“The water gains, Captain,” said a sailor Locke couldn’t recognize in the near-darkness. He” d popped his head up the hatchway from the orlop. “Three feet in the well. Aspel says we busted a seam somewhere; says he needs men for a repair party.”
Aspel was their approximation of a ship’s carpenter. “He’ll have them,” Locke said, though from where, he knew not. Ten doing important work on deck, eight at the pumps… damn near their time to be relieved, too. Six or seven still too bloody weak to be of any use save as ballast. A squad in the orlop hold with Jean, resecuring casks of food and water after three had come loose and broken open. Eight sleeping fitfully on the main deck just a few feet away, having been up all night. Two with broken bones, trying to dull the pain with an unauthorized ration of wine. Their rudimentary scheme of watches was unravelling in the face of the storm’s demands, and Locke struggled to subsume a sharp pang of panic. “Fetch Master Valora from the orlop,” he said at last. “Tell him he and his men can look to the stores again once they” ve given Aspel a hand.” “Aye, sir.” “Captain Ravelle!”
Another shout rose from below as the first sailor disappeared, and Locke stood over the hatchway to answer: “What passes?”
“Our time at the bloody pumps, sir! We can’t keep up this gods-damned pace for ever. We need relief. And we need food!”
“You shall have them both,” said Locke, “in but ten minutes.” Though from where, again, he knew not; all his choices were sick, injured, exhausted or otherwise engaged. He turned to make his way back up to the deck. He could swap the deck-watch and the men at the pumps; it would bring joy to neither group, but it might serve to nudge the ship ahead of total disaster for a few more precious hours.
3
“What do you mean, you haven’t been turning the glasses?”
“Captain Ravelle, sir, beggin” your double-fuckin” pardon, but we ain’t had no time to turn the glasses nor mind the log since… hell, I suppose I can’t say. Awhile now”
Bald Mazucca and his mate looked more as if they were clinging to their wheel for dear life than steering the ship with it. Two teams of two had the wheels; the air was a frenzy of howling wind and stinging rain. The sea, cresting twenty feet or more, slammed past the bow again and again, washing the deck white and sluicing past Locke’s ankles. At long last thed’r been forced to abandon a southerly course, and now they were dead west before the wind, pulled by one lonely storm forecourse. They scudded again and again through waves high as houses.
A bolt of yellow flitting past in the periphery of Locke’s vision was a storm-lantern flying free and vanishing over the side, soon to be a curiosity for the fish far below.
Locke hauled himself over to the binnacle and flipped through the damp pages of the master’s log; the last hasty entry read: 3rd hr afternoon 7 Festal 78 Morgante s/sw 8 kts please may Iono spare these souls Locke couldn’t remember when it had last felt like the third hour of the afternoon. The storm turned high noon as dark as the insides of a shark’s gullet, and the crackle of lightning gave uncanny illumination to what might have been deep evening. They were as unfixed in time as they were in place.
“At least we know we’re somewhere on the Sea of Brass,” he shouted above the din. “We’ll be through this mess soon enough, and then we’ll take sightings to fix our latitude.”
If only that was as easy done as said. Fear and exhaustion had set Locke’s senses reeling; the world was grey and whirling in every direction, and he’d thrown up his last cold meal at the taffrail… gods knew when. Hours before, probably. If a Bondsmage of Karthain had appeared on deck at that moment and offered to use magic to steer the ship to safety, Locke might have kissed their boots.
There was a sudden terrible sound overhead: an explosive crack followed by the warbling hiss of a broken line lashing the air. Seconds later came a louder crash, and then a snap-snap-snap like the noise of a whip biting flesh.
“Ware above,” cried Jabril from somewhere forward; Locke and the ship lurched as one from another hammering wave. It was this loss of footing that saved Locke’s life. A shadow swooped past his left shoulder as he slipped to the wet deck, sputtering. There was a splintering crash, screams and sudden blackness as something slick and yielding enshrouded him.
Sail canvas! Locke shoved at it, working his way out from beneath it. Strong hands grabbed his forearms and hauled him to his feet. They belonged to Jean, who was braced against the starboard quarterdeck rail. Locke had slid a few feet to his right with the fall. Muttering thanks, he turned to see exactly what he feared.
