The Dark Sea Beyond

by Rye Sobo

  Step, Step, Clang.

  The sound of the Watch thundered through the alley. The old man’s jaw tensed as he moved to beckon me inside then slid into the darkness. I followed him.

  Inside he placed a finger over his lips as the torchlight flicked under the closed door. I could hear the creak of the leather straps on the guards as they stood just outside. I dared not breathe. I couldn’t blink for fear it would betray my location. My heart screamed in my ears. I was certain they could hear it. I stood silent for what felt like hours and stared at the old man with fear and the knowledge of my impending death in my eyes.

  Step, Step, Clang.

  They continued down the alley.

  Step, Step, Clang.

  I exhaled. I had never appreciated a breath of air so much. The old man and I stared at each other in silence for several minutes until the clatter of troops had moved a safe way down the road.

  “Why would you help me when the Watch is after me?” I asked the old man.

  “Weren’t looking for you,” he said. “They’re looking for anybody. For someone to blame somethin’ on. Scourge’s a good place to find a body. Don’t much matter if it’s yours or not.”

  “I—I can’t thank you enough,” I said as I reached for my purse, my hands shook as my nerves processed just how close to death I was. The old man noted my intention and put his hand out to stop me.

  “Ahmed.”

  “What?”

  “Name’s Ahmed. It’s a sin to kill a man whose name you know. Besides, if you’re headed into the temples, maybe you can say a word.”

  “I don’t think they’ll listen to—I’m not going to—”

  “You got this far,” he said with a smile. “Least one’s watching.”

  Given my current state, the notion that anyone other than the Watch had their eye on me was insanity. I smiled a polite smile to Ahmed. By his reaction, he had seen that same smile before. It was one that had been used on me hundreds of times before in this city. It was a smile that both acknowledged and dismissed a person at the same time. And I had just used it on the man who saved my life.

  “I should go,” I said.

  I reached out to shake Ahmed’s hand. As the old man took my hand in his, I pressed the five silver palms I had secreted out of my purse and palmed into his hand. His eyes met mine with a mix of surprise and shame.

  “By morning I’ll be in a monastery, a prison, or dead, and they’ll be of no use,” I said. “I’ll say a prayer for you whenever I get where I’m going, Ahmed. Thank you.”

  The old man did not say a word as I cracked open the door and peered out into the street, once again still.

  “Thank you,” I said again and slid out of the door into the darkness of the Scourge.

  Shouts and commotion a dozen streets north told me the Watch had found a body. Like Ahmed had said, it didn’t matter if it was mine or not.

  I pushed toward the Central Market District.

  The alley Ahmed’s home was on spilled out into the Market’s upper levels next to the Temple of Pecunia, the goddess of commerce and trade. As a young gnome, I had come with my mother during the feast of Pecunia to make offerings at the temple.

  The temple was still as I approached it, dark except for a few embers in the braziers near the massive marble and gold statue of the goddess.

  I rounded the corner of the temple to the front and I was struck by the emptiness of the space. The large golden columns of the temple were visible from anywhere in the Market. In the early morning light, as merchants set up their stalls, and the sun crested over the city walls, the temple would shine like a beacon. Sailors told me they could see it from leagues out to sea, a sign that with the new day would come riches.

  From the steps of the temple I could see much of the market, much of the city below. The Market District was still at the late hour. The manhunt in Smuggler’s Scourge had drawn most of the Watch from throughout the city and the commotion had been a signal to the city to get off the streets.

  I sat down on the cool marble steps to catch my breath. I had few choices left. I could try to make it across the city, past the Black Keep and through Gilded Hill to the Great Gate in the north of the city and out into the countryside. My brother, Dukhan, lived on the family’s tobacco plantation. I could be safe there, perhaps for a while. But the Watch would come looking. Whatever this was, I didn’t need to drag Duk into it. My only other option was to steal a vessel and escape by sea.

  I laughed. Pirate Captain Gustavo Blanco. I was terrible at sailing, despite all my mother’s efforts. The only ship I had ever helmed was the one Dem and I had tried to steal as kids before he joined the army. The Esmerelda.

