In the morning, Malock was awoken early by Banika. He and Vashnas were cuddled together under his boat cloak, and all he wanted to do was sleep. So when Banika shook him slightly, muttering in a low voice, “Captain, wake up, there's something you have to see,” Malock waved his hand at her and said, in a half-asleep voice, “No. I'm sleeping. Bother me later.”
“It's urgent,” said Banika. “She says she's not going to wait any longer if she can't see you.”
Malock looked up at Banika and blinked. “She?”
Banika nodded. “A woman. Not just a woman, but ... well, I think you should see for yourself.”
Malock got up when she said that, but carefully so that Vashnas wouldn't wake up. He pulled on his boat cloak, wrapped the blanket more tightly around Vashnas's sleeping form, and followed Banika out of the stateroom, stepping over or around the other sleeping sailors who had taken up residence in this place.
The morning air outside the stateroom was crisp and cold. He shook violently when he felt it, but he got over it quickly when he spotted the woman Banika had spoken of standing at the stump where the mainmast had stood. Though she wore furs now, Malock had no trouble recognizing her at all, her very appearance spiking his anger to new levels.
“Hanarova,” said Malock as he and Banika stopped several feet from her. “Did the Mechanical Goddess send you to recapture me and Jenur?”
The katabans grinned. “Nah. The Mechanical Goddess has better things to do than kill a couple of disrespectful mortals with inflated egos.”
Malock scowled. “Are you working for those other gods now? Because if you are—”
“Nope,” said Hana, shaking her head. “Those three left when you guys escaped. They said the Mechanical Goddess let you free. Said they're not going to speak to her ever again, but they said that before. I imagine they'll be back in a couple hundred years when they fail to catch any mortals on their own and need something to sate their hunger.”
Malock cocked his head to the side. “Then why are you here? Are you going to kick us while we're down? If so, you picked the perfect opportunity to do so.”
Hana laughed. “Wrong again. The Mechanical Goddess didn't realize you were a Chosen One of Kano and feels rather awful for almost feeding you to her siblings. Though Kano is a northern goddess and she is a southern, she and Kano have generally gotten along pretty well. Therefore, the Mechanical Goddess has sent me to oversee a group of automatons who will repair your ship and make it better than new.”
Malock's eyes widened and Banika actually gasped.
“No need to be so astonished,” said Hana. “My mistress is a very generous goddess. She would rather that your boat not stink up the waters around her island anyway.”
Malock shook his head. “No way. This has got to be a gigantic joke. You're going to reveal that you're actually going to kill us. Right?”
“If you're so skeptical, take a look over yonder,” said Hana, gesturing with her head over to the starboard side. “Seeing is believing, isn't it?”
Malock, feeling as skeptical as Hana seemed to think he was, walked over to the starboard with Banika by his side and looked overside. He was surprised by what he saw.
Floating in the water by the Iron Wind's side was a large platform that had a crane, several tons of wood, several large crates, and many other things resting upon its surface. Standing upon it were two or three dozen automatons, all identical in appearance. Around their waists were tied tool bags, with hammers, saws, and a variety of other tools Malock couldn't even name. They all stood at attention, like soldiers awaiting orders from their general.
“It's not a joke,” said Malock, resting his hands on the railing. “I can't believe it.”
Hana was by his side instantly, wisps of smoke rising from her hair like she had teleported. “As I said, my mistress is very generous. We also have food, water, clothes, and medical supplies for your entire crew.”
Malock looked at Hana skeptically. “What's the catch?”
Hana leaned against the bulwarks, looking completely innocent. “What catch? Can't you accept that some people are just innately generous, expecting nothing in return for their kind deeds?”
“I've seen too much on my voyage to accept that,” said Malock. “Gods usually expect something in return for any generous acts on their part. So what does your mistress want? Eternal servitude from me? Half of the crew so she can feed them to her friends or even eat them herself? Sexual favors of some kind?”
Hana grimaced. “That last one is kind of icky, but you're wrong on all fronts. All the Mechanical Goddess expects from you is that you make it to World's End. Unlike the other southern gods, she doesn't play politics and has no reason to attempt to thwart Kano's plan.”
“Kano's plan?” said Malock. “What's that?”
“No idea,” said Hana, shrugging. “She simply mentioned it in passing to me and didn't see fit to explain it. I'm used to it. She usually mentions things offhand like that and I've gotten used to not getting a straight answer from her or any answer at all when I ask.”
Malock stroked his chin. “Well, if this truly is as you say it is, then tell your mistress thank you for her generosity. On these dark seas, I didn't think there existed beings who could be even half as generous as she is.”
“She normally isn't this kind,” said Hana. “The ship repair platform is usually reserved for her own ship, but she hasn't had any reason to travel recently so she is allowing you to use it. All that I ask is that you keep your crew from getting in the way while the automatons work.”
“I suppose that is a reasonable request,” said Malock. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Banika, go and tell the rest of the crew—”
But Banika was already gone.
He looked back at Hana and asked, “Have you had experience overseeing the repairing of a ship before?”
