Read Gloria Oliver for Free Online

stepped into the doorway. He swallowed hard as he bowed.
    “Come, boy,” the samurai said.
    Toshi darted a glance toward Miko and saw her nod. Hiding in his blanket, he stood up and shivered, wondering if he would feel the samurai’s cold touch tonight.
    “Leave it.” A bony hand pointed at his blanket.
    Toshi released a heavy sigh. He let the only warmth he’d had fall off behind him and walked to the door as the samurai moved from the doorway.
    Asaka walked down the hall, leaving him to follow. The samurai stopped, blocking the way to the exterior door, as splashing sounds rang faintly beyond. They stood there for almost a full minute before the samurai reached to open the door.
    A blast of night air smashed into the boy’s shivering body as the door was momentarily ripped from Asaka’s grasp. As the latter stepped outside, Toshi grabbed for the doorway when the ship abruptly rocked to the left. Nervously, he stared out at the wet, glowing deck. Two columns of skeletal men sat toward the bow of the ship, all holding long oars they were using to move the flat-bottomed vessel. He looked away from them and their fleshless bodies, a shiver crawling up his spine.
    Stepping out onto the deck, he noticed the overcast night sky. The blowing wind slapped his face. The ship shifted to the right, and he felt his filled stomach knot up. Doing his best to ignore it, he carefully climbed the ladder next to the doorway, following Asaka. The ship tilted again, but he held on, his stomach knotting up a little more. Reaching the top, he stood uneasily on the glowing deck and waited for the samurai to tell him what to do.
    “You’ll now determine our present position. Do not attempt to lie, for I already know the answer.”
    Hating the fear growing inside him at the words, he glanced behind the samurai as a stooped skeleton approached them at Asaka’s signal. Stopping before the boy, the retainer offered him the map Asaka had taken from Master Shun’s store and a number of gaijin instruments.
    Trying to keep his footing as the rocking of the ship grew worse, Toshi took the map, avoiding any contact with the skeleton’s hand. His gaze swam for a moment. The map’s contents seemed to move with the tilting of the ship.
    Attempting to ignore his sudden dizziness, he returned the map and took a heavy coil of measuring rope with a weight at one end and a round cork on the other. Leaning against the rail, he dropped the weighted end into the rolling waves below. He dared not look at the moving water, which strove to make his dizziness worse, as he tried to get a depth measurement as quickly as possible. The choppy water wouldn’t allow an accurate assessment, but he was sure the samurai wouldn’t care for the excuse. As soon as he thought the bottom had been reached, he noted the marked depth of three fathoms on the rope where the cork bobbed and began to carefully coil the rope up again. He hurried as much as was prudent, his dizziness making his stomach knot up worse than before. Due to the roughness of the water, he decided he wouldn’t try for a speed reading.
    Returning the coil of rope to the waiting skeleton, he next took a large compass. The small bowl-like contraption had a colorful card face showing all the major directions that was submerged in liquid to keep it still. Quickly looking it over to make sure it was in working order, he stood as still as possible to get a directional reading from the bulky instrument. When he was done, he traded it for a cross-staff. With that, he looked up into the cloud-crowded sky, trying to catch sight of the North Star. Finally spotting it as a bank of clouds broke for a moment, he lifted the cross-staff in its direction. He felt his dizziness worsen as he put the long bar of the cross-staff against his eye, his gaze following the rod upward to the North Star. The ship kept shifting, making the star weave in and out of his sight. He stubbornly fought to keep it in view. He slid the