  She was a tiny sloop, one of the Southern Empire’s ships used for quick runs to the nearby islands. Any two sailors worth their salt would have been able to handle her. Dem, an aspiring painter, and I, a student, were not sailors. Somehow, we had cut the moorings and partially set the jib, enough to get her moving away from the docks. Her voyage beyond the walls was not meant to be, however. Within a turn of leaving the docks, she careened into a larger vessel entering the Hydra’s Mouth, crumpled The Esmerelda’s hull, and she took on water. The other ship was dragged down and capsized. The whole mess blocked the Mouth.

  When the Watch fished us out of the water, I identified myself as Captain Gustavo Blanco. Dem, to his credit, kept his mouth shut.

  There was no way I could steal a ship on my own and try to sail it out of the city. I looked out at the harbor and the steady activity of the Docks, unbothered by the events in the Scourge. I remembered the Delilah Fritzbink. Captain Azpa was scheduled to get underway that night and with the arrival of the fleet, perhaps they were still there.

  I stood and dusted myself off and made my way down the marble steps toward the Docks.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  This was a stupid idea. I stood in an alley across from the Harbor Master’s Tower. Despite the late hour, the docks were still a hive of activity. Stevedores hauled cargo from warehouses to ships. Crews hoisted barrels from the docks into the holds. Soldiers tottered from alehouse to alehouse. The cheaper whores loitered at the mouths of alleyways between buildings. The Watch stood within earshot of each other, on the lookout for the most wanted man in the Commonwealth—me.

  From my perch in the shadows I looked over the crowded harbor and tried to find the Delilah Fritzbink. Sure enough, the small cog sat moored at the end of one pier near the Southern Empire Trading Company’s warehouse. She was five piers over and a hell of a run in the open to reach the gangplank.

  I studied the harbor. Those ships are close enough. If I could get to the end of the pier nearest me, I might leap from ship to ship out to the Fritzbink.

  The timing had to be right. If the guards near the Harbor Master’s Tower spotted me too soon they could raise an alarm and capture me. Deep breaths. This would never work.

  A longshoreman carrying a barrel over his shoulder bumped into a drunken soldier who shoved him. The barrel clattered to the stone of the seawall, burst open and sent salted pork bellies tumbling onto the docks. The longshoreman brought a wide haymaker punch to the face of the drunken soldier, sending him tumbling ass-over-tea-kettle into the street.

  Four guards on the docks near the Tower, and two I had not seen inside, moved to break up the fight. This was my opportunity.

  I ran as hard as I could toward the end of the nearest pier. A large caravel with three masts was moored at the end of the dock. I ran up the gangplank and across the main deck and leapt straight off onto the carrack alongside it.

  “Hey! You there!” a shout came from the quarterdeck of the carrack.

  I didn’t stop to look. I continued to run across the beam of the ship, placed one foot on the gunnel, leapt and fell ten feet to the main deck of a schooner moored on the second pier. My feet hit the deck and I ran up the gangplank and on to the second pier.

  I had to run back toward the seawall to reach the gangplank of a massive galleon,
the kind that would sail beyond the Narrows to ports on the far side of Laetia. I crested the galleon’s gangplank and saw the Watch had taken notice of the commotion coming from the ships. I wasted no time on the galleon, grabbed a hanging sheet, and leaped to a carrack moored alongside.

  I landed hard on the poop deck of the carrack and had to run down the ladders to find a point where I could jump to the next ship, a tiny sloop. I landed on the deck with a roll, then rushed up the gangplank to reach the third pier. Guards flooded on to the piers from the seawall and the nearby bars. A crowd gathered as well to watch the gnome dart from ship to ship.

  And then I saw him.

  The white plume of Captain Wilhelm Striker bobbed above the crowd as the Watch Captain charged toward me.

  My lungs burned. My legs ached. I had to run. The nearest gangplank was fifty feet down the pier, a Southern Empire carrack. At the top of the gangplank I saw the Watch push past the sailors and the dockworkers toward me.

