Kal’s neck was raised high, held almost straight up, presumably to aid the swallowing. The rope hung down, drawing a line from the creature’s mouth to Afsan. He climbed onto the railing that ran around the edge of the ship, the choppy waves beneath him, and pushed off.
Afsan swung through the air, the waves dizzyingly far below, Kal’s neck, huge and thick and gray, apparently hurtling toward him as the arc of his leap brought him closer and closer.
Afsan felt the air go out of his own lungs as he slammed into the neck. Four of Afsan’s body-lengths below, half submerged, but biting away like a wild animal, was Keenir. Although he’d taken many chunks out of Kal’s muscular shoulder, the bites were insignificant compared to the creature’s great bulk, and each wave that washed over Kal’s back left Keenir gasping and cleared the blood away.
As soon as he hit Kal’s neck, smooth and sticky and wet, Afsan kicked off again, as though he were rappelling down the ragged face of one of the Ch’mar volcanoes. His body swung through the air and then came crashing back toward the neck, but this time Afsan twisted wildly in flight, using his tail held straight out to change his center of gravity, so that he landed on the other side of the neck. He immediately slid around and kicked off again. Kal, alarmed by this creature slamming into it, craned to see what was happening. Perfect: the craning made it easy for Afsan to land this third time near the spot that he’d originally hit. He swung over once more and began to shimmy down the rope toward the waves. Kal was probably too stupid to realize what was going on, but in anger it snapped its jaws shut, the splayed teeth interlocking, the rope shearing.
But it was too late for that. Afsan had effectively wrapped the rope around Kal’s neck, about halfway down its length. Above he could see the bulge of Hadzig’s body still making its way down the throat. The body fit so tightly that Afsan could make out Hadzig’s legs, her torso, and the small depression made by her long, drawn-out face.
Afsan hit the water gasping for air. Keenir looked up briefly and saw him. The other two sailors, missing for some time now, appeared bobbing on the surface. They, too, spotted Afsan. Suddenly they realized what he was up to and began swimming toward him. Keenir, too, slid down Kal’s side and swam in Afsan’s direction as fast as he could with his abbreviated tail. Others jumped off the side of the ship, sending up great splashes where they hit. Everybody grabbed the rope, claws extended, and swam with lashing tails toward the Dasheter.
More and more hands joined in, and the strength and weight of now ten, now twelve, now fifteen Quintaglios, pulled on the rope, dragging Kal’s neck down toward the water.
Afsan looked up, hoping that whoever was left on deck would know what to do. There, against the glare of the sun, a round silhouette: Dybo.
The prince was just standing there, stunned like one whose shell had been too thick.
Afsan called out to his friend, but Kal was crashing its flippers into the waves with such force that the splashing drowned out the words.
Then, at last, Dybo moved, and Afsan could see that he was shouting — but not to him. No, the prince was summoning others on the deck of the Dasheter.
Kal was yanking back on its neck, and Afsan felt himself coming to a halt in the water, then beginning to be pulled backwards.
Come on, Dybo…
Afsan looked up into the glare again. There, the angular shape he’d been waiting for, coming down over the side, black metal, five splayed arms, the anchor.
Dybo and the others were paying out the chain as fast as they could, but still the anchor moved slowly, the ratchet sound of its pulley mechanism like a symphony of cracking
Suddenly Afsan was completely submerged, pulled down fighting Kal. He gulped water. His eyes were wide open, but all he could see were sheets of bubbles. He felt as though his lungs would burst, and his vision seemed to be fading.
Then, at last, the anchor broke through from above, coming beneath the surface. Afsan fought the need to breathe and he and the others wrapped the rope around the anchor chain. Finally, when he was sure it was secure, Afsan let go of the rope and swam madly toward the surface. When he broke through into the air, he opened his muzzle wide and gulped and gulped and gulped.
