Flux

Miner remained motionless as he listened to Stripes rustling around, out of his line of sight. Then his arms were seized roughly and his wrists were tightly bound behind him with fabric. Red Shirt sheathed his sword and, with a savage grin, brought his knee up between Miner’s legs. The pain was so intense that Miner collapsed and then lay on the floor, retching miserably.
    The men laughed and hauled him forcibly to his feet. With one of them in front and one behind, he was dragged and pushed down the passageway toward the ladder. Additional bearded men in gaudy colors squeezed past, their arms full of boxes; one of them elbowed Miner in the side and cackled excitedly before being urged forward by his colleagues.
    They had to pull Miner up the ladder by his armpits, and as soon as he was above deck, they threw him down. He rolled to his knees, groaning, and looked around.
    Much of the noise had abated; the fight was over. The ship’s crew were seated in a huddle on the deck, wrists tied behind them with pieces of rope. A few men—one in purple, one in sky blue, and one, surprisingly, in white—stood guard over the crew, swords swinging loosely in their hands. More of the pirates (because they were pirates, Miner supposed) hurried back and forth, carrying boxes and bundles to the railing and tossing them to men who waited on a ship tethered alongside the Eclipse . The pirates were jovial, shouting and laughing and singing snippets of songs.
    Miner turned and twisted on his knees, frantic for any sign of Ennek. His heart leapt into his throat when he saw three bodies alongside the railing, each sprawled in a puddle of blood, unmoving. He couldn’t see their faces. One of them had Ennek’s build—broad and not very tall—but the unmoving man’s head was obscured by the torso of another of the victims. He was coatless and his rough brown shirt was identical to those Ennek and many of the sailors wore. It was impossible to tell the man’s identity.
    “Ennek!” Miner shouted, earning a heavy blow to the head from Red Shirt. Miner was knocked off balance and fell over; when he righted himself, he saw Captain Eodore among the captive sailors, sadly shaking his head and then gesturing with his chin at the railing opposite the pirate’s ship.
    No! Miner refused to accept that. “Ennek!” he called again, his voice breaking painfully.
    Red Shirt hit him again, harder, and this time Miner stayed down when he toppled. The rough planks were wet and the splinters dug into his cheek. “He’s gone, son,” he heard the captain say.
    After that, things became fuzzy and sounds were muted, as if Miner were watching the ships from very far away. He could barely feel it when he kicked out at any pirate who came within range, when his foot connected with shins and knees but not hard enough to do any harm, when Red Shirt dealt him a third blow to the head and then used a length of rope to bind Miner’s ankles and tie them to his wrists.
    Some immeasurable time later, a particularly large pirate with a bald head and complicated beard grabbed Miner and heaved him onto his shoulder. He began to stride toward the railing.
    “No!” Captain Eodore called. “We surrendered and you agreed not to harm any more of my men. Take the blasted cargo but leave him be.”
    “He not you man,” replied one of the pirates, this one slightly older than the others and wearing a black shirt with large silver buttons. “He slave.”
    “No, he’s a free man now. Let him go!”
    The pirate pointed at his own neck. “Slave. Cargo.” Then he said something to the man who was carrying Miner, and the man continued walking until he reached the railing.
    As the pirates handed him precariously over to their comrades on the other ship, Miner wasn’t even afraid of the gray water he saw beneath him. In fact, he wiggled as best as his bindings allowed, hoping he’d squirm free and fall into the ocean and drown. At least then he’d be joining Ennek in the sea’s cold embrace.
    But he didn’t get free, didn’t fall, and soon he was being dropped unceremoniously to the deck of the pirate ship among the piles of their other loot. Someone grabbed his knees and dragged him away from the railing. His sweater bunched up against his chest and Miner buried his face in it. It smelled of Ennek, who had given him the sweater as a gift. It was warm and soft and finely made, and it must have cost a fortune. More than that, it was deeply symbolic: the