The Trophy Chase Saga

by George Bryan Polivka

  The Trophy Chase was on a collision course, a mere three hundred yards away.

  Packer Throme prayed. He knew now that God had brought him here, called him up from his cabin not to confront John Hand as he had planned, but to stand here at the prow as God had planned, to witness the leap of the great Fish. The admiral’s plan had been honored by God and by the Firefish, for reasons known but to Him, and the Chase had sailed past the Kaza Fahn and the Karda Zolt without a single weapon fired on either side.

  But such would not be the case with this third ship, dead ahead. John Hand believed it would run, apparently, and so he kept a steady course. But the enemy wasn’t running. John Hand believed the Chase would fly past it, apparently, and so she yet might, but in Packer’s mind a fight loomed. Surely that warship had grappling guns. Surely the Drammune would recover their senses, remember their commander, now captive aboard the Chase, and fire those hooks into the Chase’s rigging.

  And then the killing would begin again.

  Packer had erred before. He had prayed for a fight. He would not do so again. He stood still and erect, watching the ship ahead grow larger and larger, and he prayed. What he offered up was more cry of pain than petition, more rending of soul than intercession, but the heart of it was a plea that God would find another way. That God would send the Firefish this time to fight instead of, not in addition to, the bloody combat. Before, not after.

  Packer did not believe he had the faith to summon the beast to him. He did not believe the beast came, or would come, because of his faith. He didn’t think he could command this living mountain to be thrown from the sea into his foe. He did, however, believe—without doubt, without question—that his prayer should be what it was: that God, and God alone, would win this battle.

  He prayed for a battle such as Joshua fought at Jericho. He prayed for a battle such as Jehoshaphat fought at Tekoa. And he knew, absolutely, that God could do such a thing, could lay waste to the walls, could win against a superior enemy without a sword drawn or a shot fired. If He willed it. Packer felt, deep within, that this was the right prayer, the good prayer, the best prayer, the only prayer he could pray.

  And as he prayed, the head of the beast rose once more from the water at his right hand.

  The prince was brooding in his quarters, sitting on his high-backed couch in front of his enormous fireplace, delicately touching his purplish, swollen forehead. He tried not to think of Panna, but he could only dam his thoughts or channel them in another direction for so long, and then they flowed to her like a torrent down a drainpipe. That beauty, that radiant smile…those flowers…

  He knew he was a fool. He shook his head. He feared he was losing his grip on reality.

  “The Captain of the Guard, my liege,” said Stebbins, the ancient valet.

  “Send him in.”

  The prince stood up and asked, “Any news?” before the captain had taken two steps on the polished wooden floors.

  “No, Your Highness. We’re still searching.”

  The prince flashed his anger. “How could she just disappear? Has no one seen her? I thought your men knew how to conduct a search!”

  “They are on her trail, sir. A couple of priests spoke with her, at the Seminary. She was seen entering a cottage. But she seems not to have stayed long, and we lost her trail there.”

  This gave Prince Mather pause. The Seminary. Of course. She would be spreading news about her father among those she thought might help. Smart move. If she could create an uproar in the Church, they could demand the release of Will Seline, and everything would be out. Well, he too had allies in the Church. He had to speak with Hap Stanson, try to counter this, get out in front of it. The prelate would help.

  The prince dismissed his visitor. But before the captain left the room, Mather had another thought.

  “Wait.”

  The captain turned back. Before Mather spoke with the head of the Church, perhaps he should release the priest. Or, at least, come to some sort of understanding. “Bring me the priest, Will Seline.”

  The captain flinched. “But Your Highness…”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “No, sir, not at all. It’s just that he’s…”

  The prince fought back fury. Was there no competence anywhere in this kingdom? “Speak, man! He’s what?”

  “I believe he may be dead, sir.”

  The words hit Prince Mather like another punch to the nose. “What? How?”

  “He took a turn in the night, I’m told. Just took ill.”

  The prince felt sick, and put a hand to his stomach. “Are you sure?”

  “The prison detail reported it this morning. Surgeon said there was nothing more he could do.”

  “But you don’t know for sure. He may be alive.”

  “I…apparently, no one could wake him. It was only a matter of time.”

  “Well, feed him! Force some water into him! No, never mind, I’ll do it myself!”

  The prince rushed through the halls of the palace, down the cellar stairs, followed by the two dragoons dispatched by the captain. Mather cursed out loud. He had fully expected to be letting the man go this morning, or soon anyway, and hadn’t really thought about him actually dying. He thought about the language Panna had used, the way she’d made everything he did sound worse than it was. Murder, that’s what she would call it if her father died. And now she was gone, beyond his control, spreading her stories like a disease.

  He needed to find a way to keep that man alive.

  The Firefish looked Packer Throme in the eye. It had risen slowly, its great, misshapen head dripping water in the lamplight, each of its eyes as big as Packer. What Packer saw there, was quite sure he saw there, was a question. But it was more than a question. It was a longing. It was a look Packer recognized, a powerful desire to know what its duty was, what command it should obey. And so Packer looked to heaven, asking God the same.

