The Dark Sea Beyond

by Rye Sobo

  I didn’t bother with the wool tunic that morning. Reno would have me take it off in a few marks anyway when we trained. I opened the hatch to our cabin and startled Tomas as he was leaving his own.

  “Ah, Ferrin, try to go easy with the weapons today. I have a feeling I will have need of your talents this evening,” he said.

  “My talents? Why is that?” I asked.

  “Heavy seas,” he said and pushed his way down the corridor to the ladder. “Storm is brewing.”

  I followed the doctor up the ladder to the main deck. The early morning sky was a deep, brilliant red. The crew busied themselves with getting sails set and clearing the deck of anything not secured. I glimpsed Jabnit in the rigging. He fidgeted the way he did before our fights. Tension. Anxiety. Whatever he expected, he didn’t think it would be good.

  Tomas and I crossed the deck and entered the officers’ mess. Reno stood in at the table briefing the others when we walked in.

  “The men are panicked over the storm,” the hulking man said, “claim they have seen nothing like it in the Azurean.”

  “It’s just a storm,” Bitar said. “Everything’ll be peaceful by evening.”

  “All the same, the men would like to make an offering to Aequor,” Reno said, “if the Captain will allow it.”

  Bitar scoffed, “It’s a waste of good wine.”

  Reno looked like he was about to reply when Captain Azpa raised his hand to interject. “If a barrel of wine will put the crew at ease, then let them have it.”

  “Since we are tapping into the stores…” Bitar said.

  “That’s enough, Adira,” the captain said. “Masters Dufor and Alsahar, after the meal, please go to the hold and fetch a barrel of wine and bring it up to…”

  “Orad and Suud,” Reno finished.

  “The best we have,” the captain said.

  “Yessir,” I said. “I should be able to figure that out.” I took my seat at the end of the long table and ladled out a bowl of warm porridge.

  “This may be last warm meal for a while,” Captain Azpa said. “Seas are getting worse. Majid will dampen the flames in the galley until after the storm.”

  In mid-Panis this far north the evenings were getting cool. The thought of being wet and cold with nothing but dried sausage and hardtack didn’t sound appealing.

  After the meal, Cort and I climbed below deck and found a barrel of Laetian red as large around as I was. The barrel was wedged into a dark corner of the hold near where the crew slept. We had to move five barrels of cheaper Drakkan wine out of the way get at it.

  “What are they going to do with this, anyway?” I asked.

  “Have you never seen a Sailor’s Prayer before?” Cort said.

  “Heard of it, but never seen one in person,” I said. It was only half true, I had never heard of it either.

  “Once we get this thing topside, go up to the quarterdeck. You’ll want to watch it from there,” he said.

  The two of us wrestled the barrel to the ladder, placed it the netting, and used a line run through a block in the rigging to hoist the net and barrel up to the main deck.

  We rolled the cask across the deck to where Orad Bah and Suud Amari were waiting. Fawz Khouri and Tamal Shandy were standing nearby, each holding a large fish, fresh from the sea and still fighting.

  We set the barrel upright on the deck, and I looked up at Suud. He gave me a solemn nod and spoke. “Go stand with the others on the quarterdeck, Master Alsahar. This is not something for the officers.”

  I climbed the ladder with Cort and joined Lieutenant Bitar and Captain Azpa near the tiller. Both already wore their oilskins, ready for the impending rain.

  Suud Amari stood shirtless before the mast, looking out toward the forecastle. His dark brown skin glistened with sweat. His black hair tousled in the increasing wind. In his right hand was a dagger, the same one that pierced my ribcage not a span ago. He shouted over the wind and the waves, “Blessings upon you, Father, Lord of the Deep. We are but humble sailors, cast upon your waves.”

  Suud pulled the dagger across the palm of his left hand, and blood ran down his arm. He reached out to the fish in Tamal’s arms and smeared his blood across the head of the creature and shouted out to the water, “We ask for your protection, Lord Aequor.”

  Tamal raised the fish, covered in blood, above his head, then leaned over the larboard rail and dropped the fish into the sea.

