Zhintah-Hoak would sail along, to see the land of the Vast for himself.
And so the Vast, almost two hundred strong, stayed on the islands as guests, teachers, learners, and friends, for over two weeks, until finally they were restless for home. The Marchessa and the Blunderbuss were made ready. Food was easily gathered, as the Achawuk shared their stores with the Vast. Neither ship had suffered; few repairs were needed.
The Vast were quickly ready.
There were no ceremonies, as the Achawuk were not a formal people. But gifts were given in abundance, and given mutually. The Achawuk gave spears, and food, and face paints, ornaments and jewelry, paintings of Firefish, blankets, carved Firefish bones, and Firefish hide. The Vast gave knives, swords, pistols, fish hooks, rope, cannonballs, tobacco, and rum. They even gave of themselves. Romance had blossomed here and there between Vast and Achawuk. One woman, a flenser from the Blunderbuss, and two men, both sailors late of the Trophy Chase, decided they would stay.
The Achawuk used their new fishing boats to ferry the Vast to their ships, and then lined the beaches of the mayak-aloh once more, this time to say goodbye. As the Vast set sail from the crystal waters, Packer Throme stood on the quarterdeck of the Marchessa. They all waved at the shore. They fired cannon. The Achawuk chanted, and sang their song of the Tannan-thoh-ah.
“The Achawuk are a good, gentle people,” was the watchword, repeated again and again on this voyage home. None could quite account for such a reality. And yet, it was true.
As the shore shrank away, all eyes turned downward. The sun shone brightly, playing across the sandy bottom. Moore Davies understood, and set the Marchessa’s course to pass over that spot, as best he could determine it, where the Trophy Chase’s masts and sails had last been seen, sinking beneath the waves. All the men wanted just one more glimpse of their great ship.
And they were not disappointed.
“There she is!” the lookout shouted, “Starboard bows, thirty points!” And hearts leaped, legs raced to rails, eyes scanned the seas.
Then hats came off.
The sun shone down on her, like rays from heaven. The currents billowed her sails like wind. She sat on the seafloor, keel already half covered in sand, heeled at an impossible angle. She flew, it seemed to every eye, even as she lay still. But more amazing yet was the beast. The Firefish was wound through her masts, draped across her decks, overhanging the hull like an oversized golden bunting.
“It’s alive!” the word passed through the ship like lightning.
But as the Marchessa passed over, the excitement bled away. The beast lay still. And as they passed, the color of its hide grew dark again. The sun, somehow, had played along the scales, making them shine. The thing was dead. It was wrapped in death around the ship that had wrapped its legend around the beast.
In their final embrace, the Firefish had its trophy, and the great cat had hers. The chase was ended.
The Blunderbuss then tried to pass over the same spot, and for the same reason. The crew of the Trophy Chase had been assigned, for the most part, to the Marchessa, replacing crew that had been lost to the Achawuk. But a few Chase veterans had been ordered to the slower ship. These included Andrew Haas. The hope was that these good men could help to keep that ship from lagging too severely. It would prove to be a vain hope, and Haas immediately knew why. The slow ship’s captain was quite sure, quite sure that the Marchessa had the coordinates all wrong, and that he knew precisely where the Chase went under. And, as captain, he would take his ship just there.
None aboard the soon-to-be-celebrated Blunderbuss ever saw the great cat lying in state, at her final rest, at the bottom of the sea.
But no one in Nearing Vast would ever know that.
The word, for once, did not get out about the return of the Vast seamen to their homeland.
The two ships arrived at the Docks of Mann mid-morning on an early summer Sunday. The place was all but deserted, as even the crustiest of longshoremen took off the morning of the Sabbath, if not to go to church, at least to drink to the health of those who did. And though the ever-vigilant dock foreman and the often-vigilant naval lookout had spotted the ships at sea, neither recognized them until they were all but in their slips. Then, rather than send word to the palace, both ran down to the ships to learn what news might be known, assuming nothing but the worst. Both were shocked into further silence to find their king aboard.
