Crimson

by Warren Fahy

Drewgor whispered with one mouth: “I was the chair.”

  Trevin nodded then and lifted the Scepter. It glittered for a moment before Drewgor, reflecting the demon’s many eyes. Then Trevin brought down the Cronus Star against the lightstone floor with such tremendous force that an explosion of light and sound severed past from present.

  The diamond sundered into seven fragments on the snowy carpet at Drewgor’s feet.

  And the world was forever different after it was broken.

  “Now then, Demon,” Trevin said. “You have no home.”

  Drewgor looked in awe at the shattered gem between them.

  “The Gairanor will see you soon, exposed even here beneath this wall of sea without a diamond to hide in,” Trevin said. “Before I die, at least, I’m sure. And then they will deliver Elwyn’s curse. So we will perish together, when their mighty blow comes down to scatter you from both the realms, finally and forever, fulfilling the last incantation of Elwyn Gheldron.”

  In warring silence the two stared into each other’s eyes, each testing the other’s certainty.

  Then Drewgor shrugged. “Checkmate.” He leaned back in his chair, and laughed. “Young king,” he sighed with his many mouths. “Did it never occur to you why your grandfather built this tower? I may hide inside it, just like a diamond. It is wondrous that way. But alas, it does not matter now. You have no scepter, and my trap is complete. I saw the last act in a dream. I did not expect you or the Dimrok to survive this final blow, but the Queen, I see, showed great resilience. Yet if you thought the Cronus Star was my only refuge, I thought in a brilliant inspiration, you would probably destroy it even if it meant destroying yourself. In truth, I thought it the single weakness in my calculations, since with the Scepter—well, no matter now! O, pitiful King! When you are dead, the last of your grandfather’s issue will be gone and his curse finally lifted. Since I will take your body as you leave it behind, you will never reach the Gairanor. And I will take Neuvia as my queen to conquer Ameulis and muster an army of all the Ameulintians that I kill to vanquish Damay, which I will be able to see, at last, with your Cirilen eyes! And all of your kin will be destroyed. The Cirilen’s reign on Hala will come to an end while everyone believes that I am you. Even the Gairanor, and your father, mother and grandfather—even Neuvia—will never be sure that I am not! And I shall sire a breed of Khalwairn-Cirilen who shall rule Hala forever, with men as our slaves. That is the future you have made possible, good King!” Drewgor raised his arms. And his crimson eminence drained into the lightstone as he disappeared.

  Trevin looked down at the shards of the Cronus Star scattered at his feet. He wondered what color his true soul might have been inside the stone without the bloody stain of Drewgor. Now, he would never know.

  Green fingers of sunlight reached down and touched the tip of the tower beneath the sea. The finality and totality of his ancient enemy’s trap finally dawned on him in every direction as far as his mind could see. The ocean around him glowed a brilliant jade with the dawn.

  He saw shoals of fish followed by sharks like lions stalking a herd silhouetted against the glistening surface. Trevin noticed a tiny mote on the waves above. “A boat!” he mused, aiming his spyglass through the ceiling. It was Stargazer! She dropped her anchor and it flashed far out of reach.

  He lowered his spyglass and gazed with his naked eyes at the creatures moving around the tower. What a splendid world he would lose, he thought. And he had lost the Wynder World, as well. Suddenly then, and ironically, he felt as though the universe had pierced him, converging from all directions upon his center. For he knew it was from this world that he had shunned that he must ask for salvation. Somehow he must believe in hope instead of doom. Now, alas.

  And yet, untroubled, he opened his arms to the glorious sight around him. For it was not hard to believe in the good of Hala anymore, since it was no longer hard to believe in the good inside himself.

  He took a sharp fragment of the Cronus Star in his hand and walked to the north window overlooking the ruined stairway in dim fathoms below. He opened the shutter, and Neuvia’s purple seal held back the sea.

  He sat then on the deep silk carpet before the window, crossing his legs and closing his eyes as he pressed the sharp fragment of diamond to his forehead. A bead of blood painted a line down the bridge of his nose to his lips, where it spread right and left. When he opened his eyes he saw shoals of red minnows, packs of yellow tuna, green turtles and squads of squid swirling around the tower from across the undersea world. He noticed two mighty black whales staring at him through the lightstone wall with curious green eyes.

