by Tom Abrahams
“You didn’t see it coming?” asked Branch.
Le Grand shook his head. “There were clouds. Rain on the horizon. The surf’s been rough all day. Lots of chop. Some wind. Nothing like this. It just—”
Another strobe and crash. Lightning and thunder. A bolt reached down from the sky and struck the water off the starboard bow. Again, the boom vibrated in Branch’s bones.
All around them storm clouds joined the sky and the sea, one indistinguishable from the other. And then they were. An enormous wave crested ahead of them, larger than any Desmond Branch had ever seen.
His muscles tensed. His chest tightened. His stomach knotted.
The world went silent around him as the ship’s bow reached the base of the gargantuan wave and began to climb. The bowsprit, the long pole that connected the jibs to the foremast, pointed up. It reached higher and higher until Branch was sure it would peel back atop them.
The line dug into his fingers as he gripped. His weight shifted and his feet came out from underneath him, and he found himself facing the black sky through the veil of the folded, flapping mainsail.
Another strobe of light preceded a boom. Branch felt as if he were inside the thunder. He felt it in his chest. In his toes.
In his gut, he sensed the ship beginning its descent on the back side of the wave. Now the pendulum tipped, and the Saladin began to ride the wave down. There was a weightless sensation that followed the heaviness of the drop.
Branch looked straight into the ocean now, the bottom of the wave’s trough. They were headed straight down. The lines dug into his hand, tearing into the calloused flesh.
Beside him, Le Grand worked the helm as best he could. His jaw clenched, teeth gritting through the stress of the drop. Wind whipped across his face. He was drenched
The two exchanged a glance in the moment before the Saladin careened toward the low point of the wave. And as they hit, Branch was sure the bow would pierce the surface of the roiling water and they would break through, diving deep into the ocean.
The sea rose to meet the ship and, as another crash of thunder shook his world, it hit the bottom of the trough with such force that Branch’s feet swung out from under him. A deafening collision, the crack of wood snapping and bending.
Branch lost his grip on the line and found himself in the air. Unaware of direction, he thought he was falling one instant and ascending the next. The world tumbled around him. Sea and sky spun and flipped.
He landed hard on his side, the sword’s handle digging into his side, and he saw stars as his vision blurred from the impact. A heavy weight pressed the side of his face into the deck as he lay there.
Branch had enough of his wits to know the ship was climbing another wave, and gravity was forcing him flat against the deck.
He rolled onto his stomach and pressed his hands onto the wood. A chill ran through his body as rain pelted his back. He was cold. Except for the slick warmth on his palms. They were bleeding.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the drop he knew was coming. But it didn’t. He opened his eyes.
Water sloshed around him. The rain became a drizzle, drops like a fine mist. He lifted his head and looked at his hands. Deep gashes ran along both palms. Blood mixed with rain and seawater, making it pink as it ran down the meat of his hands and onto his wrists.
They burned. His head ached. His side hurt. He rolled over, away from his sword, and struggled to his feet.
He was on the mid deck, not far from where he’d lost hold of the lines. He faced the rear of the ship. Looming beyond them, the path they’d just traveled, was a black thicket of clouds. Gray sheets of rain connected them to the sea.
Careful not to move too fast and risk falling, Branch spun to face the front of the ship. The bowsprit was gone. The stubby shard of it affixed to the bow was splintered at its end. The jibs were torn and flapped limply in the wind. Useless.
But the sky ahead was clear. Sharply distinctive rays of sunlight reached for the bluer surface of the water. The sea wasn’t calm. It was manageable though. They were through the worst of it.
“You survived. Pity.”
It was Anaxi’s turn to sneak up on Branch. He pivoted again and balled his wounded hands into fists as he saw her. Then he opened them and looked again at the wounds before eyeing the girl.
She stood with her feet shoulder width apart. Confident. She had her sea legs now.
