by Scott Lynch
Locke snuck a glance at the pegs sunk into the holes on Caldris’ navigational board, and the compass in the binnacle, which showed them on a heading just a hairsbreadth west of due south.
“A fine pace if it holds,” muttered Caldris around his cigar. “Puts us in the Ghostwinds maybe two weeks from today. Don’t know about the captain, but getting a few days ahead of schedule makes me very bloody comfortable.”
“And will it hold?” Locke spoke as softly as he could without whispering into the sailing master’s ear.
“Good question. Summer’s end’s an odd time on the Sea of Brass; we got storms out there somewhere. I can feel it in my bones. They’re a ways off, but they’re waiting.”
“Oh, splendid.”
“We’ll make do, Captain.” Caldris briefly removed his cigar, spat something brown at the deck, and returned it to between his teeth. “Fact is, we’re doing just fine, thank the Lord of the Grasping Waters.”
13
“KILL ’IM, Jabril! Get ’im right in the fuckin’ ’eart!”
Jabril stood amidships, facing a frock coat (donated from Locke’s chest) nailed to a wide board and propped up against the mainmast, about thirty feet away. Both of his feet touched a crudely chalked line on the deck planks. In his right hand was a throwing knife, and in his left was a full wine bottle, by the rules of the game.
The sailor who’d been shouting encouragement burped loudly and started stomping the deck. The circle of men around Jabril picked up the rhythm and began clapping and chanting, slowly at first, then faster and faster. “Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop! Don’t spill a drop!”
Jabril flexed for the crowd, wound up, and flung the knife. It struck dead center in the coat, and up went a cheer that quickly turned to howls. Jabril had sloshed some of the wine out of the bottle.
“Dammit!” he cried.
“Wine-waster,” shouted one of the men gathered around him, with the fervor of a priest decrying the worst sort of blasphemy. “Pay the penalty and put it where it belongs!”
“Hey, at least I hit the coat,” said Jabril with a grin. “You nearly killed someone on the quarterdeck with your throw.”
“Pay the price! Pay the price! Pay the price!” chanted the crowd.
Jabril put the bottle to his lips, tipped it all the way up, and began to guzzle it in one go. The chanting rose in volume and tempo as the amount of wine in the bottle sank. Jabril’s neck and jaw muscles strained mightily, and he raised his free hand high into the air as he sucked the last of the dark red stuff down.
The crowd applauded. Jabril pulled the bottle from his lips, lowered his head, and sprayed a mouthful of wine all over the man closest to him. “Oh no,” he cried, “I spilled a drop! Ah ha ha ha ha!”
“My turn,” said the drenched sailor. “I’m gonna lose on purpose and spill a drop right back, mate!”
Locke and Caldris watched from the starboard rail of the quarterdeck. Caldris was taking a rare break from the wheel; Jean currently had it. They were sailing along in a calm, muggy dusk just pleasant enough for Caldris to separate himself from the ship’s precious helm by half a dozen paces.
“This was a good idea,” said Locke.
“Poor bastards have been under the boot for so long, they deserve a good debauch.” Caldris was smoking a pale blue ceramic pipe, the finest and most delicate thing Locke had ever seen in his hands, and his face was lit by the soft glow of embers.
At Caldris’ suggestion, Locke had had large quantities of wine and beer (the Red Messenger was amply provisioned with both, and for a crew twice this size) hauled up on deck, and he’d offered a choice of indulgences to every man on board. A double ration of fresh roasted pork—courtesy of the small but well-larded pig they’d brought with them—for those who would stay sober and on watch, and a drunken party for those who wouldn’t. Caldris, Jean, and Locke were sober, of course, along with four hands who’d chosen the pork.
“It’s things like this that makes a ship seem like home,” said Caldris. “Help you forget what a load of tedious old shit life out here can be.”
“It’s not so bad,” said Locke, a bit wistfully.
“Aye, says the captain of the fuckin’ ship, on a night sent by the gods.” He drew smoke and blew it out over the rail. “Well, if we can arrange a few more nights like this, it’ll be bloody grand. Quiet moments are worth more than whips and manacles for discipline, mark my words.”