“Of course,” said Hana. “These automatons aren't difficult to boss around, you know. If they had any sentience in them at all, I'd say they even enjoy it. Now you should probably go back to your stateroom so you don't get in the way, either.”
But Malock didn't leave. He stayed out of the way, of course, but he believed it was pure insanity to assume that the Captain of the ship would simply let someone else work on it without him at least watching. He was especially concerned about the crane, which looked large enough to smash straight through the hull of the Iron Wind without much effort.
To his everlasting astonishment, however, Malock really didn't need to supervise them at all. Hana showed a surprising amount of leadership, ordering the automatons about like she did this sort of thing every day. She didn't speak Divina when she did this, but rather an odd language that the automatons had spoken earlier. All he knew was that he was happy that she actually seemed to be doing some good.
The automatons operated the crane and repaired the ship with expert precision. They installed a new mainmast, complete with sail, and repaired the sail on the foremast that had fallen off. It took them hours to repair the port, but when they did, it looked like it hadn't been ripped off at all. Malock would have sworn up and down that it was all magic, but when he thought about it, he couldn't recall seeing any spells cast.
They did all of that in just a few hours and after that they started to lift in the crates full of food. Malock personally inspected each one, just to make sure they weren't full of poison or hostile automatons or something even worse, but he discovered nothing but delicious food completely fit for consumption by both humans and aquarians. The medicine looked legitimate, too, but he was not a doctor so he couldn't be sure. The clothes all appeared to be fit for people to wear, too, and there was a variety for summer and winter times.
When the last crate was lowered onto the deck of the ship and the automatons began moving it down to the hold, Malock walked up to Hana and said, “Okay. Why do you have crates full of food and water and medicine and clothes for mortals? The automatons don't seem to need any of it and I can't see the Mechan
ical Goddess sitting down to eat a nice roast duck for dinner.”
Hana smiled. “Remember the food we had laid out on the table back in the castle? Sometimes we actually let the mortals eat it. And as a katabans, I do need some of this stuff. Not all of it, obviously, but quite a bit of it is necessary for my physical form. I can only hope this is enough for your crew.”
Malock shook his head. “It's more than enough. How can we ever repay your mistress?”
“Like I said, all the Mechanical Goddess expects of you is for you to reach World's End and see Kano,” said Hana. “It's that simple.”
Malock frowned. “It's never that simple with gods. You should know that, having served the Mechanical Goddess for as long as you have.”
“I've found quite the opposite, actually,” said Hana. “Sometimes, it is that simple. You forget that the southern gods in general tend to be less—how would I put this?—materialistic than their northern counterparts. They're a lot more simple, more in tune with nature. They rarely get involved in godly politics and generally have no patience for complicated plans that are designed only to get back at someone they don't like.”
“Right,” said Malock. “Unlike the northern gods, when these guys want someone dead, they just go and do it, rather than come up with some convoluted plan that may or may not work.”
“Exactly,” said Hana. “You seem to understand the southern gods very well despite having lived up north your whole life.”
“You figure them out pretty quickly,” said Malock. “Because if you don't, they'll kill you.”
“Of course,” said Hana. “Well, I do believe we have the entire ship repaired and your supplies restocked. I should be leaving now and I'll be taking the automatons with me.”
Malock looked overside at the automatons standing on the repair float and said, “Are you sure we can't borrow a few? Just a few, you know. Not forever.”
Hana put one foot on the bulwarks and threw him a smirk over her shoulder. “Sorry, but the Mechanical Goddess is very protective of her children. She would never let you have any of them, not even one. She's not that generous.”
Malock sighed. “Okay. You may leave, then. We may have to stay in Stalf for a few more days, though, until most of the crew is feeling up to going south again. Is that all right?”
“Oh, I doubt my mistress would be very bothered by that,” said Hana, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Although, I'd suggest you leave as soon as you can. There's a pretty bad storm coming in a few days and if you can't leave now, well ...”
“I get it,” said Malock. “We'll leave as soon as possible.”
“All right,” said Hana. “Then this is good bye, Prince Malock. May the final leg of your voyage give you more peace than the last leg did.”
With that, Hana leaped off the bulwarks and landed on the crane with practiced ease. Half an hour later, the automatons who had taken the last crate below deck returned to the surface and joined their brethren on the repair float. The float then zoomed away from the Iron Wind to Stalf, skirting the ice ring and heading for the back of the island.
As the repair float zoomed away, Malock turned and looked back at the newly-repaired Iron Wind and smiled. Maybe things were going to get better for them after all.
***
Chapter Nineteen
To say that the rest of the crew was ecstatic about this (and mournful that they couldn't take any of the automatons with them) was like saying Kano is the Goddess of the Sea. Those sailors who could still walk, ran around the ship, gaping at the new mainmast, testing the stability of the new port, and tasting the new food. Ranof in particular was pleased at the new supply of medicine they got, which turned out to be exactly what they needed.
But as Malock had predicted, the ship remained in Stalf Bay for another three days. The fact was, even with all of the new supplies, the crew still needed time to rest up and heal. This bothered Malock because the drive to reach World's End had reignited in his soul, stronger than ever, but he was patient.
