Oath Bound (Book 3) (4 page)

Seal Rock to Windish

Dingus enjoyed Seal Rock.
It was a feast for the eyes after the long, unbroken expanse of scrubby plain. The
last few days of the journey from Knightsvalley had been filled with
increasingly stony ground and difficult passage, until on a cloudy afternoon
they reached a place that looked like a massive finger had reached into the
world and scooped some of it out, and the water had rushed in. A fjord, Vandis
had called it, or an inlet, and the water was Hadrok’s Sea. Dingus had never
seen anything like it. Wealaia was landlocked, but from studying maps he knew
he’d actually grown up closer to the Shining Sea than to this great, gray, wild
reach of water. Off to the east, along the land, was Dreamport, and slightly
west of that—between here and there, across the sea—was Rodansk, which Vandis
said a guy could see on a very clear day.

A small town snuggled
into the fjord, on the landward end where the grade wasn’t so steep, and three
ships lay inside the walls at anchor with sails furled, swaying gently in the
tiny waves that made it through. A wide ramp angled down to the town. Out
closer to the sea, the walls sloped upward, until around the mouth they dropped
sheer. Dingus smelled brine and fresh fish on the chilly wind that whipped from
the north. Green clumps of plant life clung to the walls, especially at the
mouth, and near the surface of the water, what looked to be sandy clusters of
rocks.

The caravan eased down
the ramp. Dingus helped some, but had to admit he was distracted; everything he
saw, heard, and smelled was completely different from anything he’d ever
experienced. In the background, the constant wash, wash, wash of waves called,
“Dingus, Dingus, Dingus…” He wanted to go climb down at the mouth and see what
the plants were, what the sandy rocks were, what the ocean tasted like, since
already salt touched his tongue. “It’s cold,” Kessa complained, but the wind
made his blood sing, and he kept gazing around at the fjord even while they
walked through the town, so the thatched buildings and dirt streets completely
passed him by.

“Dingus,” Vandis said.
Since the Hayedi had gone down to the docks to sell off their cargo, he was
calling Dingus by his right name again.

He stopped. He realized
he’d walked right past Vandis and Kessa, who’d stopped outside one of the
bigger buildings. It was an inn with a strange sign, sort of a cross between a
fish and a dog. His heart sank at the thought of going inside when he hadn’t
even gotten half a look around.

Vandis looked at Dingus’s
face and laughed. “Go.”

“You guys aren’t coming?”

“I’m exhausted,” he said,
“and Kessa’s teeth are chattering.”

Dingus sagged. “All
right. Let’s go in.”

“We talked about this,
remember? Get out of my face a little while.”

“But—”

“Dingus. The only thing
that’s going to happen to me is a nap. I don’t want you hovering.
Go.
Just be back at sundown for supper.”

“Are you sure?”

Vandis raised his eyebrows,
mouth pulled down, and Dingus backed off quick.

“Okay, thanks, bye!” He
dashed away and spent the afternoon crawling all over the fjord, feasting his
senses, testing his body, like he’d wanted to anyway. It was the best thing
since the Moot. He picked out a spot on top of the rocks to come watch from
later, climbed down and saw that instead of being rocks, the sandy patches were
made of some kind of alive things that opened and closed slowly with the waves
shattering against the dark cliffs. He tasted the ocean: dirt and salt,
insanely salty. He stroked bare fingers over the shells of those little alive
things, over slimy plants. He saw, far out to sea, a huge black-and-white fish
gone small with distance as it leapt high into the air like a fish in a pond
and came down with a terrific splash he could
hear.
And that wind! Cold
and damp, it lifted his hair even where it was soaked from the spray he’d
collected down by the water, and he felt sure this was the Lady’s country. When
the sky began to darken he made his way back down to the inn, wet, exploding
with questions, and passionately in love.

“Have a good time?”
Vandis asked when he came through the small, smoky taproom and took a seat on
the bench next to the fire. Water steamed off his clothes, and all he could do
was grin until his face hurt. Kessa snickered, but Vandis didn’t; he grinned
right back and said, “Well, let’s hear your questions.”

Dingus spilled them,
starting with, “Will you come out with me tomorrow? Please?” He couldn’t think
of anything better than this place with Vandis nearby.

“Yes,” Vandis said, and
Dingus felt his chest glow. “I’d be glad to make some time for you. Our ship
doesn’t leave for a fortnight.”

“Hey-la-hey!” Dingus
said, just that.

