Quintessence

by David Walton

  Parris sat quietly while the others made merry. He was annoyed by the fickleness of the sailors, who only remembered their loyalties when their bellies were full. The passengers and crew had all been disturbed by the behemoth, but the ironfish bothered Parris more than the behemoth ever had. The behemoth had never done anything but eat and grunt, but the school of ironfish had worked together to destroy something much bigger and stronger than themselves. He was glad for the much- needed food, but he wasn't sure it was time to celebrate.

  THE next morning, Piggott knocked on Parris's door and presented him with a dead ironfish. The cook had been cutting open an ordinary fish to prepare a meal, and had found one of the small striped fish swallowed whole inside the larger fish's stomach. Piggott said none of the men would eat it— they called it a demon fish— and he would have thrown it overboard except that he knew Parris liked to cut things up.

  Parris thanked him sincerely. As soon as Piggott left, he found a lonely corner and set the fish on a pile of folded sailcloth to work. It felt soft to the touch, like scales and meat, not iron, and it was as light as any other fish. He sliced it open from mouth to tail.

  He peeled back the skin, expecting to see a skeleton made of iron, or at least the familiar quintessence glow. Instead, it just looked like a fish— meat, bones, and entrails, the same as any other.

  He cut further, exposing the skull and jawbone. The teeth were layered like a shark's and razor- sharp, but it was the rest of the skull that drew his attention. From the jaw to the spine, the bone thinned, forked, forked again, then twisted and curled around itself in intricate whorls that made his eyes swim. Somewhere in the center of the pattern a light glowed, like a twinkling star peeping through a hole in the clouds.

  "Quintessence," he whispered.

  The jaw was hanging open, and Parris closed it with a snap. The hidden light blazed, and the fish's bones transformed to a hard gray metal. He tried to pick it up, but it was as heavy as a stone. He pulled the jaw open, the light faded, and the fish returned to a normal weight.

  Astonishing. There was a muscle connecting the jawbone to the intricate skull, which implied that the fish could choose to close its mouth without transmuting, which it would have to do to chew its food without sinking to the bottom. The jaw mechanism allowed it to transmute the instant it grabbed hold of something in the air.

  Parris peered past the curls of bone to the glowing pearl in the center, surrounded by tiny tendrils. It was lodged in the fish's brain, which was curious if its purpose was only to transmute. But quintessence could also form a mind connection between creatures, as with tamarins. What if these fish shared a similar connection, so that when one of the group found prey, the others would come to help bring it down?

  He spent hours studying it. Finally, to prove that it really was the pearl that gave it the power to change, he snapped the thin bone and removed the pearl. He exercised the jawbone, but nothing happened. He put it back in its spot, but it was too late— without the pearl attached, it no longer worked as before. At least he knew more than he had when he'd started. He threw the remains of the carcass overboard and went to look for Sinclair.

  Parris found him on the forecastle, leaning as usual against his barrels of pebbles and sand.

  "We're very, very close," Sinclair said. "No more than a few days distant."

  "How can you know that?"

  "All these wonders don't convince you?"

  "If you know something, you should share it. People are afraid."

  "Who's afraid?"

  "Don't think that celebration last night solved all your problems. The men are yours again for now, but when the food runs short again, or something else threatens us, it'll be mutiny. You got lucky, but the general feeling around the ship is still in favor of going home. If you don't do something . . ."

  "We're close," Sinclair repeated. "Have you seen how the water glows?"

  Parris had. It was faint, like the glimmer of the moon on the water, only there was no moon. The light came from the water itself. "It's not enough," he said.

  PARRIS was the first to find an ironfish attached to the hull. It hung just out of reach, its jaws buried in the wood. He called for Tate, who fired a matchlock into it, blasting it to shreds. They found two more on the starboard side. Before these could be cut down, however, another three leapt from the water and fastened their teeth into the planking.

  In minutes there were too many to count. The near ones they hacked off with knives; those farther down they shot, but they weren't fast enough. The sailors were terrified of the demon fish, but Sinclair bullied them into rappelling over the side with ropes around their waists. They slashed the fish down quickly, but each time a dead one fell into the water, two more leaped from the waves to replace it.

  Soon the ship was wallowing, its forward motion all but stopped, the sails pulling so hard in the wind that the masts bent visibly forward. Sinclair ordered them furled, and sailors rushed to obey. Tate roared up and down the deck, handing out weapons. At his direction, two passengers wrestled a stockpot full of boiling brine to the deck and used their ration cups to pour it down on the ironfish.

  It wasn't enough. Soon the ship's lumbering bulk barely cleared the swells. Shark fins cut through the waves, and seabirds wheeled overhead, expecting another feast.

  Parris crowded the rail with the others, firing over the side. One of the ironfish missed its aim, leaped clear out onto the deck, and smashed down like a cannonball. Two sailors hauled it up between them, straining as if they carried a boulder instead of a fish.

  "Wait!" Parris said. He ran over before they could tip it into the sea. "Leave that with me."

  "They're weighing us down, my lord. Got to go over the side."

