The Ghostfaces

by John A. Flanagan

  “How it happened doesn’t matter,” he said. “What does matter is that it has happened. And we’re on half rations until further notice.”

  “Maybe it’ll rain,” Ingvar suggested. “We should be ready to catch any rainwater if it does.”

  Stig gave him an appreciative nod. “Good thinking, Ingvar. Jesper, Stefan, rig one of the spare sails to catch water if we get some rain.”

  “Why me?” Jesper wanted to know. Listening, Hal raised his eyes to the storm-wracked heavens.

  “Because I said so,” Stig replied.

  Jesper sniffed disparagingly. “That’s not an answer,” he muttered.

  Stig moved a little closer to him. “Well, how about this? Because I’m the first mate and if you don’t do as I say, I’ll give you a thick ear.”

  There was a long silence between them. Finally, Jesper looked away and moved toward the locker where spare sails were stowed.

  “Yeah, well, that’s kind of an answer,” he admitted sulkily.

  chapter five

  On the eighth day, the storm finally decided to have mercy on them. The howling wind and driving spray abated. And the Heron no longer shipped green water over her bows every time she plunged into the troughs at the back of each wave.

  But while the force of the storm dissipated and gave the crew a welcome respite from alternately huddling in the rowing wells and bailing out the water that came on board, there was no change in the relentless southwestward drive of the wind and sea. Heron continued to drift downwind. The wind direction was completely foul for the course they would need to take them back toward Hibernia, and eventually Skandia.

  Thorn and Hal crouched by the steering platform as Stig kept the ship headed at an angle to the prevailing sea and wind. They appeared to be traveling northwest but all three of them knew that, while that was their heading, they were still drifting downwind and down sea to the southwest. The wind, while no longer the shrieking, malevolent force that had battered them for eight exhausting days and nights, was still blowing half a gale and seemed determined to prevent them making any progress toward their homeland.

  “Do you think there’s any chance that it might change?” Hal asked Thorn. The old sea wolf was the most experienced sailor among them. He had seen wind and weather patterns all over their known world.

  But the problem was, they were no longer in their known world. The Endless Ocean was an unknown quantity, an enigma to them all. Wolfships had skirted its easternmost edge in times past. But none had ventured as far into the vast, heaving gray mass as they had.

  Or at least, if any ship had, it hadn’t returned to tell the tale.

  Thorn hesitated before answering. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air, peering into the northeast where the wind and waves originated.

  “Frankly,” he said at length, “I have no idea. I don’t know these waters and I don’t know the weather systems here. All I can say is, why should it change? It’s been blowing from the northeast for eight days now. I can’t see any sign that it might suddenly shift. And we’d need it to veer ninety degrees to do us any good.”

  “So for all we know, it could continue like this for another eight days,” Hal said.

  Thorn shrugged. “Why stop at eight? It could keep on like this for weeks. It’s obviously a massive weather front that’s driving it. Sorry I can’t be more encouraging.”

  Hal chewed on a frayed fingernail, then glanced at Stig. “How are the crew?” he asked. In a situation like this, as skirl, he had to remain a little aloof from the crew. He couldn’t discuss things with them or share his thoughts. If he had to make hard and unpopular decisions, it was best if he maintained his distance. That way, his orders and his decisions wouldn’t become a topic for debate and discussion. But Stig was able to stay closer to the crew and act as Hal’s eyes and ears among them.

  “Well, you know I cut the water ration again yesterday. We’re down to two beakers a day.” Hal frowned. He’d known that Stig was going to cut the ration again, but he hadn’t known what the result would be. “That’s getting pretty meager. How did they take it?”

  “They didn’t like it,” Stig said. “Who would? But they can see why it’s necessary. They’re not children, after all. And if they complain to me, it helps get it all off their chests.”

  “Cursed if I know why it hasn’t rained,” Thorn put in, glaring at the low clouds still whipping overhead, driven by the wind. “Orlog knows there’s enough cloud up there for a deluge.”

  “Maybe it will,” Hal said. His tone indicated how little chance he gave it of happening. Things never happen when you need them, he thought. But he didn’t express the sentiment aloud. Quarter rations of water was a serious step. It was barely enough to sustain the crew. They had plenty of food, of course, but without water, nobody felt like eating too much. And lack of water would affect them far sooner than lack of food.

  “Even if the wind did shift,” he said, after a few minutes’ silence, “it’d take us at least another eight days to get back to where we started.”

  “More,” Stig pointed out. “We’d be beating into the wind, zigzagging back and forth and having to cover twice the distance we’ve come.”

  “So maybe ten, twelve days,” Hal said.

  Stig nodded agreement. “At least. And we’ll be out of water in three.”

  Thorn was watching his young friend carefully. “You’ve got something in mind?”

  Hal took a deep breath, then committed himself. “I’m thinking we should hoist the mainsail and head west.”

  “West?” Thorn said, disbelief all too evident in his voice. “Farther into the Endless Ocean?”

  “That’s just a name,” Hal said. “And it exists because nobody has ever sailed out into it. But think about it. There must be something out there.”

