Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 337
had the good fortune to be wrecked. In order to test the extent
of the explosion's effect, we had sailed far out along a chain of
islands leading into the blank ocean. We were to reach one in
particular, a U-shaped isle that supposedly represented the end
of the archipelago, and plant our seismographs there. It was to
be the journey of a week. On the third day, just after I had
been ejected from the mess for eating with the sailors--they had
invited me, and tradition be hanged I had agreed--I was
seething at the bow as far from the captain and his supercilious
mate as I could get when a squall came up. It nearly heeled the
ship on its side, but that was only the presage of a worse storm
that now loomed up over the horizon, black and terrible. I was
bade go below, and refused until the captain lost patience and
had me carried down.
As I pounded on my cabin door the storm hit. For hours
I think we were tumbled about like matchsticks in a pocket.
My duennas were ill and panicked. I chased my chest of
instruments as it slid from side to side of the cabin. As night
fell the ship gave a strange shudder, and I heard the sailors
shouting that we'd hit a rock. Where we had been driven I did
not know, but the hold was filling rapidly and the captain,
unable to control the ship, determined to save himself.
There was a single longboat, and he commandeered it,
with his mate and a few of their cronies. He had no concern
for me, princess though I was, for he well understood my
father's intent in sending me on this expedition. There would
be no brave knight to save me. My duennas clung to their
embroidered cushions and refused to move. I forced open the
cabin door and made for the deck.
The crew had realized their captain was abandoning
them. Under savage skies, with blue light roving along the
masts, and sails and lines lashing free like whips, they mobbed