Slow Turns The World

by Andy Sparrow

  “Do not pull the line too tight or it will break. I will go down to the water to land the fish.”

  They both scanned the surrounding sea and saw no sign of the serpents, so Torrin slid down the icy slope to the gently rolling sea. He snatched at the fish, grasping it by the tail and dragged its bulk from the water. It was heavy enough to provide several meals, but also to make climbing the steep slope difficult work. Valhad saw a silver flash break in the waves close by and a dark form approaching beneath the clear waters. There was barely time to shout a word of warning before the beast broke from the water. Jaws gaping, it surged up the icy slope towards Torrin, who made a desperate lunge for safety as the scimitar teeth snapped shut around the writhing fish, which was snatched from Torrin's grip. The great bulk arched back and crashed beneath the water, and then all was silent. The long hunger continued.

  The first ship passed them by. It had a single sail and crossed their path to the north. Despite shouting, bellowing and waving their ragged garments in desperation the vessel was too distant, and continued to grow smaller until it was gone. Time passed; Kanu circled over them three times. They grew weaker and fell silent, each with head bowed, blinking, nodding and lost within their own thoughts.

  “Torrin.”

  No answer came to Valhad's mumbled word.

  “Torrin. Do you see?”

  This time Torrin raised his head and became awake. There was a ship. It was still distant but they could see it was of great size with three tall masts, but with no sails set.

  “What direction does it take?” asked Torrin, standing and looking now with keen, bright eyes.

  “It came from the south but is moving north eastwards, with no sails set I cannot see how; it should drift north as we do.”

  “I wonder how close will it pass?”

  “I fear not close enough, Torrin.”

  The ship grew nearer, white water splashing at the bows and with a great turmoil of foam in its wake. It moved by some means they had not seen before, or ever heard of in the tales from other tribes; there was a paddle wheel across the stern, turning swiftly, driving it across the expanse of sea. They could make out some of the ship's crew now; moving dots upon the decks and scrambling high upon the web of rigging. Once again they shouted and waved their tunics around their heads; once again the ship sailed on unaware of the tiny desperate figures perched upon the iceberg.

  “It is no good,” croaked Torrin, hoarse from shouting. “We are too distant to be heard.”

  “But they might see us if they had reason to look this way,” said Valhad.

  “They might, but we are too far away; too small.”

  “We are, but our companions are not.”

  At this, Valhad slid down the ice to the water's edge, shouting into the blue-green water.

  “Come! Come to me! Are you not hungry? Come and eat!”

  Torrin scrambled after him.

  “Valhad! No! No! They are too swift, come back!”

  He grasped Valhad and tried to pull him back to safety but Valhad fought back with unexpected strength.

  “Not yet, Torrin,” he said, watching quivering dark shapes loom through the water. “Not yet. Come my beauties. Come on. Now, Torrin, move!”

  They lunged at the icy slope and heard water erupting behind them. The iceberg shuddered under a great impact, then a second and there was a sound of huge jaws snapping shut. They were safe, barely; for much of the ice had melted away and the beasts were enraged. Perched upon the icebergs tip they were only just out of reach from the dagger jaws that surged towards them again and again.

  Sharp eyes upon the ship turned towards them and its course changed. Greater than any vessel they had seen, imagined, or heard tell of in tales, it came closer; ploughing through the humps of water, throwing up spume in its turbulent wake. The serpents hissed at the approaching bulk and slid from the ice. The ship’s deck stood taller than the iceberg; a wooden wall looming above them. Faces looked down from the ship's side, from high on the rigging and from open hatches. Strange faces; faces of many tribes, some dark, others fair, sad faces, cold faces, grinning faces. Indistinct voices shouted on the deck above until a wooden boom with block and tackle swung above them and a rope was lowered. Valhad took a firm hold and was hoisted away out of sight.