  The beam on this ship was shorter than I expected. Where I expected to find a gunnel to step onto before jumping to the cog moored next to it, instead I found the open air. My back foot clipped the gunnel I had expected, and I tumbled to the main deck of the cog. Thankfully, I caught my weight with my face on the deck below.

  There was a loud gasp from the shore. Deep breath. There’s a little blood, that will heal. I need to run.

  I heard the thunderous sound of the dozens of armored feet that clamored on the deck above.

  “Find a rope!” one Watchman shouted.

  I leapt to my feet and found a gangplank from the cog I was on to the carrack alongside. I ran up the plank and across the deck. As I became visible aboard the taller ship, a cheer rose from the crowds that continued to grow along the shore. At least they got their money’s worth.

  I rushed down the gangplank of the carrack onto the fourth pier. I could see the Delilah Fritzbink just a few ships over. I glanced down the pier. Twenty men charged down the dock toward me. The white plume of Captain Striker led the assault.

  “Raise the gangplank and prepare to make sail!” Captain Azpa shouted. The Fritzbink was ready to depart.

  “Aye, Captain.” the crew responded and moved around the deck.

  I ran down the dock. Several of the ships raised their gangplanks to prevent me from boarding. Near the end of the dock, I found a four-mast schooner with the plank down. I rushed onto the ship and darted forward toward the forecastle, jumped up onto the bowsprit and across onto the quarterdeck of the galleon wedge between other ships.

  The mainsail of the Fritzbink fluttered as it was let out.

  I ran aft, up the ladder on to the poop deck of the galleon and could see the Fritzbink below me glide away from the dock. I took a step backwards, ran as hard as I could, and leapt off the stern of the galleon into the open air.

  I fell for an impossibly long time before my hands found purchase on the shroud of the Delilah Fritzbink, about halfway up the mast. There was a loud pop as my vision went suddenly white. I had dislocated my shoulder from the force of the fall. I screamed in pain and fumbled as I climbed down the shroud with only one arm to the deck below. I reached the deck and crumpled. Several of the crewmen drew blades.

  Captain Azpa came to inspect the intruder on his ship.

  “You had better have a damned good explanation for being late,” he said in his thick Laetian accent.

  “I swear I’ll tell you everything once we’re at sea,” I said and grunted in pain.

  “Gentlemen, it looks like my apprentice has finally arrived! Back to your posts, let us get underway,” he shouted to the crew.

  The single-mast ship silently glided away from the docks of Drakkas Port and toward the Hydra’s Mouth as I held my shoulder and sat on the main deck. The massive walls loomed over the tiny ship. I looked back to see the crowd of armored men standing at the edge of the dock. A single white-plumed helmet soared out from the end of the dock into the water.

  The Delilah Fritzbink slid between the two towers of the Hydra’s Mouth and into the dark sea beyond.

  All I had with me were the sweaty clothes on my back and a handful of small coins. My head spun from the pain, and the whiskey, and the run.

  Perhaps in a month or two when we returned from Whyte Harbor things will have settled down, and I could figure out what was going on.

  The world grew dark. I slid into unconsciousness. The last thing I heard was the Captain call for the midshipman to fetch the surgeon.

  It was the last time I saw my home.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was well past midday when I awoke in the cabin of Tomas Flores, physician aboard the Delilah Fritzbink.

  “You had quite an adventurous evening, friend,” said the portly medic from the chair next to the bed. The doctor spoke with the same smooth Laetian accent as Captain Azpa. “Cort, fetch the Captain. Let him know our… guest is awake.”

  A young human boy with light oak skin and sandy hair rose from where he sat on the deck near the door. He scurried out without saying a word.

  “I would imagine you are quite thirsty,” Tomas said. He pulled a metal tankard from a shelf and half-filled it with water then handed it to me.

  “Tell me, which hurts worse—your head from the thirst, your shoulder from the dislocation, or your pride from the fall?”

  “Could I simply answer yes?” I sipped the water. The large man laughed as he returned to his chair beside my bed.

  I recognized the sound of water crashing against the hull of the ship. “How far out are we?”