  Suud balled his left hand into a fist, and the blood dripped onto the deck. He walked across the deck to where Fawz stood with the other fish and repeated his prayer, covering the fish in his blood. Fawz raised the fish over his head, then leaned over the starboard rail and dropped his fish into the water. Suud returned to the mast where Orad waited with an axe. “Lord Aequor, we offer you this gift and humbly ask that you watch over us. Protect us, until the day you call us home.”

  The dark-skinned sailor took the axe from his shipmate and drove it through the top of the barrel of wine, splintering it. Orad kicked over the barrel, and the dark crimson liquid spilled across the deck and over the sides of the ship.

  The crew stood in silence as if waiting for a response. Suud waited, almost in a trance-like state. The seas grew ever more violent and the Delilah Fritzbink swayed in the heavy seas. The wind howled as a gust hit the ship from the starboard side. Our mainsail snapped and pulled taught. A large wave broke across the bow of the ship, sending water across the main deck and down the hatch into the hold. As if that was the answer he was expecting, Suud turned to the other crewmen and nodded.

  “Fasten the hatches and raise the sail,” Captain Azpa shouted. “Make ready for the gale.”

  “What about us?” I asked. “What should we do?”

  The captain looked down to where Cort and I stood, “This will be a fierce storm. I want the two of you in your cabin until it is over.”

  I nodded to the captain. Sailors in the Sextant told stories of waves ripping men from the deck of a ship in a storm, never to be seen again. The last thing I wanted was to be on deck in a storm and gladly accepted the assignment.

  Cort did not share my enthusiasm. He wanted to prove his mettle as a sailor to the captain and crew, to have them see him as an equal. For him, being sent below deck was an insult.

  Headed to the hatch, Reno grabbed me by the arm. “Whatever you do, do not try to tap the yili of the gale. I don’t care how strong you think you are. It will rip you apart.”

  I nodded to the war mage. Did he think I would try to control storm? Could I? Getting ripped apart did not sound particularly enjoyable.

  Cort and I climbed down the ladder, and Orad pulled the wooden hatch over the hole and covered it with an oiled leather cover to keep the water out.

  In the dark of the interior, we could hear Tomas as he laughed and drunkenly sang old sea songs in his cabin.

  “At least it’s an opportunity to rest,” I said as I climbed into my hammock. “I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since we left home.”

  “Yeah, a good opportunity to sleep,” Cort said. There was a slight shake to his voice, but in the darkness I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or fear.

  As I swayed back and forth in the hammock, I heard the muffled whimpers of the small boy in his bunk. Tough as he had to work on the ship, it was hard for me to remember that he was still just a boy of ten summers, far from his family.

  “We’ll be fine,” I said. “This ship is the most reliable in the Empire’s fleet.”

  There was a sniffle in dark. “You think so?”

  “I know it,” I said. “She’s over a hundred years old and seen worse weather than this, I’m sure of it.”

  My mind raced as I lie awake in my hammock and swayed back and forth as the wind tossed the ship. One turn became a second and a third. Over the screaming winds and the thunderous waves I could hear Captain Azpa bellow orders to the crew. The occasional sniffle came from the rack beside me.

  “Does your mother still live in Maropret?” I asked
to break the silence and perhaps take his mind off the tossing ship.

  “Uh huh,” he said, “in Flat Bottom with my father.”

  “Was he a sailor too?” I asked.

  “Night man,” he said. “Ma didn’t want her son mucking shit for some wealthy merchant. So when I turned eight, she marched me to the Southern Empire and offered to sell me to the company. A captain by the name of Helma Keets told her the Empire don’t buy children, no matter the rumors. She offered my ma ten silver heads against my wages to work as a midshipman on her ship.”

  “Your mother tried to sell you?” I couldn’t imagine Zori would ever try to sell me off, but my family has never been in such a position. In all my time as a student at the university, a wandering storyteller in Drakkas Port, or barback at the Sextant, I have never wanted for anything.

  I want to go home.

