Before the Sky Fell

[ 5 ] Coliasus

The fleet didn't seem so fearful to Whik. The decks were full of weeping women and children who had lost their parents. He even saw a knight sitting with his sword to his side, wounds festering. "Who fears us?"

"A lot of people fear us. The barbarians in their wooden dinghies won't come close to our shores. Even the mages of Kolos write about our fleet, with their capes and wands." Marg stood. "Ah, this reminds me, stay right here."

He disappeared into the cabin. Whik didn't care where he was going. He was tired of the stale bread that Marg and his crew fed him. When Marg returned, a torn red cape hung from his hand. For a moment Whik's shoulders felt light and unburdened. He grabbed the cape at once and felt it with his fingers. The golden emblem was still stitched on, his initials in the center.

Marg motioned for Whik to turn. "In all that turmoil and through all those damned waves, someone stuck by ya." Marg fastened the cape around Whik's neck, but Whik didn't feel like a hero, not anymore.

Marg drew his hands back and cleared his throat. "You can thank her." He pointed to the red-haired woman who had kissed Whik back to life. She sat beside a heap of crates with a leather-bound book in her hand. "Her name is Charlotte and she helped me revive you when I pulled you from the ocean. I bet you she could sew up that hole in your cape."

"I can sew it myself," Whik said. But I can't. He didn't need her to sew it. Her hair looked silly anyway, but her skin looked soft and she smiled nice enough, and he was without needle and thread. He reached back with both hands and gave the cape a light tug, ensuring it was fastened securely. "But tell her thanks. And I suppose she could sew it if she wanted to."

"You'll have to ask her yourself."

"My mother made it for me. I've had it since I was three years old. She didn't make one for my brother either. And she said the thread on the emblem had real gold in it. It stands for Whik Winfield. That's my name."

"It is a fine cape, Whik Winfield, and it sounds like your mother was a fine woman."

Whik didn't like the way he said that. Was? Would she never be a fine woman again? "She still is."

Geoffrey Marg didn't say anything to that. When he nodded, the fat rolls below his chin pushed against his chest. This man was taller than Jasper. He was even taller than most of the men who ran about the ship.

When Marg turned to leave, Whik tugged at the man's sleeve and said, "What's she reading?" He pointed at Charlotte, who turned a book's page.

"It's a history book," Marg told him, crouching down next to Whik like older people do. "It's called Coliasus. I gave it to her."

"You own books?"

"Fewer than most, I suspect, but more than a sailor should. The one that Charlotte has was one of the first books I ever read."

"What's it about?"

"It's the history of the Calacami people, how they went from freedom to slavery."

Whik stirred. "My friend is one of them. Her name is Sonora, but she's back at home." He suddenly remembered again, how she was taken from the forest. That happened from time to time. Just yesterday he woke up and thought it was all a night terror. Sometimes he didn't even have to sleep for it to happen. "The Larks took her. But she wasn't a slave. Not ever."

Marg nodded."Lucky for your friend, she was born free. Hemonstalia had no slaves and anyone who made the journey to Hemonstalia was owned by no one. But elsewhere, in the far away southern islands, things are different. One day the city of Maulth decided that people from Kolos were strange. Dangerous. So they put them in chains."