The Dark Sea Beyond

by Rye Sobo

  I stopped short of the line of row boats, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. The chaos of the surrounding skirmish slowed. Even with my eyes closed tight I could see the whole field as the threads lay out before me. I set my sebi on the band of pirates using boulders at the mouth of the caves for defense.

  In a single heartbeat I could feel the energy surge through my body. Another heartbeat. The energy popped as the Fabric thrummed with anticipation. Flames licked at my fingertips even as the thought of what attack to use solidified in my mind. A third heartbeat. I took a step forward toward the Nivaleans. A single word passed my lips. The arcane word thundered along the cliff face as though Cassis himself had barked the order.

  The threads vibrated out from me to the area I had chosen, an unprotected spot just above the boulders. A wave of white-hot flames rippled into existence above the pirate archers and consumed them in fire.

  As I released my sebi, the world around me rushed back to a normal speed. My head spun as reality snapped my eyes open.

  Cries of agony from the burning Nivaleans reverberated off the cave walls and amplified their pleas of mercy to their goddess. I had caused this suffering.

  I turned to run toward the boat as a pirate leaped over a stone outcropping, sword drawn and dove toward me. I brandished my dagger and entered the Torchbearer stance, my arm outstretched. Spans of training allowed me to react without thought. My blade swiped out across the man’s chest. Blood seeped from his wound as he tumbled to the ground, rolled, and jumped back to his feet. I shifted to Greedy Goblin.

  I concentrated again on the chaos of the beach, and the world slowed once more. The pirate prepared to charge again. I set my sebi on the man’s wound, the blood poured from his chest. I clenched my fist as though I had grabbed his shirt and was about to throw him. I joined the arcane words I had learned to heal and those to control the raw power of the elements shouted out blood yield, and pulled my fist away with all my might.

  At once the blood of the pirate ripped through his chest and formed the outline of the man in front of him. His face contorted to the look of horror before he crumpled into the sand.

  All around the beach, people collapsed to the ground as their sanguine apparitions appeared before them.

  Oh gods, what have I done?

  I unclenched my hand. A crimson rain fell on the golden sands of Ledeni.

  The rescued sailors stood in horrified silence as waves lapped the shore.

  No one moved. Not the Nivaleans. Not the sailors.

  What have I done?

  The remaining Fritzbink crew grabbed the stunned sailors and threw them into the awaiting boats.

  I jumped into a shore boat with Reno, and the hulking brute rowed with every muscle in his body.

  We reached the Pomsta and scurried up a ladder onto the deck of the sloop. Claudio and Jabnit leaped onto the bow outrigger beam and climbed on the deck of the Fritzbink. Rescued sailors took to the rigging and readied the sails. A second later, a Nivalean flew over the rail of the ship. A crimson tail flowing from a gaping neck wound followed.

  “We have the ship!” Claudio bellowed from the deck above. “Mister Jabnit, bring us about. Lieutenant Alsahar, we could use wind.”

  The Drakkan with the long hair ran to the tiller of the Pomsta to aid in the maneuvers. I closed my eyes and could once again feel the sway of the sea—not sway, shove. Reno had grabbed hold of the Fabric of the sea itself and used it to shove the ship about.

  I set my sebi on the limp canvas of the Pomsta and spoke the word for wind. The oversized canvas filled as I spoke the word again. The jury-rigged ships heaved forward as the Pomsta’s sail pulled the two through the water.

  Claudio stood along the rail of the Fritzbink’s quarterdeck and shouted orders to both helmsmen as the ships navigated the shoal and into deeper water.

  ***

  As the sun reached the horizon astern, the ships slid into the Azurean Currents. I felt the pull of the sea on the hulls and released my sebi.

  “I’ve never seen a mage keep focus for so long,” the Drakkan helmsman said as I sat on the deck next to the tiller.

  “The ladies of Drakkas Port have helped me with my stamina,” I said. I laughed, then realized she was not amused.

  “It’s no wonder the price on your head is so high,” she said.

  Chills struck me as I struggled to comprehend her words through the exhaustion. I stared for a long moment at the woman. How was it possible? She could have left Drakkas Port only a day or two after the Fritzbink and to get picked up by the pirates before us.

