DIRTY WORK
2.
The cabin was low-ceilinged, and Yerzle could not stand fully upright. He realized that there had to be another deck below this one in the forward part of the ship, since the slave pen in the aft portion was high enough that none of them had been able to reach that hatch opening. It was slightly stuffy, and the air held the scents of exotic spices and incense. His nose twitched, and he fought back a sneeze. He stepped off the steep stairway to the main deck -- almost a ladder -- and glanced about the cabin. It was not nearly as dark as he’d thought it would be, and his eyes quickly adjusted. Standard portholes let in light, and more came in through cracks in the hull that had developed in their final rush for shore. The large space was divided into nooks and cubbies instead of separate cabins, each filled with cushions and blankets, no doubt plunder of the slavers. He could not see Portia in any of the nooks, so he made his way about the space as quietly as he could. He found her in a midship nook aft of the hatch, with a large porthole and several large pillows. She lay with her face to the bulkhead and her back to him, cocooned in a blue and red quilt with only her white hair visible.
Even from that position, Yerzle though she looked beaten and exhausted, and he hesitated before speaking. “Portia?” he asked softly. She did not answer. He called her name again, then stepped haltingly towards her sleeping place, although he did not enter it or touch her bedclothes. Still, she did not respond, and he decided to return abovedeck. As he turned to climb the stairs back, he heard the cushions rustle.
“How’s the shuffleboard tournament going?” Portia’s voice was thin and dry. She rolled over just enough so that she could see Yerzle without turning fully away from the bulkhead. The sun through the porthole glinted in her green eyes. “I told Stillwell I’d join, but I admit I don’t feel up to it right now.”
“I just got here,” he replied, stepping over to her bed. “They got so wrapped up in organizing the entertainment that they forgot to look for me.”
“It’s scheduled as a double-elimination, round-robin event,” Portia said with a faint smile. “The brackets have to be seeded carefully.” She sniffed, then wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“Also, you smell like kelp.”
Yerzle chuckled. “You can smell that, under all this patchouli? Well, that’s what broke my fall. I had to untangle myself once I woke up, and I’ve got sand in places I didn’t know sand could get. I’ll itch for days.”
He squatted at the entrance to her nook, resting his elbows on his knees. “Dozer told me you were resting, but I thought I’d check on you, anyway.”
She turned her face back to the bulkhead. “I saw you fall overboard when we first struck the beach,” she said, so softly that he could barely make out her words. “I saw you fall, but couldn’t do anything about it. All my power, all that power I was channeling, I could only use it to keep pushing the ship forward, not to save you. Not to do anything but go. I didn’t know whether you’d fallen into the sea, or onto jagged rocks, or even how far up in the air we were. Then we hit the boulders.” She sighed raggedly, like the final puff of a worn out bellows. “All that power, and I couldn’t do anything....
“Then it was all gone."
“Hey, I’m here, you’re here, everyone’s here, and there’s a shuffleboard tournament ready to start! If we get out of this only with Stillwell’s broken leg and your exhaustion, that’s a success in my book. It beats the slave pens for sure, don’t you think?”
“Exhaustion,” she murmured, and rolled back over and sat up a little, keeping the quilt wrapped around her. The tip of her black-and-white striped tail poked out from the bottom end. “Right.... I’ve felt better, for sure, and considering I’ve been dead, that’s saying something."
“You didn’t die,” Yerzle said with a nervous smile. “It was close, sure, but--”
“You weren’t there,” she said flatly. “You couldn’t possibly know.”
He didn’t try to argue the point, and sat down on the edge of the pillows. “I was worried for you. I was afraid that being a Duct would take too much out of you."
“You have no idea,” she said wearily, and pushed herself up into a half-sitting position against the bulkhead with slow, careful movements. Now that he was closer, and she was in more of the light, Yerzle could see Portia’s drawn and haggard face, her sunken and bloodshot eyes, he dry, cracked nose, and the brittle exaggeration of her movements. The white fur of her face and muzzle seemed to have a yellowish tinge, like old bones, but he couldn’t tell if that was real, or only a trick of the light. “Being a Duct siphoned nearly everything out of me,” she said. “My strength, my spirit, my will. I feel like an empty husk of myself. I’d hoped that the ten years I lost would be off the end of my life, not taken immediately.”
“Is that what’s happened?” Yerzle’s concern for his friend grew.
“I’m not sure. The lore regarding Ducts is spotty and incomplete. It’s a last-ditch maneuver, not something wizards take on readily, and the effects aren’t well understood. But, as you said, it beats the slave pens.”
They sat quietly for a while, watching dust motes in the sunbeam that shone through the porthole. “I’m glad you’re all right,” Portia said finally.
“We’re all all right,” Yerzle said. “Even you, you’ll see.” He gestured up at the ceiling. “Do you want to go topside? Mister Pauly should be done setting up the buffet. You could get the last of the day’s sun in one of the lounges, as well.”
“That ridiculous costume disappeared when the Duct shut off,” Portia said, then ran her fingers through her hair. “It left my hair short, though.” Yerzle could see that her hair did end just before her shoulders, unlike the ponytail she normally wore. “I couldn’t find my other clothes, either.”
“Disappeared, you say?”
“I see that look on your face!” Portia said, sounding more like her normal, forceful, self. “You can wipe it right off! The punks who fished us out of the ocean have plenty of gear and equipment, so I’m sure there’s something around that’ll fit me. But you’re going back up top before I go looking!”
Yerzle smiled as he climbed the stairs to rejoin the others. Everything was sorting itself out.
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