by Marc Secchia
The morning dawned wild and foul. Gale-force winds whipped spray off the rising waves, while the seas gathered around their craft like a troop of playful giants to toss it about with careless abandon. Ropes ran taut to the cleats and the salt-rimed captain made plans to throw out a sea anchor in order to stabilise their course and give the rudder some purchase amidst the heaving swells.
By noon waves crashed over the decks, turning the ship’s progress into a drunken wallow punctuated with thumping sideways concussions as they persisted in forcing a westward passage. Amadorn worked himself to the point of collapse, earning some respite for the grateful crew, but the storm’s power was clearly beyond him. Hardened sailors cast suspicious glances at each other, wondering perhaps if it was one of their hire who had brought this tempest upon them–superstitious to a creature, and nervous of any wizardry. Toward late afternoon, such as could be discerned in the wave-blasted mayhem beneath lowering storm clouds and hail mixed with spray flying laterally across the waves, the Witch appeared above decks, fevered and irate, shouting that a storm elemental had been summoned and they should turn and run rather than fight it.
“Dark wizardry!” she shrieked at the captain, who took one look at her face and ordered the Helmsbear to set a new course. “It cannot be stayed!”
The theory was that a storm elemental could be summoned, but the act of invocation tended to make it somewhat irate–especially at the summoner. With all the awesome force of nature to throw at any annoyance, no mortal being could withstand its power and more than one wizard had been consumed in a conflagration of his own making. A storm might run for lighttimes before an elemental’s anger was appeased.
The Witch stood at the bow, her cloak whipping and snapping around her tall, thin form as she raised her clawed hands and cast her wiles into the storm’s teeth, shaping and manipulating it like an engineer seeking to contain a flood. For the vital moments they swung away to a new south-westward course, and were exposed on the flank, she forged a near-calm that had the sailors wiping their eyes in disbelief. The motion of the ship changed. Steadier now, they scudded forward on a new course.
For nine lighttimes the ship ran before the storm, trying at times to make better westward passage but flung back every time. Zephyr huffed to Kevin and Alliathiune that Utharia was definitely an unpopular destination in somebody’s reckoning. Hunter prowled their cabin like a caged animal, clearly eager for the opportunity to reason with someone at sword-point. Snatcher spelled the Helmsbear. His drenched, ten-foot bulk looming over the heaving ship’s wheel with his pellucid eyes gleaming in the semidarkness was a sight to behold, but his presence was a rock and a bulwark that gave the sailors renewed heart.
On the tenth morning, the storm broke.
“Breakfast, sleepyhead,” said Alliathiune, poking Kevin in the ribs.
He grumbled and turned over.
“Prod him again,” said Amadorn.
“Allow me,” said Hunter, extending her claws.
“Ouch! Flipping heck! Do you have to?” Kevin sat up too quickly and thumped his head on the bunk above. “Double ruddy ouch with knobs on! What kind of way is this to wake up? Call yourselves friends and companions?” He sat up and clutched the blankets as though he would never let them go. “Right, so tell me, for what reason–and it had better be a compelling reason–has my slumber been disturbed?”
“Grumpy as a–”
Hardly had he begun to speak a fearful blow struck the ship, shaking it like a child’s rattle from bowsprit to rudder. With a sickly groaning of timbers, it heeled over and rather than righting itself, simply stayed put at that angle. The impact catapulted Kevin from his bunk. He crashed into Alliathiune’s and somehow ended up at the wall, her skirt tangled around his face. Hunter, Amadorn, and Zephyr lay in a snarl atop the porthole, which had suddenly become the floor.
Frightened and dismayed shouts erupted from the deck, where one imagined sailors hanging on for their lives. “We’re lost!” “Help!” “We’ve run aground!”
“This is an ill accident!” Zephyr whinnied, thrusting himself clear. “Quick, to the decks!”
“Get off me!”
“Good gracious, Alliathiune, give a fellow a chance!”
There came another immense blow and the awful sound of splintering timbers. Kevin, halfway to his feet, missed his hold and fell against Alliathiune again.
