The Ocean of the Dead: Ship Kings 4

by Andrew McGahan

  Dow, hanging between his captors, could hear behind him the sounds of rushing water and splintering timber – the New World’s dying agonies. And also, flame roaring on the Chloe. But he concentrated upon Uyal.

  ‘You can talk to it?’ he gasped.

  The scapegoat managed to nod. ‘To this one, yes, in a manner, at least. For we have touched flesh to flesh now, and though its mind remains alien, I can read something of its intent – and it can read mine in return.’

  ‘Why is it doing this? What does it want?’

  ‘It wants us.’ Uyal’s head trembled as if with palsy, sign of the terrible effort to hold it upright. ‘Myself, and Nell. As to the why – it is as I suspected. This creature sensed, during our encounter last night, that we two – unlike the rest of you – possess foresight. A greater foresight than the creature’s own. Indeed, it stands in amazement, and strives to honour us, and moreover – this is the awful joke – it seeks to liberate us from our jailors. For it considers that we cannot be upon the ships, and in the company of humans – it regards humans as abominations – by choice. And so it has arranged our rescue.’

  Dow groaned. ‘Rescue?’

  ‘There is worse. Now that we are freed, as the Sunken see it, they seek to destroy the ships, and be finished with the human menace. The New World is already sinking. I fear the Chloe will soon follow.’

  ‘How do we stop them?’

  ‘We can’t . . .’

  ‘There must be a way!’

  But Uyal, robbed of the wheeled chair’s support, was exhausted now – or perhaps had been injured during the abduction. The scapegoat did not answer, only sank back in defeat, gulping torturously for breath.

  Nell had watched all this, eyes darting frantically from Dow to the dying ships to Uyal’s sufferings. Now, at the sight of the scapegoat’s collapse, a sudden calm seemed to come to her, a resignation almost. She bowed her head, and climbed to her feet. ‘You there!’ she said. ‘Hear me!’

  She was addressing the Sunken chieftain. The creature turned from its observations and looked at her, its manner stern but attentive.

  ‘Leave them be,’ Nell demanded levelly. ‘Let the second ship alone. Do so, and they will leave these waters and never come back! Do so, and we will stay with you, Uyal and I. We’ll stay by free choice.’

  ‘No!’ cried Dow.

  She ignored him, focussed only on the chieftain. ‘But if you harm them further, if you sink their last ship, then you will lose us. Believe me! Look – Uyal already is weak, and will die without my help. And if you deny me, I will let Uyal die, and throw myself in the sea, and you will be left with nothing. But let the others go free, and we will stay with you without complaint.’

  Dow was struggling madly. ‘No, Nell, you can’t—’ But one of his captors now clapped a heavy wet hand across his mouth, silencing him.

  The Sunken chieftain tilted its head as if puzzled, studying Nell. Even in his horror, Dow grasped that this puzzlement was not in regard to the meaning of Nell’s speech. The thing could not decipher her words, maybe, but their meaning, in some strange manner between one of Sunken blood to another, was understood. No, the thing was puzzled only because Nell apparently sought to save something so lowly as human lives.

  ‘I’m in earnest!’ she insisted. ‘Stop the attack on the second ship, now, or lose your prize.’

  The chieftain stared an instant longer, then glanced aside at one of its fellows and hissed a sound through its teeth. Immediately, the creature so addressed rose and slipped silently into the water. The command had been sent. The chieftain turned again to Nell.

  ‘Thank you,’ she breathed, and sagged wearily.

  Dow tore his mouth free at last. ‘Nell, you can’t stay with these things! You’ll die!’

  She looked at him, smiling wanly. ‘No, we won’t die. At least, we need not. There’s water here on these islands, and shade . . . and I’m sure our hosts will bring us food. We can survive, Uyal and I.’

  ‘I won’t leave you behind!’

  ‘You have to. What other choice is there? This is the only way anyone can escape.’

  ‘Then the others can go. I won’t. Not if you’re staying.’

  She was infuriatingly serene. ‘Of course you’ll go.’

