Work Text:
"At least," said Jullanar with a determined smile, "we brought a boat with us this time!" She held up Fitzroy as he slumped across her lap, making sure he didn't bang his head on the gunwale.
"And we seem to have missed the storm," Ayasha pointed out. "That's important."
"A sail would have been nice," Pali muttered, never pausing in the rhythm of her rowing. They didn't know which direction they were travelling, or even where they were (although Fitzroy had said it was Zunidh before he descended entirely into misery). The oars were only being used to keep the boat in line with the heaving grey waves so they wouldn't be swamped. Or that had been what Ayasha said, but Pali did seem to be rowing with a determination to go somewhere.
"Oh, do you know how to sail?" Jullanar asked with interest. "I grew up in a fishing port and I hardly know any of the details. Just that you can't go straight into the wind."
Pali raised an eyebrow. "We did not have much opportunity for sailing practice in the Middle Desert, no."
"Didn't you once travel out to some distant island, after you got Sardeet back?" Ayasha asked.
Pali scowled. "I flew on Arzu's carpet."
Fitzroy spasmed and pulled himself toward the edge of the boat once more. Jullanar held back his wild hair, which was very droopy. Pali pulled more strongly to get away from the smell, though there was little enough left in his stomach by now.
"Well, Jullanar and I could take a turn at the oars, for a bit," Ayasha offered.
Jullanar shot her a startled look, but chirped, "Of course!" Privately, she doubted that both her hands on a single oar would be enough to balance Ayasha plying the other, but they could likely find a way to coordinate. She pulled Fitzroy back before he fell overboard, wondering how well Pali would tolerate holding onto him. As passionately as Pali (and all of them) had striven to get Fitzroy back from the Moon, it still seemed as if she didn't quite know what to do with him.
"I'll be good for a while longer," said Pali, which probably meant she wouldn't allow anyone to help her until nightfall at the earliest.
Jullanar wondered how long it would be until nightfall. They couldn't see the sun very well, though the heavy clouds were at last beginning to break up. It had been a jarring fall from the smooth currents of the River of Stars to this storm-roiled ocean. They weren't even certain which ocean, as Zunidh had several to choose from.
Peering about, Jullanar noticed a dark speck against the clouds lining the horizon. "I see something over there!" she pointed.
Pali craned. "An island?"
"No, it's smaller than that." Jullanar wanted to say it was a person standing on the water and staring at them, but that seemed unlikely. "A log, maybe?"
"It's a man," said Ayasha confidently.
"That's what I thought, but... in the middle of the ocean? What's he standing on?" Jullanar demanded.
"A sand bar?"
"No, the waves would be breaking in that case. Oh! He's waving at us. Or is it a woman?" She waited for the bobbing waves to raise the person into view again, squinting at their silhouette.
"There is something under them, certainly," Ayasha insisted. "Ship wreckage, from the storm?"
"Or maybe they were swept out to sea on a log?"
"Aim to your left, Pali."
"Starboard," Jullanar couldn't resist adding, having been indoctrinated that boat directions were fixed regardless of which way a person was facing.
Pali rowed closer to the standing figure, who Jullanar realized was wearing a feathery skirt, which her cultural expectations insisted must be feminine. They had longish hair as well, and several necklaces. But they were shirtless, flat-chested and broad-shouldered. As their boat came within a few wave-widths, she could see that it was an old man with a mane of wet gray hair and brown skin over stringy muscles. The skirt proved to be woven of grass or long narrow leaves, like something out of the Atlas of Imperial Peoples.
He called out to them, a long phrase of which Jullanar recognized not one word, despite the broad mix of languages Pali's feather had taught her. Her heart sank.
But then he spoke again, in perfectly intelligible Shaian: "Good afternoon!"
Jullanar waved back gladly. "Hello!"
The waves lifted the man up and then dropped him down in counterpoint to the motion of the rowboat. He did seem to be standing - bare-footed - on something rather like a log, but there was another log nearby, and in the moment when he crested each wave Jullanar could see some further structure below.
