Tyler's Dream

by Matthew Butler

  Nothing could have prepared him for what lay await above deck … or what was left of it. The mast remained. All else – the rails, staircases, and pilot’s cabin – was badly smashed or had entirely disappeared.

  The perpetrator of all this carnage, the sea, was utterly becalmed. The sun was bright, and there was not a puff of wind; it was as if the ocean had exhausted itself and was now spent for the day. Not so the sailors. The deck was a swarm of busy, black-eyed crew members sweeping, hammering, and securing this and that in a tremendous hurry.

  “Tyler! I was just coming down to see you.” Thorfinn strode across the deck with an entourage of four or five unshaven seamen hurrying in their captain’s wake. Tyler smiled as the commander slapped him on the shoulder with a bear-like arm. “But lad, what happened to your eye? Your lid’s swollen as large as my fist! If some member of the crew has hit you, I’ll have them whipped.”

  “It was my fault, Thorfinn. I fell during the storm.”

  “Last night was a show, wasn’t it?” Thorfinn puffed out moodily. “I was worried for you. It’s dangerous walking about if you haven’t spent your life on a ship like the rest of us. I’m glad Kol sent you down to your room. I’ve already thanked him for it.” Tyler kept his peace, and Thorfinn mistook the pause for one of silent agreement. “It’s strange – three men were lost to the night. It was a fierce storm, but we do not usually have so many casualties.”

  “May I ask their names?” Tyler asked as sadly as he could.

  “Yes, although you will not like the news,” said Thorfinn. “The first was Heidrek Nailfist, who works in the galley; goodness knows what he was doing out on deck. The other two were your cabin mates, Furufis Moonback, and Ottar Blackclaw. They were good men. I’m sorry if you got to know them well.”

  Ottar is dead. Kol must have had him killed when he went back up last night, perhaps as revenge for interfering with Tyler’s murder … or to keep him quiet.

  “Tyler, are you all right?” said Thorfinn’s with concern. “I’m sorry, you obviously became attached to these men.”

  Tyler nodded weakly. His eye caught Kol, not more than ten paces away, untangling a knot of rope whilst eyeing him blankly.

  “I’m afraid that lives were not all we lost,” Thorfinn went on. “My other two ships are also gone, missing to the waves. It may be some days before we find them.”

  Tyler felt a faint surge of fear for Varkon.

  “Thorfinn! Ship dead ahead!” bellowed a call from the crow’s nest.

  “Is it The Albatross’s Wing or The Seal? Are they in good shape?”

  “It’s not one of ours, Captain. It’s called The Sparrow on its side.”

  They drew closer to the wreck that was The Sparrow. Tyler had been let off any duty by Thorfinn; the commander refused to allow him to work with his eye in its current state. Tyler perched himself at the prow of The Eye of the World to watch their approach.

  It was a large ship, perhaps even superior to The Eye of the World, but the damage wrought to Thorfinn’s vessel by the storm was nothing compared to The Sparrow. On such a beautiful day as this, where the sea swirled with gentle turquoise currents and lemon-backed turtles, and the blue sky emptied of every cloud, to see such destruction was unsettling.

  As they neared, the particular details of The Sparrow’s wreckage became increasingly apparent. The ship’s main mast had snapped at its base, so its tip dragged at the water as though limp. Tattered streams of sail still fluttered from it. Its hull was almost entirely obliterated, so it was a wonder buoyancy was maintained. Yet despite this, the ship’s name was undamaged and was printed in bold white letters across its hold. A piece of ripped sail fluttered for a moment across the straight-backed letters.

  Tyler suddenly shivered as a vague sense of primordial dread blew over him like an unexpected wind. As though in response to this uncertainty, he felt suddenly annoyed at Haranio. The old shamif had locked himself away in his cabin for several days now, his longest stretch yet. It would have been comforting to talk to a friend.

  Great chunks of The Sparrow’s deck had been ripped open, as though a giant beast had gutted it with its claws. Jagged planks spiked outwards like the ribcage of a skeleton. Debris bobbed lazily on the ocean’s tranquil surface: kegs, chairs, and thousands of fractured planks burdened the surrounding waves and bumped against The Eye of the World as it ploughed cautiously closer.

