by Jon Kiln
Mother Aldameda seemed to share some of her concerns, however. “Angels are… they are spirits. Like devils, they have left the mortal world, although they were once human, or so I was taught. They obey the laws of heaven, and the gods, but they are not meant for this world.”
“It is a good thing that the captain is returned to normal, then?” Meghan said.
“He’s not.” Talon looked up worriedly. “He’s unconscious. Hasn’t woken or spoken or eaten for an entire day.”
“Yes, the boy is right. We don’t know if the captain has been returned to his body entirely, or if the man that Oberra once was will ever return,” Aldameda said dryly, licking her lips. “I fear that something very terrible must be going on, although I cannot discern what it is. I know that the abomination wanted to get to the Isle of Gaunt…”
“Vekal was going there,” Meghan burst out.
“What?” Aldameda looked up sharply. “What did you just say?”
“Vekal. A Sin Eater. He was a priest, who visited us. He saved us,” Meghan corrected.
“The abomination!” Aldameda’s eyes widened. “I knew that there was some reason that I found you, there on the Coast. I knew that there was some reason that you and your child were brought to me!”
“We weren’t brought to you.” Meghan started to feel hot and angry. Just what did this Mother want with her now? What did everyone want with her child? And why did she call Vekal that? Although, the herbalist knew that she was being disingenuous by asking herself that. She had seen the shadow behind Vekal’s eyes. She had known that he harbored evil. But he was a good man still, even through that, she remembered. He had only used that awful power to protect her and her child. He hadn’t appeared capable of harming them.
“The gods oversee all of our fates,” Aldameda said with fire in her eyes. “It can be no mistake that the abomination came to you, or that your daughter is who she is, or that our paths crossed.”
“The thing inhabiting the captain said that my girl was special, precious to the angels,” Meghan breathed, looking at her child. “It said that my girl was the Saint of this age.” She didn’t tell the Mother what the Pirate-Angel had also said, that her girl would close the Lockless Gate, at the Isle of Gaunt. I do not know what that means, and something tells me that it is too much mystery for one little girl.
“Holy…” Aldameda whispered in awe. “I have never met a Saint, but I know their lore. The last one, or so the legends tell us, was the Saint of Gaunt, who was so holy that her relics opened the Lockless Gate to heaven itself.” Her eyes moved to the girl, but Meghan stepped in front of her, cutting off her view.
“No one is going to turn my little girl into relics,” she said abruptly.
“Of course not!” Aldameda said forcefully. “But it shows that this is the work of the gods themselves. This is not just the machination of devils.”
“I guess that means you agree with that thing inside Captain Oberra, that was inside Captain Oberra?” Meghan scowled. She, for one, suddenly realized that she was infinitely glad that this boat was heading for the coast again.
“I am… unconvinced,” Aldameda said warily, looking at Talon. “You recall what I taught you about our Order?”
Talon nodded. “The Guides. We were to protect humanity against all creatures that threatened it.”
Well, Meghan thought, what could be more threatening to Captain Oberra, then what was happening to him right now?
“Indeed. But I was also taught that we serve the ways of heaven. We serve the gods,” Aldameda ruminated. “I cannot see a clear way forward, especially when there are so many spirits – creatures – who seek to influence us.”
She was deeply unsure of what was happening, Meghan could see, and for a moment, the tough old woman looked her years. Her face, deeply lined with the cares and worries of the world, and a life spent trying to keep humanity safe.
“Perhaps we should make our own destiny,” Meghan said lightly, thinking of her daughter. Perhaps Kariss should be free to choose whether to be a Saint, or not.
“Perhaps.” Aldameda sighed. “I cannot advise us further, until I know more. But, for the moment I know one thing for sure.” Her sharp eyes found Meghan’s. “We must be very, very careful around the pirates now. Fatim saw the captain as what he had become – when the angel Ruthiel had taken over him. She distrusts it, which is natural perhaps, but I do not think that the angel revealed to her its plan for your child, and the Isle of Gaunt.”
