Black & Mist

by Thomas J. Radford

  “No,” Violet shook her head quickly. “Just strange, is all. Last time we had new hands . . .”

  “Ain’t had no new hands since you,” Korrigan Jack grunted, heaving a crate of dried goods up next to Violet. “Still waiting for you to start earning your keep, at that.”

  “Hard work, making up for your lazy self, Jack,” Violet told him. The Korrigan barked a laugh and left the galley for another trip to the hold.

  “Look at you, all tough and vinegar,” Gabbi approved. “Act like that with the new hands and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

  “Be less worried if the captain would find us a paying job,” Violet mused. “Feels like it’s been a while.”

  “Been a long while,” Gabbi agreed. “But no sense us worrying about that. What’d the skipper say she needed?”

  “Didn’t. Said you’d know what.”

  “That’s no help. She after more of the hairy dog she’s been biting or something for the beatings it gets her into?”

  Violet stared.

  “She hungover or just beat up?” Gabbi elaborated.

  “Both. One of the new hands took a few swings at her.”

  “Ah, negotiating,” Gabbi nodded.

  “And she’s been drinking since we hit Port. Ever since Piper,” Violet added, staring down at the floor.

  Gabbi put her hand out and tilted Violet’s chin up. “How’s your back, lass?”

  “Still stings some,” Violet admitted. “Not as bad as the first one. Bigger though.”

  “Let’s have a look. Quick, before Jack comes back.”

  Violet twisted on the bench, pulling the back of her shirt up, exposing her newly decorated shoulder blade.

  “You and Nel got the same,” Gabbi observed. Violet twisted her head when she felt something brush the sensitive skin, Gabbi dabbing at her with an oil-soaked rag.

  “Not the same, Skipper’s got more detail.”

  “Seen it,” Gabbi sighed. “For all Cyrus and Beaks and the rest. Skipper won’t let herself forget. Hard woman.”

  “Hard woman,” Violet agreed.

  Gabbi pulled Violet’s shirt back down, patting her on the other shoulder. “Healing just fine, lass. Piper would be crowing to know you had this. Just keep it moist. No letting your skin dry out or you’ll scar and the ink will run.”

  “Aye, I will.”

  “Anyways,” Gabbi continued, “there’s a bottle on that hook over there. Get it down and take it to Nel. If that don’t cure what ails her, she’ll not be in place to complain about it to either of us.”

  Violet hopped down and retrieved the bottle in question, a clay jug in twine netting. She pulled the cork and took a cautious sniff, familiar enough with Gabbi’s concoctions to be wary. Even so she had to push the jug away, hacking and coughing.

  “Hells, Gabbi, that’s nasty,” she complained to the cook.

  “Aye, it is, so don’t be sampling any on your way, and hopefully it helps knock some sense into Nel. Don’t get none on your clothes neither, stains something awful and don’t ever come out. You’ll look like you got dipped in berry juice.”

  “QUILL, STOP TALKING, your voice is hurting my ears.” The skipper waved the clay jug in the Kelpie’s direction. Violet watched closely, curious to see what would happen when the skipper finally partook of the vile beverage. She’d raised it twice and both times Quill had unleashed another tirade about their new many-legged crew member.

  “We do not need another navigator,” Quill insisted yet again. “I am more than . . .”

  “More than loud enough, for sure,” the skipper grumbled. “Captain?”

  “It’s just a precaution, Quill,” the captain tried to placate his navigator. The captain looked scrawny next to the simmering Kelpie, like a stick-insect with his frail-looking limbs, appropriate given the new crewman they were arguing about. “A spare in case something were to happen to you. Someone to spell you between watches.”

  “We have managed fine before now. I do not see . . .”

  “Because we ain’t fine now,” the skipper said grimly. “And we all know it, so let it go, Loveland.”

  Finally, the skipper raised the jug to her lips, tilting it. She swallowed heavily before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “What?” she asked, catching Violet’s stare.

  “Nothing,” Violet replied, not letting her disappointment show. She caught the jug when the skipper tossed it to her. It was empty.