Packer descended the gangway first, an Achawuk warrior on one side, and a man who might have been Achawuk on the other. The king requested both a carriage and a horse. Both were brought immediately. Packer helped Dayton Throme, then Zhintah-Hoak, up into the coach. He assigned Moore Davies to ride along as company, and Smith Delaney to ride as guard, and he gave instructions to the coachman…take them through the city, that Zhintah-Hoak might see the capital, and then on to the palace.
Taking his leave, Packer Throme mounted the horse, a young gray mare full of spirit, hardly more than a colt. He turned her, shook the reins, touched his heels to her flanks, and bolted from the docks like he’d been shot from a cannon.
Panna sat alone in the upstairs drawing room, just outside the royal bedrooms. She sipped her coffee, then set it down on the table. She was prepared for church, dressed in a simple blue gown, her hair up off her neck. She was waiting for Millie to come tell her that the carriage was prepared. Now she stood, and walked to the open window that looked out over the gardens.
Sundays were hard. Her father, and all that Sunday meant to him, was gone. Packer was gone. Panna was queen, and as queen she had arrested the highest cleric of the Church. She would be ushered into the chapel, where she would sit in the royal seat, and then when it was over she would be ushered right back out. The priests brought in to speak had so far been hesitant, or angry, or afraid. It was hard to tell which. She had to admit she dreaded Sundays. Perhaps things would change, now that Father Stanson was being removed from his position. But for now it was painfully awkward.
The day, however, was gorgeous. Sunlight filtered down through the trees, dappling the grass, the flowers. Birds chirped pleasantly. She could see the pond, the same one where she once sat and read. The same one in her dream. It was a simple dream, one she did not wish to forget. In that dream, she saw children running and laughing, a boy and a girl. They ran through the gardens of the palace. They played in the pond where Panna at one time used to sit and read. They floated boats there, little toy boats with masts and sails, and they argued with one another about which was the Trophy Chase. And then, there was Packer, kneeling beside them! And then he knelt by the edge of the water, and he showed them how a tall ship sailed, where the captain stood, how the crew moved the sheets so the wind would fill the sails. And he blew on the sails, so they could see.
“Where do the Firefish jump to?” one asked.
“Anywhere God tells them.”
“Is God on the ship, too?” the other asked.
“Oh, always.”
“Where does God stand?”
“He’s everywhere. In the sails. On the quarterdeck. At the prow.”
And then an elderly man walked up, gray-haired and gentle, face weathered and worn and sunny. And the children hugged his legs and pulled on his hands until he sat down. And they called him Grampapa. And then Grandmamma came, and put her hand on his shoulder. And Panna looked down at her book. The True Story of the Adventures of Packer Throme, King of the Vast, and his Great Ship, the Trophy Chase.
Panna looked now through the wide, arched, open window, admiring the glassy surface of the water, imagining those toy ships, those tiny hands. She sighed. It was just a dream.
“Panna.”
She turned around. And there was Packer. And not just Packer, but Packer from her dream. He stood tall and proud, and he radiated strength. His face was serene, and full of joy, and yet bore a depth of pain that made her heart cry out, as though it was not his pain he felt, but hers.
Packer walked to her, and took her in his arms.<
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“The battles are all over and won.” He spoke the words gently, gently into her ear. “I’m back to stay.”
So he was, for good and all.
EPILOGUE
Packer Throme reigned in Nearing Vast forty-seven years, with his queen by his side. Panna’s dream came true just as she had dreamed it. Or almost. They did have two children, a boy and a girl. But then they had another boy, and then another girl. And then two girls. And then twin boys. And all of these reigned as princes and princesses in the palace, where the gardens were their battlefields, the ponds their oceans. Here they sailed their boats and fought their wars, and slew and tamed their Firefish, in forts and ships and palaces. Here they rode the seas and followed the winds wherever they would blow.
And they did everything—almost everything—under the gentle, watchful eyes of Grandpapa and Grandmamma, and they never did see one without the other. And when finally the day came that these two were lost to them, many years and many, many joys later, all the Thromes traveled to Hangman’s Cliffs, the tiny town atop the cliff, the legendary place known now throughout the land. And Dayton and Netessa Throme were buried together in a clearing in the woods, not far from Will and Tamma Seline, where they rested in eternal peace.