  The rope returned and Torrin took his turn, gripping with hands and feet as he was hauled upwards. It was then that a harsh voice sounded out above the others and the hoisting stopped. The great wheel that drove the ship began to turn and it drew away from the iceberg. Torrin clung to the rope over the sea, heard the voice shout an order, and found himself being lowered towards the water. He saw a serpent approaching as he sank lower, watched it dip below the water, gaining speed, preparing to lunge. As the beast burst forth he was hauled sharply upwards again. The jaws snapped shut much too close. There was a great cheer and loud laughter from above. He was lowered again until the sea made his feet wet and was left dangling with his legs cutting a furrow in the swift passing water. He had become bait.

  Torrin climbed the rope, dragging himself from the water with every muscle straining. More laughter followed as unseen hands slowly let the rope down so that his efforts were in vain. The serpent lunged again and locked its jaws around the rope below his feet. It gripped, writhed and pulled and as the wooden boom creaked and strained the cheering and laughter grew louder. Torrin struggled but could not climb the tensioned rope, his strength was failing and he began to slip downwards. There were more orders barked out above and he was raised again. But so was the beast, for it would not release its grip.

  The ship was pitching under the strain as Torrin drew level with the deck. He saw in an instant the twenty or more men hauling the rope and others standing near. A tall, dark-skinned, man leapt towards him, grasped Torrin by the belt and pulled him to safety. He fell sprawling and gasping upon the deck next to Valhad. The serpent, jaws still locked upon the rope, was raised lashing madly above the deck. There was the sound of steel drawn from leather and a man bearing a great curved sword leapt to the balustrade. The blade flashed in a sweeping curve and buried deep into the serpent's neck, nearly cutting it through. Blood, mucous and foul fluids sprayed from the severed throat, the jaws released and the dying beast crashed into the sea. There were a few cheers, but mostly there was muttering and sounds of discontent.

  The swordsman cast a contemptuous eye over Torrin; it was the man they had met on the mountain, who had commanded the Asgal. It was the same curved blade, harsh voice and lust for cruelty. The man stared back at the crew who still stood watching him in brooding silence.

  “Have you no work to do?” he growled, swinging his blade idly.

  “We have useful work, be assured of that.” The man who spoke emptied a bucket of water across the deck nearly wetting the swordsman's feet. “We have to make amends for you and your doing.” As he said the words he spat upon the deck. The swordsman strode away, bristling with anger. The man who had pulled Torrin to safety looked down on him and shook his head.

  “That was cruel sport played upon you,” he said, “and we did not all enjoy the game. The Captain would not have allowed it. There will be angry words when he comes on deck again.”

  “Who was that man?” asked Torrin.

  “He is called Kalor. He is servant and protector of the Lord from the north who has bought the passage of the ship.”

  “This Lord commands the ship?”

  “No. The Captain commands. The Lord pays for passage and knows where we are bound.”

  “Which is where?”

  “Who can say?” he shrugged, “We are told nothing. I only know that we sail north-westwards.”

  Torrin pulled himself to his feet, unsteady after the long vigil on the ice without much food or sleep, still shaken after the ordeal on the rope. Looking at the fast-receding iceberg he saw a scaled head break from the water and turn cold regarding eyes towards the ship. The dark-skinned man watched beside him and they both heard the venomous hiss
, seemingly filled with a vengeful hatred, escaping from the surviving beast's open mouth. The bared fangs closed and opened threateningly, before the serpent slipped beneath the waves again.

  “I hope you bring better luck to us than Kalor,” he said grimly.

  “Why, what has he done?” asked Torrin.

  “It is said that he who cuts the head from the serpent in one blow shall have good fortune, shall be a king, but he who fails…”

  “Brings bad luck?”

  “Indeed. Kalor was told this when we saw you upon the berg. He sought to bring himself good fortune and the crew like any man who brings that cargo aboard, so they did his bidding without calling upon the Captain. Now it has turned ill and a reckoning must be made.”

  “A reckoning?”

