Joron found himself stepping forward, Black Orris fluttering at his ear as words came into his mouth, springing into being without volition or question.
“What do you want?” he said.
The crew, gathered to watch the spectacle, held their breaths, not only because he had interrupted the shipwife, but because the gullaime was now orientated on him, opening and closing its beak as if confused.
Or interested.
“Want?” it said eventually.
Joron nodded. “These women and men of the crew, they get food, they get drink, they get paid even though this is a ship of the dead. The money is sent to their families. That is why they serve.” Joron felt his throat and mouth drying as he realised everyone was staring at him. “What do you want? What would make you serve?”
The gullaime’s head recoiled on its long thin neck, as if to better take in a world that had abruptly changed in a way it found most surprising. Though of course there were no eyes behind the brightly painted leaf mask to take in the sparkling water, the bright eye of Skearith above, the shocked deckchilder gathered on the slate or the calculating gaze of Meas Gilbryn as she watched her deckkeeper. The beast’s eyes would have been removed soon after it hatched, for if that was not done the creatures wandered and hurt themselves.
It was a kindness, really.
“Want?” it said again, quietly. Then it softly opened and closed its beak and climbed down from where it hung on the bars of the cage. “What does gullaime want?”
Meas stepped up to Joron. He waited for the reprimand, but she turned from him to the gullaime.
“I would be interested to know this too, Windtalker.”
“Great shipwife,” spat the birdmage, “asks what gullaime want?” It seemed to shrink down into itself. “But gullaime serve, all know gullaime serve.” And was it bitterness in that otherworldly voice, spoken without lip or true tongue? Could Joron really know what the inflections such a creature gave its voice meant?
“Maybe gullaime do serve, and that is the way of it on most ships.” Meas left a pause, a long one. “But as Joron has reminded me, this is not a normal ship. So maybe things on Tide Child will not be done the normal way.” Something inside Joron glowed a little at the faint praise contained in Meas’s words. “So, Gullaime, what is it you want?”
It squawked quietly and thoughtfully, more to itself than to Meas or any of the watching crew, and as if in reply Black Orris squawked back at it from his perch on Joron’s shoulders:
“Arse!”
Silence.
“String,” said the gullaime, the word slow from its mouth. “Want string.” Then it tipped its head to seaward and thought a little more, before adding, “And dust.” Another pause. “A lot of dust.” A squawk of excitement. “And cloth and needles and dust . . .” Then it was reeling off a list of things, strange and seemingly pointless things, some everyday, some extremely rare, and for the life of him Joron could not work out what the beast could want with any of it. But Meas listened and nodded, and when the creature took a breath, for it showed no sign of stopping, she interrupted.
“String, dust, cloth and needles, these things I can do; some of the other things are harder to find. But trust blows both ways. You must prove yourself to me.”
“How?” It tipped its head on one side. Opened its beak and snapped it shut.
“While we have been speaking, my crew have raised the staystone. All that holds us here is lack of wind.”
“You want wind?”
“Ey,” she said. “I understand you have not visited a windspire for a long time. We will take you ashore to the spire above Bernshulme and allow you to breathe it and—”
“No need!” squawked the gullaime and it raised its featherless wings inside the cage. Heat washed over the ship, and Joron felt like someone had clapped hands over his ears, so quick was the change in air pressure. The black sails of Tide Child cracked and shuddered in the sudden gusts. For a moment Meas was shocked at the power the beast conjured up. Then she was reacting.
“Oarturner!” she shouted. “Oarturner! To the rump of the ship!” They were moving already, Tide Child listing and creaking as the wind brought by the gullaime hit, and the ship began to move smoothly and swiftly forward, without thought to direction. Meas was running for the oar as was Barlay. “Steer us landward. Aim for the harbour entrance,” she shouted. Now the wind was howling around the ship, and Joron knew there was danger, but the look on his shipwife’s face contained nothing but exhilaration as she threw herself against the oar, laughing, bringing Tide Child round to point his beak at the open sea. They flew out of Bernshulme harbour like a thief leaving the scene of a crime, and not one deckchild in the harbour or woman or man of the rock cheered their passage.
Though you would not have known it from the shouts of of joy from those aboard.
It seemed to Joron the ship was somehow lighter. He did not understand why – it carried more crew, more cargo, more weight than ever before – but the black ship skipped across the waves, and not only when the gullaime brought the wind. The birdmage’s magic lasted only until they were out of the harbour, and then the gullaime turned its head to Meas and gave her an emphatic nod, as if to say, Well, there you go. Doubt no more. Then it sat down in its cage amid the straw and filth, and the breeze coming off Bernshulme picked up where the creature left off.
Meas wandered over to the beast.
“When was the last time you were at a windspire to charge the strength within you, Windtalker?”
“Six times the cold eye of night opens and closes,” it said quietly.
“Six months?” She put a hand on the bars. “Six months and you still conjure a wind to bring us out of the harbour? Most of your kind would not last a week.”
It stood then, raising itself from sitting without needing to steady itself with elbow or beak. Standing, it was of a similar height to Meas.
‘Hurts,” said the gullaime and stroked its chest with a wingclaw, “but I am not most. Not most.”
Meas stood back.
“We shall find you land and windspire the first chance we get,” she said. “And the other things you ask for, I shall have Deckkeeper Twiner find them.” The creature’s head shot round, unerringly finding Joron even though it was blind. Then Meas opened the door of the cage and stood to one side. It scuttled out, across the slate on all fours and down the stairs to the underdeck, watched by all.
The sight made Joron shudder, but the rest of the crew seemed inured to the gullaime; to them it was just a part of the furniture, as much a fixture of the ship as the turning oar, spines or spars. But to him it was something dark, unnatural. As a child he had dreamed he heard the storms talking to him, and his father had told him to put such thoughts aside, that nothing good could come of them and that if he spoke of them he was likely to find himself floating blue above a ship as a corpselight.
And then what would I do, Joron? Left all alone without my boy? But how could he not be reminded of such things when a creature that could control the winds with just its thoughts walked the same slate as he did?
They flew across the sea and Skearith’s Eye closed on them. The lights of the town were slowly absorbed by the night, going from many to a few to a single fuzzy glow that Joron supposed, at least to some of the crew, must be sad to see vanish, though he was not one of them. Then Skearith’s cold bones lit the sky, a myriad glowing messages for the courser and the shipwife who huddled below, charting Tide Child’s course. How had he found himself here? Officer on a ship of the dead, a ship of betrayal on his way to meet Gaunt Islanders.