Traveler

by Greg Weisman

  She immediately stopped protesting. After lowering her head and tossing her harpoon and chain in ahead of her, she climbed into the dinghy. Greydon, meanwhile, was hefting his stunned child into the boat after her. Aram tumbled in, nearly stabbing himself with the cutlass he held in his hand. He scrambled to his feet and found his father standing by the winch.

  Their eyes locked. Aram shook his head. Greydon nodded … and released the catch.

  Aram’s footing rushed away from him. Honestly, he might have flown up and out of the thing, if Makasa’s hand hadn’t pressed down on his shoulder. Greydon’s eyes pulled away, as the boat dropped with only Makasa and Aram aboard.

  The dinghy hit the water with an impact that threatened to snap its timbers—or Aram’s bones.

  Makasa released the ropes, and the churning sea quickly tossed the dinghy—their lifeboat—a dozen yards from its glowing mother.

  Glowing? Wavestrider was aflame! By the light of that fire, Aram could still see his father in silhouette. Captain Greydon Thorne turned from the rail to cross swords with the silhouette of the pirate captain Malus, their steel echoing across the water.

  Malus’s deep and brutally confident voice called out, “Finally, a reckoning!”

  And Aram heard Greydon respond, his father’s voice cutting through all the other noise. It held its own dangerous smile of confidence: “You have my full attention, you traitorous dog!”

  By this time, they were hard to see. But underlit by the burning deck, their shadows played out the battle on a larger-than-life scale upon the remaining sails of the ship.

  Suddenly, there was an explosion! Had the fire reached the powder stores?!

  Aram would never know. The ocean pulled the little boat away, and Wavestrider was gone …

  Aram sat low in the little boat, staring into the darkness. Soon, all that remained of the two ships was a glow on the horizon. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling the weight of his father’s heavy coat. He inhaled, and the smell of leather and brine instantly brought a vision of the man before his eyes. A sense memory of Greydon Thorne that pierced his heart. Then far off to starboard, lightning caught his eye, striking the water with one crisp, jagged bolt, followed some seconds later by a crack of thunder. For as the tar-ship had caught up with the Wavestrider, the storm had finally caught up with those who had escaped its fate.

  The dark clouds moved in, swallowing up the glow from the burning ship. The wind picked up; the waves became swells, each one threatening to capsize the boat.

  Aram turned to face Makasa and shouted over water, wind, and weather, “What do we do?”

  She grasped the sides of the boat with either hand. For the first time since he had met her, she looked her age: a seventeen-year-old girl with no authority, no power, no control. “Hold on,” was all she said.

  So Aram held on.

  The Veiled Sea churned and tossed. Clouds bearing lightning, thunder, and stinging rain took up residence right above them. Huge waves lifted the little boat up and brought it crashing down with such force that Aram was sure the dinghy would shatter, splinter, disintegrate beneath them.

  He kept his head down, his mouth shut, and his eyes open just a slit so that he could peer through the darkness and see Makasa’s boots and know he wasn’t yet completely alone.

  It seemed like the storm would last forever …

  Dawn found them on calm waters with nothing but the sun itself in view. Not a cloud, not a ship, not a hint of landfall was visible in any direction.

  Aram exhaled—almost as if he had been holding his breath all through the night. Then he heard Makasa do the same. He looked up at her. She looked like a drowned rat, which gave him a pretty good idea of how he must look. In any case, she must have thought him fairly pitiable, because for once she spoke with a measure of gentleness. “We’ll take turns sleeping. You first.”

  Aram nodded, but he didn’t see how he was supposed to fall asleep in the cramped little dinghy. But he dutifully attempted to follow the order and laid his head and body down in half an inch of water at the bottom of the boat.

  Within a minute, he was dead to the world.

  The water pulled him down, but he was sinking, not drowning. Sinking toward the Light. At the bottom of the ocean, he found a barrel of pickled eggs. He wrenched off the lid, and the Light poured forth. Even through the water, he thought it would blind him. Before the Voice could speak, Aram turned away, and Jahid Khan, the ship’s cooper, resealed the barrel.

