The Black Dream

by Col Buchanan

  He knew when a group of men were close to their breaking point. Half the crew seemed as battered and weather-worn as the skyship itself, and the other half bore faces he failed to recognize, fresh recruits by the nervous looks of them, a few clearly still terrified at being aloft in the sky. For the veterans, their hair tied back in knots from tanned faces buried in beards, it had been six months of running through thick and thin without any proper relief from the action, without a chance to experience normal life on the ground long enough for it to matter.

  And so the skymen of the Falcon stared at their new passengers with stupefied eyes that were coldly silent in their judgements, unhappy in the extreme that they had been coerced into taking this flight into enemy territory and beyond. Mostly they refused to speak to their supercargo, instead hawking in their presence and shoving past with barging elbows, or simply observing with their blasted stares from a distance far greater than the physical space between them.

  ‘I thought you said these people had volunteered for this job?’ his old friend Kosh asked in the privacy of their cramped cabin, his Honshu features as old and dark as Ash’s.

  Aléas and Meer had crowded themselves into the room too, both standing with their backs pressed hard against the door.

  ‘So I was told,’ Ash answered quietly, glancing round at the bald monk Meer. The man frowned and looked to the floor. ‘They hardly seem the willing volunteers that Coya promised though.’

  Kosh straightened in his travel clothes with his hands cupping his portly stomach, eyes opened wide in chubby features that always made him look younger than he really was. ‘Well, I think they’d be happy to throw us off this ship,’ said Ash’s old Rōshun companion in earnest.

  *

  Trench, the captain, was barely any more civilized towards them, Ash was soon to discover. The captain’s dark hair lay scraggly and wild about his head, and his normally shaven face sprouted an unkempt thicket of growth. A padded bandage covered his missing eye, made yellow with the seepage of an infection. Muttering to himself darkly, he prowled the decks for a while, glaring at Ash and the others with his surviving eye, before he shut himself in his cabin and was seen no more.

  Only Dalas, the second-in-command, and the ship’s boy Berl, hobbling about one-legged with a crutch, acted with any kind of civility towards them. The big, dreadlocked Corician took to shoving men back to work whenever they stared too long at the passengers, his hands signing in frustration, for Dalas was mute, his tongue taken from him long ago as a Mannian slave. The second-in-command seemed the same indomitable spirit he had always been, a great brooding cliff of a man, barely hampered by his missing tongue. For ship-wide commands he wore a horn about his chest, and he also wore a pouch at his belt filled with pea-sized pebbles, which he would throw at individual skymen to catch their attention, curling it into the wind as he did so, up into the rigging to strike the backside of a man smartly.

  The ship’s boy, young, earnest Berl, was clearly relieved to have Ash and the others join them on board. Berl insisted they come to the captain’s quarters that evening for a meal.

  ‘Never mind his foul mood,’ he said against their protests, gathered there in the corridor outside their cabins. ‘It’s traditional on the first evening. Besides, the company will do the captain good.’ And he made certain they had agreed before he hobbled away on his wooden leg.

  ‘Wonderful,’ piped Aléas. ‘Dinner with the captain.’

  ‘After that look he gave us earlier, we’d better go armed,’ suggested Kosh.

  *

  That evening, they left their cabins and made their way to the captain’s quarters while the rest of the off-watch crew filled the mess room for their evening meal. Under a starry sky on the swaying windy weatherdeck of the ship, Ash rapped the door and waited.

  ‘Kush,’ swore Kosh by his side, holding the girth of his belly with both hands queasily. ‘Why didn’t you remind me how much I hate to fly?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Hmf.’

  Ash observed his old friend in the gloom of the deck. Kosh had retired years ago as an active Rōshun in the field. He spent his days training the apprentices in archery and old Rōshun bush lore passed down from Oshō himself, deceased leader of the order. The rest of the time Kosh cooked and brewed and sketched whatever caught his eye, living in what peace he could like a man slowly winding down.

  Yet Kosh had insisted on coming along on this voyage into the unknown, with his oldest friend from their days in the Honshu revolution together. A matter of friendship and loyalty at first, then a matter of pride when Ash had refused him by saying that Kosh was too out of shape. When it came to pride, or friendship and loyalty for that matter, few could best the heart of this man.