Branch’s eyes drifted from her and scanned the ship. How many men had he lost? How many more would he have to sacrifice? Le Grand, thankfully, remained at the helm. A streak of red ran across his face from his forehead, along his nose, to his chin. The helmsman appeared otherwise unfazed. His features were squeezed with tension. His jaw muscles flexed.
Branch’s eyes fell again upon the girl. He took an uneasy step toward her. She held her ground, squaring herself to his approach.
“So that was the beast in your poem?” he said, wincing from the ache in his side. “We survived the beast? It formed quickly, like you said.”
Branch tried to hide the anxiety in his voice. He was aware as he spoke, he’d failed. There was too much hope in the words, which in turn revealed too much fear.
A smile spread across Anaxi’s face. Her eyes narrowed. For the first time, Branch noticed the darkness in her. She was more formidable than he’d imagined.
She looked up toward the sky, the mist falling on her face. “That was the storm, Desmond Branch,” she said. “You haven’t met the beast yet.”
Desmond opened his mouth to speak. Before he did, there was a loud thump. The ship shuddered. He felt it in his legs. It had come from underneath the water.
Another bump staggered him. This one was harder. It vibrated through his body. He stepped forward to maintain his balance.
Anaxi was unmoved, as if she’d steeled herself in anticipation. She sneered
“That,” she said, “is the beast.”
Chapter Eleven
Zeke sat at the helm of a Chris Craft 312 Stinger Fittipaldi. A boat. His hands wrapped around the leatherette steering wheel. The white bolster behind him cushioned his lower back as the thirty-three-foot boat bounced along the chop of the ocean. The motor hummed. The sun bore down on the back of his neck. Uriel was in a matching captain’s chair to his left.
He had no idea how he got here. One second he was pushing his Superbird through the high-walled tunnel of ocean waves. The next he was driving a ship on the open sea under a cloudless sky.
Uriel smiled. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back, relishing the warmth and light from the sun. She must have sensed Zeke staring at her, jaw agape. She tilted her head toward him and opened one eye.
“Cool, huh?” she said.
Zeke thought he’d seen it all. Until he hadn’t. “I don’t—”
Uriel sat up and pivoted toward him. “Look behind you.”
Zeke hesitated. Both his hands clutched the wheel tight.
“This isn’t a car,” she said. “There’s no road. No traffic. You can take your eyes off where you’re headed.”
He shifted his hips and the seat spun. He looked back over his shoulder. First, he spotted Lucius Mander. The man was alabaster white. His hands gripped his seat. His eyes were wide, pupils small. Fear tensed every inch of his body as he stiffly bounced with the motion of the boat.
Fifty yards behind him was a large black boat. It sliced through the water, seemingly unaffected by the Chris Craft’s wake.
“That’s Gabe and Phil,” said Uriel. “They got a nice one this time. Eighty-four-foot Riva Cantata, I think. That’s what they requested.”
There was a faint blue glow that appeared to be fading around the boat. Within seconds it was gone. Zeke’s eyes drew closer, to the rear of his own vessel. He smiled at what he saw there.
Extending across the stern of the boat was an angular spoiler that resembled the one on the back of his Superbird. It was elevated a meter from the rear gunnels, and the more Zeke looked at it, the more he real
ized it was essentially identical to the trademark feature of his late-twentieth-century muscle car.
Was this his muscle car? Had Pedro snapped his fingers and transformed it into a boat?
“This isn’t your car,” said Uriel, as if reading his mind. “It just looks like it.”
Zeke spun back to face her. Her feet rested on a faux leather bolster that extended from her chair toward the opening that led below deck, legs crossed at her ankles. Her black leather pants looked glossy in the sunlight.
Zeke studied her for a moment then looked straight ahead, blindly correcting course.
“You’ve done this before?” he asked. The answer was obvious. He felt stupid for asking the question. His face flushed. He cursed himself under his breath.
“Oh, Zekie,” she said, every bit as patronizing as he’d expected, “I’ve done everything before. Eh. Vree. Thing.”
Uriel smiled then tucked her tongue in the corner of her cheek. Her left eyebrow rose, hinting at something untoward.
