Half a Sky: The Coscuin Chronicles Book 2

by R. A. Lafferty

  The weeks had rolled by. Dana had refused to go with his friends to Europe, for all that every one of them swore that he was essential.

  “I'll not be ordered to go by any messenger this time,” Dana insisted. “Nobody could command me away from here except Angelene herself, and she'd rather command her own soul away.”

  The party of voyagers had gone by jolly-boat to Grand-Bourg on Marie-Galante Island where there would soon be an ocean ship. The party was made up of the three new foreign men on Basse-Terre, and Lady Valiente and Serafino and Carolina, and Elaine Kingsberry, and Charley Oceaan. Charley had wished all of them to go in the Catherine Dembinska which was still seaworthy for Europe or anywhere else.

  “No. Catherine is a Purgatorial Bark and she'll have her release here, soon,” Dana said. Now they were all gone away from him and Dana was disconsolate. He hadn't any liking to be left out of things, but he had puzzling things still undone here. Besides, he hadn't been properly asked. No messenger had come to him with those weird messenger eyes. He'd have refused to go, but he'd been expecting the opportunity of refusing. Was he no longer worth a special messenger?

  Dana was returning to the House of Dana Cosquin and Angelene, still able to keep the jolly-boat in sight from the high ground. Then he lost it. He was alone. It all saddened him. Then there was the stroke.

  At first Dana believed that he had suffered body stroke, that he was afflicted. Garish red and green wheels danced before his eyes. The sun had gone wrong (it was mid-afternoon) and there was blood in the air; Dana believed, for an instant, that it was spume from his own lungs. And the ground lurched under him.

  It was an exterior stroke, though, it was earthquake. The ground lurched for but a moment, and it was only the weaker trees that crashed. The volcano coughed and growled like a bear and reared itself warily. Out at sea, there was the beginning of a spouting, as if there were ten thousand whales blowing at once on the whole water as far as the horizon. It was a nervous three seconds. It was repeated several times at two or three minute intervals. (This was either March 13th or 14th of the year 1854, likely it was the 14th; the first shocks had been on the thirteenth, but they may have passed without much notice; the severe shocks were of the afternoon and evening and night of March 14th.)

  Dana felt a certain nervous glee in it now that he knew it. It was one of nature's aberrations that he hadn't met before, and he meant to meet them all before he was finished.

  “Angelene, Angelene!” he called. “Come out and feel the great thing. It's the ground itself in turmoil!” He had come quite near to the House of Dana now.

  “Have I lived here forever and not felt the Tremblement before?” she called gaily. (She wasn't in the House; she was on a knoll above Dana, and with her hair streaming.) “I was born during earthquake,” she called, “and I'll die during one (not this one). Come hide in me if you're afraid of it, brave Dana.”

  “I afraid of it? I'll roll you in the rocks for that, woman. I'm afraid of nothing.”

  It quaked again, and they ran towards each other whooping and laughing over the pitching ground. It was as pleasant a thing as a tempest at sea.

  Then Angelene froze in mid-motion. And Dana shivered in new fright as he came up to her, quietly now. This was Angelene gone strange, and how could she ever be strange to him? She stood rigid with eyes closed. Then she opened her eyes with a start. She was still Angelene, but she hadn't Angelene's eyes.

  Hers were the weird eyes that Dana had seen before on several different persons, the same eyes on the very different persons. Angelene herself was the messenger with messenger eyes. She was in transport and didn't know what she was doing.

  “Go to Carloforte,” she said. Then she collapsed on the ground. Dana regarded her strangely and thoughtfully, but he didn't go to her. He'd wait till she came back. She opened her eyes again; she was Angelene again. But she knew what she'd said.

  “All right,” Dana answered the message. “I'll go to Carloforte almost at once, this very night at least. I'll first dispose of the Catherine. In doing this I'll have another encounter. If I live it through, I'll go to Carloforte.”

  “Bury the Catherine Dembinska in the Grave of Catarina Dama Binación,” Angelene said, “and then go.” She had risen from the ground now. Her face was dirty.

  “I go to do it,” Dana said dully, and he started down the paths to Basse-Terre Town where the Purgatorial Bark, the Catherine, was at sea anchor. When he was fifty yards away, he turned with a pang. He raised his hand to Angelene.

  “In five years, or ten,” he called, “I'll come back.”

  “I'll wait,” she said. He went on down to the town. There was further quaking, and nervousness on land and sea.

  There was a nervousness in the people of the town and landing also. Their faces seemed blue and green from the queer light, and they were quite apprehensive. The air was unearthly, unairy, and a little stifling. What breeze blew was almost hot. There was dust in the air and it seemed to have been carried in over the ocean. There was also light powder of falling ash, almost too fine to be seen, from the volcano Soufriere; almost too fine to be seen as it fell, but it covered and caked everything.

  “Will you take me out to my ship, the Catherine, in your boat?” Dana asked a man on the dock.

  “I'll go with you,” said another man there, a man named Jack. “I'd wanted to go with you once before.”

