Salvage

by R J Theodore

  Now, the waters were a confounding barrier. The ocean’s surface was ever changing, rising and swelling and pulling away as though it churned with the pent-up motion of creatures beneath. She had no idea how deep it was or whether the shadowy monsters circling close to their position were curious, or hungry.

  “Any ideas?” She looked to Sophie, who sat beside her, face reflecting the same awe Talis felt. At her captain’s words, Sophie’s mind engaged, and she teethed at her lower lip as she always did when solving puzzles.

  “Could maybe get through in a descent suit,” she suggested. Her shoulders scrunched up as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked thoughtfully at the wall of water beyond their railing.

  Talis shuddered, imagining being bait on a string, moving through the suffocating waters, wondering which monster would take a shine to her first. “I’d prefer to go through with a ship around me. What else? Kirna? Can you use alchemy to control that much water?”

  Kirna’s mouth was slightly open. “I’ve never moved that much all at once. I’ve never even been near this much water all at once!”

  “Some hunt these creatures,” Dug said. “They must have a way.”

  Tisker pointed up, beyond Fortune’s Storm’s lift balloon. “They hunt them from the surface. At the top, you can touch a hull-sealed boat down, and it’ll sail the water till you work the balloons enough to lift off again. Once you’re on the surface, everything goes screwy. The ocean is ‘down,’ like everything’s pulling toward Nexus.”

  “You know anyone who’s ever done it?” That would at least be something.

  Tisker shook his head. “Nah. Heard the prize runners talking in the bars, though. They hunt big game and deliver the trophies to rich folks, who taxidermy ’em up and act like they brought them down themselves.”

  Talis pursed her lips to one side. She hadn’t come all this way to wring her hands in despair and go home again. There wouldn’t be a home if Amos couldn’t sort out the solution.

  The ocean water swirled and surged, and a light flashed beneath the surface, moving across Nexus like the sweeping light of a search lamp. There was a rush, and the water began to move differently, all seeming to flow away from a single point. The surf churned white, and a roar—of water and air—filled the sky.

  Kirna ran toward the sound, right up to the railing. She shouted, pointing out of sight below the hull. “An opening!”

  Talis commanded Tisker to bring them around for an approach as she and Dug ran to join Kirna at the starboard rail.

  Water poured as though something protruded from the surface. Only it was a gap, a tunnel, with water spiraling around and around in a corkscrew leading up to the surface where it foamed and frothed and pushed away for more water to come behind. Some of the aquatic life she’d seen was caught up in the current, tossed up to the surface where Talis noted the flash of white dorsals and dark underbellies as the creatures rolled and flapped to right themselves, before being pulled beneath the surf again.

  Tisker circled the ship away from Nexus before coming about, angled straight toward the opening.

  “Captain?” Kirna looked to her, probably for reassurance, but Talis didn’t know what to offer her. Sail through a tunnel made of water and into what next? If the alchemist on deck didn’t know what to make of it, she certainly didn’t.

  She had planned to get past the ocean and sail up alongside Nexus, though. Well, here was the way through.

  “Head on in, Tisker. Let’s go easy, shall we?”

  The bow of Fortune’s Storm lined up with the center of the open channel, and Tisker smoothly brought the ship up to a polite tiptoe.

  A fathom’s distance from the opening, the light beneath the water crossed once more and out of sight. The churning waves calmed, and the water settled back across the entrance, silent again. The only evidence of the vortex was a confused circle of white-caps on the surface, already settling into smooth swells.

  With a shout, Tisker pulled hard to port. The ship responded as best she could. But the lift balloon dragged, still obeying momentum, and kept the hull of the ship from making as tight a turn as was required to avoid impact.

  One of the aft tail fins on Fortune’s Storm’s belly touched the water. A shudder of friction traveled up through the wood hull, through their feet. Talis’s teeth rattled, and she struggled to maintain her balance.

  And then the world was tilting, tilting.

