by Ted Neill
All was reversed, all turned around. The sky was light but then it was dark, as a shadow moved across it. A sail. But the sails were gone, they had been incinerated. Perhaps in death the logic of the living was absent. Perhaps death was like a dream, a series of unrelated images, like the mast with rigging coming alongside the Judgement.
The clamor of voices . . . the silhouette of a figure moving across the deck . . . the brittle surface crunching under his feet. This figure was draped in black, a broken ring hanging from his neck. This must have been death himself. A man’s gray face leaned over them and spoke.
“So, you are the source of such power.”
Chapter 4
Passengers
The next day was chilly and blustery. Clear skies had brought colder temperatures and stiff winds. Gabriella had to keep her hair tied behind her head, and Dameon’s was pressed flat against his scalp. She was so worried that Dameon would be blown off the ship that she tied a rope to him. Not around him, for she knew the friction would drive him mad, but to his belt. It kept him from wandering too far.
To her surprise, her brother and the elk had developed a sort of rapport. Of course Adamantus did not speak around Dameon or Mortimer, although she would have been relieved if he did. The secret was a burden. Nonetheless, the elk maintained a close watch over her brother as he wandered the deck, made rows of numbers with his dwindling pieces of chalk, or simply sat and tapped out strange rhythms on the boards. At one point she looked over her shoulder to see her brother napping, the elk curled in a protective crescent around him.
Mortimer cooked what fish they had left, using fewer coals and smaller potions now, for even he had noticed how their supplies were dwindling. It did not help that more jars had spoiled, mold had grown thick on the biscuits, and the seal on a jar of oil had cracked and leaked its contents all over the cupboard. But if these changes worried Mortimer, he did not show it. For all he knew, this had always been the state of the Elawn. He had never sailed on her when Ghede had been present and everything worked.
The trapper joined Gabriella by the wheel and ate in silence, his jaw clicking as he chewed his biscuits and smoked bluefish. Finally, after picking his teeth with a bone, he asked,
“Why is Dameon the way he is?”
Gabriella hated the question. She had answered it so often and knew she should have expected it eventually from the trapper. Everyone on Harkness had wondered, although she still took offense. She supposed Mortimer’s intentions were for the best. After all he had saved her brother from drowning.
“Dameon has always been peculiar. No one really knows why. Some say it is a curse. Others say he was dropped on his head, but I don’t remember mother ever doing that. He doesn’t mean any harm, but he can’t sense how others feel. It’s hard for him. Makes him rude. He’d tell Chief Salinger that his clothes are ugly as soon as he would say ‘how-do-you-do.’ Actually he is just as likely to greet someone by saying ‘Nine times nine is eighty-one.’ He just can’t understand other people’s feelings or expressions.”
Mortimer nodded. She was not sure if he was still listening or thinking of the treasure they were seeking, but she continued talking. It was better than silence. “He can’t lie either.”
“Can’t lie?”
“No. No imagination in that regard. Has never been able to do it, even when it would be more polite to.”
“Strange.”
“He has funny sensitivities, too. Hates having his hair touched. Hates water in his face. Hates certain sounds—crows cawing, a knife on a wet stone, shears cutting. Hates scratchy clothes. Hates berries. The first time he bit into a blueberry—and it sort of popped in his mouth—he was so surprised he refused to eat for a week. Tomatoes are even worse. Does not understand hugs, hand-holding, kisses, affection of any kind. That has always been very hard on my mother.”
Mortimer had been staring at her, but when Gabriella mentioned her mother, he turned his eyes away and said nothing more. It made Gabriella wonder about Mortimer’s own family. She did not know any other Creedlys. Mortimer Creedly stood out for more than one reason; in a village where family ties were of paramount importance, he was completely unattached.
She searched her mind for what else she knew about him. Beside the fact he wandered the woods and supplied most of the Harkenites with their furs and skins, she knew he had once been involved in an argument with a woman seller in the market and had slapped her. The husband of the woman had beaten him severely. Gabriella had heard that Mortimer had not even resisted, and that if Chief Salinger had not intervened, he likely would have been killed. Gabriella could still make out the scars above his eyes and on his nose from where he had been kicked and punched in the face.