  Quill made a noise that might have been offensive if it weren’t so unintelligible. “If we are taking on extra mouths, do we at least have the means to carry them? We will be heading out soon? Away from these High Lanes and their Alliance peacocks?”

  “No, Quill,” the captain sighed, sinking down into his chair. “Not soon.”

  The captain and the skipper exchanged a glance. A grim one. Violet kept very still, expecting to be asked to leave any moment now.

  “We have work, Quill,” the skipper said, flicking her eyes towards Violet, acknowledging that she hadn’t forgotten the girl was there. “But not here.”

  “Where then?”

  “Vice,” the captain said. “Back in the Free Lanes.”

  Vice, Violet thought, is a long journey without a paying run.

  “The problem for now is we can’t afford to make the run,” the captain explained. “We need to finish our repairs here, pay down enough debts to leave Port Border, and make our way to Vice. But we need paying work to tide us over for that run.”

  “The run from Vice is well paid,” the skipper explained. “Very well paid, bonuses all round if we can only get there. But until we find a way to do that we’re going to be living on the edge. That’s why we took on crew now. If runs come up we’re taking them, no questions asked and no bells wasted. We take them whenever and wherever they go because frankly we don’t have a choice anymore.”

  While Violet took all that in, Quill wasn’t silenced for long. “And why are you saying all this in front of her?” he pointed.

  The captain shrugged. “Because trying to keep secrets from a cabin girl is a waste of time. The crew will figure it out soon enough, whether Violet tells them or not. But she’s always underfoot and around the three of us anyway, so I trust her to be discreet for a bit longer.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Violet saluted the old man proudly, touched. “You can count on me.”

  “Of course I can, Violet. Never thought I couldn’t. In any case, wasn’t there another reason you were here? Apart from Nel’s morning coffee.”

  “Ain’t morning, Captain,” the skipper said.

  “I’m aware of that, Nel.”

  “Draugr and golems,” Quill was succinct. “The girl saw them and got frightened.”

  “The girl has a name, Kelpie,” Violet bristled. Every time she thought Quill was mellowing towards her . . .

  “The girl has fleas,” Quill snapped back. “Courtesy of that mangy rodent she associates with.”

  “Say that around Jack, I dares you.”

  “Of him my opinion is even lower, impossible as that seems.”

  “Port Border is a nexus between the Lanes, Vi,” the skipper said, ignoring their bickering. “Plenty of Alliance ships pass through here, nothing to do with us.”

  “Ain’t seen so many Draugr together since Rim, Skipper,” Violet said.

  “I’ve heard talk about that,” the captain said. “Labour shortage and the like. Supposedly they’re scraping Draugr in from gangs in the Free Lanes to run the High.”

  “Hadn’t heard that.” The skipper turned to him.

  The captain shrugged. “It’s not just us short of work, Nel. Seems there’s a cascade of trouble, one after the other. All the folks who ought not to be falling.”

  “Perhaps there is work to be found in moving these Draugr to where they are needed,” Quill suggested.

  “Perhaps there is, Mister Quill. But that is not the sort of work we can accept. The associations are wrong for this ship and this cre
w.”

  “Then we are not desperate?”

  “There is desperate times and there is desperate, Mister Quill.”

  “And then there’s just stupid,” the skipper muttered.

  “And that is our situation,” the captain concluded. “We need work and we need it soon. So one of us needs to find it, wherever it can be found.”

  THE CAPTAIN FUSSED around the great cabin after Nel and Quill left. It was just him and Violet. Horatio was clearly searching for something. Just as clearly, he had not found it. Eventually he turned to Violet, beaming, a sense of accomplishment.

  “Very good then. Now that we’ve hidden the silverware, I do believe we have some new souls aboard?”

  “Aye, Captain. Hounds’ lot.” She wasn’t sure if the captain meant what he’d said about the silverware or if he was just making excuses for his patchy memory. She didn’t remember any silverware. “Tall woman, almost knocked the skipper out.”