  The ship, true to Tisker’s tale, oriented to the ocean instead of the sensible top-to-bottom they knew. The lift balloon swung out over the port railing, as though trying to flee the scene. The hull rolled hard in the same direction.

  “Grab onto something!” Sophie’s bellow could hardly be heard over the sound of creaking wood and whining ropes. She leapt for the starboard ratlines, looping her arm through them and getting a foot tangled for good measure. “We’re gonna pitchpole!”

  Dug ran for a line while Tisker seized the safety harness hung neatly by the wheelhouse. It was meant to secure a pilot in driving winds. Talis hoped it could resist the rush of water. But he got his left side through it and clipped it shut with the other side only wrapped loosely around his middle. He seized the wheel, gripping the handles with white knuckles.

  She couldn’t see Kirna, but there was no time to do anything but trust she’d find an anchor. The deck shuddered and tilted wildly. Talis seized onto a line trailing from the nearest capstan.

  All sense of up and down changed with the angle of the ship. Talis’s inner ear believed the lie of their new orientation. Islands hung sideways in the sky above them, around the expansive sphere of water that spread out, away, and down in every direction. The hull impacted with a great splash as though they’d plummeted out of the sky from above, not the side. Her stomach felt as though it had plummeted as well.

  She’d never taken time to consider the physics of the ocean. It did its thing, and she did hers. It was a good arrangement. But she’d broken that contract.

  Unfamiliar winds pushed hard against the lift balloon, and Tisker’s face tensed with concentration as he struggled to keep them steady—tried to steer into the wind and find a calm path. But the wind would have nothing of it. It pushed at the balloon, wrapped its embrace around her, and pulled at the same time. The wooden frame of the lift envelope cried out in protest, and Talis strained her ears over the sound of water smacking at the hull, trying to hear if any of the thin wooden braces beneath the canvas were splintering.

  Water on the hull.

  “Dug, get below and secure the lower portholes!”

  An airship, designed for flight, featured windows wherever the designer liked. A ship meant for water . . . Talis prayed the shipbuilder was a stickler for detail, and that there were seals around all of the lower hatches.

  The ship bucked and rocked. Sophie stumbled a bit as she crossed the deck—Sophie, who could dance a jig in a storm cloud without missing a step.

  The wind would never treat a ship like this, Talis thought to herself. But she looked up and watched the lift balloon bobble in the air and reconsidered that truth.

  Talis untangled herself from the capstan lines. The railing vibrated in a way she’d never felt before.

  Water and air—the two opposing elements would tear Fortune’s Storm apart given the chance. Meran accused the Divine Alchemists of failing to work together, of segregating the elements they favored instead of balancing them, just as they isolated their people on separate islands. Talis felt the truth of Meran’s disapproval. Her knees began to ache.

  “Kirna!” Talis’s voice was tiny against the straining of the ship and the roar of wind and water. She moved aft to where she’d last seen the alchemist, squinting against the icy spray that flecked spots on the lenses of her goggles. The hairs rose on her neck and arms. She held her breath as she climbed the steps to the top of highest deck at aft. There was nothing there but
the flap of canvas and the spray of water coming in over the side.

  No Kirna.

  A rhythmic splashing of water sent her running for the starboard railing, and she saw her, flinging her arms, fighting to swim after Fortune’s Storm and keep herself above water.

  Talis called down to the wheelhouse. “Tisker, I need a line!”

  Then she peeled off her boots and dove in.

  She’d only gone swimming on a couple occasions. There weren’t many bodies of water on the islands of Peridot worth calling a swimming hole. But she’d found one of them, on a job back in her days as a mercenary. The team she’d been on had marched halfway across a hot, steamy jungle island, and their clothes stuck to them almost as tightly as the cloud of gnats their body heat attracted.

  When she found a fresh spring, on the other side of a rocky outcropping that they almost passed on by, the rest of the team were so relieved they’d all agreed she earned an extra share of the job’s profit.

  That refreshing pool hardly had a current to speak of, except near the mouth, where it drained away as a small but eager stream. She’d decided she liked swimming and would do it whenever she got the chance.