“She may hurt Kariss?” Meghan growled.
“She may wish to be rid of a complication to her life,” Aldameda corrected, her wariness hardening. “However, I would still travel to the Isle of Gaunt, there to seek to close the Lockless Gate, if I can.”
“My Kariss is not going there,” Meghan said, adamantly. She hadn’t known that she had come to this decision, until she said it. But yes, this feels right, now, she knew. All of these beings want my little girl to be a tool for their use. She will not be a servant in any one’s army!
“The god’s may have already ordained it, herbalist,” Mother Aldameda said sternly.
“Then, if that is the case then I am sure that there will be nothing that I can do to stop it,” Meghan said tartly. “I, for one, will be striving to take my little girl to safety. Whatever the gods desire of her.”
“Fuldoon is at war, herbalist,” Aldameda said. “You cannot head west, and you say that you will not head east. South leads into the trackless wilds.”
“You forget that we have survived in the Shattering Coasts before,” Meghan countered. “We can do so again. Or I will attempt to sail north again. To the Inner Kingdoms.”
Aldameda was silent, before she nodded perfunctorily. “I will not stand against you, but I will try to change your mind. Talon?” She looked at the boy, sitting on the floor beside the bunk. His eyes were drooping, and he appeared tired.
“I will go with you, Mother Aldameda, of course,” he murmured, wearily.
He doesn’t know what he is saying, Meghan scowled. He is just a child. “We can all see how our fortune fares when we reach land,” she said heavily.
“Agreed,” Aldameda said. “Until then, we will help you guard your child.”
Not a chance, the herbalist thought in a flash. Not now that I know where you want to take her. But her time in the dangerous wilds had taught her caution, and patience. “Thank you, Mother.” Meghan inclined her head. In her belt, she felt the reassuring weight of the dagger that she had placed there.
21
“Land ho!” The call went up later that day, raised from the string-legged Rigger to the Mates, to the acting-Navigator and on into the hull of the battered, stolen galleon. As it traveled down into the hull, it brought with it weary – and wary – smiles.
The pirates had been through much, and they knew that it was never plain sailing. Good fortunes were usually hard won, but hadn’t they struggled through the most unnatural, hellish storm that any had ever faced? Weren’t they missing a third of their crew to some strange and sudden madness – almost as if they had been possessed by fell and evil creatures?
But, as the shards of black cliffs and dense tree cover grew in their vision, they did smile, and it is true to say that they even felt a little relief. Perhaps this nightmarish journey would be over now.
“We’ve got a good wind in our sails, and we should make landfall before night,” called the navigator to the shaven-headed woman who lurched and stumbled across the deck on two crutches.
Pain seared up First Mate Fatim’s leg (Acting-Captain Fatim, she remembered) but she tried not to shout in pain. She had broken limbs before, right? She even had a tooth pulled by their drunken doctor once. A smashed knee was something she could live through.
“Aye,” she hissed, when she could catch her breath again. The black and evil storm that had claimed the Quartermaster Heg and so many other lives was behind them, still black on the horizon, but the storm winds had been fiercer when they had attempted
to tack east.
Towards the captain’s destination, she realized. Where was it he had wanted to go? The Isle of Gaunt – an accursed stand of rocks with nothing good said about it.
And I bet that there wasn’t ever any treasure there, either. Fatim scowled. She had been duped by Oberra – or whatever it had been that walked in Oberra’s skin. They had all been duped by him, it, whatever it was.
She knew that many of the crew were scared out of their wits. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and that unnatural storm had been enough to lose the courage of any seasoned soldier, let alone a scurvy, drink-sozzled pirate.
Yeah, it is better that we’re heading south, Fatim allowed herself to feel the relief that the crew felt. Things would get easier now. They could fix the boat, they could work out what to do next – whether to try and take the pickings around Fuldoon that the war must surely be making, or even to head north again into the Inner Sea, when that infernal storm had passed by, that was.