“Unhand me this instant, you oaf!”
She kicked him and clawed at his face with her nails.
“Wait for me!” Zephyr shrilled, pushing after her with no regard for Kevin either–treading on his toes to boot, to add to his misery.
Once he had finished hopping about, for having one’s foot squashed by a creature the size and weight of a horse is no small affair, Kevin limped up the gangway and headed for the decks to see what the fuss was about. Just his luck having landed on Alliathiune twice in quick succession! As if he would handle her person uninvited … that said, when did she start wearing perfume? She smelled most agreeable, unlike him who had been cooped up below decks for nine lighttimes without a bath! How did she do it?
These profound reflections were dashed from Kevin’s mind the moment he poked his head out of the hatch. Below, his reaction had been that the ship had run aground. Now, he realised that what they had run afoul of was neither ground, nor was it pleased.
It was a sea creature, perhaps a squid, but of no kind or size that Kevin had ever read of during his studies of biology and palaeontology. This was a monster, the granddaddy of all squids. They must have rammed into the creature’s dorsal side, whereupon it had rolled over, lifting the sliplet partly clear of the water. Now the two longest tentacles, furnished with suckers the size of dinner plates, were making an exploration of the nature of its assailant. This was the second blow they had felt. As he watched, the creature struck one of the spars and snapped it clear off. A man fell screaming from the rigging and was plucked up by another tentacle.
“We have to break clear!” shouted the captain.
“We’ll make an attempt!” Zephyr yelled. He levitated above the deck, for his hooves were no use whatsoever on the steep wooden slope. “Good Alliathiune–”
“I’d need to touch the creature!”
The ship shuddered once more. Quick as a whip, one of the tentacles encircled it near the bowsprit and began to squeeze. Timbers groaned and creaked. Several brave crewmen swarmed forward with axes and knives to try and cut it free, but the rubbery surface resisted their blows. Amadorn stumped forward with Hunter’s assistance and put his Druidic skills to use, conjuring acid to burn through its flesh. But the other long tentacle snaked athwart, pinning the Unicorn to the mast, and when it tightened, Kevin could graphically imagine what would happen. He raised his hand, ready to intervene in whatever way he could.
“Alliathiune! No!”
There was a flash of green off the side of the ship as she leaped from the railing onto the creature’s back. Her bare feet found grip on the barnacle-crusted surface and she plunged her hands downwards. Kevin, dangling from the hatch as the creature shifted, saw her head jerk backward in agony.
“Demon!” she shrieked.
A creature summoned from the netherworld! Kevin knew what the Unicorns believed about Shäyol, but had dismissed that portion of his instruction as the superstitious quibbling of a primitive people. Would Alliathiune have any influence over such a creature? This was more the province of Akê-Akê or Zephyr–who groaned loudly.
Kevin’s eyes snapped to the fore. The tentacle had tightened enough that Zephyr was having trouble breathing, his eyes bulging from his head as he struggled with all his might against an otherworldly force. Oh, God, no, not Zephyr too … Kevin leaped for the tentacle and clasped it with his ruined blue hand.
Reversal, he was thinking. Reverse the summoning. The magical law of opposites.
There was a concussion and a flash of lightning that lit him up like a Christmas tree. As Snatcher had intimated, and Zephyr had recently argue
d, it seemed that his power lay in the negation of magic, in cancelling, absorbing, and redirecting other powers. The discharge flung him clear across the deck, fetching him up in a dazed and smoking heap against the group of sailors who had been attacking the other tentacle. And the creature vanished.
It vanished in a puff of viscid, oily smoke, dropping their ship into the ocean and causing the waters to rush and roar into the vast volume it had occupied. Alliathiune was swamped by a wave many times her height and sucked under, while the ship bobbed and slowly righted itself amidst a choppy blue sea that quickly calmed.
Kevin moaned and coughed up blood.
There were shouts alongside the ship, a splash, and an anxious silence.
“Ugh.” He coughed again. “Zephyr?”
“Lie still, good Kevin. You did well. Here, I’ll take the pain away.”