His eyes met hers, and she felt suddenly self-conscious for staring. But if he was uncomfortable, he did not show it. He leaned his back against the wall of the wheel well, closed his eyes, and said, “Soon we will be rich. What do you think the treasure is like?”
Gabriella tried to remember what Ghede and Omanuju had said of the treasure. It was not much. What she remembered most was that Nicomedes valued knowledge above all else, not money. She was loath to say as much and disappoint Mortimer, although she made a mental note to ask the elk when they were both alone on her night shift.
“Your guess is as good as mine, Mr. Creedly.”
Mortimer went below, and they sailed on throughout the morning. The sky remained clear, although the sun’s brightness did little to dispel the autumn chill. Gabriella knew that back home on Harkness, the fields would have been cleared and villagers would be piling the harvest into straddle barns for the winter.
Dameon busied himself on the starboard deck using some fresh chalk he had found to scribble numbers and what looked to Gabriella to be calculations. When she asked him what he was doing, he mumbled he was finding higher primes. Nothing could have been less interesting to her, but it kept Dameon busy until mid-morning.
Bored and drowsy, Gabriella got up, stretched, and made herself some tea, lest she fall asleep at the wheel. Her brother had grown tired of his mathematics and had taken to aimlessly tapping on the wall of the cabin.
It was another one of his more peculiar habits, but he loved repeating complicated rhythms. Here Adamantus indulged him, the two of them making increasingly longer and more complicated series of staccato beats between them, Dameon’s eyes glassy, his face expressionless as he pounded out patterns with the flat of his hands, the elk with his front hooves.
It made a racket, but it was the most entertaining thing Gabriella had seen in days.
She cupped her hands around her mug of tea and shook her head to the rhythm. She followed the beat of the songs with a tapping of her foot: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four . . . she could not copy the more complex rhythms the elk added. Downbeats and sixteenth notes shot past her as the elk layered his rhythms, but Dameon followed Adamantus easily.
Soon the heart of the beat was in her, and Gabriella’s body responded as she moved her hips and her shoulders, picking up the rhythm. She felt a bit of the dancer that she had been on Kejel return and Gabriella welcomed her.
Dameon was moved differently. For Dameon, the rhythms were patterns and equations to be deciphered. He sat before the elk. motionless except for his hands. Dameon’s rhythm was empty of variation and emotion, but otherwise it was a perfect, flawless repetition.
The elk increased his tempo. Dameon followed. When the elk stomped his hind legs harder and more loudly, Dameon countered by knocking on the planks with his knees. The two of them fed off one another. Adamantus would play a variation, and Dameon would copy a few measures behind.
Gabriella was now dancing with her entire body, throwing her arms over the polished wood of the wheel as she swayed. The horizon turned on its side as she swung her head back and forth, her ponytail whipping the air. Adamantus raised the ante again, swinging his head down on the deck and beating the planking with his antlers. Dameon stamped his feet to replicate the
sharp retorts.
The interlude came to a stop when Mortimer came screaming from below decks. “Enough all ready! Enough! Stop it or I will kill someone!”
Spittle flew from his mouth and left strings on his lips. His eyes were an angry brown. Sunlight flickered off the knives shaking on his belt. The skin of his face and chest was red as a boiled lobster. Adamantus froze, surprised out of his concentration by this sudden apparition. Mortimer glared at Dameon, breathing through his nostrils. But Dameon was still tapping on the deck, oblivious to Mortimer.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he roared. “Look at me!” He pounded on the wall of the cabin.
Gabriella leapt down from the mid-deck and wrapped her arms around Dameon to still his movements. He struggled against her, but she forced him to stop. Adamantus stepped between Mortimer and Gabriella. The trapper regarded the elk strangely, and they locked gazes for a long moment. Gabriella half thought that the elk would reveal himself and speak. She almost wished he would, but finally Mortimer muttered something under his breath and returned to the cabin, slamming the double doors behind him.