  “Hello?” Thorfinn’s voice thundered across the chasm separating the two ships, echoing off into the emptiness of the ocean. “Is anyone there?”

  There was no movement or sound in return.

  “The ship’s cursed,” hissed Orio to no one in particular.

  Thorfinn turned to face the creature. “Enough. The men are afraid as it is.”

  Orio winced at the rebuke and cowered, his long white fingers working nervously and small eye ticking in its socket.

  “Is there no one there?” Thorfinn roared again.

  The Sparrow kept its silence.

  “I’m going over. Odinn, Tanar, come with me,” ordered Thorfinn. “The rest of you will stay here. Kol, you’re in charge until I get back. If anything happens, promise me you’ll take the ship and head straight to Ithrim. Your oath.”

  Kol bowed his head. “You have it, Captain.”

  “Thank you, old friend,” Thorfinn said with a nod. “There may be food and water aboard The Sparrow. The Gods know we could use a piece of luck!”

  “Don’t go.”

  Two dozen heads turned as one. It took Tyler a moment to realise that he was the one who had spoken, and he swallowed nervously as he realised he would now have to explain. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  Orio sniggered in the background, and several other members of the crew turned away to hide their laughs.

  “Tyler, there’ll be nothing aboard but food and rats, I’ll wager!” Thorfinn said with a wink. Tyler’s face reddened as the commander strode away.

  Not knowing what else to do, Tyler watched the boarding party from the prow. Thorfinn, Odinn, and Tanar approached The Sparrow on a rowing boat. They tied their little vessel to the smashed mast and boarded by scaling a “ladder” of broken planks to disappear into the belly of the hold.

  An irrational dread slowly built in Tyler. It was as though a terrified voice was crying out for his attention, but thus far the words were distant and unintelligible. He closed his eyes to salvage some peace.

  Corpses piled to the roof. Flies swarm and bloat his vision so that he cannot breathe for fear of choking. A figure sits cackling in a darkened corner.

  “Lad! Are you all right?” Someone was shaking him roughly.

  Still groggy from his horrid dream, Tyler batted the hands away. Everyone on the ship was in grave danger. He had just borne witness to what could only be a premonition of pure evil. “Where’s Thorfinn?” he asked.

  “The captain is at the stern with the survivor they found on The Sparrow.”

  Who had they found? What evil had they invited into their midst?

  He rushed down to the back of the ship as fast as he could, bumping into men going about their jobs and tripping over debris on the deck. “Thorfinn!” he yelled, as he spotted the captain, who was standing at the centre of an oddly still crowd. They were staring at a figure lying on the deck. “Thorfinn, we are all in danger. We must—” He glanced down at the figure on the deck, and suddenly he was falling though the deck, though the ocean, the earth, the world. In the same instant he was back on the deck of The Eye of the World, staring at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he was lost for words. She appeared to be unconscious. Her hands were limply placed to either side of her gorgeous physique. Long strands of shifting blonde hair fell about her powdered skin.

  “Land ho!” came the shout from the crow’s nest.

  The woman’s eyes opened. They were twin pools of brilliant blue. E
ach held a broken piece of sky. “Where am I?” she whispered sleepily, rising to her elbow.

  “A boat. I mean a ship,” a starry-eyed sailor blurted before he was silenced by a swift gaze from Kol.

  “Let me help you.” It was Irrian, and he lifted the damsel carefully to her feet. “What happened to your ship, The Sparrow?”

  The woman put a delicate hand to her head as she frowned. “I was on a journey with my father. There was a storm, I think.”

  “Do you have a name?” asked Irrian.

  “Ursula.” The lady looked at Tyler. He stepped back as though he had been dealt a blow to the head, and then he was stepping off a rowing boat and into the cool shallows of a beach. He looked around with surprise. The sudden end to the rocking of the ship came as an unexpected blow to his natural balance.

  “Well, are you going to help me off this glorified bucket?” Haranio was sitting in the rowing boat that Tyler had just left. It was the first Tyler had seen of him in several days.

