water at the bottom of the dinghy.
“The rudder! Take the rudder!” Ironfist ordered.
Kip grabbed the rudder and held it straight for a long moment, though the dinghy was turned too far away from the wind—taking the waves almost side on. He blinked seawater out of his eyes. Throw the rudder this way, it turns at the fulcrum there, and the boat turns… Got it.
Part of the next wave sloshed over the gunwales as Kip threw the rudder hard toward the port side. A hard gust of wind made the dinghy bear down even farther in the water, then they popped up hard as they escaped the killing grip of the wave.
Kip whooped as they sped forward, riding the waves, plowing through them at times now, rather than simply being at their mercy. But Ironfist didn’t share his joy. He was glancing up at the sky. He raised the sails a little more, and the dinghy picked up even more speed, leaning so hard to the port side that Kip thought they were going to capsize.
When they reached the west side of Big Jasper, they were able to run before the wind. It was like flying.
Ironfist kept glancing south, but the dark clouds there seemed to dissipate rather than gather, and by the time they turned into Big Jasper’s wind shadow, Kip could tell from Ironfist’s demeanor that they were out of danger.
“There’s a small dock that we want, head straight,” Ironfist told him, raising their sail all the way.
So Kip aimed them past galleys and galleasses, corvettes armed with a single gun mounted on a swivel, and galleons with fifteen cannons on each side. They stayed fairly far out so they wouldn’t interfere with the constant stream of ships coming in and out of the bay, the dinghies taking crews ashore.
“Is it always like this?” Kip asked.
“Always,” Ironfist said. “Bay’s too small, so to accommodate the number of boats needed to keep trade flowing smoothly there’s an elaborate system to determine who gets in first. It works…” He glanced up at a captain swearing loudly at the harborman standing on his deck with an abacus. The harborman looked singularly unimpressed. “For the most part.”
Between having to veer sharply now and again to avoid other boats according to some ships’ etiquette that he didn’t understand, Kip didn’t get to catch more than a few glimpses of the city covering Big Jasper. And from what he saw, it did cover Big Jasper. There was a wall just above shore around the entire island—leagues of walls—but even that couldn’t hide the city as it rose on two hills. Aside from a few green patches—gardens? parks? mansions’ grounds?—there were buildings everywhere. Soaring bulbous domes in every color, everywhere. And people, more people than Kip had ever seen.
“Kip. Kip! Port! Gawk later.”
Kip tore his eyes off the island and turned to port, narrowly avoiding ramming a galleass. They sailed past under the evil eye of the galleass’s knotted-haired first mate. He looked like he was going to spit on them, but saw their uniforms and spat on his own deck instead.
They proceeded into open water until they started to round the eastern side of the island. “Turn in here,” Ironfist said. Kip turned toward a little dock with a few small fishing boats moored to it. They docked and headed up to the wall. Kip tried not to gawk, though the wall itself was easily the biggest man-made structure he’d ever seen.
Ironfist strode to the gate. The guards outside looked confused. “Captain?” Then they snapped sharp salutes, eyes wide. “Commander!”
A smaller door inset to the larger gate was open, and Ironfist walked through, nodding to acknowledge the men. The city inside was too overwhelming for Kip to comprehend even part of it. But the part that hit him first was the smell.
Ironfist must have noticed the look on his face. “You think this is bad? You should try a city without sewers.”
“No,” Kip said, looking at the hundreds of people in the streets, the three- and four-story buildings everywhere, the cobbled streets with tracks worn a hand’s breadth down into the stones. “It’s just that there’s so much.” And there was. Smells of cooking pork, spices Kip didn’t know, fresh fish, rotting fish, a thin odor of human waste and a stronger one of horse and cattle manure, and, overwhelming it all, the smell of unwashed men and women.