“I wish I’d been able to
book passage a little sooner, but I can see it makes you happy.”

“I’m not ready to leave
yet, that’s for sure. I saw this fish, a huge one, all black with big white
spots, and it jumped—” He paused to nod at the barmaid laying plates and mugs on
the bench next to each of them. “—it jumped right out of the water and splashed
back down again. It had a real stubby nose, and a wide tail, and a fin on its
back almost like a knife.”

“Sounds like an orca.”

“Is that what it’s
called?”

“Yeah. It’s not quite a
fish, though; it doesn’t have gills. It has lungs like ours, and when it jumps
out of the water, it breathes. It’s a kind of whale.”

Dingus reached down and
picked up his supper. It was some kind of thing on bread, and he paid a lot
more attention to what Vandis was saying about whales with teeth and whales
without than he paid to what went into his mouth. He started to chew, and
gagged. He’d never once met a food he didn’t like, but this—this was the
absolute worst thing ever to pass his lips. It was a fishy, salty, caraway-seed
nightmare, and as quick as he’d taken a bite, he spat it out again. “What the
fuck
is this?” he blurted, interrupting Vandis.

“Pickled herring,” Vandis
said.

“Don’t you like it?”
Kessa asked, eating her own with every appearance of relish.

“Ugh.” Dingus picked up
his tankard and drained the dark beer in one long draught. “That’s not food.
That’s a curse on mankind.” Watching both of the others eat it was almost as
bad as eating it himself. He tried to pick it off, but it was in little pieces,
and even when he was sure none of it remained with the bread and chopped egg,
he could taste it. He set the bread down, nauseated and hungry at the same
time. “Can I get something else, Vandis? Please?”

“If they’ve got something
else, you’re welcome to order it,” Vandis said.

“I’ll eat yours,” Kessa
said eagerly, and took the pickled herring plate away from him. Dingus wound up
with dark bread, onions, and cold boiled eggs. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the
kind of supper he’d hoped for, either. Afterward, they all went upstairs to the
room Vandis had taken. Kessa enthused over the real beds the whole way.

It wasn’t a big room, but
there were two double beds inside, made up with bright felt blankets. One
looked slept-in. On the east side there was a little fireplace with a friendly
blaze, and a table with a bowl and pitcher for washing. There were three plain
chairs around the table; Dingus suspected that was at Vandis’s request.

“Since we’ll be here a
while, I thought we might as well be comfortable. You can share with me,
Dingus.”

Kessa sighed happily and
fell back onto the neater bed, the one closer to the fire. “It’s
so
cozy,” she said, wriggling with joy.

Dingus found the bed too
soft. He felt as if he were sinking through the ropes that held up the straw
tick. Vandis snored in a familiar way, rocklike except when he rolled over and
flung out a hand. It landed, hard, right over Dingus’s heart. Vandis kind of
smiled, and he let out a long breath and settled again. Dingus lay still,
thinking it’d be pretty stupid to wake Vandis because of it. Besides, his
Master hadn’t touched him once since the Moot. It wasn’t Vandis’s way, wasn’t
Dingus’s either, but every so often it would’ve been nice to get hugged,
especially when he knew Vandis would be leaving pretty much as soon as they got
to Windish, leaving for a place where Dingus couldn’t see him, couldn’t be
around him, couldn’t watch his back.

He knew Vandis cared a
whole lot about him, but sometimes he thought maybe Vandis didn’t know how much
he loved him, or didn’t think about it. Dingus didn’t even need a thumb to
count the people who made him feel like he really mattered: Grandpa, Grandma,
Kessa—but she had her own growing up to do, and the four years between them
yawned wide as a gully—and Vandis. Cranky, crotchety, solid Vandis, who, even
when he was pissed off, shielded Dingus like a fortress. Now he was going away,
and he’d take everything certain with him. He was going to Dreamport alone
because he wanted them to be safe, he’d explained all that, but he didn’t
understand that when he was gone, there wouldn’t be anything safe in the whole
world. He didn’t understand how damn scared Dingus was over the idea of
something happening to him.

He shuddered at the
thought and Vandis muttered in his sleep. His fingers flexed over Dingus’s
sternum. He sat up, letting Vandis’s hand fall to the mattress, and swung his
legs over the side of the bed, propping his forearms on his thighs.

Vandis groaned, blinking
owlishly in the sullen light cast by the fire as it burned low. “S’matter, you
dreaming?”

“No.”

“Then—” he began,
sounding cranky as ever, but he let his thick body fall back and scrubbed at
his face. “Talk.”

