by Jeff Minerd
The Teeth played another trick with the wind. As it was forced through crevices and cracks and narrow passages, the wind whistled and howled and moaned. Somehow the sounds were both otherworldly, like the mutterings of a giant made of stone, and strangely human and voice like. Groups of crewmen who were not on duty gathered at the rails and listened with bowed heads. Soon, they began to sing together. A gentle song, as if they were trying to calm the wind.
“What are they doing?” Brieze asked Hiroshi.
“They believe those sounds are the wailings of ghosts of men who have wrecked here,” Hiroshi said. “Their song is supposed to appease the restless spirits and ask for safe passage.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Brieze said.
“I would agree,” said Hiroshi. “But my men are right about one thing. There is a vast graveyard of ships down there under the clouds among the roots of the Teeth. More wrecks than anywhere on Etherium, and especially along the middle passage.” Seeing Brieze frown, Hiroshi hastened to reassure her. “Not because the middle passage is any more dangerous than the others. Simply because it is the one most travelled.”
Brieze thought about that. She had journeyed beneath the surface clouds once, on a diplomatic mission to the Gublins, and she knew what it was like down there. She imagined the bones of long-dead airmen and the hulks of broken ships rotting in the stifling dark and dampness, where the sun cast the barest glimmer of light through a heavy fog. The image made her shiver.
“When will we pass through?” she asked. The wind picked up and whipped her long braid back and forth, despite the weight on its end. She grabbed the braid and held onto it; stroked it as if trying to soothe a frightened cat. The Kinzou bobbed and rocked ponderously on the wind.
“If we’re not out before sunset, we’ll be in worlds of trouble,” he said. “You can’t navigate the Teeth in the dark.” He looked anxiously up at the sails. Nothing grew on the Wind’s Teeth, not a single tree or blade of grass. There were no birds or other creatures either. The place was barren. So captains couldn’t read the currents the way they usually did, by studying the swaying branches on a mountainside or the swirling pattern of a flock of birds. The only warning they would have of a rogue current or windspout about to strike would be a brief luffing and chattering of the sails before it hit them.
Minute by minute and hour by hour, the Kinzou inched its way along the middle passage, a kind of long gap or valley that snaked through the Teeth. The sun climbed until it shone directly down on them above the peaks, then it edged past noon toward the western horizon and evening. The crew was quiet, their faces tense as they went about their business. No midday meal had been served. No one had any appetite. Except Brieze that is. Her stomach rumbled hungrily. But she ignored it, coughing or clearing her throat to cover the sound. Hiroshi didn’t notice. His attention was focused on the passage ahead, and the wind. He never left his post at the wheel, never even took his hands off it.
A lookout broke the silence. “Sail behind!” he called.
Hiroshi gritted his teeth, but he didn’t take his eyes off the way ahead to look behind them. “Of course,” he snarled.
“What does that mean?” Brieze asked.
“Pirates,” he said.
Brieze had read that several bands of pirates lurked in the Teeth. They especially liked to prey on distressed or damaged ships. They hid out in the crystalline caves that bored like cavities into the Teeth, far from the armies and authorities of lawful nations. She climbed a little way up a nearby set of ratlines, took out her spyglass, and gazed through it. The ship behind them was little more than a dark silhouette against the glassy shimmering of the Teeth.
“I don’t think it’s a pirate ship,” she said.
“Why not?” Hiroshi asked.
“It looks like a Western ship. From what I can see, it’s built like one of the ships of Spire’s royal fleet.”
“You think Westerners can’t be pirates?”
Brieze climbed down from the ratlines. She was about to say yes, but realized that was just prejudice on her part. To her, pirates were always bad men from other places. She didn’t like to think that men from her own country could turn criminal.
“Pirates come from every corner of Etherium, even your proud West,” Hiroshi said, guessing her thoughts. “If that were a lawful ship plying the eastern current we would have seen her before we entered the middle passage. Lawful ships don’t suddenly appear behind you among the Teeth, but pirates have a nasty habit of doing just that.”