  The ocean, though, was enough to change her mind. Cold beyond refreshing, beyond bracing—icy on a whole new level. The moment she broke the surface, she was colder than she’d ever been in her life. And the water was alive. Not just with the life circling below, casting shadows against the underside of Fortune’s Storm’s hull, but with the raw force of an element that wanted to dominate her. Will against will. Primal force against stubborn woman.

  If she got out of this, she’d stay far away from water for the rest of her life. No doubt Kirna would be full-canvas sailing straight back to her caves.

  Talis felt her teeth chatter together, and it made her jaw muscles sting. Her clothes clung to her, making her sluggish. Pulling at her, restricting her movement. She felt as though someone were stabbing at her with icicles. She already couldn’t feel her toes. Panic gripped at her throat. Which was fine, she wasn’t trying to breath just now anyway. The problem was how slow her mind moved, all of a sudden. But Kirna needed her.

  Talis searched out the dark shadow of her in the water above. Kirna’s skirts clung around her thighs, her boots still on. She fought the water, thrashing, and struggling. The spinning hull of their ship was moving away faster than she could follow behind.

  Talis thought of Meran’s words again and stopped trying to fight the water. Working with the element, she held her body like a knife, legs together, arms before her. Kicked and pulled, and felt the water let her pass, until she reached the alchemist. She came up under her arm and lifted her far enough that she could get her mouth above the surface. They both gulped at the air until Kirna’s weight pulled her down again.

  Strange to look up at the railing of her ship, overboard and yet not beyond rescue. The air let you fall. Yielded its prizes to gravity. But the water was greedy, keeping everything for itself. Determined to possess you.

  A rope smacked the surface just out of reach. It floated for a moment; then the water tried to own that, too, and it began to sink. Tisker’s frightened face appeared at the railing. His mouth moved as he shouted something, but the words were lost before they reached her.

  She swam for the rope, tugging Kirna along against the current. Something brushed against her leg, but with her head above water, she couldn’t see what. She tried not to think about the kinds of teeth the ocean creatures might bare.

  Kirna pushed her off and tread water, giving her the chance to get to the rope before it sank and angled out of reach.

  Talis wrapped frigid fingers around the lifeline, barely feeling anything more than a light scrape from the coarse fibers. Worked it into a loop, and tied a knot best she could. She kept bobbing up and dipping below the surface, over and over again, until she got a rhythm going by which she could breathe air and concentrate on the rope. She didn’t feel cold anymore. Couldn’t feel much of anything.

  Kirna made it to her side, still struggling to get enough air, and Talis held the loop out for her. They each hooked elbows through it, and she waved an arm above the water, signaling to Tisker, if he could see it.

  A moment, and then, her heart skipped a beat as the rope tightened—all slack taken up. They rolled onto their backs, so they could breathe as the water rushed over them. Finally, they heard Tisker shouting down, and they were at the hull, their hands on solid wood.

  Relief, and the chill, seized her. She began to shiver uncontrollably. It was indecent. Shameful. But Kirna was shivering more than she was. Her lips beneath the chitin were blue-white, a thoroughly unnatural color for the fireborn children of Arthel Rak. She trembled against Talis as they were hoisted out of the water.

  They tumbled over the railing and collapsed in a heap. Coughed salt water onto the deck. Dug wrapped them in blankets and beat at the freezing cold before he helped Talis up. Kirna followed on her own strength once their legs were untangled.

  “Go on.” Dug’s voice was tight with concern. “Get changed before you freeze.”

  Talis shook her head, stumbled on the deck, and had to hold the railing for a moment. “Gotta get in there.”

  She clutched at the blanket and closed her eyes while she took a steadying breath. Then she crossed the deck, awkward on numb feet, to where Tisker had returned to the helm. “Watch for the light. I’ll bet you it comes around again. And that opening with it.”

