THE TRYPHON ODYSSEY (The Voyage Book 1)

by S. D. Howarth

  Dagmar stepped into the cabin he shared with Gerard and removed his formal jacket. He despised the thing. The collar was too tight, and he much preferred magus robes—all the better when scratching your balls. Instead, he hauled out his thin seagoing robe for going on watch under the tropical-like canopy. His shipboard responsibility was to keep Tryphon afloat, manipulating arcane power gathered through the sunjammer dome, stored during daylight. A skill which the Spires' Sunjammer Guild had rigorously trained into him. Tonight, he garnered a sense of the weather, and something prickled like a bite from a sadistic bug. He tugged an earlobe, trying to make sense of the jumble of sensations in his head, and flopped onto his bed to calm himself. Before he could act, he needed to remove all distractions.

  Closing his eyes, he forced his lungs to slow, to empty, and his heart to quieten. Within several heartbeats he detached his thoughts, to project them a hundred paces distant, where he circled Tryphon. The view was unique with his mystical eyes. Everything took on a surreal grey-blue monochrome, lacking warmth, with deeper shadow, as though suppressing the detail of reality. Despite many drawbacks, the fact it allowed him to scout beyond a masthead lookout's line of sight—a useful skill beyond conventional scrying with the sunjammer gemstone, and an ability Principal Sunjammer Gerard struggled at. Hilarious, Dagmar thought with a huge shit-eating grin. The man would struggle to control a harbour ferry if pulled back and forward between capstans by sweaty illiterates. That was unfair. Some people could read, while Gerad would always remain an over-entitled fuckwit.

  He spiralled up around Tryphon and gazed back at the water, which always looked strange, more blue than orange. He imagined how it used to look, like in the dream, before the taint of magical abuse and cataclysmic volcanism. The Greek bastards had ruined the world for every man, woman and sentient species. Everything. Atlantis, then the Greeks' city-states, had reviled humanity to every non-human race. They lost lives, cities and the beauty of new verdant realms and untapped resources. Civilisations were rocked to their foundations and rebuilt, adapted. As though to seek redemption—if so enlightened from the stigma of ancient shame. Over time the colour changed, the surface poisoned. The amber remained a thing needed by human species, traversed only with the aid of magic, but it was loathed—if not feared, which explained many nautical superstitions to Dagmar's mind.

  He revelled in the peace. There were no sounds of men, no thud of feet on deck, no creak of timbers or groan and rattle of rigging. Just the silence of his flight over water he found so distasteful to touch. He wished he could set sail across green or blue oceans, like the arks. More fable than reality, and he desired to see the truth of such watery tales. To run his hand through it, touch and caress pure saltwater with his fingertips. He'd be out of a job if the sea could be fresh again, he considered. Yet, to swim in water without being burned, without enduring the unceasing prickling, would be worthwhile. A worthy goal for humankind, instead of empire building and petty squabbles over resources.

  He saw nothing unusual around the cerrack bar the edge of a distant fog bank, drifting with implacable intent towards their course. The low miasma was rapidly being closed upon by Tryphon under full sail controlled by Gerard. Deep, dark and blanketing, the fog seemed unseasonable for this time of the year, unmoving and impenetrable. Dagmar floated to his body, knowing it a matter of import for the watch-keeper, but something Gerard should've already reported. He tensed for the usual discomfort as he merged back.

  Dagmar creaked upright and stretched. He rubbed his temples, chiding himself for weakness. With a mental shrug at whether he should hurry, he stretched to the decanter his father had bought him when he was last in Tregallon. He poured himself a brandy from his dwindling private stock into a square, heavy-leaded glass. Concentrating for a moment with the glass, he sipped the now chilled drink and crossed his feet.

  He could never understand those who added water to fine spirits, when you had to make the water at sea drinkable in the first place. The mixing of nettlewood powder reduced the acidic properties of seawater to near nothing, but it was only since cleverer alchemists in Danska had developed the improved vex powder that it could counteract the acid in seawater with the salt. They'd perfected the process while avoiding foul-tasting water.

  He swirled the amber liquid in the glass as his thoughts wandered with undisciplined relish. Feeling he'd recuperated, he looked up to see the hourglass clunk, then rotate one hundred and eighty degrees for another cycle. Another watch. The sunjammer raised his glass in a mocking salute and downed his drink.