  “Haranio?” said Tyler with confusion. “How did we get here? Where are we?”

  Haranio looked at him strangely. “What are you talking about, Tyler?”

  “I don’t remember how we got here,” Tyler said with rising panic.

  “You’re not making any sense. We got here by rowing, and you did most of the work, so should remember it better than anybody. Now, I’m stuck in this boat, and you’re being infuriating. Help me off this thing, would you?”

  Tyler shook his head and tried to calm his nerves. Perhaps that kick to his head last night was more serious than he’d previously thought. He helped Haranio onto the beach, noticing as he did how worryingly thin the old man had become. Haranio bore a gaunt, hungry look, and barely any flesh hung to his starved cheekbones.

  “Are you sure you’re eating properly, Haranio?” said Tyler with a sudden concern. “You’re wasting away!”

  “I’ll be fine. But this journey by sea has not been kind to me lad, that is obvious.” Haranio grimaced. “It will be good to feel the solid earth beneath my feet for a time.”

  With that Haranio immediately transformed into a snow lion and padded into the jungle in his solitary way. Tyler felt a faint twinge of sadness for whatever friendly island creature was soon about to meet its violent and surprising end at the claws of a ravenous carnivore.

  He noticed all the members of the crew were bustling around setting up tents and preparing fires on the beach. Ursula was strolling along the shore with Irrian. She had hiked up her skirt so that the water flicking across her ankles did not wet the fabric.

  Tyler rubbed his eyes. He felt terribly disorientated.

  “What a paradise!” said Thorfinn, who appeared by his side. “How fortunate we are to have found such an oasis in this desert of sea. “Come exploring with me, Tyler. I want to find out just how large this place really is!”

  Tyler blinked, and suddenly he was standing on what appeared to be the other side of the island with Thorfinn, who was pointing to the verdant, conical hill squatted in the island’s centre. White birds swung in arcs about it and voiced long, wheeling cries.

  “You see them?” Thorfinn was saying, gesturing towards the birds. “Albatrosses. It is said that if you kill one by accident, your life will be plagued by ill fortune unless you wear the dead bird around your neck for the rest of your days.”

  “Thorfinn, something’s happening to me.” The captain looked at him, waiting on Tyler to elaborate. “I have no idea how we travelled to this side of the island. I’m frightened.” Tyler stopped and frowned, remembering his intuition back on the ship that he should warn Thorfinn of something. He simply couldn’t remember what.

  “Be calm, boy. You’re shaking,” said Thorfinn. “Tell me exactly what you remember.”

  Tyler was about to reply when he looked around and realised that the stars were out. It felt like it was very late at night, and it was cold. Over Thorfinn’s shoulder there was an oar sticking out of the sand in the middle of the beach, the paddle pointed to the sky. A broad palm tree leaf tickled his cheek. He blinked and reeled with confusion. Thorfinn was nowhere to be seen. In fact, he was no longer standing on the beach at all, but the middle of a rainforest of giant, wet trees. Am I going mad? He shut his eyes as though this would somehow steady his thoughts.

  Tyler opened his eyes again. He was chained to a slab of hard stone set on an empty plateau so that he could not move. Someone was watching him – he could feel it. Unseen eyes. He struggled against the chains, but they held firm. His panic grew until he was crying out and pulling hard against the chains in terror. The eyes saw his every movement. His every thought. Everything. Everything.

  Someone was touching his hand. Tyler sat bolt upright and thrashed out, gripping the person’s throat. A moment later, when his eyes had properly focused, he realised it was Ursula, and he jerked his hands away as though scalded.

  “Ursula!” he said. “I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?”

  But Ursula was smiling. Although there were pink finger marks on her neck from where Tyler had grabbed her, she made no sign that she was in pain. “I’m fine,” she said gently. “Why are you out here in the jungle?”

  “I’m not sure,” answered Tyler truthfully.

  Ursula laughed, obviously mistaking this answer for some sort of wit. “What’s your name?”

  “Tyler.”

  “Yes, I remember seeing you on The Eye of the World.”