  “So I hear, but I’ve yet to acquaint myself with her. If you would be so good as to find her and send her here so as I can assign her a watch. Who’s on watch now, in any case?”

  “Dead Man’s Watch, Captain, would be Quill’s turn and . . .” Violet bit off the rest of her words, looking up at the captain. You weren’t supposed to name the watches in front of the officers, captain included.

  Dead Man’s Watch, the name of the shift, so called because of Quill’s reputation for working those sailors on his until they dropped like dead men into their hammocks. There’d be more complaints if Quill didn’t work himself just as hard. He’d been covering most of Piper’s old shifts as well. An act he might not have done had he known what the crew had nicknamed both watches. Watchstanders rarely knew what the crew came up with and the names changed over time. The skipper’s watch had been the Salty Swab a while back, on account of her language. Far as Violet could tell, the skipper had never known.

  From the barely restrained grin, the captain already knew the names.

  “I’ll be putting Hounds on Piper’s old watch.”

  “Crew call it the Loompa’s Long Night, sir,” Violet said. Might as well go all in. The captain nodded knowingly.

  “A good name, though odds are it’ll be the Dog’s Watch before long, or some such. Very traditional name that one, smart person would put money on it. Not very original though, best to keep it from the woman herself. Oh, and you’ll be standing watch with Quill.”

  “Sir?” Violet stared. “Why?”

  “Because he asked for you to, Violet,” the captain said, as if it were obvious. “Has been for a while now. Now run along and fetch Miss Hounds for me. We’ve words to discuss between us.”

  “WHY THE DARK and stormy, Vi?” The skipper was with Hounds down in the hold. Both were bent over a pile of hammocks and rope.

  “Captain sent me,” Violet said by way of answer. “Wants a word with Miss Hounds.”

  “Just Hounds is fine,” the woman said, looking her up and down while her hands made quick work of a knot Violet didn’t recognise. Hounds dangled the ring and hammock in front of herself critically before shaking her head and loosening the knot.

  “Can’t sleep in anything but a hammock these nights,” she said. “Don’t feel right if the bed don’t move.”

  “Sleep with one eye open most nights,” the skipper said. “Ever since someone threw knives at me through the wall.”

  Hounds turned her head quizzically at that but made no comment. “Should I be worried about this mythical captain of yours? Seems to have worried this one.”

  “Vi, tie me a hitch, maybe an anchor bend.” The skipper passed her a metal ring and the end of a hammock. “And tell the woman if she should be worried.”

  “No.” Violet brought the rope behind and through the metal ring then looped it around once.

  “Simple as that, Hounds. No,” the skipper nodded.

  “I am relieved.”

  Bring the loose end through the stand, through the double loops, set and dressed.

  “Bit traditional there, Skipper.” Hounds pointed at the knot Violet had made. “Think we’d be safer going with something quick to release. Maybe a highwayman?”

  “You know a highwayman’s hitch, Vi?” the skipper asked.

  Violet shook her head.

  “Here.” Hounds held out a loose bit of rope and one of the hammock’s spreader bars. “Start with the bight under the load. Then do with the same with the standing.” Violet watched closely. It was the same knot Hounds had first tied. She said as much.

  “Sharp eyes, this one,” Hounds complimented the skipper. “It’s a good knot, just tug on the unsupported end and it comes away, just like you’d want.”

  “What do you want it for?”

  “Need a perch to rock our new navigator,” the skipper said. “These slings weren’t made for Mantids or the like, got to rig something different for him.”

  “What’d he sleep in before now then?” Violet asked. “Can’t be his first time sleeping aboard?”

  Hounds shrugged. “Caught him napping on the side of the ship once, just hung there with those feet of his. Can’t do that here.”

  “Because the ship runs cold, Vi, ‘fore you ask,” the skipper said. “Didn’t go to all the trouble of finding us a new navigator just to have him freeze himself after his first watch.”

  “Your ink is running,” Hounds pointed. The skipper grimaced, straightening her arm out for inspection. The skin around her new tattoo was slick in an unhealthy way.