  “Yeah, but she didn’t,” he said. “So I sailed with Captain Keets for about a year on the Dragon’s Mercy, a sloop running between Drakkas Port and Fortis. Then, one day, she announced she was leaving the Empire, resigning her post as captain. I was transferred to the Delilah Fritzbink and have been with Captain Azpa ever since. I think I have about another year, and I’ll be ready to be a navigator on one of the small runners between Drakkas Port and the Inner Islands. Or maybe midshipman on a galleon head off to Jia loaded down with spices and gold on the way back.”

  “Jia is a dangerous haul. No one has been there in over a hundred years from what I hear,” I said. “Beyond the Narrows and across the deadly Caligin Ocean.”

  The ship pitched, bow first, and a large wave crashed across the deck above us. The crew shouted now, reminded each other to hold on for their lives as each new wave crashed.

  Tomas sang louder in his cabin as the waves broke around us. I pounded out the beat and joined in:

  Farewell to you, my sweet Drakkan Ladies.

  Farewell to you, until I see you again.

  I sail with the tides to fight for the Emp’re.

  I’ll fight, and I’ll die with all of my men.

  Hu’rah, Hu’rah to you Drakkan Ladies.

  Hu’rah, Hu’rah to your warm golden shores.

  With glory and gold we return to you, ladies.

  Once again ladies we’ll darken your doors.

  The number of times I’ve led the house in a round of that song, the ale flying as sailors swayed and sang.

  The ship pitched hard, and Cort heaved, the heavy seas just too much for him. He rushed to the basin in the corner of the cabin and spewed. Just like back home.

  “Shit! Hold fast!” Bitar shouted from the decks above. “Hold fast!”

  The ship dipped and rolled to the starboard side. Cort heaved again.

  “Man overboard! Starboard side!” a shout from above.

  “Hold Fast!” Bitar shouted again as another massive wave crashed over the ship.

  “Wave! Hard to Larboard!” Azpa yelled over the storm and waves.

  “Brace! Brace! Brace!” the crew yelled.

  I remember it sounded like an explosion on the main deck. A thick shard of wood pierced the overhead, not more than a hand from where I lay. I flew from my hammock into the bulkhead. My head thrummed with pain. The world spun.

  ***

  The sun was warm on my face. Below me was solid soil. My eyes were closed, but I could hear the chattering of birds in the air. Peering out from heavy lids, I saw only a few wispy clouds in the brilliant blue of the sky.

  I took in a deep breath. The sweet scent of fresh cut tobacco drying. I love that smell. It reminds me of family. Of home. Of sitting in the study with my father and brother as they discussed the happenings of the city.

  I looked to my side. I was in the grass, a stone’s throw from Merrywood, the plantation where my brother lived, just outside the massive walls of the city. The tobacco fields had been in my family for generations, a thousand years at least, handed down from father to son. When Ignis refused to leave the University, my grandfather gave the lands to Dukhan, my brother, instead.

  Duk inherited the Merrywood ten years before the Collapse. At seventy-five, he was the youngest Alsahar to be master of the plantation. He toiled in the fields, cared for each plant. It showed in the finest gnomish tobacco ever grown in the Auster Islands, perhaps the world.

  The year he turned eighty an imperial missive arrived from Fortis to his surprise. The emperor planned to winter in the Black Keep, as usual, and requested Dukhan provide enough loose tobacco and rolled cigars for the winter court. He was to be the Imperial Tobacconist. A position short lived. Fortis fell, and the emperor vanished. All that happened years before I was born.

  I sat up, grass stuck to my hair and back. The clouds grew darker, not clouds, smoke. Thick columns of black smoke rose from the drying house across the field. The sweet smell of tobacco mixed with the scent of rot as a hot wind blew across the fields. Through the black smoke peered the terrible scaled face of a red dragon in armor.

  From the fields marched men in the red tunics of the army, sword in one hand, shield in the other.

  The massive serpent reared back its head and released a jet of fire at my family home. The flames licked at the yellow lapboard which quickly charred and caught, sending the fire deeper into the home. Soon fire engulfed the entire home. Somewhere beyond the house I heard screams. I tried to stand. Tried to run toward the screams. I couldn’t move. I looked to the fields. The soldiers were closer now, led by a hulking man with golden plumage that erupted from the top of his gleaming helmet. It was Dem.

