Midshipwizard Halcyon Blithe

by James M. Ward

  "Quite right, Mr. Blithe." There was a new tone in Seaman Hunter's voice. It wasn't quite respect, but the tone was more diffident. "Force-seven is a near gale. The sea fills with waves and breakers where the white foam at the top blows downwind in long streaks. It's impossible to stay dry in that type of wind.

  "Force-eight is a gale with high waves and large crests and the foam fills your vision wherever you look. We always take most of the sails in and only use the staysails by themselves because they are the nearest sails to the deck and easiest to take in at need.

  "Force-nine winds are when you wizards come into your own and help save ships with your magic. The sea has high waves with long foam streaks and often the crests roll over with the wind. The spray is so thick it's hard to see. That's not the worst of the winds, but it sure feels nasty on your face.

  "Force-ten winds give us storms to remember. The waves come at you ship tall with long hangin' crests. The sea looks white and each wave tumbles down on itself and you think you're goin' to die."

  Blithe couldn't believe what he was writing and wasn't looking forward to his first storm. "It's gets worse than this?"

  Seaman Hunter chuckled. "Oh yes, violent storms are force-eleven and the waves can hide ships of the line. Every wave edge fills with froth and shows lots of foam. There's only one type worse and that's force-twelve winds, the hurricane. When the sea turns completely white in foam, you can kiss your sorry ass goodbye, beggin' your pardon again, sir. Your chances of livin' aren't good. We turn in to the waves at force-ten and we hope we survive at force-twelve. I've only been in two of those and I'll be fine if I never see a hurricane again. That takes care of the wind. All of those you just need to memorize. Every time you come out on deck look to the sea. Note what type of sea conditions you have to deal with for your shift."

  "Yes, Seaman Hunter, I'm sure I can remember these," Halcyon said, looking at his notes.

  "The way to tell what the weather is goin' to be like is sort of silly," Hunter said, "but me mam taught me the sea rhymes and they've always been good enough for me. You ever heard of Red sky at night, sailors delight; red sky in the mornin', sailors take warnin'?"

  Blithe couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You don't mean to tell me those silly little children's songs are how you tell what the weather is going to be?"

  Hunter started laughing so hard he was slapping his knee in pleasure. "Now, I don't expect you to go spoutin' the rhymes to the captain, but you'll know when it's goin' to rain right enough, by rememberin' my rhymes. Let's not scoff at the wisdom of children and you just keep writin'," Hunter said. "The first one is Red sky at night, sailors delight; red sky at mornin', sailors take warnin'. It usually works every time. We've had a red sky every mornin' for almost a week now and I don't know why it hasn't rained, but that's the way the weather and fate is sometimes."

  Blithe knew exactly why it hadn't rained, but he wasn't going to say that it was his air-magic skills keeping the breeze fair and the weather sunny. He didn't want a storm on his first tour of duty and fully intended to keep up the spell until they reached a port of call, no matter how long that took.

  "The next is when the sky makes a change, the weather will be strange," Hunter told Halcyon. "The third one is mackerel sky and it's twenty-four hours dry. I particularly like that one."

  "What in the world is a mackerel sky?" Blithe just had to ask the question, because he knew it couldn't be a fish-shaped cloud.

  "It's a sky filled with dark wavy clouds, where the sunlight or the moonlight breaks through to the waves below," Hunter replied. "The clouds are high up and they might seem like they are rain clouds, but they never drop any water. The wind is always good under those clouds. The next is dew on the decks, the wind's from the sea; no dew on the decks, the wind's from the land."

  "That doesn't rhyme and why do I care if there is or isn't dew on the decks?" Blithe was writing everything down, but this last one didn't make any sense to him.

  "Put the notebook down for a moment," Hunter said, "and come put your hands on the wheel. There's nothin' much to handlin' the wheel on a night like tonight. All you have to do is make sure it doesn't spin. The Sanguine has just fed so it isn't pullin' against the rudder rig."

