by K. T. Tomb
“Good,” Hugh said sarcastically. “At least have one of the decent horses saddled for me?”
“Aye, that I will. We’re sendin’ you out on Raven,” Jarreth told him, watching a smile creep across his friend’s visage.
“Raven, huh? Well, this should be interesting,” Hugh replied, happily sipping his kaf.
Chapter Seven
Land-dwellers here’ and liegemen mine,
who house by those parts, I have heard relate
that such a pair they have sometimes seen,
march-stalkers mighty the moorland haunting,
wandering spirits: one of them seemed,
so far as my folk could fairly judge,
of womankind; and one, accursed,
in man’s guise trod the misery-track
of exile, though huger than human bulk.
Grendel in days long gone they named him,
folk of the land; his father they knew not,
nor any brood that was born to him
of treacherous spirits.
Untrod is their home;
by wolf-cliffs haunt they and windy headlands,
fenways fearful, where flows the stream
from mountains gliding to gloom of the rocks,
underground flood. Not far is it hence
in measure of miles that the mere expands,
and o’er it the frost-bound forest hanging,
sturdily rooted, shadows the wave.
By night is a wonder weird to see,
fire on the waters. So wise lived none
of the sons of men, to search those depths !
Nay, though the heath-rover, harried by dogs,
the horn-proud hart, this holt should seek,
long distance driven, his dear life first
on the brink he yields ere he brave the plunge
to hide his head : ’tis no happy place!
Thence the welter of waters washes up
wan to welkin when winds bestir
evil storms, and air grows dusk,
and the heavens weep. Now is help once more
with thee alone! The land thou knowst not,
place of fear, where thou findest out
that sin-flecked being. Seek if thou dare!
I will reward thee, for waging this fight,
with ancient treasure, as erst I did,
with winding gold, if thou winnest back.”
Beowulf spake, bairn of Ecgtheow :
“Sorrow not, sage ! It beseems us better
friends to avenge than fruitlessly mourn them.
Each of us all must his end abide
in the ways of the world; so win who may
glory ere death! When his days are told,
that is the warrior’s worthiest doom.
Rise, O realm-warder ! Ride we anon,
and mark the trail of the mother of Grendel.
No harbor shall hide he—heed my promise!—
enfolding of field or forested mountain
or floor of the flood, let her flee where she will !
But thou this day endure in patience,
as I ween thou wilt, thy woes each one.”
—Beowulf
Jarreth stood outside the stables and waited apprehensively, just as he had every morning for the past ten days; just as he had for the past ten evenings. He looked both ways down the road, and prayed that he would see the characteristic cloud of dust which Raven’s prancing threw into the sky when she was on her way home.
He turned to go back inside the Loki’s Luck for another cup of kaf, when he felt hoof beats on the road through the soles of his shoes. His men had had their gear packed for three days and they were eager. The boat was loaded with provisions and they were all ready to be on their way—they were just waiting on Hugh’s return, and their hope had been dwindling. Jarreth tilted his head to the sky, and cast a wayward prayer up to whatever gods existed that the horsemen on the road—for him to feel the vibrations so surely, must mean there were more than one—were Hugh and at least one other Sentient.
He turned to face the road, and await the riders. Finally, he caught a glimmer of sunlight on a black coat, a black mane flowed in the wind and a blue-black tail swept out behind the horse. He recognized Hugh’s slouching position in the saddle and smiled to himself.
Hugh never was much of a horseman. He handles the beasts well enough, but… well, with that kind of posture, it’s a miracle his spine hasn’t shriveled up and crippled him.
Riding almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Hugh was another person. From the way they rode, Jarreth guessed that the rider was female. Lithe and light, he instantly spotted an expert in the way she sat the roan. While he could make out these details, the horsemen were not pushing the horses unduly to arrive at the tavern, and Jarreth knew that as well. It would be at least another ten minutes before they arrived. He turned and went back through the front door to announce that everyone should get ready to leave with the next high tide. That gave his men approximately six hours until they launched from the dock under the guise of a fishing crew. Jarreth refilled his mug and went back outside to await his friend and to meet the newest addition to his crew.