  His thoughts were interrupted when the ship’s boy, Berl, opened the door and smiled, happy to see them there. He hobbled aside on his crutch so they could enter.

  Shadows shivered around the walls of the low-ceilinged cabin. They were cast by the backs of the table’s chairs partly blocking the light from half a dozen candles stuck into empty wine bottles, filling the air with their cloying smoke. Aléas and Meer were already there. At the end of the table slouched the captain himself, a flagon close to his mouth and his remaining eye staring at Ash through a flickering array of flames. He pulled a face then tipped the flagon to drink from it. Banged it back on the table again so that Berl jerked where he stood.

  ‘Please, sit wherever you like,’ the young lad beseeched them. ‘Help yourselves to wine and bread. I’ll see if the meal is ready yet.’

  Ash sat down more heavily than he had intended, leaning back for balance. He was feeling light-headed again, a little giddy. Chewing too many of the dulce leaves these days, so that they were acting as an intoxicant now as much as a reliever of pain.

  ‘Captain,’ he tried by way of breaking the ice, and nodded towards Trench.

  A blink of the captain’s eye, red-rimmed from exhaustion. There was a sadness in his gaze that went deeper than anger. The sadness of someone who has had enough of the fight, who wants to quit while they still can. Trench allowed his head to loll forwards in a drunken gesture of a nod. ‘Ash,’ he half-belched. Then he drowned the rest of his flagon and refilled it to the brim from a bottle of wine.

  Dalas, the second-in-command, seated at the opposite end of the table, watched them settle with awkward glances between themselves, his thick dreadlocks hanging about his shoulders and his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, so that his broad chest was bare. Ash raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and the big Corician twisted his head by way of a shrug. Deal with it.

  ‘Shin,’ offered a middle-aged woman seated next to the big man, quickly taming her wild hair with her hand. ‘You must be Ash, head of this expedition?’ The warmth of her voice was enough to restore some civility to the room.

  ‘Yes. And you?’

  ‘The ship’s new medico.’

  He didn’t ask what had happened to the previous medico. Instead he introduced the others, and they offered nods and platitudes, relieved to have company besides the captain.

  The woman Shin never took her eyes from Ash.

  ‘Sorry, I’m staring,’ she admitted with a smile. ‘It’s just . . . I’ve heard so much about you, these last few days.’

  ‘Oh?’ he replied, observing her unkempt black hair and her honey complexion, seeing something of Honshu in her features. But the rest of the gathering were now pouring wine for each other, and she looked away to say her thanks, and did not respond.

  Ash held a hand over his own empty goblet when Kosh tried to pour him some, and Kosh frowned. Alcohol only worsened Ash’s head pains these days when he mixed it with the effects of the dulce leaf.

  ‘Yes,’ Shin replied at last to him. ‘Some of the crew tell me they once took you to the southern ice and back on some business of yours. They speak of you as though you’re something of a marvel.’

  The captain snorted but she ignored him, her eyes taking in every detail of
the old farlander sitting across from her. She was obviously aware of what he did for a living, and he could tell that it intrigued her.

  ‘Did you hear?’ exclaimed young Berl to Ash, the lad returned without them noticing.

  ‘Hear what?’ asked Kosh from around a mouthful of bread. Perhaps his appetite was returning after all. ‘And close that door will you?’

  ‘In Zanzahar, we ran across a longtrader just returned from the southern ice. He said they’re all talking about the black-skinned Rōshun who came in on a blizzard to strike down their tyrant. They think you’re some kind of god of retribution.’

  Captain Trench banged his flagon onto the table again, spilling wine everywhere. ‘The food, Berl,’ rumbled the man. ‘Where’s our damned food, boy?’

  ‘It’s coming!’ snapped the boy, on his way out of the door again.

  ‘I want it hot this time, not cold, you hear me?’

  Trench glowered and drank from behind the candles, and big Dalas watched him from the other end. Ash wondered where the captain’s pet kerido was hiding, until he spotted the creature curled up beneath a leather armchair, its glassy eyes partly opened and watching them. The silence lengthened.

