get to be here now. You wanted the ultimate test for your gifts? It’s coming. You want to be a legend? Maybe that, too. But your Name in history depends on what he does.” He waggled a finger, but his arm was tied to the barrel, so it wasn’t clear where he was pointing.
“Me?” Gavin asked. “Gunner’s legend depends on me?”
“As does my own life.”
“Your life?”
“Yes, but I’ve given up on that. Doesn’t matter. You’re not that man, Gavin Guile. What does matter is that if you don’t succeed, Gunner will die out here.”
“I thought you said I live!” Gunner protested.
“Today. But if Gavin—well, this Gavin, since one is supposed to be very careful with words when giving prophecy—if this man here fails, you’ll eventually despair, drink seawater, and try to swim home. I think you drown while fighting sharks. Regardless, they eat you before or after you drown or a little of you before you drown—your left foot?—and then the rest of you after.”
“Do I put up a good fight?” Gunner asked. He was standing delicately on his right foot as if the deck were covered in broken glass and he didn’t want to put down his left foot. He made little fists with his toes.
Orholam twisted his mouth, a man trapped between his morality and his mortality. “For a man who’s cooked in the sun for days without shelter and drunk seawater . . . you certainly, uh, give it your all.”
“All of ’em are here?” Gunner asked.
“All eight,” Orholam said.
“Do I kill any afore they get me?” Gunner asked.
“You don’t kill any of the dark ones, and they don’t get you,” Orholam said.
Gavin expected Gunner to rage at that, but he got very quiet instead. He removed the match cord from the linstock. Stubbed it out on the great cannon, then buffed out the black smear with his coat sleeve.
“He’s a beaut, ain’t he?” Gunner said. “Makes me almost want to turn pirateer again, just to get the chance to try him in battle. Curved shots? Hell, he’s got two dozen other tricks that are even better. I sailed out a few leagues from the Jaspers and popped off as many shots as I could for weeks, getting my mastery up. I can make a Compelling Argument myself, alone, on a mere count to fifty-seven. Four of that aim time. See that tank over there, Guile? Water. Pump that up afore battle, puts it under pressure. Every ten shots, Compie gets too hot. Spray that water inside and out, then that lever tilts the whole boy up to drain—whole thing! counterweighted so’s I can do it myself—swab, tilt him back, and go on as afore. Adds only a fifteen count to the process. With the right crew and materiel, he can fire all day without getting overhot or cracking.”
“He’s really something,” Gavin said, puzzled.
“Man’d be crazy to lie what you just told me,” Gunner told Orholam. “So I think you’re not just honest, you’re brave. That deserves rewardin’.”
He cut Orholam free.
Perhaps wisely, Orholam kept his mouth shut now, even as he rubbed feeling back into his legs and arms.
“White Mist Reef ain’t like the Everdark Gates,” Gunner said. “Men have shot the Gates afore. There are ways through. You need luck and a chart and a great crew, but it can be done. It’s special, sure, but not legendary. But no one’s made it through White Mist Reef. At least, none who’ve also made it back. No one. I thought if anyone could do it, it’d be you an’ me, Guile.”
“I suppose it would,” Gavin said, uncertain where this was going.
“Magnificent critter, she was. We named her Ceres, said the whole sea must be hers. She followed us half a week while Captain scouted the reef, and seemed well-nigh content to hold back, until we tried to shoot the gap. Then she boiled the seas with her fury. We’d been expectin’ it. Plan was to distract her with the shock and sounds of the rafts blowin’ up in the waters ’round us. The gun captain was a fool, though. Didn’t set the fuses right. Got the timing wrong. Wouldn’t listen when I told him. So when it all went to shit, I pushed him out a gunport and took charge. I walked our shots right in a line to the last raft, heavy-loaded with black powder. Six hundred paces out. My timin’ never been so good. Ceres came up from beneath and just as she lifted that