"Well!" he said, brown eyes flitting across their party. "This is quite an unexpected surprise." His accent was unfamiliar, sharp and nasal, but something in the delivery reminded her of Fitzroy's upper-crust tones. And then he executed a courtly bow, without ever losing his footing.
He came half-upright and then stiffened, staring at Fitzroy sprawled miserably across the boat. "What's wrong with him?"
(It seemed to Jullanar there was something slightly off in the way the old man phrased the question, with the emphasis on wrong when she thought it ought to have been on him. But she didn't have time to give it much consideration.)
"He gets quite seasick at times," she said, not wanting to explain how falling unexpectedly back into the mortal lands had made it much worse.
"Have no fear, good sir," Fitzroy got out with a wave of his arm that managed to look like a languid noble's gesture rather than the flailing of a dizzy invalid. He blinked up at the old man. "My friends are taking very good care - urk!" He rolled over to face down at the water again.
"Don't look at him," Jullanar murmured, since the opposite rise and fall of the old man had the effect of making the waves seem twice as high.
"Look at the horizon instead," Ayasha offered, advice which had helped Fitzroy in the past but did not seem to be working today.
"I might have something that would help, if I can reach my stores," the old man told them thoughtfully.
Jullanar thought stores sounded quite impressive, coming from a man who seemed to be standing half-naked on a raft made of two conjoined logs. Perhaps it had been a part of some larger vessel that broke apart. "Were you wrecked by the storm?"
The old man waved downward. "I was capsized. I can assess the damage more fully once I get my vaha - my boat - upright again. Normally I can do that myself, but there seems to be a problem this time. I was attempting to figure it out when I saw you." He looked over the rowboat. "Your vessel seems an unlikely choice for seafaring, though I admit at the moment it shows to better advantage than mine."
Jullanar giggled.
Fitzroy glanced at the old man and then quickly back toward the horizon. "Perhaps we can offer assistance to each other!" he said, managing a fraction of his usual cheer.
"You think he has anything we need?" murmured Pali, who had stowed the oars and was assessing the half-naked man skeptically.
"We need information," said Ayasha firmly. "Can you tell us where we are, sir?"
The old man slid down easily to sit astride his log, or capsized boat (it must be tiny, thought Jullanar). "Well, I was in the Wide Seas, partway between the Vangavaye-ve and the Sociable Isles, when the storm came upon me. But there is good reason to believe that at least one of us is very far away from where we started."
"I can assure you this is Zunidh," Fitzroy told him, and then took a gulping breath.
"Ah! That is good to know." His eyebrows twitched. "And how did you come to be out on the open ocean in an Alinorel rowboat?"
"What makes you think it's Alinorel?" Pali demanded suspiciously.
He smiled back at her. "I am something of a connoisseur of boat designs." He really did remind Jullanar of Fitzroy in some indefinable way.
"We were travelling in the Divine Lands," she explained, trying to smooth over Pali's brusque tone. "We fell out onto this ocean without warning. Fortunately, we did miss the worst of that storm, but we have lost our friends and... most of our supplies." Fitzroy's bag had been in Masseo's boat.
"I can offer you supplies, if you will help me bring my boat upright," said the old man easily.
"Oh! It's most kind of you to offer, sir!"
Pali's eyebrows said she doubted that he would be able to deliver on his offer.
"It's the custom of my people to give aid to storm-tossed travellers," he went on. "Perhaps Sayo Angursell will write me into a song!" His eyes twinkled.
Jullanar blinked, and Pali's hands spasmed on the oars.
Ayasha stood up. "You know who we are?"
"I believe I can make a good guess, Domina. You are... rather younger than I was expecting, though."
Jullanar wondered what he was hiding. "If you know our names, may we have yours?"
He was still looking at Fitzroy, his lips quirked ironically. "Well! I might be the Duke of Ikiano. Or a high lord of the Imperial Court. Or the Prince of the White Forest - ah, no, that's your friend there. I suppose it would be best if you address me as Buru."
"That's not your name," Pali objected.
