Crimson

by Warren Fahy

With his final stroke the sword sliced straight through the vine and rang with a high, vibrating tone as it struck the stone ledge in a shower of sparks.

  The great sailor rolled onto his back, doused by the beast’s foul beast’s blood as the shadow of its trunk slid away beside him and into the bay.

  Trevin cursed. Theosophiclar decided to bide his time and humor their “King” with a neutral countenance until he could determine who he really was.

  The crew hacked frantically at the weed as they noticed its grip suddenly loosen and the Sea Mare pull back from the falls that swamped her decks.

  The severed trunk emerged from under the falls, staining the water with foaming yellow blood as the crew roared with joy.

  The kelp beds writhed in the bay and began sinking as the heavy trunk slid down into the deep, pulling the weakening vines from the Sea Mare’s hull.

  Nil ordered three boats lowered, two to row the ship farther from the falls and another to rescue Bultin.

  The latter crossed unmolested over listless vines to the shore beside the falls. A number of men climbed out over the rock behind the falls to look for Bultin, and soon they emerged, carrying the heavy sailor, and they passed him down to the men waiting in the launch.

  They rowed back to the Sea Mare, greeted by cheers and songs as the mariners produced instruments to celebrate their champion. They hoisted him with block and tackle over the rail and laid him out to dry on the deck.

  He snored loudly as he clutched his shimmering crystal sword, which the men beheld in awe. Since was covered in the sickly sludge and stench of the vine, Nil had water brought up to wash him down. Nil splashed a bucket over Bultin’s face, wishing to revive him, but the sailor only smiled and smacked his lips over his crooked teeth, wiggling to get a better angle on the deck as he snoozed, gripping a mysterious weapon of crystal.

  Nil shrugged. “Three cheers for Bultin!”

  They cheered the sleeping giant.

  They dropped the lateen sail and started tacking from the bay against a mild southerly as sun slanted over the eastern point.

  As the Sea Mare tore loose the last limp vines clinging to her she picked up speed, but Nil decided to turn the bay to their own use. “Drop anchor, Lince!” he ordered. “I doubt any other monster will venture here. Let’s claim this bay tonight.”

  “Aye, Captain. Hear that, men! And Lady, aye,” Lince nodded at Senthellzia, who laughed at the salty first mate. “One more mile and we’ll clew up and drop anchor.”

  Karlok climbed to the bridge. “I wonder if that other beast is around the corner and no light left to see it. Good choice, Nilly.”

  “Aye, we’ll tackle that one tomorrow.” Nil grinned darkly. “Mister Zee, how’s Bultin?”

  The Sarkish physician looked up from Bultin’s side on the deck below. “He is most healthy but quite exhausted,” Zee said. “I stitched up his leg, but he didn’t seem to feel it, fortunately. I dropped a healing oil in his eyes, which seem injured. The oil is most beneficial.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Nil turned to look astern. “Mister Pickle, I hope dinner is on the way, sir?”

  “Dinner is on the way!” Bombo called from the galley, and all aboard applauded, relieved just to smell another meal.

  “Captain!”

  “Yes, Mister Tobbs?”

  “I tossed the buoy.”

  The young scientist’s paper-white skin was stained a deep red now.

  “Tobbs tossed the buoy,” Ed cried from the crow’s nest and everyone had a boisterous laugh.

  Nil suppressed a grin. “Bad luck we survived. Eh, Mister Tobbs? A good thing I’ve a few spare buoys—you’ll have to rewrite everything over from scratch!”

  Tobbs was on the verge of tears at the others’ merriment. But the determination that normally possessed his face doubled in intensity now. “I’ve got a perfect memory, Captain! My father will attest to it. I remember every letter of every word, every stroke of every drawing, every blot of ink I ever spilled. I’ll write everything back just as it was!”

  “Leave out the blots,” Karlok said.

  “And the part where we all died,” said Lince.

  “You’ll have another tale to add to the end now,” Nil said, with a smile. Then he folded his arms. “Well? Get to it, lad!”

  Tobbs ran off as if starting a race.

  When the anchor bit sea bottom, the Sea Mare rocked gently in the bay that she had won, and a purple twilight charged the sky.