  Leaning back, he turned to the nearest window, as he often did in awkward social situations, seeking something of interest beyond the four walls. The window was at the very back of the cabin and made from diamonds of stained glass. The sky was a black swathe out there over the frothy surface of the sea. A lonely light shone from the Sargassi; a lighthouse on a coral tree or an island habitation, he could not tell.

  In relief the diners turned to see Berl returning with another crewman carrying a tray of bowls. The meal was laid out on the table, fresh cetch and a steaming spiced stew with sweet potatoes. The smell was enough to make Ash’s stomach growl aloud, recalling suddenly that he had skipped breakfast that morning.

  ‘I have to admit,’ the medico Shin said to him from across the table, between sips of her stew. ‘I was expecting someone a little younger.’

  Kosh chuckled softly, dabbed his mouth with a napkin. ‘And how old do you think he is? Either of us?’

  She stared at Ash but he only looked down into his stew. ‘Fifty?’ she tried. ‘Maybe a touch over?’

  ‘Try adding another decade,’ Kosh prompted.

  ‘Surely not.’

  His continuing mirth drew a glance from Ash at last. But Kosh pretended not to notice.

  ‘Where we are from, in the northern highlands of Honshu, the men are renowned for remaining vital right up until their sixth decade. And then, without warning, they usually just keel over and . . .’ His voice trailed away, realizing what he was saying in front of Ash, the old fool.

  ‘It’s the hair we have to sacrifice early,’ Kosh went on with an awkward smile, while he ran a hand over his own smooth scalp. ‘You should have seen us when we were young. A highlander’s hair is fine and straight right down to his waist.’

  She smiled as though seeing the image of it in her mind.

  ‘My grandfather was from Honshu,’ Shin offered. ‘Though he lasted well into his eighties.’

  ‘Your grandfather was an exile?’ Ash asked.

  ‘No, he was on the other side of the war. A silk merchant from the lowlands.’

  Ash and Kosh exchanged a sidelong glance.

  ‘Right,’ she drawled. ‘You two must have been People’s Army.’

  No reply from either of them. A stony silence in fact.

  It only seemed to spur her curiosity further.

  ‘Were you there at the final battle in the Sea of Wind and Grasses?’

  Ash looked to Kosh, but his friend was stuffing his mouth with food so he wouldn’t be expected to answer. They rarely spoke of those times now, least of all with strangers.

  ‘We were Shining Way,’ he said, ‘pinning Oshō’s left flank while we bought time for the kill. Aye, we were there.’

  Kosh cleared his throat, then took another drink to help the food down. ‘Come and join us,’ he told Berl suddenly, standing there in attendance while the rest of them tucked into the stew, which was warming though somewhat bland.

  ‘I’ve eaten already. Please, enjoy your meal.’

  Shin knew well enough when a subject had been changed deliberately, and so she asked some polite questions instead about what they normally ate within the Rōshun order. The lad Berl seemed to brighten whenever they chattered; a family of strangers getting to know each other. Perhaps they all picked up on this, or perhaps it was only the heady wine, for they began to speak more freely after that, so that even Trench added the occasional word to the fray; a comment of scorn, a few muttered curses; enough to remind everyone that he was there. Ash for his part remained silent, relying on others to ask the questions he wanted to ask himself, as was his way.

  Across from him, Meer suddenly exchanged a few hand gestures with Dalas, the mute Corician.

  ‘It seems to be based on Contrarè sign language,’ the hedgemonk explained when he saw their interest. ‘I picked up a little on my travels.’

  ‘I see that you eat meat,’ said the woman Shin. ‘I thought Ash introduced you as a monk of the Way?’

  Meer looked to Ash for a moment then back again, a delicate smile twitching on his full lips. ‘Well, he misled you, which was wrong of him. Sometimes I have reason to pass myself off as a monk. But as you can see, I’m not dressed as one now.’

  She shook her head to show her confusion.

  ‘Ash is only being kind to a wayward fool who rescued him one night in the Shoals of Bar-Khos, not so long ago.’

  ‘Rescued?’

  ‘He fell asleep drunk in falling sleet. I carried him to shelter, and when he awoke he saw me dressed as a monk and assumed the rest.’

