Crimson

by Warren Fahy

  In this lucid state, Trevin recalled the day they had spent together when they were children. Nil had shown him a model ship he had made, which he had rigged to a pulley so it glided in the air on a string across his bedchamber. Trevin had made the tiny ship’s sail billow as it soared through the air on its string to Nil’s delight. He was three-and-a-half years old at the time, but the memory was vivid now. Nil’s dream had been to build a ship that could never be sunk—the very dream he still chased when they had met before his coronation.

  Trevin saw the great Tormerick Martharr in the giant portrait hanging over the fireplace. Senjessi Tillow, who was also present, had painted Tormerick astride a black stallion with rich oils still uncracked after half a century. Tormerick had designed the masterpiece of aqueducts, sewers and canals that made the city of Gwylor one of the most hospitable in the world. To those who saw the deceased patriarch’s portrait his face seemed elated, pensive or disapproving depending on the weather and time of day. He seemed angry now as he looked over the tarnished bay.

  Trevin noticed Artimeer standing by the Lady Martharr. He wanted to call out to the old philosopher but he decided to find out why these august Ameulintians had gathered first and why they looked so grim. Even the family’s hounds seemed to sigh with grief before the fire, crossing their paws beneath long faces.

  Trevin then noticed the clever Lelinair Martharr, whose mahogany eyes were downcast, tapping restless fingers on the bear claw arm of her chair. She wore jodhpurs, a white shirt, and short boots laced up the side. No jewelry adorned her except for a thick gold ring on her right index finger set with a milky stone. Trevin noticed the same ring on her grandfather’s little finger in his portrait.

  Lelinair still avoided looking at Nil, Trevin observed. And Nil could not resist looking at her. Trevin realized then why Nil used a different name. Lince had said Nil’s parents had perished at sea. He must have been adopted.

  The mother of the Martharr children, Sendinia, whom Trevin remembered with fondness from a portrait on the wall beside him, was not present. Yet their father, Poladoris, the son of Tormerick, looked as if he had not aged a day. His sharp-nosed face was clean-shaven and his long black hair was threaded silver and swept back from his forehead, clasped in a brass ring. Trevin knew his sculptor’s chisel had memorialized mythical beasts, heroes, heroines, thinkers, artists, merchants and kings from the history of Ameulis. This same Poladoris sculpted his father and the bronze of his mother in Elwyn’s forest. Around his eyes he saw the creases of happiness that permanently engrave the face of those who create beautiful things. Yet now those eyes burned with anger.

  Trevin was taken aback as he recognized Neuvia’s mother then. Dressed in regal raiment that befitted the Queen Mother but which seemed odd on Nardleen, his mother-in-law sat rigidly beside the Lady Martharr. The pressures of fear and faith stalemated her lips into a straight inscrutable line, unwavering.

  Senjessi Tillow broke the silence, at last: “Blox is a pox on all our houses!”

  Trevin wondered at the name then.

  “Who in Hala is this ‘messiah’ he yammers about?” Senjessi demanded.

  “Yes! Who is he?” said a young woman beside him.

  Trevin slumped in the shadow, shrunken by grief and shame.

  He felt himself awakening, pulling away from the present. Despite his desire to stay and learn more, he was pulled away, to Wynder.

  Brown and bald, the feisty painter Sengessi Tillow bristled beside his young wife, Merania, herself a vivacious artist of eighteen whose hair was jet-black with skin like moonlit snow. She had hounded the old master as though he were a hibernating bear until he had finally submitted to his fifth and final marriage. Merania was his fountain of youth and his most ardent defender. “Sengi thinks Blox isn’t even from Hala!” she said.

  “He’s some Wundry thing,” Sengessi said. “But I’m no philosopher. What say you, Artimeer?”

  “Blox, so gray and sorry of shape?” said Artimeer. “A Wundry thing?”

  “He’s not at home in Hala! It’s the reason he cut off his right hand and shaved his ugly head,” Sengessi said. “His face looks like clay before it is sculpted: ugh! One can forgive a man’s ugliness, and find it beautiful when he possesses beautiful character. But Blox thinks himself superior for his ugliness, as though he chose it to disparage beauty. He brags of cutting off his hand. He calls it ‘art’ while branding my art obscene and ordering his followers to chip off the noses off Poladoris’s statues. He is from some other world where nothing matters, I think! I have heard there is a world like that. He hates this world, in his very soul. He seeks to rule it and take revenge on it.”

