Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #226 (5 page)

"We run for now,” she said. “He's got the advantage."

For the next twelve hours they ran, sailing downwind with as many sails as their ship could bear. However, the
Andercoust
was a fishing trawler and not made for speed, while Sahr's ship was the same small cutter he'd stolen from Windspur months ago. By the time dawn glowed on the horizon, Amber knew they couldn't outrun Sahr. She watched his ship through a scope. He had one fewer man than Amber, but they were all armed. She also saw Billy, who was tied to the mast and looked half-dead. With her body burning to the coming deaths, Amber broke open the box of rifles and pistols she'd purchased and handed them to the crew. None needed reminding what they had to do. If it came to the worst, Miles was to ram Sahr's ship, taking them all to their deaths.

However, when Sahr sailed near their ship, he waved a white flag.

"A trade,” he yelled. “Billy boy for Miss Tolester."

Miles protested, but Amber hissed him to silence. Until this moment, her skin had been nothing but pain at the coming deaths. Now, only the names of Sahr and his men burned. If she exchanged herself for Billy, Miles and the rest of her men would reach home safely.

Without another word, Sahr and his men tied up alongside the
Andercoust
. They tossed Billy, unconscious and bound like a gutted fish, onto the fishing trawler's deck. Amber leaned over Billy—he still breathed. She kissed him, and assured Miles she'd be safe as she stepped onto Sahr's ship.

When Sahr cut the ropes and sailed away from the
Andercoust
, Amber smiled at him.

"I'm going to kill you,” she said.

"Wouldn't have it any other way,” he said with a chuckle.

Amber and David Sahr sailed west. At first the
Andercoust
followed, but when it became apparent Miles and his crew couldn't catch them the fishing trawler headed back toward Windspur.

Sahr laughed as the
Andercoust
sailed out of sight. “I should have put them out of their misery. Not that I won't get another chance. After all, you've given them no choice but to die out here."

"I didn't pick them to die,” Amber said, noticing Sahr's sailors were listening in. She was tempted to tell Sahr that if she chose sailors to die, she would have picked him and his crew. But since they were already named on her skin—and were also murderers—she felt it better not to raise this point. “The names simply appear."

"You think so?” Sahr asked. He grabbed Amber by the arm and dragged her across the deck to a tall, middle-aged sailor. Amber dimly remembered the man from her childhood; he'd been one of the endless itinerant sailors who'd passed by her parents’ shop each morning. “This is Angus McPhee. Once you named him, he couldn't find work as an honest sailor. At least, not until I taught him to forget the ‘honest’ part."

The sailors laughed. Sahr, though, glared at Amber. “Where's his name?” he demanded. When Amber didn't respond, Sahr pulled her right arm out and searched through the blue-fire letters for Angus’ name. When he didn't find it, he pulled up Amber's shirt before she shoved him back, causing the crew to laugh even harder. Knowing she had only one chance to take control of the situation, Amber pointed to her right breast. “You're name is right there,” she told Angus as white-hot letters suddenly burned through her shirt. “Your name is written in the bullet which hits you in the chest, and knocks you into the sea to drown."

The laughter stopped. Amber turned to another sailor. “You are Robert Allen,” she said, pointing to a new name which suddenly flared up on her leg and scorched her pants. “You will die gasping for breath in a storm-tossed sea.” She turned to another sailor. “You are William Douglas-Home. You will die when you fall overboard after drinking too much rum."

As the sailors stared, Amber walked among them naming their fates. She had never been around men whose deaths burned so clearly. She knew everything about these men. Knew how desperately they yearned to escape their fate. Knew that despite all their prayers and pleas, the only thing awaiting them at sea was cold and depth and eternity.

Finally, she stepped back to David Sahr. “As for you,” she said, a massive name igniting around her neck in the purest of white light. “The sea's been waiting a long time to take you. Once it gets you, your death will make all the other deaths seem pleasant."

Sahr smashed her in the face, sending her sprawling across the deck. “We're not slaves to this bitch's skin,” Sahr yelled.