  Standing, Dagmar shrugged to settle his robes and toyed with taking a scroll his mother had sent. He remembered Principal Sunjammer Gerard's tirade the last time caught doing that and reconsidered. Keeping the ship cruising on the seas was easy. He needed more—some additional stimulation, even if he was to remain awake under the hot canopy, with the ruby a glowing fiery egg almost in his lap. He gulped the drink and set the glass down; he checked nothing flammable was by the lantern and headed to the sunjammer dome. The moment he reached the closed door, he sensed an odd taint. Had Gerard locked himself in and missed a meal? The moment he raised his hand over the familiar brass handle to knock, the hairs on the back of his neck lifted as he felt Tryphon jerk. His sense of trepidation redoubled when Tryphon rocked and the lantern behind him swung its illumination in drunken ovals.

  "What the f—" Dagmar never finished as the heavy two-inch thick carved scarferwood door exploded into thousands of fragments. Hundreds of shards peppered his skin and sliced his brow, blasting him back through the more common oaken door of the passageway and down the flight of steps he'd just came up. He cracked his shoulder on the frame, twisted in the air with robes swirling, then bounced, twice. His coccyx crunched on the steps and, howling in agony, he landed in a heap at the bottom. Groaning, he struggled with his robe, clambered up with his back screaming, spine pulsating. Feeling light-headed, he swayed in the searing heat, and found the deck coming to slam him in the face.

  .*.*.

  On the quarterdeck, Coxswain Grimm crawled out of the wreckage of the ship's scarferwood wheel. Feeling at his face with thick abraded fingers, he spat a tooth onto the deck and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. Grasping the remnants of the binnacle, he hauled himself to his feet, took stock. At the front of the quarterdeck, the large red canopy containing the dome above the sunjammer crystal was gone. Fucking gone.

  From within the shattered dome, immense yellow flames licked up and outwards like a rapacious alien plant growth. As the section of marines hurried aft to their watch moments, something hurled them into the rail as though they were dolls. Cursing, they struggled to extricate themselves from a stunned steel-clad heap of chainmail and weapons. They were fortunate the railing held; otherwise they would have been swept to certain death. Few armoured men could shed their equipment in a hurry, even if they possessed the skill to swim.

  Grimm felt his jaw drop at the carnage, his eyes disbelieved. He could see Bullsen moaning in the larboard scuppers by the aft staircase. Both quarterdeck lookouts sprawled dead either side of his binnacle, one nearly decapitated when the sunjammer canopies' gem-glass exploded. The other had taken the blast full in the face. Neither were pretty sights. Gagging on the taste of blood and soot, Grimm ripped his stare from the sightless smoking eyes and spat on the deck until he could breathe.

  He staggered, blood trickling from his mouth, while looking for the voice he'd heard astern. Was this a dream? Was he hearing things? Who was it screaming? Heading up the slope of the quarterdeck, he hung onto the flagstaff. Blinking his eyes, he found an arm clenched around the stern rail. Peering over with a nauseating moment of vertigo, he saw the first mate swaying thirty feet over the water. Grabbing the rail to avoid toppling over, Grimm fell to his knees. He could see a brutal cut over Sithric's right eye, which turned half his face black.

  Ensuring he had a grip of the taffrail knee, Grimm leant over and hauled until he grasped Sithric's shredded collar. His han
d burned and stung from minor cuts and splinters. He ignored the pain. Heaving, gasping, he dragged the man onto the rail and with a mighty heave onto the quarterdeck where they slumped. Resting his head, Grimm coughed more blood over himself and closed his eyes.

  .*.*.

  When he opened them again, he found the doctor standing as though wondering where to start. Grimm grinned in relief as the old man hurried to pull Bullsen from the scuppers—showing unusual physical strength, given the captain wasn't a small man. Robsin propped Bullsen in a sitting position, then rummaged one-handed in his bag. Withdrawing a small jar, the doctor unstopped it and waved it under the captain's nose, keeping his own face averted from the stench. Breath held, Robsin waited until Bullsen spasmed and showed signs of rationality, before sealing the bottle. Unhurriedly, Robsin creaked upright like a rusty hatch and walked to Grimm and pulled Sithric from his legs.

