Crimson

by Warren Fahy

  “Aye, Captain! Second watch, you’ve earned yer mess,” Lince said. “First watch, take both sheets and haul the mainsail port to catch the northwesterly. Third watch, take the lateen starboard! Mister Feferl, I want Jootle to watch that lateen and squeak if there’s a thing wrong, sir.”

  “Yes, Mister Neery-Atten!”

  “When the second watch is finished with mess, get your asses to the poop deck for fencing and archery lessons, and those that know will do the teachin’. That means you, Prince Rollum, and you, Lady Tunn, so eat now with watch two. Then watch one take mess and watch three goes last!”

  The Sea Mare made speed over calm seas and the going was smooth. The sky was clear and the spring wind blew warm. The watches took their mess in shifts, a fortifying breakfast of fried ham and egg fritters with a draught of black tea and apple juice. Then all practiced with sword and bow in their turn and were assigned their battle stations.

  They sailed south six hours as they practiced their motions under Lince’s merciless drills. Minding the reefs to the east, they kept an eye forward for the cloud that marked the beginning of the King’s Terrors.

  The bank of fog was rumored to conceal three small islands that sometimes protruded from the perpetual cloud. Nil hoped to avoid them by cutting east to put them between the Sea Mare and the island said to be the Gyre’s home, further west.

  Cutting straight south to the east of the cloud would be the boldest and quickest cut to reach the Dimrok. Nil only hoped the course would not intersect the new sea of mirages only just witnessed to the southeast.

  At noon, they had sailed a hundred miles and now left the points of Gwylor’s bay behind as they reached the open sea. The Sea Mare was nimble as a falcon as she winged over the waves.

  Nil rotated the men off their watches to take their noon mess, a meal of crispy rolls stuffed with creamed leeks and lamb, a ripe orange, and a wedge of black cheese. Pickle outdid himself.

  After lunch, Rollum caught Senthellzia Tunn’s admiring eye as he bragged to the Ameulintians on the aftercastle about how his countrymen soared on boards over the sea. The Ameulintian sailors heard of the practice and expressed doubt that it was possible, so Rollum eagerly disappeared below deck and returned in a flash with his polished “sea-board,” which was carved out of Norlanian teak. He tied its coiled silk line to the taffrail and before everyone’s amazed eyes he hurled the board like a shield onto the Sea Mare’s wake, diving over the taffrail after it.

  Rollum plunged into the creamy sea and emerged, shaking his long golden hair. He slid down the silk rope and caught the sea-board with practiced ease. Flipping onto the board with both knees, he was apparently able to steer it by lifting either edge. Rollum cut to and fro over the ship’s wake while brashly striking poses.

  Lince arrived on the scene. “Haul that man in and that means now and no other instant!”

  The men nearby grabbed hold of Rollum’s line and hauled him in. The Norlanian seemed to see what had happened and smiled, relaxing on the sea-board and enjoying the ride while it lasted.

  When they pulled the Norlanian aboard, Lince greeted him. “You may be a prince in yonder lands, Mister—but yer startin’ to become grit in my eye!”

  “Yes, sir!” Rollum nodded, and he smiled as he dripped on the deck, holding his slick sea-board. He looked achingly handsome to Senthellzia, who admired his audacity.

  “No more of that outlandish behavior!”

  “No, sir!” Rollum nodded.

  “What?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stow that thing and get back to your post!”

  “I am doing it even now…”

  “Right you are, your Highness!”

  Rollum ran from Lince’s three eyes to go below.

  In the rigging aloft, Jootle screeched.

  Harm took flight from Senthellzia’s shoulder.

  The Creature growled on the deck and bit Lince’s heel.

  Nil lifted his spyglass to see the wall of white cloud on the horizon, just where Teldon’s map had placed it. But the point of cloud had fanned out into an immense wedge that covered the entire southern horizon. Though the sun was high and hot, it did not seem to cut this cloud, which seemed thick as marble with an edge chiseled in straight walls across the sea.

  “A big fog, eh?” Lince said.

  “Aye. Strange that,” Karlok said.

  “It looks like a mason cut it, Captain!” Lanning said.

  “Get a man aloft to have a look and cut her speed,” Nil said. “Let’s think now.”