  Dem looked down at me and cocked his head to the side as if he was considering what to do. Then he sneered, an intensity visible even beneath his helmet. His brilliant steel sword glinted in the warm sun as it pierced my chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “He still has breath. Go fetch water!” The smooth Laetian accent of the medic standing somewhere nearby pierced my mind. Beyond him I could hear water crash against the hull. Everything sat at odd angles in the darkness.

  “Slow, slow, slow,” Tomas said.

  I tried to open my eyes, but my face throbbed with pain. I winced and tried to sit up. A white-hot pain shot from neck and across my chest.

  “Try to relax,” the doctor said.

  “What—what’s going on?”

  “The ship was damaged in the storm,” Tomas said. “You were injured. I need you to lay back and try to relax.”

  My breathing was quick, panicked. “Tomas, I can’t see.”

  “I will clean you up and see how bad your injuries are,” he said.

  Behind him I could hear someone enter the cabin, heavy footfalls on the planks of the deck, a sloshing of water. A cold, wet rag moved gently across my face, mixed with a stinging pain on the right side.

  “You are lucky, my friend! You will get to keep your eye,” he said as he placed his broad hand across my face and muttered an incantation.

  Warm, white energy filled my vision as the biomancer tried to heal my wounds. I blinked as he pulled his hands away. Tomas’s eyelid and cheekbone had swollen over his left eye. Behind him Lurco Manos, the ship’s master carpenter, held a bucket of water, his face contorted with worry.

  Tomas pulled away a rag, red with blood, and reached into the bucket to soak it again. “I need to see how bad the cut on your chest is.”

  I glanced down. My white linen shirt was a dark crimson and stuck to my chest. In one quick motion, Tomas ripped the shirt open and I could see the blood seeping from a gash across my chest. My breath quickened again at the sight of so much blood.

  “I need to make sure there is no debris in the wound before we try to seal it,” he said. “This will hurt.”

  I leaned back, prepared for the pain. I felt hands of the rotund doctor pressing around the wound. Each jab an excruciating bolt through my body.

  “As I thought—there are splinters in here,” Tomas said. “Brace yourself.”

  I rolled my head back to brace for the pain. As I looked into the cabin
, I saw crimson covered the space. A pool of dark, red blood pooled near the middle of the cabin. I followed the stream back toward its source. My eyes met the blue eyes of the young midshipman, a cold, unmoving stare.

  My chest felt like Tomas stood on it. Every breath was an ordeal. I tried to sit up just as the fat fingers of Tomas slid into the gaping wound on my chest and removed a splinter as long as my hand. I screamed until my throat burned. Searing white pain flooded my vision as he ripped a piece of the ship from my chest. I closed my eyes against the pain, but I still saw Cort, lifeless on the deck. Blood ran from his mouth into a pool in the middle of the cabin floor.

  Tomas muttered an incantation and pressed his palm into my chest. The warm energy of his magic sealed my wounds but left the pain.

  ***

  Lurco and Tomas helped me to my feet. The deck listed hard to the larboard which added to the difficulty my broken body had with balance.

  “Had a breach of the hull, just below the waterline. We’ve taken on some water,” Lurco explained as I struggled to stand.

  “That can’t be good,” I said, one hand on each of my rescuers. I wanted to turn around, turn toward Cort. I could feel the eyes stare at me as I stood.

  “The hole’s patched, but we’ll need help to bail the bilge,” the master carpenter said. “Cap’n sent me below to get you. That’s when I found you two like this.”

  I noticed the fresh scars on Lurco’s right arm, bright against his olive skin. He held the arm in a cautious pose to protect the fresh wounds.

  “What about—” I couldn’t bring myself to even say it.

  “I will see to Master Dufor,” Tomas said, “see that he is cleaned and prepared for proper burial.”

  Lurco bowed his head and gave a somber nod. “He was a good sailor. We’ll take care of him.”

  With careful handholds on the bulkhead I could balance myself and make my way down the corridor to the ladder, bloody shirt torn from my chest. Every step of the ladder brought a new pain. My chest still felt every bit of the gouge closed only moments earlier. My hands left bloody palm prints on the walls and the ladder—my own blood or that of young Cort I didn’t know.