by Jason Fry
Fouge barked an order and a moment later one of the raiders set a bed down on the sand. Stax looked at it in disbelief, but Fouge just bowed and grinned and strode away from the fire.
Stax poked at the woolen mattress reluctantly, figuring one of the raiders had put some kind of vile creature inside it as a macabre prank. But it was just a mattress, stuffed with wool that was a little stiffened by salt and begrimed with sand but reasonably soft and comfortable despite its rough handling. He climbed into the bed and stared up at the cold stars.
Maybe the stars don’t care what happens down here, but I do. Decent people do. Fouge is wrong. Wrong, and selfish, and evil.
And cruel, Stax might have added. Not finding some awful surprise in the bed made Stax even more convinced this was some trick, a torment of Fouge’s concocted to amuse him and the rest of his foul band. Stax resolved to stay awake, so he wouldn’t be caught unawares. But it was warm by the fire and the bed was comfortable, and so despite his best efforts, within a few seconds he was asleep.
A brief moment in a better place * Journeying past forlorn shores * The howling of terrible things * A hasty farewell
Stax sat on the dock of the boathouse, eating a piece of cake and looking out over the water. A fish jumped a few blocks out from the railing and Coal twitched an ear sleepily, then decided whatever had disturbed her wasn’t worth waking up for.
Stax had baked the cake in one of the house’s furnaces, after looking up his mother’s recipe. He wasn’t sure she would have approved of cake for breakfast, but it was good—moist, sweet, and delicious.
Though he hadn’t made the recipe quite correctly, it seemed. Beneath the sweetness, there was something gritty and unpleasant in the cake. He could feel it crunching between his back teeth. Almost like it was…
…sand.
Stax woke up with a start and heard himself cry out. A red-haired woman wearing one of his grandmother’s flowerpots as a helmet gaped at him and let out a shriek, then waved her hands in mock fright and laughed. Stax stared at her in puzzlement for a moment before it all came back: the raid on his house, his kidnapping, the grueling journey across the sea as a prisoner.
He was sitting up in a grimy bed on a gray, stony beach, next to a dying fire, and there was sand in his mouth.
“In the boat in two minutes or I’ll tie yer hands again,” Miggs said, kicking sand in Stax’s direction.
Stax turned his head so he didn’t get sand in his eyes, then spat out as much of the grit in his mouth as he could. He supposed Miggs’s offer was what passed for kindness in the raiders’ world, and he wasn’t going to pass it up—not when his wrists were still red and painfully raw. He pulled on his boots and waded out to the boat, where Miggs acknowledged him with a reluctant grunt.
“Gonna be a hard day today,” Miggs said. “And maybe tomorrow too. We’ll be passing dangerous coasts. Yeh gimme any trouble, fancy boy, and we’ll see how well yeh can swim.”
“Is it true we’re going through the Sea of Sorrows?” Kivak asked Miggs, and Stax thought the sallow-faced raider looked frightened.
“We’ll go where the boss tells us to go,” Miggs said sharply. “No need to put names on where—yeh know he don’t like that. Just shut yer mouth and row.”
Stax kept his eyes down, trying to avoid incurring either raider’s wrath. But he repeated the name Kivak had said in his head over and over, until he was sure he wouldn’t forget it: Sea of Sorrows, Sea of Sorrows, Sea of Sorrows.
The boats moved out, and for hours everything looked much the same as it had the previous day: water as far as the eye could see, with the boats feeling tiny and vulnerable in the midst of all that emptiness. On this day, however, there was barely a cloud in the sky, and the sun was high and bright, a brilliant white coin in the dark blue sky. Miggs and Kivak were sweating freely behind the oars, grunting as they worked side by side in their boats.
After a time Stax spotted islands to their left, shimmering in the sunlight, low bits of land covered with trees. Then there were islands on their right as well, a chain of rocks rising out of the water. An hour later the line of islands to their right rose from the sea to become a brooding headland of gray rock. At Fouge’s command the boats angled in close to this rugged coast, close enough that Stax could hear surf on the beach and the tumble and shush of the water withdrawing and dragging thousands of pebbles into the waves.
