Read The Wildside Book of Fantasy: 20 Great Tales of Fantasy for Free Online

else—my chest, my sandals, my sword, even my money pouch—I would have to leave in the cabin.
    “What shall we do for provisions?” asked Astyanax, eyeing a bunch of grapes on a table beside the couch.
    “Go hungry until we reach the shore.”
    He crammed his mouth with grapes.
    I lifted the canvas and peered on deck.
    “All clear?” he whispered.
    “All clear.”
    The sides of the cabin hid us from Vel and his friend at the prow and also the navigator manning the sweep at the stern. I gave Astyanax my knife. A strong swimmer, he could match the speed of the Turan and cut the cord which held the dinghy. He clung to my back as I crept under the canvas. At the edge of the ship, I held him over the bulwark and let him slide from my hands. The wind and the waves muffled the sound of his dive. I dove after him. The hull diminished like a black, retreating whale and left me in foam and the almost-darkness of a sickle moon.
    By now Astyanax had cut the dinghy’s rope. Still in the water, he thrust the little boat in my direction. I clambered over the edge and gave him a hand. The vanishing ship had left a faint white trail, as if the Lady Moon had walked with phosphorescent sandals.
    I slid my fingers along the bottom of the boat. The boards were moist with sea-slime. “There’s no paddle,” I sighed. “We’ll have to trust to the current.”
    “Why don’t I push?” He readied himself to dive.
    I reached to stop him. “No!” I cried, sensing danger. Perhaps I had seen a movement under the waves.
    “But I live in the water,” he protested. “I’m not afraid—“
    The sea exploded beside us and a white shape arched above our heads. I ducked and shivered as water showered my neck.
    “Atthis!” shouted Astyanax. “I’ll ask her to give us a shove.”
    I peered at the water. Low, choppy waves tossed in the feeble moonlight. “Are you sure she’s friendly?” I asked.
    As if to answer my question with a resounding “No,” the end of our dinghy shot into the air and Astyanax and I rolled like peas from a pod. The boat slid under the surface and reappeared, capsized and low in the water.
    We clung to the keel. Atthis circled us with rapid, lessening loops. It was hard to tell her intention: if she meant to attack or wished to atone for throwing us into the sea. I felt her smooth white snout brush against the soles of my feet, inquisitive, exploratory, as if to examine my skin, feel my pulse, fathom my thoughts. My thoughts at the moment were not charitable. I will kick her, I told myself, if she touches me again. Then I remembered the shark-killing teeth behind her impassive face.
    The men on the Turan had seen our accident. The ship had turned and now she bore down on us like a great black Harpy.
    “Swim for it,” I pleaded with Astyanax. “They’ll never catch you.”
    “Bear,” he reproved, “you don’t expect me to leave you?”
    “They won’t hurt me. It’s you they want.”
    “We will think of a way to outwit them.”
    I gave him a shove from the boat. “Astyanax, go!” He clung to my hand with thin, tenacious fingers. Defeated, I drew him beside me and cradled him with my arm. “Well, then, we shall face them together.”
    Vel shouted from the deck. “We’ll run you down unless you surrender peaceably. Both of you.”
    Astyanax swore under his breath: “Nethuns, god of the deep, feed him to sharks and cuttlefish!” But he wisely restrained his utterances when the captain threw us a rope.
    Hand over hand, he followed me onto the deck. Silent, inscrutable, the white dolphin watched us from the water.
    The captain bound our hands. He removed his signet ring, a gold shark with gaping jaws. “Heat it in the torch,” he said to the one-eared sailor, “It will serve as a brand.”
    II: THE HALCYON FINDS A CREW
    To the north lay Elba, the island of iron and copper; to the east, the port of Graviscae, with quays and canals and red-tile houses laid in terraced rows. Behind the port the twin