Finally, the horsemen reined in, and Hugh shifted out of the saddle, gracelessly landing on his feet. The impact caused him to shudder, but he quickly righted himself. Hugh’s companion was the exact opposite. Her dismount from the saddle was as smooth as an iced-over lake in winter. Graceful, noiseless, and Jarreth could already tell that he liked her.
“Hugh—good to see you!” he shouted. “I can see your trip was a success then?”
“Yeah,” Hugh grunted uncomfortably. “I guess if you call saddle weary, hungry, chased and pursued night after night by the monstrosities that roam the wild a success well… we’re here, and we ain’t dead yet. So sure. Success is one way to put it.”
“Always such a grump, Hugh,” he said with a laugh at his friend. “And who did you recruit? Won’t you introduce us?” He looked expectantly over at Hugh.
“Well, truth be told, I didn’t really recruit any one. The… council… where I found her was… anxious… to see her gone. To say the least,” Hugh replied. “And on top of that, she would not let me leave without her. She made that extremely clear.”
“Sounds like she’ll fit in just fine with the rest of us.” He turned to the dark-haired young woman with Hugh and introduced himself. “I am Captain Jarreth of the Veiled Lady. Everyone here takes their orders from me, and I expect those orders to be followed. If orders aren’t followed, someone could get hurt, or worse. I don’t expect much, but I do expect that, should I ever give you a direct order, that that order gets followed, without question. Can you do that… uhmm…?” He realized that she still hadn’t told him her name; neither had Hugh.
“Well, aren’t you sure of yourself? And the name’s Adrielle, but you can call me Ri. It’s what everyone else calls me, so you and the crew can too. And I’ve never been good at taking orders.” She smiled and winked at Jarreth.
“I’m not sure how things were done where you came from,” Jarreth said, starting to cool off toward Ri, “but here, not following orders can cost one of my men their lives. If someone else refuses to follow an order, it could be your neck on the line. So, for the sake of your own skin, just pay attention and when I tell you to do something, you do it.”
Jarreth looked back at Hugh and winked, and then added, “You’ve got six hours to get everything packed away the way you like, Hugh. We sail at the next high tide.”
“Ain’t that a blessed sack of shit,” Hugh said, his foul mood quickly getting fouler by the second. “Not home for more than a minute or so and I’m back out the door. Well, that’s life for you. I’ll see you later then.”
With that, Hugh turned his back on both Ri and Jarreth and walked Raven into her stall in the stable. Hugh gave the horse a bag of oats to munch on and went out the back door of the barn so that he did not have to deal with Ri any longer. Jarreth led her
into the inn, introduced her to the rest of the crew, and then left her to care for her horse and get her gear ready to go.
Jarreth caught Hugh just as he turned in to his bunk to get some peaceful rest before they left that night.
“Hugh, this won’t take but a moment, and I need to know,” Jarreth asked, “does she have the right stuff? Will she be able to help us get done what we need to get done? Can I count on her?”
“Well,” Hugh said, “I believe you can. I think she will be a decent asset. And you know, she very well may turn out to have more than enough stuff, as you call it.” With that, he turned over on his side and fell asleep.
Hugh awoke at the sound of boots clomping loudly all over the inn. He quickly recognized the noise as the last-minute frenzied packing of the crew. They loaded everything into wagons which would then be drawn down to the ship. Finally, everything was loaded up and it was a short ride to the docks where the Veiled Lady was moored. The cargo hold was quickly loaded, and they slipped out of their berth and into open water just as the high tide came in. Hugh, after the excitement of loading everything onto the ship, quickly retired to his bunk, only to be interrupted once again by Jarreth.
“Hugh,” he said in a garrulous tone, “I have a good feeling about this trip.”
“Well,” Hugh replied somewhat doggedly, “I am exhausted. And while you may feel good, I do not and I could really use some rest.” He tried to roll over to go back to sleep.
