The Assassin's Curse (20 page)

  "A pain in the ass?" I offered.

  "Tiresome," Naji said. He tugged at his hair, kind of pulling it over his scar, and I frowned, wondering what the crew had said to him.

  "I have to go with Ananna on this one," Marjani said. "But you can sit in here if you want."

  Naji settled down in this gilded chair in the corner and watched me and Marjani work without saying nothing. It took me awhile to chart the course from Lisirra to Arkuz – I was using some calculations Marjani had given me, from an old logbook. I felt like I'd taken way too long to get it done, but when I finished Marjani looked sorta impressed.

  "Nice work," she said. "You're a quick learner." She smiled. "You would've done well at university."

  That made me real happy, cause nobody had ever said nothing like that to me before.

  "Yes," Naji said. "She would have."

  Marjani glanced at him. "Where did you attend?"

  "In Lisirra. The Temple School."

  "Oh." She flipped through the logbook and handed it back to me. "Lisirra to Qilar," she told me. "Go."

  I sighed like I was annoyed but really I thought the drills were fun. Marjani turned to Naji. "The Lisirra Temple School," she said. "That's a school of sorcery, isn't it?"

  Naji nodded and said, "I didn't study ack'mora there, if that's what you're asking."

  "I'll admit I was curious." Marjani smiled. "I've no ability for sorcery, myself. I studied mathematics and history. At the university in Arkuz."

  "I've been there. It's lovely."

  "The city or the university?"

  "Both."

  It was like they were speaking a whole other language. Universities and history and sorcery. I wondered what I would've studied if I'd got to go to university. Piracy's probably not an option.

  "I've been to Arkuz," I said. "We sailed up the river into the jungle to trade with some folks there."

  "Really?" said Marjani. "I always hated the jungle. You never know when it's going to rain." She leaned over the map. "Oh, good work," she said.

  "I've got it?" I'd been so wrapped in listening in on Marjani and Naji's conversation that my hands must've kept on working while my brain lagged behind.

  "You've got it," Marjani said.

  After that, Naji came to my lessons about every day, I guess cause he and Marjani had bonded over both going to university. He didn't have a lot to offer in the way of navigation, but he and Marjani would tell me about other stuff they'd learned, like all these weird stories about the different emperors over the years, or how to calculate the volume of an empty container without having to fill it with water first. It was fun.

  Then Marjani got me to start helping her with the true navigation, the navigation that was taking us around the sirens and three weeks out of our way and, as far as me and Naji were concerned, delaying the trip to the Isles of the Sky. One morning she called me down from the rigging and handed me her logbook and a quill and the sextant.

  "I need measurements," she said. "You know how it works. Get going."

  The crew stared at me while I stood there fiddling with the sextant. Marjani trotted off to speak with the captain up at the helm, and I felt real conspicuous with everybody's eyes on me. But then I lifted up the sextant and peered through it up at the sky and the whole boat fell away.

  I stopped doing as much work in the rigging after that, since Marjani had me taking measurements for her every day. Seems that charting a new course on the water's a bit risky, as you're creating a new path in addition to the usual work of checking where you are in the water. But we stayed on course, still moving up toward the north and to the east, and Marjani said it was partially cause I helped her. I didn't necessarily believe that, mind, though I suppose I had no reason not to.

  One afternoon I crawled up on deck to make the usual round of measurements and noticed immediately that something was off. There were a lot of voices shouting and yelling, but it wasn't about rigging or wind or none of the usual complaints. At first I thought we must be under attack, that some tracker from the Mists – or worse, the Hariris – had followed me and Naji all the way to sea. Immediately my heart started pounding and I went for the knife at my hip. Which I still hadn't replaced. Stupid. I needed to ask Naji for his knife or nick it off him while he slept.

  But then I realized I didn't hear the clank of sword against sword, or the pop of a pistol. And nobody'd sent out the call to arms, neither. It was just yelling. And jeering.

  And my heart started pounding all over again.