The main topgallant mast had torn away. Its stays must have been snapped by some trick of wind or the ship’s tumult. It had plunged forward and down, unfurling and trailing sail from its yard as it went, before a mess of tangled rigging had snapped it backward like a pendulum just above the deck. It covered the wheels, and the four men previously manning them were nowhere to be seen. Locke and Jean moved in unison, fighting across wet canvas and torn rope, while smaller pieces of debris continued to rain down around them. Already Locke could feel the ship moving in an unhealthy fashion beneath them. The wheels must be seized, the rudder put right instantly.
“All hands,” Locke cried with every ounce of conviction he possessed. “All hands on deck! All hands to save the ship!”
Jean heaved against the fallen topgallant spar, bracing himself against the mainmast, letting loose a howl of sheer exertion. Wood and canvas shifted, then crashed to the deck. Some of the handles of the two wheels had been reduced to splinters, but the wheels themselves were substantially intact. Locke could now see Bald Mazucca crawling slowly to his feet behind them; another man lay on deck with the top of his head plainly smashed in.
“Seize the wheel,” Locke cried, looking around for more help, “Seize the bloody wheel!” He found himself tangled withjabril. “Captain,“Jabril hollered straight into his face, “we are like to broach!”
Oh good, thought Locke, at least I know what that means. He gave Jabril a shove toward the wheels and grabbed onto one beside Jean. “Helm a-larboard,” Locke coughed, confident of that much. Groaning with strain, he and Jean fought to heave the wheel in the proper direction. The Red Messengerwas slipping to lee at an angle, down into the troughs of the waves; in moments she’d be broadside to them and all but lost. A dark wave, impossibly heavy, surged over the starboard rail and doused them all, the merest foretaste of what awaited failure.
But the resistance of the wheel lessened as Jabril found his place behind them and heaved; in seconds he was joined by Mazucca, and inch by straining inch Locke felt the ship’s stern come round again to larboard, until her bow was knifing into the waves once more. Thed’r bought time to contemplate the disaster the toppling mast had made of the rigging.
Men boiled out of the deck hatches, inhuman shapes in the dancing light of storm-lanterns. Lightning scorched the darkness above them. Orders were issued, from Locke and Jean and Jabril, with no heed paid to whose was the higher authority. The minutes became hours, and the hours felt like days. They fought on together in an eternity of grey chaos, cold and exhausted and terrified, against the screaming winds above and the hammering waters below.
4
“Three feet of water in the well and holding, Captain.” Aspel delivered his report with a makeshift bandage wrapped around his head, the sleeve of someone’s jacket roughly slashed from its parent garment.
“Very good,” said Locke, holding himself up at the mainmast much as Caldris had days before. Every joint and muscle in Locke’s body announced their discomfort; he felt like a rag doll full of broken glass, and he was soaked into the bargain. But in that he was no different from any of the survivors aboard the Red Messenger. As Chains had once said, feeling like you wanted desperately to die was fine evidence that you had yet to do so.
The summer’s-end storm was a receding line of darkness on the northwestern horizon; it had spat them out a few hours earlier. Here, the seas were running at five or six feet and t
he skies were still ashen grey, but this was a paradise following the tempest. Enough funereal light filtered down from above for Locke to guess that it was day, after some fashion.
He surveyed the shambles of the deck: lifelines and debris from the rigging were tangled everywhere. Scraps of canvas fluttered in the wind, and sailors were tripping over fallen block and tackle, cursing as they went. They were a crew of ghosts, haggard and clumsy with fatigue. Jean laboured at the forecastle to conjure their first warm meal in living memory.
“Damnation,” Locke muttered. Their escape had not been without price: three swept clean overboard, four seriously injured, two dead including Caldris. Mirlon, the cook, had been the man at the wheel when the main topgallant mast had crashed down upon him like a divine spear and shattered his skull.
“No, Captain,” said Jabril from behind him. “Not if we can do right by them.”
“What? Locke whirled, confused… then suddenly he remembered. “Oh, yes, of course.”
“The fallen, Captain,” said Jabril, enunciating as though to a child. “The fallen haunt our decks and cannot rest until we send them off proper.” “Aye,” said Locke. “Let’s do that.”