  “Pass me that rag, Vi.”

  “It ain’t clean, Skipper,” Violet objected.

  “Didn’t ask if it were.” The skipper snatched it away, wadding it up and dabbing at her forearm. “Damned back alley scratchers,” she muttered to herself.

  “Got a few of those,” Hounds said. “Spent a whole crossing’s purse once getting them covered over.”

  Violet took her first real look at the woman’s tattoos, trying to remember everything the skipper and Piper had taught her about ink since she’d come aboard. First, she considered the twin swallows under the collarbone, either side of the chest. Piper had been fond of swallows; he’d had seven in total. Violet had been present when he’d gotten the seventh—she’d received her first tattoo from the same artist. Piper had paid. She glanced down at the braided rope circling her wrist and palm, smiling a little.

  “You have a lot of tattoos,” she said, then flushed when Hounds caught her looking.

  “You can’t see half of them, lass. The best ones take up a lot more skin. You wanna see?”

  “Um . . .” Violet looked at the skipper, who just shrugged.

  “Look all you like,” she said. “Just don’t go believing everything she tells you.”

  “The best part of belief is the lie,” Hounds winked, standing up. She turned around, pulling her shift up.

  Over half her back was taken up by a single, intricate design. A fully rigged clipper under sail. All it was missing was the accompanying waves or mist. On her lower back was an anchor on the rocks, a blue skinned octopus wrapped around it in place of a rope. It might have once been attached to the clipper, except the space between was obscured by scar tissue.

  “You were in a fire,” Violet said. “But you had these before.”

  “Aye.” Hounds let her shirt drop, turning around. She pulled her sleeve up, exposing an eight-pointed windrose, a compass. It was wreathed in fire, the flames colouring over more scar tissue.

  “Got this one after, to remember folks by.”

  Violet found herself nodding. She reached up to adjust her shirt. It rode uncomfortably on her shoulders over her own memories. “You’ve been to the Fata Morgana, haven’t you? That’s what the ship means.”

  “There and back,” Hounds nodded. “Close as you can, I suppose. Went as far as you can go before the mist becomes too thick to push through. Longest, longest trip of all my years. We took the long way . . .”

  The eye of the mist, heart of the black. The Fata Morg
ana . . .

  “Skipper,” Violet asked, “you ever been?”

  “You see a clipper on me?” The skipper looked amused.

  “No.”

  “Then what do you think?”

  Violet frowned. “That ain’t an answer.”

  The skipper chuckled. “Forget about the Morgana, back end of nowhere and no reason to visit except for bragging rights. First thing folk who get there want to do is drink and that’s only until they try the beer. Now what else can you tell me about our new shipmate here from all the pretty pictures?”

  “Captain’s making her a watch-stander,” Violet said.

  “Damn,” Hounds said.

  “Not half as fun when she already knows the answers,” the skipper agreed. “Knowing’s cheating, Vi.”

  “Meant damn as in now I might have to do some actual work.” Hounds sounded glum. “Suppose I should be going to see our captain then. Get it over with.”

  “Might be we’ve kept him waiting long enough, though the captain does love to wait on a lady,” the skipper told her.

  “I can show you the way,” Violet offered.

  “Think I’ll manage, lass,” Hounds said. “Captains always like the big cabins and there’s only the few places you can put those. I’ll see you both later.”

  “You still owe me for drinks,” the skipper reminded her. “Last ones ended up going to waste.”

  Hounds laughed, causing the skipper to scowl and shake her head as the other woman left. She leaned her head on one hand, turning to Violet.

  “It was the anchor,” she said. “Means she ranked as an officer, as a mate or higher.”

  “Thought it meant something different,” Violet protested. “Like home or attachment or what.”

  “Octopus means she cut all those ties to the past. Nothing pulling her back. Attached to the ship like that means she was someone you salute.”

  “She salutes funny.”

  “Just different.”

  “Thought you didn’t like her, Skipper.”

  “Why’d you think that?”

  “On account of you both being all black and blue.”