Suddenly he felt an arm about his waist and then another supporting his elbow. A lifeline snaked down from the Dasheter. Afsan looked over his shoulder. Kal was madly attempting to bend its neck around enough to reach the rope tying it to the anchor chain, but it couldn’t. The chain continued to lower, pulling the great beast down beneath the waves. It fought with its diamond flippers and stubby tail to keep at the surface, but it wasn’t strong enough — especially now, unable to breathe easily with Hadzig’s body lodged above the constriction in its neck where Afsan had tied the rope. The anchor continued to descend as Dybo and the others released more and more chain.
At last the thing’s wicked head, with its jaws full of angled teeth snapping as it tried to draw breath, was pulled beneath the waves. Afsan watched as, for a time, its flippers flailed even more, splashing sheets of water onto him and the others. Then, quite suddenly, Kal’s flippers stopped moving at all.
Afsan, who had finally recovered his breath, let out a deep and long sigh. Dybo and the others pulled on the lifeline to hoist him back aboard the Dasheter.
*18*
The ship’s priest, Det-Bleen, had opined that he might be unable to bless the meat of Kal-ta-goot because tools — rope and anchor — had been used to aid in the kill. It was a weak point, though, and the hungry sailors and pilgrims didn’t seem keen on debating the issue. Keenir quickly settled it with a quotation from the Twenty-third Scroll: "That which is at hand is there by the grace of God; use it if need be, but take not a weapon with you on the hunt, for that is the coward’s way." Well, the anchor and lifeline were simply at hand — they’d never been intended for killing — so Afsan’s use was quite acceptable, Keenir insisted. "It’s a variation on the same precept that allows us to use nets to haul aboard fish, mollusks, and aquatic lizards," he said, seemingly taking some joy in catching Bleen in an indefensible interpretation of the scriptures. "Those animals are at hand, just waiting to be picked up. No hunt is involved, since no stalking is required. God put them there for us." Bleen relented — somewhat reluctantly, Afsan thought — and said some words over the bobbing carcass.
The body of Kal-ta-goot had to be butchered in the water, since it was much too large to haul aboard. Once disentangled from the anchor, the corpse had floated back to the surface. Although Keenir and others had taken bites out of it, it did not bleed much. Still, enough blood had spilled to attract various aquatic predators. Mollusks, able to rise and fall in the water by adjusting the pressure in their spiral shells, used the beaks at the center of their clusters of tentacles to nip bites out of Kal’s tail and flippers.
Afsan himself, joining one of the parties in the water carving away at Kal’s body, was firmly bit on the leg by a coiled mollusk. It took much yanking by Paldook and Dybo to get the tentacles off Afsan’s leg. When they did release, the sound of the thousands of suction cups popping was like the breaking wind of a herd of plant-eaters. The bite was not severe, though: the lost flesh would regenerate within a dekaday.
They sawed through Kal’s neck at two places, severing it from the body just above the beast’s shoulders, then cutting off the horrid head, with its vicious teeth, as a trophy for Keenir.
The neck was slit horizontally to allow the removal of the body of Hadzig. Det-Bleen insisted it be brought aboard. An aquatic burial was acceptable, he said, but not here, not up ahead of the Face of God. Her corpse would have to be stowed until the ship returned to safe waters.
After that, the neck, spilling blood from both ends, was set adrift. Tentacled mollusks latched onto it immediately and soon aquatic lizards converged on it as well, their needle snouts ripping off gobbets of meat.
Afsan even saw one of the large wingfingers land on the long tubular neck, something he thought such a flyer would never do. But, after nipping off s
everal choice hunks, the creature had no trouble regaining flight by running the length of the neck and flapping its massive furred wings a couple of times.
Much to everyone’s disappointment, Kal’s giant flippers were so full of disk-shaped bones as to be inedible. They were cut loose and floated like four flatboats toward the western horizon and the setting Face of God.
But the main body, round and sleek, was delicious. Huge sections of it were hauled aboard the Dasheter’s fore and aft hulls. Everyone was tired of the daily catch from the nets — that was mere sustenance, but this, this was hunter’s food! Meat you could sink your teeth into, flesh you could tear with your jaw. Real food, hot and bloody.
Eating such a meal did much to release pent-up frustrations, to counteract the effects of the prolonged confinement aboard the ship. When it was done, everyone was torpid, and most slept where they were, on the ship’s deck, lying down on their bulging bellies.
