The Finger of God: a Thalassia novel

by Patrick McClafferty

  The light was still on in the Captain’s cabin when he knocked softly on the door.

  “Come.” Captain Dolores Isenhart was sitting at her small desk when he entered, reading one page of an imposing stack of paperwork. Her dark hair was down around her shoulders, and he suddenly saw Alexandra in the shape of her face. Her face wasn’t smiling now, however. “What do you want—Tad.” She seemed to be having a harder and harder time calling him by his fictional name.

  “It’s snowing pretty hard, Captain. From the bow you can’t see more than ten of fifteen feet in front of us. I thought that you ought to know.”

  “What!” The woman was on her feet in a flash, spilling papers all over the floor of the small cabin. She looked down with a grimace. “Oh damn. Well there’s nothing I can do about it now.” Ignoring her hair, she shrugged into an old, heavy jacket and headed out the door, into the narrow companionway. The blast of snow and wind that greeted her when she jerked open the door to the main deck made her stagger backward. She growled a curse that made Hedric cringe. “You were outside before the snow really started. Do you remember the shoreline?” She asked over her shoulder, as she turned to the icy stairs for the wheelhouse.

  Hedric stopped, and shut his eyes. Dawn helped fill in the small details. “Yes, Captain. Just as the snow hit we were passing a small promontory on our starboard side.”

  The Captain stepped into the wheelhouse, to the surprised look of the night helmsman. “How long ago was that?”

  “Half an hour to an hour ago.”

  Captain Isenhart looked down on a map pinned to a flat table behind the ship’s wheel, and traced her finger along the coastline. “That would have been Cape of Dreams.” Her finger continued along to a deep bay. “Barnaman’s Bay.” Her finger tapped. “Helmsman, steer 035.”

  The wild-eyed helmsman spun the wheel. “Yes, Captain.”

  “We can anchor there until this storm blows over.” As if in response, the Golden Fleece shuddered from a blast of frigid wind. Isenhart squinted out of the window. “That’s coming from our bow, now.” Outside the wheelhouse the wind was moaning as the Captain pushed the lever on the engine room telegraph to FULL AHEAD. She stood for a moment staring at the telegraph. When nothing happened, she rounded on Hedric. “You! Go down to your engine room and kick your night engineer awake. I need full speed now. You stay there. I may need to change speed quickly before the night is over. Send your assistant to me.” Her smile was grim. “Since he was asleep on duty, I’ll send him to the bow as lookout.”

  The young chief engineer shuddered. “Yes, Captain.” He bolted from the room before she could dream up anything more diabolical.

  Matthew Imbach was asleep in a warm corner of the engine room, head propped on his arm, a small smile on his worn face. Hedric engaged the transmission for full speed, and rang the telegraph accordingly.

  “Whaaaa?” Imbach mumbled, stumbling to his feet.

  “Where’s Gene Waters, your assistant?”

  “Ah, he weren’t feelin so good, so’s I telled him te git ter bed.”

  Hedric’s head was beginning to pound. “You go wake up Waters and tell him to get his sorry ass down here this instant. I’ll need someone to stoke the boiler. Then you get your coat on and report to the Captain.” He gave the night engineer a flat, ugly look. “She is in the wheelhouse, and SHE is the one who called for full speed.”

  Imbach’s face turned a pasty shade of white, and he began to sweat. “Oh shit!” He muttered, as he struggled into his coat. Finished, he stood, staring at the closed Engine Room door.

  “You will go now, Imbach, and you will go willingly—if I have to drag you!” Hedric was angry clear through. Caught between two evil choices, Imbach chose the lesser. He went.

  The steamer Golden Fleece staggered and groaned her way through the dark night, and the first feeble lightening of the sky saw her crawling into the wide calm expanse of Barnaman’s Bay. Back on the wind whipped open waters, frothing icy waves as high as the wheelhouse pounded in impotent fury.

  Hedric met Doander at breakfast, and the young assistant engineer looked at his friend in something like shock. “You look like shit!”

  Hedric opened a gritty eye, and stared at Doander over the steam of his strong tea. “I feel like shit. Imbach fell asleep on duty, right when the Captain needed him. I had to work his shift, and believe me it was tough. Waters is watchin things right now.”