  “Those who live upon the sea have their own ways, as I have learnt; as you will now learn, for you belong to the ship. I am called Trabbir; come with me now and eat. Tell me how you came upon the ice and then rest. Rest, before your new life begins. You belong to the ship.”

  Trabbir led down a steep stair into the midst of the ship. The air was dank with the smell of sweat and grease, the compartment dimly lit by flickering oil lamps. There, in the crew’s quarters, between the swaying hammocks and sleeping litters, they sat together at a long table suspended from gently creaking ropes. All the while there was a rumble and grinding of the turning paddle driven by some unseen power. They ate greedily and with mouths half full told the story of how they came upon the sea. Then Torrin asked a question of Trabbir.

  “Have you served long upon the ship?”

  “I have belonged to the ship for most of my life since I was full-grown, but I was of Nejital.”

  Torrin looked at Valhad, who shrugged and shook his head.

  “We do not know of that tribe,” he said.

  “You do not know of Nejital?” Trabbir laughed at them. “Where does your tribe live, the dark side of the world?”

  “No,” said Torrin, “but on the edge of darkness, in the sunset lands.”

  “Then let me tell you,” said Trabbir, “that Nejital is not a tribe but an empire with many great cities; V'rena, Iranthrir, Hityil, Dh'lass… I grew up in V'rena, which now lies on the dark side of the world. When V'rena passed to darkness, as it must while the world still turns, our people crossed the sea in many ships, from one side of the world to the other, from sunset to dawn, to Iranthrir. You could not guess how great and fair that city was, every gilded tower glinting under the newly risen sun.” He grew silent for a moment, his dark brown eyes lost in some sad memory, then sighed, shook his head, and continued.

  “We lived there but ten seasons, for then it was carried into the burning lands where the sun shines down from high, where no man can live, and so we sailed east to Hityil which was coming from the heat into the cooler margin of the world. But, there are often disputes when families come from one city to the next and find others in their houses; disputes that run from one generation to another. That is how I came to kill another man, why I was sold into slavery, and came upon this ship, like many that belong to her.”

  They slept long after eating and then were taken up to the stern of the ship. The deck rose in tiers to a broad high platform where the ship's wheel was mounted, and also, suspended in gimballed frames, was a compass and an hourglass. The Captain's skin was as wrinkled as old leather, his white beard long, but his body looked lean and strong, as if salt and spray had dried his skin and bleached his hair, rather than the passing of his time. He stood taking a bearing upon the angle of the sun with a finely made instrument of gleaming metal. Then he turned and spoke to another sailor who was studying a chart laid out before him.

  “What says the compass?”

  “Still true north north west, Captain.”

  “Then we are here, as we should be.” The Captain turned and pointed to a spot on the chart.

  “And our course?” asked the sailor.

  “As we are, and then around the Point of Gradala. Then due east.”

  “East? Into the darkness?”

  “If that is where our good Lord would go, and pay for, so it shall be.”

  The Captain looked at Torrin and Valhad.

  “So these are the two who should be in the belly of the serpent? Luck shines upon you, and luck will always find a home with us. Your lives belong to the ship, serve her well and she shall serve you.”

  “Sir,” said Torrin, “we shall repay the debt we owe you, but our lives are our own. We would leave the ship when land is met and find our way back to our tribe.”

  “You will repay the debt first,” said the Captain, “and debts come no greater. The crew of this ship come from many ports, most as slaves or prisoners saved from dungeons without hope, or the executioner’s blade. Every man pays his debt to the ship. Most come in manacles and by good service earn small rewards; first to walk without chains and then to go ashore when land is met. Serve well and hard and there will be payment for you and even freedom may come. If you will not take these terms there is another way; see there…”

  They followed the Captain’s pointed finger and saw a crewman scrubbing the lower deck, chains manacled to his ankles.

  “The ship gives life and hope when all else has gone, but some will not see this. Some bring bad fortune and bad fortune is best given to the sea; a reckoning must sometimes be made. So how will you serve us? Do I need to have you chained?”

  Torrin did not answer but Valhad spoke.