Soon, however, most of the crew got well enough that Malock decided it was time to ship up and head out. This meant reassigning certain crew members to different tasks, especially the fishing crew, which he disbanded when he realized they had enough food that they no longer needed the trawl anymore. The surviving members of the fishing crew greeted that particular announcement with joy, which took Malock by surprise as he hadn't realized just how much they disliked that particular task. Even Kinker seemed happy about it and he was the only one who actually liked to fish.
When Malock learned that Deddio had been one of the sailors killed in the Tusked God's assault, however, he immediately understood why the other fishermen were glad they were no longer doing that task.
With slightly more than eighty crew members left, at least half of which were still recovering from the attack, the Iron Wind set sail south, in the direction that Malock could feel Kano pulling him. Rather than spend all of his time cooped up in his stateroom, however, Malock went around helping the crew in whatever ways he could, from helping Arisha Frag prepare breakfast in the morning to steering the ship with the coxswain in the afternoon and swabbing the poop with cleaning crew.
He did this for a couple of reasons. First, the lack of healed sailors meant that the crew needed every hand they could get if they were going to keep the ship in shape; that meant that Malock had to help. Besides, it allowed him to get to know his crew better, a fault of his he realized after his talk with Kinker. The crew was at first a little hesitant about letting him work alongside them, but they eventually relented and now no one found it strange when Malock was found throwing out uneaten food or helping to adjust the sails to the wind.
Furthermore, Malock needed some more time away from Vashnas. She was doing much better, well enough to go out and help around the ship herself. Nonetheless, Malock still had a hard time figuring out exactly how he felt about her. She was certainly a good aquarian, one whom he loved deeply, and yet ... he had the strangest feeling that there was more to her than met the eye.
In fact, he began to notice that the further south they went, the odder she acted. He at first thought that the change in weather—it was gradually getting warmer the further they sailed from Stalf—might explain her strange behavior, but when he noticed that the rest of the aquarians acted the same as they always had, he realized that something else was going on. She volunteered to be the new lookout, which he found worrying but which he could not dissuade her from doing.
Whenever she came down to eat, she spent a lot of time sitting by herself, muttering into her food, occasionally looking around at the rest of the crew like she couldn't trust them. Malock had no idea what that meant and the few times he tried to eat with her were so unpleasant that he eventually gave up, choosing instead to spend mealtimes in the stateroom, where he often ate alone, thanks to the wounded sailors who had stayed there now fully recovered from their injuries.
He had no idea what their next destination was, mostly because Vashnas hadn't told him yet. He didn't know how close they were to World's End, either; again because Vashnas refused to tell him. He had no idea why. After Stalf, surely they needed every bit of information they could get about possible future threats. Didn't she understand that?
Then again, when Malock remembered how well Ikadori Island and Stalf had gone with Vashnas's advice, he wondered if maybe it was best that she didn't tell them what was coming up next. He figured they could take whatever it was. After all, if it was truly terrible, then Vashnas would undoubtedly have told him about it. Wouldn't she?
That was a question that haunted his mind as the days turned warm.
-
Though the fishing crew was disbanded, Kinker and Jenur still spent a lot of time together, if not at work then at mealtimes and whenever they had free time. Jenur told Kinker all about what happened on Stalf whenever they weren't working and he was absolutely astonished by what he heard. He was especially intrigued by how Jenur and Malock escaped
.
It was just after lunch, before they had to go back to the galley to help Arisha (which was what most of the fishing crew was doing nowadays), that Jenur told Kinker about this. They stood near the new mainmast, having just finished a wonderful lunch of roast duck and green peas.
“So a trapdoor opened up underneath your feet and you guys went sliding down a tunnel that led you outside?” Kinker said, just to make sure he understood it correctly.
“Yep,” said Jenur. “We have no idea how that happened or why. We didn't press any buttons or do anything to make it open. I think the Mechanical Goddess must have freed us.”
“But why would she do that?” said Kinker. “I thought Malock said that the southern gods love to eat humans.”
“Why would she repair our ship?” Jenur shot back. “I think she wants us to do something. She has her own agenda and she can't complete it if our ship is destroyed.”
“What might that agenda be?” said Kinker. “Do you think she has a spy on board the ship, like Tinkar did?”
Jenur shrugged. “Who knows? Until a few days ago, I didn't even know that there were southern gods. I have no idea what's going to happen to us or what the Mechanical Goddess may or may not be planning. But you have a good point. We should keep an eye out for any unusual behavior among the crew, just in case.”
That was the last conversation they had over the next week, as the ship suddenly got caught in a terrible storm that made everyone sick. At first, everyone believed the storm—with its whipping winds and torrential rain—was heralding the return of the Messenger or perhaps was the power of a god trying to kill them, but thankfully the storm passed, doing nothing more than making everything wetter than normal (although the tossing of the waves did cause the supplies in the ship's hold to fall over and spill out all over the floor).
That, and Kinker found himself playing doctor when he was not making food for the rest of the crew. While most of the crew had since recovered from the Tusked God's attack, there were still quite a few who were not even well enough to walk yet. All he really had to do was take food to the wounded, though, so he supposed he wasn't really playing doctor at all.
The Mad Voyage of Prince Malock Page 27
