Kadakithis pt 2: grounding
The ship had been rammed, and they were being boarded. He heard the sounds of war above him and started up the stairs to join the fight, but a glance from his cousin told him to stay below. He listened helplessly as the battle raged and the ship listed, busying himself by preparing a go bag. Writing tools, a royal crest carefully concealed in an apple, something warm to wear, a few coins, a water-skin. He dared a glance above. Pirates, by the look of them, and they had boarded in impressive numbers even as their own ship drifted away. A few gladiators went down quickly, too showy in their moves they telegraphed attacks and were easily cut down. Most fought like professionals. A glimpse of Chenaya saw her take one man after the other even as she was cornered at the bow. Maybe they would win after all, by simple attrition.
Kadakithis was slammed into the side of the ship as the pirate ship rammed them again. Chenaya stumbled, nearly recovered, then fell overboard. The new damage to the ship was extensive and it quickly filled with water and debris. He pulled the warm clothes out of his go bag lest their weight drag him down and he swam outside of the ship, or what was left of it.
The deck was on fire. Chenaya was slipping out of her armor trying to stay afloat, but she was drifting away from the ships, caught in a current. He started to swim towards her but she raised an arm out of the water and shouted something to him. “Go back”? “Get that”? “No mast”? “Come back”?
Kadakithis shook himself back to the present. There was no way to know what she had said, no way to change the decisions he had made. Make a rock of the thought and put it in a pile. He kept a small pile of river stones in the corner of his shop to remind him of this technique, the way he’d discovered to keep his sanity. He fussed with his pens and inks and looked out the window. Rainy season. There’d be no customers for the scribe today, at least none that paid very well. No one from Land’s End would come out in this rain for a pretty document, only to have it ruined on the way back.
When he returned to Sanctuary he had changed so much he was able to slip into town nearly unnoticed. Despite age and adventure he still had noble Rankan features so he could no longer maintain the pretense of being an unusually educated Irrune, but he let others talk and settle on the conclusion that he was a minor Rankan noble like most of them, a count or baronet more distantly related to the late emperor than the truth. As long as he avoided Molin he could apply what he’d learned in half a lifetime of politics, how to hide what he knows and let others fill in the details. Half a lifetime in politics, half in…
He’d had the foresight to grab a piece of flotsam and drape himself over it, playing dead in his upper body while kicking away from the pirate ship with his lower. He was fortunate that they bought the ruse and left him for dead. He made his best guess about the direction of land and swam towards it for days, eating the apple and conserving his energy as best he could. Finally luck favored him with a small islet with a small mountain peeking out of the water and catching a cloud with its peak.
At first, his basic needs fulfilled, Kadakithis planned. How would he return, and to where? Were any of his men taken alive, and who might they get a message to? How long would it take, what would the situation in the capital be...but after a few weeks he realized that none of it mattered. The world was turning without him. He had gone from the line of imperial succession to a prince of a city to the prince of snakes, seabirds, rabbits, and a boar.
And yet inconveniences aside it was the best place he had ever known. For the first time in his thirty-odd years he was alone. No one peeked behind curtains at him, no servants followed him, no messengers interrupted him, no nobles sought his favor. Nobody. He didn’t have to dress for anybody, stand a certain way, keep a certain expression, use a certain register of language (except with the snakes-he had used his Bey viper skills to keep them away from the tasty eggs). He had only his thoughts, and the sounds of the waves and the birds.
He did not want to forget what he knew but he knew that ruminating on those things would only bring him grief, so he started making rock piles. It not only helped him feel better but it helped him focus on survival. The dry season would be coming soon and the little cloud hats would be fewer and fewer. There was a small natural cistern on the islet but it would not be enough for the whole season, so he built another. It took weeks to dig it out but he didn’t have any other obligations, and that was freeing. The boar, while delicious, gave him pause. It had to have been left here by a ship, meaning another ship could come. Survival had toughened him, made him more patient and leaner and had bleached his hair close to what it was today, the pale dirty-blond of old age. Would it be enough?
The dry season had begun in earnest when he spotted the ship. Had it spotted him? He backed into the trees and waited, not sure who they were.
(This is a work of fan fiction based on the anthology Thieves' World and its anchor novel Sanctuary. No challenge to its copyrights or trademarks are intended. On the contrary, this is a poor shadow of the original and I highly recommend you go read those. The novel (takes place between the two anthologies) and the series before and after )