Instead, he struggled to sit up. “The Dryad! Save the Dryad!”
“Lie still!”
An invisible hand pressed him to the deck. Veils of darkness drifted across his vision. “She … went overboard …”
A great cheer arose from the rail. Amadorn nodded from there and limped over to where Kevin lay. “The mighty Lurk has succoured the Dryad,” he said. “The sailors are hauling them aloft now.”
“I hope they are sturdy fellows,” Kevin quipped weakly.
“Aïssändraught,” the Unicorn mothered him. “Drink up.”
“Just keep Snatcher’s toad oil away from me.”
But he could not help smiling at what followed, for when the Lurk appeared over the rail the sailors mobbed him as one man with back-slapping congratulations and effusive praise. If ever anyone had deserved such admiration, he thought, it was Snatcher. His was a quiet kind of courage, as strong and enduring as a mountain. Kevin knew the pearlescent liquid leaking from the Lurk’s eyes had nothing to do with the seawater–had he not seen the Lurk grieving? So these must be tears of happiness, for the recognition which meant so much to a pariah amongst his own people. It was amazing how these simple sailors had taken him to heart.
But now they were all coming up the deck, Alliathiune too. Streaks of blood trickled down her legs. Her hair was bedraggled and her clothing torn.
“You look a sight,” he greeted her, unable to summon the strength to rise from the deck.
“And you look dreadful, you daft man,” she said, flung her arms around his neck, and planted a sound kiss on his cheek.
Kevin burbled, “Huh?”
“The creature had ensnared the good Dryad,” Snatcher rumbled, shaking water everywhere. “The suckers have teeth, as you can tell from her legs.”
“So you rescued Zephyr and Alliathiune at the same time,” Amadorn finished, his eyes twinkling at Kevin. “I feel a ballad coming on.”
“Huh?”
Someone said, “Has he taken a blow to his head, or is that the Aïssändraught making him stupid?”
“What about, ‘The Outlander and the Sea Beast’? Or, one which has been brewing in my mind for some time now, ‘The Tale of Driadorn’s High Wizard’?”
“Oh no, Amadorn, I get to choose. That bit is out.”
His companions laughed and crowded closer, patting Kevin on the shoulder and telling him what a mighty wizard he was.
“No, no … it was nothing, really. I must protest. You’re all making a storm in a teacup and it’s horribly embarrassing. Stop it this instant, or I swear I’ll–”
“Yes,” Zephyr chortled, “it was all an accident!”
“Now just you hold on right there, you block-headed Unicorn. You have to listen to me!”
But the more he protested, the harder they laughed.
* * * *
After the storm, the weather turned extraordinarily calm. The sea became as still as polished marble, and the combined efforts of the magically adept could not summon so much as a breath of wind. It was so swelteringly hot that the crew rigged spare sails across the deck to shelter them from Indomalion’s glare, which despite the season was almost unbearable. They languished beneath the canvas and took turns fanning each other or fetching water. There was bantering talk of dropping Snatcher aft to see what propulsion he could muster, or hitching Glimmering of Dawn to the mast. The proud Eagle did not take kindly to this suggestion and pointedly spent a whole afternoon drifting in slow circles above the ship.
The captain took his measurements and declared that they had been driven several hundred leagues south of Utharia, into an unknown region. His more pressing concern was to make landfall in order to repair his vessel, which was leaking below the waterline after being damaged by the squid.
“We simply must break this deadlock,” Alliathiune remarked to Kevin, late one afternoon.
Kevin opened one eye a crack. “Do you think I’m getting a suntan?”
“You are turning the colour of a freshwater lobster, good Human, and I think you should come into the shade.”
“Great. Genetics, you know.” She stared at him. “Oh–Earth word, sorry, Alliathiune. The study of heredity. My family are all fair-skinned. We don’t tan. Anyway, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind? You are looking a tad pale, I might add. Are you unwell?”
“I need a tree.”
“Oh … blimey. Uh, what happens if you don’t … you know?”