  "This one won't make a difference. We need to figure out how to beat them before they pull us under."

  The sailors traded a look, shrugged, and dropped the fish. It thunked onto the deck like an anchor.

  Ignoring the furor around him, Parris knelt. Despite its impossible weight, the fish twitched like any other fish. Its mighty jaws, bunched with muscle, were still clenched tight. Parris slit its throat.

  The twitching stilled; the jaws fell slack. Parris felt the difference immediately and lifted the fish with one hand.

  A shadow fell over him. Sinclair, looming.

  "What are you waiting for?" Sinclair said. "Open it up!"

  Parris sliced open its belly and peeled back the skin up to its head. The panic around him was distracting. Men raced to and fro while water swept over the deck. Parris saw an ironfish leap from the sea and fasten itself on a sailor's arm. The sudden weight pulled him overboard before he could even scream.

  Working faster, Parris exposed the skull and jawbone. As before, the curling patterns of bone hid a glowing pearl at their center. He snatched up a tool from the deck that was like a thin pair of pliers used to bend fishhooks. Inserting it between the curls of bone, he gripped the pearly bead and tore it free.

  "What if all the ironfish in the school are linked, like the tamarin?" he shouted over the din.

  "They could attack efficiently as a group," Sinclair said. "But what good does that do us?" Then his eyes widened as he understood. "It's our only chance. Come on!"

  They raced together toward the forecastle. Water flooded the main deck, washing around their ankles. Parris clambered up one- handed, still clutching the pliers and the glowing pearl. They burst into the alchemical distillery. From a crate, Sinclair pulled a stoppered vial containing a shiny silver globule. It was elemental mercury— a hundred times the amount used in a mercury pill.

  He unstoppered the vial. Parris held the glowing pearl over its mouth and dropped it inside.

  The instant the pearl touched the mercury, black foam erupted, a violent effervescence that shot out of the vial and splattered on Sinclair's face and hands. The vial shattered. Before either of them could react, the deck heaved, throwing them both into the air. Retorts smashed around them, raining them with brok
en glass. The ship leaped back above the waves like a cork from underwater, throwing men and ropes and barrels into the air.

  Parris and Sinclair crawled out of the distillery. The ship was afloat again. Disappointed birds wheeled and shrieked above them. Picking himself up, Parris stumbled to the rail and looked into the water. Hundreds of dead ironfish floated on their sides, their jaws hanging open.

  The forecastle was strewn with fish guts, oily black residue, and shards of glass, all of it soaked in seawater. Picking his way through the clutter, Parris spotted a flash of light and leaned in for a closer look. It was the quintessence pearl from the ironfish's head. Not only was it still glowing, but it was brighter than before, shining with a pure white light that was hard to look at directly. Parris fished it out of the water and held it up, shielding his eyes. He dropped it into a pouch he wore at his belt to study later. Men staggered about or lay on the deck, groaning. They would need his attention.

  He called for those who could be moved to be brought belowdecks while he circulated, bandaging those with more serious injuries and pronouncing a few dead. After these were addressed, he descended to the increasingly crowded infirmary. The bandages originally stocked on the ship were gone, so he was forced to cut strips from the injured men's clothing to bind their wounds.

  As he worked, he thought about what had happened. The quintessence pearl in the ironfish's skull gave the ironfish its ability to transmute—he knew that, because when he removed it, the change no longer worked. But the pearl retained its connection to the pearls in all the other fish. Just like the mercury had severed Catherine from her bond with the tamarin, it had severed the ironfish's bonds with each other. He had hoped that breaking their connection might confuse them, or might at least slow their attack. He hadn't expected it to kill them all. And yet, the mercury hadn't destroyed the quintessence pearl. In fact, when he'd picked it up out of the wash on the deck, it was shining even brighter than before.

  Several hours later, finally finished with the injured, he went to look for Sinclair. As he climbed above decks, however, he felt heat against his thigh. He reached down and found that his pouch was warm. He fished out the pearl, which was now blazing bright enough to blind and was hot to the touch. He dropped it back into the pouch and wondered what on earth was happening. The thing kept growing in energy. Had the mercury caused this? It didn't make any sense— Sinclair had described mercury as the antithesis of quintessence. It was supposed to have a neutralizing effect.

  He climbed up onto the quarterdeck, where, at Sinclair's direction, sailors had piled dead ironfish in a growing heap around the mizzenmast. He bent down to examine one. Perhaps later that evening, when he wasn't so tired, he would dissect one again and see what else he could find.

  A splintering noise erupted from behind him, and he was thrown to the deck. Shouts of warning came too late as another crash impacted the starboard beam. At first Parris thought maybe they had run aground on a hidden reef, but when he peered over the rail, he could see it was no reef. It was a fish.

  A gleaming back a thousand times larger than any ironfish cut through the water, as large as the ship's hull turned upside down. The enormous fish twisted and then charged, ramming a head like the turret of a castle into their vulnerable starboard beam. Its head breached the water, revealing a long snout filled with rows of man- sized teeth.

  "Leviathan," Parris whispered.