  Grimm spat on the deck and looked up. Robsin smiled down, looking unusually jovial as he clapped his hands, his face flickering in the fires. "So, the pair of you refuse to see me with any ailment, and today I get you both, together. I should celebrate the highlight of a long and undistinguished career!"

  Grimm raised his hand and extended a bloody middle finger. With sour grace, he climbed to his hands and knees, blood trickling to stain the decking in the shape of a butterfly of overlapping dots while his arms screamed for respite. The deck looked as tempting as a feather mattress, and Grimm only just caught himself from flopping back down and forced himself up, until helping hands dragged him to his feet.

  "I was jesting, you know," Robsin snapped, glancing over Grimm. The doctor flicked a hand to steady Grimm and waved the other under Grimm's nose. Grimm felt as though a smith rammed a poker into his brain and whooped in a breath before he choked.

  "Gods what is in that?" Grimm moved his head aside and sucked in air that seemed cooler with each lungful until his head cleared. Even stopped, the bottle in Robsin's hand stank, though Grimm was thankful to have the dizziness quelled. He hawked and spat blood, before rolling his shoulder and stretching an arm. "If someone upright doesn't get those fires out sharpish, we sink. Mr Sithric needs your ministrations, an' he's too pretty to swim."

  "Gets the job done, huh?" Grimm saw Robsin peer into his eyes and release Grimm's red waistcoat. Crouching past Grimm, Robsin dabbed the blood from Sithric's face to inspect his injuries. Sithric goggled one-eyed, with the other puffing up, before sagging weakly, panting after his escape from certain death. Shit, the doc would be busy. Grimm left him to work.

  Staggering through the smoke to the binnacle, Grimm peered along the main deck. His eyes soon tearing from the smoke. The flames soon forced the fog away, but in their place, the swirling smoke obscured much of the main deck forrard of the foremast. He caught sight of the sailing master under the towering mainmast, spurring to avoid the pieces of trestletree falling from the broken topmast, and waved until he got the man's attention. The cox'n pointed at the flames capering in the sunjammer dome, and the sailing master waved an acknowledgement.

  With an efficiency from decades of amber experience, the portly master redirected seamen from amidships with buckets of water from the mainmast's smouldering back-stay fall and grabbed axes to save their ship. Grimm saw a fresh wall of flames fountain from the fo'c's'le and spurt fiery tongues through the portholes in its aft bulkhead, seeking the unaware. Shaken to his core, the cox'n hoped Bullsen had some inspiration. He'd no desire to spend his last moments burning, his eyes sizzling and popping as his brain melted. The forrard ballista magazine was well-stocked with naphtha and now ablaze.

  8

  Harcux and Trevir never reached the main deck. The dim passageway flared as the planking overhead erupted into flame. Harcux staggered, he threw out a hand for Trevir, but toppled like a felled oak as Tryphon heaved again. The seaman sprawled awkwardly, crushing Trevir under his back. Groaning, Harcux lurched clear to flounder on the deck. Grasping at the bulkhead several times, Harcux pulled himself to his feet. Turning, he gripped Trevir by the damp shoulder, his fingers digging into the thick wool weave of the red tunic. Trevir gave a faint mumble, then a long groan.

  Harcux rolled the wiry form over and found the right cheek plate of the helm crushed by the bulkhead. Sensing he was wasting time, he hauled the man up. Together they staggered up the steps like drunken friends, pressed hard against the timber. Upon reaching the deck, Harcux felt something move underfoot, and they tumbled towards the scuppers and the drop to the sea. The sailor caught himself on the handrail stanchion with one meaty hand and pulled the diminutive marine clear of the ship's side. He allowed himself to slump as though spent. Grunting onto his side, Harcux saw the fo'c's'le spouting huge yellow flames that clawed upwards, obliterating the ballista on the towering structure which pointed to the sky like an accusatory finger.

  With a groaning shudder, then a sharp crack, the foremast splintered and crashed down over the larboard bow. The splash sent a spectacular cloud of steam sizzling into the foggy heavens from the inferno. "By Raphpoten's hairy cock and balls—" Harcux gaped, blaspheming the mighty Gnositos deity of magic.