And we have time to work out what to do with the captain. She grimaced, taking a deep breath and nodding to the navigator. “Okay then, Shalla. Hold her true, pick a course for the most protected harbor you can spot, the quieter the better. But do it quickly. I want to be anchored before dark sets in, and I don’t want that storm to sweep down on us.”
“It looks like she’s moving off east, anyway, sir.” Shalla threw a look over their shoulder.
“All the more reason to not go east,” Fatim muttered, turning to head for the stairs down, until her navigator’s croaking voice called out to her.
“First Mate? Can I ask…?” Shalla looked at her with shadowed eyes.
Here it comes… Fatim had been dreading these questions.
“What’s wrong with the captain, sir? Is it the same thing that got the Quartermaster?”
Shalla and the Quartermaster had been close, Fatim recalled. “No, it’s not the same thing,” she tried to sound reassuring, but it only sounded suspicious, even to her own ears. But it’s true. That thing inside the captain hated the thing inside the Quartermaster. “But I don’t know what it is. Probably only a sickness,” she tried to say lightly. She knew as much as anyone that pirates are notoriously twitchy when it comes to changes in leadership. If they started suspecting, no, counting on the fact that Oberra was going to die, then she might have a full-blown mutiny on her hands.
“Oh,” Shalla continued to look from her shadowed brow. She doesn’t look very satisfied. Fatim groaned.
“Back to work!” the First Mate growled, turning to stomp down the stairs as quick as she dared, passing the forecastle and the first floor, and down again to the captain’s chambers.
“Paulo,” she nodded to the largest pirate they had beside the late Quartermaster. He had been some kind of northern cage fighter or gladiator before a string of unfortunate instances had abandoned him in Fuldoon. He was as big as an ox, with a long, plaited braid of hair down his back. He was also as simple-hearted and as loyal as any man that Fatim could have wanted to meet – and that was why she had stationed him outside Oberra’s cabin, with orders to not let anyone in that wasn’t her.
“Sir,” Paulo grunted. Fatim wondered if she should be a little more worried how readily the crew said ‘sir’ to her. Do they see me as the replacement captain? A surge of some kind of feeling in her chest. Was it pride? Excitement? Or fear?
“No word from the captain today?” she asked.
A grunt in the negative from Paulo.
“Anyone else been down here?”
“A couple of the lads. Came to ask about the captain. I told ‘em he was sleeping,” Paulo said. Which was probably true. Fatim nodded.
“Good on yer, Paulo. When all this is over and done, I’ll buy you a barrel of ale myself.” She grinned, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Just make sure it’s not some Shattering Coast tripe.” Paulo moved aside as Fatim fished out the heavy ring of keys, opened the captain’s door, and slunk in.
“Captain? Oberra?” she murmured into the gloom.
The storm lantern overhead had long since burned out, and Fatim unhooked it from the ceiling joist as she stepped quickly to the captain’s bed. She dreaded what she might find when she bent to peer into the shadows – but it was still, only the form of the captain. She placed one hand over his brow, and then just in front of his lips. He was a little feverish, but he was still breathing.
“Captain!” she hissed, giving him a hard prod in the cheek.
A slurred mumble, and the man flopped to one side.
“Captain,” another hiss, another poke, but the man just rocked in his strange sleep.
It was no good. The man was clearly suffering from something – if only Fatim knew what? Would he ever regain consciousness? Or would he always be a drooling man baby from now on? Fatim cursed under her breath, as she moved to the table to begin drawing out the wick of the storm lantern and refilling its small reservoir of precious lamp oil. What if this was it for the captain? How would she break the news?
Fatim remembered the way that his eyes had shone, that fiery light seemed to burn from his hands, but not hurt him when he had faced off against the things possessing the crew. It had seemed too powerful, too incandescent for any mortal.
Sheesh, she groaned, thumping the desk. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
She looked at the captain’s quarters, willing him, miraculously, to wake up. He didn’t. She could question that new boy again. The one traveling with the old woman.