  Beneath the blanket, she was beginning to warm again. She held out one flap like a mother bird’s wing, and Kirna joined her there. They leaned together for warmth.

  They were still more than soaked, but at least Talis had stopped shivering. Kirna was not so recovered yet. When the light reappeared over the far edge of the ocean, as she predicted, there was a muffled roar, like the yawn of a great beast, and the ship spun to one side as the water pulled away from the mouth of the gate. It looked smaller from this angle, appearing as little more than parted lips in the surface before them.

  “Get us through.” Talis leaned forward as if she could will the ship toward it.

  Sophie stumbled to stoke the engines, so they could respond to Tisker’s control at the helm.

  It almost wasn’t enough. As they sailed up to the cusp of the font, the turbines did their best against the water and against the strain—all while the wind pushed back on their lift balloon. Talis grit her teeth.

  “More, Sophie,” she said under her breath. “We need more.”

  The girl was below deck and couldn’t hear her. But she knew. Her crew always knew. The noise from the engines surged, and the deck lurched below her feet.

  The world tipped again.

  She had to look to the skies to know what manner of ‘upright’ they had achieved.

  The islands were worse than sideways. Their craggy, barren rock bottoms were pointing the way Talis’s mind tried to tell her was ‘up.’ The lights of distant cities teetered close to falling off the bottoms. Pumpkins grew down, and flotsam sparkled above her. She got a watery feeling in her mouth as though she’d not coughed up everything she swallowed when she dove overboard.

  “Run us around the barrel,” she said to Tisker. “Get flotsam below us again, or I’m going to be sick.”

  Tisker obeyed her command eagerly, angling Fortune’s Storm around the cylindrical opening in the water. They were a third of the way through.

  Talis had the idea, almost too late, to count time on the gate. It had seemed to hold open so long the first time, but that was when they’d trusted it to remain steady. This time, she held her breath as though her expanded chest could bolster whatever force formed the tunnel.

  A cry sounded through the din as the tunnel began to close again. A sharp rough sound, unforgiving and selfish.

  Onaya winged through the closing iris of water as Fortune’s Storm yanked sideways again, back to t
he ocean’s surface.

  Only this time, they were on the inside, on a concave ocean whose contours lifted up and curled overhead. Sailing at the bottom of a blue bowl with the brilliant green sphere of Nexus above them. The reflected light glared up from the surface while the lift balloon shaded them. The barque stilled. The lines relaxed, and the canvas of their sails stopped flapping.

  Tisker let go of the wheel, flexing aching fingers and then running them through his hair, tugging the knotted prayerlocks from temple to crown. “Okay, now what?”

  “At least we’re closer.” Talis unwrapped herself and left the full blanket to Kirna. It was much warmer on this side of the ocean, sealed off from the wind. Only the water moved them now. The disturbance from the closing vortex faded with a soft lapping against the sides of the hull and the creaking of the ship.

  And the rustle of feathers. Onaya landed in the ratlines above as if Talis were going to kick her off the ship should she get within reach. She’d like to.

  The lift balloon settled back down, and the deck swayed gently, nauseatingly, on the water’s surface. Talis suppressed a shudder. They had fought their way inside the ocean. And they weren’t done yet.

  “Watch for the next one,” she said to Tisker, motioning the far edge of the ocean again. “Don’t rely on those goggles alone. Can’t imagine how blinding that beacon will be on this side. Make sure it can’t suck us back out. Time it. Kirna and I are going to get dry.”

  The brand new towels in their supply cabinet felt like the warmest, most plush and decadent cloth Talis had ever experienced. She stripped down to her undershirt and briefs, rubbing furiously to remove the deep chill threatening to settle into her bones.

  Kirna, who had been beneath the waves longer and who was less tolerant of the cold, earned the first hot shower. Talis hung their clothes, blankets, and towels on a line along the bulkhead to absorb the heat of the engines, then wrung out her hair while she waited. Kirna gratefully accepted a towel when she stepped out. Talis left her to dry off and dress while she thawed beneath the shower head.