  A spark of summer was in the air as the brightest stars caught colorful fire in the sky. While the men were allowed free time now, Lince joined Nil and Karlok on the bridge.

  Nil frowned at them all. “We came close today!”

  “Aye, we lost young Nofair and Tintil,” Karlok said.

  “Hindsight though it be, it was a good move to cut into the fog and avoid that other beast, Captain,” Lince said.

  “Tobbs says it was a lobster baby magnified into a giant,” Nil said.

  “Huh!” Lince said. “Whatever it was, Captain, we tricked it. We prevailed today, and the crew is better for it.”

  “Bultin’s earned his berth,” Karlok said.

  Lince sniffed the air and grinned. “And Pickle’s earning his, too, I think. That cook’s a sorcerer. You were right to choose that lunatic, Nil.”

  “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Lince Neery-Atten,” Nil said. “I never want to see you risk your neck like that. That’s an order, Mister!”

  Lince blushed. “Captain, it’s not as though I said, ‘Hey, risk my neck!’ and jumped in. It takes hold like and I can’t help nor hinder it. I saw Lanning fall in and thought, ‘He’s a good lad, a lot like Nilly, and ought not to die.’ Then I was jumping in. I lived. So did he, you might have noticed.”

  “Make sure you’re not around when someone else needs saving then! I need you, and so does everyone else on this ship.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “By the Gairanor,” Nil breathed. “The smell of that dinner does cast a spell!”

  The dinner bell rang and all except for a scant watch of grumbling sailors from the besmirched third watch left for their mess.

  The men took their pewter plates and mugs and filed through the galley as Pickle and Bombo dished out venison cooked in spiced gravy with nuts and onions, mashed enrid, sage and butter, and a portion of grated spinach and leek. Finally, golden rolls of corn meal crowned the rich meal that Pickle conjured. Yet it was probably the bock beer they were most grateful for after their labors.

  As Pickle watched the men’s faces, all the vertical wrinkles on his pinched brow were smoothed away. This was the only time the wild-haired cook smiled: while surveying the reverie on his victims’ faces.

  Bultin was finally roused, perhaps only by the smell of Pickle’s food. Though he rubbed his eyes, which streamed tears, he finally opened them and found that he could see clearly, thanks to Bruthru Zee’s medicine.

  He was immediately taken to the head of the central table opposite Nil. And, blushing brightly, he grinned as the men sang the songs they had already written to immortalize him.

  Bultin was given a whole dripping shank of venison with stuffing and extra gravy, and his eyes and mouth grew wide enough to eat the whole plate. He topped the feast with a tankard of ale.

  Lince let them take an hour tour of free time as the others took their mess.

  The Second Moon waxed silver as a warm breeze swept over the decks as the mariners clustered. At sea, watch assignments tended to delineate social groups more than previous friendships. Bultin, Lanning, Rawley, and the other members of the second watch gathered on the fo’c’sle and listened to Rollum strum chords on his Norlanian mandolin. Senthellzia smiled wide at the handsome prince, and he smiled back, his green eyes adoring her. All saw what was going on there as Senthellzia seemed to adopt the second watch as her favorite.

  Rawley lit his pipe in the dusk, and the match illuminated his right thumb, which seemed strange to Lanning’s quick eye. For Lanning
thought he saw a scar around the base of the carpenter’s large thumb. Rawley blew out the match and winked at him. Lanning decided to have a better look in daylight.

  “So, tell us how you found this sword, Bultin,” Rawley said.

  “On the bottom,” Bultin said.

  “And?” the others said.

  Lince’s cat batted a piece of wiggling seaweed on the deck, knocking it around with its ears pinned back.

  “Well?” Lanning said.

  “That’s where it was,” Bultin elaborated.

  “Well, what did it look like? On the bottom there?” Sowernut said.

  “All grabby like. Sticky thicket.”

  “So what ya do?” said Lanning.

  “I aimed for the sword. Bright as a sunray!”

  “What was?” Rawley said.

  “It!” Bultin raised the sword.

  They wouldn’t get much out of Bultin.

  “’Twas Trevin put that sword there,” Lanning suggested.

  Bultin nodded.

  “He gave a way out, I guess,” Sowernut said.

  “A stroke of mercy,” Overly said.