  Doander slid his tray onto the table and sat down at the bench next to Hedric. “Where was Waters last night?”

  Hedric let out a chuckle as he finished the last bite of hot porridge. “Apparently, Waters brought back some mead from New Boston and sampled some last night. Imbach was letting him sleep it off. Too bad for both of them.” His gaze slid to another table, where a still blue Imbach was trying to eat a hot breakfast with violently chattering teeth. “For his sins Imbach stood watch in the bow last night. The Captain will deal with Waters later.”

  Captain Isenhart, who had come up quietly behind them, put a hand on Hedric’s shoulder. “Thank you for what you did last night. The ship.” she paused. “I’m… in your debt.”

  Hedric reached up and touched her hand. “My Uncle Padraig once told me a good friend said to him that there is no such thing as debt…in a family.”

  The woman’s eyes widened slightly. “So, that’s the way it is.” A smile just touched the corner of her mouth, and then vanished. “So be it.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze before removing it. “Get some sleep. We’ll be anchored here for several days, I fear.”

  “Yes, Captain, I intend to.”

  She stopped dead and turned to face him. “My name is Dolores, Tad, or Dot if you prefer. Goodnight then.” She turned and left the mess hall.

  Doander’s eyes were huge. “Holy shit! I don’t know what you did, my friend, but you really got on the good side of the Captain. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her tell anyone that they could call her by her first name, except the doctor, maybe.” He stared at Hedric expectantly. “Well, are you going to tell me?”

  The young engineer gave him a sly smile in return. “Sorry. It’s a family secret.” He picked up his tray and left his young friend filled with confusion.

  On the third day the sun finally returned to find a snow-covered icy wonderland. The Fleece sat at anchor, rolling listlessly in long swells, ice coated and low in the water, while the crew worked with wooden mallets and chisels to remove the rime from deck, mast and side-wheels. Captain Isenhart caught up with Hedric just after breakfast, while he was on his way to the engine room.

  “Tad, I need to see you for a few minutes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He turned to follow the woman.

  “We’ve been going through a lot of fuel, the last few days.” She began as they entered her cabin. “I want you to lead a shore party to cut us some wood. Eight or ten cords should be enough to get us to the next town, and this anchorage is safe enough.”

  “But…” Hedric’s thoughts were filled with confusion. “I’m just fourteen. I can’t lead…”

  “You did well enough the other night in the engine room. You led there.”

  “Yes, but I…”

  “You know what the reward for doing good work is, don’t you?”

  “Ah.” He thought quickly, and Dawn whispered in his mental ear. “Ah, the opportunity to do more?”

  She gave him a warm smile. “Mister Gralt is getting the wood cutting party together. I’m sure that you and Alexandra will be able to get this simple job done.”

  “Lexi’s coming?” He cursed himself as he felt his cheeks turn red. “I…” He took a deep breath. “I’ll get my coat, ma’am.”

  “Very good, Mister Swimming.”

  Five boats went to shore, all the Golden Fleece had, and all that remained of the crew that wasn’t chipping ice. It was a long choppy pull, and Hedric’s nose was numb by the time they arrived.

  “Choose a good variety of wood, lad.” Gralt had told him before they le
ft. “Soft wood like pine an birch will burn hot and fast, and start your fire. Hard wood like oak or maple or ash won’t start so easily, but will burn even hotter and much much longer.”

  Hedric remembered those words as he assigned men to the cutting detail. Around midday, when the first load of wood was on its way back to the ship and the rest of the sailors sat around a roaring fire, warming themselves and having a quick, well deserved lunch, Lexi signaled to him from the edge of the woods.

  “What’s the matter?” Hedric reached the tree line, but Lexi was nowhere to be seen. “What’s wrong?” He called. He was just beginning to get worried, when the snowball caught him in the back of the head.

  “Bet you can’t catch me!” Lexi’s taunting voice came from a clump of pine trees twenty feet away, and the boy broke into a run. He was probably faster than her, so it shouldn’t take…he rounded the trees and Lexi almost threw herself into his arms, planting a cold, exhilarating kiss on his hot lips. Hedric’s knees began to wobble. The full extent of her deception quickly became evident, when Lexi shoved a handful of snow down the back of his neck. Her laughter disappeared into the woods, as he tugged at his shirttail, trying to get the icy slush out before it melted completely, and dripped down the back of his pants.