  The men were weary, their will to resist spent. "It's the devil himself, come for us," said one.

  "It's God's punishment," said another.

  But Oswyn Tate marched from bow to stern, his red beard soaked with salt water, shouting commands. "If this be the devil, then we'll fight him. To arms!"

  Whipped on by Tate, sailors grabbed matchlocks and harpoons and loaded the two bronze cannons with shot. They soon discovered that matchlocks did nothing: the bullets had no apparent effect on the beast. Cannons were hard to aim at such an angle, having been designed to loft across the water toward an enemy vessel. The first two shots fell wide, but then, as the leviathan circled back for another charge, a cannonball struck the water directly against its fearsome head. The monster bellowed, a deafening sound both deep and shrill at once that seemed to break open the air. It charged again. The boat tipped precipitously toward it and then rocked with the impact, sending men sliding along the suddenly steep deck. One of the precious cannons slid into the rail, smashed through it, and fell into the black sea, dragging a screaming gunner with it, one leg caught in its trestle.

  Sinclair appeared and ran to Parris. "What does it want?" he shouted.

  "A bellyful of meat. What else?"

  Sinclair shook his head and pointed. Several men had fallen overboard and were treading water. The leviathan was ignoring them.

  Parris raised his arms to signal his exasperation. "Maybe it eats wood," he said. "Or sailcloth, for that matter."

  Harpoons flew at the monster, some lodging in its flesh, but doing little damage. It would do no good simply to anchor the beast; it was big enough to dive and drag the whole ship down by the ropes.

  Parris saw Catherine near the bow, watching the action with her mouth open, her dress soaked and torn. "Get below!" he shouted. She didn't hear him, so he ran toward her, waving his arms. "Get to safety!"

  The leviathan followed him. Inexplicably, it abandoned the spot it had been attacking, where the planks were weakened and splintering, to smash its body into a new section of the ship, directly under Parris. The impact tossed both him and Catherine to the deck. She rolled, screaming, and he rolled after her, both of them sliding into the rail.

  He grabbed her face. "You shouldn't be here. Please, get below."

  Another impact sent them reeling. Once again, the leviathan had adjusted its line of attack directly toward Parris. For an instant, he remembered the book of Jonah and wondered if this fish had been sent specifically for him. He dismissed the thought, but he still didn't understand what had just happened. Why would the leviathan swerve to target him?

  Catherine scrambled away toward the hatch. He turned back to the fish, praying she would obey him and get out of harm's way. As he did so, he noticed again the heat at his side. He reached into his pouch and drew back his hand in shock and sudden pain. When he realized what it was, he laughed out loud. He took out the pearl, now so hot he could barely touch it. It shone like a miniature sun and seared his fingers, but he held on. He drew back his arm, and with all his strength, he hurled the pearl into the sea.

  The leviathan erupted out of the water, long jaws snapping, enormous tail thrashing for height. It engulfed the tiny pearl in its mouth, and for a moment the entire fish shone as if from the inside, its bones shadows on its skin. It crashed back into the water. The ship tipped precariously on the resulting wave, but when it righted itself, the seas were calm. The crew gathered to stare over the starboard side, but they saw nothing. The leviathan was gone.

  BY the time those thrown overboard had been rescued and the wreck of lines and sails had been put to rights, the giant sun had disappeared in the west. The ship was safe again, but the revelry of the night before was gone. Despite getting no sleep during the day, those sailors assigned to night shift were forced to come on duty, and those coming off duty retired to their hammocks belowdecks. Catherine, not wanting to be alone, made her way down to the orlop deck to find Matthew or Blanca. The mood there was dark. Passengers curled up to sleep or sat in small groups, muttering over their beer.

  "Did you see it?" she asked.

  Both Matthew and Blanca shook their heads, eyes wide.

  "Did you?" Matthew said. "Were you on deck?"

  Catherine nodded. "It was nearly as big as the ship. A monster."

  "We could only hear it," Blanca said. She pointed to the curved hull where it bowed unnaturally inward, some of the boards splintered or sprung loose. A steady stream of water trickled from the damaged area. The leak wasn't dangerous— there were a dozen such seepages around the ship already— but it would m
ake the passengers' sleeping area even more damp and unpleasant. And it was testament to how close they had come to disaster.

  "I'm afraid," Blanca said.

  "I don't think it'll be back," Catherine said. She explained about the pearl that her father had thrown into the sea. "It wanted something, and once it had it, it left us alone."

  "I don't mean that," Blanca said, lowering her voice to a barely audible whisper. "I'm afraid of the sailors."

  Catherine frowned, remembering Maasha Kaatra's warning. "Why? Has one of them been bothering you?"

  "Didn't you see on your way down? They're not going to sleep."

  Catherine remembered. The sailors slept in stacked hammocks on the level just under the main deck, but they hadn't been sleeping. They'd been milling around, whispering and talking. That wasn't good.

  She glanced at the end of the long compartment, where one of Tate's soldiers stood watch over the storerooms where ammunition and weapons were kept. He was still there, armed with pistol and sword, but Blanca's comment made her uneasy. Something was wrong.