Sea of Thieves

by Chris Allcock

  Some granted great boons to whoever possessed them, such as an unnaturally long life or the ability to withstand burning heat. Other artifacts, most often ones that the owners wished to protect, were imbued with terrible curses that could freeze the soul to ice, or worse, if they were removed from their resting places. Mercia had been unable to translate a lot of what the song had to say about the dark nature of these curses, for which she was privately grateful.

  As the people up above worked to master magic, so too did they strive to cultivate a relationship with the mer below. Using their wisdom and their craft, they took the purest pearls and transformed them into magical earrings with which they might hear the merfolk song and be understood in kind. They constructed great undersea chambers to act as meeting places, pointing the way with more of the eye-catching paintings, and the two civilizations began to live in harmony.

  While both races were largely content to leave one another in peace, they would occasionally have reason to cooperate. The mer would uncover precious stones and gems in the very deepest parts of the ocean that the humans seemed to value, and it was but a little effort for them to be excavated and taken up to one of the meeting places as a gift. In return, the humans would use their weapons and their magic to help the merfolk deal with the problems they faced below the waves, like Old Mother or the Whispering Plague.

  It had seemed like a union that could last forever, and yet—here the song filled with sorrow—the merfolk’s song had begun to go unanswered. Jewels left in the chambers went unclaimed. The shadows of ships passed overhead no longer, and the merfolk had no understanding as to why. Saddened and concerned, they gathered together great search parties of their strongest and fastest, intending to swim beyond the boundaries of their kingdom in search of their land-dwelling friends.

  Those who returned spoke sadly of a choking mist and poisoned ocean that they had encountered far beyond the waters they called home, forcing them to retreat. Perhaps the humans had managed to brave the fog somehow and sail to the lands beyond, but there was no way to know for sure.

  Anguished by the loss of their friends, the merfolk kept the memory of those above alive within their song. They took the earrings and scattered them across the land in deep caves and rock pools where they would be safe and, one day, a human might stumble upon them. More years passed, and eventually, they became accustomed to being alone.

  “They told you all that in a song,” Rathbone said skeptically. “No wonder you were away so long.”

  “Well, they were excited to see us,” Mercia said defensively. “As I said, they had no real clue of what humans get up to on land. No idea how long we live, or that we have to try to pass on what we’ve learned to our children as best we can. They have their song, after all. It was hard to get them to understand the idea of forgetting something, or not knowing what others of your kind are up to.”

  “Well, at least now we know what happened to Douglas,” Shan said, thoughtfully. “Their curses, I mean. The idea that any random treasure you find could turn you into a pigeon or make your legs drop off is enough to turn a man honest.”

  Rathbone snorted. “Speaking of that oversized oaf . . .”

  Mercia nodded. “That was the next thing we learned, yes. When we first arrived in the Sea of Thieves, the merfolk caught wind of us soon after we made it through the Devil’s Shroud—that’s the poisoned water they mentioned. They all swarmed to the ancient meeting places and waited for us to arrive, which of course we never did. So they started following us, keeping their distance for the most part. But a couple of them got too curious . . .”

  “ . . . and decided to pop out of the sea and say hello to Douglas and his men,” Rathbone concluded. “Who not only couldn’t understand them, but didn’t see them as anything other than a sea monster to be paraded around back home. So they got themselves captured instead. Idiots.”

  “Those idiots, as you call them, would have had every right to take Ramsey and me hostage in retaliation,” Mercia said, hotly. “As far as they knew, all pirates are one and the same. They asked for our help anyway. They knew where the two mer that had been captured had been taken, but they rarely go far inland unless they have to.”

  “And so you agreed to rescue them,” Rathbone sighed. “Tell me that Ramsey, with his bleeding heart, remembered that we’re pirates, not philanthropists, and has now commanded them to lead us to the hoard of long-lost treasure and jewels we so richly deserve. After all, they are in our debt.”

