Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable)

by Peter David

  “Skelton.”

  “—and I don’t see where what you have to say means a damned thing.” He nodded to Sawkins, who started to pull the dog toward the edge.

  Thomas put a hand on James’s arm, trying to restrain him, but James shook it off and stepped forward. The amusement that had been visible in Rackam’s face moments earlier evaporated, leaving only the annoyance behind, annoyance and something more that would have been a warning to James had he been paying attention. “It means a damned thing because being a passenger on your ship makes me a paying customer, and besides”— his mind raced, and he blurted out the thought before it was fully formed—“that’s my dog.”

  “Your dog?” Rackam wasn’t buying it for a second. “I didn’t see you bring it on board.”

  “He ran on ahead. I’m actually glad you found him because I was worried he’d been left behind.”

  “Look, boy,” said Rackam, “I don’t know what your game is, but I know that dog. It hangs around the wharves, scrounging what it can and hoping someone feeds it.”

  “Look, I wouldn’t, for a second, think to challenge you when it comes to, you know, seamanship or maritime skills,” said James, digging deep into himself and finding resolve he hadn’t even known was there. “But by the same token, I’ll bet that you’re no expert on dogs. So there’s no way you can be absolutely certain as to whether you’re looking at the same dog as was back on the wharves or one who just happens to look a hell of a lot like him but has in fact been my close companion for years now.”

  “He has.”

  “Yes,” said James firmly. “He has.”

  “It’s a female.”

  James blanched. “A female?”

  “Yes. Even I, a humble nonexpert on dog breeding, can discern that little fact.”

  James looked to Thomas for help. Thomas cleared his throat, and said weakly, “Right. Well . . . that would explain the litter of puppies last year ...”

  “Wait!” James cried out, as Sawkins prepared to heave her over the side. “Please!”

  “ ‘Please’ is a good start,” said Rackam, “and not a word you’ve used yet in this discussion. That bit of courtesy will garner you an extra minute or so.” He gestured for Sawkins to wait, and Sawkins did as ordered although it was clear from his expression that he wasn’t happy about it.

  “Look, Captain,” said James, “she saved me from a rat that certainly didn’t have my best interests at heart. You could use a good rat catcher on this boat—”

  “Ship,” Rackam corrected him sharply.

  “Right, sorry. Ship. A good rat catcher on the ship. And besides, I’ll”—he harrumphed deeply in an of course I forgot to mention this but it should have been obvious manner—“I will naturally pay for her passage.”

  “Pay for it.”

  “Of course.” He reached into his coin purse and pulled out a fare equivalent to what he had paid for himself. “And you don’t even have to find her separate quarters. She can bunk with us.”

  Rackam stared at James, obviously scarcely able to believe it. “You’d pay full rate of passage for a mutt?”

  “No. I’d pay full rate of passage so that I don’t have to watch a creature who just saved me from a rat bite get drowned.”

  The captain stroked his beard for a moment, then put out his hand. James, seeing it, let out a sigh of relief, put out his own hand, and shook the captain’s firmly. Rackam looked at him askance, and then said, “The money, you idiot, not your bloody handshake.”

  “Right. Yes, of course.” And James hurriedly proffered the agreed-upon sum. Rackam took it from him, counted it quickly to double-check, and then said quietly to Sawkins, “Release the bitch.”

  It appeared as if Sawkins was about to offer protest, but he then thought better of it and let go his hold on the dog. She trotted across the deck as if she had not just narrowly avoided a watery grave and rubbed up against James’s leg.

  “Enjoy your honeymoon cruise with your girlfriend, Mr. Skeleton,” said Rackam, and then he laughed loudly, and the rest of the crew joined in.

  “Skelton,” James corrected him, but so softly that no one heard him, nor would it have made any difference if anyone had.

  Thomas stepped in close to his longtime friend and slowly shook his head in disbelief. “That was a hell of a thing,” he said in a low voice. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking exactly what I said: That I wasn’t going to stand by and just see a helpless creature thrown into the sea.”