  “A few hundred leagues from Drakkas Port,” he said. “You have been out for fourteen hours, my friend.”

  The cabin door flew open. A man larger than the opening in a red tunic and sleeves of sailor’s tattoos pushed his way inside.

  “The boy said he is awake. Just who the hell are you, and what are you doing on my ship?” the large man’s voice drummed in my skull. He kept one hand on a cutlass at his waist. “The punishment for stowing away is forty lashes.”

  “He is the son of Zori Alsahar,” the smooth voice of Captain Azpa came from somewhere behind the looming hulk. “And more importantly, he is my apprentice. You will do well to remember that, Sergeant Leon.”

  The sergeant lowered his head like a dog just smacked on his snout. He stepped to the side to allow Captain Azpa to enter the crowded cabin.

  “Reno, take Master Dufor topside. His parries are still weak,” the Captain said, motioning to the behemoth and the young boy.

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The large man slid out through the narrow cabin door. The young officer followed behind the brute, bouncing and eager for his training.

  “I’ll go get my cutlass from my cabin,” the boy said down the narrow corridor from the medic’s cabin.

  The captain looked to the medic, “I trust we have the confidentiality of a physician, yes?”

  The rotund doctor nodded to Claudio from his chair, then adjusted himself to face the captain and myself.

  “I suspect you have a good reason for being on my ship,” Captain Azpa said. Both men turned their attention toward me. “And one for why half of the City Watch was chasing you down the pier as we left.”

  “Because the other half was still looking for me in the Scourge,” I said with a half-hearted smile.

  The captain’s eyes narrowed.

  “Do you think this a joking matter? Boarding a ship underway without permission is piracy. I trust you are familiar with this, yes?” The captain did not raise his voice, but spoke with an intensity that commanded attention. “If you were the son of anyone else, you would take lashes from Sergeant Leon. The fact that you are resting comfortably in that bunk is because of the respect I have for your mother. Is that understood?”

  “Y—yeah,” I lowered my head.

  “Excuse me?” the captain barked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, my voice little more than a dry, painful whisper into my chest.

  “Good,” Claudio
said. “So let us try this again, shall we? Why was the entirety of the Drakkan Watch hunting you through the city last night?”

  “They said I had killed someone,” I shook my head, “that Captain Gustavo Blanco had murdered the daughter of one of the Lords of Drakkas Port.”

  “Gustavo Blanco?”

  “The sinking of The Esmerelda.”

  “Ah, yes. I remember that. Why did you give them such a foolish name?”

  “Childish bravado,” I shrugged.

  The captain gave a nod of understanding. “Did they say which lord? Which daughter?”

  “No,” I shook my head. I looked the captain in his face, “I don’t even know who the Lords of Drakkas Port are.”

  “No one does. That is the whole point. Only the Lord Regent, Alfons Silverford, is known,” Captain Azpa said. “We all suspect the Lord of the Reach is handed down through Stormjaw line. But the others, the Lord of the Sea, the Lord of the Land, the Learned Lord, and the Lord Defender, those are anyone’s guess. It has been that way since the Commonwealth was founded a hundred years ago.”

  “Great, so I’m accused of killing the daughter of the marid,” I said.

  “Oh, the Council of Lords is very real,” Claudio said. “Though Silverford has no daughters. And you have had no interactions with Lusia Stormjaw, have you?”

  “Not in three or four years,” I said.

  “Then, I must ask you an important question,” he said. “Have you ever killed anyone, even accidentally?”

  I looked the captain in the eye and answered with all the honesty I have ever mustered in my life, “I have killed no one.”

  Silence stretched for what seemed like a span as the captain considered what I told him.

  “I believe you,” he said.

  “Well, that is a relief,” Tomas sank back into his chair. “Honestly, murder?”

  “There is still the matter of what to do with you,” Captain Azpa said. “I have already told the officers and the men you are my apprentice. For the duration of our voyage to Whyte Harbor and back they will treat you as a midshipman, a junior officer of my staff. You will be quartered with the young Cort and join him for training. Unfortunately, we were not expecting you, so you will have to take a hammock.”