  He threw the blood-stained chip of the Cronus Star through the purple shield in the window, and it left a milky scar behind it as it penetrated the sea.

  With a pop of light the shard of diamond vanished, and, as if they were scalded, the myriad creatures crowded around the tower scattered across the sea.

  Chapter 17

  A Message Heard

  The sky was red at dawn as sailors gripped calloused hands on the trawl to haul in their livelihood.

  The ocean was gray that misty morning as a splintering shoal of minnow glinted pink in the rising net. They shattered the surface, flipping and pounding as they spilled over the taffrail and in seconds rose up to the men’s knees.

  The men yelled as shoved and gaffed the fish into the open sea doors, filling the ice-lined hold with a building, quickening rhythm that reverberated through the boat. The mates of the Barnacle grinned at each other as they rounded up the stragglers and gathered in the trawl. Today’s haul could be a record for the Barnacle, even though it was a far drop from those of Captain Bohtum’s previous vessel, the Oyster, which had shipped 25 men, 18 of whom had to be let go after Blox’s dock tax was levied. The Oyster had drafted 25 tons and sported four sails, two of which had been designed by Nil Ramesis, giving them a nearly unsportsmanlike edge in reaching the Early Market.

  Times had certainly changed in this seventh year of Trevin’s exile. Since Blox became Mayor of Gwylor, storm after storm had virtually hidden the sun through summer, fall, winter, and spring. The ceaseless rains had eroded the roads and muddied the sea, and a different spirit seemed to inhabit the city now. Blox’s taxes were scandalous, taking more than half from every Gwylorian fisher’s pay, and it was enforced on pain of imprisonment and forced labor. They competed with colleagues who no longer worked for themselves but only to pay the Mayor. Everyone was working for the Mayor now, more or less, and through his insidious machinations Blox continued to pry the destiny of Ameulintians out of their hands a new way every day.

  Captain Bik’s Barnacle might have been a modest ship compared to the Oyster, but she was sturdy and she was kept tidy by her proud crew of black sheep. Bik hired down-and-outers, out-of-towners, and up-and-comers to fill out his crews, believing them hungrier than the wealthy young men who came slumming for adventure on the high seas. “Stick with me and you’ll earn a hearth and home for your name, and a wife and children to carry it on,” he was fond of daring prospective recruits. And those eager young pikes who took his bait, men whose fathers had made no name or hearth for them, soon found they had a friend and a reliable living out of Bik Bohtum. Bik performed their weddings and was godfather to their babes on the land, and he was a father over their vices and a mother over their injuries at sea.

  One of Bik’s many “sons” had been Nil Ramesis, who was perhaps most dear to him from all the crews he had tended like messy litters of puppies over the years. Nil had not used the name of the noble house from which he came when he signed on to Bik’s Oyster. Even after it became known to Bik that Nil hailed from Castle Martharr, however, Nil insisted that he make his own name, Ramesis, for his own house—and be afforded no advantage. Bik took special pride in his orphan son who turned out to be a prince, for Nil had chosen to start on the same deck as his mates despite his noble origin. And though Nil had moved on to bigger things, he never stopped treating Bik and his former shipmates like fami
ly. Nil had refitted the Barnacle during the winter season at no cost to Bik, improving both its speed and stability in a dozen different ways.

  Bik wiped the white swirls of hair from his tanned brow and closed the sea doors over the catch. “Fine work, lads. Well done!”

  “We got a terrapin, Cappy!”

  Bik saw a young sailor trying to hold onto a sea turtle rowing its paddles on the slippery deck. He smiled, flashing his pearly teeth in his white beard. “A sign of good luck, Larby! Terrapins are the bringers of good fortune, don’tcha know?”

  “Hurrah! The Barnacle’s blessed!” shouted bucktoothed Ed from the bridge.

  “I think she’s been catched afore, Cappy,” Larby said. “Someone’s etched their diddy on her back!”

  “What?”

  “It’s on her shell… Maybe I can’t read it but that’s writin’ fer sure, I think. Ain’t it?”

  “Gimme a look-see!”

  Captain Bohtum’s boots pounded the deck. “Move aside, Larby!” He seized the edges of the turtle and inspected its shell. “Thunderous squalls! You’re right as rain, lad… P’raps a castaway scratched it in!” After a moment, Bik looked up at his crew with wide eyes.