  Lince shouted, “Ed, haul down the jibs and man the crow’s nest! Lady Tunn and Bombo, get out of his way, now. Clew the mainsail by a third – that’s it, yes, well done, lads! Mister Feferl, Jootle will howl if he sees a speck of land. Aye, sir?”

  “Aye, sir!” Feferl answered, signaling the monkey on the lateen shrouds.

  “Tell us what ya see, Ed, once yer up. Take it easy now. Spread your feet!”

  Jootle swung along the staylines and startled Ed as he and Jootle reached the crow’s nest at the same time.

  The Sea Mare slowed as they approached the wedge of mist, which forced a decision as the wind seemed to hold its breath.

  “Teldon’s map shows three islands hidden in that fog,” Karlok said.

  “And it covers the whole horizon,” said Nil, already knocked off his plan. “We can’t go west, where the Gyre lives. But if we go east, where should we cut in? Approach slow,” Nil said. “Let’s see if the cloud burns off enough for us to see a landmark!”

  “Aye, Captain. Keep a sharp eye, Ed. First sign of land, Feferl, sir, I want that monkey hollering. Clew the mainsail by half!”

  Men sprang up the chainplates to the main yard.

  “The cloud approaches,” Karlok said. “It’s coming at us now over the water.”

  Senthellzia clucked, and Harm flew through the rigging over the cloudbank.

  Jootle screeched and at the same time Ed yelled from the crow’s nest: “LAND! At the edge of the cloud, Captain, four leagues to the southeast!”

  Karlok took the helm as Nil peered through his scope down the cloud’s eastern edge. “The fog recedes there,” Nil said. “Maybe it wants us to head west, where the Gyre waits.”

  “That’s a monster we don’t want to meet, Nilly,” Lince said, remembering it too well.

  The point of the cloud approached fast, forcing a decision.

  At the last instant Nil conned the Sea Mare to port, slicing east along the fog’s edge.

  The southerly picked up and the men aloft reduced sail again, listing starboard as they continued toward the dark island peeking out of the white mist three leagues away. The wall receded beside them and they pulled closer as suddenly a rocky cliff jutted from the mist. Karlok wheeled her port and they safely passed a pockmarked shore of black rock.

  “The fog has teeth!” Lince said.

  “Aye,” said Karlok. “Three, if the map’s true. There may be another ahead!”

  The mist lifted like a series of curtains. Another islet was revealed half a mile away.

  They passed the round peak of rock at the edge of the cloud, and noted the tortured cliff that was riddled with eyes and frozen mouths.

  “Three isles,” Karlok said. “Like Teldon’s chart says, Captain. Could these be them?”

  Nil rubbed his thick beard. “Yonder isle is too far, Karlok. It should be the Ice Dragon’s isle.”

  “Where there’s two or three islands, Captain, there could be many,” Lince said. “I wouldn’t want to run aground in fog.”

  “And where there’s cloud there’s usually land,” Karlok said.

  Lince agreed. “This cloud mounts pretty high due south. I’d say something’s under it.”

  “What’s usual does not apply here,” Nil said. “This could be nothing more than a ruse meant to scare mariners from a safe route and force us into the Dragon’s territory, or into the sea of illusions some have recently reported southwest of here.”

&nbs
p; “Aye, Nil. But who knows what we’ll find in that fog?” Lince said.

  “Land!” Ed cried, and everyone saw another island jut out of the fog only half a mile ahead.

  “The fog’s charting our course for us,” Nil said.

  “Aye!” Karlok said.

  “Maybe a quick cut south could give us a fast route and cover from both the Dragon and the Gyre.”

  “I get your meaning, Captain,” Lince said.

  “But let’s proceed a bit more toward yonder isle,” Karlok said. “The fog’s good cover, if only on one flank.”

  “We’re being led by the nose!” Nil said.

  “Arm yourselves,” Lince cried, staying a step ahead of caution. “Noro, Overly, Sowernut: haul two flats of arrows and swords to the main deck. Rept: take your team below to secure the bulkheads. That’s right, now, and when else were you thinking, Mister Overly? GO-GO-GO!”