Zeke doubted it. Uriel was nothing if not a hyperbolic tease. Still, she didn’t seem fazed by the sudden transformation of his car into a boat.
He ran his palms along the soft leatherette of the wheel. The wind in his face was warm. The bounce of the boat was rhythmic. He’d never been on a ship before, of any kind. Never seen so much water.
As much as the ocean stretched from all sides of Pedro’s Cantina, this was vaster and more unending. The color of the water was a deep blue. Aside from Gabe and Phil in his wake, there was nobody and nothing else as far as he could see. Not in any direction.
He tightened his grip on the wheel and rotated it to the left. The response was slippery. Unlike a car where the turn was instantaneous and sharp, a boat’s turn was spongy. It drifted.
Uriel reached out and put a steadying hand on his left arm. Her fingernails dragged across his jacket. Despite not touching his skin, the touch sent goosebumps running across Zeke’s body.
“A boat steers more than a car,” she said. “You’re propelling yourself by forcing water in different directions behind you. You know, for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. That kind of thing. The water goes one way. You send the boat in the opposite direction.”
Zeke was getting the feel for it. He’d drifted his Superbird before. The feeling behind the wheel of this boat was similar. There was only one issue.
“Where are we headed?” he asked.
Uriel squeezed his arm, sending another wave of electricity through him, then let go. She shrugged.
“Not my town,” she said. “Ask Shell Shock back there.”
Lucius Mander appeared frozen in position as he gawked off the starboard side of the boat, deep in thought.
Zeke checked with Uriel. “Can you take the wheel?”
“Sure.”
He got up from his seat and used the plush back to aid himself in moving back to the white bench seat that stretched from one side of the boat to the other. Having spent his life on dry land, Zeke wasn’t accustomed to seeing so much water let alone traveling upon it. Movement was difficult. Every step felt as if he might lose his balance. He slid into one of the two empty seats next to Lucius and pressed his hands flat against the warm cushion.
Uriel eased into the captain’s seat and put a hand on the wheel. She rested her right elbow on the starboard gunnel. The woman was always comfortable, always in her element.
Zeke found it hard not to stare at her, to study her lithe movement, the graceful way she checked the pink bow at the end of her braid, touched the top of her hair, ran her fingers along the sides of her shaved head. But he had work to do.
The boat’s twin inboard engines were housed underneath a glossy red stern behind him. They growled, not unlike his Superbird, with the spoiler stretching over the engine casing. Zeke felt a smile edge at the corners of his mouth.
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Lucius. “Am I dead?”
He looked up at Zeke. His glossy eyes, ready to spill tears, searched him for answers. His lower lids twitched, as did his chin. The man was a wreck.
Zeke wasn’t sure what to say. He was impressed though. It had taken Lucius almost no time to reach the conclusion Zeke hadn’t considered until he’d seen his own body hanging from a building. Lucius was a smart man. He had an intuition Zeke hadn’t noticed until now.
“Do you think you’re dead, Lucius?” Zeke asked.
A tear ran down Lucius’s cheek. He fluttered his eyes but didn’t bother to wipe it away. Then he sucked in a haggard breath and blew an exhausted sigh.
He stared past Zeke, toward the horizon. “I don’t know what to think. It’s one of two things. Either this is the most vivid dream I’ve ever had, or I’m dead. I don’t remember going to sleep. I don’t remember dying.”
“What do you remember?”
Lucius’s face tightened. “You already asked me that,” he snapped. “Pedro asked me that. I. Don’t. Know. Okay? I don’t know.”
The tears flowed now. His nose ran. His chin quivered.
Zeke tried a different tactic. “Okay. I get it. Look, I was there. I was as confused as you. All of this is overwhelming. You’re ripped from the world you knew and plopped down into this new reality.”
Lucius’s eyes widened with recognition. He suddenly realized something.
“What?” Zeke asked.
“Or I’m crazy.”
Zeke spoke above a gust of wind that whipped across his face. “What do you mean?”