  “What’s it say, Cappy?”

  “I can’t quite believe it, boys. Let me chew on it for a minute.”

  The men gathered around as the captain moved his lips silently, his great mane waving around his ruddy face. At last he let loose the turtle and it grabbed on the deck, paddling toward the transom. There was a dumbstruck look in Bik’s topaz eyes—and some of the crew wondered if he had seen the ghost of his long-departed wife again, for that was the only other time they’d seen him speechless.

  “What’s the matter?” Ed shouted from the bridge.

  “Lads, clew the canvas and drop the stone. We’ve a mighty care to attend and no delay.”

  “Drop the stone?” said Parnel. “You must be pullin’ our legs!”

  “The market, the market,” Ed shouted. Captain Bohtum never let anything interfere with beating the other captains to market.

  Bik waved a hand. “’Tis a heavier care than early market we’ve got on our hands today. Do as I say, and the sooner you’ll know the whys and wherefores. Now, by Lightning!” he yelled. “And you better beat the thunder!”

  Hardly believing their ears, his men jumped to action after his familiar ultimatum.

  It was just past noon when Bik hitched his piebald mare to a wagon and drove her from his driveway over rutted roads down the foothills east of the capital city of Gwylor.

  The seventh in a succession of storms was just moving in over the bay, and the clouds drizzled as Bik banged the wagon over the pot-holed cobblestone streets.

  He took side streets he favored because they had weathered the recent storms better, especially those lined by the pink-flowered oaks that showed their blossoms despite the gray weather. Bik passed over the bridge built by Tormerick Martharr across the Thurnal River, which split Gwylor west and east. Then he turned south onto Gieron Way.

  Finally he came to Bartering Square, which was really a circle nearly a quarter-mile wide which Gieron Way split around on curving ramparts that met again on the south side. Bik turned right around its western edge.

  Rising against the square’s curving northern wall were three half-circle terraces. From the top terrace, the King or the Mayor traditionally addressed the citizens of Gwylor, his voice echoing off the curving wall at his back that was carved with Poladoris’s reliefs of historical Ameulentians.

  Once he rounded Bartering Square, Bik continued across the estuary to the old embarcadero, where he turned right and headed toward the lower-rent western seafront.

  Some of Blox’s monks marched on the street ahead, dressed in burlap and surrounded by members of the Gwylorian Guard in their tattered red-and-gold uniforms that were more decorative than durable after centuries of ceremonial duty. Now, however, the Guard had been pressed into regular service as strong-arms for the righteous young monks who roamed the streets looking for people and things to fine, fix, seize and condemn in the name of Nekkros, the righteous god-king Blox promised would soon arrive. Bik was careful not to scowl in their direction as they passed.

  The western sea front’s rocky coast and buildings were less fashionable than those to the east of Gieron Way. Nil Ramesis owned a small shipyard there, wedged between a cliff on the west and a brick warehouse to the east. In the center of his property was a natural gorge cut into a broad rampart of rock reaching into the sea. A squared, sloping channel had been carved into this natural feature to make a large launch. At the end of this long pit were huge wooden sea doors that kept back the waves. The launch was far too large to serve the needs of most shipyards, which favored several smaller dry-docks, yet it was perfect for the mysterious vessel Nil Ramesis had been wrighting.

  Bik arrived and found that a tall fence with a locked gate covered the only narrow view of Nil’s shipyard. Next to this stood a boathouse that looked like no more than a storefront, and one that had gone out of business like so many others on this road. Hitching the wagon to a rail across the street, Bik entered the front door carrying the terrapin’s shell, which he had covered with one of his old tunics.

  A brass bell clanged as he entered, and Bik set down the turtle’s shell and stood with his cap in hand, his huge mane of white hair spilling over the shoulders of his charcoal greatcoat. “Hullo?” he yelled.

  The small room was empty and built of bare planks, but it was warm, as though someone had just been there. A door was ajar on the other side of the room. “’Tis Bik!” he said. “Bik Bohtum, Captain of the Barnacle!”

  “Then come on in and stop yer hollerin’, Bik Bohtum!” growled a voice.