  “You heard about me in Drakkas Port?”

  She shook her head. “Whyte Harbor. Soldiers swarmed the port asking before we left. Fifty gold ships for the capture of the murderer and traitor Ferrin Alsahar. They even had a dragon with them, perched atop the Whyte Citadel like a gull on a piece of driftwood.”

  “Fifty?” I choked on the words. Fifty ships was more than even a skilled captain would make in ten lifetimes. Who could afford a bounty that high?

  “As Res as my witness, I will not speak a word of this. None of my crew will,” the Drakkan woman said in a solemn tone. “You saved us all today. We—I owe you a blood debt.”

  She held her right hand to her heart and nodded.

  “Well, fuck,” I said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Ho, Pomsta!” Lurco, the ship’s carpenter, shouted from the rail of the Fritzbink. “Cap’n wants all officers in the Fritz’s mess in two marks.”

  “They called you Lieutenant didn’t they, Master Alsahar?” the Drakkan woman asked.

  “They did,” I said. “And, I want to say, Captain…”

  “Najat Kalb,” she said with a smirk. “Captain of the sloop Pomsta, Drakkan Trading Company.”

  “Ah, the proprietor is a friend of mine,” I said.

  “So I have heard,” Captain Najat said, her eyes narrowed.

  Lurco threw a sheet down to a sailor on the deck of the Pomsta. The sailor hauled the sheet in, then pulled the damaged shroud of the Fritzbink across the gap between the two ships. The ladder-like structure created a means to cross between the two vessels. After the sailor fastened the shroud, Lurco wrestled a piece of timber over the rail to use as a gangplank.

  The sailor looked to Najat, “Ready for you, Captain.” The deckhand’s eyes widened as he recognized me standing at her side. He placed his fist over his heart as Najat had done and nodded.

  “After you,” Captain Najat said with a flourish.

  “Permission to come aboard,” I shouted to Lurco as I stepped onto the gangplank.

  “Granted, Lieutenant, welcome aboard,” the carpenter said.

  “Captain Kalb of the Pomsta,” Najat announced. “Permission to come aboard.”

  “Aye, Captain, welcome.” Lurco looked to me, “I didn’t realize I was on watch.”

  A lean Laetian man climbed down from the rigging and approached the gangplank. His voice was smooth and dry, “Ensign Orlan Barrera of the Azurean Strela.”

  “Welcome, Ensign,” the carpenter said. “Right, any other officers?”

  “Did Captain Azpa say why he needed us all, Lurco?” I asked as I waited for any final officers on the smaller ship.

  A tall Aeromonian woman waved from the bow of the Pomsta. “I’m an officer.”

  “Cap’n wants ye in the mess, ma’am. Hurry,” Lurco shouted, then looked to me. “Didn’t say, but I s’pose he wants to decide our next move.”

  I nodded as the tall woman walked to the end the gang plank.

  “Lieutenant Elia Cloud, Quartermaster of the Kestrel’s Wing,” she said.

  “Kestrel’s Wing? That’s an Empire ship,” I said.

  “Aye, it is,” she said, then corrected herself with a frown. “Was.”

  “Welcome aboard the Fritzbink, Lieutenant,” Lurco said.

  “Ellie?” a voice shouted from the hatch of the Pomsta as the quartermaster cleared the rail of the larger ship. The towering sailmaker
Kane Cloud held a bundle of canvas in his arms as he looked to the crossing officer.

  “Kane!” she said. “Wait there, I’ll be back in a few.”

  “You know our sailmaker?” Lurco asked.

  “Vaguely,” she said as she walked toward the officers’ mess. “He’s my baby brother.”

  ***

  “We just do not have the food for a voyage to Lesser Auster,” Reno said to the gathered group huddled in the mess. “Even on quarter rations, we will run out before we reach the outer islands.”

  “Why not trim the sails and set a course toward Whyte Harbor? We take refuge at night in the leeward side of these islands with our best fighters on watch.” Captain Najat asked. “It’s a damn sight shorter than riding the current to Maropret.”

  There was a murmur of agreement among several of the officers.