  On the ground, Uyal stirred. ‘She speaks rightly, Dow Amber. If you do not go, then no one at all will ever reach the New World. That is a matter that foresight leaves in no doubt. If you stay with us, you condemn all the others to death. I warned you of this moment, and of the choice you would be forced to make.’

  Dow was shaking his head. ‘No, no . . .’

  Nell was smiling again. ‘In any case, the Sunken would not let you stay. They are within an inch of killing you even now.’

  ‘Why? Why do they hate us so much?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t read them as clearly as Uyal can. In part it’s because we stole their water. But I also sense a loathing for our very nature. We are not the first humans they have beheld, but it’s strange – they consider us to be dead things, ghost things, corpse things. They did not know until now that humans could live and move. I don’t understand what it means. But they will not tolerate us. You and the others, that is. You cannot stay.’

  The Sunken chieftain – who had been observing this interchange with chilling intensity – now hissed more sounds through its teeth, and lifted a sinewy arm to point first to Dow, then to the sea.

  ‘A little more time, please,’ Nell begged, her calm suddenly evaporating. She came closer to Dow, stared at him, tears starting. ‘Oh Dow, your eye. I didn’t realise it was so bad. You’re going to lose it . . .’

  To the deeps with his eye! ‘Nell, please. Don’t do this. I can get guns and come back, we can rescue you.’

  ‘No. It would only mean more deaths.’

  ‘I can’t just leave.’

  ‘You must. It’s your place as captain; it’s what you swore to do when you started all this. You can’t abandon those people now.’

  ‘It’s your place too!’

  ‘No . . . whether I’ve wanted to admit it or not, the captaincy was never really mine, and never could be. I marked myself a scapegoat all those years ago – and Uyal is right, Axay too, a scapegoat is what I’ve always been. And the visions foretold it. I was meant to end up here. Alone, at the last, for Uyal will not survive long . . .’ She swallowed suddenly. ‘I don’t want to stay, of course I don’t. But it’s the only way to fix this.’

  Dow strove despairingly. ‘Then I’ll come back, when we’re done! I’ll see the others through to the south and to land, but come back for you!’

  She laughed. ‘And then who would lead in the New World? You’d leave it to Diego? No, you can’t come back.’ Tears filled her eyes once more, and she clutched his face in her hands. ‘You have to stay there . . .’

  Uyal stirred again. ‘It is true. You cannot come back, not if the New World is to be yours. For this I say to you, Dow Amber, my last prophecy of all: if you should ever leave the new land, once it is discovered, fate will never allow you to return to it.’ The child voice fell to a whisper. ‘Nell. Tell him. The secret.’

  Nell gave a start, then stared at Dow with sudden eagerness. ‘Yes, I’d forgotten. Uyal told me, this very afternoon while you were sleeping – the secret that only Diego is supposed to know. I was going to tell you in the morning. I thought we still had the time.’

  Uyal said, ‘I gave my loyal oath to the prince, it is true, never to reveal it. But after he ordered me exposed as he did, I realised he was unworthy . . .’

  Standing by, the Sunken chieftain gave an impatient bark, and the two creatures holding Dow hauled him back a step, towards the sea.

  ‘No!’ Nell cried. ‘Just one more moment!’ She took hold of Dow’s face again. ‘The prophecy is this: whomever first sets foot on the dry land of the New World will be the founder of the new age. Remember that! When land is finally sighted, you must set foot on it first!’

  She kissed him f
or the last time, fervent and desolate. Then – even as the chieftain pulled her from him – to Dow’s amazement she ripped away the cord that he wore about his neck. He gaped at her an instant, but then his captors were hauling him backwards, and though he fought them wildly, it was to no avail. They reached the edge of the isle, and with contemptuous ease they hurled him out across the water.

  Dow flailed in the air and splashed down, the pain of his injured face reigniting hotly. He spluttered to the surface and immediately began swimming after the isle once more. But as soon as he came near, the two Sunken slipped into the sea themselves. Dow tried to swim through them, but they batted him back negligently, then trod water, watching him.

  The isle itself was drawing away. Nell stood alone on its shore. In one hand she held the cord she had torn from him. Suspended from it was a bronze coin – Dow’s seamanship token, earned long ago when he had been a green hand under Vincente. But it also held something else: a small glass bottle, a memento taken from a dead man, and carried by Dow ever since around his neck, forgotten until now. The crystal vial of pilot’s poison. The last resort and escape for those captured by their enemies and tormented beyond suffering.