The Drammune never did attack the Vast again, not while Packer reigned. Huk Tuth’s message, sent by falcon, had assured the Quarto of the foolishness of such a move. According to the commander’s final written words, not only would the Firefish swallow up whatever warships dared to cross an ocean and provoke their master’s wrath, but should a war be lost, Packer Throme would claim his rightful place as the Hezzan Throme Dramm.
The Quarto burned the message, executed every returning sailor, and never spoke a word of it again.
And the Drammune attacked no other nations. After killing off two of his three fellow Quarto members, finding them not so Worthy after all, Pizlar Kank declared himself Hezzan. Under the Hezzan Pizlar Dramm, civil strife and violence grew. The rift between the Zealots and their opposition steadily increased, with violence more and more severe, lasting almost forty years beyond the inevitable assassination of Pizlar Kank. Discord and disharmony and rebellion were the hallmarks of Drammun during all the years of Packer Throme’s life.
And all the strife within Drammun served to guarantee a lasting peace to all their neighbors, friends and enemies alike.
The Achawuk fared much better. Protected by the legend of the Firefish, no ships dared approach but those of Nearing Vast, and then only those sent by Packer Throme.
Packer himself returned to the mayak-aloh several times, the first trip within two years. He brought Queen Panna with him. She, in fact, had refused to be left behind, as she was the one who demanded that the trip be taken. The reason for her ardor was at root quite simple, but was overlaid by events long hidden, now finally exposed.
When Dayton Throme learned of the church archives below the library, he pored through the ancient documents, satisfying, finally, his long-suffering curiosity. He was searching for one last piece of information he could not puzzle out. That Firefish tooth, the one he had hung around his neck, the one that had saved him…how did it get to Nearing Vast? The woman who had given it to him, whom he knew only as Salla, had been found in an asylum. He had visited her only because he’d heard she spoke ceaselessly about the Firefish. The asylum was run by the Church, and she had been put there, she had said, by the Church.
Now, delving into the archives, Dayton discovered that Salla had in fact been born on the Achawuk islands. She had been brought to Nearing Vast, along with her parents, by “missionaries”—not priests at all but mercenaries. Her parents had died suspiciously, but for a while, it seemed that the young Achawuk girl would adapt to life in Nearing Vast.
She grew, was adopted, given the name of Salla, and eventually married. Then she had a daughter. But according to these records, Salla could not forget her childhood, and was drawn back to it in her mind. She began to speak openly of Firefish, and of the Achawuk. She became morose, darkened, and a danger to herself.
Her baby daughter was taken from her, and Salla was thereafter lost to the world and, committed to the asylum, she was heard from no more. Her husband disappeared, and then remarried. Her daughter was raised by an aunt. But that little orphan, the daughter of a full-blooded Achawuk mother, was Tamma Pottanger. Tamma, who married a priest named Will Seline.
Panna Throme, the Queen of Nearing Vast, was one-quarter Achawuk. She would see the homeland of her grandmother.
The legend of the Trophy Chase grew and grew, remembered in songs and stories and in the hearts of a seafaring nation. The sign of the Firefish above the tiny inn in Hangman’s Cliffs was eventually replaced by the sign of the Trophy Chase. Packer Throme was on hand for the unveiling. Standing on a dais built for the occasion, he introduced a young man with hair like a shock of wheat, and a mottled, freckled complexion.
“Marcus Pile is the best carpenter’s mate I’ve ever had the privilege of sailing with,” Packer said to all. Marcus blushed as the crowd cheered. “When the Chase was beset by the Firefish, and our legendary Admiral John Hand was killed, Marcus was there. While many others in his position might have lost their nerve, he did not. To prove his valor, he plunged into the waters where the Firefish had been seen only seconds before. And he rescued this…the very image of the great ship, the great cat. The figurehead of the Trophy Chase!”
Packer pulled the cord, and the sheet fell, uncovering the lioness, claws grasping for invisible prey, jaws open for the kill.
The crowd took a breath, awed by the sight. And then it roared. Cap Hillis beamed, and as Hen nuzzled in to give him a hug, he pinched her, playfully. She slapped him, a bit less so.