  “It seems to me,” Shan said slowly, “that there’s a lot more that these merfolk can do for us than offer up another chest full of gold pieces just to fritter away in the pub. If what Mercia says is true and they never forget anything on account of their song, that means they must know the location of sunken shipwrecks, and more of those old temples, not to mention places we want to be avoiding so we don’t end up cursed ourselves.”

  “You’re both right,” Mercia said, diplomatically. “Although,” She paused, tipping her head this way and that as she listened to the singing that surrounded them. “Come on,” she said, standing suddenly and slapping her palms onto the table. “We’re here.”

  They could sense the change in the air as soon as they made their way above deck. This region of the Sea of Thieves was a dour and gloomy place that Shan had heard referred to as the Wilds, and it was easy to see why. The islands here were a far cry from the gently curving beaches and lush greenery of Thieves’ Haven, with straggling vegetation clinging to cruel, rough-hewn rocks that jutted out of the water at odd angles and made sailing treacherous. The air smelled of sulfur, and the water below them was cloudy and discolored as it reflected the murky sky. The breeze felt like a musky, fetid breath on their skin as they took in their surroundings.

  Almost at once, they spotted their destination. It would have been hard to miss.

  The view ahead was filled with enormous bones, monstrous in their scale and yet unmistakable as anything other than the remains of some great creature. When it was alive, however long ago that must have been, it would have been larger than any outpost. The Magpie’s Wing, under Ramsey’s command, was already sailing smoothly down what remained of its rib cage with room to spare.

  Even though he knew it was an irrational fear, Rathbone couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Every pirate had heard legends of those ships that had been swallowed up by enormous whales or other similarly massive sea creatures. Now here they were in the belly of the beast, or at least where its belly used to be. “What was this thing?” he breathed, not daring to speak too loudly.

  “Old Mother!” Ramsey called, cheerfully, not the least bit intimidated by the macabre surroundings. In fact, he rather seemed to be enjoying himself, adjusting course so that their ship emerged from between two bones and began to trace a route alongside the behemoth’s skull. The top part of the skull jutted sharply out of the water, and an immense eye socket stared at them accusingly as they sailed past.

  “Funny,” said Shan, “that’s almost what I’d have called it. Mercia mentioned that name just now. Was she something to do with the merfolk?”

  Ramsey nodded. “It used to eat ’em. Quite a lot of them from the sounds of it, waking up every century or so to feed and then settling back down to sleep again. Of course, they tried to fight it, but what good’s a blade going to be against the hide of a beast this big?”

  “Eventually, the merfolk went to the humans and begged them for help,” Mercia continued, gesturing over the deck at the swimmers. There was no frolicking or playing around now; the waterborne figures all looked deadly serious as they moved in pairs through the remains. “But not even the most powerful magical weapons would have been enough to deal a mortal blow to Old Mother, even if you could get close enough. Instead, the humans forged great chains to bind her and placed a curse on them. The links could never be broken, and the locks could never be picked. A thousand years could pass and you’d never see a single speck of rust.”

  “They snuck up to Old
Mother while she slept on this very spot,” Ramsey cut in, swinging the ship around so they could take in the view. “And they ran the chains around her body and through her tentacles, looping them through all the caverns and caves they could find down below. Chained her up, good and proper, so she could never chase ’em down again! They say it took another hundred years before she stopped thrashing about, and every night her roars would shake the sea. When she finally died, her young left her and went their separate ways, heading out to every corner of the sea.”

  “Young?” Rathbone snorted. “Say the word, Ramsey. I doubt there’s anything left I’m not prepared to believe today.”

  “Krakens, then,” Ramsey said mildly. “Well, Old Mother’s feasting days are over now, and that’s why we’re here.” He rested his hands on the wheel and took a deep breath, as if the words he was searching for had to be dredged up from deep inside him.