  “A good sign,” said Rawley, blowing a stream of pipe smoke.

  “Maybe.” Sowernut shrugged.

  As Senthellzia and Rollum flirted a few yards from the others, Harm leaped off her shoulder with a scornful cry, and the proud bird landed on the shoulder of the greatly dismayed Ed in the crow’s nest, who kept watch. Now he was competing with both a bird and a monkey.

  “May I see your sword?” Bruthru Zee asked Bultin. The physician had gone around to check on all the other men he had tended that day before checking back with the great sailor.

  “Here,” Bultin said, offering the hilt of his crystal sword to the physician. “Careful! Sharp! It don’t cut me, though.”

  Zee drew the sword and looked into the blade, smiling as its dazzle lit his face. “It’s living, Sir Bultin.” He held out the crystal blade.

  Bultin’s head jerked. “Eh?”

  “It has a name.” Zee peered close at the hilt. “Taernoquille. Well, well. Keep it always. You are meant for great things.”

  “And how would you know all that, Doctor?” Rawley asked, clenching down on his pipe.

  “My Sarkish king had a sword like this passed down to him from Cirilen-Lords, who ruled before my people settled Sarkland. When we arrived, centuries after the plague that destroyed the Gheldron’s ancient kingdom, they found a weapon called the Seersword while digging in the ruins of a city. That blade, too, possessed a spirit like this one. Lord Trevin is descended from the ancient kings of Sarkland. And it was made by the same gem, the Kronusia-Khis, as it was called in those days, which he wields in his scepter.”

  “Give it back,” Bultin said, taking it by the naked blade. “Trevin gave it to me.”

  Zee smiled. “Yes!”

  Zee pulled off a long hollow instrument slung over his shoulder by a strap and then he played chords along its side with his fingertips. And the men listened to his strange music with interest.

  Standing alone on the bridge, Nil looked at the Silver Coin in the clear night sky as thoughts of Lelinair prodded his heart. Then he heard Bruthru Zee on the fo’c’sle, drumming his toned instrument with rolling fingers. Rollum strummed an impromptu accompaniment in the Norlanian style as the doctor sang:

  King Oru was a bad king

  Who ordered men to die.

  He wasn’t such a bad king

  The axe was made of wax.

  He ordered women hanged

  But the rope was made of soap.

  He flogged the children hard

  With a lash made out of ash!

  Oh, Oru was a strange King.

  Oru was.

  Chapter 22

  The Race Is On

  The crew of the Sea Mare weighed anchor under the orange dawn. The men aloft let the mainsail out, clewed by a third, and tacked against the southeasterly. The lateen sail proved itself as it gave the ship legs against the light wind. A carpet of mist slid down the slopes of the peak behind them, filling the bay and covering the island once again.

  When they crossed the eastern point they turned east with the wind.

  The seas became heavier and the fog to the south burned away. They could clearly see the horseshoe island on the eastern horizon ahead, where it was said the Crystal Dragon made its home. The mouth of its bay faced south, toward the recently reported “Illusion Sea,” a place of madness so named by a captain whose ship barely survived entering it for only a few hours little more than a week ago. Nil decided to pass east between the two terrors, gambling that it was better than facing the dreaded Gyre on the way to the Dimrok.

  Nil ordered the jibs set to make faster passage, keeping the mainsail clewed by a third.

  The day was brilliant and for the moment the terror seemed distant. A school of dolphins sewed the shining waves in front of them and filled the air with their cheerful squeaks. Smacks of jellyfish blossomed across the sea like patches of meadow flowers, and packs of sleek black nautili grazed on them, hunted by a few orange gyres of the usual size, reminding them of the beast they dreaded.

  Now that the wind was steady, Lince rotated the watches off the lines to their mess. Pickle served a breakfast of scrambled eggs, chopped tomato, black biscuits, gravy, and potato sausage, topped with coffee and lemonade, a fortifying meal that quickly corrected the crew’s mood.

  Senthellzia sat by Rollum at the mess, as all noted. It was rather nice having the imposing Lady Tunn on board, and the sailors of the second watch took it as further proof of their superiority over the other watches she had not chosen to hang around. But Senthellzia, clearly, only had eyes for Prince Rollum.