Caldris and Mirlon lay by the larboard entry port, wrapped in canvas. Pale packages bound with tarred rope, awaiting their final sendoff. Locke and Jabril knelt beside them. “Say the words, Ravelle,” muttered Jabril. “You can do that much for them. Send their souls on down to Father Stormbringer and give them rest.”
Locke stared at the two wrapped corpses and felt a new pain in his heart. Nearly overcome with fatigue and shame, he put his head in his hands and thought quickly.
By tradition, ships” captains could be proclaimed lay priests of Iono, with a minimum of study at any proper temple to the Lord of the Grasping Waters. At sea, they could then lead prayers, perform marriages and even give death-blessings. While Locke knew some interior ritual of Iono’s Temple, he wasn’t consecrated in Iono’s service. He was a priest of the Crooked Warden, and here at sea, a thousand miles out into Iono’s domain, aboard a ship that was already damned for spurning his mandates… there was no way in heavens or hells Locke could presume to give these men Iono’s rest. For the sake of their souls, he’d have to invoke the only power he had any pull with.
“Crooked Warden, Unnamed Thirteenth, your servant calls. Place your eyes upon the passing of this man, Caldris bal Comar, Iono’s servant, sworn to steal goods beneath the red flag, therefore sharing a corner of your kingdom—”
“What are you doingV Jabril hissed, seizing Locke by the arm. Locke shoved him backward.
“The only thing I can do,” said Locke. “The only honest blessing I can give these men, understand? Don’t fucking interfere again.” He reached back down to touch Caldris’s wrapped body. “We deliver this man, body and spirit, to the realm of your brother Iono, mighty lord of the sea.” Locke figured a little flattery never went amiss in these matters. “Lend him aid. Carry his soul to She who weighs us all. This we pray with hopeful hearts.”
Locke gestured for Jabril’s help. The muscular man remained deadly silent as they lifted Caldris’s body together and heaved it out through the entry port. Even before he heard the splash, Locke reached back down to the other canvas bundle.
“Crooked Warden, Thiefwatcher, your servant calls. Place your eyes upon the passing of this man, Mirlon, Iono’s servant, sworn to steal goods beneath a red flag, therefore sharing a corner of your kingdom…”
5
The mutiny came the next morning, while Locke slept senseless in his hammock, still wearing the wet clothes that had seen him through the storm.
He was awakened by the sound of someone slamming his door and shooting home the bolt. Bleary-eyed and gasping in confusion, he all but fell out of his hammock and had to use his sea-chest to push himself unsteadily to his feet.
“Arm yourself,” said Jean, backing away from the door with both of his hatchets in hand. “We’ve got a problem.”
That brought Locke to full wakefulness sharply enough. He buckled on his sword-belt in haste, noting with satisfaction that the heavy shutters over his stern windows were still drawn. Light peeked in around the edges; was it day already? Gods, he’d slept the whole night away in one dreamless blink. “There’s, ah, some of them that aren’t happy with me, aren’t there?” “None of them are happy with us.”
“I think they’re surely angrier with me than they are with you. I think you could still make it as one of them; it’s my blood they’ll be after, and you can claim to be as much my dupe as they were. Take me out to them. You might still pull this scheme off and get the antidote from Stragos.”
“Are you mad?” Jean glared back at Locke, but didn’t step away from the door.
“You’re a strange fellow, brother.” Locke contemplated his Verrari sea-officer’s sabre uneasily; in his hands it would be no less a showpiece than it was now, in its scabbard. “First you want to punish yourself for something that’s not your fault, and now you won’t let me slip you out of a mistake that’s entirely mine.”
“Who the hell are you to lecture me, Locke? First you insist that I stay despite the real danger I pose to you, and now you beg me to betray you for gain? Fuck you. You’re ten pints of crazy in a one-pint glass.”
“That describes us both, Jean.” Locke smiled despite himself; there was something refreshing in being returned to danger of his own making after the indifferent malice of the storm. “Though you’re more of a carafe than a pint glass. I knew you wouldn’t buy it.” “Too gods-damned right.”