  “You realize,” Thomas pointed out, “that you could have been tossed into the sea right along with it, and there wouldn’t have been a thing I could do to stop them.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that for a moment.”

  “You think they wouldn’t have done it? If you’d continued to give backtalk to the captain? They take these things seriously, James.”

  “Oh, I believe all that,” said James. He was crouching next to the dog, scratching the underside of her chin. She was clearly enjoying it and looking up at him with huge brown eyes that seemed to say that he was the center of her world. “But what I don’t believe is that you wouldn’t have found a way to stop them. That’s what you do, Thomas. You find ways, when no one else can. You,” he continued with confidence, “would have found a way to save my sorry ass, and the dog besides.”

  “It’s kind of you to say so, but—”

  “No buts,” said James firmly. “I’m no brownnoser, Thomas. I’m not trying to blow sunshine up your skirts. I’m just telling you what I think is true.”

  “Well, let’s hope that your life doesn’t come down to counting on my supposedly bottomless wellspring of cleverness.”

  “There are worse ways to die,” said James, “than counting on your friend only to have him let you down.”

  Thomas stared at him blankly. He didn’t have to say anything; his bewilderment spoke volumes.

  “Uhm . . . yeah,” James said uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head, “that sounded better in my head.”

  BOTH THOMAS AND JAMES ENDURED A period of adjustment with shipboard life, particularly when it came to the steady swaying of the vessel. They adapted to different aspects at different speeds. Thomas, for instance, was far steadier on his feet than James, who staggered for hours and had an unfortunate tendency to fall over if there was any chop at all. On the other hand, James had the far stronger stomach and wasn’t the least bit put off by the vessel’s nauseating rocking, while early in the voyage, Thomas hung over the edge and vomited up the rum and salted pork that had served as their main source of nutrition since boarding the ship. Their mishaps served as endless fodder for the sailors, who found their problems a diversion from the occasional tedium of shipboard life.

  At one point, while Thomas was slumped on the deck, his head whirling from the nausea of seasickness and feeling the right fool, one of the sailors sauntered by. He was the oldest of the crewmen that Thomas had seen, with a few stray wisps of hair clinging stubbornly to his head and skin so dried out by the sun that it looked like old leather. He said cheerfully, “Feeding the kraken, were ye?”

  Thomas looked up at him in confusion. “Feeding the—?”

  “That’s what we call it when ye empty the contents of yer stomach into the old briny. Some people believe a kraken gulps it up and follows, looking for more.”

  “Do they.” He adjusted how he was seated on the deck so that he wasn’t slumped over anymore. The motion made his head swim all the more, but he worked as best he could to shake it off. “The kraken wouldn’t exactly be known for its discerning palate, then, I take it.”

  The sailor stared at him blankly. “What?”

  “Never mind,” said Thomas, shaking it off. But now his interest was caught, and he said, “Captain Rackam said there were no such things as krakens. That they were just yet another creature of myth that maybe never was and certainly isn’t anymore.”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt he said that,” said the old sailor,
and then he lowered his voice and suddenly seemed deathly serious. “But I’ve been around a bit longer than the captain, aye, I have. And there’s more at the bottom of the sea than most men would want to admit because it gives ’em comfort to believe otherwise. Yet ships still get lost at sea every so often, young master, and it’s easy to blame the elements or pirates or what have ye.” Then, with a low growl, he said, “It’s man’s own fault, it is.”

  “What is?” Thomas didn’t quite understand what he meant by that.

  “All this”—and the old sailor made a face of unrestrained disgust—“this invention. Technology. Industry and such. Things were fine as they were, but there ya go, with men who think they know so much making all their so-called improvements in the world. Pushing creatures of myth and magic into the shadows and the recesses of men’s imaginations. Did they think there’d be no price for that? Did they truly believe that those selfsame creatures wouldn’t, at some point or ’nother, take a stand and start pushing back? Ye know what a volcano is, boy?”