  Halcyon secretly filled with joy at the chance to take the wheel. His hands went where Hunter's hands had been before. The wood of the wheel was cold to his touch. He could feel the massive circle of wood trying to pull to the right, but his hands resisted the tug. The effort took more strength than he'd imagined.

  Seaman Hunter noted the smile on the midshipwizard's face. "It takes four men and sometimes as many as six to hold the wheel in big storms. The wind's a point or two off our course so it's pullin' a mite."

  Blithe's academy training had him do watches at ship's wheels, but this one was a first-rater's wheel and much larger than the wheels of the sloops he'd manned at the academy or the ketches his family used in their merchant trade. The steering device stood seven feet tall and there were two huge wheels so that multiple crew members could work the wheel in heavy seas. Blithe counted thirty belaying pins fastened to each wheel.

  Seaman Hunter looked at Halcyon as though he knew what the young officer was feeling. "I'm not too old to remember the pleasure of takin' the wheel on a first-rater durin' my first tour of duty. The experience is even better on a sea dragonship of the line. The wheels attach to lines of special pulleys under the deck. On a normal warship, the lines connect to huge rudders, massive things under the water at the stem. Our dragon has huge fins and this wheel rigs to those fins. Normally the sea dragon responds to simple turns of the wheel, but sometimes when it's near the shore or durin' high seas the dragon's instincts want it to go one way and we want it to go another. That's when it takes four to six strong men to force those fins to go our way."

  Seaman Hunter moved behind Halcyon and kept talking. "I would ask you to close your eyes now and don't open them until I tell you. Can you do that, Midshipwizard?"

  "Sure, but why?" Halcyon questioned.

  "Never you mind, just close your eyes," Seaman Hunter responded.

  Halcyon closed his eyes.

  Hunter went on, his tone becoming more urgent. "Now, imagine the fog is thick and you can't see a thin'. You're at the wheel and the thousand members of this crew are dependin' on you to get them through this fog alive. You can't see an inch in front of your face. There's a force-four breeze movin' the fog and the ship at a quick pace. Do you need to worry about the land?"

  "I don't know. I can't see in the fog." Blithe stood confused by the question and didn't like the idea of the entire ship depending on him.

  "If you bottom out the belly and guts of the sea dragon and crash onto the breakers off a shore you lose the ship and maybe the lives of all on board," Hunter said. "The dragonship's movin' faster and faster in the wind. You can hear the sound of waves crashing somewhere. Where is the land?"

  "I don't know." Some of the desperation of Hunter's voice infected Blithe.

  "Not knowin' is death. It's your decision to turn to port or starboard. We are movin' to port right now. Where is the land?"

  Blithe tried to calm down, but the urgency in Hunter's voice just wouldn't let him. "It's foggy, I won't know until it clears."

  "It's not goin' to clear anytime soon. You could be dead in heartbeats. The answer's at your feet, boy. Where is the land?"

  The decks were moist from the sea breeze. Halcyon knew they were far out to sea. Suddenly the nonrhyming children's song he'd just learned came to mind.

  "We are safe as the dew is on the deck, aren't we, Able Seaman Hunter?" Halcyon asked, having just figured out the answer.

  The chuckle was brief and good to hear. "I'll take the wheel again, Midshipwizard. You should return to your notebook. We've a few more to go through."

  Halcyon's heart was still beating quickly at the thought of all the lives of the ship's crew hinging on his decisions at the wheel. That was something he would have to reconcile himself to if
he was ever to gain a command.

  "Let's see now, oh yes, when the wind blows the foam you better head home," Hunter intoned.

  Blithe had a tough time imagining that, but he didn't ask.

  "A halo around the moon means rain or snow. The larger the halo the nearer the rain, don't you know. An odd thin' that, because we've had a huge halo around the moon for almost a week and it hasn't rained."

  Blithe hid his face, knowing the magical reason for that, but not wanting to say.