  “I’ll get you for that!” He called out in an irate voice.

  “Not in this lifetime.” Her laughter echoed from the woods.

  Ignoring his flapping shirttail, he started out at a run, following the clear tracks in the snow. He caught her in a scant two or three hundred yards. “Ha!” he shouted in triumph. “Gotcha!” Lexi, however, wasn’t paying attention to him. Her eyes were focused on the two creatures near the edge of the deeper woods.

  Standing fourteen to sixteen inches tall, they had pale green skin, two legs, four arms and four large diaphanous wings. Both were wearing a sort of flying suit, made of leather, that covered them from knee to neck, and they were hovering about six feet off the ground. Both were obviously males.

  “This gotta be the one we were looking fer, Alston; male, young, brownish hair, stupid-looking.” The first flier had a thin, piping voice. Hedric heard Lexi stifle a giggle. “Usually travels with a young stupid-looking female.” The giggle turned to a growl. “Guess the bloody cats had the right of it, but I don’t see how he kin help us any.”

  “Ask him, Kalen.” The second flying creature said to the first. This voice was a bit lower in pitch; something he might hear if a bumblebee coughed.

  The first creature frowned, and then hovered an arm’s length in front of Hedric. “Cccannn yyyouuu uundersssttaaand meee?” He asked with exaggerated slowness, opening his mouth very wide for every word. Hedric could clearly see his small pointy white teeth.

  The boy gave the creature an acid look. “Of course I can understand you, if you don’t talk so slowly that I fall asleep.”

  “By god’s freezing backside, it can talk!” The creature looked shocked, and almost fell out of the air. “Who woulda’ thunk?”

  “Ask him, Kalen. I’m freezing me bloody balls off.” The second flier growled.

  “Put a cork in it, Alston. Ye never had any balls anyway.” Kalen’s voice held an insulting lilt.

  “Kalen.” The second flier moved forward, anger smoldering in his eyes. “I’m gunna pull off yer bloody friggin wings and let ye WALK back te…”

  “Gentlemen.” Hedric interrupted the quarreling twosome. “Was there something you were going to ask me?” Out of the corner of his eye Hedric could see Lexi with both hands pressed over her mouth, tears of laughter running down her cheeks.

  Kalen put his hands on his hips, and gave Alston a wet raspberry before he turned back to the boy. “We have a problem. It’s this plague. It’s spreading to our people now, not just humans and cats. After our kind get infected they just sort-o stagger around, infecting anyone who gets close.” He picked his nose, thoughtfully, and flicked the result into the woods. “We’ve been able te jest fly up in the trees and drop rocks on the poor blighters. Our wise people say that won’t last long, though. Soon the infected ones will be able to fly, and then we’ll all be screwed.”

  “Amen.” Alston agreed, sourly.

  “Wise ones want to know what you’re going to do about it.” He gave the boy a cold-eyed stare.

  “Mmmee?” Hedric stumbled over his tongue in his surprise.

  “Cats said that you have connections.”

  “The cats? How did you ever speak with the cats? Last I saw them they were on a warm bed by the engine room.”

  “He IS stupid, Alston.” The first creature said over his shoulder. “We keep a close eye on all human boats, and your cats came over on the first cutter. Went straight into the woods to find us, an pass the news. Went back to the big ship with your first load of wood. They ain’t stupid, like some I know.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I’ve met Selene before. Maybe she could help.”

  The two flying creatures exchanges long looks. “Might work.” Kalen muttered.

  Hedric let a mean smile creep across his face. “I’ll see if she can save everyone BUT a certain band of idiot foul mouthed flying Zzzkntti.”

  “Now wait jes a damn minute, boy.” Alston sounded irate. “First of all we’re D’Tril. Zzznktti are our ancient cousins. They live about a zillion miles west o here, or so the stories say. Second, you had better damn well save us too, you little shit.”

  Hedric put on an obstinate look. “Why should I even try to save a race of bad tempered fairies from a fate they probably richly deserve?”