“Uh-uh,” Jarreth said. “We need you topside. We have to get a bearing on this Veil, and get the Lady headed that way. Soon’s you can get us on the right course, you can have your peace. I’ll even place one of the three down here so that no one will bother you, but right now we need you to help us find our way.”
Hugh groaned his way back onto his feet and followed Jarreth topside. The wind was gentle and, though it was dark out, the sky was clear.
Aye, Hugh thought, it’s what I love best about sailing. Look at all the stars. It’s incredible. No gas clouds hanging up above the cities, floating around and spreading their poison. Out here, the air is clear and clean.
“What exactly am I lookin’ for, Cap?” Hugh asked aloud.
“The log book says that this veil would feel pretty much exactly like our world. The sentient on that exploration was Gennefer. In her notes, all she said is that it felt like there was a crease in the sky, and she directed the prow of their ship into that crease,” Jarreth said. “Think you can find it?”
“I’ve found more with less directions and clues than that,” Hugh replied. The sentient set his feet, and rolled his shoulder and rotated his neck back and forth in an attempt to loosen up so that he could focus on the task at hand. As he reached the edge of his meditative state, a commotion broke loose on the other side of the ship.
“Leave off, I said!” Jarreth looked towards the other end of his boat, his mild irritation at the disturbance quickly vanished as he tried to contain his humor.
Ri was obnoxiously pursuing Yvo for a kiss, and Yvo was doing his best to avoid her.
“How about we wrestle,” Ri said matter-of-factly, but with a twinkle in her eye that suggested this would not be a typical wrestling match. “Winner can do whatever he—or she—wants with the loser. I could make you dance, I could make you sing. If I win, that is.” She winked at Jarreth, who immediately told them that, entertaining as they were, they needed to take it elsewhere.
“Can’t you two see Hugh is trying to concentrate and the last thing he needs is the type of distraction that a… live show… would provide. So please, take it back down below.” Then he returned his attentions to Hugh.
“Yes, excellent idea! C’mon Yvo, let’s take this down below,” she said, grabbing Yvo by the front of his shirt before he could squirrel away, and dragged him back down below decks.
Hugh quickly refocused and this time made it into his meditative state.
One of the new recruits came up to Jarreth and asked, “Captain? What is it he’s doing?”
“He’s in a meditative state—he calls it Searching—and basically he is focusing all of his energy. Because of the way Hugh can manipulate and adapt, he can pull extra energy from surrounding sources—he is focusing all of that energy looking for the veil we need.”
“What’s a veil?” the recruit asked again.
“It’s a place in reality where the wall between our world and a different world is extremely thin. If Hugh finds it, he will let us know. We sail there, and then, with Hugh’s help, we sail the boat through the veil and into the new world. Sometimes, the new worlds are hospitable. Other times, they are downright deadly.”
“Oh,” the recruit replied. “Well, I hope he finds it, so we can set this ship on a course directly toward it.”
Jarreth smiled openly at the raw honesty of this young man. “Hugh is one of the best in the known world. If anyone can find the veil we’re looking for, it’ll be Hugh that finds it.”
They stood quietly for a time, their hands resting on the deck railing, watching Hugh. Jarreth was impressed yet again with how well Hugh worked, and the recruit was trying to comprehend something he had never seen before, and had all of the awe and wonder in his eyes of a child seeing a new toy for the first time.
Finally, Hugh’s eyes opened and his body lost its relaxed posture as he shouted up to Jarreth, “Head north by northwest about two hundred ninety-two degrees. That’ll bring us to where we want to be. That shouldn’t be more than a few hours so, wake me up in two hours’ time and I’ll bring us through. And make sure Ri is available and ready to help as well. If she’s really a crew member, then it will be her job to do this once I retire. So she needs to learn how to navigate her way through a veil now. Tell her to leave off chasin’ Yvo and get some rest. My first time through was… tough.” With a sinister grin, much like that of an older brother teaching a younger brother how to use a sword and shield by throwing him into the training ring with no training other than which hand to hold the sword with, Hugh retired to his cabin.