“Enter a tree?” Her smile told him he clearly had a few things to learn about Dryads yet. “If I do not enter a tree within a couple of lighttimes, I will sicken dramatically–and eventually die.”
“Oh.”
“I had hoped we would be moving soon.”
“Ditto. Do Dryads ever not enter a tree by choice? Do they commit suicide?”
To Kevin’s horror, after his casual inquiry, Alliathiune folded up on the deck in a puddle of tears, stifling her sobs in the folds of his cast-off shirt. He sat there for ages and patted her shoulder ineffectually, caught Zephyr’s frown and shrugged, then when the Dryad did not appear to recover moved over to speak with the Unicorn.
“Alliathiune requires a tree,” he said.
“Oh, by the Well, I had forgotten! We must do something!” Zephyr pranced in his frustration, making people stare. He dropped his voice. “Is it bad?”
“Bad enough–a couple of days, she says.”
“Lighttimes, good outlander. When will you get it right? By the sacred Well, I must think! Why did she not speak out earlier? We are becalmed and unable to–”
Kevin cleared his throat. “I had an idea. Kind of.”
“What is a ‘kind of’ idea, good outlander? It either is, or it isn’t. Make yourself clear!”
He swallowed, but told himself Zephyr was stressed and frustrated. He whispered, “I meant to say, good Zephyr, that I have no idea how we might implement this particular idea.”
“If you don’t share your plan within a count of ten …”
“You’re so impatient. It struck me, old fruit, that when the sailors were joking about tossing Snatcher overboard to serve as a motor–a means of propulsion, that is–that if we could not generate wind, why not generate an ocean current?”
The one-horn’s eyes boggled. “Good Kevin, you are brilliant! A mastermind. A veritable genius. Everyone, listen to me! Kevin is a genius!”
“Shush, Zephyr, I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it long ago.”
“To borrow one of your delightful Earth phases, old fruit, why don’t you shut up and let me do the talking?”
“You rude–”
“Speak to the hindquarters. The front end is busy getting us out of this fix.”
Kevin made a mocking bow that stopped short of Zephyr’s proudly arched plume of a tail. “I’ll leave the details to you, shall I?”
And he plucked out a hair, making Zephyr jump crossly.
* * * *
A handy ocean current, whipped up by Amadorn and Zephyr working in concert, had by darktime pressed the ship into noticeable motion. By dawn, there was a welcome ruffle of canvas as a breeze picked up and their prow began to cut through th
e water with renewed purpose. The sailors worked like drudges bailing out the hold and the captain piled on such canvas as could workably be employed amidst the damaged rigging–the ship’s carpenter and the sailors repaired what they could, but some matters required more than spit and rope.
Glimmering of Dawn brought word of a small island ahead, where they might conceivably make a landing and effect the necessary repairs. The Helmsbear corrected her course by several points, bringing them after a noontime repast to a safe anchorage beside a perfect tropical island, complete with white sandy beach and trees remarkably similar to palms, which bore purple fruit the size of Kevin’s head. Lush foliage festooned the slopes of its conical central mountain, proclaiming a volcanic origin and rich soil.
“We should get Alliathiune ashore as soon as possible.”
“Indeed, good outlander,” Zephyr agreed. “Why don’t you roust up the crew, while I–what by the Hills is that crazy Lurk doing?”
“Walking on the bottom,” said Kevin.
“He’s what? He can breathe seawater?”
“Gills, you know. Jolly useful at times. I’ve always wanted a set.”
Zephyr favoured him with a very dirty look. “Why is he taking a rope with him?”
“No doubt the captain wishes to bring us ashore,” Kevin replied, pleased for once to be an authority on something. “He will probably set up a pulley system against that large tree there, and with a few handy logs in place, simply roll us up the beach. A workhorse like the Lurk should make light work of it.”
“Humph. Why don’t you organise the crew? I’m keen to stretch my legs too. I have four of them, you know, and you can imagine how I suffer on a cramped vessel like this.”
Akê-Akê took Kevin’s elbow. “Yes, he hasn’t let us forget that fact since we boarded, has he?”