  Claudio shook his head. “Lurco and Elazaro say the outrigger is not strong enough to attempt. We would snap a spar and set adrift.”

  “So we scuttle the Delilah Fritzbink and use Pomsta,” I said.

  Claudio stared at me with his remaining eye. “That is not an option.”

  “The cargo, all the farming equipment, is gone,” I said. All the weapons you were smuggling to—where were you smuggling them?

  Claudio snapped his head to Reno who nodded to confirm my assertion.

  “Damnation!” Claudio said. With a sigh he asked, “You would sink your grandfather’s ship?”

  “If it meant we live, yes.”

  The ship heaved forward, tossed us all against tables and bulkheads. Crew shouted from the deck.

  Reno pushed his way through the gathered crowd toward the door to the main deck. “Pirates?”

  “How many casters do we have?” Claudio raised his hand.

  I raised my hand, as did Najat, Tomas, and the lean Ensign from Laetia.

  Reno placed one hand on his sword and the other to the hatch. He pulled open the hatch, and the ship heaved again. One of the three masts of the Pomsta slammed into the deck of the Fritzbink.

  Claudio ran to his quarters and appeared a moment later with an armful of weapons. Where were those hidden?

  He handed the blades to the officers.

  I pushed to the hatch and onto the deck. Sheets and canvas draped over the Fritzbink. The crew worked to cut themselves free. From the deck of the Pomsta Kane pointed to something aft of the boat.

  An enormous black arm reached from the dark water, ten furlongs high. The black tentacle coiled around the Pomsta’s mizzenmast and snapped it in three places, sent splinters, stays, and canvas raining down on the deck of the sloop.

  “Get to the quarterdeck!” Reno shouted, and jumped over the fallen mainmast and climbed on to the broken forecastle. A second black arm reached up over the bow and wrapped around the bowsprit of the Fritzbink. A third. A fourth.

  “Kraken!” The shout rose from the sloop.

  “All crew to arms,” I shouted as I climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck. Jabnit held the tiller in one hand and a bright blade he had pilfered from one of the pirates on the beach in the other.

  Armed officers poured through the hatch onto the main deck as a black tentacle slammed into the deck, seized the lean Laetian, and lifted him into the air.

  A bolt of lightning struck the arm just below the entangled ensign. Reno drew another sigil and a second bolt struck.

  I closed my eyes and breathed deep to relax myself and harnessed the yili of the sea. The energy welled within me and the threads revealed the massive creature beneath our ships.

  A third lightning bolt struck as the arm slammed into the deck once more. It dashed the ensign against the deck, killing him.

  I set my sebi on the tentacle wrapped around the foremast of the Pomsta, our last hope of getting home. With an arcane word, a ball of fire erupted against the arm.

  POP.

  I rushed the spell. It was inefficient, but the dark finger loosened its grasp on the mast as the canvas burst into flames.

  The scorched arm slammed into the deck of the Pomsta and raked two sailors off the deck into the dark waters.

  “Man overboard!” The shouts rose over the commotion.

  I set my sebi on the enormous body of the creature, hidden below the ship. I had no idea if it would work, but I had few options remaining.

  The battle raging on the deck slowed as I pulled more yili into me. Lightning and fire exploded both starboard and larboard as other casters joined the fray.

  I spoke the word for lightning and released all the yili in my well. A bolt of lightning as wide as the ship split the sky and slammed into the water, setting the sea to a boil. The resulting thunder as the air rushed together knocked everyone off balance. Sailors grabbed their ears as the deafening explosion rocked the ship.

  The massive arms tensed. Another loud explosion sounded as the treelike spar of the two outriggers snapped in unison.

  Najat leaped from the deck of the Fritzbink to her ship as it, now free of the black arms that held it, drifted. She landed hard on the deck of the sloop, rolled, and jumped to her feet.

  Two large arms climbed from the water and wrapped around the Fritzbink amidship.

  The wood of the deck groaned under the intense strain of the Kraken’s grip. With three arms forward and three aft, the creature used its ancient strength to pull at the ship.

  A frenetic series of lightning bolts struck the creature, but it did not yield. The groan of the timber grew louder as the strain increased. Crew hacked at the tentacles with swords and axes to no avail.