  “There'll be a great wave or waves,” the man with the boat said. “There'll be water-spouts and currents. These things have happened here before. Your ship rides loose on sea anchor now and is almost as safe as she can be. I wish there were some way that the town could ride loose on sea anchor. You have a high bobbling ship that will be hard to sink, but you've left small sails on her all these weeks. Will you strip and reef her clean then and leave her to ride it out?”

  “No, I'll set her under full sail,” Dana told the man. “If she be hard to sink, then I'll sink her hard. She'll have her release tonight.”

  “I'll go with you,” said the man named Jack.

  “You mean to sink her?” the man who owned the boat asked.

  “I'll take you to your ship, but I believe we'd better take six or seven men along with us. One man can hardly manage her, even to sink her, and a man shouldn't be without company in an uneasiness like this evening's.”

  “Come all the men who wish with me,” Dana said. “They can help me to coal her and fire her and hoist sail. Then they can leave in the two ship's boats. They can have the ship's boats for their labor.”

  Seven men, besides the owner of the boat, came along with Dana to the Catherine. The man with the boat went back to Basse-Terre landing then. The other men said they would take the ship's boats back, except one man who said he'd stay.

  “I've always wanted to ride a ship before a high wind to her sinking,” this man said. “There'll be a sort of glory to it that I've never had.” This man, an island man who was also a high-seas man, a fellow just past youth, was named Jack Galopade.

  “It'll be a dangerous thing,” Dana said, “and I never loved danger for the sake of danger. I'm not doing this for vaunt or show or madness. It's a ritual I have to perform.”

  They were coaling and firing the Catherine; they were hoisting sails that filled briskly for all that there seemed no more than a shambling breeze; they had already wound in the sea anchor, and they were moving and flowing.

  “I love ritual myself,” this man Jack Galopade told Dana, “and tonight I believe there'll be some fun after the ritual. And I do love danger for the sake of danger. I'll promise not to endanger either myself or yourself on this incursion, though. I'll save you rather. I'll make an absolute promise to preserve your life. If we are in the water, and if I guess your intent there is no way we will not be, then I let you know that I am younger brother of the whale. I've even a blow-hole in the top of my head to prove it.”

  “You've a hole in your head where your brains should be if you go with me tonight,” Dana said, “but I
welcome you with more heartiness than I knew I had left. I've known you only a little but I've liked you a lot.”

  They talked in English, though the other six men on ship knew only Island French. Jack Galopade was of one of the island families who knew English. English was common there, the second tongue, after French, and just before Spanish. This man Jack was a life-long friend of Charley Oceaan. He'd been a several-weeks friend of Dana. Dana had also known him slightly on his previous stay on Basse-Terre. Jack was one of the men who had brought the succeeding stallion that time, the son-stallion. He'd been the man who looked yearningly as though he'd like to try the animal himself.

  The breeze had stiffened. The sun was green and blue and scarlet, all at once, as it went down. The six men took the two ship's boats off and oared for shore. They'd not make Basse-Terre landing; they'd go into a cove several miles east of that. It was quick and nervous dark on them before they'd gone far, and they didn't like it.

  Dana and Jack went down to the boilers and scuttled further coal into them until they roared. The engine and the smaller donkey-engine trembled and shouted as they drove the ship. The two men came atop. There seemed to be crackling and booming canvas everywhere, but there were sails that hadn't been hoisted yet. They put them up now. There were gallants to go above the top sails, there were little moon-raker sails to go above the gallants. Dana and Jack raised every piece of canvas there was, and the Catherine raced toppingly at great speed.

  Then still faster. There was a standing wave, a traveling wave, a tidal wave of the tremors, and the Catherine rode it, very high and just behind the crest.

  “What is the ship to you?” Jack Galopade asked Dana. “I've watched the two of you and wondered.”

  “She's my wife,” Dana said. “I speak literally, and not as some men speak of being married to a ship. My wife has in-dwelt in this ship as her body for her purgatorial stay. She'll leave it tonight.”

  “She'll overshoot the grave they've named and storied for her,” Jack calculated, “unless we open the scuttles very soon.”

  They went down into the bilges and opened the scuttles in the bottom, and the sea poured in. They went atop again.

  “She'll explode just about right,” Jack Galopade said, “when the sea reaches her boilers, if she doesn't topple complete first. Won't there be a bit of fun near the end though? That's really why I came, for that, and to guarantee your life.”

  “I suppose it'll be a bit of fun,” Dana admitted, “but it looms as mere annoyance and dirtiness now. I'll try to come into the spirit of it, and may it be high fun for you, Jack!”

  “The wind and word of that man has been traveling toward us for some days,” Jack said. “That man, flatfooted on the ground, is a physical coward when confronted with fist or knife. I've made him back down myself during his various stays on Basse-Terre. He must have time to puff himself up and go into transport before he'll battle. He's had that time now, though. Shall we bring another cannon to the very fore-rail? Two good men can do it the way the ship's nosing down.”