The ship was keeping up a steady speed and the time flew by. Soon they were ready to pass through the veil. Hugh’s tantex—the device he built himself to detect veils—was starting to indicate that there was indeed a veil in the close proximity of the ship.
Hugh was rousted from his slumber, and Haervey tracked down Ri, who is sitting outside of Yvo’s locked cabin door, an unhappy look on her face.
“C’mon, yea lout,” he said, with a friendly gruffness to his voice. “I hear taell tha’ the cap’n wan’s tae see yea now. From wha’ I ‘ear, you’re abou’ tae go trew yea firs’ veil.”
“I’ve been through a veil before, thank you very much,” she said precociously.
“Wall, na. Tha’ may be, miss, bu’ you e’er taken an ‘hole ship an’ ‘er crew trew a veil before? By yesel’, lass?” Haervey asked her.
“What?” she shrieked. “I can’t do that. I’ve never done that. I’ve never so much as taken a friend—not even a dog—with me through a veil before. I can’t be expected to take a whole ship and its crew through one today with absolutely no training,” she argued. “How can the cap and Hugh and everyone else expect me to do this, by myself, with no training whatsoever? Are you all crazy?”
“One ting yeh’ll getter know abou’ us blahck crewmen is this: nothin’ is ‘mpossble. Only what you tell yersel’ is. Tea only one tha’ can truly stan’ inyer way is yea,” Haervey said. “So look—belie’ in yersel’, an trus’ Cap an’ yeh’ll be jess feene.”
They were approaching the main deck. Hugh stood at the prow of the ship, arms straight at his sides, looking only forward. Jarreth beckoned Ri forward and she approached.
“Stand right next to him, Ri. He is going to guide you through this. Trust him, and this will be fine. Hugh will take over if at any point he feels like things are going… poorly. I have faith in you Ri; you can do this.” Jarreth gave her a gentle push forward.
“Bring the ship ‘round about two more ticks to port
,” Hugh shouted. “I want to be starin’ straight into the maw of this thing when we go through. Remember when I had to push the ship through that veil that brought us out in the world that smelled like mushrooms because we entered on a bad angle? Let’s avoid having to do that again.” He got a laugh from some of the older, more tenured crew members who remembered that contract. The recruits just stared at each other, disbelieving what they had just heard.
“Alright, Ri,” Hugh said in a voice so soft only she could hear him. “This is what we’re going to do. I made you practice passing through veils on the way from your commune to the tavern, so that you’d know what to expect. This is going to be what you feel when you pass through on your own times a couple hundred, but don’t worry. Focus. You have to encompass the entire ship with your focus. Remember to let the veil do most of the work of pulling the ship through. Resist the inward pressure, but don’t try to stop the veil from pulling on us. And finally, stay focused on getting to the other side—that’s how you’ll keep the ship straight and true as we go through. I’ve been keeping us holding in this position, so as soon as I let that go, you’re on.” Hugh placed his hand lightly on her shoulder for the briefest of moments.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she replied shakily.
“Well, that’s too damn bad. Here we go.” Hugh let his focus on holding position go.
The ship surged forward as the veil began its inexorable tug on the ship. Like a bolt from a crossbow, the prow of the ship was sucked into the veil, quickly followed by the rest of the ship. The weight of the ship and the crew almost caused Ri’s knees to collapse underneath her. She remembered everything Hugh just told her, and she focused on the pinpoint of light ahead of her, which was the other side of the veil, that would hopefully spit them out exactly where they needed to be.
I hope this is worth it, she thought to herself, because this is hard and I had no idea. I’m sure that Hugh must be exhausted from doing this year in and year out. It’s unbelievable. Ok, focus.
The ship moved much faster than Ri realized through the veil, and when the stern finally broke through the other side, it was all she could do to stay on her feet. Hugh and Jarreth caught her just before she collapsed, and they could feel that every muscle in her body—from her eyelids to her toes—were shuddering and trembling.