An even-night passed thus, as did most of the following odd-day. But, finally, it was time for the ship to move on, and, Afsan knew, it was time for him to once again seek a meeting with Captain Var-Keenir.
Keenir had been in a strange mood since Kal had been killed. Afsan had tried to catch the oldster’s eye once or twice, but Keenir had always turned his muzzle away. Afsan had hoped to get in a private word with Keenir in the captain’s office, but when he found him on the aft deck, the opportunity was too good to pass up.
"Captain, a moment of your time, please."
Keenir looked down at Afsan for several heartbeats, his shiny black eyes seeming to stare. Afsan tried to puzzle out where the captain’s gaze was falling. At last he realized that it was on the hunter’s tattoo over Afsan’s left ear, a tattoo obtained the night all of Capital City had feasted on the thunderbeast Afsan had killed. Self-consciously Afsan brought his hand, claws sheathed, to the side of his head.
Keenir nodded at last. "When we met in Saleed’s office, you didn’t have that tattoo."
Afsan looked down at the three claws on his feet, at the swirling grain of the wooden deck. "No, sir, I did not."
"So, in the short time between then and when we left on this voyage, you went on your first hunt."
"That’s right."
"I heard a story one night while I was staying in Capital City at The Orange Wingfinger. It was a story of an apprentice at the palace being the hero of a hunt for a giant thunderbeast."
Afsan lifted his head, looking now over the stern of the Dasheter at the Face of God, its top half brightly lit, the dark bottom just touching the western horizon. "Stories are often exaggerated."
"So I thought at the time. But you were also the hero of the hunt for Kal-ta-goot, or so I’ve been told by those who saw the events unfold from a more stable position than my own."
"The hunting party is as creche-mates, Captain."
"That’s what they say, yes. Afsan, your heroism saved my life."
"It was nothing."
"My life? Or your deed?" Keenir clicked his teeth. "I’d like to think that in either case, that’s not true. You can be sure Saleed and the Empress herself will hear of what happened. I am in your debt."
The wind, as always, was blowing steadily; the ship rolled port and starboard. Afsan steeled his courage. "Then do as I requested, Captain. Continue sailing east. Chasing Kal has brought us farther than any ship has ever gone. If my calculations are right, it will actually now take us less time to continue on this way to Land than it would to turn around — to turn tail — and head back."
Keenir looked like he was about to speak. Afsan pushed ahead. "You can’t cite food as a problem. The leftover meat of Kal is being salted now; the kill has released the hunting urge for dekadays to come. And you can’t claim that the waters here are unsafe because we are beyond the Face of God. We met the worst demon imaginable, a monster from the darkest nightmares, and we beat it. We…" Afsan almost said, We don’t need God to look out for us, but he knew that would be pressing his luck. He closed his mouth and looked intently up at the captain.
Keenir’s own gaze had wandered off to the water, spreading out in all directions to all horizons. The Dasheter’s great red sails snapped in the breeze. Afsan felt his heart racing, felt an itching at the base of his claws, as he waited for the answer. Suddenly Keenir’s eyes went wide. He turned to Afsan and lifted his left hand with claws out on the two fingers closest to his thumb, the remaining two fingers spread but with claws sheathed, the thumb across his palm.
Afsan recognized the gesture. He’d seen it every day on his cabin door in the carvings of the Original Five Hunters and had even practiced it a bit, wondering what it meant. With a shrug, he raised his own left hand and duplicated the hand sign.
And then the inexplicable happened. Var-Keenir, Master Mariner, Captain of the Dasheter, bent low from the waist, balancing his bulk with his stubby tail and his walking stick, and nodded total concession to Afsan. "I’ll order the course change," he said, and left.
*19*
"We’ll all die!" shouted priest Det-Bleen, the ship’s identifying bells and drums a peal of thunder beneath his words. Every day, he tried some variation on the same argument with Keenir.
"No doubt," said the captain, lowering his bulk onto his dayslab, angled above his worktable. His tail had grown enough to just touch the deck now. "Eventually."