  I raced across the deck to where Ataño and a couple of his cronies were crowded around the railing. Naji was there, too, staring at them stone-faced. Ataño said something I couldn't make out, on account of the wind blowing in off the waves and beating through the sails, but he pushed up the skin of the left side of his face until it snarled the way Naji's face did sometimes and his cronies laughed like it was the funniest thing they'd seen in a year.

  Me, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.

  "Fuck off!" I screamed. All three of 'em turned toward me and I took off running. Half the crew was up in the rigging or clustered over on the other side of the ship, not participating but not doing nothing to stop it neither.

  And then Ataño was flat on his back, Naji crouched on his chest with his sword at Ataño's throat.

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Naji made this hissing sound through his teeth and pressed his sword up under Ataño's chin. A trickle of blood dripped onto the deck, glistening in the sunlight. Ataño whimpered, his eyes clenched shut.

  "Look at me," Naji said in a voice like an ice storm.

  Ataño opened his eyes.

  "This is the last time you will ever look at my face. If you see me coming, look the other way. Because if you look at me again, or speak to me again, I'll make sure your face comes out worse than mine."

  Nobody on deck was moving. Even the wind had stopped. In the silence, all you could hear was Ataño's pitiful little moans.

  "Do you understand?"

  "Y… Yes," Ataño said.

  Naji pulled his sword away. Ataño scrambled backward, his head twisted over to the side, looking everywhere but at Naji. His cronies stumbled after him.

  Naji wiped the blade of his sword on his robe.

  And like that, the spell broke. A couple of the bigger crewman bounded across the deck and grabbed Naji by the arms, pulling him into a lock, though I could see that Naji didn't have no intention of fighting back.

  I could see that if Naji had wanted to fight back, both of those crewman would've been dead.

  And anybody else he wanted, too.

  When he'd attacked Ataño, he'd covered close to five feet so fast I hadn't seen him move. He hadn't even moved that fast during the fight in the Lisirran pleasure district – this time, I hadn't seen him go for his sword, or even noticed the twitch in the arm that meant he was thinking about it. One second he'd been standing there like a victim, the next he could've slit Ataño's throat before anybody knew what was happening.

  The two crewmen dragged Naji down to the brig, and all I could think about was that night in the desert, and how he hadn't done what he just did to Ataño – to me.

 

The brig smelled like rotten fish and piss and the air was thick with mold. Saltwater dripped off the ceiling and down my back as I made my way over the dank floor. I had Naji's desert-mask tucked into the pocket of my coat.

  He was curled up in the corner of his cell, sitting with his chin on his knees. His eyes flicked over to me when I came in but he didn't say nothing.

  I stared at him for a minute, his hair all tangled up from the sea wind, the lanterns illuminating the lines of his scar. Looking at it I got this phantom pain in the left side of my face.

  "They take your knife off you?" I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  "Can I see it? I'll give it back."

  Naji stared at me.

  "C'mon, I ain't gonna do nothing bad."

  He reached into his cloak and then there was a thwap and the knife wedged into the wood of the ship a few inches from my head. I was real proud of myself cause I didn't even blink, though I did see him go for it this time – something told me it was cause he wanted it that way. I yanked the knife out of the wall and walked up to the lock on the bars. Shoved the knife into the keyhole and wiggled it around like Papa'd taught me. When the lock clicked I snapped it open and stepped into the cell with Naji.

  "I brought your desert mask," I said, pulling it out of my pocket and dangling it in front of me. Naji didn't move. I started thinking this might've been a bad idea.

  But then he took the mask away from me and straightened it out on his knees.

  "You sure it won't look suspicious?" he asked, his voice full up with sarcasm, and I looked down at my feet, shamed.

  "I'm sorry." My voice kinda cracked. "I didn't think – on Papa's ship they would never–"

  "Forget it." Naji pulled the mask across his face, hiding his scar. "Of course you're correct, the young men on your father's ship never once jeered at a disfigurement. Upstanding citizens the whole of them, I'm sure."