Mortimer’s outburst seemed to not only put a damper on the drum music but also the blue sky above the Elawn. As Gabriella released her brother, who shuffled aft and rocked glassy-eyed next to the tiller, she looked up at the rain clouds that seemed to rush in. A steady rain began falling, and Gabriella, back at the helm, covered herself with a spare sail while Adamantus moved alongside her brother, neither bothered by the rain than was drenching them both.
Suit yourselves, she thought, cowering beneath the canvas. But soon the rain was dripping through on her too, making her generally miserable. If she had been home on Harkness, she would have been sitting next to the fire, sipping warm cider, snapping beans, and listening to her mother tell stories. Instead she was higher up in the air than any human ought to be, shivering in the rain and wind, with only the company of fools and fiends. Feeling sorry for herself, she wrapped herself in her sealskin cloak and was deeply wretched when Mortimer appeared from below deck carrying two steaming cups of tea.
“Can I join you?” he asked as he handed her a cup.
She nodded and shifted to the side to make room for him. He scratched his cheek, pulled at his beard, even opened his mouth to speak, but his voice caught.
“I’m sorry we woke you,” Gabriella finally said, savoring the warmth of the tea in her hands.
“Oh, that. Well it’s forgotten.” Mortimer forced a smile, exposing his crooked teeth.
When she finished her tea, she thanked him and went below to rest. Adamantus was waiting by the bottom of the companion ladder. She noticed he had managed to goad her brother into the main cabin where he was scrawling out equations in chalk on the map table. At least they were out of the rain.
“Mortimer’s not so bad,” she said to the elk. “Just a bit, different.”
“Aren’t we all?” the elk replied. She touched his nose. For once she was glad to hear his voice.
In the morning, she woke to Mortimer calling her name from above deck. She stretched to rid her muscles of their nighttime stiffness and dressed quickly. Dameon was still asleep in the bunk across from her. The sun was not yet visible through the windows, although the night sky was lightening. She was not late for her watch. She couldn’t guess what it was that had Mortimer so agitated, but the edge in his voice was clear.
Adamantus met her at the door, as if he had not moved from the night before. His brow was wrinkled, and his voice serious.
“You should see this,” he said.
Gabriella climbed the companion ladder to the deck. In the east, the sea was lightening with the sky. The waves below were lively with wind. White clouds gathered on the horizon, their very tops turning gold with the coming of the sun. Yet their faces were marred by long columns of black clouds rising up from the sea. Gabriella counted seven pillars of smoke, maybe more in the distance. At the bottom of each one, like a black pearl hanging on a string, were the shadowy shapes of rocky isles, dotting the sea ahead of them.
“What is this place?” Mortimer asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“I do.” Adamantus came up next to them. “It is where dragons are born.”
Mortimer leapt, drew one of his blades from his belt of knives, and levelled it at the elk. “What trickery is this?” Mortimer cried, looking back and forth from Gabriella to Adamantus.
The secret was out.
“It’s no trickery, Mr. Creedly. It is a secret Omanuju kept,” Gabriella said, rushing between them, unsure as to what more she should say. She looked to Adamantus to explain.
“Mortimer, is this so hard to believe in light of the wonders you have already seen on this voyage?” the elk asked.
“Flying ships are one thing, but talking animals?” Mortimer said, looking closely at Gabriella, watching her lips closely to make sure that it was no trick of ventriloquism. A thought occurred to him, and he called out Dameon’s name. Dameon came up from the cabins rubbing his eyes with his fists.
“Now speak, elk,” Mortimer said, his smile almost a grimace, pleased with himself as if he had solved the riddle of the elk’s speech.
“Mortimer,” Adamantus began slowly, “I know you. For many years after your family passed, you came to Omanuju’s cottage. He always had a meal for you, an open ear, and a warm heart.”
The tendons in Mortimer’s neck tensed. It was the first Gabriella had ever heard mention of his family, and Mortimer reached out for the edge of the mid-deck railing to steady himself.
