by Rj Barker
“You need not,” said Joron gently. “Meas sent Farys away with her child, I have told you, she would do the same for you.”
“No no. Must stay,” said the Gullaime again. “My place.” It reached up with its wingclaw and pulled on Joron’s arm. “Come, come. Talk ship woman. Talk you. Come.” It pulled him on, softly but insistently.
“Barlay,” he shouted, “you have the deck!” Then he made his way down through the creaking, crying, moaning ship, out of the cold crisp air of the day, and into the cold dark damp of the underdeck. He knocked on Meas’s door, the Gullaime behind him, shifting from side to side in the shadows.
“Come,” she said. When he entered he found her standing with her back to him, staring out the window at the looming white ships. Aelerin sat at Meas’s desk looking over charts. The shipwife held a nearglass to her eye with one hand, the other rested on the hilt of her straightsword, and the fishskin that wrapped her body glittered in the light. The great glass windows of Tide Child were cracked, a million pathways that showed the stress the great ship had put himself through at her command. “They split their fleet,” she said. “Into thirds, one follows us the Dread led one going north-west, the other heads north-west and is mostly Gaunt Islands ships. They go around the islands we fly through and will try and catch us as we come out the other side to journey along the edges of the storm. Clear seas will give them a speed advantage while we must manoeuvre round islands and be careful of shoals.” She let out sigh. “It will be a close run thing but the Dread may head off our fleet when we turn west along the storm’s edge.” As he watched something splashed into the ocean behind Tide Child, five, maybe six shiplengths behind them. “Their smallest ships, the newest, have gallowbows mounted on the front and are loosing at us.”
“When will they be in range?” said Joron.
“Before Skearith’s Eye closes,” she said.
“We will have caught up with our fleet by then.” She turned, a frown on her face.
“We should not,” she said, “even the brownbones should be outpacing us, the condition we are in.” She reached out and touched the cracked glass of the window. “Our fleet is under orders not to slow for anything.”
“You should know your shipwives better,” said Aelerin, not looking up from the table.
“And I imagine,” added Joron, “that if you try and reprimand them they will have sundry tales of all the problems that have slowed them, lost spars, ripped wings, thrown rudders…” She smiled at him.
“Ey,” she said, “like deckchilder caught shirking, there is always a reason.”
“They love you,” he said. “And they trust you.” She shrunk then, he saw it, she collapsed in on herself, as if all the pain of her torture was visited on her once more.
“And I have nowhere to lead them to but their deaths.” Stark words, real, hard, with no pity. Only a truth spoken out into the air. She crossed to her desk and Aelerin stood. “I will have you raise the keyshans, Joron, in the hope of buying more time. Hundreds more, on both sides, will die but it will all be for naught and we know it.” She sat in her chair before her desk. Aelerin stood by her. Meas took a deep breath. “We are bound for the Hag, Joron, and nothing the Mother can do can stop it, no Maiden trick can help us. I have sent poor Aelerin spare with checking over these charts,” she pointed at the maps on her desk. “But there is nowhere on either side of the Spine for us to run to, our enemies are too numerous and well equipped.” She looked up, her one eye sparkling. “Maybe Adrantchi and Turrimore had it right, Joron. Maybe we should turn our fleet and attack.”
“You said that is a fight we cannot win.”
“Ey, and nothing has changed, but the more I think on it, the more I believe the best we can hope for is a good death.”
“No.”
A single word spoken into the cabin. Not by Joron, but by the Gullaime behind him, sunk into the shadows.
“No, Gullaime?” said Meas. “You have a better plan?
“Windseer,” she said, head bowed.
“Fire and death,” said Meas, “well, maybe that is what is deserved. Maybe you are right.”
“No,” said the Gullaime, and she shuffled forward. “Not want.”
“What then, Gullaime? Can you spirit us away to another realm? Fly us over the Northstorm to another land?”
“Not over.”
“Well, what use are you then?” she said, her exasperation rising.
“Listen to the bird, Shipwife.” Garriya’s voice. She stood in the door, hunched over, then came forward into the room.