“Will they attack?” Brieze asked.
“Hard to say. They’re sure to see we’re damaged. They’ll probably just skulk back there, hoping we run into some trouble they can take advantage of. That’s their usual way. But if they’re desperate, or more aggressive they might—”
He was interrupted by a sound like a huge angry hornet buzzing by over their heads. They both ducked instinctively. Brieze had never heard that sound before, but she instantly recognized it—a cannon ball zooming past.
Hiroshi swore eloquently in the Eastern tongue. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “Damn them! It’s hard enough to navigate here without having to take evasive maneuvers.” But he spun the wheel, and the Kinzou did its best to dance upon the wind, bobbing and drifting up and down, and side to side, to evade more shots, even as it crept forward.
“Can’t we shoot back?” Brieze asked, swaying to keep her feet.
“Their cannons are bigger than ours. They’ll stay out of our range and lob long-distance shots at us, hoping to get lucky and hit something.”
Another shot whizzed by, snapping the portside stay of the aft mast. Crewmen rushed to repair the damage.
“Ever been attacked by pirates before?”
“I’ve had a few close calls. Once when I was a lad, on my grandfather’s ship, pirates tried to board us.”
“What happened?”
Hiroshi was quiet for a moment. “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said.
Brieze hadn’t been truly afraid until Hiroshi said that. She didn’t ask any more questions. Her mouth clamped shut, and it didn’t want to move. For the next half-hour, the Kinzou crawled along the middle passage, its deck pitching as Hiroshi did his best to evade the cannon shots. None hit, but with each buzzing ball that tore past them or over their heads the knots in Brieze’s belly tightened, until they were so tight she could barely breathe.
The lookout shouted something so fast and high-pitched Brieze didn’t catch it.
Hiroshi swore again. “They’re moving in. We’re almost through the Teeth, and they know it. They’re going to try for us before we can get out to open sky and escape.”
Brieze heard the Kinzou’s stern cannons fire. The shots were answered by a shot from the pirate ship that hit the Kinzou somewhere aft. She felt it in the soles of her feet, and heard wood shattering and splintering. White smoke and the sulfurous reek of gunpowder thickened the air. Men were shouting. It seemed unreal to her, that she should suddenly be caught in the middle of an airship battle. She never imagined anything like this would happen on her journey. She tried to think of what she could do to help.
She and Hiroshi got the same idea at the same time.
“Got any of those bombs left?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
Brieze smiled. “I was about to fetch them.”
“You see?” he gave her a brave, sweaty smile in return, and winked. “I feel safer already.”
Brieze hurried forward to the bow. She climbed up the bowsprit with catlike agility. The Devious had been tightly lashed there, with strong ropes that coiled around its bow and stern. The ropes were so tight the Devious barely moved, but its small sail was full and straining with wind, doing its part to keep the Kinzou aloft. Brieze climbed into her ship and rummaged through its compartments. She found two bombs and tucked them into inner pockets of her cloak. As she climbed out of the Devious and prepared to make her way back down the bowsprit, a sound above her caught her a
ttention. She looked up.
The Devious’s small sail was luffing and chattering.
A moment later, so was every sail on the Kinzou.
Captain Hiroshi’s voice boomed, at a level of volume Brieze hadn’t known was humanly possible, “All hands, brace yourselves!”
She had just enough time to jump back into the Devious, wrap her arms around the aft mast, and hook her feet under a thwart bench.
With a rushing roar it hit them—a rising, swirling spout of wind, incredibly strong. There was a loud whoof as every sail snapped taut and strained to the breaking point, the masts creaked, and the heavy merchant ship lifted and swirled about as if it were nothing more than a dry autumn leaf. The ship rocked and yawed violently. Hiroshi shouted for help as he wrestled with the wheel to keep the ship from capsizing. Several crewmen rushed to his aid. As the Kinzou rose higher and higher, the stony flanks of nearby Teeth rushed past them, some veering terrifyingly close. Men were swept overboard, looking like so much dandelion fluff as their parachutes opened and they whirled helplessly with the current.