"True,” Amber said, blood gushing from her split lip. “Billy was also fated to die at sea. But I saved him and he's no longer named on my skin. I can save all of you. But hurt me, and you're dead."

Sahr smiled, and for a moment Amber saw him as he'd first appeared—the handsome, unconscious sailor who seemed at peace with the world. Then his face churned back to anger and he yelled for his men to lock her in the cutter's storage hold.

Sahr sailed for two days with Amber locked in the dark hold, her only light a single porthole and the names burning on her body. Sahr alternated between bribery and threats to convince her to remove their names from her skin. Amber, though, noticed that Sahr never carried through on his threats. That, combined with how his crew treated her, bringing her food and water and unburned clothes, told her his power over the sailors was limited. As long as they feared her, she would be safe.

On the third night, the cutter sailed under a clear sky, the moonlight pushing the sea down as if a child had coated everything in the smoothest of milk. The sailors were silent as the cutter chased a fishing trawler through the night. Amber knew what was about to happen—Angus McPhee's name had been burning white fire for the last hour—but she kept quiet until the ship pulled alongside the trawler.

Suddenly, gunshots raked Sahr and his men. Through a porthole, Amber saw several constables on the fishing trawler shooting at them. Bullets exploded through the cargo hold and ricocheted around Amber, who felt a sense of calm as she watched moonlight pour through the new holes.

After a few more shots, Sahr yelled for his men to cast off. The cutter sliced through the seas, racing downwind as the constables continued to fire. Finally, after a half-hour of chase, the trawler's gunfire stopped.

One of the sailors smashed open the lock on the cargo hold and pulled Amber out. Several sailors were wounded, and Amber saw that Angus was missing, no doubt hit by a bullet and thrown overboard, just as she'd foreseen.

She walked across the deck to where two sailors held down William Douglas-Home, who screamed and cried from a bullet in his leg.

"Is he going to die?” one of the sailors asked.

Amber nodded. “Yes, but not from this bullet wound. And if you do what I say, none of you need die for many years to come."

At that, David Sahr ran screaming at her with a pistol in his hand. But before he could shoot Amber he was tackled by the other sailors. “Let me go,” he screamed. “She's done this to us. Her. Just her.” But the sailors ignored Sahr and hog-tied him beside the main mast.

Amber landed the sailors fifty leagues to the west of Windspur, with each man swearing a solemn oath by her skin never to return to the sea. As the men waded to the beach, Amber felt most of their names disappear from her body with a kiss. However, the name of one sailor remained, although he no longer burned as fiercely. Amber knew that man would one day break his vow and return to the only life he knew, but there was nothing she could do about that.

Amber turned the cutter back toward Windspur and ran with the wind. She had never piloted a cutter before, but had learned a lot from Miles and her other sailors. As long as good weather held, she shouldn't have much trouble. David Sahr—still tied up beside the main mast—critiqued her every move. When Amber almost swamped the cutter by taking a wave sideways, he laughed.

"That's what happens when you let a woman captain,” he said.

"You should be respectful,” Amber said with a smirk. “Maybe the judge will take your respect into account before he hangs you."

Sahr spat at her feet. “You ought to do it yourself. For once, actually kill someone, instead of fating them to die."

Amber resisted the urge to hit Sahr, or to pull the pepper-box pistol tucked in her belt and shoot him.

Once Amber had the cutter on a solid heading, she tied off the wheel and walked around the ship, dropping and raising sails and tightening ropes. When that was done, she was hungry. She asked Sahr where he kept the food.

"There's hardtack in the cabin,” he said. “The wood chest under my bunk."

Amber found the chest and carried it onto the deck. However, there was no hardtack inside. Instead, a handful of daguerreotypes lay there. Some showed her in the exact same shirt and pants she now wore, standing on the bow of this very cutter, with Sahr dangling from the yardarm. Other daguerreotypes showed Amber hanging from the yardarm. Amber stared at her swollen, broken neck, and the rope that had ended her life.

"Where did you get these?” she demanded, shoving a daguerreotype in Sahr's face.

"That picture will be taken when you arrive in Windspur with me dangling from the yardarm. If you have the guts to do the deed, that is."