  “Maybe it was wishful thinking to believe the Sea of Thieves would be ours forever, and maybe it’s better that it’s not. It’s a place that pirates were destined to find. There’s adventure and plunder enough for all of us here, enough to last a lifetime, and we shouldn’t need to steal from each other. But if that’s the way it’s going to be, if there’s going to be a pecking order, then I’m the one who’s going to be doing the pecking!”

  Leaving the wheel to spin idly, Ramsey strode past the others and placed one gloved hand upon the capstan. “The ones who used to live here learned how to make magic work for them, and I reckon I can too. That starts today.” With a flourish, he allowed the anchor of the Magpie’s Wing to drop, bringing them to an abrupt halt.

  As Shan and Mercia moved to furl the sails, there was a sudden commotion all around them, a splashing and crashing so tumultuous that the ship rocked back and forth slightly. The merfolk were diving now, forming neat formations that darted into the watery deep with a sleek efficiency that presented a stark contrast to their earlier playfulness. Far below, they could see the silvery figures rushing this way and that.

  After a few moments with his mouth moving silently, Shan worked out why they’d come all this way. “They’re unchaining Old Mother,” he said, slowly. “It’s the chains, isn’t it? That’s what you’re after. That’s why we came all the way out here. Iron that never ages, and locks that can’t be broken.”

  Ramsey grinned at him, then hauled himself onto the ship’s ladder and down toward the water’s edge. As the others watched in bewilderment, a procession of merfolk made its way toward him, each handling a length of silvery metal that looked as shiny and newly forged now as it had when it was made, all those years before. Grasping a few links in his hand, Ramsey hefted himself back up the ladder with a grunt of effort until he was back aboard, at which point he began to haul. “Don’t just stand there, you lot!” he snapped, and together they began to heave more of the cursed metal aboard.

  Finally, with the Magpie’s Wing now noticeably lower in the water, they stood around great coils of hastily piled chain, all of which was still icy cold from the centuries it had spent beneath the waves. Looking heartily satisfied with his unusual cargo, Ramsey moved to the prow of the ship and gave another solemn bow to the waiting merfolk, who were now arranged respectfully behind their leader. At once the song began anew, though only Mercia could discern the words, and even she was uncertain as to its meaning:

  The bonds of old agreement have been raised on high

  And though we swim from shadow of our debt

  Our hearts sing at reunion with a joyful cry

  Your kin we shall continue to abet.

  And that seemed to be the end of it, for a deafening series of splashes marked dozens of figures diving back into the water and making for friendlier seas. Within moments, the merfolk’s song had faded into the distance, and the crew was alone once more.

  “Locks and chains,” Rathbone said, dully, his voice hollow as he broke the sudden silence. “All this work for locks and chains.” He turned as if sleepwalking, moving stiffly and sightlessly, and went below decks without a word.

  “We are sure they’re really unbreakable, aren’t we?” Mercia asked. “I mean, I know they chained up an entire kraken, but are we sure that the magic hasn’t, I don’t know, faded or something?”

  “They look fine enough, but we won’t know for sure until we get back to Thieves’ Haven and I can get ’em nice and hot on the forge,” said Shan, thoughtfully. “I can already think of a few uses, though, as long as I can reshape the metal. I mean, the Wing’s anchor—”

  “No,” said Ramsey, forcefully. “You’ll have your chance to tinker, Shan, but I’ve got plans for this little lot. By the time we’re finished, no pirate will ever be able to steal from us again.”

  With the heavy chains stowed in Ramsey’s cabin for safekeeping, as no one particularly wanted to drag them down all the way to the hold, the Magpie’s Wing set sail with her most unique plunder yet. The ship cast a long shadow over the ancient bones as it sped across the waves, the sound of a celebratory shanty washing around what was left of the ancient beast.

  It was a merry tune, and it carried down to the deepest, darkest crevices in the seabed, where a lone form lurking in Old Mother’s shadow had woken. The merfolk had disturbed the slumber of ages, and now one wrathful, golden eye, milky and crusted with barnacles, watched the little ship keenly as it moved away.