Things had started to go wrong when Oberra had captured her. Fatim scowled into the now yellowing glow of the lantern. The old woman had perverted his mind, made him head east instead of north.
“Then it had been her boy who had been here the night that the captain got ill…” Fatim’s heart grew colder and colder with every passing moment, in perverse tandem with the way that the light in the room grew brighter.
Yes, things would change as soon as they hit the coast, for sure.
22
‘There!’ the devil hissed inside Vekal’s ear.
The priest and the devil within lay in the leaf mould and dirt of the coast, looking down onto a small, secluded bay with heavily wooded cliffs around. From their vantage point, they could see that there was a huddle of buildings set back from the beach, and behind a straggle of trees.
“That must be Eremund’s hide-out,” Vekal said, wishing that he had time to at least grab more food and some sleep, before he attempted to steal a boat. So far, his plan consisted of nothing more than to steal a boat, and try to find this pirate ship that Meghan and Kariss, and Talon and Aldameda had been on. He hadn’t talked to the devil about what strange magic it had done to turn the boat around, or about the strange double-walking inside of Talon’s own senses that they had performed.
‘Some questions you do not want answered. Now sleep when you’re dead, we’ve got work to do, boy.’ The devil laughed cynically, releasing another burst of its infernal, enervating energy into his system. It was like a drug, Vekal thought – and he could see why so many might become addicted, or even obsessed by it. In an instant, all of his aches and pains were gone, and he felt surrounded with an elastic, warm glow of power and strength. His hunger vanished, and his thoughts became sharper, his senses bright.
“Well, seeing as I die so often, I shouldn’t have to wait too long…” Vekal managed to say, his feeling of power tweaking the corner of his usually austere lips into a smile.
‘That’s more like it!’ Ikrit exuded malefic joy.
Vekal’s senses were so sharp, in fact, that they could hear the hiss of the sand on the beach below as the waves surged. He could hear the cries of gulls nesting in the hidden places of the rocks. He could hear the rise and keen of storm winds, far to the north.
And voices, Vekal shook his head. But it was true. He could undoubtedly sense, just on the edge of his hearing, voices.
“Land ho!” it sounded like.
“What is that? Where is that?” Vekal tu
rned, craning his head past a tree root to look northward over the ocean.
There, against the darker wall of dark clouds. Was that a shape?
‘That, little priestling of mine, is our ticket out of here.’ The fiend started to burble with excitement.
Vekal frowned, continuing to watch the dark shape as it grew a little larger, a little brighter. It had a couple of storm lights on, one at the prow, one, presumably, at the stern. It was a thin, tall boat – a carrack maybe, or a caravel. It had full sails blowing strong, and it seemed to be racing towards their cove.
“Is that…” Vekal knew that it was, almost before he could voice the hope. But no. That is impossible, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
‘Don’t you know anything by now, after all we’ve been through?’ Ikrit crowed. ‘Nothing is impossible with a devil on your shoulder.’
Vekal scowled at the self-important pride, but he had to admit, that the devil appeared to have a point, at least. He had done many impossible things since being impregnated with evil. He had died. He had been reborn. He had drowned. He had healed people. He had gone to heaven.
Why then, as the ship bearing the only people that he cared for in the whole world, did he feel that this was going to be his greatest challenge?
The Sin Eater did not know the answer to this, but instead of wondering about it, he was already getting up, heedless of the dirt and the leaves that were stuck to him as he slipped down the rocks and past the trees to the coast. He would be there to greet them. He would be there to save them.
23
The stolen galleon of the Red Hand drove into the cove hard and fast, with a full wind filling its sails. As it grew larger against the sky, more of the ship became distinct, and Vekal began to see just how much it was already damaged. Sails were fraying at the edges, ropes trailed from the sides of broken railings, as if a battle had been waged across its decks.
“Something happened to it,” Vekal whispered as he scrambled down the rocks to the edge of the beach, suddenly wary. Should he go and wait on the beach, confident that Meghan and Kariss would see him? Would they even welcome him, after everything that he had done to their life?
