We came to Sukir late in the evening. The Attolian had asked me to stay in our cabin during the time we spent there, and I’d agreed. We didn’t know if the empire believed me dead in a rockfall, and even if the empire was unaware that I still lived, we didn’t want to arouse any suspicions. I sat in the cabin, the Attolian beside me, and listened to the clatter and bang of the sails and blocks as we glided over the lowered chain into the harbor. It has always amazed me that something made out of cloth can make so much noise when it flaps, like cannon-shot or a lightning strike from a clear sky. Through the small round porthole, I looked out at a hundred ships moored around us, silhouettes against the orange and pink and translucent blue sky. Sukir is the largest of the empire’s ports, larger even than Iannis at the Ianna river delta.

Navigating into a crowded harbor is a ticklish business, but the evening breeze was gentle, and the captain skillfully eased his way to a mooring and ordered anchors dropped. We slowly swung into alignment with the other ships as the sails were gathered in. Then we waited for the harbormaster’s boat to come alongside, as it eventually did—when there was almost no light left to see by—to ask the captain’s business.

The captain’s business had been a point of contention. The Attolian wanted to leave as quickly as possible—we would not change ships, and once the seal was verified, we would rely instead on the Dolphin to take us the rest of the way. The captain was not thrilled with this plan—at the very least, he wanted to dump his cargo on the market at Sukir, to offset the costs of his commandeering. The Attolian had refused to permit it, afraid that people would ask questions about the unusual activity. Again I was taken by surprise by his confidence and his air of command. That he was more sure of himself in his native tongue was one explanation, but I think it was also the effect of the king’s seal. When he held it in his hand, he did not doubt that he spoke for the king and that the king’s authority was incontestable. Anyone could see it in his face, and I think his respect for that trivially small carved stone, more than anything else, persuaded the captain. Or perhaps it was just the obverse side of being such a terrible liar—his honesty was easy to believe in.

The captain might have accepted the Attolian’s authority, but he still fought his losses. He’d argued that docking in Sukir and not doing business would be more likely to attract unwanted attention. Ultimately, he and the Attolian had worked out a story that would explain the unexpected arrival of the Dolphin in the harbor at Sukir—a change in the ship’s ownership that required an immediate return home—and would permit the captain to sell off a part of his cargo, even if it wasn’t at the best possible price. This was the fiction that the captain related to the harbormaster.

In the morning the ship was moved to the dock to offload whatever cargo the captain would be able to sell and take on whatever he could for the trip to Attolia. I pretended to yawn when the sailor knocked at our cabin door to inform us that the captain was ready for the walk to the Attolian trade house to present the king’s seal. When the king took the throne, the imprint of that seal had been sent out on documents everywhere the Attolians traded. Unlike the public seals, only a handful of people would have seen it at each house, but it would have been carefully stored for just such occasions as this one.

“Sleep in,” said the Attolian, already up and meticulously tidy, as if he were going to see the king himself. It was unusual for me to still be lying down and he’d asked earlier if I was ill.

“Just tired,” I told him and I did feel tired, as if I were being pressed into the bunk by a tremendous weight.

“We won’t be long,” he assured me.

I lay listening until I was certain the Attolian had left the ship, then forced myself up. I pulled on a clean tunic, borrowed from one of the sailors, and carefully folded the dirty one out of habit. I wouldn’t be taking it, or any of my clothing, with me. I took only my penknife and the pens and paper from the captain, secured in a roll. I looked around, seeing that everything was tidy, and then I left.

I made my way up the narrow stairwell to the deck of the ship. The morning sun was still on the slant and the sailors busy with predictable tasks. Trundling about the cargo that the captain still hoped to sell, they had no attention to spare on me. I nodded hastily to a sailor by the gangplank as I trotted past, as if trying to catch up to the men who had left earlier, and he never gave me a second glance.

Leaving the waterfront, I didn’t dare take the larger avenues. I dodged into the more inviting side streets, forgetting that they weren’t as familiar to me as the narrow byways of Ianna-Ir. Sukir for all of its size and wealth was similar to many small coastal towns in that it was deliberately difficult to navigate. The rough stone streets turning in hairpins and intersecting at odd angles all looked alike. Pirates who attacked the vulnerable towns on the coast rarely made it very far into their mazes before being thoroughly turned around and dumped back out on the waterfronts. Sukir hadn’t had a pirate attack in my lifetime, but it still had the streets to thwart one.

Soon enough, I was praying that I hadn’t gotten myself hopelessly lost. Never would I have guessed I could have so much fellow feeling for pirates. Twice I found myself back at the docks where I had started, as if the gods had cursed my wandering feet. Frantic, I set out a third time, risking a wider road, hurrying along it until I saw a glimpse of the city wall and turned toward it. Following the street along its base, I thought I must eventually reach a gate.

I had my head down, berating myself for an idiot, and I looked up only moments before crashing straight into the Attolian standing amused in front of me.

He laughed at my surprise. “Were you worried we were taking too long?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “Yes, you’ve been gone awhile.”

He shook his head, disgusted. “The traders took forever to find someone with the authority to verify the seal. He had to be called in from his home, but he checked the dispatches and gave the go-ahead at last. The captain is over the moon to know that the king is going to pay him. We were just on our way back.”

“I see,” I said. “That’s good.”

The Attolian put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around.

“You shouldn’t have come out after us,” he said. “It’s still dangerous. We don’t even know for certain that the Namreen found that body in the rockslide.”

The captain, the Attolian, and I walked back to the docks. The curving streets led us right to our ship as though the gods themselves had paved our way.

The captain was indeed in fine spirits and eager to treat us in style. The second mate was turned out of his cabin so that the Attolian and I needn’t continue to share. The captain apologized for the tiny size of the cabin, but it was a blessing just to be alone. I could pray without the Attolian’s asking why I was wringing my hands and what I was muttering under my breath. I promised a lifetime of dedications to a terrifying number of gods if they would just turn the ship away from Attolia. I prayed for storm and shipwreck. I prayed for a water supply gone bad or tanks holed so that we could put into a port for resupply. I prayed for plague or pirates. The only thing I didn’t pray for was a ship full of Namreen. Nonetheless, we sailed untroubled from Sukir down the Black Straits to the Sea in the Middle of the World and then across it.