  “Calm down, Senji.” Merania pulled down his arm and dusted off his elbow.

  “Well, Artimeer?” Lelinair said. “Senji might be crazy, which we all love him for, but there’s something in what he says. Blox has made his messiah famous throughout Ameulis with handbills that his followers post everywhere. He predicts his god-king Nekkros will be more powerful than a Cirilen-Lord. He says he will look like Trevin, though far from neglecting Ameulis he will rule it in every way, bringing what he calls ‘total justice’ to our land. Does it not seem that Blox, depraved and homely though he may be, could be the agent of some other-worldly purpose that is hostile to our own?”

  Nil glanced at Lelinair, but she avoided his eyes. Instead, she opened her hand and secretly regarded her half of the lightstone pebble that they had broken ten winters ago. It was said that after lovers broke such a pebble, the halves grew different each moment they were apart.

  Artimeer finally sat down in a scallop-shaped chair to the left of Lelinair in his black-and-white robes. “You reveal my own suspicions, Lelinair,” he said. He folded his leg over one knee and kneaded his calf. “Blox, I believe, is the lackey of a nether spirit.”

  There were gasps from some.

  “I suspected it the first time I noticed him laugh.”

  Those present acknowledged his observation.

  “Much can be told by such a thing. Blox cut off his right hand and shows the stump to the people as proof of his devotion to a better world, a higher purpose than himself. Yet with his invisible hand he picks our pockets and covers our mouths and snuffs out dissent. ‘Live for something higher,’ he proclaims so he can reach for something lower. It is all said by that laugh he shares with the powerful. For he laughs at the powerless.”

  Karlok nodded. “Artimeer, the wise.”

  “He’s right!” Senjessi agreed.

  “Maybe not,” said Bulgar Bedrosium, the wealthy merchant and trader who had met Trevin aboard his ship, the White Shark. The businessman sat on a couch with his wife, Ninny, who always looked frightened. Her husband’s magnificent profile pointed over a thick charcoal mustache. He wore a stud in his ear with a honey-hued gem as big as a bumblebee. “Perhaps Trevin is wicked as Blox claims,” Bulgar argued. “I saw our young king battle the sea monster Knot, and he seemed little kind or good to me. And even worse after getting his hands on the royal scepter!”

  “I agree, how can we trust him?” Ninny wondered, her eyes wide. “Three expeditions perished trying to reach him! And Blox has promised to help the poor.”

  “A con man does not come dressed in wolf’s clothing,” Artimeer said. “He comes as a lamb offering himself to the poor so he may rob the rich. The poor get crumbs. It has ever been so.” Artimeer rolled his eyes.

  “Let us hear what Lince Neery-Atten has to say,” Nil said. He saw Lelinair almost look at him then.

  Poladoris nodded. “Pray, tell us what you have to say, mariner.”

  Lince rose, uncomfortable before this elegant company. Glancing at Nil, he finally spoke. “Trevin is a good king, my ladies and lordies.” His shiny head blushed pink, bringing out the large eye tattooed in blue. “Five years ago, when we was founderin’ in a gale on Captain Driskoll’s Daredevil out of West Falls, the Gyre, lords and ladies, gave us chase for three days and nights! We fought the starfish with nets and ga
ffs and luck even through the storm, but it grabbed on and began to drag us into the brine. We were saying the high goodbye as that horrible hand squeezed the Daredevil so tight her timbers were cracking.”

  Ninny clutched Bulgar’s arm. “Ooo!”

  “Then, out of the sky, came Trevin like a blue wind. And he floated over the Gyre as he pointed his finger, disapproving! And the Gyre backed off, aye, it seemed to slink away. Now, it’s true that we had gambled on getting through in the storm, figuring that all the beasts would be hunkered down in their lairs so we could wangle an audience with the King. But after that we turned back, and since that night no ship has been attacked without cause by his strange guardians. I know many brave sailors who’ve gone on their way through the Wizard’s Isles, wishing no truck with Trevin. Sailors have seen things, aye, it’s true, and some went mad by things they’ve seen, as we’ve all read in the newsprints. A few captains have gone for glory and a piece of the Gyre, and the Gyre surely doesn’t abide such offenses, nor will the other strange beasts about. But those who respect the King’s wishes have been rewarded with safe passage. The King saved my life twice, once when he was but a lad. All I can say is he’s earned my life and my loyalty.”

