With his pack slung over his back, Nasim made his way to the beach where the huge ship, a trireme, bobbed at anchor. As he arrived, he could see Robin on the shore talking with Chiron. There was a brief flash of dark hair as Andy's head appeared over the railings; it looked as though she was settling in on the boat.
"... glad you have a ship," Chiron was telling Robin. "If the earth is stirring, over the sea and through the air are the only safe ways to travel. Try not to put ashore too much."
Robin nodded, then smiled as he saw Nasim drawing closer. Nasim noticed that Robin's hand was bandaged and held close to his chest, as though it hurt him.
"Have everything you need?" Robin asked. "A weapon?"
"My magic can protect me," Nasim shrugged.
"I have no doubt in the power of your magic," Robin said. "But I am worried we might find ourselves in a situation where you can't use it. That being the case, I'd prefer it if you weren't defenseless."
Nasim hesitated, then nodded. "I have a sword," he said. "Let me just put this on the ship before I got and get it."
"I'll do that," Robin offered, taking the pack with his good hand.
Nasim hurried back to his cabin and pulled the wide, curved scimitar out from under his bed. It had hung in his father's shop longer than Nasim could remember. His father, a peace-loving man, had never even touched it but would sometimes look at it when talking about Nasim's mother. It was made of celestial bronze and wickedly sharp. According to his father, it was a saif, the most common scimitar. In their language (Amal Shameer always called Arabic "their language" even though Nasim knew less Arabic than English or even Ancient Greek) it was the muhaddab.
Sabrina watched Nasim from her bunk, where she had been practicing casting pewter runes.
"Good luck," she told him. Nasim nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. He'd trained with the scimitar before, but wasn't sure how he would do in a fight. Better to use his magic until the blade was absolutely necessary.
He tried to buckle the sword to his side, but his hands were shaking too much. Sabrina got up and helped him, her cool white hands skillfully tying the leather straps off. She looked up, her violet eyes concerned. Lou and Sabrina both had their mom's eyes; Nasim did not think he looked anything like Hecate. Sabrina hugged him tightly and Nasim relaxed. The best part about finding out who his mom was had been finding out he had two older sisters to look after him. Only Sabrina wouldn't be able to look after him anymore; on this quest, Nasim would be alone.
Nasim ran back to the beach, the muhaddab hitting his legs and threatening to trip him up.
Robin was waiting for him, his cheeks flushed with impatience and excitement. There was a small, leaky rowboat that they would use to paddle out to the Black Pearl and then would have to haul on board so that they could use it in the future.
Robin pulled at the oars mightily and Nasim watched as Camp Half-Blood slid backwards, the water opening up between the little boat and the sandy shore.
"Your sword is magnificent," Robin said, nodding towards the sheathed blade. "Where did you get it?"
"It was my father's," Nasim said. "But he never used it. I never even saw it drawn until my mother brought me here."
"What metal is that on the sheath?" Robin asked. Nasim's hand stole self-consciously to the silvery, twisting veins that crossed and spiraled around the black leather sheath.
"Pewter," he explained. "It's the best metal conductor of magic because it combines all the best qualities of all the other metals." And their worst qualities, Nasim thought but did not say out loud. It was well known that while Hecate' realm was magic, her specialty was dark magic. Black magic. She was associated with deeds of darkness, the Goddess of Crossways, which held to be ghostly places of evil magic. An awful divinity.
When Nasim had heard that his mother had sided against the gods in the war, he had burst into tears. It seemed to him that he could not escape the brand of "traitor" and "enemy". But the other campers hadn't treated Cabin Sixteen any differently, they hadn't cast side long looks or even referenced their mother's actions. The only time they'd acted strange was when Lou, Sabrina, or Nasim had done an admittedly odd piece of magic.
Robin nodded agreeably and began to hum a little, childish tune. When they got to the ship, Robin tied the boat to a rope that was hung over the side so that it would not drift away. Then he climbed up the ladder like a squirrel. Nasim followed slowly, the muhaddab getting tangled up between his ankles.
Robin was already at the top and hauling up the little rowboat by the time Nasim made it. He was panting, but suddenly grateful for the climbing lessons offered by the lava rock climbing wall at camp. He could just see the trembling wall from here and the molten liquid spewing from its top.