No one noticed, or if they did no one cared, that one of the lion’s paws had been replaced, and while the workmanship was fine, the proportions were somewhat suspect, both here and in the cat’s reshaped hindquarters. Marcus had rescued the figurehead, and it was his to repair. But he was a carpenter, not a sculptor.
“And now I will ask Ensign Marcus Pile, a naval officer and a veteran of many great adventures of the Trophy Chase, to offer a prayer of dedication.”
Smith Delaney’s chest swelled with pride as his friend stood beside the king and bowed his head.
“Dear God our Father, who art in heaven,” Marcus began. It was a good start, Delaney thought, and he glanced at Packer, who glanced back. They exchanged knowing looks, and Packer offered the smallest hint of a wink before closing his eyes.
“We are gathered here underneath Thee, who art high above over us all, to be reminded by this carved bit of wood of all Thy hand hath done.” Here Marcus paused, and Delaney saw a dark look cross the young man’s face. “But of course we knowest as Thou knowest—though not quite so well as Thou, of course—we know that no carved piece a’ wood has life in her. I mean, in it. And while the Trophy Chase was sure a fine carved piece of wood, I mean as fine a piece of wood as ever floated on any stretch of water anywhere, she was but a thing after all, and without spirit in her. So, we would never worship her or anything or anything made by the hands of man, for we been warned all about that in Thy Scriptures.
“And so this little pouncing cat here made by mortal hands, and fixed by other mortal hands as best he could, here is the sign and figure of the Trophy Chase, now gone from Thy world forever. It is but a token, is all, and not a live thing as I mentioned, just a token of Thy grace and mercy that led so many of us, and mainly Packer who art the king, through the wilderness toward Thee. I mean the wilderness of the ocean. Which is water, but still wild, at least in many ways.
“And we hang her up here in memorial of Thee, like a testament, hopin’ and prayin’ that all who underwalk her and raise their eyes to gaze upon her…or rather, on it, because it is an ‘it’ and not a ‘she’…we pray that all will remember Thee whenever they dost see it, and remember how Thou knowest all, while we hardly ever do know what thou doest. And help us always to remember that what
ever Thou art up to, big or little, it’s always a good thing. Though it may look a bit sketchy from where we stand. Especially when it’s war and death and sea monsters and such. But even when it’s just the bellyache or corns or other common though quite painful ailments, it’s still of Thee, and Thou doest good in the world. Because that is who Thou art. And so let us therefore worship Thee, as Thou deservest, and not this carved lioness, as that would become a stumbling block and a snare to our souls. For Thou art God, and we art not. And amen to that.”
And all said amen, and all were satisfied, and looked upon the carved beast with a new sense of appreciation, and just a dash of apprehension, lest they might be tempted to worship it against their better judgment.
The Trophy Chase was remembered in other, more practical ways. One year from Packer’s triumphant return from the mayak-aloh, Moore Davies took the king to the royal shipyards in South Barnes Mooring. The new admiral had a project underway that he wanted the king to see. Standing above the yards, where the shipwrights and carpenters worked day and night to rebuild the royal Navy, they saw the latest and greatest creations of the engineers of Nearing Vast. Not one, not two, but three full-scale replacements shone in the sun, like offspring of the Chase, built on John Hand’s original plans, now come into the world fully grown.
One year after that, Packer sailed with Panna to the Achawuk islands on a ship almost identical to the Chase, this one called Legend of the Firefish. This was the first time Panna had ever sailed on a tall ship, and she spent the entire voyage, there and back, leaning over one rail or another, sick as a dog.
No one had to tell her, or Packer, that it was by God’s grace she hadn’t sailed with him on any of his previous voyages.
When the Legend of the Firefish pulled into the mayak-aloh, she sailed across the still waters just above the sunken, now caved and cratered ruin that was once the storied Trophy Chase. The sunlight shone down again, and illuminated the seafloor, but time and sand and currents had changed it all. A dull dust seemed to cover a disfigured heap. A few pieces of wood, masts or spars, it was hard to tell which, protruded upward from drifting sand. All canvas was gone, all rigging. But if one knew what to look for, one could still see a serpentine outline along the length of the wreckage. And at the prow, a huge skull was visible, enormous eye sockets empty, jack-o-lantern teeth bared in what might be mistaken for an eternal snarl.
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