  “It is as you say, sir; our lives belong to the ship. We shall serve until the ship releases us.”

  “Captain!”

  As they turned to see who had called, two men joined them on the upper deck; a scowling Kalor with his master. Torrin recognised him at once; the man who had denied the Vasagi their rightful path, who had also saved them from Kalor’s blade. Once again he stood in simple clothes, finely made, bearing the emblem of triangle and circle upon his breast. He had a lean shaven face, cold blue eyes, and long greying hair that hung behind him, woven in a single plait.

  “Captain,” he said, “are we making good speed?”

  “The best that we can.”

  “We must reach our destination within two moons.”

  “I cannot promise that. The wind still blows against us and now brings cloud from the south. Soon the sun will be hidden and then we cannot know our place upon the sea. Gradala is twenty turns away and must be passed widely for many ships have foundered there. We should take a longer course westwards. That will delay us by five turns.”

  “I would remind you, Captain, that any payment for this voyage assumes we keep to the agreed schedule.”

  “The weather and the sea have no bargain with us. And your servant here has not helped by bringing bad luck upon us.”

  “We have no need of luck, Captain, because we do God's work.”

  “Your God is a long way from home.”

  “Keep the bargain, Captain, and keep your payment. Fail and it shall be reduced.”

  The Lord and his servant strode away. The Captain looked silently after them, shaking his head, and passed a quiet order to the nearest sailor.

  “Stay on the fastest course.”

  Life upon the ship was governed by the turn; it was the turn of the hourglass that swayed upon its gimballed cradle on the upper deck. The passing of sand from the upper to lower chamber was equal to the time a man might sleep. It divided time of rest from time of work, and also the crew into two watches. As one turn followed another Torrin and Valhad began to learn the way of the ship and became instructed in its art. At first, while their full strength recovered, they mainly swept and scrubbed the dark timbers of the deck. Then the time came when they were taken down to the source of the constant rumbling in the depths of the ship; there was a great compartment across the full width of the hull, several decks in height, where set between the walls were three great treadmills filled with toiling shapes.

  So here was the power that turned the great paddle and drove
the ship; the long gasping toil of thirty men in this dimly lit chamber. Toothed wheels fashioned from metal turned and clattered while timber strained and creaked. Sometimes the men sang and every tune beat the rhythm of their labour. One man would sing out the verses, stories of places and people far away, names unknown to the Vasagi, and then the chorus would bellow out from every mouth. A few songs were sad, but most were bawdy and the men would laugh as they sang and toiled.

  A tolling bell marked the turn, but the work did not cease until the next watch assembled in the chamber. Men would leave the treadmill from one end as the next shift entered from the other and the turning of the great wooden drums would not slow for even a second. They would file away to the crew’s quarters and gather around the table. All ate hungrily, upon dried meats and fruit, and swigged their ration of ale. Many tales were told of distant lands; of lost love or perils on the sea. Torrin listened quietly to the stories, fascinated by how great a place the world was and how little he knew of it.

  Most of the crew, though they were hardened by their lives upon the ship, did not seem to be evil men and any crimes that had condemned them to the sea were often petty, sometimes political. They respected any man who worked hard and had the skill to tie a knot or set a sail. Not all were slaves; some had worked always upon the sea, learning the craft of their father's fathers, while others had served well and long enough to be made free and given payment for their service. Trabbir had earned his freedom, serving long and well.

  “When this voyage is done,” he told Torrin, “the Captain will give a portion of his payment to those of us who have done good service. And he will be paid very well, be sure of that. Then I shall finally leave this ship and buy my own boat. I will be my own captain, at last.”

  One member of the crew, Yalu, had been bought from slavery at a port on the journey but did not welcome his chance for a new life; he worked grudgingly and only when eyes were upon him. Yalu pilfered small items from the crew's chests then cursed and spat if accused of the crime. He still wore slave's manacles around his ankles, dragging the chains behind him as he scrubbed the decks, sneering and bitter.