  Ursula looked even lovelier than yesterday, surrounded by the swinging trees that tinted the light into an emerald green halo around her head.

  “This is perhaps going to sound a little strange, but I really don’t know how I got here. Where exactly are we?” asked Tyler.

  Ursula laughed. “Perhaps you had a little too much to drink at last night’s celebrations? The camp’s right over there,” she said, pointing. “Just beyond those trees. This morning I thought I would do some exploring in the forest, and that’s when I came across you. Look, why don’t you come with me for a walk? I’m sure it’ll help to clear your head.”

  Tyler started to decline the proposal, but as he started to speak, he realised he was already strolling through the island’s trees with Ursula holding his hand and leading him forward. Tyler looked back over his shoulder, as if trying to gauge how far they had come.

  “Ursula, where are we going?”

  Ursula didn’t turn her head or pause in her stride.

  All at once the trees broke their monotony to indulge a large space. A flight of ancient stone steps led to a doorway cut into the sheer side of the island’s central hill. Ursula released Tyler’s hand and swept up the flight of stairs, hiking her tattered skirt to her waist as she did so. When she reached the top, she turned at the top with a delightful twist. “Come on, Tyler!” she beckoned, and then she skipped through the doorway.

  “Ursula, wait!” Tyler cried, but it was too late. Ursula had already passed over the threshold. He paused, unsure what to do. His memory lapses were making it difficult to think straight.

  There was a blinding flash. He was standing at the entrance to a vast room lit by millions of red candles. Ursula was dressed in a long robe of ruby and white, and she stretched effortlessly on a carved ebony sofa in the centre of the room. She beckoned with a long finger, and Tyler stumbled forward to her, his mind whirling.

  “Where are we?” said Tyler.

  “We’re playing a game, Tyler.” Ursula’s eyes twinkled. “Isn’t it fun?” She reached up and playfully grabbed Tyler by his wrists. Her smile faded, and she let slip a gasp and pulled her hands away, clasping her fingers as her jaw worked with pain.

  “I’m sorry,” Tyler said. “Did I hurt you?”

  But it was not Ursula anymore. In her place sat an old woman, her eyes glazed over with white cataracts and a smile devoid of teeth.

  Tyler choked and took a step backwards, tri
pping over the table in his horror. For a brief moment his eye looked upward to see dozens of oars floating in defiance of gravity. The ceiling behind them was decorated with giant, painted dolphins. Reality itself seemed to be contracting towards them so that none of the objects in the room retained a steady shape.

  “Ursula?” It was Irrian, standing at the door.

  “Irrian!” Tyler cried. “Thank God. Help me, please!”

  He stumbled towards Thorfinn’s son, his heart filling with relief. Ursula’s voice purred like syrup from behind.

  “Irrian, help me! Tyler’s turned mad!”

  Tyler glanced around. The beautiful Ursula, the one who had woken sleepily upon the deck of The Eye of the World, was back. She was lying weakly back against the couch and pointing accusingly at Tyler while clutching her white dress. It was stained red with blood. A scattering of oars littered the carpet – hundreds of them. Am I going mad? Tyler wondered.

  The room. The rotted smell. Swarming flies.

  The horrible crouched figure laughed.

  There was something in his hand; it was hard and cool. Tyler looked down with confusion. He was holding a dagger, and its blade was dripping with fresh blood.

  Irrian hit him from behind with a full tackle to the waist. Tyler crashed to the floor, the knife clattering from his grasp.

  “You brute!” Irrian yelled. “You’ve murdered Ursula!” He ploughed his fist into Tyler’s stomach. The wind was knocked out of Tyler with the blow. Behind Irrian the Ursula-creature was cackling, her wrinkled features now restored to their repulsiveness.

  “Irrian—” Tyler tried.

  “After all my father has done for you!” Irrian shouted as he cracked his fist across Tyler’s cheek so that his neck snapped sharply to the side. Then the man wound up for another blow.

  Tyler slammed his knee up as hard as he could. It connected squarely with Irrian’s groin, and Irrian roared with agony and rolled away. There were now hundreds of thousands of oars popping in and out of existence in the air all around him.