Six

The next morning, Ajax left Rosie in their room and made his way to the galley, managing to get lost around a few corners, but stumbling upon it at last in one piece. There he ate some of the food that had been lain out for the passengers. He watched them all as he did this, listening with interest to several conversations. Some woman was scolding her son for bothering one of the sailors, to which he was stagnantly insisting in his high-pitched, six-year-old voice that the sailor hadn’t minded. Two men were discussing their racing winnings in hushed voices. In a far corner, though, a couple was talking about their plans for arrival. This Ajax started to listen to attentively, hoping for some clue as to where the ship was going and how long it would take to get there.

“Sol’s so far off,” said the young woman, a simple-looking person with a chestnut plait, “I don’t know if I can wait.”

Her companion, a man of similar age, made to reply, but Ajax didn’t make an effort to hear him. He had heard what he wanted to any way.

Sol was the ultimate destination of this boat, then. That young woman had been right; it was a long while till landing. Sol was down in Tellus, which was hundreds upon hundreds of miles south of Ardor. They were practically spanning the world.

But Volcno was one of the world’s largest ports, so he shouldn’t be terribly surprised.

 

He returned to Rosie with a hunk of bread for her to eat, and she took it in silence.

“I found out where we are headed,” he said, sitting on the floor next to her.

“And where is that?” she asked after taking a bite.

“Sol, in Tellus,” he answered. She choked a little.

“Tellus?” she said, after sorting out the piece of bread that had become lodged in her throat.

He nodded. “A couple, I think they were looking to elope, were talking about it.”

“Better there than hell, at any rate,” she said after pausing. “That’s the only thing farther south.”

“I was trying to figure out how long it would take on the way down,” he said. “I thought about a month.”

Rosie shook her head. “No. If we sailed straight it would take a month, but there are stops to resupply along the way, there are weather and wind issues, and there’s more. We’ll be on this ship for a month and a half at the least.”

Ajax let out a low whistle. “Are we just going to stay through the end?” he asked.

Rosie shrugged. “What else is there to do?”

“We could get off,” he said. “In Coera, or wherever we stop.”

“No,” Rosie said. “Absolutely not.”

“But-”

“Do you know what’s in Chrysos? Or Coera? Or even Tellus, for that matter?” she asked. “Do you know how you take over a country? You spin a web so fine that everyone gets caught and nobody’s the wiser. You get the authorities in your pocket to watch over the people, but then you get people to watch over the authorities, and soon you have a private army of informers, and they are everywhere. They could just be people looking to make a few pennies, but before you know it you’ve been caught and there’s nowhere you can hide, no one you can trust because for all you know everybody could be your enemy. And Master’s been spinning his web for almost two decades.”

Rosie took a deep breath and rubbed the back of her neck. “No, we’re staying on this boat as long as we damn well can.”