“The Gullaime and now you, old woman, talk at me in riddles when what I need is good advice and clear heads.”
“Listen, to the bird,” said Garriya. “Me and her, we have been on this journey a long time.” Meas took a deep breath, let it out slowly.
“At this moment, Garriya, I will listen to anyone who can offer me hope.” Joron watched, unable to talk, because as the Gullaime had spoken, and as Garriya had spoken, the song within him had started to change, not in volume or pitch, but in rhythm and stress. As if some piece of music that had been slowly moving through a reprise was now reaching a crescendo, rising toward a final resolution. The music filled him. He knew, but not how, that his voice, his broken, tortured, damaged voice, was part of this song, a final key, the thing that threw open a cage of thousands of years. Any worry he had about raising the keyshans fled. For he knew he could, and more, he felt like he should, that he must.
“Garriya is right,” said Joron. “Listen to the Gullaime.” Meas focused on him, and he expected an outburst, something to put him in his place but instead she simply sighed, shook her head and took off her two-tailed hat.
“Speak then, Gullaime.”
“Not fly over storm,” she said. Shuffling forward, the Gullaime pulled off her mask, showing the bright eyes beneath. “Not over,” she said again, “go through.”
“Through?” said Meas. “Have you lost what wits you have? The storms are impenetrable, the Northstorm fiercest of all. It eats ships that stray too close. I have seen ships much bigger than Tide Child smashed into shards by those winds, and only barely escaped alive myself.”
“Yes,” said the Gullaime.
“And yet you think we can go through?”
“Through door,” said the Gullaime. Behind her, Garriya nodded.
“Aye,” she said, “You listen now, Shipwife. ’Tis the golden door.”
“What do you mean, door?” said Meas, leaning forward. “I thought it was fire and death?”
“Yes yes, fire and death open door.”
“Through the storm? A door through the storm?” The Gullaime nodded, and though Meas looked amazed, shocked, a smile started on her face, just at the possibility of an escape. Joron did not smile. He felt something was wrong. Very wrong. Because he knew the Gullaime, he knew how she acted, how she displayed, how her moods and emotions were drawn large through her body, and every display of cleverness brought with it yarking and dancing and noise and joy.
But here and now, in what must be her greatest moment, in the place where she had stepped in and told them she could save them all, where she had done her most clever thing she showed no sign of joy. None at all. Her beak pointed at the floor, her shining eyes were cast down and rather than dance she simply shifted and shuffled across the scuffed white floor of the great cabin until her delicate body was pushed against Joron and he could smell and feel the desert heat of her.
“What do you need to open this door, Gullaime?” said Meas.
“Gullaime,” she said, “more. Five six seven. More come maybe.” Meas nodded.
“And time? How long will it take to open? How long will it take us to cross?”
“Not long, not long,” said the Gullaime. “Open quick.” She looked up at Joron, keeping her head down, subservient, beaten, wrong. “Sea sithers, need sea sithers.”
“Joron can help you do that, can’t you, Deckkeeper?” He nodded. Then looked down at the Gullaime.<
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“Friend,” he said, “what is the price of this?” The Gullaime looked up at him, blinked slowly.
“Fire and death,” it said.
“Whose death?” he asked gently. The Gullaime blinked once.
“Mine,” she said.
He could not speak. Could not answer. Could not think of it. After all they had been through this could not be how it ended. He felt a hand on his back and he turned, found Garriya looking up at him, and when she spoke, it was as if she used Meas’s voice. Harsh with command.
“The sentence is passed,” she said, “only the day is undecided.”
“There is no other way?” said Meas. Joron turned back, found her standing. Though she had resigned herself to the loss of the Tide Child and all his crew moments before, now she stood straight and defiant as if her command could prevent this one death. As if she could bring all souls through the storm with her word alone. “I do not wish to leave any of my crew behind.” The Gullaime shuffled forward so she stood before the shipwife’s desk and raised herself up so she looked straight into her face.
“No,” it said. “Gullaime open door. Cannot shut.”
“You can stop it, surely,” she said. “You can always stop something.”