Kivak began to mutter nervously, constantly looking over at the rocks, and Miggs’s eyes were wide and white in his tanned face.
“They’ll come,” Kivak said nervously. “Drowned will come and take us below. Like so many before us.”
“Them’s tall tales,” Miggs said, but Stax could hear the fear in his voice. “Stories to frighten little ones.”
“What stories?” Stax asked Kivak, vaguely remembering that Fouge had mentioned the drowned. “What is this place? And what are the drowned?”
“Zombies,” Kivak said. “Cursed men and women who died at sea. They say these waters is full of them, on account of all the wrecks. They say at night you can see the moonlight glittering on their tridents. Only if you do, it’s too late for you, because the drowned throw those things hard enough to pierce stone, and they return to the dead hand what threw them.”
“Not another word, Kivak,” said Miggs. “Or I’ll throw yeh over the side and let yeh meet one of ’em.”
Kivak subsided into muttering, but Stax was staring at the bleak shore, thinking that every gleam and bit of reflection amid the rocks was a weapon in the hand of an undead warrior.
Stax had spotted no signs of life on their journey—no villages, farms, or houses—but now he began to see buildings on the cliffs above them. But all of them were abandoned and forlorn: towers reduced to tumbles and spikes, the burned-out shells of houses, overgrown fields with fallen fences.
“What a dreary place,” Stax said.
As if in response, a raider in the line of boats ahead of them turned to call out a warning, her partner waving a torch to get their attention.
“Head to port, Kivak,” Miggs growled. “That’s yer left.”
As Kivak grumbled that he’d known that since he was a lad, Stax spotted the obstacle ahead: a ship, or at least what was left of one, jammed against the rocks. Much of its upper deck had been smashed apart, its masts were gone, and a rock had opened a gash in its bow.
“Don’t look, row,” Miggs told Kivak.
But Stax had no such duties. Filled with dread, he tried to peer through the jagged rents in the wreck’s hull, expecting to see some waterlogged corpse waiting with a trident in its hand. But no enemy lurked within, and there was no sound except the splash of oars.
They continued along that lonely shore for hours, passing more shattered towers and broken ships, until Stax had grown numb to the sight of masts sticking out of the waves at odd angles and hulls reduced to clumps of planks.
The boat ahead had slowed, and its rowers waited for Miggs and Kivak to pull alongside.
“The boss says keep going,” said a white-haired raider with tattooed tears on her cheeks. “We row through the night.”
Kivak started to mutter, but Miggs just nodded as the boat pulled away again. And then he began to row, hard, his muscled arms shooting the boat through the water.
The sun sank in the sky and night crept over the water—a night that Stax would remember forever. The moon rose as the sun disappeared, and it cast a ghostly white radiance over the ruins on the shore and the wrecked ships along it, as well as the things that came out of the forests and up from the swamps to prowl the night.
Stax could see them all too well, and knew they could see him too. Skeletons stood sentinel among the rocks, their bony hands clutching bows, and Stax could hear the hiss of arrows in the air around them. Green-skinned zombies plodded across the beach, their groans carrying through the night, wet and thick with
a horrible desire. Stax spotted the green pillars of creepers, their black mouths fixed in silent screams. And there were things he caught only glimpses of—eyes like red lamps, or ones like purple slits, enviously tracking the boats as they passed.
Kivak had left off muttering and was loudly beseeching every god he’d ever heard of for mercy. But though panicked to find himself so close to such denizens of the night, he kept rowing, his knuckles white on the oars. Miggs was silent, his eyes fixed straight ahead, as if he thought refusing to look at something meant it couldn’t hurt him.
Stax had neither oar nor weapon, and couldn’t defend himself or help row them out of trouble. He could only sit there terrified, wondering when one of those arrows would find its target, or a trident would come through the boat and spear them, or dead hands would rise up from the water to drag them beneath the waves. It wasn’t until nearly dawn that he fell into a doze, and even then his dreams were spiked with jolts of panic.