Locke gazed out across the black waves and was startled to see a pale white-green shape, glowing like an alchemical lantern, leap up from the waves and splash back down a few seconds later. The arc of its passage left an iridescent afterimage when he blinked.
“Gods,” he said, “what the hell is that?”
There was a fountain of the things, now, about a hundred yards from the ship. They flew silently after one another, appearing and disappearing above the surf, casting their ghostly light on black water that returned it like a mirror.
“You really are new to these waters,” said Caldris. “Those are flit-wraiths, Kosta. South of Tal Verrar, you see ’em all about. Sometimes in great schools, or arches leapin’ over the water. Over ships. They’ve been known to follow us about. But only after dark, mind you.”
“Are they some kind of fish?”
“Nobody rightly knows,” said Caldris. “Flit-wraiths can’t be caught. They can’t be touched, as I hear it. They fly right through nets, like they was ghosts. Maybe they are.”
“Eerie,” said Locke.
“You get used to ’em after a few years,” said Caldris. He drew smoke from his pipe, and the orange glow strengthened momentarily. “The Sea of Brass is a damned strange place, Kosta. Some say it’s haunted by the Eldren. Most say it’s just plain haunted. I’ve seen things. Saint Corella’s fire, burnin’ blue and red up on the yardarms, scaring the piss outta the top-watch. I sailed over seas like glass and seen … a city, once. Down below, not kidding. Walls and towers, white stone. Plain as day, right beneath our hull. In waters that our charts put at a thousand fathoms. Real as my nose it was, then gone.”
“Heh,” said Locke, smiling. “You’re pretty good at this. You don’t have to toy with me, Caldris.”
“I’m not toying with you one bit, Kosta.” Caldris frowned, and his face took on a sinister cast in the pipe-light. “I’m telling you what to expect. Flit-wraiths is just the beginning. Hell, flit-wraiths is almost friendly. There’s things out there even I have trouble believing. And there’s places no sensible ship’s master will ever go. Places that are … wrong, somehow. Places that wait for you.”
“Ah,” said Locke, recalling his desperate early years in the old and rotten places of Camorr, and a thousand looming, broken buildings that had seemed to wait in darkness to swallow small children. “Now there I grasp your meaning.”
“The Ghostwind Isles,” said Caldris, “well, they’re the worst of all. In fact, there’s only eight or nine islands human beings have actually set foot on, and come back to tell about it. But gods know how many more are hiding down there, under the fogs, or what the fuck’s on ’em.” He paused before continuing. “You ever hear of the three settlements of the Ghostwinds?”
“I don’t think so,” said Locke.
“Well.” Caldris took another long puff on his pipe. “Originally there was three. Settlers out of Tal Verrar touched there about a hundred years ago. Founded Port Prodigal, Montierre, and Hope-of-Silver.
“Port Prodigal’s still there, of course. Only one left. Montierre was doing well until the war against the Free Armada. Prodigal’s tucked well back in a fine defensive position; Montierre wasn’t. After we did for their fleet, we paid a visit. Burnt their fishing boats, poisoned their wells, sank their docks. Torched everything standing, then torched the ashes. Might as well have just rubbed the name ‘Montierre’ off the map. Place ain’t worth resetting.”
“And Hope-of-Silver?”
“Hope-of-Silver,” said Ca
ldris, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Fifty years ago, Hope-of-Silver was larger than Port Prodigal. On a different island, farther west. Thriving. That silver wasn’t just a hope. Three hundred families, give or take.
“Whatever happened, happened in one night. Those three hundred families, just … gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone. Vanished. Not a body to be found. Not a bone for birds to pick at. Something came down from those hills, out of that fog above the jungle, and gods know what it was, but it took ’em all.”
“Merciful hells.”
“If only,” said Caldris. “A ship or two poked around after it happened. They found one ship from Hope-of-Silver itself, drifting offshore, like it’d put out in a real hurry. On it, they found the only bodies left from the whole mess. A few sailors. All the way up the masts, up at the very tops.” Caldris sighed. “They’d lashed themselves there to escape whatever they’d seen … and they were all found dead by their own weapons. Even where they were, they killed themselves rather than face whatever was comin’ for ’em.