  He trailed into awestruck silence with an eerie foreboding of impending doom as a more ominous crack jarred the ship along its hundred and thirty-foot length. Then, the burning fo'c's'le bulged and exploded, vomiting men and ballista wreckage, sending half the structure arcing into the sky, fiery trails carving passages away into the fog bank.

  "Fuck me sideways, that's the naphtha. Tickle my nipples; this isn't good—shit!" Harcux gasped. On instinct he pulled them flat from clatter and splash of falling debris as the crippled Tryphon lurched free of the broken mast.

  The deck punched him in his face. He felt his clothes harden with the heat from the blast and only now noticed what had tripped him. The limp body of Second Mate Van Reiver lay with his legs obstructing the passageway below. Two deckhands lay either side of him in bloodied heaps, impaled by dozens of jagged splinters from the mast. If Harcux hadn't tripped and tried to chin himself, the hardwood shards could've shredded him and Trevir. It was a miracle that they and the smouldering officer lived.

  Harcux scurried over on his knees and with lucky blows smothered the flames with calloused slaps without doing himself a serious injury. The seaman found blood scabbing on the side of the officer's head, but to his relief, Van Reiver stirred. Hearing a second groan, Harcux looked over his shoulder and saw Trevir shaking his head as though to clear it. He dragged Van Reiver to lean him against the newly holed panelling to the stairway below decks. Firelight formed odd patterns around him, like lances inside through the holes in the decking.

  "Whazz the fuck's burning?" Trevir gurgled.

  "Us."

  "Us? Shit, I don't wanna burn!" The marine returned Harcux's stare, and he stabbed a meaty finger at the bows and the raging inferno beyond the mast stump. Harcux ignored Trevor and shook Van Reiver, unsure if the cooked man was as torn up as he seemed, or just looked a mess. The officer's eyes flickered, then opened a crack, but like Trevir his gaze was erratic. The green eyes struggled to focus on Harcux's voice.

  "Do you want me to get you to Robsin, sir? You've had a nasty knock or five by the state of you?"

  "Quarterdeck," the second mate pleaded. "Get me aft, and hurry!" Grunting acquiescence, Harcux pulled the man upright, with a hoarse gasp of agony. He peered at Trevir, who had in the meantime dragged himself onto swaying feet. The marine wheezed, but unlike Van Reiver, he leaned against the splintered panelling unaided by his determination and contrariness.

  "Coming?" Harcux mocked.

  "If you manage him, I'll cope."

  "Cope?" Harcux couldn't resist prodding him.

  "Fuck off." Trevir sounded more like himself as he fussed at the dented helm.

  Harcux set out without further debate. He half dragged, half carried Van Reiver, with the officer's attempts to help to be of little help. They paused once, allowing several sailors with axes to scamper past and allow Trevir to catch up.


  "Next time, we stay below, and clean my fuckin' uniform." Trevir wheezed.

  Harcux snorted, he couldn't help himself, and in a second he felt tears run down his face and drag soot into his beard. Trevir didn't laugh, and the reflected fire in his eyes doused the laughter before it became hysteria.

  "Right, keep up this time. Ready?"

  "Go, big fella."

  .*.*.

  It seemed fate had taken a greater dislike to them as the deck heaved to another explosion, the shockwave from an unseen detonation sending everyone head-over-heels across the deck. A dull crump followed another furnace-blast of heat as they tumbled in a tangle of arms and legs, flames searing through the super-heated air inches above them, burning their hair, ears and any exposed skin. Van Reiver felt a stabbing pain in his ears, but his mind cleared enough for him to roll over and see. With a screech of tortured timbers, the steerboard catapult platform cantilevering over the side, twisted, snagged, then dropped into the sea trailed by burning weapon mounts. It roiled up a hissing cloud of steam to mark where its descent beneath the amber began. He stared at the sky, blinking rapidly, waiting for the function to return to his limbs.

  Van Reiver blinked again to clear watery eyes and saw a darker shape in the sky, outlined upon the fog by the glow of their dying ship. He rubbed his eyes with scuffed knuckles, staring harder, straining to pick out a shape swooping past—a man in a robe or some peculiar bird. In its unnatural passage, the fog parted into swirling vortices before weaving its blanket back together. To his horror, proving it wasn't a bird, the mottled grey and brown feathered figure gestured, and the deck under the damaged sunjammer canopy exploded. "No!" Van Reiver gasped.