  And then he looked back to the beast. Its scales glistened. Fire grew in its eyes, yellow fanning out, quickly coloring its whole body. But Packer did not feel then that he was in any danger whatever, though afterward he could never explain why. There was something present, was all he could say, something waiting. In some way the thing seemed almost joyful, if that could be. Regardless, neither then nor later did he believe that the beast intended to devour him or the Trophy Chase. And after a moment, he felt he knew what it wanted.

  “Okay then,” he said to it with a sigh, acquiescing to its desires. “Go.” And he looked toward, and pointed toward, the Nochto Vare.

  The massive, dripping beast turned. Its jaw dropped; its teeth glistened; its eyes shone like fire. Here, no doubt, was delight. And then its head went down, down into the water as its finned back stayed high, almost even with Packer, an arc of glowing yellow scales whirring like a windlass, like a wheel, rolling away toward the doomed ship.

  The Master had commanded. The beast would obey.

  The storm creature would die.

  The Firefish did not attack from below, but from above. It rose as it approached, its head cutting through the water, its body snaking yellow behind it, its jaws open. It struck the Nochto Vare amidships, just fore of its beam. It was a direct hit, an impact that opened a hole from port to starboard, clean through the vessel. Screams were heard. Planking flew. Masts and muskets cracked. On the other side, the beast turned to strike again.

  There would be no survivors.

  Huk Tuth and the Drammune aboard the Kaza Fahn, aboard the Karda Zolt, watched in horror. Instead of looking for a way to destroy the Trophy Chase, the commander now hoped only that the Vast ship would keep sailing, keep flying at hull speed, and would not turn back toward him to fight.

  He was relieved to see this hope fulfilled.

  The Drammune commander then flashed orders to his Armada that they were to resume the trek to Nearing Vast, to fulfill their glorious destinies. Then he went below deck to his cabin, took a piece of parchment, and wrote out in short, pl
ain words all he had witnessed this day. He put the scroll into a leather pouch and lashed the pouch to the foot of his falcon, a bird not as large but faster than that of Fen Abbaka Mux. He walked his messenger to the afterdeck and set it free. He watched it until it was a small black dot, and then he watched the dot disappear on the horizon.

  Will Seline had been praying when he took ill. In the days leading up to Panna’s visit, he had slept off and on, drifting from prayer into sleep and from sleep into prayer. He was praying when Panna came to see him the first time, and started praying again when she left. The same was true of her second visit.

  After she told him her story, he found an image on which to hang his prayers. It was an image he at first believed was simply a helpful picture from the Scriptures that focused his mind and heart. But the more he prayed, the more be came to believe that the image was real, in fact more real than the matted straw beneath him and the grimy stones that surrounded him.

  The image was of an altar. Not the altar of the Vast churches, covered in white and blue satin, where pristine women and spotlessly clad men said vows of fidelity, or where bread was passed on gleaming platters and wine was sipped from ornate chalices. It was the altar of the Old Testament, square, over seven feet across and four feet high, a cooking grill, with a mesh grate across the top and a fire burning perpetually below. It was the altar where the bodies of animals, having had their throats slit and their blood drained away by priests, were laid to burn before the Lord.

  This image had come to Will’s mind as he contemplated the Apostle Paul’s yearning request that believers offer themselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Will imagined…as he lay dying slowly, fevered, his mouth caked and his tongue swollen, his body racked with pain…he imagined that those who read the words for the first time, fresh from the pen of the apostle, understood completely the meaning of a burnt offering. It was an awful, entirely physical reality: to lay a freshly killed animal on a flaming grill and watch, listen, and smell it as it cooked, then burned.

  Will Seline was just such an offering. That was the image he held on to. He was not an animal carcass but a breathing human, a living sacrifice. Still, this was a burnt offering, destined to stay on that altar until there was nothing left upon this earth.

  He felt the spiritual flames entering his soul, illuminating and then burning away his self-righteousness, his self-pity, his selfishness, all his sins of pride and of gluttony, all the desire to be loved and admired by people rather than by God, to hold onto rather than to give away. And he realized these flames were very real. These were the same tongues of fire that danced on the heads of the disciples at Pentecost, the same fire that burned the burning bush, that rose in a column in the desert to lead the children of Israel. This was the flame of the Spirit, more real by far than the prison walls around him.

  And then he remembered another altar, not in the Old Testament but in the New. The altar in the Book of Revelation, the altar in heaven, from which burning coals were hurled to earth, and under which the martyrs gathered in the flames. This was the true altar, after which all other altars were patterned. And when he, Will Seline, in this filthy cell, laid himself in spirit upon that altar, that act became more than image. It was not symbolic. It was no longer imagination. Though it was not happening physically, it was happening in truth.

  And so he stayed there, in those flames. He did not want to leave. He wanted to be burned up, made holy, purified for the sake of the love and the glory of God.

  He stayed in those flames as he lay dying, joyful, tearful, protected and safe, safe in a way he had never been before.