“So pay attention to this, Master Kosta.” Caldris gestured at the circle of relaxed and rowdy sailors, drinking and throwing knives by the light of alchemical globes. “You sail a sea where shit like that happens, you can see the value of making your ship a happy home.”
14
“NEED A word, Captain Ravelle.”
A day had passed. The air was still warm and the sun still beat down with palpable force when not behind the clouds, but the seas were higher and the wind stiffer. The Red Messenger lacked the mass to knife deep into the turbulent waves without shuddering, and so the deck beneath Locke’s feet became even less of a friend.
Jabril—recovered from his close engagement with a wine bottle—and a pair of older sailors approached Locke as he stood by the starboard rail late in the afternoon, holding tight and trying to look casual. Locke recognized the older sailors as men who’d declared themselves unfit at the start of the voyage; days of rest and large portions had done them good. Locke, in light of the ship’s understrength complement, had recently authorized extra rations at every meal. The notion was popular.
“What do you need, Jabril?”
“Cats, Captain.”
The bottom fell out of Locke’s stomach. With heroic effort, he managed to look merely puzzled. “What about them?”
“We been down on the main deck,” said one of the older sailors. “Sleeping, mostly. Ain’t seen no cats yet. Usually the little buggers are crawlin’ around, doin’ tricks, lookin’ to curl up an’ sleep on us.”
“I asked around,” said Jabril. “Nobody’s seen even one. Not on the main deck, not up here, not on the orlop. Not even in the bilges. You keepin’ em in your cabin?”
“No,” said Locke, picturing with perfect clarity the sight of eight cats (including Caldris’ kitten) lounging contentedly in an empty armory shack above their private bay back at the Sword Marina. Eight cats sparring and yowling over bowls of cream and plates of cold chicken.
Eight cats who were undoubtedly still lounging in that shack, right where he’d forgotten them, the night of the fateful assault on Windward Rock. Five days and seven hundred miles behind them.
“Kittens,” he said quickly. “I got a pack of kittens for this trip, Jabril. I reckoned a ship with a new name could do with new cats. And I can tell you they’re a hell of a shy bunch—I myself haven’t seen one since I dumped them on the orlop. I expect they’re just getting used to us. We’ll see them soon enough.”
“Aye, sir.” Locke was surprised at the relief visible on the faces of the three sailors. “That’s good to hear. Bad enough we got no women aboard until we get to the Ghostwinds; no cats would be plain awful.”
“Couldn’t tolerate no such offense,” whispered one of the older sailors.
“We’ll put out some meat every night,” said Jabril. “We’ll keep poking around the decks. I’ll let you know soon as we find one.”
“By all means,” said Locke.
Seasickness had nothing to do with his sudden urge to throw up over the side the moment they were gone.
15
ON THE evening of their fifth day out from Tal Verrar, Caldris sat down for a private conversation in Locke’s cabin with the door locked.
“We’re doing well,” the sailing master said, though Locke could see dark circles like bruises under his eyes. The old man had slept barely four hours a day since they’d reached the sea, unable to trust the wheel to Locke or Jean’s care without supervision. He’d finally cultivated a fairly responsible master’s mate, a man called Bald Mazucca, but even he was lacking in lore and could only be trained a little each day, with Caldris’ attention so divided.
They continued to be blessed by the behavior of the rest of the crew. The men were still fresh with vigor for any sort of work following their escape from prison. A half-assed carpenter and a decent sailmaker had been found, and one of Jabril’s friends had been optimistically voted quartermaster, in charge of counting and dividing plunder when it came. The infirm were gaining health with speed, and several had already joined watches. Lastly, the men no longer gathered to stare nervously across the ship’s wake, looking for any hint of pursuit on the sea behind them. They seemed to think that they had evaded Stragos’ retribution … and of course they could never be told that none would be forthcoming.