“And all this time, this secret Omanuju kept from us.” Mortimer’s voice was tense.
“You can see why,” Gabriella said. “I reacted as you did. Can you imagine our people?”
“They are your people, Gabriella, not mine. The elk is right, Omanuju was my only friend among them.”
Dameon was unperturbed by the elk’s speech. “How old are you, Adamantus?”
For a moment, all three of them—slightly stunned by the unexpected question—stared at Gabriella’s brother. Mortimer finally snorted out a laugh. “By the gods, it is a stranger world indeed than I ever thought.”
“Old enough,” said Adamantus. “But we have little time for talking.”
The islands ahead of them, the elk explained, were the Nested Narrows, a long archipelago of barren crags where wyverns—dragons—came to roost their young. The crags were inhospitable to any predators that might prey upon a wyvern egg. A hatched wyvern, even just a few days old, could defend itself from most predators, but when still in the egg, it was vulnerable. Remoteness was important because the mother wyverns often had to leave the nest to hunt. The nests consisted of closely packed rings of rocks surrounded by whale carcasses. The wyverns preferred whales because their blubber was full of oil that burned for long hours, to keep the eggs warm.
The narrows were a perfect confluence of what the dragons needed—uninhabitable isles, far from any predators, and near a plentiful source of prey. The narwhals, teardrop-shaped whales with twisted golden horns, bred nearby.
When Adamantus had explained this, Mortimer reacted with anger tinged with panic. “If you knew all this, why did you pilot us into this wretched place?”
“He didn’t pilot us here,” Gabriella said, grimacing. “I did. I simply followed the last course we were following before our skipper was murdered. It was likely he had a plan or would have piloted us around them. That’s it, we’ll just go around.”
“We could. Perhaps Ghede had meant to do so himself, but it might take days, even a week, adding a great deal of time to our journey,” Adamantus said.
Gabriella pictured the moon as she had last seen it. Her stomach felt like a wet rag being wrung out. “We don’t have time, do we?”
“We don’t,” Adamantus said.
“Why not? The moon is not even full,” Mortimer said.
“And we don’t even know if we are halfway. But it’s not just that.” Gabriella looked at Adamantus.
&nb
sp; “Well, then what is it? What else are you not telling me?” Mortimer said.
“The ship is falling apart,” Gabriella said.
Mortimer sheathed his knife and stepped closer. He looked down at the boards and tapped them with his toe gingerly, as if they might give away any moment below him. “What do you mean?”
Gabriella surprised herself. She was unafraid delivering the bad news to Mortimer, perhaps because she truly knew it was beyond her control, perhaps because it was a relief to share everything out in the open at last.
“Mr. Creedly, we never had supplies going bad before Ghede died. Dishes did not crack, mugs did not leak, spices were fresh. The ship itself was easier to fly, ropes were more pliable, knots held, the sails needed less correction. Now it is as if the spell holding the ship together is becoming threadbare.”
“Why would the ship need a spell to be held together? You showed me the stone within. It is just like any compass stone. That is no sorcery . . . it is science.”
“The ships are old, Mortimer,” Adamantus said. “Hundreds of years old. They served the Skyln Empire.”
Mortimer displayed no recognition at the mention of the Skyln Empire, which did not surprise Gabriella.
“Our skipper, Ghede, was not quite human. He was blue, like the blue woman Dameon said he saw in the cave. Ghede and the blue woman—they are guardians of these airships. Their magic preserved them from the effects of time.” Gabriella glanced at Adamantus to make sure she was getting all her details correct, and the elk nodded. “Now, without Ghede, it is as if the dike has begun to leak—time is catching up with our ship. Even the hole over on the port deck has grown bigger.”
Mortimer pinched the bridge of his nose. His scars stood out as his face became red. Gabriella felt for him. So much bad news at once! She was unsure of the man and his temper, but Mortimer was quiet. She could only imagine what scenarios he might have been playing out in his mind. What he said next surprised her.