  ‘Go back, Dow,’ Nell called. ‘Please.’

  But she could not turn away herself, and neither could he, and so each remained as they were as the distance between them widened. When the isle was fifty yards off, the two Sunken blocking Dow’s way turned and swam after it – but Dow made no attempt to follow.

  Behind him, a cacophony marked the final plunge of the New World, but he ignored it. His one eye half-blinded by salt water and his own tears, he only stared, holding his place, until the island faded into the night, and last of all Nell’s face, staring back all the while.

  Then she was gone.

  Dow remained unmoving even then, alone in all the night and in all the sea, and the temptation in him was almost irresistible to stay there forever, surrendering to the warm deeps, to painless drowning and death and oblivion, for what was the point of any of it now . . .

  But no, that was an insult to everything they had done together; he couldn’t take such a course. He bent his head at last, spat out salt water, turned himself about painfully, and started to swim.

  *

  Where once the New World had reared massively above the sea, there was now only a bubbling morass of wreckage. Dow could scarcely believe so large a ship could sink so fast. Had even a quarter hour passed, from the moment the Sunken attacked? To think that so much could happen, that the world could be changed so utterly, so much lost, in so little time.

  But the Chloe was still intact, and now that was all that mattered. Even the fire that had raged on it earlier seemed to be dying down – Dow could hear the pumps beating and water spraying. He laboured through the heavy sea, feeling the grief deepen in his limbs. His head throbbed and his vision came and went disturbingly. But at last he reached the Chloe’s hull, joining the many swimmers there who had arrived from the New World, a desperate mass at the boarding ladders.

  He tried to pull himself up and failed, but thankfully, crew from the Chloe were climbing down to help the wounded such as himself. Strong hands grabbed him, manhandled him over the railing, and then dumped him dripping upon the deck. Dow smelled ash and gunpowder, and heard a voice cry, ‘It’s Dow! He’s alive!’

  He was hauled upright by someone, and managed to wipe with a weary arm at the blood running across his eyes, to see that it was Boiler. ‘Dow,’ the former innkeeper said, his own face blood-streaked, ‘your eye! Are you well? Have you taken other hurts?’

  ‘No . . . no, I’ll be all right . . . ’ Dow pushed himself away from Boiler’s arms, and found that he could stand alone, just, swaying dizzily. ‘The Chloe – is it going to sink too? Did they damage the hull?’

  ‘We are taking on water, yes, but the Sunken ceased their attack before it was complete. The holes are not fatal to us. The fire too is under control. Do not fear for the Chloe.’ But here Boiler’s resolve faltered. ‘Nevertheless, we have suffered grave loss. Many are slain. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Fidel – your friend – is dead. And Jake . . . Jake is sorely wounded. The doctors say he is unlikely to live through the night.’

  Dow almost fell again. The shock of this on top of the loss of Nell, it was too much. He had thought he was numb to more pain, but it wasn’t true. Fidel? How could Fidel be dead? Dow had assumed he would have Fidel – his wisdom, his patience, his gentle curiosity – as guide all the way to the New World. And Jake – who had defied whales and war and poisons and survived them all. Jake too had proved mortal in the end?

  Boiler wasn’t finished. ‘And Dow – I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Nell. I don’t know where she is.’

  Dow sagged, leaning on Boiler’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. I know about Nell . . .’

  But then a cry cut through the crowd on the main deck. Dow looked up blearily, and there was Diego striding forward. The prince was drenched – he had been forced to swim from the wreck of his great ship, no doubt – but he was alive and hale for all that. Somehow, Dow had known he would be, even when so many better men than him were dead or dying.

  ‘Where is she?’ Diego was shouting. ‘Where is she?’

  Dow only shook his head.

  The prince stopped short. ‘She’s dead?’

  And for a moment Dow contemplated confirming this. It would be the easiest way for everyone, to think her killed, maybe even the easiest for himself. But he rejected the notion. He did not deserve to be spared the shame of it. ‘Not dead. Gone. They took her.’