“This is your doing,” said Locke, patting Caldris on the shoulder. He berated himself for not thinking beforehand of what a strain the voyage would put on the older man. Mazucca would have to be shaped more quickly, and he and Jean would need to pick up whatever slack they could in their inept fashion. “Even with a glassy sea and a fine breeze, there’s no way in hell we’d have pulled this off so far without you.”
“Strong weather coming, though,” said Caldris. “Weather that will test us. Summer’s end, like I said, shit blows up that’s like to knock you halfway round the world. Might spend days riding it out with bare poles, throwing up until there ain’t a dry spot in the holds.” The sailing master sighed, then gave Locke a curious look. “Speaking of holds, I heard the damnedest things the past day or two.”
“Oh?” Locke tried to sound nonchalant.
“Ain’t nobody seen a cat, not on any of the decks. Not a one has come up from wherever they are, not for anything, ale or milk or eggs or meat.” Sudden suspicion clouded his brow. “There are cats down there … right?”
“Ah,” said Locke. His sympathy for Caldris from a moment earlier remained like a weight on his heart. For once, he found himself completely unwilling to lie, and he massaged his eyes with his fingers as he spoke. “Ah.
No, the cats are all safe and sound in their shack in the Sword Marina, right where I left them. Sorry.”
“You fucking jest,” said Caldris in a flat, dead voice. “Come now. Don’t bloody lie to me about this.”
“I’m not.” Locke spread his palms before him and shrugged. “I know you told me it was important. I just … I had a hundred things to do that night. I meant to fetch them, honest.”
“Important? I told you it was important? I told you it was fucking critical, is what I told you!” Caldris kept his voice at a whisper, but it was like the sound of water boiling against hot coals. Locke winced. “You have imperiled our souls, Master Kosta, our very gods-damned souls. We have no women and no cats and no proper captain, I remind you, and hard weather sits upon our course.”
“Sorry, honestly.”
“Honestly, indeed. I was a fool to send a land-sucker to fetch cats. I should have sent cats to fetch me a land-sucker! They wouldn’t have disappointed me.”
“Now, surely, when we reach Port Prodigal—”
“When is an audacious assumption, Leocanto. For long before then the crew will cop wise to the fact that our cats are not merely shy, but imaginary. If they decide the cats have died off, they will just assume that we are cursed and abandon the ship when we touch land. If, however, the absence of smelly little bodies le
ads them to deduce that their fuckin’ captain in fact brought none, they will hang you from a yardarm.”
“Ouch.”
“You think I jest? They will mutiny. If we see another sail on that horizon, in any direction, we must give chase. We must bring a fight. You know why? So we can take some of their bloody cats. Before it’s too late.”
Caldris sighed before continuing, and suddenly looked ten years older. “If it’s a summer’s-end storm coming up on us,” said Caldris, “it’ll be moving north and west, faster than we can sail. We’ll have to pass through it, for we cannot outrun it by beating up to the east. It’ll catch us still, and it’ll only catch us tired. I’ll do my damnedest, but you’d better pray in your cabin tonight for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Cats falling from the bloody sky.”
16
OF COURSE, no convenient rain of screeching felines was forthcoming that night, and when Locke made his first appearance on the quarterdeck the next morning, there was an ugly ghost-gray haze looming on the southern horizon like the shadow of an angry god. The bright medallion of the sun rising in the otherwise clear sky only made it seem more sinister. The starboard heel of the deck was yet more pronounced, and walking to anywhere on the larboard bow felt almost like going up a small hill. Waves slapped the hull and were pulverized to spray, filling the air with the smell and taste of salt.
Jean was drilling a small group of sailors with swords and polearms at the ship’s waist, and Locke nodded knowingly, as though he caught every nuance of their practice and approved. He toured the deck of the Red Messenger, greeting sailors by name, and tried to ignore the feeling that Caldris’ gaze was burning holes in the back of his tunic.
“A fine morning to you, Captain,” muttered the sailing master when Locke approached the wheel. Caldris looked ghoulish in the bright sunlight: his hair and beard washed whiter, his eyes sunken in deeper shadow, every line on his face newly re-etched by the hand of whatever god claimed him.