“I will say that I would” ve liked to have seen Stragos’s face when we did whatever we were going to do to him,” said Locke. “And I would” ve liked to know what it was when the clever moment came.”
“Well,” said Jean, “as long as we’re wishing, I would have liked a million solari and a parrot that speaks Throne Therin. But they’re not coming, take my meaning?”
“Maybe the fact that this scuppers Stragos’s precious little plan is fuckyou enough.”
“Now, Locke.” Jean sighed, and his voice softened. “Maybe they’ll want to talk first. And if they want to talk to you, with your wits about you, we might still have a chance.”
“Doubtless you’re the only man aboard this ship who’d still express confidence in anything I do.” Locke sighed. “RAVELLE!” The shout came from the companionway. “You didn’t kill any of them yet, did you, Jean?” “Not yet, no.”
“RAVELLE! I KNOW YOU” RE IN THERE, AND I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!”
Locke stepped up to the cabin door and shouted back through it: “Marvellously clever, Jabril! You” ve tracked me unerringly to the cabin in which I” ve been fast asleep and motionless all bloody night. Who tipped you off?” “We have all the bows, Ravelle!”
“Well, damn,” said Locke. “You must have raided the weapons lockers, then. I suppose I was hoping we could have one of those pleasant dancing mutinies, or maybe a singing-and-card-games mutiny, you know?”
“There’s thirty-two of us as can still move, Ravelle! Two of you in there, no food, no water… the ship’s ours. How long do you figure on staying in there?”
“It’s a fine place,” shouted Locke. “Got a hammock, a table, nice view out through the stern window… big door between us and the rest of you—”
“Which we can smash at any time, and you know it.” Jabril lowered his voice; a creak of shifting weight in the companionway told Locke he’d stepped right up to the other side of the door. “You’re glib, Ravelle, but glib’s no good against ten bows and twenty blades.” “I’m not the only man in here, Jabril.” “Aye. And believe me, there’s not one among us who’d like to face Master Valora; not with fuckin” four-to-one odds. But the odds is better than that. Like I said, we got all the bows. You want it to come down hard, we’ll do what it takes.”
Locke bit the inside of his cheek, thinking. “You swore an oath to me, Jabril. An oath to me as your captain! After I gave you your lives back.”
“We all did, and we meant it, but you’re not what you said you was. You’re no sea-officer. Caldris was the real thing, gods rest him, but I don’t know what the fuck you are. You deceived us, so the oath don’t stand.”
“I see.” Locke pondered, snapped his fingers and continued: “So you would have kept to the oath, had I… ah, been what I claimed to be?” “Aye, Ravelle. Fuckin” right we would” ve.”
“I believe you,” said Locke. “I believe you’re no oath-breaker, Jabril. So I have a proposal. Jerome and I are willing to come peaceably out of the cabin. We’ll come up on the deck, and we’ll talk. We’ll be pleased to hear your grievances, every last one. And we’ll keep our hands empty, so long as you swear an oath to give us that much. Safe conduct to the deck, and an open talk. For everyone.”
“Won’t be no “hearing grievances”, Ravelle. It’ll just be us telling you how it’s to be.”
“As you wish,” said Locke. “Call it whatever you like. Give me your oath of safe passage, and it’ll happen. We’ll come out right now.”
Locke strained for several seconds to hear anything from the companionway.
At last, Jabril spoke: “Come up with empty hands,” he said, “and don’t make no unkind moves, especially not Valora. Do that, and I swear before all the gods, you’ll come up to the deck safe. Then we’ll talk.” “Well,” whispered Jean, “at least you got us that much.”
“Yeah. Maybe just a chance to die in the sunlight rather than the shade, though.” He considered changing out of his wet clothes before going up on deck, then shook his head. “Hell with it. Jabril!” “Aye?” “We’re opening the door.”
6
The world above the deck was one of rich blue skies and bright sunlight; a world Locke had almost forgotten over the previous days. He marvelled at it, though Jabril led them to the waist under the eyes of thirty men with drawn swords and nocked arrows. Lines of white foamed on the sea at the horizons, but around the Red Messenger the waves rolled softly, and the breeze was a welcome kiss of warmth against Locke’s skin.
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