  The sound of the music, the scent of the wood in the water, and the heat of the bodies were considered carefully. All were remembered. There had been too much time spent sleeping to give chase just yet, but the ship would not be forgotten. Smaller prey would do for now, and then, once its strength had returned . . .

  Down in the blackness, the one-eyed form began to stir.

  LARINNA

  Larinna’s back burned so furiously as she pelted up the stairs with a bucket in either hand, she was surprised the water she was hauling hadn’t already started to bubble. The buckets’ contents were sloshed over the side of the ship, and she was on the move again, ducking past Ned, who had abandoned his own buckets and was now bailing using an enormous wooden cask. His eyes were glazed and his muscles bulged as he staggered up the stairs with gallons of water in his arms. She’d never known one man could be that strong.

  Even with Ned’s herculean efforts, though, they were losing the battle to save the Unforgiven. Water was still pouring into the ship’s lower deck through a handful of breaches in the hull, and without the supplies to permanently repair the damage, there was no way to stem the tide for long.

  Larinna had stuffed everything she could think of into the gaps, including one of Faizel’s gaudy shirts, but if they were going to save the Unforgiven, they needed decent wooden planks to do a proper job of it. In the meantime, all she and Ned could do was run an endless, Sisyphean loop up and down between the decks, scooping up all the water they could carry and sending it back into the sea where it belonged.

  With Faizel still out cold from the blow he’d received, Adelheid was attempting to sail the ship on her own. She was clinging grimly to the helm, trying to avoid contact with the larger waves that would send yet more water into the hold and hasten their demise. She hadn’t said where they were heading, and although Larinna was vaguely aware of some high cliffs coming into view, she was too focused on bailing to care much about their destination.

  Once again, she staggered below to where the water was waiting to meet her, filling up her buckets to their brims before hauling them up to the deck. Again. And again. And again. She was back below deck, noting grimly that the lapping water had crept up farther and was starting to slop across the floor of the map room when the ship lurched so savagely that she stumbled, spilling all the water she’d scooped up back into the flooded room. Recovering herself and swearing, Larinna scrambled to refill them, wondering if Adelheid had beached the ship deliberately.

  As soon as she reached the stairs, she knew that something had changed drastically. She had staggered above decks not into the warmth of the afterno
on sun but into the clammy dampness of a large cavern. In the few moments she’d been below, Adelheid had sailed them into some sort of shelter, and the impact she’d felt was the prow of the Unforgiven as it struck the rocky wall, bringing them to a sudden stop.

  Adelheid herself was already wrestling with the gangplank, creating a causeway to a rocky ledge on which junk and detritus had been piled. “You keep bailing, Ned!” she bellowed with all her might, her voice echoing around the high cave and disturbing a pair of nesting bats, who squeaked and flittered away in irritation. “Larinna, with me!”

  Though she felt about ready to collapse, Larinna obeyed, moving rather less steadily than she’d like across the gangplank. Adelheid was already rooting through the old barrels and crates that littered the smooth rocks, and Larinna joined her in a search for the supplies. “Found nails!” she gasped, feeling the cold metal sliding between her questing fingers as she groped around at the bottom of a barrel, seizing a handful and caring not that a few stuck painfully into her palm. Cuts would heal.

  “Not much good by themselves,” Adelheid grumbled. Upon discovering a stout, if rusty, ax leaning against the cave wall, she rounded on the crate she’d just finished searching and attacked it savagely in the hope she might fashion it into the sturdy planks they so desperately needed. Instead, the wet and rather ancient wood simply collapsed in on itself, briefly eclipsing her in a cloud of dust and mold.

  There was an ominous creak from behind as the Unforgiven began to list dangerously. Frantic now, the pair joined forces, tugging with all of their might at an old tarpaulin. Beneath it laid the supplies they needed, left behind by some unknown adventurer whose loss would most certainly be their gain. The question now would be whether they could act quickly enough to save the Unforgiven before the water she’d already taken on sent her broaching sideways, at which point this island would be her final resting place.