  Senthellzia was not much for romance, having avoided it for most of her life. Some might call her an old maid at 34, behind her back. But she would have laughed at the charge, because she saw herself as a complete person with an expertise and a career of her own. Her father was a wealthy merchant from a royal family, a descendant of the King of Ameulis who could pay a rather opulent dowry and richly support her, if she so chose. Instead she followed a life that took her away from the course of love with its promise of motherhood. There had been only two affairs of the heart for Senthellzia, fleeting expressions with a man and with a woman, who had both admired her for her strength and were still dear to her. But in truth she had preferred competing with men rather than acquiescing to them, having seen no victory in surrender, until now.

  Rollum was from Norlania, where chivalry found its home. Women were worshipped in that neighboring kingdom, and their strengths were readily admired and served by the men of that society. Men could make everything but men. Women were celebrated for their power of creation and pleasure, which formed the basis of Norlanian religion. There was no marriage in Norlania. Women chose the men who would father their children, and each man was responsible, on pain of death, for supporting the child he fathered. There were women of great power in Norlania who presided over houses populated by the children of many successful men.

  It was therefore natural for the handsome and polite Rollum to shower the accomplished Senthellzia with praise and respect, bowing low and kissing her hand whenever she approached—disarming her, utterly. Senthellzia, dressed in a vest of brown kidskin over a short-sleeved purple shirt and pants of black wool tucked in high brown boots, looked at Rollum always with an irresistible smile, as now across the table while she ate breakfast with the second watch. Rollum seemed never to stop admiring her in return.

  Senthellzia’s falcon Harm waited on the crow’s nest for his meal, meanwhile, disdainfully preening his feathers.

  “Pickle’s a poet!” Lanning chomped a black biscuit and smacked his lips.

  Rollum gazed at the fanning wake of the Sea Mare framed in the wide stern port. “Mmm,” he agreed.

  Senthellzia caught Rollum’s left wrist as he brought a forkful of food to his lips. “What’s the cooking like in Norlania, eh? This is a good sample of w
hat our kitchens offer. How does our fare compare?”

  Rollum smiled diplomatically. “This is tasting like a dream, strange and wonderful. I am liking it, very much!” He smiled as she allowed him to take another bite.

  The Ameulintians laughed and thumped the table.

  Then they heard Lince’s growl through the breezeway: “Git yer bun-skins out of the mess! Finish it up and stretch yer legs for a quarter hour off duty.”

  All groaned and shoveled down the last morsels, swigging their coffee and juice. They left through the galley, thanking Pickle, though Bombo took all the credit. As his belly attested, Bombo received more than a healthy percentage of his master’s creations, as well.

  Lanning, Bultin, Rawley, Sowernut, Overly, Rollum, Senthellzia and the other members of the second watch, except for Tobbs, climbed to the aftercastle then as the third watch piled into the galley behind them.

  Harm fluttered down and perched on Senthellzia’s shoulder, glaring at Rollum.

  Nil kept the mainsail clewed by a third as the wind kicked up. He bade Jootle keep an eye on the rigging. The sails were proving their worth, Nil marked. “Send Ed aloft, Lince.”

  Lince sent Ed to the crow’s nest, where the sharp-eyed sailor kept one eye on the horseshoe island three points off their port bow.

  Dillon Tobbs climbed the aft companion ladder to join his watch mates, emerging only now since the felling of the sea weed. “I’ve finished copying my log!” he announced.

  “Congratulations,” Lanning said. “You missed breakfast, young man.”

  “I know! What a wonder Bultin performed yesterday, eh?” Tobbs smiled, ingratiatingly.

  “Well, we don’t want to give him a big head, too, do we?” Rawley glanced at the brute, squinting.

  The others laughed and Bultin made a raspberry.

  “He did the job, all right,” Lanning said.

  “Well, just wanted to say hello, then,” Tobbs said, earnestly. “I guess I’ll be going along now. Good day.”

  “Oh, come off it ya square-circlin’ book-wormin’ soil-suckin’ knob-cobbler!”

  Tobbs looked mystified at Rawley’s description as the carpenter puffed on his pipe and rested his weight on his shapely wooden leg that creaked at the knee as the deck pitched. “Why don’t you stick around and make friends?”