Free From Whence You Came by Laura Anne Gilman Page A

a flurry of activity on the other ship. Several of the crew seemed to be lowering something alongside, down into the waters, while others were busy unfurling the sails.
    â€œDo they intend to leave?” Harini asked, puzzled.
    â€œAt sunset? “ The solitaire looked doubtful. “But they are Iajan, and Iajans are madder than most. It’s part of their charm.”
    Harini had never met an Iajan before. She had to rely on the solitaire’s experience. The reliance – not having observations of her own--made Rini itch.
    But once the object had been lowered into the water, the Iajan ship only moved a few lengths away, and then set anchor once again.
    â€œThey’ve set bait,” Harini realized, her breath catching in her throat. “They mean to lure a serpent to them. What makes them think it will come? They never reacted to our bait.”
    â€œWe did not have half a cow to offer them,” the solitaire said dryly. They had taken on supplies at their last port, but fresh meat had not been seen on their table for weeks. “Fish they can catch on their own, after all.”
    â€œIt won’t work.” She was certain of that. They had tried everything – short of half a cow, true – and the serpents had ignored them entirely. But if it did work…
    â€œFind Je’heirba, if you would, please. Have her fetch my sketchbook and my pencil case.”
    A solitaire was not a servant; one did not send her on errands. But Rini dared not leave the railing. Thankfully, the older woman seemed willing to do this thing for her.
    At first, it seemed as though she had been correct. The water remained undisturbed, the only shadows on the water normal for approaching night. The object – buoyed by some sort of bladders – floated unmolested just below the surface.
    And then it bobbed. Just once, but noticeably, as though something had tugged on it from below.
    â€œThey had to do this at nightfall?” she muttered, straining her eyes to see better. She could tell the Captain to move closer – but that might spook the beasts away. Plus, she wasn’t sure how close two ships should be – when they had met, the two ships had remained distant, with the small, narrow rowboat ferrying the Iajans over to them
    The water rippled again, clearly more than tides or wind, and she whispered “Sin Washer save us,” just as the serpent burst from the water, the half-side of cow caught up in its mouth. This was not the calm, singing pair she had seen off her home coast, nor the fleeting, sleek-muscled shapes they had been chasing in these colder waters. This was a beast in truth, the neck shorter, the body heavier, with stunted limbs alongside like oars of a lowboat. Water flashed off it as it shook the bait like a dog with a hare, and the scales glowed in the dim light like a muted rainbow, silver, green, and blue. The crew on her own ship burst into action, readying the sails in case they needed to flee, and she was aware of a shadow at her left shoulder: the solitaire had returned, her hand on the blade carried on her hip, her gaze managing to cover both her charge and the potential threat.
    Harini did not believe that the beast would harm them. But she would not deny that the woman’s presence was comforting.
    â€œLook!” someone shouted as the sails bumped and clattered, a sudden wind rising out of nowhere.
    No, not nowhere, no more than the earlier blasts had been from nowhere. This time she could make out the Vineart standing in the stern of the ship. He stood differently than a sailor, although she could not say exactly how or why, and his hands were raised, palms up, in what looked at first like a mockery of the Washer’s Solace-Offering. It took a second before she realized that the Solace-Offering was taken from the Vineart’s pose, not the other way around, and the second blast of spell-wind hit the ship as a lance of fire slapped the serpent in