“Too much,” it said. “Gullaime keep going, door not shut. All dead. Fire and death for all.”
“There must be another way, Gullaime,” said Joron. “Your death cannot be the only way to close this door.”
“Only way,” said the Gullaime. “Only.”
“You would give your life,” said Meas, “for us?”
“Friends,” said the Gullaime and she reached out with a wingclaw to touch Meas’s face. “Save friends.”
Meas nodded and Joron saw, to his surprise, a tear track down her face.
57
Her Final Command
Skearith’s Eye was two thirds across the sky, and provided little heat this far north. Cold winds whipped the deck of Tide Child as he caught up with the fleet and the Northstorm drew closer, huge towers of cloud swallowing up the islands before them, the storm advancing as if drawn to the ship. Joron watched their flukeboat as it scudded over the rough sea, taking Meas’s messages to the other ships of the black fleet. Behind them loomed a different kind of storm, one of the three fleets of Hundred Isles and Gaunt Islands ships. It was steadily catching them. The tight passages through the northern islets had forced their pursuers to slow and break formation, falling behind at first. But now the islands were larger and more spread out and the enemy catching up, their lead ships loosing bolts to splash just behind Tide Child. Somewhere out there he knew the other two enemy fleets would be coming round the islands in a pincer movement, hoping to catch them.
Meas appeared on deck, he watched her make her way up the slate and wondered at her. She showed all her scars and pain, it was clear movement was difficult for her but she did not stop. She did not let anything slow her and when she joined him she stood as straight as him, the two-tail perched on her grey hair, tails twisting in the wind. She stayed there only a moment, gave him a nod and then turned to look behind her, lifting her nearglass and watching as another bolt was loosed and splashed into the sea behind them, and though she no doubt had watched this same thing happening from the cracked windows of her cabin, when she spoke it was as if she had only just realised, of so little concern to her was this enemy fleet.
“It appears that our pursuers are almost in range, Deckkeeper,” she said casually.
“It appears so, Shipwife,” he said, and another wingbolt splashed into the sea behind them.
“Well,” she said, and closed up her nearglass, “I think it is time for you to sing.”
It was as if the world changed.
It was as if the world slowed.
It was as if the world had been waiting for Joron and he for it.
This moment had been coming for ever, and now it was here and now he was here he realised that it had always been happening, felt it within. He stood in the centre of the deck and the ship flew on, and the wind whistled and their fleet approached and the enemy pursued. He stood in the middle of the deck as the Gullaime came forward to stand by him with its companions, who made a circle around Joron and the Gullaime. The crew of Tide Child paused in their work, and the ship quietened its groaning, and his shipwife stood behind him, her presence as warm and sure and as comfortable as that of the Gullaime.
“Now?” he said.
“Now,” said Meas.
“Now,” said the Gullaime.
He thought he heard Garriya chuckle. He thought he felt himself tense against an age-old prison. He thought he heard a call, as if filtered through all the oceans of the archipelago.
“Yes,” he said. “It is now.”
And Joron Twiner sang a song unlike any other. It powered through him, and he felt less like a singer than a conduit, his damaged vocal cords no longer mattered for his entire body was the medium of the song, it rang through him like a bell. The Gullaime joined him, a strange and painful counterpoint, not musically painful, not off-key, not wrong, only sad, so very sad and full of such longing. The song held them, it cradled them, their ship and the people in it, and across the water more voices joined, every gullaime in the fleet, both windtalker and windshorn, joined the song. And every deckchild and d’older and deckkeeper and shipwife joined, none were able to resist. The melody, rose and rose and rose.
And stopped.
Joron fell to his knees on the deck, breathing heavily. Beside him the Gullaime similarly slumped. She turned her head to look at him.
“Sea sither, come,” said the Gullaime.
It was as if someone struck a massive drum, a single booming thud that rang out over the water, loud enough to make the sea and every ship on it shift. The wave of sound hit and the crew of Tide Child staggered, but remained standing, though it left every deckchild stood idle as if dazed and hypnotised, like something had been pulled from them.