  CRACK.

  The keel succumbed to the strength of the ancient fiend. Splintered wood exploded from the lower decks as the creature split the Fritzbink in two.

  There, between the two halves of the ship sailed by three generations of my family, was the legendary horror seen by sailors before their death. The beak-like maw of the Kraken opened as Tomas and Majid tumbled to their demise.

  I ducked under a sweeping arm and ran to grab hold of the rail of the doomed ship. Once again, I pulled the yili of sea into my being.

  A tentacle grabbed hold of Fawz, blade still striking the arm as the beast pulled him to his death.

  The Fabric thrummed as I pulled more and more threads. I spoke an arcane word and a bolt of lightning struck the beast in the center of its gaping maw. As the arms seized from the bolt, the final beams of the Delilah Fritzbink yielded to the strength of the Kraken and splintered. I fell into the water with the detritus of the ancient ship and prepared myself for my fate.

  Silhouetted by the arcane lamps of the ship and the pale moons, just beneath the waves was the grotesque form of the ancient beast. Its massive yellow eyes looked from the side of its head out toward me.

  I reached the surface of the waves as the remains of the bow rained down. I clawed my way onto a piece of floating wood and searched for survivors. The light of the Fritzbink dimmed beneath the surface. The Pomsta was gone, pulled away by the current. The water was dark and cold and silent.

  This was my fault.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  What the hell am I doing here? The greater world is no place for a gnome. This was the life I wanted, wasn’t it? The life of adventure.

  Waves lapped over the wooden door as I tried to find a safe balance. I couldn’t risk falling into the water. Is that thing still out there? It must be.

  “The world is just too big and too dangerous,” Zori would say. “Work on your studies and take over the Empire when you are ready.”

  I doubt Zori meant the fucking Kraken when she said that. She always had her plan for me.

  “Take over the Empire.”

  “Join the University.”

  “Help me expand the farm.”

  Everyone in my family had a plan for me, safe plans that didn’t involve dragons hunting me down, that didn’t include being accused of a crime I didn’t commit.

  I killed a man today.

  Several. The blade just slid into his body. He was dead, b
y my hand.

  Should I feel remorse for killing him? I don’t. It’s wrong that I don’t feel anything, isn’t it? If I hadn’t killed him, he would have killed me. It was that simple.

  “Gods,” the word slipped from my mouth.

  The icy wind picked up. It stung against my shivering, wet skin. I balled up in the middle of the splintered door of the Fritzbink’s head, floating somewhere in the Azurean Sea.

  This is how I die. My life of adventure ends on the door to the fucking shitter.

  I was supposed to get married next year.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  It was the summer of my thirtieth year, seven since The Esmerelda sank, since Dem joined the army. The Commonwealth called upon his unit. Bringing aid to starving farmers in Maropret, he would tell me when he returned the following spring.

  Alone in the city for such a milestone, I spent most of the months of Cassia, Cienta, and Resia on a bender so debauched that the poet Primula would write “O, Where Have Your Daughters All Gone?” to commemorate the event. I assure you the part about drinking three orcs and a duck under the table was entirely true.

  Dukhan collected my pickled remains from Al Tarhib, a luxurious boarding house near the Gilded Hill.

  “Father has business in the Stormreach Mountains, and he asked to bring you along,” Duk said.

  I argued that I was in no condition to travel and still had to see to the welfare of my guests.

  “Yersucha cockblock, Duk,” I said. “Madam Tuhon wants me to be her gnomedaddy.”

  “I doubt the proprietor of the Drakkan Trading Company wants you to be,” he sighed, “her gnomedaddy.”

  He motioned to two humans in his entourage who picked me up and carried me toward the door of the boarding house. He motioned to a third, a woman, who approached.

  “Find his trousers. We don’t need that thing dragging on the ground,” the woman nodded and headed toward common room where I had been entertaining.

  They carried me, bare-assed, from Al Tarhib and unceremoniously into Duk’s waiting carriage. I lay on the floor of the carriage while the two men stood beside the steps. A moment later the woman exited the boarding house and joined me in the carriage. She rejected my slurred solicitation by tossing my trousers at my head.