  Thomas nodded.

  “Myth and magic, it’s like a volcano. And men and their inventions and technology and industry, it’s like they been trying to shove corks in the top o’ one of them volcanoes. Try to bottle up the forces inside. And ye can’t do it. Ye can’t, because ye know what happens, sooner or later?”

  “It blows.”

  “Sky-high.” The old sailor nodded. “And anyone what happens to be around when it comes, well, they get good and cooked. You get what I’m sayin’?”

  “I think so,” said Thomas slowly.

  The old sailor regarded the sea with what appeared to be the greatest depths of suspicion. “There’s something building in the world, boy. Something big and something bad, and I ain’t sure that any of us are gonna survive it. The pushback’s comin’, count on it. Just hope that you’re nowhere around when it happens.”

  The old man turned away, and Thomas suddenly blurted out, “What about balverines? Do you know anything about balverines?”

  “Why?” He arched one of his bushy white eyebrows.

  “Because”—and he squared his shoulders, and said with as much bravado as he could summon—“I’m looking for them.”

  For a long moment, the old man said nothing, and then he said brusquely, “If that’s the case, ye best hope the kraken takes ye.” Then he stalked away, shaking his head and muttering in disgust about young idiots and their fool, antiquated notions of quests.

  It did little to lift Thomas’s spirits.

  Chapter 7

  LYING IN THE CRAMPED QUARTERS that he was sharing with James, Thomas was all too aware of the fact that the ship was starting to rock increasingly. He was hardly a seafaring individual, but he was certainly able to tell when there was a change in the conditions that the ship had been experiencing, and that was most definitely happening now.

  “A storm,” he muttered. “It would come rolling in now, when we’re supposed to get into port tomorrow morning.” He glared upward toward the skies, even though obviously he couldn’t see them since he was belowdecks. “You couldn’t have held off,” he asked the unseen clouds, “for one more day?” His stomach had only recently settled into something manageable, no longer determined to eject food from him forcibly at the slightest provocation. And now a new challenge was being presented it? It just didn’t seem fair somehow.

  Then he heard roaring laughter, a demented giggling, and a minute later, James made his way down into their quarters, the dog right behind him. He hadn’t given her a name yet, despite Thomas’s urging to do so, since he wasn’t convinced that the animal wasn’t going to take off the moment they reached their destination. “If I don’t give her a name,” he had reasoned, “I won’t feel betrayed and abandoned.”

  “You worry about things that don’t bother any normal person,” Thomas had said, but didn’t push the matter.

  So now came James and his nameless pet, and he seemed entirely too pleased with himself. That self-satisfaction immediately prompted a trill of alarm in the back of Thomas’s head, but he tried to tell himself that he was being paranoid for no good reason. “What’s with you?” said Thomas. “You seem in an awfully good mood.”

  “I am indeed.” James grinned like a fool. He pulled out his money purse and held it up for inspection. “Notice something different?”

  It was hard not to. It was bulging, so packed with coins that their outlines could be seen pressed against the sides.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I most certainly did.”

  “You gambled with these men? These sailors?”

  “They invited me,” James said in mild protest. “They were playing at cards, they challenged me—”

  “Which was it? Invited or challenged?”

  “A bit of both, actually. They obviously thought I’d be easy pickings, Thomas.” And it was clear that the notion irked him. “Now they know differently.”

  “James ...” Thomas was shaking his head. “What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?”

  “It’s not as if I cheated! I won fairly!”

  “I know! You always win fairly! But have you forgotten that that hasn’t stopped you from having major problems with sore losers? And the only way you’ve avoided getting the crap kicked out of you was that we’ve gotten out of there, sometimes as quickly as humanly possible?”

  “So? I still don’t ...” Then his voice trailed off. “Oh.”

