Within the cabin all was dark. There was no sign of the creature in the barely-there light of the wanelights.
“Gullaime?”
Nothing, for a moment. Then his name was given back to him from the gloom, said as if by a creaking door.
“Jo-ron. Twi-ner.”
From the seaward corner of the room the gullaime unfolded itself. He had thought it part of the mess in the room, a ball of dimly seen rags. Then the rags grew long and spindly legs ending in three-toed, powerfully clawed feet. There was a hint of wings, maybe, or was it an illusion created by the gullaime’s ragged clothing? Last, a head on a thin neck that kinked halfway along. The gullaime rose in a way that look unnatural, impossible. A woman or man would have had to put a hand down to push themselves up, but the gullaime needed no such assistance to stand before him. It opened its beak and made that noise again, that rasp of saw-on-varisk noise: “Jo-ron. Twi-ner.”
“I have brought the things you wanted, some of them.” Joron did well not to stutter as he held out the bag. The gullaime took a step forward, the masked face tilting first to one side then to the other, the false, painted eyes regarding him as if the creature expected some trick.
“For me?”
“Yes,” he said. “For you.”
“For me,” it said again. Then it made a strange, almost cooing sound, before shrieking, “Give!” and ripping the bag from his hand with its predatory, sharp, curved bill. To Joron’s credit, or maybe simply because the movement was so swift, he did not step back or make any noise that gave away the terror he felt at that beak snapping closed so near his fingers. The gullaime dropped the bag on to the floor and, using the double elbow claws that stuck out from its robes and its feet, the birdmage swiftly untied the knot and opened the bag. “Things,” it said. It sounded almost awed; then the voice changed, suddenly angry again. A furious squawk: “Lies!” Then again: “Lies! Not all things.”
“I could not find everything,” Joron said, words hurrying from his mouth. “Not yet. Cook is saving fishbones for you, or will when we start to fish. For now we eat only dried and the bones are soft.”
“Shiny rocks?”
“We have been nowhere I can get shiny rocks. Not yet.”
“Feathers?”
“There are some feathers in there.”
“Not special ones.”
“How do I know which are—”
“Meas has special feathers.”
“Good luck getting them from her.”
It froze, unnaturally still.
“The feathers are her things.” The gullaime’s head regarded him. If the painted eyes had been able to blink he was sure they would have. “Meas things.” It dipped its head twice and then a third time, and this time its head stayed down as if inspecting the contents of the bag with its blind eyes. It placed a foot in the bag, and once again Joron wondered how he had not noticed that the gullaime’s feet were crowned with claws like scythes, pulsing in and out of their sheathes in time with the creature’s breath. “Needles, cloth. Good, good. What this?” It held up one of the fuzzy balls of dust with one foot, balancing effortlessly on the other.
“Dust. You asked for dust and I have had the cabin boy collect it for you.”
“Not dust.”
“It is dust. It is sweepings from all around the ship.”
“Not good dust, not good for baths.”
“Baths? You need water for baths.”
“Water for drink, fool Joron Twiner. Dust no good. Take.” Then it was picking up the balls of filthy dust and shoving them at Joron, who found himself with no choice but to take them. As suddenly as it had become industrious, it stopped. Became absolutely still. “Oh.” And this was somehow the most human sound Joron had heard the creature make. “Oh,” it said again. The blind head came down, gently picking up the comb from the bottom of the bag with its beak. It transferred the comb from beak to foot and seemed to stare at it, the eyes painted on the leaf mask fixed on the object. “Comb.”
“I remembered you wanted one.”
“Comb,” it said again.
“I am sorry it is broken. I . . .” But the windtalker was not listening. Quick as a girret surfacing to snap at a fly, its head darted forward, snapping off the comb’s teeth. Joron was about to complain about this treatment of his gift when he saw that there was a pattern to the vandalism. It was not taking all the teeth, just a few at regular intervals along the comb, creating larger spaces between the existing teeth.
“Thanking, Joron Twiner.” The gullaime emitted a cooing sound. “Maybe Joron Twiner not fool.”
“I am glad you are happy,” he said, wrongfooted by the sudden gentleness of the creature’s voice.
“Nest father had comb.”
“Oh,” said Joron. The gullaime took another step towards him. Joron felt a sudden sense of panic, the need to get out. He did not want it near him, did not want to hear about the gullaime’s parents, or know that such a beast understood the idea of family. “I must return to the slate,” he said. “We have lost contact with one of the other ships.”
It nodded at his words then stepped back. As he turned for the door it spoke again, softly.
“Are you sad, Joron Twiner?”
“Sad?”
“Smell lonely. Not a good smell.”
“And you would know?”
“Yes,” said the gullaime, and this was the cry of faraway skeers circling over their nests, the cry that every deckchild associated with lost ships, breakers smashing on to cruelly toothed rocks. It was the sound of loss. “Yes,” it said again. “I know.”
It seemed an age between each turn of the sandglass, and every time he turned it and the sand ran anew Joron hoped to hear, “Ship rising to seaward, ship rising to landward.” But the ship to landward remained stubbornly unrisen.
He questioned his decision to fly on. Was it what she would have done? Not that it mattered now as it was a decision made. To go back would make him look weak in front of the crew, and his conversation with Cwell was a staystone in his mind, weighing him down with feelings of weakness he dared not acknowledge, so he said nothing. He concentrated on pushing down the feeling within that he had done the wrong thing and used up the restless energy of worry pacing the rump. Occasionally he circled the deck, checking with bonewrights, wingwrights, seakeep and topboys that all, apart from the lost ship, was as it should be.
And all was.
It was in the very early morning, when the hint of Skearith’s opening Eye touched the far western horizon with a wash of pink, like newly leafed gion, that Joron’s patience was finally rewarded.
“Ship rising to landward, D’keeper!”
“Can you name it, Topboy?” he shouted up to Farys.
“Not for sure, D’keeper,” she returned. “Two spines, wings rigged triangle like on the fore and square on the rump like Snarltooth.” Once again Joron made his careful way up the swaying rigging of Tide Child to the top of the mainspine, where he raised the nearglass. In the coming day Snarltooth was easy to find and he did not doubt it was the lost ship.
“Have they made any signal, Farys?”