Amber glanced at a daguerreotype—in it, her skin was free of the names, and Sahr hung dead. She threw the picture at the mast, shattering it to dust and shards. She grabbed another daguerreotype, this one showing her spinning in the wind with a rope around the neck, and threw it at Sahr.

"Who the hell are you?” she screamed.

Sahr shrugged. “I'm a child of Windspur. And the gods have screwed us both."

As he said that, a blazing white name erupted from Sahr's skin—Amber Tolester. Her name ringed his neck, screaming in union with the letters of Sahr's name burning her own body. However, the pain didn't come from Sahr's foretold death. Instead, she gasped as she saw—in the purest of fire and heat—Sahr's life flooding into her.

My father was a sailor. When I was ten I woke one night to my father's name burning into my chest and the pain of knowing he was dying. I ran to my mother's room and told her. Begged her to save him. Instead, she slapped me for lying

But in the morning, she learned I was right. She ripped the clothes off me and saw the names and screamed “Witch, witch” as she beat me bloody.

We left Windspur—left my friends and family—to live in London. Foggy, stenching, hateful London. All I had known was Windspur. Now all I had left was knowing when one of Windspur's sailors flared and died.

At twelve, I ran from home and hired on a ship. Became a cabin boy, a cook's assistant, worked my way to able seaman. The sailors all saw the names, but thought them good luck, not being from Windspur and knowing them as real people.

One day a Windspur sailor joined our ship. I tried to hide myself, but he recognized me, said he used to sail with my dad. For days all I could taste was the man's coming death as he fell from the main mast during a sudden wind storm. I feared what the other sailors would do when they learned what the names on my body meant.

So one night, while walking the alleys of London with my father's friend, I hit him across the head with a belaying pin. His name disappeared from my skin with the gentlest of kisses. I'd denied the sea its rightful death.

So I learned to change the fate of the men on my skin. I learned to read what the names told me, to track them down. The only difference was that when I met another Windspur sailor, I always killed him the first chance I got. Just to show the sea that there was no fate it could decree which I couldn't change. One by one the names vanished from my body. Eventually, there was only one left: Amber Tolester.

I knew right away this name wasn't right, as if the sea was playing a trick on me. A little girl of Windspur who had recently lost her parents, and was now carrying the burden of names as I once did. I felt the names on her body echoing to where the names had once been on me.

Then the pictures began appearing. Each time one of the sailors named on Amber's body died, a daguerreotype would appear on my bunk. Some showed Amber as a young woman; others myself. Some showed me dead. Others her. I knew the sea was taunting me for defying its will, but I didn't care. I refused to be fated by anyone.

As I caressed my link to Amber, I prayed she would learn—like me—that we weren't fated to suffer this damned lot in life. That once she learned, I would no longer be alone.

But instead, Amber merely watched as the men sailed away to their deaths, never knowing the pleasures to be had in changing their fates.

So I decided to teach her.

When the story finished running through Amber's mind, she pulled the pistol and held it to Sahr's face, remembering her fear when he'd held the same pistol to her own head. His name burned red around her neck as Sahr's memories of murder polluted her with their touch.

But instead of pulling the trigger, she sat down on the deck beside Sahr. “So you think the sea has cursed us? And the daguerreotypes are a warning?"

"You have a better explanation?"

Amber glanced at one of the daguerreotype shards on the deck beside her. The silver halide which had fixed the image of Amber's body to the glass fell away before her eyes. She watched the image disintegrate for a few moments before throwing the shard overboard.

"It doesn't matter,” she said, reaching into the box of daguerreotypes. “Doesn't matter if the sea did burn these names into us. Only matters what we do with them."

As Amber stood up, she glanced at the waters all around them. Sahr's name burned white hot on her body. The sea screamed for Sahr—begged Amber to throw the vile man overboard so it could have its way with him. Amber dragged the bound man to the railing and leaned him over the water. The suddenly choppy waves threw spray at them, almost as if the sea reached for Sahr.

For the first time, Sahr looked afraid. “Don't give me to it,” he said. “I only wanted you to learn. To free yourself like I was freed."