The crews were all exhausted, slumped numbly over the oars, but Fouge refused to call a halt, and so they rowed on for hours and hours, grim and silent, beneath leaden gray skies that seemed to constantly threaten rain. It finally began to drizzle as the day neared its end, with the sun a red smear in the clouds behind them. The drizzle slowly intensified until Miggs was struggling to see the shore and wiping water away from his face.
“What does the boss mean to do, sail on until we fall off the edge of the world?” Kivak wailed from the next boat.
“Keep yer eyes open,” Miggs growled. “Or we’ll come to a bad end long before then.”
It grew harder and harder to see, and Stax sagged in relief when word came that Fouge had finally agreed to make camp in a little bay up ahead.
The bay was sheltered, but Kivak began muttering as soon as he saw it. It was bleak and sandy, little more than a low, swampy stretch carpeted with brambles and scrub, below sandy hills. The keel of a wrecked ship was visible above the water just offshore, and in the center of the bay stood the stump of a tower of gray stone, surrounded by tumbled blocks overgrown with moss.
“That’s an unlucky shore, sure as I’m a sailor,” Kivak muttered, and Miggs had to shout at him to bring his boat into the shallows where the rest of the raiders were unloading their gear and Stax’s stolen property and trying to build a fire.
Stax stumbled when he got off the boat, his legs stiff and cramped. Miggs was too exhausted to pay much attention as he trudged up the beach to warm himself by the fire. Fouge was barking orders, his face grim, but forced a smile onto his face when he saw Stax.
“I think we’ve found your new home, Stax,” he said. “It even comes with a house! Not quite as fancy as you’re used to, but it’s a fixer-upper.”
Stax looked around the grim swamp with alarm. While huddled at Miggs’s feet, he would have said he’d take his chances ashore—or anywhere besides the boat. But now that idea seemed insane.
And there was something else: a nameless dread he could feel, like a chill crawling up the back of his neck. You know how sometimes you can feel someone’s looking at you, even if you couldn’t say how you know? That’s something like what Stax felt, only he also felt that whatever was watching was simultaneously hungry and patient, willing to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. There was something wrong here, something terribly wrong, and though he was neither a warrior nor an explorer, he could feel it.
And he wasn’t the only one. As he sat slumped on a chunk of stone, Stax could see the way the raiders hurried up the beach after unloading a boat, and the fear in their faces when they looked out at the water. He could see the way they shied from the shattered stones of the tower, and peered suspiciously at the wreck in the shallows. Fouge was looking around too, his gaze roving ceaselessly from the water to the top of the hills.
None of the raiders was paying any attention to Stax, and for a moment he thought of slipping up the beach and seeing if anyone noticed. If they didn’t, perhaps he could keep going, and make it over the top of the hill, and then he’d have a chance to hide or run. He’d dreamed of a chance like that many times in the boat, trying to figure out just how quickly he’d be able to flee and what he might use for a makeshift weapon. But now that he actually had that chance, he felt frozen in place. Just as he knew something terrible was watching them from the water, he also knew that he’d be in even greater danger away from the raiders than he was with them.
Miggs stood at Fouge’s side, speaking to him in a low, urgent voice. But the raider boss shook his head.
“Just get the fire built and everyone will feel better,” Fouge insisted. “And tomorrow will bring clear skies. You’ll see.”
Miggs tried to say something else, but Fouge folded his arms over his chest.
“Every shore in this part of the world is a dangerous shore,” he said. “But I thought you were dangerous men and women. Was I wrong about that? If anything comes out of that sea, that will be its last mistake. Now enough, Miggs. Get the fire built.”
Miggs nodded and turned away, and for a moment Stax could see the disgust on the big, bearded man’s face. But then he was barking orders, which the others hurried to turn into action. That night there was neither singing nor jokes. Fouge’s raiders were exhausted and clearly nervous. But the fire started to blaze up as the first stars came out, and a few minutes later, with the sun reduced to a bright line on the horizon, Stax smelled meat roasting. And for a moment—just a moment—he thought the danger had passed.