  ‘Took her?’ Diego echoed brokenly. ‘The Sunken?’

  Boiler too was staring in horror. ‘Then she is drowned!’

  ‘No,’ Dow breathed. The world was spinning again; his head felt like it must burst open, the whole left side aflame. ‘No, she lives. They took her and Uyal, on the island. I was there. I let her go . . .’

  Diego stiffened. ‘The island? Then quick, what are we waiting for? Launch boats, we must go after her!’

  Dow summoned his waning strength. ‘No! She knows what she’s doing. She . . . bargained this much for us, the survival of the Chloe. If we go after her, we’ll lose all that. No one is to attempt a rescue.’

  Diego gazed at him uncomprehendingly, as if Dow was speaking some other language. ‘Are you insane? Bargain? With those things? And you let her do it? You left her there?’ The outrage of it seemed to overwhelm him. ‘And you dare to claim you love her?’ He spun. Off to one side in the crowd were several Ship Kings marines, fellow survivors from the wreck of the New World. ‘You – commandeer one of the boats. We’re launching.’

  The marines looked at each other uneasily; they had no muskets, lost presumably in the swim from their sinking ship, and they were surrounded not by their own folk, but by the Chloe’s crew.

  ‘Do it!’ Diego screamed at them. ‘I order you as prince! This fool has abandoned her, as I always knew he would. But I will not! I will not allow her to be taken from me! Not after all I’ve done!’

  Dow almost felt pity for him. Almost – for he knew too that if Diego had never ordered Uyal exposed upon the scaffold, then things would have been different. Yes, Nell and Uyal would have been under threat anyway – but Diego had made their capture inevitable.

  The marines were still hesitating.

  Dow instructed them tiredly. ‘Take your prince below somewhere and calm him down. Put him in the brig if nothing else works.’

  The marines looked appalled. ‘Arrest him?’ one asked.

  None of which got through to Diego. He was staring across the water. ‘Fine – if you’re all such cowards, I’ll go after her alone!’ He tried to thrust his way past Dow to the rail, but Boiler seized him and held him back. ‘Let go, you fool,’ Diego cried. ‘Marines, help me!’

  The men took a step, but Boiler glared at them levelly. ‘Think. He is no longer your prince, or anyone’s prince. He has no authority here, and you have no power to enforce it.
Look about you. Your ship is gone, your weapons with it, and half your folk drowned. Dow Amber is captain here. Do as he says, and take this man below before he hurts himself.’

  And so it was that Diego’s own marines took him away, struggling and screaming, quite unhinged in his rage – and in his grief too, which Dow did not doubt was real, in its own bent and possessive fashion.

  But Diego could wait. Everything could wait . . . Dow found that he was swaying again, nearly unconscious as he stood. Boiler took hold of his arm. ‘We need to get you to the surgeons, Dow. That eye . . . I don’t know if it can be saved.’

  Blackness swarmed up around Dow. Boiler, you’re the only one left . . . can you take command?’

  ‘Of course. For now. Until you’re better.’

  Dow nodded. ‘Boats. Do we still have our boats?’

  Boiler was studying him in confusion. ‘Two of the cutters were lost to the fire, but we still have the two others, and the two skiffs besides. All boats on the New World went down with it, it seems.’

  Dow was drowning in nausea. Four boats? Only four boats left? Somehow, they would have to be enough. He said, ‘Listen. When you’ve pulled everyone out of the water, and got the survivors squared away, launch the boats and start towing. Immediately. Don’t wait till dawn.’

  ‘In darkness? No, Dow, you aren’t thinking straight – those things will kill the crews. Why, even here on the ship we’re not safe. I don’t know why they left us alive, when they were so close to finishing us.’

  Dow’s knees were buckling, and only Boiler’s strength held him up. ‘No. There’s no danger. We’re safe. The Sunken will not attack again. We’re free to go on now, day or night. Nell bought us that much . . .’

  Then he could speak no more, slipping down into darkness. Boiler lifted him in a single movement, and carried him away.

  12. THE ONE-EYED CAPTAIN

  Of the days following, Dow knew only glimpses.