  But with the barrel shut, the Voice silenced, and the Light contained, Aram found he could no longer remember how to breathe underwater. He was at the bottom of the sea, and he could no longer breathe! He struggled to rise, to swim to the surface, but the pirate captain Malus wrapped Makasa’s iron chain around his ankle, anchoring him to the barrel. He tried calling out to Makasa, but no sound came forth. Besides, she and One-God and Aram’s father were already dead and drowned, chained to the barrel by the Whisper-Man, the ogre Throgg, and the troll.

  He gasped for air …

  And woke up, choking and coughing.

  Makasa stared at him glumly.

  “Your turn,” he croaked.

  A few hours later, Makasa had the oars out and was rowing toward the late-morning sun.

  “Except,” Aram asked, “is it late morning? Or early afternoon? Are you heading east or west?”

  She glared at him. But she removed the oars from the water. “We’ll know in a few minutes.”

  Aram glanced down at the battle-scarred dead man’s cutlass he now carried. He wondered if anyone would ever again take up the practically virgin blade he had left behind inside the Whisper-Man.

  He heard Makasa curse Old Cobb under her breath, in a manner that would make Keely Watt proud.

  “He’s dead, you know,” Aram stated.

  “What? Who? Old Cobb? How do you know?”

  “He came aboard with the pirates. He killed Keely.” Aram was about to say he tried to kill me but feared it would give the false impression that Aram had outfought the old cook, so he just said, “When the mast came down, it squashed him. I mean, Cobb.”

  She looked stunned. But finally, she uttered a single satisfied word. “Good.”

  But Aram’s thoughts were already elsewhere. The mast reminded him of another loss—a loss of something he had never truly gained—a loss that threatened to break his already breaking heart. The more so because he hadn’t thought of her once until now. He said, “During the fight … did you see Duan Phen at all?”

  Makasa sat up straight on her wooden bench. “No. I heard her shout her warning from the nest. Just a few seconds before the pirates’ grappling hooks found our rails. I don’t remember seeing her come down. I don’t remember seeing her during the fight. What about when the mast came down?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Makasa didn’t know, either.

  But this led her to a full inventory of the crew. They had originally set sail with thirty souls. Twenty-nine if you left out the soulless Cobb. She ticked off the names with seeming dispassion, answering out loud if she knew their fate. Pausing if she didn’t. Sometimes Aram could fill in the blank by relating—as flatly as he could manage—what he himself had seen. Sometimes he couldn’t.

  But the final tally was as follows:

  Second Mate Makasa Flintwill and Cabin Boy Aramar Thorne escaped aboard the ship’s dinghy. (Two.)

  Deckhand Mary Brown and Deckhand Orley Post were injured but still alive when last seen. (Two.)

  Captain Greydon Thorne, First Mate Durgan One-God, Third Mate Silent Joe Barker, Ship’s Surgeon Yakomo Hide, Deckhand Desamir Ferrar, Deckhand James MacKillen, and Deckhand Cog Burnwick were last seen alive, basically uninjured and still fighting. (Seven.)

  Ship’s Cooper Jahid Khan, Deckhand Ahnko, and Lookout Duan Phen weren’t seen by either Makasa or Aram during the battle. (Three.)

  Quartermaster Mose Canton, Boatswain Johnson Ribierra, Helmsman Thom Frakes, Ship’s Carpenter An
selm Yewtree, Ship’s Blacksmith Mordis Ironwood, Deckhand Cassius Meeks, Deckhand Schuyler Li, Deckhand Black Max, Deckhand Crispus Trent, Deckhand Willson Pariah, Deckhand Rose Haggard, Deckhand Quenton Miles, Deckhand Colin O’Donagal, Deckhand Ainsley O’Donagal, Cook’s Assistant Keelhaul Watt, and Ship’s Cook Jonas Cobb were confirmed dead by either Makasa or Aram or both. (Sixteen.)

  They finished and fell silent. More than half the crew was confirmed dead and the rest—even the uninjured—had been left in dire circumstances. But there was also some hope in this inventory—barely.

  Makasa said, “Hide’s good. A true healer. He can work miracles.” But she couldn’t help adding, “If he’s alive.”