  "The seventh one is rainbow to windward means rain is comin'; rainbow to leeward means rain is endin'. I know that one doesn't rhyme either. Just write it down," Hunter ordered. "My mam's favorite was the higher the clouds the thicker the heather and the finer the weather. My favorite one, and don't ask me why because I don't know, is when smoke descends, good weather ends. Are you gettin' all of these?

  "The last one to write down is seagull, seagull sittin' on the sand; it's a sign of rain when it's at hand.

  "That's ten and if I know my first-class midshipwizard, she will want you to know all about the twelve types of sea breezes. I would try to commit those to memory if you can by tomorrow night. The rest will come to you soon I'm sure," Hunter continued. "Order the men on the mizzen down for tea and I'll get you a cup as well when one of the sailors relieves me at this wheel."

  Halcyon shouted out, the crew responded, and the rest of the night went as expected.

  his majesty's articles of war: article v

  No person in or belonging to the fleet shall take out of any prize, or ship seized for prize, any money, plate, or goods, unless it shall be necessary for the better securing thereof, or for the necessary use and service of any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war, before the same be adjudged lawful prize in some admiralty court, but the full and entire account of the whole, without embezzlement, shall be brought in, and judgment passed entirely upon the whole without fraud, upon pain that every person offending herein shall forfeit and lose his share of the capture, and suffer such further punishment as shall be imposed by the court-martial, or such court of admiralty, according to the nature and degree of the offense.

  "They didn't talk about oiling duty at the academy." Blithe grimaced as the three of them went down into the orlop deck. "I've used sand and iron plates and holystoned a deck. I've painted blast-tube ports yellow and the rest of the sides of a ship black. To my mind, this must be one of the oddest duties in the navy, isn't it?"

  "Just because only dragonships of the line have to do it, doesn't make it odd," Tupper said.

  "What's the reason behind wearing special oiling clothes?" Blithe asked.

  Alvin Condord was the sailor assigned to help the two midshipwizards. He looked to be almost twenty years old. A small man with quick eyes and hands, he was leading the way down into the darkest part of the ship. "We don't wear our regular work uniforms because oiling the old dragon is a messy business," Seaman Condord answered. "The creature likes the feel of the tannin oil on its skin, but the liquid's dark and nasty-smelling stuff. The tannin oil keeps the sea dragon's flesh from cracking in the sun and saltwater. Normally, it swims under the sea and keeps moist, but it can't do that when it becomes a ship of the line. Every time its flesh cracks, the dragon starts to bleed and that can kill our ride home. The tannin oil permanently stains everything and so we wear these large uniform aprons to oil the dragon's skin. Once a year and usually when we are out to sea, we oil down the outside of the ship."

  Racked against the wall at the bottom of the stairs were large squares of heavy cloth with holes in their middle. Condord picked one up and poked his head through the hole. He looked comical with his long arms sticking out the sides of the fabric.

  Blithe picked up one of the oiling uniforms and crinkled his nose at the oil smell. Waves of tar and burnt wood odor mixed together, assaulting his nose.

  "The smell won't bother you after a few minutes," Seaman Condord remarked as he moved farther into the bowels of the deck chamber. Moving quickly, he didn't seem to mind the darkness at all.

  "These are more like blankets with holes in them than uniforms." Halcyon grimaced.

  "Never mind how ugly they look," Tupper advised. "When the oil splashes on you during the duty, you'll like the fact that you can hang your blanket on a peg and not have to get it washed."

  The two midshipwizards shucked off their shirts and put on the oiling clothes. Blithe felt a strange prickly sensation on the skin touching the oiled cloth.

  "Anyone else feel a tingling on their skin under these things?" Halcyon asked the other two.

  "The tannin oil does that to some, pay it no never mind," the seaman told him. "Everyone eventually gets lots of this oil on their bodies and it's never hurt anyone yet."

  In the darkest part of the orlop deck under the bow of the ship, Tupper raised his hand and cast a magical glow, revealing the barrels of oil and the harnesses needed to carry the barrels up out of storage.

  "I've got to learn that spell," Halcyon remarked.