Nasim tried to lend Robin a hand in lifting the boat up, but was afraid he had just ended up getting in the way. But Robin grinned and smiled and tried to teach Nasim the little tune he'd been humming. It was only later, after they'd gotten a hold of the edge of the boat and were lifting it over the railing, that Nasim remembered Robin's hand. When he watched it more carefully, he saw that it was stiff.
"What happened to your hand?" Nasim asked.
"Oh, nothing," Robin said breezily.
"You are a terrible liar," Nasim told him, shaking his head.
"Thank you," Robin laughed. "Come on, one final pull should do it." With an almighty struggle, they got the rowboat onto the deck. Robin left it there and bounded away towards the front of the ship. Nasim had never been on a ship and had only seen them in movies. For all he knew, the front of the ship might be called "starboard". Yes, he'd definitely heard at least one part of the ship called starboard before.
"Hey!" Nasim turned and saw Andy looking up from a trap door that was set into the floor of the... deck? Yeah, Nasim was at least seventy percent sure the right word was deck.
"Robin put your stuff down here, come see!" Andy grinned at him before disappearing back down the trap door. Or was is a hatch?
Nasim walked over there unsteadily; he had a bad feeling that the rocking of the boat was going to get worse once they left the sound and hit open ocean.
A set of wooden stairs led down into the belly of the ship. Nasim carefully held the muhaddab up and out of the way, like a lady might daintily hold the train of her skirt out of the mud.
Underdeck - Nasim was fairly sure that that was not the right term - was surprisingly well light by electric lamps. This room appeared to be the ship's kitchen. The stove, pans, and other items found in a kitchen were located on one side of the room with a heavy table a few chairs were on the other, dividing the room into cooking and dining areas. Two doors stood at opposing ends of of the room.
A particularly strong wave seemed to hit the boat, making Nasim stumble forwards. There would be time to explore later, he thought. Better to put away the muhaddab before he decapitated himself.
The door at the far end of the kitchen led to a hallway with two small rooms coming off it. One, a small room Nasim was fairly sure would have held treasure or the spoils of war, now held a small, narrow bunk with Andy's belongings already strewn over the room. The other room was slightly larger with two sturdy looking bunks built into the walls. An unopened satchel had been placed upon one, so Nasim assumed Robin had already claimed that one as his own. The other bunk held Nasim's bag; he unstrapped the muhaddab and put it next to the bag.
Nasim left the cabin and went back through the kitchen. He looked through the stores of food and found, to his astonishment, that it was full of all sorts of modern food like chips and chocolate chip cookies.
"What's up?" Andy asked. She had come through the second mystery door and was standing near another wooden-sided box. "Cool, huh? Check this out!" She tugged on a wooden handle and opened a latch. Cool air rolled out of the interior.
"Refrigerator!" Andy announced with a 'ta-da' voice. "And there's a freezer... with dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets. How cool is that! Get it, cool?"
"Where does the electricity come from?" Nasim asked. "Has he installed a battery?"
"News flash," Andy said, grabbing a juice box from the fridge. "I don't think Robin knows what a battery is."
"What's through there?" Nasim asked, going to the second door. He poked his head through and saw rows upon rows of still oars stretching away down what appeared to be the length of the ship.
"Let's hope the wind lasts, huh?" Andy commented, looking over his shoulder. "Can you just imagine the three of us trying to move this boat with those things?"
Nasim nodded, but his mind was awhirl with ideas for spells that would animate the oars to pull themselves.
He and Andy made their way back to the surface and, to Nasim's astonishment, they found that the boat was already moving. Camp Half-Blood had vanished somewhere behind them and the coastline of New York was slipping rapidly past.
"When did that happen?" he asked.
"Didn't you feel that jerk?" Andy asked. "That was Robin pulling up the anchor."
"I don't know anything about boats," Nasim said defensively.
"Yeah well, it's a ship," Andy laughed. "Not a boat."
"Ho-oh!" a musical voice called from somewhere up above. Nasim craned his neck and his stomach dropped as he saw Robin perched near the mast. Near, not on, because Robin seemed to be hanging from the ropes. He was grinned as he swung back and forth, the wind tugging at the feather tangled in his hair.
Nasim made a strangled sound that was supposed to convey the meaning: Oh my gods, he's going to fall and break his neck! But Andy laughed and waved at the suspended boy, who let go of a rope to wave back, causing his perch to become even more precarious.
A/N: Footnotes:
"... An awful divinity": Again, a Hesiod quote about Hecate. It is possible that here he meant "awe-full" as opposed to our understanding of "awful".