  I didn't know what to say. My face got real hot, and Naji kept glaring at me.

  "You have no idea what it's like," he said. "To look like me. To be what I am on top of that – people think I'm a monster."

  "I don't." But I said it so soft I'm not sure he heard me.

  I wanted to get out of the brig. I wanted to run up on deck till I found Ataño so I could pummel the shit out of him. Instead, I sat down next to Naji, the floor's cold damp seeping up through the seat of my trousers. He didn't talk to me or look at me and the air was heavy with his anger and I tried to think of a way to fix it. I couldn't come up with nothing.

  After a while, Naji said, "I'm sorry."

  The sound of his voice made me jump.

  "I'm sorry I was cold with you," he said. "I don't think it was your fault."

  "Oh. That's good." I chewed on my lower lip and looked at the pool of scummy seawater that had collected over near the bars. "I tried to stop it–"

  "I know you did."

  We sat for a few moments longer.

  "Can I ask you a question?" I said.

  "Depends on the question."

  "It's not about–"

  "Just ask it, Ananna."

  I took a deep breath.

  "You could've killed Ataño and been down below before anybody saw you. I ain't never seen a man move as fast as you."

  Naji didn't say nothing.

  "I get why you didn't kill him, that's not my question. But…" I forced myself to look over at him. "Why didn't you do that to me? Before I started up the curse and everything? In the desert? You could've laid me out faster'n a jungle cat. I know there was a protection spell but it must've worn off by then, cause you did cut me and all…"

  My voice kinda trailed off. Naji stared straight ahead.

  "It's true," he said. "There wasn't a protection spell on you in the desert."

  "Then why…?"

  Naji took his time answering.

  "Because," he said. "I didn't want to kill you."

  I stared at him. My heart was pounding all fast and funny, and I felt like I'd forgotten how to speak.

  "Ananna! Get the hell out of there before the captain comes down and sees you."

  Marjani. I jerked up in surprise, banging my head against the back wall. Naji glanced at me but didn't ask me if I was alright or nothing. His voice kept echoing around in my head: I didn't want to kill you. I'd no idea what to make of that.

  Marjani pushed the cell door open and stood there expectantly. She didn't say nothing about Naji's mask. I handed him back his knife, and once I'd stepped out she slammed the bars shut. The clang of metal against metal rang in my ears.

  "Crew's saying you move like a ghost," she told him, leaning up against the bars.

  Naji didn't reply.

  "Fortunately, the captain doesn't believe in ghosts."

  "He ought to," Naji said.

  "Is he gonna toss Naji overboard?" I asked.

  "The captain?" Marjani looked at me. "No."

  Over in the corner, Naji didn't even stir.

  "Ataño's a worthless little shit," Marjani said. "But it seems he's done more work in the past three hours than he's done in the past three days, so – the quartermaster's happy." She smiled. "Captain's letting you out tomorrow morning."

  "Wonderful," Naji said, though he didn't sound like he meant it. "Curses and darkness, I want off this ship."

  "Well, it's four weeks till Qilar. You've got awhile. Whispers are gonna be worse. You need to remember that you're here on the captain's good graces. You're lucky he's not a superstitious man."

  Naji lifted his head a little. "No, I'm lucky he has a navigator clever enough to dispel any residual belief in ghosts and ghouls."

  Marjani didn't say nothing, but I could tell from the way she tightened her mouth that he was right.

 
 
 

Whatever magic Marjani worked on the captain held fast; he released Naji at sunup the next day. I filched a knife off the cook when he wasn't looking and made sure I was down in the brig when it happened, tucked away out of notice in a back corner. Ataño wasn't nowhere to be seen.

  The captain had a couple of crewmen standing by with a pair of pistols each, all four barrels pointed at Naji's forehead.

  "I see any hint of magic," the captain said as he unlocked the cell. "Any hint of weirdness, I'm tossing you out to sea."

  He didn't say nothing about tossing me off the boat along with Naji, but then, I can't kill a man in less than a second.