  Trying very hard not to think about his father, Aram busied himself by inventorying their stores. The little boat was equipped with a small built-in chest, containing a hunting knife, a hatchet, a case of dry flints wrapped in oilskin, an oil lantern, a flask of oil, and a coil of rope. There were three oilskin maps, none of which would be of much use unless they sighted land. There was water and sea biscuits (hardtack), though not enough of either for a prolonged voyage. And there were four gold coins. In addition, Makasa had her shield, chain, cutlass, and harpoon; Aram, his “borrowed” cutlass, his sketchbook, his coal pencil, his mother’s sweater, his father’s coat, and the compass, which for some reason he had to “protect at all costs.”

  The compass! It could at least get them going in the right direction. Filled with hope, he held it up and glanced from the sky to the small device and back. The stupid compass didn’t work! The sun made it clear its needle wasn’t even pointing north. It was useless. Why his father thought it would ever get Aram home was beyond him. Why Aram had been commanded to protect it was a bigger mystery than his father himself was.

  His father.

  Greydon was his father, but during their last real conversation, Aram had denied him. And now … now Greydon Thorne was probably dead, leaving his son racked with guilt.

  And it wasn’t just the denial weighing on him, either. Aram had ripped up the drawing of his father, ripped it up and tossed it in the sea. He had been warned of bad magic. And it wasn’t that he hadn’t believed, that he was above such superstitions. No, he had willfully summoned the bad magic while in the midst of a childish tantrum. He stared overboard, as if he could find the crumpled sketch in the water.

  Then he shook the idea from his head and took the sketchbook out of his back pocket.

  Makasa stared at him, astonished, as he carefully unwrapped the oilskin cloth and carefully examined the book for damage. Almost as if it were required, she said, “You better not be putting me in that blasted book.”

  “I promise I won’t sketch you unless you ask me to,” he replied impatiently as he checked for water stains. With some relief, he confirmed the oilskin had done its job; the sketchbook remained unsoiled. He turned the pages, past his family and Lakeshire to the many pages of the crew of the Wavestrider. Here were faces he’d probably never see again—and faces he’d definitely never see again. He paused, touching an image of Duan Phen. Then he turned the leaves until he found the remnants of the page he had torn out. He ran his finger along that jagged edge of paper near the spine and felt the pain of his act of spite somewhere in the vicinity of his own spine.

  Then he quickly flipped to the first blank page and reached under his still damp sweater to pull the pencil from his pocket. The tip was ruined. He took the knife from the stores to sharpen it. But his hands were shaking. If he kept up like this, he’d ruin the pencil for good. Then how could he ever undo the bad magic?

  He sighed and put everything away. The knife, the pencil, the sketchbook in its oilskin cloth.

  Makasa silently watched him. Then she glanced up at the sky. “Late morning,” she said. She began rowing again, confident now that they were heading east toward Kalimdor.

  He looked up at her and said, “Do you want me to take a turn?”

  A sliver of a waxing crescent moon provided little light. A thin haze was enough to block out most of the stars. Neither of them rowed. There was no wind, not even a breeze. It was very still, and Makasa didn’t like it. It set her on edge. Even in the darkness, Aram could see her grim visage, could hear her chewing furiously—as if with a vengeance.

  They were both chewing—but not on hardtack. Rather, each had torn a small bite off that last piece of boar jerky that Aram still had in his pocket. (She had thanked him when taking hers. Being alone with him on the boat had—for now at least—made her something akin to gracious toward the boy.) After this, there’d be just enough left for each of them to have one last morsel for dinner the next night before they had to break out the hardtack.

  The jerky was still lasting and flavorful. But it was also a somewhat bitter reminder of all they’d lost. And, of course, it was salty. But it generated enough saliva so they could hold off on reducing their water stores for a while.

  Makasa’s hands moved to the oars as if she thought she might row without the sun to guide them. Aram glanced down at the compass, but even if it had somehow miraculously begun to work, it was too dark for him to read it.