When the Kinzou had been lifted so high that the air was thin and bitterly cold, the windspout died. The ship spun lazily about, and finally came to a halt. The rocking and yawing settled into a stable drift.
Brieze loosened her grip ever so slightly on the Devious’s mast and sat there, dizzy and shaken. She tried to gather her scattered wits. Men were shouting and calling to each other all over the ship. Crewmen on parachutes were returning, landing and rolling and kissing the wooden planks, accompanied by the cheers of their comrades.
Brieze shivered violently. Her breath came out in white puffs of steam. It was cold. The lining of her nose froze every time she breathed in, and it was hard to get enough air. When her head had stopped spinning and she felt sufficiently nimble, she climbed down the bowsprit and reached the forward deck. It was all shouting and confusion and men bumping into each other as they ran this way and that.
Before she knew what was happening, she was seized in a tremendous bear hug that lifted her off her feet. Hiroshi’s strong arms wrapped around her, and his beard scratched her cheek. “Thank the heavens you are here!” he cried. “I thought for sure we’d lost you. I would never have forgiven myself. Are you all right?” He let Brieze go and her feet returned to the deck. Hiroshi’s lips were blue, and the sheen of sweat on his face had turned to frost.
“I’m fine,” Brieze sputtered. “Thank you. The pirate ship! Where is it?”
“No sign of ‘em,” Hiroshi said with a grin. “Let’s hope the wind dashed them against the Teeth, or they capsized. Either way I doubt they’ll bother us now. We’re almost through. Who ever thought being hit by a windspout could be a good thing?”
Brieze hugged herself and shivered. “It’s so cold!”
“Ha!” Hiroshi said, clapping her on the shoulder. “That spout took us higher than ships should go. We’re right among the peaks. But the thin air won’t keep us up here long. We’ll sink down to thicker, warmer air soon. Hold fast my little Nagmor slayer.” He tousled her hair and then was off, shouting orders.
Brieze looked up. They were right among the peaks. Just a few hundred feet above, the Teeth tapered to sharp points against the sky. But already the Teeth seemed to be rising upward as the Kinzou drifted downward. That was good, she knew, because they wouldn’t have been able to survive long in that life-leaching cold and oxygen-poor air. Some reckless and adventurous airmen had attempted to cross the Teeth by flying over them, but none had ever succeeded.
A short time later, the Kinzou settled to a comfortable cruising altitude. An hour later, they passed through the last of the Teeth into open sky. It was the most beautiful shade of lavender she’d ever seen, Brieze thought. The sky was dotted with plump, white, and somehow friendly-seeming cumulus clouds. The crewmen cheered. Below them, the silver-gray surface clouds of Etherium stretched in an unbroken plane to the eastern horizon. Right on the horizon before them, at the very edge of their vision, sat dark smudges that she thought were clouds, but the men recognized as the first glimpse of home—the westernmost mountains of the Eastern Kingdoms. When the lookout called the sighting, the men cheered even louder.
“Ha!” Hiroshi said, giddy with relief. “We’re through the Teeth at last! Suffered nothing more than trading a few shots with pirates and getting knocked about a bit. Didn’t lose a man! Many have fared worse. Now there’s nothing but fat lazy clouds and familiar currents between us and home.”
Brieze turned sternward for a parting gaze at the Wind’s Teeth. In the low evening light they looked serene and beautiful, scintillating alluringly, as if there were no dangers hidden in their depths. She realized that the entire time she’d been there, she hadn’t taken any notes, made a single close observation or sketch, or done anything else a wizard’s apprentice would normally do when presented with the opportunity to study such a geologic marvel. She would have loved to take a sample of those crystals somehow and bring them back to show her father. She would have kept a shiny chunk on her desk as a reminder of her adventure.
“I’ll stop back there one day soon,” she said softly. She was still in the habit of talking to herself. “Maybe on my way home.”
