Free Chasing the Lantern by Jonathon Burgess Page B

plate. The cap had fallen off, dumping its contents everywhere. Lina and several others laughed at the prank.
    "Maxim!" cried the pirate. "You horse's ass!"
    The navigator turned around slowly. "The daemon made me do it," he said. "Earned a small Working. Be thankful."
    The pirate swore and stood, taking his ruined breakfast elsewhere. He gave Lina a dirty look as he left. Belatedly she realized her mistake. Great. I really shouldn't have laughed. The strange navigator was right, she was going to have to earn acceptance.
    Lina upended the salt shaker over her egg without stopping to think. The end flew off, dumping a tablespoons' worth of salt to spill over her egg, hand, and the rest of her plate. She cursed and started back, then glared at the aetherite.
    "Daemon made me do it," he said with a shrug.
    Maxim turned to look out across the room. Lina followed his gaze to a knot of pirates at the far end from them, Oscar Pleasant in their midst. He was telling a story, punctuated by obscene hand gestures and glances in her direction. His assembled mates laughed uproariously.
    "He is causing you trouble," said Maxim. "You should do something about that." Then he stood, leaving her alone again.
    Lina picked about her plate for anything edible. Eventually she stood and left the mess to find Henry Smalls. As he'd said, she found herself assigned to the night-watch under the huge piratess, gunnery mistress Sarah Lome. Lina was told she would be expected to fight, and help in any emergencies that threatened the ship. Otherwise her time was her own and she was simply expected to stay out of the way. Depressed now, and still feeling exhausted from their ordeal, Lina drank more water, found the head, and then went back to bed. She awoke around seventh bell, late in the afternoon.
    Lina ate another meal by herself in the mess, this one not so extravagant as the last, then made her way up to the deck. Pursing her lips, she approached the rails and looked past them down onto the world below.
    The setting sun sent shafts of umber light across thick tropical jungle stretching out along the Copper Isles beneath them. The Dawnhawk rode a few hundred feet above the canopy, cliffs and rivers separating the land into islets. The Isles spread out in a crescent across the horizon, the blue water of the Atalian Sea surrounding them.
    It was glorious. Lina laughed at her earlier trepidation. She rested her arms on the railing and enjoyed the view. I'm home . Lina blinked in surprise at the realization. Maybe she'd expected a bit much. Maybe the captain had taken pity on her. It didn't matter. She suddenly knew that this was the life for her. I'm going to make it work. To the Realms Below with everyone else.
    The last of the sun sank beneath the horizon and a shrill whistle rang out across the deck. Lina looked back to see Henry Smalls standing amid the deck with a boson's whistle, Sarah Lome standing behind him, cracking her knuckles. The evening crew was assembling, hurrying from up the hatches or wherever they'd been loitering about the deck. Lina moved to join them.
    Henry passed his whistle to the gigantic woman. "Gunnery mistress," he said, "you have the watch."
    "I have the watch," she repeated formally. Then both of them relaxed.
    "All's straight and clear," said Henry. "This is a good ship."
    "When are we picking up Lucian?"
    "Around dawn. Captain say's it's going to be the usual spot, along Breakneck Bay."
    Lome nodded and he went below. She turned to face the assembled crew. "You all know your normal places," she said loudly. " Dawnhawk isn't much different from Flittergrasp in that. But, I don't know this ship, and you don't really either. So we're going to go over every inch, and all the work that dayshift has already done."
    The next two hours were brutal. By the light of the rising moon Lina found herself holystoning the deck until her back ached. Unused to the work, she fell behind the others, earning a lashing from Sarah Lome's