  Bulgar cleared his throat. “Nevertheless, trade routes are crippled by the Wizard’s Isles. Ships run too close to shore in order to avoid the Terrors. Fishing waters have been cut in half. The markets are slow, and prices are climbing ever higher. Insurers have lost a fortune, and fishers can’t pay their premiums. People won’t eat fish, for fear their meat is cursed! The ports of Tunce and Elbon have replaced Gwylor as centers of our trade. Our capital looks the worse for it. And Blox’s pretty lies and violent promises have attracted thugs from across Ameulis to Gwylor, swelling his vote to unseat our mayor. Tomorrow they will decree a law of thieves. And they will come for us. Then all of Gwylor will become a banquet for cannibals, an orgy that will last a few months before nothing is left on the bone. Now: why shouldn’t we blame King Trevin, who has done nothing, along with the rest, to fill this ravenous void?”

  Artimeer held out a calming hand. “It is true, Bulgar, that the words of a thief cannot be trusted, for life in Hala is a trade and not a robbery. Cheating this natural law is always rewarded with disaster, if not immediately then at least two steps down the road. Blox was clever to blame our Mayor for our troubles and overthrow him with those lies. Today he shifted the blame to Trevin. One cannot condone whatever part our young king played in cursing our southern waters—unless he did so in order to avoid an even more grievous fate.”

  “What, Philosopher?” Bulgar frowned.

  “Friends,” Artimeer said, “I believe the King wishes us no harm, as this mariner’s stories have suggested. He hides himself while warning us away so that no harm comes to us. Lord Poladoris, what say you?” Artimeer asked the former mayor.

  “I fear what Blox will do to Ameulis,” Poladoris said, gazing from his whale bone chair through the great window. He had said not a word until now. A cloud lingered over him since his electoral defeat. The votes for Mayor had been tallied and after a decade he had lost his seat, to Blox. Ten years ago he had decided his hand was too unsteady to guide a chisel and devoted the last part of his life to the mayorship of Gwylor. Yesterday his fellow citizens decided his hand was too unsteady for that task as well.

  This morning in Bartering Square he had administered the oath of office to the Mayor-Elect, Blox, his rival for the last two bitter years. “Who is this god he promises, Artimeer, who will take Trevin’s place?”

  “Good Mayor, there we are fortunate,” Artimeer said. “We know from Blox too much for his own good!” Artimeer’s thin lips spread in a smile against the vertical lines of his face. “For he claimed in his scurrilous speech that his messiah will seek retribution against all unbelievers and bestow glory on the faithful. He will stamp all coins with the sign of his messiah. And how does he describe him? He will look like Trevin, he claims. He will look like Trevin and yet his stone will be multi-colored, not crimson. Friends, so many things are betrayed by these intentions aired too freely on an underling’s eager tongue!”

  “What things?” Teldon asked.

  Artimeer rubbed his knee. “Blox’s god cannot come now, for one.”

  “Ah,” Bulgar said. “Go on.”

  “And why should his coming god look like Trevin?” Artimeer cocked his head at them for a moment and spread his thin hands like fans clearing smoke. “The King and Queen were very young when much was set upon them. Selwyn told me a great weight would fall upon his son too soon. I have heard from Trevin’s great-uncle, Dantair Gheldron, that there is concern on the island of Damay for the fate of Trevin, though Trevin’s kin are unable to intercede, for his power is beyond their abilities to counteract. Any opposition they might launch would probably bring calamity to Ameulis, even as it would not stop the doom they believe comes fast upon us.”

  “It makes me wonder what value there is in having a Cirilen as king,” said Teldon. “We have made an unholy alliance, it seems!”