  “We ain’t fairies.” Kalen sounded angry. “Met some fairies once, down south. Them broads are crazy. Ye know, there are only females? Crazy as loons, but oh, can they ever…” His small face blushed as he caught sight of an interested Lexi. “Ah…” The blush deepened.

  “I’ll do what I can.” Hedric laughed, and took Lexi’s hand. “We’ll let these ‘gentlemen’ return to their village, wherever it may be.”

  Alston came up to hover beside his friend. “Home is about a dozen miles east of here. D’Tril don’t wander too much from their homes, though I met one fellow who said he’d been all the way to the Finger of God.” He shrugged his small shoulders. “You know how stories go.” He gave Hedric a crooked smile. “Kalen and I travel more than is common. Why, I’ve even been to the other side of the River. Snuck over on a human boat.” He hitched a small pack higher, until it sat just below his wings. “Ye know, fer a stupid human, yer not too bad. I might even get ter like you.”

  The boy laughed as he and Lexi turned to head back to the fire. “For an overgrown mosquito, you’re not too bad either. I guess I won’t swat you—today.”

  The two D’Tril were still laughing as they disappeared into the woods.

  “They really do expect you to save them.” There was a dubious tone in the girl’s voice as they made their way back to the fire.

  “I know.” Hedric sighed. “For too many years I let other people do the worrying for me. I expected it.” His self-mocking chuckle was quiet. “I was a spoiled brat. I was angry all of the time for no reason. I was lonely and no one wanted to be my friend. I wasn’t someone you’d want to spend a lot of time with. I let people down—I let myself down. When I think that I want to give up and quit, run away, I remember the last time I saw my Uncle Padraig, disappearing up into the storm clouds in a ruined airship. An airship I ruined, Lexi. I want to quit and cry and run home to Mommy, and then I remember that last look of disappointment on Padraig’s face. I find a little more resolve, a little more courage to get the job done. I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but I’ll solve this problem, if I have to get down on my hands and knees and beg Selene to help me; I will.”

  “Well,” Lexi’s hand felt warm in his. “What do we do now?”

  The boy looked deeply into the girl’s sapphire eyes. He was very aware that she had just used the term “we” and his heart trembled. “We head north. When we get to Dimsdale we should be able to find a Temple of Sel
ene. I’ve met the goddess before, but I’ve never spoken with her, so I’m flying pretty blind right now.”

  “We’re flying blind.” Lexi corrected primly. “I can’t wait to meet Selene, myself. I’ve heard that she’s beautiful.”

  “Oh, she’s beautiful, all right.” Hedric missed the look of daggers that Lexi threw at him. “In an otherworldly, untouchable sort of way. Besides,” he gave the girl by his side a quick glance, “I think that she and my Uncle Padraig have something special going, if you know what I mean.” He felt the blush creeping up his neck, and hoped Lexi would just attribute it to the cold. “She gave him the airship, after all.”

  The Golden Fleece moved out that night just after dinner with a gentle wind and the light of two full moons to guide them. Lethe had already set, a slim sliver of Medin sat low on the western sky, and Elysium and Hades cast their strange glamour over the waters of the Mississippi. The Thalassian rings arched far overhead like some vast ethereal rainbow, sparkling blue and red from the reflections of the moons.

  It was a night made for romance, but Hedric had other plans. He went to bed. The cats, however, knew that the night was made for hunting, and they prowled the ship looking for small stowaways. In the morning Captain Isenhart awoke to find the small bodies of three dead rats and something gross and unidentifiable neatly piled in front of her cabin door.

  She caught Hedric as he stumbled, bleary-eyed, out of his cabin in search of a hot cup of tea and breakfast, before he headed for the engine room. Wearing a heavy glove as a precaution, she held up the small thing in front of the boy’s face. “Is this your idea of a joke?” The creature was bright red, had eight legs, two clawed arms ending in wicked-looking pincers, a too wide mouth set with sharp teeth for rending and tearing, and two multifaceted eyes, like a house fly. It was a ten inch long horror, and the boy’s reactions more than anything else, proclaimed his innocence. She actually saw the fine hairs on his arms stand on end. His eyes, she thought for a second, were going to pop from his head and he backed against a wall in his effort to get away.