  And Will remembered Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace, remembered how they walked and spoke with God in the flames, and Will knew they were content to be there, that they were utterly safe inside that furnace, that all was well there, and he understood why they did not want to come out. They did not want to go back to the world of men, the world that people had abused and God had cursed, where goodness was always crushed and holiness always stained and love always torn and marred. Yet those three had been called out by a king of that world who needed to know why the men were not dead, and needed to know who the fourth man was. King Nebuchadnezzar needed to know God. And so the three friends had left the flame to help him.

  Father Seline. Will Seline! Can you hear me?

  The words came through to the priest’s mind, and he realized he too was being called out of the flames, by the prince of this realm.

  With great difficulty and greater reluctance he struggled back to a place where he might open his eyes once more in the darkness, before the eternal light swallowed him forever. And the flames receded, and he was greeted roughly by the sounds and smells and sights of the bleak, dank world, the rustle of straw, the smell of urine, the face of the prince.

  But this physical reality was not ugly and cold and barren, as he expected it would be, rather it carried with it and in it a joy that was buried deep somehow, covered over, but that could not be quenched. The very character of God, the reflection of the flame, was in these things, and Will now knew he had never seen the flame in them before only because he had not known how to look.

  “Thank God you’re alive,” the prince said. “Here, take some water.” He tried to pour water into Will’s mouth, but the priest gagged and coughed. It tasted of vinegar. He spit it out.

  “Do not die, Father Seline. We will make you well again.” The prince’s face was pleading. Will felt pity.

  “You can do nothing…” Will said in a dry voice that surprised him with its resonance and assurance. He felt he had no strength, his lips were cracked and his tongue was coated, and yet his vocal cords worked easily, smoothly, as though oiled. “…unless it is granted to you from above.”

  “It was not my intention for you to die.”

  Will looked at the sorrowful, pained face of the prince. “But was your intention to commit adultery with my daughter?” Will asked without malice. He simply spoke truth, with a deep desire for the prince to agree, and accept, and repent.

  Mather shook his head. “No…I would never have…” But he trailed off, unsure suddenly of precisely what his intentions were.

  And then words came to Will Seline, thoughts he had not summoned. But he knew where they came from. He knew why he must say them. “Your kingdom groans under the misdeeds of your family. It will be taken away,” he said. “It will be given to one who is worthy.”

  The prince’s chin trembled. The Worthy. “The Drammune? Is this a prophecy? Are you a prophet? Or can I yet change this?”

  “It is decided. But you may choose the manner.”

  The prince felt panic. “What does that mean? Can I be forgiven?”

  But the fat old priest went silent. Rage rose within the prince; he wanted to shake him, scream at him, hit him, make him talk. But instead he crumbled within. “Explain it to me. Please, please,” he begged. “Explain it to me.”

  But the priest was gone.

  CHAPTER 20

  Harbor

  “Get rid of the body,” the prince told the guards. “Bury him in the Pauper’s Plot. Keep it quiet.”

  The guard nodded dutifully, and went to organize the detail.

  Mather turned slowly for the palace, his mind far away. It was all coming down now. Everything he had built was crashing down around him. He had worked so hard to take the reins. He was going to build the future, recapture former glories. But none of that would happen. Prince Mather walked back through the grim, lamp-lit corridor underground to the palace.

  Why did the priest have to die? It had not yet been four days he was without water. He had a weak heart or something; it wasn’t Mather’s fault. And what was the prophecy? Did the priest speak the inevitable? Or was it just ranting, madness brought on by hunger and thirst?

  As he topped the stairs and entered the polished hallway, he saw his younger brother, Prince Ward, waiting for him. Lanky, loose-limbed, and tall, he leaned on the stairway b
anister, arms crossed.

  “What are you doing awake?” Mather asked with his customary reflexive scorn. “It’s barely noon.”

  Prince Ward smiled. “Excellent, you’re in a good mood. Father wants to see us.”

  “Oh, he’s awake too? A banner day in the palace.” Then Mather caught the meaning. “Us?”

  “You and me and Jacq.”

  “How lovely. A family gathering. We haven’t had one of those since what, Christmas?” But it made Mather wonder.

  The king of the realm had gathered his children around him at his table. He sat at the head, and the queen, his wife, the mother of these three royal children, sat at the foot.

  “I’ve asked your mother to join us here,” the monarch began, “because I want her to hear this. It pertains to you all.”

  There was a reason he felt the need to explain why she was present. Madam the Queen Maeveline loved her children, but she knew her place, which was, essentially, to provide the king with heirs. She had fulfilled her obligation more than two decades ago. She had no illusions of power; hers was a subservient role. Of this she was reminded, through circumstances, constantly.

  She had managed to provide a bond of love early in her children’s lives, as was deemed necessary to their upbringing, but the raising of royal children was not to be left to the whims and emotions of any one woman, regardless of her bloodlines. She did nothing to get in the king’s way, or to point out his failings, and in exchange she lived a fine and pampered life.

  As one of the servants brought food, the king began to eat. In the pause, his daughter spoke. “So how is the hero’s wife?” Jacq asked Mather, her voice a pointed instrument.