"But this is madness," said Bleen. "Absolute madness. No ship has ever sailed this far past the Face of God. Soon the Face will set completely — then we really will be without God’s protection."
"How do you know that?"
Bleen’s mouth dropped open in surprise at the audacity of the question. After a moment, he spluttered, "Why, it is written!"
Keenir rearranged some sheets of leather on his worktable. "Young Afsan tells me that just because something is written doesn’t mean it’s so."
"Afsan? Who’s that?"
"The boy who led the killing of Kal-ta-goot. The apprentice astrologer."
"A boy? Who cares what a boy thinks? I am a priest; I carry the authority of Det-Yenalb."
"And Det-Yenalb told you we shouldn’t continue to the east?"
"No one told me that. I read it in the scriptures; you’d know it, too, if you’d read the holy words."
Keenir decided lying down wasn’t the right posture for this debate. Waiting for the ship now rolling on a wave to steady, he brought himself back to his feet and groped for his walking stick. "Oh, I know the holy words, Bleen. ’And the water of the River is like unto a path; yea, it is the path to God. But go ye not beyond God’s purview, for there lies only God knows what.’ Doesn’t say anything about danger; just that what’s there is unknown."
"The unknown is always to be feared."
"Well, why not ask your God?"
Bleen’s tail swished left and right. "What?"
"Ask your God. That’s Her, isn’t it? Mostly submerged below the horizon?" Keenir gestured at the aft bulkhead. "Go up on deck and ask for a sign that we should not continue."
"Surely the arrival of the sea-serpent was a sign. Two Quintaglios are dead because of it."
"But I’d encountered Kal-ta-goot once before, back on the other side of this line you draw, back when the Face of God was still rising in the sky. What was that monster a sign of then?"
"How should I know?" said Bleen.
"How should you know? Portents and omens are your stock-in-trade. How can the serpent be a warning not to enter these waters if when I first encountered it, when it did this" — Keenir gestured at his tail — "it was in waters you consider safe, waters your whole religion insists that we travel?"
"My God, Keenir? My religion? It’s your religion, too, I believe. Unless — you’re not a disciple of the Five Hunters, are you?"
"There’s much to admire in that ancient system."
"It was a false system, one that didn’t acknowledge the true God."
Keenir shook his head. "The Lubalite religion puts personal excellence foremost. Skill at the hunt, p
urging violence through killing one’s own food, the camaraderie of the pack. Even your religion makes much of that camaraderie. Isn’t it what we’re all waiting to get into heaven for? Well, the Lubalites had it every day, here in this life."
"How dare you compare the one true religion to that ancient cult!"
Keenir walked across the room, cane ticking. "I meant no disrespect."
Bleen shook his head. "This Afsan is a powerful force, it seems. I’ve never heard you talk like this before."
"We all change with the passing of the days."
Bleen narrowed his eyes, and sought some insight in the dark orbs of the captain. "But, Keenir, what if you’re wrong?"
"Then I’m wrong."
"And we’re dead."
"A ship is a dangerous place. I make life-and-death decisions every day."
"But never one so foolhardy as this."
They were interrupted by the clicking of claws against copper sheeting. "Permission to enter your territory?" asked a voice muffled by thick wood.
"Hahat dan," barked Keenir.
The door swung open and in came Nor-Gampar, commander of the current deck watch. He glanced nervously at the priest, then said to Keenir: "You wanted to be told … just before it was going to happen."
Keenir bowed in gratitude. "Come along, Bleen." The captain shouldered through the doorway, following Gampar up the ramp and onto the deck.
It was early night, the breeze cool and steady, the sky illuminated by six bright moons, ranging from thick crescents to almost full. Keenir looked to the rear, across the wide aft deck of the Dasheter. The trailing edge of the Face of God, an anilluminated dome, sat on the western horizon, far, far away.
Prince Dybo, Afsan, and several others were on deck, watching. Anticipation or apprehension was running high. Young Afsan’s claws were extending and retracting in spasms; Dybo’s were fully unsheathed on his left hand but somehow kept in check on his right.
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