  Ash nodded at the recollection. ‘A shrine. He was living in a cave where a statue of the Great Fool had once sat. But someone had stolen it, and Meer sat in its place. Pay no heed to his protests, I have seen him sit in meditation for hours. I saw him help the people of the Shoals like any other hedgemonk of the Way would have done. Meer is a cloudman at heart as much as a traveller.’

  ‘Again, he is being overly kind.’

  ‘Have you really been to the Isles of Sky,’ the captain interjected, ‘or is that flight course you gave me earlier another fiction for us to unravel?’

  Meer straightened in his chair. ‘Does it matter? You hardly believe we’ll make it over the Aradèrēs.’

  ‘I made no such claim.’

  ‘You told me the name of every skyship that has tried crossing the mountains and failed.’

  ‘Well the Falcon will make it, if any ship can. It’s afterwards that concerns me. The Great Hush, land of the kree. You’ve heard the tales, I’m sure? The massacres? The men who went mad from the air itself?’

  A twig broke in two somewhere on the table, but it was only Dalas, snapping his fingers and gesturing quickly; telling him off, it seemed.

  With disdain the captain glared back at his second-in-command. He spoke on. ‘The worst thing of all? We’re flying blind the entire way without a single map to guide us. We’re going solely on this man’s memory, who, even if he has been to the Isles, claims he took a different route entirely, an established route through the Sea of Doubts. A stowaway, of all cursed things, on board a Zanzahar Guild ship, where he saw precious little along the way. He knows nothing of the Hush, yet he claims we can still reach the Isles if we fly through it for long enough. And this, without charts!’

  ‘I’ve been to Lucksore too,’ Meer insisted gently to the others. ‘Perched at the foot of the pass we’ll be taking over the mountains. We’ll find ourselves a longhunter there to guide us through the Hush all the way to the rift valley of the Edge. After that, it’s a simple matter of heading for the eastern coast.’

  ‘Simple!’

  Tap, tap, tap. It was the ship’s boy limping closer on his wooden leg. Berl refilled Ash’s goblet with water then asked if anyone else needed some, keen for the meal to carry on witho
ut conflict. At his prompting the chatter arose again around the table.

  For an instant, Ash recalled the sky battle in which the boy’s injury had happened, flying for Cheem with his new apprentice Nico through an imperial blockade of the Free Ports.

  Kosh laughed at something Aléas had said then tried to silence his mirth with a mouthful of wine. With the laughter spreading around the table, Ash took the chance to look across at the captain again, who was poking at his bandaged eye socket with a black-nailed forefinger.

  ‘Damned socket is infected again,’ Trench complained as he saw Ash watching him. ‘Always goes this way during winter. Must be the damp.’

  ‘Too much stress and worry is what it is,’ Berl snapped. ‘You need rest. We all do.’

  ‘Well plenty of time for that when we’re dead. When we go down into the Hush and the kree get a hold of us, we can all sleep then, eh?’

  Ash frowned. ‘I was led to believe you had volunteered for this mission.’

  ‘Volunteered? You mean Coya Zeziké calling in a favour right when we are about to have a week of shore leave? Aye, we volunteered all right, as people who were left with little choice in the matter always do.’

  Dalas was snapping his fingers again, and this time the captain shut his mouth and drowned whatever else he had to say with another upturn of his flagon.

  ‘The rest of the crew, how much do they know?’ Ash asked.

  A pained expression pinched the captain’s sallow features. Trench wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘As much as I was allowed to tell them. Apart from Olson the navigator and those of us in this room, they’ve no idea yet that our ultimate destination is the Isles. Coya insisted it was too dangerous for so many to know in advance. So for now, I must ask you to keep that information to yourselves.’

  ‘When will you tell them?’

  ‘Believe me, not until I have to.’ And the man returned his sullen attention to his stew, and the itching behind his bandage.

  The others were talking about the kree now that the subject had been broached by the captain.

  ‘We can see a dead kree when we reach Lucksore,’ Meer was telling them. ‘Their mouths are like lamprey fish, you know. No jaws at all but a great toothy sucker surrounded by barbed lashes, which they use to ensnare and draw in their prey.’