  He gestured vaguely to the western horizon, and the others followed the direction of his pointing arm. Thorn looked skeptical. Stig looked concerned.

  “But what if it really is endless?” Stig asked.

  Hal shook his head scornfully. “Why should it be? No other ocean goes on forever. There’s always land somewhere.”

  “But this is the Endless Ocean,” Thorn put in mildly.

  Hal shook his head impatiently. “It’s just called that. Certainly it’s big. But mapmakers tend to be poetic. They’d never call it the Big Ocean. The Endless Ocean has a much more dramatic ring to it.”

  “It has a decidedly scary ring to it, if you ask me,” Stig said.

  Thorn switched his gaze back and forth between the two friends as they spoke. Finally, he said deliberately, “I think Hal is right. We’re doing nothing here but bobbing up and down like a cork, constantly being swept farther south and west. We’ll soon run out of water and then where will we be?”

  “What if the wind changes?” Stig said stubbornly.

  Thorn shrugged. “We can always put about and head back toward Hibernia if it does.” He paused. “But we’ve established that even if the wind does change, we’d run out of water long before we got there.”

  “And if we head west, we’ll make good speed,” Hal added. “We’ll be on our best point of sailing, and the wind is certainly strong enough. We could find land in a day or so, who knows?”

  “Nobody. And that’s the point,” Stig said.

  “Well, we can keep sitting here, going up and down and backward and getting nowhere. Or we can try to do something about it. I’d rather do something than sit and wait to die of thirst.”

  He looked around at the gray, sullen sea. It was ironic, he thought, to be talking about dying of thirst when they were surrounded by millions of square kilometers of water.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Stig said, slowly coming round to Hal’s point of view. “But I think that this is one occasion when we should consult the others. It’s their lives we’re dealing with, after all. T
hey deserve to have a say.”

  “I don’t like doing that,” Hal said. “It could set a bad precedent.”

  “Normally, you’d be right,” Thorn said. “But normally, you’d make a decision like this based on facts and knowledge. This time, you’re acting on instinct. I agree with Stig. For once, the crew should be included in the decision.”

  Hal realized that his friends were right. If he headed west, he was taking an enormous risk. He had nothing to back up his belief that there must be land out there, somewhere.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s get them together.”

  The crew assembled in the stern. Stig kept control of the tiller while Hal put the position to them, and laid out his idea of turning west and hoisting full sail.

  He was greeted by shocked looks, as he’d expected. The concept of heading out into the unknown was a radical one. Jesper, naturally, was the first to argue against it.

  “You want to sail farther away from home?” he said incredulously. “Farther out into the Endless Ocean?” He shook his head, looking at Hal as if he were mad.

  “As I see it,” the skirl explained calmly, “it’s our best chance of finding land. We’re certainly not going to do it sitting here.”

  Now that he’d had time to absorb the idea, Ingvar spoke up. “I admit I was a bit shocked when you just suggested it,” he said. “But, thinking about it, it seems the only logical thing to do.”

  “Logical?” Jesper erupted indignantly. “What’s logical about sailing farther away from home—into the Endless Ocean? The Endless Ocean,” he repeated for emphasis. “That means it goes on and on forever.”

  “Nobody knows that,” Edvin said quietly. He knew their situation was dire. But, as far as he was concerned, Hal was offering the best possible alternative.

  “Nobody knows it doesn’t either,” said Jesper. In truth, he wasn’t so skeptical about the idea. But Hal’s suggestion had just driven home to him how bad their position really was. It had made him face the very strong possibility that they would all die out here, thousands of kilometers from home.

  “Let me see if I’ve got this right,” Lydia said. They all turned to regard her. In her time with the crew, she had become a trusted and respected member. She had an analytical mind. Her life as a hunter had trained her to weigh possibilities and decisions. Even Jesper wanted to hear what she had to say. Deep down, he trusted Hal to make important decisions. But this was one of the most important they had ever faced, and usually the young skirl could support his ideas with facts and solid reason. This time, he had no facts to back up his idea.

  “We’ve got water for three days?” Lydia said, looking at Stig. He nodded confirmation. “If the wind changed, where would we be in three days? I mean, is there any land to the east that we could reach in three days?”

  Since she was addressing him, Stig shook his head. Hal felt it was better to stay out of this conversation. His position was already clear.

  “None,” Stig said. “You’ve seen what’s to the east. Hibernia is the closest land and that’s maybe ten days away, at least.”

  “By which time we’ll be out of water,” she said.

  Stefan interrupted. “By which time we’ll be dead from lack of water. It’s not as if we’ve had a lot in the past few days.”

  She nodded at him. “Good point.” Then she returned her gaze to Stig. “And if we go west? Is there land there?”

  The tall first mate hesitated, then shrugged. “We just don’t know.”

  “But we do know there’s nothing to the east,” she stated and again he agreed.

  “That’s right.”

  She thought about what he had said, then looked at Thorn. “Thorn, what do you think? Does this ocean just go on forever? Or is it possible there’s land to the west?”

  “Of course it’s possible,” he said. “In fact, it’s a pretty logical assumption.”

  “How’s that?” Lydia asked.