“Look!” said a voice.
Another reverberating crash.
“The islands!” said another.
A groan, like every pain that existed in the entire archipelago was given a voice.
Then the call, the old and storied call coming down from the tops.
“Keyshan rising!”
And again, and again, coming from the ships of their fleet and echoed by their pursuers.
“Keyshan rising!”
Meas was there, at his shoulder, lifting him up by his elbow, pointing.
To seaward, down a wide channel between islands, came the Gaunt Islands fleet. To landward he saw the rest of the Hundred Isles fleet coming out from behind an island, the giant Arakeesian Dread at their head, and far nearer than any of them could have wished. But those things felt, at that moment, small and unimportant.
Because the keyshans were coming.
The air was alive with the sound of rock cracking and groaning, the thunderous noise of stone shearing away from landmasses and falling into the sea. Roaring fountains of white water followed Meas’s fleet as all around the ships islands were disintegrating, shattering as they gave birth to giants. This was not the same violent, difficult birth that Joron had seen when he awoke the keyshan that had lived within McLean’s Rock, this was more akin to the Gullaime’s child, Shorn, emerging from her egg. The islands being sloughed off by the colossal forms within as they emerged, sounding and keening and singing out their freedom as they splashed into the water.
And more came, and more and more. And not only from the islands, keyshans began breaking the surface as if called from the depths, as if they had been waiting for this moment, this music.
So many different forms and sizes and colours of creature, churning up the water. Vast, blocky heads, as long as a ship, teeth as tall as woman or man. Fiery eyes, so bright they were hard to look at, some with bodies so huge they could crush an entire fleet. Some with frills that reflected their colouring, pinks and reds and greens and purples and blacks, all shimmering and s
hivering, so the keyshans appearing clothed in shining stars. Some had vast horns, curling back and around from their heads, some branching antlers, some had manes of slowly waving tentacles and others were as simple and smooth as a pebble worn down by years and years of tides. In among these huge empresses of the sea were smaller keyshans, just as brightly coloured, just as strange and terrifying to look at, toothed and clawed and bright; and even the smallest of them could have smashed Tide Child with a careless flipper. In among them, longer thinner keyshans darted, like serpents, twisting around their siblings, spinning through the water and not one person on Tide Child could tear their eyes away from this host of sea dragons as they broke from where they had slept or waited for eons, filled the water with their vast bodies. Long thin beaks poking from the water.
And then they sounded, each and every one in glorious unison, and every woman and man on the deck covered their ears. The sound like a wall, a shuddering violent call that sent the crews of all the ships staggering. It came again, echoing back and forth, and as more of the keyshans emerged the sound became softer, more pleasant. Until they were singing to one another in a huge and wondrous cacophony that filled the air where Joron’s song had been, just as their bodies filled the water around Meas’s fleet.
The Gullaime stood, shook her head and scuttled to the beak of the ship.
“Come, come,” she said and they followed. When she reached the beak of the ship she jumped from the ship’s deck and stood on Tide Child’s battered ram and began to call. All around, on the other ships of the fleet as they were tossed up and down by the waves of the keyshans’ passage, gullaime were doing the same, singing out in a loud and joyous song. The keyshans answered. The great beasts around them opened their huge mouths and sounded once more. And a wind came. Wings were raised by the sea dragons to catch it and the ships of Meas’s fleet were caught up in it, dragged along with them toward the towering clouds of the Northstorm at a speed like no other, behind them the ships of the pursuing fleet were also caught up. He saw one go over, the crew not quick enough to react and the wind dragged the ship into the water, only to be smashed apart by a huge red and orange head, breaking the ship in two. To seaward and landward the incoming fleets were caught in the zephyr, pulled onwards whether they wished it or not. At the same time the looming Northstorm, almost as if it noticed them, rushed toward them, a tower of lightning-thick cloud. The Gullaime finished her song and turned, climbing up the side of Tide Child, and as she scaled the side a keyshan’s head broke the water by them, bright yellow and green. From the centre of its head lifted a huge, pale spike.