"It is a title I have been granted," the old man said. "I regret that I must be cautious in giving out my name. You understand, surely, that names have power."
"Fair enough," Ayasha declared. "How can we help you with your boat, Buru?"
What the old man needed was for someone to help him dive down and free whatever was fouling his boat's... mast? Or superstructure? Whatever it was that belonged on the topside and was now being held down in the water.
So naturally, Pali got to hold station at the oars, Jullanar got to continue looking after Fitzroy ("Does it help that we're sitting still on the water?" "No.... urk!"), and Ayasha took off every stitch of clothing before jumping into the water.
Jullanar hastily tore her startled gaze away from Ayasha's breasts, and caught Pali looking almost as shocked; Sardeet had cheerfully mentioned that no one would bare their skin in a land with sudden sandstorms. Fitzroy, the snake, had been watching with great interest. The old man... had not. He had been sitting quietly on his log (was the 'boat' really just a raft?) looking off toward the horizon and breathing strangely. When Ayasha was ready he stood up and looked at her eyes, nothing below that, and then they both dove into the water with hardly a splash.
Jullanar held her breath while she folded Ayasha's clothes neatly on a seat. When she needed air, she took several deep breaths until she felt less dizzy, and held her breath again. It wasn't until she was nearly out of air for the third time that Ayasha's head popped up.
"Did you drown him?" Pali asked.
"No, he's right behind me," said Ayasha, breathing deeply but not very fast. "Here, take this." She handed Jullanar a handful of something that was partly green and slimy, partly gold and shiny.
Jullanar picked away the seaweed and stared in astonishment as a necklace was revealed. Diamond and topaz and obsidian all set in gold. "What is this?"
"That looks like Imperial jewelry," Fitzroy murmured.
"Zangora the Ninth, if I don't mistake," said the old man, appearing in the water right next to them. "Or possibly Tenth. Here, have some more." He passed Jullanar another handful of seaweed that seemed to be wrapped around a pair of earrings to match the necklace. "I'll keep this one, if you don't mind." He showed a rope of pearls and shells wrapped around his forearm. "I believe I can bring my vaha up now."
"Do you need more help?" asked Ayasha, eyes shining as she bobbed in the water. Wasn't she cold?
"I'll just fetch up the ropes, and take the aft. You can take the fore."
They did some shorter dives, and stripped seaweed from some brownish ropes, and discussed things Jullanar couldn't make out.
"Fitzroy, what did you do?" she asked, looking at the jewelry in her lap.
"What? Nothing!" But Fitzroy was sitting up, distracted from his stomach and studying the necklace right along with her. "He might be right about Dangora IX."
"It's a complete parure!" Jullanar said. "Do you have any idea how easy it would be to lose an earring and destroy the set just by walking across a room? And we've just recovered the full set from the ocean! What is your magic doing?"
"Nothing!" he insisted. "Although... well, it might be just a bit unsettled by returning from Sky Ocean. And being in Sky Ocean. And the Moon Lady, she did set it alight quite a bit. But it likes him."
"'It.' Your magic? Likes that Buru?" Pali asked skeptically. "He's a dirty old man."
"He didn't stare at Ayasha at all," Jullanar objected. "He isn't even staring at her now." Ayasha and Buru were both standing on one of the logs, each holding a rope. They leaned back and pulled on the ropes which made muscles ripple eye-catchingly on Ayasha's torso and the old man's shoulders. But they were both intent on their work, not looking at each other.
"No, he's been staring at Fitzroy."
Jullanar considered their friend, who was watching as if he was giving the matter serious consideration. She whapped him with her knuckles and he gave her a wounded look. "What? It couldn't be worse than the Moon!"
"He's four times your age!" Pali said.
"Only three, surely," said Jullanar, and caught Pali's gaze. They both giggled.
Fitzroy furrowed his brow. "Er, not even that much. Right?"
"Perhaps so. But, my dear, you are spotted with sick. If that's what he likes, I think you should be worried."