EIGHT
A day out from the Teeth they met a convoy of military airships from the Eastern Kingdoms. There were three large ships, well-armed, and they were heading west. The Kinzou and the convoy maneuvered to within easy shouting—and tossing—distance of each other so they could exchange news and mail.
The second-in-command aboard the Kinzou, a loud man named Riku who had dragon tattoos snaking up his thickly muscled arms, made the rounds with a canvas mail bag. “Mail for the west!” he shouted. “Western bound mail. Hurry!” Many crewmen, more than Brieze would have expected, pulled letters from inner pockets and tossed them into the sack. Many of them pulled out unsealed letters and hastily scrawled a few last notes before sealing them up and sending them on their way.
Brieze had three letters in an inner pocket of her cloak—the ones she had written Tak, her mother, and her wizard father to keep herself from going crazy. But she’d made the inexperienced traveler’s mistake of sealing them up immediately after she’d written them. She wished she could scrawl a few more lines to tell them about everything that had happened since! But there was no time. She would have to write again once she reached Kyo. Riku stood before her. He bowed to her as he held the sack open. “Mail for the west?” he asked politely.
Brieze dropped in the letters to her mother and the wizard. But she hesitated to drop Tak’s letter into the sack. She was trying to remember exactly what she’d said to him in her long crazed ramblings. She knew she said a lot of things she never normally would have said. Embarrassing things. Things she would regret later. But to send a letter to her mother and wizard father and not one to Tak would be heartless. He would be crushed.
To stall for time, she asked Riku a question. “Why are so many of the crew sending letters west? Surely they can’t have families there.”
He reddened and gave her an awkward smile. She’d unthinkingly asked the question in the Western tongue, and he struggled to reply in kind. “Not family. They have…what is word?...sweethearts. Girlfriend.”
“Ahhhhh,” Brieze said, understanding. “They’ve got one in every port probably, huh?”
Just like Kaishou Fujiwara, she thought.
Riku lowered his eyes and mumbled something inaudible. Brieze realized he was in a hurry to gather all the mail, but that, for her, he would stand there with the sack open all day if he had to. He would never dare tell her to hurry up and make up her mind.
She dropped Tak’s letter into the bag. Riku bowed and hurried away.
“I’ll have to deal with the consequences of that later,” she said to herself.
As the ships came within tossing distance, mail bags were hurled and caught on both sides. Men leaned over railings and climbed up into rigging to shout news to each other. This was done in a complete
ly haphazard and disorganized fashion. Men everywhere were talking fast and loud in the eastern tongue, and Brieze could only catch a few words and phrases here and there. The men of the Kinzou were relating news about their brush with pirates in the Teeth, and also about their encounter with the Nagmor and the Nagmor slayer. Many of them pointed to Brieze. She stood against a rail, and she waved awkwardly at the men from the military ships as they stared at her.
But Brieze soon realized the military men had news just as exciting to relate. She caught the word ryuujin, dragonlord, shouted many times, and saw the effect it had on the men of the Kinzou. Long after the ships had passed, the men of the Kinzou huddled together and talked with tense faces, and the word ryuujin came up again and again.
“What’s going on?” she asked Hiroshi when he had a moment. “What’s the news from the east?”
“Do you know of the rogue wizard we call the Dragonlord, who inhabits the Burning Mountains in the north of our country?” asked Hiroshi.
“Yes, my father warned me to steer completely clear of him. He said the pirates sell him slaves.”
“That is true, and it is well you were warned,” Hiroshi said. “It would appear the ryuujin is up to something, although exactly what is not clear. His red and golden dragons have been seen flying in groups of twos and threes over many of our mountains, as if scouting or spying, and our ships have encountered them in other lands as well. The Emperor has put the military and the fleet on full alert. He ordered that convoy we passed to make the voyage west to warn your king and our other western allies.”
“That was kind of him.”
“That may be. But I’m afraid you might not find our country as warm and welcoming to strangers as we would be under normal circumstances.”
“I’ll manage,” Brieze said. As far as she was concerned, if the easterners were distracted by other things, so much the better for her. It might allow her to take care of her business more easily.