  “The King and Queen are of good heart,” Artimeer cautioned. And they all heeded the old philosopher’s stern tone. “This master for whom Blox prepares a way may well be the reason the King and Queen’s ill fate befell them. They are somehow connected, I think. For Trevin’s nemesis may be Blox’s master, preying on our young King from some nether place, persuading him to lay traps around the Dimrok to keep us from reaching him even as he weaves thicker his defenses. And there is more that we can deduce from Blox’s speech this morning.”

  “Pray tell, Philosopher,” Bulgar said. “You should charge by the word.”

  “The fact that Blox describes his god-king as carrying a scepter with a ‘multi-colored stone’ is a cheap ploy—and a costly revelation. If stones can be colored many colors to please a superstitious people, as a foreigner might judge Ameulintians, can they not be tinted to frighten them at a coronation?”

  Sighs and gasps rounded the room.

  “But this last must have been plain to everyone,” Artimeer said.

  “It is good to have you here to point out what is plain,” Teldon said.

  Senjessi blurted, “What are we going to do? That’s all that matters!”

  “We all wish to do something, Sengi! But what?” said Merania.

  “We need to reach the King,” Bulgar said. “That much is certain.”

  “How?” said Lelinair.

  “No ship can pass the Terrors,” Poladoris said, sadly. “The two expeditions I sent included the best ships in Ameulis. Alas, none of them returned.”

  “Go on,” Karlok grumbled, to Nil.

  “It’s now or never, son,” Lince muttered.

  Nil cleared his throat. “I’d like to show you all something.”

  Lelinair felt her heart betray her, beating faster at his announcement, but she did not move her head or eyes in his direction.

  Nil lifted a crate, setting it on the carpet at the feet of Artimeer and Poladoris. He pried open one side with a chisel and then drew out a splendid model of a ship, placing it on top of the crate before the gathering.

  The others moved their chairs closer to peer at the model.

  Nil had carved each plank, threading each miniature deadeye and pounding each tiny nail as if he were wrighting the real ship that he had envisioned. Wrought of soft Norlanian mahogany polished with beeswax and set with brass fittings and linen sails, the vessel gleamed before them as candelabra were brought close to illuminate it now.

  From the height of the deck rail, it was apparent that this was a ship larger than any other that had been built. She had two masts, very rare on Ameulintian ships, and a lateen sail, which was unknown. Between the square mainsail and the bowsprit were two flying jibs for extra speed. The lines of the ship were fast and muscular. Her keel was curiously lined with long spikes, and two catapults faced port and starboard amidships. There were four harpoons, as well, two on the fo’c’sle and two aft on bases that swiveled. Great fishi
ng nets were gathered alongside port and starboard, ready to be let out. Most curious of all, there were six great millstones secured behind the mainmast, though why a ship would need so many anchors was a mystery.

  Nil broke away one side of the model’s hull, revealing her interior: officers’ quarters in the fo’c’sle, a galley and mess in the aftercastle, the long “Green Deck” filled with hammocks and three longboats and a vast supply of arrows and other stored weaponry. Below that deck, the hold was dry and held ballast and provisions, an unprecedented cargo space for a sea journey with ladderways fore and aft and two central shafts to the main deck. And the hull was ribbed with black braces apparently made of cast iron like the hoops of a barrel, except that these were on the inside instead of outside.

  Nil glanced at Lelinair, who still looked away from him.

  “This is the Sea Mare,” he said. “The ship that may save the King!”

  By the age of 16, Nil had made a modest name for himself as a respectable cartographer under the House of Martharr, having learned the art from Poladoris, who had been instructed by his father, Tormerick. Nil had even completed a few mapping expeditions Poladoris had arranged so that he could “earn some money of his own.”

  Teldon soon surpassed Nil’s cartographic skills, however, and set up his own chart-making business on the castle’s premises. But by that time, at the age of 18, Nil had already moved on from cartography and announced his intention to become a naval engineer, to wright his unsinkable ship.

  And so Poladoris had arranged for Nil to be tutored by the best naval engineers of Ameulis. Yet, much to Poladoris’s delight, Nil had decided after a time that they were too insulated from experience to justify their rigid codes of building and hired on to a fishing boat at the lowest rank, to the vexation of both Teldon and Lelinair, who thought it beneath their brother’s station. Poladoris had given his acquiescence, however, his artist’s heart sensing an inspiration in Nil’s impetuousness.