  Weapons were hoisted on a flat through the aft sea doors, and the men armed themselves as they rotated off their stations.

  Ed peered from the crow’s nest through his spyglass along the cloud’s edge to the east. They approached the next island that was very similar to the first two, a vertical eruption of rock whose pitted face thrust from the edge of the fog. The fourth isle, farther away, seemed much larger now.

  Jootle yodeled a shriek in the crow’s nest.

  The statue of Trevin as a boy mounted on the main mast over Ed’s head ignited like a white ember and emitted a high peal that startled Jootle and Ed. “Captain,” Ed cried.

  Karlok looked up in wonder at the statue he had donated to the Sea Mare. It had never flashed before as Trevin had promised it would. “It works!”

  “It means the King is still alive, at least,” Nil said. “And we’re in danger!”

  “BATTLE STATIONS,” Lince roared.

  The men split from their watches to man the harpoons, catapults, weights and nets as light watches minded the rigging.

  Nothing appeared in any direction when suddenly, around the small island directly ahead, a creature appeared beyond their imagining.

  For a crucial moment they disbelieved what they saw: a crystalline monster bristling with eight arms reaching as high as the Sea Mare’s crow’s nest and propelling itself with paddles rippling furiously along its glassen body like a galley’s oars. The beast rounding the mottled cliff aimed craning arms at their rigging as it scissored crystal shears.

  “The Ice Dragon!” Nil shouted

  The creature emitted a chilling sound like a choir of crickets.

  Dillon Tobbs gripped the rail near the bowsprit by Lanning. They had both been assigned to load the starboard crossbow. “It’s a lobster baby, Captain!” he yelled, recognizing the giant in awe.

  “Eh?” Nil said.

  “A baby lobster, which swims freely, too small for the eye! But this one’s bigger than the Sea Mare.”

  “Make note of it in your journal, now hard starboard!” Nil spun the wheel and the crew heaved the mainyard port.

  The Sea Mare yawed south, plunging straight into the wall of fog.

  Chapter 21

  Fogbound

  As if preparing for a dive, they all drew a breath. The giant ship disappeared in the dense mist as their eyes were blinded by white fog that beat warm and wet against their cheeks.

  Nil held his hand before him, unable to see it at any distance.

  Karlok grabbed at the helm-wheel to make sure it was still there.

  “Grab hold!” Lince yelled, and his voice rang close in the white blindness.

  “Aye,” Karlok said, keeping the wheel fast.

  And after his voice died, the fog closed in around the crew, separating each from the rest. Lanning froze beside Tobbs, but after a while he began to wonder where he was and even whether the ship was still under him. He heard a distant, steady roar like waves against a shore, searching the fog with useless eyes.

  The deck lurched, then leveled beneath their feet. The men looked toward the Captain, where they remembered the bridge had been.

  “What was that?” Lanning said, startled by the volume of his own voice. He needed to reassure himself that his shipmates were still there.

  “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt,” Overly said.

  “I’ve felt scarier,” Sowernut replied, nervously.

  The deck lurched, harder this time.

  “What do you think, Nil?” Karlok said.

  “Listen!” Nil hissed.

  The deck reeled and then righted itself, knocking some men off their feet. As the hull shuddered, a ghastly sensation grew in their stomachs. The Sea Mare was not moving forward, but sideways!

  Her decks convulsed, flinging more off their feet, and a gurgling sound bubbled and boiled. Karlok tried to turn her wheel, but found it stuck. “The rudder’s fouled, Captain!” The ship seemed to be tugged now by a pack of wolves.

  Lanning cried, “Ho! Help!”

  All looked toward the Sea Mare’s prow in the white blindness and heard a splash as the sailor seemed to fall overboard.

  They saw Trevin’s statue burning through the mist then, and a gray light finally illuminated the decks. The ship reappeared, and Lince dashed to the fo’c’sle. “What’s caught us, Captain?” he shouted, and he climbed over the starboard rail and jumped where Lanning had fallen. The mist parted, and Lince saw a mass of wriggling kelp in the water below.

  He crashed into the slimy vines and plunged through.