  Bik recognized the voice of Lince Neery-Atten, though nobody appeared in the cracked doorway to greet him. Bik strode through the door and Lince grabbed him from behind around his shoulders. And only a man such as Lince, with his great muscle-bound arms, could have locked Bik Bohtum in such a grip.

  Both men giggled like schoolboys even as they struggled, and soon the arm-lock became an embrace and a few stout pounds on the back.

  “Lince, you limpid-assed, bow-legged, bottom-sucking fraud of a philanderin’ puke-fish, how be you?”

  “Well, hullo there, Barnacle Bik!” Lince’s grin slashed his face. The blue eye tattooed on his shiny head had faded a bit since Bik had last seen him but still kept its skyward vigil.

  Bik punched Lince on the ham of his arm with a chop-sized fist. “Don’t be bad-mouthin’ the Barnacle or I’ll be swabbin’ her bilge with yer gut-whiskers, Lince Neery-Atten.”

  “Aye, come along then, but yer not bringin’ fried chicken and beer. What pries you out of yer oyster, Bik? And what’s that package you brought us in yonder room?”

  Bik only now recognized this office, with its many-paned window that overlooked the shipyard. But the last time he had been here he had not seen what was outside. “I’ll be sunk! What in the world is Nil wrighting? A whale?” What seemed to be a great vessel was draped with a patchwork of tarps.

  “Aye, a sea monster is the Sea Mare.” Lince had a way of screwing his head away from a person and cranking his eyebrow to give his third eye a skeptical look at the target of his scrutiny. “Now what in Hala is that thing you brought us?”

  Bik remembered into the other room and lugged it in. “It’s something I thought—”

  Lince waved. “I’ve a feeling it should be heard away from that street that seems loaded with ears of late,” Lince whispered. He reached out and hoisted the large sack. “Close the curtains. Follow me.”

  Lince locked the door and Bik drew the dark curtains across the window, following Lince through the far door.

  The door opened onto a long covered wooden stairway to another door that revealed a large warehouse. The wooden roof was pitched and covered with tarred canvas, sloping over terraced floors. Though cheaply built and irregular, the building seemed sturdy and well laid-out. Bik saw all
manner of supplies stacked everywhere, lumber, rope, canvas, barrels of pinesap, as well as a number of shop areas equipped with lathes and tool benches arranged across the cascading floors like the decks of a ship, the aft deck of which at this highest level turned out to be Nil Ramesis’s office. Several windows were spaced along the east wall overlooking the ship under construction.

  Nil sat at his desk writing vigorously by the light of a lantern, and now he looked around from the oil lamp’s glow. He set down his quill and swiveled in his chair, gripping its arms as he recognized his former captain. He heaved himself up to embrace his friend.

  Bik admired Nil, who was taller than his elders if not yet broader. His mouth had acquired a stern downturn, his high cheeks chiseled deeper. His eyes were winter-blue under his storm of black hair, and beneath his fierce nose his jaw was pelted black. If Nil resembled one of the gods Poladoris Martharr had sculpted or Tormeric Martharr had painted it was no coincidence, for he had been a model without his knowledge for both of those artists while growing up in Castle Martharr.

  As Nil wrighted his ship, and whispered word of his project got out among the loyalists of Ameulis, the weight of the nation had fallen more heavily on his shoulders—even as the hope that had made any burden bearable had fallen from his sky. Nil’s purposes had become too crossed for him to reconcile, so he applied himself mechanically to each successive task before him as though the skills and virtues of his character had become nothing more than a machine that he switched on each day, without pain or joy. A glimmer of pleasure stirred his eyes now, though, to see Bik. “What brings you here today, Cappy?”

  “After seeing that beautiful monster in the window and her noble captain, I nearly forgot. When the tarps are pulled off her, I’d like to see if there’s a ship under there and not just a mountain of rumors.”

  Nil smiled. “I could use an extra pair of eyes to light her decks. She’s coming out of a fog as it is.”

  “Bah! You’ve got my eyes and ears and hands at your service from this day forward, and the crew of the Barnacle, as well, and all out of my own pocket.” Bik leaned forward, cocking a topaz eye at Nil and Lince. “Trevin has sent word.” He pulled the shirt off the turtle’s shell. “And not an hour’s delay if he’s to be saved.”