  “Yes. Exactly. ‘Oh.’ ” Thomas had gotten to his feet, and he was standing several feet from his friend, his arms folded, regarding James with exasperation. “There’s nowhere to go on this vessel. Putting some distance between yourself and a pack of sore losers isn’t an option. Unless you’re about to suggest we jump overboard and throw ourselves on the sea’s mercy.”

  James, who had been waving the sack of coins around with such pride and relish, was now staring at it with as much enthusiasm as if he’d been holding a bag of pus. “What should I do? I mean . . . I could just return it . . . but won’t that seem like I’m admitting that I cheated? Like I have a guilty conscience, trying to make things right even though I didn’t do anything wrong?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe the smartest thing to do is ask the captain. He knows his men best, after all.” He paused, and then, eyes narrowing, he said, “Was the captain one of the players?”

  “No.”

  “Then we should be thankful for small favors, I suppose. Toss it here. Let’s see how much there is.”

  Obediently and reflexively, James lobbed it toward Thomas.

  It never got to Thomas’s outstretched hand.

  Instead, the dog, which was between them and apparently under the impression that a game was being played, leaped up with unexpected enthusiasm and snagged the bag of money between her teeth.

  “Poxy cur!” James shouted. “Give it here!” He lunged for it, but the dog—still thinking it all a game—deftly dodged him and bolted from their quarters.

  “Oh, fantastic!” said Thomas with a moan. James was already out the door after the fleeing animal, and Thomas hesitated, wondering if he should bother to go in pursuit as well. This was, after all, James’s problem. But Thomas had noticed that James’s problems tended to become his problems as well. Even as he headed out after James and the dog—the latter being easy to track because there was no great trick in following James’s string of outraged profanity—he was already coming to the conclusion that they would have been far better advised to have let Sawkins toss the damned beast overboard when he had originally wanted to.

  Down, down into the bowels of the ship did James and Thomas pursue the dog. Obviously, she was heading for the place where she felt the greatest safety: the hold of the ship, where she had first stowed away. Why the hell couldn’t she have stayed there, hunting rats, slinking around, and keeping out of their way and not needlessly complicating their lives?

  The smell of brine became stronger in Thomas’s nostrils, and the rocking of the ship was be
coming even more severe. Several times, as Thomas clambered down short ladders chasing after the continued cursing of his friend, he staggered and nearly fell, catching himself at the last moment. He jumped down from another short ladder and landed on what he realized was the bottom of the vessel. His boots hit water: not much, not enough to make him think that the ship was sinking. But it was enough to make him believe that there was a slow leak somewhere, and the sides of the ship could stand with some maintenance.

  That was when he realized that he wasn’t hearing anything from on ahead. Not the dog barking and not the stream of profanities from his companion. “James,” he called tentatively. “James—?”

  “Thomas,” James’s voice floated from the darkness ahead. “I think you need to see this.”

  There was naught but darkness ahead of him for a moment, and suddenly light was glowing. It illuminated James’s face, and Thomas realized that James was holding up a lantern that must have been hanging from a peg nearby. “I should see a lamp?” said Thomas, not quite understanding what it was that James was trying to show him.

  “No. This.” James raised the lamp higher and turned a key in the bottom, causing the light within the lantern to burn a bit more brightly. When he did that, it gave Thomas a better view of their surroundings.

  There was an amazing assortment of things, from rugs to perfumes, foodstuffs to clothing, and weapons, all kinds of weapons. They were on slightly raised platforms to avoid any chance of seepage getting into them and damaging them.

  “So what? We knew they had cargo; they told us that.”

  “But of such variety? There’s no rhyme or reason to it. And this.” And he held up tags that were attached to one of the tapestries. “It says ‘Property of W. Maheras.’ ”

  “Maheras.” The name was familiar to Thomas. His brow furrowed as he tried to recall why that should be, and then it came to him. “He was a merchant. My father had some dealings with him. And then he ran into major financial difficulties because he had a shipment that was stolen by ...”