"Oh!" Fitzroy's eyes went wide, and Jullanar turned her head to see the second log come up out of the water, dumping Ayasha and the old man back into it while the boat lifted itself upright.
It wasn't much longer than their rowboat, but the flat platform supported by the two logs - hollow logs? - had more room for five people to stand or sit or lie down as needed. It had two poles - masts? Except that Jullanar generally expected a mast to stand upright, and these were canted away from each other at an angle, with some kind of patterned fabric hangly limply in between.
"Did you hit your head?" Pali was calling to Ayasha as she surfaced.
"No, he told me what to look out for." Ayasha spun in a circle, looking for the old man.
He appeared near the other side of the boat and made some gestures that Ayasha apparently understood, because she swam to the near side. The two of them climbed up to the platform in sychrony, so the boat didn't tip over.
Fitzroy grabbed Jullanar's arm tightly. "The magic on the boat!" he breathed. "It's..."
"You're going to have to give me more than that," she said when he didn't go on. "It's what?"
"It feels like his, actually," said Pali.
"Yes! So much like mine, but more so! It's so intricate and sparkly and happy!"
"Is that what's making you feel better?" Jullanar asked.
"Feel -? No." Fitzroy touched his stomach uncertainly. "Row us closer," he told Pali. "I have to see!" Then he saw her glower and added sweetly, "Please?"
Pali brought the rowboat closer to the 'vaha' and Jullanar handed over Ayasha's clothes. She pulled on a single layer, not bothering with supportive undergarments.
Buru had pulled back a flap of the platorm and was apparently rummaging in some kind of storage space in one of the hollowed logs. Nothing he pulled out was dripping wet, so it must be sealed somehow?
"Water," he said, passing Ayasha a pair of stoppered gourds and then two... coconut shells?
"Do you have enough?" she asked him, handing the gourds along to Jullanar and keeping one of the coconuts.
"Oh yes, drink your fill!" he said in an airy way that was strangely reminiscent of Fitzroy when he had a secret. Which was almost always.
Thinking of Fitzroy, he was beginning to groan again. Jullanar leaned the opposite way. "Did you say you have something for nausea?" she called across.
"Ah!" The old man reached into his storage space and brought out a small jar of clay or ceramic. "It's not actually medicine, but I think it might help settle his magic. You haven't been balancing it properly, have you, my dear?"
Maybe Pali was right, Jullanar reflected as she reached out for the little pot. Most people, on meeting the four of them, would not have settled on Fitzroy as the one most in need of care. Even if - perhaps especially if - he was vomiting.
The pot was warm, stinging her palms as she passed it across to her friend.
"Oh!" he gasped, just as he had when the boat came upright. "Oh, so warm!" He curled around the little pot.
"What is it?" Jullanar asked as Fitzroy fumbled for the lid.
"It's a fire pot. Just a few embers - ah, careful there!" Buru said as Fitzroy pulled it open.
A blinding light poured out of the little pot, bathing Fitzroy's face in gold. Jullanar could feel the heat of it from beside him. She fumbled for his hands, pushing them together to replace the lid at least partway.
"That's sunlight," said Pali blankly. "How did you get fire from the Sun?"
Buru beamed at them. "I went to his house and asked, of course. I thought it would be a good counterbalance to the Moon's influence, is it working?"
Fitzroy groaned, but not as if he was about to throw up.
"Fitzroy," said Jullanar sweetly, "do we need to get a room for you and the little fire pot?"
Buru was pulling out food from... somewhere. Mostly fruit of various kinds, but also some pastries that seemed remarkably fresh. Fitzroy moved over to the vaha where he could sprawl across the platform, leaving extra seats in the rowboat for Pali and Jullanar to use as dinner tables.
"Why do you have so much magic on your boat?" Pali asked the old man. "Why do you have a pot of sunlight?"
"The short answer is that my dear f-friend is a great mage, whose influence has led me into some adventures but also protected me from many dangers." Buru smiled genially at the group, not focusing on Fitzroy. "I'm sure you can all understand that."