“That’s the third option. I’m crazy. None of this is happening and I’ve lost my mind out at sea. Too much sun or…or something.”
“Lucius,” said Zeke, “do you think you’re crazy?”
“No. Crazy people never think they’re crazy.”
“Good point.”
Uriel spun toward them in her seat. “Just tell him, Zeke. No point in dragging this out. It only complicates things. We need a heading sooner than later. Not as easy finding one measly ship out here as finding the only city in a desert.”
Zeke didn’t think Uriel was listening. He thought the engine and wind were too loud for her to hear the conversation. Then again, she was Uriel. He hesitated. Uriel didn’t. She groaned and rolled her eyes before locking her attention on Lucius.
“You’re dead,” she said matter-of-factly.
She spun back around. One hand found the throttle and she pushed it forward. The bow lifted and the engine roared.
Lucius’s expression remained unchanged. Zeke wasn’t sure he’d heard Uriel until he spoke.
“Makes sense. It does.”
He regarded Zeke, but his mind was elsewhere. Thinking, processing the truth. He opened his mouth and closed it again. The tears were dried on his cheeks. His voice was absent any emotion. It was like he was telling someone else’s story and not his own.
His hands went to the top of his head. He laced his fingers together and kept them there.
“I think I remember,” he said. “As soon as she said I was dead, it flooded my mind. It came from nowhere. I see it now. They took us out on a ship. They threatened us. They…they…”
Lucius’s face twisted. His brow furrowed. Tears welled again. Zeke knew he was replaying his death in his mind. The poor man lowered his hands, placing his palms flat on the center of his chest. He gasped.
“Oh. Oh. Oh no.”
His eyes absently drifted toward the water. He said nothing.
Zeke didn’t know what to say. Should he say anything?
Lucius pointed toward the ocean. “I’m down there,” he said before Zeke had to decide. “He dumped me there.”
“In the ocean?” Zeke asked.
Lucius nodded and slowly turned to face Zeke. “In the ocean. He drove a sword through me and pushed me overboard.”
“I’m so sorry,” Zeke said, and he meant it. “I know how it feels. I was murdered too.”
He let the words hang in the air for a moment. Lucius knuckled the corners of his ey
es. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose.
“I’m here with you now,” said Zeke. “We’re together. We will find your daughter. We will stop the—”
Lucius’s eyes widened, almost bulged. His face brightened. “The Saladin.”
“The what?”
“The Saladin,” Lucius repeated. “That’s Desmond Branch’s ship. That’s where my daughter is. I’m sure of it. Anaxi knows the map. She’s the only one who can lead him to the Kalevanmiekka.”
“All right. Where do we find the Saladin?”
Lucius shook his head. “I don’t know where it is, but I know where it’s going.”
“Can we get there from here?”
“Yes, but it won’t be easy. We have to pass through the same trials, conquer the same feats as anyone seeking the sword.”
“Nothing worth having is ever easy,” said Zeke.
Uriel raised her fists over her head, extending her arms. “Truth. Preach on, brother.”
Lucius shot Uriel a confused glance.
Zeke waved it off. “Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She likes to talk. Which way do we go?”
Zeke looked to the sun. “If we’re in the northern hemisphere,” he said, “the sun is south. Are we in the northern hemisphere?”
Lucius nodded. “Yes. We are north of the equator.”
“How do you know?”
Lucius pointed off the port bow. In the distance, on the horizon was a series of sloped shadows. Islands.
“That’s my home over there,” Lucius said. “I recognize the archipelago.”
Zeke stared at the bumps. Even from this distance, he could tell they were relatively small spots of land. Nothing like the barren wasteland he came from.
“Do we go there?” Zeke asked.
Lucius shook his head. “No. We go west.”
Zeke blinked at him. “West? Just west?”
“You want something more specific?”
Uriel nodded dramatically from the helm and said, “Yes.”
Lucius pursed his lips together, then licked them. The wind blew into his face. He closed his eyes and spoke.