“What happens if you die?
In Dreamport, I mean.”

“Evan’s coming. Told you
that.”

“That wasn’t what I
meant,” Dingus said.

“Oh, hell,
now
you
ask me this?”

“Evan won’t—” He hung his
head. “He won’t—be like you.”

“No. He’s not like me.”
Vandis shifted. “Look at me.”

Dingus twisted to gaze at
him where he half sat, propped up on his elbows. His granite face, his sharp
eyes, looked almost soft.

“If it comes to that? He
won’t be like me. He won’t—you won’t be to him what you are to me. To anyone
else, you cannot be what you are to me. Whatever happens, though, you
will
see
me again, and that is my solemn promise. However long you live, you’ll see me
again at the end of your road. In the Garden.”

“Vandis—” he said, and
choked.

Vandis cursed under his
breath. “Don’t,” he said, roughly. “Don’t. I won’t be gone long, I swear to
you. Don’t be afraid.”

Dingus looked away.
People always said things like that, but they never said how to achieve it. It
seemed both spectacularly unhelpful and unfair. Was it really that easy? Vandis
laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed—Vandis’s idea of hugging him—tightly
enough for him to feel every callus.

“Plenty of Juniors do
this. You know that, don’t you? You can handle—”

“I know that!” Dingus bit
off, a lot louder than he’d meant to.

Kessa grumbled and rolled
over, but a moment later she issued a gentle snore.

“I’ll be fine,” he said,
lower. “But something bad is gonna happen to
you
, because you’re not
careful, and that’s what I can’t handle.” He lay down on his side, facing away
from Vandis, and shut his eyes.

“We discussed this.”

“Call that a discussion?”
Dingus muttered.

“
I’m
not careful?
You about gave me a heart attack with that stunt you pulled in the Practical!”

“That’s different. I knew
what I was doing, and nobody was fixing to
kill
me. You got people out
for your blood and you don’t even look over your shoulder.”

“Hey!” Vandis snapped. He
grabbed Dingus’s shoulder and yanked him over so their eyes met. In the other
bed, Kessa let out a theatrical moan and pulled a pillow over her head, but
Vandis ignored her. “I’ve been doing this dance thirty-five years, Squire and
Knight! I was Head before you were a twinkle in Angus’s eye, and you damn well
know I expect better from you than this swaggering big-balls bullshit! Get a
fucking grip!”

The bed shook and the
cords holding the mattress creaked when Vandis flopped down. Dingus rolled back
onto his side and, somehow, fell asleep right away. Maybe it was because
everything felt—well—
normal
.

Anyways, it might as well
have never happened, except for one thing: the fortnight they stayed in Seal
Rock, there was Vandis and more Vandis. He’d only had this much time free for
Dingus during those few weeks after Dingus had first met him, even when they’d
been at Elwin’s Ford late last winter; but this time, Dingus wasn’t studying
books, writing treatises, or honing his tracking skills. This time, it was
Kessa stuck in the Slippery Seal, practicing her reading and writing. She
joined them in the afternoons, but the mornings were all Dingus and Vandis
rambling the fjord, fishing and hiking. Vandis showed him the seals, which really
did look like a dog and a fish had kids, with long, sleek, furry bodies and
big, soft, doggy eyes. They climbed down the side near the mouth to harvest the
little animals that Vandis called “mussels,” and Vandis fell in the water. He
was an excellent swimmer, but Dingus didn’t know that, and he’d just taken his
boots off to go in after when Vandis grabbed his ankle and dragged him,
yelping, off the ledge, into water colder even than the lake at Knightsvalley;
breath-stealing, bone-aching cold.

Vandis fit a hand over
his head and dunked him. He wasn’t expecting it, so his eyes were open, and
when he popped up gasping, to Vandis’s laughter, he got a good breath and went
right back down into a clear, green world like no other.

The salt stung his eyes,
but he kept them wide, drinking it all in. A fish swam past his face, so close
he reached out and touched its slippery side as it flicked away. He saw forests
of weeds and terraced beds of shellfish on the rocks of the fjord—and Vandis’s
legs, working slowly as his Master trod water. Dingus propelled himself up
underneath and yanked Vandis down; he got a glimpse of Vandis’s shocked face
before he broke the surface and lunged for the shelf. He was just pulling
himself out when Vandis’s arms clamped around his waist. “Sneaky little shit,”
Vandis said, the smile warm in his voice. “You’re not going to win this one.”