"Why haven't we heard of this-" began Pali, but "Why is his magic so much like mine?" Fitzroy slurred, sopping up the heat from the pot as if it were intoxicating.
"He has mentioned that his style is quite similar to yours," said Buru. "With more refinement, according to him, but of course I can't confirm that for myself."
Fitzroy pouted and Pali and Ayasha looked amused; there must be something very fancy about this other mage's magic.
"I'm sure there won't be any issue of compatibility as long as none of you fine ladies tries to stab me."
Jullanar stiffened, but Buru was still smiling sweetly.
"There will be no stabbings," said Ayasha. "There will be no problem there. The problem is, we have two boats, but only one sail."
Buru cleared his throat politely. "I do have a spare sail, in fact. But no spare mast, so your point is well taken."
"So we all get on the boat with the sail, and leave the rowboat behind?" Jullanar suggested.
"That is a strong plan," said Buru. "But unfortunately, the four of you come from one place and time, and I come from another. And none of us are specifically from this place. Or time, perhaps."
Why does he keep talking about time? Jullanar wondered.
"We don't even know where we are," Ayasha pointed out.
"It's true, there are multiple oceans on Zunidh. But the kelp that we saw attached to the mast only grows in the Wide Seas."
"The biggest one," Pali put in. "Of course it had to be."
"It is possible I brought the kelp with me, but I don't think that was the case. Additionally, I can tell you that there is a land mass to our west. Either a large island - likely Lorosh - or a continent."
"Kavanor?" Ayasha suggested.
"Perhaps."
Jullanar said eagerly, "That's where we were heading with our friends. Maybe we can find them there!"
"How do you know there's land to the west?" Pali demanded suspiciously.
"From the waves. Not these short ones coming from the east, but there's a longer swell on occasion... there! Did you feel that?"
"No?" said Jullanar, while Ayasha said "Yes" and Fitzroy groaned "Yes" as if the swell disagreed with him.
"Small bites of the breadfruit, my dear," Buru told him. "That's an ocean swell returning from a large landmass not too far away. I estimate several days' sail, but we may see some of the long-flying birds at sunset and then I can be more accurate."
"Do you have enough supplies for all of us for days?" said Ayasha worriedly. "We should be saving water."
"Don't worry," he said, passing her a coconut shell.
"I already emptied that one."
"It's not empty," said Buru. "Trust me."
It wasn't empty.
"So, our choices," Buru summarized. "We can all sail on the vaha, which has sufficient room and supplies but it will be rather crowded."
"And low in the water?"
"Yes, a bit. Alternatively, we could use the vaha to tow the rowboat, which would slow us considerably. But it would mean that if something arrives to send us all back to where we belong, everyone has a boat."
"Could we fashion a mast, even a small one, to hold that spare sail of yours?"
Buru frowned. "I don't have anything that would -" He stopped. "I have two fishing poles."
So Ayasha and Buru spent the afternoon jury-rigging a fishing pole with a scrap of canvas to the prow of the rowboat like a jib. It wasn't much, and the boat had no tiller so someone would have to sit in it to steer. They had to sit quietly on the waves through the night, with Buru using his outspread fingers to measure the constellations.
"We are not as far south as Lorosh," he said, and seemed worried about something.
In the day they got the two little boats sailing carefully together. Fitzroy was feeling so much improved that he was able to call a wind - "Not that strong!" Buru barked almost as soon as the breeze come up - and after some adjustments they were making good progress.
There was more fruit and pastry and coconut for dinner that night, and a few strips of fish lightly seared on the sun-pot (Buru had asked Fitzroy to keep his concentration on the wind rather than cooking the fish and perhaps setting the vaha on fire. He certainly did seem to know the foibles of a great mage, Jullanar noted).
On the third day they came to the Broken Edge in eastern Kavanor, and a line of Imperial barges taking the Prince-Heir on progress. Buru seemed strangely unsettled by the sight of the looming cliffs, but Jullanar was certain they had Fitzroy's serendipidity to thank for bringing them to just the right place and time to catch up with Damian and Masseo and the rest of their company.