  Suddenly, Makasa reached down and pulled out her harpoon. Aram stared at her as she stood up in the little boat, ready for battle—though against what was unclear to Aram … and ultimately even to Makasa. Then, for just a second, she looked … embarrassed. It was an expression Aram could barely recognize on her face. He didn’t think he liked it. Where was the grim disciplinarian and warrior who had made his life miserable for six months? That was who they needed now. Not this unsure seventeen-year-old girl. She wouldn’t do either of them any good.

  Her expression reverted to something like contempt, which was both more familiar to Aram and more comfortable on her face. But even here the difference was palpable: the contempt she felt was directed inward. It spoke of self-doubt and self-recrimination. She felt foolish. She was about to sit, when the giant tentacle shattered the calm sea and rose two stories out of the water!

  Makasa actually laughed!

  She stabbed at it with her harpoon. Drew her cutlass and slashed it halfway through.

  Aram was on his feet, too—though less steadily. He had his cutlass out in time to slash at a second tentacle that attempted to encircle the boat from the other side. Makasa sunk the harpoon into it to hold it steady, then brought her sword down like a guillotine and chopped the thing clean in two!

  The kraken rose then … its massive cranium surfacing, perhaps to see how this little midnight snack could have brought such pain—and that was its big mistake. If it had simply raised more tentacles and sunk the boat, there was little Makasa or Aram could have done. But curiosity, it seems, isn’t just a problem for cats.

  Makasa yanked her harpoon free of the sundered tentacle and with all her might, jabbed the weapon right into the monster’s great eye. A chilling scream bubbled up from the water. Flintwill yanked her harpoon free again, eager to strike another blow. But the creature descended, tentacles and all, leaving only the one severed tip, which lay across the dingy between Aram and Makasa. Together, they heaved it over the side.

  Makasa sat down, smirking. “We were lucky,” she said. “It was just a baby.”

  “That was a baby?” Aram squeaked, appalled.

  “Aye. An adult kraken can pull an entire ship into the deep. That little one found us too big to swallow.”

  At first, he couldn’t tell if she was serious. Then he remembered that despite her grin, she had no sense of humor. He cautiously sat down and asked, “What if it runs and gets mommy?”

  Makasa’s grin vanished. She raised her harpoon. Aram smiled.

  Makasa rowed toward the rising sun, positive it would take them to land eventually.

  Aram studied her, questions running through his mind. Finally, he managed to summon up the courage to ask, “What’s a life debt?”

  Her angry eyes met his like two crossbow bolts. She didn’t answer for a long time, as if willing him to abandon the ques
tion. He didn’t turn away. She was stubborn, but she knew blasted well that he was, too.

  She said, “Your father saved my life, so by the custom of both Stromgarde—the land of my ancestors—and of Stranglethorn Vale—the land of my birth—that life belonged to him. That is my life debt.”

  “You needed saving? How? What happened?”

  “That is none of your business.”

  “Is that why you didn’t have a contract on Wavestrider?”

  “That is none of your business, either,” she said. But a few seconds later, she added, “Yes. He offered, but I refused.”

  She rowed on. But Aram could see it weighing on her. Eventually, she said, “Greydon Thorne told me he didn’t believe in life debts. He valued my service, he said, and was glad to have me at his side. But he swore he’d never call on me to pay back what I knew I owed him.”

  “But he did.”

  “Yes. He did.”

  “Is that disappointing?”

  “I owe what I owe. What he might have said once changed nothing.”

  “But is it disappointing?”

  She glared at him. “You’d like to hear I’m disappointed in the man. It would justify your own petty disappointment. Justify your own abysmal behavior toward him. But what I might or might not say changes nothing.”

  Aram felt his face flush, but he didn’t look away. “This isn’t about him or me,” he lied. “I’m trying to understand you.”

  “You will never understand me.”

  “And you’ll never understand me, either. But answer the question.”

  “I don’t take orders from cabin boys, no matter who their fathers were.” She quickly corrected herself: “Are.”

  The reality of that “were” rocked him—hard. Was Greydon lost beyond hope? He couldn’t face that, not now, not yet. He struggled to remember the point he was trying to make. The thought coalesced in his mind, and he rephrased his question, asking her, “Had you come to believe him?”

  She didn’t answer.