The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  "Why not?" Tarrin said. "Where do you want to try?"

  "Let's take it over to the port side. I think we can get it into the air without fouling it in the rigging."

  It turned out to be almost ridiculously easy. They took the kite to the port side, close to the bow, in a hole where rope nets and ladders weren't attached to the bulwarks, and Dar threw the kite up into the stiff breeze pushing the ship east. The kite caught the wind immediately and reeled out to the end of Dar's thin rope, where it danced in the air erratically just outside the ship's side and a good twenty spans in the air. By watching the kite, Tarrin saw that the wind was slowly beginning to shift, leaving dead astern and quartering more to the south, and a look up showed him that Renoit had already ordered those on ship duty to adjust the sails to take it into account.

  "Look at it go, Tarrin!" Dar laughed, but Tarrin's attention was not on the kite. The wind was shifting, and it was still very stiff. That wasn't a good combination. At that speed, the wind shouldn't be changing unless something large was forcing it to change. For that matter, it shouldn't be blowing that hard unless something was forcing it to do so. Both of those conditions could be created by a good sized storm.

  "What's the matter, Tarrin?" Dar asked curiously. A gust of wind came up, yanking on the rope in Dar's hand, nearly pulling the kite free of his grip.

  "That's the matter," he replied. "The wind is shifting."

  "A storm?"

  Tarrin nodded. "I think so. We can find out pretty easily, though. Allia!" he called loudly.

  "Help me reel this in, Tarrin. It doesn't want to come down."

  Tarrin helped Dar pull in his kite as Allia left the acrobats and made her way over to them. "What is it, brother?" Allia asked in the common tongue. Mainly for Dar's benefit. Though they had started out rocky, Dar and Allia had become good friends. It had mainly been because the Arkisians were not well liked by the Selani, but Allia had thrown over the Arkisian stereotype she'd hung on Dar's neck and found out he was actually a very friendly, engaging young man.

  "I need your eyes, sister. Let's all go up into the crow's nest and have a look aft," he proposed. "I think there's a storm coming up behind us."

  "I felt the wind shift," Allia replied seriously. "It is possible."

  Dar followed the two non-humans to the mainmast, and he watched with trepidation as Allia grabbed hold of it and started climbing up it quickly and effortlessly. Tarrin extended the claws on his paws and feet and waited for her to get a good ways up the mast. "Just give me a little while, Tarrin," Dar said. "I can't climb that fast."

  "You're not going to climb," he replied, grabbing Dar by the waist and dragging him into a secure grip at his side, then putting his claws into the mast and starting up.

  "Tarrin, this is a bad idea!" Dar protested, grabbing hold of his forearm worriedly as the deck moved farther and farther away with shocking speed.

  "Quit squirming," Tarrin chided absently as he climbed up the length of the mast.

  The current lookout was climbing down by the time Tarrin reached the crow's nest, planting Dar in it securely before climbing in himself. Allia was already there, and the three of them made it a tight fit, since it was made more for one person. Allia shaded her eyes from the sun and peered intently to the stern while Tarrin and Dar did the same. Allia's eyesight was inhumanly keen. She could read an open book from five hundred paces away, and she could identify people by their face from over a longspan distant. From that high up, she could easily make out distinct features of objects close to the horizon. Her gift wasn't common among the Selani, but it did occur frequently enough among them for to understand it and make use of it. It made her a scout for her people, using her exceptional eyesight to help her clan locate hidden dangers.

  "There is a storm," she announced finally. "A very large storm. It goes from one side of the horizon to the other. I think it is one of those, what did Kerri call it. Hurokeen?"

  "Hurricane," Tarrin corrected absently. "I remember Dolanna telling me about the weather out here. Hurricanes are very rare in the Sea of Glass this time of year. The rough weather usually doesn't hit until late summer."

  "Rare or not, there is a very large storm behind us," she said. "I do not know which way it is moving, though. I must watch it a while to find out."

  "Maybe we'll get lucky," Dar said hopefully.

  "Luck is not our ally, friend Dar," Allia grunted. "It always seems to favor our enemies."

  "Better safe than sorry," Tarrin reasoned. "I'll carry Dar back down and tell Dolanna. Do you mind staying up here and seeing which way the storm's going?"

  "Not at all, deshida. This is something we need to know."

  "Alright, let's go, Dar. And don't squirm," he said, picking up the young Arkisian again.

  After getting back to the deck, Tarrin and Dar climbed up onto the steering deck, where Dolanna, Faalken, Renoit, and a tall, swarthy Arkisian stood. The Arkisian was steering the ship, and Dolanna and Renoit were talking about tents, for some reason. "Tarrin," Faalken greeted with a smile. The cherubic Knight was wearing as simple gray doublet and breeches, which did nothing to hide his massively developed frame. Years of wearing heavy armor had built up the man's body to an impressive level.

  "Andevouz, Tarrin and Dar. What brings you two up here?" Renoit asked jovially.