  "Giantson taught me last year; you'll pick it up in his classes during this tour of duty," Tupper said.

  Condord had a worried expression on his face. "I don't know why the lieutenant only sent you two; normally we have four midshipwizards on this duty."

  "That's our Hackle," both of them said at the same time, as they smiled like simple fools.

  "I know I've asked this question before, but no one knew the answer then. The stink is even worse here. Condord, do you know what this oil is made of?" Tupper was holding his nose as he asked the question.

  "That would be the fish oil and the tannin root combined together. They take whales and render down their fat for the oil. I did duty on a whaler for a year before the press gang presented me with the great pleasure of serving on the Sanguine," Condord said, smiling toward the other two. "In this oil, they put in some type of magical tannin root to keep it from dripping off the sides of the dragon whenever it rains. The crew has oiled the sides of the sea dragon all day today. They finished the stern this morning. The old dragon has been purring like a kitten; it likes the oiling, it does." The seaman's smile revealed that he had no front teeth.

  They rigged up the large barrel in a halter with two long staves of wood to carry on their shoulders. Blithe would bear the weight of the two poles on his shoulders at the front of the barrel. The other two, smaller men would each take an end at the back. Carrying the heavy barrel would allow the two midshipwizards to use their air spells, causing the other barrel to float in front of them with no effort to their bodies.

  "The tingling is getting worse on my skin," Blithe remarked.

  "Your flesh is probably reacting to Hackle turning us into donkeys," Haywhen grunted as he climbed up the steps behind Blithe. The sound of his voice labored as he barely managed the weight of the barrel pole.

  For just a moment, the naive Blithe wondered if Hackle could turn them into donkeys, and then he realized that Tupper was making a joke. Besides, Hackle has no magical powers, Halcyon thought.

  "That tingling's a good sign, Midshipwizard. They say only dragon speakers can feel the magic of the oil. Have you tried talking to the Sanguine yet?" Condord asked.

  "I didn't know anyone could talk to a dragon," Blithe replied. "It's odd enough that ropes speak to me. I don't know that I like the thought of dragons being able to shout at me as well."

  The barrel floating in front of them started bumping against the steps between decks as Halcyon lost a bit of his concentration. He moved faster up the stairs and focused on the floating barrel, trying to increase its enchanted speed up the passage. The heavy pull of the barrel he carried made the effort of arcanely floating the other barrel an easy task if his mind stayed focused.

  Tupper spoke up. "The captain can talk to the sea dragon, and so can Blast-Tube Master Griffon. I'm also told she can talk to other large sea creatures."

  "She can, can she. Now that's interesting to know." Blithe wondered if he could speak with the dragon. If the
captain and Griffon could, then maybe it was worthwhile to have that talent.

  "Get a move on, you slugs. The glow of the moon won't last all night." Up above them on the main deck Lieutenant Junior Grade Hackle shouted down at them.

  In a voice too soft for anyone up above to hear, Tupper said, "The man is brilliant, he should be an admiral at least, our Hackle."

  Blithe wondered what misery would bring Hackle out into the fresh air when it wasn't even his watch. As they brought the barrels on deck, other crewmen took up the two loads, placing large spouts in each, and racking them on the port side. Crew members immediately started pouring the thick oil into large canvas buckets.

  The first thing Halcyon did when he got on deck was look to the sea, noting the wind speed. It was still force-four, as the tiny wavelets had only a few crests. Halcyon couldn't help smiling, knowing his spell on the weather above the ship was working nicely and wasn't straining him at all. There was a slight pushing against all of his senses. He thought the pressure must be the force of nature wanting to set the balance against his clear-weather magic, but it wasn't anything that he couldn't handle with his mind.

  Halcyon looked up to see the dragon head twisted around to watch the oiling process. An odd trilling came from the nostrils of the sea monster. It sounded strangely content to Blithe's ears.

  Tupper, Condord, and Blithe saluted Lieutenant Solvalson, who commanded the oiling duty.