  “Well, we all know the theory that the world is a huge saucer, supported on the back of a giant tortoise,” he said. It was a popular myth, although he wasn’t sure that he believed it. Several of the others obviously did, however. He saw them nodding quiet agreement.

  “Then think about this. We know that to the east, there’s Hibernia, Araluen and then the huge landmass of the continent leading to Aslava and the Steppes. It makes sense to believe that there must be a similar landmass to the west to counterbalance it. Otherwise, the world would overbalance and tip off the tortoise’s back.”

  Jesper opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and closed it again, considering what Thorn had just said.

  “Well, at last somebody’s making sense,” he said finally. He looked at Hal. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

  chapter six

  With the wind on her starboard beam, Heron positively flew across the ocean, reeling off kilometer after kilometer as she went. The perpetual, and slightly nauseating, pitching as she rode up and down each successive wave was gone, and the relentless pounding into the waves, taking them head-on, was a thing of the past. Now she swooped at a diagonal angle to the waves, shouldering her way through the crests and sliding down into the troughs. She rolled and pitched, certainly, but the rhythm of her movement was exhilarating. She was alive. The rigging creaked and groaned in a constant song. At last, the crew felt they were actually going somewhere.

  The problem was, they still had no idea where that might be.

  Irrationally, Hal had hoped that they might see some sign of land in the first day. They had certainly covered plenty of distance. But as the night fell and the following morning broke over them, there was nothing in sight but the endless sea around them, stretching to the horizon in all directions.

  Stig doled out the miserly pittance of water to the crew. Hal tried to refuse his, but the entire crew protested when he did.

  “We’re in this together,” said Wulf. “And we need you as healthy as possible.”

  The others mumbled agreement and Hal submitted to their will. He slowly let the small portion of water slide down his throat, trying to make it last as long as possible.

  “Not sure how healthy that’ll keep me,” he mused, his voice thick, as he handed the empty beaker back to Stig. It was getting difficult to talk, he noted. All of their voices had thickened and coarsened as their throats and mouths were left swollen and dry. The momentary effect of the small portion of water they were given twice a day did little to relieve the feeling.

  The lack of water was making him lethargic too. He had to force himself to take his position at the helm when his turn came, asking himself why he bothered, when they could all be dead within a week.

  Stefan had at one stage suggested they might try to drink small quantities of seawater. “At least it’s water,” he said. But Thorn quickly scotched that idea.

  “Get rid of that thought!” he said, his voice muffled by the dryness in his mouth and throat. “I’ve seen crews go mad doing that.”

  Stefan looked down, embarrassed by his own suggestion. For a second or two, it had seemed to make sense. But he saw now how right Thorn was. Seawater would only make their raging thirst feel worse.

  “Maybe it’ll rain,” Wulf said hopefully.

  “Maybe it won’t,” Ulf replied.

  Another night passed. The wind remained constant and Heron continued to speed westward. The rising sun the following morning seared their eyes with its red glow. Slowly, it rose up the eastern sky. Once again, Hal was concerned to see how high it sat in the sky before beginning its descent once more.

  “Bear left!” Jesper was in the bow, keeping a lookout.

  His sudden shout roused Hal, and he realized, guiltily, that he had actually dozed off at the tiller. Now, with Jesper’s warning, he shoved the tiller bar over and the ship swung instantly to the left. A black mass passed down the sta
rboard side—long and shining wet, almost submerged, with a crooked branch sticking up into the air. A dead tree trunk, he realized, watching it dully. Had they hit it at the speed they were traveling, they could have shattered Heron’s bow.

  Might have been a good thing, he thought. At least that way, they’d get it over quickly, without the lingering agony of thirst and the unbelievable weariness they were all feeling.

  He sank back into his lethargy. He realized now that he had been wrong. There was no land to the west. This ocean really was endless and they would sail on into it until they were dried-out husks hunched over in the ship. A ghost ship with a crew of dead men—and one woman, he amended.

  Lydia had felt the sudden alteration in the Heron’s course. So had the others, but none of them were alert enough to be bothered commenting on it.

  “What was that?” she asked. Although with the dryness of her mouth and thickening of her tongue, the words came out sounding more like “Wha’ wa’ tha’?”

  Hal shrugged. “Just a tree trunk,” he said, his tone showing his total disinterest in the matter. “Nearly hit it.”

  Lydia frowned. She sensed there was something significant here, but she couldn’t figure what it was. She pushed her brain to think, but it responded slowly and ponderously. Thinking was hard work. It was easier not to think. Probably better not to think, as well. When she expended energy thinking, all she thought of was water. Finally, a small light of intelligence burned in the back of her mind.

  “Where did it come from?” she asked.

  Hal glanced at her dully, a little annoyed to be roused from the torpor that was creeping over him. Now he had to think, to work out what she was asking. Where did what come from? And what did it matter, in any event?

  “What?” he asked eventually, realizing that she was going to insist on an answer.

  Lydia waved a weary hand at the sea over the side.

  “The tree trunk. We nearly hit it,” she reminded him. She was irritable in her turn, thinking that Hal was being intentionally annoying.