  "There's a pretty big storm behind us, Master Renoit," Dar said politely. "Allia's up in the crow's nest seeing which way it's moving."

  "The storm, she should not be a danger, no," he said reassuringly. "This time of year, such storms commonly move from the south to the north, and from the east to the west. We are behind it, yes."

  "Large storms often control their own direction, Renoit," Dolanna said quietly. "Perhaps having Allia determine its direction is a wise precaution."

  "Its direction, I would have the desert flower find, yes. I said they commonly travel such ways this time of year. I have seen storms move in one direction, stop, then move backwards across their own paths before, yes. The sea causes storms to move with a mind of their own."

  "Regardless, there is nothing we can do until we know more," Dolanna said in her calm voice. "You can return to your kite, if you wish."

  "Maybe later," Dar said after a moment, after looking at Tarrin. "I think Tarrin's not done carrying me around."

  Tarrin gave Dar a quick look, then reached down and grabbed him by the waist. "Tar-RIN!" Dar screamed when the Were-cat jumped up to the rail, and then vaulted the large gulf between the rail of the steering deck and the aftmast. Such inhuman feats were easy for him; he could have jumped across ten more spans of empty air. One of the gifts of his Were nature. Dar just closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as Tarrin scampered through the rigging at a speed that would have made a human tumble to the deck, quickly getting back to the mainmast and up to the crow's nest. The Arkisian was breathing a bit heavily by the time Tarrin set him on his feet in the tightly packed lookout. "By the sandshield, Tarrin, did you have to scare me to death?"

  "I'm not going to drop you, Dar," Tarrin said calmly. "You should know better."

  "Still, that's something I don't do every day."

  "I have not had enough time to determine direction, brother," Allia informed him calmly, her eyes locked on the horizon."

  "That's alright. We're here just to keep you company," he replied.

  "Your company is always welcome," she said sweetly to him, but she still didn't take her eyes from the storm.

  "What is this, a convention?" Sarraya's voice preceded the buzzing of her wings. She flew up into view to their side and landed on the rail of the crow's nest by Dar. The Arkisian stared at her in wonder for a moment, then purposefully looked away from her.

  "There's a storm behind us," Tarrin told her. "Allia's trying to figure out which way it's moving."

  "Please. Let a professional do this. Nature is a Druid's specialty," she said.

  As always, Tarrin felt a strange sensation that always seemed to be tied up with Druidic ma
gic. It was a fleeting feeling, a strange feeling of reaching out, and then of communion. In that instant of communion, he could sense the power flowing through the little sprite, and he knew she was putting together a Druidic spell of some sort. She pointed to the stern, towards the storm, and her tiny brows furrowed in concentration for a long moment. All three of them stared at her while she did her magic, until she shivered her wings and looked up at them.

  "It's a doozy," she said. "Not a hurricane, but not far from it. The good news is that it's weakening. The bad news is that it's moving in our direction. It'll overtake us by dawn."

  "Is it dangerous?" Dar asked impulsively.

  "We'll be tossed around, but this seems to be a pretty rugged ship," Sarraya replied. "It looks silly, but that Shacèan keeps her in good trim. We'll be alright. We may just have some cases of seasickness, that's all."

  "Could you go down and tell that to Dolanna?" Tarrin asked.

  "Are you trying to get rid of me, Tarrin?" she teased.

  He snorted. "If I wanted to get rid of you, I'd swat you."

  Sarraya laughed. "True enough. Sure, I'll go tell her high-and-mightiness. Be back in a flash." With that, the capricious sprite buzzed her wings and lifted her feet off the rail, then circled down towards the stern, where Dolanna, Faalken, and Renoit stood with the steersman.

  "That is one strange creature," Allia said bluntly.

  "You have to take people as they come," Dar said sagely.

  "You actually talked to her," Tarrin said with a slight smile.

  "I guess I did," he chuckled. "For a moment there, I forgot who she was."

  "I think she'd prefer it if you did forget who she is," Tarrin replied.

  "I guess we're in for some shaking," Dar said. "I've been on a ship in a good storm before, when I was sailing to the Tower. It's nothing you quickly forget."

  "We should be alright," Allia replied. "I do not favor the idea of being in a storm, but I do trust the sprite's judgement. It is merely something we must endure."

  "Another one of those sharp corners," Tarrin said mainly to himself, referring to the Goddess' description of his path.

  Shaking was not a good enough description of it.

  Tarrin was in Allia's cabin, claws anchored into the floor, holding onto his sister as the storm howled around the garishly painted ship. It would rise, and it would fall. It would list from side to side so severely that Tarrin feared that the ship would capsize more than once. He could hear things bounce around, broken loose from their lashings and rumbling about with the movement of the ship. Water poured into the cabin sporadically, probably as waves crashed over the rail and flooded onto the deck, seeping through the boards to drizzle down on the people taking refuge below.