  They brought a second cannon to the very fore-rail and lashed it secure. It was lightning all through the jagged darkness, and the volcano was belching globs of fire. And there was another sort of light, the green fire that seemed to inhabit the waterspouts.

  “He's not a long mile away,” Jack Galopade cried. “He's also going before the wind. How can we both be going before the wind and we be coming together?”

  Well, the wind was a swirl. The Catherine was out in the passage between Guadeloupe and Marie-Galante Island now. These usually calm waters had become one giant seeth. There were prodigies on sea and land, earthquake and volcanic explosion, seaquake and water-spout, running waves and clashing waves, red fire and green fire.

  “I'll cannon,” Jack shouted. “I can wait no longer.”

  “Cannon!” Dana cried. The barking thunder and shiver came immediately, and the long fiery trajectory. The Gates of Hell, the ship of Ifreann Chortovitch, was seen clearly for the first time; it was not two furlongs off, and was bearing down on them with roar and hoot and fire.

  And the timbers of the Catherine Dembinska shivered with real fear. She had always been deadly afraid of this manifestation that was coming down on them.

  “He'll not have you!” Dana cried. “You're clear. You go now, girl. Your time here is done. Dia is Muire dhuit, a mhuirnin!”

  The Catherine Dembinska exploded under their feet. The flames ascending from her depths enriched the other flames of that stark night. But now it was only a ship afire and aburst. Catherine herself had gone out of it.

  “I'll see you again, my love, in thirty years, or fifty,” Dana called a loud farewell. “The time will pass quickly enough for me, and thyself are already outside of time.”

  And then Dana turned with savage joy to the other conflict. He cannoned, Jack Galopade cannoned, and engorged Ifreann on the Gates of Hell cannoned with the only voice he now had. The ships rattled and raled and burst. And now they came nearly at point blank.

  Ifreann was seen clearly now, roaring and screaming soundlessly while his throat thews stood out like ship's cables in his effort. There was something fearsome about the silent roaring of that monster as he towered and reeled among his gape-mouthed mutes. They cannoned the last time. They came to the crash, and the great bloated face and form of Ifreann was above them and illuminated with his own purple light.

  “He roars and raves but he makes no sound,” Jack Galopade cried. “Has he had his own tongue ripped out as has happened to his demonic and moronic crew? Has the voice of this devil been castrated?”

  “I believe that I mutilated him once,” Dana sang, “or that he's since mutilated himself. He's mad, he's delirious, he's hysterical, he's himself. Have at us, Ifreann! Do what you can do!” Dana himself was sounding this in clear and unmutilated voice.

  This was one ending of the world, surely and for a little while, as the fountains of the deep were broken up and all the ancient islands appeared in the sky. Really, there were trees and cliffs and lands up there as the lightning showed.

  It was preternatural battle there in the passage between Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe) and Marie-Galante, and each antagonist was supported by his own titans and visions; red fire coming down and green fire going up. The whole world was inverted. Even the friendly and flaming volcano, who was Dana's own uncle, seemed almost a dangerous enemy in the things it was throwing.

  The Catherine exploded again. That was her second and last boiler. If Dana lived through this (unlikely as it seemed) he would go to Carloforte and more world-hinging adventure; and if he lived through that (all distant and impossible as it loomed) he'd come back to Angelene and Basse-Terre; in five years, or ten, he'd come back.

  The deck had become intolerably hot, and indeed there was no deck left except just there at the forerail. The Catherine exploded again, and she hadn't any third boiler to explode. The Gates of Hell exploded. And Dana's last talisman was gone: this was the splinter bone from Catherine's skull that Dana had carried in the pouch around his neck; it was gone, now, and he felt its absence. He remembered; it had been gone some time before; Angelene had assumed that Catherine bone also into her belly.

  There was no ship left under them, only the great suction, the reverse flow of the fountains and spouts. Dana Coscuin and Jack Galopade with whooping joy were into the churning, spouting water with no other things than hand knives. They were sucked so deep with such rapidity that they touched very passage bottom at more than one hundred feet. Sounding younger brothers of whales they both were, and they came up with the same great rapidity. How could Dana not live through this when he had as companion the cetaceous and salty Jack Galopade complete with blow-hole in his head?

  The ships had crashed and crumbled together. Ifreann Chortovitch was falling through the night, falling like bursting purpled lightning as his father had once fallen. He seemed to be all one great swollen head roaring soundlessly, and his body but a tadpole tail to him. He fell timeles
sly. Then the monster was into the jarring sea-quaked water with a spuming crash, and the two joyous comrades were after him.

  They'd flense that killer whale of an Ifreann, they'd flense him of his purpled blubber with their flensing knives. This wrong monster whale would be blubbered and peeled; they'd have the curtal-tongued abomination in the middle of the shouting sea. And then they'd strike out on the nine-mile swim to Marie-Galante Island, and from there it was but twenty-five centuries of miles to Carloforte.

  Onto the devil-be-dwelled purpled whale of a man-monster then and all his mutilated power. With itching knives they followed him down into the green and swirling depths.