That was when Kivak died.
The sallow-faced man was coming back from the campfire, gnawing at a chunk of mutton spitted on a fork, when he stopped in his tracks and a confused expression came over his face. He was standing right in front of Stax, and at first Stax assumed Kivak was about to mock him for something.
But then Stax heard a sound he would never forget: a wet, gargling groan, coming from the beach. Kivak slumped over, an oddly disappointed look on his face, and with his last breath he made a wet sound so similar to the groan coming from the dark beach that Stax shivered. Then he plopped into the sand.
“Drowned!” screeched a raider, her eyes wild. “The drowned have come for us!”
Stax looked down the beach and saw a gray-green figure clad in sodden rags, a trident clutched in its hand.
The drowned lurched forward, out of the sea, its feet squishing in the wet sand. Its skin was mottled and drab, but its eyes were a bright green, shining with an eerie light. It groaned again, and water bubbled out of its throat and ran down the front of its ruined shirt.
An arrow flew into the night, a wild shot that missed, and the raiders fell back, yelling. Then Miggs stepped forward, his sword an orange blur in the campfire. The drowned slumped to the sand, and Miggs turned to look for Fouge.
“It’s only sunset!” he said. “Soon there will be more, boss. Many more. We can’t stay here!”
Fouge looked uncertain for a moment, then nodded. Miggs started yelling out orders, and the goods that had just been unloaded from the boats were reloaded nearly as quickly, with several reluctant raiders pressed into forming a defensive line at the water’s edge, swords held in front of them.
“Stax, I’m afraid our association has come to an end,” Fouge said with a little bow. “Here is where we part. But don’t forget the gift I’ve given you.”
“Gift?” Stax asked, too shocked and frightened to be angry. “What are you talking about?”
“Why, the greatest gift of all, Stax! I freed you from your past. Now you can be anything you want to be. You can experience the world and make something of yourself, instead of idling away your days amid the accomplishments of others. Or, I suppose, you can give up and die here. It’s your choice.”
Something groaned wetly in the gloom on the other side of the ruined tower.
“Still, I’d choose quickly,” Fouge said. “Farewell, Mr. Stonecutter!”
> The first raiders had leapt into their boats and rowed away from the shore; now the others followed. Fouge was the last to depart, offering Stax a little wave as he stepped into the stern of his boat. Within moments, the boats were pale dots against the dark water, and a moment after that, they were lost to sight.
Stax stood alone on the shore, next to the campfire. It began to rain harder. The fire hissed and spat, fighting a losing battle against the water. Stax sat down in the sand next to it, his arms around his knees, as the rain pelted down and the last bit of sunlight vanished below the horizon.
A fight in the night * Searching for refuge * Stax digs in * A beautiful morning * Stax wonders what’s possible
Stax knew he needed to run or fight or do both, but he found he couldn’t get further than thinking about it. Fight? He couldn’t even imagine being able to get out of the rain.
He thought of his dream of home from the other morning, before he’d awakened in the raiders’ last camp, and tried to convince himself this was a dream too. Perhaps he would wake up in his sunny bedroom and find the cats reminding him that it was time for breakfast, and realize Fouge Tempro had been just a vivid nightmare, one that would soon fade to a vaguely unpleasant memory.
But Stax knew that wasn’t true, and all the wishing in the Overworld wouldn’t make it true. He knew that even before he heard something heavy squishing and squelching through the sand, and a growl from the other side of the campfire.
He looked up, trying desperately to blink away the rainwater that was running into his eyes, and saw a dark shape there—something shaped like a man, but that wasn’t human anymore.
Lightning split the sky and he stared into the empty green eyes of the drowned, the flash of light revealing its terrible features in minute detail: gray-green flesh, so heavy that it dragged down the corners of its mouth; swollen fingers like hideous sausages; and black, jagged fingernails.
The drowned saw him too. It gurgled so eagerly that a flight of tiny bubbles popped around its lips and dark water ran down its chin. Then, as thunder boomed overhead, its arms came up and it started to stagger toward him.