  They had spent most of the night getting ready for the storm. Renoit had all the sails furled, then they were turned sideways and heavily tied down to the masts. All the rigging that couldn't be taken down was pulled taut to make the masts more secure, and all the hatches were tightly secured. There were only three men on deck, literally tied to the helm so they could move the ship among the waves to minimize their impact on the ship's hull.

  And the ship rocked, and it rocked, and it rocked. It would swing from side to side, until Tarrin could stand on the walls. It would climb up waves, making it lean way back, then it would suddenly pitch forward as the ship crested and went down the other side. The sound of the water slamming into the ship was loud, nearly deafening, as the steady sound of heavy rain hammered on the ceiling of the cabin, which was the deck of the ship. The ship's wood creaked and groaned and protested the rough treatment, sometimes nearly as loud as the cracking peals of thunder that raced through the ship.

  Above it all was the sound of the wind. He could hear it distinctly, a monotonous roar that whistled through the sparse rigging and along the masts, pulled at the ship, pulled the water up from the sea and created the large waves assaulting the vessel. It howled with a fury that made it nearly seem alive, as if the wind had taken offense to the small vessel on the sea and had decided to torture it for some unknown reason.

  "I thought you said the storm was weakening!" Allia accused Sarraya, who was secured to the top of Tarrin's head with two handfuls of hair.

  "So sue me!" she shot back. "It must have reorganized itself during the night! I didn't check before it got here!"

  The ship lurched forward, making Tarrin shoot a paw up and drive his claws into the low beam over his head, stabilizing him against the motion. He held Allia by the waist, who had both hands wrapped around his chest tightly, using him as an anchor to keep from sliding towards the wall.

  "Can this ship take this?" Tarrin asked her.

  "This isn't bad at all!" Sarraya assured him. "It's not as bad as it feels! The ship just feels like it's flying around, it's really just riding on waves that crest just about at the deck! I haven't heard a single board split yet!"

  As if that was an omen, the unmistakable sound of ripping wood reached them. Almost at the same time, Tarrin felt something big hit the deck right over them, making the heavy beam shudder and sink dramatically before rebounding against the force of the blow. He felt it slide along the deck, then stop and bounce back. Whatever it was, it was loose, but it was still tied to ropes that made it bounce around on the deck.

  "You had to say something!" Tarrin accused the Faerie.

  "What?"

  "Something just tore off the mast and hit the deck! It's rolling around up there!"

  "Tarrin, we need to secure that! It could slam into the masts and split them!" Sarraya told him.

  "I'd better do it. I don't know if the humans can handle something that big in this storm," he grunted. "Allia, stay in here. You too, Sarraya. I'll go up and see if they need me."

  "Be careful, my brother!" Allia said emphatically.

  "I'm always careful," he said as Sarraya flitted off his head and landed on Sarraya's shoulder. He saw her tying a rope to her bunk as he left the room.

  Walking on the ship while it lurched around was entertaining. He had to put a paw on each side of the companionway and stabilize himself against the wild rocking. By the time he reached the stairs, he was greeted by a wall of water that splashed down from the deck above, soaking him to the skin in salty water and driving him back nearly a span. Deep gouges from his claws were left behind in the wood as he started working his way up the steep staircase, hearing the door to the deck above flapping wildly in the raging wind, banging into the bulkhead with frightening rapidity.

  The scene on deck was something he could never have imagined. The sky was an angry murky gray, and stinging rain was driven before howling winds with enough force to make it painful. The sea was raging, with huge waves and swells that easily rose as high as the deck itself, and it was the movement along those waves that made the ship lurch and roll so severely. The rigging that was up was all shredded, the ropes flapping fiercely in the heavy wind, and the heavy object that had hit the deck was the crow's nest and about ten spans of mast. Ropes tangled it to the mainmast, and it rolled about on the deck wildly as the wind and the waves pushed it around. He saw one of those waves approaching the starboard rail, and he just managed to get his claws into the wood before it broke over the deck, sending a huge torrent of water slamming against him, trying to suck him back down the staircase. Tarrin shook the water out of his face and out of his ears as the force receded, hoping that the three men tied to the helm were still there. They were behind and above him, and he'd have to move out on deck to get to where he could see the steering deck.

  Sarraya was right. With that heavy an object rolling around on the deck, it could do some damage to the ship before the storm was over. He realized that he could either cut the ropes and let it be carried away by the sea, or try to tie it down and save it, hopefully to be reattached to the mast somehow.

  Staggering to the stairs leading to the steering deck, Tarrin managed to climb nearly all the way up before bracing himself against another crashing breaker, then
got up far enough to see the steering deck. All three men were still there, all of them desperately turning the wheel to try to turn the ship's bow into the next approaching swell. One of them was Deward. They looked at him in surprise, halting their turn for just an instant before continuing the maneuver, moving with a quick efficiency that showed they knew what they were doing. Tarrin scrambled onto the deck just as the wave was split by the bow, sending a raging mass of water flying over the lower deck, to slam into the sterncastle.