  Kicking, he pushed his head up against a hard wall of kelp, which had tightened like a knot over him. Lince pried at the fleshy cords and then pulled a knife from a scabbard stitched to his leg and another from his tunic, slashing the vines. A short slit opened, and Lince pulled it wide with his thick arms, thrusting his head into the air.

  He saw the Sea Mare’s hull snarled with grasping red, purple and green vines, wrapped thick and coiling around her bowsprit and rails. She was being dragged—toward what he did not know.

  He cut the slit wider and reached his arms above the vines. More of the fierce weed reached out of the water like cobras, and he heard a gargled scream nearby. Swiveling, he saw Lanning a few yards away wrapped in sinewy kelp. The young sailor heaved to and fro, trying to tear free.

  Slitting his eyes, Lince slashed at the vines that rose to attack him, cutting his way toward Lanning, but the young sailor was yanked under the surface. Lince dived down under the vines and swam toward him. He sliced the young man’s bonds and kicked upward, gashing open another opening through which they both gasped and coughed.

  Lince gave him a knife that he had stitched onto his arm, and labored to pull him toward the Sea Mare, cutting through the imbroglio around them.

  A large bed of seaweed sensed their thrashing. It streamed forward to cut them off. Lince was near exhaustion and he could not fight another round. Sighing bitterly, he flung his knife through the air at the large membranous bulb in the center of the advancing cluster. With an oily spray the bulb deflated, and the cluster sank into the sea.

  As Lanning swam with Lince toward the Sea Mare, a cord struck Lince’s back. He wheeled and saw the end of a line thrown by Nil. Dropping the knives, he grabbed the rope with vice-like hands as Nil and Bultin hauled them in.

  “Wearin’ boots, are ya, boy?” Lince jabbed Lanning as they drew closer to the ship. “Always wear light shoes like me, kid.”

  “Right you are.” Lanning coughed.

  Nil and some others lifted them over the rail, where they landed in a heap. The Creature jumped on Lince’s chest and ground its face into his nose.

  “Are you all right?” Nil shouted.

  “Yes,” Lince answered.

  “Then grab a sword!”

  Nil ran and swung a sword on vines coiling round the rails beside Bruthru Zee, who cut back the growth with surgical strokes of his own blade.

  Lince and Lanning fetched swords and followed their lead, noticing now that beds of seaweed were converging all around the ship and that the task was clearly
impossible. To the south, still shrouded in sunlit clouds of mist, Lanning noticed a towering waterfall flowing from mighty cliffs. “Toward the falls,” he muttered, elbowing Lince. “That’s where it’s taking us.”

  “Archers,” Lince shouted. “Aim yer arrows at those buoys and the vines will sink!”

  Senthellzia took aim from the fo’c’sle with six men she had chosen as the best archers. Six more familiar with the bow, including Prince Rollum, fired from the sterncastle at the targets Lince suggested.

  “Look,” cried Lanning.

  As the fog continued to lift they could see that they were trapped in a wedge-shaped bay. Two jagged ridges, which had appeared to be separate islands at the edge of the fog, joined at a roaring cataract cascading from a high black peak.

  “What sombrous entwinements,” Pickle the cook lamented, using butcher knives to chop the legumes off the ship’s rail.

  “What a fix!” Bombo translated, for once accurately as he hacked a vine with a meat cleaver.

  Senthellzia and her archers were encouraged, for puncturing the purple bulbs succeeded in sinking the kelp beds that approached the Sea Mare. But the kelp already wrapped thick around her hull used the Sea Mare as a float instead now, dragging her deeper.

  The crew caught an acrid stench wafting from the south. Young Nofair of the first watch cinched a line around his ankles and had his watch mates lower him over the fo’c’sle. He swung at the vines on the hull like a reaper. The trick worked as Nofair flayed deep layers of vines from the bow, riling the trailers that protected it to attack.

  Lanning noted new clusters surging to the side of the Sea Mare, each with a thousand more grasping vines. The archers furiously fired at their floats, but the whole, wriggling bay of seaweed around them moved like a single hand to close around her, pulling her faster toward the falls.

  Now only a quarter mile distant, Lanning could make out the wrist of the seaweed’s vast hand, a great gnarled trunk reaching out from the cave behind the falls and bending under the pounding cataract into the bay.